A Funny Memory

One of my favorite blogs to read is Amanda Maguire's Married to a Youth Pastor.
She's down to earth.  She gets it.  She knows that being married to a youth pastor isn't all rainbows and daisies.  I go to her site when I need a laugh, and she  always reminds me that I'm not the only one!

This week, Amanda asked her readers to post the time we've had the most inappropriate giggles.  I remembered the first time that Jon came to church with us, and it made me laugh.  I thought I'd share that laugh with you :-)

I grew up in a small reformed church, but when I went to college and married a handsome Lutheran, I became a Lutheran. The first time that my brother came to visit me and come to church with us, it was a communion Sunday. At our church growing up, the elders passed plates of bread and wine across the pews and each communicant member took one. At the church where my husband is the youth pastor, elders usher members up to the altar to receive from the pastor. Since I’m not big about having anyone put food in my mouth, I put my hands out in front of me so that our pastor will put the wafer in my palm instead.



When we walked up and knelt at the altar that day, I motioned to my brother (who had never experienced communion this way) to put his hands out like I was. When the pastor came by with the bread and saw Jon’s outstretched hands, he went to put the bread in his hands. I’m not sure what Jon thought his hands were supposed to do, because he opened his mouth and followed Pastor’s hand trying to eat the bread all the way down to his outstretched palms.  He looked so ridiculous trying to eat out of Pastor’s hand that I went into full, body-shaking laughter.


Up at the altar.


In front of 300 people.


I couldn’t compose myself and had to walk back to our pew still gasping for air.


Siiiiighh….what a great first impression of the new Youth Pastor’s wife!!!!

Election Day

This is a conversation I heard at school today that made me laugh:

Teacher: Alright, class, time to go to lunch!  Please get your things quickly; I need to run out during lunch and vote.
Second Grader: Are you going to vote for yourself?
Teacher: No!  I'm going to vote for the candidates.
Second Grader: Oh.  My daddy nominated himself for governor!

Happy November!

It's November already!

Now, how did that happen?!?

Can't believe how quickly October flew...but, ohmygoodness, so many exciting things are coming up!

First of all, I've been doing the happy dance for the last couple of weeks because I have plans.

Big plans.

Plans that include a website of my own and an etsy shop.  I can't wait to get them up and show you!

For now, though, want a sneak peak at a few of my newest creations?  (and some of my wonderful friends!)
Pictures compliments of my amazing sister, Kate.

Stay tuned!

Midnight Randomness

Jesse and I are old fogeys these days.  We're rarely up past midnight.  We got home from the church's Harvest Festival around 11pm, though, and I'm still hopped up on sugar.  My handsome man crashed on the couch about half an hour ago.

I was researching rib fractures when he fell asleep.  I have no idea how I may have done it, but I think I cracked a rib.  Maybe it's just bruised (although, there's no black and blue!) I don't know...it just hurts.  It's been hurting all day.  I don't know what I did to it.  I'm a klutz, and I run into things so often that I don't even notice anymore.  But this is a pain I haven't had before.  Not sure what's up!  But there's really nothing a doctor can do (besides charge me for an xray and then say, "Yup, you sure did!")so I'm not really worrying about it.  We'll see what happens!

The Harvest Festival was a lot of fun tonight.  I got to meet Jesse and Matt beforehand for dinner at Baja Fresh (yay! love that place!) and then at the Harvest Festival, I got to help man the cake walk with some good friends, and Jesse got to be in the dunk tank.  It was a great night (minus my pain...not sure what to do about that!)  I wish I had pictures from Jesse in the dunk tank.  It was so much fun to watch him!  He is so lighthearted and jovial; it was clear that he had a great time.  And his youth group kids loved getting to dunk him! 

I thought of something funny that happened on Tuesday that I forgot to tell you.  We had Matt and Emily over while we were housesitting, and as they were preparing to leave late that evening, we were commenting on all of the Halloween decorations around the house.  Seriously!  That house has soooo many Halloween decorations.  I don't think I've seen a house so decked out before.  Now I want to see their house during Christmas!

Anyway, we were enjoying their decorations, and I pointed to a green foam jack-o-lantern.  "I've never seen a green one like this," I said as I tapped the green pumpkin.  It must have had a touch-sensor in it, because as soon as my fingers tapped it, the jack-o-lantern's eyes glowed red and it bellowed in a deep voice, "Mwa ha ha ha ha ha hah!"  I just about jumped out of my skin and screamed like the girliest girl around.  Ha!  My heart was pounding for a good ten minutes afterward.  Oh well, maybe that scare helped me burn some calories :-)

Blech, I hate being startled!

I'm Back!

Sorry that you didn't hear from me much this week!
We were house sitting Monday-Thursday for some good friends of ours.  They have a gorgeously luxurious home, and we enjoy being there.  But there's nothing like home sweet HOME!

I'm so happy to be back.  Back to my little yellow kitchen, and my winding staircase herb garden, the den with its cozy wooden vaulted ceilings and warm little red rug, and our own little bed.  Isn't it funny how little and lost you can feel when going from a queen size bed to a california king?

Anyway, I'm back.  And this weekend is going to be a busy one!  It's the Harvest Festival at church tonight, then tomorrow we're having a pumpkin carving contest with our high school youth group, and on Sunday, Jesse and I are hosting a Murder Mystery Dinner for our small group friends for after church.  That will be so much fun!

It's going to be a great weekend!

What will you be up to?

Far Away

If you've known me long, you know one thing:

I love the sea.

(these photos were all taken by my friend Julia...at the beach where I grew up and Jesse proposed to me in 2007)

A little bit of me dies realizing that I'm so far from my beloved coastline these days...that I don't live in my upstairs bedroom with the island view in my parents' house...that I can't just walk to the beach to collect sea glass whenever the whim hits me.  Sunsets just aren't the same when they have smog as a backdrop.

I miss my ocean.

But I love my husband, and he is the only reason I am here!  I love him enough to trade coastal breezes for sweltering inland heat (even in October--how ridiculous is that?!?); I love him enough to deal with smog instead of fog, and I love that my handsome inland man loves me enough to take me back to my ocean whenever we have the opportunity.

But every once in a while, when I'm sticky from the heat and itching from dry skin, I play "Far Away" by Ingrid Michaelson and slip back to the coast.



One hot day this past summer, Jesse came in while I was brushing my hair and singing along "...on our island in the blue bay."

Jesse smiled and wrapped his arms around me.  "Aren't you glad I'm not a lobster man?"

"If you were, we'd live by the ocean," I teased.

"But... I'd smell like fish," He faltered, surprised by my counter.

"You'd smell like the ocean, and I could breathe that in every day for the rest of my life!"

Not sure if a lobster man is going to be Jesse's future career choice.

But Ocean, have faith.  If it can't happen until we retire, so be it.

But we will live near you again.

I'm counting on it.

Bonus Fries and Lots of Smiles

On Saturday night, we picked up my college-student sister, Kate, on the way home from Jesse's softball game.  Kate needed to use me for a photo shoot she's doing for her senior gallery show, and we haven't seen her in a while, so we took her home with us for the night.

On the way home, we treated Kate to her favorite donut shop.  Jesse and Kate got scrumptious looking donuts, but I was super hungry and knew that sugar would only give me a headache right then.  Dinner was waiting for us at home, but it was a 30 minute drive and I was hungry right then!  So we popped by McDonald's to get some fries. 

While we were on the freeway, Jesse asked if I had won anything from the little Monopoly pieces they put on the french fry containers.  I hadn't even thought to look.  I peeled them off, and, SURPRISE!  I won free medium fries!  Jesse and Kate were both so excited that Jesse pulled off at the next exit with a McDonald's.  It felt so silly to go to two McD's in 10 minutes when I try to be so good about us eating out at all in the first place, but we were all so surprised and excited that we did it anyway!

I'm sure we looked ridiculous to the lady at the drive-thru when she saw the McDonald's bag and the container of fries in my hand.  Jesse and Kate happily shared the free fries while I finished off the first container.  We bought three ice cream cones, too, and made a fun treat out of it.

Don't you love that McDonald's has 69 cent cones?  And aren't they scrumptious?  And don't fries taste so great mixed with the sweetness of ice cream? (don't call me crazy til you've tried it...)

Anyway, that's what put a smile on our faces that night.