Lindsey, in the Kitchen, with the Cooking Spray.

This past weekend for my mother's birthday, I thought I'd do something extra special for her by trying to kill her.

I decided to make french toast for breakfast. The boys were gone in Atlanta and it was just the two of us for the day so I had her fire up the griddle and she sprayed oil on it for me. She then sat down and drank her coffee while I mixed up the stuff, and make the finest french toast I've ever made. She even commented 'Lindsey this is really good.. No I'm serious. On a scale of one to ten.. YOU are an Eleven.'

No she didn't really say that, but she did like it. And I liked it too, cleaned up every last bit. As I sat there fat and happy, my mom, who had started to clean up the kitchen turns to me and asks:

"Lindsey! Why is the cap off of the furniture polish?"

[Pause]

"Well, I suppose it's because I just made the french toast in it. "

We laughed the slightly crazy laugh of people who didn't know if they were going to die or not.

The cooking spray that she used, got put away unbeknownst to me... and I just grabbed the nearest spray can which just happened to be sitting on the island next to the griddle... and happened to be Gordmans Furniture Polish. Yummy.

Ingredients; Natural Oils, Surfactants (fancy word for 'soap') , UV sunscreen, and propellant. I think we'll be fine. I think.

I should do a commercial for them:

"Guardsman Furniture Polish with UV Sunscreen cleans, polishes, and helps furniture resist fading caused by exposure to sunlight. Guardsman polish protects while producing a deep, brilliant shine with a fresh wood scent and does not leave a dulling wax, on your french toast."

"Thankyou and Goodnight."

Charrrrrr....

I chop and kick and punch the air.

Because I love Charter Communications.

I make an appointment. Charter GRACIOUSLY confirms the appointment for cable service one day before the appt. They don't call you, they have a robot do it. And leave you a unintelligible voice message, but they contact you nonetheless.

Then they chain you to your house from 1 to 5 pm on a Saturday. The Robot calls again. Confirming the appointment again AND letting you know that the technician would be there in an hour. SO I sit on my front porch and I wait. I wander to the front yard, I water the plants, I look up one side of the street and down the other... I chat with my roomate, A WITNESS who can verify my presence at my residence.

Imagine my suprise when I toddle back into the house to see if the Cable company, had, by chance, had it's robot contact my robot. And it had. To CANCEL my appointment. Thanks guys. Cause I wasn't WAITING ON THE FRONT PORCH AT ALL!!!

Bad words. BAD words.

Goo. I was so mad. I'm still mad. Granted the cable in the entire universe was out due to the storm so they realistically couldn't have done anything anyway, but in principle I'm right and I'm ticked. :)

So I call to make sure I'm not charged a cancellation fee, and I got to listen to every zip code that didn't have cable service. I should have felt compassion toward the other cable-less victims, but I was extra ticked that I had to LISTEN to EVERY SINGLE zip code that had no cable service.

In case you weren't aware, that was a big storm folks... a big big storm. A LOT of zip codes later, I FINALLY got to a person who was no help and transfered me to billing where I got to listen to the zip codes again. Before I hung up (one of those times that you wish you still had a land phone to slam down, the snap shut just isn't gratifying) the nice lady says "Thankyou for Choosing Charter" I said. "Ma'am, I didn't HAVE a choice!"

I'd rather slide down a slide of razors and land in a pool of lemon juice. HEEYEAH.

Someone's been writing in my notebook...

Today at work I found a note in my pile of legal pads that said simply:

"You have dissappointed all of us & we will miss your WB frog impersonation"

Zoinks!

Oh! Funnies from the darling Angela. An excerpt from an e-mail she sent to someone else. This is so typical...

funny story....on saturday night while linz, casey & i were watching movies (at linz's house) linz got up to go to the bathroom. casey says to me, "let's hide and scare her"...so we both start scurrying around and i decide to go through the kitchen and hide right inside the basement door at the top of the stairs. i'm waiting and laughing because i knocked over a chair and tripped on my way to hide and i was sure she would know something was up. so the door starts to open and i scream to try to scare her, but it's casey because he couldn't find a hiding place in the living room. i start dying laughing and knock a dustbuster off the wall and it bangs down the stairs. we're standing there at the top of the stairs laughing & waiting for lindz, and casey keeps saying, "bite your tongue! bite your tongue!" to get me to stop laughing. finally, linz comes out of the bathroom and is going, "hey...hey guys. this isn't funny guys. hey guys, where are you? i'm really creeped out. hey guys." so in her searching she finally gets to the basement door and opens it, and we scare her, and she goes flying backward across the kitchen on the floor like acartoon character. i think i almost peed my pants. "

Final Countdown.

Braces come off this week.

FINALLY. Ugh. Immediately after I got them, I envisioned spending the next six months sealed up anti-socially in my basement, mute and starving. But alas, I got over myself, and came out of hiding, and eventually stopped drinking slim-fast shakes. Which, according to Kyle, and this list is one of the ten worst foods for you. (Interestingly enough they are not as bad as Alcohol, which is the worst of them all. Kyle doesn't seem to mind that one as much as he thinks I should mind a liquid diet...BUT I DIGRESS).

Yes finally the braces come off, and I'll be able to speak normally again and eat apples covered in caramel and roled in nuts, and run my tongue along the teeth and be able to say "Sister Susie Sittin on a Thistle" without the lisp.

I have three days left. I'm stoked. Stoked like the soldiers in Les Mis... the ones singing show tunes and prancing about. In fact, if I wasn't getting them off THIS week, I would have taken them off myself with pliers and a chisel. I'm not kidding.

I'm a Plagerist.

Back from Camping. Rested, rejuvenated, and refreshed which I can't often say after a typical "vacation".

Wrote a whole long thing about and I lost it... stupid internet. So since this isn't college and my blog isn't due tomorrow, I'll fill you in later.

But it was just lovely.

Decided that I couldn't say it better than this.

I'm OUT

Finally. A vacation for ME! I am driving up to Cornerstone to see, primarily, (finally), Over the Rhine. Hooray. It's been awhile since I've camped. It's been awhile since I've been to the madness that is a Chirstian Music festival. It's crazy. Polite moshing?

Yes. It will be fantastic time to my self on the road.
Not so fantastic is my suckity sucky ipod that is broken again. I am sick with angst.

Then I remember it's just an ipod, and I can sing any song on it myself, as loud as I want in the car by myself. Improvisation. The child of necessity... or something.

Now that I am old and wise, I WILL be taking sunscreen with me. As, I still have freckle marks in the exact pattern of a tank top I wore to my last music festival. Ah. Me love me Irish roots. (and me lucky charms?)

Bushnel IL. Look out. Here comes murl.

Halle-lu-yer.

What's that noise?

It's the sound of my I.Q. going up...

I'm now a brunette.

(Yipes, that picture is sorta "Senior '97" sorry about that.)

Chi-who?

Chihuly Glass in the Garden. Good.

The day was hot, and a little steamy, inside the climatorium at the Botanical Gardens, we walked inside the lower compartment where they sell books, postards, DVD's and drinks. I strolled over to the Coke machine with cash in hand to purchase a frosty beverage. I notice a supermodel esque couple strolling toward me. A tall eastern block-man and his tan gorgeous girlfriend in an emerald green figure-hugging dress. As I fumbled for my dollars, I notice the price is 1.50 (a rant which I'll delay until another post) and I feed the cash into the machine, trying not to stare at this couple, trying to ignore the fact they were intimidatingly pretty, and very artsy looking, trying to blend into this surrounding and just for crying out loud get in and out of the coke line with grace and style.

Fine time for the machine to give me change in dimes.

Instead of 2 concise quarters, my swollen from walking all day fingers had to fumble for five tiny dimes, out of an impossibly small hole that was impossibly low to the ground (in case you forgot, I'm 6'2") Me and my frizzball head are hunkered over this machine thinking the change should, my god, already be there. But it wasn't. As I waited for this eternity my back was cramping up from a dishwashing injury the night before, and my best side pointed toward Mr. and Mrs. Multi-Cultual-America. After 37 years, the dimes were corraled, and I was standing up right again. I crack open my diet coke anticipating relief, only to have it geyser up out of the bottle in a frozen chihuly-like snake. Awesome.

Then Ange and I witnessed a marriage proposal. I've been to a lot of weddings. But this was the closest I've been to an actual proposal. We almost interrupted it. It was sweet. A guy all in black, a gal in a white sundress, both just sweet as could be. He had a journal, and was reading from it. It was near the fountain in front of the rose garden. She said yes. We clapped. We whooped and cheered.

The boys on my brain.

I've had a lot on my mind. Got another sick grandparent. My grandpa could use your prayers, he took a tumble backwards out of his wheelchair after some "inhouse" modifications by the nursing home staff. He hit his head on the bed and had to go to the emergency room. After that, he didn't wake up the next day and had to go back to the ER. He eventually came to, but they aren't sure why he wouldn't wake up.

They took him in for x-rays, and they found a fracture in his head from when he was 12. He fell on some ice in the driveway and broke his melon. But no one fixed it back then, no one wore "Bumpy the safety dog" helmets. No one took kids who bumped their heads to the doctor. He's been in a nursing home for over 4 years. He's won valentine's day "king" while there, and got his motorized wheelchair privledges revoked for reckless driving in the halls. That's my boy.

He used to be a sharpshooter. He would win countless trap and skeet tournaments, and was a basketball star with massive massive feet. (Hmm talk about getting it honestly). He was a smoker, and then was a quitter. Cold turkey, and never went back. He loves his dogs. Now he says weird things and pats strange girls on the rear thinking that they are me, or one of the eight sweet girls in his life. He used to call me Lindsey-bug. I remember HATING it. Like would run away from his open arms and just hated being the center of his attention. I hated being called Lindsey-bug with the fire of a thousand suns. Once, he picked out my Christmas present, it was this an awkward sweater with a giant number "1" on it. "Cause I was his number one girl." I guess he liked that I was athletic, and he could most relate to that. But it was still awkward, considering he had four granddaughters and three daughters and a wife that watched me open this gift. I never wore it. He was one of my biggest fans and my biggest critic. Funny how those two roles tend to be driven by the same emotion.

Yeah. I have all four of my grandparents. It's a huge blessing in my life.

Another blessing was meeting little James Wacker for the first time this week. Caroline and Dan's firstborn. He's precious and perfect, as little boys should be. Beautiful kid.

In case you were actually reading this thing, the aforementioned boy was a false alarm. It's good though, I'd never actually been rejected before, and it was kinda nice. Like, life went on. Whew glad I got that outta the way. On with the Chorophyll.

I'm up late again... and I'm watching Conan O'Brien. He's hilarious, I'm sorry. He was just doing spoofs on musicals. One was the "Phantom of the Juicer". So that's going to be stuck in my head for-evah. Thanks. I had just gotten "In the year two-thousand...In the year two-thousand" out of my head. It took, like, six years.

Good Ole Anne Lamott.

"What did you hear in my voice when I called?"
"I just heard that you were in trouble."
He was about the first Christian I ever met whom I could stand to be in the same room with. Most Christians seemed almost hostile in their belief that they were saved and you weren't. Bill said it bothered him too, but you had to listen to what was underneath their words. What did it mean to be saved, I asked, although I knew the word smacked of Elmer Gantry for both of us.
"You don't need to think about this," he said.
"Just tell me."
"I guess it's like discovering you're on the shelf of a pawnshop, dusty and forgotten and maybe not worth very much. But Jesus comes in and tells the pawnbroker, 'I'll take her place on the shelf. Let her go outside again.'"

I wish it were only a Karaoke Microphone...

I see that land, On the far side of the river J.
It's wild and terrible.
But it's with You.

Here in my chains I'm happy and fed.
Here in captivity I know what beating is next.
Here in my head, I'm right about me.

Over there is where I should be.
But here I stand.
Even if you part the sea, I need to trust and walk.

I thrust my balled fist into the air.
Pry it out of my cold dead hand if you must.
And you must, because I cannot let go.

Bethanese.

The Beth Moore study is amazing. You know this. You know she's awesome. She can't help it. She's an instrument of God. :P

The opposite of Phillipians 4:6, 7 in Beth-Speak:

"Do not be calm about anything, but in everything, by dwelling on it constantly and feeling picked on by God, with thougths like "and this is the thanks I get" present your aggravations to everyone you know but Him. And in the acid in your stomach, which transcends all milk products, will cause you an ulcer, and the doctor bills will cause you a heart attack and you will lose your mind."

Heh.

Stained Glass Window to my Soul.

I am oddly drawn to the imagery of stained glass. It's this intricate puzzle only makes sense when light shines through it. Even if you put all the pieces together perfectly, without light, it's not alive, and it's not fufilling it's purpose. But when the light hits it...

I know nothing about life; I'm 22, jobless, aimless and unsure of anything, dirty, sweaty and tired from riding in a bus all day. Growing numb from all the sights and the barrage on the senses that is a 17-day whirlwind tour of Europe. I find myself in a Cathedral in France. I find myself struck.

I find myself.

I gaze up at the most beautiful stained glass windows I've ever seen, in a blue that makes my breath catch in my chest and tears come to my eyes, I tiptoe around afraid that if I made a wrong move, they would all come crashing down around me. Images of Jesus and Mary and every biblical story that I had been just recently inhaling. I was jealous of the citizens of the town. I bought a thousand postcards and took pictures that did no justice. I brought the pieces home with me and framed them. Right now they are in my bathroom, only because they don't make wallpaper with those images, or else I'd wrap the entire house with it inside and out. Just today I found out that they are Chagall's.

It's was the first piece of art that I loved. I loved how it made me feel, I loved that it was of Christ, I loved that it felt like it was mine. Now that I know more about Chagall, it makes it even more special. He was a devoted family man, who smeared his happiness all over canvases and glass, in the form of a Savior and of violin playing goats.

For my birthday my roomate sara bought me a mini stained glass window that I love. It turned out to be a Chagall too. This I recieved before I went to Europe.

Interesting, I thought, that all of the things that struck my eyes and heart as beautiful turned out to be from the same creator.

One that seems to know just what I need.

Solid as Iraq

I just had to copy this paragraph I just read from Funny Autumn who is stationed in Irag at the moment. And Nate, aka Meat Pocket, I think this is an answer to the late night tuxedo clad conversation we were having regarding our purpose.

I am challenged daily. I declare myself a failure every
other day, then remember that I'm human every other other day. There are
constant reminders around here that I am human and faulted, but certain
occasions when I feel bulletproof and invincible. I make decisions that put
lives at risk...but with the knowledge that my actions cannot control this chaos
that I live and operate in. Not that my attempts are futile--they matter. It is
a balance between knowing that a certain choice may make all the difference...or
have no effect at all.

Check me out.. right down the middle...

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 55% Conservative, 45% Liberal

Social Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Ethics: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

Hooray for Summer.

Watering little green plants in the yard.
Steamy black driveway basketball.
Strawberries and front porch sittin'.
Driving the boat with Uncle Bob, and canteloupe.
My dad's electric blue luau swim trunks that he swears are "just shorts".

Been awhile since I blogged, I've been slacking a little bit as of late. There are some reasons for that.

I have been really busy at work. Working way too many hours and trying to get some stuff done there, and it's sucked the life out of me. I gotta knock it off.

I met a boy. More on that later. This one has potential of being a keeper, but if nothing else, has restored my faith in men. So he is getting some Murl time. Prayers, good.

A bible study is starting at the house. About 20 thirsty girls are getting together to do some BETH MOORE. (OH MAN is that EXCITING!!! You have no idea.. really.) We are doing "Breaking Free" and I am so pumped. I am craving scripture lately and I'm craving some community like this, all girls, all of us really ready for something, for God to do some amazing things in our lives, all of us ready to be free from something. I really can't describe how excited I am to be apart of this. The thought of being a part of a group of gals who are thrilled about having the blocks removed that keep them from experiencing the weight of the love and mercy and peace of God. Shivers. I need this. My spiritual mouth is watering.

I got bit in the face by a dog this weekend. So if you see me, and I look like a prize fighter, that's why.

Hallelujah

"The baffled King composes..."

This song is in my head. It stuck into my head the very first time I heard it as the background music on a West Wing funeral. I hadn't realized what an amazing song it really was until it showed up again on janely's Christmas mix. (Everyone needs Christmas in May).

I have it on constant repeat and I can't get the achingly beautiful haunting voice of Jeff Buckley out of my head.... So to the internet I go.. looking for info on this song and to my dismay, I'm no musical scout, it's been covered 44 times to be exact and it was written in '84.

But it's still a good song...

It's amazing really, the blend of sorrow and joy. They are truly inseparable.

Sunday, as I listened to Susan recount the grief and beauty of her life, and her husbands death, and raising her two boys alone, I started to understand the cold and broken Hallelujah.

I understand, maybe am only beginning to understand, the beauty and the true goodness of the holes in our lives. The God shaped holes.

Paul wasn't an ass when he said "Rejoice" in suffering. He wasn't an ass, because he WAS in prison and rejoicing... and because he KNEW what was ahead. He did know why the thorns weren't removed. He did know why he was allowed to hurt. Because it was only for a time. Because he had seen the prize that was waiting, and everything else was dimmer by comparison. Because his hurt was purposeful, because it was for the sake of spreading the news of an epic love gone wrong, with the possibility of becoming right.

"The minor fall and the major lift... "

So often we take Paul's words and others like his, to mean "suck it up" or "be happy" about this event that has caused you pain. Don't shed a tear, become hard, become strong...

Wrong.

Cry, weep, break... let Him lift your head. Because God cries with us, He cried when he was here. We do not come to know Him in the blessing, but in the breaking. That is why a good God lets bad things happen to good people.

Doctors smack a baby to open it's lungs so that it will cry and be able to breathe, or it will die.

It seems too simple and profound written down. It's much more confusing in the realm of reality. It's much harder to see the good, loving and purposeful movement of a God who IS all knowing, all loving and all crazy about us when the rains come. When your husband dies, when your friends get cancer, when you lose your job, when your wife leaves you, when you are lonely, when you are starving. But we must recall that Jesus knew all these times too, and in the incredibly observant simply put words of my adamant brother...

"Jesus' suffering only helped his case"...

'Birds out of the nest.

Finally went to a game at New Busch.
I had free tix from the real estate man. (My realtor is, DA MAN by the way. Anyone need a realtor.. please don't hesitate to contact me for Mister B.J. Sonderman's info. He's awesome and I went to high school with him...Rockstar.)

Anywho. I'm a little dissappointed in the Stadium. I liked it overall and I didn't want to take a hammer to it or anything, but I miss Old Busch.. with it's ... roundness. It's closed in-ness. From section 329 you can't see the left fielder, and the blazin' sun is in your eye until the top of the fourth, but overall, it's a happy place. Take my view with a grain of salt considering I'm the girl that didn't want a new car because she was so attached to her '92 Pontiac Bonneville whose wheels were falling off. What? It only had 156K on it! C'mon. I loved that car. (I was constantly running into curbs and breaking the fog lights, so it always had an "eyes-poked-out" quality to it.)

And I loved Busch stadium. At least the hotdogs are the same. That would have been a real travesty*.

On the weekend agenda: First big tournament this weekend for b-ball (in Bellevegas no doubt..) Markus and Annie! make the switch from MH to WG. (whoop whoop), and Jeff Stiles is a year older. (Horppy Borthday, Coach Z).

I'm feeling a little better physically, thanks for the prayers.

(Authors note: I did not have a hot dog last night, I had nachos... but the sentiment still applies)

Rough Week

It's been a rough week.

Two lost credit cards were followed by a rental car fiasco. Apparantly you can't rent a car without a credit card. I was almost calling a cab to drive me an hour to Woodstock IL, when God reminded me of the New York and Company mastercard that I had randomly stuck in my bag. I wasn't even going to activate it. I was going to cut it up and not use it, but for some reason I had it. I activated it, and drove away in a blue trail blazer. Weird how that works sometimes.

After a semi productive meeting, I drove back in the rain. Had a struggle with the toll booth. Don't ask.

On to Chicago O'Hare, the black hole of inefficiency. I wasn't scheduled to leave until 8:10, I got an earlier flight, but it changed gates three times, and was delayed several hours (still earlier than eight...).

I am feeling sick lately, and I can't seem to kick it, or to get it bad enough to actually slow me down. So if you are a praying sort, please send some up for my puny self. It's a thing where my body is exhausted and feels like it could keel over at any moment, but my brain is racing and wont slow down. I took Tylenol PM and woke up at 1AM, rather ticked that I was awake at such an hour after doping myself.

Saturday (in the midst of being uber productive) I lose my phone, and realize that I am a hopeless, hopeless case. This one wasn't totally my fault, a lady at the Home Depot stole my cart. I bent over to look at some plants and when i stood up it was gone. I shrugged and got another not realizing that she had made off with my phone. I missed hanging with my college roomie because of it, and was generally in a swampy mood. A surprisingly fun baby shower and a couple of eye-opening books later, I am feeling a little better.

I want so much, and I just have to wait for it. I have no choice...but to wait. And
I.
Am.
So.
Flawed. Forgetful. Absent minded. Sick. Human....

God has met me in the wait, in the sick, in the forgetfulness. I magically had a credit card. I recieved the others in the mail. I found the phone, before it rained. My fabulous family helped me with my yard. I planted some daisies and some other stuff. Then it rained. Perfectly.

I hadn't been to church in a couple of weeks, and it was starting to show. I went and was so blessed.. Blessed by daddies holding thier daughters in their arms and worshipping. They weren't the sitcom dads, burdened with their kids, bored with thier wives, they were real guys, in love with their families, crazy about their non-supermodel wives and they seemed that they couldn't be happier, that they didn't want to be anywhere else on a Sunday morning. I needed to see that. I have been wrong. I wept.

I don't know what he's doing with me right now. But if I know anything.. it's that my shit has a point.