Meet my new best friend, Lucy the Labradoodle. Lucy and I met and fell in love this past weekend when Cory and I headed to the valley to spend time with his mom and sister and celebrate his birthday. I had heard horror stories of Miss Lucy, but who couldn’t love a sweetheart like that?!? During our weekend we found time to relax, played (and was destroyed in my case) the family favorite card game Down You Go, watched the newest Bond movie, and just enjoyed each other’s company.  Plus, his mom made the most amazing birthday cake with this mocha coolwhip and toffee pieces frosting.  Can you say Ahhh-Mazzz-Ing!  Birthdays are meant to be spent with those you love, and it was great to spend his with his family.  From the first hello until we said goodbye, we had a phenomenal weekend and it was hard to say goodbye, especially to my doggie bff. But we’ll definitely play catch again soon.

I hate April Fool’s Day. How could I love after growing up with Capt. April Fool’s Zac? However, I do enjoy helping others prank people on this special day. This year was no exception when my Friend Mike called and enlisted me to prank his mom. Apparently she and her husband love the restaurant Pappadeaux and eat there all the time. So early this afternoon, I called her up and pretended to be from the Pappadeaux corporate office rewarding her for being a faithful customer with a free appetizer and dessert that evening at their local Pappadeaux restaurant. Just to push the boundaries of belief I called the reward program ‘Pappadeaux’s Frequent Feaster’. Amazingly enough she bought it and agreed to call the local restaurant to schedule her reward except I gave her her son’s cell phone number instead. Amazingly enough, she did not recognize her own son’s number.

After waiting a few hours for his mom to call, Mike finally broke and called his mom to see what was up. His mom then spent the next thirty minutes telling him how she had the worst day ever and nothing had gone right. Finally after she had vented and completely purged herself of her horrible day, she confided to him that the best part of her day was when Pappadeaux had called and offered her free food for being such a great customer. Oopsies! With a lil luck, Mike extricated himself from the phone call with his mom and hung up feeling a bit guilty. Within the next few minutes his phone rang with his mom’s number, and he decided to let the joke play out. After a few seconds, his mom recognized his voice and figured out the joke. Thank goodness, she enjoyed it and wasn’t upset. Otherwise, I would have felt horrible. Now I just gotta beware of retribution next year.

I have a simple love/hate relationship with most of my student employees. I love them them, and deep down they despise me.  Ok, despise is probably too harsh of a word, but let’s just say sometimes they look at me like I’m the mom that drives them and their friends to the mall while singing along to Britney Spears.  (Oh yeah, I’m gonna be that mom, but that’s beside the point.)  While I don’t have favorites, I do have a certain handful of students who we share an equal amount of tolerance for each other.

One of these students in particular might be a long-lost cousin of mine and our similar musical and entertainment choices can be a bit frightening at times.  But more than anything I enjoy giving her a hard time and watching her dramatic reactions to being fake fired or making fun of her whatever shenanigan we can dream up at 5:10 on a Thursday afternoon.  Well recently she mentioned that she needed to get off work early for a volunteer project she was heading up.  Knowing that she’d have to get the approval of her supervisor, I sent her to him to ask for this favor.  Before she had the chance to plead her case and without her knowing, I asked him to deny her request and play along with me.

Confidently, she pleaded her case and seemed stunned when he told her ‘no’.  (Guess I shouldn’t have told her it would be no big deal.)  I came back into the room as she was leaving with her head down completely floored that her boss was being so unresonable.  I put my arm around her and told her I’d plead her case for her.  Again I enlisted the support of her supervisor and our boss, as I called her back into the full-time staff office and told her with a lil work I’d been able to broker a deal that would allow her to get the time off she needed.  All she had to do was dance for at least 60 seconds to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Now the guys had no clue that she had learned the whole dance last semester and didn’t think she’d go along with my plan.  But after convincing her it was the only way she could get the time off, we opened up the youtube video of Thriller and watched as she worked through her shame and embarrassment to give us a brilliant performance that riveled Jennifer Garner’s in 13 Going On 30.  By the end of her minute of glory, I couldn’t stop laughing and she quickly realized she had been played.  Being the great sport she is she laughed it off and headed back to finish her shift.  Now I just gotta keep my eyes open to her retaliation.

Last week when my family was up visiting, my mom and I were fabric shopping when I came across a fabric I couldn’t help but fall in love with.  White with black flowers and swirls highlighted by hot pink… what couldn’t be more me?  However, despite the perfection of the fabric, Mom and I couldn’t come up with a single use of it in my new bedroom.  Guess that’s how you know a room is just right when you can’t find a way to use a gorgeous fabric.  So with a tish of sadness we walked away from the fabric and decided if we came up with a use we could always go back.  Less than an hour before my family had to leave, Mom and I had the epiphany that my bed would look better if there were 7 pillows on it and not just 5.  So we raced back to the fabric store to but the beloved fabric to make pillowcases for pillows I already owned and kept in the closet until company showed up.  Well, it’s been about a week since they left and already Mom has made gorgeous pillowcases from the fabric below and mailed them too me.  Yeah, I’m spoiled

Pillowcase fabric

Completed bed with new pillowcases

Sometime early in Cory and my drive down to Phoenix for his birthday with his family today, Lauren and I realized we were within a mile of each other on the freeway.  Most people would think that was a cool coincedence and wave if we passed her, but not us.  Nope, we spent the next 90 miles sending dozens of texts and calling each other to try and figure out where we were in relation  to each other.  We sped up and slowed down based upon how close we thought we were to each other, and finally, as we entered the city we saw her car in front of us.  You’d think after an hour and a half of trying to catch up to each other we’d have a plan of what to do after we were side by side, but instead, Lauren and I  waved at each other and then awkwardly tried to figure out what the appropriate thing to do would be.  No wonder we’re best friends.  We live for the awkward moments in life until they involve us.

My dad forwarded an email to me today with a handful of these letters to God, and I had to share my favorite. Outta the mouths of babes.

Sweet 16, here we come!  After everything our Cats have been through the past few years, It’s great to see success coming from a team half of the nation didn’t believed deserved their #12 seed.  Now I have to wait too many days until the Tourney starts up again, but when it dies….Bring on the Cardinals!

My family left today.  I swear everytime I have to say goodbye to them it gets harder and harder.  I cry more, and it takes that much longer to get my emotions back under control.  I’m not really sure why this is.  I wasn’t this way in college.  I’ve said goodbye to them and hopped in the car to drive home numerous times.  Maybe it’s because they all live six-hours away and as much as I love my life in Flagstaff, I miss them more than I can express most days.  Maybe because I feel like the odd family member out, the lone gun man, and don’t know how not to feel that way.  I’m almost controlling and selfish with the time I get with them, and that realization is a horrible feeling.  You’d think the older I get and more of a life I build here, the easier it would be to go back to that life when family time is over,  but that’s not the case.  Now don’t get me wrong, it was a great weekend.  We had tons of laughs, enjoyed two days of March Madness, did a good deal of shopping and spent quality time together, but still I’m sad and left wishing for more time together.

On the other hand and just in time to cheer me up, Lauren is back from her overseas trip and should be arriving on my doorstep soon.  I can’t wait to hear stories of her trip and just give her a huge hug.  I’ve missed her immensely the past two weeks and will be relieved to know she is home and safe.  Plus, two weeks of life is a lot of catching up to do.  Then, to add more fun to the proverbial pot, my old and dear friend Emily is bunking at my casa tomorrow night as she drives through Flagstaff.  I’m sure we’ll spend our time together catching each other up and gossiping about the old gang while feating on Oreos and ice cream.  I haven’t seen her in almost two years, and it’s been months since we truly had a good chat.

Life is funny like that.  As sad as I am to say goodbye to three of the people I care most about, God has provided me with hellos and hugs of others that I’ve been missing.  I know deep down that even when I say goodbye to Emily Monday morning or remember the three hundred mile distance that separates me from my family, I am still loved and still love, and that’s more than enough to get by.

My family is on its way to visit me, and to be honest, I’m having a hard time focusing on anything because I cannot wait for them to get here.  Zac has visited me a handful of times since I moved, and dad was up here after Christmas.  But mom has yet to see my place finished, and I blame her for my Christmas decorations staying up as long as they did.  Part of me just kept hopping if they stayed up, she’d eventually come and see them.  Yet, apparently, she has a full time job and has to take care of the boys… so no visits for Laurel until now.  I have spent way too much time as of late meticulously making sure everything is as it should be in my house.  I’ve grocery shopped for everything they liked, planned meals, and have visited Target four separate times to ensure I have everything they could possibly need to be comfortable.

What is it about our parents that even as grown adults we have an obsession with pleasing them?  Will it really matter to them that every picture and decoration on the wall is level?  No, you say?  Then why did I have to check every single thing on every wall with a level last night?  I’m sure Cory thought I was losing my mind as I checked and rechecked my parental preparation list 15 times yesterday and today to make sure everything was just right, but you only get one chance to make a first impression.  Even as I think about this afternoon, it seemes laughable to spend that much time focusing on details they won’t even notice.  People come in and out of my place all the time and probably couldn’t tell you what colors the throw pillows on my couches are, and yet I went so far as considering ironing the wrinkles in them that I noticed late last night.  Maybe I’ll just turn off all the lights and light candles, so that the room has a nice glow when they get there without shining a spotlight on anything I might have missed.  Yeah, that’s a good plan.  Then they’ll think their daughter is holding a seance and not critique her decorating, cleaning, or living as an adult skills.  Whew, I feel so much better.

If you love me, you’ll tell me I don’t need this gorgeous trench coat from Target because I don’t have the strength to say no to it’s call to me.  Tell me it’s ugly, old-fashioned, isn’t worth $40… just tell me something!

I miss being a CaresTeam some days.  I miss the challenge and struggles off feeding the masses dinner on $20.  There was something greatly gratifying about conquering the obstacles that we had in our ministry and finding success in that apartment complex.  One of my favorite things used to be our biweekly shopping trips where I would spend hours scouring the weekly grocery store ads and planning all of our events and cooking around what was on sale and how much we could save.  I loved to accomplishment of spending $30 while saving $50.

Even though I’m no longer in charge of feeding the crowd, I still find joy in shopping the bargains on a smaller scale,.  So today after combing through the ads and planning meals for the next two weeks, we headed off to conquer the grocery list.  At the end of the day, the freezer, fridge and pantry were stocked.  We had saved 21% more than we spent and have everything needed for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next few weeks.  Now, who wants to come over for dinner?

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve read a book that captured my attention like William P. Young’s “The Shack” recently did. I laughed. I cried. I couldn’t put it down, and when I was done I was both exhausted and renewed. This simple fiction guy meets God novel dares each and everyone who reads it to challenge how they view both God and themselves. It’s worth your time and the journey it will take you on.

Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack’s world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant “The Shack” wrestles with the timeless question, “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?” The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You’ll want everyone you know to read this book!

So with my awesome time on death’s door (a bit of an exaggeration) and trip to Willcox, I’ve been bad about posting again. Thank goodness I have most of my posts half-written or in my trusty notebook. Anyway, be on the look-out over the next few days for everything I haven’t put to digital paper yet. You may need to scroll down a bit to catch it all,. Thanks for being patient. MIssed you!

5) You can say things like ‘twitter that’.

4) Where else (besides Facebook) can you seek out attention by acting emo?

3) Shaq, Christopher Walken, Martha, John Mayer, Dwight from the Office, Diddy, and Ashton Kutcher are doing it.

2) I’m doing it!

1) Everyone else is doing it.

Sometime in the middle of moving last fall, I broke my trusty alarm clock and was forced to find a new one. Being the geek I am, the first one I tried let me wake up to the music of my iPod. A genius plan if music actually had the ability to wake me up. So after a week of late mornings, I headed to Target to try and find another option. Lucky for me, they had a simple, yet loud, red alarm clock on sale for 10 bucks.  Even better than it’s pretty color, this alarm clock sets the time and time zone automatically when you plug it in. Needless to say for months I’v been more than satisfied with my purchase that is until this morning.  In case you didn’t know, Arizona is one of two states that do not observe Daylight Savings Time.  This is something my alarm clock was not aware of and something I didn’t consider when crawling into bed at oh-dark-thirty after yesterday’s marathon cleaning spree.  So when I woke up for church this morning and those big red letters displayed 10:45am, I didn’t really think much of it.  Disappointed in oversleeping and not being able to go to church, I rolled over and went back to sleep until my phone beeped at me.  You can imagine my surprise when my phone said it was 10;41am.  It took but a second for me to realize that time was not moving in reverse but that my alarm clock was set to DST.  Oopsies!  Worst part is…. 4 days later I still can’t figure out to reset it back an hour.