I cleaned out my car today. The people at the garage rolled the miserable thing out into the parking lot and left it locked up so I could come and get what I needed.

I hit my head approximately twelve hundred and twenty five times during this forty minute project. Various people came and went, but the constant was my continious stream of, "Ow. Ouch. Oh bloody hell!"

I pretty much live out of my car, despite the fact that I do pay rent on an apartment, so there was a lot of stuff. My camera, my cds, other people's cds (beware cd lenders, I don't intentionally not return them, but they still don't come back), a smattering of the books I've read over the past six months (Beauty, A House Like a Lotus, Anne of Green Gables, Leave It To Psmith, and Wicked).

So now my new car looks exactly as my old one did. The main difference being that there is no bumper sticker (sad) and no trash (yet).

I spent a large chunk of the afternoon in Starbucks (that's right, the devil's lair) reading.
There's nothing like sitting two feet from freshly baked pastries to make you realize that you haven't eaten all day. Fortunately, I didn't have any money for that sort of thing, but it was kind of like death. Instead I ate a protein bar. It's supposed to taste like a fudge sundae, but it mostly tastes like the soy crisps that it's covered in.

The world is against my owning a car without any kind of significant damage. It just is.

This morning I was driving to work and a small rock/mega pebble flew out of no where and hit my windshield, scaring the heck out of me.

Last night I was driving home from work and a hord of children flung some plastic toy right at my windshield. For a horrifying two minutes I thought that they had managed to chip the glass and that I would have to go back, track them down, track down their parents, and demand a new windshield. But I pulled over and it turned out to just be some sticky stuff that had been on the toy.

This episode makes me wonder: should children have toys? Should children even be allowed out in public? Parents used to have those leashes they kept kids on, maybe those should make a comeback while we're busy revisiting the 80s.

gr8

If New Jersey wasn't scary enough, an insurance survey found that 1 in 5 drivers are texting while behind the wheel.

A new law wants to ban it in New Jersey. Some critics want to know why they're not banning other distractions, like eating, and the politicians said it would never pass if they did that.

Aw, they do care about our needs.

Cereal Killer

When I was a kid my family didn't have much money so for the first five or six years of my life we ate oatmeal for breakfast...pretty much every morning. The only people in my family who like oatmeal are the siblings born after this period.

As I got older I came to hate, not just oatmeal, but all cereal and soon I was to the point where I didn't eat breakfast at all, which was fine since I didn't get up till ten anyway. But now that I get up forever early I find a little breakfast to be necessary.

For a while it was bagels all the time, because I can make those at work. But bagels are not healthy or filling and I keep reading about how people need to eat more fiber and how it's super filling etc., etc. I used to eat Kashi granola. It's really expensive and it looks like bird food, but it's supposed to be really healthy. I only managed to choke down two bags of it before I went back to my regular breakfast foods.

So the other day I decided to be healthy again and I bought some Kashi oatmeal. Lots of people eat oatmeal. It can't really be as bad as I imagine. Besides, look at all the fun flavors. My mom never bought the fun flavored kind, that's what our problem was.

Besides, I can make it at work and eat it at my desk. How bad could it possibly be?

Mmmm.

Yesterday I guesstimated the water needed. I'm a grown adult. I can guess measurements now, can't I? No. No I cannot. When I rescued my cereal from the microwave it looked less like breakfast and more like I was trying to bake cookies. But since I, brilliantly, forgot how heinous our water smells and used it direct from faucet, less water is probably all for the best.
It still took me two hours to choke it down.

I decided that today I would not take any chance and would bring a measuring cup. Unfortunately I'm not the most alert person in the morning and certainly not up to keeping resolutions made nearly 24 hours before (or even remembering them). So I found myself with a coffee mug trying to figure out how much it holds (8 ounces?) and how therefore how full it needed to be to equal 2/3 of a cup (half?).

It actually turned out to be what I think is the right consistancy. It's still gross.

Adventures in Frankfort

Yesterday I met my father in Frankfort so I could buy the car. Today I drove down again, with a friend, so I could retrieve the car. Needless to say, I've exceeded my driving quota for the week.

The Saga Continues

The repair person called today and told me my car is totalled. I haven't heard from the insurance guy yet. I don't know what this means in terms of money.

I was thinking...over thinking

So, everyone warned me I would feel awful the day after the wreck (for those who aren't so quick, that's today). I really don't need to feel anyworse than I normally do, so I prayed that I wouldn't feel any worse today than I did yesterday.

But, praying's more complicated than it used to be.

When you're a little kid you talk to God like you talk to your parents.
"Please, please, please, please, please give me what I want!"
In both instances you're usually on your hands and knees.

When you get older people start telling you that you need to make sure you thank God and praise Him as well ask asking Him for things. Well that makes sense right? But then I start worrying that my praises, thankfulness, and requests aren't even. In fact, shouldn't my praises and thank-yous be more than my requests? How unfortunate that I'm best at asking for things.

But I still figure that I can swing it. I mean, I usually like God's solutions to things, so I can thank Him for all of those things. And, I sing praise songs at church...and those kinda stick in your head so you're humming/singing them all week, so technically I'm praising God rather often (albiet absentmindedly).

Then you get a little older and people (and by people I mean keynote speakers at Christian conferences) tell you that God's entire goal in creating the world (and therefore you) is to bring glory to Himself. Since He's God it's a little hard to complain. But, then that means that everything in your life revolves around whether it brings more glory to God. Since it's almost impossible to know what brings more glory to God how can you ask for anything? Don't you always have to say, "Dear God, please do whatever you want" ? Anything else feels a little pointless.

After all, Paul prayed for the "thorn" to be removed and God didn't...apparently for His glory. The mother of the blind man might have prayed for him to be healed, but nothing would have happened until the man was all grown and Jesus walked by and rubbed dirt in his eyes.

But then again, I don't recall Jesus telling us to pray for things that glorify Him, at least not in so many words. He does talk about asking God for what we need, ranging from bread to forgiveness. And he does remind us that earthly father's don't give their kid's bad things when they ask for good things and that God is even better than our earthly fathers.

So, in the five seconds that it took this all to go through my head...I decided not to worry about all the ins and outs of how God processes our prayer requests and decides whether He is going to say "yes" or "no". I just asked. And I feel fine.

Plug for Progressive

My car insurance company is amazing. They found the place that can fix my car quickest and best. They found a rental car for me (which is included in the collision coverage that I do have) and around 4:30 or 5 I will be driving a Ford Focus (officially one of the cutest cars on the planet). Enterprise will drop it off. All company's involved are incredibly nice and helpful.

I do have $500 deductable...but I'll be able to afford that and I have a feeling that by the time my car's headlight, bumper, and side panel are replaced, and my rental car payed for...my $500 will have gone a long way.

My insurance guy even sounded pretty confident that they can blame this all on the other driver and collect from their insurance company. They won't be able to, but it made me feel better that he thought so.

So Long My Friend

It's time to say goodbye to my bank account. I had a little collision with an SUV today (not my fault, but the police refused to say whose it was) and I have a feeling that my insurance is not for collision coverage. The other people say its' my fault and have witnesses who concurred with their assessment.

Originally I was pretty calm about this, but that is rapidly disintegrating into shakiness and inability to keep my lunch.

Do you ever notice that when you talk about relying on God's strength that you don't really do it? Somehow I just try harder and feel like that counts. In reality...I'm not even sure I know what relying on God looks like. Usually I just disolve into panic, God fixes everything anyway and I say thank-you or I try real hard to make things work out...finally give up...and God fixes everything anyway and I say thank-you. Either way it seems like this scenario should look different.

So, I have to file with my insurance company and apply for a credit card (so I can pay for the numerous repairs to my car - and possibly a rental) and...it's really frustrating...and not what I had planned for today.

Probably my boss is going to loan me his truck so I can get to work tommorow...reason number 5083 why I have the best boss ever.

Well children...have a better day than me.

Aquire The Fire...or a latte

Crazy go nuts weekend. At each individual moment I knew exactly what I thought, but taking it all in as a whole...I have no idea.

I didn't arrive in a great mood. We'd gotten lost and we were late and I had the world's largest headache. The praise band had already started when we got there. We climbed up, up, up into the nose bleed section. I am terrified of heights.

After we scooted past the people who arrived on time one of the highschoolers asked me if I could feel it. At first I thought she meant the way the ground was vibrating, but since it was impossible to not notice, I wasn't sure what she meant and told her so. Her eyes got wide and she said, "The Holy Spirit!"

Dizzy? Check. Grumpy? Check. Holy Spirit? No. Sorry.

The theme for the week was "Branded by God". They talked alot about how the clothing you wear and the music you listen to don't make you a better person. How what is "cool" is decided in corporate board rooms by people who don't care about kid's lives, only their money.

All of this is true. But every single person on stage could have been a model. Everyone had amazing hair and clothing. It was obvious that alot of effort was put into making this "cool". So if they're telling kids not to let themselves be sucked in by the branding...why is it that they've already bought into it themselves?

I'm not sure what I expect them to do. I love marketing. It is near and dear to my heart. I love design and they obviously have some amazing graphic designers working for them. I don't think Christians are called to wear ugly clothes either. But it all seemed to counter what they were telling the kids. There was alot of lights and hype and underneath it all I still think they have a good message, I just can't help but feel it gets a little diluted with glitter and sensation.

All that aside, it was a really good time to get to know some kids that I've not talked to much before. The first night we stayed up until three in the morning talking and the second night it was till two. Leader alertness was sponsored by Starbucks. I will sleep well tonight...and maybe by tommorow I'll be awake enough to have some coherant thoughts.

Working for the Weekend

I’m finding it almost impossible to work this morning. Somehow work seems longer when I’m getting off earlier.
At twelve I’m leaving so I can be at church on time.
Youth Group is going to Aquire The Fire.
I know almost nothing about what’s happening this weekend, and why should I? I’m just a leader.It should be a good time though.

No sign of intellegent life

Around four o'clock I realized that I've been wearing my shirt backwards all day long.
It's not even a shirt where it's kinda ambigious as to which is the front side. It has a collar and sort of a v-neck with an inset white bit in front....there's absolutely no way to not know which is the front side. And yet...

Loving the warm

Robin and I are trying to walk more since we don't walk nearly as much as we did in college. But we wanted to wait until it got warm outside, and the weather has been very obliging. May it continue.

There are alot of little ponds and lakes in the area behind Robin's house, which we love. And, there's an abandoned building with trees growing out of the top of it. There used to be stairs going up the side. We can't tell what it was, but it's kind of fascinating.

In contrast to that, we saw an amazing four story house with stairs right down to the lake, very pretty. We want to buy it.

Sunny with a high of 75

My body is rebelling. This afternoon I could barely eat the pear I packed for lunch because my jaw hurt so much. Walking is rendered ridiculously painful all because of the stupid shoes I wore on Sunday. They were ballet flats! How can my feet be hurting this much after a day in ballet flats?

On the bright side, today is brilliantly warm. I didn't actually eat my lunch outside, because it was much too windy...but I did roll down my car window and that was lovely.

On the sad side, they're talking about hiring someone to help with the other business...and I so want to be designing for the other business and not be the editor for our phseudo magazine. It's quite depressing.

Health Conscious Capitalism

Every day I check out Relevant Magazine for the possibility of an insightful article and some interesting news slices.

The other day there was a slice about how soft drink companies, Coca-Cola and Pepsi inparticular, are realizing they need to start shoving out healthier beverage alternatives if they want to counter act the slump in their cola sales.
More and more people are trying to make smart eating choices and high fructose corn syrup (also known as pure-liquid-evil) sweetened sodas don't fit in to that catagory. Coca-Cola exec E. Neville Isdell maintains that diet sodas should be seen as "wellness" drinks, but polls show that very few Americans agree.
This isn't suprising considering Aspertame (the sweetner in all diet Sodas, with the exception of Diet Rite and Diet Coke with Splenda) has been linked with Multiple Sclerosis, memory loss, and possibly cancer.
The new "wellness" beverages, Diet Coke Plus and Tava (from Pepsi), will feature vitamins and possibly caffine. The draw for Diet Coke Plus is that it will, perportedly, taste very much like regular Coke (not much of an attraction, personally), while Tava will feature exotic flavors (I'm guessing that means fruit flavors...let's hope it's not a vitamin infused version of Jazz).

The drinking trends also have soft drink companies scrambling to find a healthy, no-calorie sweetner. When I finished this article I thought, "Ha, capitalism wins again."
I'm not holding my breath for a cheap and healthy beverage coming from either Coca-Cola or Pepsi, but it's nice to know that they're trying. Huzzah for consumer influance!

Interestingly, the same day I ran across Enviga, which is flavored green tea hopped up on caffeine. There's also like 20% of the suggested calcium intake and a whole bunch of antioxidants. And considering the fact that they suggest drinking this stuff three times a day to maximize it's health benefits you would actually end up almost your entire daily dose of calcium and more antioxidants than any normal human being needs.
Unfortunately you would also become a caffeine addict and die from a massive overdose.

I'm a lethargic person, due to health issues (which is why the semi-obsession with cheap and easy health food) I just never have any energy...at all. There are always wonderful people trying to bottle it, but usually that involves high-fructose corn syrup - which, if you didn't catch it earlier, was placed on earth by the devil. Seeing an energy drink that was fructose free I decided it was worth a try and bought one.
I drank it the next morning and I felt nice and energize, but not jittery, just as the can had promised. So on my lunch break I bought two more cans and downed one of them.

Holy cow. I have never been so wired. I couldn't go to sleep until 12 something and I woke up this morning still feeling the effects.

I'm not saying I won't keep a can or two handy for sluggish mornings, or that I might even take a second in the afternoon if I was planning on doing something that involved intense physical activity (like cleaning out my car) but just to feel more awake at the office? Not worth it.

Ironically, in the same day that I realized the beverage industry is becoming more and more health conscious the fast-food industry is bent on introducing even bigger burgers despite recent criticism for being the cause of all that is obese in this world.

Sometimes people just don't get it.

I work up early this morning...

My family is originally from Florida and no one can understand why we would leave the sunshine state for the unfortunate state of Ohio.

It was nice for us kids because our parents were as delighted with the novelty of snow as we were (yes, at one time I did like snow) and would build snowmen with us and take us sledding as often as we wished.

The novelty wore off after a while. Only my little brother enjoys the cold weather and he was born here. We lived in a rummy area of Ohio too. The rivers are dirty and the parks are dirty and the trees are scraggly. So on a semi-annual trip to Florida I was suprised to hear a Floridian friend say, "You're so lucky you live in Ohio, it's so pretty up there!"

Pretty? Boring at best. The most the mid-west has to offer is a vast landscape of cows and corn.
This has always been true. It's less true due to the number of shopping malls and homoginized housing communities, but it's still true.

Even so, when I drive to work in the morning it's pretty amazing. Especially now that the sun is up earlier. Until just recently the light was only just peeking over the hills by the time I entered to office. But now everything is brilliantly lit up and all this cold, barren farm land, with it's empty corn fields and faded houses, actually is...beautiful, just as my friend said it was.

...like the corners of our minds

I spent all yesterday afternoon and a fair portion of this morning scanning in ancient pictures and funeral bulletins for a book some person if making about their family. Old pictures fascinate me, probably even more so when they are of no one in particular. I like seeing those random bits of people's lives and wondering what they were like.

I think it's awesome for the family that will have all this history at their finger tips...

Some of the photos are so odd it makes me wonder if these people understood that they were having their picture taken. Others, are so iconic that I wonder if the people realized it at the time.