Corrie's Stories

The Whole Half - Week 12

2012-01-09T22:14:00.001-06:00

Well, folks, the insanity has begun. If my blog posts start to get boring and I cite references within my stories (Matchell, 2004), you'll know that grad school has taken over my life and the Corrie you used to know no longer exists. She will have been replaced by a technically correct, APA following robot. But for now, I'm still here! My first class started today, which means that I completed the first part of my assignment last Saturday as soon as I had access to the course materials. Don't make fun of me, there are reasons behind my overachieving! First, I want to get ahead now so that if/when I fall behind I have a buffer zone. I know me, eventually I'll get lazy and not want to work for a day or two .. or seven. The buffer allows me some guilt-free relaxation time when life gets overwhelming. Second, I'm not too familiar with how this whole online class thing works and I wanted to make sure I had a chance to read every bit of material before jumping into this course. Third, I'm a nerd and I'm super excited about learning! You can make fun of me for that; I'll allow it. I'll keep you all updated regarding my master's progress. But now onto the running fun!

My knee was still acting up last Sunday, so I only ran 3-4 miles instead of my long run of 7. I was discouraged and concerned about that, because I didn't want to get set back when I was making such great progress toward my goal. So I buckled down and found exercises that were supposed to help my knee. I rubbed Tiger Balm all over my knee, I took ibuprofen every day, I iced that sucker every time I sat down, and I taped it up even when I wasn't running. The thought occurred to me that maybe my knee was mad at me because I was only running long runs once a week and had (more or less) given up on my short runs throughout the week. So I took to the road Tuesday afternoon for a short run. Tuesday was a beautiful day. It was sunny and around 50 degrees. Perfect weather for a run.

After the run I was feeling super productive so I jumped in my car to run a few errands. While I was out I decided to stop by Red Coyote Running and Fitness. Seriously, guys, this place is awesome! They were voted as one of the top four running stores in the country. That's legit. Confession - I still feel self conscious around other runners. I'm pretty sure that people look at me and think, "What is she doing in here? She's not a real runner. Just go get your shoes at Payless. You disgrace the name of running with your bad form and your slowness. Only we cool runners belong here." And I know that's just my crazy acting up, but it's how I feel ... usually. But the sweet sales girl at Red Coyote didn't look at me like I was crazy or a loser even once! Not even when I told her that the socks I got for Christmas were "Ball - go" Socks. She just thought really hard and said, "Oh, Balega? Ok!" Yeah, I felt dumb. Anyway, I ran on the treadmill where they analyzed my gait (awful, please don't ever show me running in slow motion on a big screen TV!) and suggested some good shoes for me. I tried them on, found a pair I liked, and before I knew it THESE were in my possession!

She also suggested another kind of sock that might help with my blisters, so I bought them too. Christine, I still like the socks you got me better, even if I didn't know how to pronounce them! These new ones feel like straight jackets for your feet! Not only did I get an awesome pair of new shoes, but I also got 10% off because I used my Keep It Local card. Awesome deal, huh? Yeah, it was. I saved more on that purchase than the card cost me. I love Oklahoma City!

My new shoes are supposed to help counteract my pronation, so running yesterday with them (and my straight-jacket socks) felt very different. I'm pretty sore today, but it's that kind of sore that lets you know you did something right. It's a good sore. I'm hoping that once I get used to these shoes my blisters will subside and I'll be an all-around more awesome runner than I am right now. Who knows, maybe my knee pain will go away too. Crazier things have happened! I'm looking for new routes to run around the OKC area that minimize the danger of being mugged or run over, so if you have any good suggestions, throw them my way. Until then...

The Whole Half - Weeks 10 and 11

2011-12-31T00:45:00.001-06:00

Week 10 ended a while ago, and week 11 is almost over, so this post can cover both. The holidays are something else. I can't come up with a single adjective that describes the month of December's effect on me. I have such a romanticized view of Christmas and yet throughout the Christmas season I am usually stressed out and unhappy. Go figure. It seems like a lot of people are this way. Maybe this phenomenon is similar to when mothers forget the excruciating pain of childbirth and volunteer to have more babies (don't comment on that line there, I know nothing about babies, having them, or having more of them). The actual day of Christmas is usually pretty good, which must make up for all the frustration throughout the rest of the month. I enjoyed spending time with my family, we ate a lot of food and people liked the presents I got them. It wasn't restful at all - we were running around every day I was in Arkansas - but that's okay. My two days back in OKC have been good and I've experienced something akin to rest.

Last Sunday's run was postponed due to the fact that it was Christmas and I'm pretty sure it's illegal to run on Christmas. So I did a short run (4.5 miles) with my sister in law on the Saturday before and we did our long run of 7.5 miles on Tuesday morning. I got to meet one of Christine's friends and running buddies who is also training for the half marathon in April. We had a great run and I discovered that Siloam Springs is a fun place to run around. It's scenic, there are nice running trails, and the danger of getting hit by a car is much smaller than it is in OKC. Santa brought me a new fleece running jacket and brand new running socks for Christmas, so I broke out all the fun new stuff for our long run. Below is the picture of the feet of a serious runner (don't my socks make me look like a serious runner?). Sadly, the feet of this serious runner are pretty darn ugly. They are covered in blisters and missing a toenail. Fortunately, I think that's kind of cool. My future as a foot model was never very promising, so what do I care?

The 7.5 went great, and I'm already itching for 8. By the way, 7.5 was also a new personal record for me! I've never run that far in my entire life. Pretty crazy, huh? From now on, each time I increase my mileage it will be a new personal record. That is really exciting! After having such a great time with my running buddy Emily on Tuesday, we made plans to do another 4.5 miles the next day. At the time the idea sounded great, but my knee violently protested the next morning at 8:15 and we had to walk for at least a mile. Apparently my body isn't as excited about me becoming a serious runner as I am. I thought that icing, taping and ibuprofen-ing my knee would have been enough for a quick recovery. I was wrong. Oh well. Now I know. Running two days in a row is not something I'm cut out for. Hopefully I'll be okay by my next long run day on Sunday. Aside from the painful knee thing, I had a great chat with Emily and really enjoyed her company. Seriously, if I have to run for multiple hours I'm glad I'm doing it with interesting, encouraging, intelligent people. This half marathon thing will be a piece of cake!

I made it home from Arkansas Wednesday night with my new Kindle Touch, my new DVD player, and a slew of other cool things. My family does a great job of getting me exactly what I want for Christmas (probably because I tell them exactly what I want; they're good at following instructions). I'm trying to get as much of my life in order as I can, since I'm starting grad school in a couple weeks. I'm really excited and pretty nervous about the whole thing, but I think it'll be great (and if one more person who is in or has just finished grad school tells me how miserable I'm going to be soon, I might have to slap them. It's not often that I am optimistic about things. Just let me ride this train for as long as I can, okay? Realistic Corrie is still alive and well, she's just staying quiet and letting Optimistic Corrie have a chance to shine. Let her shine).

I'm planning to spend New Year's Eve downtown with a friend. I've heard OKC puts on a pretty good party, but I've never experienced it. Then I'll finish up Week 11 of my half marathon training on Sunday by doing a long run with my OKC running buddy Mike. I'm back to work on Tuesday, and the kids come back Wednesday. Vacation goes by so fast! I plan to enjoy these last few days to their fullest. You do the same. Have a great week!

The Whole Half - Week 9

2011-12-19T18:48:00.000-06:00

It just dawned on me that I don't have to talk about running every week! I mean just because this blog is chronicling my progress as a runner doesn't mean that the only thing worth mentioning is how far I ran... Duh! So let's get that part out of the way first. My knee hurt like crazy last Monday after running six miles with Mike, so I took it easy all week. i did a little bike work on Thursday but stayed off my knee as much as possible. Yesterday Mike came over and we did another 6 miles. Not a big problem. Yay! Next week is 7 miles. My knee still kinda hurts today but i figure there are three options: 1) My knee stops hurting eventually, 2) my knee keeps hurting and I just keep running on it 3) My kneecap explodes mid-run and I collapse on the pavement, Mike has to drag me back to my apartment, and I never walk again. That means I have a 67% chance of being just fine. I'll probably keep running until option 3 presents itself. Just in case, I should look into hiring someone to run behind me with a sedan chair...

Last week was pretty rotten. I know I said that about the week before too, and it was true. It's still rotten. I'm stressed out trying to force my students to pass Algebra II. I'm putting forth tons of effort and meeting resistance every step of the way. I've graded more make up work than I ever care to grade in my life, and I'm just kinda fed up. Of course I didn't realize until last Friday that I had been holding it all together (Those with superior deductive skills will guess that something happened last Friday that helped me realize I had been holding it all together, which probably means that I'm going to tell a story that involve me not holding it all together... Very good!).

I love working with the Spero Project. Helping with their books was the perfect summer job for me, and the people I met there are some of the most selfless, loving and hilarious people I know. So when I was invited to their Christmas party, you'd better believe I accepted the invitation! The invitation said that there would be a catered dinner and a potluck dessert. I began brainstorming all the delicious recipes I know (which didn't take long because I'm not much of a baker) and then remembered that one of my dear friends who is a part of the Spero Project (I won't tell you her name because it's not polite to discuss someone on your blog without getting his/her permission) has this crazy thing going on with her body where her diet is limited to pretty much nothing. She can't have most fruits and vegetables, no sugar, no yeast or wheat or gluten. So obviously she never gets dessert. Such a sad thing! I decided to attempt a dessert that she would be able to eat, thinking it would be such a thoughtful thing to do.

One of the very few fruits she can have are green apples. So, I thought, what about baked apples? That sounds delicious, doesn't it? And easy! I've never made baked apples before, so I looked up a few recipes and decided to do a trial run ahead of time. Tuesday I cored two apples and dumped a ton of cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg and cloves in (intending to substitute stevia for sugar later). The apples were delicious. Really. Picturesque. See for yourself.

Who wouldn't want to eat that? It was amazing! I had that one for dessert Tuesday night. I took notes and decided to experiment with a few changes that would make the apples better for sharing at a party. What if I sliced the apple into pieces, then coated it with the spicy goodness, then baked it? Then people could just pull off apple slices and enjoy. That didn't go so well, the apples turned out dry and not super tasty, so I decided to stick with my original plan, the world's most beautiful baked apple. I was so excited for my friend to have something to eat!!!

The apples are supposed to bake for 30 minutes, so about 40 minutes before I had to leave I mixed up the sugar and spices (stevia for the one for my friend), and took a shower while the apples were baking. After 20 minutes I checked the oven and the apples looked... ok. They looked baked, but they didn't have the awesome wrinkling or the slightly browned patches on the side. So I left them in for another 10 minutes while I did my hair and make up. Ten minutes later, when I got the apples out of the oven they looked like this:

They exploded! Are you kidding me? Ten minutes to go from OK to exploded!? Are you freaking kidding me!??? All that hard work of planning and testing and this is what happens?? Seriously? I was trying to do something nice for someone and I get exploding apples? So I'm already 15 minutes late for the party and I have exploded apples. That was when I realized what a delicate balance my sanity was hanging in. In a matter of minutes I went from a giddy girl excited about doing makeup and putting on cute clothes to an extraordinarily angry woman stomping out of her apartment and slamming her door. I drove (angrily) to Walgreens and picked up a box of Ferrero Rochers. Seriously? I spent hours planning beautiful baked apples and I had to buy those stupid chocolate covered hazelnut things? Now it looks like I didn't give the party a second thought and just grabbed the candy on the way. DANG IT!!

The rest of the night oscillated between being hilariously awesome (of course no one cared that I brought candy; there was plenty of yummy dessert) and devastating. I laughed all night at the party and then drove home crying. Oh my goodness, I'm a basket case. I can't wait for the crazy to end. Anyway, I've stabilized somewhat since my crazy (psychiatrically speaking) Friday night and I'm pretty sure that a two week break from my job is just what the doctor ordered. Which is good, because that's exactly what I'm getting! Wednesday ends the first semester and I will be taking a much needed vacation. Those of you who have never worked in the education field probably don't realize that vacation time is as much for the teachers as it is for the students. We all go a bit stir crazy around the end of the semester. Just wait 'til April comes around! I won't even be writing coherent blog posts! Rest for now, though, I'm still here to entertain you with my musings and insanity. Have a great week, and Merry Christmas, everyone!!!

The Whole Half - Week 8

2011-12-12T19:46:00.003-06:00

We all have those weeks. You know, the weeks when everybody drives you crazy, life is about two steps away from unbearable, and you just want to throw in the towel. That was last week. The bummer about being a teacher is that the Christmas season just isn't as enjoyable as it could be. I love Christmas, but in the educational world, we work ourselves into a major frenzy right before Christmas. Final exams, fundraising drives and students desperately begging for extra credit drive me crazy! So consequently, I didn't do anything Monday through Saturday to train. No cross training, no dancing, no interval running. But at least I made it out on Sunday!

I had a friend offer to run with me on Sunday. I usually run by myself, which is fine but often boring. So I took him up on the offer and we set off on our 6 mile adventure. I haven't known this friend for long, so we had plenty to talk about, getting to know each other. We had even more to talk about when the sleet came, about 10 minutes into our run! It was cold and wet an miserable outside, and we both agreed that we probably wouldn't have run if we hadn't made plans to run with each other (oh the joys of accountability!). But we stuck it out for the entire 6 miles (actually a little bit more because my watch didn't log the first 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile), which just so happens to be the furthest I've ever run. After my 6-mile repeat next week, I'll do my first ever 7 mile run on Christmas (I'm pretty sure that the chances of me running 7 miles on Christmas Day are about as good as the chances of me getting a Ferrari for Christmas).
So here are the pros and cons to running with someone:
CONS:

I run out of breath much easier - I usually have a hard time with my breath anyway, carrying on a conversation make it more difficult (I know, I know, you're supposed to be able to carry on a conversation. Don't preach at me.)
Other people are let in on your gross habits - Like constant spitting. I can't help it, I just spit a lot

PROS:

Someone to distract you - Conversation of any sort is a great distraction when your legs want to fall off and all you want to do is throw yourself down on the ground and quit.
Someone to encourage you - As you discuss your own personal achievements you also get to hear the stories of someone else's journey to fitness. It's awesome to know that other people have struggled like you and understand what you've been through.
Accountability - Like I said before, I never would have run at all on that chilly, windy, sleety day if it hadn't been for my running partner.

All in all, I'd highly recommend finding a running buddy. Life is much more interesting when shared with someone else, and the same goes for running. No man is an island, right? Right. One more full week of school left. I can handle this! Have a great week, folks!

The Whole Half - Week 7

2011-12-04T16:08:00.001-06:00

I had kinda hoped that by this point in my training I would be wanting to run a lot more than I am. I at least thought that by this point my will power wouldn't be throwing a 3-year-old-esque tantrum, flailing on the floor saying, "I don't want to, I don't want to!" Sometimes I wonder at the sanity of someone who is forcing herself to continually do something she doesn't have to do and doesn't enjoy doing. But that's not entirely accurate. I do enjoy running. I just don't enjoy starting to run. The act itself is totally fine, although I wish I had a running buddy to keep me company. It's just Newton's First Stupid Law of Motion. I'm at rest and I tend to stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force. I worry that one day that external force won't be around. I'm not sure what I'll do on that day. Let's hope it never comes.

I didn't work out much at all this week. I ran on Tuesday, but my Thursday short run was canceled so I could work at Shop Good to relieve a very very tired Justin and Audrey. My cross training days were pushed aside for other various reasons, including accompanying my friend Kim and her family to see The Music Man at Rose State College. So it was a fun week, but not very good discipline-wise. Nevertheless, my feet hit the pavement at around 2:30 this afternoon for my weekly long run (five miles again). Here are some things I noticed on my run today:

Weeping Willows: When I was a child, our neighbor had a weeping willow and I always thought it was one of the most beautiful trees, so big and full. The branches arch high up into the air and then fall all the way down to the ground. You can walk through the branches and feel as though you're in a magic forest. There are several of these majestic trees around my neighborhood, and each one fills me with some sort of reverent awe. every time I run past it.

Red Jeep Guy: I don't know who Red Jeep Guy is, and I'm not sure he knows who I am either, but every time I run, he's out and about in his red jeep, and he always smiles and waves. Thank you, Red Jeep Guy. Your small, sweet gesture encourages me more than you'll know. And if, by some chance, you're single, call me! Honestly, I don't know if Red Jeep Guy is good looking or not, because the glare from the windshield prevents me from seeing the bone structure of his face, but I know that he's a nice guy and he has a red jeep. Maybe my standards are lowering, but I think there could be something there. Come on, Red Jeep Guy, don't you want to wake up to this every morning?

And the last thing I noticed today: If you're running down a narrow street and a car is coming in your direction and you're thinking about being polite and running to the sidewalk to give the car room on the road, wait until a driveway or something. Don't cut through the grass. Especially after a full day of rain. Squishy shoes and socks are not enjoyable. In fact, they're pretty much the opposite of enjoyable.

There are two weeks left until Christmas vacation. I anticipate that these two weeks will be quite stressful, filled with work, exasperation and long nights. Maybe running more can help relieve that stress. Maybe. Maybe I should bake some cookies too. Definitely maybe. Have a great week, everyone! Enjoy the Advent season!

The Whole Half - Week 6 - Clammy Hands, Heart Racing, Weak in the Knees: Is it Love or a Good Run?

2011-11-28T16:21:00.001-06:00

Wow, six weeks in? It's hard to believe I've been training for this race for six weeks already. I'm definitely feeling stronger and more in shape than I was six weeks ago. That's a good thing, because I was pretty dang far from in shape six weeks ago!

Thanksgiving threw a little kink in my workout routine this week (because I allowed it to. I am not one of those whiny people who pretends that I have no control over things. I just wanted an excuse to slack a little and Thanksgiving was a perfect excuse!). I ran three miles on Tuesday and one mile on Thursday (it was supposed to be three, but I just ran a super fast one and called it even). I didn't do any cross training any other days. The only other working out I did was my long run on Sunday. That one is pretty much non-negotiable. I moved from four miles up to five this week and wasn't sure I'd be ready to do five, since I slacked off for the rest of the week. Fortunately, I pulled off five just fine.

When I woke up Sunday morning it was about 35 degrees and crazy windy. I waited until 2:00 in the afternoon when it was 45 degrees and crazy windy. The good thing about running on a cold day is it's usually not that cold when you finish your run. The gloves ended up being too warm at the end of the run but I kept them on anyway. Nothing outstanding to speak of other than that awesomely amazing Thanksgiving dinner that I had!

I spent Thanksgiving day with my friends in the city. We decided that four of us would get together and celebrate instead of going back to see our respective families. I showed up at 11:00 in the morning and we spent the first two hours making appetizers. I brought over snickerdoodle cookies and candied pecans and we also made deviled eggs and stuffed mushrooms with a spinach artichoke dip. DIVINE!!! Then we sat and watched football for an hour or so before we decided to make dinner. I made roasted acorn squash with a quinoa stuffing (SO AMAZING!) and asparagus, Logan made mashed potatoes and some sort of meat stuff, Audrey made chicken wings and gluten free focaccia, and Justin made this awesome cranberry sauce/whipped cream/graham cracker concoction. We spent the meal tasting everyone's dishes and commenting on how amazing it all was. Everything was so flavorful and delicious, and we weren't stressed at all, which is the best part! Holidays should not be stressful, people. But they always are. That is a shame. A crying shame. Anyway, we ate so much that we didn't eat anything else for the rest of the day. It. Was. Awesome. Looking forward to another great week!

Yeah, we had this. And you should be jealous.

Fun With Cross Training

2011-11-25T20:31:00.001-06:00

I haven't always been the breathtakingly confident woman you see standing before you today. When I was but a wee lass of 25, I was ridiculously insecure about my looks. My insecurities led me to steer clear of gyms. I wanted to be thin, but was terrified to set foot in a building where people would inevitably judge me for being weak, slow, and unfit. In a brief moment of bravery, I bought a gym membership. There were no fat people at that gym, which was extraordinarily depressing. I went a handful of times, but felt like I was being constantly laughed at. Neurotic? Maybe. But that's a conversation for the couch.

In an effort to make myself presentable for the gym and introduce some sort of workout routine into my life, I became the owner of many, many workout DVDs. I had Jillian Michaels' 30 Minute Shred, Tae Bo, Pilates, Yoga, and a slew of dance DVDs. I used a few sporadically, but never committed to any routine. Eventually I came to the realization that most people in gyms are far too focused on themselves (either because they are completely self absorbed or because they are in just as much pain as I am) to judge what I am or am not doing on the treadmill or with the weight machines. It was liberating, and I'm very glad I found freedom from the fear of constant embarrassment.

I still have those DVDs, and they have come in handy the past few weeks. My half-marathon training schedule (found at halhigdon.com) has two days of cross-training built in. I used Mr. Higdon's 10k training schedule last year, and went to the gym to use the stationary bike on cross-training days. But it's cold outside, and there are many days when I get home from work that I just don't want to go to the gym. Then I remembered the dance workouts.

Great way to spice up a workout!

I am not one of those girls who enjoys dancing. I feel silly and uncoordinated when I try to make my hands, feet and hips move in an appealing manner. But at home, there's no one to feel silly for, and dancing is a great workout! I get to develop strength in my arms, legs and core without endless repetitions with my hand weights. I have a DVD called Bollywood Booty that is super fun, and another two called 10 minute Dance Solutions (one is Latin dance, one doesn't have a genre). Do I feel silly while I'm doing them? You betcha. But that's what mini blinds are for. No one ever has to know how awkward my cross training days are. And that in itself is liberating. What fun and creative ways have you found to workout? I'd love to hear others' ideas.

The Whole Half - Week 5 - I Don't Enjoy Running and Might be Pretentious

2011-11-20T18:03:00.001-06:00

I woke up this morning at 8:35. It was 34 degrees, and that was all the convincing I needed to skip my morning run and go to church early. Great decision. I got to hang out with my friend Kim, have brunch at Deep Fork Grill (delicious!), walk around Whole Foods Market and then buy some super cool gloves to keep my hands nice and toasty as I run this winter. When I got home, the last thing I wanted to do was run. It's cold and windy today! But I dug deep and pulled out the last little bit of motivation remaining in the depths of my soul.

The truth is that I don't really enjoy running all that much. I know this sounds strange from a girl training for a half marathon, but it's the truth. As a girl I hated running. I used to say that if I were being chased by a crazed murderer I would just sit down and say, "Get it over with, buddy," because if I'm going to die anyway, why would I want my last few moments on earth to be spent running? But a few years ago I caught the bug.

The running bug is something I still don't quite understand. There's something about running that speaks to me. Maybe it's the way that my competitive spirit can be satisfied like in no other sport. Let's be honest, I am not the most athletic person. Basketball? Not my thing. Volleyball? Super fun, but I'm terrible! And I wouldn't mind this so much if I weren't crazy competitive! I hate losing! Running is a sport where I have only myself to compete with. I set my own goals and then I win when I achieve them. I'm not going to be the fastest runner in the world. But who cares? When I run by myself or even in a race, I really don't care about what everyone else around me is doing. My goal is not to beat them. My goal is to beat myself. I want to beat my goals. I want to set my own personal record. And the more I run the more personal records I set.

But as to my previous point, I really don't like running. It's not what I would call "fun." It's not always the highlight of my day. I don't sit around thinking, "Man, I wish I were running. That's a good way to kill an afternoon." Running is exhausting for me and sometimes painful. But whatever the reason, I do it. And the rewards from a good run always outweigh the inconvenience of the run itself.

So I ran. My long run this week was 4 miles. I ran 4 miles two weeks ago, so I knew that I could. But last week was kind of a dud and I only did 2.6 miles. So I found a good podcast to listen to (my new battle against exhaustion - better than music!) and did my 4 miles without a hitch. And as I went on my run, I found a few differences between afternoon running and morning running.

Kids playing with light sabers - Even though it was 40 degrees outside, there were kids on their lawns playing with light sabers. It was cute and a great distraction.

People with dogs and babies - There are quite a few runners and walkers in the morning hours, but quite a few more in the afternoon hours. It seemed like every other block that I saw someone on the sidewalk with a stroller or a puppy or one of these bad boys:

Smiles - Every city has a feel to it, and in larger cities every neighborhood has a feel to it. My neighborhood has a very healthy, natural feel to it. Roll your eyes if you will, but the people in my neighborhood drive Priuses (Prium? Prii? What's the plural for Prius??) and eat organic everything. I'm not sure that I've ever gone a day without seeing a runner on the sidewalk, and Whole Foods was made for my neighbors. It's a part of the community that I live in, which is surprising because Oklahoma is one of the fattest states in America. But whatever the reason, my neighborhood is quite health conscious (or pretentious; take your pick). As I ran, I began to feel like I was a part of the community. People who I had never met or even seen before were smiling and waving at me. I think it was because they recognized me as "one of them," whatever that means. I'm not sure that I am one of them, but they obviously felt some sort of a connection with me and it was special. Most days I don't feel like I belong here. But today I really felt like maybe I could belong here. I'm wondering if that makes sense to anyone but me.

Anyways, this post is running long so I'll just say that the run went well. Maybe if I get some spare time over Thanksgiving Break I'll fill you in on the fun way I've found to do my cross-training days! Have a great week. Enjoy your friends and family.

The Whole Half - Week 4

2011-11-13T08:57:00.001-06:00

Yuck, not the best week. This week I switched over from the 10k training schedule to the half marathon training schedule. The half marathon training schedule is only 12 weeks long and I have about 24 weeks until the race, so I'll just do each week twice, which is a good thing because this week needs a do-over!

I'm having trouble sticking to a training schedule that has me exercising 6 days a week. On a good day my job wears me out. On a bad day my job annihilates me. So when I get home after a long day of teaching hormonal teenagers in the midst of their angst-ridden lives about factoring polynomials, all I want to do is sit on my couch and eat macaroni and cheese, not go to the gym and get sweaty. Don't get me wrong, I really love exercising. It's just not always how I want to spend my time.

But this doesn't change my goal. I still want to run a half marathon. I just need to get over the inconvenience it's causing me and focus on the goal. A goal isn't worth setting if you don't have to work for it, right?

My long run this morning was supposed to be 4 miles again, which I know I can run because I ran it last week. Unfortunately my brain wasn't in the right place and I stopped at around 2.6 miles and then walked home. Not a terrible day, but not the greatest. I think this week is going to need to be better if I want to continue to believe I can do this thing. If anyone has any ideas or things that they use for staying encouraged and making exercise routines fun, feel free to throw them my way... UNLESS your advice is to work out in the morning. I get up at 5 am on weekdays just to get to work, people. I will NOT get up any earlier than that, so keep that advice to yourself!

The Whole Half - Week 3

2011-11-08T17:41:00.001-06:00

OK, quick update this week, because I'm very goal-focused right now, and my goal of doing my dishes is looming on my horizon for the night (and I always feel like I have less time in the day during winter months because it gets dark so early).

Thursday I ran on the Y's track. 19 laps for a mile, so I ran around in a lot of little circles and got my whole 2 miles in. I think I've found the key - no treadmill!

Sunday was my long run of 4 miles. I got up early, in spite of the "extra hour" I was promised. I ran all 4 miles, and it was a cool, beautiful morning. Yay for progress! Have a good week, friends.

The Whole Half - Week 2

2011-11-02T09:58:00.004-05:00

Yikes! So Week 1 = Awesome. Week 2 = Not even close to awesome.

Last week was stressful. It was the week after Fall Break, and the weeks before and after breaks are always the longest weeks ever! I had lots of work to catch up on, lots of responsibilities at school, and lots of cooking to do (I usually prepare food on the weekends to eat all week, but never got around to that so I ended up cooking throughout the week, which usually entails overly complicated recipes and stacks of dishes that don't get washed until 3-4 days later after I can't stand the smell of my kitchen anymore). Naturally, my workouts suffered.

Monday-Wednesday went fine with the exception of Tuesday's colossal failure. After running a full 3 miles on Sunday, I could barely do more than 1.5 on Tuesday! My conclusion - I hate the treadmill. Treadmills are evil, annoying and scary. When I'm running on a road I'm not worried about falling off. I'm also not looking at the screen every two minutes to see how far I've gone. No more treadmills for Corrie!

I was so exhausted from my stressful week that I took Thursday, Friday and Saturday off and just ran Sunday morning. Yes, this is in direct opposition to what Hal Higdon recommended for me this week, but I was just really stressed and low on energy. I did run on Sunday, but instead of doing the 3.5 miles I was supposed to, I stopped at around 2.5. I also got home from my family get-together this weekend to discover I'd gained about 6 pounds. 'Doh!

In spite of what you might think, I don't feel like a failure. It was a crummy week. We all have them. And the fact that I got back on the proverbial horse this week is encouragement enough for me. Here's hoping for a bit more structure, organization and triumph over my goals. I will prevail! And I've already lost two of my weekend pounds, so I'm not worried about that either.

On a side note, I'm thinking about signing up for a 5k in a few weeks. I haven't run a race in over a year and I think it would be a good way to remind my body what a race feels like. I've never run a race in the cold, though. More details on that to come...

The Whole Half - Week 1 Part 2

2011-10-24T12:02:00.003-05:00

I did my long run outside yesterday, because the Y doesn't open on Sundays until noon and I wanted to get the run over as soon as possible since I was dreading it and not sure how well I would do. Plus I know that the race will be outside too, so it only makes sense to run at least some of my miles outside.

I have a glorious neighborhood for running. Really, I do. I'm not rich, but I found an awesome apartment very close to the houses of rich people. People who hire lawn care services and have tennis courts in their backyards. People who hire professional landscapers and have marble lions on either side of their driveway. And while I'm pretty sure I'll never find myself living in one of these gorgeous historic homes, I do have the privelege of running on the streets outside the homes. That's the advantage running outside has over running in the gym. In the gym, the only thing you have to look at is the sweaty old guy on the elliptical facing your treadmill. And when you stare too long he starts to feel uncomfortable. When I'm outside, I can look at the trees, the beautiful homes, the animals, the other people running exponentially faster than me. It's much more fun!

My long run for this first week of training was three miles. The last time I ran three miles was during the Race for the Cure last October, just over a year ago. I've seriously let myself go, I know. I took off with the determination to run absolutely as much of the three miles as I could. I ran up and down the streets, from Robinson to Shartel and back. The sun was shining, I’m assuming birds were chirping (I was listening to my iPod), and before I knew it my three miles was up! It was a great run, and when I got home I felt invigorated, empowered and sweaty. I loved my Sunday run and am more confident that my body can handle this whole training thing than I was last week at this time. I have a feeling that this week is going to be another good one! We’ll see…

A Whole Half - Week One

2011-10-21T10:54:00.000-05:00

Maybe I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s as true now as the first day I said it: I need goals. I am a completely goal-oriented person. I recently took the Strengths Finder test (which I highly recommend all of you taking - seriously, stop reading my blog, head to a bookstore or Amazon and buy the book. The test is really enlightening) and it listed me first as an Achiever. I’m not sure if it put this strength first because it was my strongest or because it was listing my strengths alphabetically, but either way, I am an Achiever. I do best when I have a set goal that I can achieve. In light of this knowledge, I’m setting two goals for myself (lofty, I know).

First, I am training for the OKC Memorial Half-Marathon. I know that when I’m regularly exercising I feel better about myself - I have a more positive outlook on life, I’m more productive and I’m more fun to be around. Plus I don’t feel like a walking jello mold, which is always a bonus. This week I started following a training schedule that should get me ready for the half marathon by the end of April. I know that seems like a long way away, but I’m really out of shape and I don’t trust myself to be ready any sooner than 6 months from now. Hopefully that will be enough time for me to work my way up to 13.1 miles!

Second, I plan to blog about this adventure. I want to remember my feelings and struggles and I want all of you, my friends and family, to join the ride. It’ll probably get ugly. I’m pretty sure that there will be some failures along the way. There will be moments of pain, moments of pride, moments of ridiculous girly emotion. I’m also hoping that the pressure of announcing my intentions to all my faithful blog readers (both of you) will inspire me to keep at it and not give up. Because no one wants to feel like a failure, right? Right. So let’s get things started on the right foot! Welcome to the new blog series

A Whole Half

Week 1

I always feel like the first week of any sort of workout routine is the easiest. The first day is the hardest, but after that you love the feeling of exercising every day and you’re glad to head to the gym after a long day at work. This week has been no exception. I started off by doing an hour of yoga on Monday night, which the schedule lists as “Stretch and Strengthen” day. If yoga doesn’t stretch me and strengthen me, I don’t know what does! I was crazy sore for at least two days after the yoga.

On Tuesday I was supposed to run 2.5 miles. I did a solid 1.2 miles before I had to walk some, but then got in another .75 miles or so after walking for a couple minutes. The schedule said it was okay to walk as much as you needed because no one would care in the end whether I walked the entire half marathon or ran it. But I would care. I want to run it, dang it! I wasn’t thrilled with my performance on Tuesday, but since I haven’t run in ages I think that it could have been much worse.

Wednesday was a cross training day, so I logged in 30 minutes on the bike. I find the stationary bike to be extraordinarily dull, but I amused myself by listening to the Newsies and imagining that the cute guy on the bike next to me was staying on his bike extra long to work up the nerve to ask me out (of course he wasn’t, but I had to find some way to pass the time, right?) Maybe one of these days I’ll hit the pool for my cross training, but I’m not sure I could swim for 30 minutes straight. That sounds pretty intense.

I was pretty dang proud of my performance on Thursday. After barely clocking in a mile on Tuesday, I wasn’t getting my hopes up. But I ran the full recommended two miles! That made me feel very good, because I think it’s been about a year since I’ve actually run two miles. Two miles used to be such a small task for me. Boy have I regressed! But it’s okay, I know that if I could do it once I can do it again.

I have a lot of blisters on my toes. I forgot about this. Not cool. Maybe I need new shoes. Or maybe I need to learn how to run right. Or maybe I just need to toughen up and wait until my toes grow callouses and don’t care about the abuse I’m dealing out to them.

Friday’s my rest day and Saturday is another cross training day. Sunday is when I’ll do my long run, which is 3 miles this week. I’m pretty sure I can do it, but I’m still a little nervous. Fortunately, even if I don’t run the whole thing I can just try again the next time. And me screwing up will make for much better reading, won’t it? Cheerio, friends.

Oh September, I Thought You'd Never Come!

2011-09-07T19:51:00.000-05:00

I'm just emerging from my school daze - the zombie-like trance that I'm thrown into for the first two weeks of school until things calm down a bit and I can organize my thoughts (or have thoughts again). I've always been a pretty slow adapter. It takes me a few weeks to figure out what I'm doing, how my new schedule is going to look and where I'm going to squeeze in time to recharge my batteries. And now that I'm on the other side of the school daze I can update you, my good friends and family around the world, as to the goings-on in my life.

I am teaching five Algebra 2 classes this year. Yep, that's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times I get to teach the same lesson, answer the same questions, grade the same papers and give the same tests! Sure, doing the same thing five times every day can get old fast, but there are some benefits to teaching only one class. I get plenty of time to refine my super mad teaching skillz until my 6th hour (last class of the day) gets such an awesomely perfected lesson that they don't know how much awesomeness is hitting them until BAM! there it is! I also get to come up with fun activities to make Algebra 2 into the best class EVER.

I'm also a traveling teacher this year. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, let me explain: Moore High School is such a great place to work that teachers just don't seem to want to leave. They stick around forever and ever and ever... which is awesome, but it doesn't free up any rooms for us new teachers. Last year, two math teachers didn't have their own rooms so they traveled from room to room, occupying various spaces during other teachers' planning periods. One math teacher with a room left last year (the one whose job I got), so only one of those traveling teachers from last year got her own room this year. And I entered the purgatory that is traveling teacher status. Obviously the other teacher, who is on his second year of traveling, will get a room before me, but if I can get two teachers to leave at the end of the year, then I'll get a room too! The only problem with that is that I like all of the math teachers and don't want any of them to leave! Hmmm...

Anyway, I teach my first and second classes on the second floor, in the 700 building. My third hour class is in a portable classroom, which means that I get to haul all my class supplies and a classroom set of 30 graphing calculators (heavy heavy!) out to the portable. It's been God's good grace that it hasn't been raining during my transition time yet, but I know it's coming. Yikes. Not looking forward to that, but we'll make it work. 5th and 6th hour are in the same room back in the 700 building. The good thing about being a traveling teacher is that it forces you to be organized. Before you set out for the day you have to know all the materials you're going to need for the rest of the day, as well as how you're going to store/carry them. So far I've been successful at staying relatively organized. We'll see how long it lasts. I know myself too well :)

Teaching in a new school changes a lot. I'm teaching shorter classes more frequently to a different demographic than I did at my last school. There are positive and negative aspects to each school (as there are when comparing any old and new situation), and I'm learning to embrace the positive and not focus on the negative.

So what's my prevailing thought as I sit here blogging about being on the other side of the school daze? Man, I'd kill for a cupcake. Deep, huh? Let that one sink in... :) Hope you're enjoying the beautiful weather!

Corrie

Yep... I'm a lion now. Born a panther, temporarily a golden eagle, morphed into a tiger now a lion. Rawr

My Love of Running Rediscovered

2011-07-30T19:45:00.002-05:00

Remember when I used to run? I wrote a lot in those days. I really grew to love running, and I kind of miss it. I still run on and off, but this crazy oppressive heat has all but drained the motivation to not be fat right out of me. Seriously, I get up at 7:00 in the morning and it's already 85 degrees! There's no such thing as a refreshing jog in the seventh circle of hell. It doesn't exist. To give me yet another reason not to run, I don't have a goal in mind. When I was running last year, I was always training for a race or trying to lose weight. Now I'm just running because... what? Because I love it? Sadly, my love for running is comparable to the love that has held together all my past relationships. It fills the time on the good days but checks out when one of us gets bored (Don't take this personally, running. It's me, not you. We just want different things. I want to be fat and lazy and you want me to live a long, healthy life).

Today, however, my interest in running was renewed. As I mentioned before, I've taken a few extra jobs this summer, one of which was to do the books for The Spero Project, a really great non-profit I've worked with on and off over the last two years. Today, Spero was one of the charities that benefitted from The Dirty 30 Race, in my opinion one of the most awesomest races on the face of the planet. This 5k race included a climbing wall, 3 mud pits, obstacles galore, live music, free beer, awesome food and 105 degree heat. People from all over came in their crazy costumes to do this extreme obstacle course.

As a volunteer, my job consisted of sitting in the shade (and still sweating like Jon Gosselin at a Promise Keeper's rally) and talking to people about The Spero Project. I also helped out at a station where people donated their muddy shoes. We shipped the shoes off to a company that cleans the shoes and sends them overseas to people who need shoes. I really enjoy volunteering at events. I am much less afraid of people when I have a job to do.

Anyway, all this to say that the Dirty 30 Race looked awesome and I found myself walking around the property wondering if anyone would notice an unregistered runner in khakis and flip flops. Next year I'm all over it. And I'd love for lots of my friends to join me! Start training now, friends...

Look for pictures on their Facebook page. I was going to post some of them but I thought it increased my creepy factor by too many points...

Summery Summary

2011-07-29T12:54:00.000-05:00

I have tried to make a habit of never starting blog posts with an apology. So if you can forget the lack of communication over the last four months, I won't have to apologize for ignoring you. Good. Now that that's behind us...

The school year ended without much of a hitch (other than my characteristic getting angry at everyone around me for the last 2-3 weeks of school due to stress and my inability to maintain long-term relationships with flawed people... why am I still single??? :). There was one math position open at the end of the school year, so I applied. My interview went a little something like this: "Well, Ms. Matchell, I'm pretty sure that half of the math department would try to poison my coffee if I didn't hire you. So welcome!" There was a bit more formality to the meeting, but that was the long and short of it. Pretty awesome, huh? It was nice to know that not only did people recognize my awesomeness as a teacher and person, but they had all communicated it to the principal! I was really glad to have a promise of a stable income and health benefits.

Summer has been pretty great. I've picked up several jobs here and there to cover my expenses for the summer (substitute teachers don't get paid for the summer, and my contract with the school district doesn't start until the beginning of August). I'm still working at Shop Good a couple nights a week, I have been helping The Spero Project with their books while my sweet friend Maia (who usually does their books) has been taking some much needed vacation time, and I taught three weeks of summer school (taking a note from Thumper the Rabbit, I will say nothing at all about summer school).

I made four trips to Arkansas this summer (so sorry, Camry. You handled it like a trooper). The first was to celebrate school being over (and because I hadn't seen my family in a few months). The second was to take care of my parents' house while they went on a cruise. The third was specifically designed to make me feel older and singler than ever before by allowing me to be a witness to the marriage of a girl I babysat during my junior high years to a boy I watched grow into a man of integrity. Lovely, sweaty outdoor wedding. The bride looked fabulous and I got to see pretty much all the most important people from my life in Siloam Springs. The fourth trip was the week after the wedding to celebrate my dad's retirement from coaching. Some of his former players threw him a surprise party. It was a neat thing to be a part of.

One quick story: has anyone ever told you, "You haven't changed a bit since high school"? Someone told me this at the sweaty wedding, and I know she meant it as a compliment. And then the next weekend I saw my high school self. I was the statistician for the high school boys team during my sophomore, junior and senior years of high school, which meant that I was a part of the team pictures. And part of the decorations for the retirement party was framed team pictures from every year my dad coached. Out of curiosity (don't we always look for ourselves in pictures first?), I sought out my high school years and was faced with the sad reality that I was not the cutest girl in the world during my high school years. Apparently, I had yet to master the art of dressing to flatter my figure and the other art of straightening my hair. But I was young and it was the 90's, right? Let's leave it at that.

And now, after all the blood, sweat and tears (although if I were to list them in order of abundance it would have to be sweat, sweat, sweat, tears and blood) that the summer of 2011 has brought, I find myself with only a week left. New teacher orientation starts soon, then regular teacher orientation, then the insanity begins again! I've forgotten how great it is to be a teacher and get a break every summer. It's been awesome, but I won't be sad to see it go either. I definitely thrive on structure and schedules, which each school year is kind enough to offer me. Although I promised not to begin the blog post with an apology, I will end with one. I'm sorry it took me so long and that I have no pictures to make this more interesting. I'll try harder to be more consistent. You can put as much stock in that promise as you'd like. Deuces.

Moving!

2011-04-04T19:26:00.001-05:00

When I was a little girl they used to tell us that the month of March came in like a lion and out like a lamb. Does anyone remember that? I loved that saying because, since my birthday is at the beginning of March, it made me the lion. And I would imagine myself destroying all the weaker animals around me. Plus, how many other months get fun little sayings about them? February's the only other one and that's at the end of that "30 Days Hath September" thing, and who can even remember what they say about February, because it doesn't rhyme! Oh yeah, there's the April showers/May flowers thing too, but I'd much rather be a lion than a shower. Well the lion/lamb thing was pure lies this year. My birthday was cool but beautiful. And the end of March was miserably cold and windy! Thanks a lot, March. April, you'd better show us what you got. It's up to you to redeem the weather. And you're not off to a great start.

Ok, enough griping about the weather. I live in Oklahoma. That could be a full-time job. So after almost three years of living in Chocatw, I moved this weekend from the country to the city. I'm now an official resident of Oklahoma City. I tell most people that I live downtown, but I think technically it's called Midtown. Whatever. You probably wouldn't have known the difference unless I told you. So I have a cute little one bedroom apartment right in the heart of OKC.

It took me a surprisingly short amount of time to move. You know how usually when you move you realize how much stuff you have? So you throw away as much as you can, then you make vows to be less materialistic until a week later when you see the infomercial and realize that you really should have kept that Snuggie. And now they come in tie-dyed colors! (By the way, I just remembered that when I was a kid, my family called wedgies snuggies. Mom, Dad, do you remember this? Am I right? Did anyone else do this? I'll never buy one now, if only because of the association it has with uncomfortable underwear.)

I got all of my small things moved in two car trips, and my family came on Sunday with a U-Haul filled with furniture. When I decided that I was going to move to China three years ago, I sold or gave away a lot of my stuff. But there were a few things that I kept or asked my parents to store. Fortunately it was enough to fill a one-bedroom apartment. So with the help of family and some great friends, we got everything unloaded and in place really quickly. It was really sweet of everyone to give up a Sunday to help me move. And if I'd thought about it I would have taken pictures of us moving. But we were working so hard, it never occurred to me! Oh well, I'll post pictures of the new place as soon as it's all decorated.

So if you live in the area or if you're planning to be in the area, you should stop by and see my new place! It may not seem like much to you, but it's my new home and I love it.

Oh Dear Coffee, How I Miss Thee...

2011-03-26T18:52:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I have ideas that seem noble and genius, but two weeks later just seem stupid. Anyone with me? As most of you know, the season of Lent is upon us. Being a Protestant excuses me from the obligation of Lent, but I think there's definitely some wisdom behind this season of fasting in anticipation of Easter. It kind of saddens me when I see the importance placed on Christmas and the way Easter is ignored (I'm pretty sure I've blogged on that before, so I'll get off that soapbox now). Regardless, I feel like the time before Easter is a great time to deny myself of something in an attempt to increase my dependency on Christ.

But I wasn't going to do Lent this year. I had so much on my plate with the new job and looking for a new apartment, etc. that I thought it would be easiest not to add another stressor to my life. I didn't even think about giving anything up until Ash Wednesday night. And as I was driving home I wondered if there even was anything I could give up for Lent. Chocolate? No, I don't eat that much chocolate. Meat? Nice try, idiot. Coffee? Don't be ridiculous... Wait, what? The fact that I dismissed coffee so quickly shot up a red flag in my head. I'm all for having a few creature comforts, but any time a creature comfort becomes indispensable to me, I know I need to take a good hard look at myself and examine if that thing is controlling me. I don't ever want to fully rely on anything, save Jesus.

So there was my genius move. With no preparation, with no proper farewell, I gave up coffee for 40 days. Some of you, like my mom, won't see what the big deal is. I mean, it's just coffee, right? Who cares? Some others of you, like my dad, will wince. What were you thinking, Corrie? I tell you what, guys, it has not been easy. I typically have two to three cups a day and it's killing me. I didn't give up caffeine altogether (I mean I have to be around teenagers all day. We don't need any casualties due to my crazy notions), but the comfort and peace I get when sipping a cup of coffee is what I mist the most. It's a feeling that hot chocolate and tea can't match. Trust me, I've tried!

So here we are, a month away from Easter, and I would kill for a cup of coffee. I mean it, I might actually commit homicide if I thought that the detectives would haul me into the questioning room, then while deciding who was going to play Good Cop and who was going to be Bad Cop, they offered me a cup of day old coffee. It just might be worth it. Do you get free coffee in prison? Just kidding. But seriously I sell at least a bag or two of coffee at Shop Good every time I work, and it's painful to smell the aroma of the locally roasted coffee as I bag it up and give it away to someone who might not appreciate the blessing of the bean...

OK, so maybe I still have some issues to work concerning my dependence on coffee, huh? Hopefully I'll learn a lot from this experience. Right now I'm just hoping to make it out of Lent alive. Life will go on, Corrie. Life will go on. Be gentle with me, I'm in a fragile state.

29 is Mighty Fine!

2011-03-04T16:27:00.000-06:00

Birthdays are awesome. Really. Anyone who doesn't like their birthday is just kind of lame in my opinion. And this week was my birthday! Woohoo! My students tried to guess how old I was, which was amusing until they started guessing way too high (seriously, I do NOT look 42). The thing about high school kids is that they think they're funny. And honestly, they're usually not. The times they are funny is when they don't mean to be. But most jokes that come from high schoolers just aren't funny. I try to explain that to them but they don't get it. It's all about subtlety, timing and wit, guys.

So what happened on my birthday? Well, I woke up super excited (of course!). Then, while straightening my hair, I burned my neck with my straightening iron. I've never done this before, but who hasn't heard that excuse? Seriously, I just laughed because who was going to believe me? But I really did! So I wrapped a scarf around my neck because the burn hadn't revealed its color or form yet and I didn't want to take any chances. It turned out to be a funky triangle-shaped burn that no one could misunderstand. Whew! Close one! I got a text from my dad at the exact minute I was born, 5:57 am. Isn't that sweet? What a guy! And my sister in law texted soon after. My mom called before school, even my brother texted me! I didn't know he knew how to text!

Of course there were about 60 obligatory facebook messages wishing me a happy day, year, etc. I choose to believe that every one of those people already knew it was my birthday and was planning to message me anyway. Facebook didn't have to tell them, they just love me so much that they know when my birthday is! :) I also choose to be honored by all of the messages and take them as genuine messages of love, not obligations. So I felt very loved by my facebook community!

After school I bought a birthday cup of coffee and a birthday scone at Coffee Slingers because the oatmeal, donut, Taco Bueno, potato chips and M&M's I'd already had weren't enough and all food is calorie free on your birthday (You think I'm lying. Look it up! It's true!). Then I went to Shop Good because I work there on Wednesdays. The night was pretty good. We made some great sales and some really fun people came into the store. When I got done for the night, my dear sweet friends gave me a home cooked vegetarian dinner, two cupcakes, and a pleasant evening sitting on the porch and relaxing. What a great day!

I was a little nervous about turning 29 earlier in the week, but then I realized that I don't really have a desire to stay in my 20's forever. The 20's have been quite tumultuous! I've been through a lot of crazy stuff, and I don't really have much of a desire to go through it again or keep going through it. I wouldn't go as far as to say I've gained a LOT of wisdom, but I'm not nearly as dumb as I was when I was 25. I mean seriously, who was that crazy girl? Not a genius, that's for sure. And selfish. I'm glad to be coming out of some of that. Granted, I'm still pretty dumb sometimes, and I fight my selfish nature daily. But I'm much more self aware than I was at 25. So I've decided that instead of lying and staying in my 20's forever, I'm going to stay 30 forever. It seems much less dramatic. I'll be thirty and flirty and thriving! :)

I'm sure other stuff happened this week, but none of it really matters, because it didn't revolve around my birthday! If you forgot to wish me a happy birthday on Wednesday, you're still allowed to make that up within the next 28 days. A nice gift would go a long way toward me forgiving you too. Don't worry, I'm not super greedy. All you need is a 25 dollar Starbucks gift card and forgiveness is within your reach! In the meantime, if I forget any of your birthdays in March, you have to forgive me because mine pretty much takes precedence over any and all "important" events for the rest of the month. But I'll wish you a happy birthday right here and now: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARCH FRIENDS! Consider yourself wished and privileged to share in my joy.

Jet-Lag is a Beast

2011-02-26T23:59:00.000-06:00

OK, so I need to amend that "slightly jet-lagged" comment I made last week. I am WAY jet-lagged and still recovering! How do I know? I had at least 2-3 breakdowns last week, which is a lot even for a crazy person like me! One was over dying alone with large quantities of cats crawling all over my decaying corpse (which I logically know will never happen because I don't even like cats. Dogs would be a more plausible scenario). Another was over being the stupidest teacher on the planet who couldn't figure out the calculus problems she had already assigned her students and didn't remember how to do simple integrals. But God is good and He sent encouragement all along the way. My sister in law reminded me of why I'm awesome and helped me to be grateful for all the things I have, and a very sweet barista at Coffee Slingers let me push over a chair in the midst of my calculus angst.

I'm feeling much better now! The world is not a terrible place, even if I do die alone it's no big deal because at that point my body will just be a shell and my spirit with be with Jesus and I won't care how many domestic animals are roaming about, and not understanding calculus does not make me an idiot. All this comes from a few good nights of sleep, some rest, and a clean room. I am, however, staring the age of 29 in the face now, and the fact that I'm beginning the last year of my 20's in only a couple of days might be justifiable cause for another breakdown. We'll have to wait and see. Hopefully I got all the crazy out of my system for awhile now and I can handle getting older with grace. We'll see!

Aside from my meltdowns, there's not much to talk about. I'm still subbing, looking for a permanent job next school year. Still working at Shop Good and loving it. I'm doing an after-school tutoring program twice a week now, which will be nice to get me a little extra money. And I'm looking around for a place to move that's close to downtown (if you know of anything, please let me know!). I know you were probably hoping for a fun insight into the world around us described by my characteristic wit and sarcasm. I tried to think of something good, I really did. But I got nothing. Maybe next week will be more humor-producing. I'm sure it will be; you can't have a dull day with teenagers! Have a great week guys. Thanks for stopping by (does that make anyone else think of the movie Anchorman? Stay classy, San Diego).

A Quick Update

2011-02-13T12:39:00.000-06:00

I'm back in Dakar after an exhausting week of travel. Here's a quick overview:

I flew out from OKC early Friday morning (We actually took off at 7, but I was my typical paranoid-about-traveling-and-getting-there-late self so I left the house at 3:30 am just to be safe). This is me at 3:00 in the morning SUPER excited and in shock to be actually leaving!!!

I had just enough time in Minneapolis to get to the next gate and board the plane to New York. In New York I had 3 or 4 hours to kill. I thought about eating lunch at a fun, new place, but the best place I could find wanted to charge me $11 for cold Pad Thai, so I opted for Chili's. Exotic, I know. Boarded the plane for Senegal and endured the 7 or 8 hour trip with no bathroom breaks (mostly because I was in the window seat and didn't want to do the awkward scooting thing with my behind in everyone's face). They showed Eat Pray Love (not a huge fan), some movie I didn't know, and 4 Christmases. The dinner was chicken with risotto and mixed veggies. I didn't see an option when signing up to get a vegetarian meal, so I just had to avoid the chicken. The rest wasn't too bad, though. I was impressed.

We landed in Dakar at 6 in the morning and after an hour of getting through customs and yet another baggage check, my friends were waiting to pick me up. We drove to the mission home we were staying at and I fought sleep for about 3 hours before I happily decided not to fight the jet lag thing and took a nice nap.

The next morning we jumped up and into a van to ride with another family from Dakar to Tamba. 6 white adults, 3 white children, 1 African driver and 1 African driver's friend in one relatively comfortable van. We left at about 5 or 6 in the morning, stopped 3 or 4 times along the way, and made it to Tamba by about 1 or 2 in the afternoon. LONG RIDE!!! We spent the rest of the day settling in at the office my friends have in Tamba and getting ready to head out to the village.

The next morning, sometime before sunrise (I think it was around 6:30) we headed out for the village, Oundoundou (pronounced OONdoondoo). I carried two boxes containing two chickens each on the back of my bike. They squawked every time I went over bumps, which happened a lot on that road! Everyone greeted us like rock stars when we got there about 2 hours later, saying "They came! They came!" and running after us on our bikes. What a bike ride it was! I haven't ridden a bike in a long time. Sore muscles!

We spent four days enjoying village life (more on that in another post) and headed back to Tamba on Friday morning. This ride seemed more bearable and I only asked to stop once for water. I was sick all day Saturday and don't remember much of the day other than being disappointed in not being able to go visit friends and go to the market to pick out fabric to have a dress made by a tailor here. I also remember not wanting to eat anything and wishing I had a western toilet to just sit on.

I woke up the next morning (this morning) feeling weak but much better. We took off from the office this morning at about 4:00 am, didn't stop much and got to Dakar by around noon. The trip felt much shorter, but that's probably because I slept most of the way. Right now we're sitting in a very nice home for visiting missionaries. Aaron is ironing clothes, Andrea and Elijah are playing outside and I am writing all of you.

I realize this is a very basic update with not a lot of my typical humor or insight. That will come one of these days when I'm not so tired and I have a bit of perspective. This has been a great trip and I've loved spending time with my friends. I've heard Arkansas and Oklahoma got hit hard with snow. We've had temps up in the 90's at least. Funny. The next few days should be more tourist-y. We'll head out to Goree Island, a big touristy place. Hopefully I can find some souvenirs for my family there. Wednesday night I head back, via Paris and Atlanta. I should be back in OKC (Lord willing) Thursday at around 5 pm. Then I'll turn around and get up at 5 am Friday morning to teach! Woohoo!!! Can't wait! Honestly, though, I'm so glad I took this trip. It has been amazing. I'll talk to you all later!

If Ed Harris Were Wearing a Beret While Directing My Life, Would You Tell Me?

2011-01-29T12:29:00.000-06:00

The last six weeks of my life have flown by, and I haven't given blogging a second thought. But, seeing as I'm in the midst of some awesome life changes, and I'm on the eve of something even more awesome, I thought I'd give you all a little shout out so you could know what's going on. So here are a few more of Corrie's Stories:

December 31, 2010 was my last day at my job as Finance Director of Heart of God Ministries. I felt it was time to move on and find a job that better suited my passions, desires and skill set. I'm still living on campus for a few months while I try to save up money and find a new permanent job. On January 4th, I started working at Moore High School as a long-term substitute for a teacher on maternity leave. This opportunity came up suddenly and unexpectedly, and was more than I had even thought to pray or ask for. I have loved working at Moore. The teachers there are very friendly and supportive, my students are all really great kids, and I'm remembering just how much I love teaching. The teacher I'm filling in for right now teaches Math Analysis and AP Calclulus BC. Each class has presented its own challenges and rewards. The Math Analysis is challenging because I have to find new and interesting ways to present the material to kids who might not really care all that much about math. The calculus is challenging because it's been 9 years since I took calculus in college, and I have had to study hard every night to remember the material and come up with effective ways to explain it to others.

The best part about this sub job is that it actually came with another job attached to it! I am subbing for this teacher from the first of the school year until spring break. And then, when spring break comes back, I'm subbing for another math teacher in the same school. How cool is that? I'm super excited to have the opportunity to be in a great school with supportive staff and an academically challenging environment. God is good, people. Even when you don't ask Him to be.

The other crazy thing about this job is that they are letting me, the long-term sub, take 2 1/2 weeks off! When the coordinator called at the end of December to ask me about the job, I agreed but told her that she might not want to hire me because I had already made travel plans for the first half of February and would not be able to reschedule or cancel them. Surprisingly (I guess no one else was available for the job), she said that would be fine. So now, I'm busy getting plans together to give to the woman who will be subbing my classes for the next 2 1/2 weeks. She's a sub for the sub. Strange, huh?

So where am I going? What is this 2 1/2 week trip I'm taking? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm on my way to Senegal, Africa! I have some friends who live in Senegal, and I love them tons, plus I really miss hanging out with them. So I decided that the best thing to do was just to run out there and visit them. I've been planning this trip for nearly a year now, and it's hard for me to believe that it's almost here. On Tuesday I'll take off from OKC, and I'll arrive in Dakar (the capital of Senegal) on their Thursday morning. Then I'll spend about two weeks running around, learning what my friends do from day to day. Then it's back on a plane to fly home, one day of recovery, and back to teaching on Friday the 18th. Here's praying for minimal jet lag and no malaria!

I'm super excited about this trip, guys, and would appreciate all the prayers and good thoughts you can throw my way. Did you know that this will be my first overseas trip? I've been out of the country before to Mexico, but you don't have to go over a sea to get to Mexico, just a river. I've tried to go overseas before, but it's never worked out. This time, I'm determined that I WILL get out of the country! It will hold me in her evil clutches no longer! I know that there is a great big world out there and I am determined to see at least some of it, dang it! If something happens to prevent me from this trip, I'm going to start looking around for the hidden cameras because I will officially be convinced that I am the subject of the real life equivalent to the Truman Show. I just looked at the weather and it looks like an ice storm might be heading in the night before I'm supposed to leave. Seriously. Not cool.

I'll try to take tons of pictures while I'm over there and I want to keep a journal of everything I see and feel and experience so I don't forget. I might not have much internet access for awhile, but I'd still love to read your emails, comments and facebook posts when I have a chance. Keep it real, America. I'll see you on the flip side.

Day 16 - Thankfulness

2010-12-16T18:33:00.000-06:00

Whoa, betcha didn't see that one coming, did you? That shows how much you know. Today I am thankful for thankfulness. More specifically, my capacity for it. Let me explain.

I think we all know people who find it difficult if not physically impossible to be thankful, not matter what happens to them. Hey, you just won the lottery! Yeah, but now I have to pay taxes on it. And all my relatives and old friends are going to call and ask me to give them money. Congratulations on that job promotion! Yeah, now I'm working twice as much. Really, my hourly rate didn't go up any, because my hours increased proportionally with my pay. You got a gold medal in the Olympics, that's awesome! Not really. The rest of the competition was mediocre at best, and what event am I ever going to be invited to that will require me to wear a gold ribbon? Your new baby is so cute! Yeah, she's not so cute when she's screaming at 3:00 in the morning. Seriously, Debbie Downer!

I have, at times in my life, been not so good about being thankful. I think it comes from being a problem solver. I just look for problems to solve, which mens that I look for things that are wrong. But being thankful is so much more fun than being critical! So today I am thankful that I have chosen to be thankful. It has improved my outlook on life while simultaneously eliminating me from that "death of the party joy-killer" status.

Day 15 - Hair Stylists

2010-12-15T16:15:00.000-06:00

There is not much in the world that I would rather do than get my hair done. It's one of the most wonderful things in the world. I am not exaggerating. It's amazing. Why? I'm not quite sure. I think I just like the idea of having one person whose entire goal for an hour is to make me look good. That's my goal every morning, but this person that I'm paying is so much better at it than I am! So when I go to a hair stylist and she cuts and colors my hair, washes it (I LOVE getting my hair washed, but it's not nearly as fun to wash it myself), and styles it, I feel like I'm someone special for just a little while. Someone that is worthy of the attention of this super cute, stylish girl. And I know that she won't be happy unless I look good, so it's a win-win situation.

I got my hair done today and it looks really good. It's pretty much the same style I had about 3 years ago, but this time I'm skinner and I think it looks better. So because they make me look good, if only for a day, I am thankful for hair stylists. Especially Coel at Le Fringe Salon in dowton OKC and Michelle at Trends in Siloam Springs (I was loyal to her until getting my hair meant a 3 hour road trip). Good work, ladies.

My new hairstyle - What do you think?

Day 14 - Calm Mornings

2010-12-14T15:58:00.001-06:00

Living here would make each morning just a tad bit calmer, I think.

Who wouldn't want to wake up to this scene?

This morning I work up extra early so I could go to the gym. Let me tell you, it was painful. Not the gym, that was no big deal. But the numbers 5:30 on my phone hurt my eyes. How can you people possibly get up this early?

As I was driving to and from the gym, I realized how lucky I am to be able to take my time getting ready every morning. Typically I get up at 7 and make it into work by 9. I take my time taking a shower, picking out an outfit, making breakfast, having my quiet time, doing my hair, making coffee and catching up on all the facebook gossip. And eventually, when I feel like it, I start working. It's a beautiful thing to not be hurried in the morning, and it puts me in a better mood for the rest of the day And so I'm thankful for calm mornings. No elaboration necessary.

You can also put this under another reason why I'm thankful for singleness. I don't know too many mothers who get these kinds of mornings.

Day 13 - The ability to laugh at myself

2010-12-13T10:29:00.001-06:00

One day I went running out at Lake Hefner. When I got there, I saw that there was obviously another event planned for the day, because portions of the sidewalk were closed off and a police officer was sitting, in his car, in the entrance to the parking lot. I parked elsewhere and decided to run what I could, where I could. I watched a few runners circumventing the blockade by running on the road for a little bit, then jumping over the tiny fence (about 2 1/2 feet high) and getting back on the trail. I thought it looked like a great idea, so I followed suit. I ran on the road, right in front of the police officer and when I had passed the place the race officials had marked off (so we couldn't run on the trail), I jumped over the fence. Well... sort of. You see, I've never been the agile, graceful type. I was kicked out of gymnastics for not being able to do a cartwheel and I've fallen just about every which way possible. I've even fallen while standing still. So of course I didn't lift my legs up high enough to clear the fence, and I face-planted into the grass on the other side (not literally, but knee-planted doesn't sound nearly as impressive). Then the cop got out of his car and asked, "Are you ok?" I was in panic/freak out mode, thinking "Oh shoot, I just bit the dirt doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing, and now the guy who was supposed to be keeping me from doing that thing is checking up on me!" So I did what we all do when we're embarrassed; I pretended like nothing happened. I quickly scrambled up and kept running, calling back to him as I continued, "I'm ok!" Awesomeness.

It was like this, only with fences, dirt, one person, and less devastating

(So it was nothing like this. Fine. But it was the only picture I could find of runners falling.)

A few weeks later, I was driving down 23rd street in OKC. The corner of 23rd and 235 is a big intersection, and there are almost always a handful of people on the side of the road asking for money. I stopped at a red light and saw a man up ahead (I was 4th or 5th in line) asking for money. I looked through my wallet and found $2 and decided I'd give it to the guy when I got up to him I figured I could just roll slowly by and hand him the money as I went through the light. The light turned green, and I began to put my plan in action. I rolled down my window to prepare for the drop. Here's the problem, people. Our version of slow in our cars is quite different from a stationary person's version of slow. So I put the money out the window, but the guy missed the grab! At this point, I was driving past him already and getting ready to turn, so it looked like I was just holding the money out the window to tease the homeless guy! But I really wanted him to have the money. I couldn't think fast enough to put my foot on the brake (of course not, that would be too logical), so instead I just yelled, "I'm sorry!" and threw the money out the window, where it landed in the street. Anyone watching could have imagined me saying, "You want it? You want it? Ha! Then go get it!" All I was trying to do was help!

I learned awhile ago that I have to be able to laugh at myself if I don't want to be miserable all the time. Life is nothing if not funny, and finding the humor in life sometimes means having to laugh at ourselves. If I couldn't laugh at myself, I'd still be shamefully embarrassed of both of the situations I described to you. But you know what? That's life. That's what happens. And if we can't laugh, we might cry. I'd prefer to laugh. So because I know I'm going to do more stupid things, probably even before the end of the day, I am thankful that I have the ability to laugh at myself.

Day 12 - Saturday Church

2010-12-12T13:24:00.000-06:00

I am not a morning person. Anyone who has lived with or near me can testify to that. It takes me a good hour of wakefulness to even want to talk to someone, and another half hour or so to be able to talk coherently. Coffee doesn't speed up the waking process either, it just makes it less painful. This doesn't mean that I never get up early. I just don't like it.

It's because of my dislike for mornings that I truly appreciate this new fad that's going around, Saturday church. A lot can happen on a Saturday night. Fun parties, late-night chats with friends, tear-jerking movies, heart-to-hearts, and major relationship drama can all keep us up until the wee hours of Sunday mornings, which makes church a chore. I can't tell you how many times I've had to drag myself out of bed just so I could sit in a chair in the middle of a big room and not pay attention because I was still exhausted from the night before. I couldn't give my best to God on some Sunday mornings, because I didn't have my best available. My best me is not available in the mornings.

But Saturday church usually happens in the late afternoon or early evening. That's my time! That's the time when I'm on the ball, on my game, ready to give and ready to receive. Sure, it might cut into some of the fun things that are planned for Saturdays, but a) why shouldn't we sacrifice a bit of selfish pleasure for God and b) you can just push any plans you may have back a couple of hours and then stay up even later that night, because you get to sleep in on Sunday morning!

I haven't quite mastered the art of going to Saturday church without feeling guilty on Sunday morning yet, but I do really enjoy having the option to worship on Saturday night instead of Sunday morning. Even though I don't take advantage of it all that often, I am thankful for Saturday church.

Day 11 - Singleness

2010-12-11T21:57:00.000-06:00

I was a little worried about writing this post on the off-chance that some incredibly good looking 6 ft + single guy in his late 20's or early 30's who has a good sense of humor, a passion for Jesus and who enjoys both sports and music might read this and think, "Man, I was going to ask Corrie out on a date tomorrow. Too bad, because apparently she just wants to stay single." If that is you, please read this carefully... CALL ME!!! Just kidding. But I'm serious. Call me.

There are good things and bad things about every state of life. Having realized this early on (I wrote an editorial about it in our high school newspaper), I decided that one of the goals in my life would be to search for the positive and the enjoyable aspects of wherever I am, whatever position life finds me in. I'm not always as successful in this as I could be, but I have found that when I consciously make the decision to be grateful for what I have, life is sweeter.

I thought I would get married in college or just after. That's what my parents did, that's what my brother did, and I figured that I was destined to do the same. But that didn't happen. And here I am, 28 years old and single. But do not pity me, singleness is pretty awesome! Here are a few of my favorite things about being single.

I get the entire bed to myself! Right now I sleep on a twin bed, so thank goodness I get the whole thing to myself! But even when I used to sleep on a queen, the whole thing was mine. I used up every inch of that bed, rolling around and wadding up the covers all around me. And I never woke up feeling bad because I had kicked someone or stolen all the blankets. Plus, no one ever wakes me up in the middle of the night because he's not feeling well or he has to go to the bathroom or he can't sleep.

I can cook whatever I want for dinner. There is no other appetite to be concerned with. I don't have to worry about whether anyone else is tired of eating the same soup for 3 days in a row. I don't have to create two meals to satisfy two different tastes, and I don't have to ever ever ever buy meat.

I can go where I want, when I want to go there. If I want to be late for something, I can be late. If I want to be early, I can be early. If I want to change my plans in an instant, I can change them. There's no one to consult, no other schedule to throw a wrench in my plans.

Holidays are way cheaper when you're single. No boyfriend or husband, no boyfriend or husband's friends and family to buy for. Just the people you actually know and care about. Plus, Valentine's Day is a huge money saver! Haagen Dazs and a Redbox are less than 1/4 of the price of cologne or a wallet or some lame gift, and way WAY cheaper than a really cool gift (honestly, I've only bought one or two Valentine's Day gifts ever in my life, so I couldn't give you an example of a really cool gift).

There are lots more reasons I am thankful for being single; I seem to find a new one every day. So please, the next time you see me and think of throwing some pity-filled cliche my way (Oh, Corrie, it's better to be single for longer and wait for the right guy than it is to get married early to the wrong guy... Just wait, he's out there... God's got a plan for you and He's saving up someone special just for you... He'll show up when you stop looking for him...), please stop, save yourself the black eye I will give you if you do speak those words, and remember this: I am thankful for my singleness :)

Day 10 - Hot Baths

2010-12-11T21:17:00.000-06:00

I inherited my love of water from my mother. When I was a little girl, she would take hot baths, probably to decompress from her two children who thought driving her crazy was their sole purpose in life. So what did I do? I busted in on her almost every time. I don't know why she didn't kick me out, but she was always kind enough to let me sit and talk to her. I would sit on the toilet (not because I had to use it, but where else would you sit when you're talking to someone in the tub?) and we'd talk. Those were special moments with my mom. When I became a teenager, my mom and I would race from the car on Sunday afternoons to see who could get to the bathroom first, because nothing got you ready for a Sunday afternoon nap like a nice hot bath. Now that I'm on my own, I've discovered a hot bath is a great way to relax and/or warm up. I take a bath almost every day. I can forget about my problems and just be for awhile. Sometimes I sneak one in during my lunch break, other times I wait until the evening and sit in the tub, light a scented candle, drink a cup of coffee and read a good book. However I can get them, I am thankful for hot baths.

Day 9 - Cheese

2010-12-09T12:01:00.000-06:00

There's not a whole lot to say here, because everyone knows how amazing cheese is, right? There are only a handful of foods in the world that I wouldn't put cheese on (cereal, ice cream and PB&J's are all I can think of). Cheese is the one food that has kept me from going vegan (soy cheese just isn't the same). Cheese is the miracle food. Cheese can heal minor cuts and bruises! Cheese saved a small puppy from a burning building! I get all my paychecks converted into cheese! Sorry, I got carried away... Honestly, though, in college one of my friends gave me a block of cheese for a birthday present. It was awesome :)

Cooking for one isn't always the easiest thing to do. Luckily, I don't get bored of food easily (unless it's just gross), so I can eat the same meal for several days in a row. But even a girl who doesn't get bored easily likes a little variety, right? So yesterday I got out another serving of lentils, pumpkin and basmati rice. I'm not going to lie, it's been tasty every day. onions, garlic & salt make it an absolutely perfect dish, and it took me all of 20 minutes to prepare something that has lasted me 3 or 4 days. But when I got out my lunch yesterday I thought to myself, "Man, this dish is great. But what would make it even better?" and then it hit me. Of course, cheese! So I sprinkled some shredded cheddar cheese on top of the leftovers, heated them up in the microwave and had an incredible lunch, all thanks to cheese.

So whether it's Brie, Gouda, Cheddar, American, Swiss, Mozzarella, Cream, Monterrey Jack or Blue, I am thankful for cheese.

Day 8 - iTunes

2010-12-08T11:05:00.000-06:00

Twenty years ago, all the music I heard was on the radio. Our cable package didn't come with MTV and when VH1 was added to the basic cable package, my parents deleted it. Of course it didn't take me long to figure out that punching in the channel number magically found the channel again (deleted schmeleted), but it was hard to pay attention to any of the songs or the music videos when I had to keep a sharp ear out for footsteps approaching on the carpet so I could quickly press the previous channel button and pretend to be fascinated by Nickelodeon or The Weather Channel (I did the same with Blossom, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and the Simpsons...sorry Mom and Dad...). But the majority of the pop music I heard was on the radio. Power 105.7 was the station to listen to if you wanted to know who or what was cool. I would hear songs on the radio and then, usually based on my fondness for one song, buy the tape (or CD). To be honest and destroy my rebel status, all of the albums I bought up through my freshman year of college were Christian (I did and still do know every word to the first 4 DC Talk albums), and I think my first non-Christian CD was Limp Bizkit (go figure, right?).

But all too often, after buying an entire album, which usually cost $15 for the CD, I'd find out that the song they played on the radio was the only good song on the CD! Sometimes the radio release would be of a totally different style than the rest of the CD and you would get tricked into buying the CD thinking it was hard rock when it ended up being almost all ballads or something! Yuck! This is why I'm thankful for iTunes. Now, when I hear a song I like, I can go to the iTunes store and listen to excerpts from the rest of the album. If I like it, I can buy the album for cheaper than I could in the store. If I don't like any of the other songs, I can just buy the song. Amazing, isn't it? It's like a veritable buffet of music!

And who can forget the almighty mix tapes? Not having very many love interests in the 80's or 90's (or 2000's...), I made mix tapes for myself and used them as workout music. I used to do circuit training in my bedroom a few times a week. Thank goodness I was a girl, or that place would have stunk! I created a mix tape to go with my workout with songs from the radio. It took a lot of time and attention to find the right songs, but back then they used to announce the songs before they played them. I was the master of timing when it came to recording songs off the radio. But now, making a mix tape is no big deal! Just download your favorite songs, put them in whatever order you want and save them as a playlist or burn them to a CD.
The whole thing can be done in under 5 minutes (granted it's not a mix tape, it's really a mix CD, but same diff).

Plus, iTunes has exposed me to all sorts of crazy music that I never would have listened to before! The Genius function is just that, the store is always recommending music it thinks I'll like, I subscribe to podcasts that I listen to while I run (when I run... it's cold outside and my motivation has gone into hibernation). I've even rented a few movies! For the convenience it's brought into my life, the exposure it's given to under-appreciated artists and the gift cards which make perfect gifts for pretty much everyone, I am thankful for iTunes.

Need I say it again? They're certainly not paying me for this.

Day 7 - Shop Good

2010-12-06T20:15:00.009-06:00

Everyone needs a release. Everyone needs a place where they can go and just be (cue the theme song from Cheers). For me, that place is Shop Good. Most of you know that I cover a few shifts at the trendy little downtown boutique, which carries super cool merchandise and gives back a portion of their profits to local and international charities. Right now I work two nights a week running the store.

I love working at Shop Good because most of the people who come in don't know me. They don't know that I'm a Finance Director or that I'm good with math or that I'm actually a total nerd. And it's a relief that they don't know that. Because people treat you differently when they think they know you.

When people find out that I work for a missions organization they immediately try to spiritualize everything they say (I really felt like the Lord was leading me to eat those mashed potatoes for dinner, and wouldn't you know, I enjoyed them! I prayed a silent prayer of thanks for God's provision of tubers and His hand in guiding my eye to them on the Chili's menu). And when people find out that I'm the Finance Director for a small non-profit organization, they assume certain characteristics about me. The problem is that they're usually wrong. I'm just a normal person. I don't think about money all day long. I don't even like thinking about money. To be honest, I don't even balance my personal checkbook! I hate money! But my job at HGM gives people a certain idea of who I am and what I am interested in.

When I'm working at Shop Good, people talk to me about food, coffee, concerts, clothes and music. Fun stuff! No one looks at me and thinks, "Oh, I should tell this girl about my 2009 tax returns." Never! They think, "This girl works in a cool shop. I bet she's pretty cool herself. Maybe she'll help me eat this 5-lb gummy bear." And I will, trust me. I will!

I love working at Shop Good because I get to meet new people, people who share similar cultural interests with me. People who are interested in doing good for the community, for their fellow man and for the planet. Sure, there are a few weirdos that come in too, but if there weren't, where would the fun be in that? For giving me a chance to break through certain stereotypes, meet new people and take a break from my desk job, I'm thankful for Shop Good.

If you'd like to check out Shop Good for yourself, you should stop by this Thursday night! they're doing a 9th Street Holiday Party with drinks, dining, shopping and sweet-ing at all four establishments on 9th Street! Shop Good is also open every Monday through Saturday, 11-9. Once again, not a paid advertisement. I just love 'em.

Day 6 - Forgiveness

2010-12-06T14:14:00.000-06:00

Oh my, could I tell a tale or two about how I've needed forgiveness in my life! I would assume that most of you could also bring up stories of when I've needed forgiveness in my life as well (no need for comments, if anyone is aware of my ovewhelming number of flaws it's me). But I'm sure that everyone who is reading this post has needed forgiveness at some point in his or her life (except Jesus who, according to all the Sunday School stories I've heard, is currently reading this over my shoulder. He's good).

There are two types of forgiveness I am thankful for. First, I am thankful for other people's abilities to look past my flaws. I know that I'm not perfect. You know I'm not perfect. And yet the majority of the people who are currently in my life have chosen to look past my numerous flaws. I don't know their reasons behind this. Maybe they love me, maybe they're stuck with me, maybe they're hoping that if they put up with me for long enough I'll leave them an enormous inheritance (these people obviously have never seen my shoe collection). But whatever the reason, people have chosen to forgive me. I've hurt people with my words and actions, sometimes on purpose. I've forgotten important dates, I've put myself before others. But the people around me have forgiven me. If I were going to list those I've offended the most, God would be right at the top of my list. I've been a handful, for sure. His forgiveness is more amazing than I can grasp. But that's another blog post.

The second type of forgiveness I'm thankful for is my ability to look past my own flaws. Now this one is tricky, because it can sometimes look like I'm deluding myself into thinking that I don't have any flaws. And I'll admit that there are probably several areas in my life where I have deceived myself into thinking that I'm doing just fine when I'm not. But there are other areas in my life that I am fully aware I'm terrible at. And my tendency is to beat myself up over those things. But somehow, through the grace of God, I've been able to forgive myself for not being perfect. It's not easy and I don't always do it so well, but I'm trying and that's what counts (it would be counterproductive for me to get mad at myself for not forgiving myself enough!).

The peace I've found in forgiveness - not having my past held against me or brought up constantly - is incredibly freeing. I am very thankful to be around loving people who choose to look past my faults, and I am thankful that I have learned to look past my own faults. I am thankful for forgiveness.

Day 5 - Books

2010-12-05T19:44:00.000-06:00

Let's face it, we all want to escape reality every once in awhile. And who doesn't like feeling slightly superior to those around them or like a member of a special, elite club? That's what books are great for.

Recently I decided that reading is important to me. Important enough to actually do it. You see, lots of people say reading is important, but from the way they live their lives you'd never know it because the last thing they read was the Dewey Defeats Truman headline. OK, exaggeration alert, I know. Anyway, I decided that it was important. I wanted to read some of the books I've heard so much about. So many cultural references come from classic literature, and our world has known so many great (or interesting, at the least) authors.

So I began to read all the books I've heard so referenced but have never read (well some I re-read, but I think they still count because it's been a long time since I've read them). Here's a list of what I got through this year:
A Tale of Two Cities
Catch-22
Farenheit 451
The Lovely Bones
Wuthering Heights
Same Kind of Different as Me
Eating Animals
The Hobbit
The Chronicles of Narnia (all 7)
Harry Potter (all 7)
Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass (two stories, one book)
Persuasion
The Hunger Games Trilogy
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Fountainhead
The Brothers Karamazov (audio book, but whatever)
And now I'm currently about half way through Oliver Twist

These books have made me think about issues I didn't care about before. Some have opened my eyes to needs or problems in my own life. Some have been purely enjoyable with no need for introspection. I've laughed aloud, I've cried and I've stayed awake until unreasonable hours to finish books. I haven't agreed with everything every author has asserted, but I've learned and grown from each book. When days have been tough or situations have been difficult, I've been able to escape to a different world with these books. Some days, they've been all I've had to look forward to. As my life changes I don't think I'll be able to keep up this pace of reading so many books every year. But I do plan to continue reading whenever I can.

For all they've helped me to see in the world and in myself, I am thankful for books.

Day 4 - Hulu

2010-12-05T19:24:00.000-06:00

Back in the day I used to be a social misfit (used to???). I had a hard time relating to people because I didn't feel like we had much in common. But when I stopped trying to make people understand my math cartoons and history humor (come on, you can't talk about the Boxer Rebellion without making an underwear joke, right???), I realized that there is one thing that can unite all Americans - pop culture. Still trying to get the hang of the whole "cool" thing, I made a friend or two bonding over Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena, Warrior Princess. I've watched these shows recently and now realize how lame I was, but it was a good first step into being "normal."

Then I grew up and got a job. Cable seemed like a ridiculous expense, so I never paid for it. But how would I keep up with shows that gave me topics to talk about with my students and coworkers? Rabbit ears. They gave me enough reception to follow a few TV shows. The rest I watched at friends' houses. But then the dang digital revolution took over and my rabbit ears were rendered useless. Ah! Foiled again! The fates seemed determined to doom me to a life of social retardation.

And then came Hulu. Now I can watch whatever shows I want whenever I want and not have to worry about being in front of a TV at a certain time every week (the only show I've ever been committed enough to to subject myself to that is LOST, which I miss dearly). All I have to do is carve a little block of time out of my week to watch all the shows I enjoy the most. So now I can follow How I Met Your Mother, Glee, 30 Rock and The Biggest Loser without having to pay a dime. I can jump in on conversations with fun little inside jokes (The Gentleman!) and pretend that I belong in most social circles. And slowly, bit by bit, I begin to actually belong Seriously, how great is that? For helping me in my quest not to be a total loser, I am thankful for Hulu.
Let's make this clear, This is not a commercial. Hulu didn't pay me for this.

Day 3 - Coffee

2010-12-05T10:33:00.000-06:00

I know what you're all thinking. "Oh, Corrie makes all sorts of crazy promises and then she doesn't follow through. I knew this wouldn't work. She'll probably end the month with only those two blog posts and then make up some silly reason why she couldn't do the others. It figures. If only she were as reliable as the rest of her family." Well what if I told you that I was physically unable to blog for the last two days because I was coughing and sneezing so much that breaths were rare and I was pretty much confined to my bed for two days straight? You'd feel pretty bad, wouldn't you. If it were true I'd be rubbing it in your faces right now. But it's not. I just haven't been near a computer for the last 48 hours and the idea of writing an entire blog post on my iPhone is exhausting. So I'm making it up to you by doing three posts today. Boom, bet you didn't see that coming!

I am grateful for coffee today. I am even more grateful for it right now than at other times because I haven't had any yet today and it's hard to handle the harsh reality of life without caffeine. I've been awake for an entire hour and a half so far with no coffee to ease my pain!

When I was a little girl I sometimes had a hard time sleeping. My parents thought I was just faking it and maybe I was. But in my little mind it was real. Sometimes I would be so excited about something that I couldn't sleep. And sometimes I was thinking so hard about problems or whatever else my 8 year old mind pondered on that I would lay awake in bed for what seemed like hours (it was probably only a matter of minutes, but it felt like a lot longer). One night, I crawled out of bed and went into the living room where my parents were sitting. I told them I couldn't sleep and they told me they had just the thing - cold black coffee. They poured me the remains of the coffee my dad had made that morning (no cream or sugar to ease my pain) and told me to drink it up; coffee always helped people get to sleep. I guess part of the joys of parenting is being able to mess with your kids a little bit. I don't know if I bought it or not; I don't know if I went straight to sleep or not, but I'll always remember that as the first time I drank coffee. Had it been only for that incident, I probably never would have tasted another cup. It was horrible.

But then in college there was this boy I liked a lot. And he loved coffee. He drank it all the time, and I thought that maybe if I were to drink coffee too we would have something to bond over, something to talk about. So I began to try to like coffee. I couldn't stand normal coffee, but I did find that I enjoyed flavored lattes. They had a bit of the coffee flavor (it's about as far away from coffee as you can get while still claiming you like coffee), but plenty of sweetness to balance out the bitter. Obviously my plan to bond over coffee failed (all for the better - he has a beautiful wife now with adorable children), but my love for lattes stuck around.

Two and a half years ago was my big turning point. It was then that I came to HGM and started Beautiful Feet Boot Camp. The schedule was ugly and I was constantly sleep deprived. Fortunately, HGM has a massive coffee maker that can give you an entire pot of coffee in less than 5 minutes. I lived off Folgers for months. I couldn't tell the difference between it and any other kind of coffee, because I put so much cream and sugar in my cup that they all tasted the same. Since then, coffee has become a staple of my diet and each day sees me drinking at least a cup if not more. I can drink it black now (some coffee, not all) and I rarely put sugar in anymore. Coffee makes me feel indulgent and luxurious, like I'm treating myself to something special. Of course it also gives me dragon-breath (I had a couple of teachers throughout school who had coffee breath. I never asked them for help on assignments. It was just too painful), but it's totally worth it. I drink it when I want to wake up, I drink it when I want to relax. I drink it before I start my day, I drink it before I go to bed. I would drink it in a house, I would drink it with a mouse. I would drink it here or there, I would drink it anywhere! Some of you might call this an addiction. To those of you, I say... yup, that's what it is. But I don't care. I have enough personal problems to fix right now. One day when I get perfect in every other way, I'll work on my caffeine addiction. I am thankful for coffee.

Day 2 - Friends

2010-12-02T15:28:00.001-06:00

Yup, today is the required follow-up to family: friends. To be honest, I almost included my friends in my last post because many of my friends are as dear to me as family. I'm a little scared to write this post for fear of leaving someone out. Please know that even if I don't mention your name, I am grateful for the influence each of you has had on my life.

Maia is incredibly encouraging, wise and uplifting. She's also a very generous person and a great listener.

Audrey is one of the most insightful people I know. She can see to the heart of a matter almost instantly. She's also very talented at making me laugh until I cry.

Justin is useful when I need someone to yell at. Just kidding. I enjoy our love/hate banter.

Joy has a key to my heart that few ever had. She is my sister in everything but blood and I love her passion for life.

Kim is great for talking sense into me and helping me mellow out. And our voices harmonize awesomely.

Though I do my best not to group them together, the Gilbert twins make me feel cool by association when I'm around them. They're awesome guys and every time we talk it's like we just saw each other yesterday.

Safinia was my absolute best friend in college and remains a true and sweet friend today. Even though we live hundreds of miles apart, our lives are tightly woven together.

Scott is practically the only person who can use upper level math to make me laugh until I hurt all over.

Keith can make me laugh any time by saying things most people wouldn't think to say. He's a great guy for hanging out with and he helps keep things not so serious.

Randy is an amazingly loyal friend who is one of the few people who shares my unique movie preferences. If Boondock Saints III ever makes its way to the theater, I'll definitely be calling him!

My friends have supported me through every twist and turn that my life has taken, and I will always be grateful to them. They have seen me at my best and they have seen me at my worst. If I could have, I would have abandoned myself at times (my worst is pretty ugly, trust me). But they have stuck with me. I am thankful for my friends.

Day 1 - Family

2010-12-01T10:48:00.000-06:00

Today I am thankful for my family. Yeah, I went with the old cliche right off the bat. But seriously, I dare any of you to do a log of things you're thankful for and not mention your family, whether you're actually thankful for them or not. Do you want that kind of drama stirred up around the menorah this year? I didn't think so. You'll be spinning the dreidel out in the cold faster than you can say l'chayim. But guilt and external pressure aside, I am truly grateful for my family. I have been blessed with some amazing people who have influenced my life greatly.

My mother has given me a passion for learning and a love of challenges. She has never been content with coasting along or standing still. She went back for her Master's Degree with two children in high school. She has been in and out of school since then, finishing up her Ph.D. just a month ago. She is amazing.

My dad has shown me the importance of integrity and faithfulness. If my dad says he's going to do something, he does it and he does it well. You don't have to worry about him cancelling at the last minute or double-booking himself or ever being late. He's as reliable as they come, and I am so grateful he has tried to pass that on to me.

My brother is an incredibly hard worker. I've seen him give his all, even when he knows that the results are not going to be as favorable as he'd like them to be. When he sets his mind to something, he does it. He is every bit as committed and hard working as my dad. He's also a great daddy to his little kids.

My sister in law has brought an amazing levity and joy to our family, and I know that we are all thankful for her. I never had a sister growing up (or many girl friends either), and I have learned so much about friendship through her. She is forgiving, understanding, loyal and loving. And an amazing mama to her kids! She is super-mom!

I could (and probably should) continue on and mention how grateful I am for my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who have all poured love and support into my life over the years. But I... wait, I just did! I really have an incredible family and today I am thankful for them.

Thanksgiving Encore

2010-12-01T10:25:00.000-06:00

If I were a smart girl I would have started this blog series a month ago in anticipation of Thanksgiving. But I was way too stressed out in November to be this brilliant. But the last time I checked, there was no rule that said you can only be thankful for things in November.

So here's the deal: Each day I'm going to blog about something I'm thankful for. Whatever (or whomever) it may be that I feel thankful for, I'm going to commit to at 31 blog posts this month (Gulp! Commitmentphobia attack!), each one helping you to get to know me better and helping me remember to be grateful. Soooo.... here we go!

Turkey-Free Turkey Day

2010-11-30T11:29:00.000-06:00

Tis the season, people! It's my favorite time of the year. I love the colder weather (once I break down and dress appropriately for it...right now my fingers and toes are numb because I'm still pretending like it's in the 60's and not the 40's outside), I love the yummy seasonal flavored lattes as Starbucks, I love the music, the movies, the food, the time with family, the presents and the chance to focus on what Jesus did and anticipate his return. Yay for the months of November and December!

Last week was, as we are all well aware, Thanksgiving. I was a bit nervous about having Thanksgiving lunch (we call it dinner, but every other day of the year it's called lunch) with my family mostly because this was my first Thanksgiving as a vegetarian, and I have never actually announced my new dietary preferences to my family (especially not the Matchell side). It's not that I'm intentionally keeping secrets from them or that I don't love and respect them. It's just that I feel that telling the Matchell side of the family that I don't eat meat would be similar to informing Bill Gates that I think Snow Leopard is way better than Windows or telling the "Can You Hear Me Now" guy that Luke Wilson could kick his butt in a phone service spokesman cage fight. Possibly akin to telling Smokey the Bear I'm just going to step out into the woods for a quick smoke.

Honestly, most of the practices that I disagree with might not have even been a problem at my grandparents' house. The Matchell family hunts quite regularly, and we've often had deer or turkey or fish that my cousin or uncle has killed/caught for meals. My disagreement is with the practices of factory farming, the lives the animals are forced to live, and the inhumane way in which they are killed (it's one thing to step on a spider, it's a completely different thing to pluck the legs off a spider). The reason I avoid meat is that the stuff bought in the store is almost always from factory farms and even if you can find a family farm to supply you with meat, it's difficult to be assured that the slaughtering methods are humane and reasonable. But even if I could find meat that met all my requirements, my body hasn't digested meat in several months and I'm afraid of what might happen if I started right now for something as silly as a gluttonous holiday.

So of course I was a little nervous about eating with my family. I didn't want to offend anyone, but there was no way I was putting any meat or meat products on my plate. In the end, though, everything turned out just fine. The only things I left off my plate were the turkey, ham and gravy, and somehow no one noticed or cared! Things were a bit more difficult for my celiac sister in law and niece who had to steer clear of the sweet potatoes, stuffing, rolls and green bean casserole. But she and I made sure to bring some gluten-free treats that they could enjoy. She made a lemon-meringue pie that turned out really yummy and I made roasted winter vegetables and a kickin wild rice stuffing with dried cranberries and roasted pecans. DELISH!

This year was also my first participation in Black Friday. What a wonderful day! I got up at 5:30 (not early enough to be first in line for anything, but early enough to take advantage of the deals I wanted), shopped at my own pace, finished almost all of my Christmas shopping, sat at Starbucks and read while drinking delicious coffee, then headed over to my mom's mom to spend time with the other side of the family. Seriously relaxing and amazing.

I had a great time with the nieces and nephew as well. They showed me their bunk beds, we colored together, we acted silly, we laughed and sang and danced and searched for treasure (according to Jakin to get to the treasure we had to go to the following places: desert, Africa, South Pole, snow storm, icy water. It was a long journey). I love those kids.

I have so much to be thankful for and I need to be better about remember that. It can be so easy to forget our blessings and focus on our frustrations! I think I have an idea that's going to help me with that. I don't want to announce it yet, but if I do it you'll know by tomorrow. Peace.

October in 3 paragraphs

2010-11-16T09:30:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's been awhile since I've written, but I refuse to start any more blog posts with apologies. SO I'M NOT SORRY! I've stopped and thought about blog posts a few times throughout the last month or so and realized that there are two reasons I don't want to write a post. The first is that nothing really interesting has happened recently to me. The second reason is that the first reason is a lie and there have been plenty of interesting things that have happened, but most of my comments about these interesting events would be negative, so I'm following Thumper's advice in Bambi and not saying anything at all.

I'm still continuing my reading push, and right now I'm making my way through The Fountainhead and absolutely loving it! I first became interested in it when my friend Safinia mentioned it the last time I visited her in Colorado. Since then, every time I think of books I want to read, that book always comes up. So this summer I went a little crazy and ordered several books off Amazon that I had wanted to read. After finishing The Picture of Dorian Gray back in October, I looked through my stack for my new conquest. I decided to tackle one of the thickest books I had bought, which made me decide between Ulysses and The Fountainhead. I chose Ulysses because (true confession here of my lack of intellectualism) I saw Benjamin Linus reading it on Lost. After the first 5 pages of Ulysses I realized that I understood about half of what was being said. I had never felt stupider before in my entire life. So I put it down. I don't need a book to make me feel stupid; I do a good enough job of that on my own. Then I picked up The Fountainhead and I loved it from the first page. I'm not fond of creating lists of favorites (they're so restrictive!), but thus far I would put this book among my top 10. The characters fascinate me and even though it's not an action-packed, fast-paced book I have found myself loving Howard Roark for all that he is and all that he stands for. Again, I'm only about halfway through the book, so maybe by the end of the book I'll hate him, but right now I love him.

I'm also super excited about the release of the new Harry Potter movie this weekend! I can't tell you how much I love those books. They are so dear to me. This summer I read through all seven books again to prepare for the movie release. And last week I watched the first six movies with my friends and we discussed the differences between the books, the significance of different events, and how poorly made the first two movies were (seriously, they were bad). Here's how tied up in these books I am. The night after I finished reading the seventh book, I rented the first movie (Sorcerer's Stone) on iTunes. Right at the beginning, when Harry met Ron and Mrs. Weasley for the first time, I cried. No lie. I cried with the knowledge of how closely their lives would be knit to one another, how much she would love him, how she would become like the mother he never had and how deep the friendship between Harry and Ron would grow. Can't wait for the last two movies. Simply. Can't. Wait.

I've got a couple more ideas about blog posts; hopefully I'll take the time to write them out. That's all you get for now. Just a taste of my awesomeness. Too much would be overwhelming for you. You've been deprived of my awesomeness for way too long; I would hate to do any damage to you! :)

Spontaneity and a couple of food metaphors

2010-09-23T10:16:00.000-05:00

My life typically lacks spontaneity. I love the idea of dropping whatever I'm doing and running off to do something unplanned, but let's face it, I rarely do that. The closest I can do is surround myself with spontaneous friends. Friends who decide we should go for a run at 2:00 in the morning. Or get frozen yogurt samples at the gas station. Or drive all night to pick up a desk from a radio station in Missouri. And these people in my life help me get a little taste of spontaneity without becoming a glutton. I am oh so thankful for these people, because they know me well enough to know when I need structure and when I need adventure. My spontaneous friends are some of my closest, dearest friends and the memories that we create are some of my favorites. Please don't misunderstand me, this is not a suggestion for you (whoever you may be and however well you may think you know me) to burst into my office one day and exclaim, "Let's go cow tipping!" I'll roll my eyes at and kick you out.

Last night I had the extreme pleasure to do something slightly spontaneous. Since I work at Shop Good on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Monday and Wednesday nights are my relaxing nights when I don't plan anything other than maybe watching a movie and/or reading whatever my latest book is. But yesterday afternoon, I got a message from a dear sweet friend of mine from college. I actually only went to the same school as he and his twin brother for a year, but we became really great friends in that year and I've made a point to keep in touch with them as much as possible over the last 10 years (usually the one I talk to the most is the one who is single at the time, so it varies from year to year as to who has more time for me). Anyway, I got a message from my friend saying that he was in Siloam Springs (my hometown) for a week and wanted to meet up and hang out. I was disappointed, because I thought we wouldn't be able to make it work, since I'm three hours away. But we decided to meet in Tulsa at a coffee shop and catch up on each other's lives for a few hours.

Neither of us knew about any places in Tulsa, so I Googled Tulsa coffee shops and found one that looked decent, sent him the address and we met there. Unfortunately, the listing must have been old, because the place didn't exist. Lucky for us, though, the coffee shop used to be on a really cool street, so there were plenty of other places to pick. We had pizza at Hideaway (my first time... very yummy and great vegetarian options!) and then went across the street to another, slightly crowded but pretty cool, coffee shop.

There are a handful of people in my life that I know so well and care so much about that, regardless of how long it's been since I've seen them, we can always carry on an incredible conversation. And that's saying a lot, because I'm terrible at small talk! But this guy and his brother are both those kinds of people. There was no awkwardness, no uncomfortable silences, and no one dominating the conversation. We just enjoyed each other's company thoroughly. I only got to spend about 2 1/2 hours with him, but it was a great little escape in my weekday from the same ole same ole. I actually spent more time on the road (it was about an hour and forty-five minute drive one-way) than hanging out, but it was totally worth it! I love the fun little surprises of life, enjoying each one and savoring the flavor they add to my sometimes sodium-free existence.

Me and my friend...proof that I actually did hang out with him (I'm terrible at remembering to take pictures; I took this one right before we parted ways)

Aunting

2010-09-20T09:41:00.000-05:00

I love being an aunt. It's seriously the best job in the world. I wish I could get paid for it, because then all I would do all day long is aunting. And I'd be awesome at it. Auting is great because you get to have all the fun you want with the crazy fun, cute little children who share a little bit of your DNA, but you have none of the responsibility of parenting!

My dad turned 55 last week, so I went home this weekend to celebrate his birthday with my family. We had a great time. On Saturday I got to go to soccer practice with the kids, which was the cutest thing I've ever seen! Kids rolling around on the ground, kicking balls as hard as they can and then running after them... it melted my heart. I took a couple of videos with my new phone (Yeah, I got a new phone. Yeah, it's an iPhone. Yeah, I should be more excited about it, but I'm not because mine got stolen and I'm still mad.), and will be happy to show anyone who wants to see the flawless somersaults Jakin and Anna performed. After soccer, we all went outside to watch the man from the nursery bring in two pine trees (my mom's birthday present to my dad), and my 2 and 4-year old relations wowed me with their knowledge of roots, trees, sunshine and soil.

One highlight of the weekend was a flexibility test that my brother, father and I couldn't pass (None of us can touch our toes without bending our knees. Isn't that sad? Anna helped me cheat, though, so while I was trying to touch my toes, she ran over and touched them for me). Dinner saw us singing "On Top of Spaghetti," which the kids loved. We made up our own verses at the end - the kids would sing a line and I would come up with a line to rhyme theirs. I also laughed really hard when Mikaiah, who was sitting next to me at dinner, leaned over in her chair, put her face close to mine and said, "Let's lick each other!" Too cute!

It was a great trip. I loved seeing my parents and the rest of my family. It was also good to take some time to relax and take a few deep breaths. I forget to do that sometimes. I ran a few miles with Christine on Sunday morning, and it felt really good. She's a great running partner. I think maybe she's going to run the 10k with me, which would be awesome! Running can get lonely and boring if you don't have anyone to run with.

Ooh, I'm also within four hours of finishing The Brothers Karamazov! I'm so excited to finally get through this dang book that has stood as a sign of my failure for years. No longer, Dostoevsky! I've got your number! Here are my adorable nieces and nephew. The last one is Mikaiah planting a stick so it can grow into a tree. It might have had a better chance of working if Quincy the dog hadn't continually taken the stick away to run around the yard with it.

The Joy and Freedom of Choosing Discipline

2010-09-09T22:44:00.000-05:00

As children, there were a lot of rules handed down to us from the powers that be. Eat your vegetables. Finish what's on your plate. Go to bed. Take a shower. Brush your teeth. At first we had to be told these things over and over again, even suffer punishment for not obeying. But eventually, most of us settled down and obeyed these, even if we didn't want to. Why? Many people would answer, "Because that's just what you're supposed to do." We do a lot of things in our life just because we're supposed to. I, for instance, always stop my work day at around noon and eat. Why? Is it because I'm hungry? Not always. Is it because if I don't stop working I'm going to scream? Sometimes, but again, not always. I stop and eat lunch at noon because that's what I've always done. And it just seems right. Doing things without asking why you're doing them isn't always bad. Sometimes it's okay to do something just because it's what you do. But I feel like too much of that happens in the church and I, for one, am tired of it.

Growing up, we were always taught in Sunday School that we should have a daily "quiet time." It took me awhile to figure out what that was (sounded more like a punishment than something I would willingly do), but eventually learned that it was supposed to be a time when I read my Bible and pray. When anyone asked "why" you were supposed to read your Bible every day, the answer would inevitably be something like "because God wants to spend time with you," or "so you can learn more about God." So I would start one, but then I'd get busy and stop it. Or I'd start and not feel like I was learning anything, so I'd get discouraged and stop. But as I got older, I was told that even if you get discouraged you should push through and do it anyway. Just do it, even if you don't want to! Because when you don't want to read your Bible, that's probably a day when you need to read it the most. So I'd try that too, usually with the same results as before. Then I felt guilty and ashamed. I've lived the majority of my life ashamed of the fact that I have never been able to sustain a consistent quiet time.

Now, I'm a runner. I've run two 5k races and I'm training for a 10k race in October. When I started running I didn't enjoy it. I got tired and winded easily, and my feet always hurt. But I somehow pushed through that part and am in a pretty good place with running right now. And I wondered the other day, why do I run? I run because it makes me feel good. I burn calories, which helps me maintain my weight, it helps strengthen my muscles and joints, and I like the feeling I get after I pushed myself further than I thought I could. I don't always want to go running. And I don't always enjoy running while I'm doing it. Sometimes I really hate it. And some days I skip because I just can't force myself to do it. But I know that when I do run, it's incredibly beneficial to my physical, mental and emotional well-being.

I've also recently developed a semi-regular quiet time in the last several months. But my reasons now are far different from my reasons before (perhaps why it's been easier to be consistent). I read my Bible in the mornings before I start work because it benefits me. Many days, I feel like God is speaking directly to me through the passage that I'm reading. Often, the passage is applicable to something I'm dealing with at that very moment. But sometimes I don't get that. The passage may not make sense to me, or it may not be applicable to my life at that point. I still get benefits from reading my Bible, and it's simply a feeling of calm, a feeling of "centeredness," if you will. Our days can get wild, crazy and hectic. But taking a few moments at the beginning of each day to remember who you are, where you're going and why you're going there can make a world of difference in your attitude and how you react. Even if the time doesn't seem to be "spiritually significant" in any way (wow, I just figured out the Trinity! Thanks, quiet time!), the benefits are still great. And that is why I discipline myself to read the Bible every day. That is why I read it and pray even when I don't want to. Because I know that it's worth it. Just like running.

It seems to me that an explanation like this could make a world of difference in people's views of Christianity and in their lives. No longer is it just simply rule-following, but I'm disciplining myself to do these things because I see real benefits in my everyday life. No longer am I speaking in cliches because I don't understand the deep truths behind a centuries-old religion. I'm only saying and doing things I understand. Could we, as children, have benefited from someone explaining this? Not just telling us to read our Bibles, but explaining how to read our Bibles and showing the reality of how it has helped their lives? And what about other Christian cliches that we throw around without understanding what we're saying? Should we take a step back and examine those too? I feel like if you're going to do or say anything in this world, you should do it on purpose, being fully aware of what you're doing.

Humility

2010-09-08T16:15:00.000-05:00

I think that rainy days make me less funny. They steal away my sarcasm and incredible wit and make me all introspective and "think-y." I don't mind it. I'm just glad it's raining. Yesterday was like a rainy day but without the rain. It was just gloomy all day and I prayed for rain. Apparently, God's inbox was jammed with rain requests and He didn't get around to reading the Oklahoma requests until sometime this morning. I woke up to rain, though, which is one of my favorite ways to wake up... on a Saturday. It's not so fun to wake up to rain on a day when I'm supposed to get up and run, though. So I didn't. I'll do it this afternoon, no worries.

But in my usual rainy-day introspection I got to thinking about humility today. I feel like I've been learning a lot about humility recently, which has been really good. I've heard a lot of people say not to pray for humility because it seems like the best way to learn these lessons is for you to be in situations where you have to swallow your pride, or you are humiliated in some way shape or form. But those who tell you not to pray for help in growing this way obviously just don't want it. Because if you truly desire to be humble, then you'll do whatever it takes to become so, even if it means going through difficult situations.

Humility is easy when people around you are demonstrating it for you. The hardest thing about humility, in my experience, is choosing it when those around you are choosing to be prideful and asserting their value over yours. It's among those people that I usually end up sticking up for myself and reminding them that I am just as valuable as they are. But that's not what humility does, is it? A humble woman is rooted with the knowledge that, regardless of how anyone else views her, she is a child of the King. She is loved by God and He gives her identity. When she knows that, it doesn't matter what anyone else says or does, she can be confident that none of their opinions or actions can change reality.

The humble person is not a doormat. She doesn't allow people to take advantage of her. But she does have the wisdom to know which battles are worth fighting and which ones are worth letting go. I want to be the kind of person who has the grace and humility not to assert my value every time it feels threatened. I want to be the kind of person who doesn't need the recognition of others to make her feel important. I want to be a woman of humility, a woman who stands firm in the knowledge of exactly who she is in Christ, no more, no less.

Running/Swimming: Southern Humidity Bites!

2010-08-31T17:50:00.000-05:00

It's a dreary, rainy afternoon at Shop Good and I thought I'd use the opportunity to shock you all with a rare sight - two posts from me in two days! What a treat! I'm not promising much, I may have used all of my creativity and humor up on the last post. But I'll see what I can do.

My alarm went off at 6:00 this morning and I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why I had set it so early. And then I remembered that I had to run today and wouldn't have time until late tonight unless I ran this morning. After staying up until midnight-ish, I was in no mood to run, but I somehow rolled out of bed, got dressed and drove to the park. I was excited that the sun wasn't out because I thought I had a better chance of getting to run in cool weather if I beat the sun. I was about halfway right. It wasn't hot, but that dang humidity kicked me squarely in the face!

I have always lived in the south, so humidity usually doesn't phase me. I often don't even notice that the air is so thick you could cut it with a knife. It's one of the few blessings God gave southerners (to balance out the curse of possessing an accent that makes you sound uneducated and ignorant to Yankee snobs see, I am an equal opportunity insulter). I had checked the thermometer in my car before I got out and it said that the temperature was 77 degrees. Perfect running weather. 95 percent humidity, however, is not! Instead of gasping for air I was gulping it, and within the first 1/2 mile my skin was all sticky and clammy. Gross! Of course I had planned on sweating, but this was different. I don't even know how to describe it. Nasty is pretty accurate.

Anyway, today was a 3-mile day, which was no problem. It's a little harder running outside than on a treadmill, in my opinion, so I'm doing all my running days outside this week to get used to it so that the run on Saturday isn't such a big deal. I stopped at around the 1.5 mile mark to get a drink of water, something I don't usually do. I like to push all the way through and gulp an entire liter down at the end. But the crazy thing was that after I took that quick break (maybe a minute or so), I finished the 3 miles in my best time yet, even factoring in the minute break! Go figure! I guess if I want to go faster I could allow myself a break at about the half way point. Not sure if I'd rather do that, though, or gut it out. I'll have to think on that one. Maybe I just need better motivation. Like this...

Dunkin, Axe, and My Selfish Nature

2010-08-30T15:58:00.001-05:00

I ran four miles yesterday. Not a personal best, but a personal best in recent days. It's been awhile since I've run over four miles, so I was pretty proud of myself for that. Unfortunately, in addition to revealing some physical weaknesses I need to address before my upcoming 10k (October 2nd in Tulsa), the run also revealed some enlightening personal weaknesses I need to look into...

I decided to run inside on the treadmill Sunday afternoon, because it was crazy hot outside and I had no desire to run in the heat. So I headed to the gym to punch out my four miles. Sure, had I been smarter, I would have gotten up early in the morning to run before church. But how much smarter would that have been, really? Who wants to get up at 6:00 in the morning on a weekend? No one! So at about 4:00 in the afternoon I headed over to the gym.

Fortunately no one was on any of the treadmills, so I got to pick the best treadmill , the second to the farthest right one. This treadmill is by far superior to all of the identical-looking treadmills around it for two reasons: first, it is only 6 feet away from the giant fan that blows on all of the cardio machines, so pretty much any way the fan is tilted, whoever is on the last two treadmills is going to get some airflow. Crucial in a gym that seems to hate paying its air conditioning bills. Second, the next to the last treadmill is better than the others because it is one of the few that has a working TV. All of the treadmills have a small TV attached to them, but most of them don't work. Only 2 or 3 at any given time will give you a picture and sound. But that treadmill has always been faithful.

So I jumped on my favorite treadmill, punched in my running time, and found the Fox Family Channel, which happened to be playing 2 Weeks Notice. Cute movie! I wanted a TV for my run, because I get bored easily when I run, and when I get bored I usually want to quit running because I focus too much on being tired. Movies or TV shows are a good way to distract me. So off I went, running at a leisurely 12-minute pace. I'm not a big speed demon. I don't have an incessant need to go faster and faster. I just want to finish without stopping or walking. The first 2 miles went spectacular. I had my iPod in one ear playing my workout mix, but I didn't have to listen to it too closely, because Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock were grabbing my attention.

Then the treadmill line began to fill up. And two dear sweet ladies decided to take the two treadmills next to me (the third and fourth from the right). The lady next to me I decided to call Miss I'll Walk at A Snail's Pace for Twenty Minutes to Make Up for the Three Chocolate Donuts I Inhaled This Morning. Let's just call her Dunkin for short.

Well, Dunkin jumped on the treadmill and decided that she wanted to watch a little TV too, to help distract her from the discomfort of her walk (although she had a friend right next to her she could talk to). Well wouldn't you know it, Dunkin turned her TV on and mine went to a blue screen! Dang it! Apparently there was some connection between Dunkin's TV and mine where only one of our TV's could function at a time. But instead of realizing this and turning hers off so the girl covered in sweat and gasping for breath could have her chick flick back, Dunkin left her TV on a blue screen too! What the what?? So there she was, happily walking away, watching her blue screen, not even breaking a sweat. And I was dying because now that I couldn't roll my eyes at Hugh Grant's smarminess, I was getting tired of running and I was only half way through my run! Finally, I violently pushed the power button on my TV and wouldn't you know, Dunkin's TV gets a picture! But instead of realizing what an insensitive person she had been to steal a distraction from someone who really needed it, she just found a channel and let the TV play without really paying attention to what was on it. I was furious.

Finally, with about half a mile to go, Dunkin and her friend left (without wiping down their treadmills, I might add!). But no sooner did they take off than someone jumped onto the treadmill on the other side of me (the farthest to the right one). I dubbed him Mr. Way Too Much Cologne, but we'll just call him Axe.

Axe's problem should be obvious to you. His noxious fumes quickly made their way into my nostrils and almost made me gag as I tried to gut out the last part of my run. Fortunately (and this is where I felt really bad), Axe sped his treadmill up to a 7 or so and within 5 seconds it stopped on him, almost bucking him off. I was ashamed of myself for being happy, but the treadmill scare moved Axe to another treadmill and cleared the air just a tad (although remnants of his odor lingered on even after he had left).

So I realized during my run yesterday just how selfish I can be. I want things done my way to suit me in my timing. And Dunkin and Axe showed me that I need to learn to be more considerate of others, even when I'm struggling. Tough lesson to learn, but valuable. You don't get to put kindness on the back burner just because you're having a tough time.

Oh, I'm running a 5k on Saturday for these guys. Should be fun! I just hope to beat my time from the last one. I'm relatively confident I can do it, although it will be harder to run without Joy. Sad face.

Dang it, Bible!

2010-08-10T10:04:00.000-05:00

This is what I'm thinking through today. I'm pretty sure I'll be thinking about it for awhile, though.

Philippians 2:3 - Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;

Dang it, I don't want to read this one. It calls all my actions and motives into question. How deeply has the cultural idea that you've got to look out for yourself affected me and my interpretation of Scripture?

Where does "Stand up for your rights" meet "regard one another as more important that yourselves?" I don't want to be a doormat, but I also don't want to disregard a mandate of Scripture just because it's counter-cultural.

Regarding others as better than me is not too difficult - until they regard themselves as better than me too. Then my pride kicks in. But another person's action or attitude doesn't excuse me from obedience. So I should treat others as better than me, even when they're jerks. Dang, that's rough. But how much better than me?

The verse doesn't say to consider yourself worthless or value-less. It seems to me that the Bible affirms an inherent worth in every human, so I don't think denying yourself that worth is appropriate or biblical.

But, again, when are we entitled to stand up for our rights and when should we just choose humility? If, say, our own inherent human worth is about a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, then can we be justified in standing up for ourselves when we're treated like a 4 or below? Or does it have to be significantly below our worth? 3? 2? 1? Are we ever biblically justified to stand up for ourselves?

We are to follow Jesus' model, right? This guy was the Son of God, and yet He was beaten, tortured and killed. That's like going from an inherent worth of 1 million to being treated like a 0. And yet He never fought back. Even when what we would consider basic human rights were violated, like the right to a fair trial.

So what do we do? Half of me wants to find a loophole - some reason I don't have to interpret this verse this way. It wants to find a valid, justifiable "yeah, but" so I can go on living in the way I already do. There's another part of me, though, that seems to think that there is no "yeah but" that will do; there's no excuse or reason good enough to get me out of this one.

Dang it, Bible! Whey do you have to go off and make me think?!

The brotherhood of man

2010-08-09T10:28:00.000-05:00

Not much to report life-wise, so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on Philippians, the book I'm reading through verse-by-verse. This was from back in June when I was on Philippians 1:7.

Partakers of grace with me...

I've never been very comfortable with the word partake. It's one of those that I've more or less figured out the meaning of, but I always feel like I'm not quite getting the whole thing, so I rarely use it for fear it has an alternate meaning or a deeper meaning I know nothing about. But it seems to me that at least a small part of it means to take and share simultaneously. We partake of the elements of communion, which means that we take them for ourselves, but we take them together. Grace, then, is God's power given to us to do what we could not otherwise do; God giving us what we don't deserve; God's unmerited favor.

So if they were partakers of grace with Paul, that would mean that together, they took for themselves that same unearned favor and power of God that Paul was also taking for himself. While Paul needed grace for as many things as we do, probably his biggest concern for the moment was his imprisonment. He does also mention in the verse the defense and confirmation of the gospel. It seems that here, the Philippians needed the same grace for the same reason. Apparently they were very upset at his imprisonment.

There's a kind of bond we can feel with other believers when we realize that we all draw upon the same strength - we are all partakers of grace with each other. Even though we use that grace for different purposes, we share a common dependence upon Christ and His strength and grace.

When I think about it, I guess all people share that, whether they realize it or not. I don't think God's grace is only available to the few who choose to follow Him in a specific way. We're all currently alive, which is continual evidence of God's grace, and non-believers has overcome great obstacles and endured incredible hardships. Who do you think helped them do that? Whether they admit it or not, God has extended His grace to everyone.

So there's something like a brotherhood of man that we exist in, where we share more commonalities than we realize. It's like the watering holes in Africa. All sorts of different animals come to the watering hole (as proved by the Lion King - remember that scene in the Hakuna Matata song? That's what I'm picturing right now). Many come to drink, some come to bathe, others live in there and swim around. But they all share the same water, and because of that they are all connected. Their fates are linked and they are all dependent upon the same water.

When I look at other people in this light, I feel like we have less to fight about than before. Sure, he's an bear and I'm a cheetah. And the girl over there is a bunny rabbit, and that guy is a dingo (this is a non-regional watering hole. All types of animals gather, so don't get out your encyclopedias and show me how impossible it may or may not be to have a cheetah, bear, bunny rabbit and dingo all in the same place. I don't want to hear it). So we're all different. But we all depend on that same water. That water enters us and enables us to be the best creatures we can be. It helps me to run fast. It gives the bear great power. The water enables the dingo to live his wild, untamed life, and it gives the rabbit the ability to outsmart that duck with the lisp and the hunter with the speech impediment.

But it's kind of cool to look at complete strangers and realize that our fates are linked. Regardless of what they say or believe, they rely on the same strength I do to get by every day.

How much do I acknowledge the grace I partake in? Some days it's completely evident to me how great the love of the Father is and how much He sustains and enables me. But if I'm honest, most days I walk around taking pride in my own strength, pretending I had something to do with all of my accomplishments.

My prayer is that I would continue to be thankful for the unending grace provided so freely to us who are so undeserving.

Anybody Got a Poisoned Apple?

2010-08-05T10:18:00.000-05:00

Not that I have a death wish or anything, I just thought maybe I could get an ugly old woman to be jealous of me, cook up a poisoned apple in her cauldron and coerce me into eating it so I could sleep for a few days. Seriously, Snow White had a pretty good deal, don't you think? I bet she didn't have dark circles under her eyes or need three cups of coffee before noon (although I bet the prince had to battle some major morning breath to kiss that one...).

So the last few weeks have been incredibly busy. I honestly don't think I've had a restful day in at least a month or two, as as much as I'd like to claim that lack of sleep and peace in my life doesn't affect me, the massive clumps of my hair that are coming out every time I run my fingers through it beg to differ (they must be taking after my father - sorry, Dad, you had to know that was coming). So what has your favorite neurotic blogger been up to? Let's take a gander, shall we?

For the last month or so, I've been gearing up to say goodbye to two of my closest and dearest friends, Joy and Eric. They decided that they needed to move back to Phoenix to be nearer to Eric's family, and although I knew that this was the right choice for them, it was hard to say goodbye. I can't tell you exactly when we became so close, but at some point, our lives just wove themselves together and we became family to each other. I love them and all of their children very much. So last week was a frenzy of Joy and Eric things - Their oldest son Noah had a birthday party on Monday, we threw a surprise party for Joy on Tuesday, Wednesday I worked at Joe's, Thursday I helped them pack up a bit and hung out with them on their back porch one last time, and then Friday morning I jumped in the minivan with the rest of the family and accompanied them on their 18-hour journey to Phoenix. I wanted to be able to help Joy do some of the driving, plus I have never been to Phoenix and thought it would be fun. We had a really good time, and I'm so glad I went. We spent the night outside of Albuquerque and I shared a bed with Isa, my four-year-old friend. I now know why my mom would put a pillow between us when we shared a bed. I got kicked several times throughout the night, most of them were kicks to the face (Isa somehow managed to turn herself around in her sleep so in the morning her feet were about an inch away from my face). We drove the rest of the way Saturday, unloaded the truck, and I got to hang out with Joy and Eric and their friends Saturday night and Sunday. Sunday afternoon I took off after a tearful goodbye at the airport and I was back home Sunday night at around midnight.

Monday I was up bright and early and had a full day of work, after which I went downtown to help my friends Justin and Audrey put the finishing touches on their new store. Well, it's not a new store, per se. They've had their store, Shop Good, in the Plaza District ever since November of last year. But they've now doubled their inventory and they needed to expand. So they found this incredible space on 9th street right next to Pachinko Parlor, Sara Sara Cupcakes and Iguana Grill. They opened their doors for the first time on Monday, but still had plenty of work to do before their grand opening last night (Wednesday). So Monday and Tuesday nights were spent cleaning, pricing, tagging, arranging, and other various -ings.

Yesterday, I left work early to help with the grand opening. Justin and Audrey had the great idea to throw a huge summer block party involving all four businesses on the street, plus featuring The Spero Project, a local non-profit that works with refugees in the city. So we threw a Summer Mustache Bash. Tons of people showed up, lots of guys shaved their facial hair, leaving only a mustache (most looked way creepy - not a look I would recommend), and for those who didn't want to grow a 'stache (or couldn't, like the majority of the women there) had the chance to buy stick-on or clip-on mustaches for the occasion. It was super fun! Everyone looked silly with their mustaches, and we all had a great time. The restaurants set out tents with food and drink (and donated a percentage of all their sales to the Spero Project, how cool is that?), there was live music until 1:00 in the morning, and tons of people got to see the store and learn what Shop Good is all about. By the end of the night we were all exhausted, but so happy with the way things turned out.

And so now, after the surprising, face-kicking, crying, laughing, mustaching two weeks I've had of never getting to be before midnight and never waking up after 8, I'm ready for a good long sleep... Someone might want to text me tomorrow morning to make sure I wake up or I might just pull a Snow White sans apple. But for now, I'm going to pour myself another cup of coffee and try to keep my mind off sandwiches...I mean sleep...

Reunions and Flying Leaps

2010-07-22T10:59:00.000-05:00

Last weekend was my class reunion in Siloam Springs. I have to admit, I was pretty nervous about going back as, I would assume, many people are/have been/will be about theirs. I'm not going to lie to you guys, I hated high school. I was in a funk throughout the whole thing which resulted in me isolating myself from everyone around me. You can blame depression, poor self-esteem, me being a self-righteous jerk, whatever. The bottom line was that it was bad and I hated almost every moment of it. So, of course, I was a bit hesitant to revisit all of those emotions and feelings and the people who were associated with them.

The weekend was supposed to start out with a float trip on Friday. I left late (like 11ish) Thursday night and drove from OKC to Siloam because I have always really enjoyed canoeing and thought that this would be a good way to get to know people and hang out with a smaller group in a less awkward environment than a lunch or dinner setting. I'm pretty bad at small talk, so I thought doing something somewhat active would decrease the need for conversations about current events, the weather, or things that happened while we were in school of which I have no memory (I've blocked the majority of my 5-18 years out of my brain).

I got to the place we were going to rent the canoes only to find out that apparently it had rained in Arkansas for the last few days. The river was too high to float. So we decided to go to a lake instead. We didn't do a whole lot but walk around in the water and jump off of a few things, but the whole experience turned out to be really good. I got to show everyone there that I wasn't too good to hang out with them, like several assumed I thought. I actually never thought that, I was just painfully awkward and unsure how to relate to people all the time.

Friday was good and I crashed early because I was exhausted from all the late nights and early morning the previous week held. Saturday morning I was up early again, though, and off to the picnic. Our reunion planners, in all of their wisdom, decided that the wisest and most economical option for our reunion was just to agree to meet for lunch in the park. The children got to play on the playground and the adults could sit nearby and talk. It was really good. I heard that a lot of people showed up, but I only saw a few because I left early to get my goal-weight reward that I have been referring to for the past several weeks. I'm sure it won't be a surprise to most of you who are my Facebook friends or who have talked to me in the last few days, but now it's time for the grand reveal......... I went skydiving!

Several months back, I was trying to come up with some big reward for reaching my goal weight. Forty pounds is a really big deal, folks, and I wanted to make sure that I rewarded myself with something. At first I thought that I could throw a big dinner party. But how lame is that to reward myself with food for losing weight? Silly. Then I thought I could buy myself new clothes. But I'm going to be doing that anyway, regardless of rewards. Lame again. And then it came to me. I've wanted to skydive for a long time. I'm not sure why, but it has always looked like so much fun to me. I've never really had a desire to bungee jump or do any other crazy adrenaline things, but skydiving has always been on my mind. So I set it as my reward, but I didn't tell many people until right before I did it because I wanted to be able to chicken out if I needed to. Last week I set the appointment and Saturday at noon I went in.

I went tandem because I didn't want to spend the whole day in training and I felt safer jumping out of a plane attached to someone who knew what they were doing. The training lasted all of about 15 minutes and I waited 2-3 hours before boarding the plane. I met a really sweet couple who trained and jumped with me. The girl had bought the jump for her boyfriend's birthday (what a great idea!), and it turned out that even though they lived and worked in Tulsa we had a mutual acquaintance. The boyfriend trained for his job at the bank with my ex-boyfriend. Small world, huh? That conversation didn't last very long, because I don't have many nice things to say about any of my ex-boyfriends, much less that one. But it was kind of funny that we met.

My mom and sister in law came out to watch, support, and take pictures. It was nice to have them there supporting and encouraging me. Eventually, we all loaded into the tiny little plane with no door and away we went! I was the last one in the plane, so I was all the way in the back, right next to the door. That turned out to be a really good thing, because I got to look out the door the whole way up. I saw the ground get further and further away, I saw the clouds we flew through, and I was the first to jump out. Well, jump isn't exactly what I would call it. See, here's the scenario. I've got Gwen, my instructor, strapped to my back (not back to back, we're spooning). And in front of me is Todd, the guy I paid to jump with us and take video and still shots of the jump. So Todd is facing me and holding on to my harness and he leans out the back of the plane and just kind of pulls us out. We flip and away we go!

Free falling is pretty crazy. It doesn't really feel like you're falling, it's just awesome. I don't know that I can explain it other than it's just like a whole bunch of wind is blowing in your face. You don't realize that the ground is getting closer and closer because you're above the clouds and can't see the ground. I wanted to yell and say something fun, but my mouth just got stuck open in this crazy face because there was so much wind in my face I had a hard time breathing. The video is pretty funny. After free falling for about 45 seconds or so, Gwen pulled the cord (or whatever she did, I didn't see what happened) and we floated down to earth. That part was pretty dang uncomfortable. Gravity was doing its darndest to force me to the earth much faster than I wanted to go, so it was pulling me pretty hard and the harness got way uncomfortable. But all in all it was a very enjoyable ride.

At one point, I hear the woman strapped to me, the one in charge of my life, say "uh oh, that's not good" and I panicked for a second. But it wasn't regarding us, the people who jumped out right after me had a problem and had to cut away their main parachute (or something like that). Not good, but they were safe. That's why they always have two (or at least that's what they said). So we floated down, keeping our eye on the rogue parachute to figure out where it landed and to avoid getting tangled up with it ourselves. Gwen let me steer a little, which was way fun. I pulled the handle and we went left! I never did get to go right, but I'm guessing I didn't miss out on much. The float down was really beautiful. Siloam has a lot of green and when you're floating above it on a relatively clear day, it's pretty great to look at.

We landed and I immediately wanted to go back up. So amazing! I would be surprised if I never went skydiving again, folks, it was just too awesome for words. If you have ever wanted to go, I highly recommend that you do it. It was wonderful.

That night was the dinner for our class reunion and I had plenty to talk about with my afternoon's exploits. We ate at the steakhouse in the casino across the state line (just a hint, most steakhouses are not vegetarian-friendly. I had to order a salad and ask them to leave the meat off. It was a good salad, though) and then went across the casino to listen to a band play cover songs from the mid '90's - mid 200's. It was perfect for our class, and we didn't even plan that part!

All in all, it was an incredible weekend. I'm glad I went to the reunion. I met lots of really great people, had fun, and definitely made some lasting memories. Pictures below. Matchell Out!


Chris and me before the jump


Gwen's good at posing for the camera

Me still in my "chicken wing" position, trying to remember to smile for the camera

Arms out, skin flapping around like no one's business, loving every second!

Chris and me after

Dinner that night - me and my salad :)

Todd was glad to be surrounded by such beautiful girls :)

Confessions of Corba the Hut, Stress-Eater

2010-07-14T15:45:00.000-05:00

Crazy Crazy week! Apparently, my week was crazy enough that it took me four tries to write the word crazy just now (and three tries to write the word four. Look out, English majors. This could be a scary post). Well I came off my very busy weekend straight into the first week of boot camp. The boot campers are living off campus this year and they're not even having most of their classes here, so there wasn't crazy stress in getting the facilities ready for them, but they were on campus all last week for their morning classes while the details got worked out for a new classroom location. I got to talk to them about the always exciting world of accounting and how we do our money stuff around here. Their eyes glazed over in about the first minute (I'm blaming lack of coffee and a nasty commute. It couldn't be the material!), but I persevered for another 29 until I had said my piece. It was pretty plain and simple, and I tried to be as kind and easy to understand as possible.

Thursday was my meat-stravaganza with the Davidsons. Since I'm all about going veg now, I needed to get rid of the steaks in the freezer my parents gave me a few months ago. So Eric fired up the grill and made a really awesome dinner for me and all the Davidsons (except for Avalyn. I thought about offering her a piece of steak, but thought the jump from formula to T-bone might be a little much). We had T-bone, round steak, asparagus, risotto, mushrooms, grilled sweet peppers and grilled green onions. Oh my goodness, you guys, it was amazing! So vegetarian purists everywhere are currently denouncing me for eating steak at dinner, but which is worse, eating meat or wasting it? It was already bought. The only options were to eat it or throw it away. I decided not to be wasteful. Plus, the cow was from a family farm, so there! So we had our meat-stravaganza, which involved all of the aforementioned food plus me stabbing myself with a large chunk of glass. That was painful, very painful. It actually still hurts.

Friday we got to throw a surprise party for Gloria, one of our visiting missionaries. She and her husband are super fun, and I always enjoy visiting with them when they're in the states. The party consisted of noise makers, party poppers, streamers, pin the tail on the donkey and a pinata. And, ladies and gentlemen, I have found yet another justification for procrastination. Envision this: Half an hour before Gloria is supposed to arrive, Joy and I are decorating the room and stuffing the pinata. When I finish the pinata, I remember that Will (Gloria's husband) bought noise makers for the party too. So I found them and set them out in a very cute design on a table. In my mind, what would happen was that as soon as we saw Gloria walking up, everyone would grab a noise maker and run to hide. Then we could all jump out and say, "Surprise! Happy Birthday!" and it would be a great day. Dumb me, I didn't factor children into the equation. No adults even got to touch the noise makers, because all the kids decided they needed two or three of everything on the table. And they did not stop blowing on those stupid things for the entire 30 minutes! If sex education isn't working in public high schools, try bringing them to a party with 10 kids running around blowing on noise makers, often stopping to blow one right in your ear, because you weren't paying enough attention to them. It totally overloaded me and I freaked out. I almost hit one child, but didn't (relax, relax!). Instead, once Gloria had gotten there and we had started the party, I helped myself to about 3 pieces of cake and two small bowls of ice cream. And the miniature man in my belly screamed out, "Let the stress-eating begin!!!"

Ashamed? Yes, I am. I would be much less ashamed if that were the end of my eating spree, but for some reason, something snapped in me that afternoon, and I went crazy. I grazed on children's leftover french fries and chicken nuggets (not even thinking until hours later that vegetarians typically don't eat chicken nuggets. OK, vegetarian purists, you can disown me for that one. My bad.) and drank calorie-laden juices. I was feeling pretty low after that (probably mostly a sugar-crash!), so I went out and bought a pizza to console myself. Then I ate the whole dang thing. I've never eaten a whole pizza in one sitting before, folks, but my craziness enabled me to eat like a pig all night. I was really embarrassed, but couldn't understand why I was eating so much! I couldn't see it at the time, but my mood was an accumulation of a whole bunch of smaller stressors that I didn't think were bothering me at all (until I stared at the empty pizza box and realized something was wrong. All these little factors had added up into something huge that turned me into something akin to Jabba the Hut's younger cousin, Corba (don't correct me nerds, I just fused my name with his), devouring any matter unfortunate enough to find itself in my path. CRAZY (and not in the Wow, isn't that a crazy story kind of way, more in the That woman is flat out crazy, I'm not letting her hold my baby kind of way)!!! Ach!

Long story short (you already know that's a lie, when have I ever made a story short?), Saturday was fine during the daytime, but then I snapped again Saturday night and hoovered down any food I could find. I freaked out after that and spent a good hour or so crying in my room before I decided (at 1:00 in the morning) to go to the gym to clear my head and punish the fat girl inside of me trying to eat her way out. I stayed there for about two hours and felt much better when I got home. Sunday was fine and the rest of the week since then has been fine.

So why am I telling you this story? I guess I think it's important for you to know that even though I have experienced success with weight loss, no one is perfect. I am not the model of self-restraint, I don't have all the answers, and I don't have it all figured out. Healthy living is a journey, folks. And it's not necessarily always a fun journey. But it's a journey that I have to make, nonetheless, and falling down just gives me a chance to learn about potholes in the road and figure out how to avoid them next time. I'm way embarrassed about the way I behaved last weekend. An addiction to food is just as harmful and just as sinful as any other addiction. I don't know if I'm actually addicted to food or if it was just the closest thing to me at the time. But I've learned a few things about myself in the last week, and the next time I get stressed out or I see stress coming on the horizon, I'll be able to brace myself for it properly and withstand the temptation to create an ice cream sundae the size of Tokyo.

**ALERT!!! This weekend is my class reunion (can't believe it's been 10 years!), so I'll report back on that, plus Saturday afternoon I'll be giving myself my personal reward for reaching my goal weight. What is it? You'll find out soon!**

Food and Family

2010-07-06T16:35:00.000-05:00

I've just returned from a whirlwind of family activity! I saw the majority of my mom's and dad's sides of the family, caught up with my immediate family, and ran into old friends that I haven't seen in ages. What a weekend! I could go into detail about my weekend, but I'm not going to. I'll just say it was full, but not bad. I think that makes it good. I'm totally wiped out, but glad for it. I also got past the half-way mark on the audiobook of The Brothers Karamazov. A small victory but a victory, to be sure!

While I was home, I discussed some changes in my life with my immediate family. The biggest change at this time is that I've decided to become a vegetarian! Some of you will remember that a few weeks ago I mentioned this book I was reading called Eating Animals. I finished it a couple of weeks ago, and have thought a lot about the things the author talked about. After carefully considering what I've learned and doing a bit of research on the health hazards and health benefits of vegetarianism, I decided that eating meat is not as important to me as some other things are (namely not putting a ridiculous amount of crap into my body and not killing the environment).

So I'm off meat. It's not going to be a big change for me, as I haven't eaten a whole lot of meat lately anyway, but there are adjustments and changes to be made. and I am sure that as I progress on this journey, I'll have plenty of thoughts and feelings regarding vegetarianism and meat-eating to blog about. A couple of things I want to make clear to all of you:
                  1) I know how snobby and mean vegetarians can be sometimes. I've always felt judged by them, like they see me as a murderer every time I eat a hamburger. I'm totally not that way. Everyone has to make his or her own decision on where they stand on the meat issue. I've made mine, but the fact that your decision is different from mine doesn't make me dislike you, and hopefully it won't make you dislike me either.
                  2) I don't want to fight with you about eating meat or not eating meat. It's not worth it. No amount of me yelling at you and no amount of you yelling at me is going to change anyone's mind.

                3) If you would like to understand why I made the decision I did, I'd love to chat with you. You can also check out a couple of the resources that inspired my change. One is the movie Food Inc, and the other is the book Eating Animals. These two, I believe, give a good picture of what I believe to be wrong with the food industry today. Although neither is completely objective, I'm not sure that it's possible to remain so on an issue like this.

So that's the big news for me. No meat. No chicken, no fish, no meat. I'm still getting the hang of things. I ate a piece of deli ham the other day without even thinking about it, and I'm relatively sure that a few of the soups I've eaten have contained chicken stock. I'm still trying to figure out how to get around that at restaurants. Well, I would write more, but my office is a sauna right now and I've used up my last bit of energy on what you've read, so the rest will have to wait. I love you, blog stalkers. Have a good day!

Update on my life plus a chance to give some feedback

2010-06-28T11:17:00.000-05:00

It's been two weeks since my last blog post. I haven't been insanely busy, so I can't blame it on that. I also can't blame it on a lack of things to talk about, because in the last two weeks I have been learning some amazing new things and have made some big changes in my life. I guess the reason I haven't written for two weeks is that I haven't been able to organize all of my thoughts into one cohesive post. Last week I tried to write about what God has been teaching me through my study of Philippians (which, by the way has been awesome), but all that I managed to write ended up sounding like the ravings of a lunatic with no good flow or order to my thoughts. So I have plenty to share, but I just can't explain it all right now. I need more time to process and organize my thoughts before I share them. I've talked them out with a couple of my friends, but it doesn't seem to be enough. I have a feeling this is going to involve a rough-draft.

I never ever ever wrote rough drafts of my papers in high school or college if I could help it. It seemed like such a waste of time. Everything I wanted to say in my paper was already in my head. I had the whole thing organized before I ever wrote a word. And, for the most part, that worked for me. I made good grades on all my papers in my math and science classes and decent grades on my papers for English class. I'm just not a rough-drafter. But I may have to be this time. Yuck. What that probably means is that I'll never get around to writing anything, because I don't want to waste my time on a rough draft, so you'll probably never get to hear about what I've been learning through Philippians unless you and I go out for coffee and we chat about it. Which isn't such a bad idea. Why don't you do that? Give me a call and we'll set up a time to drink coffee and talk about our lives. We may also end up talking about what in the world posessed you to take my advice to call and set up a coffee date that required you to drive 200 miles in the middle of the week. That sounds like a good conversation topic too! Or maybe you can just wait until I come to a city near you and then we can talk.

What else can I tell you? I'm feeling ridiculously optimistic this morning, which is pretty crazy for a Monday morning that already promises to begin a week from... well, you get the picture. This week is going to be very busy in the office, because it's the end of the month (paychecks), the end of the quarter (royalty checks to our authors), and the week before boot camp (I don't know what this will involve yet, but I'm betting on some sort of stress). I'm excited about boot camp and interested to see how this one will play out, as it's pretty different from all the other ones we've done before. But regardless of the stresses the week that lies ahead of me promises to bring, I'm in a pretty darn good mood today. I slept in; made my oatmeal; put in some milk, a few fresh blackberries and some almonds and drank gourmet coffee as I sat on my friend's couch in total silence, meditating on a couple of verses I had chosen for the week.

Well, almost total silence. Every once in awhile I was interrupted by a very friendly and cute chihuahua who wanted to try some of my oatmeal for himself. I never really liked chihuahuas. They always looked a little (ok a lot) weird with their tiny bodies, short hair and bulging eyes. But Chico is a pretty cool dog. He's Joy and Eric's dog, and I don't know what it is about him that I love so much, but I do love him. Maybe it's the fact that I don't get to see real dogs anymore, so anything with four legs that lives inside and doesn't sharpen its claws on the furniture is a welcome sight. Or maybe I just love all dogs with good personalities, regardless of what kind they are. But I like Chico. So Joy and Eric are out of town for a couple of days and I am housesitting for them. I guess it's really more like dogsitting, but those two usually go hand in hand. I like living in other people's houses for a short time. I'm not exactly sure why, but it's kind of fun. Especially when those people have a Keurig coffee maker that makes single servings of coffee in under a minute!

I've been to the farmer's market in Midwest City (just a few miles down the road) twice now. They're open on Tuesday afternoons and Saturday mornings, but I haven't made it to a Tuesday yet. It's a great way to start my day, and I highly recommend it. There's great produce and friendly people. Plus, the farmer's market is right next to a Starbucks, so my Saturday morning ritual now includes supporting the local economy by purchasing home-grown produce, then supporting the billion-dollar industry of overpriced, mediocre coffee drinks. But it is relaxing to sit in the sun and drink coffee while I read. I enjoy it, say what you will about Starbucks.

Reading is another thing I'm doing a lot of. I'm kind of on a quest to be read and watch the classics, whatever that means. There's a lot of books that I've never read through that I feel like I should and a lot of movies I've never watched that I feel like I should, so I figured that this point in my life, when I don't have a boyfriend, husband, family or budding social life to preoccupy my time, is the perfect time for me to catch up on all of those must-reads and must-sees. So thank you Netflix for taking care of the movies, and thank you online shopping addiction for taking care of the books! I just bought 9 more books from Amazon, so that should keep me busy.

So here's what I've read so far this year: A Tale of Two Cities, Catch-22, Farenheit 451, The Lovely Bones, Wuthering Heights, Same Kind of Different as Me, Eating Animals, and I'm currently reading The Hobbit and listening to The Brothers Karamazov on audiobook (not simultaneously...geez...I can't even imagine...). Obviously this isn't an exhaustive list of all the books I've read, just the ones from this year. And I've watched tons of movies in my lifetime, but my most recent ones have been Gone With the Wind, Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Graduate (oh, and not that it's a classic, but I just watched Gone Baby Gone this weekend. I don't really know what to say about that movie other than dang).

So here's my request for those of you who have persevered through several hundred words of mindless rambling in an effort just to make it to the end of my post - what movies or books would you label as classics? What can I not survive without reading or watching? This is your chance to have some influence on the next movie I rent or the next book I buy. I really want to know what you think. What are some of your favorites? Just so you know if you start listing books that involve orcs, magicians, fairies, vampires, werewolves or muscular men who have a penchant for taking their shirts off, rubbing oil on their chests and firmly embracing frightened and/or headstrong women, I will probably ignore your suggestions. I'm looking for classics, people. Not a waste of my time. So go ahead, wow me (the orcs and vampires might be okay in a movie, though. Just as long as you're not going to suggest Bloodrayne)!

The Best Weekend Ever - The Conclusion

2010-06-16T11:14:00.000-05:00

There were very kind people waiting at the end of the race to tear the chip off my shoe. I appreciated that, because the thought of mustering the strength and energy to bend down and rip that dumb thing off of its plastic ties seemed like a gargantuan task at the moment, and I was pretty sure I'd topple over if I bent down that low (again, physically fit people, just pretend that I just finished a marathon or something. Remember, I'm not a runner. This was a big deal for me). But that's where the kindness ended. Immediately after finishing the race we had to walk all the way up the bleachers to get out of the stadium! My legs were pretty upset with me, and they voiced their disapproval with each step I took.

We got to the top and I realized how badly I wanted water. I hadn't gotten any for 45 minutes, really (the drops up my nose, while refreshing, did nothing for my dry mouth and my gum had lost its effectiveness long ago). Yay, there's a man at the top of the stairs with a giant cooler handing out waters! Just make it to the man, Corrie. Just make it to the man. I made it to the man, only to be told that he was out of water. I was assured, however, that there was more water, Gatorade and fruit "by the statue." Apparently that was supposed to mean something to me, so I nodded like I understood. Even though I had no idea what he was talking about, my superior intellect deduced that somewhere, in the direction he was pointing, there was a statue of some sort. And somewhere near that statue was water. I didn't know what the statue looked like, but I know what a statue looks like, so I figured it couldn't be too hard to find. Joy went to the restroom and I took off in search of refreshments for the two of us. So I walked. And I walked. And I walked. I started to doubt my understanding of the word statue. Maybe it's a comically small statue, like of a baseball or something? Maybe I missed it? Maybe it's hiding behind a door or in a concession stand? Don't make fun of me for these ridiculous questions. Remember - not much oxygen going anywhere right now. Not thinking entirely clearly yet. But I kept walking. And walking. Come to find out, this stupid statue was halfway across the stadium! I don't think I'm exaggerating, folks, I probably walked for a good 5 minutes just to find water and Gatorade. What kind of event-planning geniuses put refreshments for runners so far away from the finish line? Not your best move, guys. Just saying.

Well I finally found the refreshments, brought them back, and Joy and I returned to our families. We parted ways and I hung out with my family for awhile, just enjoying their company. They left so they could get home at a decent hour, and I drove home. Ironically, on my drive home, the thought went through my head, "Man, I haven't been to the gym today. I should probably stop by and get on the treadmill for awhile." I quickly returned to my senses, but still fought the urge to go to the gym. I guess that's a good sign that my body bounced back so quickly. I think it also shows that I could do much more if I keep practicing and training.

I was planning to go to church Sunday morning, but I don't remember my alarm going off. I'm not sure what happened, because I checked all the settings and they were right. I guess that either my phone malfunctioned and the alarm didn't go off or I turned off my alarm four times in my sleep. Both are equally possible. So i spent Sunday relaxing and hanging out with friends. We were going to go to our friends' pool and let the kids play while we hung out and talked, but the pool was the color of the grass (no kidding - bright green and opaque), so we sat on the porch and set up a sprinkler that we ran in every few minutes to keep ourselves cool. It was a great summer day. Then my sweet sweet friends had me over for a delicious, healthy dinner! I really am blessed, folks, by great friends and family.

So technically, that's the conclusion of the weekend. But some of you may have noticed that with all of this 5k talk I haven't commented yet this week (as I usually do) about my weight-loss progress. I weigh in on Mondays, and I was convinced that this week was going to be better than last week for millions of reasons, the 5k being one. Well, what do you know, I MET MY GOAL! I was so excited when I saw that number on the scale that I did a dance. Not a little dance, folks, a giant celebratory dance in Joy's bedroom (she lets me borrow her scale every week). Woohoo! I freakin did it! It's an amazing feeling to put your mind to something that's not necessarily easy and then achieve it. And that's just what I did...twice. First the 5k, then the weight thing. So as of this week, I've lost over 40 pounds! I'm really happy about it and really proud of myself. I feel healthy, empowered, in control, totally energized, and I couldn't think of a better conclusion to my sweet weekend than achieving one more goal.

This post is getting long enough, but rest assured that I will be doing something big to celebrate the achievement of this goal. And I'll fill you all in as soon as plans are more definite. Until then, I hope you all have super great days! And, for your viewing pleasure, before and after pictures:

The Best Weekend Ever - During the Race

2010-06-15T11:26:00.000-05:00

Joy and I put ourselves right in the middle of the crowd of runners and then, without any warning, the gun went off and away we went! The course was kind of weird because, while the majority of the course had us running north we started out going south and then turned around in the middle of the road to head north. It was strange, but ended up working well for me, because my Garmin watch died in that first little bit and I was able to throw it to my family so it wasn't this annoying, wrist-suffocating thing driving me crazy and not helping the whole time.

We started off pretty fast. Not super fast like at the head of the pack, but faster than the pace we knew we wanted to keep. But eventually the crowds thinned out and we could pick our pace. It's really hard to run the pace you want to in a big crowd! Sooner or later, though, things got less crowded and we normalized. Man, guys, it was so crazy hot outside! I knew it was going to be hot, but it was really rough running in that heat! The shade we occasionally received was a welcome blessing, and before you knew it, we were coming up on someone holding a sign. One mile! That was awesome! We did that so fast! We rock! Only two left! Oh...dang... that's one kilometer. Who the heck puts up a one kilometer sign? We live in America, people! even if we are running a 5k, couldn't you save paper and just put up one, two, and three mile signs? Dang you! Kind of disheartening, but it gave our minds a nice distraction of trying to convert kilometers into miles in our heads while we ran. It probably should have taken us less time than it did, but at least we figured it out before the 2 kilometer sign!

The water stations were amusing for me, as I didn't know how to drink cold water out of a cup while running. None of the water got in my mouth the first time around, just up my nose and all over my face. I would have just poured it on my head, but I was afraid of messing up my iPod. The second water station was better, but not much. I never did get the hang of drinking water from a cup. The second water station was also a huge obstacle for us to overcome, because coming up on it, it looked like it would be the turn around point, marking that we had run half of the race. Sadly, it was much MUCH further away. That was a big disappointment, and I had a hard time pushing through that one. For me, so much of the battle of running is mental, and my brain did not like being tricked. It threw a little tantrum for a few minutes, but then I got over it.

The people who were helping out with the race were very encouraging, and I appreciated that. Every couple of minutes there would be someone standing on the side of the road saying, “Let’s go, guys, you’re doing great! Almost there! You're halfway there!” That was nice. I didn’t really pay that much attention to them, but it was like background music to the background music I was already listening to on my iPod. Speaking of my background music, I honestly only remember one song that played on my iPod through that race, and I only recognized it at the very end. Usually I can give you an entire setlist at the end of a run. The one song I recognized and remembered was Single by Natasha Bedingfield. A great song for those who actually are single and fine with it. Sadly, I was so over-stimulated by everything that was going on and all the newness of the race that I totally missed out on jamming to my favorite she-power song.

There was no 3k sign, so the 4k sign was quite a welcome sight. I knew I could do it when I only had half a mile left. There was no reason or excuse to walk now. I gave it everything I had to push through to the end, and as I came over the last hill, I saw my sweet sweet family waiting and cheering for us. I’m sure they were saying really nice things, and I definitely looked at them and tried to smile as I passed them, but I didn’t really hear what they were saying. I was just focusing on the girl holding the white poster board that I couldn’t quite read. But surely it says Finish, right? It has to! Oh, dang it doesn’t. It says turn. AAAH! When does this stupid thing end! Stop psyching me out, Limbs for Life!

I turned right when the sign told me to and it took me down through a back-door entrance to a baseball field right onto the track that goes around it. But not before leading me past an eight-foot pile of manure. Good idea, guys. It’s 95 degrees outside with 95% humidity, but I’m sure that this giant pile of feces won’t bother people who have been running for the last half hour, gasping for every breath. Nah, they’ll be just fine running past a huge mountain of crap.

So I avoided this final obstacle, ran down the last stretch of the track and crossed the finish line. I couldn’t believe I had done it, but I had done it! I vaguely noticed my time and thought it was somewhere in the 36 ½ minute range. I was right about on, as I found out later it was 36:35, putting me in 97th place out of 200 women. Better than average, I’ll take that! Ok, again we’re getting a bit long so I’ll leave you with a few pictures and finish up this adventure (Could it get any more exciting? Oh yes, it can) tomorrow.

Joy and I before the race...

Can you spot us?

Getting rid of the watch after the first turnaround...

Finally finishing the race! Or at least the pre-manure part!

Great Weekend Part One - Pre-Race

2010-06-14T15:43:00.000-05:00

Oh, there's so much for me to talk about today! We'll start with the 5k. I can honestly say that Saturday was probably the best day I've had while living in Oklahoma. It was all good, there was no bad in it. I woke up pretty dang early Saturday morning, because my room was a mess and my obsessive internal over-planner feared that the family would want to come back to my place for awhile before or after the race. And seriously, even I didn't want to be in my room. It was that gross. So I spent an hour or two cleaning up and freshening up. Then I went out and bought new socks. Not the most exciting thing you've heard all day, I'm sure, but I got nice socks that are for people who run and don't want their toes to fall off. I was excited about trying them out at the race.

My family met me and Joy's family at Q'Doba and we all had a big fun lunch together. I was a bit nervous about my worlds colliding (you know, friends and family don't always go so well together), but it went great! Jakin, Anna and Mikaiah got along great with Isa, and all the adults really liked each other too! It's been funny to hear everyone talk afterwards. When I spoke with my family they went on and on about how much they liked my friends, and when I spoke with my friends they went on and on about how much they liked my family. What a relief! Well I loaded up on good carbs and protein at Q'Doba (I know I was only running a 5k, but I wanted to make sure I had plenty of energy), and then we went shopping for a little while, followed by some delicious Pink Swirls. I enjoyed introducing it to my family, and they all seemed to enjoy it.

Joy and I took off, got dressed, and headed off to the race. I'm really glad she was there with me, because there were lots of little things I was completely clueless about! Like when we checked in, I told them my name and they said, "Oh, we'll get you your bag and your chip is down there (pointing to another table)." I was totally confused. What kind of chip do I need to run? Like a poker chip? Are we placing bets on who wins the race? A potato chip? Thank you, but greasy food does not sound appetizing right now, and how stingy are you to just give one potato chip? I looked at Joy and she graciously said, "I'll explain it in a second," in a low enough voice that the girls behind the table didn't hear and think I was an idiot. So I figured the chip thing out (apparently it's supposed to keep track of your actual time. Since we all cross the start line at different times it keeps track of when you cross the start line and when you cross the finish line. Good to know!), and Joy showed me how to put it on my shoe, which was good, because I probably would have ended up tying it to my bandana or my ear or something. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, folks.

Then we just hung out for awhile, because we had gotten there way early. I was really intimidated, because everyone looked like real runners and I felt like a total imposter! I thought for sure they'd figure out I was just a former fat girl who wanted to try her hand at something challenging and then they'd all laugh at me or kick me out or something. Then I took stock of what I was wearing - appropriate clothing, new running shoes, good socks, an iPod with an arm cuff, and (the kicker) my Garmin GPS watch. So I figured I looked enough like a runner to at least fool them until the gun went off. That was good. We mingled around with our friends a bit, had a good time, talked about our nervousness, and then made our way to the starting line. My family was waiting there at the starting line with the sweetest sign! On one side it said, "Run Corrie Run! We love Aunt Corrie!" and the other side you can see below. Isn't that awesome? I was moved by their support.

OK, this is getting a little long, so I'll continue this story later. Give you a little while to digest this portion before giving you my non-runner's take on the race itself and the events that followed!

It's tomorrow!

2010-06-11T09:31:00.000-05:00

So it's the day before my first 5k race ever (eek!), and I'm super excited! I know that to some of you super-athletic types, 5 kilometers is no big deal. You're thinking, "3.1 miles? I could do that in my sleep with a broken leg!" If that's the case, then just imagine that I'm talking about my first marathon, or iron man or triathalon or something that sounds daunting to you.

You see, in high school, I never ran more than a mile and that was only when I was forced to. And at the end of the mile I would always collapse in exhaustion after expending all of my energy for the 12 or so minutes that it took me to complete it. I was not a runner. And that's what I've been telling myself for the last 10 years. I am not a runner. I can't run, I don't like to run, I'm not going to run. I used to say that if I was being chased by a pack of wild dogs, I'd just stand there and let them eat me, because I'd rather my last few seconds on earth be spent not running (I realized that then I wouldn't be chased, because a chase usually involves two parties running or at least moving, but just bear with me, people. Don't get focused on the semantics).

Then boot camp came along, and we ran at least 2 or 3 times a week. And guess what? I hated it! Every second. I was a major baby and fought my PT instructors every step of the way (sorry, Logan and Jana). But something happened through that horrid experience. I realized that I could do more than I thought I could do. My body could do more than my mind had decided I could do. I just had to tell my mind to shut up. And so, after boot camp, I began to work out on my own at the gym, pushing myself a little harder each time I went. Before I knew it I was running a mile without walking. And then two miles. And then three miles! That's as far as I've gotten so far, but I'm fairly sure I can do more if I keep at it. It's pretty amazing, folks. Pretty amazing.

As I mentioned before, this race is at 5:30 in the afternoon. NASTY! So Joy and I have been practicing running outside in the afternoon to get used to the heat. It has not been enjoyable, guys. Tuesday was really bad. The sun was shining right on us, there was virtually no breeze, and if the humidity could have been 125% I think it would have been. The route we chose was actually only 2.5 miles, but we're pretty sure that it was a tougher route than the one we'll be running tomorrow for a couple of reasons: 1) We have hills. I know that everyone thinks Oklahoma is flat, and for the most part it is. But I'll be danged if the only hills in the whole darn state aren't clustered right around our neighborhood! There's not a flat 3 miles anywhere! 2) At least part of the road we ran on was sand. Joy showed me a dirt road that's just past where we live. I'd run by it plenty of times but had never gone down it. It's a great little road, but something about this "great" state that I currently live in is that the earth doesn't know the difference between dirt and sand. Dirt is supposed to be on the ground pretty much everywhere. Sand is supposed to be only near water and in sandboxes. But around here, you start digging in the middle of your yard and you'll either hit nasty red dirt that stains everything you're wearing or you'll hit sand. It's crazy, I know. But what's even crazier is running uphill in sand. Not a fun experience, guys. Especially when the uphill sand part is in the last half mile of your run, where you're already so tired you're not sure if you're going to make it.

But make it we did (yesterday). We ended up running that hilly, sandy 2.5 miles in right around 30 minutes, which means we averaged about a 12-minute mile. Not overly impressive, I'll admit, but I'm slow. I always have been and I always will be (stay tuned, knowing my track record with making definitive statements about myself, I'll have to eat those words in a few years when I start training for something else and accidentally break the sound barrier). I'm just proud of myself (and of Joy!) for not walking. We kept moving the whole time, never slowed down to walk, never stopped for a break. I think if we can do 2.5 sandy, hilly miles, we can definitely do 3.1 concretey, flat miles. No problem.

Bad part, my toe is KILLING me! If you've seen me personally in the last few weeks, I've probably complained about my toe to you and made you look at it. Sorry. I thought black toenails and the like were only reserved for serious runners, not people running 10 miles a week! Yet, for whatever reason, my poor toe has really suffered. I lost my toenail last week at some point, the rest of the toe is now covered in callouses and blisters. It's really bad. It hurt all last night while I was in bed, and then hurt even worse when I got up today. Fortunately it doesn't hurt when I run on it. Or maybe it does and I just don't notice it. That might be another one of the things I'm telling my brain to shut up about. Whatever. I just hope nothing bad happens to it. I'd hate to have to go to the doctor over a stupid toe because it got infected or the toenail grew in wrong or something. It might just be easier to cut it off. We'll see about that.

Anyway, my race is tomorrow at 5:30, so even if you can't be there, do a little mini-cheer for me wherever you are and I'll be encouraged, I'm sure. I'm looking forward to seeing my family, too, even if it's only for a few hours. Oh, and if anyone has any wisdom that they've gained from their racing/running experience, I'd love to hear it. Post it here or on facebook. Peace out, guys, have a good weekend!

The Week Before My First 5k

2010-06-09T12:04:00.000-05:00

I was planning to update on Monday, but the website wasn't working. Looks like we're all good now. Let me just forewarn you, faithful readers: I'm not in an especially jovial mood, nor will my words be playful, entertaining or amusing. It's not that I'm in a bad mood, I've just entered that place where I've mentally checked out for a few days. I'm going through all of the motions of being present - I do my work, I talk with friends, I smile, etc. But my mind and heart are just not in it right now. And it's not because anything is especially wrong. On the contrary, the campus is quiet and I've had relatively few stressful work situations. I don't really know why I've checked out. I just have. Does this happen to anyone else? It seems fairly frequent to me. Probably once every 2 or 3 months I get this way and I can't ever quite explain it. Anyway, that's my excuse for why I probably won't be very funny or entertaining in this post. Deal with it.

I gained about half a pound this week. Oh well, I was kind of a glutton on Saturday and Sunday. I probably deserved it. But I'm back on track (kinda) now. Except for my unexplainable craving last night for ice cream. I thought I'd be smart and get a sundae from Sonic (have you seen the commercials? They're only 99 cents after 8:00; that's a great deal!). I guess I've never gotten a sundae from Sonic before, because I had no idea how HUGE these things are! I ate so much of it it just about made me sick. And apparently Sonic has been listening to all the grumbling I've been doing in the past about how I don't like their "ice cream" or whatever that junk was they were serving us. Because now they serve real ice cream. Real, thick, full-fat, full-calorie ice cream. That dumb sundae came in at 12 points! For those of you who don't understand the point system, I get 21 points every day to eat and drink. When a dessert treat costs me more than half a day's points (I could eat 3 delicious meals for 12 points), it's a poor choice. But I didn't look at how many points it was until I was done eating it. I'm not going to say it wasn't good. It was delicious. But I'll probably never ever ever order one of those again. If you're naturally skinny, though, or aren't looking to lose weight, I highly recommend them. The new ice cream is WAY WAY better than it used to be!

So weight gain is bad, but I'm not worried. I'm pretty sure I'll be back on track next week. Partially because my 5k is Saturday (eek!) and I have a feeling that all the running I'm doing to train for this thing is going to pay off. I'm really excited about this. My family is coming to see me, which will be fun. And I get to run with my friend Joy, who has been a good portion of my inspiration for running in the first place. She started out hating running just like me, and then she went on to run a half marathon, which is freaking awesome! She has graciously elected to run with me, even though I'm super slow, just because she wants to be with me during my first race. Isn't that sweet? Another big part of my running inspiration is my sister in law, Christine, who punched out a full marathon recently like it was nothing. She's incredible. So, 5k on the horizon! I'm not looking to make it in a certain time, all I'm looking to do right now is run the whole thing and never stop to walk. I really think I can do it, although it will be rough. I think the hardest part is going to be the heat and humidity. The dang race is at 5:30 in the afternoon. What kind of genius schedules a race for 5:30 pm? That's insane! It's like 100 degrees out here! Maybe there will be some cloud cover or something to make things better. I hope. Joy and I have been practicing running in the afternoons, and it's brutal! Although she showed me some really fun dirt roads around our neighborhood that I enjoy running much more than the road.

I'm not sure what other news there is to share with you. I've been going through the book of Philippians verse-by-verse in the mornings. I just got through 1:3. I'm trying to absorb as much as I can by reflecting on each verse or on sections of each verse. There's so much in there, and that book is so full of encouragement. I'm enjoying it, but I know how easily I can give up on things that take a long time to accomplish. I'd really like to stick it through this one, though. I think that there's a lot I can learn.

I'm reading a new book right now. It's called Eating Animals by Jonathan something something, the same guy who wrote Everything is Illuminated (I've never read it or seen the movie, but it stars Frodo and I wanted to see it because the cover looks trippy). It's a pretty interesting book, but I'll do you the courtesy that was not done me (ahem...Kim...) and warn you that if you read it, you're going to be forced to make a decision. You can choose to say that what you read doesn't matter, you can choose not to believe what you read, or you might have to choose to become a vegetarian. I'm not done with it yet, so maybe he presents another option towards the end of the book that's less callous or less extreme. I'm just letting you know upfront that if you would rather choose ignorance, don't read this book. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do, but I'll keep you updated on that as well. I kinda like the taste of meat, even though I can go days without realizing I'm not eating it.

Well, folks, I guess that's about it. I'm going to grab some lunch and try to be productive for the rest of the day. I'm thinking egg whites, cauliflower and veggie soup sounds good (For those of you who are thinking I've already made the decision to go meat-free based on my lunch menu, think again. I've just currently "made the decision" not to go to the grocery store and have little to no food left). Enjoy your day, and thanks for reading!

Busy Busy Bees

2010-06-04T11:50:00.000-05:00

The other day I was having a tough time being motivated to work. I was being crazy productive, but wasn't really feeling too excited about anything I was doing. I just had ZERO energy! So I went off campus for lunch to my new favorite lunch spot, Chick Fil-A. I like it because there are some actually healthy options there that I can have, plus their fruit cup is unrivaled in all the land. No nasty melon, no slimy bananas. Just deliciously fresh fruit - grapes, apples, strawberries, and mandarin orange slices. YUM! After I got my food I decided to stick around for awhile, and it was a such a beautiful day that I ate outside (surprisingly I was the only one who was out there most of the time. I guess people like air conditioning more than sunlight. Crazy).

Usually when I go somewhere to eat alone, I bring something to do - a book to read, my laptop, or my cell phone. But I didn't have any of that stuff with me. Actually, my cell phone was probably in my purse nearby, but I didn't want to look at it. I just sat and watched all the people coming in and out of the restaurant. Apparently, the Midwest City Chick Fil A is the most successful Chick Fil A in all of Oklahoma. I'd believe it - that place was packed! Just so we're clear, I didn't just stare at people as they walked by me. Even I know that's creepy. But I did make notice of those who came in and those who left. I like people watching, and it gives me a good escape from my own reality.

The crazy thing was how many people gave me slightly odd looks as I sat there eating my chargrilled chicken sandwich and fruit cup. It took me a while to figure out what was so different about me, and then it hit me: The majority of the people who came into the restaurant walked quickly, were talking on their phones, and then left as soon as they had gotten their food. They probably ate it in the car on their way back to work or the next errand they had to run. And here I was, savoring every bite of each piece of strawberry in my fruit cup. It probably took me longer to eat the apple chunks at the bottom of my cup than it took most of those people to eat their entire meal. So why was I getting odd looks? I think that they were scared by my inactivity.

Why does inactivity scare us? I guess back in the day, inactivity meant death - if you sat still for too long, a sabertooth tiger could eat you. Or if a person lay still for too long, that was probably a good sign they weren't ever going to move again. Activity definitely has its place - it keeps us healthy, awake and alive. But shouldn't there be a place for inactivity other than the 4 or 5 hours of sleep we force into our schedule every day?

In high school and college, there was always a sort of bragging game that would go on - someone would come in one day really tired, and when someone else would ask them why they were tired, they'd explain that they didn't get to bed until 2:00 that morning, then they had to wake up for school at 7. This statement was kind of like throwing out a challenge. The little brains of all the kids around would start calculating when they went to bed and when they got up to see if they had gotten less sleep than that person. If they did, they would chime in with their own sad sleep story. "I know what you mean, man, I was up studying until 4:00 this morning for that Chemistry final and then had to be up by 6 to work out and get to class on time!" And this game would be played for a few more rounds until someone would claim an all-nighter (or two back-to-back all-nighters) and thus win the game.

For awhile I played this game - and won it a lot - until I realized that the underlying spirit behind the game wasn't one of comiseration but of bravado. It was all about bragging, because for some reason we decided that whoever got the least amount of sleep must be the most important in some way. Once I figured that out, I thought that the game was a sign of immaturity and surely when I got out of the scholastic realm the game would end.

Then I graduated and got a job and realized that it never ends. It just develops. The "I only slept for 2 hours" game is no longer impressive. Plenty of people have since realized the importance of sleep and bragging about not sleeping seems to be more like bragging about cutting off your big toe - why would you? Plus, moms of newborns and pregnant women can always win that game. Not fair. But the bravado has now developed into something more sophisticated. Now we brag about how busy we are. Oh, I can't possibly make that meeting, I've got four meetings back-to-back Friday afternoon, and after those four I have to write up summaries of each meeting, fax them across the globe, pick up a sheet cake at the baker's before they close at 5:30, buy a gift, wrap it, shower and change and make it to a six-year old's birthday party by 6:45. Then I have to help facilitate the Pin the Tail on the Donkey game, help clean up, get my kids who have just now eaten enough sugar to put them into a dibetic coma back home and to bed, and then finish up the rest of the work I didn't do because I was in the four meetings so that I can crash in bed around midnight and be up by 6 the next morning to get into the office and submit my proposals to my boss by 8.

But what are we really saying? Did they really need to know all of that about my schedule or could a simple, "No, I'm sorry, I'm too busy Friday," have done the trick? Why do we feel the need to unload our overpacked schedules on people? Because activity has come to mean importance. And the more active (or busy) you are, the more important you are. So when I tell you how busy I am, I'm really saying, "I'm sorry, I can't make that meeting, because I'm more important than you." Don't you feel a sense of satisfaction when you can list off everything you have to do in a day and the person you're talking to stares at you in awe like, "How in the world can you do all of that? You must have superpowers!" I know I do.

So why are people afraid of inactivity? Because it acts against the cultural idea that busy means important. Did I feel less important than the busy people rushing in and out of the restaurant the other day? To be honest, I did a little. It's against my nature to sit still and enjoy sunshine and puppies between the hours of 9am and 5pm. But I'll bet you that my lunch break was much more beneficial to me than those people's breaks were to them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should all be inactive. And I'm not saying that if you are a busy person you're prideful. It's a necessary thing in this culture to be busy. It helps you to survive. But every once in awhile, when I find myself getting wrapped up in how busy I am, I find it helpful to do something to force me to be un-busy, like sitting outside and listening to the birds. Or people watching. Or just listening for the sweet, still voice of God in the midst of the insanity of my everyday life.

Everything's up to date in Kansas City

2010-06-01T13:33:00.000-05:00

They've gone about as fur as they can go... Hey guys, time for another update on my life, although the people who are most verbal about their disappointment in my lack of consistency in writing (family) are the ones who won't find much new in this post!

Why? Because I got to spend the weekend with my family in Kansas City! It was great fun driving up there and getting to hang out with my mom's side of the family for a day or so. It was my aunt's birthday and my uncle wanted to surprise her with a party, gathering as many family and friends as possible. Aside from my aunt, the rest of my mom's family lives in Northwest Arkansas (kind of funny, because the siblings all grew up in the Chicago area. They've just transplanted over the years), so at least 2 representatives from each sibling's family came to celebrate my aunt's birthday with her. Her husband (my uncle, the party planner) also got all of his siblings to show up, as well as neighbors and friends from church.

It was great fun, and I got to enjoy one of life's little pleasures - staying in a hotel. I'm not quite sure why I enjoy staying in a hotel so much, but I really do! I like the free breakfasts and the people that get paid to be nice to you when you walk in and the fact that I never have to clean my room or make my bed. Plus, there's usually a pool, hot tub, and fitness center of some sort. And hotels are usually right in the middle of a whole bunch of other fun things to do, like restaurants, shopping centers, movie theaters, whatever. So I had a great time this weekend enjoying the little pleasure of staying in a hotel. Honestly, even the drive wasn't that bad. I was worried that a 5-hour drive would be really hard to handle on my own (I've driven longer distances by myself, but it's been awhile). But it was pretty easy, and I only had to stop once to fill up and empty out.

Of course seeing the kiddos was super fun too. Their enthusiasm always inspires me to be a better person, one who's more optimistic about life and not just savors the little pleasures but genuinely relishes them. When was the last time you got so excited about something that you jumped up and down in circles for minutes on end? These kids did it several times a day. It was awesome.

I was a bit worried that being away from home all weekend and not being able to be as choosy as I'd like to be with my food would result in a weight gain this week. I even accepted it as a reality and bought myself a Grilled Stuffed Burrito from Taco Bell Sunday night, something I only do when accepting defeat for the week :) ... not that they're bad. No, on the contrary, those unnatural concoctions of chemicals and non-food products are one of the tastiest things available to someone who doesn't want to leave their car that I can think to put in my mouth. But seriously, there's no way on earth that I can chow down on those on a consistent basis and expect to not weigh 500 pounds (please don't bring up the Taco Bell diet. Just because you put salsa on a taco doesn't make it healthy, and I'm still convinced that the girl who lost so much weight by only eating Taco Bell must have lost it all to explosive bowels or something. That is NOT healthy, I don't care what you say). Anyway, all that to say that I didn't gain, I lost another pound this week! Yay me! That puts me at 3 pounds away from my goal. I'm so close!!!

Also, I'm still getting ready for the 5k, which is coming up in about a week and a half (June 12). I've been telling a few people about it, and my family was so proud of me they were all thinking about coming down to watch me! At first, that really scared me. I'm not sure how well I'll do at this. I've never been in a race, I've never actually run 5 kilometers outside, either. So I was scared that they would come all the way out to see me and then I'd embarrass myself by not doing as well as I want to and thus failing in front of my family or making it not worth their while to come see me. But now I think I want them to come, because it will inspire me to work harder, and will be one more encouragement for me to not quit. Right now, my goal is just to not walk at all. I realize that I could probably finish faster if I did a run/walk combo, but I'm not so much concerned about the time as I am the ability to push myself to keep running or jogging, even when I don't want to.

On the same note of running, I made a relatively dumb impulse buy the other day. I got a Garmin GPS/heart rate monitor watch that helps me know my pace when I'm running, how far I've run, and even allows me to break up my run into sections to see how fast I've run each section (like I can break up each mile or half mile to see how my times change throughout my run). I was just browsing for them on eBay and found one for a good price. I bid on it, got outbid, and then my competitive nature kicked in and I had to win it! So I did, and whether I want it or not, I'm now the proud owner of a high-tech piece of running equipment. Super useful if I ever decide to venture outside of the gym to run (which I have a couple of times).

Well, my iCal seems to indicate that I'll have plenty of work to do this week, and that's good. I don't like being bored. My job is kinda feast or famine. Sometimes I'm bored to tears with nothing to do, and sometimes I'm crazy busy from 9 to 5. Man, can you believe it's June already? Oklahoma apparently doesn't really have a spring season. You wouldn't think that it would be too different from Arkansas, but it sure seems that way to me. We kinda just jumped from winter to summer, with a few rainy days in between. Bummer, I like spring. Nothing thought-provoking, just me today. Maybe something more interesting in the next couple of days when I have a chance to process it. Until then, be nice, keep the peace, and get really really excited about something!

Sabbath, Sushi and Soup

2010-05-24T16:25:00.000-05:00

What a weekend! I woke up at the crack of 10:30 (I know it sounds sarcastic, but my average wake-up time on Saturdays is usually noon, so 10:30 is WAY early, especially when you consider that I stayed up talking to my neighbors until 3 or 4) and decided to make the day a commitment-free do what I please day. So I went to a few thrift stores and left with all my money and completely unimpressed. I'm not a big thrift store shopper anyway, so no biggie. After that I went to a cute little coffee shop and read a book I'd brought along (always a must-have for do-what-you-please days). I sat outside the shop and just enjoyed the weather as well as practicing how to find a place of peace and calm in the midst of chaos and activity around me. It was great, and super relaxing.

The book I'm currently reading is called Recycled Spirituality. It's by a friend of mine, Charles Bello, and it's a really great, practical read thus far. I say "thus far" because I've only read the first three chapters - two of which are introductory. The third chapter was on the practice of the Sabbath which I decided to be very intentional about on Sunday. The craziest thing was that when I got to church on Sunday, the lesson was on Sabbath too! It's really cool how sometimes God just underlines themes in your life at certain times. I may be pretty dumb, but I'm smart enough to catch on that God wanted me to look into this Sabbath deal more. So I spent Sunday doing exactly that. I sat outside, studied nature and looked for God, His glory, His nature, His purposes and His hand everwhere. And I totally found it! It was a beautiful day and I really felt like I would have missed a lot of it had I not been intentional about practicing the Sabbath. Definitely something I want to get better and better at.

Saturday lunch was a delicious combo of sushi and salad at the Pachinko Parlor in downtown OKC. I highly recommend the Pachinko Roll, which was a delicious concoction of salmon, cucumber and toasted wasabi chickpeas. Very yummy! Then I headed next door to my good friends Justin and Audrey's new home where I hung out with Audrey and we just enjoyed each other's company over gluten-free pretzels, coffee, and one ginormous cupcake (Sara Sara Cupcakes next door). Went to the gym, sweat my booty off, then back to Justin and Audrey's for Karate Kid. I love watching movies that I used to think were so cool back in the day only to realize that they are really really lame. But did you know Elizabeth Shue was in that movie? I had no idea! Of course as a kid I didn't know who Elizabeth Shue was anyway. At least not until somewhere around The Saint.

Sunday saw me at church (as I mentioned earlier) and then enjoying my afternoon with a bowl of chili. Part of the way through my Sabbath I got inspired and began writing a new story. There's still a lot of work left to do on it, but I'll consider sharing it with you when I finish. Don't hold your breath, though. And of course my entire Sunday evening was dedicated to the single greatest TV show on earth - LOST! Justin, Audrey, Maia and I threw a Mexican fiesta in honor of the death of some of our best friends. Kate, Jack, Sawyer, Hurley, and the rest of the gang...we'll miss you. I cried through the entire 4 1/2 hours. It was beautiful and I think they ended the show well. You'll hear no complaints from me on the ending. Because even if I didn't like it, what good would that do? Really, the show was about the people, not about the questions and the answers. So the fact that the ending is all about the people worked out just right for me.

Well Monday came a little earlier than I wanted it to (and it brought a headache with it...dang you, Monday!), but it gave me a delicious Fresh Pea Soup with Mint and a 3 pound weight loss! Woohoo! This puts me at 4 pounds away from my goal, people, the finish line is in sight! I've been running about 5 times a week, just changing length, intensity and paths. I'm really proud of me, folks. The 5k is in 3 weeks and I'm pretty confident that I'll survive it. I won't win it for sure; I just hope I don't come in last! Oh, that reminds me, I also got some nifty new running shoes. No more black toenails for me! At least not until I become a super-serious runner and actually earn the black toenails :)

Well that's about it. Just a summary on what's up with me. Stay tuned for more when my freshly-emptied head refills with knowledge to impart upon you!

Wine and Manna

2010-05-19T09:30:00.000-05:00

I came up with this and felt like I should share it. Again, it's not super entertaining, just something that I thought was profound (maybe it's not to you. Maybe you're way more enlightened than me and are spiritually beyond stuff like this. In which case, just go ahead and click on the little red 'x' up in the corner to close the browser. Then go hang out with all of your spiritually enlightened friends and you can talk about what a simpleton I am. But believe you me, I'll be talking to all of my friends about how lame you are because you use the word 'simpleton.' I mean really, who in this day and age uses the word 'simpleton?' You deserve to be made fun of for that. You've brought it on yourself).

I haven't been too big on reading the Bible lately...or ever, really. It's not that I don't like the Bible, I really do. I think it's a great book - the best book, really. And it's not that I don't get anything out of reading the Bible. I often do, even if it's just a sense of peace and closeness with God. I just, for whatever reason, have never been able to make a habit out of reading that book every day. I'll go a month or two reading it daily and then something will happen and I'll stop for awhile. Then I'll start back up, then stop again. It's kind of the story of my life. Anyway, I've been reading again lately, and I feel like I'm getting some very good things from what I've been reading. You see, my sending church does this awesome thing where every week they send out a study on the passages that have been (or will be...I can't figure that out because I never hear the sermons) preached that week. And you can use that study for your own personal quiet time as well as for discussions between friends and family and during community group times. It's a great idea, in my opinion, and It's been very helpful for me to have some sort of structure every week to be able to follow.

Last week I studied the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, the only miracle recorded in all four gospels. For extra reading, the guide suggested that I read back in Exodus to freshen up on the "manna" story. Pretty amazing stuff, really. And while I was reading it, I thought of something:
SOMETIMES GOD TURNS WATER INTO WINE. AND SOMETIMES HE GIVES US MANNA.
Now maybe this isn't profound to you, but it certainly was to me. Sometimes God does something so amazing and unexpected and undeserved that he blesses us beyond what we could ever imagine. He gives us something that we wouldn't dream to ask for and, to be honest, that we don't even need. That's the wine.

But sometimes God just gives us manna. This stuff that is filling, but not the most amazing thing in the world. It'll keep us from dying, but it's not like we're feasting on anything incredible. Even the quail probably got old after 40 years. Have you ever eaten the same thing for a long period of time? Even the most delicious of meals is undesirable after the 3rd, 4th, or 5th tasting. I've had the same meal 3-5 times a day for 5 days in a row before, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

So sometimes we get the wine, sometimes we get the manna. But what I've found myself wondering is, "If God can turn the water into wine, why doesn't He always do that?" I've heard amazing stories about God's supernatural provision in people's lives. You hear about incredible, miraculous blessings all the time. But why doesn't He always do that? My desire for the wine took away from my appreciation for the manna. Both are miracles. Wine out of water? Insane! No one can do that! Unidentifiable food that appears every morning out of nowhere? Again, absolutely unthinkable! It's a total miracle, but I overlook it in my own life when the manna is the sustenance to get by for the day. When manna means that I survived another day or that I had just enough grace within me to overpower one or two evil urges, I don't appreciate it. Even though I know that the strength to survive or overpower those urges could not have come from me, it doesn't seem nearly as miraculous as seeing my circumstances immediately change or stumbling upon something that automatically makes living life 100% easier.

So my goal is to be grateful for the manna. It's been my 1-word prayer recently, whenever things get tough. And I'm hoping that in being grateful for the manna, the wine will be all the sweeter to taste when it comes.

Lame Blog Name

2010-05-14T16:07:00.000-05:00

Some of you may be wondering, "Corrie, you have such entertaining blog posts. You're so creative, funny, witty, inspirational and thought-provoking. Why does your blog have such a lame name?" Well, to the first two sentences I would reply, "Thank you, you're so kind!" To the third sentence I would reply, "Great question, reader!"

You see, when I first created this blog, I was planning to move to the other side of the world - somewhere in Asia was my original destination. Now no one's to say that I still won't move there someday. I mean I'm still young and single and I have my whole life ahead of me. But what I'm trying to explain was that, although there were probably many more creative options for blog names, I wanted to make sure that I didn't post anything religious, sensitive or controversial so as to attract unwanted attention from the government of whatever country I was in. Also, I thought it was a neat idea that I would be in a different "world" from most of my friends and family, so I thought they would like to know what things were like in my world.

Well, as we've all come to realize, I'm just in Oklahoma. Not that different of a world from the world the rest of my friends and family live in. But you're right, my blog name is pretty dumb. So I'm taking suggestions. What should I re-name my blog? If I like your idea, I might use it. Comment on this post, email me at corrie.matchell@gmail.com, facebook me, or tell me in person what you think I should rename my blog.

God knows the why

2010-05-11T13:30:00.000-05:00

I was talking through this the other day with some friends and I still think that this topic is so significant and beautiful that I want to share it with all of you. Just be forewarned: I put a band-aid on my thumb and it's a little tighter than it should be, so if there's lots of typos it's because my blue thumb has swollen to an unusually large size and is hitting all of the keys around it. That or I've passed out from lack of circulation...to my thumb :)

We don't all trust each other. A lot of us like to keep our own little secrets. When we meet people or make new friends, we don't want to tell them all about our past. Honestly, we're often not sure if we can or should trust people for quite awhile. And that's valid. It's healthy and wise not to air your dirty laundry to everyone you meet. Doing that has a tendency to get you hurt, not to mention make people feel uncomfortable. But I believe that there is some merit to being open, honest, and transparent with those around you.

Let's say, for example, that in my past I struggled with addiction to alcohol (this is not true, please don't start rumors, I'm just using an example to prove my point). I would hope that you wouldn't like me any less because of my past, but you might think twice before inviting me to a Girls' Night Out at the bar. You might avoid bringing me a bottle of wine as a housewarming gift. You might be more concerned than normal if you saw a bottle of vodka in my freezer. But if I never told you about my history with alcohol, you might always be inviting me out to the bar. You might throw me a kegger for a housewarming party, and you might not even worry about seeing me drinking. Knowing about my past helps you be a better friend to me.

I think that not only can knowing about each other's pasts help us be more aware of tendencies to trip up, but I believe that the knowledge of people's pasts can also help us to extend more grace. Once you know that my family's home was destroyed by fire (and this is true), you might understand a little better why I run around unplugging all unused appliances (even the microwave in my room is unplugged most of the time). It's not to be annoying or to inconvenience people, it's because of my past. Our pasts can affect our behavior in lots of ways, some that we don't even realize. And while I know it may be scary to admit our pasts to other people, I think it can really help others to have more grace with us, because they have a better idea as to why we're doing the things we're doing, why we're making the decisions we're making, and why we're acting the way we're acting.

The comforting thing that I've realized recently is that God knows it all. He knows our past without us having to tell Him. And so when we mess up, He knows why we mess up. Growing up, I remember hearing again and again in church that God knew everything I did. He saw every little sin I did and knew every mistake I made. What was never really emphasized was that God knew why I messed up too. God watches me push people away and sometimes treat them unkindly and He knows that I've been hurt by people before. Does it make it okay that I treated these people unkindly? No. But He understands why I did it, and that's where His mercy and grace can come in.

Take children, for example. If your little three-year-old throws a fit, you might know that she's emotional because she didn't get a nap this afternoon. Does it make it okay that she threw a fit? No. Will there be consequences? Probably (I'm not telling you how to parent, I know that I'm ignorant in the ways of child-rearing, I'm just commenting on what I've observed from other parents). But you understand why she did it. And that gives you grace toward her. She's not intentionally being naughty. Sure, she should have chosen to do right and she could have chosen to do right. But her past made it more difficult for her to make the right decision.

I feel like that's how God sees us. I should have kept my mouth shut the other day and not griped at that person. And I know that I could have done it but my past - both my past circumstances that I had no control over and the choices that I have made - made it more difficult for me to do the right thing. And God knows that. Isn't it comforting to rest in the arms of a God who not only knows what we do but also why we do it?

I probably learn more from my losses than my victories.

2010-05-10T16:29:00.001-05:00

Dang it, I was on a roll, here! But wouldn't you know it, 6 pounds away from my goal weight and my body decides to sabotage me. I gained 2 1/2 pounds this week. Boo! To be fair, it's not entirely my body's fault. I indulged on some amazingly yummy food this week, which probably put me over the edge. But I don't regret it. That's one of the great things about this lifestyle is that each week is a fresh start. It doesn't matter what happened last week, this week is new. My mistakes from last week don't have to carry over into the next week.

Growing up, I went to a lot of basketball games (gee, I wonder why!) and I remember hearing the phrase, "Shake it off!" a whole lot. A player would make a mistake and cause a turnover or foul or something and then, running back down to the other side of the court, they'd get frustrated at themselves for making a dumb mistake and end up making another dumb mistake (like putting the other team's point guard in a head lock...). Their heads weren't in the game, and because they were dwelling on their past mistake, they ended up making even more mistakes. I'd blame this problem on my less-than-stellar showing on the court, but I have a feeling that a huge lack of skills has more to do with it than mental wherewithall. You probably wouldn't be able to tell much difference between when my head was in the game and when it wasn't. Just doing my part to disprove the "all tall people are good at basketball" sterotype.

But I have had this problem in the rest of my life. There have been many times when I've made a mistake of some sort and my frustration at making such a dumb mistake has propelled me into making dumber and dumber mistakes. But we don't have to live like that! Every day is a fresh start. Every week is a new beginning. We can commit to getting our heads in the game now. So it's a new week now, and I fully believe that I'll lose those 2 1/2 pounds back next week.

Now I just need to get rid of those stupid pretzels! I'm learning from my mistakes, and I know now that pretzel sticks are way too addictive to be in my room. Man, just typing about them makes me want to go down to my room and get a few handfuls of them. I really like them! But now I know. No pretzels and no imitation Oreos. I'm learning. Surprisingly, chocolate is not that big of a temptation. Go figure.

I knew it would happen

2010-05-09T16:21:00.001-05:00

I knew it would happen eventually. I'm just way too forgetful, and I know that about myself. So when I locked my keys in my office on Friday, I wasn't too surprised. I've actually locked myself out of a lot of places. In my last apartment, I probably locked myself out of my apartment and car at least 5 times in the two years I lived there. The first time was in the first 10 minutes of the Super Bowl. My landlord's father was not happy about opening the apartment up for me! Everyone always told me, "Corrie, you need a spare key!" And I had one! The spare for my apartment was in my car, and the spare for my car was in my apartment. I even had separate key rings for my house keys and car keys. But every few months I'd get stupid and accidentally forget both pairs of keys in the house and then I was in trouble. My problem solving skills, however, then had a chance to be sharpened. I didn't want to call someone every time I locked myself out, so I learned how to break in. It was scary how easy it was to break into that apartment, but I learned (for safety's sake, I won't tell you how. My friend lives there now and I don't want to put her in danger!).

So when I discovered I had locked my keys in the office (and there is no spare key), I figured it was time to dust off the old problem-solving skills and give it another go. The first thing I brought out were the screwdrivers, thinking I could take off the plates for the hinges on the door. Sadly, the plates were not accessible. Fortunately, the hinges were. So I went back to my room and got a hammer and chisel (actually I think it was a putty knife, but whatever) and an old credit card (just in case). Dad, I think you kind of laughed at me when I said I wanted a toolbox a few years ago. Just so you know, I have used that thing dozens of times, and it definitely came in handy today. Thanks! I used the hammer and the putty knife to get the pins out of the hinges, then i wedged the putty knife in the top part of the door as I shook the bottom part to get the door off its hinges. It took some time and it wasn't easy, but I got it! I tore the door up a little in the process (sorry, James C.), but I did it! I was pretty proud of myself.

Oh, in other news, I'm thinking I'm going to run a 5k in June. My friend Kim asked me if I wanted to do it and I laughed at her because everyone knows that I'm not a runner. Not in any way, shape, or form. But then I was thinking about it yesterday when I went to the gym and I thought, "I wonder how long I could run for." So I punched 30 minutes in on the treadmill and decided to run until I couldn't anymore. And I ran the whole 30 minutes! That was totally crazy for me, because I'm not sure I've ever willingly done that before. I've run longer than that in boot camp, but Jana was always right next to me and I was worried that if I stopped I'd get yelled at. Plus, I wanted to stop every second of the way. I was really okay with not stopping yesterday. Maybe it was because I told myself that it was okay to stop if I wanted to. Maybe just the freedom of knowing I could do what I wanted gave me the desire to push myself. I don't know, but it was pretty exciting! Anyway, I only ran at a 5, which is a 12-minute mile. Laugh if you will at my slowness, I don't care. But I went 2.5 miles in that 30 minutes, and I've also never run 2.5 miles before (at least not willingly). So that's pretty cool, too.

Tomorrow's my weigh-in, and it's been a rough week food-wise. It started off well, but I was suckered in by Chinese food, frozen yogurt and pretzels. I'm not so sure how the scale is going to like me. I think I'll go to the gym one more time today before facing the numbers tomorrow. I'm so close... 6 pounds! I think I'll do something special when I get to my goal weight. Stay tuned for more details on that.

A need for clarification...

2010-05-05T21:50:00.000-05:00

In light of my last few posts, I feel that I should clarify something: I am not as vain or self-centered as you may think I am. Sometimes I re-read my blog posts or Facebook statuses (statii?) and I think, "If someone didn't know me or my sense of humor, they might think that I was a narcissistic, egomaniacal person!" I am not. At least I don't think I am. But then again, if I were narcissistic, I wouldn't think I was either, would I? But if I were narcissistic it probably wouldn't occur to me to write a blog post like this where I clarified the issue to people... right?

So why do I write blog posts where I talk about how awesome, beautiful, amazingly talented and smart I am? It's because of something I learned a couple of years ago. I took the Love Languages quiz (roll your eyes if you will), and I realized that one of the major ways I receive love is through words of affirmation. As I've been on my weight loss journey over the last 5 months, the most encouragement I've received is from my friends who are constantly telling me how good I look, how much weight I've lost, and how proud of me they are. It has been incredible to see how these words have lifted my spirits and kept me on the right path! The more words of affirmation the better. As long as I believe that you mean it, I will soak it all up! Then I realized that words of affirmation is totally something I can give myself! Do I genuinely believe that I'm awesome? ... Maybe. I believe it more today than I did when I said it the first time. Every time I tell myself how proud I am of myself, every time I brag on myself, I feel just a little bit better.

You see, I'm the kind of girl who is pretty dang insecure, but I hide it well beneath a thick layer of faux-confidence, sarcasm, humor, and a model-walk (so I've been told). What this creates is a confident persona, which works without me even realizing I'm doing it. Apparently, from what I've heard, I exude confidence from the minute I walk in a room. But when people get to know me, they realize that I'm just as self-conscious as the next girl. I want people to like me. I worry about my appearance. I think I'm fat (used to...that's quickly fading, although there are still very unattractive parts to my body - hello bat wings!). I worry about being alone. I usually assume that people are annoyed by my presence and often don't want to be around me.

If you only read my blog, you might never know that about me. And if you've only seen me once or twice in passing, you might not know that. But it's true. Which is why I've picked up the habit of talking myself up - to myself and to others. I've found that the more I brag on myself (whether I believe what I say or not), the more I begin to believe what I'm saying - that I am fun to be around, that people like me, that I am beautiful, that I am talented, and that I'm actually kind of awesome. You see, I lived plenty of years (obviously not that many years, I'm only 28 {and yes, I did say only}) practicing the self-abasing I'm-no-good talk. And what did that get me? Depression, loneliness, heartache, and unhappiness. When I believed that I was no good and continued telling myself that, people didn't enjoy being around me. Which only perpetuated the I'm-no-good mentality. It was a nasty circle that I dreaded repeating for an entire lifetime.

But now I've realized that, because I am a child of Christ, I am worth more than that. Not because I'm something much more special than you or anyone else, but because we're all special. Because He chose me, because He chose each of us to love, we deserve to think highly of ourselves. We deserve to acknowledge the beauty and worth inside of us. Because He is within me, I truly am awesome! It's not vanity, it's adoration of the Creator and thankfulness for the life He's given me.

So with all of that, please take my self-accolades with a grain of salt. I love myself, and if it gets to an unhealthy point, I hope someone will lovingly confront me on it. But until then, maybe you should start telling other people you're awesome too. Or better yet, tell yourself!

Man, I'm Awesome!

2010-05-03T16:30:00.000-05:00

And I'm not ashamed to make that the title of my post, either. I lost another 2+ pounds this week, bringing my total to just under 35 pounds lost! Honestly I can't remember the last time the middle number of my weight is what it is. I know that's vague, but whatever. So I'm just thrilled to death now, because this thing is really working! Even my cute skinny jeans (not the skinny jeans cut, skinny jeans because I'm skinny) that I bought over Easter weekend are a big baggy for me right now. That's probably one of the most exciting (and frustrating - how much money am I throwing away on clothes, here?) things EVER!!!!! And here's the funniest part - Friday after 5pm I used all my extra points for the week on the following: 12 vanilla sandwich cookies (you know the cheap kind you used to get with a plastic cup of kool-aid in Vacation Bible School), a Quarter Pounder with Cheese value meal (yeah, I like McDonalds. What are you going to do about it? Don't judge me), and four high-calorie drinks (do you have any idea how many calories are in a Dr. Pepper? It's insane!). I ended up consuming 60 points on Friday, and let me put this in perspective for you non-WW people: Last week I was allotted 22 points per day. On top of that I get 35 bonus points throughout the week plus whatever extra I can earn by exercising. And I used 60. In one day. That's insane. BUT I STILL LOST!!! WOHOO!!!

In other news, I watched a few movies this weekend. Precious was really hard to watch but pretty good. I liked it. Roman Holiday was cute and predictable, but I love Audrey Hepburn. She's so beautiful! What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a great movie that I hadn't seen in quite awhile. I was glad to watch it again. Those 3 movies were very very different, but I liked them all. I would say that they were indicative of my taste in movies, but there was nothing with gratuitous violence, so it's not completely representative.

What else? I don't know. Last week was rough. Getting back into the swing of things when I really didn't want to was hard. I didn't want to work last week, but I did. This week has started a bit better. My attitude is a little more positive and is helping me be more productive. I had a great time hanging out with my friend James on Friday night and my friends Joy and Eric on Saturday night. Good friends always makes for great nights!

I went to 2 church services Sunday morning, still trying to find a home. I think I'm getting closer and closer to breaking into one of the church circles, but man, it's hard! Christians are not the friendliest people to strangers! It's like we all want to go to church to see our friends, but in doing that we don't see the people there who need a friend. I always vow that I'll change that once I feel comfortable, but I'm not sure that I ever do. Breaking into a church is hard. Hey, all of you who are members of churches where you feel comfortable... don't forget the lonely people. I feel lonelier in a church than I do sitting alone in my room. Not a pity party, just letting you know. There's nothing quite like being an outsider in a group of people you're supposed to call "family."

That's all for today. Maybe I'll write again tomorrow. I've been thinking through some spiritual things that I'd love to hear people's perspectives on. But I'm supposed to be working right now (for like another 15 minutes), so I should probably do that.

The Petty Cash Email

2010-04-26T23:18:00.000-05:00

I've had a couple of requests to post the email I sent out to the staff the other day. I realize that in the grand scheme of things, this email is probably not the funniest thing in the world. But keep in mind that I'm a finance director, someone who's not expected to be funny. My job usually consists of yelling at people for not getting things done the way I want them. So, without further ado, here's the petty cash email:

Hey guys, I know you’re super busy, but I just want to put in a quick word about petty cash. Several people have borrowed petty cash recently and that’s awesome. That’s totally what it’s there for. Here’s the deal: There’s probably still several more people who are going to need to borrow cash in the next couple of days. If you’ve taken petty cash, chances are you didn’t use it all. We need that change back ASAP so we can have enough money for the rest of the weekend. So here’s the deal: If you’ve borrowed petty cash, I need the following three things from you:

1) The change that’s leftover from what you borrowed

2) The receipt(s) documenting what you bought (I need the original and make one copy of the receipts too)

3) A PO showing what you bought, how much you spent, what account it should come out of, etc I know several of you are grimacing at this, but seriously, it takes like 2 minutes to fill out a PO. If you’re not sure about the account number, check out the descriptions next to the numbers. If you’re still not sure, ask me. I’ll help you figure it out.

I’ve attached a copy of the PO form for you to make it easier for you to fill it out. Seriously, guys, I really need your help in this. It will take all of 5 minutes out of your day to get this stuff to me. If I don’t get all this stuff back, this is the scenario I envision sometime on Friday or Saturday:

You: Corrie, Corrie, there’s an emergency! I have to run to Wal Mart and get 50 cans of whipped cream stat!

Me: Wow, that does sound like an emergency. What do you want me to do about it?

You: I need petty cash, and plenty of it!

Me: Well that’s a bummer. No one turned in their change, receipts and PO’s, so we don’t have any more petty cash. I wish I could help you, but it looks like you’re up a creek without a paddle.

You: Well, then, can I have a credit card?

Me: Probably not, but thanks for asking so nicely.

You: What am I going to do?

Me: I don’t know. I guess Nomads has officially failed. Too bad people didn’t turn in their change, receipts and PO’s. We might have avoided this tragic ending.

You then run away into the woods screaming like a mad person and never return. We tell the children ghost stories about the crazy person living in the woods as a cautionary tale to all who might think that turning their change, receipts and PO’s in a timely manner isn’t a big deal…

Thanks for your cooperation, guys, things are looking great out there and you’re all doing a great job!

Corrie

Just a reminder, Thursday, April 29, is National Be Kind to Your Finance Director Day. Spread the love!!!

Update on my life...

2010-04-26T22:19:00.000-05:00

My mother ever-so-kindly reminded me that I haven't blogged in awhile. It's mostly because nothing that interesting has happened to me in awhile, and I didn't want to disappoint you with some boring post about what I ate or how I now enjoy playing racquetball (which is true, by the way. Awesomely fun sport, and I can burn a lot more calories than just jogging!). But it's been long enough that at least an update is overdue.

This last week was super crazy, as everyone I work with was preparing for Nomads, a weekend-long missions conference on our campus. We do this every year, and people really seem to love it. I've never been an attendee to the conference, only a worker, and it's virtually impossible to get a good feel on how people are enjoying something unless you're one of them, but the people that I watched seemed to be enjoying themselves. The weekend seems like it would be a lot of fun to participate in. There's camping, yummy food (we always get at least one meal catered by a local Indian restaurant - always a favorite!), ethnic music (a band called Aradhna plays on Friday nights. They play Indian worship music), fun activities, great music and good speakers. Anyway, we were setting up for Nomads all week, which is quite a job. I say 'we,' but I really mean 'they.' I was prepared to help set up for Nomads, but my job got crazy busy last week and I was completely overwhelmed just trying to keep up with the daily demands of being the Finance Director. I helped where I could, but I'm afraid it wasn't as much as I wanted to help. Anyway, the weekend seemed to go well, and everyone on campus has collapsed today in the wake of hurricane Nomads.

I also auditioned for a musical last week. I have been looking for ways to get involved in things I enjoy off campus and thought musical theater sounded like fun. Unfortunately, I didn't make it. I cried a bit, as most people probably do when they are super-stressed out and then face rejection on top of that. But I'm fine now. I might audition again. I'm just glad I tried it once. If it's something I'm really interested in, I need to be willing to work for it. We'll see.

Finally, I weighed in again today. I haven't posted anything about my weight loss for awhile, but I can proudly tell you that as of today I have lost over 32 pounds! I am super proud of myself, and I'm so near my goal weight I can taste it (strangely it tastes a lot like the off-brand Oreo I'm rewarding myself with as I type...). There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, proof that Weight Watchers really does work. I haven't gone health-crazy or done anything extraordinary. I've just watched what I've eaten and tried to be more active, and it has paid off! If I can do it, anyone can. Trust me, I have the world's worst self-control, but the feeling of putting my mind to something and doing it is amazing!

That's about it for now, I guess. I'll try to come up with something more interesting for my next blog entry.

Weekend with the Matchells

2010-04-09T09:37:00.000-05:00

I realize I haven't written in over a week, and I would apologize about that if I were sorry, but I'm not, so I'm not going to lie to you and tell you I'm sorry for not writing when I'm not sorry that I haven't written, I just haven't written.

But I'll write now...

Oh yeah, that's my hometown.

I went back to Arkansas last weekend and was reminded of just how much I really like the place I grew up. Sure, Siloam is a tiny town. Sure, there's not much to do there and one can forget that there's a great big world out there when trapped within the confines of "God's Country," but honestly, that's part of what makes it such a great place. I was there for three days and enjoyed every minute of it, because it wasn't constantly demanding that I remember all my stresses, problems, and frustrations from the rest of my life. Siloam seemed content to let me forget everything and just drink in its beauty.

And what beauty! I didn't get to see any dogwood trees (I'm pretty sad about that) but the green grass, the rainbow of flowers, and the other trees! Bradford Pears (always a personal favorite), redbuds, tulip trees and more reminded me that spring is an actual season and not just a brief interlude between winter and summer. I love spring, and the fact that it is making less and less of an appearance in my life (is this because of global warming or because I'm in Oklahoma? I don't know...) is pretty painful. I used to love autumn. I loved the colors of the leaves on the trees, the crunching of the leaves on the ground, and the smells of bonfires, hay, and pumpkins. I still love all these things, but my fascination with death is slowly dwindling and my love of life is picking up. I love to see new life everywhere!

Anyway, I really enjoyed slowing down a bit and taking in all that Siloam Springs had to offer. I also loved spending time with my favorites little ones - Jakin, Anna and Mikaiah. They were a real treat, and being around them always makes me happy - especially when they're glad to see me! There's really nothing quite like having a 4-year old run across the room to hug you when you walk in, screaming, "Aunt Corrie, you're here!" It warms my heart. And If I were a betting girl, I'd bet that right now, you're thinking of a sweet little one who is (or once was) glad to see you. Well, if you weren't before, you are now! let it bring a smile to your face. Savor the precious moments.

It's a good thing I savored the precious moments, because the moment I got home, the virus those little boogers had been carrying around in their tummies (everyone in that family but Mikaiah had a 24-hour stomach bug) had leapt into mine and I spent Sunday night in the bathroom recovering from those dang "precious moments!" But it was worth it. It only lasted 24 hours and by Tuesday morning I was pretty much good to go again.

I also had a great chance while I was home to see my mom and dad, whom I love dearly. Mom took Chris and I to get pedicures (super fun) and then we went out for lunch and went shopping. It was a very girly day, and I seriously enjoyed it. The next afternoon, Dad and I went to Atwoods and he helped me pick out some seed packets to start an herb garden. I'm going to try to grow chives, cilantro and basil. Of course I forgot to go through the pots in the garage and take one home with me to plant the herbs. Dummy!

We also found a hanging basket that strawberries can grow in. I'm really excited about this one, as strawberries are my favorite fruit (did anyone know this about me? Everyone in my family thinks that Brian is the strawberry maniac, because he always makes such a big deal about them. That's why my Grandma Matchell always gives him strawberry preserves. But I love strawberry preserves! Seriously, they're one of the greatest things! And even though I can't/shouldn't/don't want to eat strawberry preserves right now because of my campaign to not be fat {28 pounds and counting...}, I still like strawberries every bit as much as Brian, and I eat strawberries all the time, because they're healthy. But because I don't make a big deal about it, no strawberries for Corrie! I guess I need to try being the squeaky wheel to get the oil, eh? All anyone knows about me is that I like mashed potatoes. And that's the truth. They're incredible).

Sorry for the long paragraphs. I know it's hard to read them. I just ramble. It's what I do. Anyway, great weekend, back in Oklahoma now, loving the sun, and looking forward to slightly warmer days!

Experiment for the Day: Driving the Speed Limit

2010-03-29T13:38:00.000-05:00

I'm not the world's best driver. I haven't been in many wrecks (knock on wood!), but I often make really stupid mistakes (like a couple weeks ago when I ran into a telephone pole). I also enjoy driving fast. On residential roads I'm a 5-over girl, and on highways I'm a 10-over girl. I used to think I drove fast just because I was young and single. I mean I'm 28, I'm never going to die, right? Plus, when I'm driving by myself, who do I have to look out for? I've driven friends, family, and children around and been much more cautious. Now, though, I think there's probably more behind my need to pass every car I see, pushing the limit constantly. But this is not the time for psychoanalysis. We'll save that for another couch, another time.

Today I went to the store and decided that, along the way, I would try something new: I would pay attention to - and obey - the speed limit. I don't know why. Why do I do any of the things I do? Just cuz, I guess. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be! I don't like letting cars pass me. I don't like driving in the right lane. I don't like cars coming right up behind me and then tailgating me for a mile or two. Not fun. There was, however, one bonus: I didn't have to panic when I saw a cop! It's kind of a great feeling to drive without always having to look out for police hiding around every corner. I knew without a doubt that I wouldn't get pulled over for speeding. It wasn't just an if-I'm-lucky thing, I knew there was no way! I liked that.

Well, it was an interesting experiment. I might keep it up for a few more days. Supposedly driving slower saves the environment and saves me money, but sometimes I just like to go fast.

Sometimes I miss...

2010-03-17T22:57:00.000-05:00

When my nephew was two, we got him a small kid-sized basketball hoop with lots of plush balls to shoot at the hoop. My brother is a basketball coach and my nephew wants nothing more than to be "just like Daddy." So he would heave those balls at the hoop with all his might and sometimes he'd make it! "I make it, I make it!" he'd yell, and we'd all cheer. Sometimes, he wouldn't make it, and we would all hold our breaths to see how this two-year old would take the crush of defeat and failure. "It's ok, sometimes I miss," would be the words from his never-dampened spirit as he shot the ball again and again until he made another shot.

I remember myself at that age (ok, maybe not that age specifically, but at a young age...). I totally would have cried. I've always been a perfectionist, and if I ever encountered something I wasn't good at (or at least as good as I wanted to be), I cried. I cried during piano practice, I cried during spelling bees, you name it, I cried there. My spirits never would have been as high as my nephews if I had missed that shot. I probably would have quit and moved on to another game.

But now I'm learning that quitting is not an option. Just because I make a mistake or I'm not the best at something is no excuse not to give it my best shot. It's hard for the competitor in me, because I have a deep-seeded mindset that if I can't be the best at something (or if I don't have a shot at winning), I shouldn't try. But nothing can be further from the truth! Why do we love (and by "we" I mean most guys and a small group of girls out there) movies like Braveheart, Gladiator, and 300? Because people who knew that they had no chance of winning fought anyway. The opponents cheated, they had better artillery and more men, but our heroes fought anyway. Why? Because they believed in something.

I wonder if I have anything I believe in enough to fight without quitting. Is there anything out there that I would fight for even though I know I'd lose? Am I that passionate about anything? Even in the Christian life I can fight knowing that I'm on the winning team. It doesn't seem to be that much of a risk to me, because I know that regardless of what happens in this life, I'll be on the winning side in the next life, so looking the fool is an acceptable risk. But is there anything I would choose to fight for or against with the full knowledge that I would lose? Is anything worth that?

Be the change

2010-03-15T00:37:00.000-05:00

Be the change you want to see in the world. That's all I'm posting today. Tell me what it means for you.

Marvelous Monday

2010-03-08T19:48:00.000-06:00

Hello, faithful blog followers! Today I'd just like to tell you about my food. I had an epiphany yesterday, but I don't have time to write about that, and it's been a pretty awesome food day, so I'd rather tell you about that.

For breakfast I had oatmeal (real oatmeal, not the stuff in the little packets) with fresh raspberries (actually they were frozen, but when I poured the hot oatmeal on them they were close enough to fresh). So delicious the way the hot oatmeal causes the raspberries to burst and ooze their raspberry goodness all over the bowl! Then I stirred it all together so every bite had a bit of raspberry in it. AMAZING! Unfortunately, raspberries are crazy expensive (a fact I accidentally overlooked when I put them in my shopping cart this weekend), so I'm enjoying them now, but realizing that I probably won't get them every week. I also had some yummy coffee. I knew I wanted coffee this morning, because I didn't sleep well last night. So I started the coffee maker in the lobby with crappy Folgers. But as soon as I had started it, my good friend Tom said, "Corrie, would you like some french press coffee?" Of course I said yes! And it was delicious. Absolutely wonderful.

Lunch was pretty typical. I mixed a can of tuna with a chopped up dill pickle, green onions, cayenne pepper, and fat free yogurt. Crazy fact I learned a few weeks ago: You can mix fat free yogurt with tuna, and it works just like mayonnaise! The tuna is so strong you can't really tell that it's yogurt. Awesome way to be slightly healthier and still not give up on familiar food textures and tastes.

My snack was a Kashi TLC bar. These, too, are crazy expensive and I won't be getting any more boxes of these guys unless I get another coupon (the only reason I bought the first two boxes). But talk about delicious! I had a dark chocolate coconut bar and it was so yummy, plus it totally kept me satisfied until dinner time.

Dinner was pretty awesome too. I made Chicken Pad Thai from a recipe I found on the WW site. I cooked the chicken last night so it was already ready, and put everything else together tonight. The whole thing was crazy delicious, and enjoyed every last noodle in my bowl, which is good, because the recipe made 6 servings of the stuff, so I'll be eating it for awhile! Fortunately, that means that I'm pretty much set on lunches for the week (and I have something other than microwaveable soup to take to Joe's when I work Wednesday night). I guess cooking for one isn't as hard as I thought if you have the time and if you don't mind leftovers. I don't mind leftovers if they're good, and I try to work ahead when I have the time (like last night I didn't have anything to do, so I cooked up a whole bunch of chicken, very lightly seasoned, cut it into little chunks, and stuck it in the fridge so whenever I need it for all the other meals I've planned this week, it's already ready!) to make up for when I don't have the time.

I don't know why I think you need to hear about what I ate today, but you know those days when you look back on the day and think, "Everything I ate today was awesome!"? Well, today was one of those days. You should definitely have one of those days too. Enjoy your food, dang it!

Oh, I should also mention that I weighed in again this afternoon and I'm down another 1.4 pounds, bringing my total weight loss to 22.2 pounds. Only one pair of jeans fit anymore (a pair I've always been to fat to wear until now...not sure why I bought them when I couldn't fit into them at the time, but it's paying off now!), and all of my other clothes are way too big for me. I have the saggy-butt pants that look absolutely ridiculous on a girl and I'm swimming in all my old shirts. One of these days I'll need to go buy all new clothes. I wish I had been ready for this on my birthday (last week) but, alas, I'm still shrinking and would hate to buy more clothes that would just be too big for me in a few weeks. What a great problem to have!!! Here's a previous picture alongside a current picture for you to see the differences so far...

Spoil Me Day - the Finale

2010-03-02T14:23:00.000-06:00

I'd like to start by saying that I, unlike many women, am mostly pleased with my hair. Sure, it's a weird combination of textures, colors and behaviors. The visible part (on top) is thick and wavy, the underneath part is stick straight and thin, and then there's that whole 'soul patch' I have going on where the hair growing out of the two bumps on my head is a completely different texture from all the rest (yes, I have two crazy weird bumps on my head, no I didn't hit my head on anything, no I don't plan on getting them removed anytime soon, because I don't want two bald patches for the rest of my life.). So that's crazy, and I get that. But really, my hair is pretty awesome. It straightens well, but it also looks pretty good when I just let it dry on its own or put mousse in to make it wavy. I am also pretty happy with my face shape, especially since I've lose weight. I look good in hats, I look good with my hair up, I look good with my hair down. I really like my hair most of the time. And, regardless of what haircut I've gotten, I've been able to make it work with my lifestyle... Until now.

When I woke up on Sunday morning I decided not to go to church - probably one of the smartest moves of the day. I slept in until about 1:00 in the afternoon, got up, made myself (you guessed it) oatmeal, then spent the remainder of the day watching episodes of Alias Season 2. About half way through the day I decided to take a shower and let my hair dry naturally (mostly because I was too lazy to dry it myself and wanted to know if my hairstyle would accommodate my laziness). So I threw it up in a baseball cap and continued my day. Later that evening I figured that having nothing to do that night afforded me the perfect opportunity to play with my new hairstyle and figure out how best to style it. So I did just that. After about 30 minutes of blow drying, round brushing and straight ironing, I realized what all too many women have realized the day after their haircuts. The cute style the girl gave you in the salon is not replicable. Sadly, I had received a relatively cute (or so I was told) hairstyle, but an impossible haircut. The best I could do was fashion the hair into something that resembled either a mullet or an 80's punk-rocker. The realization that I had just gotten a truly terrible haircut sent me into a fit of tears and hysterics. I threw a good old-fashioned tantrum. Seriously, I was lying on the floor of my room sobbing. Then every once in awhile I'd calm down, look in the mirror (to show myself that it wasn't as bad as I thought) and then I'd begin to cry again. I continued this for at least an hour, if not more. I sought counsel from Audrey, who was sympathetic but tired, and Christine, who unwittingly called me to chat on her way home from her girls' night out. They were both an incredible help and at least helped me to calm my tears and regulate my breathing. Audrey even offered to make me breakfast as we went over our options in the morning (what a sweet friend she is!). So I went to bed completely upset and now realizing that not only was my Spoil Me Day ruined, but so was the following day and (if I didn't take action), the next several weeks would be ruined as well.

The next morning I woke up with majorly puffy eyes (I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about. The morning after a sobfest leaves me not only with giant bags under my eyes, but also amazing bruises (trust me, I'm a true sight to behold). Being an emotional girl with a history of waking up like this, I have a few tricks up my sleeve for reducing puffiness and bruising. My main go-to trick is frozen spoons. Run water over two spoons, stick them in the freezer for a few minutes, and then put them on your eyes. It burns like crazy, but really helps reduce the puffiness. Well of course I don't have spoons in my room, so I searched through my mini-fridge for anything cold to put on my eyes. Butternut squash soup? No. Applesauce? No. Then I came across two Flav-R-Ice packages (you know those nasty ones that taste all chemical-y that kids love in the summer where you cut the tops off and suck up all the juices and then you're left with just a plain piece of ice...gross...) that someone who lived in the room before me had left in the fridge. They weren't frozen anymore, as I had moved them from the mini-mini-freezer section to make room for other things, but they were still cold. So I bent the Flav-R-Ice packages across my nose so they rested on my eyes and lay down until they weren't cold anymore. They burned my eyes, so I guess that means they worked. I'm sure it would have been an amazing sight to see me with my mullet/80's punk rock hair and Flav-R-Ices on my face. Fortunately I have no roommates so no one saw it.

I took the day off of work and had breakfast and coffee with Audrey, who stifled a laugh as I took my hat off when I came in the house. She recommended I call the salon she used to go to, which was in Norman. I did and got an appointment for that day, which was awesome! I went back to work that afternoon and kept the hat on for the rest of the day. That evening I drove down to Norman and met a really sweet girl named Devon who assessed the damage and did her best to fix it. I now have a very short haircut that, while I'm not crazy about it, looks much MUCH better than it did 24 hours ago! To show you guys how much I love you, I'm attaching a picture that I swore I would never release: the only existing picture of the mullet. It was taken with my phone, so it's not of the best quality, but I'll tell you that the top is all layers, then there's a good 5 inches of straight hair below the layers. Trust me, it's bad. I'll also show you my new haircut so you can see how much better it is (and how much happier I am in it!). Enjoy and try to be kind...

haircut #1 (plus sad eyes. I had been crying for about an hour at this point)...

haircut #2 (minus sad eyes, plus the knowledge that it's my birthday!!!)...

My Spoiled Spoil Me Day

2010-03-02T08:23:00.000-06:00

So, when we last left off, I had just gotten coffee at Starbucks and was headed off to get my haircut...

Before we continue the story I'd like to tell you about a few of things that have happened since I last wrote that post yesterday. The first is that I turned 28. Yipee! I don't really care about 28, but I like birthdays. So happy birthday to me! The second is that I weighed in, like I do every Monday night. I would like to proudly announce that I lost 4 pounds this week, bringing my total to 20.8 pounds since December!!! In my opinion, this is freaking amazing and I'm thrilled to death. My goal is to lose about 12 more, but I'm well on my way and collecting stars as I go! The third thing I have to tell you will wait...

So I got to the Plaza District a little early (about 45 minutes early) and while I was searching around in my car (I don't know what I was searching for, so I guess I was just rummaging), I found an old rehearsal CD from the Fellowship Worship Chorus for Christmas of 2006 (as I'm typing this I realized that I was supposed to destroy that CD when we got done with the performance. Oops!). That was the year I had a pretty big solo in this song called, "Night of Alleluias." It was one of those solos altos dream of - I got to sing melody and belt it out! The CD also had music for the Hallelujah Chorus (funny how they're spelled differently, huh?) and another really beautiful song with an equally beautiful title that I can't remember. So I popped the CD in and drove around exploring the area. At one point I came to a stop sign and decided, for no good reason, to turn right. As I was turning right, I saw a sign that read, "Do Not Enter," so I stopped mid-turn. Fortunately, no one was around so I tried to turn around in the middle of the street to go the other way. Of course, with my excellent driving skills, I ended up jumping the curb (not ashamed of that, I do it all the time) and at some point, when I thought my car was in reverse, it wasn't and my sweet little Toyota Camry ran into a telephone pole. Crap. I got out to inspect the damage and was relieved to see that there was no dent, just a big scratch. But dang it, I just hit a telephone pole on my Spoil Me Day!

I didn't bother driving around aimlessly anymore, I just headed back to the Plaza District and parked my car. Justin and Audrey had just gotten to their store, and Audrey was going to come with me to my appointment, so I stopped by the store to take her with me. We walked down to the salon (only a couple blocks), came in, and I told the girl at the desk that I had an appointment with Patty (not really her name). The girl looked at the calendar and said, "Um, no, you're not on here. Let me go get her." Patty came out with a confused look on her face and said, "You told me you were going to call and schedule an appointment. You never called!" At that point I realized that we had miscommunicated. I always pre-schedule my appointments so I don't have to worry about calling. When we had discussed this last appointment, I had told her, "I might not be able to make it, I might have to go home that weekend. But I'll call and let you know if I can't." Apparently she took that to mean the opposite and she erased me from the calendar. Dang it. So now I look like an idiot who runs into phone poles and thinks she has appointments when she doesn't. So the girl said she could fit me in at 3, and Audrey made an appointment for 3 as well so we could be in there together. She gave them her phone number to call in case they wanted to move our appointments up in the day. Then, after we left the salon, she realized that she had left her phone at home. Neither of us wanted to go back in there and look any flakier than we already did by showing up thinking I had an appointment when I didn't, so we just hoped they would try to call her phone. There's only so much embarrassment and stupidity I can take from myself in one day.

So now I have just under 5 hours, and all of a sudden, my entire day is thrown. I can't do whatever I want, can I? I can't go wherever I want, can I? My day has been forced into a schedule where I have to worry about what time it is and what activities I can fit into a specific amount of time. Dang it! Justin and Audrey suggested I drive over to their friends' store a few miles away, so I did that, but apparently they opened at 11 and I got there at 10:45, so they were closed when I drove by... both times. Now what do I do? I sighed in defeat and walked into Barnes and Noble. I didn't look at many books, but sat in the cafe and read one of my own I brought along (part of Spoil Me Day is being prepared. I always bring a book and a laptop in case I decide I want to read or browse the Internet). And of course I had to buy something from the cafe, so now I'm on my second Starbucks of the day, which goes from feeling spoiled to feeling ridiculously unwise with money . I had Earl Grey, so it wasn't quite as damaging as another latte. So there I was, drinking my Earl Grey and reading Catch-22, totally depressed and saddened that my Spoil Me Day had gone down the tubes so quickly.

The day actually got much better after that (at least I thought it did). We had Big Truck Tacos for lunch, which were AMAZING! I'm a huge fan now. Then we came back and hung out at Justin and Audrey's shop for awhile until our appointments at 3. Audrey's hair looked super cute when she got done, although it was much shorter than I had seen her hair in awhile. I was unsure about mine, but Audrey assured me that it was really cute and, "kinda retro." I asked her about 15 times if she was sure, and she said that she was sure; she really liked it. That's also what Eric and Joy said later that night when I went over to their place. They said they really liked it as well, and I went to bed that night with a belly full of sushi and frozen yogurt and a somewhat contented heart, knowing that even though I had run my car into a telephone pole, at least I had gotten a good haircut.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

TUNE IN TOMORROW (or maybe later today, we'll see) FOR THE THRILLING CONCLUSION OF: CORRIE'S SPOILED SPOIL ME DAY!

Spoil Me Day

2010-03-01T16:09:00.000-06:00

I have a tradition that I have kept for many years, and I plan on keeping it for many years to come. When I schedule my hair appointments, I don't schedule anything else for the rest of the day. I call them "Spoil Me Days." I know, it's not the most creative name, but it gets the point across, right? And guess what I do on Spoil Me Days... Whatever I want! A typical Spoil Me Day might go like this: Wake up at around 9:00, get ready (wear cute clothes to show off my cute new haircut), grab breakfast, and head out the door. Stop by Starbucks to get coffee (I always feel spoiled when I drink Starbucks). Head off to the salon and enjoy the next hour or so of getting my eyebrows waxed (don't judge me, thank me. Caterpillars are not attractive on a girl's face), my hair washed, and a cute new cut and style. Go shopping either at the mall or anywhere else I feel like shopping. Grab lunch somewhere (I usually pick Thai or Vietnamese food because my salon is just down the street from the Asian District). Stop by Justin and Audrey's shop, maybe go watch a movie, maybe go home because I'm tired. The point is that I do whatever I want, whenever I want, because I can. I like not having a schedule to stick to or timelines to worry about. That's the best part of Spoil Me Day.

Saturday was a Spoil Me Day, exactly 8 weeks after the last one (I don't think I'm too spoiled if I only spoil myself once every 8 weeks, even though I know that most people don't spoil themselves even that often). So my day started out perfectly. I woke up a little earlier than I wanted to, but whatever. I got dressed, wearing my skinny jeans (clarification - not the cut/style called skinny jeans - these are jeans that I have never been able to fit into, because they were a size too small even when I bought them, but I can now wear them comfortably. Awesome, huh? I know!!!!) and a pair of heels to make my legs look extra long and skinny, and just threw my hair into a ponytail (because I'm getting it cut soon. No point in fixing it right now). I made myself a bowl of oatmeal, my new favorite breakfast/lunch/dinner food, with blueberries mixed in. I headed out the door and bought myself a new pair of sunglasses at Target (I don't pay big money for sunglasses, because if I do, they'll break the moment I put them on. The only way for me to ensure that the glasses stay in tact for several months is to pay nothing for them.), because my glasses were all broken (the last two pairs lasted me about a year and a half each). I got some really cute purple glasses. Then I drove over to Starbucks and got myself a skinny vanilla latte, as planned. But that's where the plans got their rear end kicked and life as we al know it to be kicked in.

WHAT HAPPENED TO CORRIE'S DAY?

WILL SHE EVER BE ABLE TO RECOVER?

HOW MANY RUN-ON SENTENCES WILL SHE HAVE IN THE NEXT BLOG POST?

THE ANSWERS TO ALL THESE QUESTIONS AND SO MUCH MORE IN TOMORROW'S EPISODE OF "NOTES FROM CORRIE'S WORLD"

Coffee Conversations

2010-02-24T20:34:00.000-06:00

Some of you may not know that I actually have two jobs. By day, I'm the Finance Director for Heart of God Ministries. But every Wednesday night I travel the 13 miles down the road to Joe's Addiction, where I have the distinct pleasure of serving coffee to some of the most colorful characters in the city. Here's just a sampling of the people I've met and the things I've heard while working at Joe's:

One man came in three or four times when I first started working there. He had the same M.O. each time: stagger in, order a muffin, tear that muffin to pieces like a starved hyena devouring a deer carcass (you should have seen it, there were bits of muffin ten feet away from him!), fall asleep in one of the rocking chairs, pee on the chair while sleeping, wake back up, ask us to call him a cab, and leave.

One man who worked next door as a dj was a regular for several months, but hasn't been in at all recently. This guy was great entertainment, in that he told the most amazing stories. Seriously, if half of his stories were true, this man must have lived an amazing life. According to his stories, he was in a motorcycle accident when he was younger, and in a coma for 2 years. Before the accident, he could play the guitar better than Clapton, but ever since the accident, he's had trouble. Not surprising until you hear the trouble. He can play every note perfectly on air guitar. But if you put an actual guitar in his hands, he can't do a thing. This 300 pound man also used to be a stripper and was worth over 30 million dollars before he decided to sell everything, give all his money away, and move to Oklahoma to be a dj at a strip club. He was also fluent in Spanish (and yet swore that the Spanish word for grapes was grapas). And once, he was hiking with some friends and someone got sick and there was no doctor around for miles. I don't remember the details of the story, but it involves using a pen and some Everclear to perform some sort of medical procedure.

One sweet boy in his 20's is a klepto who told me that he liked my shirt, but it was the wrong color (red) because Valentine's Day was over. When I told him you could wear red on days other than Valentine's Day, he said, "Oh I guess you're right. Like weddings, birthdays, the 4th of July..." He has also read me some of his love poetry before. Pretty amazing stuff.

But my favorite, my all-time favorite happened tonight. As long as I live I'll never forget the night that I answered the Joe's Addiction phone and heard this from the male voice on the other end of the line, "Hi, yeah, I just had surgery on my butt and I need to buy pads. Can I have ten dollars?" What a special night!

Joe's is a great place to be. It's definitely a change from my day job where I work with mostly normal people (Don't get any bigs heads, HGM'ers, you're only 'normal' in comparison to these people. You're still not actually normal. Surely you know that). But once a week I get to drive out to Joe's Addiction and see the amazing variety that life brings us. The atmosphere is incredible, and I have met many, many fascinating people while working there. Each one has opened my eyes just a bit more to the vastness of God's love for people of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, and places in life. If you're ever in the area, you should most definitely stop by for a visit.

One small step onto the scale, one giant leap into skinnier jeans!

2010-02-23T09:30:00.000-06:00

Monday is my weigh-in day, and I try to be pretty consistent with the time that I weigh in. This evening before dinner, I broke into Joy and Eric's house and used their scale. I've been wondering lately if there's a problem with me using several different scales to track my weight. I used the one in Tom & Rikki's house for a few weeks, then jumped to Joy & Eric's. I'll probably use Tom & Rikki's next week again. I guess we'll find out next week how different they are. I'll just prepare myself with the typical excuse (oh, I used a different scale, it's not my fault!). By the way, for those of you who are still irritated that I broke into Joy & Eric's house, I exaggerated. I asked them if I could borrow their scale, then I went in. I'm not that rude, geez.

Anyway, so I weighed in last night at a wonderful 1.8 pounds lighter than last week! Yay for Corrie and her awesomeness (you see I have no problem praising myself. It comes quite naturally. One of my top love languages is words of affirmation, and giving myself those words in no way cheapens them)! I've watched a few episodes of the Biggest Loser (and by 'a few' I mean that I am pretty much addicted), and I know that if anyone ever lost 1.8 pounds on that show, they would most likely get kicked off (Or be accused of cheating! Remember the red chick from this season? I did not like her), because 1.8 is not a great percentage for someone who weighs over 300 pounds. So usually, unless they get like 5-10 pounds, they're not very happy.

I, however, am thrilled with whatever numbers I get! I'm not buying into the whole 'lose weight fast' thing. I tried that for enough years to know that it certainly works, but not for long. Sure, I could lose 10 pounds by next week if I wanted to. But I could also gain those 10 pounds back the week after, and I probably would! As long as the number on the scale this week is lower than the number from last week, I don't really care. I'm in no hurry to get skinny. I mean, seriously, what's happening in 2 weeks that I need to be skinny for? Nothing. Nothing at all. Not worth it, people. My goal is to be looking good for the cruise I'm going on this summer, and it's in June, so there's still plenty of time.

Oh, and one more great thing about yesterday! I was pretty smart with my meals and didn't snack at all, so I got to have a Reeses miniature peanut butter cup and a can of Dr. Pepper last night! They were both delicious. I savored every bite/sip. Those two together are quite possibly the world's most perfect combination.

Skinny-fying my life

2010-02-22T13:52:00.000-06:00

Remember towards the beginning of the year when I wrote that rant about New Years' Resolutions? Well, here's an update on mine: A few months ago, I came to a realization: I was fat! I weighed more last December than I've ever weighed before in my life, and even matched the weight of one of the Biggest Loser contestants (granted, this woman has to be like 4 feet tall...seriously...) How much did I weigh? Wouldn't you like to know! I have no shame in saying my weight aloud to my friends, but posting it on the Internet for my millions of blog followers to see (yes, I live in a dream world where all of my posts are highly anticipated and viewed by millions) is a completely different story. But to be sure, I weighed more than I ever have. If you really want to know that badly, I'll tell you later... privately.

How did this happen? Well, I have a desk job that keeps me in a chair and in front of a computer for about 8 hours a day - strike one. It's been a very cold winter, and I've stayed indoors as much as possible - strike two. I love junk food - strike three. I'm lazy - strikes four through ten.

I panicked and decided I had to do something! I turned to my old forgotten buddy, Weight Watchers. A few years ago I had done the WW thing and lost quite a bit of weight, so I knew it worked. There's a monthly fee required to being a part of the program, but I figured it was worth it, and also a good incentive to keeping me on the plan (I'm paying for it, I might as well follow it).

Brilliantly, I chose two weeks before Christmas to start eating and living healthy (notice I didn't say the 'd' word. I hate that word). The first week went wonderfully. I lost 5 pounds that week! The next 2-3 weeks I ignored the plan. I was at home or traveling, it was the holidays, and it just wasn't worth stressing out over it. But I jumped back on soon after, and have stayed pretty true to the plan ever since.

Let me explain my take on the whole thing: I don't go to the meetings. I don't care about losing weight with other people, that doesn't appeal to me or interest me at all (hmm... can we say antisocial tendencies?). I'm an online member. The personal accountability is what motivates me. I love it! I get little stars when I achieve landmarks for my weigh-ins (not actual stars, just pictures of stars. Maybe if I went to the meetings I could get real stars! That might be worth going for...). So far I've gotten the 5 lb star, the 5% star, and the 5+ lb star. I love stars! They also give me smiley faces when I eat all of a food group I'm supposed to each day (8 cups of water - smiley face! 5 servings of fruits and vegetables - smiley face!) or do my daily activity. I also love the flexibility. I get points that allow me to cheat throughout the week! 23 points a day is what I'm allowed, but I have 35 points that I can use throughout the week to cheat. So if I want a piece or two of pizza or a carton (don't judge me) of ice cream, I can do it and I don't have to beat myself up!

There's lots of great things about the WW program that I like. Thousands of recipes, articles on tons of health-related topics, tips on cooking and living, message boards, and an entire online community that helps each other out and answers your specific questions. There's even an iPhone app that I could potentially use if I had an iPhone.

So why am I writing about all of this? Well, I've lost almost 15 pounds on this thing, and I'm pretty darn proud of myself. I'd also just like to encourage anyone who wants to lose weight. This plan is super easy and super effective. I'm a fan! Anyway, in the future I may post some of my thoughts, struggles, inspirations, whatever, as well as some of the fun foods I eat or ways I've changed things to make them healthier or more effective, if anyone is interested. Have a super day!!

I love you all, I just have a low stupidity tolerance.

2010-02-10T14:46:00.000-06:00

Why is it that just because I know how to answer a phone, I'm expected to know the answer to every conceivable question that the caller may want to ask? Good Lord, people, I don't know the home phone number of someone who used to work here! And I don't have every piece of information we've ever gathered on you sitting at my fingertips that I can access instantaneously! Yes, I can find out what bank you were with when you started giving to us, but I'm going to need to go to another room and look through the files. It's not like, "Oh, what do you know? The moment you called, all your information magically floated to my desk! I signed into a secure website and pulled up your banking info, and your autogiving registration unlocked the cabinet it was sitting in and flew through the wall into my hands! And yeah, I'm sure that if you called Bentonville High School right now and asked to speak to me, they'd be like, "Oh, sorry, Corrie doesn't work here anymore." and if you said, "Well can you give me her home number?" They'd say, "Uh...no...she doesn't work here. Why would we do that? Even if she did work here, we wouldn't give you her home number. What is wrong with you?"

That's what I'm asking. What is wrong with you people? It is NOT strange that I don't have her number! And I'm NOT an idiot for not being able to recite your routing number and account info on command! Leave me alone and try thinking for yourself for one dang moment! If you're that good of a friend, shouldn't you have this person's home number? And as sad and environmentally unfriendly as it is, they still make phone books. Get a freaking phone book and look up the number! Then you can call the phone book company and complain to them that the type is too small or they don't have your favorite pizza company listed. I don't need to field your stupid questions! So here are your options: 1) Ask stupid questions and be okay when I don't know the answers. 2) Be a productive member of society and look up the information yourself before you waste the time of someone who is obviously busier than you because they don't have time to answer your stupid questions and you apparently have all the time in the world to ask them and ask them and ask them, even when the busy person says "I don't know" the first three times!

That's about all I have to say. Try not to be one of the people who inspires these kinds of rants in my life or in others' lives. Before you ask someone a question, stop and ask yourself, "Is this a stupid question? Is there any way I can find out the answer to this question without bothering this person? Am I an idiot?" If all your answers are No, then you should proceed with caution (realizing that you're biased and your question may be dumber than you think). If ANY of the answers are yes, then either don't ask the question or don't ask me.

But remember that I love you all. I just have a low stupidity tolerance.

Rant over.