Please take your seat before I make the next big announcement. You're going to want to be sitting down, I promise.
I've started running.
Take a few deep breaths because I know it's a lot to take in. I'm still in shock myself. However, Jane and I signed up ourselves and significant others for a 5K (http://www.thecolorrun.com) in August and decided that we can do that. We started out by doing some walking at the GVSU fieldhouse facility and then started walking outside this summer at a park in Comstock Park.
On Monday, after a canceled walk in Comstock Park, I decided that it was time I tried to go out by myself. I was a little worried about being out on a trail alone with headphones in (I think I've watched a few too many Law & Order episodes), so I was probably over-cautious and kept looking over my shoulder (which I will blame for my slowness :P), but that will probably become more familiar in time.
The trail is about 1.2 miles (or 1.9 km) and I do one pass, which puts me at about 2.4 miles or 3.8 km. It's not overly long, but believe me, it's enough for me right now.
On Monday (day 1) - It took me about 50 minutes and I ran 6 minutes. Apparently when I'm done running and walk for a while, I walk reeeaaalllllly slow.
On Wednesday (day 2) - It took me about 45 minutes and I ran 8 minutes. There's already been an improvement!
I'll be going out again on Saturday morning with Mr. Eric, so not sure what that will look like but I find myself honestly enjoying it.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
To Be Happy...
15 Things You Should Give Up in Order to Be Happy
I've had a complete change of heart the last few months and the couple things that were still bringing me down have hopes of being turned around as well in the future. It's safe to say that I've never been happier. Part of it is because I listened to this advice without even knowing it. I hope you can get some great inspiration from this as well.
Cheers!
I've had a complete change of heart the last few months and the couple things that were still bringing me down have hopes of being turned around as well in the future. It's safe to say that I've never been happier. Part of it is because I listened to this advice without even knowing it. I hope you can get some great inspiration from this as well.
Cheers!
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Sermon teaser...
I can't help but smile at the quote that stood out to me in a recent blog post by Rachel Held Evans in her "Conversations" series...
If Christians paid more attention to the Beatitudes and less attention to Leviticus, the world would be in much better shape. - Jason Mankey (can i say "Amen" to a Wiccan?)
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
If Christians paid more attention to the Beatitudes and less attention to Leviticus, the world would be in much better shape. - Jason Mankey (can i say "Amen" to a Wiccan?)
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Other blogs
In case you'd like to check what else I'm doing in the blog-o-sphere -
http://SPA312Trazy.blogspot.com - This is a blog for my summer SPA 312 course. It will be in Spanish, but Google Translate is a great tool if you want to know what I am interested in during this course.
http://CHAOStastic.blogspot.com - This is a blog for the youth group at Home Acres Church. Right now it's just a devotional every few weeks, but I have hopes and dreams. Just lacking on the time, I suppose.
http://trazys101.blogspot.com - This is the blog I'll be keeping for my journey through my 101 in 1001 list. This is a list of 101 things that I'd like to accomplish in 1001 days. It's an interesting list. It's an even more interesting journey.
Check them out if you'd like. Don't if you aren't interested.
http://SPA312Trazy.blogspot.com - This is a blog for my summer SPA 312 course. It will be in Spanish, but Google Translate is a great tool if you want to know what I am interested in during this course.
http://CHAOStastic.blogspot.com - This is a blog for the youth group at Home Acres Church. Right now it's just a devotional every few weeks, but I have hopes and dreams. Just lacking on the time, I suppose.
http://trazys101.blogspot.com - This is the blog I'll be keeping for my journey through my 101 in 1001 list. This is a list of 101 things that I'd like to accomplish in 1001 days. It's an interesting list. It's an even more interesting journey.
Check them out if you'd like. Don't if you aren't interested.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Broken... People, Broken... Into, Broken... Down
Last week was a week of brokenness. It's a sad thing to realize, but I also know that my God is bigger. I know that my God heals. I know that my God gives strength. These are not only things that I know, but things I need to hold onto in difficult times.
Broken people used the church to fulfill a need last week. Between the items they took and the damage they caused, it added up to about $10,000. These were all material things that can easily be replaced.
They broke into all of the offices in the church, including mine. Thankfully, no one was hurt and the church wasn't extremely destroyed. We need new doors but we don't need a new God. While this happened to us and it's very unfortunate, He has remained with us and has protected us.
Unfortunately, this has caused some painful moments in the lives of the staff. We need prayers for protection (some of the things stolen contained our addresses and personal information). We need prayers for peace (our offices were places where we felt safe and now they're kinda creepy feeling).
Moving forward one step at a time.
Broken people used the church to fulfill a need last week. Between the items they took and the damage they caused, it added up to about $10,000. These were all material things that can easily be replaced.
They broke into all of the offices in the church, including mine. Thankfully, no one was hurt and the church wasn't extremely destroyed. We need new doors but we don't need a new God. While this happened to us and it's very unfortunate, He has remained with us and has protected us.
Unfortunately, this has caused some painful moments in the lives of the staff. We need prayers for protection (some of the things stolen contained our addresses and personal information). We need prayers for peace (our offices were places where we felt safe and now they're kinda creepy feeling).
Moving forward one step at a time.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Continuity and Changes
Exams are done. I have finished my first semester back at GVSU after a 5 year hiatus and it feels so good. I raised my GPA and ended out the year (both fall and winter semesters) with A-, A-, B+, B+, B, B-, B-, C+, and a C. Not great, but pretty good for someone who just isn't a fan of school and used to have multiple F's on her transcript. With the end of this semester comes the beginning of another. Yes, I am taking summer classes. I'll talk about that more later.
Eric's birthday is done. He is officially 22 years old. I remember when I was 22... Sorry, I told Eric I'd stop acting like it's such a big deal. Anyway, I have no pictures to show for it. Apparently they were all erased accidentally when I allowed some students to take pictures on the retreat. I was more than a little sad, but stuff happens and it could have happened to anyone. Regardless, on Wednesday night, I placed a banner on his car that featured Spiderman saying "Happy Birthday" and on his front seat, I placed a bag of sour candy (his favorite). On Thursday morning, after he left for work, his roommate let me sneak into his room and cover his wall with blue post-it notes filled with 98 ways to tell him how much I love him. That evening, after my final exam, I picked him up and took him to PF Chang's for dinner. Following that, we drove around and visited disappointment after disappointment. The arcade was closed and we got to the movie theatre after the movie started because I misread the start time. We ended up at "Cabin in The Woods" at the theatre across the street from PF Chang's. It was a good night in the end, but definitely wasn't what was planned. Hopefully I'll have better luck next year.
The retreat is done. With that, CHAOS Jr has come to a close with this school year. This year will probably be forever remembered as my worst year so far in youth ministry. Due a great number of circumstances, I am really looking forward to this time of relaxation without programming for middle school students. It was rough students. It was rough volunteer situations. It was rough timing with school and stuff. It was rough stuff going on in the kids' lives. I love the kids and I still love my job, it was just... rough. The retreat itself went very well. I couldn't have asked for anything better except a little bit warmer temps on Saturday. If that's my only complaint, I'd say it was a very successful weekend.
The St. Louis trip is done. Immediately following the CHAOS Jr. retreat, I went to the airport to pick up a rental car. I got a cute little Ford Fiesta and loaded it up with luggage for a few days. I picked up Rachael, one of my CHAOS volunteers and we hit the open road very early on Monday morning. We were headed there to check out our living and working environments for a high school mission trip in August. With some Christian hits on Sirius radio, some leftover snacks from the retreat and the excitement of getting to meet our hosts, the 7.5 hour drive didn't seem too bad. We stopped in New Town, MO, a chic suburb of St. Louis to meet Stephanie, former co-pastor of Christ's Church, an RCA church in St. Louis. She showed us their ministry coffee shop called "The Bridge" and talked about some of the St. Louis sights we may want to take in on our mission trip in August. She also gave us some ideas for while we were in town this week, which was nice of her. Then we headed to the church to check out our sleeping and cooking arrangements. After checking everything out, we headed back to the hotel and got settled in there (and took a nap) before heading out on the town. We needed to make sure that the pizza was delicious enough for our teens. We also headed down to check out the arch and the riverfront for ideas on both where to park and where to wander around. On Tuesday, we got in contact with Mark, the director of Oasis International to talk about working with that organization. Oasis International works with refugees from war and helps them get settled into the USA with furniture, English classes, job help, driver's training, clothing and so much more. It was awesome to see first-hand some of the work they're doing and actually get excited about what we'll be doing in August, too! Of course, the drive home was incident free, although VERY rainy. Oh well. It was so hard to turn in the rental car again today, though, and go back to Miss Saturn. I like my car, but Miss Fiesta was much fun to drive these last couple days.
Summer classes start next week. Yes, you heard correctly. I'm taking summer classes. I have either 2 or 3 right now. In the Spring semester, I'm going to be focusing on an independent study and research project called "Latinos and Literacy in West Michigan." I'll be doing service learning with Plaza Comunitaria, an organization promoting Spanish literacy among native Spanish speakers in our area. I'll be doing some reading as well to go with it and keeping a journal. It sounds exciting to me! The other class that I'll be focusing on is Advanced Spanish Grammar, but it doesn't meet until the second half of summer. It should be good.
That, my friends, is what I call a nice, long update on my life.
Enough about me - how are YOU doing?
Eric's birthday is done. He is officially 22 years old. I remember when I was 22... Sorry, I told Eric I'd stop acting like it's such a big deal. Anyway, I have no pictures to show for it. Apparently they were all erased accidentally when I allowed some students to take pictures on the retreat. I was more than a little sad, but stuff happens and it could have happened to anyone. Regardless, on Wednesday night, I placed a banner on his car that featured Spiderman saying "Happy Birthday" and on his front seat, I placed a bag of sour candy (his favorite). On Thursday morning, after he left for work, his roommate let me sneak into his room and cover his wall with blue post-it notes filled with 98 ways to tell him how much I love him. That evening, after my final exam, I picked him up and took him to PF Chang's for dinner. Following that, we drove around and visited disappointment after disappointment. The arcade was closed and we got to the movie theatre after the movie started because I misread the start time. We ended up at "Cabin in The Woods" at the theatre across the street from PF Chang's. It was a good night in the end, but definitely wasn't what was planned. Hopefully I'll have better luck next year.
The retreat is done. With that, CHAOS Jr has come to a close with this school year. This year will probably be forever remembered as my worst year so far in youth ministry. Due a great number of circumstances, I am really looking forward to this time of relaxation without programming for middle school students. It was rough students. It was rough volunteer situations. It was rough timing with school and stuff. It was rough stuff going on in the kids' lives. I love the kids and I still love my job, it was just... rough. The retreat itself went very well. I couldn't have asked for anything better except a little bit warmer temps on Saturday. If that's my only complaint, I'd say it was a very successful weekend.
The St. Louis trip is done. Immediately following the CHAOS Jr. retreat, I went to the airport to pick up a rental car. I got a cute little Ford Fiesta and loaded it up with luggage for a few days. I picked up Rachael, one of my CHAOS volunteers and we hit the open road very early on Monday morning. We were headed there to check out our living and working environments for a high school mission trip in August. With some Christian hits on Sirius radio, some leftover snacks from the retreat and the excitement of getting to meet our hosts, the 7.5 hour drive didn't seem too bad. We stopped in New Town, MO, a chic suburb of St. Louis to meet Stephanie, former co-pastor of Christ's Church, an RCA church in St. Louis. She showed us their ministry coffee shop called "The Bridge" and talked about some of the St. Louis sights we may want to take in on our mission trip in August. She also gave us some ideas for while we were in town this week, which was nice of her. Then we headed to the church to check out our sleeping and cooking arrangements. After checking everything out, we headed back to the hotel and got settled in there (and took a nap) before heading out on the town. We needed to make sure that the pizza was delicious enough for our teens. We also headed down to check out the arch and the riverfront for ideas on both where to park and where to wander around. On Tuesday, we got in contact with Mark, the director of Oasis International to talk about working with that organization. Oasis International works with refugees from war and helps them get settled into the USA with furniture, English classes, job help, driver's training, clothing and so much more. It was awesome to see first-hand some of the work they're doing and actually get excited about what we'll be doing in August, too! Of course, the drive home was incident free, although VERY rainy. Oh well. It was so hard to turn in the rental car again today, though, and go back to Miss Saturn. I like my car, but Miss Fiesta was much fun to drive these last couple days.
Summer classes start next week. Yes, you heard correctly. I'm taking summer classes. I have either 2 or 3 right now. In the Spring semester, I'm going to be focusing on an independent study and research project called "Latinos and Literacy in West Michigan." I'll be doing service learning with Plaza Comunitaria, an organization promoting Spanish literacy among native Spanish speakers in our area. I'll be doing some reading as well to go with it and keeping a journal. It sounds exciting to me! The other class that I'll be focusing on is Advanced Spanish Grammar, but it doesn't meet until the second half of summer. It should be good.
That, my friends, is what I call a nice, long update on my life.
Enough about me - how are YOU doing?
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