27 September 2012

I am thankful for...

 
  • Laundry slots that are always available when I need them (so far, so good!)
  • Really good leftovers
  • A husband who set his alarm clock to get up early so that I didn’t have to Sunday morning
  • Hot water “maker” (kettle?  Plastic pitcher that you plug in and in a couple of minutes you have boiling water!  Excellent for making raman noodles…)
  • Rainbows! (another reason I’m going to miss rainy season)
  • Beautiful sunsets
  • Hearing the deck & engineering crew worship during their devotions on deck 7
  • Emma & Adalynn's cuteness in their ballerine outfits
  • Pretty close to perfect lunch portions (barely wasted anything!)
  • Air compressor/generator (I don’t know exactly what it’s called…but it’s one of the main components in the ship having fresh, cool air- and I am very very thankful for fresh, cool air

  • Hearing the deck & engineering crew worship during their devotions on deck 7
  • Laughter…what a great gift
  • When all 3 kids wake up cheerful
  • Kathy Winstead’s heart & dedication to God…I’m so thankful for the example she sets for me (and for everyone else!).
  • Sweet, incredible, generous Emily Siemen's willingness to do a little Christmas (and "other) shopping for us in Texas and put it directly on the container (it would be quite costly for people to ship heavy stuff from GA!)

20 September 2012

so many good gifts!

 
  • 3 hole punch
  • craft night for the kids (much like CFA family night!)(but without the incredibleness of CFA food)
  • eli's abs being sore after karate (i don't like the thought of him being in pain/sore...but i like the thought of him using/developing his little muscles!)
  • "even" numbers/numbers with a pattern (not necessarily 2,4,6,8....things like 1515 - that's the number at the bottom of the last full page in my thankful journal....random fact: i always used to try and make the numbers on the gas pump mean something -- like 65.56 or 67.89 or 36.36)
  • discovering really cool pictures that emma took
  • middle school girls' "growth group"
  • we passed our first cabin inspection (though i must admit, i'm a bit baffled by why we got all "2's" instead of "1's" -- 1=excellent 2=good 3=fair 4=needs work 5=unacceptable.  most days i would definitely give us "2's" -- but the day of the inspection just HAPPENED to be a day when everything was straight and clean...we deserved 1's. i'll get over it eventually.  but i'm thinking if the cabin couldn't earn 1's that day, we may never earn 1's. ha.)
  • cake and conversation in Ward E with 2 lovely ladies
  • waffle from nick (he's so romantic)
  • "every back scratch needs a hug" - eli
  • HOPE ... more than i realized.
  • making magnets with caroline
  • mod podge
  • that i packed previously mentioned mod podge and it now lives in our cabin
  • the curl in emma's hair
  • monkey bread (even if it doesn't turn out quite right)
  • "my strength in life is i am Yours.  my soul delights because i am Yours." - jesus culture song
  • sweet sweet time in the prayer room here on the ship
  • how much the prayer room here reminds me of the prayer room at CCC
  • moving the ipod into the "kitchen" (it's AMAZING the difference music makes...it's much easier for me to worship while doing dishes if music is involved)
  • the rest of the container stuff was unloaded (this was the last of the things that we had shipped from texas)
  • josh callow's willingness to carry the heaviest box up from deck 3. 
  • that the heaviest box was heaviest because it had 3 twelve packs of cherry coke in it!!!! surprise, nick!!
  • the first container was unloaded on deck 8 (so the vast majority of our "stuff" only had to be carried down one set of steps instead of up 4 sets of steps)
  • ship shop shopping spree
  • surprise treat for treat tuesday from chelle!
  • another great conversation with Amy
  • 3 dates in 3 weeks. i love dating my husband.
  • 2 calls from molly in one day
  • a spoonful of brownie (and the sweet 2nd grade teacher who was willing to share it!)
  • not being dizzy (sometimes you don't realize just how wonderful something is until you experience the opposite!)
  • notes from caroline
  • card/angel from Rebekah
  • wild berry skittles

14 September 2012

random. so random.

I have all these random things going on in my head and heart....I thought sharing some of them might help them to GO AWAY (do you ever do that?  seems like there'll be something in my head and if i can just say it out loud to someone i can stop thinking about it!  not sure why it works that way....) 

I tried semi-hard (ish) to find a picture to post with this post...cause pictures make posts better. But I couldn't find anything that quite fit. Oh well.

Here we go...

i accidentally friended someone on facebook - i was trying to click on someone that facebook was recommending...but the page "moved" and i clicked on the wrong person.  i do know the person that i friended...honestly, it took me a while to figure out who he was/is - but i figured it out!!  we're facebook friends now - we'll see how that goes (and now i can't remember who it was that i was trying to friend in the first place!)

Eli lost his tooth twice.  We were at the pool last night and he came over to me pretty upset talking about getting knocked in the head by Luke and losing his tooth...and I couldn't figure out if he was talking about a tooth he had already lost or one that wasn't loose that got knocked out or one that had been loose.  I was totally confused.  We finally figured out that his front tooth (that was already lose) came all the way out....and that it was actually lost somewhere in the pool.  So he "lost his tooth" in the typical sense of the phrase...and he "lost his tooth" in the  "we can't find it" sense of the phrase.  (maybe it somehow joined up with the other tooth that he lost a while back that i accidentally dropped down the kitchen sink.)(what are you supposed to do with baby teeth anyway?!)(i do not want to keep the in a little bag in my jewelry box like my mom did...no offense to her...it's totally fine if that's what she wants to do with my (and all of my sibling's!) baby teeth)(if anyone wants to chime in on what they've done with their kids' baby teeth - or what was done with yours - feel free!!)(and if any of you English teachers out there want to give me lessons on correct use of parentheses and punctuation, that's fine, too.)
I watched the BBC for about 12 seconds today.  In that brief amount of time they reported that pictures were taken, without permission, of Kate Middleton topless.  It really bothered me and I'm not altogether certain why.  It doesn't bother me that she was topless - it bothers me that her privacy was invaded.  My assumption, and the impression that I got from the news, was that she and William were in a private place enjoying vacation.  It's just so wrong that someone would invade their privacy like that.  Made me sad for her....let her enjoy her life and marriage for pete's sake!  (never have I ever typed "for pete's sake" before).   And, of course, I may not know the whole story...and that's ok...regardless of the story's accuracy, I just don't like invasion of privacy.  I can't imagine being in her shoes. Seems like it's hard enough to deal with all the pictures that are taken "with permission."  Why am I spending so much time thinking about this?!? 
On to less serious topics, I definitely chose which shirt I was wearing based on the shirt the news anchor on the BBC was wearing.  She was wearing blue...i thought "I'll wear a blue shirt today, too." (it's pretty amusing that 12 seconds of the BBC affected me so much)
I wonder if using a vacuum backpack will ever feel normal.  The vacuums here on the ship have straps...you strap the pack to your back and vacuum away.  I definitely use our carpet sweeper more than the vacuum...the carpet sweeper doesn't require strapping anything to my back (or plugging anything in!).

There are so many activities taking place on the dock outside our window.  A myriad of activity every day.  From things that are usually reserved for the bathroom....to things that I'm preeeeety confident are not quite legal....to ships coming in and out, loading and unloading....to guys sleeping on top of their loads - and under their trucks....to monkeys....to sunsets...I like looking out of our window (even at not so pretty sights). 
I really like rainy days. (not sure what it will be like when “rainy season” is over)  Right now there are probably 3-4 days a week where it rains for a least a portion of the day - it seems like it's typically in the morning and then clears up before lunch.  I don't want to think about missing the rain.  I don't want to think about missing anything else (there's enough that I'm missing without adding something else to the list!!)
I often second guess things that I post on facebook…I'll type something - a status update or something on a friend's wall - and then I go back and delete it. I always wonder if people see them on their wall and then are like "wait, where did it go?!"  (I guess you'd have to be online at just the right time to see it come and go....).   Good thing I don't have twitter...
Seeing the picture of team Danger Zone on facebook made me reaaaaaaaly want to play ultimate with those guys (and heidi!) again.  I really like ultimate - and I really like that group of friends!  There's a group here that goes every Friday...Nick has been...maybe I'll go sometime.  Maybe we can have a team Danger Zone reunion someday.   
Alright...it's late...gonna go to bed -- mainly because my kiddos will be up early in the morning.  I'm wondering when "sleeping in" will kick in for them.  Nick and I are both looking forward to the day when they all sleep in!!!  Bring on the lazy teenagers....but only on saturday mornings!!
It's funny to me that you read this...thanks for sharing life with me - even the random parts. 

13 September 2012

thankful.

  • the completion of projects (no matter how small)
  • long, meaningful conversation with my fabulous sister
  • the combination of m&ms and raisins (and how ridiculously long it took me to realize that that's pretty much the concept behind raisinettes)
  • God's kindness and tenderness
  • the swimming pool is open
  • watching & listening to caroline and nick set up scenes and write a story using her fabulous "story box/doll house" that miss molly made her
  • helping Remy with her board
  • encouraging words (that should be on the thankful list lots of times.  i'm very thankful for encouraging words...written...spoken...mimed...matters not.)
  • the "joy" picture that catharine posted
  • running with gretchen
  • watching ships parallel park
  • note from stephanie
  • eli's face in this picture:
  • when the words in Jesus Calling match up with my heart/mind/words i just wrote in my journal
  • coffee with kayleigh
  • the sloppy show!
  • watching previously mentioned hilarity with nick during our date on deck 8
  • 2 dates within the same week!
  • emma's potty power!!!
  • a good night's sleep
  • eli's hugs...especially the running ones
  • mercies that are new every morning - and that last throughout the entire day
  • my dad reads our family blog! (he may read this one, too...idk)

06 September 2012

it's the big things and the little things...

  • the moment that i realized that i COMPLETELY forgot about our clothes in the washing machine (2 1/2 hours after i was supposed to move them from the washer to the dryer). it was absolutely amusing.
  • our drying rack (we do need it afterall!  especially for the times when i forget about clothes in the washing machine and lose our dryer slot!)
  • 2 surprise Kanjers
  • how nick shows up with "groceries" from the ship shop
  • emma used the potty!!  we're off to a good start!
  • visit with camilla
  • dave ugai's willingness to play with emma (he's so good at it, too!)
  • how the 5 drawer container fits PERFECTLY in my cabinet/closet/wardrobe
  • bacon (it's made the thankful list before; no doubt  it will make it again)
  • the keller twins are here and doing well! 
  • God doesn't ask us to be something that we are not (or something that He doesn't intend for us to be)
  • birthday box from aunt amy
  • that meme started the birthday box tradition
  • miss carol's willingness to work late on a friday afternoon so that we could get our mail
  • long letters
  • cards with pictures
  • short notes
  • postcards
  • my Epic Church coffee mug (complete with its own spoon).  my favorite "souvenier" from our trip to San Francisco

  • making birthday books
  • "I in you and you in Me.  this is the intimate adventure I offer you." - jesus calling
  • watching the caravan of Mercy Ship's vehicles pulling out...a parade of God's glory!
  • too ______ to speak (overwhelmed? awed? humbled?  not sure what the right word is...just too something to be able to pray out loud!)
  • HE IS ENOUGH - for every situation, every circumstance, every person.  He is enough.
  • lunch with 3 kids 2 and under went well (thanks to great help from eli and caroline)
  • just hearing the music on ann voskamp's blog brings tears
  • successful screening day!!
  • refill of ketchup
  • "you know you belong when you sense My nearness."  - jesus calling
  • incredible friends (i wouldn't miss them so much if they weren't so incredible)
  • walking into deck 3 (hospital part of ship) and seeing patients!
  • apples!!!!
  • great facebook reports from the TA retreat.
  • sticking notes on doors
  • date night on deck 7
  • Catharine's willingness to watch our kids/be in our cabin so that date night could happen
  • Dara's willingness to watch little ones during Bible Study
  • when anyone says "what can i send you in a care package?"
  • splitting the doughnuts from the dining room and putting cinnamon, sugar and butter on them