christmas caroling

this holiday season was so busy i forgot to share my all time favorite christmas song!!



(lyrics)

And, even more awesomely awesome, this year Jimmy did an updated version of it on his late night show:



Yes please!!


Also, this Christmas season i had the opportunity a few times to play Christmas carols for church / families / parties. This particular family was making a video for a son / nephew / grandson in the military that was overseas on his first tour in Afghanistan, I think. Some of the family is a little sloshed which I think makes them better singers:

goodbye 2009

goodbye 2009

my favorite thing about this year was making memories and learning how to use a camera so i can remember those times later on!!






saying goodbye to the worst, iciest, snowiest winter my area has seen in many years...



enjoyed spring!!





celebrated independence with friends







enjoyed the company of friends



got WAY more into gardening than i thought i would!



loved seeing my husband enjoy ministry and his job



partied





loved youth ministry and summer events with the youth



HAD WONDERFUL FOOD --- i love living in the pacific NW








had some family time....








enjoyed vacations











celebrated engagements





enjoyed my grandparents





mourned the loss of a family pet



celebrated accomplishments of friend's



hugged my husband as much as i could






this new year, 2010, holds some big changes ahead for us. i am excited, terrified, hopeful, courageous, and my heart is full of love and thankfulness.

josh i can't wait to walk into our new life together this year - i love you

365/365

362/365, originally uploaded by heidini.

Well I finished! I finally got all of the 365 project photos uploaded. Me and my nanowrimo are at a 30,000 word standoff and hopefully I'll have a breakthrough later today, but in the meantime I caught up on some photo uploading.
I liked the 365 project in the fact that it pushed me to be creative everyday and I learned a lot about my camera and taking pictures. I didn't like that it was a self-potrait everyday, especially trying to be creative with that. Out of the 6 friends who I started out doing it with, only me and another have finished. We both had to double up on photos by the end, to catch up, but I didn't mind that so much.
I will definitely do a 365 project in the future, but not a self portrait one. It was a good way to journal day to day sometimes, other times it was boring, other times you are just so tired of seeing your ugly mug you are like what the crap did I get myself into!
So in the future I will do a 365 project where I take a photo a day, but of just anything.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heidi/sets/72157608154411393/

done

well i finished my 365 photo thing on time by doubling up on pictures on some days but i finished on time! unfortunately i left them on the camera for a long time, and then now they are sitting on my computer waiting to be uploaded. but i havent looked at them all yet - hopefully they are all usable. so i ran out of steam at the end of the project - at least i finished!

but now its going to have to wait until after nanowrimo is over - which is very time consuming. 1667 words a day for 30 days... so far I'm about 1000 words behind, but doing well. It's the first time I've written Sci Fi -- which I'm doing a horrible job at it, but hopefully not too horrible for a first try. I really like nanowrimo, it's the perfect writing exercise, it only comes once a year so by the time the next Novemeber comes around you forget how troublesome and painful it was the year before.

happy birthday josh

today josh turned 29 years old.

unfortunately his birthday usually falls during the church's association's annual meeting, so we spent the morning and well into the afternoon in a rather remote location off Highway 20, but not too far up highway 20, but far enough to make it along drive and make me very carsick.

the meeting was super boring for me, but i'm sure the pastors were like oo ahh, seminary professor speakers, lectures, booths, socializing, eating food.... la la la. i played on my laptop.

then we drove to bainbridge island. which is far, far away from where we were. so just when i was starting to feel better i got carsick. then we got on the ferry just in time, phew.

once we got to winslow it was lovely. josh and i had some appetizers and happy hour drinks before our friends got there for dinner. dinner was amazing -- so great. josh had a great time. then we saw justin who played a main role in the play "The Producers" - he was so funny. afterwards we celebrated with friends again a little more, then got on the ferry for the long drive home.

we got home like at 2:00 AM or something but it was worth it - i thought it was a great birthday and i think josh had a good time too. it makes me happy to see him happy, and to see old friends and it felt like when were dating back in the day, being out and about, adventuring. flirting over appetizers. i'm more in love with him now than ever.

BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH WTF

OKAY -- ATTENTION -- I BELIEVE IT IS TIME FOR MY ANNUAL BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH RANT----

i.e. http://www.nbcam.org/

Honestly, I don't know why it annoys me so much. OH WAIT I DO.

Maybe it is because of the local hissy-fit over it every stinking year.

It starts with annoying melodramatic radio ads.

Then the TV ads with the pink people running relays for 3 days.



Then I go to the grocery store and not one, but TWO aisles are dedicated to "PINK!" "GO PINK!" -- pink water bottles, pink Mike Hard's lemonade (yes, alcohol), pink potato chips, pink t shirts, pink chicken marinades (!?!?!?!), --- AND THEY ONLY HAVE PINK SHOPPING BAGS!! PINK! Shopping!! BAGS!! No other bags to be found. In all of Haggens.



I drove by the local shopping center- the FORKLIFT was painted pink for breast cancer awareness.

I drove by the local Vietnamese dry cleaners - PINK ribbons on their dry cleaning hangers --

The celebrities are blabbing about it on every station and every little ceremony they make up for themselves even though they don't even know what they're talking about:


Oh i could go on, and ON, and ON! Pink everywhere! On yogurt! On brooms! On makeup! On alcohol! What the hell!!

LET ME REMIND YOU of the:

Top 10 Causes of Death for Women in the United States‡

The graph below shows how breast cancer compares to other common causes of death in women of all ages.

Top 10 causes of death for women in the United States.

The graph shows that the top 10 causes of death for women in the United States are—
1 Diseases of heart 329,238
2 Cerebrovascular diseases 86,993
3 Lung and bronchus cancer 69,078
4 Chronic lower respiratory disease 68,497
5 Alzheimer's disease 51,039
6 Accidents (unintentional injury) 41,426
7 Breast cancer 41,116
8 Diabetes mellitus 38,581
9 Influenza and pneumonia 34,949
10 Colorectal cancer 26,224

‡Source: Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program (www.seer.cancer.govExternal Web Site Icon) SEER*Stat Database: Mortality – All COD, Public-Use with State, Total U.S. (1969–2005), National Cancer Institute, DCCPS, Surveillance Research Program, Cancer Statistics Branch, released February 2008. Underlying mortality data provided by CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

Wait... what's that? The top two killers of not only women, but men also, are cardiovascular? Really? How 'bout that. Huh. Really. WOW. Wait... breast cancer isn't even the top cancer? Really? Wow! How 'bout that. Huh. Wow. Really.

So great... the Komen people or whoever they are are getting this great research funding... and they don't know how to find the cause of breast cancer. Oh and they treat it like other cancers with barbaric medicine and chemo and radiation. Oh and it comes back so your breasts get cut off.

On the other hand, there is preventable, PREVENTABLE cardiovascular disease!! You just have to be aware and get screened! Look at those top 3 on the graph - QUIT SMOKING.... KNOW YOUR CHOLESTEROL.... AVOID type II diabetes... GET A STRESS TEST.... CONTROL YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE.... GET SCREENED FOR ATHEROSCLEROSIS WITH A SIMPLE ULTRASOUND.

Still have a clogged artery, can't fight the genetics? We have stents. and bypass. and so many many many things... and none of it involves cutting off body tissues.

I mean, serious Seattle, Washington, United States, North America.... you have a top killer, far more deadly and prevalant than breast cancer, cardiovascular disease which is also mostly preventable, and you want to frickin smoke and eat and drink your way to death. And buy your smokes and eats and drinks in F'in PINK SHOPPING BAGS.

THAT is what annoys me at the store, and on the radio, and on the TV. All these well-meaning people running around with out of control type II diabetes and high cholesterol with their pink t-shirts on just waiting for a huge myocardial infarction.


at least some people try to fight the breast cancer consumerism... but obviously without much success. And these are women who have fought the cancer themselves!

Now don't get me wrong. I know a lot of women who have fought breast cancer and some have lost the fight. It is horrific, and personal, and just awful. I also know a lot of people who have had other types of cancer. Prostate. Colon. Skin. Many family members have died slow painful deaths from cancer. Research and funding is so important... but raising "Awareness"... by using consumerism? Swiffer? Alcohol? Pink shopping bags?

Ridiculous.

funeral

sometimes being married to the pastor can be funny

josh came home from a funeral graveside service the other day, and i was like oh how did it go? and he was like it went really good, except for one part i really messed up,

and i was like oh no, what happened,

and he was like,

well,

after the message and the prayer, i said,

"and now we will have a time where people can share their memories of _____,
does anyone have anything they are dying to share?"

fields poem

Color and cloud
Sun and flower

I pick up the dirt
And feel it crumble

Red and pink
Green and yellow

I stroll through the field
And pick a flower

Fragrance and sight
Smell and silence

I stand for a moment
And enjoy the quiet.

food drive

My fifth grade sunday school class wanted to do a food drive for their project this month. This is the first time they've volunteered an idea for the monthly missions-y type project. The ideas started enthusiastically pouring in. Go around the neighborhood asking for food!! Gather the food!! Stack the food INTO A GIANT PYRAMID!! What kind of PYRAMID! The pyramid should be made this way!! We need to ask for only certain types of canned food that are the right size! Or else the pyramid won't stand up right!! Let's fixate on this pyramid thing for two whole weeks!! What? We're gathering food for a food bank? You mean GIANT PYRAMID!

Anyway, we enthusiastically went around the neighborhoods by the church asking for donations of canned food/packaged stuff for the local food bank. I was paired up with one of the fifth grade girls, who is only a few inches shorter than me. The first five houses we went to we were met with enthusiastic "No!!" to donating food to the food bank. The next two houses were cute old people who first asked the fifth grader "and what school do you go to?" and she replied "___ Elementary" and then they turned to me and asked, "And you must go to ______ High School! Here let me tell you a story about that school...." or "Have you had Mr. So and So this year as your teacher?" and I'm like uhhh. I'm with ____ Church and uhh.... I'm uh... not.... in.... high.... ok thanks for the food bye k bye.

And repeat. At every other house. For the next ten houses.

Anyway, we met a few nice people who gave us one food item apiece. We hit a lot of houses to get one food item per house. A Top Ramen. A Campbell's soup. I was happy to be getting anything at this point, but it kind of annoyed me that we could see their GIANT pantry in their GIANT house that had like 1,000 food items and they hand us over a "Eggplant stuffed with rice in vinegar" can. Trying not to judge but... yah. Totally judging right then.

We also met a LOTTTTT of grumpy people. Angry senior citizen man who wants me to know "I'll give you a can, I'll make you FEEL how it is to carry canned food, for what you did to me, making me find canned food. You know THOSE people will never stop getting hungry. It's only going to get worse. There'll only be MORE. and then you'll have to carry MORE food. I hope this is too heavy for you to CARRY because of what you're doing to me." Then he dramatically shoved a 1 1/2 lbs can of fruit into my box. SO dramatic. Oh, it was so heavy, wahhh, I felt the burden of all the inconvenience I caused him.

Anyway, the fifth graders were pretty much ignorant of the general grumpiness and mostly saw "Nice Suburban People Giving Us Giant Cans for our GIANT PYRAMID OF GLORY!" I was ready to quit at 100 food items but the girl dragged me around another four blocks, very long blocks uphill. So I could tell she was loooving it. I liked it too, really, and found the rather surprise/disgust/annoyance we caused people entertaining enough.

When all the pairs came back we were successful in getting food, some 500 lbs of food or something, so there WERE people out there giving, maybe just not to me and my partner. In the end, though, it really made me a little sad as I reflected back on my day. I've done neighborhood food drives before in the county I used to live in, which was all low-income housing areas or dirt poor farmers. In junior high and high school we did a drive every year - the youth leaders would drive us around while we stopped by each place to ask for food. I do not remember any house turning us away, in fact each house would give multiple food items. And they smiled and said "thank you" to us and even told us stories of how the one or two times they needed the food bank it made all the difference, and helped them feed their children or what not. I knew those older couples on the farms did not have much of anything, what they canned was what got them through the winter - but they still shared.

Hmm.

sunday

Saturday was pretty eventful for me. I tripped over something in the garage, which led to a full-fledged cleaning spree of the garage, which was definitely premature weather-wise. Garage cleaning and rearranging should be reserved for spring-like weather, not 18 degrees and icy sidewalks. But in any event, the cleaning bug got to me and I shuffled things into the shed and rearranged and threw out and what not. It felt good, damn good, something tough guys do, cleaning out garages, moving ladders, hanging up weedwackers, throwing things into dumpsters... HOO AAH. Okay, anyhoo...

I also did laundry. Not something tough guys do.

Later in the evening was a surprise birthday party for our friend, which was held at a local sports bar & grill that has a giant projector screen for playing Wii. That was FUN. And a birthday party with pizza, Wii, easy access to margaritas and cake - well, you can't go wrong there.

This morning at Sunday School we invented a new game that involved shooting at each other with Nerf guns. When that resulted in chaos and hurt pride we put up hula hoops and shot through those for points. I tried Sunday school without ending in some sort of game but it just wasn't as much fun. It gives them (and me) something to look forward to after sitting through Bible lessons and things, and I'm also not a crafter. I mean crafts now and again are OK, but I don't like them, not when I could be perfecting the art of Nerf gun wars. I've also perfected that certain breaking point to stop a game just before the 4th grade boys start crying over how they just can't seem to get as many points as those mean 5th grade girls.

In Loving Memory

I think I understand a little bit of why they write "In Loving Memory" on the front of those bullitens you get at a memorial service.

Today is (was?) Keith's birthday. Josh and I both remembered without even talking about it to each other.

It's funny to me how he was such a huge part of our lives, especially this last year, here in our house, and then gone, just like that. Little things remain, the unopened bacardi silver on the bottom shelf, the pretzels at the bottom of the jar, the barbecue books on top of the stereo. But he's gone.

We went out to Mexican food today - the restaraunt we always eat at anyway, but also where his favorite cadillac margaritas are made. Also the place where I saw him last, our last meal together.

Josh had a margarita, but I was still on the clock, ha.

So, we celebrated a life we once knew, and today will be a good memory. It was in loving memory.

28

Josh's birthday was fun. I gave him his presents in the morning before I left for work so he could play Xbox 360 all day.

We went out to dinner with friends and saw the new Max Payne movie.

I love Josh! And how handsome he is. ^_^

josh birthdays

ITS JOSH'S BIRTHDAY TOMORROW YAYY!!!!!!!



He's soooo old.

and there were cuppycakes!!

slideshow

Keith's Memorial Service from Heidi on Vimeo.

#1000

This is my #1000 post on this blog.


I talk about crap a lot on here.


The memorial service went really well. The church was packed out with friends, family and patients. Josh did a great job with the sermon and it was what Keith would've wanted- a salvation message as his last message.

Josh and Vicki are staying with us for the weekend which is nice - they are so low-key and go along with the flow, which is good on a crazy weekend like this.

I was so happy to see Matt and Delayna and Beth and Jonathan (and Keira the new baby!) - so glad they came up.

I'm very happy to be here and have no regrets at all that we took on pastoring this church and staying up north here, but it is always nice to be around the friends we consider family. Sometimes I feel like we are on our mission trip here, but we have the privilige of being able to go home to P-bo which is close by (relatively) and enjoy the love and watch our friend's families grow up. Sometimes I feel like where we are now is home, too. We made friends here, friends like Keith, who are considered family.

All in all, I am glad the funeral and the punch and cookie time and all of that is over and we can just sit at home and watch Michael Phelps win medals for USA in the Olympics.

This past week we hosted a pastor and his wife from a church in Olympia, WA who came up to help us with VBS and do volunteer work/community outreach in the afternoons. VBS was a cowboy theme, and the afternoon service project they did included pulling weeds, cleaning houses, hosting a block party, "Free Car Wash - No Donations Accepted" and handing out free water bottles at the local parks.

It was so awesome to have them stay with us, 'cause they are older and wiser and generally just nice people who we had tons in common with. It was certainly encouraging to learn and hear stories from some people who have been through already what we are going through now.

Another amazing thing is about the children who came to VBS - two of these kids were in my sunday school class since I have been up here, and every week they pray for their cousins/friends to come to church and to be "happy and know Jesus" - well this week those kids they had been praying for came to VBS and accepted Jesus and decided to be baptized this Sunday. What an amazing thing that for two years these little fourth graders have been praying for their friends... to see God answer those prayers this week. Seriously made me cry just how sweet our kids are at church and how special they are. And how faithful God is to us here.

It's been a really good week.

postbirthday

Josh gave me birthday presents!!

Having a husband is good - because when you're old, and no one else gives you birthday presents anymore, he still does.

I got two Wii games, and a book, and some Wii credits. (I've been obsessed with the Wii lately...) - and this art piece thing.

So yah! It was awesome. Because presents are cool - ask anybody.

OK BBQ time.

happiestbirthday

http://www.ajc.com/health/content/health/stories/2008/06/20/happiest_day_0620.html

Just wanted you to all know that it has been scientifically proven what we all already knew since 1984:

My birthday is the happiest day of the year.

*

The weekend was fun - especially Saturday we went to Pike Place Market and then to Michael's 30th birthday party at his aunt's house in Ballard - it was quite the bash, lots of people, my friends that I love so much were there too, and a jazz band (ooee) and foods and drinks and the house there is just one of those spectacular homes you see on those cable shows or whatever. It was fun though because we just had a good time together. When I upload the pictures to Flickr I think the cheese and wine pairings by myself and Justin were memorable moments.

Easter was pretty good overall at church. The Egg Hunt got rained out so we did it inside - those kids were intensely searching every nook and cranny of the building but I am sure we will be finding easter eggs for at least a few more weeks.

Josh created a commotion by using real bread for communion that people had to share and break off a piece. Some freaked out about germs and that "other people had touched the bread before them!" I found it very entertaining, and I think they should replace the teeny tiny communion cups with a big chalice that everyone has to drink out of and see what happens. Kidding...

My parents and aunt came up to visit after church and my mom made chicken or something, I'm not sure. It had been such a long weekend already preparing church for Easter and rehearsing music, etc. that I was all but in a coma by the time we sat down for supper.

Today has been especially hard because I had to confront a very loved Christian friend about a big, big problem. I've been putting it off and putting it off, but sin is sin and you have to call it as it is.

This ministry thing is so hard during these times - blahweoifadkaldfjakfd.