stories

This week, we went for Thai with my lovely friend Laura Reese and her husband, Josh. They are just interesting. They met at my alma mater, got married, and now they live in an awesome old house with a big beautiful Akita named Adelaide.

Laura not the kind of girl you can label.  I can't call her my friend from Oregon because she's also my friend who's going to one day open a pie shop and my friend who plays the guitar and used to be a music teacher and my friend who has awesome red curls and my friend who works for the American Red Cross and dressed up in one of their authentic World War II nurse uniforms to perform at a work function.

But I think that's inspiring. If you ask me what I did last night, I either watched a marathon of Ace of Cakes or went out to eat. If I ask her what she did last night, she made her own wine or listened to the Portland Blazers on the radio or sewed a quilt or climbed a mountain in Colorado. Here's to doing things.

It's appropriate that I tried my first Thai with Laura and her husband. I had Pad Park and JT got the best fortune I've seen in awhile:

If you got it, flaunt it

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We were watching our brand new House DVD, and I could only concentrate on one thing: Olivia Wilde's ponytail. I wear my hair in a ponytail more often than not, but mine never looks nearly as stylish.

"I want my ponytail to look like hers," I announced.

JT didn't really know what to say. "I think hers starts higher."

But no sooner had the words left his mouth that I pulled at my ponytail and tightened it in one swift motion, and my ponytail was magic.

"How did you do that?" JT said, tilting my head for a better look.

"How did I do what? I don't know!"

I've tried multiple times unsuccessfully to reproduce this trick to no avail. My ponytails will have to be boring until the Ponytail Fairy decides to sprinkle her magic dust in my hair again.

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This week marked the one-year anniversary of one of my heroes, Jim Beals. He was my college roommate's dad, and called me his fourth daughter. Incredibly smart with a great smile and a warm heart, he pastored a small church in Oregon and his sermons were dynamite. He was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and when doctors gave him months, he survived upwards of seven years, I think.

One of my fondest memories of him was when he drove us across the Hood River bridge just because we wanted to say we'd been in Washington state. He paid the toll, crossed the bridge, and drove us up this hill. He offered to knock on someone's door so we could get a proper view from a backyard, but we chose not to. We just got out on the street in a neighborhood and we could see all the lights of the quaint river town he called home. It was fun and beautiful! Then we got back in the car and turned around, and we'd been in Washington! What a man!

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I went to Braum's to pick up a cherry pie JT was craving, and I couldn't find it at first. The guy who was working the convenience store counter was very helpful, and later I found out why. When I took off my glove to swipe my credit card, he asked how my day was going.

LB: "My day is going great. How is yours?"
Braum's Guy: "Good, except I wish you'd take off your other glove so I could see if you have a ring."

I was caught off guard but smiled and told him, yes, there was a ring. We laughed about it and when I told JT in the car that his wife was in high demand, he had a lot of fun making fun of me that night.

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I just returned from Whole Foods (aka Whole Paycheck), and my bounty includes:

sparkling pink lemonade

pannetone we've wanted to try

cocoa meringue cookies I've been craving (100 calories for 14 cookies!)

a whole grain French baguette

stew beef

blackberry jam

It's going to be fun and creative cooking in my kitchen this week!

 

lately

outside my office this morning
yes, we're behind tacky gold bars!

Since I didn't have time to do a Not Me! Monday this week (I know, I know!), I will do a Tuesday weekly update.

JT and I are going on vacation in 2 and 1/2 weeks for a cruise. I am only 60% sure where we are going but I'm VERY excited for 8 days off of work, the ocean, great seafood, the warm sun, and quality time with my main man.

So I didn't get everything done from last week's list, EVEN the haircut part. I know. It's pathetic. Luckily, I have an incentive. I HAVE to get my haircut before the cruise. I think that's reasonable. I definitely waited until Sunday and Monday of THIS WEEK to get most of what I did get done done, including cleaning my house and running 3 miles last night and doing Pilates this morning. My body can take it. No big deal. I DID make enchiladas the very next day after I posted the list, and JT and I had them for leftovers a few nights, too.

I won a contest! I will be the proud owner of an autographed copy of Anne & May's brand new release, "A Little Help from My Friends." (Remember? The one with the AWESOME cover?) I'm super excited because 1) I've never won anything before, and 2) I ordered it from border.com, yet somehow, UPS has sent it from Mississippi to Missouri to West Virginia? They must be directionally challenged?

On Monday, I learned a lesson the hard way. You see, I work in an Office Divided, which is an Oklahoma term for houses, families, friends, etc that pledge allegiance to rival football teams. So I placed a bet with my boss and some people in the office last Friday about last weekend's OU/Texas game. The terms were that if Texas beat OU by seven or more, my boss would wear burnt orange apparel and/or take us to lunch, or else we'd have to wear an OU shirt all day on Monday. Well, Texas won by three, but my boss walked in Monday morning and said he thought it was unfair for us to have to wear Sooner garb all day when we did, in fact, win. So I was left with nothing else to wear except for JT's white jersey.

Don and Sammy

Both of my brothers are NEVER in town at the same time, but we got to watch the game together this weekend and laugh our faces off at the brand of humor only we understand from being raised together. It was Don's birthday and much fun!


So I put up a link to my blog on Facebook, and even posted a link on Twitter. I guess that means I'm going public? Not necessary taking the plunge, but maybe sticking a toe in the water.

Since I'm "going public," will you? I blog stalk some people -- and comment them shamelessly. So do feel free to do the same, whether I know you in real life or not! No need to be bashful in this neck of the woods!

confessions

Hi, friends. I know I have been neglectful of my blog. I've had lots on my mind, but whenever I have time to post, it means my mind is unoccupied and I can't remember for the life of me what was SO important I had to say.

First thing first, God is SO good! In case you could tell from my subtle hints, I have been having some health issues due to my ulcerative colitis. When my uc is bad, my life is drastically altered, not only physically but mentally and emotionally, too. Since I was seeing no signs of improvement, we were looking at prednisone, which is a kind of steroid that makes me retain water, increases my appetite, and makes me in a perpetual bad mood.

I said if my symptoms didn't improve by the end of this weekend, I'd go on it, and I asked God to pleasepleaseplease work on my behalf and help me get better even though what I'd been doing for about a month wasn't doing much to help. I am happy to admit I am filled with hope because I have had ZERO symptoms today and believe wholeheartedly that it was all God!

My church just celebrated its one year anniversary. We had an amazing service today to commemorate and all got cool new shirts. I am on the worship team, and I have really felt a community of love and worship during our gatherings. My favorite thing about my church is that nobody pretends to be perfect, not even our pastor (whom I watched check a guy hard into the wall in his indoor soccer game last night), and I think the verse about God's grace being sufficient and His power being made perfect by weakness has never been more real.

Today, I wore what I've decided will be my favorite fall outfit, this super cute gray dress with a long sleeve black shirt under it and dark jeans and canary yellow flats. Also, my hair is long enough to do a cute little side braid now!

Other than that, I've been enjoying my absolute favorite month of the year, Texas Longhorns still undefeated football season, and pilates torture classes. Still, I think I'm going to have to do a long Not Me! Monday! post tomorrow because I have lots and lots of embarrassing things to come clean about. Until then!

frisky find

This morning I looked out my bathroom and saw this furry friend sleeping on a bag of mulch on our back porch, keeping dry from the rain. As cute as it was, I immediately thought about the extra work he caused me last Sunday. I tapped on the glass, and he did not stir.

I took a picture of him and then hurried to the glass door and tapped on it, and then made a shocking discovery:

He was actually THEY.

Ultimate optical illusion? I think so.

PS: When I saw them, the colors and patterns of their fur brought me back to a few months ago when JT and I got into the car to go somewhere and we stumbled across a FELINE SCANDAL in our backyard, right in plain sight. Were these beautiful kitty babies the result of this act?

JT was mortified, but I maintain that the shock (and a desire to share with my BFF) compelled me to take a picture of "the act" when it occurred months ago. My original post contained a link to the picture, but I removed it in case anyone doesn't share my humor/fascination with this discovery.

I, for one, am glad I took the picture because curiosity would have killed this cat.

brutally honest

Just to forewarn you, I missed Not Me! Monday this week, but you are about to receive something perhaps even more brutally honest.

Ladies and gentleman, (maybe there's a gentleman out there somewhere?) my name is LB and I have ulcerative colitis. It's kind of like the stepsister of Crohn's Disease, but the less ugly one. Not as bad, but still not desirable. I've had it for eight years, and unfortunately that means eight colonoscopies. You'd think I'd have it down by now. But getting things down: that's the problem.

You see, before these tests can take place, you have to drink this stuff. And my first time, I had an awful experience. To dilute the mixture and the awful, salty-periodic-table taste, we added Mountain Dew. I tried everything to get it all down -- think the amount of a milk jug -- but I would end up throwing it up because of the taste.

Ever since then, it's been a huge mental hurdle for me. Just thinking about the horrid taste and volume of the solution makes me psych myself up, and that makes it taste even worse. I know it's 99% mental because now even the thought of Mountain Dew, Propel, and other drinks I've mixed with it makes my stomach churn.

Well, obviously I survived. And I'm a little ashamed it took me six hours to down the drink when I could have been finished in about two. There's just something about my personality. I don't want to admit I'm a dramatic, but I suppose it's the same reason why in college, I spent many an hour blog-ranting that I was awake writing research papers at o'dark-thirty in the morning, or why it takes me an hour to finally lace up my gym shoes.

In the amount of time I spend analyzing/complaining about it, I could have accomplished it twice. This is something I'd like to change about myself!

The day of the test was a lot of, dare I say, fun. I went in and got to see my old friends at the doctor's office -- which coincidentally, happens to be my dad's office (he's a stomach doctor, too!) -- and the next thing I know, I'm on my couch at home, hyped up on Demerol and Valium, have just slept for about five hours, and get to stay home from work. I have no idea what has transpired between now and then, but there was Sonic waiting for me in the fridge, including my traditional post-procedure OreoBlast. (I'd let JT know the specifics beforehand. I'm old hand at this by now -- I know I don't remember anything that day.) And he'd turned on The Food Network for when I woke up. What a thoughtful husband!

My great friend Darla came to see me, too. She is such an awesome friend and I am super excited about seeing Harry Potter with her in LESS THAN A WEEK!

So the moral of the story is: colonoscopies aren't that bad. Just plug your nose, spray some Clorosceptic in your mouth, flavor it with Gatorade powder, and chug it down. Get some reading material and stay close to the potty that night, and then count on sleeping long increments and not having any short term memory the next day.

And never take going to the bathroom for granted, because some people don't have that luxury. It's always best to be safe than sorry, but unless you have tummy problems, a history of tummy illness in your family, or your doctor says so, then you shouldn't need to worry about this fun little test until you're about 50 (I think).

a list of random whims I had today:

1) train for trail running races
2) take opera lessons
3) become a ballerina
4) play intense, hardcore basketball
5) write a book
6) grow tomatoes in my backyard
7) bake a beautiful chocolate cake
8) try out for American Idol next year
9) buy a cheeseburger for lunch
10) sign up for a 5K at my old high school this weekend
11) pray with a girl from work
12) listen to Heart
13) wear a dress over my work pants

So I only actually did 4, 9, 11, 12, and 13 today. Tomorrow is another day!

Currently Listening to: Heart - "Alone"
Currently Watching: Britain's Got Talent. Watch this video!
Currently Reading: Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt - Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
Currently Cooking: Neapolitan Salad by Giada. Greens with grilled eggplant and zucchini, grilled shrimp and scallops, lemon juice, EVOO, whole wheat orzo, and white cannelloni beans.

survey of threes

::three joys::

• when my cooking turns out okay
• down time
• waking up next to my husband

::three fears::

• never reaching my potential (failure)
• spiders/wasps
• anything that deals with spiritual warfare
  

::three current obsessions::

• any kind of berry
• So You Think You Can Dance
• The Oxford Chronicles
  

::three surprising facts::

• I name pretty much everything I own
• I count pretty much everything
• I am kind of doing something with my English degree!