So I'm dating the varsity baseball coach for Mason. It's his first year as a coach. So far, two losses. I like the story though. If they were awesome right now, a movie could never be made about them. Who cares about winning teams. I want to see them struggle a little...and then win. Come on, Bulldogs.

Jessica turned 30!

Okay, funny story time. This is Jolie. She is my best friend from high school's mom. She works at the Crystal Bar. Anyhow, Jessica (friend from high school) had a 30th birthday. Someone got her a bottle of champagne. She wanted Joey to open the bottle (do you see where this is going yet?). Just as Joey was popping the cork, Jolie walked in front of him and whamo. He smacked her in the head. She thought it was funny and wore the cork the rest of the night. Joey felt like an ass.

My parents.

I'm not sure why but Anna wanted Uncle Joey to braid her hair.

An okay job for a first timer.

My nephew on his birthday (at Emil's--our favorite eating time place).

Phantom was styling with her St. Patty's Day beads.

Yi didn't like the outcome of the MSU game.

Jennwy picked Purdue to win the NCAA tournament. When did they get ousted again?

Can you tell what Miss Yi is drinking?

Busted!

Manly men and cats.

I love Sundays

Never, ever thought I could say I love Sundays but I do. Not sure it is my favorite day of the week but it's close.

This morning, I got up extra early and showered. My mom greeted me with a hello and a "I just went and bought you milk because I'm a good mom." I talked to a friend in need while I got ready and then Joey picked me up for some Riv (the church, not the bar). Service was cool (sat by Darren, Fawn, Katie and Yi) and very emotional. Our friend Jarred spoke on stage. He's a big guy and I've known him since high school (I was his wrestling manager). I was shocked to see him at Riverview the first time. I initially wanted to judge him based on who he was in high school (let's face it, not everyone was nice to me) but I let that go knowing I want a second chance with a lot of people. We laugh about it now and as I saw him onstage tell about what brought him to Christ, I got a little emotional. Want to know what brought him to Christ? A chainsaw.

He bought it to take out some bushes in his backyard. He let his brother use it and then it sat around collecting dust. A co-worker needed to get rid of some branches or trees and Jarred offered his chainsaw. They spent the day cutting things up and then went to the car races. As they were hanging out, they were sharing life stories and discussing issues. The coworker mentioned he went to Riverview but never pushed the subject. Jarred decided to take a chance and checked it out. He's missed three days of church in the year he's been coming. No, this isn't just Riverview. This is all Christ working on his heart.

"You know," he said to Joey and I after the service, "I got up onstage and thought, "I don't know anyone here. Cool. I can do this. I'm not nervous."

"And then we waved," I said.

"And then you waved at me and I got all nervous...more nervous than I did before wrestling matches."

"I think you worked on some people's hearts, Jarred. You're new to this but God is already using you to plant seeds," I said.

"Naw," he brushed me off with a smile.

I taught Rivkids and it went smoothly. Afterward, Yi, Joey and I tried to breeze in to the Meet the Pastors meeting so we could score some pizza. Something made us stick around for the meeting and we had awesome opportunities to talk to some people who were just checking Riv out or had just come to Christ. We then decided to go look at houses, yes the three of us, at Columbia Lakes. I love the homes and was blown away by the different views. Still, not sure if any of that is feasible and there are some major issues to work out beforehand (hello, I'm not even engaged, yet).

Joey and I just got back from having a frosty at Darb's (this would be a Miller Light frosty, not a chocolate frosty). We also watched the George Mason basketball game and talked about the future. Grabbing some scalloped potatoes and ham to go (yum), we went back to Joey's. Now, I want some strawberry shortcake as my perfect Sunday comes to a close.

Some God Moments

"Holly, I had an epiphany in the bathroom of Wendy's. Call me back."
I smiled as I hit send to call my friend. No answer. When we finally did hook back up, I shared a God moment with her.

"You know I work in a unique situation...some of my co-workers being Christian and one who is an atheist," she began. We had discussed this before and how she didn't know how to evangelise to people. She knew how to live by example but actually diving into personal views....well, I don't even feel comfortable doing it all the time. So, here my friend was, faced with a challenge from God. "I'm supposed to talk to the atheist, right? Of course, I am."
"Right," I agreed.
"Well, I went out to dinner with my co-worker who is a Christian and as we started talking, I realized she had a lot of things wrong. She couldn't quite accept the fact that God forgives us. She also had some views that just aren't biblical. So we talked about it and her face just lit up. She was getting it. I wasn't stressed because I was in my comfort zone with this girl. I went to the bathroom and as I was washing my hands, it hit me. Maybe I wasn't put into the atheist's life to help her become a Christian. Maybe God put me in the Christian's life to help her with her walk."

I felt a huge smile come across my face. I love it when God gives us these epiphanies, these moments where we know exactly what it is He is telling us. Signals, messages, a feeling He sends our way and we receive, interpret, accept it. There are the messages we don't get or the ones we ignore, but God gets me more than I do. When I get Him back, I just have to smile and sometimes laugh outloud.

There was another God moment for another friend of mine. This person is a teacher (oooh, hope THAT didn't give anything away) and he has been spiritually beat on for the past two weeks.
"I didn't even want to be a teacher, Hol," he told me Monday night. "I wanted to be a doctor but somehow, God made me a teacher. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe this is His way of telling me He wants me to do something different."

"I don't know," I said. "It could just be Satan whispering crap into your ear. You've held up pretty well the past couple of weeks and you know God hasn't left your side to let you battle alone. But you could be right. It could be a sign but just wait it out a little."
My friend called me the next night with news that sent little chills through me.

"So, today I received two letters from the National Honor Society because two of my students nominated me for teacher of the year. One of the students doesn't even go to school here anymore and she still nominated me."

I laughed. To me, that is a clear signal and indication of God speaking. "Do you think God is trying to tell you something contrary to what you said yesterday?"

"Yeah," he said, "I'm where God wants me to be."

Something is wrong with my blog :o(

Something is wrong with my blog...patience please....

Rivkids

This week Grooving Dan taught on being a link in a chain meaning becoming a follower of Christ and then helping other people become followers of Christ and serving. I thought a lot about my links in my chain.

Joey
Pat M.
Noel
Steve
Kate M.
Chuck W.
Reta C.
Trenda
Tami

Then, I thought about how much time I had put into someone else. Tougher question. I wonder if I am in someone else's chain.

The other part of this was about service. I was too overwhelmed by Riverview at first. I sat in the same spot every week (far left side facing the stage...in the frontish). I remember Kate asking me to sit with her on the far right side. No way. That was foreign land. Sometime in October of 2004, I started really talking to Suzanne and Shanna. I wanted to volunteer somewhere but I wasn't good with kids and didn't know anything about coffee. After a service where Noel asked us how we were giving back, I signed up as a floater. This meant I floated from classroom to classroom and helped the teachers with any needs. That lasted one service because I was asked to be a helper in a room. This meant that I wasn't teaching kids I was only helping the teacher. I stayed in this role for many months. It helped me get used to kids, how to interact with them, how to pick up their colds.

One day, the teacher didn't show up. I was the teacher. I taught the kids some stuff from the lesson and then we drew pictures on the dry erase board. I loved it. They loved it. From that point on, I was the teacher.

And now? I signed on to keep teaching with Rivkids. I have an awesome co-teacher and we have a well run system. I teach the lesson. I discipline. She comforts them and knows their first and last names. Michelle and I love it. This is crazy when I think about how I didn't want to work with kids, how uncomfortable I was around them. I went into a scary zone and now the scary zone is being without it.

The compliment that never really was....

I know I've done this before. Sometimes I still catch myself doing it. In fact, I've probably done it to you. I'm sorry. Grooving Dan brought up an excellent point when talking about compliments a few weeks ago. It really helped me verbalize what has been swimming around in my head on this topic. I'm talking about lifting someone else up by putting someone else down. I have been running into this constantly the past few months. Actually, I've probably been dealing with it my whole life but it hasn't bothered me until recently. Here are some examples:

I make a DVD and give it to a friend as a gift. This friend likes said DVD so much but instead of expressing thanks and appreciation, it comes out like this, "my other gift sucked, but yours was awesome." I immediately felt bad for the sucky gift giver who also put a lot of time and love into their gift.

Another example: "The church I go to is so boring but your church really knows how to liven things up." I start to feel bad for the people at the other church who are just trying to love God differently.

I haven't really known how to deal with these kinds of compliments but I was tested last week. The person said to me, "You are catching on really quickly. So and so has been here for seven months and...."

"Stop," I said. "Wait. Before you finish what you are about to say, I need to ask you a question. Were you about to compare me to someone else?"

"Um...yes."

"Okay...please hear me out because I want to say this the right way. All I need from you is affirmation that I'm getting things right or correction when I'm doing it wrong. Praise is fine but please, don't put someone else down if you are trying to build me up."

The person smiled, praised me and then we moved on. Yeah, I was afraid to say it. I was afraid to offend but I just don't want to be that person people want to gossip with. Gossip is so easy and comes in so many forms. Maybe I just gossiped by making myself look like the hero. Please, I don't see myself that way. It was a difficult thing to do to stop the venom coming out with the medicine. I don't know. Maybe it might help you, too.

Updates and stuff

A lot has been happening but I haven't really been connected to the net to update. Here are some highlights of being me the past few weeks:

• I was transferred to a new department at Val. I went from making coupons specific to the individual and mailing them directly to the person home (Direct Mail) to printing the FSI, your friendly coupon book in the Sunday paper. Did I want to transfer? No. Did I have a choice? Not really. But my first day in the new department, I sat down to train with a woman named Alta. Twenty minutes later, she was telling me her faith story with tears in her eyes. I think God wanted me to spread my wings a little bit more and I trusted Him enough to follow His lead.
• Went to the individual state tournament at The Palace. Friday night, I showed up with a ticket from the assistant wrestling coach. The lady scanned my ticket and said, "sorry, this was for this morning's session. Got another ticket?" I sighed. See, Joey had given the ticket to a wrestler because Joey had to coach. Joey told me to call his cell phone when I arrived. He gave his cell phone to another wrestler and told the wrestler to wait for me. I arrived. I called. The wrestler met me at the front doors with the ticket and with Joey's cell phone. So, the ticket taker says, "Can you call someone to get you another ticket?" Um, no. I sighed and asked where I could go to buy another $10 ticket (which I knew was on the other side of the Palace." As I was standing there, my old roommate from college popped out of the side door. I knew he worked at the club but I was standing just inside of the Palace Grill. "Dan!" I said with surprise and relief. I told him the situation and he said he would walk me to the other side of the building. As soon as we got outside, Dan grabbed my arm, punched in a code and snuck me in the back. Was this stealing? Hmmm....no. Joey had just given me the wrong ticket which I could have gone to get for whoever wanted it. Was it a coincidence that Dan would come out of the side door at the moment I couldn't get in? You know how I feel about coincidences.
• Jenny asked me to be bridesmaid. I started to cry. I've known her less than a year but we are so close. God is awesome.
• My step-sister and her husband have now come to Riv three weeks in a row. God is awesome.

That's all I have for now. Watch this space...

In honor of American Idol, I'm posting this from last year. Brian from work made it. These are the people I used to work with before my transfer last week. I've probably mentioned some of them on this here blog.

NO WAY!!!!

We found ourselves in an impromptu parade which went through downtown Mason last night. Two fire trucks and lots of honking cars.

The Mason Bulldog and I

Mason wins the State Championship in the final match.

My favorite coach.

It was really cool to see all the teams at the state finals because they had all worked so hard to be there. I found myself clapping for them as much as Mason. They were on top of the world.

Before the big dance.

Bulldogs

I really need to get into the shower if I'm going to make it in time. Instead, I'm reading blogs and typing away while I eat my Raisin Bran. The Bulldogs wrestle again at 11:45 so I need to get my butt to Battle Creek.

I did get a good nights rest and feel much better. The cats...well...their little lives almost ended this morning at 5:30 a.m. I tried to reason with them to be quiet. I even asked them if they would like to lay at the end of the bed to keep my feet warm. They mocked me as I walked away. But at 6 am, they found themselves locked in the bathroom and I settled back down to slumber with a smile on my face and ear plugs in my ears. Now they are sleeping. Grrrr. I don't know how Joey can stand it.

Like I said, though, the Bulldogs wrestle around noon today. I'm a little nervous to go. I used to make the trip to Kellogg Arena every year (not for team states--ha!--but for individual states). The last time I went was in 1994. Um, that was over 10 years ago. I used to have so much fun at those meets. Seeing Joe S. lose, seeing Joe S. win. He was my best friend and our heavy weight wrestler. I thought about how I was allowed to leave school early to go because I was the manager. One year, I was dating Dwayne Holbrook who had graduated the year before. He and Pat S. (Joe's older brother) came to get me and drove me down to watch the matches. I remembered feeling cool as I hung out with Dwayne and Pat. They were fun. Pat was a huge guy and freaked out when we would get behind one of those trucks carrying cars. Anyone want to take a guess as to what Pat and Dwayne are doing these days? Come now, some of you know but if you know me and my morbid state of mind....then you know both of them are dead now. Pat passed away in January of 2004. He slipped off the semi truck he was driving (irony?). Dwayne died in...hmmmm....2001? 2002? I can't quite remember. His was due to alcohol poisoning. Crazy thing about that was when I was dating him, he picked me up from school wasted and backed into a car. I broke up with him the next day. He must have fought that demon for a long time.

Okay, I really need to go because I want to be there to watch Mason. They are so exciting to watch, too. When I talked to Joey last night, he said, "Let me call you back. We are losing right now." But they pulled it out in the end in a really crazy sort of way.

I know, I know. You feel really bad you didn't get me anything for my birthday, don't you? Well, don't fret! We are still in the window. Walk The Line came out on DVD Tuesday. Yes, I saw it twice in the theaters but I would really like to watch it all the time. I was going to purchase it myself but couldn't decide between the regular and speical editions. If you feel Walk The Line would not make me happy, there is ALWAYS ER Season 4....and Roseanne Season 3 comes out at the end of March. I figure if I have drama on DVD, then I won't need any in my life...right?

Hemi has his mouth wrapped around Chessie's throat. Should I be concerned?

Blech

I'm sick. Wonder how I got this cold...can't wonder too long. Joey is out of town so I'm housesitting. Really, I'm just sick. It's nice having furry little friends to keep me company, though. Joey has a funny story about his loyal kittens. I'll let him tell it, though.

I just finished watching 8 Simple Rules. Remember that show with John Ritter? In this episode, he has a dream his two daughters live with a guy...very Three's Company. At the end of the episode, John leans over to kiss his wife...only it's Mr. Furley...Don Knotts. I thought, "wow, both of them are gone now." Morbid thoughts seem to be plentiful these days. I had to get my stuff out of Jimmy's garage on Wednesday. The bank is foreclosing on the house and I would have had to bid on my own crap to get it back. I was a little freaked out to go down there but Bennie saved me the trip. The house looks so creepy and I couldn't figure out why. It was like a murder took place there. Evil.

Now I'm watching Behind The Music: Kid Rock. They said Vanilla Ice almost ruined Kid's career. Kelly and I used to listen to Kid in high school. So far ahead of our time. Polyfuze Method, my first and only Kid album.

The animals are restless. They are demanding food or something. Joey didn't say anything about feeding them. I just want to lay here with my Baja Fresh, apple juice and Puffs Plus.

I so want to tell you the story about the cats...and their little expedition outside....naw, I'll let JAC tell.

It has been 18 years since you left us. I still think about you and how you influenced my life. I'm still working on Project KMM even though you would tell me to stop if you were alive. I will see again...someday...