Workout Starts Tomorrow

Our favorite day to start a new health plan is, of course, tomorrow. Modern training plans seem to facilitate this with the motivational videos they provide to preempt their schedule. My Insanity workout had one. Here, Josh enjoys a plate of pizza and glass of Mountain Dew as the P90X trainer encourages him to "Bring it!". Bring it Josh.

It's been a couple of weeks since the end of my favorite vacation with great friends. Withdrawal had finally died down to acceptable levels in time for a little reunion dinner at Peoria's Hofbrau. The wait was a little rough, but the food was excellent, evidenced by the camera being beaten by my appetite. Emily, you were missed. When Skype invents smell sharing, we'll reserve a seat for you.


Alyssa has always wanted to have enough cash to roll around in, but that's not what this is for. After receiving a modest amount of bills in a fun form (rolled up like junkie's sock-savings), Alyssa vowed to one-up me. It takes dedication to visit multiple bank locations and carry around $600 in one dollar bills half a day in order to pay me back dramatically.

It was the only time in my life I was ever nervous about waking form my car to my back door. Notice the lack of "night job" jokes. You're welcome. Thanks Alyssa!

All Things Food

Lets blog about the diet/exercise tomorrow.

At Bible study I had the pleasure of assisting with Thursday's meal. I forgot I was cooking with a nutritionist. It was the smoothest meal preparation I had ever seen. And we even had a display model to show people how to assemble it!
On the way back from St. Louis I happened to connect with the new roomie in Springfield on his way home from work. Butch knew I was looking for something new for dinner and lead us to D'arcy's Pint. The best Horseshoe and beer I've ever tasted. It was so good that it was gone before a picture could be taken. They're actually pretty popular on Google so stock photos were readily available.

Open Hood

Micaiah and Erin are a couple of Hoodies that I don't see much because of their status (married) and involvement in a ministry that I don't see much (college). But I got invited to an open house at their place which is just down the street and got to enjoy some new hood faces. They went door to door inviting the neighbors. It's funny how each street has a different demographic. Believe it or not, they are mostly retired folks or young couples with kids who DON'T break in to our houses.

Erin made lots of goodies and I got to meet the Godfather, Bob. This retired fellow from Naples who has lived in the hood for fifty years kept us in conversation for an hour. It was so great for Micaiah and Erin to try to go out of their comfort zone and it has benefited them with better relationships with their neighbors which will keep reaping over time.

The Down Side...

The down side of a GI tract that refuses to heal fast is that Thanksgiving ends with a net weight loss. To the left, my plate. To the right, my brother's. Don't worry, my loving Mom sent me home with plenty of leftovers. Thank you for making so much from scratch for only four people!

The up side is that you can take pitty on yourself and use Wes' big screen TV to play your brother's Xbox 360 and Halo 3 for a couple of days. It took three days to remember to take this picture, sorry.

What terrible timing to be invited over for Charly's chicken head soup. It was fun being able to watch Ryan sweat bullets while staying nice and cool myself though.

In trying to kill time between errands today, I found that Carol Zimmerman plays guitar!!! And REALLY well too! I'm so behind.

You can't just make an appearance at a party without contributing. So Kristin let me cut eggs for the salad at Holly's Birthday party tonight. I love cutting eggs!!

Look, there was a ladder, a tree...it just worked. Happy Birthday Holly!!

Campylobacter Jejuni

Campylobacter jejuni is a species of curved, rod-shaped, non-spore forming, Gram-negative microaerophilic, bacteria commonly found in animal feces. It is one of the most common causes of human gastroenteritis in the world. Food poisoning caused by Campylobacter species can be severely debilitating but is rarely life-threatening.

Yay!! I finally know what I have. And it's the second time I've had to take Cipro to treat gastroenteritis. The fist (and less painful) time was because of this delicious fellow.

In 2005 a mission trip to Ecuador took us to a village of Indians high in the mountains to help dig a trench for a water well pump line. Haroldson, Emmert, Baumann and others were out for 24 hours thanks to our last meal on the mountain. I, of course, was out for 36 hours thanks to my wimpy immune system. Our trip nurse, Barb Becker, handed out the Cipro at the first sign of intestinal problems though. I waited a couple of days this week...genius

Painful Feasting

This might look like a mean thing to blog about. And stupid considering she could have flung the knife at my eye. But I caught Sarah on a good day and I think I have permission. What amazing talent and focus this must take. Sunday morning coffee run with the worship team.
Sunday afternoon football. Heyyyyyy!! Something to consider on a regular basis perhaps? This was just an annual scrimmage called The Turkey Bowl. Young fellers (high school) vs. The old guys (anyone else).

The Turkey Bowl is always followed by the Feast Of Thanks, where hundreds of BBCers take to the buffet line and build up some regrets for later that night, and the next day. It's a good time though. Wes (left) is trying to measure up to the humongous pile of mashed potatoes Brittney (second from right) is loading up. Got enough there!?!

I'm currently investigating which of these 11 items is responsible for my nausea, dizziness, fever and pains. I know it doesn't look like 11. Layers people, layers.

And this is Noah and I entertaining ourselves by pretending that Ryan didn't ditch us and is actually sitting right there. He had good reason though...but still.

Mr. Ham

Check out the wise use of my time as I found out halfway through the day...that I have the day off. Ya, my boss still hasn't told me yet. Anyway, I'm blogging!!




Mr. Ham the funeral man works at Wilton Mortuary. His connection with Mr. Nielson at school brings him to the 6th grade class every year during their Egyptian mummy lesson to explain the process of embalming. Mr. Ham is cool. He not only explained (with props) the modern process, but the Egyptian mummification process as well.







My connection with the Hamster is our time in EE together and fellow Usher responsibilities. The big teddy bear is currently adopting from Ethiopia and the Hams are the type of people who are really easy to be excited for.




Guess what else happens on embalming day? Dirt pudding. What???

Single? Who Me?

Whenever starting a day full of this much socializing, learning, and more socializing, start it off right. Biscuits and gravy baby. I only had to try two Bob Evans' to find it and Ryan.

Not sure if you knew this, but I'm single. Yeeeeeeyaaa pretty much. So when you're single, you always go to these singles retreats to learn about singleness. No not really, but some folks who haven't been around here long are starting to get that impression. Pastor Ritch, intern Matt and their wives lead our singles group for a day long retreat focusing contentment and dating. I think it was pretty good considering how many good things we were able to cover in such a short period of time.

There was, of course, a time were the men and women got separated for a topic on purity. This is where we covered what to do while watching Children Of The Corn 13 with your date and which members of your family NOT to marry...

Andrew and Bruce eagerly awaited their first shot at appearing on the blog. Here, however, Bruce did not pick up the clue phone when it rang.

Peter took the brave and successful step out into unknown game territory for our class. We usually play alot of large group activities that have been done many times in the past. With an ever changing group and the knowledge that they've worked in the past, it wasn't always a bad idea. But we definitely added some good stuff this year.

First was the spaghetti and marshmallow building competition. Self explanatory. And of course, the team with the most experienced engineer, Nan, kicked behind.



Other games were played, but the most new and original would have to be live battleship....also self explanatory. Thanks to Mooners for making the icebreaker new and exciting...and ego boosting for a certain blogger. Like he needed it.

Well, posting about the High School reunion later that night will have to wait. And posting more details about the wonderful teaching of our Pastoral families will have to be avoided. It was a great day exceeding expectations and offering up lots of things to consider and change. However, I will inevitably point out what didn't go well, like all those "didn't we just cover that" moments...and no one will enjoy that. Probably the greatest thing I've ever taken away from the teaching at this church is the knowledge that everything starts with the motive and heart attitude with which you approach anything in life. No amount of rules, lessons, habits or alternatives will ensure or should give you great confidence in how to handle situations if you do not first run it all by the test of why you are doing something, who it is/isn't for and know who's in charge. It applies well to everything from who to date to what to wear and I felt this was the groundwork for most of the teaching this weekend.





And then there was Hagrid...

Wiggle Butt

Little to report except that the red tape and details required in order to get a CDL for driving a school bus is a huge pain. In one week it will have required three trips to the DMV and two to a finger printing facility. Next week is the physical and still to come, driving test. Sheesh

I'm also proud to say that the three little dudes at my AWANA table, Jairus, Evan and Tanner, have proven to be the most productive bunch of troublemakers in AWANA. Who else could manage to finish 3 sections in one night and still manage to get negative points for behavior? All three of them.

YES! As a last minute backup, I snagged Maya for the week. She also goes by "Wiggle Butt" apparently. It's alot easier to take care of this hyper dog after taking care of two super hyper/needy ones.


And my roommate continues to amaze me as he polishes off five glasses of Dr. Pepper. The lady started bringing them out in twos eventually. Yes, he had to drive like a madman to avoid having an "accident" on the way home.

Give Me An Inch

Did you know that if you find a 5-inch long french fry in your Culvers combo basket, you get a free scoop of frozen custard? Well these girls do.

Another Workday

Real quick. You've all felt the intense urge to bang on a drum or other percussion instrument as you walk by right? Me too. So if Mr. Walker isn't around to hear his instruments...did I really hit them?

What's new that could be said about another Saturday morning at the new church building? Well, we just installed a skating rink.

"Yup." "Mmmmm Hmm." "Eeeeeeeeyup."

There are still some great pieces of scripture graffiti showing on the bare beams. I'm glad for what they chose. I love that they didn't need to sign their name, since it's not about who but what. Makes me wonder if I did...probably.


The other day, Huckleberry Hobbs pointed out that our friend Nan blew past him on the trail. I was still stupid enough to jog with him today. The man is a blur!! It was great though, being pushed harder than ever before. We all need that.

Later was Dinner with the boys. I came a little early though and caught Wes sharing Nan's dialysis machine. Poor guy.


Okay, MAYBE it was actually electro-acupuncture. Pretty cool considering how much better they've felt after a short time of treatments. Pretty not cool after you see how long some of the needles are.



How long has it been since we had the food tag on here? Too long. Red Lobster with Jeffrey and Lisa from a while back. Mmmm Mmmmmm.

Birthday Week

It's bout time to give credit to all those jerks (except you Mom, you're not a jerk) who wanted to do something for my Birthday over a week ago.

Tuesday 14th

A couple of the dudes at work, Ron and Frank, treated me to donuts at Trefzgers since it was my first time on a donut run. Before leaving the store, I saw the cake I really wanted. The week went by though...and no one got it for me. (sigh)

The Stubers made up for the lost cake dream with a gigantic "Harms Recipe" mint chocolate brownie when I got home from d-group. Amazing. Yes, it went well with the milk I brought home. There was also a singing voicemail left on my phone from a couple of crazy ladies!

Finally. Mail call had the cutest card ever made!!! Thank you!
There's a little heart at the top of the "n"! Did you see it!?!

Wednesday
Nan would not take no for an answer about hosting a dinner at his place. He asked me what my favorite food was. I spent a little more time thinking about it than usual. Usual is "I have no idea". It occurred to me that cheese is often in my favorite dishes...so I said anything with cheese!

The result was an appetizer of fruit and three types of gourmet cheese.

Along with Filet Mignon covered in goat cheese.....amazing.

You can't help but talk about food at Nan's house. A long conversation about various herbs and spices lead someone to bring up the existence of an herb named anise. That's right, anise. And it's pronounced almost like the word you're hoping it doesn't. I think the jokes would have died down relatively quickly if Nan hadn't announced, "I have anise, let me show you!"

Thanks to Wes (thanks Wes) the men managed to sing Happy Birthday to me in three different styles.


Thursday

Wanting a fourth excuse to sing Happy Birthday, the guys planned another celebration during Thursday night Bible study. Don't let the smile deceive you...I want to kill them.


Friday

Knowing my knack for over-packing evening plans, the fam held off on birthday celebrations for Dad and I (Happy Birthday Dad!!) until Friday. Someone recently made a comment about how many of my peers are being more health conscious at meal time. The fam is being no different. Knowing that no one wants to be stuck with leftover birthday cake, Mom found the smallest cake I had ever seen.

Perfect!! Four pieces and you're done!

Thank you for everyone who reminded me that they care!