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

My Mom Voice Dials!

Ya, I was surprised too. Those two people who are me and my brother's biggest computer support customers (you know it's true) actually use the voice dialing options on their cell phones. I'm not only surprised that they use it, but that it works. My iPhone can't recognize diddly squat when I say it. The only time I've had a successful voice dial is by pronouncing Jed Stuber as Jed Stubber.Mom probably didn't think I would remember this tiny fact after our six hours at the hospital together yesterday, but what else was there to notice? Despite my roomie and his friends insistence, I waited until Tuesday morning to check in to Methodist for whatever it is I have. I hadn't kept down water since Monday afternoon, so this loud IV machine was wonderful to hear. As of this morning, I've never wanted a banana and toast so much in my life. It was wonderful. The last test to see what's going on should come back today. I had the flu a few years ago, but this was way more painful. Did you know that when you have a high fever and are shaking uncontrollably that it's actually your body being warm and thinking that the normal air around you is really cold. Medical facts are fun.

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.

Our Needs

I almost forgot to mention the pleasure I had last weekend seeing Pete's first time speaking at the South Side Mission. It probably gets old seeing this same picture setting with a different person all the time on the blog. But it's exciting for me to have to think hard about what it's like up there your first time...and how much better he is at it. There was also a first timer at the Rescue mission Monday. A young Dejarnet gave it a shot for once instead of the old-timer.

I got to be the boss of 20 or so middle schoolers on Friday. I prepped all week for it memorizing names and formulating a raking strategy around the building. As an outreach project to the neighborhood, the middle school offers to rake leaves for it's neighbors on one big day every year. But my team got to take care of the school grounds.

I learned alot, including the motivational power of sugar. Stef, one of the wise ladies in the office, recommended ahead of time that I buy treats for the kids. Very good advice. I also learned the benefit of taking a kid to see the principal when he won't behave. He was my hardest worker the reset of the day. Anyway, it was great learning alot of names and finding out how popular I am.

Huckleberry Hobbs and I got to surprise Alyssa at work after choir today. I normally can't justify such ridiculously high priced food, but Cid's is where our pastry chef friend works and it was definitely worth making her day. Look at that 'tude on her face. "Oh ya, I got awesome friends"


The last productive thing to get done today was a quick gutter cleaning at Mary's house. She's one of the elderly ladies at our church who had clogged gutters one year. I've gotten to spend time hearing about what our church has been like over the last few decades while working on things around her house. She attended a lunch for our ministry to women today, and I got to hear about how that went. Today I also got a great quote from one of Bethany's previous pastors fitting for the coming holiday. "God promised to take care of our needs and not our greeds." I guess the problem for us these days is being grown up enough to know when or how something is a need.

Coincidentally, the last unproductive thing was finding that the only people to get into some movies are the ones who stick together to get what they want (but not today...tee hee)

The Wierdest Things (updated)

My EE group always complains that I have the weirdest connections to people, but today was a long one.

A couple of years ago, my friend Ashley (the tall one), who was rooming with another girl at the time, was living in a neighborhood where a suspected rapist had been seen trying to break into homes. She and her boyfriend (now hubby), Ben, were a bit uneasy about it. So, for a couple of nights Ben and I took 3rd shift on their living room couch.

Today, most of you probably heard about the two escaped inmates from the Peoria County Jail roaming around the Peoria area. One was caught in the ghetto (not my ghetto) and the other is still out there having stolen an SUV. It was talked about alot at work. As far away as PCS is from the sightings and jail, our secretaries at the middle school had extra security (a.k.a Señor Nick the Spanish teacher) watching the parking lot most of the day. When a sighting was over by Kickpoo (still don't understand how that happened though) and I heard that Brimfield was on alert, I called Lady Moon's hubby to see if he wanted to warn her. Completely forgetting that she works now at a school, I not only found out that she was safe and secure in a locked down school in Brimfield, but her hubby was actually the helpless one at home, poor guy.

Next after work was a dentist appointment I was dreading because of frustrating TMJ problems and a tooth they were tracking two years ago (which was my last appointment) that was feeling worse. While I was waiting for the X-rays to come back, I got a call from Ashley. Turns out the guy who is still on the loose is the same one who caused me to sleep on her couch a couple of years ago! Honestly.

But that's not all. The nice lady who was causing crazy pain in my jaw by holding it open for 20 minutes turned out to be the wife of one of the principals in Brimfield. She had called her hubby's office today and heard they were having "a bad day" but didn't know anything about the escape. She also knew of Mrs. Moon.
(update)
This nice pain-lady's daughter also happens to be dating one of the guards at the Peoria County Jail. He was not on duty the night before or the day of the jailbreak, however. That would have been too much.

So it doesn't sound nearly as interesting of a story as it originally did in my head. But it's been typed so you get it anyway. A little nervous now that Facebook posts these for me as well. Don't judge me Facebook!!!

Your Mom On Ice

I know you've probably already seen the upload via Facebook, but I've gotta cover the blog just in case. Sorry about the audio. No clue how to fix it. It's a You Tube conversion thing. You only missing Noah laughing and Joanne complaining that the fall wasn't good enough. :-)

Dead Guy Walking

Heard that alot today. My 5th grade AWANA buddies got invited to the Junior High paintball trip today. For the last two weeks they wouldn't stop bugging me until I said I would go. Here they are, the munchkin brigade.
The paintball pits were a blast. We spent almost 6 hours there. Several of the courses were long enough that there was more sprinting involved than I realized. Therefore, I'm paying for it now. You could play aggressive or conservative, but you didn't want the whole team to be one or the other, but that happened anyway. I spent some time on one, then the other. The pics were all taken when I was out, at which time the referees yell "Dead guy" or "Dead guy walking".

These guys are dead.

Here was a good course. This is the view from my team's side.

And this is the view after I got shot and walked behind enemy lines. There's always more guys behind the objects than you realize.

Here's the view from a perch after the guys on the left had been beaten back pretty far. In the distance is another field with a castle in it!

The final field was a short one with lots of object but a simple and open setup. Very fun. Despite the fact that I had plenty of time sitting out and I can barely walk now, I did get several kills and felt it was worth it.

Timmy Lee was very good at hiding and being patient. Can you find him in this picture?

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???

More Reverse

Today was backwards day at AWANA. Not alot of description needs to go into it. There are tons of oportunities to get involved with the kids over the two hours they are there, if you choose to, but this is a sampling of our backwards possie just during handbook group time.


There are a few thing I learned though.

- Use the restroom before making the switch.
- Don't try to be cool and walk backwards everywhere. Just don't.
- Check your fly often.