Such a long time!!!

It has been a long time since I've written anything on this blog. It's hard for me to think of things to write. But I guess I should have something to write at least every week since we travel someplace new every weekend. Sorry it's been so long, Deb. I do have something interesting to relay this morning though. This last weekend was full of things that took a long time! Andy and I were on our way to Chesterton, IN. Chesterton is just across the Illinois/Indiana border. Our estimated total time of travel was going to be around 6 hours, not including stops to get out and walk, use the restroom, or have lunch. Instead our trip took a total of 12 hours! It took us 6 hours to get to the toll booth on interstate 80-94, and another 6 hours to get from that toll booth to our destination (that leg of the trip was only supposed to be a half hour). It was awful! I had to get out of that car and walk and go to the bathroom so bad! By the time we finally got to a gas station, it was another long wait just to use the restroom! We got back in the car only to join another traffic jam, so we stopped to have pizza. After all of that, we finally got to the pastor's house--only 6 hours late! Thank the Lord we didn't have any trouble getting back home last night. For those of you wondering why the traffic was so bad, it was because of the recent rains in the Chicago area last week. I guess there was standing water on the Eastbound lanes, so they were forcing everyone off of the interstate at exit 1 in Indiana. I'm just thankful that we encountered that on our way out, and not on our way home.

July 7-8, 2007

Dear Diary,

This weekend was a difficult weekend for me. Our meeting this last Sunday was 7 hours away in Nebraska. This meant that we had to leave on Saturday morning by 9:45 at the latest to make it there by 4:30, which is when we try to arrive every Saturday at each of our meeting destinations. We got off to a slow start Saturday because we were both so tired. This week was hard for both of us with the 4th throwing off our sleeping schedule, and Andy has been working tirelessly on a craft that we're planning on giving the 150 kids we meet at the camp out East next month. So, both of us walked through our traveling routine with no motivation or energy. We finally got on the road about 45 minutes later than we had planned. It was easy to tell we were both desperately short on sleep. I was looking at our checklist for the weekend and I saw that we were not scheduled for any of the morning services, but only for the evening service which was scheduled to start at 7:30--what?! That means the earliest we'd get back into town on Sunday night/Monday morning was 4:00am! At that point, I had given in to grumbling and complaining. In my mind I had all these thoughts going on: I started to wonder why we were traveling all that way for just one service, which probably wouldn't be well attended, and ultimately put our health and well-being at risk, when we could be getting so much done at home instead. I couldn't see it at the time, but I realize now that I was sounding a lot like the Israelites wandering in the desert who questioned why God had led them out into the desert just to make them wander for 40 years. They began to grumble and complain and doubt God's leading on their lives. The Lord has led Andy and I out into this pre-field ministry. We've been doing this for over a year now. We've been presenting for 12 out of the last 13 weeks, which has left both of us feeling very tired and ready for a vacation. Saturday night I picked up my Bible and started to look through it turning to each of my bookmarks. I have several bookmarks in my Bible, which I like to revisit sometimes to see why I have bookmarked them. That night I turned to my bookmark in 1 Chronicles. It was a letter from Aunt Janet. The verse talked about serving God with all my heart and a willing mind...how convicting! I turned next to my bookmark in Psalm 9. It was a torn out devo. from "Our Daily Bread." One of the verses talked about giving thanks to God with all my heart. These two passages had such similar wording and it was a good lesson for me: serve the Lord with all my heart and a willing mind, and give thanks with my whole heart. Even though this journey may be challenging, I shouldn't question God and why He may have us attend these sometimes difficult meetings. He has us in each place for a reason, and I should be thankful for each opportunity we have to present how God has led us, and to share His work. Maybe this weekend His reason was just to teach me this lesson, and reestablish my outlook on pre-field ministry. By the way, the pastor heard that we were traveling back after the night service, and moved the time from 7:30 to 6:00 for us so we could get an earlier start. So, we got home at 2:30 instead of 4:00! I thanked the Lord right away for that--with ALL my heart!

A little mover and shaker

Well, Mom and I went to my three month exam with Dr. Banitt yesterday. At this appointment we had the head-to-toe exam, and then we got to hear the heartbeat again. Andy has already heard and seen the baby, so this time Mom got to come along. It was really special to have Mom there with me. She said it brought back a lot of memories to hear the heart beat. We got to talk about a lot of her baby experiences. It was a little difficult to hear the heart beat this time, and when we did it was kind of soft. Dr. Banitt said that's because our baby is moving around so much! She said "Holy cow! The baby is moving a lot!" So, I don't know if that's a good sign or not, or if it's just normal behavior, but our baby is a little mover and shaker! I typed in "baby dancing" in Google to find a picture to put on this post and it gave me a picture from Dirty Dancing! "Nobody puts Baby in the corner."

Title me this...

In reference to the title of my blog "Time's a wastin'. " This is a song that was sung by Reese Witherspoon in the movie, "Walk the Line." It is one of my favorite movies of all time. The combined talent of Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix is amazing! I still marvel that they both did all of their own singing. I enjoy biopic movies (ie: Ray, Finding Neverland, The Pianist, A Beautiful Mind, Diary of Anne Frank, Catch me if you Can, Selena...to name a few). I enjoy a lot of movies. Andy and I have Netflix, and I always look forward to getting that next movie in the mail. We recently saw "Music and Lyrics" with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. It was okay. I liked the song that they wrote together in the movie, it was pretty.

I've been inspired to write about movies after last night's AFI special of the top 100 movies of all time. I was surprised to see some of the placements. For example, Ben Hur was #100, falling 28 spots from the list 10 years ago. I was surprised to see such a dramatic drop--and especially that "Toy Story" followed it at #99. I thought that was a strange pairing. I was glad to see that "The Shawshank Redemption" and "12 Angry Men" was added to this year's list. Not to mention an appearance by M. Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense." I love all his movies. I still have not seen "Citizen Kane" which has claimed the #1 spot consistently throughout the years. So, I don't know if that is a deserved honor or not. I also began to see a trend with Tom Hanks movies, he was in 5 out of the 100 movies. Maybe they should have also included "Castaway" in the list.

Question for the readers: What is your favorite movie genre, or if you can dare to name your favorite movie, what would it be?

First addition!

I've decided to start a blog mostly for the reading pleasure of my sisters. I like to read their blogs and keep up with their lives. Now that my life is getting busier and my family is expanding, I think it's time to start recording my journey not only for others to read, but for me too. Today I am tired. I am at my job in which I spend eight plus hours sitting at a computer taking phone calls. I work with the public, and sometimes that can be interesting. One interesting thing I've noticed while working at a doctor's office: how do you say your date of birth? Do you say November 28th, 1982, or do you say 11-28-82? One older gentlemen calls and would say, for example, 28th day, 11th month, 1982. I've noticed that the older population has a lot of different ways to say their date of birth, and most of the time, I don't understand what date they are trying to tell me.

Mostly I am tired today because I got home late from our meeting last night. We were in Milledgeville, IL--near Rockford. We met some great people at this church. They were a blessing to us. They had a missionary cupboard and I got a new tie for Andy and some thank you notes. I also took a pink baby blanket in hopes that our baby will be a girl and I can use it for her. If not, it will make a good gift for someone else. I also took a green blanket for myself, or for a bed in the future. I just wanted it because it was green. :) They also gave us a box full of grocery items. I am excited about this because it has a lot of cereal and cracker type stuff, and that is my basic menu right now.

Deb asked this weekend what types of food really don't sound good to me right now, so I thought I would record everything that has consistently sounded gross to me in the last 2 1/2 months: Doritos, salad, okay I can't go on because just thinking about this is making me gag. Instead I will talk about the foods that always sound good to me: mac and cheese, pizza, chicken fingers (maybe from Arbys?)--basically all forms of chicken. Glad to see that my main staples in my diet have not changed! :)

Well, hopefully this is just the first of many thought provoking entries by me...thanks for reading!