News of the Lonely

My house feels a little lonely tonight, as much as a I love it. I think it is the darkness so early and the fact that I'm too cheap to turn on heat yet...but also maybe I could just use some company.

Just wanted to say that I am now working on house project 3 with 4 in the coming quickly better plan stages. I will post photos...eventually. Let's just say the floors in 1/2 the house look MUCH better--thanks to my bro! Also, for the record, I have officially fixed a toilet for the first time. And ripping up carpet can be tricky.

Sports: Now that the Twins are out :(, go RANGERS!

TV: All the good shows have started again. I'm doing my best to keep up...and sometimes failing. Okay, often failing. But I've managed to keep up with The Good Wife, which has been excellent.

Movie: I watched Lilies of the Field this week (in two parts.) It was a very interesting movie. I didn't know anything about it other than that Sidney Poitier was in it. All I could think was "this movie never would be made today." Also, it has one of my favorite songs in it. Pops into my head all the time whenever I hear or say "Amen." :)

New thing: I'm going to a conference this weekend. I've never been. And I'm sure it will be interesting even though not completely applicable to my daily life. I'm excited to hear some new things. I will have to see how my introverted personality makes it through the experience...I always intend to push outside of the box a little...but I'm never quite as successful in practice as I am in my imagination.

New thing 2: I doing it. Next month. National novel writing month. I'm not sure when I will fit it in, but I'm determined. I have the idea (partially started even); I'm going to try to outline further one of these days and then write, write, write in November.

patience

Patience is a virtue they say...mine is wearing thin. You see, I finally bought a new dishwasher (step 2.5 in home updating) and it is being delivered this morning. But they haven't called yet, and I'm getting very impatient...because I have to go to work and I have many, many things to do there. Ack!

In the meantime, I'm trying to make the best of my 1/2 day off by accomplishing some projects...and then I just decided to update this instead. So here's what I'm inputting these days...

holidays: I came up with a fun idea for a Christmas card...I will show it to you if I manage to pull it off. (This begs the question why do I make it so complicated, right?)

sports: The Twins clinched this week. I can not tell you how obsessed I am, because it would be embarrassing :) I can, however, tell you that I both went to a game this week and am wearing a Twins sweatshirt right now (if that gives you any idea.) I love them all and I can't wait to watch/listen to them keep winning!

TV on DVD: FNL update--I just finished season 2 and it was excellent. I love the evolution some of the characters are taking. It is incredibly realistic. I also just started watching The Vampire Diaries season 1. I started watching it last season, but got too far behind. Now I'm catching up. It may seem cheesy--but it's a very well done dramatic cheesy.

TV: Glee started this week, and sadly that is the only currently airing show I found time to watch this week. The new TV season looks excellent, but I don't have tivo/dvr or the time to keep up. I am hoping to watch Hawaii 5-0 though.

travels: I went to or through South Dakota twice this month. You may ask why I would do that...well, it's all about the people really. The first weekend was for Lifelight south of Sioux Falls. It is an excellent (and free!) Christian music festival: favorite performers of the weekend=Group 1 Crew. I went with a few really good friends and we had a fantastic time. The second weekend was traveling through SD with a few friends to go to a Christian women's retreat in Nebraska. The retreat was excellent and very renewing.

music: The newest disc to catch my fancy: Rebel by Lecrae. This is one of my favorites so far.

books: I read Water for Elephants earlier this month. Very interesting and quick read. Now I'm reading A Concise History of China. It's a little dry and there are lots of names (really hard to keep straight!) but it is really interesting and about a subject that I know very little about. I'm powering through and should be done next week.

Got any recommendations for me? I would love to hear them.

Haute stomped nuns FNL

Here's a little sample of what I've been doing and thinking:

--trying a new little restaurant in the Warehouse District, Haute Dish. Great food, classy drinks, nice atmosphere (although a little loud), kinda pricey (but that is the kind of food they have)
--listening to Twins baseball...and after two frustrating and exhilarating games, this one tonight is totally deflating...if you can't define "stomped" in sports terms, check out the stats on this game tomorrow
--nuns...I'm not Catholic, but I caught a fascinating episode of Oprah very early in the morning this last week in which Lisa Ling visited a convent and Oprah talked to a few of the sisters...it has me thinking a lot about service to God and having less...now I just need to work on the follow through...
--I'm in love with the tv show Friday Night Lights. I love the drama and the characters...that sports drama gets me every time...which led me to think...
--why isn't there a network or cable or HBO show about a minor league team? seriously! I have such an obsession with baseball right now, that I might be skewed, but I see it working either or two ways: 1) coach is the main character and deals with this 20 year old kids trying to make it and having fan girls and arranging housing and dealing with owners and traveling (this option is open to lots of issue episodes) or 2) one or two players take center stage...probably a prodigy and a guy who has had to prove everyone wrong at every step...this option has a stronger opening for teammate relationships and would allow for showing the struggle and excitement of being called up and sent back down...see! I'm right, right?

effects

I've been in a bit of a funk* recently--a multi-faceted funk (which is my way of saying it is too complicated to explain.) But, for me, funks often spur a greater desire than usual to escape in a good book, movie, TV show, concert, or game...(I don't actually recommend this plan, however, because it rarely clears up the reason for the funk. Avoidance is not really helpful, but it can be entertaining :)

books
Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
The House of Night series by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

movies
Daybreakers
Valentine's Day
Sweet Land
Leap Year
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
It's Complicated
The Other Man
Post Grad
Public Enemies
The Hangover

TV shows
Lost (see previous post)
Glee
The Good Wife
random channel flipping :)

TV on DVD
Battlestar Gallactica (I have one disc and one movie left--if only blockbuster had sent them in the right order!)

concert
Glee Live!

games
I'm currently really obsessed with soduku (which goes hand-in-hand with listening to baseball...)

videos
I watch random videos that people post on FB or tweet about all the time, but this one is definitely worth sharing: http://tiny.cc/77gtw (courtesy of NPH) and it kinda connects to the next subject...

sports
baseball (go Twins! Oh, and I got a surprise trip to the game today; even though they lost, it was still fun!)
soccer: I'm a World Cup fan, I admit it...there is something really beautiful about an event that brings together people from all over the world; I love feeling like I'm part of it.

*When I first wrote this I just used this word because it was appropriate. But when I went and reread it, I realized it could be construed as a very clever homage to a much debated (or much maligned?) Glee episode. Just wanted to clear up that I'm not actually that witty, but I wish I were. :)

Easter Greetings!

Busy weeks are flying by right now...

Easter weekend was dazzling though, so I will fill you in on that and leave out the rest:

Maunday Thursday was church and choir.

Good Friday was church, in which we (the choir) sang a wonderfully fitting song, "He Suffered and Died" by Jay Althouse. Then, I watched a movie. It was, unfittingly, The Hangover. It was better than I thought it would be (and it was only from rave reviews by people I trust that I watched it in the first place.)

Saturday, after some light cleaning, I took my first trip to Target Field with my friend Heidi and her in-laws. I smiled a lot. And looked around a lot. Pretty much I was ecstatic the entire time. Heidi even snapped a picture of her favorite player hitting his first home run in Target Field. (And they won!) My drive home was uneventful (thankfully) and then my brother Jason fixed the latch on my trunk (yay brothers!) This was followed by an evening of food, cards, and The Hurt Locker. First of all, Jason makes an excellent steak. And I'm honored to tell you that he included many fruits and vegetables with the meal. Secondly, I love Little Caesar's crazy bread. I think it is a weird connection to my childhood. Finally, Tony and I won both games of Pfeffer. And, I had a great discussion with Tony about the movie afterward, which was great because it is that type of movie...and Tony is in the military, so he had a great viewpoint to offer.

Sunday included a wonderful Easter service and chats with friends followed by Mom's excellent cooking, last week's episode of Lost, a walk at the local nature preserve, a drive back to my place (while talking on a headset with my aunt for 90 minutes), more cleaning, my side job, and an interesting journey on this website leadme.org. Oh, and this post!

So Exciting!

Baseball. Twins. Win. Awesome.

Until about five years ago, I didn't really like baseball. I'm convinced it was the memories of very little me having to amuse myself at the baseball diamond while my older brother played little league--the game itself didn't interest me at the time, but the dirt under the bleachers might have...

Then a different brother started watching Twins games on TV, and since we both still lived at our parents' house I had no choice but to watch (if I wanted to watch anything, of course).

Then I moved close enough to go to games and started going to games.

And now I listen to games on the radio when I can't watch them cause they are too exciting to not pay attention to!

Which leads to tonight's entertainment: a 12-inning nail biter with the outcome of sending the Twins to the postseason in New York. Go Twins!

October 4, 2009

What I did today
sleep in
eat
bake muffins
paint
listen to the Twins win (while painting)
listen to Veronica Mars season 2 (while painting)
catch up with friends via email and social networking sites
watch The Secret Lives of Bees
put an offer on a condo
proofread

Great day.