Random Dozen

I feel as if I don't have anything great to post about so here goes the Random Dozen!

1. What is your favorite Mexican dish? I love chicken rice and cheese! I don't care what you call it: Pechuga Frita, La Preferido, or Tim's Special. It's all the same to me!

2. When you were a kid, did you get started on your homework right away after school, or did you procrastinate? I procrastinated. I would start after dinner typically and do it in my bedroom with the TV on.

3. What is your favorite store for home furnishings? I love me some Kirklands! I love hitting their sales. I bought a massive painting for our living room for only $20 and it was originally over a hundred.

4. When you were young, did you like school lunches? I didn't appreciate school lunches until I got into high school. We had our pizza line, our hamburger line, our plate lunch line, and our salad line. There was always something for you and you just couldn't beat Turkey and Dressing Day!!

5. Is religion a crutch? For some people it is. Going to church and participating in church sponsored activities don't get you closer to God though. Having a relationship with the Lord is way more important.

6. In your region, what is the "big" (most popular in the community or state) high school sport? Typically it is football, except in my current town-we won the national tournament in basketball.

7. Do you consider yourself rich? No. You don't become a social worker to make money. Between being in grad school and paying back hubby's school loans we are not rich. I know that in comparison to the world we are very blessed though.

8. Which of these would you have the best chance for success in administering:

A) CPR

B) Heimlich Maneuver

C) Changing a flat tire

Probably changing a tire because I have seen it done enough times to figure it out and I have less of a chance at hurting someone while changing the tire

9. Which dance would you prefer to learn & why:

A) Salsa

B) Hip Hop

C) Waltz

D) Swing

This one is the hardest one for me to answer. I think I would love to feel confident in my Hip Hop skills. In the privacy of my own home, I'm the best hip hop dancer, but I would love to know that I looked good doing it in public.

10. What's the worst news you've ever delivered to someone?

I had to work at Walgreens on Thanksgiving day in the photo lab. A man came in and told me that some guy had called him and told him to go to Walgreens to pick up some pictures because he had something he had to show him. The pictures were of his wife cheating on him with the man who had contacted him to pick up the pictures. The husband was in tears and was laid out on my counter. I told him that he didn't have to pick up the pictures if he didn't want to and he told me that he thought he would have to have them for court. As he opened his wallet to pay for these awful photos, I noticed that he had a picture in his wallet of him, his wife, and their 2 little children. I have never felt so bad in my life.

11. Name something you learned in college that had nothing to do with classes or academics. The best memories are made while making late night trips to random locations or deciding to skip class on a sunny day to go to the park. I once skipped class while it was raining and my best friend and I put on our rainboots to go puddle jumping.

12. New variation on an old question: If there's a song in your head that just won't get out, what is your favorite (or most repeated) line in that song?

"Your love, your love, your love is my drug"

Really, Commercial Appeal?

My sister's nursing friend had her picture in the Memphis newspaper beside the story about graduating. That was why I originally clicked on the article.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/aug/15/friends-congratulate-university-memphis-graduates/

The article begins with talking about a special relationship between a teacher and a student and how she came to watch her graduate. It also includes several other stories in the article about how special this particular graduation was. It was going good until the last few sentences...

"The same could be said for Sara Rayne, who received her doctorate in psychology Sunday.
In six years, Rayne finished her master’s degree and her doctorate, but it wasn’t easy.
Since childhood, she’s battled a learning disorder that affects her ability to perform math.
“I don’t know what percentage of people with a learning disability have finished their Ph.D.,” she said. “I just tried really hard.”

Really, CA, Really?

Updates

Typically I write about a certain topic and then say that I will update you on that topic, and I never get around to doing that. But TODAY I will update you on the topic that I'm sure you were sitting on the edge of your seats wondering about: My 7 Day Cleanse!!!!

I'll try not to be too disgusting but I'm a very open and honest person who sometimes doesn't use her filter, so bear with me on this one.

I ended up only doing the cleanse for 4 days. The reason being was because I didn't think it through when I started it and forgot that I was leaving on a mission trip that week. I did not want to be that person who had to stop every 30 minutes to use the restroom. I would have also had the struggle of finding a decent bathroom on the Mississippi roads.

It took about a day and a half to get the cleanse going. I took two pills before lunch and two before bed. I had a hard time remembering to take the pills before bed. With this cleanse you have to drink A LOT of water, which I did. Once the cleanse started, I had to pee a lot and 85% of the time that I peed, I pooped. It wasn't painful. My stomach didn't cramp up and I also never had to run at lightening speed to the restroom. I would do it again, but this next time I would make sure I wasn't leaving in the middle of the week for a trip. I'm not sure how much weight I lost because I don't own a scale, but I felt better.

I would not recommend this to anyone who didn't have access to a restroom during the day. I have a bathroom right off of my office so it wasn't a big deal.

In my Paul Harvey voice," And that is the rest of the story."

I Wanna be a Billionaire so Freakin' Bad

Actually, I don't really want to be a billionaire, but I would rather be one than be poor.

Andrew and I sometimes play a game where we list what we would do if we had all the money in the world. Our lists are so different that it's almost funny. The main difference between our two lists is that I can never really think about what I want for myself. It is so much more fun for me to think what I could buy to make everyone else's life easier. Here is my list:

1. Pay off my parent's house.
2. Buy my mom a cute sports car, a Mini Cooper to be exact and burn old Honda Odyssey to the ground. I would even let her light the match.
3. Pay off Andrew's parent's house. We could buy them a new one if they wanted it.
4. Buy my best friend a taser. Really, I would. Of course, if I bought her a taser, the chances of me surprising her at her apartment decreases because she might attack me with the taser.
5. Pay off Andrew's school loans
6. Buy Hardeman County, Weakley County, and McNairy County a brand new paid for center. All of our buildings are falling apart.
7. I would make it so that our parents would never have to work again unless they wanted to.
8. I would pay for my sister to go overseas to do Mission Work, not to get rid of her but because that's what she feels called to do.
9. I would have my own personal jet just so that I could fly to see Stephanie whenever she needed a hug or a Route 44 Cherry Coke, or McDonald's Sweet Tea.
10. I would donate a lot of my money towards cancer research.
11. I would use my money so that my family would never have to sell our property in Park Rapids, MN. AKA My Happy Place
12. I would also use my airplane to fly to My Happy Place whenever I wanted to
13. I would buy a boat. I do want a boat for myself.

The crazy thing about all this stuff is that it wouldn't make me or anyone else satisfied in life. I'm sure it would help, but unless we have a purpose in life and have God, everything is Meaningless!

Merigold, MS

Have you ever heard of Merigold, MS? Neither had I until we took the youth on a mission trip. This trip was all about construction, which was not my cup of tea. I was in charge of the food preparation and supervising the heathens. I love my youth and they are some cool kids, but these teenagers will get distracted and lose focus as soon as you take your eyes off of them. I have developed some wonderful relationships with these kids. During the trip they started calling me Mama Dana. They loved that I knew the latest rap music and was able to listen to them without judging. I also grew a strong bond with my new good friend Rachel. After coming home from this trip, I really can't imagine ever going through out my life and not knowing Rachel. She has a heart for children and adoption. She is creative and not afraid to step on the wild side. Example: She wanted to smoke a cigar at our Music Minister's fiance's bacholorette party. She has a heart for people and wants to show everyone love. She is 5 years older than me, on her second marriage, and has 3 children and I couldn't have found a more compatible person to be my friend here in Bolivar. I can't wait until Steph comes to visit and we can go hang out with her and her 3 children. She is also the Queen of Truth or Dare. I love this woman and I can't wait to develop a deeper friendship with her over the years.

So many thoughts, so little time

I have so many things on my mind that I want to share with my very little blogger audience. I would like to share how God has instilled in me a new passion for reading His word. Recently, I had noticed and was ashamed that when we were reading from the Bible, my eyes would read the words, but my heart would not. I am ashamed to admit that. I didn't know what was wrong with me. How could I try to disciple youth and not be able to soak up what God was showing me? This has been a burden on my heart for a little while. "What a faker?" was what I was thinking. I don't know what happened because last week or so, I woke up and thought that I really needed some help with reading my Bible, so I went to Lifeway and dug through the millions of devotionals. I decided on one that went through women of the Bible. It was interesting enough and I have enjoyed it because it picked a woman and the whole week was about her. After about 2 weeks of working with that devotional, I have decided that it's not enough. I want to be IN God's word. I want to study a chapter and absorb more than just about a woman in the Bible. I hope that this desire lasts and that I will be able to memorize more scripture.

Important People

Tomorrow I will be leaving at 5:00am to chaperone a youth Mission Trip. I'm excited, yet exhausted with just the thought of it. I am using my vacation days to not have a vacation. Am I crazy? Maybe. As I have been preparing myself for this mission trip, my mind has wondered to the great examples I have had on how to be a great youth leader. My mind immediately goes to Ms. Sherry, or Scary Sherry as she was affectionately called.

Ms. Sherry has been my Sunday School teacher, my Disciple Training teacher, my sign language teacher, my make-up artist, my cheerleader, my decorator, and a friend. I learned how to work with youth by her example. She was always there to listen and to give advice. She knew what was going on in our lives, many times without us even telling her. Her home was our home.

When I was planning my wedding, I called Ms. Sherry to ask her for some advice on flowers and decorations. I think I called her several times before she finally asked if I would like for her to help us. She took my mom and I shopping in Memphis and put arrangements together that we never would have been able to do. She also did my makeup before every dance. I would always go to her house with my foundation on and she would fix me up. It was only natural for her to do my makeup on one of the most special days of my life, my wedding. My wedding was so beautiful because of her help. I love her dearly and so often we don't tell those important people in our lives how much they mean to us and Ms. Sherry is one of those people.

Ms. Sherry and her husband, Mr. John, also showed us kids what a loving marriage looked like. They never shied away from showing affection towards each other and we knew how much they loved each other. Ms. Sherry is also honest to a fault. She will tell you like it is. She didn't hide that her past wasn't perfect and shared with us what God had done in her life. I cherished her honesty and I pray that I can be that honest with the kids at my church.

I can tell what things my youth workers passed down to me. I say phrases like, "Saints and Aints," "When God talks, you don't." Because of Ms. Sherry I have a passion for teaching our ministry team sign language.

Thank you, Ms. Sherry!