Winky, winky

Merry Christmas to all, and to me a good night...it's 16 minutes to Christmas and i can't make myself go to bed. i'm working at the sph tonight and all is quiet. i couldn't again find the photo that made my life complete, so this took a close second. i actually have these cups, but unfortunately the hats are painted boring old red. i prefer the pink, as with much in my life. well, i've just been spending my days at the hospital, (and evenings with some new friends who moved up from california...i have been having a great time with them and rael and all the silliness she brings.) cramming in the time so i can head to louisville this wednesday. i was excited to learn that we will be spending a night in st.louis. maybe i can laugh at some saxophones there. but it beats the heck out of some no-name sodak town we're staying in the first night. blah blah. anyhoo, i really must try and slumber, since i work at the hospital at 6. hope all of your holidays are bright.

Lynn's Paradise

of all the flickered (flickred?:) photos of louisville, this is the one that stuck out to me the most. i think i might make it a destination point, in fact, when we go there. if the rest of the entourage is game, that is. i am really excited to go. it'll be a first for me, going to "the south", albeit not the DEEP south, and al-not-be-it the southwest, which i don't think counts as "the south." nevertheless it's the southest, and the southernest i'll have been thus far, notwithstanding the aforementioned southwest. that might be a record usage of, what do you call them? compound words? (fishing for lance:)
cheers!

tryna and allehe

just happened upon this pic while browsing and i have to say...this might be the nicest picture i've ever seen of tryna. well, the surroundings don't hurt. but it is really nice. i got to spend a lovely evening with her last night, along with faith, her brother john, her dad, chris, rael, tina and suzie, for the first time in a long time. it was just a good, old-fashioned evening of togetherness thanks to faith and her family. what a blessing.

soooo autentico

well the funny part is, i think they thought they were being tongue-in-cheek by putting "pusho" on their garbage door, but something tells me the misplaced en-yay (sic) was unintentional. oh boy. i guess that's what we get for trying to be cultured in montana.

bare necessities

here's to titanium sporks! the greatest invention according to dave. speaking of dave, where has he gone? i think maybe he fell into some vat back in the kitchen of the m.c. and never got out. i don't think i've seen him since...dare i say? summer bible study? my gosh, boy. get outta the ceramics lab. but i know a few people who would agree with him about this utensil.

beer, deer and sneer

oh man, it took me a good 5 minutes to settle on a title for this blog entry. i had forgotten about this pic (and that i meant to blog it promptly) until i saw rael's pics last night from this trip. for the record, this was not mr. b's truck, beer, or deer. but it WAS his sneer. rachael's picture is funny because, as she says, "he looks all pastoral," posing, smiling by the kill. but there's something amusing about this one too.

butte-iful

well i guess this pic is in celebration of the last bible study of the year? fail to see the connection? well, a few weeks ago a gaggle of us made a road trip to great falls and butte with "the director" (ala krysty kay) to speak in some churches. as it turned out, mine and rachael's bible study (save for faith) ended up riding home together and, upon going to visit my friend bryan, happened upon these signs. they were found in butte, nay, walkerville, aka the top of the hill in butte. i just couldn't let the opportunity pass by despite the cold and wind and fear of the impending danger of the ghetto. it really is the tijuana of montana, i must say. surpassed in stray dogs only, perhaps, by browning.

fahven

this blog is dedicated to my friend fawn. she has lovingly been nicknamed "fahven" after a polish border guard mispronounced her name this summer on our missions trip, where we met. this girl has a penchant for getting herself into embarrassing situations. they would be funny if they happened to anyone else, but because she is so shy, it makes them ten times funnier. her latest episode happened in a long-distance communications class where the teacher asked a few people how often they go to the dentist. the first girl answered "twice a year," but fahven hadn't been in 5 years so when he asked her, without thinking, she answered "once every 5 years." she said the whole class and the teacher just stared at her for 5 seconds, silently. then the teacher said, "yeah, you should probably look into that." i don't know how she'll feel about me blogging this to the whole cyber world, but it sure made me smile.

let it snow, let it snow...until i have to drive

yes i got to drive to work at 5:45 this morning, possibly the first time that i was thankful for this hour. i got a good parking space at work and when i slipped on the road, there was no danger of hitting anyone else. i seem to have missed the heavy snowfall based on all the people walking in with white heads this morning. i hate the cold, but i love the snow...until it gets dirty and serves no purpose except to come between me and my summer.

welcome home!

krysty kay

this is just a shout-out to my good friend krysty. thank you for being there to listen to me and so many others. you are always willing to lend an ear and that's not common. so for what it's worth, thank you for listening, encouraging, laughing and being a totally ridiculous person. love you!

are we in chinatown?

just wondering if anyone else thinks this is funny? i found this at our local gas station before pulling out of town last sunday morning and i thought for a second it must have been imported from asia since they always have signs like "funny cry happy" or any of a number of other engrish mess-ups. low carb attitude? that is one i'll personally never choose to take.

hey there big eyes

yeah i might have to make an apology to rael for this one but i think this pic is fantastic and we had some of the best laughs of our friendship career taking them. isn't it creepy? we were having fun at the planet playing around with the new toys she got at a craft fair for $10. (manual camera w two lenses!) so i kept taking her picture while she held the lenses up to her eyes, which may have caused irreparable damage, but boy did we laugh hard. simultaneously we were trying to decide if the girl behind her was cute or annoying. she spoke with a whispery, sugary sweet voice to this guy with her and at first i thought she was cute but before long we both concluded that she was annoying. i'll take a wacky brunette any day over a breathy blonde. i'm talking friendship here...but i don't wanna date one either. blond guys are totally eighties. is anyone with me on this? it doesn't matter how they dress or do their hair, they will always be johnny from the karate kid:)

creepy crawly

yep. looks like he mighta lost a leg.

fro-sting?

this one's dedicated to krysty kay. i was whipping up some frosting for our pumpkin cookies when, out of nowhere, a spider dropped into the bowl. before i could do anything about it the little guy went right through the beaters and ended up looking like this. we rinsed him off into cody's sink, but judging from this picture i think he was a little worse for the wear...maybe lost a leg. but i'm sure that doesn't bother YOU too much:)

(non) dairy queens

well i called sara in slovakia yesterday and daniela from slovakia in michigan yesterday and it looks like things are really progressing for me to spend the summer in sk. until now it has been all excitement, and it still is, but i'm just realizing that i will be away from this all summer. my friends. i know the trade off is great but i am not looking forward to not having easy access to the best friends in the world. and i mean the world. i know, i've been there. well i guess i have 6 1/2 months to get the most out of them before possibly exiting this country for a season. i love you guys.

tough cookie

this is my version of zachajawea. isn't it sweet??? get it? see, it's funny 'cause it's a cookie and cookies are sweet. cody was really grossed out at his blue-green eyes and by the girly ponytail holder. hey, i didn't exactly have a black rubber band available, ok?

saweet

just a quick little bloglette about the "all-you-can-eat-buffet" at the airport bar last night. we went to see ed off to zimbabwe and as rockabella and i headed to the restaurant he called back to rael that she should come because there was an all-you-can-eat-buffet. little did he know that there really was...in a big orange bowl.

autumn, nate-urally

i had an incredible weekend with too many good things to speak of. but one of them was celebrating the life memories of my friends bryan and nate. God blessed me on the 30th in so many ways. i got to make a little package with ed for his parents, bring flowers and tears (and mini pumpkins:) to the cemetery and reminisce with glenna, and hike the m in his memory. but i didn't realize til that night that glenna had invited me to bernice's (the last place i saw him) and rocky invited me to finnegan's (a place with many fond memories with him) on that day. it was just like a little wink from God, saying "i'm smiling down on you." and the leaves? when nato was in new orleans i laminated some autumn leaves and sent them to him because he "liked it cold in november."

get on the bus

this picture has absolutely nothing to do with this blog other than that it was taken by my new camera. i'm so excited about it, despite my anti-digital attitude (for which i got plenty enough crap from dan-o and riley last night). anyhoo, we had a ball with our cameraphone scavenger hunt last night. cuchillo brilliantly pulled off the technical end of things and we all had a lot of fun in "the war room." and now i'm looking forward to this weekend when hopefully i'll get to make pumpkin cookies with james, cody and erin and hopefully come up with a good costume idea for saturday night. blah. this blog is kind of blah. but i love it.