under a big gray tent

update

2008-08-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

gosh, just watched that video I posted below for like the 700th time and know that i will probably watch it 700 more times. for some reason it gives me hope.

life has been quite extraordinary for me the past few months...extraordinarily stressful. i long for the day when I will feel as if I'm simply cruising through, but knowing myself, that will be exactly the time that I will choose to shake things up a bit again. here's a brief update as to the events that have unfolded in the last while. and for those of you who are thinking, "why is she doing this, like the world even cares!?" trust me, this blog is not for you.

1. june 2, 2008 - started at the DeVos children's hospital. while this has been exciting and i've met a lot of nice people and a lot of wonderful kiddos, it is also probably the scariest thing I've ever done in my life.

2. july 23, 2008 - got a call from my OB at 7:30am while I had just started my shift at the hospital. she had found a "spot" on the ultrasound, an echogenic focus, 98% sure it is nothing to worry about. but, worry I did. cried for a week straight.

3. july 30, 2008 - second ultrasound. doctor was right. nothing to worry about. i learned a few things from this experience. #1 - i already love this baby. it hurt my heart more than anything to know there might be something wrong. #2 - for one week all of the joy of pregnancy was stripped away from me. people would ask me how i was, how the pregnancy was and i would smile and say "fine" but really i just wanted to kick them for even asking me. i felt empty and sad. i tried to keep the words, "the joy of the Lord is my strength" in mind, but really folks, that is a lot harder to comprehend when your joy here on earth has been taken from you. you may gasp, but at least i'm honest. what really kept me going was the fact that I know that God does not make mistakes. what he creates is perfect in every way, even the seemingly imperfect parts. i read psalm 139 every time i started to forget that, which was about 150 times a day. parts of that verse now hang on our nursery wall. of course there is still the risk that baby N. will be born with some anomaly. that risk exists with every pregnancy. but, the reminder that God has given brett and i a perfect gift, a hand-knitted masterpiece, will greet me every day despite any imperfections that we humans make up.

3. august 6, 2008 - changed over to working the night shift. this has, for some reason, been a fairly easy transition for me. i enjoy the night atmosphere. it is slower and gives me a chance to sit down and learn about my patients. i've been able to sleep during the day better than i would have ever have thought. and, on my days off i don't beat myself up over having to take a few extra naps or when i sleep in until 10am. i know i'm preggo and have to take good care of myself. if that means sleeping all the time, so be it.

4. august 24, 2008 - orientation over! taking my own patients. could there be anything more scary than having the little life of another in your hands? i really don't think so. maybe fire-breathing dragons would be more scary...maybe. i've had three nights "on my own." the first night was a disaster for about the first three or four hours. kind of lost control. had people there helping me out, but really felt like I had lost it. the second two nights got progressively better, but i'm sure i've got a lot of long stressful nights ahead of me before i feel any sort of confidence at all.

5. august 28, 2008 - lost my wedding ring. seeing as how i never take the thing off, i have NO IDEA what happened to it.

-sn

the way life should be

2008-07-31T06:28:00.000-07:00

stole this from my friend sara's blog. it's just too good. everyone should watch it.

technology and me

2008-07-14T05:29:00.000-07:00

i can't say that i am a huge lover of technology. sure, it provides many of life's many conveniences, but it can also be a real pain in the butt. computers? want to throw them out of the window most times. cars? same. all of the modern day kitchen gear? don't get it. a spoon works just fine. but, there is one piece of technology that really blew me away. the ultrasound machine.

brett and i had our ultrasound last week! now, i've seen thousands of ultrasound pictures. my friends and family have all passed theirs around proudly while I took my obligatory polite look and said, "awwww...." don't get me wrong. i think people having babies is fantastic and exciting. but, the ultrasound pictures never really did it for me. until last week. now i understand! when it's your own baby in the picture it becomes a whole different story. suddenly the picture takes on LIFE. you've seen that little hand wave at you from within. if you're lucky, like we were, you were even able to see that cute little head lean back and yawn! so suddenly i am the proud parent. may i present, baby n. (though the machine can even find the smallest of baby parts, brett and i decided to let the sex be a surprise for later. the baby up on a screen was enough excitement for one day!)

we told baby n. to wave for the camera. already SO obedient!

here's something stupid

2008-07-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

nursing licensure exams.

one word

2008-05-27T06:22:00.000-07:00

i'm supposed to be studying for my board exam, but this seemed more fun. thank you lorraine for helping me keep my procrastinator status :)

Not as easy as you might think!

1. Where is your cell phone? obsolete

2. Your significant other? bretty!

3. Your hair? Nest

4. Your mother? ASS (hee)

5. Your father? Rev.

6. Your favorite thing? markets

7. Your dream last night? pediatrics

8. Your favorite drink? milk

9. Your dream/goal? progressing

10. The room you’re in? messy

11. Your ex? friendly

12. Your fear?

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? elsewhere

14. Where were you last night? outside

15. What you’re not? virgin

16. Muffins? chips

17. One of yuur wish list items? commune

18. Where you grew up? beach

19. The last thing you did? registered

20. What are you wearing? imagine

21. Your TV? obnoxious

22. Your pets? kitties

23. Your computer? frustrating

24. Your life? complicated

25. Your mood? ok

26. Missing someone? everyone

27. Your car? camel

28. Something you’re not wearing? braces

29. Favorite Store? healthy

30. Your summer? panicking

31. Like someone? everyone!

32. Your favorite color? purple

33. When is the last time you laughed? today

34. Do you cry a lot? unfortunately

35. Who will/would re-post this? ?

there's no mistaking it...

2008-05-17T11:42:00.000-07:00

as most of you know, i am "with child," or as brett's 90 year old grandma would say, "PG." december 4 is our official due date. this week we heard a heartbeat which makes this all a little more real. i think brett was beginning to believe my sprints to the bathroom were my attempt to get out of dishes. but, there is no mistaking a heartbeat!

to the woman who almost beat me up on my way to school today,

2008-04-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

i truly do appologize for (God forbid) honking at you as you passed me on the right on a one-lane road going about 50 miles/hour in a 25 zone. i know how upsetting a friendly honk can be! i could see the anger blazing in your eyes as you approached my car window (darn that stop light! it was obvious you had somewhere important to be, all you needed was another red light!). i appreciate you letting me know how you felt about the situation. between the explatives i really came to see the situation in a new way. you were right and i was wrong. i truly hope that your day got better and i hope that cute daughter of yours, the one you left behind in your running car, grows up to be just like you some day. take care now!

sara

george clooney move over!

2008-04-03T13:47:00.000-07:00

I got the job! Last week there was a little bit of a mishap with my application where I thought someone else had been given my job. A little bit of panic on my part ensued...but that is all resolved now. Now my panic comes from thinking about how much I have to learn with peoples' lives on my hands. Hopefully they won't give me any gunshot wounds on my first day...

a glorious day

2008-03-21T12:28:00.000-07:00

so, i had just gotten done telling brett just how bad my day had been when suddenly we heard a loud scrrrreeeech and CRASH! looked out the window to find a car nestled snuggly into our retaining wall. nice.

but, it was all resolved when i came upstairs, checked my email and was offered a job! ER here I come! well, maybe. still have an interview next week in pediatrics, but the ER gives me more happy goosebumps than pediatrics does and whether it's a good way to make decisions or not, I always follow my goosebumps. -sn

shocking

2008-02-21T17:17:00.000-08:00

when i lived in kalamazoo a murderer left a perfect imprint of his shoe in my dad's flowerbed. a kid down the street had been killed. the police surrounded my house with yellow tape. the other day i saw that same yellow tape surrounding a gas station near my home, another young man dead. all summer long brett and i would try to avoid watching the news because we grew tired of people asking us if we had heard the news that yet another round of shots was fired in our neighborhood. at least we could honestly tell them no.

it is for these young men who are intent on killing each other that i have decided to write my nursing capstone paper on teen violence. specifically, reducing the number of non-fatal firearm injuries among young black males (a goal of Healthy People 2010). only...i can't. and that is because this paper involves including writing about a successful intervention, an intervention that has proved to work in reducing these injuries and there are none. even though the government, in its Healthy People 2010 report, states that young black men are their main target in this area, most of the interventions i have found involve teaching children, whose parents own guns, gun safety. so, instead of focusing on the people who need intervening most, our society has decided to focus on white, suburban crazy people who keep guns in their homes and don't lock them up, so their children can shoot themselves in the face. obviously, this is a problem in and of itself. the research surrounding this topic is, of course, important. however, doesn't it seem odd?

i would have never thought about this problem in such detail had i not chose this topic. i pointed it out to my professor that i could not find any appropriate interventions for my topic. she hopped on a computer to prove that yes sara, there are interventions. she found some involving educating third graders. i pointed out to her that my topic was about teens. she said, "well, by that time it is too late." i almost fell to the floor! what my research has shown me, is that nobody REALLY cares about what these kids are doing to each other. we've wiped our hands clean. yes, there are the few the proud the strong who teach in the inner cities, who act as mentors, who go tubing with kids even after working outside all day in crazy cold temperatures (aka brett). but these people do not have the money, the time or the energy, but mostly the money...to reduce the number of firearm related injuries in young, black males.

i think i am going to have to change my paper topic. i'm thinking about reduction of homicide (also a Healthy People 2010 goal). there seems to be more information about these kids after they're already dead. i'll let you know if i find any interventions, but i'm not holding my breath. -sn

what i'm doing

2008-02-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

hyperventilating. ( just applied for two jobs)

the catcher

2008-02-12T07:09:00.000-08:00

currently i am enjoying a leisurely five days off from school waiting for my last class to start. that's right, you read it right, my LAST nursing class before i GRAD-U-ATE. so anyway, yesterday my friend stacie called and asked me if i wanted to try out a $5 yoga class with her down on Division. doing anything on Division always proves interesting so i accepted her offer. i called up the stairs to see if brett wanted to go. a few weeks ago brett mentioned that we should try a yoga class. at this particular time i found him stretched out on the floor in front of a yoga video trying his best to manipulate his body into the positions demonstrated for him on the screen. brett yelled down to me, "you mean, i would go just with stacie?" sigh....no brett, i would be tagging along too.

the class was not disappointing. there were enough kookie characters there to keep things interesting, the instructor could seriously bend her body in ways that no body should ever bend, and i got to watch my wonderful hubby try to stretch his body in ways that his body could never bend. and all for five bucks! i think we'll try 'er again next week as well. maybe then brett will show the class his very own yoga position he has named, "the catcher." -sn

little juege kitty

2007-12-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

most of you already know that my little kitty juege went to be with the Lord a few weeks ago. a tumor had been growing steadily on his liver for some time and filled his belly with fluid. it was a hard way to watch him go. it is amazing the way that pets fill special needs in a person's life. my cat was a head-butter. he knew exactly the right times to give a little nudge (except those times when he chose 3am as the time to show his affection...). here he is, a couple weeks before his sad demise, doing what he did best.

this just occured to me...

2007-12-04T14:03:00.001-08:00

people in the hospital are SICK!

poop happens

2007-10-09T19:33:00.001-07:00

this is what the shirt of one of my patients said this week. she is 4 months old and she is a pooper! poop is a big deal in the hospital. another one of my patients pooped today and the whole staff started cheering. it had been 8 days for this little guy.

it was my job to take the stool sample. as i gagged and teared my way through it, alone, in the bathroom i just had to thank God, once again, for my health. this kid is unhealthy through no fault of his own. but, many others in the hospital are sick because of the choices they've made, bad choices.

it's all the poop i see in the hospital that inspires me to make good choices. while it's true that poop does happen, it's not true to say that we don't have choices about our health. if you're having trouble making good choices i'll let you tag along with me sometime. one mucusy stool sample might help. -sn

someone else's thoughts on white priveledge...

2007-09-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

I used to ride to high school with this girl. She was the only other white girl at my school who also lived in the hood. I have no idea how I came across her blog, but I did and I appreciate what she had to say in this post about white priveledge. Most often when I try to convince certain people in my life that white privedge does in fact exist and no you did not get to where you are today simply because you're a hard worker, I talk about education and not being stuck in a cycle that includes poverty and violence and not coming from a people who were forced to work as slaves etc...etc... But, this girl makes it even more simple than that. She currently lives and works in Africa.

"I've been reading a lot online lately about white privilege. It all came back to me today when we spent an hour digging and pushing the car out of the mud. The white people around stayed in their muddy clothes and didn't wash their hands. They wanted to go into town and have a drink, covered in mud. This is something you can only do if you are white, I think, without getting looks. In any part of the world.

Our African colleagues, on the other hand, weren't digging through the mud in the first place, and they certainly washed their hands.

I think of this often when I walk barefoot along the concrete walkway between the two office rooms. In Africa, people only walk barefoot if they can't afford shoes, or if they want to keep them from getting dirty. Me? I do it because I'm too lazy to put my gumboots back on, and because I love being barefoot.

And because I have privilege based on my passport and the color of my skin.

I'm trying to be more aware of it, and more respectful. I wear shoes most of the time. I wash my hands when they look dirty. I dress in professional clothes, not safari jackets and zip-off hiking trousers.

I don't have time to do this topic justice right now, because a visitor needs my computer. But it made me think."

I think she did some justice here. Sometimes I forget that I can do whatever the hell I want and that other people can't...or don't because they remember when... -sn

*NOTE - I did not tell girl from high school that I was going to post her words on my blog. If you happen to find me, girl from high school, and you are offended, please tell me and I will "delete."

what's it worth to ya'?

2007-08-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

the other day, for some reason, i found myself sitting on the floor rolling coins. no, brett and i are not THAT desperate for money...yet. but, i noticed that our coin jar was starting to overflow and since i've got nothing to do at the moment i decided that it was my immediate duty to roll those coins. $12 dollars later i came across an odd looking coin. i tossed it aside, adding it to the growing pile of foreign currency at my side. when you travel you always end up with the odd coin here and there and it seems shameful to just throw it away. some day one of my nieces will probably get these coins as a gift. i'm the "cheap" aunt...

back to the odd coin.

later when i was returning the remaining change to the jar i came across this odd coin for the second time. this time i took the time to look at it a little more closely to see which country it was from. it was hard to tell at first. the coin looked OLD. i could see that it was a penny, but my buddy Abe was nowhere to be found. i checked the date. 1919. is that normal? have i ever seen a coin that old before? i tried to remember when the production of coins started but then quit when i couldn't even remember how old our country is. turns out this was not an american coin as the picture on the back was of George V. what IS this strange coin, i thought.

i began my google search with "one penny, 1919." many things came up about lincoln pennies. one link said, " something something $17,000!!!" i started to get excited! i refined my search. "one penny, 1919, coin, george v." what i found was not as exciting as $17,000 but as exciting as $2!!! my penny is worth $2 to collectors on ebay!

turns out brett's uncle slipped him this coin on our wedding day. a good luck charm? i'm not sure. at any rate he told brett it was from the "old country." brett had since forgotten about the coin and somehow it ended up in our change jar. while it is just a penny, now worth 2 bucks, it was worth a whole afternoon of fun for me! -sn

tag

2007-08-07T06:39:00.000-07:00

back in the days when i got to go out for recess (why don't college students get recess?) tag was THE game...mostly because it involved boys chasing girls and girls chasing boys. in the third grade i guess you could consider this a form of "dating" since you really only went after the people you liked. my favorite game of tag involved tracking a large wheel shape into the snow. the rules were that you could not run outside of lines. this made it harder for the "it" person to tag you since they were confined to the lines of the wheel as well. running outside of the lines was punishable by banishment from the game.

nowadays people tag me on this computer. my friend lorraine just tagged me to write 8 unusual things about myself, things that perhaps the rest of you don't know. so...here goes, but i don't really think that i'm all that interesting.

1. i'm more anal than people think that i am. i think that it is generally assumed that me and my better half are super laid back. i won't speak for brett (but give that guy a paint brush sometime and be amazed at how anal he his about straight lines...) but i really like things in order. i keep a very strict budget. i know where every penny goes. i work hard for good grades. i make flashcards. i like a clean house. i can't study until the dishes are clean otherwise i have to study somewhere else. and i like to be on time. my mom usually assumes that i will be late. but really, it's more likely that i was given the wrong time...or not given the time at all. i'm really actually very timely. so, there you go. i'm anal.

2. i do not like sweets. this presents quite a conundrum for me. when i decline sweets people think that it is because I am watching my weight. this is not true at all. i do not even own a scale. also, i decline sweets because i do not like them, not because i do not like you. this is a very hairy area, especially at christmas. but, offer me some chips and some salsa and i will eat the whole bag.

3. i have an obsession with watching things grow. if i have planted something i will check on its progress at least once a day, sometimes twice. once something starts to grow i will immediately find brett and make him look at it with me. this year was quite exciting as we were given some perennials that we were unfamiliar with. it was like christmas when those plants started to bloom. one of them, the hybiscus, has red flowers as big as my head. you can just imagine how many times i've checked on that thing!

4. i ride my bike every day to and from school and to church and back and i've even started riding my bike to the grocery store (it just takes a little more planning) i do not drive unless it is raining, like today, or if i have to drive somewhere that is too far away.

5. i love to cook. this is a growing hobby of mine. i'm not boasting any talent here, i just really like cooking. i love trying new recipes and i love eating those new recipes. brett and i joined a farm this year. every week we receive our "share" of fresh, organice produce. yum! it has been quite a challenge keeping up with all that food before it dies in my fridge. but, we've been stretched to find ways to cook things like swiss chard (lots of it), kale (oh my gosh, stop giving me kale), ochra (still don't really know what it is), eggplant (bake it in oil with fresh basil and your mouth will sing), carrots, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, etc... i've found that most things go well in soup, if you're desperate...

6. i have weird things happen to my body. first of all, i have a very sensitive gag reflex. second, i get a small cut on my nose all of the time and i don't know why. and third, a long time ago i got this weird infection on the toe next to my pinky toe. the skin on the top of the toe kept peeling off. that was about 6 years ago. today that toe itches like crazy, one of those unitchable itches. the itch is on the top of the toe near the base. there are no signs of infection or fungus. it is not athlete's foot. it is just a mysterious ever-present itch.

7. i love watching tennis

8. i will be on a three week vacation at 6pm tonight. just one more exam and presentation to go!! (i guess that is not so strange and unusual, but considering my life the last few months, me not sitting in a desk at school for hours upon hours every day will be unusual...)

what can i say?

2007-07-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

well, it's been a long time since i've posted anything. my sister has probably stopped checking. there goes my readership. damn.

anyway, i could bore you with the details of my school life but seeing babies being born, diarrhea, giving shots and anal paps just aren't that interesting. instead, i will leave you with this, the beer boot.

yawngasm

2007-06-08T15:59:00.000-07:00

got your attention didn't i? yes, there is a drug that lists this as an "adverse effect." but i'm not going to tell you what it is. what kind of nurse would i be if i turned all of my friends and family into drug addicts? although...i guess that effect could be potentially embarrasing. it's anafranil...go at it.

sigh....so today was the worst day yet. it was injection day. while performing my one and only chance at practice i pretty much scratched my partner's arm with the needle and made her bleed. so that was very very cooooool. after that i had a hard time focusing and felt like i was just one step behind for the rest of the day, which just makes me have that much more work to do over the weekend to catch back up. part of the day we were practicing drawing up meds. this is the one thing that i hate about nursing. i do not want to push medication. so, learning it makes me feel like i will hate being a nurse, which is a very discouraging feeling after all of this torture. plus, it is alot of math. and well, let's just say that with each new day it seems more and more likely that i will end up killing somebody with my math skills. i just have to remind myself that nursing is such a diverse field. i will not be the nurse pushing meds in a hospital for very long, that's for darn sure.

i think the problem was that the day just didn't start out right. i stayed up extra late last night after reading over 200 pages to practice a skill that i was supposed to be tested on today. but, the prof had to leave early making that just one more thing i have to worry about for next week. it didn't help either that i received two prank phone calls last night, one at 2am and the other at 3am from some punk kids who used every expletive in the book threatening to beat me up if i did not pay them the $20 i "owed" to them. what the heck? i *69ed the number after the second call and vowed that if they called again i would turn the number over to the police. that didn't happen which is probably good b/c i was so deleriously tired that i'm pretty sure i had the number wrong anyway. i most likely would have ended up turing in one of my own sisters or something.

as for tonight...i'm taking the night off. brett very kindly rented me the whole first season of SCRUBS from the library and i am going to watch every single episode while lying in my bed with my cat with a glass of coke followed by probaby two glasses of wine. and who knows, maybe an anafranil. yaaaaaawwwwn. -sn

it gets easier

2007-05-31T18:46:00.001-07:00

touching other peoples' boobs DOES get easier. it really does. -sn

you never know who might pass you on the street

2007-05-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

i won't bore you with the details of my first two weeks of nursing school, mainly because it has been such a blur that i'm not even exactly sure what has happened. all i can remember at this point is that i've squeezed the heck out of brett's arm, taking his blood pressure more times than what probably is healthy and i had my chest examined by one of my male collegues. yeah, THAT was fun...and awkward.

but there is one event that clearly stands out in my mind and i would like to share it. it's one of those "God moments" that you just can't keep to yourself. it happened today, just after finishing my 7 (long) hours of class. i park about a mile away from my building and on my way back to my car I was trying to give myself a pep talk to mask my exhaustion. that's when i felt a light brush against my arm. my first thought was that someone from my class was trying to pull me back to watch yet another video on health assessment. my second thought was that it was a passing runner who was trying to rub all of his energy in my face, but instead it was a man on a unicycle.

that man gave me reason to go on. thank you unicycle man, wherever you are. keep peddling. -sn

protests

2007-04-26T14:03:00.000-07:00

"defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and the oppressed." -psalm 82:3

some people mislabel me as a protester. but contrary to popular belief, i'm no protester. sure, i've attended my fair share of protests over the years but usually i find myself quite disenchanted by the whole event.

my first protest was downtown grand rapids. the whole world, or at least my circle of friends and those across the country who thought just like me, were up in arms about the world trade organization. large groups were gathered in large cities all over the nation protesting the wto meeting in seattle. oh...how i longed to be in that city, part of that crowd, holding my sign, hearing my own voice rise up with the voices of others who were out to change to world. because i couldn't make it to seattle, i decided to join the small group gathered downtown here in grand rapids. i hitched my modest sign over my shoulder and began to march through the city streets. about an hour in, meltdown. the protesters stopped cooperating and the police started to get rough. people were shoving and shouting. words were exchanged. and soon some of my acquaintances started getting arrested, handcuffs and everything. hats started being passed around to collect money for their bail. i had no idea what this had to do with the world trade organization. suddenly i felt quite the fool. anyone who happened to be passing through the downtown area that day probably thought to themselves, "those crazy hippy kids." they did not learn one thing about the evils of the WTO. i did not fork over any bail money. instead, i left my sign on the street and walked home.

my next big protest was in Washington DC. i finally made it to the big time. actually, i was in DC visiting a friend but happened to get caught up in a protesting crowd. it seemed exciting so i joined in. i didn't even know what i was protesting. turns out these people were trying to legalize marijuana. you know, if you like to smoke the big doobie once in awhile more power to you. but some reporter snapped my picture and i, for one, was terrified that my dad would see it. i'm high on life dad! i was out of there!

ironically, a few years later i found myself back in DC. this time i had made the trip specifically to protest. i was there to march for immigrant rights. i stayed in a hotel where a lot of other protesters were staying. there were thousands of people there ready to march the hill. it was all very organized. we were all herded onto different colour-coded buses and shipped to different parts of the city. i thought it was great until we started RAIDING office buildings. hundreds of us would rush past the security, chanting and waving signs. we demanded to talk to the "man in charge." honestly, to this day, i have no idea who we were actually talking to. i just kind of got pushed along by the crowd. i will say that it was touching to hear an immigrant woman speak her mind to this white man of so-called power. she pleaded for her children. she just wanted to educate them. the man seemed to be listening to her and it seemed like our protest was working! but secretly that man had somehow called the police. they zoomed up to the building and we could see them storming in. everyone started making a run for it! it was crazy. it was TOO crazy. again i thought to myself "what does this have to do with immigrants? now they are all going to get arrested and probably deported for trespassing. shoot...I'M going to get arrested for trespassing!" again, i was out of there! i managed to find my bus amongst all of the chaos and was relieved to be going back to the hotel. but instead, that bus drove me to some senators mansion where we were to continue our protest, hundreds of us on this man's lawn. now, how on earth would raiding this man's private home advance our cause?

later that weekend i was able to accompany a young girl into the office of a michigan rep at capital hill. she spoke quietly and politely. she said that all she wanted to do was go to college. she said that she didn't want to live in poverty any longer. that was why i made the trip.

my most recent protest was last friday. i knew president bush was going to be speaking in E. Grand Rapids near my home. i left work early to study for my finals, but i had had this nagging feeling in my gut all week. i felt like i had to go. but once i was there i again felt myself becoming disenchanted with the protesters around me. tell me, how do signs like, "Real men know when to PULL OUT" advance anything? first of all young man with the sign, your message makes absolutely no sense. while it is a clever play on words, real men do not ever have to "pull out" because they are married. your sign simply gave proof that you are, in fact, a very young man. and then there was the guy who started to argue with a bush supporter. i heard the end of their conversation and it went a little something like this: "well, ok then you son of pat robertson. you just go on believing what you believe you son of pat robertson." now c'mon dude. that is just lame. i found that guy later and told him i had overheard his conversation. i politely told him i was on his side. i do not support bush or this war. but i reminded him that words were powerful, just as powerful as any bomb. i told him that he did nothing to advance peace. and finally, those chants...they are always the same. don't you protesters think that GW has heard them all? come up with some new material!!

now you may be wondering why i even go to protests at all. i seem to despise them so much. and i really don't know if protesting even works. but i go because it is my right and my freedom to go. many, many people do not have that freedom. if they are being wronged, then it is up to me to plead their case, right? often times i feel quite powerless against injustice but at least i know i can go and physically turn my back on it. i'm no hippy kid. i don't have to agree with the signs or the chants. i just have to be a body, a presence, a back turned.

"He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the LORD." -Jeremiah 22:16

sisyphus

2007-04-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

for three years now i have been working hard, going to school, enduring quite a rigorous schedule. but last night i finished up my last exam for my last pre-rec class and tomorrow is my last day of work. it's finally on to the next step.

you could argue that my schedule is about to become much more rigorous. i'll still be in school and i'll probably working harder than i ever have. but finishing that exam last night was a real milestone for me. over the past few years sometimes i felt as if i was taking these classes for no good reason, as if taking classes had somehow just become part of my eternal destiny, my sisyphus rock. but that era is over and i'm on to the next. i can finally let that rock roll behind me and begin my decent down the other side of the hill.

but first, shenandoah.

my day off

2007-04-20T12:52:00.001-07:00

today i took the day off from work to study for my finals. but... i got distracted. there was something that i had to do. and it took three hours of waiting.

i didn't need to see him. i wasn't the least bit curious. i was there simply to show my disappointment, my sadness, my frustration over a country gone wrong. so, when the president's car passed by me today, i turned my back.

amongst the sea of signs and chants, i hope my silent message was loud enough. -sn

what the?

2007-04-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

the cost of my books for the summer equals $900. what the?

what's ahead

2007-04-10T06:39:00.000-07:00

i knew i wasn't getting the money as soon as i walked into the room. there were no table cloths on the tables and no fancy drinking glasses, just a pile of water bottles in the corner. last year, when the students learned they were to receive $10,000 from the state to help them complete their rigorous year of nursing school there were fancy white cloths on the tables and clear glasses filled with ice. i remembered that from the picture in the paper. no such amenities this year. we were served sandwiches out of plastic boxes.

my orientation meeting was last Friday, Good Friday. seeing as how michigan has a 3 billion dollar deficit, we were told we would not be receive the $10,000 grant the state had promised to the program. we would have to go it alone. good thing the "good news" of Good Friday does not include $10,000. my friday remained "good."

there are 24 of us in the program. we come from all walks of life. one father of four just quit his job as an oceanographer and sold his prized boat to pay for this next year. one mother of two is going through a messy divorce and isn't quite sure what she's going to do. one girl was able to finish at Wheaton college in three years and is doing the 2nd degree program to obtain her 2nd BA in just 4 years. she is the youngest amongst us coming in at just 21 years old. some people are married. some are not. many people have children. but there are those of us who don't. some people will be driving over an hour each day to make it to class. and some of us will be riding our bikes. there are 19 females. and there are 5 males, one of whom declared that he was going to be a fireman but didn't want to be a sissy so decided to become a male nurse. heh.

i've already started forming friendships with some people in the group and i'm eager to get to know them better. had a nice chat yesterday with a gal who is married to a Nigerian, doesn't know how she's going to pay for this next year, is frightened by the "over-achievers," wants to work overseas, and was riding the bus. needless to say, we had a lot in common. i'm not married to a Nigerian, but I've been to the country so...close enough.

we are only the second group to attempt this year-long program, five semesters squeezed into just three. the first group will be graduating in 20 days. every single one of them will be walking with their heads held high. that gave me hope because after looking at my schedule, tucked neatly into a blue folder with gold lettering, i didn't have much hope. there will be two weeks this summer where i will have two classes that meet at the same time, an overlap. how do you attend two classes at once, you ask? i guess it's called prioritizing and i'm going to have to get good at that this next year. there will be times when i will have class or clinicals 7 days a week. there will be many nights where i will miss dinner. i will have to miss the wedding of one of my best friends. i will have to miss my husband's grandmother's memorial service. i think i will have to miss a lot of things...

but i'm ready. i am now the proud owner of a stethescope, a blood pressure cuff, a lab coat, and scrubs. i'm ready to face this head on, full force, no holds barred (did any of you know this is a movie starring hulk hogan?), eye of the tiger. ROAR! -sn

ps--pray for my husband.

numb

2007-04-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

just got back from ye' ol' dentist chair. half of my face is numb. i'm one of those people who is super paranoid about the dentist finding food in my teeth, so i didn't eat at all before i went. now it is almost 1pm, my stomach is empty, and i can't even feel my lips. i would attempt to eat but i don't really enjoy the taste of my own tongue. sigh...

as a kid, i loved the dentist. mostly b/c it meant a trip to grand rapids and a visit to the mall with my mom. it meant skipping almost a whole day of school and it usually meant a kids meal at McDonald's. you see, g-rap is where my kind-faced dentist lived. and at that time, i didn't. why didn't we just choose a dentist in our own home town, you ask? well, it's because our dentist was a saint. while my dad was in seminary and my family had no money at all, this man gave us free dental service, which was no cheap task for the likes of MY mouth.! so, even years later, when my dad was making the big bucks as a CRC pastor of a rural michigan church, we continued to visit our grand rapids dentist to show him our thanks. we may have even started paying him...

when i went to college i had to choose my own dentist. there was a small office around the corner from my college house, close enough to walk to, so i chose that one. and i've been going there ever since as it also happens to be around the corner from my place of employment. for many years i thought everyone at this dentist office was just pretending. a scrape-scrape here, a pick there, a very painful floss...things any joe-shmoe could do. the people are nice enough, i'd just like to see some credentials.

last week i had my sixth month check up (give it up to dental insurance!). everything checked out just fine except for this mysterious "stain" that they have been "watching" on my lower left side for over a year now. in three weeks i will no longer have dental insurance so i laid it all out on the line. "look," i said, "you've been watching that tooth for a long time now. if there is any reason that you might think you need to do something to that tooth, do it now."

did i mention that half my face is numb? -sn

our new pet

2007-03-29T06:29:00.000-07:00

brett brought one of these home the other day. it's very furry and has pink toes. it eats crickets. i can't remember what brett named it, but he keeps it in our office. i don't go in there anymore.

my job

2007-03-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

in one month and five days i am going to quit my job of almost six years. i feel like i must pay tribute to it.

first of all, i did not have to apply for this job. it was handed to me. in fact, it was handed to me across an ocean. at the time of the offer i was teaching in honduras, was penniless, and was clueless as to what i was going to do in the future. then, amazingly, one day i received an email from an old prof of mine that said, "Schipper, you out there?" I said I was. The next thing I knew I was on a plane home and two weeks later, sitting behind a computer making more money than what my mom likes to say is more than she's ever made in her life. heh.

i'm the type of person who gets bored easily. when i'm bored with something, i just quit doing it. so, obviously this job has held my attention. that's not to say that i haven't had a lot of extremely long, extremely boring days. but, for the most part this job has allowed me the creative freedom i have needed to stay put for awhile. my job is to write scripts and then make 15 minute radio programs based on those scripts for people who are learning English as another language. most of the programs have a christian twist or moral to them but some of them don't. and i can make these programs about anything i want. every day i come to work and i read hundreds of different news articles and websites about anything i care to read about. when something sparks my interest, i write about it. then, i make a radio program. i use different kinds of music and sound effects. once i even sang a song in one of my programs. that wasn't a very good one, but still, i get to do whatever i want. and then, thousands of people all over the world listen to them. sometimes they write to me or one of my comrades which makes me feel kind of like a superstar.

my job is really flexible. i've been going to school and working for two years now. sometimes i would leave in the middle of the day to go to class and no one cared. sometimes, b/c of a morning class, i wouldn't come in until after noon and people would just greet me at the door like it was 8:30am. and when i have to get something done, i just leave. like today, i had a dentist appointment at my fake dentist office (i swear everyone there is just pretending...but i've been going there for almost 10 years and haven't lost any teeth yet...). sometimes when it is near the end of the day, i just don't come back. i just make up the difference on some other day. they trust me that i'm working 40...so i make sure i work 40 hours. except for now i only work 35. they let me just reduce my hours. AND they still give me benefits.

benefits. that is another great thing about this job. i get to go to the dentist every six months. and believe you me...i am in that chair every chance i get! next year i won't have dental insurance OR vision insurance so i know what a treasure this is. i know that this job has really taken care of me over the years. like, for instance, that time last summer when i had to go to the doctor three times in one week for various weird ailments. did i pay at all for that? nope.

my job always has treats in the kitchen. usually left-overs from someone's birthday or sometimes someone will just bring in a treat just because. at christmas this place is an abundance of treats. we're talking stomachaches caused by treat overload. this is a great place to have pms.

sometimes my job flies me to cool places. since beginning work here i've been to england, cyprus, poland, hungary, mongolia, china, and equador. most of the time i just sit in meetings. sometimes i teach. once i got to meet people who listen to our program and some of them asked for my autograph. i had to sign "Rebekah Schipper" b/c that is my radio name. that was pretty rad.

and finally, the people at my work are real nice. they celebrate my birthday each year. they sing to me, with candles and everything! and many of them ask me about school. they ask me how i did on this or that exam. i feel like i have to do good so that i won't disappoint them. when i got married they threw me a silly shower. they all just pretended that they happened to bring random things to work that they no longer "wanted." sponges, baskets, tupperwear, towels...all things found on my registry and things they knew i would need. one time i was mentoring a mexican family that was experiencing some real needs. my coworkers pitched in and raised $300 for them. i couldn't believe it and neither could that family! everyone i work with is very generous. and they are also very strong christians. i mean, i don't always agree with everything that people have to say, but i know that they mean well. they are trying to do what they believe is best and that is something that i can admire. and many of the people i work with are very wise, each in their own way, and i have learned a lot about life, death, marriage, and christianity from them. some of the people who work with me are from far off lands. some of them are being persecuted for what they do. it makes me think a lot about what i stand for and what i do here at work. their stories remind me to do a good job when i start to slack.

i've really liked this job. there were times when i felt fairly useless, times when i felt like what i wrote or made programs about didn't matter. but then recently i got an email from a listener in Iran. he said he was a muslim but enjoyed my program about "acts of service." he said he really liked the example of Jesus i had used. i did not help bring this man to Christ or anything, but it was neat to see how he could identify with the Christ that i had written about. now, i feel more confident about my work here and can exit with pride.

it's definitely time for me to move on to new endeavors but i know the good Lord gave me exactly what I needed for exactly the time I needed it. -sn

signs of spring

2007-03-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

this morning i walked outside into the sunshine and noticed that my tulips have started to push their way out of the still semi-frozen earth. they're awake! spring is on its way...

but this is not the only sign of spring that i have witnessed in the last week. another sure sign is that my neighborhood has come alive. unlike the slow growth of my tulips, my neighborhood explodes into life. people come out of their houses and sit on their porches. kids on bikes zoom through the streets challenging you to hit them with your car. and the noise level raises a notch or two. that and my own excitement for warmer weather makes it a little harder to fall asleep at night. i love these signs of spring.

but there are other signs that i do not love. i do not love the increased amounts of broken glass i find shattered on my sidewalk or the endless chip bags that collect along my fence. i do not love news reports that splash pictures of familiar streets while talking heads describe the latest gang activity, a shooting, a fight at the bus station, the rape of a girl two blocks away who had my same description, young, white, climbing out of her car, alone at night. i do not love the large groups of young men that travel like herds up and down my street. with more people outdoors come more requests for money, "i just need enough for the bus," more requests for rides, "my car won't start and i need a ride to the store," and more requests to do this job or that job around my house, "how much will you give me to do that for you?" i do not love this either.

last night was the first time ever that i decided to drive around the block to avoid a herd of 12 teenage boys instead of performing my usual routine of parking, getting out of my car, greeting the herd, and going inside. something told me to just keep going and i make it a habit to always follow my gut. but this made me sad.

i do not want to be afraid of the city. i do not want biased news reports, reports that only show the bad, to override what i know to be good and fill me with fear. i do not want my first reaction to ever be mistrust. mistrust builds barriers and there are already enough barriers between me and my black neighbors. these are historical barriers that i hope will one day be broken down. my mistrust would do nothing but act as a reinforcement to those historical barriers. but i also don't want to be stupid. and that is why i drove around the block.

i'm very aware that the number of traveling herds has grown in the last year. i see how these groups of young men taunt and threaten others on my street. i listen to my neighbor when she tells me stories of young kids who throw glass bottles through UPS truck windows in broad daylight on their way home from school. i understand that their boldness has grown. my ears are tuned to the sounds of police sirens that tear through my streets, that sound has become more common. my gut tells me that there is a sense of restlessness on the south east side.

but my gut also tells me that i am where i belong for the time being. God lives in restless places and God is alive in me. so, i sweep up glass and pick up chip bags again and again to demonstrate that i believe our neighborhood matters. i plant flowers and vegetables and explain to kids why i do, because they make our street look more beautiful. i talk to my neighbors and together we break down racial barriers. i make my home a place where the kids next door feel safe. it's true that i may have to take the long route home sometimes. but maybe, just maybe, it's also true that my presence makes a difference.

spring is upon us. the signs are everywhere. i pray that i am able to focus on the beautiful ones. -sn

my archaeological dig

2007-03-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

i've always thought it would be fun to be an archaeologist, to dust off that ancient artifact and reveal all of its secrets, to experience the thrill of finding something that perhaps no other person has ever seen before. well, last week i probably came as close to "archaeologist" as i will ever come...and it wasn't that great.

last week brett and i, with the help of our friend shannon, proudly finished our basement. we ripped down the yellowing ceiling panels and spray painted the rafters, pipes, and wires a dark chocolate brown. we exposed the basement windows from their hiding place behind the 70s style wood paneling and built some windowsills. then, we painted over every surface with a light, cheery colour. and soon, we hope to replace the old orange and brown striped carpet. but, until we are able to afford that...we had to preserve the carpet and not drip paint on it while we gave the walls their make-over. no easy task. brett and i spent hours laying on our sides carefully painting the bottom edge of the wall, trying to avoid leaving a trail of paint along the carpet.

you must realize that the lighting in our basement is, well, non-existent. we had to set up lamps and drag them along with us as we painted. the lamps would sometimes cast eerie shadows, shadows that could sometimes play tricks on our eyes... at one point i was in the basement alone, laying on my side, painting a semi-obscure corner. a dark object in that corner caught my eye. at first glance i thought, "oh! my missing black nylon sock. hooray!" i picked it up. it did not feel like the soft sock my eyes led me to believe that i had seen. it was hard. it was a little bit crunchy. i brought it closer to my face for closer inspection, just like any good archeologist would do. it was a condom.

but not just any condom. this was an ANCIENT condom. it had become hard and crusty with age and the chemical reactions that had taken place over time had changed its colour to black. to whom did this condom belong? was this condom shared b/w two people who experienced true love? why would someone throw a condom in a dark corner of a basement? was this the actual spot of consummation? these are the questions of true archaeologists. i, on the other hand, was too busy washing my hands and holding down my lunch to ask such questions.

it's been said that my house once housed some of calvin's finest (b/c don't ALL calvin students exist under this category?) don't believe for a second if someone tells you that calvin students don't have sex. because they do. i've got archaeological proof. -sn

fennville

2007-03-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

we conquered hills

we gathered speed

we risked death

we walked for miles

across unchartered territory

until we had it in our sights
FENNVILLE

restaurant of choice: CLOSED

luckily there was: The Blue Goose

On my first day of spring break brett and I did end up going to fennville, a one road town. i had heard a report on NPR about this little delight and wanted to check out the restaurant they had boasted about. i couldn't remember the name of it right away and we ended up walking into a grocery store on accident. but, looking up and down the street we did end up finding it and were greeted by a CLOSED sign. luckily the people at the blue goose were a little more friendly to us, the weary travelers. -sn

*note to everyone. always carry a sled in your trunk, you never know when you might need it.

testing, testing...

2007-03-05T19:13:00.000-08:00

i'm gonna break it

2007-03-02T06:14:00.000-08:00

i don't know why my pictures aren't showing up, but i'm about ready to punch my fist through this screen. stupid computer...

on to other more important things. it is now officially spring break. i am officially taking one week off of work and doing nothing except for getting a message, a wonderful gift from my husband. we may also try to go somewhere to do something. brett wants to go backpacking in Tennessee. but i said "no" to that plan. it is too hard for me to stay warm. then i feel tense. and then it is not fun. might as well just be in school...tense. sometimes i ruin brett's life. but hopefully we can come to a happy compromise. i even suggested skiing somewhere. also a cold activity, but one where i know i don't have to actually sleep outside on the frozen ground in 20 degree temperatures. i can go inside, drink hot chocolate, and snuggle under blankets any time i want. but brett kind of vetoed that idea. after skiing in colorado...skiing in michigan seems kind of pointless. i did hear a little report on NPR the other day about fennville. apparently it's an up and coming artist town. and they even have a vegetarian restaurant there! sounds promising to me...but probably best not to mention it. i think brett would be very disappointed. anyone out there have any suggestions for us? -sn

it's time for a little summer...

2007-02-28T11:47:00.001-08:00

is this weather getting anybody else down?? the snow, the freezing drizzle, the slippery sidewalks, or the slush up to the knees would make anyone dream of summer. these pictures are from a little road trip brett and i took last summer up to sleeping bear dunes. we attended a wedding, slept in our little tent, visited local restaurants, ate ice cream and hiked along the lake shore. nothing short of perfect...

first stop, breakfast at grandma's kitchen.

preparing for the day with water

a little more water just in case....

and a little more for good measure. my husband has dehydrophobia...

the lone ranger

a little trail jig

he's ready

visit to the little town of Mesick. perhaps grandma's kitchen wasn't too kind...

nothing a little ice cream can't fix. i look pissed b/c some kids were drawing with sidewalk chalk and there weren't enough pieces for me.

last stop, one of michigan's fine lighthouses. this was supposed to look like i was licking the lighthouse, but instead it looks like i'm licking that guy. what was your motivation here brett?

goodnight summer, goodnight.

sounds

2007-02-22T08:27:00.000-08:00

every year my church holds an evening ash wednesday service. and each year i look forward to going to it. it's a unique service--quiet, little singing, the lights are low, and there stand two crosses at the front of the sanctuary. everyone receives a slip of paper and a pencil when they walk in the door and at the beginning of the service you're told to reflect on the things that you need to give up, the things you need to release from your tightly clenched, slightly sweaty palms, sins that have held you captive over the last year, or years. and finally, towards the end of the service, you're told to make your way to the foot of the cross, grab a hammer, and nail your list into the already scarred wood.

it is the sound of that service that draws me back every year. i could not tell you the point of a single sermon given over the last five years of my attendance. i could not tell you which songs we sang. i could not tell you who i did or didn't see. and quite honestly, i couldn't even tell you what lent really is. 40 days, yada, yada, yada easter...hooray! but, i can tell you about the sound of that service.

i always wait awhile for my turn at the cross. i wait for the sound. slowly people approach the cross and begin nailing. usually one person starts the flow, one person who can't wait a minute more to give it all up to Jesus. tap, tap, tap...tap, tap tap. soon, more people begin pounding in their deepest, darkest secrets and the sound grows. some people pound gently and others swing that hammer as if their lives depended on it. the whole room fills with the sound of pounding.

as i sit there waiting i try to imagine what it might sound like if all of grand rapids were there, pounding away. and then i try to think about what it might sound like if all of michigan, or all of the united states were there, sins in hand. and what might it sound like if the whole world joined in? i believe that weighty sound is what Christ defeated on the cross. i'm sure it was the sound heard as the nails reached wood through our Saviour's hands and feet. it's a very overwhelming sound. it is the sound of saving grace.

when it's my turn i'm always surprised by the sound of my own pounding and relieved to receive the ash cross upon my forehead. -sn

unfortunately i had to miss this year's service but luckily the sound remains with me.

fix my baby

2007-02-16T14:09:00.000-08:00

when i was in nigeria, every day i would wake up, put on my brown skirt and my sweaty shirt from the day before and walk 100 feet to the clinic where i was observing, helping, but mostly just sitting. to pass the time i would talk to the nurse, write in my journal, and read the "where there are no doctors" book, the 1979 edition. yes, things in that book were really outdated. but anyway.

patients would slowly trickle in throughout the day and most of them complained about the same thing, "zawa." diarrhea. nurse faith would pull out the same yellow pills and wrap them in torn paper pages that she would fashion into a kind of envelope. then the patient would leave. it was fairly routine. but each person who came in had a different reaction to me, the whitey. and that was the fun part. sometimes i would try out some of my hausa on them, and they would laugh and laugh. sometimes i would just smile and give a concerned nod when i heard mention of "zawa." and sometimes i even got to help with the taking of temperatures and the passing out of yellow pills.

but one day was very different. nurse faith had to make a house call and she wanted me to stay in the clinic. it had been a VERY slow day so i didn't think twice about having all responsibility left to my care. about ten minutes after she left a fulani woman came into the clinic with her baby. the fulani were a strange bunch, beautiful, but strange. they were more blunt than the suvati people who lived in my village. they were nomads, traveling from place to place in their brightly coloured clothes and tattooed eyes. the woman who came in was carrying her baby, her very sick, very malnourished, half-dead baby. she thrust her child into my arms and started speaking to me, desperately, wildly flailing her arms. the assistant who was still in the clinic explained to me that the fulani woman believed that i could "fix" her baby. my white skin meant that i had powers greater than whatever spirits she prayed to at night. it was very scary. i couldn't do anything for her baby. the assistant tried to explain...

it's funny the things we put our faith in to "fix" things. like white skin can fix a dying child. or chocolate can fix a bad day. or a dad can fix a flat tire when he is two hours away from you just b/c he is a dad. or a friend or husband can fix a lonely heart. we put our faith in these things because it's easier than putting your faith in God that things will get better. God doesn't always give quick fixes.

being in school is so hard. i don't know how other people handle it, but sometimes i don't handle it very well. i dread studying at night and on the weekends. i loathe going to school and sitting in a class full of strangers. i hate coming home to my growing pile of clothes that i never have the time or the will to put away. i can't stand that i have a "to do" list that never gets done. i get sad when i realize that i have not done anything fun in over a month. and i feel lonely when i know that i don't have time for anyone or knowing that if i did have time i would more likely just want to sit at home b/c i'm so tired.

all of these thoughts swirl in my head and so i start to look for quick fixes. quick fixes are never good. let's just get that out in the open. and no, i am not doing drugs or hiding bottles of vodka in the tank of my toilet. but, i have put my faith in things that don't promise me a better future. they just promise me a fatter ass and arguments about something stupid. -sn

sometimes i feel like throwing in the towel

2007-02-16T06:52:00.001-08:00

that's all for today. -sn

better than christmas

2007-02-04T19:39:00.000-08:00

what could be better than christmas you ask? having two exams scheduled on a monday and then having the school CLOSE b/c of the weather. THAT is pretty much better than anything i can think of...

would you sell your soul for $10,000?

2007-02-02T12:10:00.000-08:00

ok, so some of us probably would. but would you sell your integrity? today npr's marketplace covered a story about the UN's most recent environmental report. and it looks grim. 2500 scientists from around the world took part in this all-important research. they asked the question: Global Warming, Who's to Blame?

Their answer? Us.

These scientists are 90% sure that human activity is causing the earth to warm up. They believe the earth could be 11 degrees hotter by the end of the century. on a day like to today, blustery with snow, this may seem like a God-send to us michiganders! but let's think beyond ourselves for a moment. imagine if you were bangladeshi, a country which already suffers from dreadful flooding each year. with warming temperatures come rising waters. millions of peoples' homes will be under water. and if it's too hard to think of a land so far away, then think of our own beloved new yorkers.

this report should make us all shake in our boots. it is scientific evidence. unbiased evidence. i mean c'mon, it's hard to find 2500 scientists from around the world who belong to the same political party, religious group, or science club. i doubt they all subscribe to the same science magazines. and then there is this:

"A conservative think tank reportedly offered scientists and economists as much as $10,000 each to undermine an unsettling UN report on global warming released today. So if they write an article or make a speech which picks holes or finds flaws in the UN report, they could earn themselves up to $10,000."

hmmm...now why do you think they would do that? afraid of the truth? interesting. what's even more interesting is that this so-called "conservative think tank" has been linked to Exxon Mobile, an oil company, probably one of the only groups who will lose out on a cleaner earth. hmmm...what's even more interesting than that is that Exxon Mobile is the oil company most commonly tied to our very own George W. one of the only major world leaders who refuses to sign on to Kyoto, "an amendment to the international treaty on climate change, assigning mandatory targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to signatory nations." (Wikipedia)

now, i'm just reporting what i heard reported to me this morning. but the whole idea of it makes me sick. i mean, this report could have real potential to spur our leaders to actually DO SOMETHING to help counter this crisis. and more than that, it could have the potential to spur all of us to do something. in fact, one of the scientists interviewed on the show listed simple ways that the every day commoner could help tackle global warming, things like taking the heat down a notch, turning off your lights and using energy efficient bulbs, taking the bus or better yet, your bike. obviously we've all heard things like this before, and then ignored them. but, no time like the present after the release of a very scary report to start implementing them. the scientist then went on to point out that "green equals green." taking care of the earth can save you money in the end. save money? why...count me in!

let's just hope that $10,000 is not enough to sweep this little bit of evidence under the political carpet and out of our minds.

if you'd like to listen to the report yourself (or read part the transcript), go here:

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2007/02/02/AM200702021.html -sn

curls

2007-02-02T07:36:00.000-08:00

it's the ol' struggle. you have straight hair, you want curly hair. you have curly hair, you long to have thin, straight, shiny, blows-in-the-wind, down to your butt strands. the hair of tv stars, movie stars. jennifer aniston hair.

i have thick curly hair. my mother's hair. i've written before about my mother's epic hair battles. i have those battles too. usually i wear my hair short, the shorter the better. but i am trying to grow it long. my goal is a ponytail. but my hair grows painfully slow. already a year since my last trim and my hair only just barely kisses my shoulders. the longer it gets the greater the battle.

if you do not have curly hair you do not understand the "science" that is curly hair. you cannot use a blowdryer. heaven forbid! to blow dry your hair is to turn your hair into a huge, frizzy fro. towel drying is definitely better, but don't you dare rub your hair dry. what then of your curls? you should simply pat and scrunch, pat and scrunch. and choose your products carefully. too much product, to hold the curl, will make your hair crunchy. it will give your hair the much dreaded "wet" look. but too little product=frizz. frizz is the ultimate enemy of curly hair. then there is the question of what to do with the pieces that don't curl as well as the rest. you see, some people have beautiful ringlets dispersed evenly across their noggins. but i dare say that most curly heads share my problem. that is, i've got some pieces that just don't like to curl. so you have massive curls and then a few pieces that just hang in rebellion. i've heard that rebellious teenagers are bad...well, try rebellious strands of hair!

not only do i have curly hair, but i have LOTS of hair. when most people complain about their thick hair i just have to roll my eyes. honey, you do not know what thick hair is! i do not wash my hair every day. in fact, i'm lucky if i wash it twice a week. one reason is that washing curly hair every day is not good for the locks. did you know that? science. and second of all, it takes me about 20 minutes to rinse all of the shampoo and conditioner out of my hair. what a waste of water!

one time i tried to grow dreads. brett helped me roll and tease. he even tied a sea-shell into one of his newly formed masterpieces. i lost that shell. for two weeks it was buried in my knotty hair and i could not find it. sometimes, when i am doing my hair in the morning, i come across a stranded bobby-pin. and i am always puzzled as to how it got there or WHEN it was put in there. and straightening my hair is out of the question. i tried that once. after two hours my arms were tired and i still had half a head of hair to go! i'm pretty sure it would take three of your ponytails to even come close to ONE of mine, it's that thick.

there are websites dedicated to people with curly hair. they are filled with styling tips, product ideas, and message boards brimming with woes from curly tops like myself. here is what one site suggests i do EVERY morning just to make my hair look presentable:

"Use a curl-enhancing mousse throughout wet hair so waves maintain their shape. Let hair air-dry, then section into 2-inch pieces. For each piece, curl loosely around one finger, then pin it to scalp. Set 15 minutes, then style with fingers."

i've tried this technique and it worked! but who has that kind of time every morning? i'm lucky if i even get a shower! and have you ever tried to air-dry thick curly hair? i wet my hair at 8am. it is now noon. my hair is still wet. and most likely it will still be damp at dinner time. do you know how tired i am of looking like a wet dog every day? and it's winter! wet hair is cold!

now my routine consists of wetting, patting dry with a towel (never rubbing), using a drier to half dry my hair (so it doesn't freeze and crack off when i got outside), scrunching, scrunching, scrunching, twirling the rebellious pieces around my finger, spritzing hairspray over whole head, and using bobbypins to tame the mane. if i didn't use those bobbypins my hair would most likely reach out and strangle you. i've got this routine down to about 8 minutes. not bad, but i can't wait for the day when this mass will just fit into a ponytail.

whether i like it or not my hair is a 'big' part of who i am. it has taken me a long time to embrace this part of me and to realize that i will never, ever have jennifer aniston hair. -SN

**neither will i have halle berry hair b/c as my hair stylist pointed out to me after asking her to cut my hair like halle's, "halle berry is black. she has black person's hair." right.

see mom?

2007-01-26T10:59:00.000-08:00

arch nemesis

2007-01-25T06:04:00.000-08:00

awhile back my friend sara convinced me that everyone has an arch nemesis, that certain someone who you always seem to find yourself in competition with, that person who just kind of ticks you off merely for being in your space... perhaps because that person may remind you a little too much of yourself.

i have two arch nemeses.

i'm not going to lie. i am very VERY competitive. so, trying to get into the nursing program was just an exercise of my very nature. but i was not the only one out for a little exercise. it seemed like a lot of students were exercising their inner-selves. it was a breeding ground of arch nemeses.

i have only had one class so far with my first arch nemesis. i don't even know her name, although i have this sneaking suspicion it's sara, which just knocks her arch nemesis stature up a notch. this girl does not even know who i am. i always sat behind her and i only talked to her once, briefly. the reason that she is my arch nemesis is because her face used to be plastered all over grand rapids. silly, i know. but there were probably 700 billboards around town displaying her pearly whites. i got very sick of that billboard. prior to getting into the program those obnoxious advertisements reminded me that i needed to get better grades than her. the kicker was that one of the billboards towered over my place of employment. every morning when i drove to work i had to pass her face.

most of the billboards have since been replaced. and i got into the program. so, my feelings towards arch nemesis #1 have changed (a little). i've heard that she made it into the program too. only time will tell if we will remain nemeses or become colleagues and friends. i think we'll be ok as long as no new billboards go up around town.

arch nemesis #2 has been in almost all of my classes. he is around 40 years old, blond, tan, handsome. he is wicked smart. and he can really get to me. he's the type who will nonchalantly wander over to you after a quiz or test and ask you how you did. or, after the grades have been returned, he will ask you what you got as if it is his right or business to know. there came a point last summer that i just started telling him i got an A, even if i didn't. i knew it freaked him out. strategy.

last night, #2 struck again. it was right before our pathophysiology quiz, if you can call six chapters covering the inner workings of cells, innate and adaptive immunity, inflammation, chemical balance, and hypersensitivities a "quiz." most people were studying their notes frantically, trying to shove that last piece of information about dendritic cells into their brains. i was tired. i had just come from my stats lab where i had been hunched in front of a computer for two hours. i decided that trying to cram was pointless so i decided to eat my peanut butter sandwich instead. i strategically placed myself across from the blond.

after a short while he gathered up his pages and pages of notes and approached me. "here it comes" i thought. "are you ready?" he asked. i said i guessed and took a big bite of my sandwich. he then proceeded to ask me the longest most complicated question i have ever heard. he included about six pages of notes into that one question. i couldn't decide if he was asking it to try and show me how much he knew or if he really was wondering what he was asking. i honestly had no idea what he was talking about so i decided that he was just showing off. when he was finished asking what sounded to me like, "blah, blah, blah, MHC receptors, blah de blah, chemokines the same as cytokines?" i just had to shake my head and say, "did you just ask me something? was that a question?" he tried to re-word for the sake of my simple mind. finally, i had to stop him and reduce him to pictures. i drew out what i understood MHC receptors to do. and as far as chemokines and cytokines being the same thing, who cares? just know what they do.

i thought my drawings were pretty amazing, but they were greeted with a "...but...but..." i told him that if our professor was going to get THAT picky on a 10 point quiz that covered six chapters, then we were all screwed. i took another bite of my sandwich as he started his next question. half way into his mumbo jumbo of patho lingo i had to interrupt him and ask him to go away as he was starting to confuse me. we were both laughing good-heartedly as he walked away, but i really meant it. he was starting to make me nervous. and that is why he is my arch nemesis.

luckily the quiz went down without a hitch. i wondered if my nemesis realized that he had studied way too hard as i wiped the sandwich crumbs off the front of my sweater.

at the end of the day the blond is probably a lot smarter than me. and he will probably be a great nurse, as will the girl on the billboards. i respect them both very much. but their roles as "arch nemeses" are pretty important. they keep me on my toes. they challenge me to do my best. they push me to study just one more hour on a saturday. in fact, i believe that it is because of them that i even got accepted into the nursing program!

from here on out we will work side by side. and i'm sure that they will continue to push me to do my best, even if they are unaware of it. and i hope that in some small way i will do the same for them.

you know what they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. -sn

maybe it wasn't such a good idea

2007-01-19T09:58:00.000-08:00

a woman recently died of water intoxication. you can read the story here. while drinking water is definitely good for you, limits are always good. hearing things like this makes me think that "H2Own It" week was not such a good idea.

brewer's yeast

2007-01-19T05:49:00.000-08:00

my mom tried her darndest to keep her kids healthy. i didn't really realize this until the other day i found myself wandering a health food store searching for brewer's yeast, the flaky kind. i wanted it to sprinkle over my popcorn. when i told brett i was going to the store to buy yeast for our popcorn, his nose crinkled up. he had recently made his first homemade pizza crust and the yeast he had used for that did not smell all that great. he couldn't imagine putting it on popcorn. i couldn't really imagine it either, its just that i had this memory of yeast always being on my popcorn when i was little. and i remembered that it wasn't half bad! i reassured my worried husband that i wouldn't make him eat yeast if it was going to taste bad. i told him that my mom used to sprinkle it on our popcorn and we would gobble it up. he still looked worried.

turns out, brewer's yeast not only has a delicious "nut-like" flavor, but it is very nutritional. it's got all this good stuff in it that my body needs. i figured my mom was smarter than i had first thought so i wandered around the store looking for other things that looked familiar, things my mom would have bought. i came home with a sack of yeast, a sack of sunflower seeds, soymilk, and a sack of oatmeal, the kind you have to slowly cook on the stove. my friend shannon had to teach me how to cook it as i am used to the quaker variety that you stick in the microwave. thank you shannon.

now my popcorn tastes like the kind my mom used to make. comfort food. and my salads now look like something my mom would eat, complete with sunflower seeds, craisins, and no dressing, just vinegar. i even sprinkle a little brewer's yeast on there, for good measure.

the older i get the more i have come to understand the importance of taking care of myself. i can already feel that the ol' limbs aren't as limber as they once were. it is not as easy to go out and run a quick mile. not that i'm some old lady or anything, it's just that i'm realizing more and more that i will be an old lady sooner rather than later if i do not take care of myself, exercise, and eat well. i'm just glad i had a mom who understood that right from the get-go. she planted the seeds...and now i am eating them on my salads. -sn

Annie, Annie are you ok?

2007-01-12T05:09:00.000-08:00

i am now officially certified in adult/child and infant one person and two person CPR, use of the AED, and use of the heimlich manuever on both adults and infants. i carry an official card that i can flash to anyone who questions why i've got my mouth pressed up against someone else's at the scene of an emergency.

you will be happy to know that the dummy's name is still Annie, and she still tastes like rubbing alcohol and rubber. i can still taste the sweetness of her soft, supple lips even still this morning....blech! -sn

what is conflict?

2007-01-11T05:53:00.000-08:00

when i was living in honduras a man once tried to rob me. i was riding on a bus with my friend hannah. we were heading towards the centre of the city to do some saturday morning shopping in the open air markets. i had my hand leisurely dangling out the window, trying to catch a breeze. because it was saturday, there was a lot of traffic. our bus was stopped and it was hot.

as i sat there, boiling in the heat, i did not notice the small posse of men that had gathered beneath my window, admiring my hand. the flash of silver encircling my finger had attracted them. one of the men looked up at me and said, "give me your ring as a gift." i peered out the window at him and mistook his demand as a flirtatious request. i giggled and said, "no, i don't think so..." he asked again, a little more sternly, "give me your ring as a gift." i became annoyed, "no!" "give me your ring!" he said. "NO!"

the men went away, or so i thought. but, before i knew it the men had entered the bus and filled the seats surrounding hannah and me. we were trapped. the man who had been asking for my ring had taken the seat in front of us. he turned and said, "give me your ring." i didn't understand what the big deal about my ring was. it was probably worth $8. a friend had given it to me and i had been wearing it for many years. i rarely even thought about it. but the fact that someone was trying to take it made me mad! so, i refused.

faster than you can say "oh shit" this man was over the seat, grabbing at my hands and my purse. from somewhere else more hands were added to this scrambling tangle, including my own. i scratched, i slapped, i defended that $8 ring.

in the end, the bus driver bravely came to the back of the bus and asked the men to leave. that bus driver risked his life for me and my cheap piece of silver. you see, most likely those men were gang members. and i've heard it told that at that time gangs controlled the buses. they would demand money from the drivers and sometimes kill the drivers who refused. i was reprimanded by every honduran i knew. i still feel ashamed that i did not just hand over that ring. i could have avoided a lot of conflict.

the truth is, we live in a desperate world. conflict abounds. and by conflict i do not mean just war. what i'm describing here is a conflict of interests. you see, what seemed like a cheap piece of probably fake silver to me, was seen as "food" or "opportunity" for someone else. my $8 ring was wealth to another.

in my last post i described my personal struggle with diamonds and their bloody past. but, the truth is that probably 98% of diamonds sold today are labeled "conflict free." that is, the money made by the diamond industry no longer goes towards funding war. but what is your definition of "conflict?" this is the other reason why i do not wear diamonds, and it's probably the more important one.

here are just a few facts:

* in 2005, about 10.1 million children died before they reached their fifth birthday. Almost all of these deaths occured in developing countries, 3/4 of them in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the two regions that also suffer from the highest rates of hunger and malnutrition.

* worldwide, more than 1 billion people currently live below the international poverty line, earning less than $1 per day

*In the United States alone, 14-20 million PCs are thrown out each year

now, i wanted to find a fact about how much of the world's resources the US uses in comparison to the rest of the world, but i think that last fact makes the same point. conflict of interest. children are dying and people in the US have enough money not only to buy a PC but to throw it away and buy another one!

how you define "conflict" determines whether or not you think diamonds are "conflict free." to me, men made billionaires by diamonds dug by people who struggle to eat is a conflict. i stand by my last post in saying that we cannot single-handedly fight every battle that presents itself to us. we would be running in circles! and, i still could care less whether or not you have a little sparkle on a certain finger. but i, for one, do not want to wear something on my finger that costs more than what one person somewhere else will make in a lifetime. i do not ever want to have something that means so much to me that i am not willing to give it up to someone who is desperate enough to rob me for it, unless that thing is brett. -sn

by the way, one day a few years back i lost that silver ring. it flew off my finger in my sister's yard. i didn't even care. they probably mowed over it...that ring that i fought off robbers for...

a girl's best friend

2007-01-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

i just finished listening to a January Series speaker at Calvin, Gerard Thomas Straub. He creates documentaries highlighting the plight of the poor. During his presentation he said,

"i don't show these films to bring out feelings of guilt but TO BRING OUT THE REALITY OF THE POOR."

isn't it weird that he felt like he had to explain himself? he knew that people might have feelings of guilt b/c of the content of his films. and he felt like he had to explain that that was not his intent. why did he feel that way? is our guilt his problem? do you ever feel like you have to explain yourself in this way? i do...

to celebrate my birthday brett and i decided to take in a light-hearted, easy-on-the-eyes flick. we saw blood diamond. needless to say we both left the theatre emotionally exhausted. i'm not going to give a run-down on this film b/c i think the title explains it all: BLOOD.DIAMOND.

everyone should see this movie. to say the least, it puts up on the big screen a hard to swallow REALITY. i know that many of you are probably sighing and saying, "here it comes..." but i'm not going to preach. i just want to share something that i often struggle with.

i choose not to wear diamonds. before brett asked me to marry him i asked him to please not buy me a diamond ring. and he got a lot of slack for it. not by me, of course, but by others who didn't understand what we understand. you know, i too can appreciate the beauty of a diamond. and i can even value the tradition and symbolism that surrounds this, the strongest, longest-lasting stone. but, you see, people have died b/c of diamonds. diamonds have a bloody history. and what drove that history forward was just the greed of a few. the weight of that history is just too heavy for me to ignore or, in this case, wear on my finger.

but, here's my struggle: honestly, sometimes i have a hard time not wearing a diamond. not b/c i want one but b/c i think that other people think that i judge them for having one. so, i feel guilty about maybe making them feel uncomfortable. isn't that weird? i find that i explain and excuse just like Straub did before sharing his very powerful film. but, like Straub, it is not my intent to make people feel guilty. rather, i feel like this is one small way that i can, "BRING OUT THE REALITY OF THE POOR."

there is a scene in the film, blood diamond, where one of the characters hunches down to describe the african soil beneath his feet. he takes it into his hand and lets it drip through his fingers. he says its colour is red b/c of man's blood, shed.

i've been to africa. i've walked her land. i've met some of her people. i've held her soil and let it drip through my own fingers. i feel like i can, in a small way, honour this land by not wearing a diamond.

i don't know why, but God entrusted me with a very important gift. over the years i have spent time with some of the poorest of the poor. poor physically, mentally, and spiritually. i have shared meals with them, sharing the same bowl, hands sometimes grabbing for the same piece of food. i have slept in beds with them, once seven of us sharing just three beds. i have prayed with them lifting up the same requests in different tongues. i have exchanged smiles and tears with them. and i have learned from them.

since taking my first step onto foreign soil my life has changed dramatically. i've seen these things, and i've met these people, and God has given me opportunities to change and now i just want my life to be a testament to the people i have met. i want to say, "hey, i haven't forgotten." i'm sorry if this makes you feel guilty.

i've found that when i come face to face with poverty i have two choices. i can feel guilty and wait until the feeling fades. or i can change, out of duty to my fellow man. out of duty to jesus, God become flesh. yes, i fail. sometimes i fail miserably. but i try. and i'm going to keep trying. b/c wasn't it jesus who said, "i tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me?"

i realize that my battles are not your battles. there are many "causes" in this world and we cannot single handedly fight them all. many of us fight the good fight in many different ways, and all together we cover many different issues. some of us buy locally, some of us buy used, some of us buy fair-trade, and still others of us try not to buy at all. some of us save water, others of us recycle. some of us are bicycle riders while others of us use our own two feet. there are those of us who stand on corners with signs in protest and those of us who spend time creating relationships with the lost in our communities. all noble causes. if none of this sounds familiar to you then perhaps its time to suit up and choose your weapon.

i didn't want this post to be about diamonds. the truth is, i could care less if you wear a diamond or not. i just choose not to. the point is, there are numerous ways to BRING OUT THE REALITY OF THE POOR. it's a matter of being conscious about our choices and not making excuses for our behaviour. -sn

gerard thomas straub
blood diamond
an obvious choice

ps - on my 29th birthday i got carded before entering blood diamond. you have to be 17 to see R-rated movies. on one hand, this made me feel quite good about myself. heh. but, after watching the movie i found it very ironic that in some countries children as young as six are soldiers, toting guns, killing people. but, in our country you have to be at least 17 to even watch such atrocity on a screen. i'm not saying we should bring our children to such violent movies. but perhaps there are other ways to introduce them to the REALITY of our world. if we start them young, who knows what change we might see in the future.

they say it's your birthday? it's my birthday too!

2007-01-05T08:11:00.000-08:00

this morning i woke up and realized that this will be the last year of my 20's. it's my birthday and i am now 29. so, i laid in bed awhile and contemplated about what has made up the ten years between my teens and (gasp) my thirties. here's a recap of the top 10 most defining events:

1. i went from being a college student waitressing at a brewery, to working as a camera girl for a news station, to working in advertising, to being a teacher in Honduras, to working as a radio producer, to going back to school to become a nurse. unfortunately i will not be a nurse until i am thirty...and a half.

2. i lived in honduras for a year and a half and england for a month.

3. i was a jr. high youth group leader for 3 years and served on my church's social justice committee for 2. being part of that committee allowed me to be involved in various events in my community, my favorite was getting to know part of the hispanic immigrant population here in GR.

4. i buried two grandparents, both grandpas.

5. i've travelled to 19 different countries: honduras (3 times), guatemala, el salvador, nicaragua, costa rica, mexico, china, mongolia, england (2 times), ireland, scotland, romania, hungary (2 times), poland, the netherlands, belgium, cyprus, nigeria, ecuador, and 20 countries if you count canada (numerous times). but at that time i didn't even need my passport. by the way, i've had to amend my passport for extra pages...

6. i've eaten many oddities while traveling including, goat's head (eyeballs and all), fermented mare's milk (that's right, from a horse... and yes, i said "fermented" and yes, i did get very very sick. i even called my mother from mongolia to say my goodbyes), months old goat yogurt complete with goat hair and some strange chunks (talk about live cultures!), pounded yam and guinea corn (it crunches like sand) dipped in a snot like soup, many many different kinds of mystery meat including probably dog, in china, and probably the worst...two months of noodles with nothing but tomato paste and canned corned beef for a topping in nigeria. i lost 5 pounds. but have since gained 25...

7. i became an aunt 6 times over. i have 7 nieces and nephews but one was born before i was 20, i believe. i am very proud of this role.

8. i got married to my best friend.

9. i bought a home

10. i've had people ask for my autograph.

i could die a very happy woman. but, i would kinda like to see what the future holds first....

happy birthday to me! -sn

it's a....hearse!

2007-01-02T13:06:00.000-08:00

today i looked out my window at work, and this is what i saw. Goodbye Gerry, goodbye.

*if you look closely, the first car is the presidential hearse. about a thousand black cars followed behind it. tons of people were lining the streets waiting to catch a glimpse...of...the car, i guess. honestly, it wasn't very exciting.

this happens

2006-12-21T07:58:00.000-08:00

sometimes you plan a christmas ski trip to Colorado and this happens

at least we're not some of the thousands of people trapped in airports around the country. but alas, i am sitting at my desk back at work...

sn

God's hands

2006-12-14T05:48:00.000-08:00

yesterday i finished up my last exam. now the only thing i can do is wait for the arrival of my letter of acceptance or denial into nursing school. through this whole process i have had many wonderful people cheering me on, encouraging me and praying for me. many people told me that i could only do my best, and that was all i could do. yesterday a number of people said things like, "well, it's out of your hands now!" and i took that to mean that it was now in "God's hands."

that thought should be comforting, right? then why was my first thought, "yeah, that's what i'm afraid of!"

i do not like to sugar coat God. i know that just because i, you, and my mom have been praying for me to get into the nursing program that it might not happen. God may have different plans for me all together. in fact, in psalm 23 it says, "even though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." did you read that? it says, EVEN THOUGH, meaning i will spend time in some valleys. i understand very well that sometimes having faith in God means making my way through some pretty shadowy places.

yes, yes i know that the very next line is, "i will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." but let's face it, no one likes to walk through valleys, unless they are in colorado. and that is why i often feel scared to know that my life is in God's hands. that God, he's a tricky guy sometimes. you think your life is going one way and then wham-o, you're in the valley of the shadow of DEATH!

this morning i woke up with that thought weighing heavy on my whole world. i knew that i had to be prepared for what might prove to be a very disappointing valley. but then i walked outside and found my whole world lit up bright red. the sun was just beginning to rise and the entire sky was a brilliant colour of fuschia. along the horizon an almost too bright streak of orange cut through the clouds like a bolt of lightning. the red clouds above my head looked like rolling waves. and the wet streets beneath my feet mirrored that glorious pattern of colour. for a slight second my breath was taken away.

sometimes i think that God creates things just for me. i believe that this morning God searched my heart, lifted his hands and began to paint. perhaps you saw the sunrise this morning and enjoyed it. but i have to break it to you, that sunrise was not for you. it was for me. those amazing colours and patterns were God's way of reminding me that what he creates is always beautiful. and if he can turn a normally gray michigan sky into something as glorious as that sunrise, then i know that he intends to make my life even more beautiful, valleys and all.

my cup overflows. -sn

exam #2

2006-12-13T08:15:00.000-08:00

exam #2 - microbiology
time spent studying = about 6 hours
currently feeling - relieved
motivation - don't need any anymore
hungry for - sleep
day of exam - this very day
results - who cares, it's over.

well i'm done. this is a weird feeling. now all i can do is wait. my whole life depends on one little letter that will arrive in the mail containing one important word, either "yes" or "no." but what a sense of relief to not have to worry about it anymore. it's out of my hands. there ain't nothin' more i can do. and thank the lord that beyond this point i won't have to work for As. that was REALLY pushing the limits of my personality.

done and done. -sn

where i'm at

2006-12-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

i found out recently that i could very well be in the running for a $10,000 grant. that is, the state of michigan will willingly hand over $10,000 to yours truly to use however i want. this grant depends on whether or not i get into the nursing program. and whether or not i get into the nursing program depends on my final grades in the two classes i am currently trying to wrap up.

exam #1 - physiology
time spent studying = 17 hours
feeling - was inspired to do well by the thought of $10,000
motivation - money
hungry for - money
day of exam - this very day
results - didn't do as well as i was hoping i'd do. official grades
will be posted Wed.

exam #2 - microbiology
time spent studying = 0 hours
currently feeling - tired
motivation - not much
hungry for - chocolate and chips
day of exam - Wednesday
results - to be determined

a christmas rant

2006-11-27T12:26:00.000-08:00

this week i received my first christmas gift. and it was one of the most thoughtful gifts i have received in a long, long time. my coworker approached me with a brown bag. inside the bag was a jar filled with homemade bean soup, hand-canned green beans, and a loaf of homemade bread. along with this gift came the explanation that she had been thinking about me and how busy my life is with work and school. she had heard me complain that i didn't know when or how i was going to get all of my christmas shopping done. so, she made me this meal to use whenever i please so that maybe, one night, instead of worrying about dinner after a long day i could go and get my shopping done. i felt very blessed.

christmas should always be this simple, shouldn't it? but for some reason each year i find my head swirling amongst the lights, glitter, and glam. i always feel rushed to make christmas feel like "christmas." i spend too much money on gifts that will soon be discarded, boxed up, too snug, or out of style. i don't have enough time to give my time. and after awhile i even find that i forget that a little babe was born in a manger to bring peace to this convoluted world of mine. i forget that his beginnings were simple, born amongst animals to poor young parents. i forget that his life was an example of simplicity, relying on God the Father as his daily bread. and i forget that his teaching was simple: love.

my coworkers gift was truly an example of what i believe christmas is, simple acts of love. she gave bread to the hungry and rest to the weary--truly an act of Christ.

this christmas i hope to embrace the simplicity of the season. to start, i give you mary's song. God's gift was all she needed to make her spirit soar. remember that christ has been mindful of us all, let our spirits also rejoice in this knowledge.

mary's song:

"my soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
from now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the mighty one has done great things for me
holy is his name.

his mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation, he has performed mighty deeds with his arm
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
he has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
he has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
he has helped his servant israel
remembering to be merciful to abraham and his descendants forever
even as he said to our fathers.

merry christmas

hidden tracts

2006-11-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

i love hidden tracts on cds. you think your cd is over and then whoops! another song! the best is when the hidden tract turns out to be your favorite song on the whole cd. the whole cd can be good and then the hidden tract boosts it to great. it's like having an "11" on your amp (any spinal tap fans out there?)

recently i discovered a hidden tract that is undoubtedly my favorite song in the whole WORLD. i know that sounds dramatic, but i'm pretty sure it's true. let me think of all the songs i know, just a sec.....................yep, it's true.

the reason why this song is so good is because i can feel it squeezing my heart. sometimes people or places or speeches or sermons or versus do this, and then they become my favorite. if you want to be my favorite, squeeze my heart.

two people who have been squeezing me for quite some time now are my older sisters. i do not say "older" to make them feel bad. i say older b/c to me that means that they have wisdom that i can gain from. they are both very beautiful people, good mothers, involved, questioning, heart squeezing, both in their own unique ways.

on friday night i had these squeezers over for dinner. what a wonderful time. we were supposed to watch a movie but ended up talking the night away, about politics. usually i save political talks for my brothers-in-law or my dad. we get into these heated debates that do not squeeze my heart but actually almost stop it from beating! though filled with love, sometimes i think we disgust each other. and that is why i'd rather stay away from those types of conversations with my sisters.

but, our conversation remained very respectful. though we all have our own views we were able to talk without anyone dying of heart failure. at one point in the conversation my oldest sister said, "how can we have such different views when we grew up in the same household!?" and it IS strange. how can we feel so strongly about things on such OPPOSITE sides of the spectrum?

it got me to thinking. perhaps these kinds of discussions exist so that we humans will keep hashing it out. whether it's on the senate floor or around your own dining room table these conversations are important. they're important so that one day, Lord willing, we will find answers. and so i ask, "how long Lord, how long?" here's my song "Not too Late" i wish you could hear it:

Till we lay these weapons at your feet, Lord
How long, how long
Till we call all hatred obsolete, Lord
How long, how long
Till we walk like lovers thru Bethlehem
How long, how long
Till the lion lies down with the lamb, Lord
How long, how long

Too late
I know it's not too late
To wrestle with this angel
Higher and higher
Don't let go
Higher and higher
Before we know
How does it end
How does it end
We're all riding on the last train
Trying to find our way home again

Till we wash the blood from the hands of our fathers
How long
We're all sisters and brothers, sons and daughters
How long, how long
Our eyes all shine in different colors we cry, Lord
How long
Our dreams our tears are all the same by and by, Lord
How long, how long

Too late
I know it's not too late
To climb up Jacob's ladder
Higher and higher
Don't let go
Higher and higher
Before we know
How does it end
How does it end
We're all riding on the last train
Trying to find our way home again

It's not too late

#2

2006-11-13T08:18:00.000-08:00

today is number two. two years married. sometimes i can't believe it has been that long. and sometimes i can't imagine not being married, it's as comfortable as my favorite pair of sweatpants, which, if you know me, means a lot.

our second year has not been quite as eventful as our first. no trips to the bush of africa, no buying of new homes, no car accidents, no frantic job searching. i think we took care of a lot in that first year. this year was kind of put on "cruise control" as we rid our stomachs of african bugs, as we settled in to our new home, as we had fun driving our new jeep off-road, as brett got used to his new job, and as i have been trying to finish up school. but, we all know that when cruising you can't just stop paying attention. you may miss something cool as it whizzes by your window. or you may fall asleep at the wheel and crash and burn.

i've kept my eyes open and this is what i have learned about marriage and my husband in this, our second year. first, forgiveness must be instant. it should become almost like a reflex. that is because most things needing forgiveness are petty, small nuisances. if you can't get beyond the petty, then when catastrophe hits your reflexes won't react quick enough. i'm still working on my forgiveness reflex, but i think it is getting quicker by the day. i no longer scream when i see the toothpaste has been squeezed in the middle.

second, brett and i do not see eye to eye on cleanliness. don't get me wrong, brett is not a dirty person. it's just that i like things a certain way, and brett doesn't always necessarily agree with my "certainty." we have our designated chores and it works out pretty well that whoever does the cooking doesn't do the dishes. but, peace is better had when i just do what i need to do and not force brett to organize his drawers. plus, in recent days i've realized that part of my new found love of cleanliness comes from my long stemming hatred of studying.

third, i need to get my ears checked. i say "what" more than anyone i know. i wear headphones every day at work and i think the last five years are catching up to me. communication b/w a husband and wife can really suffer when "what" is said five or six times in one conversation.

fouth, brett needs to create. it used to bug me when brett would draw in church during the sermon. i found it distracting and, i think ,because of my conservative, strict, calvinistic dutch roots, i found it very "disrespectful to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ." But, then i remembered that my Lord and Saviour created brett to create. he thinks best when his hands are moving. i don't always understand his doodles. but i find our conversations about the sermon are much more involved the crazier those doodles are. besides that, brett can get pretty crabby if he hasn't made something in awhile. he recently started (and ended) a painting class. his outlook on life and his attitude towards the everyday was dramatically different. i wish he would paint me something big and red and abstract. but as brett says, "you can't paint abstracts until you learn to paint what you see." thank you, oh wise one of paint.

fifth, my eyes take on a life of their own when i am feeling stress. apparently they roll sarcastically. when i am stressed i must learn to control that roll as it may be misconstrued into me being full of evil thoughts.

sixth, brett is a fine christian man. temptations surround him everyday. i mean c'mon, he works with a group of burly men who gawk at every girl who runs by in spandex! but he finds small ways to share his faith and values in ways that do not insult his coworkers. he chooses not to participate when it would be easier just to give in. these guys question everything he does, but he holds his own and has gained quite a bit of respect. it is very obvious that many of the guys feel "safe" to be themselves with brett. some of them a little "too" safe. he's heard some pretty crazy stories. one man even felt safe enough to bring his sketchbook to work. he wanted to show it to brett after hearing that brett likes art. i thought that was very cool.

i recently had to share my "grace story" with both of my care groups from church. when i got to the "brett part" of my life i summarized it in this way: "many people ask themselves 'what would jesus do?' but i often find myself asking, 'what would brett do?' that may sound horribly wrong, but that is how i know that my husband walks with jesus."

year two. till death do us part. -sn

VOTE!

2006-11-07T09:04:00.000-08:00

VOTE!

leaves

2006-11-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

this is the second fall we have spent our house. and the falling of leaves has twice produced what we call, "leaf disasters." when we first moved into our house it was mid-november. all the leaves had already fallen but the previous owners had not helped to rake any of them up. (i should mention here that we have seven oak trees and one maple tree. there are a lot of leaves that fall from those eight trees!) because we were busy unpacking boxes and settling into our new home, we failed to rake the leaves before the first snow fall. all winter long we would gaze out of our windows and imagine all of those leaves decomposing under that snow, killing our grass. something had to be done.

on the first dry day we went to war on those leaves. we spent an entire day raking, bagging, raking, and bagging. but the leaves won. we were unable to get it all done. we ended up leaving large piles of soggy leaves in the corners of our yard. and, b/c the garbage service doesn't pick up leaves in the winter, we were stuck with all of the bagged leaves as well. come spring we had a lot of dead grass. but worse, we had wet, decomposed bags filled with awful smelling decomposed leaves. it was a mess. and we had to start our raking and bagging all over again.

but with our second attempt came a "tip" from a friend. after telling him of our leaf woes and showing him our empty pockets b/c of numerous bag buying runs to meijer, he told us of a place where we could dump our leaves for free! we immediately loaded our jeep with wet soggy leaves and drove to this dump. we were amazed by what we saw--the biggest pile of leaves a kid could ever dream of. it was obvious that many, many people dump their leaves at the free dump. and some of them are apparently very lazy. interspersed amongst the leaves were many grand rapids yard waste bags, just waiting to be emptied and taken! we don't understand why people would buy the bags, drive them to the dump, and leave them there instead of just putting them on their curb, or taking them back home to re-use. but we consider that their gift to us. i sent brett deep into the leaf pile to collect as many bags as he could so that we could use them. we left with 10 new bags.

now tis our second fall season on hall street. the leaves have fallen. and we had our second epic battle over the past weekend. but this year we were a little more organized. first, the leaves were not wet and buried under snow. and second, we exchanged favors with a friend of ours who lives in E. Grand Rapids. they pay really high taxes so that they can simply rake their leaves into the street and have them whooshed up by a big truck. their favor to us was to allow us to dump about half of our leaves in front of their house.

we raked all day long. almost twenty bags went to our friend's house. and about another ten went to the free dump, where we snagged some more bags left by people who don't understand the concept that buying city bags means that you can put them out on your curb. why people? why?

after almost thirty bags and a whole Saturday spent, we are still not finished taking care of our "leaf disaster." but we're getting there. i filled another four last night and probably have another five or six to go. if i go missing just kick around some of the leaf piles in my back yard. i may be buried there. -sn

the scariest halloween ever

2006-10-31T09:28:00.000-08:00

it was a dark and scary night. the wind was blowing and rattled the trees like the bones of a skeleton. inside the nelson home, the phone started to ring. it rang again. after wiping the spiderwebs from the receiver sara answered and her face went white as the voice on the other end spoke in a low, ominous voice. "147 people are applying for only 80 open spots in the nursing program..."

aaaaauuuuuuuuuuugggggggggggghhhhhhhhh!

i have to be better than 67 people right??

say amen somebody!

2006-10-30T05:42:00.000-08:00

when i was little i woke up to a gospel choir every sunday morning. "say amen somebody" was my mom's favorite record. on the cover were three large black women with big hair, dressed in purple choir gowns, singing their hearts out to the Lord. that same cover was blown up to poster size and hung in every house i've ever lived in. i don't think that moms often hang posters in their homes as it's not one of pottery barn's decorative techniques. but my mom alway put that "say amen somebody" poster right where anyone and everyone could see it.

while the record played my mom would clap and sing around the house:

"nobody told me that the road would be easy. but i can't believe he brought me this far to leave me,"

"the storm is passing over...the storm is passing over...the storm is passing oo-ooo-ver, hallelu,"

"jesus dropped the charges (beat beat beat) jesus dropped the charges!"

these were just some of her favorites. and these were the ones most often played, not just on sundays, but during the week as well. for many years "say amen somebody" was just a common sound in our house and i never really thought much about it

until my mom gave that record to me. the purple ladies with big hair now live in my record collection. my mom bought the cd. (nobody tell her that records are way cooler and sound much better...)

now, "say amen somebody" is a familiar sound in MY house. but the sound is different these days. the words hold more meaning than they did 15-20 years ago. i think that i am finally starting to hear what my mom heard in those songs. you see, when you're little you don't realize how much relief the words "the storm is passing over" can bring. hearing that "jesus dropped the charges" can make you weep with new found freedom. and if jesus can drop the charges, then i better be able to drop them too. and when the road isn't easy, it's good to know that he didn't bring me down that road just to leave me there.

my mom would be happy to know that "say amen somebody" is probably my favorite record. she'd laugh to see me clap and sing around my house just like she did. and i think she'd nod knowingly when i decided to spin those familiar tunes on a wednesday. --sn

ps--i don't want the poster mom :)

degradation

2006-10-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

recently, new jersey granted gay couples some of the same rights as heterosexual couples--rights such as sharing health care benefits and being granted longer visitation rights in hospitals. and talk about the "degradation of american values" has, of course, followed suit. in fact, good ol' W travelled to Iowa to condemn Jersey on their verdict. good one...speak big words while hiding behind some of the most conservitive people on the entire planet.

i have nothing against iowa. i have nothing against new jersey. and i hold the institute of marriage with the highest of respect. i believe that God intended a man and woman to be together. the end. but, do not talk to me about the "degradation of american values" and then add homosexuality to the same sentence. let me tell you a little something about the degradation of american values...

in the last month or so brett and i have witnessed some horrendous behaviour in our neighborhood. i watched someone smash the window of my local mechanic shop and proceed to steel items obviously not belonging to him. brett found a kid hiding under our car after hearing his small posse talk about tampering with a trans am parked at that same mechanic. i watched a young man repeatedly whip a woman with his belt as she followed him, screaming, up my street at 2am. she had no pants on, was bare foot, and it was not warm outside. i do not know why she continued to follow him, but i blame "degradation." and finally, brett watched our innocent young neighbor, the cutest little boy you've ever seen, be hit repeatedly by his caretaker through our window last night. i doubt any of these people live in homes with homosexual parents.

homosexuality does not cause the degradation of american values. sin causes the degredation of american values. and we all live under this same category. maybe it's time to start thinking differently about our values. perhaps our values are suffering because too many of us choose to hide behind our comfort zones. we choose to not see the degrade all around us unless its something so big that we can speak out about it, but not actually have to do anything about it.

i'm not saying i'm perfect. i overlook things all of the time. i often open my mouth to speak without putting any action behind my words. but today, i'm taking a little boy to the library to hopefully give him some relief from the degradation of american values.

in the next week we will have the chance to excercise one of our greatest freedoms, a freedom that millions of people around the world do not have--the freedom to vote. i hope all of you make the effort to vote. and i hope you all vote in a way that advances value--true value. please vote for someone who you believe cares about my little neighor, his single mother who has to work long hours to provide for him, and the blue collar guys who work hard down the street at my local mechanic shop. -sn

i tried to get away with it

2006-10-13T10:09:00.000-07:00

"well, it looks like you've got a twenty-one dollar balance on your card." that was what the librarian said to me when i recently tried to check out a book from the public library. "TWENTY-ONE dollars!" i gasped. "Who has a twenty-one dollar fine on their library card?" she looked up as if to say, "you do."

i did not recognize probably 12 books on the list the librarian printed out for me. i had not been to the library in years. it did not make sense! i tried to explain that i did not recall checking out most the titles staring me in the face. embarrassingly enough the books that i did remember were all about teenage sexuality. there were titles such as SEX and TEENS, WHAT IS SEX?, TEENAGE SEXUALITY. i had checked them out to do a lesson with some of my youth group girls a few years back, but there is no way the librarian would have known that. plus, little good it did. two years later two of my former teen friends wound up pregnant. sigh...if only they knew about my library fine. perhaps they would have chosen not to "do it."

we went through the whole rigamarole, "did you ever loan your card to someone else?" no. "did you ever lose your card?" no. it's here. "did you ever check out books for another person?" no. "well, then i'm sorry but you will have to pay the fine before you can check out any more books."

at that time, i had no way of paying the fine. so, i left the book on the circulation desk for someone else to enjoy and headed home, wondering how i would break the news to brett. if there is one thing that man hates, it's senseless fines. my palms were sweating even though i did have a reasonable excuse. those books weren't mine!

brett's reaction was as expected. he told me not to pay the fine. the only problem with that solution was that i could never step foot into the library again. the thought of being ban-ish-ed was depressing. that is when i came up with my brilliant idea. i would get a new card with my new name, mrs. sara nelson.

it was a bright saturday morning. the air was crisp. i was whistling a happy tune under my breath as i walked up the street to my neighborhood library. thanks to the internet i knew exactly what i needed to obtain my new card and i had my driver's license and two other form's of ID in hand. i walked confidently to the desk and declared, "i would like to get a library card." and that is when things started to fall apart. the pressure was just too much. the librarian asked me if i had ever had a card before and i could not tell a lie. i had.

i am now out twenty-one dollars, but find myself rich with the words of fine literature.

currently reading:

-sn

2006-10-09T06:35:00.000-07:00

getting wasted

2006-09-29T09:45:00.000-07:00

so last night i was at the Y for my volleyball game (see post below). we actually won fairly easy. this rarely happens. the team we were playing happened to be a new team to the league. we had never played them before, and they were an easy win. so easy, in fact, that i didn't feel like i had gotten enough exercise. so i decided to make use of the Y. I don't have a membership there, but i pay a certain amount to play on a league team. so, sometimes i feel like in order to get my money's worth, i should lift some weights or run a few laps or something (i secretly just want to wail on the punching bag, but i've seen some other people do it and frankly i'm always a little bit embarrased for them). last night i decided to run and then lift. while i was running my one mile i was lapped twice by my parents' friend. right about the second time he passed me was about the same time that i decided to stop. nothing like getting wasted by someone your parents' age. i decided to try my luck with the 8 pnd weights. -sn

bump, set, spike

2006-09-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

one night about four years ago a friend of a friend of mine called me and asked me if i wanted to sub on her volleyball team. i did. and the rest is history. i've been playing with this team ever since, the ever-present sub.

over the years girls have come and gone. some have had babies and miss a season or two. there have been five babies since i started playing with these girls. at least twice a month we are short a player and sometimes we search out subs from the crowd. this is always hit or miss. one night we accidentally asked an 11 year-old girl to play with us. when we asked her she looked a lot older. but, as soon as she started playing her pre-teen akwardness betrayed her. although i must pay credit where credit is due. at one point during the game she was directly across the net from the opposing teams killer spiker. the set was perfect, the enemy's arm was cocked back like a gun ready to fire, the hit was dead on. and that little girl, with her eyes closed tight with fear, jumped as high as she could with her arms straight up. and she blocked that ball right back into the face of the one who hit it. it was awesome. one of our other "crowd recruits" ended up playing with us for an entire season. and that is how we gained our name, the "hodgepodge vollies."

our games are always on thursday night and i look forward to that night every week. it is my one release. sometimes, if i have had a bad day, i find that i slam that ball just a little harder. sometimes i even aim at girls i find annoying. but don't worry. my aim isn't all that great.

there is one girl on my team who has a great kick move. when the ball is just out of her reach, instead of diving for it, she will just stick out her foot and kick it. it's wild to watch. and low and behold that ball will sometimes soar back over the net, much to the surprise of our opponents. the best part is that kicking is allowed! whenever she does this i get the giggles. for the next few plays i'm pretty much useless.

through the years we have played in various school gyms around the city. my first game was at a small middle school on the NE side of town. the drinking fountains were very small and short. so were the toilets. one season i was driving about 35 minutes to get to the games. that season we somehow found ourselves in the "olympic league." the women were HUGE, their arms HUGER. we were basically diving for cover that whole season. now, we play at the new YMCA downtown. the second largest YMCA in the nation. i love playing there.

we have one fan. his name is jimmy. he was the boyfriend of one of our players. now he is her husband. jimmy is a champion runner. in fact, i think that he may be trying to qualify for the olympics or something. sometimes he runs to our games. and when i say that he runs, he runs something like 15 miles. he claps for us when we get points. but, it must be fairly hard for an athlete like himself to watch our team. and that is because...

our record is not that great. in fact, we never win. there may be a game here and there where we get lucky, but for the most part we always lose the set, best out of three. we have this bad habit of playing just under the level of the opposing team. if the team we're playing is awesome, then we play awesome...just a little less awesome than the other team. if the team we're playing sucks, then we suck...and we suck just a little more. it is a weird phenomenon. but win or lose (and mostly its lose) we always have a good time.

the strange thing about my volleyball team is that i barely know these girls. it's true that i have been playing with them for over four years now, but when i think about it, i don't know that much about them. we only see each other once a week for about an hour and we come together for a very specific purpose, to play volleyball. i know that some of them have kids. i know that a couple of them work for bissell. and one or two of them volunteer with the special olympics because they have siblings that participate. but, i know that we are still strangers b/c a couple of years ago, after our game, i said, "well guys, the next time you see me i'll be a married woman." and they all screamed and said, "what?! you're getting married?! you have a boyfriend?!" it's amazing the fun you can have with people you barely know. -sn

phones

2006-09-22T08:41:00.000-07:00

i hate phones. when the phone rings at my house, brett answers it. if he's not home, i usually let it ring. first of all, it is usually not for me. and second of all, there was a period of time when we were getting a lot of collect calls from prison inmates. i thought that it would just be better to let the phone ring than to turn down a prison inmate. now, i'm just in the habit of hiding from the phone.

for many years i carried a cell phone. it seemed like a good choice for a girl living on her own. but, i found that i was always worried about that phone. was it turned off in church? would it ring inappropriately? am i going to crash my car on the s-curve b/c i'm talking on it? i never had any solitude when carrying that phone. any quiet moments i could possibly have were spent with someone's voice chit-chatting in my ear. i also found that the main person i would talk to on my cell phone was brett. i would call him at work. call him on my lunch break. call him on my drive home. and talk to him until the moment he knocked on my front door. couldn't we have just waited to say what we had to say? apparently not.

then brett and i got married. and we were caught in cell phone contract limbo for a whole year. we couldn't get rid of our cell phones unless we wanted to pay the $200 fee for breaking the contract. so, we lived with two cell phones and a land-line (for high speed internet access) for a year. that was a lot of money wasted.

brett and i still have a land-line (for the internet mainly) and one cell phone (for emergencies). i never carry the cell phone. the phone is definately brett's domain. i'm quite content to live life without a tiny box filled with chit-chat in my pocket. i ask brett to carry it with him so that he has a way to call me during the day if he needs too. but, sometimes i wish that we could just get rid of it. but then again, without that phone i would never get calls like the one i just received. the secretary buzzed me and said, "sara? i think it's your husband." she was right. it was brett, and he was singing at the top of his lungs, "I JUST CALLED, TO SAY, I LOVE YOU. AND I MEAN IT FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEARRRRRT." when i laughed and asked him what he wanted he said, "no really, i just called to say...i love you." heh. -sn

you know you're having a bad day when:

2006-09-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

1. you get up extra early to get a seat on the bus and end up standing anyway...just earlier.

2. while opening your yogurt container some of it sprays out onto your pants.

3. said yogurt makes your stomach churn and gurgle really loud during a lecture on different kinds of neurotransmitters.

4. you're listening to a lecture about different kinds of neurotransmitters.

5. the coffee you eagerly bought is too sugary to drink.

6. your hip, newly cut bangs that cost a lot of money hang in your face and bother you so much that you end up holding them back with a bobbypin.

7. the in-between weather makes you feel uncomfortably hot with a sweater and uncomfortably cold without it.

8. it is the 6th gloomy gray day in a row.

9. you fogot to put a belt on in the morning so you're saggin' like a gangsta

10. you discover, ONCE YOU GET TO WORK, that said gangsta pants, previously your favorite pair of jeans, complete with yogurt stains, has a huge hole in the butt.

help me help you

2006-09-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

this november i will (finally) be applying for the nursing program at grand valley. after about three years of finishing up pre-recs i am finally ready to fill out that app. and turn it in. one of the application requirements is a 250 word personal statement that should demonstrate my writing abilities. suggestions for content include: "career and educational objectives, past experiences and accomplishments, as well as any additional information that would be helpful to the Admissions Committee."

i have an advising appointment this wednesday where we will go over my application and my personal statement. tell me what you think. does this even make sense?

Fredrick Buechner once said that the definition of vocation is, “…where my deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger.” It is not often that a twenty-eight year old experiences the earth’s groan. But, in my twenty-eight years I’ve seen the shores of twenty-one different countries. I have taught in a bilingual school. I have helped build homes. I have re-diapered children, tutored math, and spoke of sex and abstinence to teenage ears. I have discussed journalism ethics to eager, young Mongolians. And I have helped treat malaria deep in the bush of Nigeria. I have seen the world’s greatest poverty and its most sickening wealth. I have heard it cry. I know its hunger runs deep.

Here in my own community and in communities all over the world, too many people have unfulfilled dreams. I believe the root of unfulfilled dreams is often poor health. Nursing will combine my gifts of mercy, service and teaching to help people see possibilities amongst the impossibilities that surround them (when they are ill). People whose dreams are big enough begin to make the dreams of others around them come true. I have dreams.

Through a career in nursing I dream of serving the underbelly of my community. I hope to work in a clinic setting after a year or two of hospital experience, using Spanish skills that seem to be slowly fading for lack of practice! I wish to serve those whose hunger is greatest. Until then, I know that I cannot be completely glad.

**for those of you who have read applications of mine before...sorry about the repeated quote and "dream" idea. i've used it like seven times. -sn

fire alarm

2006-09-11T09:10:00.001-07:00

fire safety has always been a part of life. remember grade school fire drills? the alarm would sound, the windows would be closed, kids would line up, and out we would all march to our designated spots out on the school yard. fire alarms were serious business until you reached about the 7th grade. then they became something of a joke. i can remember one time being in history class. my teacher was droning on and on about something historical. i started gazing about the room trying to picture which boy in that class i was to marry and i noticed my friend marcus leaning down and tying the shoelaces of the kid in front of him to his chair. that's when the fire alarm went off. now, this teacher was not known for his calm demeanor. so, when he realized that one of his students was tied to his chair during a fire drill, he kind of panicked. he whipped a knife out of his pocket (all the students gasped) and sliced that kid's shoelaces in half. i remember the laces remained tied to that chair for quite some time. marcus got in trouble. marcus was always in trouble.

when i was a teacher myself, in tegucigalpa honduras, i was the one in charge during fire drills. although, i still did not take them very seriously. i worked in a concrete building. everything was made of concrete. it was not going to burn. the funny thing was, half the student body was instructed to walk behind the school down this "corridor of death" between the school and a high towering wall of very dry mountain grass. if anything was going to burn it was going to be that wall of grass. and once, it did catch on fire. during one of my science lessons one of my students raised his hand and said, "meeeees, the hill. it is burning."

honduras was not known for its fire safety. in fact, one time on the island of utila, a building exploded right before my eyes. and i really mean that it exploded. the roof blew off and a fireball the size of new jersey stretched about a half mile into the air. a gas refrigerator had malfunctioned and sparked and well, i've already told you the rest. there is no fire department on the island of utila. it is only about two miles long. the people are the fire department. villagers came from every nook and cranney of that island carrying a bucket. they formed a line to the ocean and started passing sloshing buckets of water up the hill and to the building. the building was lost. it was near christmas and i remember thinking how eery it was to see a charred reindeer standing above what used to be the door...smoking.

a few years ago i spent a month living and working in worthing, england. i lived right along the english channel and would ride to work along the promenade on a borrowed sqeaky bike every morning, the salty air knotting my hair. sometimes, on my way home, the tide would be out and i could ride where the water once was. those were some muddy rides.

i spent a lot of time by myself that month, drinking in pubs, chatting with people along the promenade, taking the train to brighton's shake shop, seeing movies in the old theatres there, just generally enjoying life in a new environment. but mostly, i was there to work.

i worked in the small office building of one of words of hope's partner organizations. one of my first days there i got a tour of the building and was given a complete run-down of their fire safety procedures. i had to practice wrapping myself in a fire-proof blanket and i had to kick through a door that led to a fire escape. yes, i said kick, as in a karate "hiy-yah!" to this day i do not know if those people were just trying to have a little fun with the new girl or if they were actually THAT serious about fire safety. i do know, however, that every other friday there was a practice drill of sorts and all of the doors would start slamming shut, i was told, to contain the fire. if you happened to be walking through one of those doors when the alarm went off you were likely to lose an arm. i often wondered how i was supposed to get out of the building safely when all those doors were being slammed shut. and who would get to wear the fire blanket if there was a fire? on my tour i was only shown one. i could just imagine the chaos in that building if there ever was a real fire...

and now, the present. i am a homeowner. i am a little more concerned about fire safety. BUT, the previous owner's of my house must have been VERY serious about fire safety. there are fire alarms, sometimes two, in every room. in the kitchen, in the dining room, three in the upstairs hall, one in every bedroom, i think the only room spared is the bathroom, where i often burn candles. anyway, all of them seem to be running out of life all at the same time. they all boast "lasts ten years" but that ten years must be up. every night it seems as if another alarm starts beeping its weeriness. "time to change me" it beeps. once every minute. and we cannot get them to stop! we've taken them down and put them in our basement, hoping to distance ourselves from the beeping. but to no avail. i can still hear them beeping as my husband snores away beside me. i know the reason WHY they are beeping. i am supposed to be annoyed enough to go buy new ones (they aren't battery run so i can't just go pick up a few new batteries). but, i will buy new ones when i am good and ready to buy new ones. for pete's sake, we've got backup in every other room!

last night i just couldn't take it anymore. i was trying to absorb the physiology of nueron action potential and was rudely interrupted every minute by the beep of a fire alarm giving me its false testimony. so, brett gave me permission to do something probably every single one of you has dreamed of doing. i went into the garage and smashed those things to smitherines! i have never felt so satisfied. -sn

my friend melissa

2006-09-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

is a great writer. i've just added her to my "links." check her out. especially you, katy, b/c i think that you should post your stuff somewhere where those of us who love words can read yours... -sn

london

2006-08-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

this crowded, chaotic airport is where i am headed in two days. let's just hope things have settled down before 10am on Sunday morning, my arrival time.

this isn't the first time that terrorism in london has threatened my travel plans. last year, the day before brett and i were to leave nigeria, terrorists struck the underground and those awesome double-decker buses they've got going on over there. we thought we would be delayed, but we weren't. i expect the same this time as well.

but, with each terrorist threat comes less freedom in travel. first, came the knifes and sharp objects rule. no knives on the plane. this one, it seems to me, should have been a rule all along. but, when brett came home from china in 1999 he carried on a sword! that has definately changed b/c once i got caught with a butter knife in my carry-on and i thought i was going to be arrested. i had no idea it was in there and i think the guy had pity on me b/c of the horrified look on my face. "sir, i did NOT know that was in there. i'm so sorry. i don't even know why...." it was just a butter knife, but i FELT like a terrorist. funny thing is, that same year during xmas they let me on with knitting needles... anyway, next came the shoe rule. all shoes have to pass through the metal detectors. this causes major slowdowns, especially during the winter months when people forget to untie. the same is true for belts. i always forget the belt. and now, i have just received a memo telling me that i will not be allowed to carry basically ANYTHING on the plane with me on saturday. no drinks, no lotion, no snacks, no toothpaste, no medication (i like to take melatonin. it helps me sleep.), and it may be likely no books. no books!? what is a person to do for 7 hours? maybe i will just write my own book. but are pens kosher?

my friend sara and i were having a conversation this morning. the last time i went to england i was with her. five minutes into the air i accidentaly pulled a swiss army knife out of my bag while looking for chapstic. "put that away!" she hissed. i must have some weird obsession for carrying harmless small knives with me, b/c i didn't know i had that one either. anyway, during our conversation we realized that now we would have to have the same reaction about the chapstic, b/c it is no longer allowed. "put that away!"

looks like i'm in for another interesting trip. let's just hope that this doesn't happen to me!

just try

2006-08-09T12:25:00.000-07:00

for my job i create radio programs for people who are learning english all over the world. my scripts can be about anything i want. mostly i choose things that interest me. i write about women's rights. i dabble with health issues like the importance of breast feeding, washing your hands, and brushing your teeth (did you know brushing and flossing can help prevent heart disease?). and sometimes i go wild and write about things like seed vaults, winter counts, and the stardust space capsule. but my favorite scripts have to do with the environment.

recently i wrote a script about disappearing rainforests. yes, yes...this topic has been around for awhile now. we've all heard about the thousands of acres that are cut down each day. we all know not to eat mcdonald's hamburgers b/c those cows graze on grass that used to be forest. but, did you know that the amazon, the greatest of all rainforests, is in its second year of drought? and did you know that some scientist performed an experiment in the amazon, covering a football field plot with plastic so that no rain would fall, in essence creating his own drought? you probably don't care and may even think that that scientist had too much time on his hands. but did you know that all of the trees in his experiment died in just three years and that the lush green forest essentially turned into a desert? this scientist projects that further drought in the amazon could lead to the trees releasing ninety billion tons of stored carbon dioxide into the air increasing global warming by fifty percent. yeah...check the forcast. no rain in sight. kind of makes you think that there may be something to trying to save the environment. i, for one, do not want to move to mars.

anyway, i'd really like to be a good steward of my resources. there are numerous ways that i try to do this. some of them are recent and some of them i've been quite anal about for a long time now. but nothing i do compares to this lady. i've just started a new script idea about "ethical man." this guy in the UK has been challenged to live ethically for one year. now, living ethically could mean different things to different people. in fact, when i first discovered this guy i thought he was going to try to be really nice. but for ethical man, ethics means taking care of the environment and lessoning his carbon footprint. he asked people to write in their ideas about how he should live. and this lady wins the prize.

some of her ideas could be easily adapted into our own lives...like using cloth shopping bags. easy! some of her ideas may seem a little extreme. but, perhaps once we all start trying to lesson our impact on the world her methods may start to come a little more naturally...like only taking two baths a week. that is very natural!

now, where can i get myself one of those thermal vests? -SN

update #2

2006-08-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

192 oz.

i can feel water in my arms. it's like my arms almost feel cooler. in fact, all of my insides feel cooler.

haven't had one headache.

my bladder can hold about 16oz of water if i drink it really fast. otherwise less.

i feel a little bit guilty about all the water i'm flushing down the toilet b/c of increased bathroom use. i don't think "if it's yellow let it mellow" would go over too well here at work.

"H2Own It" week update:

2006-07-31T12:02:00.000-07:00

i feel a little sloshy.

H2Own It!!

2006-07-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I've been on a lot of kicks lately, kicks that I want to turn into good habits, like riding my bike, growing vegetables, being friendly, and now...drinking water. recently i've been getting these weird headaches. some of them deny me of peripheral vision for 15 minutes or so. some of them pound that area right above my eyes. others send shooting pains into my ears. and still others make me feel a little bit shaky and sick. but have no fear, i've been to the doctor. he wasn't concerned. he blamed stress which, considering everything that i've got going on right now, COULD be a possibility.

but, i was recently talking to a classmate friend of mine telling her about my headaches. i told her that the doctor thought it was stress. and we laughed together knowingly. but then she got all excited and said, "sara, you just need to drink more water!" apparently she has been experiencing similar headaches, only she's been having them since high school. she said that she read a book about water and discovered that water has been known to CURE people who suffer excruciating migraines. just water. no pills. no gimicks. so, i have self-diagnosed myself as being constantly dehydrated.

i never drink water. it's not that i don't like water, it's just that i like flavor drinks so much more. juice, coffee, coke, lemonade, tea...but i know that these things could never compare to the good affects that water has on my body. so, i've decided to regiment my daily water drinking.

right now i'm just working on the standard 64 oz a day. this is actually pretty difficult. it's really A LOT of water! my stomach feels kind of full and sloshy, kind of like how you feel coming out of lake michigan after a day of swimming in rough waves. but my goal is to drink even more water than this. so what better way to get myself to drink more water than a friendly competition?

that's right. next week is officially "H2Own It" week. i've somehow convinced four people from my office that they need to drink more water too, even though some of them already drink lots of water. so, we are all competing in a water drinking challenge for one week (this is not like "one car week" that week is for helping the environment. this week is for helping my BODY.) we have already drawn charts on the white board in our basement and will start filling them in next week. one nalgene bottle's worth fills one space on the chart. when you finish a bottle you must stand up and declare, "I H2Own It!"

all of us are strategizing about how we will win the offical top prize--a bottle of water. here are some of the strategies thus far:

Me: i come in two hours before everyone else. i plan to get one nalgene's worth before anyone even arrives. to their surprise i will already have filled in part of my chart before they even get here! i also work 10 hour days, three days a week. a lot of water can be drunk (drank?) in 10 hours. some may call this "unfair" i call it me having to get up a lot earlier than the rest so "suck it up."

Josh: he is going to bring in salty chips so that he is more thirsty (this may detract from the "healthy factor" but a strategy IS a strategy...). he also plans on bringing in his camel back. this will give him access to alot of water at all times. this is a good strategy.

Liz: she plans to drink out of a straw. she believes that this makes drinking more fun. perhaps she's right...

Mike: he's new. he probably has some strategies brewing but is still to shy to speak up. either that or he thinks this office is crazy.

Christy: she has a smaller nalgene bottle so can psych us out by saying that she's finished one...when really she has to drink two to be equal. but she may have the psychological advantage.

Courtney: she is new too. she's on vacation this week so doesn't even know about this little challenge. courtney is going to lose.

Already this competition has brought about some great conversation like who pees more, boys or girls? and, who has the smallest bladder? next week is shaping up to be a good one...

-SN

now me...

2006-07-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

my pal sdk did this on her blog b/c her boyfriend's step-sister did it on hers. and now i do it on mine.

1. My home is...begging to be painted green.
2. I am listening to...the clickity clack of other people working. um...
3. Maybe I should...work.
4. I love it when...the sun is going down and i am outside.
5. My best friend...and i are going to scotland in three weeks.
6. I don't understand...why my tub drain won't work. it's not hair...
7. I lost...my virginity.
8. People say...such beautiful things sometimes that they make me weep.
9. The meaning of my blog name is...describing michigan weather 11 months out of the year.
10. Love is...the way brett and i greet each other after a long day of work.
11. Right now, somewhere, someone is...stepping on a landmine. not everything can be happy...
12. I will always...love my parents.
13. Once upon a time...i never looked back.
14. I never want to...drink fermented mare's milk again!
15. My personal motto is...do what is right, even if it is really hard.
16. When I wake up in the morning...i scratch my arms.
17. I get annoyed when...i know i'm being annoying.
18. People always...do that.
19. I sing...at my desk with my headphones on. sometimes i think my co-workers give me funny looks.
20. Hugs are the best when...they come with sweet kisses.
21. Today I...counted my tomatoes
23. Tomorrow I will...count them again.
24. I really want...to be on the show, "so you think you can dance." first step, dance lessons.

one car week

2006-07-24T05:56:00.000-07:00

awhile back brett and i read an article in the spark (or was it the banner?) about a couple who has no car. instead the pair invested in a couple of good bikes, a carrier for their kids, and saddlebags. now, they do all of their chores by bike. only in case of an emergency do they rent a car. and it's not like this couple lives in florida or southern cali where the weather is cooperative. they live in colorado, where it snows and gets really really cold sometimes.

in today's age i think this is one of the most admirable things you can do. so admirable, in fact, that brett and i have decided to take small steps to mirror their ways. we're holding our first "one car week." we're going to see how we manage with just one car. i think it will be pretty easy. and once we know for sure how easy it is we hope that our "one car week" extends into further weeks. heck, we may even try a "no car week." -SN

UPDATE ON "ONE CAR WEEK"--well, as luck would have it, the weather for today, the first day of "one car week" and the day i rode my bike to work, is calling for severe storms and possibly even tornados. i'm grounded b/c of the rubber bike tires right?

a season for every activity under the sun

2006-07-11T17:11:00.000-07:00

a time to be born and a time to die.

last night i received a call from the sister of my good friend. the wires carried her soft shaky voice through my receiver and into my unbelieving ears. my friend's baby, unborn, had died, just two weeks before the world waited anxiously to greet her. on the third of july this little girl stopped moving in her secret place and her mother, who had gotten to know her intimately, carried her, fed her, supplied her oxygen for nine months knew something was wrong. she went to the hospital and delivered. besides experiencing the pain of birth she now is experiencing a deeper pain, a harsher pain, the pain of loss. i have never delivered a baby...but i know that the pain she's feeling now hurts worse b/c i can feel it too.

after hearing the news i felt like i needed a little air. i made my way outside where i was immediately greeted by my neighbor. he asked me to come over to meet his new son. you see, on the third of july, the same day my friend lost her baby, my neighbors rushed to the hospital. it was two weeks before their baby was due, just like my friend, and there had beed trouble, just like my friend. only during their trip there was an emergency c-section, a cord wrapped around a small fragile neck, a dangerously low heart rate, and the cry of life from a 5 lb baby boy named timothy. in the same ten minutes i experienced death and held the hand of new life.

a time to grieve and a time to dance.

god's ways are mysterious. but i trust him b/c he is THE ONLY ONE who in the same breath as death, killing, tearing down, crying, grieving, scattering, losing, tearing, hate, and war offers me LIFE, HEALING, REBUILDING, LAUGHTER, DANCING, GATHERING UP, EMBRACING, MENDING, LOVE, and PEACE.

Ecclesiates 3:1-8

thanks to my kick ass memory...

2006-06-30T05:52:00.000-07:00

i got a straight A in anatomy!!! i think i deserve a mint chip ice cream cone...

after destressing for one week, suffering two ocular migraines involving loss of VISION, and one doctors visit i have already started my next class, developmental psychology. now, you think this would be interesting. but, if you have a professor who talks like molasses for three hours and twenty minutes you might think differently. i'm not kidding about the molasses. the first day of class i did not even fill one page of notes...after three hours and twenty minutes! not only does he talk very slow and with a horrible, horrible michigan accent, but he goes on very random tangents for very long periods of time. yesterday's tangeant: a replay of the conversation he had with his daughter the night before about who would win in a fight--the colour kids from rainbow bright or the care bears. his conclusion: the my little ponies would probably come in and kick ASS (only it sounded like aaaaaaaass b/c of his nasal tendencies). who cares! why are you telling us this? keep your stories and let me out earlier!! give me anatomy and crazy amounts of memorization any day...

-SN

world cup from a distance

2006-06-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

this is my cousin's blog. he's whoopin' it up with his wife at the world cup
http://markandlisaworldcup.blogspot.com/

it started as a vision...

2006-06-20T12:28:00.000-07:00

i have not had a real yard since i was ten years old. i grew up in the city and city life doesn't have much to offer as far as yards go. you usually only have enough grass to tight rope walk on and you have to share that small green strip with your neighbors. and since moving away from home i have always rented, meaning that if there was grass it did not belong to me.

but now i own my own home and it came with enough grass to stretch out on, and in the city no less! brett and i moved into our house in november and during those long, cold, gray days of winter i dreamed about my yard. i made "plans" for the yard.

my first plan was to build a box garden. i have always wanted to grow my own vegetables. i think that someday, when the oil runs out, we will all have to be gardeners...so, i'm just getting a head start. i looked up on-line the materials i would need and then i headed over to home depot. i love that place. the people are really helpful and they cut wood for you. not only that, but they did all of the measuring for me. i'm a horrible measurer. i think the people at home depot were just as excited about my raised garden as i was. how could you NOT be excited about a raised garden? it took me about an hour and a few helpful screws from brett and wa-la. i was finished. (i just realized that perhaps that sentence didn't sound very prudent. this post has taken an X-rated twist. shield young eyes).

when the weather started to warm up i went to a garden center and chose my seeds. i planted them carefully and stood over them every night pleading them to grow.

at first i could not tell the difference between something edible and a weed. but now brett and i often add to our meals with produce grown from the sweat of my own brow. feast your eyes on......success.

my second plan was to make our yard look somewhat decent. as you can see from the pictures below there was just a lot of, what may look like to you, ugly dirt spaces. but to me, that dirt was SOIL.

my uncle owns a nursery in holland and brett did some web work for him. we decided to be paid in plants. and paid we were. last weekend we bought enough plants and flowers to compete with the jones'. we spent all day sunday digging and planting and transplanting.

during the dig we unearthed a plastic jesus. we planted him under our boxwood. you never know when a plastic jesus will come in handy when you live in a neighborhood caught in the cross-fire.

what started as a vision now fills my belly...as any good vision does. -SN

*sorry that some of the pictures are hard to see. you'll just have to stop by...

don't do it

2006-06-20T12:27:00.000-07:00

never buy asperagus in a can. the end.

by the skin of our teeth

2006-06-07T04:55:00.000-07:00

brett and i do not live on one of the five streets that make up the ghettos of grand rapids. but we do live in the heart of the city very near to some of those streets. in the last few days or so there have been five shootings within blocks of my home. that's not to mention the sixteen other southeast side shootings that have occurred since January. some area pastors have had the idea to start walking the streets more, getting to know the neighbors. residents are pleading for police to have a greater presence in the area, young, black, male residents. i hope the police listen to them. i'm not afraid of being shot. and i'm not afraid to continue to jog, bike, and walk through the streets of my neighborhood. in fact, perhaps i will join those pastors and do these things more so that i can be a positive presence too. i care about those streets.

in other news...brett and i went backpacking in Ludington last weekend. apparently, officials caught an alligator in the area. we will continue living by the skin of our teeth. -SN

*for the record, i do not have skin on my teeth.

i think they taught me the wrong words

2006-05-19T05:08:00.000-07:00

remember that charming little song you learned when you were a youngin' teaching you about the bones in the body? you know the one...

the hip bone's connected to the leg bone. the leg bone's connected to the ankle bone. the ankle bone's connected to the foot bone...and on and on all the way down to your toe bones.

well, that song got it all wrong. i've just learned the real words are:

the greater sciatic notch articulates with the proximal head of the femur. The distal medial condyle of the femur articulates with the proximal tibial tuberosity of the tibia. The tibia articulates with the talus...and on and on all the way down to your V distal phalanx.

anatomy is proving to be interesting but challenging. the amount of information that i have to cram into my head in six weeks is quite astonishing really. i'm pretty sure that every student in my class is living, eating, and breathing anatomy right now. i find myself in the shower saying things like, "huh, i bet the fully keratinzied dead squamus cells of the epithelial tissue making up the stratum corneum my epidermis are really coming off now!" and when i'm going up the stairs i repeat, "flexion, extension, flexion, extension." i know! it's a little bit nerdy.

anatomy is so all consuming right now that the best part of my week was when the girl sitting next to me dropped her coloured pencil. We sit in this HUGE lecture hall. The floor slants downward towards where the professor stands. Her pencil, quite amazingly, kept missing peoples' feet. It just kept rolling and rolling. We could hear it rolling, we just couldn't see it! soon about 5 or 6 rows ahead we see this guy bend over to pick up her green pencil. he turned around to hand it to the person sitting behind him. the girl next to me had to stand up and call out, "um...that's mine." ha. maybe you had to be there...or maybe you just have to be taking a 6 week course of anatomy to appreciate the hilarity. -SN

my relationship with the symphony

2006-05-15T07:20:00.000-07:00

on friday night i attended a wonderful pops performance by the grand rapids symphony. i love going to the symphony. over the past few years i've attended quite a few times. i've seen them perform mahler and elijah. i've enjoyed outdoor performances at the picnic pops. i've sat in the very front row, in the nose bleed sections and lots of places in-between. i've even been to a party at the conductor, david lockington's, house where everyone was invited to take part in a group floss using one long piece of string. it was a strange party.

though i've been to the symphony many times, i have never once paid for it. that is thanks to my friend jennifer. jennifer was my old housemate at 227 morris (227...like the show). jennifer lived across the hall from me for four years. our cats were playmates (or rather my cat annoyed her cat) and my kitchen sink would gargle every time she used hers.

jennifer is a character to say the least. she is a naturalist. she does not believe in doctors but rather in finding the strangest most bizarre home remedies harvest health has to offer. she once had me laying on her table with a flaming beeswax candle standing straight out of my ear, "to clear the wax", she said. she used to give herself liver and kidney cleanses which involved eating nothing and drinking only certain types of fruit juice which were rid of by her self-performed enimas. apparently this would clear stones. she saved some of her stones in a baggie and showed them to me. jennifer always had some crazy conconction brewing on her stove and she made homemade cat food for her cat. needless to say i was buying double the amount of cat food at that time since her cat wasn't crazy about the homemade stuff and my cat's food was readily available to him.

one year at tax time jennifer came into my apartment and declared that she had made a whoppin' $9000 that year. i wondered how she survived as i cooked up dinner for the two of us...oh.

jennifer never had many friends that she would see regularly. in fact, if i had to name her best friend i would have to say that it was the grand rapids public library. if she wasn't home i knew she was there. she always had stacks of books in her room ready to read, many of them natural health books. she rented movies and cds and tapes to learn new languages. bosnian was her language of choice. one time at 4am i heard some commotion coming from her apartment. i climbed out of bed only to find her JAMMING to some 80s hits cd in her apartment. she couldn't sleep, she said. i offered my condolences and told her to keep it down.

jennifer loves pretending she is in a different country. whenever we would go anywhere together she would say things like, "let's pretend that we're in italy," or "it seems just like we're in eastern europe." jennifer is never HERE.

jennifer is one of the kookiest people that i've ever met, she is also one of the kindest. she doesn't have a bad thought about anyone. and she was a good friend to me during some difficult times. she has taught me a lot about friendship and patience and...health! i enjoyed my years being jennifer's neighbor.

jennifer and i are no longer neighbors. she lives in lansing now where she is working towards her masters in esl. but this last weekend she was in town and she invited me to the symphony. you see, jennifer freelances for the grand rapids press entertainment section. she often covers the symphony and she has been inviting me along, and quoting me (!) for the last four years.

my relationship with the symphony is my relationship with this wonderfully unique individual. -SN

PS. after returning home from the symphony on friday night i witnessed a very blantant drug deal on my corner outside of my house. i SAW the little baggie filled with its "white gold." i tried so hard to remember a plate # but for the life of me...just couldn't. they got away this time, but i'm watching. and next time i'll have a pen!

it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it

2006-05-15T05:34:00.000-07:00

i always knew he didn't belong in an office. i guess you could consider this brett's "new" office.

props to the photographer...mwa. also, remember when the sky was blue? that was awesome. -SN

i want someone to pay for them

2006-04-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

ok, ok...don't give me your money. give your dollars to this instead. stories like this make it hard for me to breathe. i recently read a book called "hungry planet--what the world eats." the book described what families from around the world eat and how much they spend on food in one week. one of the families was from sudan, now living as refugees in chad. they spend $1.24 (in chad's currency) on food a week for a family of EIGHT. in american dollars that is equal to about $24. kinda makes you think about the way we so carelessly throw down a bag of m & m's without a second thought...

i want someone to pay for me

2006-04-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

so today at work i had this brilliant idea to start searching around for someone to pay for my nursing tuition. there has to be SOMEONE out there who wants to give me money to be the best that i can be, right? during my search i came across this news report:

"Grand Rapids - Life just got a lot easier for 23 students just starting an accelerated nursing degree program at GVSU. They were stunned to learn today the state will pay their tuition. They each will receive $10,000 to pay for their program."

i will be starting that program NEXT year. i missed $10,000 by four measly classes. life did not just get easier for me.

i recently heard another report about some young man who is trading a brand new house for a paper clip. he started with the paper clip. someone traded him the paper clip for a pen, the pen for a doorknob, the doorknob for an empty keg of beer, the empty keg of beer for a snowmobile (that person doesn't know what trading means), the snowmobile for a trip to canada, the trip to canada for a recording contract, and the recording contract for a year's worth of free rent in some lady's apartment in arizona. he hasn't got the house yet...but he is well on his way. that kid is a genious.

there are tons of stories out there of people who make a quick million on the internet. they leave many people thinking, "how can i make a quick million on the internet?" well, i don't want a million. i only want about $10,000. and i'm not even going to spend it on something fun, unless you think that pathophysiology and microbiology are equivilant to riding a rollercoaster or taking a trip around the world...

i've decided to start a "help pay sara's tuition one dollar at a time" fund. hopefully i will reach $10,000 by May of next year. i'm not as savvy as the young lad mentioned above. i'm not trading anything for the dollar. i'm just taking the dollar and putting it in my pocket for a year until my school comes a knockin'. i mean, i guess if you want a paperclip...i could trade you. i think i have some right here in my desk drawer.

if you would like to donate a dollar to my fund, tell me. somehow we'll get in touch so as not to offer up all of our private information on this here blog. or maybe i will set up some sort of button where you can donate. maybe brett knows how to do that. anyway, it's a good cause. i'm a good kid who just wants to do nice things for other people, like help that two year old i saw in nigeria last summer who was so malnourished that he failed to develop properly. the soft spot on his head had never hardened over...it had started to rot. flies gathered on it. he only wieghed probably 30 pnds and was so weak that he never learned to walk. isn't that worth a dollar?

-SN

schipperke

2006-04-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

on my way home from work yesterday i was trailing a green mini-van. surrounding the license plate was one of those plastic things displaying a message. Brett's grandma has one. it says, "happiness is being swedish."

now, on a normal day i would not almost cause an accident trying to get close enough to one's bumper so that i could read their cheesy license plate message. but this particular one, on the green mini-van, caught my eye. it caught my eye b/c i saw my own last name on it "schipper." but attached to the back of schipper were two simple letters "ke" SCHIPPERKE. The entire message said, "I love my schipperke." I was very curious as to what this message meant. were the passengers of this green mini-van schipper's too? did they know some schippers? was schipperke just their cute way of saying my last name?

i arrived home and told brett. he wasn't as excited about it as me...probably b/c he's never had to give up his own last name before. it was kind of a tragic experience for me b/c my name was...well, it was my NAME. for twenty-seven years schipper was my name. i had nicknames like skip, skippy, and skipster b/c of that last name. so when i see it on somebodies plastic license plate message, i guess i am a little more curious than most.

as i was explaining it to brett i remembered that there were small paw prints surrounding the message. suddenly it dawned on me that schipperke was this person's DOG. "well, that's a cute name," thought i. then a second wave of dawning came over me and i asked brett to google "schipperke." and sure enough, this is what i found. this, my friends, is a schipperke:

probably the world's ugliest dog. i mean c'mon...where's his tail?

-SN

motorcycle diaries

2006-04-05T04:45:00.000-07:00

the best way to travel around the bush of nigeria is to use a "machine," a motorcycle. the missionaries, when they arrive in country, receive a pretty sweet dirt bike. this machine was MADE for the bush. it can cross rivers, shimy up hills, and challenge some of the deepest pits of mud. so, while we were there, brett and i had many motorcycle adventures. we would borrow one of the missionary's machines and take off towards the horizon. b/c i don't know how to control a motorcycle i would always ride on the back of brett's. on our first ride i was so scared that i wouldn't let brett speed up past a putt-putt. yeah, that never really changed either.

on our rides we would see the most amazing things--small gatherings of huts, huge expanses of sky, women balancing all their belongings on their heads while breastfeeding their little one. children would run after us yelling, "Bature!" White people! Can you imagine if that happened here? what would happen if i started chasing down black people yelling, "Black person!" probably nothing good. but we didn't mind. it was definately a term of endearment there.

one day brett and i took a ride out to a distant field. many of the village men were working the same field that day. this is called an "ibana." eveyone works in one person's field to clear away the weeds. it's too big a job for just one man. and all the men expect the same help when they need it. we had heard that the men will sometimes play a drum while they work, to keep up their spirits in the hot blazing sun. i wanted to see it. brett wanted to film it. so off we went. a man had tried to show brett the way. but how do you keep track of directions in the bush? left at the fork in the path, right at the bush with one broken branch, when you see the big tree head straight for it. these were the directions we were working with. we got lost. but after about an hour of searching and passing the same fork in the path, we finally found the field. the men were not playing a drum, but they seemed to be working to some inner beat that moved them all in the same sort of swaying rhythm. it was beautiful. they were very curious to see what brett was doing with his camera. when they saw their own pictures, some of them just couldn't stop smiling. that was a good ride.

we had many great rides...all adventures. but one in particular sticks out in my mind. it happened the day that our missionary friend took us out to see his old village. it was one of the most remote villages where World Missions sent missionaries. he had lived there for years -- alone. he said those were some of the hardest years of his life. he wanted to show us his house. so, we borrowed the nigerian pastor's NEW machine. he was a friend of the missionary and would probably never say no to him. but we could tell it was difficult for him to give up his new bike. to top it off...brett and i were the ones having to ride this bike. there is a big difference b/w a nigerian machine and a missionary machine. the missionary machine has thick tires. they are built for dirt paths. the nigerian machine looks more like a moped. skinny tires. the nigerians ride them flawlessly, weaving in and out of bushes, into and out of rivers, always arriving safely back home. but we white people are not as skilled. especially when you stick TWO white people on the same machine. brett and i climbed on that bike and our knees were practically touching our chins. we looked like the characters straight out of the movie "dumb and dumber." but we were good sports...so off we went. the missionary, on his dirt bike, flew ahead of us. we tried to keep up but couldn't. we were left only to follow his dust and the tracks he left in the dirt. once in awhile we would catch a glimpse of his gleaming white helmet off in the distance. but we could never catch up to it. through every river we would stall. through every pit of mud we would spin out and get stuck. we never made it up a hill without having to push the bike. it was a rough ride. after about an hour we caught up with the missionary who had stopped to wait for us. we pulled up along side of him, thankful for the small rest. that is when he handed me the rocks. he had a handful of rocks he had collected and he dumped them into my hands. "these are for the dogs," he said. then he took off...

"the dogs?" I said. great. just great. i climbed back onto the bike and prayed to God that he would give me good aim! we took off and could hear dogs barking in the distance. we had to cross a large open field that was soupy from the afternoon rain. we stalled right in the middle of that field, sunk in mud up to our knees. i knew that we were gonners. i pleaded with brett to get the bike started. he ferociously kicked at the kick-start. it seemed like forever before we heard the soft purr of the engine starting up. we pushed ourselves out of the mud and continued on. no dogs. we went through a small village surrounded by their tall growing guinea corn. we could hear the dogs making their way through the stalks. i tucked my feet up a little closer to my body, grasping those rocks, ready to take a shot. then, we were there. we had arrived at our destination...never seeing one dog.

we had a lovely time in that village. we met some wonderful people. we ate day-old guinea corn. we crossed a river in a leaky canoe. we let kids try on our helmets. but then, alas, it was time to go. i rode home the same way i came-- with my knees tucked up under my chin, clutching sweaty rocks. -SN

yawn..........stretch

2006-03-27T09:21:00.000-08:00

i've been a pretty lazy blogger lately. sorry to my mom and my sister...the only people who read this thing. i figure that if i don't have anything burning to write about, then maybe i should just keep quiet. this isn't necessarily "burning" but these are the top ten things that i have learned about riding the city bus:

1. eating an apple on the bus is not a good idea. the windows do not open and you will be stuck holding a sticky apple for the whole ride.

2. pulling the stop for someone else is not helpful unless they specifically ask you to. you may misunderstand where you think the person is trying to be. if no one gets off the bus driver gets really pissed.

3. owning an ipod is cool. i don't own an ipod...but i sure am jealous of all of those people that do.

4. laughing at other people's conversations which you are not involved in is never a good idea... even if it is about a david copperfield magic show which you have seen yourself. they will think that you are a stupid eavesdropper.

5. asking people to move their feet if they have their legs stretched out across a few seats could cause you embarrasment in the future. while it may seem rude and unfair at the time...it COULD be that the next day when you see that same person on the bus...they may be on crutches and you will feel very sorry that you asked them to move the day before.

6. bus drivers are humans too

7. cross word puzzles are a good way to pass time on the bus.

8. trying to do a cross-word if you do not have a seat and are standing should not be attempted unless you have three hands.

9. the bus shelters do not keep you warm or necessarily dry.

10. not having to wait for your second bus on a cold day is better than winning the lottery.

it's kind of striking...

2006-02-23T04:41:00.000-08:00

i like to think about the progression of the human journey. i have recently been reading about the genographic project, the mapping of human genes. scientists believe, as well do i, that humans, all humans, have their roots in africa. through time people began to migrate, DNA structures started to change with the climates, and soon those different DNA structures started to mix.

while i was in africa it was hard for me to grasp that the people around me were still living in grass huts and farming with the same tools their ancient ancestors used. most of the people in the village had no idea that someone had landed on the moon. their response when told was, "those bature, they can do anything." bature meaning white people. when i would hear that i would often think about my own land, my home, with her high-rise buildings, air-craft filled skies, creamy lattes, mini-coopers, sleep numbers and pogo sticks. It was hard for me to imagine just how all of that came to be! it wasn't that long ago when our people were living in huts of their own.

isn't it striking how similar the two pictures are, how connected our cultures used to be? that is why it is sometimes hard for me to believe that i live the way that i do and the people in idaci village in northern nigeria live the way that they do. how, in just over 200 years did this happen?

by the way, brett took that first picture while we were in nigeria. isn't it beautiful? there are more here.

XX

2006-02-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

many of you many not be aware of this, but i am a HUGE olympics fan. huge. i love watching the events and getting to know the athletes. i cry at each and every personal athlete story shared before an event. like the guy from austria whose wood-working father chopped down a tree on their own land. he fashioned a piece of that tree into the design of his son's skiis. That way his son would have a piece of home with him as he hurled down the slopes at mind-numbing speeds. or, the only ethiopian athlete who had to convince his country that cross-country skiing was something worthwhile to support. he hopes to win the gold. or the 53 year old woman bobsledder from the virgin islands who recently crashed, injuring herself. she will not longer be able to compete. by the end of the two weeks i feel as if i know all of the athletes personally and i love them all dearly.

there are many tense moments being an olympic fan. did you see bode miller get disqualified in the slalom? did you SEE that apollo anton ohno didn't even QUALIFY for the final short-track speed skating competition? he won the gold at the last olympics so this was very disappointing for him, for me, for all americans. and did you hear that michelle kwan had to drop out of the competition b/c her past injuries have prevented her from feeling fully prepared? she said she respected the olympics enough to drop out and give someone else a chance. with that, she earns my respect. i hope to see her on my box of wheaties despite not ever winning the gold. and what about the flying carrot (oops...i mean tomato. thanks brett)? this US hopeful almost let us down on the half-pipe. but, with his charming personality he still would have won this fan's heart.

speed skating is my favorite sport to watch. it is like watching water. it is beautiful and it is graceful and it is fast. the competitors flow in and out of each other like waves moving in and out from the shore. there is a lot of strategy involved and it always comes down to a photo finish. it is so intense that sometimes i have to hide my eyes. i was very disappointed when apollo did not qualify. the only negative about being a speed skating fan is that you have to stay up very late to watch the competitions. ice skating is always first.

ice skating is my least favorite event to watch even though i've watched every round. the chinese are looking good this year as do the russians, but that goes without saying. it's funny how all ice skaters kind of look russian isn't it? the only benefit of keeping up with ice skating are the stories. you've got the chinese rising up despite communism. in the past the athletes had to learn to skate by sneaking a peak at photographs of american skaters. then you've got the russians who always have endured some sort of hardship to reach olympic ice. then you've got the american skaters who try to portray themselves as bad-asses. last night was a classic example. i don't remember the kid's name b/c he is the new "hopeful" this year. his skating was unbelievable. beautiful. he was dressed like a swan and really had me convinced that he was one. the ugly duckling blossoming into the beautiful swan. it was funny to hear him try to portray himself as a "rebel skater." sorry kid, no rebel dresses like a swan...and can actually move like one.

there are about a week of events left. if you haven't stopped by the games yet this olympic season i suggest that you do. join me in cheering for apollo as he will get another chance at gold. see if rebel bode miller will actually get the gold the media says he deserves. and will those reporters ever leave him alone b/c he's not as good as they keep saying he is? watch the swan. gasp as you watch the borders on the half-pipe and realize that they are only 15, 16, 17 years old. listen to the stories. cry as you watch the medal ceremonies. be proud that the world can still come together every four years for this peaceful event. let it give you hope for the every day world we live in. -SN

i heisted this...

2006-02-14T07:23:00.000-08:00

took this from someone else's blog. in the nelson home we wear long-underwear, hats, and scarves. we bundle ourselves in afgans and cuddle under down comforters. as we speak, my husband sits at his home-office computer wearing a poncho made of llama wool from ecuador. my home is heated to a cool 63 degrees. we keep the temps low for various reasons. as most of you know, gas prices are outrageous. they are outrageous b/c gas is a fast-dwindling resource. brett and i try our best not to be part of the problem. also, seeing if you can beat last month's gas bill is a fun game. b/c of my competitive nature i WILL NOT be the one to break down and turn up the heat (although, brett will tell you differently and he's probably not lying. but, i would be turning that sucker up as soon as i stepped in the door if it weren't for our little game. i can usually hold off until about 7pm). but, perhaps there is another reason why we do not hike up the heat. Garrison Keillor explains...

The character-building properties of sweaters
January 24, 2006

"I wake up and bounce out of bed in a pleasant mood and then notice that I can see my breath. There is frost on the bathroom mirror and a thin sheet of ice in the toilet. So I trot downstairs and turn up the thermostat. I like the house to be cozy, as if we had a blazing fire in each room, but I am married to Nanook of the North, who feels that in a world of finite resources a person of character can put on a warm sweater and be comfortable at 58 degrees; the house does not need to re-create the womb. The furnace rumbles in the basement, and I make coffee and fetch the paper. Then she appears in the kitchen in her woolens and says, "The thermostat was set at 85. Do we have elderly people coming for breakfast?" I explain that I had found the thermostat set low - did the stock market crash during the night? Have we become paupers? "Put on a sweater," she says. "It's not Poland, 1938," I say.

"Poland, 1938" is our code term for poverty. The closest I came to it was in 1967, when my first wife and I moved into her parents' basement, a room with a concrete floor and joists above with heating ducts snaking around, and sponged off them for a few months so I could try writing fiction. My mother-in-law Marjorie was the soul of kindness and never intimated by word or raised eyebrow that this arrangement was anything but normal. I think back on that with gratitude and amazement. Parents: the Guggenheim Foundation of First Resort. I hope I said thank you to Marj and Gene. But a 25-year-old can have a large sense of entitlement. When I think back to 1967, I feel good and guilty.

I felt guilty about it again last Sunday morning. In our church we kneel for confession, and there's not room between the pews for a tall man to kneel comfortably (and why should confession be comfortable?) so you must fold yourself up and twist into position - it's like trying to make love in the back seat of an old VW - and by the time you get to the things you have left undone, such as saying thank you to your in-laws 40 years ago, your lower back hurts. And you have left out a lot of bad stuff. We read the confession at a good clip, which is fine for the aged and infirm, but for me, a man with a good memory, there is a backlog of material. How can you sweep all of life's nastiness under the line "Forgive us for that which we have done" and feel absolved? We should hand out worksheets, with plenty of space under Lust and Pride and Anger and Covetousness and Others, for people to write out their recollections and use the back of the sheet if they need more space.

I suppose we trot through the confession because our sins are such dreary stuff, small potatoes, a snarky comment here, some low-grade neglect, some vague lustful thoughts triggered by lingerie ads, nothing heroic like Clytemnestra shacking up with Aegisthus after Agamemnon sailed off to the Trojan War, then she and the lover offing Ag with an axe, only to be done in by Ag and Cly's son Orestes, meanwhile Electra has gone nuts - this sort of thing is rare up here on the frozen tundra.

Not that we are better people. But maybe turning the thermostat down is how we put the damper on our darker tendencies. Nanook may be onto something. If you learn nothing else from great literature, at least you learn that the nicest people are capable of the darkest deeds. If you don't know that, then you are not a functioning adult. Perfectly lovely, well-behaved children active in church groups suddenly show up in the paper, accused of heinous crimes. Blame it on secular schools, if you like, or video games or high sugar consumption. But it may be that the thermostat was kept too high. Heat relaxes the inhibitions, and soon you start to think about stealing from your mother and getting hopped up on happy dust. It doesn't matter that you went to Sunday school regularly. The heart wants what it wants.

So chill, children. Put on a sweater. When tempted, go outdoors and lie in the snow and make angels."

© 2006 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, INC.

he sounds pissed!

2006-02-10T14:55:00.000-08:00

my husband is often a soft spoken man. once my observant little niece noted to her mother that she liked the sound of brett's voice...that he sounded gentle. but not today's ladies and gentlemen. today he had FIRE in his belly.

kiss your wife for me

2006-02-09T07:46:00.000-08:00

awhile back i had the wonderful opportunity to dine and discuss with paul rusesabugina. the movie "hotel rwanda" is based on his life. if you haven't seen the film yet, i really suggest that you do. paul has an amazing story.

i'll admit that when i arrived at the dinner i was feeling a little nervous. it was a little difficult for me to think about discussing something as heavy as genocide over green beans and potatoes. how do you act around someone who has lived through genocide? what do you say to a person who's bravery saved the lives of over 1,000 people? how do you ask questions about such a subject so as not to sound ignorant or tacky? i was able to calm down considerably as the dinner progressed b/c i realized that paul is just a man. he is just a man who did what he had to do.

i often wonder how i would act in similar circumstances. would i run and hide? or would i act? while i was watching the movie "hotel rwanda" i felt a little hopeless for myself. paul was such a super hero! he was so brave and strong. but dining with paul helped me to realize that super heros are human too. superman is just clark kent under that blue cape.

paul was very charming, laughing and telling jokes. he made everyone at the table feel at ease. he was filled with such hope for his country that it made me feel hopeful for my own. by the end of the night i felt as if i had known paul for a long long time. in fact, perhaps i felt a little TOO comfortable b/c i ended the night by asking him to kiss his wife for me. after a second thought i said, "well, you know, at least greet her for me." and paul said, "i will do all that you ask of me." ha ha. that paul...

state of the union

2006-02-02T09:49:00.000-08:00

pres. bush gave his state of the union address the other night. i didn't watch it. instead i've been keeping my eyes on a couple of other world leaders who have caught the world's attention through some fairly unheard of tactics. i do not know much about these leaders. they may very well be jerks. but sometimes actions speak louder than words. and every so often a sweater speaks louder than words. i present, Evo Morales, the new president of Bolivia.

this man has been travelling around the world meeting other world leaders in this sweater, made by his native people. he himself is an indigenous farmer who has vowed to change his country for the better. to start, he promises to cut his own salary in half. members of the parliament and other top officials will also have to cut their salaries b/c no person can be paid more than the president. the money saved will go to social programs. in a country like bolivia that money will go a long way. washington is afraid of morales and is keeping a watchful eye on him b/c he has long admired the country of cuba and will visit there. well washington, you better watch me too b/c i have always wanted to visit cuba myself!

next, may i present, president ellen sirleaf johnson, the new leader of liberia.

the first thing this woman did was to hold a party for children. the second thing she did was speak about rape in her inaugural address, a taboo subject, something she herself endured and wants to stop. the third thing she did was sack every person working in liberia's finance ministry. they were corrupt and they were embarrasing her country, she said. she has promised to fight corruption from the top down...and she means it. a lot of these guys were pretty pissed to lose their jobs. pres sirleaf happily told them they could reapply and go through some extensive training. however, if they didn't meet the mark, she wasn't going to rehire them. ha.

pres. bush...the state of your union is kind of a disaster. i mean, thank you for mentioning plans to reduce the use of oil. thank you for talking about the environment at all! but, if your promises about the environment are anything like your promises to "end terror" i just have to sigh. maybe you should look into getting yourself an alpaca sweater. --sn

it's easy to become jealous

2006-01-30T05:42:00.000-08:00

the furball keeps the bed warm 'til i get home.