FlowerDust.net

Honestly, I’ve been getting kinda worn out on blogging. Maybe it’s just a phase in my life, because I’ve been busy juggling work, 3 freelance projects and preparing for Scotland, all whilst trying to be a wife.

In today’s culture, there are so many trends that come and go…I wonder if blogging is just one of them.

What do you think?

Blogging:
–Here to stay or…
–Will eventually fall off the radar?

Have a nice weekend.

I am at work waiting for Chris to be finished…so I played around with iSight (my iMac’s built in camera) and some post it notes.

For some reason, I felt inspired to write this question…

So…?

Today, we had “Staff Development Day” for support services (communication, IT & facilities are under that umbrella). I’m sure we could have sat around watching videos on how to be more effective, shared our goals & dreams with each other and prayed for the future, but we did something much more spiritual and bonding than that.

We played Laser Tag.

I have never played laser tag before, even after working with students for several years. I love guns (I did grow up in Texas), and I am slightly competitive (Ok, I’m ridiculously competitive) so once I got the lay of the 10,000 sq foot, 2 story arena - I found my focus zooming in and 20 minutes later was sweating harder than any time I’ve excersized in the last week. The 17 or so of us waited for the results. Chris came in first place (he is laser killing fool!) followed by Tony (our web director) and Shane (my laser-tag arch nemisis). I was surprised I came in 4th!

The next game was a team game and sadly, communication lost by a hair. I did kill Shane more than he killed me, so personally, my goal was satisfied. Shane & I had been trash talking back and forth the last couple of weeks so at least I can claim some sort of victory on him, even though his team won.

Tonight, Chris & I are going to Dave & Busters to celebrate with our new friends Kevin & Ann who just moved here right after we did from Illinois. Kevin is turning 27, and I’m sure we’ll be playing a bunch more games there.

So, it’s a great way to start off the weekend. Playing games. I feel like a little kid again.

Question for the weekend:

What’s one of your favorite games to play? Are you competitive?

Have a good one…

Someone stole my glasses at Mario Tricoci when I was getting my hair done last November. I’ve yet to purchase another pair, but the time has arrived.

These are the two frames I narrowed it down to - which one do you like best? I know they both look too big for my head, but that’s just the camera phone warping my face. Please also pardon the cross-eyed look in photo #1…

Glasses #1

or

Glasses #2

I’ll probably get them on Saturday!

Thanks for your assistance…

Has anyone ever told you that you look like someone famous? The first time it happened to me, I was in a Barnes & Noble & someone said I looked like Elisabeth Shue. A couple years later, some ladies I worked with said I resembled Melissa Joan Hart. No complaints on either, as both of them are quite pretty.

Last weekend, our teaching pastor at church taught a message called “Spitting Image” and talked about a website, MyHeritage.com. On MyHeritage.com, you can upload a picture of yourself and it scans it for facial feature and gives you a few celebrities who share similar traits. I decided to go and try it for myself. Here are a few people I ended up with after submitting two photos.

Anne Hathaway

Madeleine Stowe

Vivien Leigh

Now, not only does this software match you with your gender, but it also pulls similarities from the other gender as well…I found the following matches a little disturbing:

Larry King

Eddie Murphy

Steven Soderbergh

Wow.

You should try it. It’s super quick, totally free & completely hilarious! I’d love to hear who you end up looking like. Just go to MyHeritage.com and follow the instructions!

Cheers!

“Never look for justice, but never cease to give it.” - Oswald Chambers

Chicken little?

Hmmm. Maybe not.

My friend Shane sent me this photo from his phone at lunch today. If you can’t tell, it’s a chicken sandwich. And I must say, one of the biggest chicken sandwiches I’ve ever seen. It was so absurdly large, I felt the need to post a photo for you to see. And enjoy. And maybe even throw up a little bit.

Between 4pm & 11pm, I spent close to 5 hours in my car driving (two, 2.5 hour trips to visit my husband who’s away working at a children’s camp). On the drive down, I finished the U2 cd I was listening to then station-surfed for a while. I heard some old 90s stuff, and then listened to the City of Angels soundtrack. On the way back, found a public station with some VERY old (circa 40s) country music and finished off the trip with the Dallas Symphony performing a variety of latin pieces, conducted by German Gutierrez. A very well-rounded musical journey indeed.

Every morning, Charlie Parker wakes me up at 6am. He once said:

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. ~Charlie Parker.

What are you listening to at the moment?

Earlier last week, I won some tickets to see the Shaolin Kung Fu Monks. This is a performance troupe of about 20 Buddhist monks who travel around and showcase the art of Shaolin Kung Fu. Chris is out of town for the next few days, so I invited my friend Kim to tag along.

The monks spend 8 hours a day training in their art, in addition to farming for a living & meditating on Buddhist scripture. Their discipline is evident as they have perfected some of the most amazing weapons choreography and mind-blowing feats no human should be able to do…like eating glass (after chewing it up, of course), balancing perched atop of four sharpened spears, throwing a needle through a pane of glass, breaking blocks of cement over their heads and my personal favorite, something I shall call the “triple layer monks, machetes & boards with nails” sandwich topped with “let’s add some concrete & a sledgehammer.” A photo of a similar accomplishment is below, however for the performance today, they added another layer of monk and another board of nails. All in all, it was a fine mixture of art in color, dance, and anticipation.

Getting to hang out with Kim is nice. We work together - she’s another designer in my department - but she’s just awesome to be around. There is always something crazy going on in her life and she has the best way of cracking everyone up when she shares it. Plus she lives in an interesting neighborhood…with really interesting neighbors.

After Kim & the Kung Fu monks, I met Christina for a 2.5 hour coffee date. Christina is another one of my favorite people in the world. She is ALWAYS smiling and always has the right words of wisdom to say no matter what’s going on…we can talk about anything from tornadoes to whirlwind shopping sprees…as well as serious life-stuff. After hanging out with Christina, you can’t help but to leave smiling.

I realized how lucky I am to have a whole lot of positive people in my path right now…yet it also made me wonder what to do with those…not so positive people.

Everyone has them. The people that just kind of rub you the wrong way or flat out ooooze negativity every time you’re around them. Granted (and thankfully), I don’t have very many people in my life that do that, but what do you do in the seasons where you seem surrounded by the naysayers?

Personally, I try and live a life of loving people. I don’t care who you are or where you’ve been. I hope somehow I can brighten your day and connect with you. I loooovvvee people.

But loving everyone doesn’t always come easily - in fact, most of the time it proves to be a challenge, especially around those not-so-nice people. And if you spend a lot of time around these negative people, sometimes they can bring you down a lot faster than you can build them up.

They say boundaries are healthy…but what are the boundaries for being around negative people? Do you try and encourage them (and if so, how long do you try?) Is there ever a time where you need to cut them out of your life and end your relationship with them?

Here’s to a good week…

I have never been a fan of the performance review…the employee evaluation…the slow death brought about behind closed doors and over a fake pine desk… Yes, I realize I am being entirely overdramatic. But truth be told, my stomach is a little crampier than normal.

My 90-day review at Lake Pointe is tomorrow.

Fortunately, I work in a great environment & actually felt comfortable emailing my boss and expressing my nervousness. He replied back, “No worries.” I feel better. A little.

Something I have been learning is I am not perfect. I will always have room to improve in some area. I guess it’s something I’m not really learning but rather I’m learning to accept.

I just hate hearing it from someone else.

A Proverb says:

“Healthy correction is good, and if you accept it, you will be wise. You hurt only yourself by rejecting instruction, but it makes good sense to accept it.”

I suppose it’s pride that keeps me from accepting my faults. It’s not that I think I’m perfect; I know I am FAR from it. But if I realize my shortcomings…and you realize my shortcomings…let’s just trust each other enough that I’ll work on improving those areas…must we really discuss them?

We should. And we will. And I will pray for the courage to swallow the bad, ingest it entirely and work on the things I need to work on.

What do you think about employee evaluations? Do you dread them? Love them?

Have you ever been surprised in one - bad or good?

Have a great Friday…

Sunday, I was asked to be a part of a blogging focus group. One of their topics was MySpace - if we used it, how, etc. I do have a MySpace but there is nothing on it except friends and some photos.

The only reason I MySpace is obscure bands and old friends. Saturday night I was really wired and started looking up people from my past. I hope they don’t mind me linking to their sites (and if you do, please let me know and I’ll unlink…) but I found:

My brother’s first grade crush.

My first boyfriend (I was in third grade, he was in fourth).

My babysitter in the first grade.

A really nice guy I dated when I was 20.

Another really nice guy I dated in high school.

A girl I used to play with in 2nd grade.

One of my best friends growing up.

Some very different people from very different stages of my life. It’s been fun catching up - most of the old boyfriends are married and have kids. Weird! Some of these people look the same, and some of them look a little different!

I’ve really loved reconnecting with all of them and I hope to find more friends I’ve lost touch with over the last twenty years.

Do you have a MySpace?

Hmm…I need you guys to pray for me. Or leave some tidbits of wisdom. Or both.

There have been some opportunities presented to me in the last couple of weeks (don’t worry, it has NOTHING to do with working or leaving Lake Pointe - I love it there, and I’m not leaving - Just wanted to clear that up!)…anyway, these opportunities are really cool, but I’m not sure how to answer them yet.

If you know me, you know I am terrified of public speaking. In small groups or one-on-one, I’m fine, but once you put more than a dozen beady little eyes on me, I sweat more than I do when I exercise. Some of these are public speaking…some of these things are contributing to videos as a speaker. Anyway, before I moved here, God and I had a talk where I said “If you open the door to speak, I’ll walk through it” but now that it’s here, I’m being a little cry baby about it and wanting to hide under the bed.

I know the answer is clear…I just need a good swift kick.

Kick me, please.