The cutest children on earth, that I'm not related to :)

Last year at Reformation day - Princess, a Knight and a Cheerleader --

This year -Sacajawea, Elvis and a Poodle!

Friday Photo

"What are you going to post for your Friday Photo?"
"I don't know, what do you think?"
"Something from Minneapolis. Oh! You should post one of my pictures!"
"I'm going to post that picture of you guys at the bluff! I thought that was an awesome picture!"
"Yeah, but we totally didn't mean to take it that way."
"Good ol' backlighting."


I love that "mistakes" can be as interesting as planned photos.

Well, anyway, it made me laugh

A tourist walks into a curio shop in San Francisco. Looking around at everything, he notices a very lifelike life-sized bronze statue of a rat. It has no price tag, but is so striking that he decides he must have it. He takes it to the owner and asks, "How much for the bronze rat?"

The owner replies, "$12 for the rat and $100 for the story". The tourist gives the man $12 and says, "I'll just take the rat, you can keep the story."

As he walks down the street carrying his bronze rat, he notices that a few real rats have crawled out of the alleys and sewers and begun following him down the street. This is disconcerting, and he begins walking faster. But within a couple of blocks, the herd of rats behind him has grown to hundreds, and they begin squealing. He begins to trot toward the Bay, looking around to see that the rats now number in the MILLIONS, and are squealing and coming toward him faster and faster.

Concerned, even scared, he runs to the edge of the Bay, and throws the bronze rat as far out into the water as he can. Amazingly, the millions of rats all jump into the Bay after it, and are all drowned.

The man walks back to the curio shop.

"Ah ha," says the owner, "you have come back for the story?"

"No," says the man, "I came back to see if you have a bronze Democrat, a bronze Muslim cleric & anything French."

A funny Wednesday post for the Girls

"It Never Fails"

Yup.

Tuesday Quote

"Providence is like Hebrew - It only makes sense when read backwards."

The Seminary prof of Professor Hallstrom (LSG's Speech prof).

A Beginning worth Filming

Big Little Bro bought Batman Begins a few days ago. We watched it twice. In a row (practically).

Things I liked about Begins

1. Christian Bale. Believable as both Bruce Wayne ("Billionaire Playboy") and The Dark Knight.

2. I can't believe I'm actually going to say it, but the new Batman ..."car," if that's what you'd call it. Tank-Tumbler-Thingy. That thing makes ANYONE want one, even though its a bit ugly at first. Gives Batman a bit more powerful edge, instead of the romanticized ideal of the sports car from Batman and Batman Returns.

3. The supporting cast did a great job, creating characters you actually were interested in.I wasn't as annoyed with Katie Holmes as I thought I would be. (Kirsten Dunst just grates on me when I watch Spidey 1 or 2.)

Also, most of the cast for Begins is British, and you'd. never. know. it.

4. Finally villains that don't make you roll your eyes, but still have a comic book feel to them.

5. No nipples on the Batsuit.

6. Alfred. How can you not love Michael Caine? He played the best Scrooge, in a Christmas Carol that's largely overlooked.

7.Oh my gosh, Wayne Manor. Holy buckets.

8. Did I say Christian Bale?

In the Meantime

Check out this post by Christian. Really great point by Piper, and by Christian, as well.

(Friday Photo is on it's way.)

Back Home

Oh, it's good to be home. I loved hanging out with LSG and Madre as well as planning for next year's conference, but not being able to see my friends (or even talk to them much) made this seem like I was in a familiar city, but just not the same.

I guess the funniest part of today had to be the automated voice on the airport tram. Some little glitch gave her a lisp, which added to the recorded proper British accent, had all three of us giggling to hear "Pleath wait for the tram to come to a complete thtop. Pleath exist for gateth eight to twenty-thix."

It's good to be home.

I am..

Going to have a very comfortable life, and

success and happiness will come my way.

Thank you, Mr. PF Chang, for those words of "wisdom." (I thought fortune cookies were trying to be more vague, so as to seem more believable.)

Midnight Plane to (meet) Georgia

(Ok, the destination is Minneapolis, but someone from GA is IN Minneapolis!)

SURPRISE LITTLE SHOE GIRL, I bought a ticket two days ago for Minneapolis, because work is helping to send me there! I'm Here! You and Madre have had this planned for a month, but HAHA, the sister that plans EVERYTHING jumped on a red-eye flight to see you and Mom and do some work for the 06 Conference!

The silence darn near killed me, because the thing I SOOO wanted to blog, I couldn't. There are things that you just can't put on your personal blog when your sister reads it daily.

This is still so unbelievable.

Added this morning (That was written a day or two ago):
Well, the look on her face was ab.so.lutely worth it. LSG is one of the more difficult people to surprise, but anything is possible when you do something last minute, walk in at quarter after 5 (in the morning) and watch her eyes blink open, look over at the other bed (searching for Mom) and then blink back, all as her mouth drops open in a perfect 'O' and out comes, "Ainsley! What? Wha..??" Ohhh, it was so worth it. I'll never forget the look on her face, or her "We were just talking about how weird it was that you weren't here!"

Off to have a GREAT weekend in my home away from home. (And to my MN friends, Hey guys! I don't know if I'll be able to see you on this whirlwind trip, but give me a call!)

Highlights and Lowlights

I've had both 'lights' put in my hair over the last 9 years, thanks to my college roommate, the one who firmly believed that life should never be lacking in good, bright, red hair dye. Yes, in college, I was Auburn for a very long time.

That's not what I was really thinking about, though, when I thought of this post. I was thinking,

"Gosh, it is addicting, having a 100 pound Black Lab follow you everywhere you go, just to flop down and sleep, even though you've tried to put him to bed two or three times. Guess he wants to be near me." It's likely he'll be sleeping in my room tonight.

So, I also thought of some other really fun times (highlights) during my week in Dallas:

• Being able to shoot over 400 photos using the incredibly expensive camera equipment at my disposal. (a DIGITAL SLR! With two amazing telephoto lenses. Holy Buckets, it was so nice!)
• Hangin' with Madre, who taught while I coordinated.
• Laughing with DMM, sharing stories of "Oh, and then THIS happened!" until 1:00 a.m. one night (The next morning was filled with much consumption of Wolfgang Puck coffee!)
• Seeing one of my best friends, the one that I've known since 5th grade, and picking up right where we left off. (Love ya Jen!)
• Realizing that I could easily call the instructors my friends and mentors - regardless of age or education level.
• Spending 3 hours flying back with my senior pastor, and spending an hour with my associate pastor during the conference, just soaking up their wisdom.

And thennnn, the lowlights.

• Not many of them, but this was definitely one: Knowing I had 5.5 hours to sleep before getting up for the plane on Sunday, and awakening at 2:30 to loud, drunk, obnoxious next-door neighbors. Not sleeping for another 1/2 hour until they quieted down (by smoking so much that we could smell it through the adjoining door).
• 
• Packing my cute but not-the-most-comfortable shoes, and being on my feet for 16 hours a day. To the left: Me hawking product, in my typical footwear.
• Wishing LSG and the Boys could have been there (...but!! --> Minneapolis 2006 National Conference, baby!)

Like I said, not that much to complain about! :)

Ok, the Lab is snoring. I'm going to bed.

Tuesday Quote (Kinda)

Before Saturday's game against Trinity, assistant coach Beau Taylor handed each one of his linebackers a piece of chalk. One by one, in front of their teammates, they went up to a chalkboard and wrote the answer to Taylor's oversized question:

Brian Tanning/Northwestern College

What Will You Give?

In a room overwhelmed with silence, one player wrote "love." Another, "respect." Yet another, "intensity." Then senior defensive back Dan Pazurek stepped to the board and wrote, "all the glory to Jesus Christ."

Read the full story from ESPN for a refreshingly even-handed article.

What would I do without you stuck in MN? And why weren't you in church?! :D

On 10/10/05, MOB wrote:

Your alma mater made Sportscenter on Sunday morning, as ESPN's Mark May included them in his top 5 college football highlights countdown for playing two games on Saturday, defeating Trinity College 59-0 and Macalester College 47-14. Not bad!

On 10/10/05, Ains wrote:

wow!!
That's just crazy on two fronts.
I'm blogging that!

On 10/10/05, MOB wrote:

I thought you might want to do that :)

Besides ESPN, Check this out for a listing of the major news outlets that carried the story. (Of course, they decide to break out the really good team 5 years after I completed my stint as Sports Editor!)
It's really unbelievable coverage for a NCAA III team!

Tagged by a Kindred

"List five songs that you are currently enjoying. It doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artist and the song in your blog along with your five songs."

I'm going to copy Andrea and just list the last 5 songs I've been groovin' to in my car - a mix cd I made in college that still gets a surprising amount of play. It's rarely out of my disc-changer.

All the Small Things - Blink 182

Magic Carpet Ride - Steppenwolf

Local God - Everclear

Smells like Teen Spirit - Nirvana

Love Rollercoaster - Red Hot Chili Peppers

I also listened to Loreena McKinnett at work today, and the other CDs in my changer (that I can think of off the top of my head) are a 'Girl Power' Mix CD by DMM, Captive Thought's Better than Life, The Prince of Egypt Soundtrack, Roxette's Don't Bore us Get to the Chorus and the Jackson 5's Greatest Hits. Hopefully that makes me a well rounded girl.

Edited to Add:

Whoops, sorry Guys (all you Blogliners out there). Forgot to Tag Anne, MOB, LSG, Drew and iTones in the comments, as is our norm.

Dedicated to LSG/ Needed Monday Humor

Some of you may have noticed that I've been writing to Little Shoe Girl a lot - Do I not love you all? Is she the only one I think of? No, not hardly! However, she is my sister, and her being in the far, far away world of GA makes it easy to think, "Hey! This reminded me of you!" And it's happened again - a link that I can't resist posting, thinking to myself "LSG's other name must be Kate, except she wouldn't have asked the question!"

For those of you who read Manolo, you'll have already seen this, but it's worth reading again. For those of you who don't, He is one of the most worthwhile of bloggers!

Friday Photo

This totally made my day.

Thanks for the letter, LSG! I love you too!

(So much better than a Hallmark Card!)

Friday Photo ... Almost

I posted 3 images this week...do I need another one for today? ;)

I usually prep Friday's photo on Thursday night, but since I was at a job-required NorthFace Clinic (i.e. they wine and dine us while telling us all about Primaloft, Infused Polymers [heh, I think!] as well as the miracles of HyVent [80% of the waterproof durability of GoreTex!!...! I know. Your life will never be the same. ]), I wasn't able to make it up to Madre and Dad's, where my photos and computer reside. I'll try to do so tonight.

More carnage

It seems the Dogs like the taste of stuffing more than the numerous rahide bones available to them!

Dogs: 3
Dead stuffed animals: 2

So gross that it has to be blogged

Python tries to eat Alligator, Explodes.

Snow is worth it when...

..you walk outside from any building, and the smell that greets you is that of a wood-burning stove!

(Of course, the electricity being out for almost 24 hours in various parts of the city contributes to that wonderful smell, as people are looking for alternative heating solutions!)

Tuesday Quote

"Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God."
Corrie Ten Boom

And now

I love my jacket even more. Talk about timing!

I'm in Love

NorthFace
It only took two winters to get it, but it is pretty dang great! I love my second job. It's so worth it today.

96 hours

The number of hours I worked this past week! I'm slightly amazed. I was up and running events by 7:00 am each day and in bed around 11 each evening. Considering that the lunches and dinners revolved around work and work items and work errands and meeting new work employees, I figured I just put in 2.4 normal weeks of work in 6 days. Not bad for combating a personal view of myself - the one that I'm lazy. ;) (Sometimes I am. My Other Brain disagrees.)

I had a great time. DMM and I roomed together, and between her and MMc, the other staff event coordinator, I was kept sane as I answered question after question on training/"Can we get another mic?" /"Do you know where the Church manuals are?"/"If I don't take this event right this second will I lose my Certification status?" and on and on.

There were a lot of difficulties and plenty of Plan B's, but overall I was shown love and encouraged beyond what I deserve. El Presidente had a whole shtick about "If the mafia was after us, we are SO LOVED we could just go from home to home to home.” Our Development Director took any potential saccharine feel out of it and had the room roaring with laughter, but nonetheless it really was the feeling you left the conference with: There were so many people from across the nation who loved you simply because they are Christians and you're siblings.

So, thanks to all of you who actually checked the blog after Tuesday. I'm sure I've got a few funny stories that will come out during the next few days, but for today and tomorrow, I'm just going to take it easy and love takin' care of this guy until his Mistress gets home.

I'll end with the verse given to us last night:
This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
"In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength."