My Birthday!

I'm a bit behind on blogging. Work has been exceptionally busy this month and I just haven't gotten around to writing about my life. I did, however, want to share a bit about my birthday which was last Saturday.

Last year I planned a birthday party for myself, and while that felt a little self centered, I also realized that it's a tradition I want to continue (esp when my birthday falls on the weekend.) I want to continue because I know that I can quickly fall into a little pool of loneliness and depression if I am alone on special days like my birthday - being single feels much bigger and harder on those days that it does most other days. When I plan something fun with people who are special to me I am reminded that I matter to people and that my life has value. And, yes, I know that those things are true every day, but somehow when I'm at home alone on days that are "meant" to be spent with people who love you, being alone in my apartment can feel overwhelmingly sad. Anyway...

ME in my favorite city!

I turned 39 on Saturday. My last year in my 30s! I love Chicago, so I invited about several women to go to Chicago with me to have dinner at Buca di Beppo (my FAVORITE Italian restaurant), to make a quick stop at Trader Joe's and to walk around the city a bit and get some photos at the Bean.

My friends who could join the fun - Amanda, Patty, Bonnie, me, and Megan

At the Bean - notice Megan's reflection next to Amanda's shoulder - she had to rest the camera on the cement to get it to come out clear without the flash!

Pointing out the butt view statue that we had to look at all during dinner! :)

Ladies in the city!
Amanda, Megan, me, Bonnie, and Patty

Making cards

The Risser twins and I went away the weekend of March 19-21 to a cabin in Michigan that is owned by the school. We watched movies, walked in nature, ate snacks, read books/magazines, and spent a lot of time making cards. These are the cards that I made while we were there.

Lenten check in...

The first several weeks of Lent were pretty easy to do my "giving" activities. This past week was not. It was a very hard week for me emotionally for various reasons that I can't go into on my blog. It seemed as though I had not one ounce of gumption to get around to doing anything. So, I decided to give $40 to a charity this week. I decided that would be a worthwhile way to honor my commitment to "give 40" for the week.

This week I will once again give 40 things away to charity. I'm going back to this for a couple reasons...1. I really enjoyed the act of giving things away that others might enjoy using at some point. 2. I realize that I own waaaay too much stuff and getting rid of 40 more things shouldn't be a hard thing to do at all. 3. I don't have time with my busy schedule this week to think of another original idea. I'll try to post photos later of the 40 items I collect.

On a side note, living without my Diet Coke has been pretty tough at points. I have missed it in an acute way on several really tiring, stressful, or busy moments, but also find that I really do miss it on an almost daily basis at least once or twice a day. I think that's a really great thing though because it's a pretty constant reminder of how much more Jesus sacrificed for me through his death on the cross.

Pizza @ Bill's

Today the VP for Student Life - Bill - invited my dorms over for pizza in his super cool wood fire pizza oven that he built last summer! Each floor was invited and they came staggered throughout the evening. Bill provided all the ingredients and did the actual baking of the pizzas. My team and I did the work of making the pizzas. It was a really fun evening! :)

The main kitchen crew...Sarah, Ashley, me, and Mary.
(I did the crusts...hence the flour covered apron!)

David wanted a pizza with just red & white toppings...pepperoni, roasted red peppers, fresh tomatoes, cheese, and onions. Here he is with Ashley & Mary who made it for him.

Posing while working on another pizza...Mary, Ashley, & Sarah

First wedding of 2010!

One of my RAs from last year - Julie got married on Saturday! She married a guy from her church - Jake. It was a lovely ceremony and a fun reception - both taking place at the Spohn Ballroom in Goshen. Here are a few photos...

Mr. & Mrs. Stutzman

My RA gals from last year were pretty tight.
Here's a nice photo of 3 of them and me at the reception.
Jenna, Ashley, Julie, and me.

The beautiful bride & me.

I sat by Jenna at the reception.

Ash & me with our winkie eyes!

How it went...

For the third week of Lenten giving I decided to give back to the environment by recycling 40 items. I thought this was going to be a real bother, but it actually ended up not being nearly as much of a hassle as I had anticipated. We have a recycling program in the Res Halls here at school, so it wasn't as though I had to carry things out to my car and then to they recycling bins or anything like that...just walk them down the hall to the bins in the entry of Yoder Hall. I did find that I really need to do a bit more research on actual recycling guidelines for our area...things like which types of plastic are recyclable, how cleaned/prepped do the items need to be, etc... Overall it was a good experience and I think it will likely result in more recycling efforts on my part, which is a good thing!

Sorry, no photo for this week's giving. But how exciting would a photo of a bunch of empty jars and cans be? Not that I actually thought my photo of cookbooks that I was donating was exciting either, but you know what I mean! :)

Passion fruit juice!

One of my staff members this year is from the Dominican Republic. He mentioned a few times at the beginning of the year that one of the food items he really misses is Passion Fruit juice. It soon became a running joke that our team would need to go to the DR to taste some. (He even brought some back from Christmas break, but ended up drinking it before our team met the following week.) So, over mid term break one of the gals saw some Passion Fruit juice at an international market, so she bought it for us all to try. We tried it on Monday night at our meeting. We all enjoyed it! :)

Sarah pouring the Passion Fruit juice!

David, our friend from the DR, tasting it.

Bryce & David giving it a "thumbs up"!

Weekend fun!

This past weekend I went north about 3 hours with my home group to a friend's condo at Crystal Mountain. We had a relaxing and fun time...playing games, putting together puzzles, sledding, sitting in the hot tub, talking, laughing, etc. Here are a few photos from our time together...

Doug giving his son a boost down the sledding hill!

The snow angel that I made...it'd been YEARS since I've made one!
(sorry it's kinda hard to see.)

Kevin totally relaxed!

The Lenten theme for this week is...

This week my goal is to recycle 40 items. To be honest, I'm not a recycler unless it is really really convenient for me...as in I will recycle if I happen to be walking past the recycling bin just as I finish my can of pop. So, this week I decided that I would recycle 40 items. I will collect them all in my apartment and then add them to the recycling bin in my dorm at the end of the week.

10 final items for the thrift store...

Here's a photo of some other kitchen items I found to give to the thrift store. There are actually more than 10 items in the photo, but I decided that the sets of plates, bowls, and cups should just count as one item. I like that my old rice cooker is in there - esp since I bought my new (larger) one at the same thrift store this summer! :)

Kitchen utensils

On Friday I went through my kitchen utensil drawer in the hopes of finding 6 extra utensils that I could part with. This ended up being harder for me than I anticipated. I love buying utensils, even if I only use them once a year (like my turkey baster!) Anyway, I eventually found six that I can live without.

A salad spork, an onion holder, a skinny rubber spatula, some tongs, a butter & salt spreader for corn on the cob, and a Velveeta cheese cuber.