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super fun.

22 Oct
Forgetting the sermon, the newspaper column, and care center service that looms in my Sunday, I had a super amount of fun today.  
Miss Sarah from St.Paul came to visit Paige, Lauren, jD and I.  We had lunch in Owatonna, caught up on everything, and then played ridiculous games at the beautiful people Starbucks.  A little teapot homonym action and some Spot It!
Super fun.
Krissy texted me this photo of her baby, Gavin.

He’s a gnome.  
Super fun.  [and super cute.]
I arrived home and the sermon flowed better than I could have hoped.
Super … convenient?
I baked an apple cheesecake dessert for my cottage meeting that is hosted at the parsonage tomorrow.
Super tasty.  [or so I hope.]
Now I’m finishing up the sermon, tidying up the kitchen, and will be heading to bed for an early morning.
Super sleepy.  [goodnight.]

lutefisk.

18 Oct
The day arrived – First Lutheran’s annual lutefisk dinner.  
I wore my white shirt, black pants, and donned my red apron before the noon-time rush.  I received instructions for how to set the tables, when to get the lutefisk from the kitchen, and where to find the lefse.  I helped a few tables and then it was time – a table of my own.
It was fun.  I poured water, carried bowls of corn, and wore this [“I’m the new gal, and I’ve never tasted lutefisk!”] paperclipped to my shirt, courtesy of Pastor Charlie [of First in Blooming – formerly of Salem in Montevideo] –

jD served the noon rush as well and Pastor Charlie made him a little label too, something to the tune of “I’m the new guy.  What does it taste like?”  Once we were done serving the lunch crew, the workers got to dine.  And this girl had to try lutefisk.  It was time to prove the paper on my shirt wrong. The white substance between the cranberry salad and the mashed potatoes.  This was my lunch time plate:

[suspense builds]  I went to the lutefisk supper tonight too.  A couple from ROG had invited me as their guest and when a congregation member invites me somewhere, I get excited and hate to turn it down.  And so I ate another meal in Blooming.
People asked me lots, “Well.  How was it?”
“I tried some at noon.  And didn’t have any more tonight.”

Enough said.

The texture was funky.  Not quite fish jello but not quite appetizing either.  I didn’t even eat the entire piece that you see in the photo, which is quite pathetic to the strong Lutherans who filled their plates – literally filled their plates – with the white questionable stuff.  
But I tried it.  Check that off the forced bucket list.

fun photos.

7 Oct
I went to the Blooming football game and stood next to this guy and his pocket friends.
I roasted a chicken with harvest vegetables and fresh thyme.  It’s decided that I love sweet potatoes. 

Jesus is My Coach.  I found these gems in a church supply catalog.  Because this is how I play sports – envisioning Jesus right next to me.  Jesus is cool, athletic, and a ball hog.

This is on the short pillar leading up to the parsonage.  I’m still not sure what word to use to describe its presence.

This is what Red Oak Grove looks like at night.  A cross on fire.  Begin debate of red cross now.  [This filtered photo can’t help but bring KKK thoughts to mind … terrible, Lindsay, terrible.]

link it up.

21 Sep
There is much to tell you.  I write from the Blooming Prairie Public Library, mooching the free wifi because we still have no internet at the church and my iphone wifi was not cooperating today [I blame the high winds].  I just finished attending a women’s circle where I was entirely intimidated by the Bible study leader; Evelyn was a missionary in Cameroon for over twenty years and she knows her Bible.  I’m learning lots of names and eating lots of cake [as served at such functions].  I met with my accountant yesterday morning and he put me in a splendid mood for the day.  [Who knew meeting my accountant would brighten my day?]  Marilyn and I continue to have a good time in the office, and this week is certainly much better than last.  I have a wild rice chicken soup in the crock pot at home – a recipe from the Central Lutheran cookbook.  I was asked to serve at the noon-time rush of First Lutheran’s [in Blooming] lutefisk dinner in October; I get to wear a red apron.  I’m planning a fall festival for families in mid-October and looking forward to not preaching next Sunday [as it is my installation].  
There is much to tell but instead of long stories, I only find the time right now to post a few links.  Stories will hopefully follow in the next couple days, but for now, let these links and photos be the storytellers of my days and dreams.
I really want to read this book.  There is something about fonts and typography that simply makes me happy and excited.
I made this and this last night.  Both proved to be quite tasty.  I made this, also in the crockpot, a couple weeks ago.  Also tasty.  Also on a recipe note, these look extremely dangerous.  Extremely.  I must not make until I have a function to take them to and then leave the leftovers!
I want to make this for necklaces and hang it in my bathroom.

I also want to make this.

And these.

Anyone know where to find oodles of scrabble tiles?  I’m kinda in love with them right now.

stress relief.

1 Sep
I’ve decided that I do not carry stress well.  My hair is proof, though the humidity helped none today.  It wasn’t pretty, folks. [Come on, autumn, and arrive already.]  I see it in my hair, in my lack of any kind of facial expression, and feel it in my shoulders.  The knots hurt.
But enough complaining.  Things are looking up.  My grandpa volunteered to drive a U-Haul on Sunday – this relieves me of so much stress.  It will be great to get everything to Austin in one day.  Congregation members will be there to help unload and I’ll have my bed from day one.  [Plans to move gradually by car load over the course of the month of September make me want to cry.  This will be much better for the transition.] 
I had coffee with Banana Kay and met up with Banana Kim this afternoon before I make my move.  The coffee date at the local coffee shop was made even more interesting by the presence of that one person I emailed in July, asking him to be my friend.  I never told you but he eventually did respond.  To reject my offer.  *awkward turtle*  I guess I am creepy.  I wasn’t entirely sure it was him sitting behind me today but later discovered it was.  We said nothing to each other; actually, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know who I am so it’s okay.  
My mom and I went out to supper with Grandma and Grandpa – we had a date with the Cozy Inn in Janesville.  Guess what kind of cuisine the Cozy Inn serves.  Seriously.  Guess.
Chinese.  
Grandma and Grandpa have been going to the Cozy Inn for many years and wanted to make sure I had the experience before I moved.  The food was great and I received an intriguing fortune.  Okay, Cozy Inn, the longest-established-Chinese-restaurant-in-the-United-States-according-to-your-menu, I dare you to prove this fortune true. 

After supper, I received a gift.  Grandpa had gone shopping and picked something up for me from Farm and Fleet.  [It’s not Fleet Farm in this neck of the woods but has equally delicious orange slice candies.]   It’s become pretty standard that when people say, “I saw this and thought of you!,” the this is normally a gnome.  This is likely the largest gnome I now own and I think he will look most excellent on my front stoop.  [The people of Red Oak Grove and going to learn my quirkiness eventually; might as well begin crazy.] 
 Got a home for a gnome?  I always have a home for a gnome!  
That’s my new life motto.  I won’t be a crazy cat lady; I’ll be the crazy gnome lady.  Children will mock me and my friends will have to stage an intervention.  “Lindsay, we say this because we care about you.  Your gnomes are not real people.  Come back to us, back to the outside world.”  I’ll protest at first but then give in as they persist.  [But that doesn’t mean I won’t carry gnomes in my purse when I leave the house and whisper to them when I think no one is watching.]

a bassonist and a flutist.

25 Jun
Dave and Veronica got married.  Again.  
And a good time was had by all.
It was fun to spend time with Joe and Amanda as they bunked at my house during the wedding festivities, and it was fun to see Allison and James and Deb and Scott [and baby Isabelle].  It was also so wonderful to officiate the ceremony.  Nervous though I was, it was a lot of fun to be a part of the ceremony for such a strong, grounded couple like Veronica and Dave.  
the Luther crew
Top it all off?  They served macaroni and cheese in the buffet line.  Mac and cheese.  How awesome is that?  There was also much Spotted Cow to go around and coffee with the cake.  Nearly all of yesterday afternoon – when we weren’t writing the screenplay for the new movie Willy Wonka and the Charcoal Factory, Joe and I tried to guess whether or not coffee would be served with the cake at the reception.  We certainly hoped so.  Being that we’re 85 years old, we needed coffee with our dessert.  As Joe would say, it is only right and salutary.

the haps.

23 Jun
[translation: happenings.]
I picked strawberries with my friend Kay and her son.  No clue what I’m going to do with the two baskets that now occupy the fridge.  Jam – the usual go to – seems unnecessary as I am still working my way through last year’s batches … 

I held this cutie cousin, Kennedy, for the littlest while the other afternoon.  Until she wanted to sit in the stroller and eat her cheerios.  

It’s wedding time for my college friend, Veronica!  I’ve been busy writing a wedding message and practicing my best presider’s stance as I have the honor of officiating.  [Veronica and Dave are technically already married.  This is an affirmation sort of ceremony with family and friends.]  While the thought of officiating makes me nervous and slightly terrified, it is also super exciting.  Not only is there a wonderful celebration for an awesome couple, it has become a mini-Luther reunion of sorts.  My college roomie and her husband are bunking with me in E-town currently [Amanda rolled in last night.], and friends Deb and Allison [along with spouses/child] will be in attendance.  I’m looking forward to catching up with them tomorrow night!

favorite things.

5 Jun
Today I did a lot of my favorite things.  [incredibly narcissistic post follows this point.  you’re warned.]
I finished this cake by mixing the frosting and assembling the cake rounds I baked last night.  It was the post-cousin-and-sister-graduation cake.  Enjoyed by all.
I watched my baby sister and cousin graduate and receive their high school diplomas.  [Not that watching people graduate is a favorite thing.  It probably doesn’t happen enough to be a favorite thing but it certainly was a highlight once we moved past the cliches in the commencement addresses.]

I laid in the hammock and read.  Current read: The Help.  I’m intrigued and will continue reading at a reasonable speed.
I made cakepop bites with Molly.  She’s currently the vice-president of her fifth grade class and wanted to treat her classmates.
I began a new quilt.  Complete design and approach to be yet determined.  Circles – a new quilting adventure for me – formed with freezer paper are stacked on the ironing board.  
Good day and good night.  [Only to wake tomorrow to my mom’s list of putting down landscaping fabric, laying rock and mulch, scraping paint, and cleaning the kitchen.  Game on.]

Monday was –

17 May
First of all, Monday felt like Friday.  
Second of all, Monday was just all sorts of emotions.  
Also all sorts of seven dwarf names.
Sleepy: I spent Sunday night with a sleepover at Sara’s.  We watched Modern Family, made two recipes off of Pinterest [lemon puppy chow and jello molded in citrus peels], and feel asleep to our usual movie – Pride and Prejudice.  We didn’t start the movie until well after midnight and we both casually dozed off as the music played in the background.  Sub-consciously, somehow, we both knew when to wake up.  I looked at my phone at 2:17am and then glanced over at the couch.  Sara was awake too and right at the time when Darcy first declares his feelings for Elisabeth.  [Watch the scene here.]  We stayed awake to watch him mutter the feelings he can bear no longer.  He loves her, most ardently.  *sigh*
Sara shakes it.  [the puppy chow]
Sleepy also will work as I then stayed awake until 2am this past morning.  Reading.  Three-quarters done with the second book in The Hunger Games after beginning it yesterday afternoon following class.  [It’s probably best if I just do nothing else and finish the series, right?  Not like I’ll get much done in the meantime.]
Happy: I completed and turned in my last final of my seminary career.  I also went to my final class period of seminary.  Can I get a wooten?!  [Whenever I text ‘woot’ on my phone, it auto-corrects to ‘wooten.’  I think I might just give in and start saying what the iPhone tells me I should say.  Though what is a ‘wooten’?  Any clue?]
Sneezy:  I sneezed.  Twice.
Dopey: I was a little dopey.  Truth is, my brother began his move to Alaska yesterday.  I heard last week that he got a job there and, while I had known he’d been looking, I had no idea he was moving so quickly.  He packed his camper, organized his life, and on the road he was by Monday morning.  Now my older brother moved to Colorado last year but Colorado just doesn’t seem as final or far as Alaska.  Airfare to CO is much more manageable than flying to Anchorage.  So Ben is moving … and I’ll miss him.  Since he became the boyfriend of a U of M student this spring, I actually saw him more than I have in many years past.  Plus, he’s taking his dog, Jetta.  I’ll miss Jetta lots too.
Grumpy: For the sake of the seven dwarfs, I’ll use this emotion but really, it was more frustration.  I had a macaron-making date with Melissa and our first batch, intended to be mint chocolate, failed miserably.  Like couldn’t even be salvaged to snack on.  Like epic fail.  [This did mean, however, that the mint leaves originally reserved for the filling of the mint macarons could now be repurposed for mojitos.  When life gives you mint leaves, make mojitos.]  Our second batch – coconut mango – turned out edible.  [Not necessarily pretty, but edible.]
Bashful and Doc: This is where the seven dwarf comparison fails me.  I’m out.

cookie fairy.

14 May
One of my favorite women to visit while doing CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) in the summer after my second year of seminary was named Edna.  It was my first week there and her daughter-in-law died.  I’d never met Edna but she wanted to speak to a chaplain.  *deep breath*  Okay.  I met with Edna that day and just loved her to pieces.  She walked with a walker, had a full head of white curly hair, and wore her glasses slightly askew.  On days when I wasn’t quite sure what to do, I’d knock on Edna’s door to chat.  
There was one morning when I was just striking out as I knocked on doors to visit people.  People weren’t home and I was at a loss for how to spend my time.  I happened to be on Edna’s floor so I knocked on her door.  She opened the door, saw it was me, and exclaimed, “Thank God you are here!”  She had just received disturbing news about her son’s health and was happy to have someone to talk with about it.  [I could go on and on about cute Edna stories, including the one where she pointed to her coffee mug, on which was a black and white photo of her deceased husband, and said, “I have coffee with my husband every morning.”  Oh for sweet.]
This is kinda how I felt on Thursday night.  You can read the post beneath this one to see the kind of night I may have been having.  I know there were at least a dozen people – probably more – that I could have called that night to talk with or asked to hang out with … but I didn’t.  I don’t like to be needy, or vulnerable to the point where I seem needy.  [curse of the enneagram number two]  I called no one and sat on the couch attempting to do homework alone.

The buzzer to let people into the building went off in my apartment right around 10pm.  I was expecting no one and just earlier that day, we had received an email from the building lady warning us of possible scheming being done by two strange guys in the neighboring apt. building.  I wasn’t going to let anyone in!  But then it buzzed again.  What the heck, I wondered.  Then this text message exchange happened –
After the “Are you buzzing me!?” text I sent, the buzzer went off about five times, alerting me that yes, this particular sweet couple was buzzing me.  They were cookie fairies, bringing delicious cookies.  I kinda felt like Edna, wanting to open the door and say, “Thank God you’re here.”  Not just because of the cookies but just because it was good to sit and chat for a short while. Lauren and jD had perfect timing AND they brought chocolate.  best. cookie. fairies. ever.
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