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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.

love letter to a thesaurus.

11 May
First, watch this.  [There is no embed code and you’ll have to make the jump.  One further apology for the recent abundance of Friends references.  I’m on season one again and it’s in the head.]
I was about to close a few windows on my computer, paused over my dictionary/thesaurus application as if to close it, and then thought, “Nah.  I use that baby all the time.  I’m just going to keep it open.”  This is the result of that thought, too much homework in one day, and the previously linked video clip:
Intimate thesaurus,

I delight in you, a laudable thesaurus.  I recoil from employing equivalent script duplicated in a phrase or write-up and I’m completely about obtaining cutting-edge and diverting methods to construct whatsits.  You as a thesaurus are jolly, utilitarian, and viable, and designate me jovial, blithe, and chirpy.  I aspire to habitually wield you, a thesaurus, in my oeuvre.

Really,
Lindsay Poached 

teeth. grain. A TORNADO!

11 May
Paper.  Snow.  A GHOST!  [Fast forward to about 1:10 on this video to follow this joke that plays inside my head.]
Did you know that George was  6’2”?

A fun chap with weird hair he is.
Lauren, Paige and I – all future residents of southeastern MN – ventured to the MN History Center on Tuesday night [It’s free from 5-8pm.] with the eager anticipation of seeing George Washington’s wooden teeth.  Turns out he never actually had wooden teeth – they were clunky and metal and hippopotamus-derived.  Even though he brushed dutifully, he had a mouth of horrid teeth that eventually were pulled.  I know what else you’re wondering but no, we never found out if he chopped down the cherry tree.

While at the museum, we also learned about the history of underwear.  It’s true.  Paige asked, “Me, wear a girdle?”  [The advertisement on the wall asks the question, trying to convince all ladies that they should.]  This was right next to the mirror with the underwear stick-ons.  [Do you understand what I’m poorly explaining?  The paper cut-outs were stuck on the mirror and one is to align themselves in front of the mirror so it looks like you’re wearing them.  Kinda like the mustache on the mirror in The Office that Dwight ends up “wearing.”]  We tried to position ourselves in front of the mirror so it looked like we were wearing the underwear but it was more difficult than one would think.  We could not get that bra and panties to pretend-fit us.
From there, we went to Grainland where we became corn in a grain bin.  We climbed to the top of the grain bin, decided if we were corn or wheat [actually, we had no choice.  the wheat chute was closed.  corn by default.] and then went down the chute to rest in the bin.  In an exhibit meant for small children, we climbed through tubes and squeezed through small spaces as kernels of corn.  We finished off our trip to the history center in a “basement” experiencing a tornado in the weather exhibit, where there were blue men.  [Seriously.  In the winter exhibit, the guys had blue faces.  We get so cold in MN that we turn blue?]  We learned lots in our history museum trip, not to mention got a break from the humid heat that attacked MN yesterday.  I would go back and be corn again.  Definitely.
You can see Lauren in the background; this was before there was a little boy kicking her from behind.

a petulant pattern.

10 May
I sense a life pattern emerging.
1.  go to new place
2.  meet awesome new friends
3.  leave
4.  be sad
In a nomadic life like mine, this is bound to be the pattern.  But in my last move and my upcoming move, I find it much more in my face and emotional than before.  Both in my move from Dawson to school, and in the next couple weeks from school to home, I’ve been somewhere for a year.  [Granted, yes, I was at school for two years prior to internship, but the year of a senior has looked different than the first two years.]  I’ve been somewhere for a year and generally speaking, for the first part of that year, it was hard.  My first months in Dawson and my first months back at school were difficult places for me to be.  They were places of adjustment, loneliness, and mourning the past.
In both places, I quilted, I clung to old friends, and tried to keep an open mind of where the year could take me.  And in both places, something clicked right around December/January.  The tables turned, my attitude improved, and I enjoyed where I was.  This year, I specifically think about the January term.  A class of connecting to new people, trying new activities, and I think opening myself up to that newness.  It’s great that this has happened … but then I just get really frustrated that I have to leave again when things are going well, there are fun people to play with, and knowing that this is the end of that experience!  How does that make me feel?  Angry, a la Chris Farley.
No.  Not really that angry.  I won’t throw punches or tip tables [yet] but I am getting incredibly sentimental and sad about what is to come.  I’m excited about the next two weeks – two weeks that are booked solid with hanging out, going out, and being around these great people I’ve connected with in the last four months and in the last four years.  There are new friends and there are also the people I’ve known for the years I’ve been in the Cities.  I think about M. and her family, Sara, and my Stillwater family who have been a part of my life here since I moved to Minnesota as a volunteer intern at Trinity.  
Another transition looms.  It’s coming.  In the time that remains, I hope to play much, sleep little, and take many photographs to remind me of the people, adventures, and fun.  Stories to follow.  

synod assembling.

7 May
I am beat.  [sleepy, tired, exhausted, fried, etc.]

This lady just returned from the Southeastern MN Church Assembly.  Held in Rochester, this annual event is the place where each church is represented by their clergy and voting lay members.  Two days of sitting in a convention center listening to reports, amendments to the amendment of the amendment, and thumb wrestling.  [I kid not, but really wish I was.]  I went with Paige and Jonathan [also new assignees to the SE MN synod], and Jonathan’s wife, Lauren [P, J & L).  We were assigned to sit in the very front of the assembly so the bishop knew when we weren’t there [like that one time we sat and ate breakfast instead of going into the assembly] and when we were doing things other than listening [passing notes, iPhone games, magazines, etc.].
Irresponsible?  Maybe.  But we are not voting members [yet] and have so many other things going on in our lives [like trying to complete finals so we can actually graduate and get calls to SE MN], that we simply could not focus for so long.  [I’ll at least speak for myself here when I say that I entered that assembly hall with very little energy for what was happening.  Synod assemblies don’t exactly get me any too excited.]
It simply made me exhausted.  We left at 6:45 yesterday morning, did a lot of sitting, and it was a lot of people and small talk that did me in.  Being around people – and so many people at that [about 500 at the assembly] – just makes me tired.  [Introverted and proud of it.]  But it was good too.  We met a lot of people, a lot of pastors, and were able to get some insight as we enter into the synod as new clergy.  
It was great fun to spend time with P, J & L.  I’m so thankful that I have them in the same synod.  We misbehaved at the front table of the assembly together, tried to keep it together when the assembly made us do a few corny things [thumb-wrestling, hand-holding], and struggled to not break face when the photographer for the event would come uncomfortably close to take our picture.  We went out for Chinese food [ditching the synod dinner – shh.] and played a three-hour game of Settlers at the hotel.  [And we did have a pretty swank hotel.  I could have laid in that bed-with-way-too-many-pillows and watched television all day.]
I quite literally just got in the door of my apartment after returning home.  I have one hour before I’m expected to be at a CYF banquet and I need to blog.  Like, NEED to blog.  I have been around people for the very nearly the last 48 hours, but need to decompress and burst with introvert energy right about now.  I also need to unpack, sleep, and veg on the couch.
Unfortunately, there is little time to recover right now.  This weekend has been labeled in my mind as the weekend from hell for the past month and now I’m in the midst of it; it lives up to its name.  Synod assembly has passed but tomorrow morning at 9:30 I must defend my thesis.  [But, hey, before I do that, I should probably create the powerpoint and write what I will say, right?  Good idea.  Hello, late night tonight.]  Tomorrow, following the morning of CYF fun [sarcasm? slightly.], I must prepare for a Sunday night group meeting to fine-tune a presentation we make to our class at 8am on Monday morning.  From that class, I leave early to assist in the daily chapel service.
After that I can sleep.  [Until a 10 page final paper is due and a sermon is to be written for Thursday, a paper outline and reflection paper for Friday, a final paper on Sunday, and one last one for Tuesday.]  It will get done.  It always does.  
End of term: Come faster please.

done.

29 Apr
After a continuous six hours in the library today [I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time in the library, let alone any time on a Friday afternoon] and faithful editing by friends [seriously.  huge thanks and hugs to justin, sara, and kay!], the thesis is done, done, and done. [until I have to defend it in a week.]

Jonathan, CYFer and iPhone stealer, and I spent much of the afternoon visiting each other’s study carrels with last minute questions and yelling across the reference room as we frantically steadily worked on the final touches [including the necessary two page appendix I seemed to forget about until a friend reminded me this morning].  We both turned our papers in at 5pm on the dot, photographed the auspicious occasion, and gave each other high fives.

Done and done.

arbitrary facts.

27 Apr
Arbitrary fact #1 : I put way too much spinach in my lunch-time smoothie today.  It was a horrid green and I was almost embarrassed to carry it around.
Arbitrary fact #2 : Rough draft of my thesis completed.  Emailed to potential editors.  Knowing that there are people reading my paper makes me extremely nervous.  At least they’re not reading it in front of me; that’s just cause for complete jitters.
Arbitrary fact #3 : Even though my refrigerator is well stocked with groceries purchased yesterday, Cassie and I went out for dinner after an afternoon at the library.  Punch Pizza, you are delicious.  [Arbitrary fact #3b : Punch Pizza cooks their pizzas for 90 seconds at 800 degrees.  Boom.]
Arbitrary fact #4 : The television in my living room hates me and ABC would not work to watch Modern Family.  
Arbitrary fact #5 : I started The Hunger Games officially today during a few miles at the gym.  I do fear I’m hooked.
Arbitrary fact #6 : I blogged here yesterday but I don’t think I ever told you.
Arbitrary fact #7 : My iPhone was secretly taken from me today by a “friend” who found it funny.  Someday I’ll teach him for stealing from a Stolen.  I didn’t stay angry for too long because then he quoted this –
No one ever quotes that part of Wayne’s World except my brothers and I.  And apparently jD.  We’re meant to be friends forever.
Arbitrary fact #8 : After at least a month of sewing-less days, I plan on returning to the machine this weekend.  Perhaps to tackle this.  As much as I’m addicted to cardigans, I’m also addicted to bags …
Arbitrary fact #9 : My friend, Sarah, wore a cardigan today.  She said it was new, and then she said, “Guess who I thought of when I was buying it?”  Aww, moi.
Arbitrary fact #10 : I had coffee with Joel and Melissa at Borders last night.  [Rainy day = coffee in a bookstore perfection]  I bought a macaron book.  I’ve never ate one before; I hope they’re good.  If anything, they’re pretty.
Arbitrary fact #11 : Bears eat beets.  Bears.  Beets.  Battlestar Galactica.

You’ve read mine.  Now please share with me at least one arbitrary fact from your day.
Ready?  Go.

easter crafting.

26 Apr
Easter is my favorite holiday and has been since I was younger.  As a middle schooler, I threw Easter parties.  [I looked for many excuses to throw parties.  Halloween parties, camp-outs, Easter parties – all with designated projects, crafts, and invitations.  Looking back, that explains a lot about where I’m at now in regards to my party-throwing beliefs.]  We pinned the tail on the Easter bunny, went on egg hunts, and had themed food and prizes.  [I was a weird kid.  Weird.]
I’m all about egg-shaped fun.  This year, I tackled homemade kinder eggs with two different groups of friends.  Kinder eggs, you wonder?  You can purchase kinder eggs in Europe.  I first was introduced to them as a sophomore in high school when I journeyed to Spain for two weeks.  Hollow chocolate eggs – a layer of milk chocolate and one of white chocolate – wrapped in foil with a toy inside.  We were obsessed with these in Spain – OBSESSED.  When I found a website with directions to make your own kinder eggs inside of a real egg shell, I was totally on board.
 

It was really fun to do and to watch others make these.  You scoop melted chocolate into the hollowed and sterilized egg shell and then shake the shell, move it around, and peer inside to see that the chocolate coats around the entire shell.  We were all so quiet as we did it as we concentrated so hard!  I traveled home for break and repeated the chocolate craft with friends from high school, including this little guy, Ryan.  He liked to stuff the chocolate eggs with two m&ms and then eat one.  Two m&ms and then eat one.  Two m&ms and then eat five.  He was sent home quite full of sugar!
There were also cakepops to be made while I was home.  My cousins always wonder when we’ll make them and they want to do it every time I’m home.  Sam [seventh grader?  eighth grader?  I can’t keep track.] and I had this text exchange in regards to cakepop making –
“O my gosh lindsay.”  I love it.  We tackled chicks, easter eggs, and did a test run of the graduation cap cakepops.  It was a busy, messy, and fun night with nearly everyone pitching to help, or at least pitching in to eat a few.
Molly made an easter bunny and crazy alien with a mohawk dude.

Logan’s double fisting it with funfetti chicks.

everybody loves –

26 Apr
Here’s a longer than necessary story with no point:
My brother’s girlfriend came to stay with us over the Easter weekend.  I’d met her before, as she’s a student at the U of M and my brother comes this way to visit frequently.  [her, not me.  he’s never visited me specifically.  hmm.]  We weren’t sure she was coming until the day she arrived [my brother could work on his communication skills] and then we realized we had to think about Easter baskets [yes, my lovely mother still gives us an Easter basket].  We needed one for Kim.  Off to Target I went.  And to a home store to purchase paint primer for my mom.  And then, as it turned out, off to the Red Robin restaurant down the street to meet my sister.
Let me explain.  My sister was in Janesville having supper with her friends.  Her car began making a funny noise and she wasn’t sure if she should continue to drive it or what was going on.  She called my mom at home who told her that I happened to be in the same city [about 20 minutes from our house] running errands.  My mom told Emma to text me to see if I could stop by to look at the car.
To look at it?  I literally laughed at my sister when she told me that.  What the heck do I know about cars?
Well, I did know enough to look in the front wheel well and see a large metal spring of sorts rubbing on the tire.  I knew that wasn’t normal.  And then I knew enough to call my uncle.  Yeah, you probably shouldn’t drive it home, the uncle said.  Call Farm and Fleet, he suggested.  [Farm and Fleet, not Fleet Farm, is what it’s called in our neck of the woods. They have delicious orange slice candies and were conveniently located across the street.]  I call.  We drive there.  We ditch Emma’s car for the experts to learn more about this mysterious metal spring [turned out to be a strut.  strut, spring.  same diff.] and my sister and her four friends piled in my car.  [Do the math.  My car seats five.  It was illegal, but what more were we to do?  Right.  Call someone else to come to Janesville to pick them up.  But we didn’t do that.]
I was telling my sister about what I bought for Kim’s Easter basket.  I listed off a few items and then I said, “And glow sticks because who doesn’t love glow sticks?”  [I always have a stockpile of Target’s dollar bin glow bracelets in my office at church.  You never know!]
A friend from the backseat, “Glue sticks?”
I say, “Glow sticks.  Everybody loves glow sticks.”
The friend repeats, “Glue sticks?  Everybody loves glue sticks?”
I’m confused.  Why is she repeating everything I say?  In my head, in the translation and travel from back seat to front, I still hear glow sticks.  What’s the confusion and what’s with all this repeating?
It takes me a minute.  [long pause]  “Did you say glow sticks?”
The friend says, “No.  GLUE sticks.”
Oh.  Now I understand the confusion.  Emma’s friends now think I’m weirder than I already am because I think that everybody loves glue sticks and I buy them to put in my brother’s girlfriend’s Easter basket.
“Ha.  I said glow sticks.  Like glow bracelets.  Everybody loves them.”
Confusion is cleared.  The friends in the backseat agree.  Glow sticks are pretty cool.  Kim agreed too.  She loved them in her Easter basket.
[under my breath]
“But I do love a good adhesive.”

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