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One year ago –

3 Oct

One year ago today was a Wednesday.  I remember because it was a confirmation night and we were painting the to-be youth room lime green.  A couple youth and parents stuck around after class to help paint.  It’s then my iphone dinged with a new email.

Wouldn’t I consider auditioning for the reality show Master Chef?  They’d seen my cooking videos [check out the youtube link in the right hand column if you must] and were recruiting people to come to Minneapolis to try out.  And so began my crazy October of cakepops from scratch, VIP auditions, and everything Master Chef.  I look back fondly; as I think of turning 30 in just a few short months, auditioning for a reality television show goes in that look-at-the-fun-things-I’ve-done-in-these-first-30-years column.  It was crazy in a really fun way.  [Until I quit the process, of course.]

One year ago today also marked the eight year anniversary of my dad’s death.  Which makes today year nine.  The tradition is to watch Back to the Future [a mutual love for Marty McFly and the space/time continuum was one of the strong bonds my dad and I held] and drink a coke; today the plan might have to be falling asleep on the couch to Back to the Future as Paige and I have theater tickets to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Austin at the community college tonight.  I may not be able to stay awake to see Marty return from November 1955 but I’ll at least watch him go there at 88 mph to end up in Old Man Peabody’s barn after being chased by Libyan nationalists who shoot Doc for giving them a shotty bomb made of used pinball machine parts while stealing their plutonium.  And hopefully long enough to watch his own mother call him Calvin because it’s written all over his purple underwear when she puts his pants on her hope chest.

*clears throat*  So let us raise our cokes.  To John.  To Spanky.  To the best dad who would help us make the most elaborate snow forts, chase bats from my bedroom in the middle of the night using a broom, and help me decorate sugar cookies for all my friends with their names on them in his perfect printing.

Friday Favorites.

7 Jun

There is lots to love this week, people.  Lots to love.

Let’s start here.  The 13 Creepiest Things A Child Has Ever Said to a Parent.  I came across this one morning and laughed the ENTIRE day about it.  I guess creepy translates to hilarious in my brain.

Continuing, I love Joss Whedon.  I couldn’t even tell you what exactly it is but that he is something akin to my perfect man.  Hilarious.  Red-headed.  You know.  Not only is he the man behind Dr.Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, he is coming out with a new movie, Much Ado About Nothing.  I will see it when it makes its way to small-town America but for this moment, read how he invited his own friends to be extras on the film.  He is so swell.

On another Joss note, he gave a commencement address.  It was awesome.  Here’s a taste –

Identity is something that you are constantly earning.  It is a process that you must be active in.

And how about this – my favorite pins:

Happy Friday, friends. 

 

Friday Favorites.

31 May

The “keeping my chin up” edition.

It’s been a rough week here.

Burned out.

No motivation.

Tears.

Le sigh.

In the midst of it, these are happy things:

I certainly don’t need a garland of pool noodles, but, gosh, do I want to make one.  Or five.  [Sara, are you with me on this one?]

The Bachelorette began this past week and I got a tv antenna installed just in time to tune in every Monday.  The Bachelorette not your thing?  Fair enough.  It doesn’t need to be everyone’s guilty pleasure.  But maybe you want to watch The Baby Bachelor?  [Thanks to Emma for directing that one to me.]

I redbox’ed Promised Land last night.  Two of my favorites – Matt Damon & John Krasinski – together in one film.  Promised land indeed.

As my mom, sister, and I travel to Alaska in a couple weeks, we’ll be going on the fringe of rainy season.  Bring a rain jacket, my brother advised.  Well, I don’t own an appropriate rain jacket and so I ordered one.  I was going to order a calm blue one from LLBean but they were out of stock.  My next favorite color?  BRIGHT yellow.  I’m going to look like a rubber ducky but it will make any gloomy, rainy day brighter.

In the midst of a crazy not-so-good week, there were bright spots.  A phone conversation with a friend in Tennessee, running into a Dawson friend briefly while walking my dog between here and the cemetery, a skype date with friends in Montana, and a sermon writing afternoon with jD and [five minutes with] Paige.

And here’s to hoping the overall emotions of next week only go up.

The Giant Mechanical Man and broken teeth.

30 Mar

Have you heard of The Giant Mechanical Man?  It’s a movie.  A delightful one.  It streams on Netflix if that helps you out, and is one my sister would definitely characterize as a Lindsay movie.  [Read: Indie-ish, odd, not mainstream.]

 

In the movie – in addition to a whole lot of other stuff happening with silver face paint and scenes at a zoo [I’m totally selling it, right? <sarcasm>] – two of the main characters have the same dream.  A dream about their teeth falling out.

I saw this movie weeks ago when Paige & Karen & I had a sleepover at the ROG B&B but it kept replaying in my mind this week again as my own teeth began falling out.  … say what?

Okay.  Not multiple teeth and not even a whole tooth.  It was Maundy Thursday and I had just gone to get the mail from the mailbox.  I was chewing gum.  La di da.  Sorting mail.  Blowing bubbles.  Opening letters.  Chomp, chomp, cho –

There is suddenly something very hard in my gum.  Upon further investigation, it’s a part of a tooth and it’s disgusting.  [Luckily, it doesn’t hurt.  A corner of a molar.  I have an appointment next week to get it checked out.]  Last year on Maundy Thursday, my heel broke during worship.  This year, apparently, it’s my teeth.  Should we cast lots for what breaks next year?  Maybe an arm or a leg?

adios, 2012.

1 Jan
If I told you that I ushered out 2012 with a bang, then my first post of 2013 would begin with a lie.  I spent New Year’s Eve with my sister and my aunt, eating dinner, drinking vodka slush, and watching Butter.  [It’s a satirical movie about butter carving competitions in Iowa.  I found it hilarious.]  I was in bed by 11.  Party on, Wayne.
But really, it was okay.  It had been a long week at home.  I began the week exhausted from three days of church services and exhaustion of all kinds [emotional, social, physical] continued with the service for Grandpa Sid on Saturday.  Between the visitation preceding and the service, it was estimated we greeted nearly 400 people.  No wonder this introvert was tired.  Throw in odd sleeping hours and eating, well, not well, and the whole week is almost a blur.  
I’m home in Austin, settling in for the night to prepare for a funeral that is tomorrow morning.  I felt before I could write that sermon, I must write to you.  It’s been sporadic of late, and I feel I owe you some sort of 2012 wrap up.  All the other bloggers are doing it.
2012 favorites:
1. Vacation on the north shore and sea kayaking.
2. Auditioning for MasterChef.  
3. Vacation with Kate to the woods.
5. National Youth Gathering in New Orleans.
6. I love composting and how it decreases my garbage. 
7. Perfecting iced coffee, raw oatmeal, and plain microwave popcorn.
8. Local family parties. [Oscar and lefse to name a few.]
9. Volunteering at school.
10. Many new babies!  [Below: the most recent Banana baby I met while home!]
Mason Miles.  He’s a cutie pie.
Certainly, it’s both a trivial and logical list.  
Certainly, there is much more that belongs on the list.  
Certainly, one can’t sum up a year in a single post.  
Any goals for 2013? you ask.  I’m refraining from setting actual goals or resolutions.  Sure, I want to exercise more, sleep more, try more new recipes, go on adventures to new places, create freely, and tackle those books on my ever-growing to-read list.  But instead of setting anything tangible to any of those, I think it can be summed up otherwise.  I look to 2013 with this –

Today is the first blank page of a 365 page book.  Write a good one.

a thankful november: my bed.

2 Nov
Do you love your bed?
I love my bed.
Some people don’t have beds.  I’m thankful for mine.
As I wash my sheets and dream of sleeping in a newly-made bed tonight, I realize I probably spend too much time in bed.  I’m a solid eight-hours a night kind of gal, mostly due to boredom and a flexible work schedule.  Perhaps the washing of sheets will wash away the nightmares and dreams I’ve been having.  [Last night I dreamed that I went to the dentist and had nine cavities.  Then I was at McDonald’s and it took over an hour to get my fruit and walnut salad.  Then there was something about a kidnapping; I don’t quite recall now which is probably best.]
Simplistic statement though it is – I love my bed.  The end.
In other news, Paige and I saw Argo this afternoon.  I feel more intelligent for it.  

a two-part rant.

21 Apr

It seems I’ve been on an impromtu blog hiatus.  Don’t worry – it wasn’t you.  It was me.  I’m back now. With two-part rant.  You don’t have to tell me twice – I know you’re excited.  Who doesn’t love a good rant?  Let’s get started.
First.  Nicholas Sparks is the man I love to hate and hate to love.  I used to read every Nicolas Sparks book like it was no one’s business.  I’d eat every new one up.  I read my favorite one, A Bend in the Road, at least three times.  I loved him.  But then The Notebook got so much attention.  The Notebook – not one of my favorites.  Besides Ryan Gosling and the well-played scene in the rain on the pier [see note on rain in chick flicks below], I didn’t care overly for the film either. gasp.  I know.  I started to only love Nicolas sometimes.  Once in a while, I’d allow myself to get sucked back into his stereotypical genre of plot lines with wounded men and the women who fall in love with them [and the other way around].  We had a mediocre relationship going, Nicolas and I. The kind where I wouldn’t bring him home for dinner but, sure, I’d meet up for a drink if I had no better plans.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was listening to a Nicolas Sparks audiobook on my Alaskan drive last summer.  I listened to it and remember laughing.  I remember thinking it was dumb.  It was cliché.  And then I remember calling myself a severe girly girl [the kind I never want to be] for ever liking him.  I slapped my own fingers in shame.  I hid all of my Spark’s novels behind another line of books on my shelf.  But then The Lucky One was released as a movie and Zac Efron looked pretty dreamy in the previews.  Yes, I read the book a while back when I was in my Spark’s phase.  And yes, I loved the movie.  Oh, Nicolas Sparks.  I can’t make up my mind.  I love to hate you.  I hate to love you.  It’s like I’m in one of your novels; I’m the wounded girl and the novel itself is the guy.  How metafiction of you, Nick.
Second.  Chick flicks are bad for my health.  I saw The Lucky One this afternoon with Paige.  We seem to entertain ourselves a lot lately by meeting up at the Owatonna theater and seeing whatever we can lose ourselves in for two hours.  [We love to escape reality, ie I love to forget that I still have a sermon to finish.]  My sister always accuses me of being super critical of movies.  Well, Emma, I loved it.  I was sucked in and had no power against its storyline or the definition of muscles in Zac Efron’s back.  Even the giggling row of junior high girls behind us laughing uncomfortably at every sign of affection on-screen weren’t enough to distract me.   I would totally see it again.  But I shouldn’t.  Chick flicks are bad for my health.
While a genre I enjoy, it’s a genre the reminds me, in one more way, that I go home to an empty house.  It’s a genre that raises expectations that will likely never be met [meet lindsay the pessimist] and that, given enough other outside circumstances, could only potentially fuel a spiral into depression.  Plus, we all know such well-timed thunderstorms and getting caught in the rain is pure creative fiction.  Rain doesn’t work like that.  Rain comes instead when you’re out running errands in canvas flats and pants a half-inch too long. [Welcome to my Thursday.]
Anyways.  Now I must move on with my evening.  I thought about creating a clandestine second blog – one where I could somewhat secretly just ream on the dangers of chick flicks to women [I’m sure there are studies somewhere.] but I won’t.  Instead, I’ll finish my sermon for tomorrow and then likely do what I do best – watch a movie I’ve already seen five hundred and three times.  Something like 27 Dresses, or Pride and Prejudice, or Pretty in Pink.
I’m doomed.
Pretty much.

dawn and mr.darcy.

24 Oct
The corn in my backyard was harvested yesterday evening.  With the corn gone, my morning view has improved.  I woke up to this scene this morning:

Which couldn’t help but remind me of this scene from Pride & Prejudice.  I kept waiting for my Mr.Darcy to walk across the field towards me.  [No luck.]  As gal pal, Sara, commented on my facebook post about the photo [profanity warning]: … did your secret love interest’s bitchy aunt just come and try to forbid you from accepting a marriage proposal?  Is that why you were up that early and wandering through a foggy field?  [if you know the movie as well as Sara and I – or really just at all – that should make perfect sense]
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