running off to Chicago for an evening

Dear readers,

Today I would like to tell you a little tale of Chicago...

My brother Derek was in Chicago this week (to give a presentation and attend a convention I believe... I am so bad with the details) and when he first told me, I immediately made the plan to go see him. After all Chicago is only about 2, 2.5 hours away. My first brilliant plan was to drive out Sunday since I would have all afternoon and evening.

Sunday morning I got up and saw the radar for the day. High winds and tornado outbreak across the Midwest ESPECIALLY from Illinois to Indiana. I was tempted to say, Tornadoes, psshh, we never really get anything. But I knew some people would not be at all happy with me. So in the afternoon I waited to see what happened. Around 4pm we had to run over to our neighbor's basement. And... nothing really happened. The storm passed. But there had been a severe tornado in Illinois, there were still high winds and I was tired... I decided that getting to Chicago on Sunday was not necessarily wise.

Derek and I attempted to find another evening when I could drive out after work, but it didn't look likely.

Then on Tuesday night he called me up to say that Wednesday evening if I wanted to come out, we could have dinner with some mutual friends who also happened to be in Chicago that night! A friend of his from school and a friend of friends of mine.

Well that was exciting, I agreed to it. Even though I had a meeting till 5:30 on Wednesday. Which said meeting ended up leaving me so stressed out and feeling like a failure that for the first 20 minutes of my drive to Chicago I could hardly pull my heart up from the depths.

But then I finally got distracted by the interest of trying to get to Chicago, especially without a proper GPS. I had Google maps but it didn't seem to be giving me directions, just showing where I was... Well that's ok, I thought, I did print off Google directions before I left. Not easy to read them in the dark but HEY, I had my nifty little new flashlight!

I had to take the 80/90 toll road and I was considerably surprised to find we would have to go through automated machines... and for the line I was in, every car was taking a minimum of 3-5 minutes. It was incredible. When it was my turn, I had come to the conclusion that cards were not working well for my predecessors in the line, so I pulled out my $20 for the 60-cent toll... and for a minute I wondered if that had overloaded Toll Machine's brain. Then hundreds of quarters came clattering down. Ok maybe not technically hundreds, but that is what it seemed like.

As I was getting into Chicago and heading up the Skyway, I began to get a little concerned about how exactly I would find Derek... he said the McCormick Place center was huge and he would be waiting out north of it. As it turned out I missed the Place almost right away... turned around at the University of Chicago and got on the phone with Derek. I was slightly concerned to find out he was waiting for me outside, his phone was about to die, and I was not seeing any of the roads he tried to direct me to... Oh whew! There it was. And there he was. Well that was exciting.

Now that I had Derek safely with me I was much more excited about bopping around Chicago. We set out to find the restaurant - Gino's East. There were several Gino's in Chicago as we found on Google maps, but we found an Original Gino's East and Derek confirmed he knew it was this one. Derek had somehow figured out how to make my Google Maps act like a GPS, which I was ticked off but ultimately delighted to have happen. As we were headed down Michigan Avenue and getting close... we suddenly started hitting a surge of emergency vehicles. Fire trucks, ambulances, police cars... Most of them headed the wrong way down streets. Cars pulled over as best they could. Derek and I found that the majority of them seemed to be headed exactly to where our restaurant awaited us... so we ended up heading ahead several blocks as best we could. There was not always someone directing traffic, and when we did come to an intersection with a policeman in the middle, he started waving our lane of cars on only to have the oncoming traffic start going... so we stopped. Then suddenly a fire truck appeared out of nowhere trying to get past us. I pulled way over into the cars against the curb and it was still not quite enough... it had stopped but was trying to inch past me. I inched over more, as much as I dared. It pulled past me and shot on. It had passed literally within one inch of my car. Derek was somewhat concerned for my car and amazed at the close quarters, but that did not bother me particularly, after all this was city driving.

When we finally found Gino's, we searched around for a bit for a free or cheap parking spot. But ended up pulling into a privately-controlled parking area which was $8 for about 2 or 3 hours. That didn't seem too bad to me, I paid up and we went inside to find our friends. Except we couldn't find them. Even after walking around the restaurant twice and peering at everybody, which was kind of fun actually. Finally I made Derek get in touch with them and yes indeed, we were at the wrong Gino's. There are several. Gino's East was different than Original Gino's East. However, it was only a 6-minute drive away. And apparently the deep-dish pizza that they had already ordered for all of us would not be ready for a while yet.  So we went back to my car and piled in. I did not even  bother trying to get a partial refund, I did not care. Money psshh!

When we found the RIGHT Gino's we attempted looking for parking again, failed since it was right near a hospital and it seemed hardly any parking was allowed, and ended up using the valet service, which was not bad... $14. Right inside the door one of our friends was waiting for us, that was a welcome sight!



When we parted from our friends after the meal, I took Derek back to his hotel, which was really only a 5-minute drive away. This time we DID successfully find a spot to park on the street. I paid for an hour. Derek showed off his super-posh hotel and snazzy room to me... quite fun. That hour went WAY too fast, suddenly it was time to leave. But just as well since both Derek and I needed sleep.

For the trip home I made Google Maps work like a GPS and I had a very easy time getting out of the city, getting through the tolls - except the pay-toll that kept trying to spit out my ticket - and all the way home. It did get hard to keep my eyes open for the last half. For a while I fought off drowsiness by popping in my barbershop CD and singing along, but I finally had to stop and get some nice cold water and snacks to wake my head up a little more... That did the trick and I arrived safely home at the reasonable hour of 2:40am. Hey, if you get in before 3:00am, it's not too late!

Well that was our evening, we enjoyed it quite a bit and I must say it almost entirely distracted me from the stresses of work, which did ease up slightly the following couple days. So I thank God for the gift of Wednesday night! Even if my friends did laugh at me and call me crazy for driving to Chicago after work. They probably don't realize the awesome experiences you can miss by not doing crazy things.

love,
Sharon

P.S. I wrote this in 2 sittings and did not proofread so I hope it flows reasonably well.

understanding modern English

Yesterday Stacey and I went to the big city to get running shoes, among other things. Well, while we were at the shoe store, we got to chatting with the guys helping us try on shoes. The one guy is apparently an ultra runner who had not too long ago done a 100-mile race... but he hadn't quite been able to finish. He said however that he was glad that had happened, because then he did some real damage in the next race he ran.

He said this twice and both times I struggled mentally with his enjoyment of damaging his body by running too hard... only to realize he meant he had done well in the race.

tell a tale of France

Dear readers,

Well, here it is a couple weeks later, so what else is new?!

When last I wrote, I think I was getting ready for a trip to France. Well that is now history! It was a good trip. I had some adventures, as usual. I had good flights going to France, first a connecting flight to Atlanta, then the overseas flight to Paris, then a connecting flight to Lyon. This was my first business class flight and I must say business class is amazing. They keep bringing out all these drinks and food and heated towels for the first couple hours. By the time you get a chance to sleep, you are really only going to have an hour or two until they wake you up trying to feed you breakfast (!) and saying you are landing in an hour. Also, the flight I was on had seats the reclined back quite a bit but not fully, and the legs go up as part of that reclining... So every time I wanted to get up and get a drink or go to the bathroom, I had to put my chair legs back down. And in the process several times I squished some of my articles of stuff under the legs, or realized once I had the legs up that what I needed was beneath them. Anyway, it was an interesting experience. I watched 2 movies and that probably did not leave me much sleeping time either.

So anyway, I left Saturday afternoon when I finally got to Lyon on Sunday around noon, I had several things to do before I even left the airport. I knew I needed to buy a train ticket to Switzerland for the last couple days (I was going there Thursday for a day of work and a bit of time to visit friends). But first I figured I should take out cash, that is, euros. Well what do you know, when I got the ATM my cards did not work. I was slightly shocked because I had called my bank and my credit card company before leaving. The people at the currency exchange place were not able to help me either though they tried running my card and doing everything they could for me. I had about $40 US dollars on me and I ended up exchanging that for euros and paying some of it toward a 10-euro phone card to try to call my bank or credit card company... Because my phone did not work overseas either. Too late I remembered that the guy I had called had said I would have to call a different number to get the international use turned on, just because I had so recently started service with my new carrier. Oofa! At the point I had to buy the phone card I was not doing a very good job at fighting back the tears... which was evident to the currency exchange gentleman. While he was typically French and pretty detached, I could tell he was starting to have a great deal of sympathy toward my situation. I had a hotel booked already in town, but was not certain that any of my cards (including my business card) would be accepted by the taxi that I would need to get there. So anyway, to make a long story short, after several calls with the phone card and basically finding that both of my cards had been temporarily locked, I determined that I would at least try using my business card and see if it was accepted anywhere. Which it was. So after purchasing some lunch and then the great success of a train ticket, I set off to try for a taxi. The currency exchange gentleman had told me the last time I had spoken to him (probably the 4th time or so) that if I could not find any way to get to my hotel, then if I wanted he could drop me off on his way home from work. I was extremely touched. Not a typical offer at all. So when I found out that a taxi would indeed accept my card and take me to my hotel, I ran (ok figuratively) back up to the exchange counter to assure him that I had a way to get to my hotel and thank him again. Yet another brief encounter in my life where I make a new friend for a couple hours and when I leave I'm left wishing there was a way to keep in touch... because I am just one of those people that has to stay in touch with EVERYBODY, even if I don't actually do a good job of it...

Well, I made it to my hotel. For a bit it looked iffy just because there was a roller-blading competition right in the last streets we needed to get through in order to reach the hotel. But we made it. I settled into my hotel with great relief, with a map of Lyon and with the kind and quick assistance of all the hotel staff, I was quite impressed with them. They told me the hotel had actually just finished a 6-month closure for renovation. It was quite beautiful. There was a neat glass elevator, that took probably twice as long as taking the stairs since it seemed to have a mind of its own about which floor it would go to next and stop at to pick up more people... It was quaint. I was also fascinated to learn that my hotel key card doubled as the mechanism for turning on the lights in the room, there was a little slot for it. So leave the room and take your key and everything shuts off. It was a power-saving device. Basically the law if I remember correctly. When I got back all my U.S. friends were surprised to hear about this, but my friends from Europe were like, "You've never seen that?" Surprise surprise...

By the time I felt like I was ready for the next day, including knowing what transportation I would take (the metro and then the tram to get to the work site... since my colleagues were not there yet to all take a taxi together and I felt I would rather try out public transportation), it was getting later, 5pm or so, not quite the time to thoroughly explore the city that I had hoped for. I did go walking around to get my bearings and visited the nearby plazas, and found the river - I mean one of them, and crossed one of the bridges to take a look at the other side, and went way up a set of stairs partway up the hill. But I didn't know where the main route up to the top was and didn't want to get lost on steep cobblestoned streets so I eventually headed back. It was lovely though. Around 7 or 7:30 I went back to my hotel room and got a few things and then went out into the streets near the hotel to find dinner. I found a spot not too far away and took a seat outdoors... By the time I got done with my food and dessert and had paid the bill, it was at least 9:30. It just takes a while. I literally was nodding off several times while reading my book waiting. Did not know if I would make it,  but I did. Then went back to my hotel room and that night slept quite soundly...

... To be continued, hopefully. :)

love
Sharon

sunday afternoon... the last quiet oasis for a while

Dear all,

Another week at least and Sharon has been a major slacker about writing!

As you can see I am good at starting things, but not always so good at keeping them up or finishing.

Well, instead of trying to go day-by-day over all the adventures I've missed, let me at least start with the last week and work backward from there if I have time and have not fallen asleep over my keyboard.

The past week has been busy at work. It was time to start prepping for a week of testing next week. So there were some colleagues who came to Warsaw from other facilities. I only knew one of them but we went out to eat twice, once with another colleague whom we met for the first time this trip. On days like that, my schedule goes something like this: Get up, get ready, go to work. Work all day. Go home around 5pm, work out as much as possible in the time left. Sometimes after errands. Quickly shower and neaten myself up and then run back out to dinner around 7pm. Get home around 9 or 9:30 and then just chill a bit before bed. So as you can see, there goes the whole day - of course it's fun though!

So this week, I have a couple people coming into town specifically to help me out with my part of the testing, and I foresee more of the same... but it is always worth it to spend time with people. And I like to be hospitable for people who come to Warsaw. I should show them some of the nice spots around town, like the Winona Lake area with the Island and canals. And make them brownies too. I remember a couple years ago I made brownies for some colleagues visiting from Switzerland and from Boston area and I think I packaged each up in its own bag with a name tag... Wow I must have been young and energetic then! I don't think I will be going to THAT much effort this time, but I still have to do something! In keeping with my life motto, "Big sister to the world!"

(If any of my brothers are reading this I am sure I just gave them a great opportunity for some eye-rolling! However as most of you know by now, I genuinely mean everything I say unless i follow it up with "I'm joking!")

And here it is late Sunday afternoon, the last oasis of free time before a very busy week followed by a weekend of flying to France followed by a nice intense week mostly in France and 2 days in Switzerland... Very excited about my first overseas business trip, but a little nervous and worried. Just thinking about everything that has to be done for a trip always makes me nervous. Which is funny because I travel a lot and should not be worried about it. What you have to do is just have a packing list in advance and other than that, forget about it, take each day as it comes and don't start packing till the day before you leave if you can help it. And don't try to figure out every detail of the trip and your connections and blah blah blah because the point is to live the adventure, not know it by heart in advance.

I do have to say it has been so good today to go to church and get several chunks of good Bible teaching, and of course time worshiping God and visiting with the rest of the family in Christ. For lunch we went to Stacey's parents' house. Had a yummy meal and then each person was given a huge piece of pie, I really should have asked for mine to be cut in half, but as soon as I saw it in front of me I couldn't resist... the old old story of Sharon and Chocolate. Never ends.

And this afternoon I made a lot of time to read various things.... that was nice! It is a grayish cool afternoon so just perfect for that.

Well, I hope you are all having a fabulous Sunday. And hopefully this brings you a bit up to date and I will try to be prompter with posts in the future,

love,
Sharon

the last few weeks... part 1

My dear readers,

I apologize for the lapse of posting! It has been a busy couple weeks, full of traveling and vacation. You know how vacation seems to just eat up all of your life once it hits.

Let's see, my last post was a couple weeks ago on a Wednesday. The next day was Thursday, which is always Bible Study night. To be honest I cannot remember at all what happened. I just recall that we stayed up pretty late talking. And I had to throw together my luggage so I could leave straight from work for the airport the next day, to go to Philly!

I had planned to be in Philly that weekend anyway at the end of a work trip, in order to visit Philly cousins and also NZ cousins who would be there visiting Philly cousins! Berwyn and Veronica and Emlyn. Wel lthe work trip was canceled, but I made my own plans. :)  So I left work early and hopped on a plane. My neighbor on my first flight was a lady who had children my own age, I didn't really start talking with her till the end of the flight, then I found out she had a daughter who had studied at the same university in Buenos Aires as I had! Universidad de Belgrano. So that was a fun connection. The next flight was a bit longer, Detroit to Philly. I had landed in the middle seat of a 3-seat row. On my left was a young lady who I figured was originally from India, on my right was a laid-back gentleman who offered me a paper after I had sat down and the plane was taxiing. At first I thought he was one of those guys I would rather not talk to, but that first perception was quite wrong. So we started talking about the paper and the flight and blah-blah you name it. Well, I thought it was going to be a bit hard then to engage the girl on my left in conversation, but it was not. It just took a while to find a good opportunity to do it. She was very happy to talk and I found out she was going to Philly to visit cousins too! That was pretty much the fastest flight to Philly I have ever had. People on either side to talk to. I mean it doesn't get much better than that for me! :)  Incidentally, I ordered hot tea and got it just late enough, and it was just hot enough, that I had barely started to get in some good sips before the flight attendant came along with the trash and with considerable concern obliged me to throw it in the trash because she was afraid the descent would be bumpy enough that I might burn myself. You should have seen my face. My neighbor on the left could not help laughing in deep sympathy. The landing was quite fun I must admit. For a while we were not sure the plane was going to land because it would be headed down and then seemed to head back up.

Once landed, I went to get my rental car in the now-quite-familiar Philly airport, with the expectation that I would make record efficiency getting from the plane to Jeremy and Lillian's house, since I had done this several times before. And it would not even be totally dark hopefully. Quite. Well I did very well right up until I was pulling out of the Avis lot, and then the guy who was clearing me to leave noted that my car was a step up from the class that I had ordered, asked me where I had got it, and told me that to be sure the charge wouldn't be extra I would have to go back in to the counter. Oh joy. So I did. (and for your information I had gone straight to the space indicated and it was the right make and everything)  I had just gotten everything settled to my satisfaction, mirrors, water bottle, the works, was not too thrilled. When I got in, by good chance I had the same agent as had initially given me my key, and he was ticked off enough at the inconvenience to a customer who had to come back in, that he set me up with my current car with no extra charge. Woohoo! So then, I was off.

The construction area on the highway was extra slow and so I could not shoot down the narrow lane at the same adrenaline-inducing speed as usual, but, just as well I suppose. And I was in the wrong lane to turn at one light in the city but the car catty-corner to me very nicely let me fudge the lanes and turn. And so I finally made it to Jeremy and Lillian's, found a parking spot almost right in front of their house (total miracle!) and was just turning off the car when Berwyn came out seemingly just to welcome me and stood waiting to greet me! What amazing perception to realize I had come! Well, actuallly he had just been coming out to the car for something and happened to see me and realized it must be me. But it was still lovely. What fun to see him again, and meet his wife Veronica and son Emlyn, and of course see Jeremy and Lillian again... pure happiness.  Had a nice time visiting before we all went to bed.

I got to sleep on an air mattress on the living room floor, which was very nice. Konked out until people started waking up the next morning, starting with baby Shanna of course. And then.... but that is Part 2.

Till next time, hopefully very shortly,
your honored blog post writer,
Sharon

Wednesday night is theater night, duh

Dear friends,

Because Wednesday night is a great night to go to the theater, right?!

Stacey and I went to see a show called the 4 Plaids. I mean Forever Plaid. Wow I really wish I knew what was wrong with my brain, I feel it blipping every once in a while. Despite being about 4 dead guys it was a pretty good show. Lots of great music! It was like a musical on steroids. Mostly 4-part harmony barbershop, so Ethan, I wish you could have been here!

These guys were pretty good, they made me almost die laughing a couple of times.

There was even a police car to let the traffic out after the show.

And now, I have no motivation to do anything. Absolutely anything. I don't even want to go to bed. Although I know it will be good for me. But I feel like it would be better for my sanity to stay up and do something fun for a while. Isn't that childish?

Well anyway, 8 more days of being a child and then the braces come off. :)  AND it is the same day as Stacey's birthday!! So that night we are going to PAR-TAY!!! :)

love,
Sharon

happy Monday

Dear all,

It feels like a normal summer weekday. For a few more days, until the NEXT TRIP hits!! Philly in 3 more days.

In the meantime though, there is not much to report. The latest adventures have been pretty normal... Staying up late on weekend nights... hanging out with friends... backing into a trailer hitch... pretty much the usual. I should probably share some pictures of that last event. It was a nice clean punch at least, right into my brand-new race-red bumper. Poor Cherry! She is a trooper though. She continues to happily zip around, enjoying the road, as I do. We are extra cautious about zipping backward though.

In other more momentous news, I believe my family is about to hit a milestone... in another day or two there will be ONLY boys at home. Plus Mommy of course. The last girl is going to college... Carolyn, the one like me. :)  In fact there are going to be 3 Iowa Hoyts at LeTourneau this year, yikes. They may form a club, a conspiracy, or just end up finding the whole campus plastered with posters about how cool they are as I believed happened a while ago. In any case, I am expecting to hear about some major momentous moments from down there and I am planning to go down and visit them sometime to help out! Hee hee.

Today was the first day I can remember talking to someone on the phone who was practically yelling at me. It was quite an experience. I managed to mentally distance myself from it, for about 20 seconds. 

Oh yes, I should add that I do have a new phone, it is a gorgeous Samsung Galaxy III that makes the coolest sounds. I could sit there and listen to the sounds all day. The water sounds when it goes to sleep and wakes up, the swishy sounds when you unlock it, best of all the bird chirp sound when I get texts or emails... I mean how much better does life get??  Sometimes though I have to admit I am slightly confused about whether that was nature or my phone.

Wishing you all a happy Monday evening,

love,

Sharon

the latest news in this neck of the woods

Hi all,

There has been a lot happening, it is time for an update!

First of all, yesterday when I got home from work I glanced in my driver's side mirror and what do you think I saw?? A spider had spun a little web right in the mirror! Of all the NERVE!! I can't imagine how it survived my efficient driving and turns... It is a pretty little guy and I have not bothered to remove him yet. Her I mean. All spiders that spin webs are girls right?

Kendra is here and we are watching a lot of movies in the evening. Well, sometimes. It is a great way to bond, by reacting to the movie and to the other's reactions to the movie.

I had a party with my Sunday School class last Saturday. They are 1st and 2nd graders. There were 5 kids who came and it was so much fun, as it always is, also quite wild. Even though I had them sit on the floor there was still a considerable amount of food and drink spilled. We had lunch and went on a trek through the nearby wilderness (the tree farm etc.) and blew up balloons and played balloon tag and then the boys carried on a good violent balloon fight which I extricated myself from in order to make the puppy chow with the girls. And then they made animals and eyeglasses and things out of pipe cleaners while I finished up the puppy chow. Then we sat around and ate as much as we had time for, before going out for a water gun fight. Which quickly became a water fight that included cups of water being thrown at people, mostly of course Miss Teacher. It was a blast! And then I sent baggies of puppy chow home with them. 4 hours goes very very fast on an action-packed Saturday afternoon. It probably took me longer to clean up than it took me to clean in preparation, but it was very much worth it. I kind of love the barely controlled chaos of kids running around. Of course I am used to having the ages a little more spread out, if they are all the same age that makes it a bit more wild.

And now I am getting ready for my 4th smart phone in 1 year, have to go with a new carrier since U.S. Cellular is getting bought out by Sprint in this region. So there you go, time for AT&T and a new phone (can't transfer phones though you can phone numbers, how dumb) as soon as I can get all the pictures uploaded off my camera, which is currently blazing along at the blinding speed of about 40 pictures uploaded a day, out of 889 total.... Maybe I will just go into the store and see if they can help me quickly get that done. I cannot sit around letting slow stuff hold me back from the future!

And besides that, tonight I have to make cookie bars for my colleague who is moving to another area of the building. And have to go shopping for the chocolate chips for those. And I wanted to watch my first episodes ever of E.R., with Kendra. And also wanted to go to bed early and get some work done. It's 6pm and I still have to take my run before getting to that. How likely do you think that is? Well I'll just have to jump in and see how far I get.

what happened a week ago today

Dear readers,

I have been home from California for a few days, part of me wants to go back and part of me is glad to be here. A few weeks of Indiana summer life before the next trip, and it is going to be a crazy couple months of travel.

Last time I think I left off after recounting the Saturday in San Francisco adventures? I know I did a very quick job of that, but hopefully it gave you a picture of the full and fun day.

On Sunday we slept in, we had yummy grilled hot dogs and buns and grilled corn and little tabouleh and couscous salads for lunch, then Natalie and I finished our movie (Little Miss Sunshine) while Jon took the dogs to the park for some exercise,which they needed after being shut up all day. Oh yes, Jon and Natalie have 2 dogs and 2 cats. I am amazed at all the animals in their apartment but it is pretty fun.

When Jon got back, he informed us that we could take the next train which by the way was in 10 minutes! That is, if we were ready. Oh my goodness! So we scrambled around, grabbed our stuff including sunscreen, and for the 2nd day in a row took off for the train station.

We took the train into town and then took a cab down the bayside (hmm the driver did not know where the Ferry building was... insane). We walked along the bay for a while, in a mall, (one of the cool urban malls with nifty stores), around town a bit, then I decided I needed to head back and head out to San Jose for work that week.

Somehow I drove to San Jose without having to turn around... more than once, initially I got on the highway headed north instead of south. Figures!! But with a GPS it is easy, and actually I kind of like the freeway ramps in California, it is easy to turn around on them. huge improvement on the East Coast and even the Midwest.

I got to my hotel and was IN AWE at the beauty of it... amazing, when I have a few minutes to collect my pictures I will show you. Got my computer online which is of course the most important part. Took a picture from my balcony. I wish I'd had more time that week to simply hang out in all the different parts of my suite and enjoy it... That is one of the things you have to keep in mind, those of you who have the working world ahead, when you have a job that sends you on cool trips, you are often busy enough that you don't often take the time to properly appreciate it even if you do initially appreciate it very much with your eyes and your gasps of delight. In fact that applies to all of life. Enjoy what you are doing right now and live it to the full. That is a paraphrase of a great quote by Jim Elliott, a missionary who died for Christ in South America.

Then I finally realized my text messaging was failing and I called the person I was meeting for dinner to find that he was already there... so I took off! I had dinner with a new friend I made over the weekend, my cousin's friend who was also there for work. We went to an outdoor mall and I picked out a French restaurant, mmmm yummy. What a fun evening and delicious food. And then it was plenty late and time for both of us to go to our hotels and get some sleep before the work week ahead.

Well I will tell you about the rest of the week in another post because this one got a bit long and I don't want people complaining that they have to read through a book every time.

bopping around San Francisco

So on my first full day on the West Coast, we got up and ate breakfast my cousin cooked, we dashed out the door with a friend to catch the train to the bike shop, where we rented 2 bikes for those of us who are just temporarily in town, met up with another friend who biked there to meet us, and set off on a bike ride across San Francisco and to the Golden Gate Bridge! which we crossed. Then we biked doooooooown the hill and found a place to park and lock our bikes, with some difficulty, and sat down to a delicious lunch which was more or less seafood for all of us. Then we went back to take the ferry back across the ferry... I mean across the bay, guess I am a little sleepy. But apparently we needed tokens and tickets to get on the ferry and there was not time to get that hour's ferry. So we got ourselves tokens and tickets for the next one and then went and sat in a little restaurant place and got something to drink and sat and chatted and bonded for a while. Oh yes, after locking up our bikes before that. so then we went and picked up our bikes again and waited in line for the ferry! And we got on it and enjoyed a nice chilly super windy ride. When we got back we rode our bikes through downtown traffic to my cousin's office because we had to wait for the next train. Oh yikes, that ride was a little interesting. Then we hung out in the office and warmed up for a while. that office is AMAZING! nothing like the cubeville I am used to. when we left, we said goodbye to one of our friends and then it was the four of us walking back to the train station. Well I said something, joking, about racing. Two of us had bikes, two of us didn't - me and the friend. The friend seemed to think I was mostly serious and that started me running and then we both started running breakneck down the sidewalk, then we were just about ready to slow down when my cousin and his wife on bikes started passing us! So we ran again really hard and just managed to run into the train station ahead. We were very excited about that. Hahaha!! These little impromptu adventures... Then we took the train, then we got home, the friend left to go to another even he needed to attend, and I and my cousins went out to a VERY cool Mongolian restaurant (are you reading this Derek??)  where you have a hot plate in the middle of the table and a pan of broth there, kept at a rolling boil, and you order different kinds of meat and vegetables and other things that you want, and you take pieces of them and dip or leave them in the hot broth to cook for a minute or two, then eat them... totally new incredible experience! I have to learn how to do that. Probably not hard, just takes some prep. If you ever get the chance to have Shabu Shabu (i think that's what it's called), please do.

And now we're back home chilling, Natalie and I are watching the first part of a movie (Little Miss Sunshine),, and I should really go to bed. It is 12:40 here and 3:40 Indiana time. Yikes! But a very fun day. Tomorrow should be more relaxing, although, I would totally take another day like this.

jumping back in history for a moment

Dear all,

When I went to the airport to leave Philly back in June I had some fun getting to my gate, so thought I would share... I typed this out back on the day it happened and never remembered to post it.

This afternoon my flight was at 6pm so I left my cousin’s house around 3:15. They only live 20 minutes from the airport. But here’s the story. First I set off toward what I thought was the nearest gas station, I just missed it apparently, after a couple minutes I put it in my GPS and circled back around to it. Then I pulled up on the wrong wide, the gas tank was on the other side. Then I could not figure out how to open the gas tank!! There was no fingerhole on the tank lid and no lever anywhere in the car…. So I had to Google that on my phone and it said to push the gas tank lid. I was so mad, I did it and it opened. But it was funny. Then I drove off to the airport. I missed one of the turns on that really big ridiculous traffic circle so I had to take a back way to the right road (my GPS rerouted of course), then I found myself at a 4-way stop on this new route between 2 Drexel police cars. I was slightly freaked out but laughed about it right away. Fortunately they weren’t with me long. Then there were cars stopped on the road I needed, got around them. Then there was one-lane construction ramp, finally got past it and to the airport. Then the lady took a while to figure out how to split my charge for the Avis rental. Then I had to wait for the bus. Then when I got to the airport they did very quickly check my 1 bag for me but security was a long line. Then I got almost all the way to my gate printed on my ticket and looked on a flight info board and it said it was a different gate on the other side of the airport! Before I went all the way down there I asked someone and they confirmed my 1st gate was right. I had to ask the lady at the gate too because the sign said it was going to San Juan Puerto Rico. That would have been a fun place to end up but I guess it’s just as well I went home. On the plane I sat next to a married couple so there wasn’t a lot of point in trying to talk although I did have to ask them about my seat belt which had a weird detachable part… hahhaha! They said I won the prize for having that. On the flight first I dozed for a while and then I read a book. Hmmm I had better stop talking, this is getting pointless to go through all the details. But it will make my blog post about these adventures much faster! Haha, sorry, that will be a repeat for you then. So anyway, I am in the right gate for my flight to South Bend and I shouldn’t miss it.

heaps of stuff!

Well, I think this year I am going to beat last year's record. Last year I recall that I did not even leave the state of Indiana in the month of July... though I did every other month. This year I am going to California. Yikes!

Yes, a new work trip, I can't say I balked at all when the San Jose site asked me to come out for a few days. Have never been to California and am extremely curious and a little nervous about it. Will the air feel different? Will California smell weird? Will I fall over and pass out? Will the people speak the same language as me? Ok, I better stop. :)  haha!  Regardless I am looking forward to it, and I really hope this time I can avoid missing my connecting flight and showing up late at my hosts' home. How handy to have second cousins basically right in San Jose a few minutes from the airport!

the other grand bit of news is that I had an orthodontist checkup today and my orthodontist gave the go-ahead to schedule the last 4 appointments, which involves everything necessary to take the braces off. I have been saying for quite a while that I will actually be a little sad to lose the braces and lose my teenager identity, and yes I will be a wee bit sad about that, but now that they have said it is almost time, I am truly excited to have them off. Funny how that works. I guess you start looking forward to whatever you know is coming!

Right now it is 10:37 and we are sitting around waiting to see if the bible study group who basically all couldn't come at the regular time was serious about coming around 10:30 or if it was just a joke. It is so hard to tell with these people. I need faces to look at. And people to make the sarcasm sign if they are actually joking. But it's cool, a little time to hang out with Kendra and update the long neglected blog. But nobody has been complaining very vocally... That is, at all... So I must assume no one cares too much. Nevertheless I will try to do better!

Well, I better go brush my toophers and floss and all that good stuff, especially to impress my dentist tomorrow morning. He is going to be super excited to hear about my braces! Come to think of it, I will miss my orthodontist and all the techs there. My orthodontist has a standing joke about "this appointment is going to hurt" or "pull a little to make it hurt and she might bring it treats" because once it did hurt so bad I cried, and then I felt bad, and brought in brownies as an apology. Hahaha! Some great laughs over the last 2.5 years.

Happy Friday!!!

time wants to run when you're having fun

How did a whole week run away and I did not notice?! 

Last weekend when I left you, we were jumping full swing into wedding preparations... I spent all afternoon helping with that (including cleaning a bathroom at our friend's house... which is really ironic since I almost never clean the bathroom here, dishes are my assigned chore), then we had the wedding rehearsal and dinner afterward at Hacienda, then we ran home to find KENDRA was here!! That was exciting. Then we ran out again for fireworks. Winona Lake fireworks were a slight disappointment in the length, I think they only lasted about 20 minutes, and we missed the first couple minutes. However they were very beautifully staged and delightful to watch. But the length was more than made up for the following night when we spent at least 30 minutes watching fireworks exploding right over our heads at the wedding reception. That was a great day and probably deserves its own post. I really hope someday I have the time to sit down and write all the things I should. Till then I will try to keep my readers updated while occasionally picking some adventures to describe in more detail.

The last week with Kendra here has been fun! I think we have done something fun every day. Basically. Fun on purpose I mean. Just hanging out with siblings is fun, you know. So many inside jokes and shared memories and total license to pick on each other... !

She did totally blow me away on Thursday with the news that she had passed her board exam which oh, by the way, she had taken on her way out here but had not told us!

Today the plan is to go shopping, because we need clothes. And we have tried the shops in Warsaw and they have not measured up to our needs, so we are going to go hit The Mall in Fort Wayne!

And then we have to come back and go to the last Masterworks concert of the season and.... etc.

Have a great Saturday!

4th of July weekend...

Hi guys! Sorry. The slacker blogger finally updates. I am not doing very well at keeping this up! Not from lack of desire, just from the busy-ness of life. Even now as I sit here my fingers are still damp from washing dishes, after a morning of booking a flight to California (next work trip) and running errands and cleaning the house in preparation for Kendra coming! and even I am trying to stuff down some healthy food before going next door to help with wedding prep. 'Cause our super good friend Elisabeth is getting married tomorrow! And I am a bridesmaid so I should help. Plus a good friend and next-door neighbor so I want to. :)

Yesterday was July 4th as I'm sure you know. I confess I didn't spend the WHOLE day in patriotic celebration, I spent some time in the morning practicing hairstyles and sandal tying with another bridesmaid. You may ask yourself "sandal tying?!?"  Well for the wedding we got these sandals that have the foot part and then several loops for a long ribbon, which you can tie through the loops different ways for different styles. The ribbons are pretty long and there are a LOT of different styles so we had to find one that we liked, that looked good with the dress, that felt good on our feet and wouldn't let the sandals fall off. We were successful after just 3 tries. Then I can't remember what I did all afternoon... Oh, I took a walk, and researched lots of different flight options so I could get the best one today. Different airports to fly in and out of, different times, different prices... complicated! Then I made some brownies and drove up to Goshen (stopping to pick up potato salad on the way) to hang out with Uncle Doug and Aunt Cindy and a couple of the cousins and a couple of the first-cousins-once-removed (otherwise known as FCORs). I did my best to explain this term to them (the once-removed ones, who incidentally are all 12 or under) and they mostly had it by the end of the evening. Had grilled corn on the cob for the first time ever! Cut mine off of course. After dinner and a game of Apples to Apples, in which my 12-year-old FCOR won, we went out to the driveway to set off some fireworks! Josh said that some of them were illegal but some of us were slightly doubtful he could have just walked into WalMart and bought illegal fireworks. They were all very fun... I set off a couple too. Some of the neighbors stopped over to help us.

And then I drove back to Warsaw and decided that 60 miles left on my tank of gas was plenty to leave that chore over until today. There were a lot of fireworks to see on the way home.

And then I watched part of a movie at 11:30 before going to bed because you know on these holiday times you can't just go to bed right away!

Well I hope you all had a good 4th of July, thanking God for the country we have to live in, and I hope you keep enjoying the weekend! Stay tuned for more wedding weekend updates. :)

just another Friday night

I realize I am supposed to finish the Dunes story, but that is a bit long to tackle tonight, and you surely don't want to wait a couple more days for any blog post at all, right?

Today when I walked out of work on Friday I felt a great sense of accomplishment. I had met my deadline, cleaned up some of my email, and the week before I had been notified that I was getting another raise. So, I decided to go shopping!

Often I dread clothes shopping because it takes so much time, with not a lot of return. But this time I was blessed to pick up several useful items, including...  .... MY FIRST PAIR OF NEW BLUE JEANS EVER BOUGHT WITH MY OWN MONEY. I know that is just ridiculous. But I have never found new jeans I liked even though I have tried tons of kinds. Most of the ones I have found up until now have been from Goodwill, because that at least has a wider range of styles and sizes which might actually fit. And one pair of "black" jeans from JCPenny's. And I did have one brand-new pair of jeans a long time ago but that was a gift to me after the WalMart bleach spilled down the jeans I had. That was probably when I was 13 or so... can't remember. Anyway, this is a pair of Levi's! I didn't even realize it when I bought them. They weren't even where they were supposed to be I don't think, but I noticed they were my size and also Short, and I thought, "ooo, I was about to walk out of the store but let's try these."

Then when I was in the checkout line, a nice man behind me gave me his 30% off coupon which he said he wasn't using (? go figure) and even got them to give me credit towards my next purchase... Basically he was very nice. So it was a rather pleasant trip to the store. I did leave my necklace in the dressing room by accident, but when I got home and realized, I called them and they found it for me. Don't let me forget to go pick that up tomorrow.

Have a happy weekend!!

dunes day - part 1

Friday morning when I woke up, I had no plans for the weekend, other than maybe shopping and the usual housework, and it sounded lovely.

Friday afternoon one of my friends sent a message round to the girls asking if anyone was up for one of several different activities, one of them being a day at the the beach about 2 hours away. At first I thought, wow, there goes my whole Saturday and I will not accomplish anything if we do that. But the more I thought about escaping to the beach... It ended up that all 5 of us wanted to go to the beach, even last-minute.

So Saturday morning we got up not too early and somehow got ourselves together and packed up all our supplies (including lots of snacks) and went to buy water and still more snacks ('cause you don't want to starve at the beach... what a dreadful way to go!)  Finally around noon we left Warsaw. Of course, I offered to drive us in Cherry. So there we all were cozy in a zippy little red car, deeply anticipating the beach joys ahead.

It took us a little bit to get there because, for some reason, Highway 31 turned into Business 31 and 933 and was no longer itself. So at the last minute we swerved left onto the 80/90 toll road (Ok... so we didn't quite swerve) and had not even gone all the way up the ramp onto that highway before we discovered that staying on 933 would have intersected us with 12 after all. Oh well. So we stayed on 80/90, we got tired of the radio and started messing around with one of my CDs to put in, the girls decided to listen to the "handsome guys" (Il Divo) which I was pretty happy about because (A) I thought I had lost that CD months ago, (B) I love their music. Well by the time we had got it safely in I saw a sign passing and gasped, "Oh - did we want 12??"  Thankfully my extensive experience of turning around enabled us to get quickly back on track. Then we didn't see the name of the next road so...passed that one too. Then we were finally on Broken Arrow highway... Oh wait. They kept telling me it was Red Arrow or something. I don't know why I had Broken Arrow stuck in my head.

By this time Sharon is feeling quite short on protein and I confess if there's one thing that makes me irritable... So I insisted that we stick to the original plan and stop to get some lunch. The first place we stopped did not allow take-out. So we went across the road to a Mexican grill and we all ended up getting 1 taco apiece. And took them with us to the beach which we FINALLY reached!!

~~ by now you are probably about ready to quit reading for the day... I wouldn't blame you ~~

When we first got out of the car we were kind of surprised to find that it did not feel so deliciously hot as it had back in Warsaw, and even rather cloudy up here. I began to think it wasn't very smart to not have brought sleeves. But the AngloSaxon spirit in me rose to the occasion, as it usually does, and we all got ourselves down to the beach and settled on our towels with our tacos.

I can't even convey the sweet peace and happiness of finally having a full tummy. And my less-than-8-hours of sleep and the increasing warmth of the day came to bear on me until I clunked out on my towel... Well not until I had lathered sun screen all over. I even had Stacey help me with the back. Unfortunately while I was proactively thinking about that, I totally forgot about my chest and so... But that will come up later in the story. And finally, after this exhausting effort of putting on sunscreen, I collapsed on my towel and began the afternoon with almost falling asleep on the beach.

Well, I am not sure this story really merits 2 parts but I guess that is what will happen!

adventures with Sharon on a Friday evening

Hi kids!

Sorry, it's Friday night you know... and even if some of you are not kids, I can't help it, it's the big sister coming out in me.

So I am sitting here at my lovely Lenovo with my SUPER COOL Logitech wireless mouse! It has only taken me about 3 years to get a wireless mouse... Not too bad. It feels very nice to not be using that little red dot or the not-quite-specific-enough touchpad.

This evening after I got home from work and errands (errands such as picking up my super cool new mouse!), I went out for a quick run. Well while I was running out through the tree farm on my way to run, I ran right through a little patch of insects! And they started swarming all around my head and flying above me as I ran on! At first I thought they were just a pack of annoying gnats or flies. Then I looked up and they were bigger! but not big enough to be real bees or wasps! And they would not leave when I swatted at them, and I started sprinting to try to outrun them, but I couldn't! And then terrified I thought that they must be some kind of mini killer-bee that would start stinging welts all over my face and I would suddenly find I was allergic as my body violently reacted and my throat closed up and I fell to the ground... Somehow I kept running even though they stayed with me. My last desperate thought was that I could run back to the house and grab some bug spray and spray them till they fell out of the air dead. And then, I realized they were no longer with me. Maybe they read my mind? At any rate it was quite a horrific experience and I made sure to avoid that whole area when returning. I do not usually get to start my runs out with sprints, guess it was a nice change of pace. No that was not a pun! Come on, you know I do not say this stuff intentionally.

Well, this has been another episode of Adventures with Sharon. Tomorrow we are planning a beach day, so I should have plenty to tell you about that afterward, like how it was to hang out in the sun for the first 30 minutes, then the next 30 minutes, then the next 30 minutes... And also hopefully swimming (trying to keep learning anyway) and running up and down the dunes till we fall over gasping in the sand. :)

everyday pain and other everyday stuff

Well as usual I forgot to remember to update my blog until bedtime!  But I will write a few lines anyway.

10:30 is the new bedtime. I made an effort to get some sleep once I got sick, and I got so high on the euphoric morning rested feeling that now I have to keep it up... :)

It has been a normal week I guess. Work all day, errands and housekeeping and stuff in the evening. Today I cooked for the first time in probably weeks. What was on the menu, you ask?? Well, it was quite gourmet! Bacon and asparagus! which I made enough of to share with Stacey. And tomato and corn tortilla. And I had found this little 2-pack of chocolate pie at the grocery store on Sunday so we had that for dessert.

There is nothing like cooking food and doing dishes and having a piano in the house to make you feel like you have a home!

I burned my pinky finger while cooking the bacon. Did you know that hot water is not really soothing to a burn? As I found out while I was doing the dishes. But I toughed it out and eventually my finger got used to it and the pain became less searing and less long-lasting. These small actions of bravely surmounting difficulties, of whatever size, are the stuff that truly tough people are made of. Don't you think?

Hope everyone has a Thrilling Thursday tomorrow!! (and I know you think that sounds like a name I made up, but that is not my name for it, I got it from a colleague!)

oh no! quick quick!

Oh my goodness I haven't updated the blog in a while! But I just have 2 hours until bedtime!! What can I say?

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

How many words can you make up with that? If you need something to do. Hee hee

ah-choo

I don't know about you guys but I HATE colds. Forgive me for using the h- word. I have said in the past that I would rather break my leg than get a cold, I suppose that is extreme but whenever I have a cold I still feel that way.

This cold hit me like a wagon of bricks that stopped and catapulted all the bricks over at me, the first few fell like random allergy-induced sneezes and the rest came down late last night, as we were finishing up Bible study and hanging out with friends... Actually the real WHOMP was around 3am when I found myself lying in bed struggling to swallow without extreme trauma. I immediately self-diagnosed strep throat although  I have to admit the pain wore off partway through the next morning, so there was probably no way it was strep... Anyway without sickening you with all the dirty details of a cold, this one is progressing so fast that I do have some slight hopes maybe it will already be wearing off by Saturday, which would be nice, since I had plans.

The crazy thing about a cold though is that sensation that ripples all through your body, the sensation that every single one of your kazillions of cells is only functioning at 20% capacity or less and it is just not quite enough for you to move without fatigue.

But can we all agree that pain pills are a lifesaver? Pain pills have seriously decreased my misery level more than that DayQuill stuff did. I love pain pills, don't you??! Don't worry... I did not even come close to taking the amount they say you can.

Well I hope you are all staying healthy and far away from illnesses of every type, and enjoy breathing in the beautiful air!

approaching the end of an era! ....

Guess what!!

I went to the orthodontist today,

and he said,

"Looking good! Almost done!"

In fact it will probably be 3 months max until they are off.  Somehow this is way sooner than I expected, I guess I figured that 2.5 years was an estimate and it would go a little past.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry! How about both.

At least I have a little time to prepare myself for my identity without braces. :)

worth several thousand words

Hi my readers,

I thought that today, instead of throwing a bunch of words at you, I would just share some pictures from the last week or so. But then I found I actually have to upload all those pictures to Dropbox and then load them off onto my computer. So, how about some older pictures?

of us holding a baby :)

A couple weeks ago we got to meet Alexa, who is my housemate Stacey's first and new little niece.

Here she is with Grandma Bollman...

And here is Stacey with her niece!

And I got to hold her too :)

Awwww!

Babies are such a miracle! Can you believe it?! That God creates a totally new life from two people who love each other! I could cry from sheer overwhelming happiness just thinking about it.

MLB!!!

Well, when we found out I would be in the Philly area for work, my good friend Shawn (from Philly) suggested that we could go to a baseball game while I was there... Hmm... How about YES!! My first major league baseball game, I was SO excited and spent weeks and weeks looking forward to it!

The big day finally arrived and we drove to the sports complex! and slowed down quite a bit trying to get into the parking, but finally succeeded.  As we walked toward the stadium we could hear the last bit of the national anthem ('cause we were a teency bit late) and I could feel the excitement swelling up inside me even as the crowds swelled up around me as we all crowded through the security area... I had to say goodbye to my carefully brought water bottle and had my bag searched but it was worth it to have the bag so I could put the bobble-head in it! Yes, everybody who went to the game that night was handled a packaged bobble-head of Carlos Ruiz, one of the Philly catchers.  But he was pictured as being at bat... that is the part I did not quite get. 

We got to our seats which were in quite a nice place, down relatively close to the field where we could see all the action. Oh so exciting! Phillies vs. Marlins.

The game went along pretty quietly for a while... Somewhere in the first few innings the Marlins scored a couple of runs. The Phillies had not gotten any yet. After a bit we went to hunt down some food to sustain us through the rest of the game. Hot dogs!! The line took a bit but we finally emerged with our awesome hot dogs... And there was of course ketchup and mustard and pickle relish to put on them, AND sauerkraut! I have to admit I would not have thought of sauerkraut as a traditional hot dog condiment, despite growing up near Ackley of the renowned Sauerkraut Days, but hey... I will try almost anything and it was super good. Well when we had our arms full of food, we had to wait to descend to our seats again because the Phillies were at bat and you know what havoc might ensue if some dumb people got in the way of Phillies fans watching their team batting.

The game kept proceeding rather frighteningly smoothly and quickly and we kept waiting for the Phillies to get their act together and score something... Finally they did! It had to be at least the 7th or 8th inning when they finally tied with the Marlins. I can't remember the exact inning numbers after this, it all gets kind of hazy....  Well we were getting down to the very end stretch, I can't remember if it was the 8th or 9th. The Marlins were at bat and one of their batters somehow GOT TO SECOND. When the umpire called him safe, it started, it was a low rolling rumble at first and then it just surged up mightily and moodily into a wide wide  I had never heard anything so loud, it was louder than any of the preceding cheering. It finally stopped, but then as soon as the next batter stepped up, there it was again... Boooo, boooo, boooo, boooo, boooo. I seriously did not know whether to be tremendously ticked off or giggle uncontrollably. Mostly I defaulted to the latter. It was such a childish sulky rebellious thing. Some people were joining in just for fun too, because they thought it was funny, they could not keep from smiling even as they were still booing Shawn may have been one of them. 

Oh I'm sorry, I got so run away by looking at the booing that I forgot to finish telling the game story. Well! ... Let's see. The Marlins did get at least 1 guy home that inning. BUT then Phillies tied them at the bottom of the 9th. Oh my goodness!! Extra innings!! In the next set, the Marlins scored some more! Oh my goodness. Because the Phillies had just recently gotten their first 2 hits of the game, I guess a whole bunch of fans went extremely negative and flooded out of the stands because they didn't expect the Phillies to get any more in time. I mean seriously, it took them practically the whole game to score anything at all, it did not look extremely hopeful. But who would walk out on a game... that's ridiculous. Well after they were all out of our way,

the Phillies were up to bat again, and this time, what do you know... they tied with the Marlins again, this time with a home run!!  Whoop-dee-doo the "Liberty bell" went off! (there is a huge "bell" on the edge of the stadium that rings whenever there was a home run).  It was extremely satisfying to finally see a home run, there were probably at least 2 or 3 balls earlier in the game that were seriously within 1 foot of being a home run but didn't quite make it. Well. There we were again, tied at the bottom of the 10th. 11th inning!

I can't remember if the Marlins scored... I do remember the booing kept coming back. And there was some Marlin dude that made it to 2nd base and the ump called him safe... You can just imagine the crowd's reaction. They would never stop booing now.

Then the Phillies were up to bat and they got a guy on base, and another (I think?), and then...

HOME RUN!!!!!

The stands went nuts. As that ball went sailing up we leapt to our feet and screamed and cheered. It was amazing!

Well, I think that was the end, hopefully I didn't leave out anything too significant, it was certainly a tremendously exciting game. All the action was basically in the last 3 innings. Such a great way to break into major league baseball!

And you should look up the Phillies Mascot, the Phanatic - he is crazy and so funny!

Well I will leave you with picture proof!

a very short history of the week

My dear darling beloved readers,

Well that was just about too sappy for you to want me to actually write you an update on my adventures, right?? hee hee!  I do apologize for the extreme lag between last post and this one.

Since it's almost midnight and we will of course get up for church in the morning, I thought I would just send you a brief overview of the week's activities for now (so you can be really impressed with how much I have done this week) and then next time I would like to send you the story of the Tuesday baseball game!

Saturday morning - Landed in Philly... drove to Jeremy & Lillian's house, in bed before 3am.
Saturday - A bit later in the morning, got up, enjoyed a nice leisurely late breakfast of eggs, toast, and BACON with J&L before driving off to Uncle Sherwood and Aunt Sharon's house, where I spent the rest of the day, including a yummy cookout and the movie Midnight in Paris.
Sunday - Got up and went to church; came home and chatted and relaxed and napped, then went to the house of my colleague/friend and had dinner and playtime with his family. Then drove to hotel in downtown Philly.
Monday - Got up and drove to Princeton NJ for 2 days of meeting. In meeting till 6:30. Went to dinner with colleagues. Then stayed up late!
Tuesday - Got up for Day 2 of meeting. Miraculously able to leave by 5. Drove back to Philly for the Big Major League Baseball Game!!! Very exciting. Story to come. Then back to aforementioned downtown Philly hotel.
Wednesday - Finally got a bit of sleep. Worked! Went to lunch. Went to afternoon meeting. Worked some more. Walked down the street to dinner on a boat. Hung out with colleagues there for dinner and dessert and THEN went up a few streets to have some really truly Philly cheesesteaks. And then back to the hotel and bed.
Thursday - Worked. Had lunch. Worked more. (I was supposed to be attending a conference but work was more critical).  Went to a specially arranged dinner at a museum with all the conference people. Got back to hotel, finally had a chance to move a little bit, by taking a nice walk with a friend and chatting. Went to bed.
Friday - Worked! Checked out of hotel room. Attended very last session of conference (!). Worked a bit more. Went and got lunch. Drove to Jeremy & Lillian's house for some more cousin visiting time! Worked a bit, went out for dinner in rain (but the restaurant we went to was indoors, don't worry, oh and we did drive too), the rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Andrea. Learned to play Dominion, I beat Jeremy but was beaten by Lillian.
Saturday - Got a decent bit of sleep again. Saw J&L off to their day's activities. Read, worked a bit. Drove to NJ to hang out with a friend for the evening, ate some extremely spicy curry. Drove back and got home before midnight.

And now it is time to go to bed again and get up for my last day in Philly. I can't believe it, it will be so weird to go home!

what happened at midnight that should have been history

So I know people think that I am a travelbug and probably totally on top of it... Well, forget that, nobody would jump up and shout "On top of it!" if they were asked to spit out 4 words describing me. However I have never had any self-caused travel mishaps until yesterday. Well, except getting the Ovaltine through London customs, which was ultimately a success story... that's another story for another time though.

Yesterday I was flying to Philly to spend the weekend with cousins before a week of work in the Philly/NJ area. Of course I had made arrangements for a Friday evening flight to max out my time with people! Now because there is almost never a direct flight from Warsaw to anywhere (except Dallas), my connecting flight was through Chicago. So I left South Bend at 3:45pm on Friday and got to Chicago at 3:30pm, time travel backward! When I got there I had a 3-ish-hour wait, so I did some work, went on a treasure hunt, got some dinner (my first Johnny Rockets burger, woohoo!). I got back to the gate in plenty of time prior to boarding. I waited and waited... watching the tornado news that was playing non-stop on the TV... Nothing. Finally, 15 minutes after my flight was supposed to leave, I started to get panic-stricken and look around for someone to ask. The tricky thing was that my flight was a US Airways flight, but it was in a United terminal that was basically all United gates except 3 for US Airways. And all the US Airways people had disappeared a little prior to my supposed boarding time, and of course no United people knew anything. Well, after seeing nothing about my flight number on any of the screens and seeing online that this flight had supposedly been switched to a gate at the opposite end of the airport (!!!), getting quick panic-stricken, I finally stumbled across a chance US Airways person and asked her about it. She said I had missed the flight, it had switched gates - to the one right next door! - and they had announced it a ton of times, and that if I didn't see people aroud my gate 15 minutes prior to boarding I should go asking people about it. Imagine my distress, even if you have no sympathy for my being out of it -- I had heard NOTHING and seen nothing this whole time. I was horrified. She said she was not really supposed to set up flights for people on another airline but she did find me one 2 hours later with United. Maybe the fact that I was on the verge of tears with braces eked out just the sympathy needed to get me that flight. I don't know. anyway there was no extra charge, I went and checked in for that flight, and waited. For a while tears streaming down my face because my dear cousins in Philly would have to wait up at least 2 extra hours for me just to get in. And also because my phone battery was getting close to the end of its life and I could not find an outlet to charge it, and how was I even going to keep my cousins in the loop and use my phone as a GPS when I got there?! Finally I got up to look around for an outlet with more determination and I found one that I could sit down next to and plug into. I had just started doing this when a young man in a seat nearby said, "Hey ma'am, if you want to plug in, there's an empty chair right here," and they had outlets right next to each chair. "It's nicer than sitting on the floor, just saying," he grinned. So I sat down there to charge it for a bit. I worked up the courage to ask him where he was headed and we chatted for a bit. He was a very pleasant free-spirit type, in the military, on his way to a new post but missing flights and getting delayed not by his own fault. Anyway it cheered me up quite a bit to talk to someone, and we both agreed that talking to people in airports and on planes was considered weird by other people but that we both enjoyed it a lot and had great conversations. After this, it was time for me to go make sure I was truly properly checked in and almost time to board... Well, boarding was delayed a bit till the gate was free and our plane was de-planed from its previous load of people. So by the time we finally left Philly it was already at least 15 minutes late. We seemed to be taxiing on the runway forever prior to takeoff. Maybe just because I was dozing in and out. Shortly into the flight, I was quite freaked out by the fact that the cabin lights came on, there came a distinct slight smell of something burning, and the pilot asked everyone to unplug everything they had plugged in "for just a moment"... but never said when people could plug things back in. Well, I guess the cabin lights  must have actually been for the sake of the beverage service, but I never found out about the other two bits. Also there was a considerable amount of turbulence much of the way even though we were heading a bit north to avoid weather... Ahh yes, that made our flight time a bit longer too. I should have asked about those mystery items but I was just kind of out of it due to tiredness and desperation now.

---Keep in mind that this is after a week of less-than-ideal sleep, particularly a night of 4.5 hours due to staying out late with friends, and then a short night that was interrupted by violent wind which woke me up---

Well, I must have dozed off for part of the flight because it did seem awfully short for over 2 hours, minus those pockets of excitement, at which time I did again mentally prepare to die. But thank the Lord we landed safely around 12:30. After we got off the plane, I went down to baggage claim, went to the office to ask about my bag which should have been on the earlier flight (how was the bag to know I was going to miss the flight, after all). I was behind a man who had also had bags on the earlier flight and the lady looking them up said the last track they had was such-and-such time and they would have to file a claim. I was slightly terrified to hear this, especially when the lady helping me began to say they would have to file a claim for mine.... I knew I would be hopping around to different locations practically each night and gone from Philly for a couple nights, and basically ALL my stuff was in that bag. Just as she was finishing saying this and I was prepared to try asking some last questions without crying, she said, "Oh wait, it's over at US Airways." Relief!!! Then I just had to find the US Airways baggage claim... had to ask several people, including the flight attendants from my flight who were rather confused about what direction C would be even though we were standing right in front of D... Well, I made it over there and claimed my bag in great happiness. Took the shuttle to the rental center. There were 3 of us who got off at Avis and there was just one Avis person working there. The first guy in line was Avis Preferred and because the car was not right there waiting for him, he had to go bring it up, because that was protocol. He apologized and the Avis Preferred guy apologized and those of us waiting just said, "no problem!"  next it was my turn and the arrangements were made in short order. I went out to my car with some great anticipation, what model and color would it be.... Wow! It was a Chevy Cruze, a beautiful rose-pink-maroon color! I really liked the color the minute I saw it. And it was a Cruze which was the rental car in Dallas I had previously returned for being "too new", but now I knew how they worked, and fortunately the key was normal, not one of those "push-and-start" types. So I arranged my mirrors and everything and headed to the exit. Only to find there was a car ahead of my that was having issues. Fortunately that was only a couple-minute wait and then they had to pull aside and I got to go through. My little phone GPS got my safely to my cousins' area, though as usual it rather threw me off with some of the one-way roads and names right around their area... I found a place to park that was not much of a walk. Called to let them know I was headed over, as they had instructed, just for my safety. Got to their street and then I was not sure which way they lived on it, right or left, but I quickly ascertained that by going right and discovering the numbers were descending away from theirs. Went left and there was Jeremy waiting for me on their porch! Ahh what relief!

And so around 2:30 or 2:45 I tumbled into bed and must have drifted off...

Oh, I forgot to explain the title of this. At midnight I should have already been in their house, but what actually happened was I was in a plane approaching Philly. Oh well. By the way, I love flying in over Philly at night, it looks like TwinkleTown to me. There are all these little lights that twinkle. Probably because of all the trees that wave in front of lights. At least that's my intelligent guess.

Well I hope this story has somehow entertained you or at least encouraged you that you have not missed a flight by your own subconscious deafness like me!

A few hours in the life of Sharon-about-to-go-on-a-trip

It is not even funny how much you can get done the night before you have to fly out for a week, even if you hate procrastination! I don't think it was procrastination... I think it was timely pleasant stress.

I was so mindblown by how much got done that I just had to share :)  even if this is super boring. And all on 4.5 hours of sleep!

7:30am to 5pm: put in a full day of reasonably stressful work

5pm to 7:30pm:
-stopped by the orthodontist to pick up more rubber bands
-went to TJ Maxx to get a bigger piece of luggage to check (on sale for about half price. All I had before was my faithful R2-D2 baggage that was just a bit too big to carry on but not nearly full size. So a while back I bought my first piece of carry-on-able luggage... and now the real deal!)
-went to the shoe store and bought a pair of sneakers (my first pair I'd had for probably 9 years, went with me through college, to France and Argentina, etc. etc., and was bought at Goodwill to begin with...).  And a pair of sandals (my 2nd real lasting pair in my life and a bit snazzier)
-went to a SECOND shoe store and bought a pair of silver heels! just little ones.
-went to JC Penney and picked up my bridesmaid dress that I'd had to order because no store closer than 2 hours away had it, and whew! it turned out to be just the right size! :)
-on the way home suddenly remembered I needed pills and stopped by WalGreen's
-on the way out of WalGreen's suddenly remembered I needed real and decent food to eat even just for 2 more meals, and ran to the grocery store
-on the way out of the grocery store realized I might possibly need gas before driving to AND back from the airport on a late Sunday night to come... but my errand productivity had hit its limit and I refused to stop and fill up the half tank even though it was right there. I mean seriously. Who gets gas at half a tank??

7:30pm to 10:00pm:
-began packing, basically now done with it all
-managed to eat some decent food for supper (sliced carrots, cooked an egg)
-washed the dishes
-took out the trash
-called one of my hotels next week to re-arrange the schedule
-washed out a new blouse

And that may be it. It felt like a lot more. I really hope that list impresses everyone!

And maybe I will get to bed before midnight tonight.

Hope you have had all had a Thrilling Thursday and will have a Fabulous Friday tomorrow!!

~credits and thanks to Ray Sloss my colleague who likes to call the days of the week like that~

A day with my family

Hi readers! I know you have missed me, heaps. I was making my family a priority while hanging out with them over the holiday weekend. Now at 12:30am on a Wednesday morning (eeks! SO early!) I am making you a priority over sleep. Or is it because I just watched the movie The Next 3 Days and am too wound up to properly konk out?

Anyway, for kicks, I thought I would share some of the activities of a holiday Monday at home.

Since the Big Kids watched a movie on Sunday night and we finally had no place to go in the morning (after school/work and then graduation and then church) we got to sleep in. Sleeping till after 9 is such a happy healing much-needed restoration of all those little tired-out cells in your body! Breakfast after 10... an extra cup of coffee that my thoughtful mother left for me! Then it was time to go play another round of our Age of Empires multi-player game with my three youngest brothers up in the computer lab. We had started the game the day before, and now that I was slightly more familiar with it, we got into attack mode... it was rather stressful for everyone, judging by my  brothers' reactions. This is why I don't like to play computer games generally speaking, they are too stressful. Why I usually stick with Capture the Flag. 

After that I thought I would get a little bit of work done. But that was useless because my laptop browser refused to pull anything up for several hours. Seeing that it was bent on still sleeping in, I went on to the next thing. What was the next thing? This was two days ago and my memory is already failing me. I think we goofed off until just before lunch when I ran downstairs and went on the treadmill for a bit because I was going nuts not moving enough.  It was rainy you see, and we were cooped indoors instead of being outside playing racketball or Capture the Flag or other things that could properly exhaust our lungs.

After lunch it was back to the computers for more game time! This time my youngest brother Trevor and I had a "race" in Commander Keen. I was internally giggling over this the whole time because I remember Trevor exceeding my Keen skills back when he was about 4, which was already 7 years ago. But I wanted to try my hand again at C Keen for old times' sake. I think I made it to the 4th level in the 45 minutes we had... Trevor was probably already at least on level 10. It's hard not to jump at the stomping cactus enemies! Stunning the big one with 2 back-to-back shots was extremely stressful but I somehow made it. Trevor showed me the secret of saving your game just before you get to a tough spot so you can save your lives and retry as often as you need.... Genius!!

I had posted on Facebook that I was having this race with Trevor when we started. At the end of our time I saw that my sister Kendra who was (as far as I knew) still in Des Moines, commented on my wall to see how the race was going. I found that odd. Then found my mom had announced on Facebook that Kendra was here. Yikes!! Time to run downstairs and yell at her for sneaking in without us noticing!

After that we hung out with her in the living room for a while, and she regaled us with her Wicked soundtrack, which the kids all clamored for as soon as they heard the name (go figure).  They did have to put up with about 5 minutes of my Disney station on Pandora while they tried to decide what to listen to. Heh heh! 

At some point we regaled Kendra with the barbershop arrangement of "Hey Mary Lou" that we had whipped together...

Later after various other activities including listening to a lot of Wicked songs, Mommy had us gather in the kitchen to assemble our Tinfoil Dinner suppers. Originally she had planned to cook them out in our burnpile I mean bonfire pit. Since it was way too wet and rainy, we were just going to cook them in the oven instead. I had just finished a nice suite of push-ups and other strength training, so I could  barely safely slice the potatoes, or at least so I felt. Mommy had raw burger for us to each mush into our own hamburgers and layer into our dinners. When I realized Kendra was starting to giggle as I absentmindedly watched her collecting her hamburger, I spotted her blue surgical gloves and my eyes popped. "Kendra?? Seriously?!"  She adamantly held that human guts were ok but raw animal meet creeped her out. Unfortunately I didn't quite get a good picture, I had to run upstairs for my phone and by then she was peeling them off in the trash... 

While waiting for dinner to cook, some of us played the card game Scum. I was Scum most of the time, maybe Vice-Scum once. The story of my life.

And so we happily sat around the huge family table later, diving into our tinfoil dinners, discussing everything from bone tones (ask Kendra about that) to Colorado to how car transmissions work. 

Then there was cake and ice cream and further evening stuff which I can't recall.... Till the little boys went to bed and we watched the next Harry Potter movie, #6. Kendra was quite determined to have a movie night with us even though she was getting up before 5am the next morning to get to her next class in Des Moines. This HP movie is not one of my favorites and I conveniently had to leave the room to attend to something at the worst scene, I think the one with the Inferi.

And I think that's all... A typical day, nothing super amazing but just good to be home in the lovely normalcy of family. Oops, I had better stop thinking about it because now I want to go back and hug my siblings again.  Want to have my 5th brother want to play more computer games with me and my 4th brother want to play chess with me, want to sing with my 3rd brother and read the stories my 4th sister writes, and actually I want to just sit on the couch between Kendra and Carolyn again, surrounded by sisters and goofing off.

I am not proofreading any of this, that is my new rule of thumb! at least for tonight.

a milestone!

We saw my sister Kendra graduate from her Physician's Assistant program this morning. Kendra, the first Hoyt child to receive a graduate degree. The first to get earrings! Jason suggested that perhaps he could be next. We recommended a nose ring for greater uniqueness.

Extremely proud of her!! and  all the adventures braved, all the tough times fought through, yes even all the hours of sleep lost and meals skipped or replaced with junk food to reach this goal!

return to Iowa

Sorry guys, I think I forgot to post yesterday. Not that anyone cares, right? Nobody can read a blog post every day!

It was quite a day yesterday, finished by packing for TODAY - the wonderful drive home to Iowa! The first time since Christmas! Today was a 6-hour road trip to my brother's house. I thought I would share a few special moments:

-First of all, the whole trip seemed to whiz by in my shiny new red car. Even the gas tank thought it whizzed by, it just kept sitting there at 200 miles left, then about 400 miles once I decided to stop and fill it since I needed to stop for a break and water anyway.

-At some point in Illinois I swear I saw a helicopter divebomb toward the ground ahead. I was horrified and kept looking around for it as I got closer. Suddenly it zoomed up out of the trees and over the nextdoor field and I saw it was a cropduster. I was not happy with it for freaking me out. Seriously those crop dusters are insane, they swoop and zoom right over the fields and the highway. Somebody is going to die, if only from a heart attack from seeing it.

-There was one narrow escape in Iowa where a red-winged blackbird (I think?) was swooping around over the highway, it was close but it got out of the way in time.

-I managed to not stop once in Illinois and this was super funny at the time. I guess because both Indiana and Iowa are my homes, I have to be just a little biased against Illinois.

-I did have to turn around twice once getting to Cedar Rapids because I got so excited about cruising in my car... and/or so glad that those slow people were finally turning left that I didn't realize i was supposed to turn left too...

There was probably something else to share but I forget what it was. Getting sleepy and tomorrow is the big day when my sister graduates from her physician's assistant program!

oh to be a barber

---by the way: I apologize for the outdated pictures and links and stuff on this blog, I will fix that as soon as I have the time and energy---

Today I am not sure if I have any adventures to relate,  but I did want to say, isn't it so wonderful to have a hair stylist or barber who knows you well and is your good friend? So much better than going into one of these salons or cheapo quicko places. I have a friend who cuts hair in a little shop off her house, I met her when we both went on a missions trip to Guatemala, and now she is definitely my hair cutter (is that a term? well who cares!). Such a cozy little place and I can talk to her about anything, she is my adopted mom (well one of several!), and she probably knows more about my family and I about hers than you would ever expect from people who haven't actually met each other's families... What a total stress relief to go after a long interesting day at work, and unwind, and get prettier in the process, hee hee!

Anyway, (1) I wish you could all have that fabulous relaxing experience, (2) wouldn't it be fun to be a barber or hair stylist and have decent-length conversations and friendships with that many people,what fun! But actually cutting people's hair without ruining it for them would probably stress me out.

peril on a hot spring evening

I decided to start posting again so I could keep my younger siblings who are not on Facebook updated on my life. If they are amused and informed, that is plenty enough for me!

Well, people who know me know that I love weather and temperatures- all types, all extremes and everything in between. I love winter and snow and cold, I love summer and heat, love rain, rainstorms, gray skies, and blue skies too, etc. etc. For me the temperature range is as follows:  Below 20 is cold... 20-30 is chilly... 30-40 is cool.... warm is 40-90, and then above 90 it starts getting hot. I used to say, "I'm not cold, I'm Scandinavian!"  Until it struck me that I was (unintentionally) lying over and over, whereupon I considered my German and English heritage and switched the saying to, "I'm not cold, I'm AngloSaxon!"  (this reverberated into many other areas such that, "I'm not hurt, I'm AngloSaxon!"  "That doesn't bother me, I'm AngloSaxon!" .... but I digress, I guess)

My bedroom is the room I can totally control in this house, I mean in this chicken coop, and so I like to keep my windows open as long throughout the year as I can, and enjoy as much of the natural outdoor seasonal temperature and fresh air as possible. They might  be closed November through February. This year, as has become the latest fashion, spring has been basically non-existent, so we suddenly had a week of 90-degree weather in May and even though I was ecstatic, I realized I would have to do something because it is always a bit harder to sleep in hot weather. 

And we don't have the air conditioner installed yet because we don't have a drill.... We found this out after opening the new window air conditioner and figuring out how to install it while I was busy and Stacey was tired, and after I had got a huge splinter in my toe running out barefoot to hold the air conditioner in place from the outside while we attempted to maneuver it into the correct position only to find that- the screw holes were missing! After that I sat on my floor trying to pry out the splinter with a needle while Stacey chatted with the neighbors to find out when someone could come drill. It has been a long time since splinter digging started drawing blood and wreaking throbabble pain and so I was quite relieved to get it out.

After the failed installation, I remembered the brilliant idea of last summer where I propped up my box fan on my window ledge and on the ironing board so it could suck all the cool air of the night into the room and blow it all over. Aaaaahh! I was very happy. I can't take total credit for this though, it was inspired by the basic science behind my dad's construction which involved a huge fan on the attic stairs doing the same thing. Ahh fans, so much nostalgia around them, don't you find? Anyway, I was very proud of my homemade air-cooler and took a picture. With my snazzy phone of course. Telling myself, "I wasn't born yesterday!" and giggling proudly. See below for the picture.

5 seconds later I took a step backward and happened to glance down and see a grass stem on the floor, which I poked, only to find it was my needle which I had almost stepped on.

Sharon returns

So if I start this blog up again... will anybody read? or are blogs a thing of the past?