No Genius Found Here.

The time has come for me to admit something. *grits teeth, deep breath* I HATE REFRIED BEANS! Or is it the grocery store? Yeah, we'll just go with both. This may strike you as odd, but as I am about to tell you, it is well founded.

Pushing my cart through the grocery store, I glanced down at my shopping list to see what I was missing when my eye caught the dreaded item, "refried beans." My mind drifted back to weeks earlier when I had been on a quest for the very same item in a grocery store not so far away. I had spent 15 minutes of my precious time searching high and low for what I desired, only to give up in frustration. They could not be located in either the bean section or the Hispanic food section. NO I was not going to ask for help. What an abomination, ME having to ask for refried beans! I mean come on it's not like it's some obscure item like...guava! I had looked at every single can on the bean isle and was sure they were not kept there. So instead of looking stupid, I decided they were stupid and inept and did not carry refried beans.

A week later, Rosa, Josh, and I ended up at the very same grocery store, not so far away, in a quest for Ramen Noodles. While there I...stupidly as I would find out shortly...decided to see if they could find the substance. After a short search they began to agree with me and I was feeling rather good about myself and disgusted with the store until I heard, from isles down!!! josh yelling my name. Upon arrival at his isle I found a smiling Josh holding none other then a can of refried beans. Apparently I had forgotten to check the AMERICAN Mexican isle. The experience greatly wounded me and I have since boycotted the grocery store not so far away, whose name I will not mention but it's initials are FOODLION!

Back to the present, and today's grocery store of choice, I found myself glaring at the piece of paper I held in my hand wondering how I had let myself run out of the disliked item. But unfortunately I had so I set off once more on my quest for refried beans, hoping that those who stocked the shelves of Bilo had developed better organizational genius.

I began on what should be the most obvious of locations, the bean isle. That was a negative. Next was the American Mexican area...They only had beans containing lard. Alright, Hispanic section. What DO you know. This store had them. But wait, this is not the brand I usually buy, and being a creature of habit and returned to the previous isle in search of the correct brand. Yeah...no. FINE I'll break from habit and buy THESE! Certainly they should have carried the most popular brand of refried beans that are found in every other grocery store I have ever been to, but at the moment I am not in the mood for another conquest.

Yeah no genius found here. If I were in charge of the bean world I would naturally put LIKE ITEMS TOGETHER. Refried beans happen to carry the title of beans which would to me mean that they should be found among others of the same title. Therefore when looking for beans, all brands, types, and genres are seen and can be compared without traveling to other isles.

Don't get me started on the enchilada sauce...

Puppet Fest!

Every year Creative Ministries travels to at least one of the festivals that One Way Street Puts on. It's a weekend of workshops and competitions all centered around ministry. It can pretty much put you on a spiritual high, besides just getting you excited about puppets, and miming, and ventriloquism etc.

We jammed all of us into a suite and adjoining room. It was one of the smallest suites I've ever stayed in. Poor Ricardo had to sleep wedged in the kitchen. The three of us shared this bed.

Mr. P is always stuck behind the camera.

For the signing number we decided to put on faces. It takes a long time but it really helps with the effect. However one of the judges didn't appreciate them... Don't get me started on the judges.

Pracitce

Performance for the competition. We got silver. Don't get me started on that either. I know I'm partial but honestly, in my defense other teams were telling us they judged us badly.

They like to ask questions about the performance and since I taught I got to be the one to go up front and talk about it. So exciting I know....

My Neighborhood

Our web page finally got pictures of the week up, so I thought I'd steal a few of them for your benefit. These are pre-school meetings but this is basically what staff meeting looks like which occur 2-3 times per month.

The wonderful people I work with. Can you find me? I'm rather bright. Right to left: Chaplain Tim, Rosa-cafeteria, Bonny-cafeteria, Paul-maintenance, Me!, Nancy-office manager, Jason-maintenance, Ed-Music (notice I'm using first names. You should be proud. That's been a great achievement.)

Hindman-History/Bible (nobody uses his first name. What is it anyway?) Kathy-Academic VP, Sharon- my lovely head dean, Rick- The big cheese PRINCIPAL, Beth-librarian/school counselor

Josh-Asst. Boys Dean, Callie-Recruiting, Coach Adams, Cheryl-Cafeteria, Stella-English, and Mr. Grow is barely visible back there. (sorry, no first names for him. Just not possible.)

That's most of them... There's a lot of tough stuff that is discussed in that library. But we have about as much fun as anything else. Great bunch really.

My girls have all left me except for 14 that had to stay to work for break. So quiet. It's really quite nice. 53 children IS a bit much after all.

Friends are the family we make for ourselves...

Some pictures from last weekend... Jenn and I went down to Coolidge-my favorite place on earth. well not quite but pretty close.

I got a phone call that weekend from Bonny Musgrave. Paul's dad had died and they were looking into flying Tanya home from Majuro for the funeral. The circumstances were awful but lucky me got to see Tanya!!!!

Not that she would have... but she sure hasn't changed much. There are a few more things she's added into her vocabulary that are influences of the island. She makes some weird sound with her tongue when she's frustrated now.

Sabbath afternoon we got to take a short walk down to the auditorium where she was going to practice for her special music she was singing at the memorial. Problem was it took forever to get to the song cause we were talking too much. We used to do that SO often when we were in high school together. Except this time we didn't have to hope that the auditorium was open cause I have a key! I needed to talk to her so badly. letters just hadn't been cutting it. Response time is dreadfully slow if you know what I mean.

Saturday night Desmond came up from GCA, Nick who is some sort of relation like a cousin maybe? to tanya and his girlfriend Alicia (who we went to high school with us actually) came over from collegedale. We kept to another tradition and went down town for coffee. They have a double decker bus from England that they've made into a little shop. Coolest place ever.

The tables are chalk boards. This is Tanya's flower that she always draws. I'd missed it. Funny how even the little things become so much more important.

Tomorrow she leaves me again. I think I'm going to be depressed.

From the Sister-In-Law

I've been perusing through blogs which all seem to be filled with engagement pictures, and just feeling so overwhelmed. I'm so happy I can't contain myself. I could write books about it. Maybe I will someday. Or we'll just keep that for the toasts. (Why do they call them toasts? Makes no sense.) Really we're just consolidating some of the best families on the planet. But most of all it just proves that God really is out there, planning lives and putting people in other's paths to create things that are so much better then what we ever could have expected.

But to the real reason for my excitement....

Over 15 years ago two very serious little girls sat over a game of aggravation discussing matters at hand when we made an unbreakable oath. It was decided and promised that if Jaclyn and Ryan H. were to marry (which was looking very probable at the time.) that Amy and I would have no choice but to get married ourselves. It is with great joy that I can now announce that we are FREE AT LAST!

Sneaking to the boy's dorm!

Traditions, and random, fun weird things, were what made my high school experience so I decided to make a memory tonight. I thought it up weeks ago while lying in bed trying to sleep somewhere during the early morning hours. But it was just this week that I finalized it.

At 9:40 Rosa pulled the fire alarm to which the girls were all disgusted. We have to have monthly ones so... hey at least I didn't pull it at 3 am. They were completely grumpy about it until I told them the reason they had been called. We were sneaking up to the boys dorm! ELATION, screaming, jumping up and down. BOYS, the word sends energy through academy girls like nothing else in the world. Suddenly I had a pack of giggly ladies that wouldn't listen to a thing I said. They all had to go change. (good grief it's pitch black outside!) But we managed to get them together and mostly quiet...eventually.

We snuck up boys dorm hill and gathered in a pack then broke out in screams, which were supposed to contain something to do with the fact that we had cookies, but they just couldn't stop screaming and giggling so I lost my voice trying to make some sense of it all. Don't know why I tried. Suddenly the girls got sick of standing there and started beelining it for the door. Wait a minute! WRONG! Did we miss the part of the speech where we were FORBIDDEN to place a toe across the threshold? Dean Stephanie turns into a prize winning sheep dog lickety split. I corralled them feet from the door where stunned boys were clustering. One boy was audibly thanking God for the arrival of 50 girls to his doorstep. The girls were screaming so loud that the boys RA's couldn't even announce what was happening. This was not how it was planned, but when boys meet girls, hormones apparently cannot be squelched. We stood there with cookies, they stood in the door...and wouldn't move. weird...

Finally the boys somehow got the go ahead, from where I don't know. Couples found each other like suction cups, cookies forgotten. (*rolls eyes* really now guys... come on. )

Of course after all the excitement there were boys trying to go to the girls dorm and girls trying to stay in the boys dorm, but Dean Josh and I managed to move them in the right direction, and overall I'd say that the evening was quite a success, and way too much fun. Memory made...

Since I'm Up

There have been a lot of questions about me and deaning so since I
happen to be awake from the job with some very strong feelings about
it... here yah go.

So if you were to ask me, I LOVE this job. I really do. Why, well it's
hard to explain. Most people would think I'm crazy. I love working with
people, even tho it may be angry parents or fighting girls, I can
handle it. And I guess I just like being able to settle things and talk
them through it. I'm using my social work degree (in progress) daily,
which btw it is SOOOO different actually dealing with an abused girl
then practicing on friends in a class room. There are a lot of hurting
girls. They come here with some of the most messed up lives and you can
give them the one thing they need-LOVE. and they love you back, miss
you when you're gone, idolize you, want to be near you. It's kind of
scary to be looked up to like that. But at the same time it's very
empowering.

What do I do in a day? Well that is is all dependent
on THE PHONE. I am going to come up with a horrible name for it to
display my feelings towards it. Right now it's "the curse" but that
just doesn't begin to...begin. Currently I am awake because of it. When
I'm on duty there is rarely a night that I am in bed before 12:30, as
was the case last night. then at 7:30 I start getting phone calls. This
mornings favorite was a parent asking "can you give me the number to
the school?" I'm sure that was very important to her but man I would
have loved to be sleeping. so after an hour of phone calls every ten
minutes, crawling in and out of bed, being jolted awake by that STUPID
PHONE! I finally just stayed out of bed and guess what! The phone
stopped ringing. amazing... it does tricks.

But really, that's what decides my day. I don't know what I really do. it's sporadic
because the phone may interrupt what I'm doing and I have to stop and
go take care of it. Today it's a Sam's run to refill girls club store
and a trip to the doctor. I was talking to the head dean last night,
basically, you don't plan ahead to do anything because well, it's going
to change. Yesterday I was supposed to go to the Biltmore house with
Carrie, Ryan, and Jaclyn, it turned out to be driving for service day
and two staff meetings. There are days you just don't get  the planned
day off and the needs find you even if you don't have the phone.

But I work with a great staff. I mean, I work in a community. You always
have friends or at least people that care. Working with them on a staff
level has been very different. As a student you can tag them very
wrongly. Instead I've found a God filled group of adults that really
struggle to do what's best for these kids. And let me tell you it's not
always easy to know. I've spent many a staff meeting in prayer trying
to know what to do. If I didn't have God I think this job would be
impossible.

So I'm happy. If I've gotten to sleep, lol, then I
love getting up in the morning. the days are great and there is no
school to ruin my life. What more can I ask for...