Chicago+Yoop

Hey Everyone!

Sorry I'm so late sending out pictures of our trip! Grad school doesn't seem to care about things like free time and picture downloading. :)

Here we go!

Finally arriving in Chicago after 12 hours in the car!

Downtown in the Windy City!

:)

Buckingham Fountain with the Chicago Skyline behind us.

60 degrees and sunny when we finally arrived in the yoop. So happy to finally be here!

The annual snow meter.  Last year they got over 38 feet (all year, not at one time).  Just for reference, Michael is 6 feet tall.... that's a LOT of snow.

Eagle River Falls

Taking some pictures before going up to "The Lodge" for lunch.

So happy to be in the U.P.

Beautiful Lake Superior

A picture in front of the only bar in Gay, MI.

Coming home with some goods from Nan and Pops garden.  We really miss all the fresh raspberries Poppy picked for us!

Enjoying a little sun on the back deck... Poppy was brave enough to wear short sleeves.

So beautiful!

love,
Michael and Jaclyn

Dining Room Finally Finished!

Since we've moved into the house, we've been quite busy! We've been working on lots of DIY projects and quickly forgetting what life was like before we knew everyone at Lowes by name. I've added some pics so you can see how the dining room project went:

The popcorn ceilings half-scraped.  Watch as our dining room magically gets taller, brighter, and transports to 2014.

Looking fly in his gear...

Fully scraped...

And painted while hubs recovered from poison ivy.

The first wainscoting panel went up, after a lot of math and cutting with the new miter saw. I left that part up to the mathematically inclined (Michael).

Then a lot of liquid nails, caulking, and painting... This is the point that I began to lose faith that the project would ever end.

All panels up!

 Then came the painting... and more painting... and then more. Not pictured: a red-headed sister who did the first coat.

Josie barked at people outside helped supervise.

and FINALLY it was done! We've got to do some decorating, pictures on the back wall, perhaps a rug to keep it from echoing like a cave... but we are SO happy with the results.

Also, doesn't the wall color look different in every single picture?

Yay! We're taking a one week break from doing any work on the house because next weekend is The Popcorn-Scraping Bonanza Part II (The Kitchen)... wish us luck!

i'm a lazy blogger so this post is just pictures

yes, we made a blanket fort for the sole purpose of eating chocolate cake and listening to jim gaffigan standup.

be jealous.

p.s. kitchen roselli in east bend. do it.

the worst decision i ever made

Last night Lacey, Jaws, and I decided to go to Chili’s.  I’m not sure why we picked Chili’s…maybe it’s because the restaurant served us well during the high school years, maybe we really thought getting margaritas, appetizers, entrees, and a dessert for $35 dollars was a great deal, I don’t know. We just did.

The second mistake of the night was ordering cheese fries as an appetizer and BACON CHEDDAR quesadillas for my entrée. I didn’t  stop to think that the two were basically the same ingredients in different shapes. I also didn’t think that the quantity of cheese involved, mixed with the sugar and tequila in the blackberry margarita would tear my poor stomach to pieces.

But I soon realized.  Ohhhhhh, I realized.  I knew that something really bad was going down in my stomachular region.  That cheese was ripping down the lining of my stomach like it was a bad wallpaper.  I even went to the bathroom and considered forcing myself to throw up.

Listen.  Until you’ve stood for 10 minutes in the dirty bathroom of a chain restaurant where you just inhaled 6,000 calories of cheddar and bacon and considered sticking your finger down your own throat to end your agony, you have not reached rock bottom. 

In the end, Jaws took me home and walked around the neighborhood with me until that glob of death moved out of my stomach and into my small intestine.

Ladies: if you find a man who will shuffle around your neighborhood with you because you ate your way into a cheese-induced bout of heartburn, hold on to him.  He’s a keeper.

In the end, the three of us vowed never to eat at Chili’s again.  It’s nothing against the restaurant; I just think we’ve outgrown the days of eating solid cheese and animal fat for dinner and are moving on to better days of fresh vegetables and well-cooked steaks.

i hate running

not really, but i'm feeling quite dramatic right now.

today i tried out my 4 mile run that jaws & i neglected during our vaca last weekend. it started out fantastically. the route was (relatively) flat, i had been hydrating all day, it was the perfect amount of time between meals that i felt energized but not full...it seemed that the stars had aligned.

then i hit some major hills, nearly got run over by a car, and then got lost!

by the time i realized that i had missed my turn, i was waaaay out of the way and ended up adding an extra 2 mile loop to the run.  needless to say that i walked it.

so, i'm feeling discouraged. i thought i was gonna have a great 4 mile run to brag about, but instead i got sore legs and major thirstyness.

if this is how dramatic i feel after 4 miles (or 6), i'm gonna be a MAJOR diva after 13.1

sigh.

update: to the person who got to my blog by googling the phrase "do real runners laugh at 13.1 stickers?":
i would say no, no they don't.

on a lighter note...

i'm going to the beach!

tonight i'm having an early memorial day cookout with momma

then it's off to the beach with jaws & his fam.

see y'all next week! happy memorial day!

p.s. can you tell i'm excited to eat that watermelon?

this post is long overdue

she's going to kill me for posting this...

 i don't want to exaggerate, because then A MILLION people will be all worried, but last week was really one of the worst weeks i've ever experienced.

cliff notes version, my sis was in the hospital for some of last week with kidney stone number 3.  every time it would seem like she was getting better, that gosh darn stone would start moving again.  it felt like the nightmare that would never end.


anyhows, during this week, i kept praying and praying, but seemingly NOTHING changed. i mean, clearly, she got better since she's back to work and stuff, but it didn't feel like my prayers were heard or acknowledged at all.

i don't believe we should be whiny toddlers when God doesn't answer prayers they way we wanted him to; HOWEVER, i feel frustrated that we're supposed to come to him with our troubles and he didn't seem to be listening to mine.  what's the point in praying then?

so i got to this point in writing the post and couldn't think of anything else to say.  i really wanted to come up with some neat conclusion, something that would keep this post from sounding like I was saying that prayer is pointless (which is NOT what i'm saying), but I couldn't come up with anything.  so i let it sit till i found this...

But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

2 Conrinthians 12:9

i was reminded of why i write about spiritual things on this blog.  it's not so that i can share some sort of deep wisdom or theology with you, cause we all know i'm not qualified to do that.  it's because i want this to be a real blog.  i want other believers to know that it's okay to struggle and i want my friends who aren't to know that the Christian life isn't about being perfect.

so i'm boasting in my weakness. i don't have an answer to this insecurity (yet!), but in my weakness, His power is all the more evident.

bird war!

i don't know if i've mentioned the evil demon bird that lives outside my apartment before, but alas, there is one.  this spawn of satan poops on my car

every.

         single.

                     day.

i've started parking in the street to avoid him. yes, i have been exiled from the driveway that i pay to park on by a bird.  this bird makes me rue the day that i became a wildlife biologist.

anyway, my mom threw conservation to the wind and went out and shook this out of our tree.

no birds were harmed in the making of this photo

so at last i thought it would be safe to park in my spot again.  in my jubilation, i even washed my car until it was squeaky clean.  then today, i saw this:

dun.

      dun.

             dun.

it's on, bird.

oh yeah, it's on.

dirty hair

friends:
i am in the process of writing a deep post with musings about hospitalization and the meaning of prayer, but while i'm formulating those deep thoughts, i wanted to share with you this little convo that lacey & i had yesterday:

me: i'm trying this new thing where i only wash my hair every other day.

lms: ew. why?

me: ...well it saves me a lot of time...you know...i'm not spending 30 minutes drying and straightening...it saved me so much time on saturday!

lms: you're unemployed. what are you doing with your time that couldn't be better spent cleaning your hair?

touche, lacey. touche.


whatever. i'm sticking to it.

living the life (girls night edition)

Remember my awesome cousin Sumer ?  Thursday, LMS and I went to Charlotte for a girls night with her friends. First of all, let me say that 'cabo fish taco' is the most delicious restaurant in all the land (or the Charlotte metro area).  We ended up piling into the mini-van (mom's night out rides in style) and cruising through the city.  at one point, we realized that you CAN'T close mini-van doors while in drive, but we were already in the middle of the street, so we drove around downtown with the Oddessy doors open, emergency alarm beeping, and kids music blaring.

By the time we got there, I had to pee in a MAJOR way and so did LMS, but we found that 'cabo taco' didn't feel that STALLS were necessary in their restroom facilities. I had to go so bad that I almost considered it, but LMS was a dear and let me go ahead.

also, i witnessed someone using a breast pump for the first time ever.  you learn lots of things when most of your friends are older than you. 

if you're ever in charlotte, go to 'cabo fish taco' and get the bbq mahi tacos. you won't regret it.

living the life

here are 3 ridiculous things that happened to me today:

uno.   i went to food lion to get boxes for moving and they gave me banana boxes, which are awesome because they're sturdy and have handles that are helpful for weaklings; however, 2 hours into packing my winter clothes, i realized that the whole room smelled like a dirty famer's market at the end of the afternoon. (ew).  6 hours later, the smell has reached the kitchen and front door.

dos.  not showering until 5pm.  unemployment is pretty awesome. i can be productive and not have to look presentable.

tres.   i stopped by walmart for a few staples on my way to run.  whilst navigating towards the conditioner aisle to grab the ONE THING i needed, i found candy on sale for 98 cents, so naturally i bought some...and ate it...on the way to the greenway to run. 2 miles later, i was definitely regretting the cheap milkduds.


ridiculous.

turkey-spinach lasagna

  Yesterday was a frustrating day to cook.  I was trying to find a recipe for some sweet comfort food for a friend, but we were out of sugar and making comfort food without sugar is dang near impossible.

  I randomly picked up a Women's Day magazine we had laying around and there were recipes for using up leftover turkey, which was perfection considering that my mom roasted a turkey last week and we have tons of it still in the fridge! 

It's healthy, tasty, and it keeps in the fridge, so you've got dinner for the rest of the week.

Here's how you do it:

(un)productivity

4 years later aaaaaand you're qualified to answer phones...

 Today was my first official day of unemployment, which was (expectedly) sad and unproductive.  I had a very, very long to-do list of things that sickness, employment, and loooooooove have prevented me from accomplishing over the past 3 weeks, but actually, I did very little of it.

It's bittersweet to be finishing with my year of ministry and moving on. It's also frustrating to have a very expensive piece of paper hanging on the wall in my room that says i should be qualified for a job, but to receive rejection after rejection.

I didn't really intend for this post to turn into a rant about my employment frustrations. I truly honestly know that big J has it under control.  If I learned anything at all from the whole Sweden debacle, it's that God knows best.  He's never done me wrong, never let a bill go unpaid, and never given me anything that I couldn't handle, but there are still moments where I think "grrrrrrrrrrrrr i hate this" and proceed to throw myself a really fancy pity party.

On a positive note: I got out and ran for the first time in a week and it was so. nice. I'm so impatient to up my distance so that I can feel like a real runner (sorry, JP!), but it was fantastical to get back out after a week of tissues and dayquil, even if it was only 1.5 miles. :) Unemployment or not, I'm a lucky girl.

Night, y'all.

Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward

you will take me into glory.  Whom have I in heaven but you?

And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

Psalm 73:23-25

songs for a sucky day

i know you probably have those days when you feel like there is something really big weighing on you and you've prayed about it over and over and it just feels like God
is. not. listening.

sometimes those days stretch into weeks or months and it really wears on you.  you're tired and your faith feels really small.

i've definitely been through some of those times (and know there will be more).  while i was driving today, i heard one of the songs that i listened to a lot when struggling through some career decisions last winter. i love me some worship songs,  but i also really love christian songs that are about struggle too.  it refreshed me to remember that i can be honest with God and also that other people are struggling through similar things.

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.  And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

1 Corinthians 10:13

Here are some of the songs I love when I'm feeling far away from God:

"how long, o lord, will you wait to rescue me?

how long, o lord, how long?

Would my tempter pursue me

if he knew you were near?

would he boast of his power

if he felt your hand?"

"there's only one way to figure out

will you let me drown?

hey now, this is my desire

consume me like a fire, cause i just want something beautiful to touch me

I know that I'm in reach

cause I am down on my knees 

waiting for something beautiful"

"lord, didn't you see me crying

and didn't you hear me call your name

wasn't it you I gave my heart to?

I wish you'd remember where you set it down"

I hope these songs encourage you as much as they've encouraged me.  If that doesn't work, you can look at the picture of the horse sticking out his tongue. That has to make you laugh :)

to: jaws

two nights ago, i got serenaded via skype, which seems like it might be weird

but was actually incredibly sweet. 

can you believe we've been together over 4 months and this is the first time i've heard him play?

you might say "what is the point of dating a guy who can play guitar if he doesn't play you sappy love songs?"

and don't worry, i was asking myself that too.

so at the risk of being "that girl", i wanted to post these pictures that make me smile every time i look at them AND

prove to jaws that i DO mention him on my blog. 

that is all. :)