Three books I've read recently

Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party) (Hardcover) - The first political book I've ever read, this book is about the growing number of morally conservative, yet socially liberal people, and how they are influencing politics. I really enjoyed this book and pretty much agreed with everything said. I don't know if it's buy worthy yet, but I probably will read it again in the future.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity - My new obsession. I've tried a host of other organizational methods before, and this one seems to be the one for me. There is a pretty big following to the GTD method, so if you google it or read Lifehacker you will be able to learn more about the book without actually buying it. Best tip gleaned - write everything down that comes through your head - e-ver-y-thing. When you have something to do, it will bounce around your head a million times a day and clutter up your thoughts. But if you write it down then your mind is free and clear to think about other things. Of course you have to look at your notes (once per week he recommends) so you do the things you want to do. The first time I did this I had 2.5 pages of stuff, but now it's just a few things every day or so.
I talk about this book so often that Brent sings a little theme song every time I bring it up.....

Eldest (sequel to Eragon) - I read very little fiction, but this one I've been waiting for at the library for months. I haven't actually read it yet, but it's going with me on a road trip and will be the first thing I do there. It's a fantasy book about a boy who finds a dragon's egg which a lot of other people are looking for too. He becomes bound to the dragon, which gives him magical powers and a price on his head. It's a Young Adults book, so an easy read, but very entertaining. And, if you don't get around to it, the first book is coming to movie in a few months.

Looky look what I got today!

Just in case you don't know me, that metal thing through my nostril was not there yesterday. :)

A blessing and a curse

So the past few weeks I have been working all kinds of weird hours - kind of a swing shift type thing, but sometimes I don't even know what shift I am working from day to day. Right now (3:30 AM) I'm here at my desk and I didn't know I was going to have to work 3rd shift until 10AM yesterday morning. Short notice, indeed.

However, more hours mean more money, and also more vacation for next year (since I'm part time, my vacation is figured out by how many hours I worked the last year - or something like that).

I dislike it very much anyway, as I kind of run on autopilot when I am working full-time whatever odd shift. I'm used to having a whole day to get all my things done and be productive, and cutting that in half with extra work hours just messes up my whole system - not to mention the fact that trying to sleep all weird hours makes me very crabby.

But another good thing that is coming out of this craziness is that I'm letting go of my perfectionism and actually becoming more organized.

I'm a little neurotic about cleaning - I'll admit it. If the house isn't close to spic and span, I am stressed. I feel overwhelmed and can not relax until all things are picked up and put away. When I work off shifts, I get depressed and don't want to clean. Then I get stressed because the house is not clean. That makes me more depressed and less likely to clean the house. It gets into a very bad cycle until the next 'normal' day (who knows when that is) comes around and I spend the whole day playing catch-up and am completely exhausted.

So last week I defined a 'clean house' in a very basic list of things that I had to accomplish every day to not go crazy. I can't skip any item and I can't go out of order. If I do just these things, I can consider it a 'productive day'.

The very good news is that this week, which has been really off the wall with my work schedule, is also the least stressed I've felt in a while. I'm sleeping okay (no matter when that is), the house is relatively clean at all times, and Tracy is a happy camper. So even though I am sitting at my desk at 4 AM and not snuggling in bed like I want to be, I can be happy about the fact that I can go home and not have a glaring mess staring at me and stressing me out.

My hubby's podcast

So Brent and some other guys from our church started a group at our church called COMMA - Christian Organization of Music and Media Artists. Their purpose is to help local churches with thier tech and music ministries.

And he has a podcast. It's pretty cool and you should check it out if you are involved in church tech or music - or even if you're not.

Here's the website - www.commapodcast.com

That's what love is for

This morning I got up at the crack of dawn (ok, only 8 AM) and got in line to pre-order a PS3 for Brent. I invited my mom along and she also pre-ordered a PS3…. also for, uh, Brent…. …
Anyway, Brent would have gone there himself, but he had his yearly planning meeting for work and couldn’t get out of it. Luckily I was able to waste my time standing outside for an hour for a insanely overpriced gaming system. Hopefully it will be worth it.

So, anyone not get a preorder and want to buy a PS3? For a fair price, of course…. :)

Substitute Worship Leader for Rent

This past weekend, I got the awesome opportunity to lead worship at a sister church to ours. They were in need of a team every week for October, so they called up our worship pastor and asked if we could send someone to help them out. Yesterday it was me, two singers, and a really great team of instrumentalists. Seriously, I could have never done it without them. I don't know much about how the musical stuff goes - I just sing along - so all the transitions and repeats and stuff were all up to Dave the Awesome Pianist. It was fun. :)

I might get to lead next weekend too, but I don't know for sure yet. If I'm not leading, I am for sure singing back up, so I'm looking forward to that too.

Last Thursday, we all practiced, and afterward I was so nervous about the weekend, that I was sick to my stomach. I almost went home, but we had practice for our church's worship team, so I stayed. I'm glad I did. The rest of the singers prayed for us, and the Worship Pastor gave a little speech about how it was his vision for our church to be helping other churches that may not have the same resources that we do (meaning volunteers or technology or information, etc). After all that, my nervousness went away completely. I've been singing in front of church since I was a kid, and never been not nervous, but this Sunday I wasn't at all. It was fun to go to a completely different church, and worship with completely different people, but the same songs and the same God. It was cool. I would totally do it again.

RIT to the rescue

Brent and I have several red shirts, and none of them have ever given us any laundry trouble. So I didn't think twice when I threw a maroon coat (that had not yet been washed) in the laundry with all our other clothes. I compleltely ruined my best pair of khaki pants. There was not just a small pink dot or two - it looked tie-dyed. I yelled in anger and kicked the washer in frustration.
Then I went up to the trusty internet and was advised to buy RIT color remover. The directions said to set the washer to agitate for 15-20 minutes, so I set it to prewash, and came back after 5 or so to check on it. All the water had drained out! I was really mad that I would have to run to the store agian and get more of this crap, but I picked up my pants and they were perfectly clean! Yay! Not one pink spot.
I think it helped that I never dried the clothes or and washed the color out right away (within 2 hours) - but I would recommend this product for all your laundry disasters. :)

Happy Blogiversary!

My blog is one year old! Yay!

Boots!

I was having a hard time finding boots for my skirt suit, because none of the ones I tried on would zip up around my calves. I was just about to give up, when I tried these on a whim at Target. They fit perfectly. I almost squeeled I was so happy. Then I made up some excuse about toothpaste so I could call Brent and tell him.
That was the highlight of my day. :)

Selfish prayers

So I have a friend who is being really irritating lately. And every time his name comes up all I want to do is complain about what a stupid idiot he's being. But I have also been becoming increasingly uncomfortable saying stuff - and I keep thinking that I should be praying for him instead.

Do you know how hard it is to pray for someone in this situation? All I want to say is, "God, please help Friend not to be such a stupid idiot." Um, that's not right. How about, "God, give Friend wisdom." Better, but essentially the same.

Is it a little bit my fault if Friend doesn't succeed in this situation? Not that I'm going to take the blame for someone else's decisions, but I'm certainly not helping if I'm not supporting, encouraging, and praying for him.

God, help Friend succeed in everything he does, whether at work or at home. Help me to be supportive as a friend, and forgive me for talking badly about him and not being encouraging. Amen.

Monday Road trip

Mondays are Brent's day off, and we went to Milwaukee for the first time in a long time. I wanted to get a nice outfit for next weekend, and we weren't finding anything by us, so we ventured out to Boston Store. I found a great skirt suit on the $100 rack, but when we went to buy it, we found that it was a bit more than $100. It wasn't $475 like the one in the link, but it was more than usually pay for clothes. I bought it anyway. I really liked it and we had to get back home. It was a good purchase, I think.

After that we had dinner with my parents and my sister and her husband who just got back from his tour in Iraq :) Yay!

Almost 4K

Here is our latest update on the NCN network - we're at $4200 - so close to being done. This year we've paid $10K toward that loan, and I'm sure we'll finish before Christmas. Yay!

Crazy electric

This morning I am thankful for battery backup on alarm clocks. I'm not sure when the power went out, but all the clocks in the house were blinking - except mine.

Then on my way to work, the sky was filled with lightning - literally every 2 seconds or so. It was awesome. I wished I could have just pulled over and watched for a while, but I was already running late.

I'm also thankful that the torrential downpour that had ben going an all night stopped exactly the time I had to walk from my car to the front door of my workplace. That was nice.

sub30

Last night was our church's first sub30 worship service. Sub30 is a group started by our Music Pastor and a few other people to reach out to the post highschool crowd. Previously we were just meeting at Starbucks every other Saturday to hang out, but now we are also having a worship service the first Sunday of every month - last night was the kick-off.

I got to sing on the worship team, and that was pretty cool. Then Pastor Travis (music pastor) spoke, and we had pizza afterward. There were about 40 people there - it was a good time.

Pastor Travis pointed out that most churches have really involved children's programs, and then youth group, and then nothing after that. So when young adults are making super important decisions that will impact the rest of their lives, they have no church groups to support them. There are singles groups and sometimes young married/young parents groups, but nothing for the age group in general. Hense our new sub30 group. :)

The current website is www.myspace.com/pfsub30