old.

Its ironic to me how NOT thrilled about your birthday you get when you get older. When you're young you wait all year for your birthday, when its someone else's birthday it makes you sad, cuz you want it to be YOUR birthday. Its all you can do to maintain your 5 year old lifestyle when secretly you wished you were 6 or even better 10.

This is not the case when you get older. Suddenly age brings along a whole slew of not so pleasant side effects, and all you want is to be 5 again. Ok, maybe not five, but if i could be like 20 forever, that'd be pretty great.

My birthday is this weekend, and though I am still skimming by in the early twenty category, I'm hanging dangerously on the edge.

Regardless of all this, I have noticed myself getting old. And this scares me. I have compiled a list of the occurrences that signify my ageing.

#1 Staying up past 10:00 is a REALLY big deal.
#2 I have varicose veins, or at least the starts of them.
#3 I have a chin hair. Yes, ONE chin hair. gross...
#4 I drive a Taurus. enough said.
#5 About 75% of my friends are married, and have children.
#6 I have a life insurance policy.
#7 I like broccoli....I CRAVE broccoli.
#8 I'm really quite terrible at texting. ESPECIALLY while driving. Its just safer to call, I envy
young kids that can text without even looking at their phone.
#9 I have been caught (and later mocked) referring to life in high school/college as "those
were the days."
#10 Mt. Dew give me a stomach ache when drunken on an empty stomach.

Jesus thinks i'm a SQUARE???

I'm on facebook earlier tonight, and I happen to see an old acquaintance of mine had taken this quiz called "What does Jesus think of you?" I was shocked, appalled, and a bit curious. I mean apparently in a 5 question survey you can find out what Jesus thinks of you.

So i took the quiz.

I am a square.

This is how it defines me: "You always do the right thing if you can and you've lived a life that follows the path of the living Christ. Pat yourself on the back, Jesus thinks you're boring."

JESUS THINKS I"M BORING!?!?!
This is where the appalled part comes into play...

But seriously, this makes me sad. Especially when I see people who are far from God take this quiz and have it tell them that Jesus thinks they're stupid, or lazy, or whatever else it might say.

The truth is Jesus thinks you're the most incredible thing to ever happen, and he promises much more to you then anything a 5 question quiz could answer.

Is it Easter?

Immediately following a minor situation involving a broken glass bowl and a friends finger, I found myself at the local walgreens picking up some first aide supplies. This was interesting enough to say the least. Though the bowl may have seen better days, I am a firm believer that after some healing, the finger will function at full capacity once again.

So I'm standing in line at the Walgreens and the lady a couple of people in front of me (yes there was a line at the walgreens at 8:30 on a Sat. night) was writing a check, so she asked the date and what have you. This was followed by the phrase, wait what day is it? Is today Easter?

Immediately my heart sank. I wanted to scream and say Really? you dont know when easter is? I mean, its only the most incredible day.....EVER.

Most incredible day. EVER

Easter....Chreaster...

In light of the Easter festivities this weekend...I will not be churching.
Not at "my" church anyway.
Turns out the fam is going to visit with my sister in Michigan, and well...I'm going with.
She's even making Easter dinner.....should be interesting. :)

This however, made my decision as to which of the million services my church has, I should go to fairly simple...thank goodness.

I've been hearing a lot of talk about these Chreasters lately. Mostly negative talk. I get it. People that only go to church on Christmas and Easter, somehow trying to fill the void in their life on two days of the year, ecetera, and so on. To the average church goer....these people should be looked down upon.

SO lets talk about the speck at the plank story found in Matthew 7. I think churchy people are so quick to judge the outsider and it drives me nuts. So what if these people only come to church twice a year, at least they are coming! How many people refuse to even step inside a church to hear the good news? Not only that, but how many people go to church their entire lives and still don't get "it." Perhaps one day, one Christmas or Easter, something will stick. What an incredible ministry opportunity! I cant wait for the oh yeah I used to be a Chreaster...and then I realized God wont fit into two Sundays a year only at church story.

So I'm praying for the Creasters, that they will find something this weekend at whatever church they decide to go to that they just cant leave to two days a year.


If I were you, I would go to the least "popular" church service this Sunday. Free up some room for those creasters, and while you're sitting there at the 8:00 service, you can pray for all the people that are going to be filling that room at various parts of the day. And just think, you'll get home in time to take a nap before hitting up all the family shindigs going on the rest of the day.

March Of Dimes

I am walking in the March of Dimes this year. A friend of mine lost her child recently and so a few of us have gathered around and decided to put our grief to good use. We're walking in memory of Tommy, and to help support this great cause which aided in helped Tommy fight his battle for life. Please consider making donation! Thanks!

Here are the facts :

Who: Team Tommy and Me!

What: March of Dimes walk for babies
When: April 26
Why: Tommy Nelson was born at 27 weeks gestation and lived at Corner’s Children’s Hospital for 7 1/2 months until his heart failed. He was fortunate to be able to survive for that time thanks to the research funded by the March of Dimes. A group of us have decided to walk in memory of Tommy with the hope that in the future babies will not suffer the same fate. Premature birth touches half a million babies and their families every year. March of Dimes is working hard to help mom’s have full term pregnancies and healthy babies.
How you can join: Please consider sponsoring our team with your donation.
Every dollar makes a difference!
Make a donation today!


To make a donation you can either go here: http://www.marchforbabies.org/boomsmac
or you can call me or e-mail me!

exit 315

From my house if you hop on 57 and head south, in about 45 min. you'll come up on exit 315. Here you'll find the quaint little town of Bourbonnais. And I say its quaint because I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, but to most people there...its a pretty big deal.

I had the fabulous opporutnity to visit some friends in Bourbonnais this weekend. It never ceases to amaze me that no matter where I am, or what reasons I'm visiting, I head down that exit ramp at mile marker 315 and I feel like I'm stepping back into a moment in time. I can sigh and breathe deep...like a part of me is home again.

I opt to drive straight through campus instead of taking main streets to the other side of town, it saddens me to see unrecognizable faces. A campus that I know like the back of my hand, yet seems oddly unfamiliar. New buildings, new people...students who are defining who they really are in this life that God has given us.

As I look back on this place, I am thankful. Thankful for a place where I could really figure out who I was, and who God was. A place where I met the best of friends, persued missions for the first time, and recieved an education....with a Christian purpose.

MARCH...because its march.

So long story short, there's this kid hanging out at work with us. He happens to be the boss's grandson...he's about 6. He idolizes me, I think he's the cutest thing ever, it works out well for us. Needless to say he's by my side most of the time he's with us, which is ok by me.

The point is, we were walking through the greenhouse to go get a plant for something and he stops me in my tracks and goes. WAIT! We have to MARCH! I was like huh? why? And he giggles and says, BECAUSE ITS MARCH!!! So I started marching.... I asked him what we do when it becomes April, and he wasn't quite sure. I told him to ask his teacher and let me know so I can be prepared.

Anywho, the purpose of this post was to recap March, now that its over...and I'm no longer marching.

Top 5 happenings:

1. I met Shane Claiborne...and it changed my life. But really it didn't. It was pretty sweet to get to meet him, I LOVE his thoughts on life and faith, but the truth is, I didn't leave radically ready to take on the world. Which is probably a good thing.

2. Due to the spontaneous midweek drive to see Shane Claiborne, I was able to have random midweek dinner with a couple of my favorite people. It was oodles of fun, and I miss them terribly.

3. I gave up Facebook. Mainly for lent....though I do use it on Sundays. It has been VERY good for me. I found myself in more face to face conversations with people, and instead of writing a random thing on their "wall" I found out how they REALLY were doing...which was pretty fantastic. I'm considering giving this up long term...

4. I saw Chris Tomlin, Israel Houghton and New Breed in concert. It was pretty incredible. Also a highlight of this evening was running into a friend from a trip I was on two years ago. It was pretty great catching up with her, even if only briefly.

5. I officially became a member of the church I have been attending. This is a HUGE step for me. My "papers" are still at the church I grew up in, which I haven't been to in years. It is good to commit to a community of believers, and truly say...I'm walking the next part of the road with you.


the end.