HEH...

Guess what?

I finished my virtual race in Sweden and Norway. It took me a very long time, but I still finished!  I got some good advice from a lovely friend about these races, so I've decided to have as much fun with them as possible. 

The best part is that I beat Steve by 11 miles! Yay!

Now I'm starting a new one in the Ring of Kerry.  It's about 104.5 miles, I think. 

I'll keep you updated!

OY: A QUICKY

I don’t know what it is about being on an elliptical machine, but it makes me think of things, remember things, and figure out answers to problems that I didn’t even know I had.  I guess it’s the repetitive motion and me trying to ignore how bored I’m getting.

Anyways, today I was on the machine, and I started thinking about when I went to Ireland in 2016. The first day we were there, circumstances happened wherein we didn’t get to eat for many, many hours because of our schedule. We also couldn’t get any cash to buy food from the hotel vending machines because the closest ATM was out of order. It sucked and was very frustrating, as you’d imagine.  That first night, we went out to a pub in Dublin with some of the other band members, but after a drink or two, Steve and I decided to go back to our hotel because we were hungry and tired.

On the way out, we saw a grocery store and walked around in it for a few minutes to see what it was like before we headed back to sit in our room, hungry and exhausted.

It didn’t occur to me until today, almost two years later, that we went to a grocery store and for some reason didn’t buy anything. We were in a store that sold food, we were hungry, yet we didn’t buy food! 

I blame being tired, but man, that was stupid.

A QUICKY

Heehee.  The other day I was taking some pictures of pictures that we have hanging in our hallway (the official photo gallery of every American suburban family.) Steve and I have exactly one picture from our wedding on display in the house, and not many people have ever seen it, so I thought I'd post it to Facebook.  We've been married a long time, so I don't usually post wedding pictures, but I thought this one was cute.  Steve had hair, we looked happy, yadda yadda yadda...

Lots of people liked it, because of course they did.  Who doesn't like a good wedding picture?  But people have been telling us "Happy Anniversary!" all week.  Our anniversary is in November!  Of course they don't know that, because why should they, but now I wonder if I should post anything in November about our actual anniversary. I don't want embarrass anyone who has told us happy anniversary already.  They are so sincere about it that I hate to tell them they're wrong. 

Eh, I'll just tell Steve happy anniversary in private.  Like some kind of psychopath.

QUICKY - WHERE AM I?

I've been almost sick most of the weekend. Nothing terrible, but whatever I have made me feel yucky enough to miss church today.

After making sure someone would be able to cover the sound booth for services, and letting the others who'd be calling to track me down know what was going on - because that's what happens when you work for a church, I went back to bed and have been dozing off and on all morning.

Every time I doze off, I have a dream I wake up in a bed someplace else. When I wake up, I am back in my own bed. At least, I think that's what is going on. Maybe I'm in one of those other beds and am dreaming I'm waking up in this bed. I'm so confused.

I also dreamed I went to a football game with the wife of a friend of mine, but I'm pretty sure that actually was a dream.

Maybe I'm in the matrix. Someone send me Keanu Reeves.

A QUICKY

I just wanted to let you know that my brother's surgery will be this Friday.

Imma ask again for prayers, or whatever it is you fine people throw out into the universe, for my brother and my mom and the rest of us, as this is a rather scary type of thing and we'd all like to have him back home and feeling much better as soon as possible!

See...I knew I could count on you guys!

Also, have a lovely day and consider yourself hugged*.  :)


*If we haven't formally met, I give hella good hugs. Don't be scared.  (I can get you references if you need them.)

A QUICKY

Last night I had a particularly vivid and bizarre dream. 

(Don't worry, this isn't a verbatim recount of it. You're welcome!)

See, I have this weird tick. Since I can't really keep my hands still. If I don't have something to do while I'm sitting and talking to someone, I play with my wedding ring.  It's probably annoying and distracting to whomever I'm talking to, but I can't help it! Trust me, it's better that I play with my ring than grab your hands and rub all your fingers or something.  Trust me.  I pull off my ring and put it back on, or I slide it on a different finger, or I try it on all my fingers, or I generally just slide it up and down on my ring finger. (I realize that last one probably has some kind of Freudian implications, but that's neither here nor there.)

Anyway, in my dream, I was visiting a friend's house for the first time when I found her and her husband's wedding/engagement rings lying on a counter.  They were just sitting there unattended, so I put them on my finger and started sliding them around while we were talking.  I didn't think "Hey, I shouldn't wear their rings! That's weird!" I just took them and started wearing them, but my friend didn't notice. When we finished talking, I left the house without taking them off.  I didn't mean to take them, I just forgot that I was wearing them.  The rings probably wouldn't have ever popped back into my dream if someone hadn't said: "Why are you wearing their rings?"  I looked down and saw that I was still wearing them, and I immediately panicked.  I knew I'd have to go and give them back, but I was afraid to do it because I had no reason for even putting them on, much less taking them with me. For the rest of that dream, the rings kept trying to slide off my finger. I knew if I lost them, my friends would be so angry, and I was scared to go back to their house and return them because I knew they'd be angry that I had them at all.  I was also fighting to keep them on my hand the whole time, because I didn't want to lose them, and they kept trying to slide off!  I have no idea how that dream would have ended, because at one point, I felt the rings slide off and when I reached for them, I woke up clutching my left hand.  To make matters worse, I wear my grandmother's wedding ring and I always keep it on, even when I'm in bed, so when I woke up clutching my hand, I could feel a ring on that finger. I panicked even more because I thought that I'd actually pulled the ring out of the dream with me and I was going to have to tell my friend I inadvertently stole her and her husband's wedding rings! I couldn't go back to sleep after that, and I've been particularly aware of my own ring, which has made the tick I have even worse.

If any of you woke up this morning and couldn't find your rings.  It was me.  I'm sorry.

Anyone want to decode that dream for me?

A QUICKY: FOOT IN MOUTH. FOOT DEEP, DEEP IN MOUTH.

This happened on Monday and I'm still cringing. 

I'm really no stranger to speaking before my brain fully engages. You all know this.

Monday afternoon, while I was at work, one of our church members came in to visit with the pastor.  The church member, the youth pastor, and I were all around my desk talking while I was sorting through the mail.  I was completely on auto-pilot while doing this and I came across a letter from a medical company that has been trying to sell us an Automated External Defibrillator.  I'm all for us getting one, because quite frankly, our church is fill of old people who could short circuit at any minute and I'd like to think we could at least try and keep them kicking until a medical professional could get there and take over. However, I haven't been able to convince anyone else this is a good idea.

I hold up the letter and said "Do you think that a defibrillator would be a good investment for the church?" 

As it was coming out of my face, I knew I shouldn't be saying it, because the man I was talking to had just lost his wife due to sudden heart failure where using a defibrillator had not worked.  That was so incredibly tactless of me, and had I been thinking, I would have never asked him that.  Granted, I don't think I upset him by asking, and he also agrees we should have one, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it.

I'm just awful sometimes. 

I, FANGIRL

This is just a quicky, but embarrassingly, I was excited and had to share!!!

I have an Instagram account.  I usually won't follow people unless I know them personally, or unless their posts are relevant to my interests.  I certainly don't make a habit of following celebrities, but I made one exception to this rule: Jorge Garcia.

This is him.

He is an actor who was on Lost.  He was my favorite actor on Lost, as a matter of fact. I have a small, plastic figure of him in my house in a place of honor. I feel weird about that. Probably not as weird as I should.

Anyway, I began following him on Instagram a while back, and recently he posted a list for something called a 30 Day Drawing Challenge.  The list gives you a subject for each day and you're supposed to draw a picture of that thing and post it to your picture feed. You're also supposed to use the hash tag so other people who are participating in the challenge can look at your stuff.  I thought it looked fun, so I am doing the challenge.  Not many people are currently participating, so I shouldn't be surprised that he's seen my pictures.  But he did comment on one of them!  He thought it was funny. I sqeed. I squeed so hard that I pulled a muscle.

Look, the normal, grown-up part of me knows he's just a guy who happens to be an actor, he likes to draw, and he's seen my picture.  No big deal.

The other part of me (the part that most of you know) is the one currently writing on my blog that he commented on my picture. It is also the part of me that sqeed.

Don't worry, I didn't try to engage him in any sort of contact.  I see people do that a lot on his feed and it embarrasses me.  I don't want to be that guy! 

IT'S KIND OF FUNNY...

I think it's hilarious that so many people I know think that it's funny and comment worthy when I wear one of my superhero shirts, or have something on me that shows that I'm a fan of some sci-fi, comic or whatever geeky thing I'm enjoying at the moment.

However, if I were wearing a football jersey, had my face painted and sat screaming at a group of college kids for several hours every week, no one would bat an eye.

This world is weird.

We're all geeks about something. Embrace it!

A QUICKY

I love my mother so very much!  No offense to any other amazing moms out there I might know, but in my humble opinion, my own mom is the best. :)  She's so funny.  She probably doesn't mean to be funny sometimes, but she is.  People who make me laugh are awesome. Laughing is my favorite.

Since I moved to Huntsville, trying to explain my family's accent is kind of hard, because I think people might think I'm exaggerating them a bit.  I'm really not. Huntsville isn't far removed from my hometown, of course, and plenty of rednecks live out here, but it does have more than its fair share of northern and international transplants, and the southern dialect is still a bit new for them. Since I did public speaking in high school (and because of a cute boy I knew who told me he thought southern accents didn't sound very smart), I beat my accent into submission, and because of that I've met quite a few people who don't realize I'm from the south. At least not until I've talked to them for a while.  At any rate, they seem surprised when I mimic my mother or sister's accent, because they don't understand why my own is so different.

I tell you all of that because I wanted to show you an automatic email I got from our voice-mail provider.  It sends us an email letting us know that we've gotten a voice mail so that we know to check it.  It used to just have the "You've Got Voicemail" message on it, but they've upgraded to having a computer actually transcribing the messages people leave so that you can read them without having to go through the hassle of signing in to the website to listen to them.  Usually, with the exception of some names and places, the computer transcribed messages are very accurate.  When my mom calls, her accent confuses it.  Here is the message I got:

"Hi Kayleen. Hey we made the dog-show-or(?) were sick or out on the balcony looking out at white-riley(?) hey I just thought I'd let you know I would not it okay alright(?) love you all. Bye bye."

I was all...what?  Did she have a stroke?  Then I listened to the message, and what you see above was not even close.  I'm not going to tell you what she actually said, because I want to see if any of you know your "Country" enough to decipher it.  Personally, though, you may need to get in touch with a Navajo Windtalker to see what they think. :)