7 Quick Takes on Skype dates, garage saling adventures, and movie nights in the jammies

Bumping into each other in Madrid at World Youth Day 2011

 1.  One of my favorite things about traveling internationally are the wonderful people you meet and new friendships that are formed.  Sunday morning I got to Skype some of my favorites in Germany and Brazil.
Kathi was a foreign exchange student for a year from Germany and was involved in the youth ministry program at the first church I worked at.  I know its not cool to have favorites, but secretly she is one of mine.  I love her spunk, joy, and vibrant faith.  It is awesome because even though she is back in Germany, we still make time to regularly Skype and catch up...

 
After chatting with Kathi over breakfast, I "headed" over to South America to chat with my Brazilian host family...is it really almost a year since I was there?!  I caught them just in time for lunch and was eager to stay for the meal.  The World Cup is actually going on right now in Brazil, but many are upset about it because the government spent so much money on stadiums; meanwhile health care and education for many Brazilians is not at all sufficient.  It was good to catch up and 'see' my Brazilian family.  If could go back to any county I have already been to, I would choose Brazil hands down again:great people and memories there.

2.  Our kick-off  and kissing debt goodbye is going well...its amazing how more peaceful and less anxious I am when I know exactly how much cash I putting for gas, groceries, chump change, etc.  It looks like by the end of the summer/early fall, we can have our 2 smallest debts paid off!  The only bummer has been realizing I signed a new contract with Verizon in February to get a new phone so I have to stay with Verizon until February 2015 so I don't breach the contract.  That was frustrating but once Feb. 15 passes, I'm going with a much cheaper provider.

3.  I am so.geeked.up to go garage saling with my Mom Saturday morning.  This ain't your average rummage sale of crap folks.  Its in this historic neighborhood near my aunt and uncles house.  And the funny thing is it seems our family has a good knack for always snatching up great finds.  My parents bought their first couch their before they got married.  We got our china cabinet from it and my sister found her hutch and coffee table there last year.

We're on the hunt for a nice/affordable coffee table and maybe a nice bookshelf.  Cross your fingers and toes we grab some good finds.  And prayers for no rain would be awesome too!

4.  I'm in week 3, day 2 of Couch to 5K.  Aside from the running longer stretches of time, I am really enjoying this.  Its crazy because one of the girls in my small group is doing it also, but we are both on the same week/day and we didn't even know it! 

Pretty certain this is what I feel and look like whilst running...

5.  Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the Tienanmen Square Massacre, where hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters were killed after weeks of peacefully occupying the square.  Lately I have interested learning more about the Communist regimes in China and North Korea, and reading stories of people working in under-ground churches to spread the Gospel.  Its actually kind of scary to start to even get a glimpse of these difficult life is for so many people, and especially if you're a Christian.  Check out this documentary on the secret state of North Korea...for me it was mind.blowing.  It is about 55 minutes long, but very good.  Looking for some reads, I have really enjoyed these books.

 

 6.  Yesterday I went on a tour of a local crisis Pregnancy center in our area.  It was cool to really understand they ins and outs of how they work and help women/men who come in.  I am hopeful there are some ways our youth program can partner and work together on things with them; maybe helping to plat flowers in the spring or help rake leaves in the fall.


7.  The last two weeks have been so.crazy.busy.  Something going on for at least 1 or both of us every night of the week.  Sure its all good, uplifting stuff but I never want to be that busy where we don't connect and see each-other much during the week.  So Tuesday night when we both got home home from work we threw on our jammies, watched an old movie 'High Society', and enjoyed pretzel sticks dipped in spaghetti sauce with our chicken salads.  It was glorious and well needed.