Mouse update

I got one. This morning.

Mouse in the House

There used to be this really funny TV show in Disney called Mouse in the House and it was all about Mickey, like a variety show with cartoons and songs. It was so fun!
Do you know what's not fun? Actually having a mouse in the house.
I don't like the idea of poison in my house, just because I can picture myself accidentally eating it or my dog sniffing it out to devour. Also, I don't love the idea of having anything die in my house - especially in my walls, where it might be smelly. But my house mice seem to be particularly resistant to peppermint oil, which is what we use at work to keep mice out - and works fabulously! The mice at my house have eaten 2 cups of my long grain brown rice, which I love because you can make any meal go twice as far if you eat it over brown rice. Anyway, I've strategically placed poison where the mice can get it but my dog cannot, so hopefully tomorrow morning I will wake to a clean, uninhabited pantry.

Also, today's adventure was a pig roast at Lowe's. Yup, you know Lowe's - you buy house paint and insulation there, and I ate pig there today. There was a Commercial Partner's lunch today, and a bunch of us went down. Additionally, two of the representatives to commercial groups are Tony and Tim, who go to my church and I see every Sunday. It's always fun to see church friends out in the community - a reminder of how God uses each of us as ministers, even if we wear a tool belt instead of a preacher's collar. Did I mention the pig was good?

Volunteering = making friends

I know a lot of people my age are probably dealing with a lot of the same things I am - getting adjusted to being in the work force and not being surrounded by other young adults to hang out with. That's pretty normal. But thank goodness for church. My church, Charter Oak has been such a blessing! I have been going there for almost a year now, and the different ministries that I've been volunteering have really helped me find a home there. Going to a big church was overwhelming at first because I felt all alone and out of place for a while, though everyone was friendly. But once I joined my small group, and especially since I've started with the kids' ministries, I feel like I have people to talk to during coffee hour, and I've actually had a mom threaten to send her kids to sit with me in church when they misbehave! Working with kids really does help you to know adults, too, because you meet the other leaders and all the kids' parents. And if the kids know you, the parents do.
So if you're out there feeling out-of-sorts or disconnected from your fellowship or your church, jump in and volunteer in any way you can! It really allows you to develop a community of people so church isn't just showing up for worship and then sneaking out the back. I wish I had learned that earlier - it would have made my first few years of college much more smooth.

So fun

There's a local church leadership group here for a retreat and training this weekend. They're in the room next to my office right now, and they are hilarious. It's such a blessing to witness a church staff that works together well, serves a huge congregation, communicates easily, and has a blast doing it. They are laughing in a "pee-your-pants" sort of way playing a game together. It's so refreshing to see a group of people that glorify the Lord together and truly enjoy it!

Ballad of the Plagued

Cough.

Purell.

Sneeze.

Purell.

Blow nose.

Purell.

Eat.

Purell.

Do nothing.

Purell.



I'm sick. But God has maintained my sense of humor throughout this cold.

Requiem for a Machine

My MacBook, at two years and four months, has bitten the dust, kicked the bucket, and said its final goodbyes.
Well, not really. The hard drive is full to bursting (and I don't have much stuff), the airport doesn't work, the optical drive scratches my DVDs (yes, when I put in a new DVD, it comes out with scratches). At that point, the Apple Genius told me it would be best to get a new hard drive (third one)...but of course, if I did get a new hard drive, it might not fix it, and then I'd have a new hard drive that I didn't need. And that was all before the battery (already on my second one!) was no longer recognized by the system and fails to charge. Woohoo.
Long story short, I'm selling it for parts and finding a new laptop. And not necessarily a Mac. I know they are top rated in many ways, but I have been repeatedly disappointed in the quality of basic functionality of the machine, as well as the helpfulness of the Apple store locally (and frankly, the one in Chicago). Thankfully, in those situations, my dad has been there to have a heart-to-heart with the manager to get me the stuff covered by my warranty, or else I've cried, which is almost as effective with "computer nerds". ;)
The only thing that has me considering another MacBook is that 1. Apple is releasing a new notebook computer tomorrow, supposedly, so the MacBook prices may drop after a month and 2. I bought my MacBook when it was a brand-new laptop for Apple, and the kinks hadn't been worked out. 3. All my stuff is in "Apple" format (including some iMovies that I've made, but can't alter because my hard drive is so full) and some stationary templates for work through Mail.

The cons? 1. My first MacBook was a gift, which is why I could afford it. :) 2. My work computers are all PC's and my parents both have PC's. 3. I'm not sure that I can afford a Mac with good features AND the apple care for three years, which they've proven is a necessity (even since my parents have offered to cover half of my purchase). 4. It broke a lot. A LOT. I'm three hard drives later, two batteries later, an optical drive that worked for a year, and an airport that hasn't worked consistently since last June, despite many a visit to the Shadyside store.

At the very least, it's frustrating. I really find a laptop to be good when I travel so much because it helps me to work from my promo locations, to find myself when I get lost (thank you, Panera in Herndon, VA) and to fill up time in between interviews at a coffee shop in Rocky River.

So, what should I do? Anybody have a consumer reports membership that they wanna lend me? ;)

It's Fort Days

I love Fort Ligonier Days. It's less a celebration of a battle and more an excuse to have a parade and eat a ton of food. It's basically the best weekend of the year, except for the weekend that we have the ice carving contest and then all the really bad kids come through during the night and knock over the sculptures and then we installed a webcam to catch the miscreants every year. Back on topic, Fort Days is that time of the year where we celebrate Ligonier's history, which this year hits a milestone at 250 years (just like Pittsburgh). So while Fort Days is always a blow-out, taking my town of 1250 people to roughly 100,000, this year is bound to be even more intense. Things I'm most excited for? The gyros sold by Antiochan Village (a camp down the road), chocolate covered strawberries on a stick, everything at the Sand Hill berries booth, fresh buckwheat flour, and hanging out with my sister and hopefully Suzannah and Dylan for a while. It's going to be great!
Want to know more? Check out www.ligoniercam.com for the aforementioned live webcam (no, I wasn't kidding!).

Recipes

Trying a new recipe tonight! Roasted Butternut squash and feta pie. My favorite part? All I have to get is a premade pie crust and I'm ready to go - I have all the rest! I'll let you know how it turns out. Tonight is cooking & cleaning night after all...Thursdays are just that way. It's easy to get pumped to clean with an episode of the Office to look forward to. :) And I can further indulge in my Jon and Kate Plus Eight addiction, of which I am sufficiently ashamed. Those kids are cute.

Picking a new template

Hey all. Things might look weird for a few days because I'm experimenting with new templates, and I can't find one that I like. So please be patient as I shuffle things around. :) Should be up and running soon.
Leeanne

Idlewild Trip

On Saturday, Kaylin and I went to Idlewild Park's "Hallowboo" celebration. It was great! We trick-or-treated at the Storybook Forest, and rode on as many of the rides as we could stomach (literally - we both get motion-sick on rides!), and ate a ton of tasty, terrible-for-us food.
It was a wonderfully nice day - the sun was out, the temperature maybe hit 70 degrees, and there was a light breeze - just enough to make us wobble a bit on the ferris wheel. After filling ourselves with cotton candy, lemonade, dippin' dots ice cream, and Potato Patch french fries, we headed home to a delicious dinner of potato soup, homemade bread, and hubbard squash (is that how you spell it?).
The best part of the day was just hanging out with Kaylin and talking about our families and friends and just having "girl time" in a fun place. This summer, we went to a movie, and now we've been to the theme park, so next time we're planning a sleepover, complete with "Enchanted" and a living-room picnic. We're even going to invite Mara, Kaylin's (almost) four-year-old sister to stay. It's good to have girl time! I'll post pictures from the park when I have my camera handy.

Debate

So, a month ago I was really excited for the vice presidential debate. And then last night when it came on, I was mostly just bummed about having to wait another week to watch the Office. I watched a few minutes of the debate and then got bored, believe it or not. I am ready to vote, I am ready for the "politicing" to be over, I am just tired. I'm excited to see how our country will change following this election, but I am also fairly confident that the change will not be the great and monumental transformation that both parties have promised, so mostly I'm just ready to stop with the talking and start with the voting. :) And while I do have convictions regarding my vote and who I would prefer to see in the White House, I just can't seem to justify the time and frustration that this campaign has caused for myself and others. I have had people who I love and care about completely ignore me during this campaign because of my lack of passion for one candidate or another, I have been called an idiot because of choices I make and how they influence the way I vote. It's also been very clearly implied that because I am voting the way I feel called, I am not a very good follower of Jesus. So I'm pretty much ready to just vote and have it over with. After all, there's going to be slander and party politics as much after this election as before, regardless which candidate is selected by the American people, which makes it difficult for me to get incredibly excited about watching two candidates battle it out behind a podium for 90 minutes.
That all said, I will definitely read the transcript of the debate because 1)I do think it's important to be up-to-date on what's going on and 2) for some reason, written word makes my skin crawl less. :)
I would love to sit down with Sarah Palin and talk about her family, her faith, how she makes her marriage work, and swap recipes (and hopefully acquire some ways to prepare moose). I would love to sit down with Joe Biden and talk about growing up in PA and Delaware and our mutual love of sports. I just don't feel like listening to them talk about foreign policy right now.
So instead, I turned my volume off and read my latest Newbery Award Winner. Ahh, kid's books.

front row!

Emma and I won the Wicked lottery last night...it was great! We sat in the very front row, which was cool because you could see the performers facial expressions. I enjoyed this experience way more than any other musical theater experience (short of performing, of course) because I could actually see actors emitting emotion. Even the best actor in the world can't communicate a wink to the second row of the balcony without it looking completely comical. It was so fun! Of course, going to see musical theater always reminds me that I want to be on Broadway, or at least be a part of a musical again someday. I love to sing and dance, so it would be a blast...but I haven't done either in a performance venue in a long time. Going out to see others perform just reminds me of how much I miss it! But that's a testament to the great job that the company did last night at Wicked in Pittsburgh.
But for now, I'll be a camp director and reap the benefits of making lots of phone calls and emails to recruit campers for the Kingdom! :)
Thanks to my sister for a fun night out last night! Love you, Emma!