Tag: Friends

Acting Like A Kid

One of the many perks of being a leader for the church youth group is that when you take them to a bounce house for a super secret special event, you get to jump around and play right along with them and they love you for it.

I got to experience this place…

…hopped till I dropped in a moonwalk…

…climbed to the top of the mountain (which isn’t as easy as it looks)…

…slid down the slide…

…watched my husband and my father-in-law slide down the slide (and let me just say–priceless!)…

…walked around with a goofy smile on my face for an hour…

…and most importantly, loved on some kids:

This is good, the life that I live.

November 21, 2009
Photoshoot With Cio!

A couple of months ago my lovely friend-of-a-friend Cio, who I had never actually met but I felt as if I had, was blogging about how she wanted to do more photoshoots. It just so happened that earlier that week I had been thinking about how I’d like some updated, quality pictures of myself to use for various things. It was perfect.

We met at my house, where she was privileged to be introduced to our pups Eddie and Cleo, and then headed out to my favorite local park. The following are some of my favorite pictures that came out of it:

Fantastic, right? Seriously, check out Cio’s photography website, and if you live in her area and need a photographer, I give my two thumbs up!

November 16, 2009
Friday Mash-Up

Some randomness for your reading pleasure:

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One of my very best friends, Megan, is somewhat new to blogging. Well, the truth is that she blogged sporadically for awhile, and then stopped updating. So I took her off my list of links, which apparently offended motivated her. After some hearty encouragement on my part, she took it up again. She has assured me that she will be updating frequently, and she is a woman of her word. Basically what I’m trying to say is that YOU SHOULD BE READING IT. I don’t encourage just anyone to blog. Megan is a better writer than I’ll ever be; at once witty, inspiring, thought-provoking, and hilarious. She and her husband are currently living in Scotland for the year, and they are recounting their adventures here. Megan also has a travel blog, where she is retroactively writing about her journeys across the world.

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You may or may not know that my youngest brother works stage crew for the Alley Theatre, which is one of Houston’s premier theatres. This is awesome because it means that we get to see most of the plays for free, and the others at a discounted price. I feel very cultured. Anyway, this week we saw the world premiere of Gruesome Playground Injuries with Brad Fleischer and Selma Blair (you may recognize her from Legally Blonde, the Hellboy movies, or Cruel Intentions). Both David and I liked it a lot, which is actually rare. I even heard David laughing several times. Afterwards we got to meet the cast, which was fun because the most famous person I have ever met up until now was Derek Webb (and I was too nervous to even say anything to him).

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One of my coworkers introduced me to the website mygrocerydeals.com. It basically has all of your local grocery store sale flyers in one place, and it will e-mail you when a new one is available. You can browse by store or by category, create a shopping list, and print it or e-mail it to yourself. I love it and it has already revolutionized the way I shop.

***

I got the H1N1 vaccine today. I did it because I am a direct caregiver to many people who are at high risk for contracting the virus; people who, if they got it, would get very very sick and perhaps not make it through. So the vaccine is more to protect them than to protect myself, because I know that my body could handle any kind of flu. I have to say though, I was nervous. For some reason my old fear of needles came back to me, and I was not feeling up to getting stuck. I think it’s because I’ve given two intramuscular injections this week, and both times I’ve seen the muscle quiver. It kind of gave me the shivers. Anyway, I looked away and barely felt the needlestick, although my arm is quite sore now.

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I wrote most of this post early in the day, then forgot to finish it until now. I almost went to bed without posting it, and now I’m barely squeezing it in. I’m super tired. Good night!

November 13, 2009
Inspiration For Life
I stayed with my best friend Becca in Kansas this past weekend, and she inspired me in so many different ways. It was the first time I saw her new house in its mostly-finished state. The last time I was there, last year, they hadn’t moved in yet and it was kind of a wreck. They did all the work on it themselves and now it’s adorable. Talking to her about it really inspired me to get working on my own house again, which I haven’t done a thing for in months.

Some ideas I have for the house:
- Some open shelving in the kitchen, filled with dishes, cute baskets of produce, and spices in mismatched glass jars
- Plants all over the place
- Tear down the outdated vanity in the half bathroom and put in a pedestal sink
- Replace the linoleum with tile throughout, and do it ourselves
- Make my own Roman shades
The inspiration isn’t just limited to home decor. For an anniversary gift, Becca gave me the cookbook More-with-Less: Suggestions by Mennonites on how to eat better and consume less of the world’s limited food resources. She explained to me that all the recipes use mostly basic ingredients that are healthy and can be bought in bulk. It stresses unprocessed foods and teaches you how to make some things yourself that you might be used to buying pre-packaged. While we were there Becca made some of the dishes and I was impressed with how good they were. So now I really want to get back on my cooking kick, and in a healthy, world-conscious way.

Finally, I noticed that Becca uses a lot of organic, fair-trade, local products, which is something I have wanted to transition into doing for awhile now. I have noticed that the older I get, the more hippie I become, except without the drugs or political activism. :) I’m not sure how my conservative husband feels about that, but I think he’ll be happy when he sees how I can save us money without compromising on quality and do good to ourselves and the environment at the same time!

Basically I want to be a perfect little homemaker, but unfortunately that’s a hard goal to reach having a demanding full-time job. It’s an ongoing battle to balance the two, but at least now I have some inspiration to keep me going!
October 13, 2009
sleepover

On Saturday night David and I invited our pastor’s kids Isaiah, 5, and Samuel, 3, to spend the night at our house. We obviously don’t have kids yet, but we love them and Isaiah and Sam are two of our favorites. After their parents Bryan and Misti dropped them off and we consumed some Chick-fil-a chicken nuggets, snack packs, and chocolate milk, we got right down to the business of having fun.

We started with a rousing game of Spiderman Sorry, which Isaiah “won”:

Then it was time to play hide and seek. My best hiding place was an empty box turned on its side which I curled up in and pushed up near the wall. It was a big box. But the most fun was hiding with the boys. Isaiah and I were huddled up in the hall closet waiting for David to finish counting, when I hear him whisper, “How long does it take to count to 40?”

“Forty seconds,” I replied.

“Wow, that’s a long time!” Isaiah responded.

We had promised the boys a “camp-in,” so after hide and seek we got busy putting up the tent and then made s’mores. In the fireplace, of course, using real tree branches from the backyard to roast the marshmallows on!

After that we attempted to calm them down enough to watch a movie. We settled on “Hotel For Dogs”. David, Lauren (who came over for the fun), and I were cracking up when Don Cheadle was on screen and Isaiah pointed and said, “Look, the president is in the movie!”

After the movie it was seriously time for bed, because this girl was about to collapse. David asked Isaiah how he usually goes to bed. Does his mommy or daddy tuck him in? Isaiah’s answer was, “We usually eat sweets until we fall asleep.” Yeah, right!

We ended up moving the boys’ tent into our room, but they were only in it for a couple minutes before climbing into bed with us. About 2:30 a.m., though, Isaiah woke up and decided to move back into the tent. I think he wanted to be a tough guy. :)

My spot was right there in the middle, cuddling with a couple of cute boys! One of them I get to keep. :)

In the morning David got us donuts for breakfast!

Then I let the boys play with the camera a little bit, which is why I have a bunch of pictures that look like this:

But I did manage to get one good one with them:

It was interesting carting them to church in my little truck with two tiny jump seats in the back, and Samuel did manage to bump his head twice, but he also said to me only a few minutes after we’d left, “Kafleen? I miss David and the dogs.” So sweet! I’m not sure who had more fun, them or us. :)

July 20, 2009