...

one week camping up north.
four days in vegas.
two weeks in california.

i leave tomorrow
i am not packed.
i am freaking out.
i might throw up.

and i'm blogging...

not good friends. not good.

thank you amber

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Monday Morning Laugh!

thank you to my friend tim (who i will get to see in TWO WEEKS) in northern california for this:

ah the rental car

if you haven't noticed yet, the name of this blog is 'my life is a sitcom.'


watch this clip - seinfeld about the rental cars


so i'm walking through walgreens and my phone vibrates which means i have a voicemail. "we regret to inform you that your car reservation has been cancelled. we apologize for your inconvieneice." no kidding. so i call the company and explain that i don't really understand how a reservation i made weeks ago just got cancelled three weeks before i am to pick up the car at LAX. this is how the phone call goes.

me: but i made the reservation five weeks ago to make sure my travel arrangments were taken care of. how can you just cancel the reservation?
them: yeah, we thought we were going to buy more cars but we decided not to so we don't have any cars available.
me: but i made the reservation. that makes sure that you'll have a car there.
them: yes i know but we decided not to buy more.
me: lets pretend that i reserved one of the ones you already own, what about that?
them: we've run out of cars.
me: how is that possible?
them: sorry.
me: i arrive in LA in three weeks and you're letting me know now that i don't have a car
them: we've given you enough time to find another car at another company, but we hope you'll think of us in the future
me: well, i'm not going to lie to you, it's not looking good. but good luck with that.

so, i had to find another car online... three weeks before i go... which means more expensive. spec-tac-ular

so i do a search and of course with the gas prices as they are, the cheapest cars are SUVs and they're about $600 for two weeks. that's more than double what i reserved at the anti-reservation place. so, i search and i search and i find a car for $100 more than what i was originally paying and i click reserve... before it has a chance to sky rocket again. low and behold i got a convertible. now, that's exciting and all but that's $100 now that i will not have for all the fun stuff i wanted to do, but it sure will make that drive up the coast a little more enjoyable.

so, during that whole conversation i kept replaying the seinfeld scene in my head. ah seinfeld, how i miss you so.

so many posts that could be...

so when i lived in california, i developed this love of edamame. i love it. i can't get enough of it. i, lately, have been eating only that for lunch or dinner. it's amazing. for those of you who don't know, it's soy beans. i LOVE them. so, since i was living in california and loving them and buying them all the time - in bulk - at costco, i tried to give one to cali once. HYSTERICAL. the way you eat these things is that you kinda pop the pea things out of the pods and then discard the shells. so, i hand my dog one of them and she goes and lays down and then comes back a little later... i give her another and it keeps on going. so at the end, i get up to go throw away the shells and she had been picking the peas out of the shells and leaving the shells on the ground. like a little human, she was eating only the part that you're supposed to. one more reason she's amazing!

trying to be someone i'm not... it's about time!

my friend amber is an amazing person. i love her so much. she is married to an amazing man named ryan. ryan is amazing to me for many reasons like how he treats amber so well and he leads by example, he's honorable, he has integrity, he's a doctor and loves people and the specific reason i'm writing about ryan is because he is one of those people who can just decide to do something and then they do it. it's amazing!

i know that sounds strange but he is the kind of person who sets his mind to something and it's made up, there's no debate, that is just how it is. amber told me that one day he woke up and decided he was going to be a coffee drinker. he wasn't before. they didn't own a coffee maker. he bought a coffee maker, i think he even bought a grinder thing and that day, because he set his mind to it, he became a coffee drinker. amazing! one of the reasons i love this about him is because of the fact he said he was going to be a coffee drinker and he was, it makes me realize that when he said he was going to love amber the way that God intended and the way that she needed and deserved, i know he will do it. because he said he would, just like the coffee. and that makes me happy.

my friend meredith is the same way. she woke up one morning and decided that she was going to exercise on a regular basis. now, that wasn't the difficult part for her because she used to run track, she is an athlete at heart, i truly believe that. just try to play her in ping pong, you'll never see a missionary girl get so angry and so competitive so quickly. the amazing thing about meredith deciding to do something out of the ordinary is that not only was she going to exercise every day but she was going to get up at FIVE A.M. every morning to do it. no joke. and what astounds me is that... she did and she still does. along with that she decided to cut her caloric intake to 1500 calories a day. and she did. she did. we went to the cheesecake factory and she stuck to her guns. that's her favorite place in the world and that cheesecake is about three days worth of those 1500 calories but she kept that promise to herself. (now the tough time to support her in her 5AM quest is when we're relaxing and vacationing in las vegas and - because she decided she'd do it - she was bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5AM...WITHOUT AN ALARM but i love her anyway)

i am not the kind of person that can just decide to do something and then do it. which seems strange to me. i mean... i am the one choosing to do something and then i wuss out for some reason. my pastor did a sermon once where he mentioned that you have to be one of those people who decides the night before that when the alarm goes off you get out of bed...the first time it goes off... without using the snooze. no one will believe this but i honestly didn't know that those people existed. isn't that weird? people actually do that. on purpose.

it didn't occur to me until now that what those people are doing is making a promise to themselves. they are saying, "ryan, in the morning, you're going to drink coffee." and then he honors the promise. meredith is saying, "i'm getting up at five and through the day i'm monitoring my calories" and she keeps her promise. i'm a promise keeper, i really am... to anyone else. i hope that my friends could say that about me. when i say i will do something i will do it, come hell or high water i will do it. but what i don't get is why i don't keep any of the promises i make myself. isn't that strange? why would i keep my promises to everyone else except me? any insight here? i really don't know. i think that the downer of all of this is that the more promises i make to myself, the more i broke and i've started to not trust myself. 'i'm going to be better about my budget," and in my head i think, "yeah, good luck with that." why is it easier? is it the accountability?

so, all of that to say that i am currently attempting to be something and someone i am not. not in a bad way. i'm trying to be the person i want to be. you'd think that after 27 years i would have tried earlier but apparently i procrastinated until now. i took a step back a few days ago and thought, "this is not what i thought i'd be." i want to be this and i want to be that, and then the alarm goes off and it feels nice and warm in my bed and i hit the snooze. welp, no more snooze. no more broken promises to myself, i am choosing to be a person who can just choose to do something. and it's already happening. i decided that i wouldn't shop for groceries until i had gone through online coupons and the sunday paper and last time i went to meijer i saved 25.00 in coupons. that's pretty amazing since most of them are for 50 cents. i am also choosing to not use the snooze. i'm setting my alarm for one time and one time only and i'm getting out of bed... this will be tough but i will do it!

there's others that i have decided to conquer but this post is enormous already so i have to end it. i feel like i'm on a quest. i never again want to say, "man, i wish i was the kind of person who..." instead i will say, "man, i'm going to be the kind of person who..." and like ryan and meredith i'm actually going to honor the commitment to myself. this is going to be an adventure, i can see it already!

hello my baby, hello my darling, hello my rag time gal!

so, during this week for horrible storms and amazing rain we have inherited an incredible new friend. he's been here for about a week. he's our little toad friend. he lives on the front porch. during the day he's under the planter or under the porch swing and at night he hops around. you have to be very alert when going out at night, that would be an unfortunate mis-step. so, steve and i talked about how we could 'fancy' him up a bit and we discussed gluing a top hat and cane to him - we laughed about that a lot - to make him appear to be more 'michigan j frog-ish.' obviously we're not going to... unless he's here through the holidays which means he's certainly family and that just means he's fair game.

this is what he's look like... i could have made it look more believable but i'm not that bored.





and one of the ominous black sky by my moms house.

Universal Studios

i love universal studios. i think it's so fun to see the movie sets and props and hang out and see the techniques they use for different aspects of film. it's amazing what they can do and what they actually pull off. i was blown away when i heard that universal studios was on fire. i know that a couple of the things lost were the 'back to the future' set as well as the city facade from spiderman and transformers. anyway. it's pretty amazing how quickly it went up in flames. at one point they said the fire was two city blocks wide. incredible.
this is the picture of the fire


this is the same area, pre fire, a couple years ago. the big blue screen is actually pretty amazing. in the fire picture, you can see that the cement area in front of it looks like a lake/pond, it's actually HUGE and typically empty unless they are using it to film or aparently put out fires. paramount has something similar but it's actually a parking lot that they can flood. the one at universal, in this picture, is big enough that they can have speed boat chases and float rather large boats in it. the blue behind it allows them to put other images in, like the weather guys do. anyway, pretty amazing. hopefully i'll get to see itwhile i'm out there in july.

back to the future courthouse... that no longer exists.

bo diddley

the great bo diddley died this past week. he was extremely talented. i had the pleasure of meeting him in 2003 while i was in LA with the calvin college interim. i met him in the elevator while we were both headed to the lobby. he struck up the conversation and i had no idea who he was. we just joked and laughed our way down to the lobby and then when we got to the lobby, everyone else knew who he was. i was amazed. so, the world less bright now that he's gone. he made my day brighter that day...

hostile takeover

i was walking out to my car before work this morning and met my brother on the front porch who looked like grim death and he said he wasn't feeling well. normally if my brother is sick, he says, "i'm not feeling well." and then goes on about his day. not today. he called in sick... the first time in a year...

then, i tried to bring my mom lunch at work today. i called to make sure she was in her office and the principal answered the phone and said she went home "not feeling well." my thoughts? "oh crap."

so, i walk in the door at my moms house and my brother... the one who doesn't get sick and who NEVER lays on the couch... is curled up under a notre dame blanket, one of his daughters is playing 'puter games' and the other is looking like she got hit by a truck and was watching a movie. i walk around the corner to see my mom curled up in her bed, nearly asleep. as i walk back to the family room i notice a rather large red stain in the carpet... then another... and then a trail. seriously, it looked like there had been a small war in the family room. i say, "oh no, did someone spill their juice." i got a one word answer. "puke." again, my thoughts, "oh crap."

so, i'm in the midst of a hostile takeover. tori and i are holding strong and haven't shown signs of giving into the flu like symptoms. however, we do believe that tori may have been the culpret who brought this give with her from moms house. only later in the after noon did tori say, "i threw up at moms house." or in tori language it was "i frew up at mommas haws."

so far so good. i felt a little queezy earlier but i'm passing that off from being tired.

preparing to order a hazmat suit online,

k

memory lane - some more favorites

when josh and i worked at woodleaf we spent 90% of our time in our editing suite or filming... for the most part... ahem, anyway, this camp actually had REALLY good food. so when it came time for dinner we would go pick some up and bring it back to the office. however, our office was so small that we didn't have anywhere to eat so we would set up a table in the bathroom... no kidding... and eat our steak dinner with broccoli and raspberry cheese cake. no joke. so this is josh and i during a friday night dinner in our office bathroom. - the summer after our last summer there, james remodeled and quite frankly i'm a bit bitter.


this is from one of my trips to disney world. this was freshman year on a 'mystery flight.' we bought plane tickets for $60 round trip and we had no idea where we were going. we were told to arrive at the airport at 5am and we'd find out where we were going when we checked in for the flight. so, we found out... on halloween weekend that we were spending the day in orlando. so we were pumped!! we got there and decided to spend the day in disneyworld. this is ryan and i, in line for some ride. i have no idea why i was so shocked at whatever but i love the picture! we caught our flight home at something like 8pm that night and we were back on campus for bed time. it was INCREDIBLE!


junior year prom. i paid a woman to do my makeup and i ended up looking like a hooker. it was very unfortunate. so then i did my own makeup in about 5 minutes and i look a little goth. i was just excited because i went to prom with someone i thought was so cool. plus i doubled with my friend chris stutzman so that made it more fun. and it was TEN years ago this past month. crazy how time flies. i LOVED my dress but should have rethought the hair... bummer


me and my nephew jacob who is now NINE, at my cousin susies wedding


my grandparents at my cousin jeffs wedding. they are quite the party animals. i believe they rang in the new year with the rest of us.


these are all of the cousins - except kaitlyn - at desert with my grandparents at their 60th anniversary weekend. all the cousins went to desert to hear stories and advice about how you make it 60 years. for the most part their advice was, "never give up" and "have separate bathrooms." and they live by example, they have always kept trying and they've always had their own bathrooms...


so, i'm in a meeting one morning at camp and we were trying to come up with an idea for the summer staff tshirts. we were trying to explain to churches that they were supposed to use us to their advantage. so i JOKINGLY say, "let's just put, 'i'm a tool' on the front of the shirt, that way they know they can use us." sure enough, we printed hundreds. there were some unhappy people and i was the FIRST to admit that it was SO STUPID. but that's just me.


these are all my roommates from the summer of 2001 at woodleaf: kat, liz, amanda, bryan, josh, tim, dave, brent and our boss mark, during one of our weekly dinner meetings at marks house. that was the best summer of my life. some of the best stories and experiences that i still rely on to get through tough days. these 9 people changed my life.


here i am holding the actual oscar from the movie U-571, not a good movie but phenominal sound and they won for the sound. and i'm holding it in a post house in LA in 2003. pretty cool.


meredith and i in london, the day after st. patricks day wearing our tshirts that we won in the pub the night before. okay, we didn't win them so much as ask for them so we didn't have to dance on the bar but it totally worked! the back of the shirt says, "something to eat, something to drink and someone to love." if ever you're in london go to waxy o'connors in picadilly circus. coolest pub in london.


thats right, this is my dog on my jetski summer of 04 i believe. she rode on the jetskis and the boat from the day i got her, and to the day LOVES the water. pretty great actually.


all of the afore mentioned roommates in front of the golden gate bridge. again, great stories, amazing trip to san fran.


another picture from woodleaf. summer of 2000 after a bad day on the lower truckee river while kayaking. it was actually a wonderful day but it started by getting stuck in a strainer (a dead tree in the water that tries to drown you) honestly, probably the closest i've ever been to dying. once josh and i got out and to the side of the river, i threw up everywhere. i think it was nerves but it was probably the water intake. well, i had just applied my sunscreen about 3 minutes before we got dumped underwater so it all washed off and my bottle of sunscreen went flying down the river when the kayak tipped. so, for the next four hours, at a higher elevation in lake tahoe, in open topped kayaks, my legs baked. and this is result. 2nd degree burns on the fronts of my legs. as you can see the red, that's real. no photoshop. three of the girls had burns like this and we were stuck in the house putting some sort of vinegar concoction on our legs for three days i think. it was so painful i can't even express myself. but we lived and that was close to not happening.


this is me and the professor who is responsible for motivating me through four years of college when i truly didn't believe i was capable of doing it. i owe my degree to this man and my mother. plain and simple.


this is my favorite picture from camp adventure when my friends and i were counselors. i just love the photo!


my friends in high school and i took swing lessons my senior year. little did i know that it would pay off come freshman year of college. grand rapids has a 'celebration on the grand' every year downtown and my freshman year they had a ton of people dancing and then all of a sudden a swing band came on and no one knew how except mark and i. it was great!


i took this picture when ben and sarah and i were watching the fireworks at disney world. i LOVE this picture. again, no photoshop!


one of my best friends meredith - who has always had a heart for missions - who is now a 2nd grade teacher in south central LA at LA Christian School. i had no idea that passion would become her profession.


well, if you're not bored, you're amazing! a little trip down memory lane.