A little treat

I have to admit that I am struggling to keep my eyes open today. I very seriously contemplated not getting out of bed at all this morning. But, I forced myself out of bed and off to work and have managed to be somewhat productive despite my heavy eyes. At lunch, I wandered out in hopes of the fresh air giving me a little boost and to pick up something with some bubbles in it. Usually I go for a Diet Coke but today, the Coke Cherry Zero caught my eye and just sounded like the right thing to have.
Generally, anything that is not diet is a little too sweet for my taste but today, this really hit the spot. I had it 'on the rocks' to cut some of the sweetness (and yes, I am using my Starbucks Red Cup Mug. It makes me happy. Deal with it.).
Of course, now, an hour later, my stomach hurts and I think that I generally feel worse than I did before this treat. Oh well.

Fall Into You

Yes, I realize that I have posted lyrics from Phil Wickham's songs before. But, these lyrics really struck me this afternoon while listening at my desk.

Fall Into You
Phil Wickham

Oh who am I that Your merciful eyes should fall on me
A sinner a fool, who doesn’t deserve You
And what am I that you’d offer Your life and die for me
What can I do, I’m nothing without You, I’m nothing without You
I’m nothing without You my love, my saving love

So I fall into You, I’m desperate and weak
Crying out from my heart, take all of me

How can it be that the heart of my God would long for me
For all that You do, Jesus I love You, I’ll Always Love You
Jesus I love You with all of my heart

Maker of sun and moon and stars
I throw myself into Your arms, into Your arms

It's a sad day...

My favorite pair of shoes is dying. This afternoon, the little button on the strap popped off.
See, here it is on my desk instead of on my shoe

The button on the other shoe long ago lost it's fancy fabric top and has just been a shell of itself. However, it still functioned.

I think that I am just going to cut the straps off of them so that I can continue to wear them. While the straps were what made the shoes so stinking cute, they were always a bit on the tight side.
So much sadness...

1,000+

That's how many times people have viewed this little blog of mine. That means that either the 5 of you that I think read this, click on it a lot or it means that I have more readers than I think and they just never make themselves known.

My very first Cubs game...

And there was a tornado in the 6th inning!
Only when I finally have tickets to enjoy a game from one of the fabulous rooftops does a tornado actually threaten the city. We never get them here. They are always out in the 'burbs. Oh well, I managed to enjoy the first 5 innings!
A couple of co-workers and I were invited to enjoy last night's game at one of the rooftops out in left field. We all arrived with no problems, found some seats up on the roof where a wonderful breeze was blowing and enjoyed free food and drink and good conversation. Oh yeah, we enjoyed the game too (well, some did. I had no idea what was going on).
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We were all very aware of the dark clouds headed our way and towards the end of the 5th inning it was strongly suggested that we start moving inside seeing as there was a lot of lightning coming our direction and we were all seated on metal bleachers. We got inside just as it started raining and we were able to watch them scramble to pull the tarps onto the field. After hanging around for a bit to see if it would stop raining and the game resume, we opted to head home while there was a lull in the rain.

My co-workers headed in one direction towards their car and I headed in the other to begin my walk home. About half way home the sirens started going off to indicate a tornado and I debated if I should duck into Whole Foods and wait it out or continue on my way home seeing as I was so close. I opted to keep walking and made it home safely (very wet, but safe). In retrospect, probably not the smartest thing I've ever done, but I can't do anything about it now.
I was thankful to arrive home to find that our apartment still had power and despite all the windows being wide open, relatively little water inside. I did have to rescue a plant that had toppled to the ground and try to comfort a cat that was not at all happy about the storm raging outside, but that was about it.
I turned on the news to find that the game was technically still in 'rain delay' regardless of the fact that Wrigley Field had been completely evacuated and they were still holding out hope of completing the game. I'm guessing that they never got around to finishing it since there was thunder and lightning well into the early hours of the morning. I checked in with a few friends who were all home safe, but some without power. I talked with my roommate who was finally on her way home after having been stuck in an auditorium at the Art Institute for the last couple of hours. Then, I crawled into bed and attempted to sleep, but was not very successful.
This morning I woke up to find my left eye quite swollen for no apparent reason. It looks like someone hit me or I ran into something. Unless I was sleep walking, I have done neither of those things in the last 24 hours so I don't know what the deal is with that.

On a side note: My roommate met our new downstairs neighbor last night. She was kind enough to go downstairs to ask him to turn down his music that was making our floor vibrate. She knocked on the door and it was answered by a very attractive 20-something man who apparently was totally stoned. He was very obliging in turning down his bass and said something like 'sure, babe, you just let me know if it gets too loud again.' This is going to be an interesting year!!

My weekend adventures

This last weekend was one of the busiest I have had in awhile. Here's the play by play.
Friday:
We had our yearly department outing. Since the head of our department will be embarking on a new roll as the president of the denomination and this will be his last adventure with us, he wanted to make this one a big deal. So Friday morning we all jumped in Canoes on the Chicago river just north of Belmont Ave and paddled our way south to Chinatown.


It took us about 3 hours to complete the 7.something miles down the river, but the sore shoulders were totally worth it.
We went past waste management...

Saw tour boats and tried not to tip over in their wakes...
We went under bridges...

And got spectacular views of downtown...



And yes, I realize that the lighting in these pictures is a little off, but seeing as how I was supposed to be paddling the canoe and not leaving my partner to do all the work, I didn't feel like I had a lot of time to mess with things and figure out what I was doing wrong. Oh well.
We ended in Chinatown and had a little lunch and did some exploring. Then I headed home on the train and did my best to not move a muscle the rest of the day.


Saturday:
Thanks to a large dose of ibuprofen the night before I was able to get out of bed the next morning and head to church for our monthly leadership training where I was treated to a breakfast of pancakes and fellowship with some of my favorite people around.
After that, I raced home, changed my clothes, threw together a salad, waited 20 minutes for a bus before deciding I should just walk only to have the bus pass me by as soon as I crossed the street, and finally ended up at Montrose Beach. I was invited to join the college group in a BBQ and afternoon of playing games and hanging out. Somehow I managed to survive playing several games of volleyball and had a wonderful time (so nice, I forgot to take pictures).
I got home and jumped in the shower and am pretty sure half the beach went down my drain. Earlier in the afternoon I had made tentative plans to hang out with my good friend J who had just moved to the city so I gave him a call when I got out of the shower to see what the plan was. He wanted to see a movie at 7:30. I looked at my clock and it was 6:55 and I had just gotten out of the shower and he was still in Millennium Park and the movie was up on the north side. Somehow though, we made it to the theater and were sitting in our seats just as the previews were ending. At this point, he leaned over to me and said 'oh yeah, did I mention that this movie is in French and has subtitles?' I had kind of figured that was the case and the movie was good. However, half way through the movie, I became very aware that I had not eaten much all day and that I was probably dehydrated and I was sore and just wanted to stand up and stretch. We finished off the evening with drinks and a (late) dinner at a pub nearby and caught up on the happenings in our lives since the last time we saw each other 3 years ago.
Sunday:
I dragged my sleepy self out of bed for church followed by a lunch to celebrate a friend who had just quit his job followed by an afternoon by the lake with friends. When I came home around 5:30 and actually sat in one place for more than 5 minutes my roommate laughed about how I had just sort of been this flash that passed through all weekend and it was odd for me to be home for more than 10 minutes. It felt good to finally just sit and do nothing! At least until our new neighbor downstairs turned on their music and made the floor vibrate, but I think that's going to be another story for another day...

A Gift

On Thursday morning I was handed this lovely little card by a co-worker.

It was her last day of working here and she handmade gifts for each of us. Everyone else had their gifts delivered in these really cute little purses she made out of construction paper but she made this lovely shoe especially for me! I still have glitter all over my desk from it.
The best part though was the pair of earrings that she attached to the shoe.

She also made these earrings! The best part about the earrings is that she was scoping out all of our jewelry for weeks to figure out each of our individual styles and preferences so that she could make the perfect pair.
I love mine!