Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Celebrating sisters

This week is the anniversary of my birth and that of my fellow blogger and sister. Because of that (and the fact that I feel like taking a little spring break from blogging this week) I decided to simply post my favorite sisters photo and caption. This kinda sums up our relationship…

I love my sister. I… love… her... so... friggin'... much.

Happy (almost) Birthday sis!

Friday, March 19, 2010

Get your praise on

I love to sing. And I love my church. So, my mid-week church choir rehearsals are a nice break from the busy work week.

When you think of a church choir, don’t you just want to picture this? Yeah, not so much at my church. We are a bunch of suburban white people who move and sing like a bunch of suburban white people. Except for the one guy who moves SO much he looks like he’s convulsing. (Bless his heart though, at least he tries.)

We can sing a Chris Tomlin song with the best of them. But sometimes I wonder who our music minister thinks we are when he makes our song selections. At rehearsal this week, I picked up a CD of the music we’re singing next month and this is our big number:

For real? Look at those moves! I mean, you can’t not move to that song, right? Therein lies the problem. In our choir, the Spirit only moves us to sing precisely what is written in the music and to clap only when specifically told we must clap—and even then it's usually awkward. We practically have to script the occasional "amen" or "hallelujah."

Needless to say, this will be interesting. The song is great and we have a great guest soloist joining us who definitely knows how to bring it, but I'm a little unsure of whether or not my fellow singers and I will be able to dig deep enough into our souls to pull this one off. We'll sure have fun trying though!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

March Madness is here...are we excited?

It’s NCAA basketball tourney time, and if you’re like me, you don’t really care. Yet somehow I have my own tournament bracket all filled out and sitting on my desk at work. This is because for the past few years my department has had our own “Masters of the Hardwood” competition. The winner gets a bobblehead basketball trophy, a gift card, and most of all, bragging rights.

The surprising thing about our department competition is that 90 percent of us are women, most of us know very little about college basketball, and some even live in Canada. But, when our vice president initiates this annual competition, we humor him and jump on board.

Some of us make our picks completely at random while others do a little Googling to check out the rankings. I usually base my picks off the rankings, but throw in a few random upsets for good measure. (No, I did not pick the Minnesota Gophers to have an upset…I’ve followed Minnesota sports for too long.)

Amazingly, it gets pretty competitive. (I mean, personally I’m not a competitive person or anything, but…oh who am I kidding…I love to win!) We usually have a fair amount of smack talk going around over email, which is probably the most fun part. I have yet to win in past years, but I’ve come close and usually finish in the top half of the standings. That’s a good enough reputation for me.

I will say that by participating in a tournament contest, I do at least become fan enough to pay attention to the scores, though I don’t typically watch the games. (Remember, hockey is my game, not basketball.) Nevertheless…go Kansas!

Friday, March 12, 2010

Must see TV?

I've been sitting in two straight days of presentations from people talking largely about things I don't understand. Basically, my brain is mush. After all of this, I need to spend some quality time this weekend doing something that requires absolutely no concentration or thought whatsoever. As I plan my upcoming mindless activities, it's probably time to share with you another one of my favorite things. It's been awhile since we've talked favorites. (Remember this secret weapon of mine?)

Today, I'm talking about my DVR. I know I'm at least 5 years late in adopting this piece of media genius but I'm not a huge TV watcher. There are only a few shows I simply must watch.

Remember those video cassettes? My VCR broke a couple of years ago and I was doing fine without any recording device until I learned last fall’s season of So You Think You Can Dance would air on Wednesday nights...church night. A quick call to my cable company and my eyes have been opened to a whole new, commercialess world.

I find myself recording shows I would never otherwise watch. If I've got 20 minutes to spare before my next commitment…well, that’s just enough time to watch last week’s episode of How I Met Your Mother!

I end up deleting a lot of shows that I realize I will never actually have time for, but, this is one technology I don’t think I will give up anytime soon. In times like this when I need some serious downtime, it's great to have a library of choices to choose from! Gotta go now. Last night's episode of The Office is awaiting me.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The things we do to feel better

Warning: If you are bothered by talk of things going in or out of your nose, this may not be the post for you.

Thankfully, I’ve had a very healthy winter, so I wasn’t too surprised last week when I finally felt a sore throat coming on. It turned out to be a doozy of a virus that sent me to a clinic, hoping to obtain drugs. While I wasn’t prescribed anything, the nurse practitioner highly recommended that I use a Neti Pot to clear my sinuses. I’ve heard people say the Neti Pot is very effective, but all I could picture was this video, which represented my first ever exposure to this unique device a couple years ago:

Hmmm, where to begin on what’s wrong with this video? I’ll let you pick your own favorite part. Personally, I like the exercises the woman demonstrates to help expel any remaining fluid after using the Neti Pot.

Well, call me desperate, but I did use a variation of the Neti Pot, and I think I actually like it! Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very weird, but it works! Just don’t look for me to star in the next Neti Pot video.

Now, if any of you have some great cough remedies…please help! My co-workers are frightened to be near me for fear that I will start coughing uncontrollably…again.

Have a happy, healthy spring!

Friday, March 5, 2010

Good Day Sunshine

It may not be officially spring yet, but I feel it this week. March has come in like a lamb with lots of sun and melting snow. I love it (well, except for the sinus headaches). Personally, I also love this month for the tax refund it will soon bring and a birthday I'm actually not dreading this year. I'm sure we'll still have our fair share of March Madness snowstorms, but even so, I'm ready to go sandal shopping!

I haven’t had even five minutes this week to sit down and write about anything that wasn’t work related. And now, as I sit in my Caribou Coffee office looking out the window at the sunshine, the motivation for blogging just isn’t here. In fact, why are you reading this? Get outside and enjoy the spring! Take a walk, clean the garage, explore someplace new.

And if you think of it, remember to say a little prayer about the Midwest’s biggest springtime challenge. Here’s hoping the waters won’t rise too much for my friends by the river to ruin this spectacular season!