Whirlwind.

I missed three meals and lots of sleep over the past couple of days, and everything is jumbled around in my head right now. You know how you want to fall asleep and let everything just sort itself out while you’re unconscious? I kind of want that to happen.

Pickup trucks and wood chips. I drove five hours to an interview yesterday and five hours back today, and eighty percent of the time I was behind some random pickup truck that leaked wood chips. ??? Made no sense. On the way there, and the way back, pick a truck and it would be dripping wood. I probably looked like a drunk driver behind said trucks as I veered from one side of the road to the other to avoid the wood that departed the jacked-up Fords (and they were pretty much all Fords).

Adrenaline. Is there an off switch for this?

Encouragement. I am thankful for the amazing friends God has brought into my life. Just one thing someone says can help turn your day around.

Attitude. I realize I tend to complain more than I do appreciate. It’s something I want to change. (Just thinking of blog topics: What annoys me? what do I hate? what do I want changed? yeah…that kind of mindset is something I’d rather do away with.)

Home. Five hours away is farther than I thought. Anticipation can be better than the real thing. Sometimes you realize that home is less about geography, and more about your family, your friends, the people you know and care about.

Need a fridge?

We really needed a new refrigerator. Our old one (probably at least fifteen years old), an ivory-colored side-by-side with brown door handles, was icing over and preventing the freezer door from shutting completely. I was out of town the week that my parents bought a new fridge. But I sure heard (pun intended) about it once I got home…

The fridge was a white Whirlpool that they got for a great deal; pearl white with French doors and a freezer on the bottom (I sound like one of those people on a home makeover show now…I’m really not that into refrigerators). My mom loved it. The interior was spacious. There was no icemaker on the door to freeze it over.

But then, there was the sound.

It started out as a low buzzing. We would sit in the living room with the TV muted and listen intently: “Do you hear that?” “Is that the refrigerator?”

The sound grew and grew until the refrigerator was constantly buzzing. Mom get fed up with it and called a repairman. When he left, the fridge started making another noise in addition to the buzzing. So Mom called a second guy. His helpful words were “all energy-efficient refrigerators sound like this.” (My mother found it hard to believe that all modern refrigerators hummed and buzzed like an old car on the brink of falling apart.)

By the time we got to the third repairman, Mom had visited a site that played malfunctioning refrigerator sounds (yes, such sites do apparently exist) and determined that our unit had a sound that none other had — and thus was a lemon. Repairman Number Three then informed us that Repairman Number Two had unplugged something that had made it louder. So Repairman Number Three kindly plugged the unplugged cord back in, and guess what? The fridge grew even louder.

At that point my mom was ready to take an ax to the refrigerator. An hour would not pass by in which she wouldn’t ask if you had heard the fridge, if that noise was new, if it was really loud or if it was just her, or some similar question.

The decision was made to return the Noisy Fridge to Lowe’s, and get a better one from Home Depot. HD would deliver the new fridge on Monday and Lowe’s would pick up the old one on Tuesday. We were supposed to get another French door fridge (this time an LG model, since my mom researched extensively and found out this was the best brand).

All went according to plan until Mom spotted a water dispenser on the side of the fridge as the delivery guys wheeled it in to the kitchen. They had not delivered the French door model she ordered. They delivered a side-by-side.

Panic ensued as Mom tried to make a decision: refuse the new one, or keep it? If she refused it and Lowe’s came the next day to pick up Old Noisy, we would have to learn how to make our own icebox of sorts, so she decided to keep it until Friday, when HD was scheduled to deliver the correct refrigerator.

But guess what? Lowe’s didn’t come today (Tuesday), so we still have two refrigerators in our kitchen. Two twenty-six-cubit-foot refrigerators. I hadn’t realized before just how large refrigerators are. They are the size of at least two people width-wise. They are very hard to walk around. They are cold and steely and massive and have long cords that dangle from them like tails.

We had our internet upgraded today, and I can only imagine what the service guys thought when they walked into our house and saw one refrigerator sitting haphazardly in the dining room and another in the kitchen. (In addition to the refrigerators, we also have a massive heap of beadboard and baseboards leaning up against the walls, a penciled line running three feet high all the way around the dining room, and no baseboards in the dining room in preparation for the beadboard we’re going to install.)

So while we may have two refrigerators for now, at least we have faster internet with which I can relay to you this incredibly confusing and crazy story. (And if you read this far and aren’t asleep yet, I commend you.)

Just take a fall…

You know the one thing you’re fighting to hold
Will be the one thing you’ve got to let go

MuteMath released their music video for Spotlight on Friday. Myspace and my internet connection have conspired against me to keep me from watching it. The first twenty seconds will play, and then the video player acts like the video’s done and swipes the screen with some jumping boxes that recommend related videos. I just want to see this one! Is that so much to ask?

Our internet speed gets upgraded next week…maybe then I can see the video in its entirety. Until then I’ll just post random MM lyrics here, I suppose. If anyone else can see it…tell me how it is?

Mr. Sketch.

I just had a really odd flashback.

It was the early nineties and I was at church with a bunch of other little kids, in the back hall, probably during children’s church. The teachers gave us coloring sheets and then pulled out the usual tin pyramids of beat-up crayons.

Then someone set down a pack of Mr. Sketch markers.

Mr. Sketch markers were packed side-by-side in a Styrofoam board, each marker with its own little indention in the board like a tiny bed, and then the board was encased in a paper sleeve. When you slid the board out there was a whispery hiss as the paper released the Styrofoam.

I didn’t know at the time that you could buy Mr. Sketch markers anywhere. I had seen these markers before, and only in one place: my dad’s sixth-grade language arts classroom. Instantly I knew where the church had gotten the markers and I was proud (hey, you would be too if you were the marker-bearer’s daughter). So naturally, I informed everyone that these had been my dad’s markers and that he had given them to the church, when of course I didn’t know that he actually had nothing to do with the purchase of the markers. I think the teachers didn’t bother to correct me and none of the other kids really cared. But it was a big deal to me.

Later on, when I was older and wiser (um…sure), I came across Dad’s sets of markers in his classroom and didn’t understand at first. The markers were still in his classroom? How had they gotten to church, then? Wait…oh.

It was a sad realization.

Mobile posting…?

I don’t want to click on the icon, because I’m afraid doing so will instantly set up some kind of mobile posting setting that I can never undo. Apparently Blogger has a mobile posting option now.

Okay, so I got curious and clicked on it. Now it’s waiting for me to send my confirmation code. Which I probably won’t. I have a QWERTY phone, but I’m not sure I want to suddenly start writing entries on a four-inch-wide keyboard…unless I’m bored out of my mind stuck on a road trip or something.

Hmm, maybe I’ll try it. Later on. When aforementioned road trip takes place.

Happy (Early) Resurrection Day.

When I was in tenth grade I participated in Bible quizzing (which involves memorizing a book of the New Testament and competing against other teams from across the state to answer questions about it). At the end of the year, our pastor asked the quiz team to share our experience with the church family. That year we had memorized the book of John. I remember saying that it had been the life Jesus led up to the crucifixion that stood out most to me, because you got to know Him and, since you knew what was coming, it became hard to read; you didn’t want Him to die. I didn’t want Him to leave. I wanted Him to stay longer. I told the congregation that I was thinking, “No! Don’t die!” (At which time my pastor interjected with, “but we’re glad He did!”)

And I am glad He died. He could have chosen just to come perform miracles or to share Himself, which would have been nice, but ultimately would have left us in the same place as we were before. Jesus came on a mission: He came to give Himself up for us so we could have direct access to God and know Him for ourselves. Jesus didn’t deserve to die and He definitely didn’t have to, but He chose to, which is incredible — and then He came back from the dead three days later.

To quote 2 Corinthians 9:15, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”

Happy Resurrection Day.

Expect randomness.

My ISP is all over the place…literally. Several times now when I’ve checked my IP address, I’ve gotten results for cities at least two or three hours away. I wonder why. Oh well — this just means I can stalk people without them knowing who I really am or where I am really from…(well, except for you, faithful blog readers, because now you know.)

Today I planned to knock out some CSS and HTML books, but a headache knocked me out instead. I awoke with what I think can best be described as a migraine, and two ibuprofen failed to get rid of it, so I hobbled around for the better part of the day until it started to clear up and a friend adjusted my back and neck. (Seriously, you would think I twist myself into pretzel shapes all day with as bad as my back gets. One shoulder is always higher than the other and apparently I hold my neck at a really weird angle to compensate.) So with book-catching-up out the window, I ended up learning some basic jQuery…stuff? would that be the right word?…tonight instead. It was pretty interesting. (Here’s a very basic example if you want to see. jQuery controls what the last three links do.)

I also found a really nice layout in Sports Illustrated (not mine) that I want to try and duplicate for the web. The only problem is that this magazine has a sample fragrance of Emporio Armani Diamonds for Men fragrance inside, and while it sits on my desk it emanates a thick, powerful scent that smells like baby powder on steroids. The tagline is “Hard to Resist.” I suggest they change the tagline to “Hard to Resist Throwing Across the Room.” Ugh.

I should probably try to write a one-topic post next time. It seems I’ve fallen into the habit of writing about anything and everything in one fell swoop, so mayhap (my favorite word — getting off-topic again) I should change things up and try to keep one train of thought. (I’m not really this ADD. At least, I don’t think I am.) Stay tuned.

p.s. I knew I forgot something. Mat Kearney’s new album is available for preorder — I went off my budget and bought it today, and the instant mp3 download that comes with it is really good. Just saying. :)

Need an answering machine?

My dad’s cat (appropriately named DC) is a hard worker, as you can tell from the photo below. This morning the Cster, as we like to call him, was on answering machine duty, but unfortunately he didn’t get any calls and started to feel lonely. He sent this plea to Dad in hopes of getting the phone to ring at least once. (The photo editing makes a messy dresser look even worse. Just try to ignore it.)

Hello April

Why do I almost always fall for Google’s April Fools Day schemes? Last year it was about retrieving emails after you sent them (like days or weeks or even months after); this year it was CADIE, which was some kind of bot that would match your voice and automatically respond to your emails. I found myself nodding along to the description posted on the Gmail homepage and then finally realized at the end: oh. It isn’t real. Today is April 1. (It was worse last year; last year I think I believed the joke for about a week.)

My mom, sister, and I started a self-defense class today. Now I’m scared to park near vans, walk in parking lots by myself, or go out to the mailbox in broad daylight. Okay…maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. We learned about five or six techniques today, and I hope we never have to use them…for obvious reasons, plus the fact that I am probably going to forget them all because we still have six hours of training left in which we will learn even more techniques.

I realize I must sound like a total geek, but CSS is really cool, and today I made an amazing unordered list. (Well, with the help of that book I was talking about in the last post.) Hopefully the following isn’t copyrighted — I did code it myself, but with the book’s images — but I want to show it off. This is just an unordered list with some images. SWEET!



This has been a really random post. The following is a lot less random, and more on the serious side, so it seems kind of weird to end this way. But I digress. I read this Proverb this morning and wanted to share. It’s something worth chewing on:

For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Proverbs 2:6

It just got me thinking…where do I usually look for wisdom? School, other people, the internet, books, television, you name it. Not that those things or people aren’t helpful; to be sure, they are, but where did they get their knowledge? Who gave them understanding? It struck me that I have never really considered God as being the One who has more wisdom than, say, a university (typing that out sounds ridiculous, but it’s what I thought!).

When I consider that God constructed everything — everything — it makes me realize that He has wisdom beyond what I can imagine. And He gives it! (Proverbs 2 talks about how you should look for it.) It’s a humbling and amazing thing. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, and I don’t want to sound preachy, but I’m throwing this out there because this verse stuck to me today. Here’s hoping it sticks to you too.