Hooray! It's Halloween!

Every Halloween costume idea I had would involve me having to make said costume... and by make, I mean sew... Since I am sans sewing machine (not to mention sans sewing machine skills), I was disappointed that I wasn't going to have a sweet costume (insert frown-e face here). I mean, I could have just bought a costume, but that would be kinda lame and too expensive if I wanted it to look cool. After being all disappointed and such, I then realized that I had nowhere that I would even wear the costume, so that brought on a whole new disappoitment... I gave up on the whole idea of even having a costume this year, which made me sad because it would be the first year in my entire life that I did not dress up for Halloween! (Here is where I cry.)

But then I found out my friends Mikey & Eric's improv comedy troupe, Community Floss, was doing a Halloween show! If you were in costume, it was $1 off! Yippee! I had a reason to dress up! But I had no costume! (Oh Nooooo!)

So I went with the tried-and-true ninja mask out of a t-shirt costume. The show was this past Thursday. It was probably their weakest show I've seen so far, but it was still fun. Tonite I will again be dressing as a ninja for a Halloween video scavenger hunt.

And now, How to Make a Ninja Mask out of a T-Shirt:

Moosen

So, maybe I wore a blue moose costume today for Keli's photography project...

An Adventure

The in-laws were up for a visit this weekend. We had a nice time, but that's not the adventure...

The adventure started as Lindsey, Keli, Mel B, and I were headed for Kristi's bridal shower in McLeansboro. None of us knew how to get there, but we had two sets of directions: one specific that Lindsey had gotten off the internet with road numbers and such, and one that said things like "turn right at the Dairy Queen" that Mel B had gotten from Heather. Before heading out, we figured we'd stop at Burger King to get some lunch.

Keli was first in line, ordered, and then was waiting near the fountain drinks when this sorta creepy lookin' guy started talking to her. I had just finished ordering when I looked over at her. This guy was standing very very very very close to her. I mistakenly thought that she knew him (maybe some weird cousin or old friend or something). Nope. First thing he said to her was "So, how old are you?" (my favorite pick-up line) and then he said "And the girl in the pink, and the one in the blue?" (I was wearing pink and Lindsey was wearing blue... he was just going right down the line... Mel B was in the restroom.) Keli just replied, "We're all married." And Creepy Dude said, "All of you?" He still wanted to know how old we were, and at this point I joined the conversation and Creepy Dude backed away from Keli, and after another couple minutes he made his way back to his friends and they left.

When we walked outside Burger King, there was this young guy bent over holding his chest. We thought that there was something wrong with him, and Lindsey asked him if he was okay. He mumbled something to the effect that he was. I said if any of us could help him, Lindsey could since she's practically a doctor (she's not really... she works as an occupational therapist type person... but I thought that was close enough). Turns out the guy had heartburn or something from eating fast food.

So we were off to McLeansboro... with directions that said two different things. We followed the internet directions since they were more specific (and it turns out something on the other directions was off anyway). At one point Mel B called Heather to ask how far away we were (we were at Mt. Vernon at that time) and Heather had been wigging out because the cake wasn't ready or something and she was all confused because we were going a different way than she had said. So then we thought we were going the wrong way until we saw a sign that pointed to McLeansboro. All was okay again.... We saw a few Amish horses & buggies... and then...

Keli and I were just talking about an episode of The Untold Stories of the E.R. on TLC. These girls were in a car that had been run off the road and crashed into a fence. A hollow metal pole had gone through the windshield, through the chest of the driver, through the seat, and through the leg of the rear passenger. We were saying that we never wanted to be driving behind a truck carrying poles. Just as we had finished saying that, the truck in front of us lost a piece of its cargo (Pink Panther insulation). Luckily, Lindsey acted fast, swerving to just miss the bundle and then passed the truck. It was crazy!

Then we finally arrived in McLeansboro. We had to circle the town square made of one way roads twice (maybe three times?) before we we got to where we needed to be. And here is a picture proving that we got there safe and sound:

Kristi, Heather, Lindsey, Me, Tarah, Keli & Mel B

The trip back to Carbondale was about 15 minutes or so faster and not all that eventful.

Pumpkin King

Chase & I went to Nashville last weekend. It was pretty cool. We saw Nicklecreek and The Ditty Bops. I enjoyed the concert. It was at the War Memorial, and was a super nice place. We were right up at the stage... seriously... we rested our arms on the stage itself. The Nicklecreek peeps almost stepped on my fingers. They could have kicked me in the face with very little effort if they would have chosen to do so.

So here are a few Nashville pics:

Keli & I carved pumpkins tonite. She carved the Apple logo. I was going to carve Abraham Lincoln, but I didn't have a small enough knife. So I carved this instead:

Busy Busy Busy...

Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy… Let’s see... Last weekend we had the Axiom conference. I was By the Tree’s merch maiden… and not even a free T-shirt or CD or sticker or anything! Oh well, I wouldn’t even recognize any of their songs anyway... and probably less than 10 people bought their stuff.

We visited Lakeland Baptist in Carbondale on Sunday. I loved it! (and not just because it was about a 10 minute drive versus our usual 25+ minute drive to Cornerstone). Had some delicious Chinese food afterwards. Mmmmmmmmmm...

What else... I was completely stressed-out on Monday. My church was supposed to “host” the international luncheon at the BCM on Tuesday, but not a single person (out of the 400+ congregation) volunteered! One person contacted me, but he had thought it would be at church in the evening (ummm luncheon?) and worked during the day and would not be able to help. But thanks to God and some regular BCM volunteers, things went quite nicely. Luckily, my church is going to reimburse them for the money they spent for the food.

Yesterday and today I spent the majority of my time at work trying to get the hissing, pops, clicks and clipping out of some live recordings. Some turned out quite nicely, but others... eh, not so great. Hooray for Adobe Audition!

I was filled with glee when I found a comment on my blog from none other than Shelley the Hottie! Shelley was my Young Life leader who just might have had a chain letter email created about her by yours truly... Possibly.

Well, I’m off to pick up the reimbursement checks from church!

Making Mashed Potatoes

Sooooooooooooo... last night I was on the verge of sleep when suddenly I heard this sort of pounding-type noise that jolted me out of dozing. Chase was in the living room watching Benny & Joon and I thought it might be the part where Sam is making mashed potatoes, so I got out of bed to go ask him to turn the volume down. But when I got to the bedroom door, I realized that it was not the movie that I was hearing, but our upstairs neighbors... They could have been working on baby #2...

Van

Chase and I saw this van as we were leaving after having bought our parking passes:

Of course I wanted my picture taken with it. I think my favorite part is the Ghostbusters picture. Chase thinks the ghost is giving the peace sign. I think it stands for Ghostbusters 2.