pi symbol?

ok, i hate to do another post on army stuff, but that's sort of what i am immersed in at the time...

when we moved to clarksville, tn i started to see this red pi-sign sort of symbol. i saw it on the back of cars, i saw it on flags outside of houses, i saw it on t-shirts. at first, i thought there was a huge math club following here in clarksville. oh no, it's not a pi sign. it's a rakkasan. and let me tell you, people are obsessed.

i haven't seen it as just a little car sticker - i've seen it take up the entire back window. a rakkasan is the symbol for some brigade? battalion? i don't know, and the less i know, the better. i just want to make sure you understand that it isn't normal. zach's battalion or brigade (whatever, but i think battalion) doesn't go around flaunting its silly symbol, which i think is a bulldog... it's only the people who are rakkasans that go crazy over it. i don't get it.

DISCLAIMER: if you or someone you love is a "rakassan", i don't mean to offend you... but can we agree that it has gotten out of hand?

thirteen point one

i am sore. and slightly surprised that i survived. and now, i am ready to train for my next half (and one day maybe full?) marathon.

now the next big event is the ATL airport and zach :)


(oh, my favorite part of the country music marathon/ 1/2 marathon: the fact that there was free beer at the finish line. haha not even joking.)

yes!

tonight was so good. (so good that i am almost not annoyed with army. almost.)

here is why it is was good:

first: i saw my friend's baby room. (so cute. the room...and her belly.)

second: dinner at chili's with more friends. (thats right, i have friends, 's' as in plural.)

third: when i got home, new episodes of: the office, 30 rock, and grey's. (i still hate meredith.)

um, yea

i am still in the process of bringing stuff from marietta up to clarksville. mostly books. today i unpacked my journals and thumbed through them. wow... such a mix of emotions. it is so wierd to miss the past and be repulsed by it all at the same time. i have such a love/hate memory of uga... i have really awesome memories and yet there are some experiences that i never want to return too. (and i'm talking past personal experiences, not relationships haha, just in case anyone is speculating. haha, ohh. funny. sort of.)

to top off the journals, i got my old computer working and was able to look at my old pictures. so the bittersweet feelings only got worse. so, to get rid of that wierd feeling and effect that bittersweetness gives me, i went to hobby lobby and bought something.

regardless of sad memories, i miss all my friends and you know who you are :) praying for all of you.

(so that was a bit of a downer post. so here is an upper.)

real housewives of nyc

ok, so i am watching the reunion for the RHW of NYC. its so ridic and i don't know why i have invested so much time into the show. maybe its a nice reminder of what i never want to be... and i mean, it is entertaining/super annoying. (that is an irresistible combination and you know it.)

ohhh this past weekend was awesome. i had lunch with some girlfriends (brooke chronicles are friendship quite nicely, if you are interested.) so now, being back in clarksville it is so painfully obvious that my college friendships simply cannot be recreated here in clarksville. just not the same. anyways, i could dwell, but i probably shouldn't.

moving on, this past weekend i also got to see my bro's girlfriend take pics for her senior prom. so beautiful. i also spent a lot of time with my sis, who actually stayed with me all weekend... didn't even leave to smoke a cigarette or hang out with her boyfriend. (i'm so proud of you kara!! for both accomplishments hehe :)

this is a terrible pic of me, but very cute of the other two... so, there ya go.

army wives club

my relationship with the army is so love hate. i hate deployments, sneaky contracts, the commissary on pay days, the millions of crazy acronyms, killing (even when neccessary), excessive amount of smoking, and the excessive amount of cursing. (ok, the last two are an over generalization. many soldiers and their families do not curse or smoke excessively. BUT enough do that it annoys me.)

but, every time i attend army stuff, i really do enjoy the army life. i like the immediate community and understanding. i have met lots of really cool people. my frg (family readiness group) is really sweet and supportive and doesn't gossip. many things about the army makes me laugh... like the baby booms after deployments/r&r's and awesome army t-shirts/apparel. i also like the easiness of the doctor's office because you don't sign out or pay anything - same with the pharmacy. (this is based on one doctor's visit on post, so don't quote me on that just yet... and i wasn't impressed my doctor. but the other staff was really sweet. the receptionist even invited me to her church and gave me directions and her name and number.)

one day i really want to live near family and i want the husband home for pregnancies and every minute their lives. i guess i would be hesitant if God led us to army life forever, but i think i would come around. i pray He doesn't, but i won't afraid if He does.

weekend awesomeness

passion was absolutely amazing. louie, as always, shared an incredible message. worship was INSANE. i mean, i truly cannot explain it.

the girls i went with were awesome and it was great to meet new people. but, it really made me miss all my girlfriends. i miss having my close friends living near me. (insert a sigh here.) it was also difficult to be so close to my fam - grimes and underwoods - and not be able to see them. i almost felt like i wasn't in georgia... almost.

oh, fun story: so praying for the country of iraq is obviously important to me. but the country seems so far gone and when i pray for the iraqi people its one of those "it may seem like You aren't there, but i know You are and that the Holy Spirit is moving..." you know, very general prayer. WELL louie told us (the massive crowd) that passion 07 raised money and built a community center in northern iraq (among many other cool things all over the world) to minister to the kurds. um, that is awesome. and now i have specifics to pray for and i love specifics. it probably seems insignificant, but it was a blessing for me to find that out - God let me know a little bit about His story goin on over there... and just reminded me keep on praying.


lots of other fun things happened, but i didn't get back to TN until 3:30AM... and then got up at 7:30 AM. that mixed with 2 other nights of less than 6 hours of sleep = not good.

peace.

UPDATE: check out the Freedom Center Website!!!!!

no tornado, just storms

still alive and kickin... off to passion :)

oh, and i totally missed the last 10 minutes of the office because of weather reports. stinky.

tornadoes!!!! eeeek.

Tornadoes are coming tonight. I mean, its not for sure, but the "conditions are right." I usually begin to freak out pretty soon after any watch or warning is given - even if it is talked about 12 hours in advance of the storm. I just hate storms - especially ones that make it okay for tornadoes to form and to destruct and to be scary. Even now as I am really trying to relax, I can feel my heart beating slightly faster than normal. I hate tornadoes because I have absolutely NO control over them. n o n e. Hate that.

What I am about to admit is sort of dorky, but I'll share it anyways. For the past few storms that I have been through alone in my condo I have been trying a different approach. When a warning comes, I gear up: Bible, flashlight, blanket, pillow, dog, and shoes. (I put on sneakers when I go into duck and cover mode because my mom used to make us do that. That way, if a tornado ripped our house apart, we wouldn't hurt our feet walking through debris. Oh, Susan. Love her.) If it is at night, I get all these things together and ready and when it hits I head to the downstairs bathroom. From that point on - it is totally out of my hands. So as I sit in the bathroom, I have to trust that whatever God's will is, it is perfect. There is no reason to freak out, because ultimately, God is in control - even of tornadoes. So, if I die tonight in a freak tornado storm, you can rest assured that it was God's will, because obviously it was. If I live, it is by His hand...

Two morbid posts in a row... I really didn't see that coming. I'll post tomorrow morning to let you know I made it thru the night haha.

(AH! I just realized a new episode of the office is coming on! whoohoo :) If warning messages and weather breaks ruin the show, I will be sooo mad!!)

Also, here is where I got that graphic. This is a great site about how to ready yourself for nature's worst!

Passion 08

...it totally just fell on my lap - pretty much a free trip to the Passion Conference in ATL. Totally a God thing. I get to meet some girls from Clarksville and hang out and go to Passion and go to Georgia. Could it get much better? Answer: no.

So, I am sort of nervous about sleeping these days. Here is why: I have been having crazy dreams. Last night I had a dream that these people (American Indian-ish) were patrolling around with bows and arrows. Well, this little boy shot a bad arrow and it almost hit me. So I picked it up and straightened it out and handed it back to him, telling him not to worry about it - no harm done. I wasn't mad at all. Then the man next to him looked at me and said something like "oh, I'll get revenge for you, since he almost shot you." And then the man shot an arrow into the little boys face. And I saw it all. It was horrible. I was screaming and the boy was crying and screaming and bleeding... then we all exploded.

I usually have crazy funny awesome dreams. I think I need to turn off the heat at night and to stop watching the news so much.

And I apologize, because this post started off so good and ended horribly. I'll try to do better next time :)

parents weekend

this past weekend, my parents came to visit. i am SO thankful they did, because i needed some good company.

here is one of the many reasons i love them:

(at dinner on saturday, i don't remember the topic of conversation, but it doesn't really matter)

me: well, dad, God knows the number of hairs on your head...

dad: yes, but does He know the number of hairs on my back?


ohhhh goodness. i laughed a long time over that one.

i <3 TV

i really do love tv. i saw this amazing interview on dateline last friday about 2 girls whose identities were switched for 5 weeks after a horrible accident. the girl thought to be dead was actually alive and the girl thought to be alive was dead... the families involved did an interview on oprah this week. these families are obviously dedicated to Christ and it was so incredible to hear them speak. the father, (who believed his daughter to be alive only to find out after 5 weeks she had died in the crash), commented about why he never sought a lawsuit. he talked about how revenge would not bring comfort and then he quoted Micah 6:8 "...And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Oh my gosh, it was so awesome to see that kind of faith.

so tv can show some good stuff, but it also leads to bad stuff.... and tv leads me to google. for example: i saw tom cruise on some channel the other night. for whatever reason, i started googling scientology to try and understand what was going on. i, like many, have gotten lots o'laughs at tom cruise jumping on couches and all the crazy videos, but in taking a deeper look... well, scientology is really really scary. i guess i just assumed that cults had small followings - you know groups of around 40 people and something along the lines of Heaven's Gate. However, scientology is a huge cult. the most troubling thing to me is that they use a cross as their symbol (i do not know the reason why).

anyways, i also saw an interview of oprah talking about Jesus that was slightly disturbing.

i encourage any of my 3 readers to look up information on scientology - youtube has some interesting videos as well. talk about spiritual warfare people....

(if you could careless to learn anything about scientology, i encourage you to watch "nanny 911." a-ma-zing. haha. but really, its so good.)

hooray for april!

It is April! PTL!! For Easter, Zach sent me some flowers (as in potted bulbs). They are blooming and are just gorgeous... I have been waiting for this month since January. And after April must come May... eeeee!!!

A little April Fool's Day Story:
My dog, Buck, "April fooled" me today. I took him out for a little walk, and he lifted his leg to mark a tree. OR SO I THOUGHT... because instead of peeing, he actually did a #2 - with his leg lifted! It made me laugh really hard. I think I might be a crazy dog lady. Good Lord, if I ever have a sitting portrait of my dog painted, someone please intervene haha

That is all... everyone have a wonderful first day of April!