Cool Noodles

I came across this lasagne sheet in one of my magazines the other day.  I like the concept: one big piece of pasta that fits in a square casserole dish instead of trying to fit the smaller ones into your pan.  I usually end of breaking pieces apart to fill in the cracks around the edge.   With cooler weather approaching, I am starting to feel like cooking and baking again... lasagne here I come. 

Fashion Trends

My sister and I were talking about the fact that we are now old enough to see fashion trends come back into style.  Right now it's the side ponytail, neon bright colors, colored denim, short shirts, jeans with the zippers at the ankle... I remember my mom expounding on the fact that bell bottom jeans had come back into style when I was younger.  It didn't seem like such a big deal to me.  Now I understand how it feels to see these things come back around.  At the mall last weekend, I saw a woman in her 40's wearing a trendy midriff-baring shirt and I found it hard to believe.  I can understand teens embracing these things because they've never seen them before.  At least the woman had the body to wear something like that, but it's always odd to see older people embracing trends that are really more for the young. 

Lifelight

It's become a tradition for my mom to travel down here for the Labor Day weekend and we go to the Lifelight Music Festival together.  This year was incredibly hot!  We ventured out late in the afternoon and brought plenty of water and umbrellas for shade.  It was one of those days where you don't even have to be exercising and still feel incredibly sweaty.  We still had a great time.  Although I didn't buy the requisite funnel cake, an indian taco was enough "fair food" for me.  I'm grateful to Tamee for introducing me to the Festival when I moved here back in the day.  It's always been a great event to give God the glory through music. 

On Being Employed or Otherwise

I watched the movie "Up in the Air" over the weekend.  I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at the whole concept of having a job where your sole responsibility is to travel around the country firing other people.  I laughed at some of the reactions people had, but mostly because I think they were pretty accurate representations.  Working in an industry with one of the highest unemployment rates makes this occurrence all too real.

Scary

UPDATE:
The other day, the house where I saw the story below occur was busted by the police for being a meth lab.  I feel glad that the kids are no longer in this situation, but also sad that parents would endanger their family this way.  There is something to be said for gut instinct and just knowing something wrong was happening there.


I almost saw a little boy get hit by a car last night on my way home from work.  There is this house on my typical route that seems a little sketchy.  There are usually kids hanging out outside unsupervised.  The frightening part about this is that it is located right on a busy street with not much yard to play in.  Yesterday, there was a young toddler walking about happily on the driveway.  I was concerned about this because there appears to be a lot of cast off junk in this driveway.  However, that was nothing compared to what happened next.  He began walking unsteadily towards the street and just a few steps away from speeding cars.  There was a woman sitting on the porch who didn't appear to be paying much attention.  I wanted to scream out to her, but was just sitting in my car saying, "stop! stop!".  Thankfully, one of the other little boys came over and grabbed him just before he toddled into the street and a speeding car.  Thankfully I didn't see what could have been a major tradegy occur.  However, I keep wondering about all of those kids living there and what kind of environment it is. 

Seattle & Ports North

One of my favorite ways to vacation is on a cruise ship.  This mode of transportation makes it very easy to see lots of different places and you just get to relax and eat good food while you go from port to port.  When we arrived in Seattle the weather was unusually warm for the Pacific Northwest.  It felt great to us though, since it has been even warmer here in the Midewest.  We took the Lightrail from Seatac to Downtown where our hotel was.  Just a note if you ever plan to do this: the walk from baggage claim to the lightrail station is really long.  We got an unexpected show by the Blue Angels as we rode along.  Alaska itself was much cooler and fogggggy.  Nearly every day the fog horn on the ship was going.  We saw lots of great wildlife.  Everyone was always keeping their eyes on the horizon to see whales, porpoises, dolphins, seals, birds, etc. 




The skyline of Seattle as we sailed away

 

Icy Glacier Bay National Park... beautifully serene



A humpback whale near Juneau

 

 

Pretty little neighborhood in Victoria, CAN. 
I liked the modern with the historic right next door.

Reassurance

In this time of feeling uncertain about many things in my life, this quote feels like a very solid rock to hold onto:

"My years of study and prayer had shown me three messages from God that span the entire scriptures: 'I am with you.  I love you.  Trust me.'"  - Abbot Jerome Kodell