I'd have been surprised if he were preaching.

So at the beginning of church yesterday, I went to the powerpoint "area" to greet Sharlan and Ruth, as I normally do. I don't think I ever ended up greeting either of them, because there were so many people there to say hello to, including Charlie. So while I was standing about chitchatting, I noticed that Charlie was getting armed with a microphone, and I asked him, "Are you leading singing this morning?" (Just call me Captain Obvious.)

Now, I'm sure I've mentioned Charlie and Toni before (we spent Thanksgiving with them). They are among my favourite people on the entire planet. If I can be like Toni when (if) I grow up, I will consider my life's goals achieved. They are such amazing people, and if you haven't met them yet, that is so very sad for you.

In "real life", Charlie is the Lubbock Christian School band director. As such, songleading is not really much of a stretch for him. And since he is good at it, and he obviously enjoys it (either that, or he missed his true calling in life and should be an actor), it makes the whole song service that much more enjoyable for me. Generally speaking, I am not fussy about who is leading the singing; South Plains has a couple dozen songleaders, and I pretty much like them all equally well. But Charlie is a friend as well as being very musically talented, so if I ever get so bored as to rank the songleaders in order of preference, he'll be pretty near the top.

What is also nice is Charlie and Toni are front-row people, and since Chad and I are also front-row people, we sort of sat together yesterday morning. (They were at one end of the row, we were at the other; I didn't say we are flexible front-row people.)

Enough, already.

The general election is just over six months away (November 4 is freedom day), but since this presidential election cycle started the day after the 2004 general election, and really started to pick up steam after the midterms in 2006, I just don't think November 4th can come soon enough. Come on, people. Let's just get this over. I've always considered myself to be patriotic, but once this rigmarole is all finished with, I think I may move to Mexico. At least there I won't be able to understand when an election is even happening.

Whose job was it to bring the milk?

So I went to a women's retreat on Friday.

It wasn't so much a retreat, really, since it was just an event that lasted from 6-10 PM and then we all went home. But that's what it was called.

Anyway! I'm generally opposed to women's events at church, because they tend to range from "a bit tedious" to "mind-crushingly dull", with strong hits of "girly", "frilly" and "emotionally taxing". I don't know why women's events have to be this way, and it is for this reason that I make every effort available to me to make sure my own women's event does not dissolve into cheap psychotherapy with lashings of tears and the decimation of several hundred boxes of Kleenex.

But this one wasn't one of those. For starters, we had four different speakers. Each of them was a woman who goes to South Plains (in other words, someone we already know). Not a one of them is known for her cheesy-ness, dullness, or crying fits. They were all excellent speakers, who made their points very well and then left the rest of us to talk about it. It was really, really good.

Of course, no evening with me would be complete without me really annoying as many people as possible; this time, I managed to do it anonymously. I made the suggestion several weeks ago that we do something about mixing everyone up, so that we didn't all end up sitting with the same people we sit with every time we have an event (you know, like Sunday morning worship service). The organisers took this suggestion to heart, and colour-coded the tables and nametags. This caused several women (grown women, mind you) to cause quite a stir when they arrived to discover they would be expected to sit a whole ten feet from their best friends for an entire four hours. Somehow, the woman in charge managed to convince them all to act their ages and make nice with people they already know anyway. (It is a bit disconcerting how many grown-up teenagers we have kicking around.) At the end, she (the woman in charge) explained that it was at the request of "some of the younger women" that we were all jumbled up in this way, but she didn't give away that it was me, so my secret identity is safe for now.

No boxes of Kleenex were harmed in the staging of this retreat. But I did have a cup of tea that wasn't very good.

Where's my shirt?

You know, for all the people who have been harassing me to post more often, there has been curiously little activity in my comments. I suppose I haven't written much worth commenting about.

So, this is the final installment in my three-part series about my aim t-shirt. Previously on Life Of My Shirt, I mentioned that my aim t-shirt became a workout t-shirt in April of 2002, which it remains to this day. I've noticed at recent aim events that aim is now producing LOTS of workout shirts. They come in every colour imaginable, in various styles; you can get them in sign, in Greek, and in old aim logos. They might start to rival Nike and Reebok one of these days for their production of workout shirts.

Seriously, there seems to be no lack of things we can put aim logos on. Bible covers. Mugs (I have one of those; it sits on a shelf and I've never used it). There are probably some hat-and-scarf sets out there somewhere (or they are in the works). Backpacks. I wonder if they have a "newlywed" line yet whereby the young couple, in lieu of monogrammed towels and tablecloths, can have the aim logo put on them instead. You know that would be an instant hit.

I don't think this is a bad idea, although I've reached a point in my life where I would not use anything aim-logoed in my day-to-day life, apart from the infamous shirt. In fact, I distinctly remember, as a young aim student, suggesting to the aim secretary that we should put the aim logo on more things (specifically, I was talking about getting an aim watch).

I: Aim should make like, watches and stuff with our logo on it. We could put it on more things than just shirts and stationery.
Amy: Who would buy it?
I: Aim students, aim parents, ex-aimers, future aimers.
Amy: I don't think so, Susan.

For the record: Boy, was I right. (Sorry, Amy.)

I could still do with an aim watch.

Missing in Action

So there is an episode of NCIS, previously mentioned, in which McGee wears an MIT t-shirt. During the filming of said episode, Sean Murray noticed in the mirror that his shirt spelled "Tim", which is his character's first name. Apparently, Sean Murray was quite excited about this.

I had a similar experience the first time I wore my brand-new AIM t-shirt; in the mirror, "AIM" spells "MIA", which, for the acronym-impaired, stands for missing in action. At the time, I laughed hysterically at how appropriate it was. And there has been nothing in the intervening 12 years to change my mind about that.

(For more of the exciting story of my AIM t-shirt, continue reading.)

It's the shirt

I have owned three AIM t-shirts; two of them were given to me as a student (one in each year). I never wore either of them after I left Lubbock, and I gave them both away long before I graduated from aim.

I got the third one my first weekend as an aim (can't be bothered capitalising every time) assistant. We were talking about the aim students' first day, Jason mentioned that we would all need to wear our aim t-shirts. Which prompted this conversation:

I: I don't have an aim t-shirt.
Aim Assistants (AAs): General gasp of shock.
Jason: What happened to your t-shirt?
I: I gave it away. Both of them, actually.
AAs: Repeat gasp of shock.
Benjy or Scott (don't remember which one, but it was certainly one of them): You gave it away?
I: Yeah.
B or S: Why?
I: My whole team did. We all gave them to people who were important to us.
AAs: Giving me a blank stare.
I: Look, I can tie my aim certificate around my neck if you want, because that's the only thing I own that says "Aim."
Jason (probably feels the conversation is straying from the purpose at hand): Okay, I'll get you another t-shirt Saturday morning.
I: Thanks.

And, the conversation only got better on Saturday:

Jason: Which size do you need?
I: Medium.
Jason: Are you sure?
I: Yeaaaah. (Adding a couple of syllables to the word, in a way that I hope indicates "Let's not have a conversation about what size I am, okay?")
Jason (gets it): Okay.

I still have the debated t-shirt; the day after my second aim class left for the field, it became a workout shirt. And as a result, the t-shirt has been a feature at two (at least) West Texas Running Club races. And it still fits just as well as it did eight years ago.

It's a tough job, but...

So at work the other day, I was clearing out the "new" visits.

These are visits that we have in our system, waiting for charges to be put into them so they can then be billed to the insurance/patient/both. We get some that hang around for a while, though, because a patient didn't come in but wasn't removed from the schedule, or because I didn't know there was already a visit in place and created a new one when I billed the visit, or because I missed the visit altogether when billing out the charges for a particuar day. Whatever the reason, there are always visits hanging around that I have to go back and check on from time to time.

The first time I did the clearing-out, my supervisor explained it to me like this: "This is a job... (pause)."
I: That no one else wants to do?
She: No. Well, yes. But I was going to say it's something we have to do from time to time.
I: But no one wants to do it, so it hasn't been done in a while.
She: Right. I think there are a lot in there.


She was right; on that first venture, there were tons, some dating back a few years. But it didn't take me long to clear them out, and I've done it once a month ever since. My successor in this job had better appreciate that.


But really, I don't know why no one wanted to do it. It's fun for me. I get to look things up, figure things out, and wonder what on earth I thought I was doing on that particular day. I've never understood, not since that first time, why this is a job no one wants to do.

This is the price I pay for being anal.

First Place

Here's the short version: We ran a 15 K yesterday (9.32 miles), our longest race distance to date, and I came home with a first-place medal. (Yes, I was the only one in my age group.)

So this race was actually a lot of fun. We've been training on hills for a few weeks specifically in preparation for this race, and it certainly paid off. The first hill tired me out, but then it was pretty early on-- not even mile 2-- and my legs weren't quite up to speed yet. There were two hills in the final two miles. I've spent the last couple of weeks dreading those two hills, but you know what? They weren't hard at all. All that needless worrying. :)

Long version (can't say you weren't warned):
So anyway, I must give full credit to my faithful iPod, which is what got me through the race and into a very satisfactory 11:11 pace (for a 1:44:06 finish). I stayed up later than I should have done on Friday night, getting all my favourite songs in order at the top of my playlist, because I knew I would need them. Unfortunately for Chad, this meant his race was punctuated with my saying, "I love this song!" every few minutes. (There's nothing stopping him from getting his own iPod to tune me out.) This also meant that I got up later than I probably should have done before the race, so I ended up eating a bowl of oatmeal only 30 minutes before race time. But, I learned the (unfortunately) hard way last month that skipping breakfast on race day is a bad, bad idea. Actually, apart from a short-lived side stitch, the oatmeal didn't bother me too much, so I was pretty happy about that.

So, here's the 15 K playlist:

Ready to Run (I'm not actually that wild about this song, but it seemed apt)
Wonderwall (I would not dare run a race without this song; it pulls me through long training runs, and gives me a boost in every race.)
Salt and Light (LCU's Best Friends version from a few years ago)
What if I Stumble (also seemed apt)
Super Trouper (gotta have my Abba)
Waterloo (ditto; also apt)
Driftwood (I just like this one)
There She Goes (made me smile around mile 5)
I Am Persuaded (Robin Mark makes everything easier)
Phoenix from the Flames (I'm really not sure why I put this one on, but it helped)

I actually had a lot more in the queue, but these got me from mile 2 to mile 6, and then I was ready to listen to my feet hit the pavement for a mile or two. Chad dropped off from my pace at about 7.5 miles, so I was running solo. That close to the finish, I needed some extra motivation (especially since I was looking at the afore-mentioned hills), so I put the earbuds back in, and started over with Wonderwall. Just before mile 8, I caught up with the woman who had been ahead of us the entire race. This is one of many reasons I could never be a serious competitive runner; I feel really bad passing someone who has been ahead of me for most of the race. It's like I feel they deserve to finish better than me because they've had a faster race overall. The fact that I've done it to several different people in just about every race we've run (all except for the one when I finished dead last) doesn't stop the pangs of guilt from coming over me every time. :)

Anyway! Waterloo started playing when I was a block from the finish, so the aptly-placed song became even more so. Coming in so late, there was a huge crowd at the finish line to cheer me in; the combination of the cheers, the song, a glimpse of my time, and the sight of a camera pointing at me for my finish-line photo was enough for me to smile as I crossed the line. (That doesn't guarantee a good picture; the last time I smiled for the camera, I just looked like I was in pain. Which I was.) Chad came in a minute later, chasing (and passing-- he doesn't have any guilt) the woman I had already passed, sprinting to the finish to the cheers of the assembled runners. It really was a brilliant finish-- and then he got some water and sat down, and didn't move again for about 10 minutes.

I have to admit I was gobsmacked when they called my name for a medal; I didn't look at the posted results to try to guess my place like I usually do, because I was busy getting water and an orange before the awards. I didn't feel like passing out this time around like I did last month; I felt really good at the end of the race. I still feel really good actually, even though I am ridiculously sore.

Yeah, okay, this is getting long enough for three posts. Hope you haven't fallen asleep reading it. If you made it this far, you deserve a medal; but you can't have mine!

I love McGeek!

So we've been watching a lot of NCIS lately.

Chad likes to do this to me: he'll bombard me with excessive amounts of a TV show (past winners: The West Wing, Stargate, Scrubs, CSI) and then act all surprised when I get addicted. So this time, in advance, I'd like to tell the world that it is CHAD'S fault that I am now completely booked up on Tuesday nights at 7 for the next few weeks.

So, if you don't watch the show, that's just sad for you. If you do, you understand the title of my post. I would like, at this time, to clarify that I do not have a celebrity crush on Sean Murray. I do, however, love me some McGee. I moan when he is wrong (quite often) and cheer when he is right. I offer him my sympathy when Gibbs hits him on the head. (I celebrate when Gibbs hits DiNozzo.) I wish he'd stop carrying a torch for Abby, who is clearly not interested. I love that his MIT t-shirt spells "TIM" in the mirror. If McGee were a real-life person, I'd invite him over for dinner and try to set him up with my sister. So I suppose it's as well that he is not.

I like all the other characters, too. I love Ziva's idiom difficulties (because lots of things drive me up the hall). Tony the walking Blockbuster keeps me guessing as to what on earth he's talking about (being the non-movie buff that I am). Abby is just delightful-- I am thinking about trying black lipstick & nail polish myself. I would happily listen to Ducky ramble on about whatever he likes. Palmer (aka McGee Jr.) is just too cute to be believed. Jenny... okay, Jenny I'm not as into as everyone else. And let's not forget the late lamented Kate. And finally, Gibbs himself... I'm glad I don't work for him, but it's lots of fun to watch him boss other people around. And the more often he smacks Tony on the head, the happier it makes me. Although I still say his mother hated him already: who would name her child Leroy Jethro?

New Mess

So I've been AWOL again (or UA, if you prefer, although I still haven't worked out what that stands for), with our packing and moving frenzy. We are now in the new apartment, with all of our stuff, although getting it all into order is proving problematic thus far. We gave away a TON of stuff before this move (a desk, a couch & chair, five bags to goodwill), and we still have far more things than two people could possibly need. Plus, some friends who moved before we did gave us some furniture. So we have no lack of places to put things, just an overabundance of things.

Anyway! So to go with my nice laptop, we now have wireless internet (comes free with the apartment). I have to say, it is pretty cool. I am certainly enjoying it thus far.

Unfortunately, I have nothing of much interest to share. Which is another reason that I haven't blogged recently-- I mean, who wants to hear all the details of packing and moving?

We have a race in two weeks, though. Always a crowd favourite. In the meantime, Chad and I are cycling to church this morning, so I'd better go wake him up.

Waiting

It's after 10 and I'm tired (woke up that way, then cycled to work and ran 4 miles this evening), and I would really like to go to bed. But I am waiting for the dishwasher to stop running, because I will never fall asleep while it is still going. And for the reason why that should bother me... keep reading.

Chad left for Mexico on Saturday morning, and as soon as I got back from the airport I started packing things up for our move in two weeks. And I needed a place to put the packed boxes, so I decided on... our bedroom! I moved out the mattress (we were planning to do this anyway) to the living room, hauled out the rest of the furniture, hoovered, and then moved in all the boxes I'd packed up. Now, the entire apartment looks like a poorly-organised jumble sale.

So, with the mattress in the living room, I have to wait for noisy appliances to stop going if I intend to sleep at all. And even the quiet ones are a problem... last night, the crock pot lid kept doing that little bounce thing that is no problem during the day, but is murder at night for the light sleeper. The night before that, the wind chime on the porch was frantically waving in the wind (it has since been taken down and packed).

What has been gratifying from this whole Chad-free experience is the knowledge that I cannot easily sleep on my own now. When we first married, I spent about 3 sleepless months, followed by 3 difficult-sleeping months, followed by an undefined period of mostly sleeping but getting annoyed every time Chad woke me up. And now, I have a chance to sleep by myself, in my own bed, for a week... and it's been rough. Now I feel like an old married woman!

Does anyone want to come help me pack?

Tagged, again.

I'm sure these are not repeats of the last time I was tagged. (The reason I'm so sure is that I just read it when I hunted up the link.) The rules for this one are: 10 things about yourself, followed by 10 new tagees.

1. I was named after a Hostess cake! Not really (at least, I HOPE not really), but my dad wanted to call me Suzi-Q, hence the name Susan. One that was extremely out of style by the time I was born, I might add; most of the Susans I know are over 50. Anyway, I'm still not wild about Suzi-Q, although I do like Su (stolen from the Narnia books). There aren't many people that call me that, but I do hear it. Just don't spell it with an "e".

2. That was like 3 in 1, right? So I'm now down to about 7, instead of 10?

3. When (if) I grow up, I would like to earn a master's degree, and perhaps a doctorate, in linguistics. I really want to get a handle on half-a-dozen (or so) languages, and work as an interpreter, possibly for the government. Doesn't have to be ours, I'll work for the British government if they want me to.

4. The above-mentioned dream might be out of my reach, because my brain cannot process more than one accent at a time. Therefore, if you are American and you are talking to me, and a Scottish person walks in the room, expect to be tuned out. Sorry, I just can't do it.

5. Did I mention I love Scotland? Its people, its scenery, its customs, its long hours of summer daylight, and sometimes even the weather and the food. But mostly its people.

6. I have never lived in a blue state. Well, I've only lived it two states, so it's not been that hard. This primary election cycle, we Texans are finding out what it must be like to live in a swing state. It's nice to not be ignored.

7. Bible bowl is fun, but should be taken in small doses. :) Except that there is no such thing as small-dose Bible bowl, although we are closer to it this year than we have ever been. The cast of Bible bowl changes so quickly; there are a lot of people I still think of as "Bible bowl people" or "Bible bowl kids" who haven't been for four or five years. But it is still a good motivator to get the kids to study the Bible.

8. I run for fun. I used to think people who did that were a. masochistic b. insane or c. stupid. Now I know that while "b" is certainly part of the equation, and "c" probably finds its way in from time to time, "a" is not. So that's a bit of a relief. My running is slow and strange, and I've been told ever since my freshman year of high school that I run like a duck (people used to quack behind me in P.E., and my husband has taken to doing the same thing).

9. Speaking of waterfowl, I have had to run for my life from geese in the park. They tried to bite me, but missed and only got a beakful of scrub bottoms. I thought about fighting back, but decided I would never be able to convince animal control that the geese started it. So I ran, and the geese forgot that they have wings and can, therefore, move faster than me.

10. I'm going to be 30 in two months. My birthday falls on a Saturday, and for my birthday I'm getting my hair cut & coloured, and I'm going shopping. For a dress. My goal is to walk into church the day after my 30th birthday and not be recognised. Heh heh heh.

I'm not tagging anyone. If you want to play, consider yourself tagged.

The voices in my head

I had to change the title of the post after I wrote it, because the post went a completely different direction than I intended once I started typing it.

So, I'm listening to Derek, and I'm wondering AGAIN why I have so much trouble with the Scottish accent. Of course, I know the answer; my pathetic brain can only deal with one accent at a time, and Chad came in a few minutes ago & started talking. Scottish comprehension gone.

That is not the point of my story. For the past year or so I've been going on to the Castlemilk blog that Charlie keeps so up-to-date, and then following the links to read the lessons. And I will usually try to "hear" the lessons in the speaker's own voice in my head (except for David, because I haven't heard him enough to remember what his voice sounds like). But now, Derek's page has two-- TWO!!-- lessons on mp3. Brilliant, no need for me to conjure up Derek's voice in my head.

Instead, I'll have to listen a couple of times while I'm alone in the house to make sure I get it all. Perhaps I should rethink my life's dream of being an interpreter.

Quite a photogenic group!

The aftermath of our first Bible bowl sketch. Actually, it was the second, but we were out of town for the first one.

The dress I wore that day had a ripped-out zipper, so like any good hillbilly, I safety-pinned it all the way up. This brought a lot of laughs from the other adults.

This little light of mine

"The true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him no good."--Ann Landers

So I get these daily e-mails with inspirational quotes, plus a thought to go with the quote, and a mixed bag of other stuff. Some are truisms, some are fluff, some are complete rubbish. But I've started saving the good ones, if for no other reason than to have something to blog about.

I don't think there is anyone currently in my life who fits the category of "a person who can do me no good." Seriously. Do I need to change my circle? Move to a place in which I can help people? Stop hanging around my current gang of friends?

I don't suppose that is Ms. Landers' point. She is, to some extent, just repeating the Golden Rule: treat others the way you want to be treated. How do I speak to the cashier at United? The girl at the McDonalds' window? The bus driver? The elderly woman at church who glares at everyone around her? It is easy to be kind to my friends, the patients at work (getting paid to be nice goes a long way), and people who are already nice to be around. What about those who aren't?

What message am I sending about myself in the way I treat others?

The update

So I've been reading blogs this evening, maniacally commenting all over the place, etc. So here is what is going on, in case someone wanders over and wonders why all the lights are off:

Bible bowl: Three weeks of instruction to go, then we are done and the other teachers (you know, the ones who actually have kids in Bible bowl) will continue with review sessions. The only competition we are planning to go to is the first weekend in April.

Journeyland: We just finished another rotation. Once Bible bowl finishes, we are taking a break from childrens' ministry for a while.

Dance lessons: Chad got us eight ballroom dancing lessons for our anniversary. Our first one was this past Tuesday, and our instructor is a hoot! He made it a lot of fun for us, although neither of us are much good at dancing.

Running coaches: Who in their right mind would want us as running coaches is beyond me, but the man in charge of the Team Kids' Cafe is obviously not in his right mind, so we've been coaching a few kids for the past 5 weeks. This week coming is our final week, because the race is on Saturday.

Angel food: Today was the 48th Angel food distribution day, or the finish of South Plains' 4th year of involvement. It does not seem like that long ago that we started doing this, but there is a group of very committed people who make sure this comes off every month. We are not part of that group, but we do turn up most months to help hand out food.

Ladies' retreat: I'm on the committee, which is kind of odd since I am generally opposed to women's events. However, the Ladies' Christmas tea chairwoman cannot shun all events but her own, I'm afraid. It is a bit ungracious. :)

Moving: We are moving to a different apartment at the end of March.

Work: Yeah, I still do that, too.

Another running blog

I try to keep these to a minimum (hence the reason for not blogging much lately), because I'm sure it is wearing on the non-runners around here. But here's the update:

We missed the January running club race, because we hadn't renewed our membership yet, because we still thought we were leaving. And so, we were pretty lazy about training in December and January.

At the running club year-end social, I got a third-place plaque for my age group for 2007. This is purely by default; everyone else who had more points than I didn't volunteer for a race last year, which is a requirement to get a year-end award. Chad won a door prize that evening. And we went ahead and renewed our membership.

So, at the February race, Chad went for the 8-mile, and I tried the 4-mile. Chad unfortunately realised that he was in over his head and didn't finish. (Although we still think that Did Not Finish is better than Did Not Start.) I did finish my race, with a better time than I expected, and got my first WTRC medal; third place in the 25-29 age group. No prizes for guessing how many runners were in my age group. :) I am happy that I did finish before the first 8-mile finisher.

We have been coaching 10-15 kids at a local Boys and Girls Club since the beginning of February, in preparation for a kids' fun run, which happens next weekend. Chad and I will be running a 4 mile race that day, after we cheer on our team to finish. Although we have had fun (mostly) with the kids, we are ready to be done with this little venture.

I am currently training for a 15K (9.32 miles) in April, and an 11 mile in May. My goal for both of these races is survival; I just want to finish without embarrassing myself too much. :) We ran our long run on hills today (the next three races are hilly), and it proved to be too much for me, again. It is really discouraging to have to cut a run short, but the good news is that I will know where the trouble spots are next week. Well, in two weeks, because we have a race next week.

So, building endurance is the goal. There's a metaphor for life in there somewhere.

I thought we were done.

We finished up being Journeymen for the fifth-graders, and were looking forward to Bible class with adults, when the new Journeymen asked us to fill in for them this week. And since we like them (and they were the first people from South Plains to come visit us), we said yes. So, one day more!

Actually, they are a great group of kids. It is pretty evident that they are almost to middle school, though; they don't talk much. I threatened a few weeks ago to make them sing "Father Abraham" over and over until they started to participate, which much have worked, because they have done a good job since then. Quite a change from first- and second- graders, though.

So I'm eating a pizza...

and I look around for the bit that (I thought) I just set down, then decided I must have eaten it, only to find it a minute later when I reached for something else and hit it with my arm. It had blended in with the pattern on the couch cushion.

It's a bit dusty in here.

Inspired by a short visit with Chris and Jessica, I decided to pop on over and let my reading public (all 3 of you) know that I am still alive and well. And doing a dozen things at the moment, which is why the blogging has suffered. I have tons of "planned posts" in my head, it's just a matter of sitting down and sharing them. In the meantime, feel free to comment away and tell me how your life is going.