Friday evening

Ahhh, Fridays are sweet! I had lunch with some people at work, we went to a Japanese place. It wasn't so good, and neither was the company (they were friends of my coworker, and pretty crude), but that's okay. I went home at 3 and had a nice rest. I didn't sleep but I enjoyed my Friday "naptime". After that I made some taco meat and had a taco salad for dinner... and then went to Portland Running Co. On my way, I had a FABULOUS conversation with my dad. He is so awesome! Portland Running Co was CROWDED! I asked if it's always like that on Friday nights, and the guy (Will, who was awesome... there is one woman that almost always helps me when I'm there, but she was busy tonight. She did stop and say hello and ask how I was doing though) say it's usually DEAD. Wow what a long annoying sentence. Anyway, he helped me out... I tried on 4 different pairs of shoes and finally picked this one. That wasn't the best link I found do them, but almost all the other links showed the orange version and I actually have the purple version. I actually really wanted a pair of Brooks shoes that were green, but they weren't as comfy. I made myself actually pick the right pair for RUNNING, not looking cute. Imagine that. So I can't WAIT to go for my run tomorrow! I'm going to lunch with Geoff, his mom, and his two cousins, but after that it's run time!!! I'm also going to go for a bike ride. And guess what - it's all going to be outside, none of this inside gym business. YEAH for it being a little warm out! I have my GPS all ready to go... it's been sad that it hasn't been used in several months! It's going to be a fabulous day.

I'm in a happy mood. The Way was AWESOME again... I am so enjoying the company and the talks are absolutely fabulous. I came home and journaled and just feel so entirely in the presence of God. It is a good thing. I was praying for all of the conversations that I know are taking place at the Steak 'N Shake in Indianapolis right now - this weekend is Greek Conference, Greek Intervarsity's huge conference every year. It's at the Marriott and it's a beautiful beautiful place... I have been to many conferences there (Intervarsity and Campus Crusade both have them there) and I love it. (although I gotta admit, the Westin is still nicer!... but they're connected) And they're also connected to the RCA Dome, which is the Colts stadium. So it's gotta be just crazy there this weekend. Anyway before I got all link-happy and sharing my fun college ministry conference memories with you, I was telling you about Steak 'N Shake. At every one of these conferences, Steak 'N Shake is the place to be late at night, after all the speakers have finished, the music has quieted for the night, the small groups have wrapped up... people bundle up and face the cold and head out to talk, eat, and share. I pray that God is changing hearts there right now... that people are exposed to the love of Christ for the first time. That women are gathered with the sorority sisters, new members, students, and alumni and are sharing what Christ is doing in their lives and in their houses. I pray that fraternity brothers are challenging each other and lifting each other up. Tomorrow will be a beautiful day of fabulous talks, amazing music, small groups, free time to explore Indy, and tacky prom at night. It's a beautiful thing, and I WILL go back as an alumni small group leader one year. God will change lives there this weekend and I can't wait to hear the stories of what he does. And I'm telling you - it's all starting tonight at Steak 'N Shake. I miss Indy. My faith has absolutely been changed and transformed from many long hours and late nights sitting in the lobby of the Westin journaling and praying. Being a student and having those opportunities is something that is of tremendous value to me. Whenever I go back and read those parts of those journals, my heart smiles.

I asked Geoff if we could go to Bend for my birthday weekend (2 weeks away!). He's not sure if he can get the time off because he has a men's retreat next weekend, and that'd be two weekends in a row, but he's going to try! I have family friends (my dad's best friend) that live there so we can stay for free, and we have season passes to Mt. Bachelor that we got free with our Tahoe! (ya know, free for $30K) I hope we can go... I miss skiing, I haven't been in years and I love it!

My roommates are annoying me right now - all three of them, and their friend Kyle, are downstairs watching THE LOUDEST MOVIE KNOWN TO MAN. It doesn't help that the giant HDTV with surround sound is DIRECTLY UNDERNEATH my bedroom. Since none of them are ever in my bedroom, especially when a movie is on, they have no idea how much THE BASS SHAKES MY ENTIRE ROOM CONSTANTLY WHEN THEY ARE WATCHING MOVIES. Can you sense my bitterness? Yes, I could go downstairs and tell them to please turn off the surround sound, but I feel bad doing that. Is it worse to have a hard heart about something and be annoyed about it, or to tell 4 people to stop doing something they enjoy? I don't want them to have to turn down the movie just because I can't hear myself think. But I also don't want to have any grudges against them. I struggle with this a lot. I usually end up not saying anything. And it's only in terms of movies. I'm pretty outspoken about everything else... if something is going on that is bothering me, I will let someone know right away. For example, one of them ran the dishwasher when it wasn't full, and I said "hey, do you mind waiting until it's full?" No big deal. But to ask them to turn a movie down... can't do it!! What the heck is wrong with me?! I pray it's over soon - I've been home for 70 minutes, so it can't be too much longer than another hour, assuming I walked in RIGHT when it started. I hope. Anyway. It's annoying. Thank you for letting me vent. Oh, and I'd also like to discuss how they call Friday nights their "men's meetings" - they say they are becoming better men of God and using Wild at Heart to learn to challenge each other and build their faith... but as far as I can tell they mostly go to movies, watch movies at home, go out to eat, and wrestle. To be fair, I *KNOW* that's not true, and most weeks they do spend at least some time doing real men's meeting stuff. They'll do stuff like share their goals with each other, tell each other their strengths and weaknesses, pray for each other, etc. But every time I'm at home for a men's meeting - I just hear loud horseplay or loud movies. Geoff's mom and I spend a lot of time mocking the men's meetings... but admittedly it is cool that they WANT to try to be stronger men of God.

I love tax time! I feel like I already discussed this, or at least I know I mentioned Turbo Tax... but it is fun! I love the little ticker in the top left hand corner of Turbo Tax that shows your refund / payment amount going up or down as you go through all of the steps of Turbo Tax. It's like a fun little game. I think I FINALLY have all of my tax stuff - I got 3 more documents today and I think it's all I need! I am going to try to submit on Monday (which clearly indicates I'm getting a refund this year, otherwise you can guarantee I'd be waiting until April to file). My only question is that I sold some stock from our employee stock purchase plan, and I sold it immediately at the grant date. It seems like from reading our company website and from something a coworker told me that this is reported on my W-2, but the amount is also reported on my 1099-B from my financial service company. So I need to call our corporate help line to verify if it is already on my W-2 or if I need to put it in there again. It makes a pretty significant difference in my refund, so I'm REALLY hoping it's in the W-2. We'll see though - should be easy enough to find out!!

Thanks again for reading - I so enjoy writing, and it's really good for me to get all of my thoughts out in writing. I'm a MUCH more eloquent writer than speaker, and it clears my head. I'm one of those people who CANNOT STOP THINKING (which makes it hard to sleep at night!), but sometimes once I write something down, I don't have to worry and obsess over it as much. It's a good thing, and this is a wonderful outlet for it. Also, I've been really good about journaling lately too... usually I'm good about one or the other, not both. So that's really cool!