Author Archives: LA

Happy Mother’s Day

I had such a Happy Mother’s Day!

K woke me up with kisses, and peered at me bright eyed and bushy tailed exclaiming, “Happy Mothers Day” in her sing-song-silly voice! Gosh I just love that girl! I can’t ever get enough of her. Since it was Mothers Day, she thought it best to awaken me at 7:30 a.m. So I finally moseyed out of bed around 8:00 a.m. and we had a delightful breakfast of Lucky Charms (aka mom doesn’t have to do much breakfast). Then we went off to our new church at 9:30 service.

We then ran a few errands to Caribou Coffee & Cub foods, and then headed to “The Lakes” to go running 2.3 miles! I pushed K in the jogger, which is a challenge now that she weighs 40lbs, but I took it as an added workout, and figured that the equivalent time, “mom graded time” which is much like “age graded time” would be more like 4 miles!

We then came home to enjoy some relaxation time before heading out to dinner with the extended family. (My parents, brother & his family, and sister & her family). We enjoyed things like burgers & tacos and shared family stories. After dinner K and I headed to my sisters house to play with her cousins.

Finally, we were back home again. I put little miss to bed, and then watched some Nashville on Hulu, and headed to bed myself.

Happy Mothers Day!

John – How He Loves

John 3:16
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 

I’m in a strange season in life. On February 20th after speaking to my
neighbors 26 year old son- who was living at their house – after he was
discharged from the Marines – he shot and killed himself outside
in the street.
I heard the gunshot though I didn’t know that that sound belonged with him until 20 minutes later.
I’ve wondered relentlessly to myself these past three months what the purpose is in me
talking to him moments before his unforeseen death, and though I have
an idea how God will use that – all I can do right now is lean into all power verses
that speak of Gods incredible love for us.This song has been a source of refuge for me.
Imagining that God himself is holding me like father holds his child
when they are sad afraid, and tired.
 

*There are no pictures – just a blank screen. I invite you to close
your eyes and drink in these truths*

And done.

I will have to go back and post the rest of my thoughts from the other chapters, but I am officially done reading through the entire bible! I will continue to blog my thoughts here however.

It was an incredible journey. If I think back to the first post and where I was a year ago with my understanding of who God was, and how much he unbelievably loves me is unexplainable in a blog post!

For the sake of time – since I fell off the wagon, but still want to capture thoughts – with your permission I’m going to post small clip videos and songs of what spoke to me through the new testament, and as I get time I will go back and add commentary.

My goal for the summer is to really go back through Psalms and rake it through and drink it in! In my small group right now we are raking through Galatians, and that has been a blessing to me to sink in now and get deep with the word.

House Groups

I recently started attending a new church! While I love ebc it was time to move on and find a smaller church, where I could connect more easily. They have a very similar set up, except that its not multi-campus church. Just one church of about 250 attendees (instead of 30,000). The bonus is, that K loves the new church. She says there aren’t as many kids in her class. (Before there were anywhere from 22-40 depending what service we went to! Now she has 10 or less.

They have a really neat set-up during the “school year” September-May called “House Groups”. Essentially 30 people or so, show up at a house, and mingle for about 30-45 minutes, and then break out into different areas of the house (gender specific) into groups of around 8 or so to discuss that past Sunday’s message.

Can I even tell you what a blessing this is to find this church? The house group I “belong” to is absolutely amazing. The nicest, most genuine people you’d ever meet, and everyone is very transparent. They don’t pretend that they have it all together, and are just very real! I am looking forward to next fall when it starts up again. But I still have 1 more week left with them! 🙂

Three Thought Thursday

1.) Running – My training plan for Grandma’s has not stayed the course, but I am still managing to get my long runs in. I still have time, but I really need to make more of an effort on getting my mid-week runs in – instead of just waiting to the weekend to run.

2.) Heat Yoga – Took a class at Life Time one week when it was disturbingly cold (in April – or was it March) and fell in love! The class I normally go to is a Vinyassa class which basically means non-stop movement between all of the poses. I like it because it feels like more of a legitimate workout, and my skin ALWAYS feels amazing after I sweat out over 1/2 pound from each class :-). I also have been enjoying (on occasion) a ballet class at Life Time, and KC is excited to start swimming classes next month at LTF as well! (Yay to fitness!)

3.) 70’s
Its finally going to be in the 70’s this weekend which means complete and total amazingness! I plan to sit on my deck, (when I should probably be running) and my backyard patio, open all of the windows and enjoy the “real” spring! KC is mega pumped to be outside! In fact – today is supposed to be around 56* when we get home, so I’ll open the house up tonight too!

Friday Finds

A new thing I’m finding that people do on their blog as of late is post to interesting articles that they’ve stumbled upon over the week in case any of your followers are in the reading mood.


So – since i’m a follower of the trends (on occasion)- I thought i’d join this trend too. So for the first in many posts of “Friday Finds” here is what I found on the internet this week!

Dear Daughter, Here’s Why I Work
Sometimes I feel guilty being at work while someone else is bringing up K by day. Many days she begs me to stay home with her and snuggle, and I do long to but I know that I can’t… this article put it so succinctly – “I work because I love it”, and “I work because this nice house and those gymnastics lessons, and those sneakers you need to have are all made possibly by two incomes”.

Shit Ship My Pants
Absolutely the funniest commercial you will see – especially because its from a “reputable” store!


Do these links even need any further explanation? I try so careful to protect my litte K – and instill in her a healthy body image. I think bringing up girls definitely has its challenges, but one of the most challenging is the damage that can be done to their spirit when the image of their bodies are attacked by either someone, or themselves.

This is one of the reasons I’m most excited for the school that K will be going to next fall! They all have to wear uniforms, which I think takes a part of the equation out for girls being mean to girls. Sure – there are ways around this as my mother pointed out, but we won’t have to dread mornings or the night before determining what she is going to wear for the day so that she can be comfortable – yet fit in. Kids are so tough on each other!

The articles (especially part 1) put a lot of the responsibility on the mother. Where a girl gains her self esteem stems from her mother. I want to be the kind of mom that K can come to at any time, I want to role model for her that she doesn’t have to look like a girl in a magazine or a music video, I want her to be the kind of girl that doesn’t turn to sex at a young age because she is looking for more.

Abolition International
This past week a lot of awareness was brought up by sex trafficking, a modern day form of human slavery.  Interestingly enough – this week and not on purpose I also listened to a podcast from a pastor down in Nashville, TN (The Rescued Rescue) and a lot of his message revolved around sex trafficking, and then in the local news a sex trafficking ring was just busted this week! (Thank God!)

If you’ve not clicked on any of the links above – I urge you to watch this clip!
“Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world!” ~ U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
And a new movie just came out in theatres that addresses this:

Tires

K: “Mom – you need to get a new car”

Me: “Oh really – why’s that?”
K: “Because I need a tire wheel!”
Me: “haha um what? – What for?”
K: “Well – Uncle Rick has a tire swing in his back yard… and I want one – so I need one of your wheels so dad can build me a tire wheel swing….”
Me: “Bahahahahahaha you are so ridiculous sometimes!”
K: “I know – I’m soooo funny I don’t know what to do with myself either!”
** I love this girl
~ Also – did you know how much daycare centers are?
Now that we’re moving into the fabulous world of school – and since we did not get into the all day kindergarten we need after school care – because I’m pretty sure I can’t work from just 8:30-11:00 am at work every day!
We checked out one place that will charge $35 dollars to watch K from 11am-6pm (or whenever I pick her up), and if school is not in session and she needs to be watched for an entire day – then tuition goes up to $68 dollars a day. (yes – you read that right!)
Hellloooo – that is like paying a car payment every week! I thought that daycare was supposed to go down – not up as she got older!
I need to find other options, or I’m going to have to sell my 1996 CDs at the pawn shop to pay for her childcare.
p.s. Anyone who comments first with the amount of exclamation points i’ve used in this blog post gets extra credit. I’m using the exclamation point like teenagers use the word “like” (sorry).

God is so amazing!

God is so amazing! He answered the #1 prayer I’ve had!

About 5 years ago a new Charter School opened up near my house (about 1 mile away) and they had an open house/information session – so I went to it… when K was 9 months old! Now i know this sounds kind of crazy, but I was really interested in knowing what it was all about. It sounded super exciting. 
I was the only one who attended that still had a baby – because everyone else that went to that information setting was normal and they had school aged children – so began my desire for K to go to DaVinci. 
Years went by and DaVinci quickly climbed the ranks becoming the #16 school last year for elementary and the #3 school district in MN out of all schools! (Standard tests). This just increased my desire for K to go to DaVinci.
Other bonus’:
Uniforms – lets face it. Kids are mean, and K is already trying to impress her preschool friends by her stylish outfits and the wearing of LIPSTICK!!!! So this is one thing we don’t need to worry about!
K-12
This school goes K-12 and has small class sizes. Max class size is 18 students, and average is 15 students per class. I take this as super awesome, and one reason I believe that their test scores are so high
Creation as a theory: I believe in the theory of creation, and a lot of public schools simply won’t broach the subject, but DaVinci will teach it as a theory at least!
Gym every day! – enough said…..
There are myriad other reasons I’ve wanted K to go here, but these are just a few.
So – this past January came by and we applied for the Lottery (cos they’re pretty popular)…I sent out prayer requests to family, friends, facebook, church, KTIS prayer works etc, took a fast from Facebook (and continued through Lent, but mostly a fast to get into DaVinci)…. and by the grace of God we ended up #4 on the  waiting list. I was very disappointed, but my cousin Heidi assured me that we’d get in for sure. I had a glimmer of hope!
And today…. THEY CALLED AND SAID THEY HAVE A SPOT!!!!!! Weeee! I literally screamed with joy when I heard my voicemail! Unfortunately all of the all day kindergarten spots are taken up already – but they had either a morning session (8am-11am) or an afternoon session (noon-3pm). I decided with my schedule we’d take the morning session. 
SO I’ll drop her off at school, and then a daycare center will pick her up at 11am – feed her lunch, and integrate her into their own programing they have until I get off work.
Because i work for the best place ever – I will just change my hours to 8:30am-4:30pm (starting tomorrow). 
Her first day of school will actually be missed however – because we will be far up north on the Pontoon Boat trip – so she’ll start school 1 week late. Anyways – I’m just completely tickled pink, and am so excited about this!!!

Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon Lottery Acceptance
Dear Lindsey, 
Congratulations! Your registration was selected in the lottery and you are now officially registered for the 23rd annual Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon on June 22, 2013. We are looking forward to welcoming you to Duluth, and providing you with a world-class race.
We want your experience to be enjoyable and memorable. Please read the following important information:
The Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon starts at 6:45 a.m. on Saturday, June 22, 2013
CLICK HERE for a course map and course information.
CLICK HERE for starting line bus information.

Woo hooo!!!! Every year since I’ve worked at TCM-  I’ve gone to some other Marathon Expo! Its one of the fun perks of working with TCM.

2007 – Grandma’s Marathon

2008 – ING Atlanta Georgia Marathon

2009- Grandma’s Marathon

2010 – Marine Corps Marathon (In Washington DC)

2011 – Phoenix Rock & Roll

2012 – Fargo Marathon

2013 – Grandma’s Marathon


– I registered for Grandma’s 1/2 marathon in 2007 but then discovered I was pregnant with K, and in 2009 I wasn’t up to running a half marathon yet. 


I’m super excited to enjoy the last half of Grandma’s marathon this time around (since I ran the full in 2006 and was very untrained for it… the last 10 miles sucked very bad…), and I’m excited to finally run in the half marathon. I have tentative plans for K & Jason to come up and watch me, and then take a little vacation time, and maybe go up to Gooseberry Falls and spend some time on the North Shore with them!

Matthew

I was so very excited to start this chapter in the New Testament. The old testament was filled with wisdom and warning, and at times was very bleak and dark, but the promise of the Lord sending his only son down to us was promising, and I couldn’t wait to dig in.

Now, I’ve read through the book of Matthew many of times, but this time I read through it like I was really studying the word. Before I began this journey of reading through the bible, I would only occasionally mark the bible as i grew up thinking that the bible was to have clean crisp pages, and that writing in it, or highlighting in it was purely sacrilegious.

My bible now probably has more highlights than not, and more side notes written on the margins than my college text books! 🙂

Now the book of Matthew really bridges the old and the new testament together wonderfully. Matthew shows how Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the old testament.

After coming through the Old Testament and fully knowing, and realizing now the true need for a savior I ended the book with Jesus’ crucifixion and then watched this video.

(Video from my church’s Easter service a few years ago)

Sunday’s Coming from Eagle Brook Church on Vimeo.

I cried at the end, and couldn’t stop myself. Between realizing what my sins cost Jesus, and the bright promise that death did not stick, and that death did not keep caused me tears of joy! Whats more – is that I finished the book of Matthew on Valentine’s Day, “For God so loved the word that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16. ~ Now that’s LOVE!