For Nerds Like Me, This is Hilarious

Apologies for the lack of posts lately!  Life is incredibly busy, as it is most summers, and I'm having way too much fun over at my other blog, but it does take up much of my "blogging" time, so low post volume this month.  Lo siento.

BUT I wanted to pass along this hil-ar-ious video from Improv Everywhere that the wonderful Katie Sokoler of "Color Me Katie" participates in.  For someone like me, it is soo funny!  Especially considering that when there was a marathon of Star Wars movies over the July 4th weekend, I was watching it when I wasn't a baseball game or cookout - and totally loving every minute of it :).

Beautiful

Last night as I was getting into my car, my eyes saw this unbelievable sunset.  The rays bursting forth across the sky, the colors dancing through the light - it was a sight truly beyond words.  Thus I grabbed my camera and attempted to snap few pictures of the unbelievable beauty.  This is one of the ways in which God speaks to me - through scenes in His creation that leave me breathless from their fleeting and majestic beauty.

When You Learn Truth...Again

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  ~ 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

I think one of the amazing things about being a Christian and following Jesus is how my understanding of Him changes as I grow and read His Word, the Bible, and other books that help illuminate these well-known and read verses.  It deepens, it shallows, it levels off.  It's constant, yet dynamic.  Words that I have read over and over and over, to a point in which they don't have much meaning for me anymore, all of the sudden take on a new life, a new understanding depending on what circumstances I find myself in.  What is amazing is that there isn't a circumstance or situation dealing with life or human nature that isn't addressed in the Bible.  Yes, the context of the times has changed, and translations here and there have eschewed some of the true meanings of the original Aramaic or Greek or Hebrew words.  But yet, somehow, there is still a depth of understanding, a Truth, that cries out from the pages when they are given the time to be heard.

Last week was a really hard week for my family.  One of my aunts was involved in a serious car accident on her way back to work from lunch - a wreck so horrific that it killed her coworker, who was driving the car.  Right now she is in a continued deep sleep, with all of us waiting for her to hopefully wake up soon.  This accident on top of other stresses that had happened throughout the week - it has been a shared load of stress and pain for all of us.

But this morning as I was reading my daily readings, I ran across the above verse.  It reminded me of a song that I used to sing in college, called "Trading My Sorrows":
 

I'm pressed but not crushed persecuted not abandoned
Struck down but not destroyed
I'm blessed beyond the curse for his promise will endure
And his joy's gonna be my strength

 

Through all the things that my family has gone through this week, it definitely feels like we have been pressed in on all sides.  But we're not crushed.  We have taken some knocks, but we're not destroyed.  God's promise in this verse - not to be rescued from hardships or difficulties - for that is a fact of life - but the ability to endure them because of His love, brings hope back to my heart.  I will never be crushed, abandoned, or destroyed, come what may.  And that is a Truth I'm thankful to have heard again this morning.

Eight Things You Learn at the local ER

Today I had an unexpected three and half hour visit at my local ER.  I was having some minor chest pains that I was pretty sure was just heartburn, but given my family's not-so-great heart history I wasn't entirely sure.  So I called my insurance's hotline, spoke to the advice nurse, who spoke to my doctor, who said to go to the ER. Ugh. So off I went.

First - I learned that it doesn't matter the size of the ER that you go to - even if it is an auxiliary wing of the hospital - you will still have to wait a ridiculously long time to be called back to be seen by the nurse and then have to wait forever for them to do everything to you that they need to do.

Second - A hospital gown is a highly functional garment.  It mixes well with all sorts of pieces and even went well with my skinny black pants and heels.

Third - If you burst into tears when the tech tells you he's going to put an IV into you, you might escape having to have an IV put into you.

Fourth - When you wear a claddagh ring and you are single and the tech asks you about it, you have to admit that no, you are not currently in love.

Fifth - When the physician's assistant asks you what your stress level is, you look at him and laugh. "Typical high American stress?" "Uh, yeah, exactly."

Sixth - When the nurse walks in with a cup of a Mylanta/Maalax concoction and asks you, "You know when you take a shot?" as a way to explain how to take it, you have to admit that "Actually, no, I haven't".  Which is true - I'm not one to really take shots.

Seventh - When the techs and nurses leave you in the room by yourself for a long time, your imagination starts to run wild and you imagine yourself in a "ER" or "Grey's Anatomy" episode as one of those dumb patients that comes in with seemingly innocuous symptoms that turns out to be something major and if any of the techs, nurses, and doctors have wildly dramatic lives like the characters on those shows.

Eighth - It's not the prick or the drawing of blood that hurts the most.  It's after they take the needle out that your hand hurts like a mofo.  But then you take off the bandage a couple of hours later expecting to see a huge gaping hole that is still bleeding, and realize that the prick in your epidural layer is so minuscule you would need a microscope to actually see it and feel very foolish.

Everything ended up absolutely fine - they diagnosed me with heartburn/acid reflux, which is what I thought it was.  All is well.

200th Post + Changes

This officially marks my 200th post in my little blogging experiment.  I can't believe that I have two full years plus some months of blogging behind me.  That's crazy.  But I love it and am shocked and awed when people tell me that they've read it - the fact that you would take time out of your day to regale yourself with my incoherent ramblings and musings on all sorts of random things humbles me, truly.

I've also bitten the bullet and changed my beloved blog template to this new design.  I've also tried to shake things up on the sidebar level, mainly by moving my blog archives and blogroll up a couple of notches and all the other content down a few.  I've also cleaned up some of the blogroll - from time to time I update it with new blogs and delete others that haven't posted in a while in order to not have it become so unwieldy that it looks cluttered - because I read a lot of blogs :).

So leave me a comment and let me know what you think of this new design and this little blogging experiment itself!  And thanks again for taking time to read!