The Crave Team!

FRIENDS...I am so excited to be part of the Crave team! This is my second official week on the team and it's been amazing so far. God has been working on putting this team together for a while, and today we're official! Joining Brad Baker (pastor of Crave) and Jim Sonnenburg (Director of Small Groups and Serving Teams) are Nicole Leever (Communications and Programming) and ME (Women's Ministry and Discipleship)!

I'm so incredibly thankful to be part of this team and can't wait to see where God is going to take Crave in the future!!

Jaime-tenance

Harry: There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.

Sally: Which one am I?

Harry: You're the worst kind. You're high maintenance but you think you're low maintenance.

(From the best movie ever, When Harry Met Sally)

I'll admit it: I have been accused by several people of being high maintenance.

Why? Well, Jaime thinks I am high maintenance because it takes me an hour to get ready in the mornings. Seriously? An hour to shower, straighten my hair, dress, put on makeup, maybe get a latte, and make it to the office? Dang...I can't really condense my morning any more than that!

I would like to argue that I am not high maintenance by sharing the following facts about myself:

1. I will eat food that has fallen on a reasonably clean floor.
2. I drink Diet Coke from the can. I don't need a fancy cup of ice with it.
3. I don't need to put lip gloss on after every meal, and I don't always have a perfect pedicure.

4. I am very easily amused; tell me a couple of Laffy Taffy jokes. No pretension here.

5. There is nothing in my room that is embroidered with the word "Princess" on it.

6. My purse weighs less than five pounds.
7. I am usually punctual. High-maintenance girls do not care about others' time.

So, I have to ask the question again...what makes me high maintenance?!

Joke Stealing? Really?

Have you ever repeated a joke that you first heard from a friend? Seems like a pretty benevolent action, right? Maybe even a flattering gesture, no? Well, what if your friend accused you of “stealing” his or her joke? How would you respond?

I think that jokes, unless written down and subject to copyright laws, are total public domain…once the words are released from one’s mouth, they are floating in the world, waiting to be consumed by the masses, who, let’s face it…in the state of this world, are hungry for laughter.

All I have to say to those of you who are selfish with your jokes is…don’t be stingy…let your humor feed the world…

TAG!!

Julie and Josh tagged me. Hooray! Here are some facts that you might not know about me...

1. I have SUPER frizzy/wavy hair, but it wasn't always so. It was stick-straight when I was a kid. I desperately tried all throughout my childhood to have Shirley Temple curls…I used curling irons, sponge curlers, hairspray, mousse, hot rollers, you name it. I never looked quite like Shirley, but my hair started to naturally curl in junior high school. Today, people don’t believe that I have wavy/curly hair because I straighten it every single day and wish it was as straight as it was when I was a kid! The grass is always greener…


2. I love Hard Rock Cafes. When I travel Europe, I always try to visit any that I can find. I know this is a stupid American thing, but I love getting a big Coke with free refills and plenty of ice and ranch dressing. (These things are hard to find in Europe!) My favorite HRC is in London...the original!


3. The only book I’ve ever re-read is Catcher in the Rye, which is the book that got me started on reading novels. I first read it when I was twelve. I used to read it every Christmas break. I figure that there are so many books that I want to read, I can’t afford to backtrack...


4. I could drink iced soy chais and eat caprese salad and crème brulee every single day for the rest of my life and I would never get sick of them.


5. I used to try to read by candlelight when I was in junior high school because I thought it was cool and I wanted to feel like a colonial girl. I’ve always thought I was born in the wrong century. (FYI, they have “colonial soap” at Trader Joe’s if you’re as serious about being colonial as I am.) Maybe I should move to Williamsburg…


6. I friended a guy on facebook who was on JEOPARDY!, and he accepted my friend request. I was very impressed by his three-day winning streak, googled him, and found him on facebook. I've never talked to him. (This is possibly the nerdiest thing I have ever done.) He is my only 'friend' on facebook that I haven't met.


7. I have saved every one of my movie ticket stubs since middle school, and I still have them. (A matinee at the Spectrum used to cost $4!) I also have all my Angels game ticket stubs.
   

I tag Riley, Amber, and Jeff!

Proof

Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. John 13:35

Interesting. Jesus wants the defining characteristic of his disciples to be love.

But…

If you love only the people who love you, you will get no reward. Even the tax collectors do that. And if you are nice only to your friends, you are no better than other people. Even those who don’t know God are nice to their friends. Matthew 5:46-47

So, loving people who love us isn’t the kind of love Jesus is talking about. Convenient love isn’t what is going to mark us as followers of Christ.

It’s loving the unloving, the unlovely. It’s loving that requires risk and rejection and sacrifice that is a true mark of discipleship.

It’s doing things for the sole purpose of benefitting someone else…doing things for others when we don’t feel like it. It’s helping when it’s not convenient, giving when it hurts, devoting energy to others’ welfares instead of our own, making allowances for each others’ faults…love isn’t easy, is it? It’s risky…it’s radical…it’s dangerous…

And it’s beautiful. That’s why people will notice when you love them the way that Jesus does.

Five Songs I Will Never Get Sick Of...

1. Maggie May by Rod Stewart
2. Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds
3. No Rain by Blind Melon
4. Hard Sun by Eddie Vedder
5. Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkle

Ice Cold Idiot

Actual interaction with Brad Baker today:

...(conversation ends)

LB: Cool.

BB: Cold? (As in, "Do you have a cold?", noting my stuffy nose)

LB: Cool. (Repeating myself, thinking that he misheard me say "Cold" instead of "Cool.")

BB: Cold? (He's still concerned that I'm sick.)

LB: ICE COLD! (I said it like Outkast in the song "Hey Ya!" I didn't know what he wanted me to say.)

BB: No, do you have a cold?

LB: Oh, yeah.

It was funny, trust me.

I'm lame.

100!

This, my friends, is my 100th blog post! Yay! In honor of this milestone, I thought I'd make a list of 100 people, places, and things I love...

1. Junior Mints at the movies
2. Chips and salsa
3. Alexander Dumas
4. The phrase “shoot the breeze”
5. The Peter Pan ride at Disneyland
6. Red double decker buses in London. Actually, everything about London.
7. Ancient ruins
8. Banana pudding from Lucille’s
9. Rhinos
10. Claddaugh rings
11. James McAvoy
12. Body boarding
13. Tiffany & Co.
14. Orange highlighters
15. Puns!
16. Johnny Damon
17. Andy Warhol’s commercial art
18. Irish pubs
19. Semicolons
20. Postcards
21. Christmastime
22. Good bookstores
23. Smelling perfume at Nordstrom
24. Airplane food
25. Being a girl
26. “Weekend Update” on SNL
27. ee cummings
28. Castles
29. Wicked, Rent, and Phantom (the triumvirate)
30. “Jeopardy!”
31. Cherry Coke
32. Alexander the Great
33. Chicken salad
34. Frank McCourt
35. The Coliseum
36. Gothic architecture
37. Truman Capote
38. Psalms
39. Chocolate chip pancakes
40. Burberry plaid
41. Cobblestone streets
42. Eating lunch at museums
43. “Gilmore Girls”
44. Fresh flowers
45. When Harry Met Sally
46. Fireworks
47. Surprises
48. Flair pens
49. Getting a pedicure
50. Sticklers for proper grammar and punctuation
51. Pine trees
52. Random acts of kindness
53. J.D. Salinger
54. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
55. My birthday
56. Jack Kerouac
57. Ranch dressing
58. Benefit makeup
59. Long hair
60. Dressing up
61. Luke Skywalker
62. The National Anthem
63. Making lists
64. Italian Baroque art and architecture
65. Mint chocolates from the Blue Bayou
66. Moondance by Van Morrison
67. Pretty stationary
68. My amazing small group
69. Naps
70. Going to baseball games
71. Neutrogena Deep Clean Cream Cleanser
72. Paul Frank
73. Getting real mail
74. Cupcakes
75. Shopping solo
76. A good workout in the pool
77. Post-It notes
78. New York City
79. Pageant of the Masters
80. My feet
81. Hazelnut gelato
82. Riding cable cars in San Francisco
83. http://www.m-w.com/
84. Starbucks
85. Seventeenth-century Dutch art
86. “Eyewitness” travel books
87. Shirley Temple
88. Raspberries
89. Stuffed animals (sad but true…)
90. The Beatles
91. The Seattle skyline
92. Packing for trips
93. Abstract Expressionism
94. Pictures that I actually get developed
95. “What Not to Wear” on TLC
96. Making playlists on iTunes
97. Road trips
98. Tom Sawyer
99. The Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas
100. Typing

Clip It...Clip It Good...

So....I'm not super great at ordering office supplies.

Last week I needed to order paper clips for the office. I thought I ordered six little boxes, but for some reason I didn't look at the quantity that came in one unit. I don't know how it happened, but I ended up ordering about a billion paper clips.

If you want to make paper clip chains, jewelry, a chain mail shirt, or need paper clips for any reason in the next ten years, let me know. I can hook you up.

The Beetles

I hate bugs. Hate them. But I love these bracelets that Sara and I got at the Getty. They have real beetles inside. (This is why I love museum gift shops...they always have unexpected treasures. I got invisible ink pens, too. What more does a girl need?)

They might be a little weird, but I think they are totally awesome.

And who knows...maybe this is the first step to lessening my disdain for all things creepy-crawly...