smile, you're on camera

Time to add something new to the list of things I've done for the first time: Today tiffkin and I got all prettified after church and had our engagement pictures taken. It was fun ... I liked it. We went to this private garden in a nearby town, and over the course of 1.5 hours, the photographer literally took 400 pictures. I'm not sure if he took that many because we are so unphotogenic, or if he was so enamoured with our striking poses that his camera kept begging him to take more. Either way (or something else entirely), I now have 400 pictures to sort through and send out to every friend, family member, and newspaper Style section I can think of. Whew ..... a joyful craziness.

One shot reminded me of a photo shoot in high school (one in particular, because I have so many to choose from :). We wanted to do a shot of us walking down a path while holding hands, and Matt (our photographer) stood way off in the distance and just clicked off picture after picture. We walked the long stretch to him and he said, "Okay, why don't you go back and try it again." So we walked back 100 yards and turned around.

This was similar to my senior pictures from high school, where in one photo I wanted to capture my love for running in a shot of me running down a long hill. I put on my high school track uniform and my bright purple/orange spikes, and with the photographer standing at the bottom of the hill, took off running. It being an action shot, the photographer (George) had little certainy about what he would find in my flailing arms and body rushing all to quickly down a grassy embankment. I came down to the bottom of the hill on many an occasion and he would simply look at me and say, "Okay good, let's do it again." All in all, I ran up and down that hill like 13 times. I don't know if we got a good shot, but I sure worked hard for the outcome. Think I can still look pretty if I have to do the same thing over and over and over?

Okay, the real question: When was a memorable time when you got all dressed up and had your picture taken?

a round of thanks

In response to my 'hush hush' post a couple weeks ago, I would like to say that most, if not all, of the so-called secrets have been let out of the bag. The mother load came this past week, as most of you know, with the complex and highly-involved proposal from me to tiffkin. I would like to give a round of thanks to the following for their involvement:

Frito-Lay & Co. (makers of cracker jacks)
Claire's Boutique
The Indian National Government
Spreadshirt, Inc. (for their wonderful tshirts)
Elmer's Superglue
US Postal Service
the floral department at Costco
Ghirardelli white chocolate
Masatomo Kuriya Tulip Cards
the Geico prize wheel
Sharpie
Charleston Alexander
the Courthouse Square grounds crew (except for those responsible for the extra shingles)
Mott's Natural Harvest, no sugar added applesauce
Rhapsody Music (and the many many musicians who gave me song ideas)
Billy Joel, Michael Bolton, Kenny Loggins, and Ed Cash
the thousands of volunteers at the Army Ten Miler
the five members of the SBDS (you know who you are)
tiffkin's flamingo floormat
the kind people at DSW (for the shoebox and bag)
Eastman Kodak Co.
P.F. Chang's Bistro
Washington Area Metro Transit Authority (although you certainly gave me the jitters)
Target's bumbling customer serivce department (for giving me 20-30 extra minutes)
the children of Todd McKeever
God for the beautiful weather and an unforgettable day

and most of all . . . .

thanks to tiffkin for playing along so well. you sure made things worth it.

you sunk my battleship!!

I help lead a group for international students on campus every Thursday, and next week we are going to further learn about American culture through the playing of board games. I think it'll be a lot of fun, as internationals are intrinsically drawn to the customs and mannerisms of Americans, and board games are certainly one of the places where we let our hair down and show our lighter side. And every cutlure has games, no matter how poor, so on some level everyone can instantly relate, even if they have trouble understanding the rules. They know it's okay to be fun and a little bit competitive, so they'll bring that attitude to the table and we'll enjoy ourselves.

We want games that are easy to understand and that internationals will want to play. Here are some we've suggested so far:

Yahtzee
Uno
Jenga
Chess
Pictionary
Guesstures

I think the game Balderdash would be hilarious, mainly because they'd have no clue what was going on, but their handwriting/grammer skills would give them away every time.

Question: If you were going to teach an international an American game (board/card game or otherwise) what would it be?

luau leftovers

I found today, through some searching, that I currently possess five coconuts. Any ideas what I should do with them?

letteth your speech be seasoned with salteth

I admit I was taken back yesterday when our pastor began speaking about his daughter's abdominal troubles, and he started correlating it with passages in the Bible that talk about "bowels of compassion." He said there was a possibility his daughter was having problems in her intestines because leaders in the world didn't have bowels of compassion, which was so amazing that I nearly laughed out loud on spot. Ah, what a lovely church world we live in . . . . always trying to throw something in that sounds biblical so people will think we have spiritual answers for everything that happens in our lives. I understand why we do it, but it sometimes gets so silly.

We have a powerpoint operator in church who struggles with this as well. While singing the song "Adonai," the screen repeatedly shows this line:

You are Lord over all thee Earth
You are Lord over all thee Earth
You are Lord over all thee Earth
You are Lord over all thee Earth

When asked why the word "thee" shouldn't be reduced to "the," the operator simply responded, "Oh, but 'thee' sounds so much more spiritual and holy. I like it." Well, maybe it does, but buddy, it means 'you.'

Do you have any favorite Christianese sayings/stories?

hush hush

I am a fan of secrets. That is no secret. If you get to know me for any length of time, you probably will find that I love doing things in hushed tones and then watching for a response. It's one of my favorite things.

The response is actually the most important part, because if your secret never comes to a place where people actually want to know what it is, then it ceases to be a worthwhile secret and wanders over into the realm of "things no one cares about," or "things that should stay hidden." I'm not a fan of hiding things without reason, but I am a fan of purposely flying under the radar from time to time while the world around goes on in its silly, uninformed, all-too curious state. There's magic and mystery in the things you don't know. There's a precious art in looking forward to the things you can't see. These aren't the things you don't know you don't know (as someone famous once said), these are the things you know you don't know, but you know for certain that you want to know them.

So with that said, I, at current count, am up in the neighborhood of 7 legitimate secrets that I am currently maintaining. No, there's nothing to be scared of. I just like to be sneaky. Time will reveal all things that are worth revealing, and that's what takes the fear away when I know my little kinivings have come and gone. I hope some day my hushed tones bring a smile to your face.

What was a time you kept a really good secret? (don't giveaway anything current, unless you feel so led)