Express Training, Day 1

It was coordinated months back that I would be headed to one of the training seminars hosted by one of the Express corporate developers up in Springfield. That was scheduled for today and tomorrow.

official office mode ;) 

Good news: I, along with 19 other staffing consultants and/or FOC's survived day 1 :)

I spent a few short hours this morning tying up loose ends at the office before I hopped on the road Springfield-bound. Apparently I had unevenly estimated the commute time; I rolled into Springfield about an hour early, so I did some light traversing of the immediate area before waiting it out for 45 minutes in the parking lot. Woot.

The training itself turned my brain to goo, but in a totally GOOD way. I know, that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. I picked up some new information and some well-needed refreshers on some processes I already use. Our corporate developer is an excellent public speaker, and the presentation itself was definitely worth the trip. Thanks again for the sendoff, M&D!

[[And I heard from Nancy during the day that our office construction went to a whole new level as the painting started today and apparently displaced everyone who's got a desk in the office. Probably a good thing that I didn't stay all day; I would've been homeless, so to speak.]]

So once the first day of training was finished, I got right down to checking into the hotel before finding my way to the mall [cuz that's what you do when you're me, on a Wednesday night in a city void of anyone or anything you know]

yeah zumiez .gif.... yeah.

panda express. yes please!

I discovered Zumiez tonight; it's kinda like Pac Sun except pretty much completely cooler. I also discovered that after a day of brain-mushing, coupled with the novel feeling of finding a unique store, I am definitely prone to semi-reckless, but absolutely impulse spending. Errrrr... YOLO, I suppose. [Truth be told that's the wildest part of my night. I know, I know: I'm outta control. Zzzz.]

Springfield didn't know what hit it, yeah? Pshhhchyeah. Hah.

Oh, and I indulged on some Panda Express tonight, too, while I was at it. I ate just about all of it and don't feel guilty at all. I do however, feel a little sluggish and full. No big deal. Haha. 

It's back to it tomorrow, bright and early.

Seeeeee you then!

xo | cmd

Happy Birthday, Jena. [Missing You..]

I went to bed thinking about this last night, and I woke up thinking of it this morning.

Today marks what would've been the 28th birthday of a dear friend of mine from my life back home. I still miss you, so very much, Jena, and think of you constantly.

i made this in november 2009 | missing you, friend...

circa senior year '03
myself. allison. amy. jena. | an amazing year!

Many hearts haven't healed completely from losing you, and from losing little Braylon.
Happy birthday, to you Jena. You are always so sincerely, daily missed. 

... Love you, friend.

P.S. - On this note, I have to take a minute and implore everyone reading this to take a moment and consider partnering with a cause. Specific to this entry, I would suggest at least researching the AFSP, which is the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I am still a current field advocate rep for the AFSP, under the Cincinnati region, but I plan on moving my regional participation to the greater St. Louis area.

To the Fogle family, your loss breaks my heart, and I am praying daily for peace of mind and comfort for you. It's been 3 years, but I can only imagine the pain you still feel.

My love, to you.

xo | cmd

Softball: Belleville West

Softball Time! 

team towerview

This always makes my Mondays a little better during the summer. Tonight was a great night for the games, even if we didn't win both of them. 

carlee & syd

Mo met me at the house and we rode over together; Kylie & Tanya were both there so we sat and chatted our way through the double headers while Sydni ran around with Landon, Carlee & Loralye. It's almost Summer, and it's beautiful :)

bubbles!

Amen? Amen. 

See ya tomorrow! 

xo | cmd

Father's Day 2012

This is a dedication to my dad:

Thank you.

Thank you for making the decision to adopt, and for choosing me to fill that spot in our family. Thank you for loving me unconditionally, and for making every effort you could to make sure that I knew that.

circa 2009, engagement party | love you, dad!

Thank you for being a Godly man, who dedicated his life to learning more about the word and what it means to follow it.

Thank you for being there, I mean *really there for me, on all levels: for being at my games and track meets, for making sure I was where I was supposed to be when I needed to be there.

Thank you for everything you did right, and also for all the mistakes you made. Knowing that you weren't perfect and you were okay with acknowledging it is one of the things I will always admire about you. Thank you for helping me understand the difference between right and wrong, and for teaching me about forgiveness - both to others and to myself.

Thank you for showing me what a husband should be like to his wife, my mom, in the presence of his family. Thank you for being a solid example of what the head of a household should really embody, even when you were gone for times for business. Thank you for not putting your family as a second priority to anything.

Thank you for being Sydni's beloved and only Pappy. She is so blessed to call you her grandpa. We are blessed.

dad & sydni.. i love this

Thank you for everything that you are, and everything that you aren't. You are a man of true courage, love, forgiveness, patience, and humility. Your sense of humor is ingrained into me, and I am so grateful to have adopted so much of who you are, and with any luck, I'll be able to pass that on to my own children as they grow.

Thank you, Dad. Happy Father's Day.

*****************

And of course this wouldn't be Father's Day without recognizing Joe, my husband and father to our amazing daughter. Thank you for all you do. Happy Father's Day!

happy father's day ♥

Happy Father's Day to all of the fathers out there: new, seasoned, and expecting! And to all the mothers who must fill this role on their own, shout out to you, too.

HFD!!

xo | cmd

Micah 6:8 Laundromat Outreach | Somber Loss

Today was a bittersweet day. Emotions are all over the board in my church family as the day closes with a ministry success shadowed by a tragedy.

caitlin

We've met so many fantastic people so far as part of the Towerview family. Jarod and his daughter Lyla are just two of them. Late last night,  Lyla's mother Caitlin was involved in an ATV accident that cost her her life. I personally didn't know her, but what I do understand is the effect that losing a parent can have on a child, and even on the other parent, regardless of whether or not they are still together.

My heart breaks for the Thompsons, and for Caitlin's family. The gravity of this, the freshness, proved to be a dark shadow not easily cast from our minds over the course of our morning on ministry. It's going to be a long road for Jarod and for Lyla; My continued prayers for peace, comfort, and strength are theirs.

It's hard to transition from that. If there is one thing I have discovered about my church family, it is that they are able to emanate their own sense of mercy and grace while simultaneously displaying perseverance and strength unlike any other. Today's example of being faced with news of this tragedy yet still completing the ministry we had planned, with genuine smiles on our faces and in our hearts for its purpose, not only encouraged me, but made me proud to be a part of it all.

towerview bus!

Back during our 40 DITW study, my study group had developed a plan for our Micah 6:8 project. It started with a church-wide yardsale [remember that??], the profits of which would fund a community outreach. We collectively decided that we would break into teams and hit a few of the local laundromats, armed with coffee, donuts, laundry detergent and quarters, and just pay for people's laundry. No catch, no fee, no sermon. Just free laundry and breakfast. 


 << Oh, btw, our Towerview bus is now complete! Just in time for the youth group missions trip, which heads out tomorrow. It looks great! :)

We arrived at the church this morning and divided up into three teams, quick to plan our routes and off we were. I joined Diana, Olivia, and three of the youth group at the Maytag in Fairview Heights. Our very first offer was met with flat-out denial. I was amazed over the course of the morning at the wide range of response elicited by our desire to load quarters into washers and dryers and provide the detergent to go along with it. While it was slightly discouraging to be turned down, what mattered more was the handful of people who accepted, perhaps questioningly, but accepted nonetheless, and were so deeply moved by it that some of them even began crying. I met a woman today whose husband is in the hospital for a medical condition that has almost taken his life twice. Her two children's lives with their father consisted more of hospital visits and stays than it did of him being home. The trips to the laundromat are a family outing for them. I sat and listened to her story after we'd loaded quarters into the washers and dryers, and realized that this was more than just gratitude for her laundry being covered for today. She poured out her heart to us, and I would be willing to guess we'll see her soon, at the Tower. I was moved by this, in a sincere way. I was reminded today just how powerful God's love is on a simple Saturday morning, in a laundromat, over coffee and a donut :). I was blessed to be a part of this.

look at this little guy!! adorable friends at the laundromat

these things are expensive!

yummm summer salads!

The other two groups had very similar stories: rejection by some, whether by pride or fear that a 'church group' would demand an ear for preaching if they ceded to them paying for their laundry. Others were more than receptive, appreciating our efforts, and even delving into conversation over life in general. We all ended up at the Page house, where the kids had spent the morning along with Lara and Cathie. We ate lunch there before we all headed home. 

It's going to be a very difficult remainder of the weekend for the Thompsons and Caitlin's family. I hate that tragedies like this are what it takes sometimes to put life in perspective. Our very deepest condolences go to their families, and our love and support will be among the flood of such for which our church family is so well-versed.

xo | cmd  

Office Fridays & Breakfast for Dinner [Koinonia]

TGIF!

Phew. What a day! It's been a busy one :)

First things first, I'm amazed I hung on through the entire day after the metrolink fiasco from last night. I showed up to work a little groggy still, but nothing compared to poor Courtney. This is what found its way to my desk before we even got the day started:

kicks! 

nobody puts baby in the corner!!
... except express.
express will put you in the corner. 

^ Poor Courtney was at the Cards game last night, too, but had to do a little more walking than we did, in uncomfortable shoes. [It's a tough pitch being a girl sometimes] She ended up sporting these bad boys to the office today. Haha. Classicly done!

Oh, yeah, and speaking of office folk, there was some minor rearranging done today in lieu of our office expansion project. Someone stuffed one of our chairs in a crevice between a file cabinet and Marc's office; we decided that would be the best place to park Christine for the afternoon. She clearly loved it ;)

This buildout thing has been fairly taxing on all of us over the past couple weeks. Between the frame building, wiring, drilling, dry walling, sanding, and prepping, the wall completing Marc's new office space is now fully in tact, walling Nancy and I for the time being in a big cubby hole. Courtney's been shoved just about out the front door, and Christine... well Christine's temporarily nomadic as her desk sits on the open range of still-usable space in the office. Needless to say, we're ready for this phase to be done. Amen.

*****

breakfast!! | quiche. cinnamon rolls | y-u-m.

Once work was behind me, I made straight for the house to get started on breakfast. [Yeah, breakfast!] The Harris family joined us for the evening, and even Dawne stopped by for a bit! It was, as always, an absolutely amazing night with our small group.

Most of the regular crowd was in attendance: 1/4 of the Gobles [Tom! Jackie & the boys, praying for safe travels as they're out of town!], the Prescotts, Julie, Becky, the Sandvens, and now the Harriss clan, too. Sleemans, Babots, Jarod & Lyla - we missed you, and can't wait to see you guys next time! :)

In the absence of Evan, we were able to focus double the baby love on the little munchkin in our group who is certainly lovable. Check him out in his pink Bumbo [it was Sydni's.. haha]. Handsome Liam!

the cutest little chunk everrrrrrr... love him!

Our Micah 6:8 group is heading out in full force tomorrow for our laundromat outreach. Praying that it goes well and we have some response!

Time to gear up [aka, sleep. Chyeah!]

xo | cmd 

Towerview at the Ballpark!!

Due to the continuous construction that comes inevitably as part of our office build-out, we were granted two consecutive casual days; we all took full advantage of it and geared up in our jeans and t-shirts for the day. Mine was almost thwarted by an early morning client visit; luckily for me, this particular client happens to be within earshot of my house, so if you think I went home after my client meeting to ditch the business garb, you would be totally correct. Haha. Perfect timing on the casual day, too; I was headed straight from work to the Cards game.

baseball time!

Before I get into this one, let me first clarify that in my heart, I'm still Cincinnati, through and through. That being said, I also believe that if you're gonna live somewhere, be there. I'm leading up to the fact that I was pretty excited to get down to Busch Stadium tonight for what was my first Cardinals game this season.

* I never thought I'd hear myself say that. What can I say, I love baseball games. Period. :)

with dawne! :)

Anyway, what made tonight's game that much cooler was the fact that each seat purchased by a Towerview member was from a fundraiser we'd done a few months back as one of our Relay for Life fundraisers. Originally, it was planned that Joe would be accompanying me to this one, but with him in Atlanta this week, that clearly wasn't going to happen. I contemplated just passing our tickets off to someone, but then I remembered that I do in fact know people outside of our church [because everyone there was already going, hah]. I asked Dawne is she wanted to come along, and long story short, we partnered up and made a night of it. I saw some other familiar faces tonight; I'll tell ya what, this St. Louis place sure is starting to grow on me. Yeah, baseball :)

Dawne and I linked up and took the metrolink with Syd [who ended up overnight back at Dawne's because she is just that awesome] into St. Louis and rendezvoused there with the rest of the Towerviewers to enjoy the night. I definitely had no complaints for my first season run at the park. Speaking of which, Courtney from work was down there somewhere too, we just never found each other. Oh well. Next time.

cori. mo. lara

*Note to self, also. The MetroLink is not a force with which you should reckon if you're not entirely prepared. Haha. That is all I have to say about that. Be careful where you stop, and pay attention to where you load, otherwise you could very well find yourself traversing back and forth on that sucker for hours. I'm just sayin'. :p

Anywho, it has been some sort of night.. baseball and all. I loved every second of it, but I think it's about time I grab some sleep before I try to tackle Friday. TGI[backdatedthursdayentrymadesuperearly]F!

xo | cmd