Elf Yourself

Hey, Patty told me about a fantastic website called elfyourself.com. It's hysterical. Check out my elf! And yes, my moves are that good. Loft girls you can testify from our wild dance parties! wink...wink =)

http://www.elfyourself.com/?userid=7514cf96cea7b598826b384G06121414

Artsy Holiday Weekend

I went to St. Louis to spend Thanksgiving with my family. It was a nice relaxing weekend and I was able to catch up with my parents and some friends in town. Jon Krueger who is at Covenant Seminary now was in St. Louis over the holiday and we were able to get together on Friday night. We went to the St. Louis Art Museum and saw the Rembrandt exhibit. It was wonderful. I don't remember studying Rembrandt's work in CHOW A&M at Covenant, but I'm sure I did. It makes all the difference when you see the art up close and out of the mundane textbook!

On Saturday my parents and I went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. The weekend was unusually warm for this part of the year and was perfect weather to be walking around outside! We went there to see the Chihuly exhibition. Dale Chihuly is an artist who creates amazing objects from blown glass. If you are in St. Louis sometime before January 1--GO see it!

Missouri Botanical Garden website: http://www.mobot.org/chihuly/
Dale Chihuly's website: http://www.chihuly.com/

Here are some pictures from the MBG. Please ignore my squinting eyes! It was very sunny and I forgot my sunglasses!!!

A Week To Reflect

I'm at a cafe tonight trying to make up some work from this past week while I was out sick 2.5 days. I figured to add to my procrastination I would change my blog template. What the heck. I'm not sure if I like it yet, but it's different.

Being sick this past week was not fun at all. However, it was a good chance to really sit back and reflect on some things. I was able to watch hours and hours of TV when I wasn't trying to sleep. So I got some good TV coverage on the election. I was a terrible American this week. I didn't register in time to vote in Tennessee. So, I'm glad Bob Corker won the Senate seat here. It was disapppointing that Jim Talent lost in my home state of Missouri and it made me sick that embrionic stem cell research passed in the MO Constitution. The next two years will be really interesting politically for our country. I'm hoping that the conservatives get there act together again and make some positive changes for the country now that they have been given a serious wake up call. The resignition of Rumsfeld I think is a step in the right direction. We'll just have to see and I will have to vote next time!!!

I've also been feeling a little bit sad and lonely recently too. I blame most of those feelings on the end of daylight savings and not seeing my family in a long time. However, this past week I also realized that I really miss having a house or dorm full of people. There are so many things I would love to do on my weekends off but it's difficult when you feel like your the only one who wants to do them. I'm enjoying having my own place and I don't think I would change my decision about it if I were able to go back and do it again. But I do feel some loneliness. I realized over the past week that majority of my friends here are married. Nothing against marriage, I of course would love to be married one day. I just feel like I need to make some more friends who are single. Some reading this might be thinking, "hmmm...she's just on a husband hunt!" Honestly, I'm not. Sure, I would love to be in a relationship right now if it came my way, but I'm still working out some of my emotions after this summer's break up drama. My church, I love it but it's not perfect, doesn't really have a singles or post-college group. I look forward to my small group each Wednesday night, but 99% of the current group is married and most are several years older than me. My job is fantastic but it's really, really small and again, I'm the only single person there. I'm currently looking into finding another small group at church that has more singles and I've even thought about going to other small group at different churches if they have a singles group. I just feel at a loss right now in what to do. I would appreciate any prayers on that.

Again I have to ask myself....

...WHY THE HECK AM I LIVING IN THE SOUTH?!?!?!

In case some of you who have moved away from Chattanooga or have never lived in the south, let me fill you in on the one of our top news stories!! As a northerner and a city/suburbanite girl this totally cracks me up. I shared this story with Becca last weekend and decided that I just needed to make a post about it.

This story was taken from Chattanooga's glorious local TV news station. Take note that is just one story on this "growing" problem in Chattanooga. This story made top news here several nights in a row this spring and continues to be a big topic here. Check out the video clip, it's worth the laughs! ENJOY!

Goats Tackle the Kudzu

The city of Chattanooga is taking a stab at tackling the city's kudzu problem and they've hired some very experienced workers... goats. These guys will spend the next two months on the side of Missionary Ridge. The goal is to knock out the kudzu. Their owner says no problem.
Maurice Beavers says "I'm gone tell you like I told the people at city hall, they said will goats eat kudzu and I said, I guarantee they'll eat it cause they ain't gonna get nothing else."
Public works officials say they'll be back next April if the trial works out.

WRCB TV - Channel 3 - Chattanooga, Tennessee

Here Kitty, Kitty!

It's official! Here is my newly adopted kitty, Chloe! She's a Himalayan cat and about 6-9 months old.

My dog would roll over in her grave...

Even after last night's adventure of the homeless kitty outside trying to rip my window screen down for hours, I'm thinking pretty seriously about getting a cat. I love animals and I could use the company. One of my foster families has a few cats and kittens they want to give away and they said I can have any of them for free.

Here's my problem, I'm allergic to some (not all) cats. I'm possibly kitty sitting this weekend and I'll see how it goes. Any suggestions on allergy medications that have worked for you or someone you know who is allergic to animals? I think I need allergy medication anyway for dust and stuff. So if I can find one that would help out some with cat dander, that would rock!

For those who were at my apartment last night, that kitty stayed around for another 2 hours after you all left!

I don't have anything to comment now, but this picture is just screaming to be posted!
YES--this is my Grandma!!! She visited my family in St. Louis a few weeks ago and she apparently liked my brother's hat. Too bad I wasn't there to witness this in person!
Have a good weekend everyone!!!

ST. LOUIS!!!!!!!!!!!

Last weekend was a blast. Jess, Heather and I went to St. Louis and stayed with my parents. Elliot's 21st Birthday was that weekend too and one of his friend's from Chattanooga drove up with us to St. Louis and was supposed to get another ride back to Chattanooga with another one of Elliot's friends that was already in St. Louis. However, Elliot's friend ended up riding back with us to Chattanooga in the end becasuse his original ride home left without him! Poor kid! I think he had enough girly road trip stuff to last him for years to come!

I think I just about wore Jess and Heather out with activities on Saturday! It was worth it though. We had a great time. We also walked around Covenant Seminary and Jess showed us where she is going to be living in the fall. We also got to spend some time with Ev and Amalia. They share an apartment about 5 minutes from where I grew up and it is actually the same complex my parents lived at for 3 months while they were waiting for their new house to be built! Crazy! Enjoy the photos!

All kinds of chocolate martinis at the Chocolate Cafe' near my parents house!

Yum!

Jessica playing with the toys at the cafe'.

How true!

At the top of the Arch!

St. Louis Science Center

How much it would cost for me to go up into space!

(Another reason I need to marry a rich man!)

On the glass bridge over Hwy. 40 at the St. Louis Science Center!

It was harder to build than it looks!

At the Montelle Winery for Elliot's 21st B-day!

Yep, he cut his hair!

The City Museum!

NERTZ!

Courtni, me, and Katherine--old high school buddies!

Summer Travels have begun!

I went to visit Becca and Heath in Lexington, SC this past weekend. Becca and Heath are great tour guides and know (especially Heath) fun little details about everything. Becca even had an itinerary made for us for the 3 days I was visiting. Friday night I got a driving tour of Lexington and Columbia, SC. We went out to dinner in Columbia and then out to a couple really fun bars in town. Saturday morning Becca and I got up really early and left for Charleston, SC for a day trip to the beach. We did some shopping and site seeing in Charleston before hitting the beach and surrounding islands. The weather could not have been any better. The ocean was a little warm, but cool enough to make the heat of the day not feel so bad. While Becca and I were catching some sun on the beach we didn't realize how quickly the tide was coming in. Before we knew it the tide came in full force and soaked us up to our waists--flip flops and towels included! It was hilarious! Everyone who were near us earlier had already realized the tide coming in and moved further inland. I'm sure many of them were waiting anxiously for the ocean to engulf us!

Tomorrow I going to St. Louis with Heather and Jessica to visit my family. My brother is turning 21 on Saturday--weird!!!! I'll post pictures of that trip when I get back.

Two weeks from now I will be going up to Grand Rapids for Lael and Cory's wedding!

HAPPY 4th of JULY!!!!

I went to the Lookouts Game on the 3rd with Heather, Jared, Elizabeth, Laura, and Erin. It was really fun, hot, but fun. They had a pretty good firework show after the game. We were able to go in the outfield and kick back on the grass to watch them. My camera has a special "fireworks mode" that I got to test out for the first time. I really like these pictures.