and i meant to add....

I have so many college baseball related things to be elated about! Ole Miss bites it again!!!! Southern Miss Eagles to the Top! and Geeeeaaauuuux Tigers!!!!

i have an announcement.

We are in the single digits. I see Ben in 9 days. And he leaves Lily this Sunday. Please throw up a prayer for his safe travel, his dislocated shoulder, his ear infection, and patience for his girlfriend who has to wait 9 more days. Also, when you see/meet him, please ask him immediately how the food was in Africa.

Been reading a lot about North Korea in the news lately, and I wanted to share this documentary that Natalie told me about made by the BBC about the situation of children there. Please take the 45 minutes to watch it; this helps shed some light on what's really going on inside that closed country.




If you google "Children of the Secret State", the fourth hit is a blog of someone- apparently a big fan of communism- who refers to it as a propaganda film and says the homeless orphans look "healthy enough". Hmm.

there are roads left in both of our shoes...

I may have taken so long to update this blog that no one's even checking for updates anymore, but if you are...hi!

If you get a chance, read Ben's last couple of blog entries to see what's been going on at Lily. This has been so, so heavy on my heart over the last month or so. I've talked about this so much over the last couple of weeks that I don't feel like there's much more I can say, think, or feel about it. It's hard to see God's hand in all of this, but I'm praying that I can have hope through it anyway. Thinking about it so much has really been draining on my heart and mind, which is why...

I've chosen to blog about something completely meaningless that made me laugh. Yesterday I was unable to resist clicking on an article on FoxNews.com titled "Jessica Biel: It's Hard Being Beautiful". (Those kind of stories always amuse me- some talk show I was watching one time was talking about a similar story and said, "Other burdens the actress has to bear are good health and parents who love her." Ha.) Anyway, Jessica Biel (from the first couple of seasons of the tv show 7th Heaven, a virtual puppy mill of master thespians) was complaining about how sometimes she doesn't get work because she's too pretty. This just tickled me to death. I was trying to imagine how she thinks those conversations between casting directors must go:
"Oh, Jessica Biel, she's SO talented...."
"Oh, she's been in so many things, like ummm....that movie about the magician...that... wasn't as good as The Prestige."
"She is amazing. But we don't usually like to put attractive people in movies. She's just too beautiful, people may not want to look at her."
"You're right. We need someone uglier. What's Angelina Jolie up to?"
Whatever gets her by, I suppose.

Vaguely related to that, I'm going to be in California 4 weeks from today!

Things I've been up to the past month:
1) Sleeping during the daytime.
2) Not going to church. I'm not supposed to work every weekend, so why am I always always there?
3) Only being halfway successful in my efforts to keep 2 plants alive.
4) Exercising in Centennial Park every nice day I'm not working.
5) Rereading Harry Potter book 1-7, which I thought would take me a while, but I started about 2 1/2 weeks ago and am already in book 6.
6) Discovering and loving Pandora.com, way behind the curve.
7) Trying to drink my daily 8 glasses of water and failing Every. Single. Day.
8) Spending quality time with Miss Palmer.
9) Seeing Death Cab for Cutie at the Ryman. Oh, so good.
10) Not blogging.
11) Wishing June 17th would hurry up.
12) Trying to catch up on my devotions. I bought a chronological Bible, which I was pretty psyched about, until I got stuck for weeks in cubits, censuses, and divisions of land amongst the 12 tribes.
13) Renewing my PALS certification, running 2 mock codes, and successfully saving the lives of 2 limbless mannequin children. Being a hero, basically.
14) Praying for Lily with Natalie.
15) Finding reasons not to vaccum.

The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. (Ex 14:14)

sweet home alabama...

Last week I had a 6 day stretch off of work and I took advantage of that time to go to the beach with my mom. I drove down to Gulf Shores and stayed for a couple of days, and the weather was great and it was relaxing and wonderful. If I happened to have children, and they happened to be with me on this trip, I definitely could have taken advantage of the various signs I saw to teach a little grammar lesson. South Alabama in particular seems to have some difficulty with the apostrophe. For example, "Tan's Unlimited"? Wrong. "Carl's Premium Deer Processing"? Correct! "Linda's Psychic Reading's"? Almost, but not quite. "World of Outlaws Southern Motor Speedway"? There we go! "DVD's Due By Noon"? No, but "Spear Hunting Museum"? Umm . . .well there's no opportunity for an apostrophe there but I just wanted to point out that there is an actual spear hunting museum outside of Foley. There's a painting on the front with a man in camo holding a spear.

To anyone at work who might be jealous of my time at the beach, rest assured that my patients the night I came back were more than enough punishment for my good time.

he's got a great personality.

When I came back from Africa my friend Steve was quizzing me about my main squeeze, and asked his fairly standard Steve question of, "If someone was going to play him in a movie, which actor would it be?"

I pondered for a few minutes, and on the basis of coloring and a very nice smile I picked this guy:

I know, right?

But due to a recent and unfortunate turn of events, I'm afraid I have to withdraw my nomination and say that my dear boyfriend would now most closely resemble this guy:

That's right, Harry Shearer from A Mighty Wind.

Sigh.

For more details on how this transformation took place, check out Ben's blog linked to the right.

there is no better find, than to find myself with you

Happy 1st Day of Spring! Has it been nearly a month since I posted last?

What's been happening this month.....well, I've become nocturnal. (I would like to say that between typing the word "nocturnal" and now I did what I knew what happen sooner or later, and that is setting off my alarm system to my apartment by flinging open my back door to see the sunlight and the beautiful weather. But now I know that it works, and it is incredibly loud. I seriously hope that no one else was home...and as I just typed that sentence I heard a door shut in the building. Sorry neighbors.)

Katie and Natalie, two of my roommates from Lily, came to visit me this week on their respective spring breaks. It was so wonderful to have them here and to talk about the kids, the things we missed and don't miss, the things we learned and are still learning. Natalie and I talked yesterday about how the things I expected to struggle with I never did, and the things I never would have thought would have been problems were. I wouldn't take it back for anything, but all in all I have to say it was probably a different experience than I thought I would have. But on Saturday night after some griping about things that need to change (mostly from me), Nat suggested we pray and we were able to lift up the kids, the leaders, and the volunteers at Lily. (which, I freely admit that sometimes I feel like that's doing "nothing" as if asking God to handle stuff is less effective than me doing it myself. He's so lucky to have me down here taking care of things for Him.)

And then we ate. And ate. Sunday afternoon at the Pancake Pantry (while Katie enjoyed her bacon) we realized Natalie was viewing this as some kind of cultural expedition. I had to explain to her what moonshine was. With enough sweet tea, gorgeous weather, and biscuits from the Loveless Cafe I think she's now a believer in our way of life. And Katie was meant to be Southern all along. She even let me hot roll her hair.

The other night I had a too-cute-for-words 3 year old patient who apparently told his parents after I left the room that I was his girlfriend. Awwww. When I came back in the room they questioned him a little further though and he said "no" when they asked if I was pretty. Low marks for flattery, but high marks for being adorable so I'll keep him anyway.

Yay for LSU and UCLA going to the next round, boo for the Bulldogs getting spanked.

In the next post maybe I'll discuss why all doctors should own their own stethoscopes.

Enjoy the weather!

our bodies get bigger, but our hearts get torn up

The tiny Josh "it's a beautiful world" Casper on my shoulder has been nagging me all day since I made the previous entry. So I thought I'd share my favorite Philip Yancey quote (which I'm pretty sure I've put on here before, but it's good for me to remind myself again):

I have tasted a little of life's tragedy. I have tasted of it's comedy. I keep walking because I believe in the fairy tale, that God strong and wise enough to create a world stamped with such beauty and goodness will be faithful in restoring it to the original design...I place a bet on God's firm promise that in the end, all will be well.