Random Archives - Page 5 of 8 - Trinkets of Thought

Sometimes, one question remains: Why Me?

October 19, 2007 by Maren 4 Comments

Something Random:

Recently, I went into a Neighborhood Walmart (just the grocery store). In an effort to conserve energy, they now have sensored lights on the freezer/fridge display sections. The lights only come on if you walk past the doors. At first, I thought they were broken, but as I walked passed them, it was like the red carpet was being rolled out and every food item caught my eye. Shamefully, I must admit that even though I was not shopping for any more frozen food or refrigerated items, I was tempted (and yielded) to walk by every single refrigerated door to make the light come on. I know what you’re thinking: It doesn’t take much to amuse me. Sadly, you’re right.

Something Fun:

Last night, with the help of friends, I planned and executed a surprise party for Michael’s 3-0th birthday. All was going as planned, minus the fact that it was supposed to be outdoors ‘if the weather was nice’ and it didn’t look like that would be possible. Michael and I cleaned our house in preparation for people to come over to our house (for what he thought was to be Bible Study). At 6:45, I told him that I had other plans, a ‘you and me’ date was in the plans, and that Bible Study had secretly been canceled. (Michael hates canceling ANYTHING). Thankfully, he didn’t mind, though, he did give me a hard time about canceling.

My “Date” Plan to get him to the Surprise Party: Michael was to go on a treasure hunt. I had worked on a labor intensive clue for him to solve at Barnes and Noble–He was to search for children’s book by the author and then use words from the titles to form the clue. It was planned out ‘perfectly’ (or so I thought). The second clue was going to take him to his surprise party.

BEFORE WE COULD EVEN LEAVE OUR HOUSE: Michael questioned the idea of going on a ‘treasure hunt’ when the TORNADO SIRENS were blaring in our neighborhood. Dilemma time: What was I to do? I wanted to keep the surprise party a secret, yet the tornado sirens are sounding, and I had to get Michael to HIS surprise party!!! He suggested we postpone ‘our date’ , but I think my impatience got the best of me, and he said we could go. The hesitation about leaving put our timing offtrack and thus threw the Barnes and Noble plan out the window.

DRIVING TO THE PARTY: I broke down…For you see, I had it all planned out ‘perfectly’, and the tornado warning was NOT IN MY PLAN! For any of you that know me personally, drama is my forte. To say it mildly, I’m not passive, and I broke down crying….perhaps wailing would be a better description. Though I don’t remember my exact wording, the implication of my ranting was to the effect that my plans had been ruined, though slightly more wordy and dramatic than that… (Picture with me: sirens still sounding; To the west, the clouds look absolutely perilous; The radio is blasting with TORNADO WARNINGS not tornado watches….and then, there’s a hysterical Maren)

MY REACTION: Somewhere in the mix of emotions, despair entered. Because of the weather, NOW NO ONE would come. In desperation, instead of having Michael drive us to do the treasure hunt I had him drive us straight to the party. Yet, (INCREDIBLY) somehow, even after all of my ranting, Michael thought we were going to get a clue for the treasure hunt…NOT going to a party!

SURPRISE: He truly was surprised and didn’t expect people to be there and had no idea about any party until 10 minutes beforehand from a wailing wife. Many friends came, and even some from out of town, which was also a WONDERFUL surprise to ME, too! And the best part? Plan B was in the basement of my friend’s home. A perfect place to have a party when the tornado sirens are sounding… It worked out just great!

Something Fun for Everyone:

ENJOY THIS VIDEO, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A MOM!!!! THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO!

Random

August 16, 2007 by Maren 11 Comments

Some more stuff from my little yellow notebook… The following are some fun quotes I wrote down….Some serious, some funny… I don’t know the sources unless they are mentioned.

Unless you can create the universe in 6 days time, maybe you should hold back from giving God advice.

Christian service is never for the purpose of getting something. It is because we have already received it. (Personal side note: I think that there are far too many Church hoppers/Church shoppers who go from one church to the next looking for the perfect place or the next best thing– Often, I feel, there is this faulty consumer mentality…instead of “How can I serve?” They are wrongly asking, “What’s in this for me?”)

Love is being willing to face the risks of seeing your spouse’s dream come true.

Men for the sake of earning a living forget to live.

Forbid that we should ever consider the holding of a commission from the King of Kings a sacrifice, so long as other men esteem the service of an earthly government as an honor.– David Livingstone.

God has every right, and my permission to rearrange my life at any time, in any way, in order to fufill His plan for its influence to His glory. [Personal note: I struggle with this because often times, I want MY life, MY way, just the way I plan life out. 🙁 It was a good kick in the pants to read this.]

Some are more concerned that they may be noticed than that Christ may be seen.

A real person isn’t afraid to give his pet parrot to the town gossip. — Billy Graham

His hair looked like the governer’s pardon got to the warden right after he plugged in the chair.-Zigg Ziglar

“Mayonnaise” a lotta people here!

Happy Thursday!

The Garage Sale that lasted forever

July 31, 2007 by Maren 7 Comments

There once was a girl named Maren who lived in a time not so long ago. She continually accumulated junk in a bin designated for Goodwill, and didn’t have a house big enough to store too much junk. This had it’s pros and cons. On most days, it was to her advantage because having a small house caused her to relieve herself of her junk quite regularly. As a result, she didn’t have too much to put in a yard sale. Yet, she still thought that it would be beneficial to have one–allowing her and her friends the opportunity to get rid of unneeded stuff.

Ads were placed in the newspaper to entice people from miles around to come to their sale. Some participants (KW) prepared while others procrastinated (MB). The Thursday of the sale, six families brought their junk to Maren’s house. The junk seemed to appear continuously, with no end in sight. AND because Maren had no garage, her entire living room was filled from floor to ceiling with crap-o-la. The junk made Maren’s house SMELL like a Goodwill, and about sent her to the loony bin! Yet, thanks to the help of her husband, she survived. She didn’t have much time to look for junk to sell for herself, but as previously mentioned, she was on the verge of a breakdown, and it was probably better that she stopped looking.

The garage sale was set for Friday morning, with hopes that the impending rain would not appear. As Maren’s husband and helpers set up for the sale, the downpour came, but lasted only briefly to allow Maren’s husband and helpers the opportunity to continue in the process and prepare for the chaos. The ads worked, and people from across the world (or so it seemed) came to the garage sale.

There were good things about the sale: A LOT OF JUNK SOLD that day & the comradery was joyous. As a general rule, however, Maren and her friends found the day too stressful for enjoyment…and this was even taking into account that Maren could only get off of work for the afternoon part of it! (Hats off to those who stayed the entire day! KW) When Maren arrived home from work to join in the garage-sale-ing, she realized that the neighborhood signs she had made had never been placed–so, she set out to terrorize the neighborhood with bright orange signs to attract even MORE people to the sale.

One of the ladies in their sale had priced most of her stuff exorbitantly high, but how does one rationalize with another that their junk isn’t better than anyone else’s? One shopper handed the money-taker a dime for a tupperware, only to discover that the high-asking-price lady was asking $10 for it! (I can understand why they lost THAT customer…) At the end of the day, about 1/2 of the junk had sold, and it was toted back into Maren’s house to await being sold the next day. Most of the high-priced lady’s items came back in or was stored in her van for the night. Otherwise, everyone sold quite a bit of their junk—and as a result, that evening, Maren’s home only smelled like HALF of a Goodwill.

Saturday came bright and early, and the madness resumed. Maren left at 11:00 to prepare for her Ultimate Frisbee games as the sale was continuing in a chaotic kind of way. ***This was a welcomed break to the madness, even if she had to play the team that made her feel like crying a few times back. It was nice to expend the garage-sale-stress in an aggressive, physical sports activity. Maren’s parents & Michael cheered her on to an ‘almost’ victory, and left after her first game…where they came back as the sale was just wrapping up to hit the ground cleaning.***

When Maren arrived back to the house after all 3 of her games, the house was cleaned throughout, the yard had been raked and looked nice again and Maren almost forgot about the madness (THANK YOU Michael, Dad and Mom) But not before saying, “Never again!”

(Special thanks to Krista who worked so hard throughout the weekend ~ Also, because of her accounting skills, we were 100% accurate in divvying out the $!! BONUS!)

One Dollar, Who’d give me One…Who’d make it Three?

July 26, 2007 by Maren 12 Comments

We’re having a garage sale at our house tomorrow and Saturday. As a result, we’ve got our front room packed full of people’s junk…and more coming tonight!

A little history on the story to come: Michael and I both have keyboards that we got when we were younger. When I was about 8, the Christmas present that I wanted was too expensive than what was the norm, so I saved up half and pitched in and got a keyboard–I kept it all these years because it meant more than just a gift because I had to work hard for it, too…it’s more sentimental than the anything, and recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that it needs to go…It’s about 2 feet long and is very basic…it only lets you play two notes at a time and it’s not complex by any means.

Michael bought a fancy-dancy keyboard in high school. The thing had the works and was much more expensive…I think (though I’m not sure) that it is a full size keyboard and has all the bells and whistles. He’s kept it around for 6 years of marriage, but has gotten it out to play, MAYBE twice (and that’s GENEROUS!). He’s recently come to the conclusion that it needs to go…

Conversation at our house–

Michael: I’d like to sell my keyboard–maybe I’ll sell it on Craig’s list and see if I can get $100 or so for it.

Maren: Good idea! (Joking, but asks with a serious face) Do you think I’d be able to get that for my piano?

Michael:

So, perhaps, I’ll put a price tag at my garage sale of $100 and sit there and play chopsticks.

HAHAHAHAHA! Now for those of you who don’t know this song, it probably isn’t funny… It’s about a worthless violin that was going for next to nothing at an auction until a ‘master’ played it, then it became valuable. It’s a cheezy song, but in the context of our conversation, it was PRICELESS (no pun intended). Life, gotta love it!

In other news, some random pictures from this month…
Many work days, I come home to this sight; I love it when they cuddle together–Zippy was too excited to see me, though, and won’t keep the cute pose, but they often lay on top of each other in the basket…in fact, in this picture, Zippy couldn’t get out of the basket because Krenzel was laying on his foot…

A fun memory from this month–I love my nephew–He’s growing right up! (also notice my keyboard in the background that I’m going to get rich off of selling…)

I gave blood on Monday, and got this prize for giving. The lady, even though my veins are the size of a river, missed my vein and then proceeded to roll the needle around in my arm until she found it…not the most pleasant experience… If you get queasy easily (it would be more fun if I had typed queasily easily. but that’s not a word), don’t look… It’s just a bruise the size of Mt. Everest.

I feel like I have to explain it every where I go– first a black eye a couple of months ago, now this… pretty soon, they may suspect domestic abuse…Nope, it’s just me.

Happy Thursday!

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