7 Quick Takes: Avoiding the Awkward

Linking up with Kelly at This Ain't The Lyceum for today's edition of 7 Quick Takes!

1. This week has felt both reallyreally long and reallyreally short. It felt long because this weekend is going to be exciting and waiting is hard. It felt short because there were a lot of items on my to-do list. Life is crazy sometimes, isn't it?

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2. My friend Laurie was in town last weekend, and my sister Jayna joined us on a fun little adventure to Bellingham. It was so pretty there, and we had crepes for dinner and dessert, and then we shopped at a cute little shop. The weather was fantastic and we had a great time. 

3. That monkey is making me dizzy. Including him was a mistake. 

4. Lent has begun! I went to a neighborhood church's Ash Wednesday service, and it was really, really good. They had set up four stations, with oil, water, clay, and ash, and there were Scripture readings and thoughts to meditate on throughout the service. I'm really excited about this Lent season.

5. The only downside of the Ash Wednesday service was a bit of shock I experienced. There was an older gentleman greeting people and welcoming them into the sanctuary, and so I went over and introduced myself. His name was Carl, and he was so sweet! But then... out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of another man. In disbelief, I ducked behind Carl and peeked out to confirm my suspicion. 

My manager from LifeWay, my job as a senior in high school, stood just a few feet from Carl. And while I successfully avoided any awkward conversations {namely the, um, name issue}, I sat low in my chair as my former manager led the congregation in song not once, not twice, but three times. Oi.

6. You're right - it totally was not as awkward as it could have been, but lezbihonest - who really wants to go up to a person and say, "Remember me? You told me to not read books on the job 9 years ago at LifeWay! Happy Lent!" I think I made the right decision by hiding avoiding averting a disaster. 

7. Speaking of avoiding awkwardness, I think I did that successfully when I met with a couple different ladies and interviewed them about their pregnancies and deliveries. There's always the potential for awkwardness in situations like those, and I'm proud of myself for not inducing {pun intended} any cringes. 

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Happy weekend, y'all!

"First Car" Story for Carla's Link-Up

My wonderful and talented IRL friend Carla from This Messy Heart is hosting her first link-up, and it's about first car stories! Y'all, if you have a driver's license, you should join this link-up. It's like Victoria's guest post about shaving - we all have embarrassing awesome stories to share!

My first car was a beautiful white 1993 Toyota Camry. My parents bought him from a friend so that I could have a car {instead of the family van or monstrous truck} to learn to drive. I thought he was perfect.

His nickname was "The Duck" because his horn was dying and when the alarm system went off {which happened more frequently than you might think}, he would bellow, "HONK HONK HONK QUACK QUACK QUACK" until the ignition was turned. #WhyIWasn'tCoolInHighSchool

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He had leather seats and a sunroof and a funny little habit of flashing the Reverse gear light when I hit the brakes. He also had a cd player, which made him perfect for road trips, but Dad didn't think the stereo system should be the reason for a road trip, and because of The Duck's age, I wasn't allowed to take him on long distance trips.

He was a great car in which to learn to drive, and one of my favorite memories of him is at a driving workshop. My sister Jayna had just finished driver's ed, and my dad signed the both of us up for a 3 hour Emergency Driving Situations class. One of the exercises was to learn to trust the car's brakes, which meant we gunned it down the "runway" and then slam on the brakes once we reached a certain point. Twas great fun.

Because I already had my license, Jayna got to ride with me during this exercise {we all know it's because Dad wanted to drive this exercise!}. As I pulled up into position and waited for the signal to accelerate, the instructor leaned into my window and said, "Are you ready? Oh, you've got a 6 cylinder! You're ready." The Duck revved his engine in response... ok, I might have done that. But it was a team effort.

I blazed down that runway, enjoying all 6 cylinders of The Duck's engine. Although all four tires were on the ground, it certainly didn't feel that way.

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The Duck faithfully sped me around that training lot, and faithfully took me to high school, my retail job, a babysitting job, and countless visits to friends' houses. 

The Duck was with me when someone changed lanes into us. He went to the shop and I went to physical therapy, and we were both a bit stiffer after that.

The Duck was there when someone made a left turn into us. He went back to the shop and I continued physical therapy, and I hoped the invisible target was removed from our backs.

When I came home from Berea on breaks, I looked forward to driving The Duck around, even though I had to wrestle the keys from my sisters. And then one break, I came home and The Duck wasn't there. He had gone to a new home, because he was getting too old.

While I missed him, I chose to be grateful that I only had great experiences with him and didn't have to watch him slow down. In my mind, he is still the rip-roaring-est car I've ever had the pleasure of driving.

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Finish This: Week Thirty-one

Linking up with Nicole at Three 31, Jen at The Arizona Russums, Becky at The Java Mama, and Lisa at Coastlined. Join the fun on their link-up!

If I went back to school, I would study entrepreneurship or more consumer behavior. I think the psychology behind decisions is really fascinating, even though I only took one Psych class during my college career. The Consumer Behavior class I took was awesome, and I'd love to get into that more. 

My favorite subject in school literature. Junior and senior years were classical and British literature, respectively, and I had so much fun in those classes. AP English was also one of my favorite classes, because we read Shakespeare aloud and interviewed experts about their definitions of literature. 

I also enjoyed algebra, history, and Rhetoric II {Rhetoric I was painful, but the second year was much more fun and applicable}. 

I wish I had paid more attention to the activities I really enjoyed, instead of focusing on the things I'd limited myself to because I was afraid. 

The dumbest thing I did in high school was convince my history group that we could do our presentation on Alexander the Great using puppets. While our presentation was amusing, it was also immature and ill-prepared. Oops.

In high school, I thought I knew the direction life would take me. Ha! When I graduated from high school, I wanted to be a physical therapist and use ballet for therapy. When I started college, I took one look at how many science classes PT would take, and I cried. Then I changed my major to business, transferred to a school in Kentucky, and am looking at a completely different career than I had planned. I couldn't have imagined all this in high school, and it would have scared the crap out of me if I could. Thank God He only gives us what we can handle!

Thanks for joining! If you want to Finish This, answer the prompts in the comments or add your link to the party. See you next week :) 

Blog Every Day Feb: Day Nineteen - Little Secrets

Linking up with Bailey Jean; we are almost done with February!

Today's prompt asks for "little known facts about you," so brace yourselves.

1. One of my life dreams is to live on a houseboat. "Sleepless in Seattle" may have influenced this desire, but that doesn't make it any less valid. When it happens, I'll invite you over. Pinky promise.

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2. When I was 3 years old, I fell off a bed {no more monkeys jumping on the bed!} and hit the mirrors on the closet door. My nose was basically cut off, except for one little piece of skin. Stitches and two decades later, no one meets me and says "what happened to your nose?!?!" with any semblance of horror on their faces. In fact, when I tell people, they don't believe me and have to examine my nose in order to see for themselves.

3. I played Speed Scrabble for a couple of years before I ever played Scrabble on the board. My AP English professor had us play Speed Scrabble as a way to work in timed, pressure-filled situations {I think he just was tired at the end of the school day}, and I thought that was the best way to play Scrabble ever in the whole wide world. 

4. I took classical piano lessons for about 6 years. I'm so glad my parents "encouraged" me to do this. Sometimes I resented all the necessary practicing, but when I got to my last semester of college and needed another half-credit to graduate with honors, I took piano and loved it again. No, it wasn't the most convenient thing to get myself to the basement of the western-most building on campus every day, but once I was in my little piano room, everything was wonderful. 

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5.  While I can usually read two or three books at a time, it's really hard for me to be in the middle of more than one crochet project. I feel torn because I want to finish both, but obviously can only work on one at a time. This is why I'm working really hard to finish my friend Rosemary's scarf before I start my Doctor Who scarf, even though the Whovian in me is dyingggg. But priorities, my friends. 

There, those weren't too traumatizing, I hope! Go learn stuff about other people in the link-up.

Blog Every Day Feb: Day Eleven - Travel Story

Linking up with Bailey Jean for a story of travelling. Gulp.

There are a few ways this post could go. You have the option to read stories or summaries from various trips, or I could tell you a new story from different travels. Or there's "my worst experience on a plane/train/boat/bus" stories that we could all tell, but I don't know if you will laugh or cry at them, so I hesitate. 

Here are some fun highlights from time spent actually travelling:

During my junior year of high school, my class went to Italy for 10 days {I know - best school ever}. Mr. Simon was our favorite teacher, and he is from Britain, which means that his passport is a fancy red instead of the American blue. So to entertain ourselves, my friend EB and I created a short film using euros, Mr. Simon's passport, and the many layers of the seat-back in front of us. Basically EB pretended to be James Bond and open the table-tray, remove the cloth lining under it {probably not what the airline wanted us to do}, take out the British passport, and count the euros inside. Then he looked casually {Bond-like, of course} over his shoulder and put everything in his jacket pocket. Smooth.

before we left...babies!

When Dahlia and I were returning from Prince Edward Island, we were wearing matching sweaters {because in our hearts, we're like 7 years old}. As we were moving to our seats on the plane, one lady looks at us and asks "Sisters?" Now I know we were matching in our clothing apparel, but other than that, Dahlia and I do not look alike. Oh well. Tourists. ;)

Dahlia and me, not matching, not looking related ;)

Shortly after college graduation, Samara and Lois and I ventured down I-5 to Portlandia so we could watch "Frankenstein" {for the first time}. We arrived in the city and found our hotel. After a minor kerfuffle with checking in {"Tell me your confirmation number one more time please?"}, we got a key and directions to our room. Glad to have a room, we unloaded our suitcases and headed to our room. Surprise! Someone else was already in our room... well, at least someone else's belongings were in our room. Ugh. Samara went back to the front desk to kick butt and take names sort out the problem, and we had a new key to a different room very shortly. So we learned that maybe Portland is a bit more chill about hotel reservations and room-sharing and all that. Oh well. {P.S. It was on this trip that I watched my very first episode of Doctor Who!}

enjoying the fresh air before "Frankenstein"

Well, how were those for travel stories? At some point in my life I would love to create a page just for various trips...we'll see if that happens this year. 

Go visit Bailey's page for some more travel adventures!

prompts & challenge deets

Blog Every Day Feb: Day One - My Story

Welcome to February and the Blog Every Day in February challenge! Here's the link from Bailey Jean so you can add your own {hint hint}.

Let's start at the beginning...waiting for the chorus of "the very best place to start" to ring out from the hills. See what I did there?

Like most children, I was born. :) And then my sister was born. And then my next sister was born. And then my next sister was born. And that is how the Fabulous Four came to be. Watch out, Washington!

My parents homeschooled us and I was also involved in a co-op for a few years. Childhood consisted of ballet lessons, bike riding, and book reading {wow, alliteration *pats self on back*}. The summer before 6th grade, my family moved to an island. This was a challenging time for me, as is common for adolescent girls. I didn't know too many other girls experiencing this, though, since after a couple of years on the island, the friends I thought I'd made turned out to not be true friends. 

Cue lifelong best friend. Enter Samara. Yes, we've been best friends since 6th grade :) 

After a couple more years of homeschooling, my parents heard the Lord that we were supposed to move back to the mainland and enroll in my church's private academy. In my teenage wisdom, I refused. And in my parents' wisdom, they ignored me. 

I entered 10th grade awkwardly. Samara was the only person I knew beyond a name-only basis, although I had grown up in Sunday School with the majority of my classmates. Also awkward: there were 2 other girls besides Samara and me, and then 8 guys. Culture shock, anyone? {For those doing the math, yes, that is a sophomore class of 12 students. Did I mention that this school is really small?}

However traumatic those first few months were, I survived. High school eventually became fun and enjoyable, and those stranger-classmates became good friends. Yes, there were ups and downs, but I think that there were more ups. 

senior ladies with just one month before graduation!

Senior year required a thesis paper {25+ pages} on "God's calling for your life." Gulp. I've always been the person who loves a schedule, a plan, the details spelled out. If God and I could sit down and He could tell me the story of my life, I would fill out my calendars in permanent marker and then go on living happily. Unfortunately for us Type As, that's not always how it works, and so I wrestled and cried and struggled and prayed and cried some more. And then God gave me an answer, and so I wrote my thesis. 

Ballet had still been a part of my life throughout this time, and I wanted to keep dancing, but in a different capacity. The answer to my thesis question and the direction of my life at the time was to go to school for physical therapy and then use ballet as therapy for children. This encompassed all my loves of dancing, children, and running a business {and it filled twenty-five pages quite nicely}.

Before I started college, though, I wanted to solidify my relationship with Jesus. My church offered the Master's Commission as a discipleship, leadership, get-to-know-Jesus 11 month school, and I filled out the application nervously. I'd seen "MCs," as students were affectionately referred to, all my life, and I was anxious about what would actually be in store for me.

MC Class of 2007-08

My year in Master's Commission was one of the hardest and best of my life {up to that point}. My 23 classmates and I grew to love Jesus in new ways, and we also grew to love each other. We toured the country in the summer of our year, and that trip is still one of my fondest memories. 

After Master's Commission, I started college. My first two years were spent at a community college {that turned into a four-year college while I was there}. Instead of taking the route of many of my friends and classmates and transferring to the University of Washington {or U-dub as it is called by locals}, I chose instead to go to Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. 

Berea was amazing. My roomie and I really hit it off, and we actually compiled a list of reasons God made us room-mates. Catherine and I chose to stay roomies for our second year, and I'm so grateful for our time together. She and I were both transfer students from out of state, had both been homeschooled, and were both older than the huge flock of freshmen with whom we went through New Student Orientation. 

old people surrounded by freshmen

While attending Berea, I went to church in a nearby town. My church back home was connected to a local church, and so there were a few families who adopted me on the weekends and let me get out of the dorms and back into a family structure for a few days, and I am so, so grateful for both the chance to get off campus and for the relationships with those wonderful people. AJ is my bosom friend from Kentucky, and her family considers me one of their own. So blessed by all of them!

some Kentucky family!

Class of 2012!!

After earning my B.S., I moved back home to Seattle. My parents wanted to hire me at their company, but wanted me to get some experience first. So after a summer at home, I flew to the Frozen Tundra to live with my grandparents and work at an internship. Laurie is my wonderful friend from that experience, and she and I have had some wonderful adventures together {including the thrill of being in the same ice skating rink room as Kristi Yamaguchi as well as the joy of seeing The Lion King on stage.}.

In March 2013, I finished my internship and moved back home again.And then in July, after travelling to Nicaragua, I moved into my own condo! Samara is my flat-mate and the past 6 months {our six month anniversary is on the 3rd!} have been awesome. 

As I type all of this up, I realize that there are so many more facets that could be included, like my passion for the preborn and my volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center, or the way I crochet like an old lady, or my obsession with British television, or that time I dyed the lower half of my hair purple-that-turned-pink, or the way that my sisters and I get together and sit around the table and just laugh the night away. But since this post is already one of the longest I've written, I guess more of this story will have to come later. Feel free to do some stalking reading of earlier posts, and do please say hello if you're here from Bailey Jean's link-up. Until tomorrow!

Funny Friday: March Madness Edition

This is one of those deep dark confessions times that will end in laughter. If we were in person and I was telling this story, you might start out believing that this is a serious, deeply personal story, and then when I got to the end, you would look at me incredulously and burst out laughing.
I'm giving you this warning up front because body language and tones are absent from blog posts, as evidenced from the fact that this is a blog.

Can you tell it's Friday? This is how Bek's Brain operates at the end of a long week.

moving on to the actual story.

Introduction:
Once upon a time I was in high school. This was sophomore year, my first year in high school with actual other classmates {yay homeschooling!}, and really my first sustained interaction with...boys. Yep. Family of girls + homeschooling + only one guy my age on the island we had just moved from = steep learning curve in 10th grade! Oh, did I mention that my class had eight guys!?!?!? Yeah. Steep learning curve.

Background:
My church's classical academy is pretty awesome. Intense and awesome. We have one dance every year...it's a ball, literally and figuratively, and we invite our parents and teachers and the mayor of our city, and we all have a dinner and honor people and dance the night away...until about 9:30pm. Truth. {Usually we all go to Red Robin afterwards, because what's the point of dressing up if you can't strut your stuff, right!?}
So this dance is called our Ambassadors' Ball, because we are all ambassadors of Christ and we like to dance {I'm sure there's a deeper, more spiritual meaning for the name, but like I said, I joined in 10th grade and never found out}. The Ambassadors' Ball happens in May, because then it's finally starting to warm up enough to wear ballgowns.

Scene:
Math class, one of the best parts of the day. Also truth. I loved {and still love} math, and I loved {and still love} our math teacher, Mrs. C. She is one of the most patient and fair teachers ever, and she makes The Best Rolls In The History Of Rolls. Also truth.
I think that we were enjoying said rolls when I hear some male classmates talking about "the dance" and how exciting it all was and how they were looking forward to "who made it" and things like that. I was slightly confused, but said nothing {Insert Mark Twain quote here: "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and confirm it."}.

So there I am, minding my own business, enjoying my roll, and my bestie comes and sits next to me and asks "So are you excited for the big dance?"

And I think to myself isn't it a bit early to be thinking about the Ambassadors' Ball in March!? And so I say as much, and Lola looks at me incredulously and says "Not our dance. College basketball!"

And honest-to-God this is what passes through my head: Aww, the basketball players have a dance! That's sweet...and weird, but ok. They have a dance for everyone in their league. That would be fun...but I'm still confused.

So I say to Lola: "The basketball players have a dance?"

And she bursts out laughing.

And I kinda laugh too, but am still bewildered.

Lola enlightens me: "They call the big tournament 'the dance.'"

Oooooooohhhhhhhh. Right. That makes perfect sense. Not.

And that is the story of how I learned about basketball, their dance, and yet another reason of why I don't follow sports.