Someday soon I'll actually write something on here again :)

Flashback: watching Miami's varsity sball team kick
some butt a few weeks ago

Neon sports mesh material at Wal Mart!
Can anyone say, "summer tie blanket?"

Mervis is Visiting!!

More on that later. For now, here are a couple of other lovely pics from the week.

Monday night flashback, playing in the
parking garage in Cincy with Allie :)

Bowling Round 3

Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through him who strengthens me."
... (except bowl apparently). Scored an 87 and a 102. Not my best night I must say.

Twinsies

She loves when we match

Is it Friday yet?

Flashback: weaving Peter through my nose ring

Mmmm... Nada

Went downtown to celebrate my friend Courtney's 25th birthday and ate at a DELICIOUS Mexican restaurant called Nada. The food was great but the company was even better :)

Apparently Tex felt very strongly about
wanting Allie out of the picture

Highlighter Yellow Softball Bats!? Sign me up.

Wedding!

The wonderful bride and groom

Lori! (She had to take her shoes off because
she was towering over me).

A Visit to Indy

Tonight, I ventured out in the crazy storms and picked miss Elizabeth up from the Indianapolis airport. We then headed to Bub's (this random burger/hot dog joint in Carmel, IN) to meet our friends Lisa and Marlene for dinner. Such a random but fun night. The morning hours will bring a movie adventure to see the Hunger Games in our pajamas and then we'll be off to my friend Ashley's wedding in West Lafayette!

Highlighter yellow demon eyes on Mak the cat

Song Obsession #7

Australia Flashback: Pulling an all-nighter to finish
Project Learning Curve. Boooo. But we both passed so that's good.

Another picture from that night. Our coping
mechanism? Chocolate cake.

And another... Amanda is stressed. Although if I remember
correctly, at this point she was still about 4 times
closer to being finished with the assignment than I was.

Today was an Incredibly Beautiful Day

Seriously, 85 and sunny in March? So awesome.

Flashback: Christmas Conference 2010 with
my beautiful Summer Project loves

Busy Day

Today was crazy busy... and stressful. But I haven't had many super intense pressure/deadline situations since I raised financial support this past summer for my year of full-time ministry with Cru, so that's been like almost 6 months of a fairly laid-back atmosphere. And my soul desperately needed that. But today was good too. Stressful days provide opportunities for me to grow and to learn more about surrendering my schedule and plans to the Lord. Although I don't necessarily enjoy it in the moment, I can look back, see  the ways that God has been doing crazy big things in my life,  and be grateful that things don't always run smoothly. It seems that the grace and peace of Christ is sometimes most clearly reflected in the messiness, ya know?

Flashback: Worshipping around the fire at Sunday night's
community group. So good. Sadly, my highlighter yellow shoelaces
did not make it in the picture...But I promise they're there :)

Meet My Club Softball Loves

Stumbled upon these lovely ladies on my walk home from Skyline.
Vik, showing off the highlighter yellow sports bra. Love it :)

Sunday Happenings

Things I did today (and the times at which I did them):

4:18am- Wake up to take Liz to the Indianapolis airport. I was actually informed that we were to leave the apartment by 4:15am. But alas, I hit snooze a few times. Which in my defense, is a natural thing to do at 4am. Nevertheless, I am very grateful that Liz continues to show me grace in my struggle with punctuality.

8:20am- Return home from dropping Liz off at the airport. My original plan was to drive straight to Middletown for the 10am service at church but seeing that I almost fell asleep at the wheel about 3 different times, I figured it would be wisest to go home and sleep.

1:30pm- Wake up from my morning nap.

2:15-4:55pm- Walk up to Skyline. Order one cheese coney (with mustard and onion) and a greek salad (no peppers). Walk home. Eat while chatting with Brian via Skype... which was cruel of me considering that he is almost as obsessed as I am with the fine Cincinnati chili establishment and is approximately 7,000 miles away from the nearest Skyline location.

5:20-9:45pm- Throw softball with Allie/ Enjoy some awesome fellowship at community group

11:45pm- Bed (this event has obviously not happened yet but I'm pretty confident it will go ahead as planned)

I could totally rock these highlighter rims on my 1999 Honda Accord :)

Just Another Saturday in the good ole Ox Box

Movie night with Riekie!

Mug N Muffin Round 2!

Tomorrow morning marks Cru's second Mug N Muffin event of the school year and I'm PUMPED to hear some of the staff women speak on the topic of "Do I measure up? A look at competition and comparison among women." Mug N Muffin is an event that the staff women host each semester where we invite all of the female students in the movement to bring a coffee mug (we supply the coffee and muffins) and to spend a relaxing Saturday morning in fellowship with each other while discussing a particular topic. I'm looking forward to spending my morning hanging out with the students and I'm super excited to see how God uses the speakers and the event in general to shed some light on this issue for the women in the Cru movement here at Miami. Below is a look into the preparations that Liz and I (but mostly just Liz) made for the event!

My freaking awesome roomie who baked all of these
muffins for me so that I could watch the Terminator 2

Note the highlighter yellow (okay okay... sort of greenish)
rubber gloves on the right. Liz uses them when she washes
 the dishes because she can't handle the scalding hot water
that I prefer to use :)

Let the Madness Begin!

March Madness is under way and I actually filled out a bracket this year which is pretty awesome. Brian and I have a "Battlestar Galactica" themed group which makes things that much more exciting... and nerdy. But I've decided that nerdy is the new cool. So there.

Um. Yes please. Found these when I google-searched
 "highlighter yellow" (something I do quite often).

Hello Spring!

Today was freaking gorgeous and I had the incredible pleasure of spending some time in West Chester on my back patio basking in the sun with my mom... while drinking sweet tea from Skyline. Seriously, what more could a girl ask for?

Allie sporting the epic sweatband... and being camera shy

Song Obsession #6

90's Night flashback

Wedding Season+Highlighter Yellow=Interesting

I would have to say that the most frequent question I get about my year-long highlighter-yellow-wearing extravaganza is "what are you going to do when wedding season comes?" And my response is usually something along the lines of "I have no idea, but at least I have a few months to figure it out." Unfortunately, my time has prematurely run out given that I'll be attending my dear friend Ashley's wedding in less than 2 weeks. I'm trying to focus on keeping it classy so I'm thinking I'll have to approach this from the angle of finding highlighter yellow accessories, possibly some jewelry? Maybe a clutch? Maybe some highlighter accented high heels? Maybe I'll paint my silver heels highlighter yellow? Hm... this could go downhill pretty fast...Suggestions are definitely welcomed and encouraged :)

Here's a good start though, complements of Allie.

Spring Break 2012 in Pictures, part 2

Campus time with two of my lovely condo
 roomies, Sara and Hannah

"get rid of any leftover food" lunch on our last day

Staff

Campus dinner at Schooners, last night in PCB :(

Playing "peel the onion"... aka "try not to get kicked as the
boys fight to stay chained together"

Please note Anthony doing the splits

The best "chain" ever. Also, I love how
I'm the oldest and yet by far the shortest of
the group. Story of my life :)

Spring Break 2012 in Pictures, part 1

... we just got home like an hour ago and apparently posting all of their pics from Big Break on Facebook so that I could put them on my blog tonight was not anyone's top priority. Sad. Here's a little taste to leave you hanging in suspense :)

Did you know the assessed worth of the White House is something like $260 million?

I was going to post this great "celebration" picture from Trivia last night (2nd place... I'll take it!) because I'm wearing the highlighter beanie in it... but let's be honest:  how can I compete with this???

Pretty sure I know which team will be the Furg favorite :)

Today I dropped 6 unbaked Double Chocolate Muffins at Kofs.  It looked a little like this:

Tragedy.

But then I scooped it up off the floor, baked what I could salvage, and ate a warm and delicious and incredibly nutritious cupca...err... muffin for breakfast.

Victory!

Don't worry, I didn't sell any to customers.  Just trying to build up my weakened immune system!!

That's all I've got my friends.  Hard to believe my week with you is almost over.  I'll be sure to have a grand finale tomorrow - complete with deep thoughts and brilliant biblical insight and shocking secrets and embarrassing photos and probably some sort of reference to food and surely a nod to highlighter yellow.  Lattes and Laughter until we meet again!

75 and sunny? Not so much in OH.

I played racquetball this morning.  And my entire body hurts.  I also just chose to respect my slowing metabolism and eat oatmeal at Panera instead of getting wings tonight at Trivia.  My entire heart hurts.

These are just two examples of what it's like getting old.

Though, to be fair, I still intend on filling my spring break craving and getting criss-cut fries at Skippers tonight.  So whatever.  I'm young at heart!  I do what I want!  I still pretend like I'm in college because I live in a town that's on a college schedule!  Boo-yah.

And just to clarify - my rash was an allergic reaction to an antibiotic I was on.  Not something else that could cause all you fine people out there to wonder why I would post such personal information online:

Panama City Beach update!

Hello my dear blog readers. Caroline here. Liz was gracious enough to step aside from her blogging duties for a day and let me give you a quick update. Greetings from the panhandle. Can you say Spring Break 2012!? I'm here in Panama City Beach with about 1,000 college students for a conference called Big Break. Its a Christian conference where students from all over the country come to receive training on how to share their faith in practical ways. We have the opportunity to talk with other college students on the beach and learn about their opinions on life, spirituality, etc. Its been a great week so far and the weather has been incredible! Today was 75 and sunny and in my stubbornness, I only put sunscreen on my cheeks and on the tops of my shoulders... and now I have a crazy farmer's tan. But whatevs, at least I'm no longer pasty white.

Our days have been pretty full and although I absolutely love Florida, I'm getting pretty worn out already. We have a morning session from 10am-12pm each day, take a quick break for lunch, talk to people on the beach from 1:30-3:30pm, eat dinner at 5:30pm, go to an evening session from 7-9pm, and then have women's time/campus time/free time. Its like a sort-of vacation. I get to be in the beautiful sunshine everyday but don't really have much time to just chill, and I'm all about chill-time. But hey, I'm not complaining. The condos we're staying in are gorgeous, we're having a staff vs. students beach volleyball tourney on Friday, and God is doing some crazy awesome things in Panama City Beach this year. What more could I ask for?

No, I did not get engaged. Sorry for the misleading
picture. I'm trying to point you to the
highlighter yellow streaks on my nails.

I still like "Searching for God Know's What" better, but...

That's Highlighter Yellow... right?

I have decided to re-read "Blue Like Jazz."  I loved it the first time through, but haven't picked it up since... gosh... I think it was my senior year at Miami?  Maybe my victory lap?  Regardless - it's been awhile.  I wanted to read it again because someone recently posted this on facebook:

This intrigues me.  Not sure how Miller's thoughts will play out on the big screen.  Especially since this isn't exactly a novel with a strong plot.  And regardless of the subtitle of the book - "Nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality" - this is still a book about Jesus, written by what the world so negatively dubs an "evangelical."  Should be interesting.

And just a thought to leave with you this fine evening... how has your view on God/Jesus/Christianity/Faith/Everything else that goes along with this idea of Spirituality changed in the past 5 years?  Do you think it's maturity?  A particular experience that made you look at things differently?  A deeper knowledge and understanding?  Disillusionment?

This morning, as I tried to turn off my alarm, I managed to throw my lamp on the ground. Shattered the lightbulb. Had to vacuum at 5:40am. Is that even how you spell vacuum??

Furgs.  Pre-Highlighter.  I miss this girl.

I think if I lived alone for an extended period of time I would gain about 40 lbs.  Food, being my love language, is also my coping mechanism for boredom.  Sometimes I convince myself that baking/cooking is the same thing as being productive... so instead of cleaning or catching up on work emails or showering, I try out new recipes.  Yesterday it was 4 dozen "Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies" (more on those below).  The name doesn't lie:  Tex ate 10 all by himself.  This morning it was beer bread.  Yes.  Morning + Beer.  And while at work (it's good to be the boss).  Tonight is Apple Bourbon Pie.  Mainly because I have to take advantage of my time without Caroline (apple haters are weird), and there was a huge bag of Manager's Special apples just waiting for me at Kroger.  Yummmm.

So.  Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.  Last week I went to the store for Kofs.  I picked up a large container of Quaker Oats Oatmeal to make a batch of our delicious homemade granola.  But alas, I grabbed the quick oats by accident.  Big mistake.  Little did I know that God was actually doing me a favor:  3 days later I awoke to little red spots all over my body.  I mean all over people.  Red itchiness from head to toe (is it bad form to talk about a rash on the internet)?  I used that fantastic little purchasing mistake to make myself not one, but two wonderfully relaxing (though not very healing) oatmeal bathes to sooth the itching.  I then strained the oatmeal out and made the cookies...  jk :)

I bring this up because I wonder why I am so quick to assume that the Lord had absolutely nothing to do with this.  I believe in coincidences.  I believe that sometimes things just happen, and that people who try to use God to make sense of every little detail and every little decision are slightly delusional.  And oftentimes annoying.  But here's the deal:  I also believe in a God who created everything.  Who is personal.  Alive and active in the world today.  And a God who is ultimately in control.  Maybe I just grabbed the wrong type of oatmeal because I was tired and distracted and dumb.  But regardless of the "why", I know the outcome was God using it for good, redeeming the situation so that I could find comfort and ultimately sit here and type a random blog post giving Him the glory.

So there.  Thank you Jesus.  You once again got my back.  Rash and all.

I wore Highlighter to work!  Aren't you proud!  
but then i got coffee on it... oops.

Someone had to be me

We had a guest speaker at The Oaks this morning.  Brian Howard from Sojourn.  Good sermon, funny dude.  Made a couple references to Judas smoking cigarettes in the corner.  This had pretty much nothing  to do with the message, but it does make you wonder about Judas.  Which of course leads me to hum along with the Griffin House song about this tragic man.  Check it out.  Ponder away.

So this guy walks into Kofenya... (sounds like a bad joke, right?  This is actually strangely accurate for most of my stories from work)... a random college-aged dude getting coffee for him and his girlfriend.  Somehow, someway, he makes some obscure reference to one of my favorite chick flicks of all time - "You've Got Mail."  We proceed to talk for 10 minutes, dissecting the intricacies of the plot, commenting on how sadly outdated aol has become, and voicing our frustrations over the obvious inconsistency in character development when Meg Ryan wanders into a Starbucks.  I mean, huuulllloooooo.  She's supposed to represent all things small business!

Anywho.  I only bring this up because:

a)  I love this movie and plan on watching it this week
b)  It's spring break... and a few spring breaks ago I decided to watch "The Godfather" for the sole reason of wanting to understand the references made by Tom Hanks
c)  I have this burning desire to start all blog entries like Meg Ryan wants to start all emails:  as if she's in the middle of a story with an old friend

Furgs wants a cat.  I can't blame her, but while I love my sister's famous feline friend - Cheeto - I have been and always will be a dog person.  And I almost stole this one last night:

My little chihuahua friend.  I'm pretty sure she weighed 0.23 lbs.

Are you noticing that there is absolutely zero flow to this post?  Just kind of writing whatever I please.

If you've spent more than 3 minutes with me, you probably know that one of my greatest joys in life is also one of my greatest pains.  Change is inevitable in life.  And change is hard.  And change is one of the defining characteristics in the Oxbox.  People come and go all the freaking time.  So, the pain is obvious:  it feels like my friends up and leave every day.  But the joy?  New people, new friends, new opportunities constantly present themselves.  You know - one is silver and the other gold - or something like that.  Last night was one of those times when I could take a step back and recognize the crazy ways that God has blessed me with the comings and goings of people in my life... I miss my friends so much, but how can I not love what I have right in front of me?  Tex, who I've known for years.  Allie, who I have served coffee to countless times but now get to call a fellow barista and friend.  The three of us going on a random adventure to Cinci.  So good :)

Bockfest: Representin' the highlighter in OTR.  And if you majorly zoom in you can see the lead-singer of the band sporting a helmet and a pink tard (that's leotard without the leo).

Aloha!

Hello interweb!  I am Liz, and I will be your faithful fill-in while Furgie spends the week down in Panama City Beach.  She gave me full freedom to post what I please, so watch out world... this could get interesting.  Perhaps a quick introduction would be helpful.  The highlights, if you will (see what I did there?!):

• Favorite Food:  Filet Mignon - high class till the end
• Family Motto:  Minimum effort for maximum results
• Current song on repeat:  Rivers and Roads by The Head and the Heart
• Biggest vice:  Buffalo Chicken Dip.  And selfishness.
• The only item that has so far been completed on my very weak 30 before 30 list:  Color my hair  (bonus points to whoever can name the only other for-sure, yet currently incomplete, entry).

That's enough excitement for one day!  See yinz tomorrow.  Mahalo :)

That's me!  The HIGHLIGHTER worksheet just so happens to have a map of Macedonia on it, so it only made sense to pull out the MK flag mug.  Blog Day 1?  Success.

Target-ing

Highlighter Yellow Makes It To Fiji!

So somehow, the Fijians caught wind of the awesomeness that is highlighter yellow... which is incredibly exciting. My friend Brian is a missionary in Fiji and was speaking at Cru's weekly meeting when the lady introducing him said, "And Brian's favorite color is highlighter yellow." Which is hilarious, because his favorite color is actually blue. So someone substituted my favorite color for his favorite color when giving the woman the introduction info. And this makes me really happy.

As long as highlighter yellow, and the Gospel, are making it around the globe, I'm a happy camper.