ideas, ideas.

I’ve been laying in bed for a while now, mind racing.  If you’ve ever seen “Laugh your way to a better marriage,” clips you’ll recognize the metaphor I’m about to put into play: I can’t possibly tie my thoughts together coherently for this blog post, since everything is connected in one way or another.  One thought I had was “what if I could go write down everything I’m thinking and categorize it into blocks?” Like, an 8.5×11 sheet of paper for each category of life.  “Housekeeping” would be one, “Work” and then I confused myself.  Would “Relationships” be a category? Or “Friendships”? How would one of my friends feel to walk into my office and see their name on a sheet of paper?  The idea I was pondering, and came to my computer to think through was that of service- what can I be doing to actively care for the people who live around me?  I kind of want to host a block party.  More on that later.  I also think I should exercise or do something active, regularly.  Do all my thoughts fit into categories? What about the overlap?

So, screw the categories thing.  I spent too much time reading about (and implementing) Google’s priority inbox and lifehacker advice on to-do lists tonight.

Here’s my thought.  Ash Wednesday is tomorrow.  I’ve already committed to observing Lent, corporately with my church family as we journey through the theme “How does Death lead to Life?” alongside some other churches globally.  I’ve had some interesting conversations about Lenten habits,  I’m remembering how much I grew spiritually while observing Lent in college- giving up sugar, implementing times of solitude and silence, my first Seder meal, and that magical midnight Easter service…

In conjunction with the challenge from Steve on Sunday (“Serve somewhere this week.”), Tyler’s suggestion that we could go play and sing at my Great Aunt’s nursing home, and the beginning of Lent, I wonder is it possible and beneficial to give 1-2 hours a week doing an act of kindness towards a senior citizen? I can think of a few options- bring flowers to Mary, invite Alvin and Mary over again (it’s been a year since that sweet dinner), go over and show photos to Alvin, visit Aunt Leora at her place, think of something intentional to bring to her or talk to her about when having dinner at my parent’s, go visit Granddad in his part of the house, stay with Grandmother so that Mom and Granddad can have a day off, take Granddad to breakfast… I have a lot of senior citizens in my life right now.  They are so time-consuming.  Lord, give me patience even as I think about these things.  It’s not something that I can just “stop by” for 15 minutes and do.  I definitely have enough ideas to cover 6 weeks, once a week events.  And enough people to spread it out to!

My other idea was a block party.  We know a good handful of neighbors, and it could be a simple enough thing.  Print out invitations, buy plastic cups and have cold water in our water cooler, bring Krispy Kreme, get a huge kickball (or a regular sized kickball), pick a date and time, and go knock on doors to invite folks who live on the street.  Boom. Block party.  I do things like this all the time on campus, it’s not that hard.  Pick an activity and a food or drink and that’s the name of your awesome event (e.g. Kickball & Kool Aid… 4 Square & Capri Sun… volleyball & watermelon).  This will be “kickball & krispy kreme block party”  It even sounds epic.

So, I’m excited!  I love ideas and dreaming up things to do.  The question is now, should and will I do them?

“2011″ (the most unique blog title on the internet today)

Ok, so I want to be a blogger again… As previously stated, I am a verbal processor, so writing fulfills a learning role for me.  I have also been feeling like I’m losing my brain cells lately.  Seriously having a hard time remembering things, losing at strategy games, etc.  Actually, I’m wondering if I’ve always lost at strategy games– my closest sibling in age is 4 years older and he used to beat me soundly in games of Risk, Stratego, Battleship, Dots, Tic Tac Toe… Now I’m 24 and trying to figure out how to have fun while playing Settlers of Catan with friends and family while I inevitably do stupid things and lose the game.

In the past year I have actually written a few posts with some thoughts I wanted to work out, but they never got to what I would consider “post-worthy”.  I’m writing this ridiculous stream of consciousness post right now to get over that.

I’ll take a page out of my sister EJ’s book and tell you what I’m cooking!  One of my pet peeves in cooking is when ingredients get wasted before they get cooked.  In this whole year of marriage, I don’t think I’ve finished a box of chicken broth yet, and it always makes me annoyed as I realize it’s been open for a week, 1/4 cup used, and I’m pouring it down the drain.  So today after church I decided to use the rest in my crock pot so we can have a nice little meal when Tyler wakes up.

I searched the internet for recipes with my limited ingredients and settled on modifying a chicken cacciatore recipe- I mean, really modifying.  Ok I just wanted to cook the chicken, and  I didn’t have any tomato sauce, mushrooms, or even an onion.  So we’ll see how this turns out!  (1 c. chicken broth, 1/2 c leftover red wine, 2 tsp chopped garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, parsley in a slow cooker).

This year, I have a few goals which I will not call “New Year’s Resolutions,” and one of them is to blog more.  I’m wondering how much easier it would be to have a blogspot account since I am deep into the world of Google?  Any input? I also don’t know how to change fonts and it’s hard to add photos to posts in WordPress.  Any help?