Angels We Have Heard On High

Tonight is a BIG night! Every Tuesday night, I meet up with my friends, Cindy B., Deb, Cindy J., Heather, and Clanci to watch Glee and Biggest Loser. Well tonight, we're shaking things up!

We are starting a friendly competition between us! We're going to be challenging each other to do the GAME ON DIET in teams and believe me, the trash talking has already begun in full force. When we were first working through the logistics, I learned that one of the other teams had a name and my team didn't. Well that just wouldn't do, so my teammates threw around some names and asked me to help pick one. From the list, I chose the most clever and fun one! After picking out the name, they asked me to design a logo of sorts for us to use to promote our team. Well ladies and gentlemen here it is—the logo for our team (the winning team), VICTORIOUS SECRET!

That's right folks! We're the angels ready to mangle the other teams! We each have our personal fitness goals and there is a strong system of accountability built into the diet, so it's also a great way for us to stay connected and build stronger friendships too! I've already been doing some prep work to get my body to ease into the changes a little smoother and I'm super excited about doing this with my friends. I'm really looking forward to what will come from it all!

Run Forward

Last night I got to go to my FIRST EVER professional soccer match! It was so much fun, and not just because we won, but because I was surrounded by wonderful people! The fans in the stadium were outrageous and fun but the company of the friends who invited me—the Reddys—really made the night exciting! I got to have quality conversations and learn a lot about a sport I'd never really taken the time to pay attention to. Although I must admit, I'm not a bonafide soccer buff, I feel like I don't have to be clueless in the crowd anymore.

Here are some photos from the evening:

GO SOUNDERS!

Talk To Me

Hello Class!

Today we have a guest speaker: iChat!!

This is one of my favorite tools for communication. The ability to share files, and to chat with my friends makes me smile soooooo big!! Like this:

Exhibit A: Ridiculous Smile While Crossing Eyes From Excitement

Okay maybe not quite like that . . . but you kinda get the point ;)

But i really DO like to chat with friends. Amazingly enough, one of the people I talk to most on there is my friend Kelley.

Exhibit B: Kelley, Friend Extraordinaire

When I lived in Austin, Kelley was the person who would always hang out with me when I wanted to do stupid stuff. She'd also willingly hang out with me in the print room while waiting for 5,000 brochures to print out on the (handcrafted by Satan) Bizhub printer at 4 a.m. while we guzzled down primo octane espresso courtesy of the 24 hour Starbucks down the road. If I was going somewhere, Kelley was riding shotgun. We shared so many inside jokes and she has become one of my most near and dear best friends. Last Thanksgiving, she was able to come up to Seattle and visit me and we didn't miss a beat! I loved it!

Now that she's back at school in Texas, we use iChat to keep up with funny, sad, tough, liberating moments each day. We talk about EVERYTHING. And because we are able to play off of each other's humor (trust me, she is like 10,000,000,000 times funnier and quick witted than me!) Here are some of my favorite recent chats with Kelley:

Exhibit C: We were having a discussion and for some reason, a conversation she had had with her dorm-mate who was telling her about placenta-based shampoos came up. Please note: we are completely random people & we talk about all sorts of stuff—but it always ends in good laughs.

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Exhibit D: We were talking about how I really wanted to watch a show on TV but I had a prior engagement. The prior engagement was pretty important, but the pop-culture junkie in me really wanted to be able to watch the episode.

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Exhibit E: We had found a picture of a friend of a friend online and she made a reference back to a moment from her visit to Seattle. We had gone to see Parachute play and they were opening for Kelly Clarkson. The ENTIRE night, Kelley kept referring to Kelly Clarkson as though she were Carrie Underwood. I still get good laughs from that. PS: I have WAY too many friends and friends of friends who look like Elijah Wood.

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I'm telling you, it's never a dull moment on my iChat! I love it! PS: that picture of Andrew McMahon doing the "Haters Gonna Hate" is like . . . the best thing on the planet. It comes up constantly throughout my chats with Kelley. I'll send it to her randomly in response, and as you can see, she reciprocates the favor ;) In fact, if you ever get bored, go to my Tumblr and search back through my posts to find the chat posts. They are mainly banter between me and Kel. We are quite the duo . . . one day we will learn to fight crime together. We will be armed with wit and this:


Extra Extra PPPPPS: If you have an Instant Messenger Screen name, email me, DM me, FB Message me, or leave me a comment and I will add you and share in the shenanigans! ;) I heart my iChat! :D

Painting Pictures of Egypt

Tonight was my first ever Seder meal. My small group got together and we made it a potluck/Seder evening. It was a "Christian Seder" actually, not the legit traditional Jewish one . . . we only had 2 hours so we had to shorten it from it's traditional entirety. Though I'm kind of glad we did. I have a really hard time with really traditional things. Here's why:

1. I have a hard time being serious. My brain is seriously like spaghetti. One phrase from someone will trigger a funny thought or a memory and my mind just jumps on that wave and rides it until it meets another. There is pure joy and bliss in being random. Let's just say, my future husband will never cease to be entertained. I am, in fact, 99% random and 1% ridiculous . . . and sometimes they switch sides.

2. I have never been good at doing things "traditionally." In fact, more often than not, I hate doing things traditionally. I don't always like order or set rules and limits. It's something I try to work on, but more often than not, I lean towards nontraditional approaches to things.

3. I am accident prone. I will be honest, for the majority of the night, I sat on my hands. I had to. I get so fidgety and I get easily distracted. Most of the time, this results in spills, broken items, and frequent visits to the first aid kit. Needless to say, when it's a celebration of reflection and spiritual growth, such accidents are kind of distracting.

4. I don't really enjoy trying new foods. In fact, the majority of the time, I'm just fine with my standard comfort foods. So when you ask me to try new sorts of cheese and herbs and things I can't pronounce, something in me tries to find a way out of it. :( PS: I totally ate the horseradish . . . not knowing what it was. And since I didn't know what it was, I spread it on THICK. :| Never. Again. :|

All in all, tonight was pretty good and was a great learning experience for me. I actually had a great time and I was really proud that I caught my glass of grape juice before it spilled all over the table. The only downside was that to symbolize having a lamb shankbone, we just used a stuffed animal as representation. Did I mention that the stuffed animal lamb was sitting in front of me? BAD IDEA. Again, distraction and randomness comes full force and things like this happen:

(get it . . . they lost their shankbones!)

Here are some other photos from the evening :D I love my small group! :D

**to any of my Jewish readers that I may have offended with my stuffed animal lamb shenanigans, I apologize. I'm really working on it.

Blood Bank

Hello everyone!

I realize that the readers of this blog come from all different religious/non-religious backgrounds, but I am asking you to lift up some prayers/send good thoughts/send positive vibes/send non-sequential unmarked one dollar bills for my friends from Austin. They are 3 youth kids from my home church in Austin. Their names are Andrew, Micah, and Rachel Ansohn. They were in a head on collission today. This was an update from my friend Mariah:

Three of my friends were in a head on collision this afternoon and two were starflighted Brackenridge and the other is most likely going to have heart surgery.

I had the opportunity to be a mentor to Micah and Rachel personally, since they were in the youth ministry small group that I led. I know that the doctors that are treating them are competent and capable of fixing them, but there is also a lot of mental trauma and emotional trauma for them and their family that can come from accidents like these. They are so near and dear to my heart and I would appreciate any love you could send their way.

Thank you so much!

Love,

Amo.

some of my Flying Marshmallows small group members.
Rachel is the one in the pink shirt

An update about the accident:

Andrew's ankle was broken and Micah's wrist was broken. Rachel suffered the most injuries but is doing really well now!

thank you all so much for any well wishes or prayers or thoughts :D

I've Got Friends

Today I got a call from my old housemate Geizel while I was shopping for souvenirs for my family downtown. She asked if we could grab coffee at the Panera near the Northgate Mall, so I said yeah. I met up with her and had a nice latte and she invited me over for dinner. I figured that since we were closer to my house than hers that we should just go back to the Roosevelt House. We stopped by the QFC to pick up ribs and vegetables to eat for dinner and headed home to eat. We had a great conversation on the way to the house. We were reminiscing over the fun times we had when she lived here with us.

One of my favorite conversations went like this:

ME: That's so cool that Rosalind might come back!
Geizel: What was her son's name? Wasn't it Kingle?
ME: hahahaha! It was Kataan.
Geizel: Oh I knew it was something like that.

It was so good to just laugh and laugh and have so much fun with an amazing friend. When we got home we made dinner and it seemed like no one was home, but there were! Karli and Gina were home and joined us around the table as we all ate and laughed about good times and shared updates on what we'd been up to recently. During our discussion, Karli came up with an idea to have a memory board of sorts in our living room. So we once again grouped up and went on a short fun trip to Target to get all sorts of fun stuff for the board. We laughed a lot and caused a few scenes in Target just being silly ;p .

When we got home, we all shared chocolate dipped strawberries and just enjoyed each others' company. I loved being able to hang out with Geizel and just have another fun night with the housemates. I really love the amazing people I live with. They truly make my heart happy!

Meddle

Guess who's ready for the Oscars tomorrow???

I AM!
and so is . . . Metropolitan Market!

Check it out though:

I gotta admit, I never thought I'd be getting the red carpet treatment at Metropolitan Market.

But it's true, the Oscars are goin' down tomorrow and I'm so excited! I love watching the Oscars. I'm really not a fan of the fact that they are including MORE nominees in the catergories though. I think they should stick to the original limit. I feel like half the show is going to be spent reading off the lists of nominees.

I'll post my predictions tomorrow. :D

In other news, I went to see Alice in Wonderland and I LOVED it! Tim Burton is one of my faves and I loved the movie!

PS: I want ALL of Alice's dresses from the flick! They were GORGEOUS and sooo artsy!

This one was my fave though:


Tonight will be exciting as well—I'm going to a LITTLE BOOTS concert tonight with Kayleigh and I fully intend on getting my spaz dance on! :D

Miss California

I'm gonna take you to my boxcar on the beach
I'm gonna hang the sun above your bed
and soak your hair in bleach
You'll be missed, Miss California
You'll be kissed by only me
When they can't find you
You'll turn into a mystery
but you're no mystery to me

I call on Jesus but he heard I hurt his little girl
Yeah with my reckless stare
I've been so unfair misplacing my affections
She had a reason not to take me back into her care
Oh I'm just a stray dog now
I can't beg or bow
Just give me some direction

- Miss California by Jack's Mannequin

I got to hang out with some great women last night and talk about love and marriage (goes together like a horse and carriage). Coming from a broken home, I find that I have "every right" to not believe in love, to not believe that marriage can work, but it's just not the case for me. I'm not sure if it's just my natural defiance, but I have the biggest hopes for the success of marriage. I believe it IS possible for two people to journey through life together, with all of its ups and downs and work together to make their love and life worthwhile. I consider myself lucky to be surrounded by amazing men and women who remind me that it IS in fact, still possible and worth it all.

One thing we talked about was the dynamic of bringing two sets of everyday life and emotions into the mix. For instance, how the course of one person's day may be contrary to the other person's day, but when you come home, you bring your day with you and all the emotions associated with it. There can easily be a disconnect—that point when you want to shut down and just go home, not say anything, just walk around like a drone, and call it a night—instead of spending quality time with your husband or wife.

Admittedly, it's harder for women to disconnect from the day, and thus, we have the greater tendency to "not want to talk about it," or give up because "you just wouldn't understand" what we went through that day, and we can just go through daily motions to make it through another day. Oh the joys of (in general) being more emotional than our male counterparts.

One really tangible challenge I walked away with was from a story that one of the women shared. It was a story about a guy who would always carry a tape recorder with him, and on his way home, he would record himself talking to the recorder about all the burdens and junky stuff that happened during the day. He would then pull into his driveway, and before walking in the door, would erase the tape. He would get all the junk and stuff out of his mind, and was then able to walk in the door, ready to focus on his wife and family, not burdened by the weight of mundane life. I realize there must be a balance of talking about life with the love of your life, but some things really CAN get in the way—even in platonic relationships.

When I'm reminded how much power the words I speak and the attitudes I adopt affect my relationships, it wakes me up to the realization that I can change things and I can make everyday life a bit easier. I notice that when I get home to my housemates, I face the same dilemma: I've had a long day and I'm SO ready to just disconnect and go to my room and check e-mail and all my various social networking sites. And then I remember the times when we get together as housemates and how much fun we have just talking together and doing random silly stuff. These housemates of mine are my friends, and I get to see them every day, which may be why it's so easy to take them for granted. But they matter, and I realize I need to train myself to change some of my habits to devote time to them, and my other friends. If anything, it'll be good practice, and as I've heard a thousand times, "PRACTICE MAKES PERMANENT." There is a balance, and now I'm reminded to challenge myself to find it and live in it.

Champagne For My Real Friends, Real Pain For My Sham Friends

Okay, so by far, one of my favorite people to talk to is Kelley Rowe. She's hilarious and she lets me be as ridiculous as I need to be so that I can sift through my mess of a brain that functions at 90 miles a minute.

For instance, today I shared with her an article about the Olympics and how North Korea and South Korea aren't going to march together in the Opening Torch Ceremony. I told her I thought it was dumb, mainly because I'm more of a peacemaker and I think it's silly that they won't march together. Did I mention that Kelley also keeps me grounded in reality when my idealistic whimsy attacks?

Here is our conversation from earlier:


Kelley: ...good grief
well you know
i kind of support that
north korea has chosen to isolate itself in open aggression against the international community. as warm and fuzzy as the olympics are, we shouldnt pretend that the situation isnt what it is. i would think it was silly if it was only an expression of disunity at the olympics. but its not...its representative of a real-life situation. north korea has been testing missiles meant to carry nuclear war heads in the sea of japan. it is open hostility against japan and the rest of the world. their actions cant be without repercussions, even ones that seem petty

Me: i just think it's all silly. all of it.
also, i'm scripting a movie about it where one of the competitors from North Korea falls in love with someone from South Korea. I'm going to make their team colors blue vs. red. And I'm going to nickname one of them Shark and the other Jet. Then I'm going to add in a plot twist about getting a golden pendant to a shop called Middle Earth. The working title is: OLYMPITAR

Kelley: lol
you are so ridiculous
OLYMPITAR...
will there be a boy wizard working in the shop in middle earth?

Me: of COURSE there's a boy wizard!
how do you think Shark and Jet get together in the end??
crap. now i've spoiled the movie for you
sorry

Kelley: ...magical spell?

Me: i'm not telling . . . it would be too big of a spoiler

Kelley: awww

Me: hehehehehehe
. . . let's just say it involves a magic potion called Eywa

Kelley: eeeh
creepee
or is it... treepee
hmm

I think it should be a mandated law that everyone have SOMEONE they can just be ridiculous with :D

Bittersweet Symphony

I just realized that I'm about to lose one of my best friends to one of the most amazing endeavors ever. And by lose I don't mean they're dying or anything, I just mean that contact will be slim to none—and that's hard for someone like me who enjoys the convenience of constant contact with friends (it's my sole purpose of having facebook/tumblr/twitter, etc.)

But soon my friend Joshua will be leaving the United States to travel to Kenya, Africa to serve the people there. I've know Joshua for about 10 years and I've gotten to watch him grow in character, talent, and I've also gotten to see his heart for people grow as well. It's going to be bittersweet when he leaves, but I know it's the right thing and I know that what he's doing matters.

I consider myself blessed to know people who are unafraid to do daring things. I went to lunch with Joshua when I was home for the holidays and I got to 'hear his heart' for the people in Kenya and I am so excited for all that he is going to do.

One thing he is doing to raise funds before he heads out is to sell some of his beautiful artwork. These are the prints he is selling:




(you can see larger versions HERE)
I'm going to buy one later this week after payday. I think I'm going to buy this one:



I'm 100% sure it will be the BEST $20 I've ever spent. Supporting friends warms my heart. Supporting friends who are living their dreams and making a real difference warms it even more!

If you have a spare $20 and would like to give it to a worthy cause, please e-mail Joshua at joshua77177@gmail.com and let him know which one you'd like and he will let you know where to send the dinero. I know it may seem like a ton of money in our current economy, but if you can, you should. His photography is beautiful and the work he is doing is meaningful.

I'm On A Boat

This past Saturday, I got to go with Kayleigh to the Seattle Boat Show! Now, for the record, I've never actually been to a Boat Show, so I had no clue what I was doing or planning to see, but I knew I'd have tons of fun hanging with Kayleigh. :D

Here are some pics from our day:

WE'RE ON A BOAT!


You goin' my way?

Kayleigh in the restroom on the boat

Me in the restroom on the boat

You know, just in case someone thinks about stealing Kayleigh's coffee ;p

That's what they call me

My pirate ship

The Ferrari of boats . . .

The hot dog stand man who offered us weed. We settled for hot dogs instead ;)

That's What Friends Are For

My old housemate, Geizel, was on the bus this morning on my ride in to downtown. :D She and I had planned this summer to go to New York together, but due to her needing to take medication not covered by her health care plan, she's not going to be able to.
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But not to worry, this change of plans just makes things EVEN BETTER!

I talked to my best friend, Sarah, this morning. She is originally from Baltimore, Maryland but now she and her husband live in West Virginia. So, in our talking, the loose game plan right now is to fly into Baltimore, and meet up with her there and stay the night with her folks, who just bought a swanky new townhouse. Did I mention that this townhouse has a game room? With board games and video games and all other types of gaming goodness??? I'm SO stoked!

From there, we'll spend some time in Baltimore with the family and then she and I will road trip it up to The Big Apple and check out some fun stuff together! I'm super duper excited!

Then we are gonna head back to Baltimore and spend some more time enjoying each other's company.

I'm really excited to see what kind of silly goodness we can add to our time together!

The last time we saw each other was over a year and a half ago. This visit is LONG overdue!

A Lesson In Charades

I am a sucker for games. I just am. Game nights RULE, in my opinion. I could spend hours and be perfectly content just playing Pit or Scattergories or Pop5 or any other fun board game. One game that I hadn't played in the LONGEST time is Charades. So when I got together with some friends during my trip home, we played Charades and it was SO fun—I can't believe I haven't played in so long!

I thought that for this post, I'd invite you into some of the fun and games we had . . .

Help!

I had a GREAT meeting last night with my Help-Portrait group! We met up at Cupcake Royale and talked details about our Help-Portrait event that we will be holding in Lake City. We'll be working with Low-Income Housing Institute to provide professional quality portraits for free to families that could otherwise not afford to have their portraits done. :D

For those who don't know what Help-Portrait is, it's a movement that is bringing together great photographers of all levels to use their time,talents, and energy to provide the less fortunate with a great portrait for the holiday season. My group has predominantly professionals, some who are almost pro, and then me—as amateur as they come ;) I really do enjoy being the hobbyist photographer on my team, because I feel like I get this awesome opportunity to learn more about professional photography AND I get to use this great hobby that i love to give back to people that I love :D

When I was a kid and my parents divorced, life was decidedly different. We went from living in a nice house, with tons of toys, and just about every privilege one can imagine to living in a small apartment with my mom, who was now a single-parent managing a job and 3 high-maintenance kids. Hand-me-downs became popular and we had to learn to make things last longer. I remember being selected at school to participate in some of the events they had for low-income-family kids and that odd feeling of "should I feel blessed that they're doing this or is it just another reminder that I'll never have anything fancy to call my own?" My sister, her boyfriend, and my 2 nieces are now also a low-income-family, and I know how great it feels to know that anytime I'm home, I get to do a portrait session (of sorts) with my niece and have some really nice photos to give back to my family. Thus, when I discovered this movement, started by famous photographer Jeremy Cowart, this event was a no-brainer—I'M IN!

I'm working with a group of Seattle photographers, to share the photographic love in our fair city. So far we have three separate housing communities that we are working with to provide family portraits to, as well we are seeking out at least one or two other locations. We estimate we will be able to provide at least 100 families with a wonderful portrait in time for the holiday season!

The awesome thing about Jeremy's vision for this is that it's ALL about others, and not about us (as artists/photographers). We aren't making ANY profit from the event and we're not using any of the shots to build up our portfolios. It's ALL about connecting with others in the way that only photographers can.

If you are living in Seattle and are saying, "Dude, that's cool! I'm not a photographer, and I wouldn't be able to be there at the event to help, but I DO want to help someway." Then please consider donating to the cause. We met last night and rounded up the guesstimation that with rentals and cost of printing the photos, it's about $3 per family. That's 3 bones! 3 smackaroonies! I'll be contributing my own money as well but our goal is to raise $200 for the event to be as successful as possible. If you are in the area and would like to donate three bones to help sponsor a family in need, please contact me by email: amomca@gmail.com or by twitter: twitter.com/amomca or by commenting on this post and we will work out a way for me to pick up the donation. I TOTALLY understand that this is a "strapped for cash" season and especially with the economy, it's harder to give, but if you DO have 3 dollars laying around somewhere, we sure could use it! :D

For more information on Help-Portrait, see the videos & links below:





Help-Portrait
Help-Portrait Seattle
Press Release

Defying Gravity

Hey look! It's me! That one girl who neglects her blog at times :( boo. Bad. Amanda. Bad. Lame.

Currently I'm looking at the floor of my room . . . well, I dunno if you'd consider it a floor. Basically it's a mass of paper and clothes . . . and bags and boxes . . . and a pumpkin carving book? how did that get there??? What a whirlwind these past few weeks have been!

My latest thing to report is how much fun I had taking the youth girls from Westside down to Portland for the Revolve Tour! It was phenomenal! I'll write more detailed stuff later, but just know that this weekend totally rocked for these girls (and for me)! A lot of people wonder How and Why I would ever be able to mentor junior high kids. I just CANNOT imagine doing something else! These kids TOTALLY captivate my heart! I love being able to bring life and as much wisdom as I can as they navigate the tough parts of growing up—peer pressure, boys, zits, popularity/unpopularity, stress, love, friendship, zits . . . oh wait. mentioned that one already ;)

But really, these students just WIN in my life! It was so awesome seeing them smile so big and to hear their stories and share life with them.

One really fun thing we did on the way up was that Cindy J. brought some foil with her (i recommend doing this on ANY road trip—instant fun!) and we made foil creations in the car! So what I made for myself was antennas. And then I would put them on and as we passed by cars on the road, I would look out the window with my antennas on and my head poised on top of my hand, senior portrait style, and just smile and wave at people. It was awesome! Most people did double takes, lots of people smiled, and one girl even mouthed, "OH MY WORD" as she saw me. :D Here's just a FEW pics of our time. There will be many more to come!