Helping hand

One of my favorite songs we sing at my church goes like this:

Have I done any good in the world today?
Have I helped anyone in need?
Have I cheered up the sad? Made someone feel glad?
If not, I have failed indeed.

I really like it for two reasons: 1) the message is, obviously, the bomb and 2) I can do a really cool jazzy version of it while singing in the shower.

The ear doctor loves hearing this version at 6:45 in the morning while he is still trying to eek out a few more minutes of sleep.


Most of the time I feel like my days may tend toward this definition of failure. I spend an annoying amount of time worried about my own world and making sure my own needs are met.

But last night was different. The girl who lives with us has been feeling stressed, overwhelmed and under prepared for her college classes. I remember feeling the exact same way my freshmen year of college. Between homework and social life and all the rest it seemed like everyone around me had things organized and figured out so much better! Then I remembered how I fixed that feeling. I got myself a huge desk calender and wrote everything down. So, I bough her a desk calender and showed her the glory of color coding.

After an hour of combing through sylabiiiii (how many i's are in that word?) and looking up airplane itineraries for the holidays we had everything written out. And there was a lot of things to write down. I'm not sure if she immediately felt better, but I could tell she was happy that we'd at least got it all down.

And so I'd probably consider that a successful day.

Feel the burn

Did I ever tell you about my first kayaking experience? I'm sure I did but the 2 seconds I just dedicated to looking through the archives to find that post was just too taxing.

Here's what happened:

I went to Lake Tahoe with a few friends from undergrad. We decided to rent some kayaks and paddle around the lake. It was awesome until I realized that we were half way around the lake and had to get the boats back in 15 minutes or we'd be late and have to pay a fine.

I hate paying late fees.

So we turned on the juice and power paddled.

And then a brutal head wind kicked up.

It was hard, but we got the boats back in time.


Later that night as I was sleeping in a tent on the ground my arms started to scream at me:

"What were you thinking!!! you never work out! I don't think you've even attempted a chin-up in 8 years, you fool! You cannot rip us to SHREADS and just go on without hearing about it from us!!!!"

I was laying in my sleeping bag, tears pouring down my cheeks, stifling wracking sobs in an attempt to not disturb my friends. At about 1 am I'd had it. I got up out of the tent, hobbled to my car and started driving around the entire lake trying to find a hotel room.

Yep. It's true. I left my friends stranded at a campground without giving them any indication where I was because the pain was too much for my fragile body to bear. Turns out I just don't know my limits.


Which is the exact same thing I was thinking all day yesterday.

Saturday morning I woke up early and spent the entire morning turbo-painting our mud room. The excruciating agony I felt all day on Sunday was my reminder that it might be a good idea to occasionally work out the muscles in my upper body before I go on a crazy painting spree...

I love technology

I was feeling a little homesick this morning so I decided to look up my parent's house on google maps.

Then I really wanted to see the house so I clicked to street view, and what did I see?

My dad.

Rockin awesome pants while mowing the lawn.

Nothing has made me happier in WEEKS!

Dinner with a stranger

I've been asked about a hundred times in my life who I would most like to sit down and have dinner with. If I could choose anyone in the whole world who would it be. And I'm always a little disappointed in myself because on the spot I can never really think of someone.

And to tell you the truth, most time I can't think of someone I'd like to eat dinner with more than the guy I already get to eat with every night.

But today if someone asked I know who I'd really like to sit down and talk with.

Hans Rosling.

Have you heard of him?

He's a statistician.

And he totally gets that educating women all over the world is the very best thing we can do to make it a better place. And I like that.

Who would you choose today?

Good news

I just participated in the dorkiest mid-hallway engineer high five in celebration of getting a spreadsheet completed!

Just thought you should know.

Carry on.

Weekend report

Friday I had the chance to volunteer for a great event! 770 11 year old girls converged on the Denver convention center and learned about how awesome it is to study Math, Engineering, Science and Technology. I think it's so important to support girls in these technical fields!

So I found myself in charge of 7 of the cutest little sixth-graders for the morning. And what did I do to convince them of my coolness?

Silly bands...duh. I even found some in the shape of robots! Pretty perfect for a science/engineer nerd-fest, right?

After feeling all warm and fuzzy from helping teach the rising generation I took my man out on a date to his favorite place...Home depot. And after hemming and hawing for a while he decided to use his birthday money and get himself a new tool!

Air compressor and finish nailer! Hooray! Now I can get busy with some of those plans from knock-off wood!

Being at home depot means I really got bit by the home improvement bug again. So, I spent a large portion of the weekend re-painting all the trim in our front room a new glossy white. Nothing looks better than freshly painted trim!

Nothing looks worse at work than your arm covered in paint that you keep forgetting to scrub off when you're in the shower!

Another reason to love Roscoe

I recently heard or read somewhere that infants really like to have white noise around them. Apparently they really like the sound of hair dryers? Can anyone confirm that for me?

I don't know if that's true about human babies, but my little canine guy loves it, and it's one of my favorite things about having him. Every morning while I'm drying my hair this cute little guy wanders into the bathroom and curls up on top of my (usually bare) feet.

He almost always points his face away from me and watches out the door behind me. Part of me wonders if he thinks he's protecting me from intruders?

(please forgive the gross tile in our bathroom...that's the next major room up for renovation but it probably won't happen until next year)

Down in the dumps

Yesterday I was feeling pretty crappy. It was the first day back to work after my sister and her cuties came to visit. I was missing them real bad.

When I got home I was shocked to see a beautiful bouquet of flowers for me on the bed! I was told to turn on Gossip Girl and relax while my man prepared an amazing dinner.

Ahhh....


The food was amazing, and he even surprised me by making banana pudding! One of my faves! And he didn't just make instant vanilla pudding and top it with cool whip...the man made real vanilla custard (double boiler and all) and topped it with perfectly fluffy meringue which he broiled in the oven to make those perfectly browned peaks!

Life is good!