« July 2004 | Main | September 2004 »
August 30, 2004
F R E E !
EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA!
Are you lonely? Do you need a new friend? Tired of only talking to your goldfish? We have the perfect solution! :)
FREE GUINEA PIG!
Comes with all accessories, supplies and free delivery! :)
Sir Kale "The mighty warrior" needs a new home. He is currently residing at the 'Shoebox' and has to find a new home as we are not allowed to have pets. This little guy is quite the charmer (if you enjoy rodents... personally I'm not a big fan!) and would needs a loving family/owner/caretaker as soon as possible.
We (ok Amanda) is willing to deliver him to his new home promptly! If ANYONE (excluding Nate S. because we are afraid of what new exeriments he would partake in) is interested... please let us know asap! We are desperate!
Love,
The Shoebox
Brittney, Amanda, Laura, Lindsy & Leah
(BALLL)
Posted by Leah at 11:45 AM | Comments (8)
August 24, 2004
Thoughts-
The verses below and the quote from Elizabeth Elliot about sums up what is on my heart. I'm going for "Less is more" today! :)
"Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares what happens to you." - 1 Peter 5:7
"Don't worry about anything, instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for what he has done." - Philippians 4:6
"So I tell you, don't worry about everyday life..." -Matthew 6:25A
'The journal does not say what was troubling me the day I copied the above verses. It is manifest that the anxiety that shadowed too many of my days was that I should miss the path of righteousness. Better that anxiety, perhaps, than a cavalier carelessness, but the years since have proved me over and over again that the heart set to do the father's will need never fear defeat. His promises of guidance may be fully counted upon. Does it make sense to believe that the shepard would care less about getting his sheep where he wants them to go than they care about getting there?' - Elizabeth Elliot
Posted by Leah at 11:46 AM | Comments (4)
August 18, 2004
S*U*P*E*R*S*T*A*R
"I am still awesome!"
You ever have one of those days that you fall into bed and you are praising Jesus that that day is done? And that tomorrow is a brand new day with no mistakes in it? Thus is the story of my Tuesday, August 17th. First things first.
What I am thankful for: by Leah Sokoll
-Hair.
What??? You might be asking??? I however learned a lesson last night that I am so thankful that I still have hair. We had our weekly bbq last night at Jeff Ohman's house in Cedar Rapids. I have no idea how this happened, but I found myself in charge of grilling our hamburgers. When I went out on the deck though I realized that the grill had not been lit. So I called box outside and asked how to light the grill. He picked up a lighter and told me that you turn the gas on (which he had done) and then you point the lighter towards the hole in the bottom of the grill. He then hands ME the lighter and asks if I want to try. Sure... of course I will! I can do anything! So I attempt to light this grill, but nothing is happening. (The gas is on this entire time mind you). So I step a little closer and peer down into the grill to make sure that I have the tip of the lighter through the hole. Then POOF! A GIANT ball of fire ignites above the grill, directly in front of my head. I feel a lot of heat at this point and then I realize that I hear sizzling. I officially fried some of the hair on my head. I only know this because of the awful smell that followed directly after that. Right after that Box and Jeff were right beside me asking if I was ok. Yes... I think after my heart stops racing and I can still see hair on my head I will be fine. Thankfully my mascara isn't quite as flamable as the package says. Whew! Not something that I want to try to reenact any time soon! So my confession from the rock board still stands, "in my experience, men are better grillers than women." From now on, I'm staying far away!
Next order of business... ok I mean next order of embarassment. Yesterday while on the phone at work I was trying to move some things on my desk and greet a patient who walked in the door. In all my excitment I knocked over my cup of water and it ran onto the keyboard. Oops. Nothing happened right away. In fact I had completely forgot that I had spilled anything until about 4:00pm when the letter "m" stopped working on the keyboard. Uh oh. I told my boss and he decided to "fix" it. Lets just say that the entire comptuer had to be shut down for the remainder of the work day. None of the keys were working and you had to have password to get on the network to view patients. And to top it off the computer just kept beeping for the next 10 or 15 min. Therefore, it was shut off. I found that trying to schedule and reschedule patients when you don't have the schedule in front of you is nearly impossible. Bummer. We survived though. Only after I got a "Smooth Sokoll... very smooth" talk from my boss. When I got to work this morning the keyboard still hadn't dried out. I ran to Walmart and found the cheapest one that I could find, $9.94!!!! Yeah!! And it is working great! The only bummer is that the backspace button is half the size of the old keyboard so I keep getting \\\\\ in my typing. But I think I should catch on shortly. We will see.
Today is Wednesday the 18th and so far nothing bad,dumb,serious or deadly has happened. :) Hopefully it stays that way!
Cheers!
Posted by Leah at 12:21 PM | Comments (10)
August 16, 2004
Roughing it -
Tents, fire, sleeping bags, bugs, critters, rain! All things that come to my mind when I think of camping. Mars Hill had our annual cammping trip this past weekend. A time to reflect on all the things that God did in the last year. And a time to relax and enjoy "family time." We found ourselves at Whirling Thunder Lodge (amazing isn't it? :) in Hawkeye, IA on Friday night. This place was quite interesting. First off they had a life size stuffed racoon that was sitting on a shelf. The abdo boys got a hold of it. Shortly after we arrived I had to use the restroom. As I exited I found this racoon at my feet. I however, did not know it was stuffed. I'm pretty sure everyone heard the squeal as I informed the world that there was a racoon in the bathroom. Michael Abdo- watch out! It was a great weekend. We camped outside and it was freezing! I even have a huge sleeping bag that is very warm and I still woke up cold! Praise the Lord for hot showers. Saturday we spent time in the word and sharing our quiet time thoughts. Then a huge game of softball was underway. I didn't play but cheered on the sidelines. Saturday afternoon a group of us went caving or splunking. For some reason I have always invisioned caving as walking through a large tunnel in the side of a large hill. However, all three times I have attempted this, it has not been the case. The very first move to get into this small hole in the ground was to lay on your back and wiggle down this dark black hole HEAD FIRST! I was so proud of myself just after the first move! Then came crawling, wiggling and pulling myself along this tiny, muddy, worm infested tunnel which eventually turned into a small room that we all crammed into. I was one of the first people in, so we had to wait a while for everyone to make it in. We sat there for a few min and then eventually all started to pile back out. We had some great laughs down there. Oh my goodness. I think if I had to be trapped in a dark small space for a period of time I would take Amanda Tripp and Jeff Koenig. Poor Jeff, he has been in situations that he has found himself trapped by several girls a few times in the past year. He has heard all sorts of stories, rumors,... ok and belches that he is sworn to secrecy about! We all decided that it was a good thing that he is married because he already knew some of this stuff. It didn't scare him away perminately. :) Good times had by all. We eventually made it out and were completely covered in mud. And I survived!!! We spent a long time waiting for everyone to get done exploring before we could all head back to camp. I'm pretty sure everyone had a good time despite the mud, bruises and scrapes. Thankfully we didn't meet any critters down that hole. I'm pretty sure that would have been a horrible experience for everyone trapped down there to hear my screams!
Saturday night we had smores and sat under the stars telling of the goodness and faithfulness of God. How good it was to hear of all the ways he has shown himself faithful to my brothers and sisters! Sunday morning we had our typical Mars Hill service and talked through Matthew 13. Some very good truths to apply to my life. Then we packed, cleaned and headed home! Even though it was a fun weekend, I love coming home!
So... the original point of this post was for people to define for me what "roughing it" looks like to them. I know that I am considered a high maintenance kind of girl. You probably won't find me camping unless I can sleep on an air mattress and take a shower in the morning. Other than that- I'm pretty flexible. However, I know that there are people out there who roughing it looks like not showering for days on end and eating the same three foods for the entire week. That to me just doesn't sound like much fun. I know from experience though that there are others out there who do not quite think like me... praise the Lord! :) So tell me, what does roughing it look like to you? Stories of survival? Defeat? Do share! :)
(Lindsy and Britts- how is my spelling? :)
Posted by Leah at 01:32 PM | Comments (5)
August 12, 2004
Hmm...
Wow, it has been a while. I am actually not even sure what I am going to blog about. Brittney told me yesterday that I needed to update my blog but I told her that I didn't have anything to write about. She and Amanda told me to blog about how cool my new roomates are... so here goes!
MY ROOMATES ARE COOL!
Ok.
Moving right along....
No really, :) this house is going to rock! Once all the repairs (broken drawers, holes in the wall and the lawn mowed) are fixed it should be pretty sweet. The four of us girls have our beds in the upstairs living room. There is a queen, double and two lofts in one room. Also in this room is the "shoe corner" where all of the piles of shoes are strategically placed by size and color. Ok, I'm lying about the size and color part. But there is a good portion of the room dedicated to shoe storage. All I'm saying is that four alarms going off in one room is quite the experience. It hasn't bothered me yet- however, one of us girls is losing sleep. I don't know how to fix that... any ideas?
I tried a new recipe the other night. Crunchy chicken fingers. Sounds great doesn't it? I was searching online and it just sounded wonderful. Well, I've learned one lesson this week. Don't visualize or image what the food will look or taste like. I think I had chicken fingers from Benigans or something in my mind. Pretty sure they didn't look or taste like anything I've ordered from a restaurant before. They were good though and there were no leftovers. So I think the recipe is a keeper. I'm all about experimenting with new recipes. I also decided that I'm going to create my own cook book. I have a binder, paper and slip covers to make it complete. I have a lot of recipes that are scattered in different cook books and when I need a new recipe I never remember which one is where. So I decided that I'm going to create my very own cook book. I'm going to call it.... ok, I don't know yet. It will have a create title though. With all recipes that are tried and true. Then I have ONE reference point when it is time to sign up for a meal at home. Wow, I can't believe I'm blogging about this.... I really have nothing to write about! :)
I've been thinking a lot about faith recently.
"So, you see, it is impossible to please God without faith..." - Hebrews 11:6A
I don't really know what else to say- that verse pretty much says it all. I am realizing how doing things by faith is so much more scary than not. A pretty obvious lesson I think- but for some reason it is hitting home a little more this week.
The entire Mars Hill church is going camping for the weekend. I'm sure I will have some things to blog about next week!
Peace-
Posted by Leah at 01:40 PM | Comments (4)
August 04, 2004
Shoes, lofts & sunburns-
Whew! So we are moved into the new house! Yeah!! However, it is not unpacked yet- pretty sure it looks like a tornado went through the living room and kitchen. It's getting there though. Our house has been named by someone as the "Shoebox". I don't know if that is going to stick or not. It makes sense though for two reasons. One- it is tall, long and narrow. I could see the resemblance of a shoe box if is laying on its side. And two- I think with the five of us girls combined we will have around 140 pairs of shoes inside that house. That is amazing to me. We have our very own shoe corner in the bedroom. Wow. I love it! :) Too bad we don't all wear the same size- we would put Payless to shame.
Also- with this new house. The four of us girls; Lindsy, Amanda, Britts and I decided to turn the living room into a giant bedroom. We have two lofts and two beds on the floor. I think it will make for an exciting year. However, since I never went to college I never had the pleasure of having my bed in a loft. Yep- pretty sure I sat straight up in bed yesturday and drilled my head against the ceiling something aweful. Bummer. I think I'm a quick learner though, today I didn't hit anything. We will see how long it takes me to remember that I'm only a foot and a half from the ceiling. Ouch.
Oh, and I decided that wearing your hair in pig tails on a sunny day is a bad idea. I should have remembered this from when I was a little girl. However I didn't think about it this past weekend. We went out to the land and worked for several hrs outside putting up blue board and using chalk lines! Yeah! I was out in the sun for a good portion of the time and now I have a stripe on my head that is burnt. Bummer. And it itches now, that is so weird. Just one stripe down the center of my head. Oh well, hopefully I will remember that for next time.
That's all folks! Lata'
Posted by Leah at 05:17 PM | Comments (3)