who knew lunch could be so entertaining?

am I dead yet?

This weekend has been a whirlwind of birthday activities (Matthew's), graduation parties, driving... oh and suffocating in our apartment. Last night we came back from taking Kristin to the airport (she's headed off to Italy again) to well over 100 degree apartment. Gross. We spent a couple of hours trying to cool the place off with strategically placed fans. That did about as much good as taking an icecube out and expecting that to cool off the place. We went to bed very much with the 'If you even think of touching me with your sticky fingers, I'll punch you in the neck' attitude. We slept very little (which is terribly sad considering we were both able to sleep in) and woke up dizzy and cranky. Poor Bertie just laid there lethargic and panting. I even (accidentally) stepped on her when I got up once, and she barely flinched.

Tonight we had our landlord up, so he could actually FEEL how gross it is up here. He and Matthew then worked at assembling a ceiling fan to put in our bedroom, to keep us from dying in our sleep. It still is not up- the wiring was off or something- but we have it sitting on our living room floor fully assembled.

To-morrow, to-morrow, I love ya to-morrow...

A carpenter is coming to put it up and they will also work at fixing our window unit that is not functioning. If that doesn't help, we're going to camp out on someone's living room floor. So all you Willmarites... beware! The Cherrys may be calling you tomorrow (dun dun DUN).


PS- Did you guys see my new clustrmap at the bottom of my links? It tracks where people are viewing my blog from. Pretty sweet, right? You can get your own (they're free) just by clicking on it, registering, then pasting the html into your blog. All you new visitors- leave me a comment... I'd love to know who's out there! Thanks for stopping by :)

remember the interesting times

Youth group was once again, amazing. Matthew is continuing to introduce new, exciting and worshipful music (mostly from United) and the students seem to really connect with the direction he's taking. The worship band loves it too. I'm continually in awe of the gift that Matthew has to connect with the students so easily, and offer them what the Lord has layed on his heart, in the form of challenges. I enjoy connecting with students, too, but more on a one-on-one level. Public speaking is most definitely NOT my forte. I get all nervous and shaky, and it's not pretty. Our new junior high pastor spoke tonight and did a great job as well. The students are really grabbing onto him as a person and pastor, so hopefully this will be a smooth transition when we move into the new building and the junior and senior high groups expand. Our building is opening next month- SO EXCITING!

So Matthew and I have a pretty good shot at owning an rv in the near future. This one came out of nowhere tonight. Someone blessed our friends Jon & Kelli with an rv today, and being that they do not camp, we may buy it from them. It definitely needs some help- think 70's style interior with some mold and leaking- but we are excited about the challenge. I would love for Matthew and I to have this thing all stocked and ready for us to go adventuring in! We're trying not to get too excited, though, because we know there is other interest and we don't have a lot of money to invest into buying it. We are trusting, though, that if it's meant to be, God will work it out that the other offer won't go through. Still, pretty exciting to dream about, right!?

Complain, complain, complain...

There is always something to complain about isn't there? Living in Minnesota, we should be overjoyed that it's not 30 below and snowing right now. We have something new to complain about, though... (read the following with a whiny voice)... "It's tooo hottt and ssssticky". You gotta love it. I do mainly because I'm one of them. Can I defend myself against my own rantings? The only time I complain about it is when I'm trying to sleep. Our apartment is on the 3rd floor (top floor, where all of the heat collects) with only an old, broken air conditioner- in the living room- far, far away from the bedrooms. There is virtually no ventilation in our bedroom, which ends up feeling like a sauna anytime the temperature gets above 70 outside- or someone uses the washer and dryer (located outside our door).

Hmm... that felt good to voice that. My pastor said that when you voice something you are struggling to overcome, it loses power. I'm pretty sure this doesn't fall into the category he was referring to, but let's just pretend it does. Okay?

Today was a great work day... it's my coworker, Michelle's birthday! Being that it's a family run operation, they really go all out for birthdays (I told you about what they did for mine and another gals just last week). We had chicken broccoli alfredo pizza (amazing!) for lunch, and they got us all DQ specialty drinks for dessert. Ahhhh.... refreshing and tasty. Besides all of this, I tried to do special things for Michelle throughout the day- partly because I'm a birthday freak, but mostly because she's had such a rough time lately. She needs to know how special she is. Michelle is Rian's mom, the little girl that Matthew and I created a blog for when they went down to Florida for Rian to receive hyperbaric treatments (they just got back last week). Michelle, if you read this... you are the BEST supervisor ever!

I better head out- tonight is another roudy night of youth group. Matthew is already there riling up the worship team... I mean practicing.

P.S. Last night I accidentally kicked something (while barefoot) and ripped off my baby toe nail in the process. It's still connected by a little bit- so that's good. Actually it's really gross. It bled quite a lot. How do you tell if the whole thing is planning on falling off? Is there a doctor in the house!?

what's going on here?

Why are so many people neglecting their blogs right now? Today I discovered that most of the people on my list have not posted since April. Come on people... I'm going to have to start making cuts pretty soon! Ah, such empty threats. I'm not going to play Sam and delete my peeps off of my blog. Too bad you won't even see this, Sam, since YOU DELETED ME. Punk.

Today was crazy humid. I thought for sure we'd see our first massive storm this afternoon, but I think it's saving it's energy for tonight. After work Matthew and I took Bertie out to the junior high soccer field to play frisbee and fly Matthew's stunt kite. The wind was perfect for his loops and dives. It brought back memories of my Dad dive bombing my sisters and I when we'd take family outings to the Oregon Coast. Today I managed to refrain from screaming and diving out of the way, though.

Hey, the storm is starting! Sweet!

faux sleep.

Last night I had a dream that my parents all turned into psychopaths and were after me. If that wasn't bad enough, I woke up in the middle of the night with my arms crossed under me- dead asleep. If you've ever tried to get out of this position with dead arms... it's next to impossible. I also found my head turned unnaturally to the side and now I can't move my head to the right.

Today at work, my computer froze more than 30 times. I spent a long time on the phone with QuarkXPress tech support with a man that spoke some crazy english, and was of no help.

It was one of those days.

BUT, tomorrow is looking up. Even if I have to restart my computer 47 times and still cannot move my head... I can deal. Friday, I love you.

and the birthdays keep coming...

It is so windy outside today! Ever have those dreams that you start flying for no reason? Or that you are driving down the street, hit a bump and take off? Those dreams would be sweet if there wasn't the impending, 'I'm falling towards the earth with no parachute' feeling that follows. Anyways, that's how today feels. Thankfully no one's noticed that all of my pockets are stuffed full of rocks to prevent any such occurance from happening.

We celebrated birthdays today at work- mine and another gal's. It's obviously not my birthday anymore, but who am I to say no to free pizza, presents, birthday cake, and a gerbera daisy plant? It is also my Uncle Kenny's birthday today- 83. He is one of the sweetest people I know. He's so happy to be alive, always laughing and smiling. Even when he had kidney stones a couple of weeks ago and his skin turned orange, he kept on smiling. Matthew and I went over to Uncle Kenny's apartment building for his party. He was so happy to see us... which made it worth the awkwardness of discussing the life story of the man mowing the lawn, with his friends.

Bertie is launching her food all over the kitchen again- time to put a stop to the madness.

28

It was so great to see all of your comments on my last post- thank you for all of the messages! I was really blessed!

Here is my top 10 list from our trip to Wisconsin:
10. After checking into our hotel, we upgraded to the jacuzzi suite. Not a difficult decision- the first room was not so good (we'll leave it at that).

9. When Matthew dropped me off at the front door of a restaurant, some drunk guys tried to convince me to ride down the stairs on a cart. Yeah, I was just as confused- and amused.

8. Having a restaurant full of people and a group of Hungarian servers sing "Happy Birthday" to me.

7. When it wasn't pouring down rain- it was snowing. Yes, I'm serious- it was SNOWING.

6. Freezing my buns off because I didn't bring a winter jacket and none of the stores there sold jackets. I guess I didn't expect it to SNOW IN MAY.

5. Watching the Simple Life: Interns, E-true Hollywood stories, and What Not to Wear on cable because it was too cold and rainy to go sightseeing. Let me rephrase that- watching cable from my very own ginormous bathtub!

4. Sitting through a two hour spiel on timeshares- and walking away without buying anything... miracles DO happen! So far I have not met anyone who has made it out of one of those without signing on... until now.

3. Finding a wonderful little cafe overlooking the mainstreet of the Dells. It was really little and built around a tree that came up from the first story art gallery/gift shop. It was really inspiring.

2. Receiving the best birthday present ever- an IPOD! Some friends and family members chipped in with Matthew to get it for me. THANK YOU a million times! It's not even so much the ipod that makes me feel so blessed (as excited as I am about it), but the love that comes with it. Thank you.

1. Being away from Willmar for a whole weekend with my husband! Matthew and I have been so busy and distracted that it was nice to spend time together without jobs, phone calls, computers, etc. Despite the funny little quirks that happened on the trip, we had a blast! Even just sitting at the hotel watching cable and eating cheese curds. I was so happy.

anticipation is funny... it makes a cloudy day sunny... makes a bee think of honey...

This morning I got out of bed to take a shower and get ready for work when Matthew says to me, "Your first birthday present is, you're not going to work." It feels so good to suddenly have your schedule cleared out, to relax. He then proceeds to tell me, "I want you to pack for a couple of days- something nice, your bathing suit, some clothes... we'll be back Saturday night. An even better feeling than the first!

Jon & Kelli, you guys are amazing! Thank you so much for blessing us with your timeshare in Wisconsin- I promise we'll enjoy it since you weren't able to get away. We love you guys so much! We'll bring you back a cheese wheel- does that tell you how much we love you!?

How can anyone not love birthdays?

this is my birthday song- it is not very long.

May 11th is my favorite day- even though I'm getting past the part where turning older is a novelty. It feels like I have a secret all day. If people don't know it's my birthday, great. I can enjoy my secret even more. Oh, by the way- I'm turning 28 tomorrow. According to my mom, though, I've already lived 28 years so technically I should be turning 29. Weird thought, right!?

Tonight at youth group was so great- a terrific end to a not so terrific day at work. I ended up working from 8am- 6:30pm to get a big project done. I'm still very thankful for my job- this was just one of those days. As I was saying, youth was terrific- high energy worship I'm so proud of my husband-he really opens himself up for God to use him. It amazes me how often God gives him something to say that is right on what those students need to hear.

Good story from tonight. Shane and Amanda (two friends of ours that recently got married) came so Shane could rock out with the worship band. He's phenominal on guitar! During youth, they put together a game for some junior highers to tp the new junior high youth pastor (tonight was 'initiation night'), so there were toilet paper rolls laying around afterwards. While Shane and Matthew were putting away equipment I started tp-ing Amanda out of curiosity at what she would do. To my delight, she just stood there, so I kept wrapping her up like a mummy. (Keep in mind that this is the first time Amanda has ever been to our youth group) From across the room, students started flocking around her and wanting to help, having no clue who she even was. Soon there were half a dozen students wrapping her up from head to toe, and I just stood back and watched the whole thing, laughing. It was so great!

Welp, I'm off to prepare for my birthday! That is, sleep. Matthew is clearly up to no good in the other room. His response to 'What are you doing, Matthew?' was 'None of your business.' I better go make sure he's not turning the air freshener into a blow torch again.

I would not go back.

Being a teenager was not easy for me. I was so small, and because of my quiet personality I was picked on frequently. I hated going to public school. The fights, the drugs, the drinking...

Things are so different now. I'm afraid of what things will be like when Matthew and I have children. What will life be like for them? Not that one cannot successfully survive in a public (or private) school and go on to fulfill their dreams- that is up to each individual. It is good for us to overcome things that threaten to overtake us. Is it necessary, though, for every student to be forced to choose between life feeling outcasted (choosing to not do drugs, drink, have sex, party) and the life of a poser (doing those things just to fit in)? Working with students at our youth group, it breaks my heart to watch students choose the latter path. Without knowing it, or perhaps not caring, they throw away their souls just to fit in with people that could not care less about them. If they chose to set aside the partying lifestyle, how many of their friends would still be around to help them pick up the pieces?

I was on myspace today- and wanted to throw up. I hurt for those students that are searching for love and acceptance in the wrong places.

You and your friends, you say you love each other? Do you always sit back and watch the people you love throw away their future for a moment of ecstasy? Your friends are dying in front of you. Your friends are sitting back and watching you slowly kill yourself. They laugh when you stumble and fall over drunk. Life is just one big party, isn't it? What will happen when your life spins out of control? In your weakness, who will save you? It won't be your 'friends'. Their life spins faster than your own. How does someone who is lost, themselves, lead another out of the wilderness?

At that point, at the end of your rope, there will be Jesus. He waits patiently, arms wide open, just as He's waited for you each and everyday. I hope someday, you will see past yourself and your selfish desires to find healing in His arms.

Today was a gorgeous Saturday in Willmar, MN. The garage sale went really well this afternoon. I was only there for a couple of hours hanging out with Kristin, Megan, and the Grahn clan- apparently garage sales now end on Saturdays around 1pm. When I was growing up, we stayed out there till it got too dark to barter. "Till the bitter end!" was the Dennis Patterson motto. I think this is much better- that way all of the 'left overs' can be dropped off at the thrift store before the day ends- and that's the end of it.

Matthew and I worked really hard into the afternoon/evening reorganizing our storage unit north of town. We picked up some rubbermaid bins to put our fragile stuff into after we discovered moisture was ruining a lot of our goods. It feels good to have that out of the way and we even managed to sort out a LOT of stuff to have our own garage sale later this summer with Jon&Kelli. We rewarded ourselves afterwards with a big pineapple/pepperoni pizza and the movie 'Walk the Line'. Since it took us about 5 hours to complete the task, don't you think we earned it?

Bedtime.

Oh- I almost forgot! I had the privelage of designing the homepage for the tour company I work for. The address is: www.rjtoursonline.com I just designed the first page you land on- and have been helping with organizing the other pages. Nick Davis is doing all of the behind the scenes work- and doing a great job!!!

in the past 24 hours...

Last night when I was leaving home our schizophrenic neighbor came out to yell at me for shutting (not slamming) the door too loudly. Interesting that anything would be considered loud to a woman who screams profanities and blasts music until 2-3am, but that's beside the point. I was already down the first flight of stairs (too far for her to come after me) but my friend, Sally, who lives next door happened to be coming up the stairs just in time to hear Nancy's speech about how she was going to call the cops. Sally just replied in a sing-song voice, "Okay, you do that." and shut her door.

Our landlord then came upstairs to give us yet another undeserved speech in the 'How to Recycle Properly' series. Nancy decided to come out and give Matthew the same "I'm going to call the cops on you" speech as before. She also told him he's, in fact, the crazy one, and screamed some profanities at him just before lunging to attack him. The landlord, frightened by Nancy, left as soon as the yelling began. Matthew was fortunate to have been on the other side of our door and was able to shut it as she lunged at him. Creepy. He called the police, and of course they can't do anything about it except throw her in jail till morning for drunkeness and threatening Matthew. They actually knew exactly who Nancy was, and said they were surprised that noone has called about her in awhile. Interesting that our county funds her drunken behavior by handing over a check to her at the beginning of the month, then not monitoring anything in her daily life. She needs someone to be looking after her, really.

While all of this was going on, I scored a sweet deal on 2 shirts- I only had to pay $1.98 total!

Today at work my bosses bought us all pizza for lunch (chicken broccoli alfredo) and then a free smoothie in the afternoon- does it get better than that?

After work, Matthew and I ventured out with Jon and Kelli to watch students from our youth group go through grand march. For those of you non-midwesterners, grand march is the pre-prom event where the couples drive to prom in fancy cars, then parade through a lineup as they, their date, where they ate, and what car they came in are announced (to the thousands of people that come out to watch). It's crazy the amount of hype that goes into this night around here. One couple went through, and instead of announcing all of the previous stuff I mentioned, the announcer said, "... they just want to point out that grand march is just a big parade, and that is why they are throwing candy". And they did. Loved it!

It's time for bed now. There is much sleeping in to be had tomorrow morning/afternoon... as well as the door slamming I have planned for the afternoon/evening. If you don't hear from me in awhile, it's probably because I'm in jail because of it.

Holla!

(By the way, I was kidding about the door slamming- instead I'm going to sit at Megan's garage sale with Kristin and change all of the prices to 1 cent. Megan will be so pleased at how quickly everything sells. Really, it's not about making money- it's all about the children... right?)

Zoey

Here is an email my sister sent today about Zoey's tests (Zoey is my 6-year old niece). Sorry if it's a bit 'graphic' for those of you that are guys reading this. Please pray for Zoey when she comes to mind- she is having a hard time with all of the doctor visits, shots, IV's, etc.

Well the doctor called back yesterday with the test results from the stimulation tests. It turns out Zoey does have central precocious puberty. Her estrogen levels were 6 with the last test and after the stimulation test they were 62. Anything over 50 means they are in puberty. Her FSH and LH levels indicated that the hormones are indeed coming from the pituitary gland in the brain. Which means the next step is to have an MRI to make sure there is no tumor in her brain. Unfortunately we will have to wait 30 days until we can do the test due to insurance. We need to pay completely out of pocket with the insurance but at least it will go to fulfilling a deductible for the rest of the year. So if everyone can pray that the MRI comes back completely normal and that the rest of this ordeal will go smoothly. Even if the MRI comes back normal Zoey will still have to undergo shots once a month in her stomach with a drug called Lupron. So I just pray that everything will go smoothly and it’ll all work out. The other thing they checked was the antibodies in her thyroid, which thankfully came back negative so that is good. Also she is at level 2 of the puberty stages out of 5, 5 being that you have had your period and fully into puberty. So that is good that we caught it this early. Anyway thanks everyone for all the prayers and continued prayers. We will update you along the way.
Love to all
Jennelle

today...

I've been filled with this overwhelming sense of expectancy. I'm not even sure why exactly I feel so anxious. There is a lot going on at work right now- maybe it's partly that. The weather keeps flip-flopping from really warm and sunny to freezing cold and rainy- maybe that's a little bit of it. Matthew and I are trying to figure out this whole marriage thing- how two people that God created so differently can mesh to create a loving environment- probably a lot of it is from that. My niece, Zoey, is undergoing testing to find out why her 6- year old body is trying to be a teenager- that is definitely on my heart everyday.

On top of those things, I have a huge burden for one of my coworkers. The gal that I work under (Michelle) has had more trials in the last week than any person should endure in a year- and she continues to exhibit amazing strength. She has a 2-year old daughter, Rian, that has grand mal seizures everyday, and because of her medical expenses the family of 5 is selling their home to pay for doctor bills. In the last few days we've had an insane amount of rain, which caused their basement to flood (over 3 inches of standing water at all times) so they have been taking shifts vacuuming the water out (in the middle of house showings). Today one of the other kids came down with strep throat and another is sick as well. Tomorrow they are all flying down to Florida for Rian to receive hyperbaric treatments to help with the seizures. Crazy, right!?

Last night Matthew and I decided to do something special for them. We designed a blog for them to update friends and family about Rian's progress. She was so excited today when I showed it to her- her expression was well worth staying up half the night to finish it. If you want to check it out, the address is: rianshope.blogspot.com. I spent a good share of today showing her how to blog and teaching her to post pictures. It will be exciting to see her take it and run with it.

It's really neat to be able to create things like this with Matthew. He has so much knowledge of html and websites and is a really good sport about me asking him to 'tweak' various things. And doing special things for people that really need a blessing- it feels amazing.

This last weekend, Matthew and I looked after Zoey and Jacob, two of my sister's 3 kids. We had so much fun! Our goal was to get Zoey's mind completely off of the numerous doctor's visits she's had to endure in the last couple of weeks, and to interest Jakey in something other than tv for a couple of days. Saturday we took them to the YMCA- they have a great pool area complete with a big waterslide. Neither of the kids are swimmers yet, so they were a bit scared, but you should've seen them when they got brave enough to go down. Zoey's is quite proud to tell anyone who will listen that she went down the slide 29 times (about half was with me) . Jakey took a little more convincing- but he did end up going maybe 5 or 6 times with Matthew holding him up at the end so his head didn't go under. We did so many fun 'kid' things- it was a blast! Our apartment feels empty without them running around tormenting the dog.

Tonight we have youth group, so I'm off to prepare.

Holla.