One Small Step for Office Depot Employees...One Giant Leap for My Life in the Dating World

Sooooo I had quite the encounter at Office Depot today. First of all, Office Depot is the Disneyworld of office supplies. I can't even handle how fabulous that place is...and SO many colors. If Kristen Blasik (rainbow queen of 2011) was an aisle of office supplies, I found her! (see picture below :-) )

SO context clues: Hart and I are standing in the aisle of legal notepads trying to make a decision about which kind we want for the office and for our own grad school usage. I don't make decisions well, so we were standing there for about 10 minutes when I decided to abort that mission and go find some colored Pilot G-2 pens (you should try them. unparalleled gel-ink excellence. you'll thank me). A fellow who worked there came up and asked if we needed help finding something, so I told him about the G-2 mission and he took me to them. Along the way he asked what we were doing and where we worked and other chit-chatty things; when he left my presence, he shook my hand (even though we didn't formally introduce ourselves...). Then Hart joined me and we were debating over the kind of pen that we wanted because the multi-colored pack wasn't there when in walked our fellow again (we later found out that his name is Jakob via his name tag) and asked if he could help us with anything. We told him about our elusive pen dilemma, and he offered to order them for us from the distribution center and even offered to comp the shipping charge. Generous. We told him we'd think about it. Then he shook my hand again...still no formal introduction nor handshake for Hart. Then after another brief stretch of time, we walked over to the highlighters and out popped trusty Jakob again to wonder with us over all of the pretty color options. Upon our parting, insert handshake #3. He did ask my name this time, though!

After we made some office supply decisions, we settled on ordering those pens and set out to find Jakob. When we did, we began following him over to the computer area, and mid-journey Hart got distracted by some nifty budget spirals and abandoned ship. Thus, I found myself alone with Jakob at the pen-ordering station. We proceeded to talk about the pens and how excited I was, and then he asked what non-profit I worked for. I told him briefly about TOBET, and he asked me if it was a "Christian thing". I confirmed his suspicion. He then proceeded to tell me about how he was "starting to get back into that kind of thing" which, I found out upon further inquiry, that he meant attending church. Once I put my number into the order form, a conversation erupted that went like this:

Jakob: Oh, what part of Houston are you from?
Me: Cypress...northwest suburb of Houston.
Jakob: me too! I went to Cypress Creek.
Me: (taken aback) no way! When did you graduate?
Jakob: oh, way back in 2007.
Me: (utter shock) you graduated from Cy Creek in 2007?! so.did.I. whoa.
Jakob: Oh! I played football. Do you know (listed a bunch of people that I do, in fact, know).
Me: uh, I was a Silvie! (our drill team who interacted quite a bit with the football team)
Jakob: whoaaaa (or some sound of awe...)

freaking.weird.

So then I asked where I could find some binder rings (to put my epic 10 pack of colorful highlighters!!! such a nerd :-) see picture below!), and Hart didn't follow...so when we were about to have our final parting moment, he asked if he could give me his number because he "would really like to go to church with me sometime. He's looking for a friend to help him get back into it, so call him when I'm going"...so I typed it in my phone. Why I did that, I will never know. In my defense, I really thought he just wanted a church buddy! Color me ignorant on the current state of boy-meets-girl. Before I typed in his number, though, I did clarify that I'm Catholic to ensure that he was okay with going to a Catholic Mass. But don't fret, my lovely blog readers! Jakob's quick response "oh it's okay. I love Jesus! And I have a rosary tattoo"...

Might I also mention that when Hart and I were debriefing about this situation in the car, we both agreed that it would be okay for me to text him, reveal my identity via phone number, and invite him to church because far be it from me to deny someone Jesus. It was not until later that evening at Chick-Fil-A with some guy friends that our dear Jakob's true motivations were revealed to me. Apparently, it's called "the reverse pick-up". [I haven't super decided how I feel about it as it pertains to the man being the initiator, but I'll leave my opinions on the situation for a future post.] In case you are also in the dark about this whole new type of pick-up, the guy may just give her his number so that she will call him and then he will know that she's really interested...even if it means that he has to crash a Mass to get to her. SO, ladies, moral of this story...odds are he can find Jesus without a date. Don't text him...unless you really are interested... :-)

So that's the story on my first new encounter with the world of post-college dating. I'm a bit shell-shocked to be honest! How could I have been so wrong in my interpretation? Oooops! If anything, my eyes were opened to a new approach to being picked up by random guys, so I'll put that in my back pocket for when just such a moment arrives in which that information would be relevant.

And, after all, nothing says self-confidence booster like being hit on by a total stranger...

:-)

and now for the promised pictures...

If Kristen were an aisle of office supplies...

shut.up.

(...I didn't say anything...)

these are SO GREAT!

There's even a CORAL one (new favorite color!)

another highlight of my day was the incident where we found a bunch of handwriting educational supplies in the office and I confiscated them for my ongoing conversion to the world of the leftys

Playing Catch-Up!

I haven't yet gotten into the habit of posting on my blog, so I am a few days behind! I'm looking forward to getting on a schedule so that I can work blogging into it. But until then, I'll just post a few days worth of blog posts at one time! Here is the one that I wrote for January 2:

January 2: Well, my internet is down at my house, so I am typing this in a word document to transfer to my blog when I return to the big D tomorrow. Christmas break is winding down and I am about to head back to work. The time moved so quickly. Sheesh!

Tonight I watched this epic movie called Spy Game with Robert Redford and Brad Pitt. It’s one of my mom’s favorites, and I’ve been making it a mission of mine to watch all of those classics that she references all the time. This break I covered Top Gun, The Shawshank Redemption (of course), Behind Enemy Lines, and this one. When I asked her what it’s about, she simply said “loyalty”. Boy, was she right! It was all about sacrificing things that are precious to you for the betterment of someone that you care about. I’m all about that kind of stuff because an exercise of loyalty typically requires a display of passionate love (not sexual love…just a movement zealousness in the heart of the person) and my heart beats faster at the sight of those things! Passion is one of my favorite things about humanity, and loyalty is something that is super important to me. So all in all…I’m a big fan of the movie! It was a wonderful, chill last day of break with my family topped off with another awesome movie. God is so good J

Be advised that I might post again tonight with the other three days worth of adventures that I have had so far in 2012! 

Project 2012

It's officially January 2nd now, but this post totally counts for January 1! New year, new beginnings. At the turn of the year 2011, my slogan was "new year, new elizabeth" (hehehe cheesy I know!) and I made a very concerted effort to put the incredibly difficult year of 2010 behind me and move forward with a new hope for the promising year to come. I have super issues with staying in the present moment, and 2011 held a promise of redeeming that negative quality about myself. I even rearranged my room at the Castle so that things looked different when I woke up each morning. It worked, and that catchy slogan (and new bed-placement!!) pulled me into the new year with a vigor that I can only attribute to grace and a solid determination that the next day (and year!) would be sunnier than the last. Well after a year of excruciating transitions and enduring pain that reached a magnitude that I could not have even fathomed that my little body and weak heart could withstand, here I am again on the brink of yet another year. In a riveting conversation that I had a with a wise friend today, I encountered an outlook on life that I find both fascinating and appealing: I asked him what his new years resolutions were, and he said that he didn't have any because he was always trying to better himself by continually resolving to change and improve. WOW. I was quite taken aback and stood a bit in awe of that outlook on life. I like it. But I am not there quite yet, so I have developed a list-of-sorts of year-long projects that I hope to perfect by the end of 2012 in the hopes of increasing my capacity to love. And standing here about to embark on this journey, I find myself wanting to have a slogan to pull me through. I've spent all day trying to be clever, but one thing that I have learned about myself is that as a general rule I make things far more complicated than they need to be. SO I settled on the simple but fabulous: "Project 2012". concise. elegant. all-encompassing. and leaving room for things that come up that I want to add to the list (because we all know that I can't ever make a decision!). PLUS 24 hours into this year I'm already VERY in love with the alliteration that the year TWEnty-TWElve offers us; thus, I intend to say it as many times as possible (or until I annoy someone and have to stop...I have a bad habit of repeating things that I think are great until I numb everyone else who is listening and no one can recognize its greatness anymore...bummer). I'm actually pretty excited about it, and I have taken my first consecutive hope-full breaths of air in five months. Finally.

SO Project 2012 it is! I have quite a few resolutions, some new interests, and even a new hobby that I will talk in detail about in later posts. I am nothing if not ambitious, even to my detriment sometimes, but I think that the refined list of my own R&C promises for 2012 holds the bar just high enough that it'll stretch me but not too high that it's unattainable. Just how I like it!!

One thing that is clear to me from the past couple of years is that I have quite the selective memory (usually confined to emotionally-riviting events that lodge in my amygdala and won't let go!), and my short-term abilities to remember things aren't always the most reliable. I've never been one for using a diary...I prefer a prayer-journal approach to recording my thoughts; however, this puts me at a slight disadvantage in the remember-what-I-did-on-such-and-such-a-day category. SO I want to use some of this blog space to record what I have done in my days in order to bring to light the presence of God in my daily life in ways that I might have otherwise missed Him! I have a dear friend who will write in her planner at the end of every day so that she can look back and remember what happened. Well played, my lady...I think I will follow suit! :-)

January 1, 2012: My fabulous, fabulous friends and I wobbled in the new year! Yes, that's right...I said wobbled. By that I mean, we turned on the Wobble song at precisely midnight and danced through the whole thing! What a great start to a new year!!!! even if Jason did refuse to participate in the zombie impersonations like the rest of us and simply stood there with stiff arms and judgement eyes. hehe :-) then we kept playing this suuuuper funny game called Loaded Questions which basically turned into a bunch of inside jokes that kept our champagne-assisted giggles to a maximum! In the morning we went to Mass together to celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God...what a GREAT liturgical start to the new calendar year. Well played, Magisterium. Well played. I also had a super legit prayer moment with St. Joseph, patron of my vocation today. The theme (that I will develop later in this post) of hope was born in that moment of prayer: assurances of things that happened in the past with a person very dear to my heart and promise of a future full of joy - St. Joseph never fails to warm my heart with His gentle whispers. :-) Then we ate Carol Hart's fabulous roast complete with those icky little black eyed peas for good luck. I must say that I really dislike those and only eat them on New Years. I have a sneaking suspicion that the person who decided that black eyed peas and sauerkraut promise luck and prosperity in the new year really just wanted to play a survival of the fittest game: whomever can withstand the most naaaasty bites of those food wins the luck by default! Regardless, the blackmail worked, and I ate three heaping spoonfuls of black eyed peas just to be on the safe side. Later in the afternoon, my dad and I went to see War Horse which was incredibly inspiring. Gosh, I LOVE those "based on a true story" movies!!! I get goosebumps-of-anticipation during the opening credits just at the thought of how epic the story will be! And it did not disappoint. A super creative culinary creation on my part compensated for the yucky food that I ate earlier in the day (this falls into the Project 2012 category, so details will follow!), and Shawshank Redemption with my parents brought up the rear of my day! Color me inspired by day 1 of 2012. God is so good!

I have a couple of closing statements about the grace of HOPE that was rained down on me today:

Yesterday after the Aggie game, we went to go see that New Year's Eve movie since it was appropriately New Years Eve. I was a bit apprehensive about it (since the Valentine's Day edition was a bit on the skandy side), but the lovely Karen Alleman gave it raving reviews so there I found myself in the movie theater staring expectantly at the screen hoping for a sex-free hour and a half. I got my wish!!! And what's more, the movie made an excellent point. All around the world, people gather together to celebrate the start of a new beginning because, no matter what the previous year gave you, there is a resilience about the human heart that always wants to hope for a better tomorrow (this is the eliza's-theological-interpretation of the movie's message, of course!). The expectation of long-awaited joys, fulfilled promises, dreams coming true, happily ever afters, and chances to love stirs something in us that is so strong that we can't help but get swept up in the anticipation of it all. The tick of the clock at midnight lights a fire in our hearts, and hope is born in its flames. 

This evening I watched a movie with my parents that they always talk about but that I've never seen. It's called The Shawshank Redemption. Have you ever seen it? I must say that I think it's one of those movies that changes you...or at least it had that effect on me. And what was the theme of that movie, you ask???
"Fear can hold you prisoner; hope can set you free" 
mmmhmmm :-) The message of the movie is essentially to never lose hope because as long as you have hope, you have a promise of a better tomorrow and that is sometimes all a person needs to make it through the rest of today. Project 2012 is about freedom, surrender, and utter abandon to the will of God...and hope is the torch that will light the way.

pictures from day 7!

I forgot to post the pictures from my wedding-weekend adventures! Day 6 is on my camera so I will post it soon, but I have two pictures from day 7...

Day 7: we celebrated Charlee's 11th birthday and Remington's 5th birthday with a family dinner at PAPPASITOS! our favorite restaurant :-) ...

Nikki, Emma, Charlee, Remi, and Parker went shopping for back to school clothes, and Remi was hanging out at Nikki's side for most of the trip. Then Nikki realized that Remi was nowhere to be found and started looking for her...then she found her! HAAA!!!

More pictures from the wedding on Day 6 and an update from this past week's REVOLUTION training at SFA coming soon! :-)

life moves pretty fast...

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once and awhile, you could miss it" - Ferris Bueller.

Story of my life lately. I am beginning the third week of my life in Dallas, and I have been going non-stop since I got here. Between the training for my missionary work, going to Houston for a wedding, preparing for theREVOLUTION training at Stephen F. Austin State University, and beginning graduate school, all of my spare time has been spent sleeping. However, I am back to the blogging world with plenty of entertaining stories to lavish upon my avid readers.

I will begin with some fun picture describing my days here in Dallas. I have a friend who does a picture log of everyday of her life with supporting commentary, and I LOVE the idea! I really wanted to do something of the sort to document all my days in Dallas; I haven't done one for everyday, but I do have a few of the days recorded that I want to share with you.

Also, for a bit of background on my co-workers: there are five interns for TOBET this year: Amanda Hart and Hilary Bollom, both from Texas A&M, and Jason Guenther and Marcos Nino, both from Texas State. Putting five recent college graduates who are used to a college lifestyle in a room from 9am-4pm every day is a recipe for stir-craziness and lots of funny moments.

At a later date, I will post some cool things that I learned in my theology lessons for TOBET and in my graduate classes. For now, though, I want you to get a fun taste of my new life!! :-) Enjoy!!

Day 1: the one with the Braum's ice cream (CHERRY LIMEADE SHERBET) that I put in a cone but promptly licked off the top scoop...good thing my hair caught the fall!

Day 3: The one with the talk by Dr. Louise Cowen: a 94 year-old legend in the education sphere and one of the founders of UD. We also went to Starbucks, and they misheard my order and gave me two drinks, which they messed up, and then gave me two of the correct drink...thus the coffee party :-)

Day 4: the one with family night (all of the interns and our intern mom!) when we played Blokus, and Hilary's alternate personality THE BLOKUS MONSTER came out. Video proof coming soon! Also, I used ALL OF MY BLUE PIECES on this board! sweeeet! ...

...Erik's new favorite phrase is yes-ba and we found a funny word on an appliance that made us think of him!

Day 5: The one when I tried to do a DIY project to put on my blog but messed up the self-lamination, so I couldn't endorse my project. Bummer.

Day 9: The one when I came back from my long weekend and had to remove the confetti from my cute desk decoration. I took a picture of it so you could see my new work-home!

Day 10: The one with the swanky necklace that I bought with my mom over the weekend and Amanda picked out an outfit to match the loud accessory!

Day 11: The one when we threw Jason a graduation party! He graduated from Texas State on Friday, August 12 (yay!!), and Amanda and I were in charge of buying his party supplies. The balloons attacked her in the car...

...we bought him a dinosaur pet that bounces at your feet!!! We named him Lionel! :-) yesss!...

...we decorated the board for him with a bobcat paw drawn personally by Amanda...

...we HID BEHIND THE COUCH to pop out and yell surprise!!!

Day 12: The one when I started graduate school and bought some epic age-appropriate folders with my new favorite animal on them! OWLS!!!

Day 14: The one when we celebrated Stephanie's JOB OFFER and GORGEOUS NEW CAR with a dinner at Carinos. We got plenty of bread and garlic dip and Italian cream sodas! yummm :-) ...

...and played with Steph's grandpas roly-poly dachshund named Max (who did not reciprocate my joy at our new friendship)!

YAY picture project!!! I'll post the four videos that I have when I figure out how to upload them onto my new MAC (which I got on day 6 from my PERFECT PARENTS)!!! :-)

Please pray for all of the interns this weekend and all of those that God will touch this weekend! Amanda, Jason, and I are going to Nacogdoches to train SFA for theREVOLUTION, and Hilary and Marcos are putting on a TOB retreat for seniors in high school in Louisiana! I'll let you know how it goes! :-) 

God bless you!!!

the end of an era.

Sooo I'm moving out of College Station for good today. I've pretty much put this moment off for as long as possible...I don't do transition well. I packed up most of my things at the end of June and moved a bunch of it home slowly in small trips. Then I moved myself to my sister's apartment for the last two weeks of my summer so I could spend more time with her. It really helped to ease the transition because I moved out of my house but not out of town. Then on Monday, I moved my things up to Dallas but drove back here that night, and I will be moving up there for good on Sunday afternoon just in time to start bright and early on Monday morning (nothing like waiting until the last minute!). Yet despite all of my best efforts to prevent myself having to reach this point before it was necessary, the time has finally arrived. Today is my last day here in the grand ole' town of College Station, and I am having quite the difficult time with it.

In order to make this slightly easier on myself, I am going to post about one of my favorite memories of being in College Station...our Harry Potter premier extravaganzas!!! Two weeks ago, when the last installment in the Harry Potter series came out, my friends and I joined the massive crowds of HP enthusiasts dressed as the characters to celebrate the end of an era. I love the timing of everything Harry Potter: our class of youth (2007 from HS, 2011 from college) actually grew up with Harry. I know I sound cheesy here, but check this out: we were 11 when the books came out, the last book came out when we graduated high school, and now the last half of the last movie came out right after we graduated college. As if we needed one more reminder that our childhood is, in fact, technically over, Hollywood drove that point into the ground by perfectly aligning the movie release with our last summer before the real world hits. To commemorate this special occasion, I would like to bring to your attention some pictures of my very hard-core friends!!! :-) Enjoy this reminiscence of the lazy days of childhood! :-)

James and Lily Potter! ((yes, I did dye my hair RED for the occasion! more on that later...))

Lily Potter (and baby Harry!) and Goyle :-)

XENOPHILIUS LOVEGOOD!

a reinactment of Harry's reception of the infamous scar!!! ha! :-)

McGonagall, Hermoine, Lily Potter, and Narcissa Malfoy

Narcissa and Lily

THE HOUSE OF BLACK!!!

(Bellatrix, Regulus, Narcissa, Sirius, and Kreacher)

this is my favorite picture! Everyone at the theater was so hard-core, and we pulled people who weren't with our group to make epic group pictures!

Quittach Players: Goyle, Crabbe, Oliver Wood, and Viktor Krum!

THE MALFOY FAMILY!

(Lucius, Draco, Narcissa)

Lucius and Draco weren't with our group...they were just PERFECT fits for the Malfoy family photo!

Hermoine, McGonagall's animagus - the cat!, Luna Lovegood, Lily, and Hedwig!

(the Castle girls!)

Doloros Umbridge!!!

HAGRID! yes, he is on stilts, and yes we stood in line to take a picture with him :-)

epic movie theater decorations! ahhhh!!!

So there you have it, folks! Our epic adventures into the land of Hogwarts! The end of an era of children's literature masterpieces and fairy tale magical worlds has come and gone, and in a few days time I will be embarking on my journey into the grown-up world! oh my, how times flies!

With all my heart!

Hello blogging world! Welcome to my first blog :-) I decided to begin a blog a couple of months ago, but I delayed the start of this process in an attempt to find an un-awkward way to introduce myself to the blogging sphere. I have yet to find one, so I woke up this morning and was filled the certainty that today I must proceed forward, awkward or not!! So here I am! I just graduated from Texas A&M, and I will be moving to Dallas in T-minus 12 days to begin working for a non-profit organization spreading the THEOLOGY OF THE BODY! More about this later, but suffice it to say that I stand in awe of our God who is so gracious and merciful to choose this little one to be His hands and feet in spreading this powerful and life-changing message. That's where I got my blog title: I so desire to LOVE God and others with everything that I have...with all my heart :-) and I put my whole heart into everything that I do. I would love it if you would come on this journey with me! I'm quite a mess, and the passion with which I do everything in my life typically requires that I backtrack and proceed with a little more discipline and focus in developing opinions and spreading truth...but I hope that you would be patient with me as I search for truth and love and joy in this craaazy world! I want to begin my blog with the lyrics to the song from which I took my blog title. These lyrics give you a peek into who I am! God bless you! :-)

Search My Heart

-Hillsong United

Search my heart and search my soul
There's nothing else that I want more

Shine Your light and show Your face
In my life, Lord have Your way

With all my heart and all my soul
With all I am, Lord, I will follow You.

You took the cross, you took my shame,

restored my life, now I live to worship You!

Hear my cry and hear my prayer
Draw me close, I know you're near.

So with all my heart and all my soul
With all I am, Lord, I will follow You
You took the cross, You took my shame
Restored my life, Lord I will follow You.

Without You I am nothing.

Search my heart
And search my soul.

:-)