5 Fact Friday

Happy Friday, my friends! It has been a long week here. Not quite sure why, it just seemed to have dragged by. But IT'S THE WEEKEND!! I am so happy for this weekend. Nothing really planned except for a group dinner with my book club and all our husbands on Sunday, but I love weekends!

1. This past week I signed up for some free online courses through a government sponsored "university" to better myself for my job. However, I have spent hours trying to figure out first, why I couldn't log in, and then trying to figure out why the content for the course wouldn't load on my computer. Frustrating. But, at least I got to listen to this ridiculous hold music the university has.

2. Collin has been watching The Walking Dead pretty much since it started. He has always been a zombie fan and I on the other hand am terrified of zombies. I would try not to be around when Collin watched the show but sometimes it was just impossible. Then the story pulled me in. So when Season 3 came back a few weeks ago, I started watching it, too! And now I can't wait for 9 PM on Sunday nights!

3. It snowed on Monday AND Thursday this week. I think I mentioned that earlier. It didn't stick to the roads on Monday and then on Thursday it didn't stick at all, but still, it snowed. However, I didn't hate it. It was much too pretty to hate. I thought it would make me mad because it was supposed to be spring on Wednesday, but I enjoyed the snow!

4. The first day of spring turned out to be a pretty nice day! And I love that Rita's gives away free Italian ice that day. I went with Collin and some of his coworkers. I got myself a yummy cup of chocolate!

5. Taking this photo yesterday afternoon really made my heart happy. It turned out to be such a beautiful afternoon. And it made me want to go on a photo walk to capture spring prettiness.

I hope you guys have a happy weekend. I pray it's full of fun and relaxation!

Cindy

My Thoughts on Pop Culture

Something I don't understand... why is pop culture such a big deal? Really, how do celebrities affect "normal" people's lives? Why do we care so much about what people are doing, wearing, eating, driving, how they look, etc etc? It's all just a bunch of hyped up nonsense. Sure trends and ideas might come from them, but does that really matter? I feel like if people spent as much time focusing on themselves and the people around them who directly affect their lives as they do focusing on celebrities, everyone would be much happier. We wouldn't be striving for things that are hard to obtain because there's no "superhero" ideals to live up to. We would be striving for the very best for ourselves. Not striving for the things of someone else, someone famous.

The media and pop culture completely over play celebrity deaths, and I'm not saying I'm heartless and don't care that *insert celebrity name here* passed away, but death is a natural part of life. Lots of people die everyday and they don't get days of media coverage. People make such a big deal out of celebrity deaths but it's someone who they didn't even know! Is it really that much of a hardship that they passed away? Is it really going to affect your life so drastically for you to react that way? And like I said, I'm not heartless, I feel compassion for the friends and family of those who died, but most people are not friends/family of the deceased. They don't even know them. So what's the big deal?

When something "news-breaking" happens, you hear about it for days. People talk about it incessantly. It's like it's the biggest thing to ever happen! People get so worked up, so fired up over some dumb little thing that doesn't even affect them. Really, put that passion into something constructive. Why don't we ever talk about God the way we talk about celebrities? Isn't Jesus the ultimate celebrity? Shouldn't we be worshiping Him like we worship pop culture? Or rather, shouldn't we be worshiping Him ALONE and NOT pop culture? Shouldn't we be striving to live like Jesus lived? Shouldn't His ideals be the ones we want to live up to?

Just a thought... let me know what you think, if you agree/disagree/have something to add.

Cindy

Blogger 411

My blog friend Meagan posted this neat little getting to know you Blogger 411 today and it linked me to Becky over at From Mrs. to Mama. I think Becky has a great idea for getting to know other bloggers better and since my blog is a journey of my life I thought it could be fun for you all to learn some more about me through some fun questions.

1. How long have you been blogging? And what got you started on blogging? Has your blog changed?
I started blogging in December of 2010, so almost two years now! I started blogging because I was already a big part of the community (I read and commented on many blogs) and I wanted to journal and form relationships with the many wonderful ladies I had already met and would soon meet! My blog hasn't really changed too much. I didn't exactly have a real format. I've tried certain things that I kept up with for a little while (my Friday series stuff) that I don't do anymore and I've added other random things but mostly my blog is the same, a hodgepodge of different posts. I am proud though that my posts are accompanied by original photography now instead of finding random photos online.

2. Did you go to college? If so where, and what did you study?
I went to Messiah College in the tiny town of Grantham, PA. I studied music. Started out as Music Education and ended up as Church Music. It may have been expensive (and put me in debt) but I wouldn't trade my experience there for anything!

3. Where have you traveled?
Well, growing up my family didn't go too terribly far away for vacations. We didn't have a ton of money so if we went a long ways from Maryland is was pretty much to visit family. So as a kid I went to Phoenix and Tuscon (in the same trip), the Chicago suburb area, Louisville, and New Hampshire; and then we went to VA Beach a lot and went to numerous campgrounds in the states of VA, MD, and PA. Then in college I went to Austria and Czech Republic with my choir on an international tour, I went to Miami for an ACDA Convention (choir convention), I did a New England fall break tour with the drama ministry group, Spirit Force, I was a part of, and I went to NYC, NJ, DE, and some random other places in PA for choir tour. One summer while I was in college my family went to Las Vegas! That was also to visit family but it was such a fun trip. And then since I've been with Collin I've been to Orlando, Ormond Beach, Atlantic Beach, NC, the Poconos, Williamsport, PA, and on a cruise to the Bahamas. I REALLY love to travel. I would travel all the time if we could afford it!

4. If you won the lottery, what would be the first thing you would buy?
I would pay off all my student loan debt. Then once that was done I'd buy us a house and a Disney cruise to Alaska.

5. What are your 3 biggest pet peeves?
1. Hmm... This is weird but coughing. I can't stand to hear people cough. Ick.
2. People who don't know how to drive/break driving rules. And I don't just mean like driving too slow or what not. I mean people that pass on the right on a solid white line. People that talk on their cell phone/text while driving even though it's against the law in MD. People that don't use their turn signals. Just stuff like that.
3. When someone doesn't put their dirty dishes in the dishwasher but doesn't rinse it off and/or stacks the dirty plates filled with food. EWW. So gross!!! When I go to put it in the dishwasher (i.e. if it was full and/or clean when the new dirty dishes were made), I do NOT want to touch nasty food stuck to the bottom of a plate or smell icky caked on stuff.

6. What is your favorite movie?
It's too hard to choose. Here's my top 5. Up, Ocean's Eleven, RV, National Treasure, and Rat Race

7. What is your drink of choice; wine, beer, or liquor. Or Water, Soda, Tea?
Of all those options the only one I drink is water. =) And that actually is my drink of choice.

8. What is something you enjoy to do when you have me time?
I love to play piano, play frisbee golf, or read.

9. If you could have a $10,000 shopping spree to one store, which store would it be?
Only one store? That would be really hard. But I suppose either Kohl's or Marshall's. And I'd probably still only buy sale/clearance priced merchandise.

10. Share with us an embarrassing moment of your past? Or present.
This is the hardest to come up with. I know I have had NUMEROUS embarrassing moments in the past (and present) but I can't think of any. I guess I just block them out! haha. I suppose I can share with you one that happened in middle school that traumatized me forever. I was in band throughout middle school and we always had to play at the 8th grade graduation ceremony. This was in 6th grade and we had finished playing and went to lunch all together as a band. Because we had to be dressed up I was wearing a knee length black skirt with my band shirt. Our cafeteria at the time didn't have AC in it so they had these gigantic industrial fans in there to keep it cool. Well, I was walking from the table to go get in the lunch line and I tripped over one of the fan cords and landed face first on the ground. Upon standing up I realized my skirt flew up revealing my underwear to all who saw me fall. But the worst part was, the boy I had a crush on was sitting RIGHT NEXT to where I fell. I was mortified. At least it was the last day of school and everyone had forgotten about it over the summer. =)

11. What day would you love to relive again?
Either our wedding day (it was SO MUCH FUN) or our Day At Sea on our cruise in 2010.

12. If your life was turned into a movie... what actor would play you?
Kate Hudson.

13. What are the jobs you had in high school/college/the early years?
I had a lot of different jobs. In high school I worked for Peebles Department Store for a few months, I babysat, and then between high school and college I worked for a government contractor. Then during my college breaks I worked at a daycare one summer, as a behavioral specialist for a child with autism one summer, I babysat one summer, and I worked as a substitute teacher for a little while. Then after college I worked for a Temp Agency before getting my first "real" job.

14. Show us a picture from high school or college.

Collin and I at the Senior Banquet in High School. We weren't dating, we didn't really know each other all that well actually. haha! I love how it looks like we're in love though. Proves we were meant to be together! *Sorry for the poor quality of the photo. This is a scan of a physical picture and the original was kind of washed out, too*

15. If you could travel anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, where would you go?
Italy. I would go to most of the country actually but definitely Venice. And I'd ride in a gondola.

16. Show us the most current picture of you, or your family, or anything of meaning to you.

This may not be the *most* current picture but I love it. And it still looks like us. It was taken last December. We haven't really changed much at all. Except my hair is now longer. =)

17. Where do you see your life 5 years from now?
5 years from now I really have no idea! Life is so up in the air. I suppose in 5 years I hope to be pregnant and possibly owning a home. It just all depends on where we are financially. At least 5 years from now my car will be paid off and my smallest student loan will be mostly, if not all the way, paid off!

I hope you guys enjoyed getting to know a little but more about me! It's fun to fill these things out. It gives me a bit of introspection into myself. And I even had to think about things I'd forgotten about!

Cindy

Comedy Break!

I've been pretty busy these past few days and my creative blogging juices aren't flowing today so I just want to leave you with something funny to tie you over until my next "real" post. I follow these guys on youtube, Tripp and Tyler of don't be that guy films and this is one of their latest. It's so, so funny. Collin and I have been quoting it lots lately. Give it a watch. I think you'll appreciate it, too!

"Does anyone know how I can make Papyrus my default font?" haha! Hope you enjoyed the video!

Cindy

A Feat Not Taken Lightly

I never watched The Office. I maybe caught bits and pieces of episodes here and there on TV but I never watched it myself. I thought the parts that I saw when it happened to be on the TV were dumb. I didn't think it was funny at all. I had no desire to watch it. A while back Collin got all the seasons available on DVD. He's watched through them all (excluding the current season). He quotes from the show all the time and loves it. Shortly before we left for our vacation I decided I'd give the show a shot. I really had no reason to not like it, I just judged it before I really gave it a chance. Anyway, we started from the beginning and I LOVE it. It is hilarious and I am thoroughly enjoying each episode. Before our trip we watched Season 1 (it only has 6 episodes) and then we watched a bit of Season 2. Then we took Season 2 on our trip with us to watch in the van and we finished it. Since coming home we've finished Season 3 and have already watched 2 episodes of Season 4. I am just barreling through this show! I LOVE it.

Anyway, my brother-in-law posted on facebook that he finished Seasons 1-6 in 42 days and since I'd already watched 38 episodes in just 10 days at that point, I'm determined to beat his time! Since making my declaration I have watched 53 episodes in 16 days! I think I'm doing pretty well to beat his time. *Just for clarification, in my count I am not including the days we were actually in Florida, I did not have access to watch them.* I have 66 episodes left! That seems like a lot but with them being short we usually watch 2 or 3 a night. And one more detail, I only watch them with Collin. So it kinda limits the time that I can watch them.

So this might seem silly to you, and it is a bit silly but it's fun. And I love the show. I was going to watch it and finish it pretty quickly anyway, this is just a little something fun to throw in there. =)

Do you watch and/or have you watched The Office? What do you think of it? Also, please don't give away any spoilers! I like to be surprised with my shows. Thanks!

Cindy

EDIT: As of June 9, 2011 I finished all 119 episodes (seasons 1-6) of The Office. I watched them all in 41 days. One day less than my brother-in-law did it in! I must say that it is a hilariously amazing show. I love it and can't wait to get to watch season 7!

Friday Favorites - week 9

I've recently become a fan of the band Chasen. I regularly get free music downloads from Free CCM and Itickets and I had gotten I think 3 total Chasen songs from that. They all happened to be from the same album and I liked them so I decided to buy the rest of the album in iTunes. I LOVE it! And I just wanted to share with you one of the songs called "One in a Million" from their album That Was Then, This is Now.

I love that our church's youth group gave out carnations to all the women on Sunday as they entered the church. It was such a sweet act of love. And I love that the verse printed on it was one that was read at our wedding from 1 John 4.

I've been watching Modern Family since it first aired in 2009 but Collin had only seen one episode. I got Season One on DVD for Christmas and we've been watching the episodes together and laughing so hard! I'm enjoying watching it again though it does get a bit confusing trying to differentiate what is from season one versus season two. But I love the show so much! You should totally check it out if you don't already watch it. And be prepared to LAUGH!

Have a great weekend!

Cindy

Friday Favorites - week 3

This week was my first full week back to work after all the holiday festivities.  I did work during the holiday weeks but never a full week.  It was so glorious having 3 days weeks.  Granted, I have today off, but only because it's my normal Friday off (we get every other Friday off by working 9 hour days, it's called CWS - Compressed Work Schedule for those who may not know).  Anyway... when I get home from work in the evenings if I've nothing else to do I love to just sit and relax and watch a TV show.  And my new absolute favorite way of doing so is through Netflix streaming.

I love having a PS3 because we can stream through it and we have great high quality picture. But my favorite thing is the variety of stuff you can watch via streaming. It amazes me how almost everything that I want to watch is on Netflix streaming (not everything, but most). Currently I've been watching Psych. It's a show that I would watch if my parent's had it on and I was home and I thought it was quite funny, but I didn't watch it myself. But now I'm already on season 3 and I just love watching it! And I can watch Desperate Housewives on there. I started watching regularly about half way through season 2 or so back in '06 and we're currently watching through season 2 now. But once season 2 is over I'll refresh my memory until we're caught up, though we did already watch seasons 4 and 5 on there. Anyway... there's also been plenty of other shows (and movies too, of course) that we've watched on there as well that we probably would not have thought to watch otherwise. But I do love the Netflix Streaming. It's definitely a favorite. I don't know what I'll do when I finish all the episodes of all the shows I want to watch!

Something else I'm obsessed with right now is Peggle on my iPod.

I think Peggle can be played on a variety of different platforms but I have an iPod Touch so that's what I play on. I LOVE that game. It's kinda like Plinko in the sense that you drop a ball from the top of the screen and it bounces through little Pegs until it gets to the bottom. However, the goal of the game is to hit all orange pegs and as many blue ones as you can, too. Once you've removed all the orange pegs from the screen (the pegs disappear once they've been lit up) the level is over and you get your score. It's so addicting.

I am in love with the HGTV 2011 Dream House. The house this year is GORGEOUS! It's set in the beautiful mountains of Vermont and this place is huge and amazing. I seriously want to win the giveaway just so I can have that beautiful of a house to at least visit if I didn't live in it. It's two floors but the rooms are huge and beautiful. And it has my dream kitchen I mentioned a couple weeks ago!

You can go here to find out more information on the home and to look at all the pictures of the inside and of each and every room. Maybe you'll fall in love and want to win the sweepstakes, too. But don't enter so I can increase my chances of winning. ; )

What are you loving this beautiful Friday? Is there anything that I should be aware of so I can fall in love with more things?

Cindy

Friday Favorites - week 2

Today the things I'm sharing with you are just a few entertainment type things that I love. 

First off we have MysteryGuitarMan who has become quite popular on youtube.  I love how creative he is with his videos.  And they all have to do with music in some way or another.  I love that, quite simply because I love music!  Every once in a while he'll post a video that I'm not super thrilled over, but the majority I really enjoy and they're all so creative!  Check him out and let me know what you think.

Second is one of my favorite tv shows.  Burn Notice.  The season 4 finale was last night and it was AMAZING.  I've been watching this show since it first started back in 2007 and I can't get enough.  I have all the seasons on dvd so far (I'll get 4 when it comes out) and I even got Collin into it.  It's a show about an unjustly burned spy and his struggle trying to get back into the counter-intelligence world.  There's a great core cast of characters that I adore (each week I say at least once "I love Fiona!!"  or "ahhh Sam is so awesome!", etc.) and each week they take a "job" to help someone out with a problem.  But they use all their spy skills, lots of explosives, and they actually explain how/why they do things.  It's fantastic and last night's finale was no exception.  It was packed with action, explosives, romance, suspense, drama, etc.  Ahhh I wish the season wasn't over so I didn't have to wait until summer to watch again.  =/  But anyway, I highly recommend you watch Burn Notice if you don't already.

Third is one my favorite bands, David Crowder Band.  The band has been around for a while and I've actually always really liked their music but it was just in the past 3 years or so that I REALLY got to liking them.  I really started to like them as a band and follow them personally and not just their music.  However, I also started to appreciate their music for how intricate it really is.  They use sooo many processed sounds and computer loops and tracks and what not that their music is so incredible!  I've seen them in concert a few times but most recently was a year ago when they were on their Church Music tour for their newest album.  This concert was incredible!  They were actually able to recreate the album almost perfectly because they had so many computers and synthesizers and equipment on stage.  The best part was that on the album the drummer Bwack recorded a lot of songs twice playing different things each time.  The drum parts are so full but they can't be played by one drummer at once.  So in order to have the whole drum part live Bwack actually created a robot drummer named Steve who was programmed and played with them on tour.  INCREDIBLE.  So yeah... in addition to them being amazing live, their recorded music is just amazing.  If you've never listened to them or only to just a few of their songs, pick up "Church Music" or "A Collision".  Those are my two favorites and I think they'd be good for someone just beginning to listen to them.  Some of their stuff is different, but it's very cutting edge and intricate.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

So there ya have it.  Some things I'm loving right now.  What are your "Friday Favorites"?  I'd love to know!  I'm always looking to expand my horizons on anything.

Cindy

*Images found on google*