The One with Hot Tea, Lemon, and Honey

How is this happening?

Sick again.

This time it struck me Saturday night.

Another sore throat.

But this one was different from last week's.

I wasn't as out of sorts so I made it to church.

But I knew I was fighting something.

I do believe it's a sinus infection.

My lymph nodes are crazy swollen.

Which mean my throat is terribly painful and disgusting looking.

I dread swallowing.

My sinuses are full of...well..full.

And my body is doing a bit of the achy thing again.

Lamesauce.

I thought I was feeling better last night, but this morning it was back with a vengeance.

I got a sub call at 5:30, but turned it down quickly.

If anything, I don't need to infect kids.

So here I am.

Blogging.

Looking forward to Rejoice. Book five.

Wishing the people who have checked out LOST: seasons 3 and 4 would return them.

And fondly remembering the bubble bath I took this morning.

You know I don't feel well when I take a bubble bath.

This weekend was different than I anticipated.

Quite fun.

Very productive.

And challenging.

First of all, the non-stop falling snow kept us from driving to join other youth groups at the 30 Hour Famine.

We totally revamped the original plan to suit our situation.

Kevin and I did enjoy the quiet of Friday night.

February has been just plain busy.

Every weekend.

Looking forward to having a few traditional "homemade pizza and a borrowed movie" nights.

We had the teens join us from 12-6pm Saturday.

Many of the participants had really good reasons they couldn't make it.

Illnesses. Helping family members whose house had caught fire. Et cetera.

We couldn't fault them.

But it ended up being just Kevin and I and three guys.

So I did my best to be involved while letting them have their guy time.

I think it worked out for the best.

There were Lego building competitions.

And snowman building.

Right smack dab in front of the church's spot light.

Awesome.

And the day wouldn't have been complete without a few challenging messages.

Of servanthood.

And leadership.

Despite our young age. ITim.4:12.

All for Christ.

Not letting anyone stop you from achieving what passions God has placed in your hearts.

And, as leaders, challenging them to do great things.

Do the hard things.

Not expect them to be mediocre.

But to shine brilliantly.

This we tied into a view of Coach Carter.

What a solid movie. (minus a minute or two of a couple scenes.)

And what could be a better way to end our famine then with a family potluck.

There was chicken chili.

And homemade bread.

And chips and salsa.

And brownies.

Ohh, yes. It was glorious.

I figured I'd drop dead after that event.

But not so much.

I had some crazy productive spirit going on.

Earlier in the day, the boys had helped carry over two bookcases from the church library.

All of the books were being sold in the rummage sale.

And boy did I go through them.

I cam home with some real treasures.

At least 20 books.

It was like a dream come true.

I have a thing for books.

In case you hadn't figured that out.

So while the guys created a 7 foot tall snowman, I cleaned off the dusty shelves and moved them into their new home.

Our office.

How is it that after 16 months I still feel like I'm getting settled in our home?

I spent hours sorting books.

First by genre.

Then by author.

After I loaded the bookcases there was difficult task of making them look good.

Not just like shelves lined with book after book.

But with some definition.

Some character.

That, my friends, takes time.

But I do believe I'm happy with the result.

I'm definitely thrilled to finally have an appropriate space to display our prized diplomas.

And the arrangement makes our office feel so much more sophisticated.

These pictures really don't do it justice.

And I mustn't forget the office closet.

There was so much wasted space.

I was wishing we could put up shelves.

Well, the leftover bookshelves were just the right solution.

I'm still working on what I want in this closet.

And now that I have most of the extra books out of there, the spare room is exciting.

While I was cleaning out that closet, I decided to make another change I'd been contemplating.

Setting up the blue carpet spare bedroom as a scrapbooking room.

I had thought it would be a possibility from the day we moved in, but never got around to it.

I finally feel like the room has a purpose.

More than just a space for extra decorations and my purse collection

(which is now in a tub in my winter clothes closet.)

And there's still plenty of room for a guest bed or sleeping bags. :)

Again, a terrible photo, but I'll have to take another when the light it different and when my camera battery has charged.

I'm using our former dining room table.

It's the perfect surface.

Narrow and long.

Plenty of room to work.

I'm going to enjoy the window view in the spring/summer.

And I have a radio all set up to my favorite station.

I look forward to spending some great time in here soon!

And while I was taking pictures, I thought I'd throw one in of the living room.

Not sure if some of you had seen the new pieces of furniture.

Like the green rocker.

And the marble top end table making a lovely arrangement with the two chairs by the picture window.

(Those chairs were $5 at last year's rummage sale.)

Yesterday we took some time to help out Amanda in one of her college psychology research studies.

It's on relationships.

The first step was determining our Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

Then we had a few questions to answer concerning our spouse.

Our first impression of them.

Our relationship strengths and weaknesses.

First of all, I have to say I have a great husband.

The survey asked what I would want in a spouse without taking my husband into account.

I would totally want to marry him over and over again.

Sure we butt heads. We're two first born, Type As.

But we're absolutely great together.

We're pretty much an unstoppable combination. :)

Back to the reason I started on this.

It's been almost 6 years since I first determined by personality type.

And as I answered the questions I realized how much I had changed.

But surprisingly, my result was the same.

As was Kevin's. :) (He's pretty much my opposite. ENTP. Only 3% of the population.)

ESFJ - "Seller". Most sociable of all types. Nurturer of harmony. Outstanding host or hostesses. 12.3% of total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)