Happy Birthday, Emmy Fazakerley!

My sister, Emily, turned 29 today (no, really... she's 29 today. And next year she'll be 30.) I wanted to write a top 10 list of the things I love about her, but she hates even numbers. Therefore, she gets a top 11 list.

In no particular order...
1) Creative- The most recent endeavor was when she asked me to paint onesies for the baby shower of one of our friends, so we painted 4 of them. Other activities include robot drawings, making up songs to play on the ukulele, keeping a daily blog with one of her best friends from college (Hi Zoe!), decoupaging, and creating theme parties.
2) Hilarious- One of my personal favorites from childhood was when she wrote a ransom note to the "Tooth Fairy" because her tooth had been under her pillow for a year or something. She said they wouldn't get it back if they didn't pay her within the week. She also used to write me random notes that she'd slide under my bedroom door, usually about boys. I think she wrote one to me entirely in Spanish because of the crush I had on a guy in my Spanish class.
3) Loves Jesus- She listens closely to what the Holy Spirit is telling her and has made a lot of very wise decisions because of her relationship with Jesus.
4) Excellent wife- This is evident by how much she respects Jeff and how he's so very smitten with her. They're both so proud of each other, they work hard to be giving with the other one, and they treat each other exceptionally well.
5) Wonderful mother- You can tell how much she adores Eiley and it's very obvious how much Eiley adores her, too, because she'll take her momma over anyone else in the room. It's been so fun to watch her with Eiley and to hear about what they're doing together (walking at the Botanical Gardens, going on the swings, reading new books, basketball games, etc.). Eiley's a very well-behaved and portable baby because her parents aren't afraid to take her to new places.
6) Champion lefse-maker- Even though I practically shared a birthday with my great-grandma, Mudder, Emmy became the golden child when it came to lefse-making because of her mad rolling pin skillz.
7) Hospitable- She loves having people over to their apartment for dinner and games or bad movies. She also puts on some great theme parties (for example, her birthday party last night was, "Choose Your Own Theme.").
8) Fantastic writer- All you have to do is go to www.longdistancelobsters.com and find that one out (although, I'm pretty sure that everyone who reads this is already reading that one.)
9) Great friend- This is obvious from the long-lasting friendships that she has. When she considers someone to be a close friend, then she will probably keep in touch with them for the rest of her life.
10) Smart cookie- She was reading at the 5th grade level when she entered Kindergarten. She went to Westmont, which is like the Harvard or Yale of Christian colleges. She has also excelled at all of the jobs that she's had.
11) Loves her family- I'm talking about the people she grew up with... Tim, Robyn, and Jenna Boyd. Plus, the Boyd and Bradshaw families. She loves spending time with us and does a great job of making that time count. Whether it's dinner and movie mocking with me; dinner, laundry, and "24" with the Boyd side; or getting a sub for my dad at school in order to go to Disneyland for the day- it's all because she loves us.

In conclusion- you're an awesome sister, Emmy! I'm thankful for you, proud of you, and I love you!

2011

Here are some of the things that happened during each month of 2011 since I attempt to do this at the beginning of each year...

January: I got a phone call to come in for a 2nd interview for a teaching position with SECEP. This was really weird because my first interview had been in April 2010 and I had gotten a rejection letter about 4 months after the first one. I ended up getting the job and being in someone else's classroom for the rest of the school year, which was great!
February: Started working for SECEP and got to know the kids and teachers in our classroom. I also got engaged to Andrew Garrett! He did a very romantic proposal that included a puzzle where he wrote the things he loved about me, a scavenger hunt, a spa day, and filet mignon with bacon-wrapped asparagus.
March: I remember getting gussied up for 5 Guys and a movie in honor of Emmy's birthday. Sorry, March- You seem to have been a boring month.
April: Spring Break came around and I didn't do much of anything.
May: I was Andrew's date to Chrysalis (that's basically Christian prom) and it was fun to get dressed up for it. We got passes to Busch Gardens and Water Country, so we started using those.
June: School got out for the summer and I got to spend a lot of time with my fiance.
July: Drove to Alabama for Philip and Cara's wedding. My parents moved into my apartment for the month. My awesome/adorable/advanced niece, Eiley Grace Fazakerley, was born on July 12th. I got married to the love of my life on July 30th and got to spend lots of time with many of the people I love the most in the world.
August: Went on our honeymoon... to Williamsburg, VA. We were supposed to leave for Cancun 2 days after we got married, but we found out that Andrew had lost his passport about 2 hours before we were supposed to leave. Thankfully, he has a wonderful dad who did some quick research when he found out what had happened. He was able to book a lovely condo for us at a resort place in Williamsburg. I'm pretty sure I loved it more than I would have loved Cancun, so it worked out for the best. I spent the last half of August getting prepared for the school year at Little Creek Elementary.
September: Realized that my job was in working with kids who have emotional/behavioral disturbance and not autism. Cried a lot about my job because I was getting beaten up by small children every day.
October: Continued to be miserable in my job because I was getting beaten up every day.
November: Turned 32 and my amazing husband did a great job of spoiling me with breakfast in bed, my first pair of Toms, and 2 beautifully framed pictures from our wedding.
December: Went to CA to visit my wonderful parents and the rest of my family for Christmas. Went to my first Future of Forestry concert. Ate a lot of In-N-Out and a couple of fancy meals. Went to the beach and the mountains (I got to visit Allen and Jess up there!)

The Proposal!

Once upon a time, I met and fell in love with a wonderful man named Andrew Garrett. He proposed to me today and now I get to marry him on July 30, 2011. Two of the many things that I love about him are that he's romantic and creative. This included how he proposed to me and now I get to write about it.

About 1 month ago, he brought me a jar with hand-written puzzle pieces in it. He said he wasn't proposing in the puzzle, but that it had to do with us getting engaged. He did say that it included the reasons why he loves me and said that I was only allowed to put a few pieces of it together at a time. This was all very cryptic, but I followed his directions.

Cut to yesterday when he handed me a gift and a letter. He told me to open the letter this morning and said that I would need to wait until I saw him today to open any gifts that I had received. The first note included a clue to go to L'Etoile Day Spa. I got to have a manicure, pedicure, and facial while I was there and it was glorious! While I was at the spa, one of the employees handed me another gift and clue. This one told me to call Emmy, which I did, and she told me to come over to their apartment. Once I was there, I received a gift and another clue that told me to go to Andrew's for lunch.

He had cooked bacon-wrapped filet mignon, twice-baked potatoes, and bacon-wrapped asparagus, which were amazingly delicious (I'm also a very lucky girl because he's an excellent cook)! Once we had finished eating lunch, he told me that I could finish the puzzle and open the gifts that I had received today. I put the puzzle together and there were a few pieces missing. We were able to find a couple of them, but there were three missing in the middle. He had me open up the gifts that I had acquired throughout the day and in each box was a missing puzzle piece. I put them all together and it said, "I love you! Will you marry me?" Then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, which I said yes to!

I'm so thankful for this amazing man! He loves Jesus, he has strength of character, people respect him, and he treats me like a queen. I'm blessed beyond words and am so excited that I get to spend the rest of my life with him!

Miniature Rant

I've been going to the Virginia Beach Recreation Center for about 4 months now and it's been a unique gym-going experience. I originally joined because I needed to for Bollywood classes. I was okay with that, though, because I only had to pay $44 for 6 months and they have pretty nice equipment there. The only downfall of the Rec Center is that you have to sign up for the machines you want to use in advance and there's a 30 minute time limit for each one that you use. This caused a bit of embarrassment the first time I went in September because I didn't know about this rule and got on a treadmill that someone else had signed up for... that lady was fine with telling me (in the tone one would use while talking to a 4 year old) about signing up at the front desk.

Cut to this Monday when I signed up to get a treadmill at 2pm. I got into the gym around 1:45pm and decided to use the StairMaster while I waited for the guy on Treadmill #6 to finish his workout. He finished around 2:04pm and I went over as soon as he was off of it. I got on there and was feeling really good after my StairMaster warm-up, so I decided to go at a pace of 8.5 minutes per mile. After I was almost to mile 2, I was feeling REALLY good, so I decided to up my pace and try for 3 miles in 25 minutes. I was very proud of myself when I really did meet my goal!

About 1 minute after I had stopped running, the lady who was signed up for the next time slot came over to ask how much longer I would be. I told her it would probably be another minute. Then the lady on the treadmill next to mine told me to make sure that I get on to the machines when my time slot starts because people get upset when they have to wait.

Here are some of the things that irritated me about all of this:

1) The guy before me was running late, so I started as soon as I could after he was finished.

2) I was sweating A LOT and breathing heavily when the other lady came to ask whether I was done. Couldn't she have waited a little bit longer until I had actually cooled down?

3) The lady who was going on after me had a book in her hand. I'm assuming she was going to read it on the treadmill because she put it on the little shelf thing when she took her turn. I'm pretty sure she wasn't going to do any heavy exercise and could have just walked around the gym a couple of times while waiting for the person who was actually working out.

4) I'm pretty sure the book she was going to read was the Bible (it was small, thick, and leather-bound). Maybe she could have read about the fruits of the spirit while waiting... I think there's something about patience in there.
5) I was wearing my awesome-orange-tie-dyed-Scott-Appalachian-Ministries t-shirt and decided to keep all of these thoughts in my head because I didn't want to be a bad witness for Christ. Instead, I wrote them all on here, which is probably not what Jesus would do.

Guest Blog

My awesome little sister let me write a guest post on her blog, "anything once." I wrote about driving on the boardwalk at the beach for the first time because I've never done that before. Lifeguards are the only people who get to do that in California, so Virginia now has one thing that they do better than California.



Here's the link:



http://fazawesome.blogspot.com/2010/11/guest-post-3-driving-on-boardwalk-at.html

2 Slightly Embarrassing Stories

I decided to join eharmony again last month because there hasn't really been a way to meet single guys around here. This means that I've gone on a couple of dates in the past month and here are two stories to make the 4 of you who read this laugh at me. I want to clarify that they're not actually super-embarrassing, but I'm hoping you'll be able to visualize.

Story 1:
I met a guy from eharmony at Panchero's for the first time on Wednesday. I had gone to Kohl's right before to: (a) put on a little bit of makeup because what I had applied that morning had mostly disappeared from my face and (b) go to the bathroom. We went into the restaurant, we're standing in line trying to figure out what to order, he looks down and says, "... you have something on your shoe." Yep, there was a trail of toilet paper on my shoe that I brought over from Kohl's on accident. I said, "Oh... that's awkward and that's never happened to me," then threw it in the trash.

Story 2 (this one made my roommate, Cara, snort):
I hung out with the same guy and two of his friends last night who are boyfriend and girlfriend. I felt like things went pretty well, but there were times when I felt like I was on a job interview. I don't think there's any way to avoid feeling that way when three people already know each other and they want to get to know one new person.

When they were about to leave, they said they were going to get a movie from Redbox and I thought they said they were going to get Starbucks. I said, "There's a Starbucks in the Barnes and Noble down the street, so that one's probably the closest." Then she said, "Oh, I like coffee," or something like that and he said something about liking Starbucks, too. This made me about 99.7% sure that they hadn't said something about going to Starbucks. I may as well have said, "I used to have a Yorkie" or "Transylvania really isn't that scary." I mumbled something like, "Oh... I thought I heard you saying something about Starbucks," but I don't think they heard me.

In conclusion, accidental non-sequiturs are awkward.

Who's nosy?... this girl.

I went to Barnes & Noble the other night because I wanted to read more of "Cold Tangerines," by Shauna Niequist. While I was waiting for my peppermint hot chocolate, I noticed two men talking to each other at one of the tables. One was a guy in his mid-late 20's who had his Bible out in front of him and the other was probably in his 50's somewhere. The 50-something one looked like he had lived a hard life and it seemed obvious that the younger guy wasn't his son. I was pretty sure the only reason they were hanging out at the B & N Starbucks was because the younger guy wanted to witness to the older man about Christ.


*Spoiler alert*... I was right.


Since I knew what was probably happening, I sat two tables over to hear their actual conversation. I really did try to focus on my book, but that ended up being too difficult because of what I could hear. 20-ish did a lot of talking and 50-ish seemed to be getting more and more annoyed with what he was saying. I was getting annoyed with what he was saying, too, even though it seemed like his life had been similar to mine. 50 was saying he just wasn't sure whether he could believe in God because of the things that have happened in his life. He also said something about Christians being hypocritical, which was another reason why he had trouble putting his faith in Jesus Christ. 20 made the point that he can only put his confidence in God because life's circumstances are temporary.

The thing that bothered me while I was listening to the two of them was how obviously different their life stories were. 20 talked about how he had been a Christian since he was 4; he's currently in seminary; he had been madly in love with a girl in college, but she dumped him and he realized his hope could only be in Christ; he sins, just like everyone else and, "even felt lust while he was on his way to Barnes & Noble today." I'm pretty sure 50 didn't even have a car because he asked 20 to drop him off somewhere when they were about to leave the store.

My point in writing about this is to give my opinion on what should have happened. I've heard it said many times, "Your greatest area of brokenness can become your greatest ministry." 20's areas of brokenness weren't nearly the same as 50's and I'm pretty sure that's the reason why 50 seemed so closed off. 20 needs to be sharing his story with high school and college students who are more likely to relate to what he's saying. It would have been great if 20 knew someone with a similar story to 50's and had asked that person to talk to him about Jesus. I think 50 would have been a lot more open to hearing from someone who had struggled financially or who had been through drugs, alcoholism, a difficult marriage, etc. (I don't know if those had been his problems, but, like I said... he seemed to have lived a hard life).

This is what I took from eavesdropping on that conversation: everyone has a story and they should share it with people. In doing so, they can connect others who have similar stories and allow them to relate to each other. I guess that's the thing that bothered me about what 20 was doing... I didn't hear him ask 50 any questions about what he had been through in life and it just sounded like he was preaching at him. If he had asked questions and seemed interested in the answers, he could have had the opportunity to point 50 toward people who had gone through similar circumstances. In turn, those people could have related to 50 and pointed him toward Jesus.