Not Dead Yet...

Well, it seems that I have made it through Winter Quarter of my masters program at DU. There was a time when I thought it might not be possible but thankfully it has ended. I am pretty sure that I did more work (I have been writing all of the components of my Teacher Work Sample which will fill a 5 inch binder if that sheds any light - yikes!) in the last two months than I did collectively in my undergrad. Definitely have pulled 4 or 5 all nighters... wasn't too good at that even when I was 20! Hence the no blogging, the no fun outings, the just plain no fun! :) I have started the new quarter that is thankfully not even close to as much work as last so I just might get to be a teacher after all. The only catch is that I will take everything over at school (student teaching) - challenging but at least my focus will be in one place.

In other news, as of two weeks ago I resigned from my position at Youth Pastor at Oasis. It was definitely time for a change and went as well as it could have possible gone considering. As of late I have felt it a necessary change and feel that God has released me from that role for the time being. I am still attending Oasis which is fantastic as I love my church! We will see what the future brings.

Got to spend some time this past Saturday at the hospital as my friends Mark and Susan just had a beautiful baby girl named Michaela Ann Wylie. Is she too cute or what?!

This week has simply been grand as I am on Spring break - much needed. I have spent most of the week catching up on all of the stuff that I never have time to do but today I went with my friend Kristi and her two little ones, Micah and Joel, to the Zoo. So much fun and I will gladly do anything that lets me be outside in the sunshine!




The fun must come to an end sometime as tomorrow at high noon I go under the drill to get my wisdom teeth out. "What wisdom could she be parting with?" you might be asking yourself. Clearly not the wisdom to get them taken out when I was 16 like all other normal people. However, I am hoping for a speedy recovery and to hopefully NOT look like a Stay Puff Marshmallow woman from all the swelling. The one good thing is that I do have a lot of Lost episodes to catch up on so I should be quite content.

And lastly, to make all things worth while my mother has kindly organized a girls trip consisting of my grandmother, sister, mom, and I to Hawaii at the end of May! Hooray!!! No more words necessary. All I can hope for is a bottle of suntan lotion, a beach chair, and someone to bring me drinks with umbrellas in them. Paradise indeed!

Aloha for now.

2007 in Review.

While I am at it, I suppose I could throw in some pictures of some of the exciting events that have gone by since I only managed two posts in 2007!

June: Did some Camping with friends at Golden Gate State park and hiked up to Panorama Point. Beautiful!

August: Headed downtown with the girls to see the Little Mermaid at the performing arts complex. Did all I could not to sing along out loud!

September: Renegade Reunion. This year was my 10 year high school reunion. Many of us couldn't make it to the real thing because they waited until the last minute to plan it so we met up at Bucca di Beppo downtown for dinner. Such fun catching up and laughing about how ridiculous we were in high school!

My sister, Bonnie, did indeed get married in September. It was beautiful!

The happy couple.

The Ladies.

The men.


Guess that is it for now. For some reason I am having a hard time getting to my other pictures. I have bored you enough for the present!

Had a great Friday night with the gals at Le Central, a cute little French restaurant downtown. We had THE BEST wine, food, and desserts. I highly recommend it!

Last week also called for a Ladies Night...in. Susan made some pretty rock star milkshakes (I am easily amused) and we were regaled by the amazing dance stylings of her son Andrew. He had been watching Jonah the Veggie Tales movie by himself in the living room and as we peaked around the corner we saw him rocking out to one of the songs. Priceless!

School doesn't give me a lot of time for fun these days so I was so glad to get to spend time with these gals two weeks in a row!

This is why I love my church... this is a common scene after church on Saturday nights. The restaurants cringe when they see us coming! Gotta love post church fun!

Trying to get my game face on for another week to start. I am tired just thinking about it!

No Wobbly Bits in 2008!

This is the battle cry of my friend Cheris and I in 2008.

Wob·bly (wäb′lē) adj. inclined to wobble.

Synonyms: unsure, vacillating, wavering, wavy, weak, wiggling, wonky.

Now, I don't know about you, but my belief is that ones body should never find its way into one of these categories (especially "wonky" that just frightens me!) But alas, it is true. Cheris and I have found our selves a bit "wavy" these days and so we are on a mission; A mission of butt kicking, ab torturing, ungodly early mornings.... so far so good. Helps that today was only day two so we are still optimistic and have not yet let the world (or the tasty desserts) slow us down.

In other news I made it through day one of student teaching.. really awesome when there are no kids! (It was a teacher work day.) I am feeling a little overwhelmed by everything that I am expected to accomplish in the next five months but I know that I will be so busy that it is going to fly by. Speaking of all of those things, I had better do some homework so I can go to bed. 5:30am comes early! Yikes!

2008!

Wow! I can't believe that it is already 2008 and so I guess it is time for my once a year post. (Really this is for you, Elaine, my one adoring fan!) Maybe this will be the year that I go for two whole posts in the year!

For those that don't know, I headed back to school this past fall to work on my Masters at Denver University in education. It is an insanely fast paced program but the great part is that I will have my certification in 9 months and then will only have 12 more credits to complete for my masters. This coming Monday I start my student teaching at Englewood Middle School, 6th grade Language Arts, baby! Now you may be thinking to yourself, "What person in their right mind would choose to hang out with middle schoolers?" What you always must remember is that I am seldom in my right mind! The truth is that I just love middle schoolers. They are hilarious and I feel pretty strongly that I can have a pretty big influence on their crazy little minds!

I am still working at Oasis as the youth pastor, still part time, ergo.. teaching masters!

Christmas was a blast this year, love spending time with my family. New Years was fun too as I rang in the new year with some friends and the parentals. Quite a fun time! I got a new camera so here are the latest pictures of New Years!

Is Jonah not the most precious little one you have ever seen??!!

Buster's Revenge

The sordid tale began on a seemingly normal day back in 1997. I was cruising in Buster, my sleek, powerful 1981 Jetta. The sun was shining and all was right with the world. Suddenly the sky darkened and was filled with ominous clouds and a slight rain began to fall. As I masterfully turned the wheel to round a corner the car began to slide as the pavement had become slick. Buster began careening toward the outer edge of road and no matter what I tried, there was nothing that could be done. As I glanced towards the side of the road I could thankfully see that nothing was there but a large empty field, a bush, and a fire hydrant. Danger averted... or so I thought. Did I slide into the completely empty field? No. Did I collide with the bush? Most definitely not. Buster struck in one solid blow the only thing that could have truly damaged him... the lone fire hydrant. A fire hydrant that would show no mercy. A fire hydrant that would take out all of the rage it had felt sitting alone on that curve all those years on poor Buster. I didn't know then that Buster would never recover from that fatal blow.

Later, as we pulled Buster's dead, lifeless body away from the scene of the accident, we saw the hydrants final mocking sentiment. Clear as day were the words "Mueller" stamped for eternity on Buster's front bumper. Mueller had left his mark and Buster was forced to take that mark to the grave. Many mourned the loss of Buster and he will be a car not easily forgotten.

It would be easy to think that was the end of the story. Mueller had won and Buster would lay in that big scrap heap in the sky unavenged. Who would have known that ten years later Buster would finally get his revenge?

Not long ago, as I was working busily away in an office building that now resides in that empty field of long ago and an extraordinary thing happened. As you know, Colorado has received its share of snow these days. Snow that has made the roads very hard to manage. It seems that a truck had been driving along that same curve in the road and lost control just as I did so many years ago. Amazingly enough the truck also slid into Mueller but this time the hydrant wasn't quite so cunning. Perhaps it's because he is getting older or maybe he was just having an off day. Nonetheless, the truck won and Muller was knocked clean off his block. Luckily two friends,

Amber and Ronda, who shared in the grief of Buster's demise ten years ago were also there to share in the joy of Buster's revenge. I know Buster is looking down from heaven smiling knowing his suffering was not in vain.

The Lord had heard his cry and Mueller was defeated. Buster has finally gotten his revenge.

DO NOT let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

No more snow, please! As I sit here on my couch the sky is once AGAIN dumping large quantities of snow outside my door. Now, I know that I live in Colorado and the snow can be an awesome site, but really?! If I wanted to know what it was like to live in Michigan I would move there! The kids around here are loving it though, they almost get a snow day a week.
As I cry about the snow I also sit and watch the Colts/Patriots playoff game. Insane!!! One of the craziest games I have seen in a long time... definitely not something I saw with my dear Broncos this year... *sniff* next year boys! I can't believe the Bears are in. What a season of football!

Well, a lot has happened since I blogged so long ago. I am brace free finally but my knee has still not healed completely. SO frustrating. I was kicking booty with my good friend Billy Blanks this morning and I can still feel quite a bit of pain. Hopefully one day it will heal. Perhaps a better way to catch up on all that has happened is through a few pictures...

Love the yearly Memorial Day Weekend Trip with the OCU college roomies. 2006 took us to Dallas... serious shoe and accessory shopping! We missed Katie this year!

Showin some love with one of my best gal pals Elaine on my trip to Kansas City.

My little sister Bonnie got engaged to her hunka hunka burnin' love Jarrod. Awww, aren't they cute!?

'Hillbilly' Lisa with my 'Soul Sista' Suzie-Q at Jason and Leah's Halloween soiree.

Blizzard #1 of five million this winter season. Believe it or not my friends car is under that huge lump of snow!

Sledding Day with my cousins up at my aunt and uncles house. We built a pretty great jump and my cousin Chrissy was getting some amazing air! A girl is never too old for sledding!

The cousins post sledding extravaganza

In true Jackson style when family comes into town Casa Bonita is not far in the future.

Bailey, Jason and I hitting the dusty trail... or maybe just reacting to the 'delicious' Casa Bonita food!

I definitely need to take more pictures! And the Colts won - what a game! Can't wait for the Superbowl!

Skiing and other such nonsense

Hmmm, well it has only been two months since I have updated this blog of mine. I like to leave my readers wanting more... even if it is wanting something "more" exciting to read than this! I will blame my absence on the craziness and busy nature if my days lately. :) My kids at church have been a ton of fun but keeping up with everything can be challenging. It is always interesting to fit a not-so part-time job into the 15 hours that is listed in my job description! I guess that is the definition of ministry. Overall, church life is also going well. During our gatherings we have been using the book The Singer by Calvin Miller. It is an allegory of the life of Christ and is awesome - I highly recommend it! I also have been singing on the worship team and am loving that. The music is awesome! I keep telling Scott (our worship leader) that one of these days I am going to bust out my rock star moves (perhaps an arm raised to the sky, fingers spread as I dramatically bring my hand down in front of my face) during one of the songs ... all for Jesus, of course! He doesn't seem to agree that it would be a good plan, we will see...

In other news, last week I was on spring break. What's a girl to do but head on up to the hills with some of her best gal pals for a day of skiing?! Now, as sad as it may seem to you, this little Friday morning adventure was only my second time to go skiing, the last time having been about 5 years ago. Determined to regain some self respect for being a Colorado native yet not a skier, I headed on up to Copper Mountain. As soon as we got there we caught a ride on the ski lift up to the top of the mountain (well, Andrea, Leah and Natalie caught the first ride up - I was two lifts behind them because apparently one needs to be smarter than the lift to board it. I had not yet reached that prerequisite.) The girls headed down the mountain in fine form. I, however, was taking my sweet time because as you know it takes awhile to snowplow your way down a ski run. (This of course is excluding the moments when, much to my chagrin, I got a tad out of control and started hurling down the mountain at record speeds. Luckily my collisions with the ground slowed me down!)
After quite a bit of slow moving - arm flailing- almost falling skiing action, I was finally starting to get the hang of it. Aside from the 2 years olds speeding past me yelling "see ya later sucker!" I was feeling good. Beautiful day, fresh powder, starting to go faster... even faster... can't stop... and of course down I went. This time not so easily as before. Somehow when I fell, my body twisted but my left ski got caught and I ended up landing on it. Andrea said she watched it happen and was impressed by what she calls my "figure skater move" as both legs kicked up into the air and I spun around. (What's worth doing is worth doing well I always say.) Needless to say my ski day had come to an impressive end.

I will give three cheers for cell phones. I called for help and then Andrea and I waited for the next HOUR for the ski patrol to come and collect me. (I know! Glad I wasn't bleeding to death!) Quite a nice view from up there. Would have been a lovely time if not for the intense humiliation of sitting in the middle of the slope with skis stuck in the ground, situation screaming to the world "This fool can't even ski a green!" (Oh and the fact that my leg was not exactly feeling tip-top.)

The ski patrol guy (T.R.) finally showed up and to make sure that I didn't have a shred of dignity left, he bound me up in one of the bright yellow toboggan sleds and skied me down the mountain. (Not before several small children gathered round to watch all of the excitement- probably the same ones that flew past me earlier!) At the bottom of the hill, ski patrol man #2 (called "Junior") came and they loaded me into a truck stretcher style and took me back to the main office. Good old T.R. thought it was only right that I had pictures to remember my adventure by, so he took some with his phone of "Junior" and myself. Andrea tried to give him a phone number to send them to, but ended up giving him the wrong number. Alas, there is someone out there with a picture of me bound in a toboggan next to an amazingly good looking ski patrol guy... talk about adding insult to injury!
I visited with the orthopedic surgeon yesterday and he tells me that I have only pulled and stretched some ligaments and possibly torn some cartilage. I have a pretty fancy bionic leg brace that I get to wear for the next three weeks. I just need to remember that it could have been so much worse! Last week I experienced the joy of crutches... nothing good to say about that except the fact that I could threaten my kids at school with them! :) (I started that long term subbing job on Monday.) I told one of my boys the other day that if he didn't knock it off I was going to beat him with my crutch. The room was completely silent for a minute and then they busted up laughing. I am thinking that had to process whether or not I was kidding. It was hilarious. And so ends my skiing adventure.... until next time!