Scouting trip to Asheville, NC

A week and a half ago Niesha and I took a trip down to Asheville to try and find a place to live since we had planned to move down there at the end of the month. Smart eh? The 11 hour drive down to North Carolina went relatively smoothly but upon arriving at our friends, Michael and Dawn's place, and opening the trunk of the car Niesha and I made a shocking observation. It so happened that when I was loading the car with bags and stuff Niesha thought I carried her duffle bag down to the car. I assumed she had it on the final trip to the car that we both made. So back in our apartment on the floor of our bedroom near the closet sat Niesha's clothes and overnight supplies. I felt horrible. My wife, who is a very forgiving woman, said it was okay and we made the best of it (with a trip to Walmart and Dawn lending and giving Niesha a bunch of stuff).

Apparently Asheville is a very popular place, especially with school starting up right about now. We had a tough time locating many apartment complexes that had any available units when we called leading up to our trip. And it didn't get any easier. We had driven down on Saturday and so Sunday was our first apartment hunting excursion. The first place we had made an appointment at was only about 4 minutes from where we were staying and the place was quite decent. Next I called to confirm an appointment that I had made for later that night to see a small house for rent. But it had been rented. So next we headed to our second appointment. When we got their the lone employee was already helping a prospective tenant. I jokingly said to Niesha that that guy better not be stealing the apartment we were coming to look at. Turns out he wasn't the apartment had been rented the day before and they no longer had any units in our price range. So after seeing one apartment, that was actually available we were done for the day. That night we looked more online and made some more phone calls to try and increase the number of options we had left. We originally had only 3 more appointments on Monday so we increased that by a few.

The second place we saw Monday morning was very......interesting. We met a lady who worked for a property manager at one location and although the current tenants hadn't moved out yet she could show it to us and two other guys who were possibly interested. As we entered the two bedroom four-plex apartment it literally looked like a landfill had died there. We could not believe they would show a place like that, although the lady may not have known the state of it.

After a full day of checking out places we had narrowed our choices to three places. After further deliberation we got to two since the one was a little high on rent and didn't include any utilities. We talked and dicussed, made decisions, and then changed our minds. Finally we decided on a place called Willow Ridge. We planned to go there first thing in the morning, sign some papers, drop off the security deposit and head home to Kalamazoo. The next morning we arrived at their office at 8:40 am and the office was supposed to open at 8:30 but no one was there. A maintenance man came by and said they had run some errands and would be back in 20 minutes. 40 minutes later (and with at least an 11 hour drive ahead of us) the two female employees returned. When we told them we had been waiting for 40 minutes the one lady in a rude tone said, "that's why we make appointments". I replied, "Excuse me but your office hours start at 8:30am" She assured us she would help us. As the other female entered the office I saw her put down a grocery bag with hair products in it. Apparently the urgent "errand" these two women needed to do was get hairspray. Looking through an apartment chart the first lady said, "Oh, that apartment you wanted was rented after you left yesterday. And the other option we had mentioned is gone too." We stood there not believing our ears.
As we got in the car we realized we had wasted almost an hour at a place that didn't have any vacancies. So we headed to the backup place called Parkway Crossing. At Parkway they apartment was still available so we took it. It was two hours later than expected when we finally rolled out of Asheville and little did we know that thanks to three road construction sites, and a major interstate accident we would arrive home over 12 hours later, with Niesha having to work early the next morning.
But here's where it gets even more interesting. Four hours into our drive home we get a call on Niesha's cell phone from Willow Ridge, the lady who put the deposit on the apartment we wanted called and cancelled so it's available now. I told the lady we had put down a deposit elsewhere. I hung up. Niesha and I talked. I called Parkway and they could refund the deposit with no penalty. Niesh and I talked. I called Willow Ridge again and asked how we could get the apartment without being there. I got the info and hung up. Niesha and I talked. Now we were unsure of what to do. We obviously didn't like the office ladies at Willow Ridge. Niesha and I talked some more. I really wish Willow hadn't called us about the open apartment, it would have made the trip home much more relaxing. We ended up deciding to stay at Parkway. So here are some photos of the model unit they show to everyone. Of course it is decorated better than we will be able to do with our limited budget but it may give you an idea of our new home.



The kitchen is small and the two rooms aren't that big but it has a walk-in closet and the living room is much better laid out than Willow. Plus the bathroom is also bigger.


Our friends Michael and Dawn were awesome hosts. Somehow though I didn't even get a picture of them. Here's a pic (above) of their house and their CRAZY driveway.


The highlight of the trip for me was getting to drive Michael and Dawn's son's 2006 5.0 liter Ford Mustang. I have never driven anything with that much power. Screaming around the back roads of Asheville was a blast in that thing! I'll have more pics of our trip on my facebook account soon....hopefully.

Back on the Links

About four weeks ago (ya I haven't been keeping up very well) my friends Shawn and Johnathan from the Andrews hockey team and I went golfing. I hadn't golfed in 5 years but was itching to get on a course after my parents had sent me my golf clubs in the mail back on my birthday. The course played pretty difficult since it hadn't rained in over a month and the "rough" was simply trampled dead grass that resembled concrete more than any kind of organic substance. My goal for the day was to break 90. My final score was.....90. Not bad under the circumstances and I had a lot of fun spending the afternoon with the guys. I haven't been out on the links since then but I collect any empty pop and beer cans I can find to fund my next outting. Not that it's that expensive to golf in Michigan....unless you've been unemployed for 8 months like myself.

Sorry about the no posts

Hey there everybody......or anybody who still checks this. I have neglected to update my blog for almost a month now, not because nothing has been happening but for a few other reasons. One of the main reasons for the lack of blog posts has been my involvement in a little something called facebook.com. It's on this site that one can keep in touch with all kinds of people that one's met through their life. I've reconnected with quite a number of old friends. It's also a place to post a number of pictures and so that has been something that I've spent some time on. So anyone not on facebook that's interested can e-mail me and I'll send them an invite. Be warned however, facebook is known to be a time-sucking vortex.
The big news right now is that my beautiful bride and I are moving at the end of the month to North Carolina. We're both excited to be getting out of Michigan and I'm super excited to be moving somewhere that has mountains!! We're headed down there next weekend to hopefully lock up an apartment in the Asheville area. So keep us in your prayers.
Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to keep the one or two of you that still check this thing posted better on the events that transpire over the next couple weeks.

Belated B-day present

Two weekends ago Niesha and I took a trip an hour west and a bit north of Kalamazoo to Saugatuck Michigan which is a small town on the coast of Lake Michigan and at the mouth of the Kalamazoo river. Niesha had booked some spots on a sailboat for Sunday afternoon and we made a day of it.
The area was quite nice with lots of lush trees around the town and a real "summer fun" atmosphere in a town that had lots of shops and stores lining the streets. There was even a large wooded hill close to the river that had some stairs leading up it. The stairs looked like they went up a long way so I naturally wanted to climb it and see: 1)where it went, and 2)what the view was like at the top.

284 steps later, we reached the top of Mount Baldy as it was called (but it wasn't really a Mount by any means) and had a wonderful view of Saugatuck.



The sailing trip itself lasted a good two hours. First we had to meander down the Kalamazoo river for about 20 minutes until we reached Lake Michigan which upon entering the large body of water the captain put up the sails and off we went at about 7 knots (8.4 miles/hr) out to sea.......er lake.


We were allowed to go up onto any part of the bow but the captain said he had one rule, "Just don't fall in the water". It was a beautiful sunny day and the wind was blowing pretty strong, so even though it was warm on shore it was cool enough to need a light jacket on the water.
The day was awesome. It felt fantastic to be back on a body of water. I've been so used to being on the water in the summer I really miss it when I go long periods of time without bouncing on some waves.Niesha and I even managed to get sprayed a little while sitting on the bow of the boat when some large waves sloshed into the side of the boat and soared into the air to greet our bodies with a fine mist.


It was a wonderful birthday present and I'm thinking, now all I need is a sailboat of my own and the rest of the summer will have all kinds of adventures to write about!

Some of the scariest images you may ever see!

It's amazing how much laughter a simple computer program can produce. These images are from a program called photobooth which came with my friend Jun's new Macbook laptop. The computer has a built in webcam so it can take pictures of you or, as with this program, distort pictures of you. We nearly pee-ed (spelling?) our pants!

Chicago trip

This past weekend Niesha and I took a trip with our friends Shawn and Camille to Chicago. Shawn preached at the Lakeview SDA Church (although there's no lake to view, it's in a very urban environment actually) and we stayed for a potluch lunch after and enjoyed meeting some new people.


After the lunch we made our way to Lincoln Park Zoo which is free on Saturday's and Shawn and Camille are a poor young couple as well so we took full advantage. Somehow in my excitement I forgot one simple thing, free stuff = crowds. As we circled the park and surrounding area over and over and over.........and over, we could not find a single free parking space. Cars were jammed into parallel parking spaces like, well not like sardines because sardines are really not jammed in that close together, but the cars were jammed in like pickles, which are absolutely packed into that jar. To our dismay it also started pouring rain while we were looking for a parking spot to go along with the 92 F or 33 C heat outside. So hot and muggy is understatement of what it felt like.


Eventually we succumbed to paid parking and once we got out of the air conditioned car we realized how fast one can sweat in 100% humidity. After a little while the on and off showers cooled things down and it wasn't that bad.
For a free zoo the animals that were exhibited were quite impressive. I was able to see a Tiger for the first time in real life, up close, and he even smiled for me so I could get a picture.
I had seen Lions in the wild in Africa so that was a little less exciting. One of the female Lions did however have something against the lady who was standing behind me and to my right. The female Lion at one point looked directly at the woman and growled the deepest meanest growl I've ever heard. I turned around, looked at the woman, and although I saw no reason why the Lion growled, I promptly moved to the other side of the crowd. Maybe the Lion knew something I didn't.


It was fun throughout the afternoon to try and make noises to try and get the attention of the animals so I could take their picture. I assumed that the mating call of each species would garner the most attention so that was road I took. Of course I don't know the mating call of a single species, not even humans, so the noises that came out of my mouth were quite interesting. Not surprisingly, I wasn't the only person trying to get the animals attention. Grown men and women, along with kids were making a variety of calls. There was the universal "pucker your mouth and suck in" making a squeaking noise. There was the "growl loudly" especially used around the large cats. There was the good old whistle, but there weren't any dogs at the zoo so that one had limited success. And then there were even people who tried to just call out in english to get the animals attention. One question though, what if the animal doesn't speak english?
I do have to say that I was able to entice a black bear. The noise I made can only be explained as a cross between a mule, a goose, a walrus in heat and an angry armadillo.....ya it was quite the spectacle. Right after I made the call the bear stood up on it's hind legs and proceeded to eat some leaves. Whether it had planned to stand up before I made the call we'll never know. But it looked kind of impressive so that's my story and I'm sticking to it.



Although it was neat to see some of the animals I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. Many of them were very confined quarters and some of them looked very unhealthy. There was one penguin in particular that looked so sad. The fur or hair on it's back was falling out to the point that you could see it's skin quite easily in
places. It didn't do much but stand in a small room that housed about 40 other penguins. I guess I'll have to wait until heaven to be able to play with and see the many beautiful creatures of God's creation.

Two minutes for elbowing

I have never considered myself a "dirty" hockey player but it seems the same cannot be said of the way to sleep. Last week I apparently rediscovered how to smack, rake over, elbow and bump Niesha in the night without even realizing I had done anything. Such events had occurred afew times not long after we were married but after a while I had seemed to learn how to be nice......little did Niesha know.
The main problem seems to be that I sleep with my arms above my head often throughout the night. When it's time to change positions my sleepy brain somehow doesn't like to lift my arm closest to my beautiful bride up off the bed but simply drag it in a snow angel kind of motion down to my side. And herein lies the problem. My arms are long, my elbows are bony and Niesha has been rudely awakened numerous times lately. About a week ago I even connected with her face a record three times in one night. One of those was apparently a hefty elbow to the noggin.
Of course I feel terrible, but even after encouragement Niesha
refuses to hit me back while I'm sleeping. They have devices to help
spouses who snore. How about a restrictive arm sling to prevent
nocturnal spousal abuse?

My first Youtube post

A couple days ago I successfully posted my first video on youtube.
And now, barring any major glitches I will have successfully posted my first video on my blog. I guess this video really encapsulates the level of frivolous and ridiculous matter that is crammed between my ears.
This video was shot by a very underrated cameraman.......me, while I drove from Kelowna to Southern California back in September of 2005. Let me just say that Central California is almost as boring as driving through the Canadian Prairies or South Dakota or Southern Minnesota. To compound the boredom this area seemed to be the Spanish radio headquarters of the universe! Unable to find an English station that was worth listening to I just decided to sing along with whatever I could find. And then, this gem was produced.
If you'd like to check out other videos I've posted on youtube, simply go to youtube and find this video by typing "Spanish singing superstar" into the search box. Then click on my username which is loonybrain. That will take you to my youtube account page.

David Crowder Concert

Crowder is definitely a different looking kind of fellow, but his music is awesome!

Two weekends ago my beautiful bride and I were privileged to go to a David Crowder concert. For those of you who are out of the contemporary Christian music scene Mr. Crowder is one of the most popular artists in this category at the moment. The concert was awesome, opening for Crowder was another band called The Longing and a drama team also performed a few humorous yet spiritual skits that had some real depth to them.
The Crowder Band put forth an awesome worship concert. I just love worshiping with a few thousand people, singing and praising God. I've been lucky enough to see David Crowder on two other occasions and I realized that I've now seen him in three states, Georgia, Tennessee, and most recently Michigan. When I put it that way it sounds like I really get around.

Celebrating mother's day........without any mothers

The look on my face shows how comfortable the harness was.



This wall had a gradual overhang, so the higher you climbed the harder it got.

Same wall as above. Notice, no socks.

On Sunday (Mother's Day) me and some friends went to an indoor rock climbing establishment here in K-zoo. This was pretty much my first time rock climbing except for some brief fooling around sessions at summer camp a few years ago.
A few things struck me throughout the day. First, I'm convinced that a woman designed the rock climbing harness. Let's just say there's virtually no room for the male "equipment" once the device is cinched tightly around both legs and your waist. Second, rental equipment at rock climbing places is so beat up it looks as if it passed through some large mammals digestive system recently. Third, it's depressing to think that enough people enjoy rock climbing in Kalamazoo that an indoor facility can stay in business but the closest real rock climbing is hundreds of miles away. Shouldn't these people realize, "Hey, Kalamazoo sucks, there's nothing really here. Maybe I should move."
Once I was suited up in my raggedy equipment we went through a beginner training course and learned how to not drop your climbing partner, or basically how to not kill your friends. After the lesson we were ready to attack the walls, but first I had to put on the shoes.
As I was putting on the climbing shoes they advised me to go barefoot as it gives a "truer feel". I asked if they cleaned the shoes. They said yes. I still hesitated. These shoes looked like soft dog food that had hardened and was then molded into the shape of a foot and finally colored green. I took off my socks and decided to go for it. As I tied the mismatched, and different length laces, I wondered what kinds of foot fungus I was exposing my toes to.
On my first climb my right big toe was starting to hurt once I reached the top of a relatively simple wall. Once descended I realized my right climbing shoe had a quarter sized hole in the bottom of it. These things really did look like they had been attacked by the flesh-eating disease. I got them taped up however and kept at it.
The afternoon was quite enjoyable. My forearms a day later are quite sore but the fun memories easily take away the pain. I'm afraid I may have enjoyed the experience too much though. I definitely want to go again. It even crossed my mind to get my own equipment. Or at least my own climbing shoes that haven't been mauled by some kind of jungle cat but are being held together by chewing gum and eletrical....er....climbing tape.

University Hockey Career Over

About a month ago I played my last University related hockey game. We lost our opening playoff tilt 1-0 in a shootout. The game was extremely close and I had multiple chances throughout the game to score but the opposing goalie seemed to have my number all night. The worst of it was on a partial break away with 11 seconds left in regulation where I put the puck right into his glove and made him look really good in front of a decent crowd that had come up for the game. After 5 minutes of sudden death sovled nothing I managed to score on my shootout attempt but my teamates both failed to put the biscuit in the basket and we were given an early playoff exit.
The end of the season stats were printed in the University paper at the end of April and I finally managed to get myself a copy. The other picture is from the online student "Cast" as it is called. I mean, just looking at it you could tell I was the captain of the hockey team.........no?

Divine Master?!

This past weekend I attended my graduation from the Seventh Day Adventist Theological Seminary for my Masters of Divinity degree. I had already "graduated" in December but the University doesn't have a December grad. The degree name sounds really quite prestigious but to be honest the program is not really that academic, and it's sad to see how low the quality of some of the students are that make it through.
I'm not sure if officially now I can be considered a "Divine Master". The title seems over the top, especially for those of you who know me well. I've barely mastered making the bed let alone Divine subjects. So yes, you all can still call me Jeff.
I'm slowly accumulating some letters behind my name now, BS, MDiv, I'm looking to eventually add TGIF, ASAP, RSVP, R&R, and R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Those are going to take a while though.

I'm (we're) married!!! (Part 3)

No, Niesha had no idea I was going to dip her.




Sunday morning finally arrived. The big day! The day we had been planning for 7 months. The day we had been stressed about every day for 6 months and 29 days. But besides starting about 30 minutes late, the day was a big success (the mother of the bride managed to get lost on the way to the wedding).
We had prayed for months that it wouldn't rain since Niesha from day one had wanted an outdoor ceremony. We weren't able to have the ceremony on the beach like she had originally wanted to so I desperately wanted the weather to cooperate. We had spent hours and hours searching for an outdoor location and if it rained all that would be for nothing. Well, there was not a cloud in the sky the whole morning. But little did we know we should have been praying for warmth. March 18, 2007 happened to be a record day, record as in the coldest day for March 18th in Orlando's history. The morning low was apparently 42 F, or 6 C and it took a while to warm up. The wedding was at 11:00 am so Niesha and the poor girls shivered through the entire ceremony standing in the shade with the wind blowing past us.
But it was beautiful. And although the place was decorated magnificently everything paled in comparison to my stunning bride over the next four hours.
As many people said, the day was a blur. But I remember laughing a lot. I remember thinking how awesome all the toasts were. My bestman, the maid of honor, my dad, and Niesha's mom all did an incredible job and I wish we had somehow recorded every word that was said. The cake looked amazing. The stories that were told were great memories. It truly was a very special day and we can't thank everyone enough for all their help in making March 18th 2007 one of the greatest days of our life!

I'm (we're) married!!! (Part 2)

So next was the wedding weekend. On Saturday, we had planned a lunch to be able to socialize with friends and family since we expected the wedding day to be a blur. But even with the lunch I felt like I didn't get to talk to very many people, and the ones I did get to talk to seemed more brief than I would have liked.

Saturday evening we returned to the hotel with plans to change and go out to eat with the bridal party. Niesha and her girls went to their room and both key cards wouldn't unlock their door. I took the cards to front desk and they reset them. Again no luck. I returned to the front desk and explained the situation. They would "send a maintenance man up". Would Borat return? We braced ourselves for an extremely high level of incompetence. Borat did not return, but it was......another maintenance man with a language barrier.
He tried his "master card key", and still nothing happened. He informed us that the battery must be dead in the lock system and he would have to open the door manually with the back-up master key. He inserted the key in the lock and turned............and the whole circular lock cylinder just rotated in the door. He tried again. Nothing. He tried his card key again. Nothing. He mumbled some words in broken english. At first all of us in the bridal party were laughing but trying to be discrete about it. But after about 20 minutes the maintenance man asked us, "When is the wedding?" "Tomorrow morning." we replied.
"Oh, so it's not tonight, that's good."
"Why, how long is it going to take for you to get into this room? All the bridesmaid's dresses and the wedding dress are in there?!"
"Well, I have to call some people." he said.

Eventually they got the girls door open a few hours later and had them change rooms. It sounds simple but when girls have laid out their clothes, make-up, bathroom utensils, creams, polishes, cleaners, waxers, shavers, it takes quite a bit of manpower to move them and their stuff a couple doors down.

I'm (we're) married!!! (Part 1)

"Got hitched", "Tied the ol' knot", "Said the I do's", "Attached a ball and ch...........", uh, I won't go there. But yes, I achieved all of these statements (minus the last one) in one simple weekend. Although simple is hardly the word.
Niesha and I flew down to Florida 5 days before the wedding as we still had a number of loose ends to tie up before the big day. We had decided to stay with my family in a timeshare in Kissimmee (just south of Orlando) for the first two nights. Sounds straight forward but one detail is missing to the equation. There were 16 of us staying in two timeshare units (with more arriving throughout the week). There were hida-beds (spelling?) to support most of the bodies that wouldn't fit into beds but I mean who really gets any decent sleep on a hida-bed?! I tried the first night and had that great metal-bar-in-back feeling for a good part of the day. The next night my Aunt and Uncle from Edmonton blew up an air mattress for me. That, I can usually handle quite easily so I was happy.....until. At 2:34 am I woke up and my left hip was sore. I tried to move and thought the air mattress was definitely unhappy with me because it felt rock hard. Like tile floor hard. Like I was sleeping on a cold hard tile floor. Like my air mattress had COMPLETELY deflated and I was sleeping on a slab of cold hardness. Not wanting to wake everyone with the electric pump required to pump up the mattress I crawled onto the couch.
After a couple seconds on the couch I realized I was directly in the path of the air conditioning fan. And here's where I must ask the question "Why is every indoor room in Florida kept cold enough for a penguin to be comfortable?" So I was cold since cool air was pouring over my face. I decided to switch switch ends of the couch and put my head where my feet had been. The air was still rushing over my face. Out of desperation I moved to the small "L" shape of the couch that wasn't even long enough for me to stretch out. Finally no wind. But I was still cold.
I got up and tried to turn up the heat on the thermostat. Of course the button wouldn't work. I pressed harder. Still nothing. I pressed repeatedly. Nothing again. I pressed harder and repeatedly.........the numbers moved up a little. Hooray! I moved back to the my little "L" section on couch, and curling up into a tiny ball I fell asleep.
When I awoke in the morning I was not only uncomfortable from being cramped I realized I was sweating profusely. I guess I had turned up the heat a little too much. Ooops.

A couple days later Niesha and I went up to Northern Orlando where she could stay with an Uncle and I could stay with my cousin. Again my sleeping equipment was a hida-bed. This one however wasn't bad but my bestman Vince was flying in at 6:05 am so I didn't even get to spend much time in it anyway.
After the trip to the airport and a nap back at my cousins my Baba and Aunt made us a wonderful lunch that was music to our nostrils as we woke up. The rest of that Friday was spent with my cousin Mike, Vince and I golfing. Vince had never played before so Mike and I shot our opposite way and still managed to beat Vince, although not by much. It was blast and the highlight of the afternoon occurred when Vince unknowningly stood in an ant hill preparing to take and shot and then jumping around trying to brush the ants off as they swarmed up his leg.

Friday evening we checked into a hotel. As we got settled we wanted to watch the movies I had taken of our golfing adventure that afternoon. After struggling to connect the video camera to the hotel tv we called the front desk and were informed that something had to be done to the tv by a maintenance worker so they would send one up. Enter Borat the maintenance man. Upon arriving we quickly realized this "maintenance man" was not that skilled in the English language. In fact he didn't speak any real English words in the 15 minutes he visited us. He simply grunted and pressed buttons on the tv remote in the way we had already done a few minutes earlier. After a few attempts he got into the "Parental control" section of the tv and we had to repeatedly tell him that's not what he had to be dealing with. We finally convinced him that it was okay if he couldn't figure it out.

Living behind enemy lines

Here's my living situation. This past December, knowing I was wanting to live in Kalamazoo to be close to my fiance I asked some of her very distant relatives (whom we had known only a short time) if I could stay with them for the couple months leading up to our wedding. After a week or so of thinking about it they said I could. An answer to prayer right.........little did I know.
I have experienced a number of occasions where I just shake my head at what I am having to go through just to occupy a room in these peoples house. The latest such occasion happened a couple days ago.
On this frigid day the wind chill was so extreme that the county had closed all schools in the area keeping the wife of where I'm staying home for the day since she is a teacher. I'll call her Marsha. After getting up and going to the bathroom I went back to my bedroom where I have made it a habit in the mornings to get a little exercise before I shower. I had completed my push-ups, sit-ups and was almost done running on the spot (trying to get a little aerobic workout) when there was an aggressive knocking on my door.
"What's going on in there?" Marsha sternly demanded.
"I'm just doing some exercises." I replied
"In my bedroom!!!" She shrieked as if she had caught me shooting heroine in her house.
"I'm just running on the spot." I tried to explain through the still closed door.
"Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no! You can not do that in there, that is not safe! You must go downstairs if you are going to do anything like that." She stated very definitively.
"Uh, okay." I responded
I stood there in shock for a few moments. My heart was pounding, but not just from the exercise. I was getting tired of these types of interactions.
I went and showered, and afterward made my way downstairs to eat breakfast. And this is when it got even more interesting.
As I entered the kitchen, before I even knew what kind of cereal I was going to have, I was enduring an intense lecture from this obviously angered woman.
"You have to respect my house if you're going to be here. You cannot do things like that in my bedrooms. What were you thinking!"
"I'm sorry" I replied. "I've done little exercises like that in every place I've ever lived. I didn't think I was doing anything wrong."

To clarify, she must have heard me running on the spot. The funny thing is that it was only for a few minutes and it's not like it's even noisy cause I stay on the balls of feet. I've done this in apartments even, never once getting a complaint from the tenants below.

"No." she said scowling. "We didn't go over the rules when you moved in here but maybe we should have."
"I apologize." I said again. "I didn't realize that what I was doing was wrong."
"Well you should know!" She quickly responded.
My heart was pounding as I was furious inside. I wanted to tell this woman where she could go but I knew that wasn't going to help the situation.

"We're not going to be living in this house for more than 5 or 6 more years, we need to take care of it. You need to respect my home. You're going to damage my house doing things like that." She said as she continued to lecture me as if I was some 14 year old troublemaker.
Many thoughts crossed my mind. Did the little pig who built his house out of straw build this woman's home? I must have run on the spot in my parents living room thousands of times. Literally thousands. Was my parents home suddenly going to collapse without warning? Should I call and warn them?
Did this woman really think I could cause structural damage to her home by running on the spot? I wanted to ask but I knew from her mood that she was probably not capable of having a rational conversation at that moment. And this woman is the type who knows everything about everything and doesn't listen to other's points of view anyway. I probably wasn't in the most Christian frame of mind either so I decided to take the high road and I apologized again and assured her it wouldn't happen again.
Later that day I wondered if I was perhaps wrong in my thinking and called my dad. A man who has 40 years of construction experience and has built homes himself should know a thing or two about damaging one. Without telling him what had happened to negate any possible bias, I asked him if he remembered how I used to run on the spot in our living room at home (which is on the second floor, like the home I was in). He said he remembered. I then asked if I could have caused any structural damage to our house. "No." he replied as if I was asking a silly question. I then proceeded to tell him what had happened to which he laughed in amazement at Marsha's ridiculous idea.

The thing is, had Marsha calmly asked me what I was doing, politely asked me to stop, and told me that she would rather me do that somewhere else, I would not be writing this entry. And I wish this were the only experience like this that I've had. I must say though that the husband of the home is very nice. He is very accommodating and polite. Unfortunately his wife is one of those people who dominate their mate, interrupting him when he's telling stories, correcting things he says and barely letting him get a word in whenever I'm trying to ask him a question.

My other adventures with Marsha have included: Being accused of not flushing the toilet after using it. Then after further investigation Marsha realizing that the toilet in the bathroom I use does not flush properly, which she then nagged her husband that they need to get that fixed. (And another point is that I have a separate bathroom and I'm the only who uses it. That means Marsha comes into that bathroom and looks in the toilet every once in a while.......and you thought people like this only existed in movies).
I opened the vertical blinds of the picture window in the living room one Sunday morning to let the sun shine in but when Marsh came downstairs she went to the window and said condescendingly, "We don't do this in the winter." And closed the blinds with a frown.
I have left things, like a duffel bag on the floor in my room, and when I return in the evening the bag is in the closet and other things are cleared from sight (like my slippers) with the closet doors shut. Apparently she wants an uncluttered room. Even though she insists the doors be shut to the bedrooms.
I could go on, moving in was a whole other story, but this is a long post. I will be sure to mention any other extremely entertaining situations.
I can wait to move in with my fiance in just over a month. I will appreciate it all the more.

This is me

Okay, this is generally what I do. No, not ride giant turtles but goof around when I'm not busy with something else.
I don't know why I am like this. I get some of it from both sides of my family, but the rest of it is just a mystery. I am serious sometimes, but those are typically boring times.
So, I'm kind of introducing myself here but the people who end up reading this will know me already. I guess I'm not so hot at this blogging thing yet.
Oh, and this isn't a very recent photo but I believe it captures a certain essence of what I am all about.

First blog ever

This is my first attempt at a blog........kind of anticlimactic.