The Life of the “Girl Pastor”

Christmas is upon us! We just finished up the play and I spent my annual week cleaning out my office, it was WONDERFUL! I feel very tired from it all though. I am working on some vision casting- both for the couple of months ahead that I know we will have lost some steam from the excitement of fall, and also to remind myself of why I come here every day. Sometimes you have to dig through a lot of crap to get to some of the good stuff in ministry. The last month or so has been that pile on more than one occasion… time to seek God and remember why he called me to this crazy job!

Hey all! So I’ve almost been at it for a couple of months now! I started doing pilates with my friend Wendy on Mondays at the end of September, and am now doing hot yoga once a week for almost a month now. I think once pilates is done, I will do hot yoga twice a week. I am really feeling great these days!

Exercise seems to always make me in a good mood. I have especially noticed a big change in 2 areas: 1- my back. Before I could barely do any types of exercises in pilates without my instructor asking me if i had a bad back. I suppose it’s from being hunched of my computer like igor every day.. yeah that might have something to do with it! But every time I come home from pilates or yoga, I feel stronger. each week, I can reach a little further! I actually had a breakthrough last week while doing “standing separate leg head to knee pose” (what a gay name!)… I can actually bend over with my legs 4 feet apart, lock my knees and grab the outsides of my feet without wanting to scream! how awesome is that!

the second thing i’ve noticed is that my ability to balance is getting a lot better. I did both sets of balancing stick pose in yoga last week without falling down! SOOO awesome.

Yoga seems to kick my butt every time I do it, but I feel so great afterwards (and sleep like a rock that night) that I can’t help but go back. I’ve heard you can burn as many as 1200 calories doing hot yoga as well.. almost twice as much if I were killing myself on a treadmill once a week. They’re also very encouraging whenever I go, which is so great, since I have a tendancy to go “well that sucked” and quit on the spot (I think it runs in the family…. we all seem to be allergic to exercise, minus Calan).

Anyway… I think once the new year comes if my yoga place offers a 30 day challenge or something I will definitely take part, and do before/after pictures, the whole lot!

Hope you’re all doing well.

Work is fine.. home is awesome (Brett just got his Christmas pressie yesterday… an Xbox!). Only about a month until Christmas holidays kick in! Can’t wait to come home and see the fam!

T

Ok,

So Wendy and I have been going to Pilates once a week since September. It’s been TONS of fun, and more relaxing than any actual hard athletic work. Anyway, my instructor also teaches hot yoga at this place on Stafford Street, so this week, after lots of research and pondering over whether the heat would cause me to die of embarrassment after fainting in front of a room full of strangers, I decided to venture on over there on a Saturday morning with Mrs. Kalandra Dueck to give it a shot.

We got to the facility and it was very nice and clean- beautiful tile in the main entrance and changerooms. Our instructor for the morning- Leah, showed us around and helped us pick a spot for our mats. We then sheepishly went to the changeroom and got our clothing on… and sat for a while. We were there early because we didn’t know how much paperwork would have to be filled out (you’d think they’d make you sign a more detailed waiver when placing you in a room that is 40C and you’re exerting all of your energy, but alas, they didn’t. It was short and sweet).

So now was the time to enter the room. Holy crap. The heat made me think of Nevada in the middle of summer. It just hits you and almost knocks the wind out of you. My glasses fogged up. The room smells like Brett’s hockey bag after a tournament. I took a sip of my nicely cold water and relax in savasana (dead body pose), trying desperately to keep my breath under control and to adjust myself to this almost unbearable temperature… am I really going to get my heart rate up to like 160 in this heat? How on earth can I do this? I look over at Kalandra, who seems to be calmer than I am in this whole situation… has she done this before and isn’t telling me?

So the class begins and we start some breathing exercise, exactly what we do in pilates, which makes me feel much more comfortable. It’s hot. Sweat is already running down my butt crack. Long shorts were a very bad choice. I should have gone shopping. It still smells like gym socks, but I’m noticing now that it’s my armpits that are beginning to smell as well, so whatever.

My pilates instructor comes in late and sets up shop right in front of Kalandra and I. Great… just focus on myself, that’s what I’ll do.

Second and third pose are also exactly the same as pilates… YES! What’s this feeling I’m having… oh.. I’m extremely dizzy. Perhaps I should take a knee. It is insanely hot in here! Just breathe! Ok. Now we can have a drink of water! MMMM ice cold refres…. nevermind. It’s room temperature now. At least it gets my mind off the sweat pouring off my body!

Back to posing and such. It’s going well so far. About 30 minutes in now, and I’m insanely lightheaded. Leah told us that it’s ok to sit stuff out if we feel dizzy… not to feel pressure to do everything. So I do only 1 of 2 sets for 4 or 5 poses and get back into it, having sips of lukewarm water along the way. I don’t even notice the sweat anymore.

Now it’s time for floor exercises! YES! After every pose, you do 20 seconds in savasana to calm yourself. Even more awesome. Why can’t all other forms of exercise include 20 seconds of rest for about 45 seconds of work? With each pose, the breaks seem shorter and shorter and my heart is beating like a hammer, faster and faster with each rest period.

Finally, at the end of 90 minutes in this horrible heat we are released and leave the room. I feel pretty good. Once I get to the changeroom, I notice my clothes are so wet that it seems like I just got out of the pool. Gross. I take the coldest shower humanly possible and get dressed.

Kalandra and I head out to the reception area and run into pilates instructor. He chats with us for a bit and encourages us.

As bad as that sounds… when I got home I felt great! Only a headache in the evening to complain about. None of my muscles hurt, and I noticed in my pilates class yesterday that I had WAAAAAAY more flexibility. I can almost touch my toes sitting down without bending my knees.

I think I’ll go back again. If you’re going to torture yourself, you might as well do something that lets you rest this much between torture poses!

Have a great week!

hey! i am alive and well.. september has almost come to a close.. thank goodness!

This is truly the busiest month of the year. my poor house and i need to spend a good day or two together just to get organized… it looks like it was ransacked by pirates!

So last night was our last night of drop-in. Praise JESUS! 9+ hours of direct contact with teenagers has its rewards, but not without its exhaustion. I love all you guys… can’t wait to do drop-in again over Christmas break!

It has been such a memorable summer, a summer of fun, new friends, and a great intern.

But the dirty little secret???

I. am. pooped.

All well, summer is now officially over, time to really concern myself with fall (which has been happening part-time since mid-August!)

To my rescue, howeverk (cue music: thank goodness!) is a trip to Saskatoon with Lindsay! I get the distinct pleasure of escorting her out to Horizon and checking out the digs as she moves in. It’ll be interesting to see how the old place has changed since I graduated (i’ve heard many good things!) She’s going to have such a great time. I have such mixed emotions about her leaving! September will be very busy, but I will miss knowing that she’s in the next office working hard at her stuff, and getting to go shopping together, doing drop-in and all that fun togetherness stuff we did for the last 3 months. It was truly a blast But I remember how awesome Bible College is too, and I know she is going for a reasn and now it’s back to just me and Tim….

With a trip to Saskatoon, of course is a visit with the Howes family!!!! SISTER! It’s been less than a month since they left, but I am SO looking forward to some QT with my sis. Every time we visit I feel like I can let go of “work stuff” and recharge… I’m so glad she’s only an hour flight away… makes for lots of visiting! and PS… sister, I tried to call you today (Friday). Please call me back

Anyway, i’m sure all of you are dying of shock that I actually blogged within a week of my last blog… enjoy!

well,

fall will soon be upon us, and that means 50-60-70 hour work weeks for the next month or so. That means almost no spare time. But with the cherished few hours that I will get, there are quite a few things that I have and would like to do in my spare time! I’ve found that in stressful times, I rely on my spare time to re-energize myself and “fill my tank” after long days and weeks that can be draining (though rewarding… never get me wrong on that, I love my job, no matter how stressful it gets!)

1. Design- I’ve been doing a few side projects (cds, logo, business card types of things) and it really generates a lot of creativity and energy for me. I love my day to day work (for the most part), but letting loose in photoshop is really fun! Doing stuff like this in my spare time also crosses over into work… website, emails, bulletins, brochures… it helps me be productive when I can save photoshop stuff for spare time!

2. Books- I’ve purchased a few books I plan to read… YES! Mondays are always reader days for me (new development with my 2009 resolutions! I think i’ve read 11 books so far this year!)

3. Exercise. Wendy and I signed up for a Monday night pilates class for the fall, and a few friends have agreed to go to the gym/pool to help keep me accountable! I actually really do enjoy exercise… I just need people to do it with. The first couple of times are always awesome, and then I give up when my leg and back muscles start to ache! YECH… so hopefully I will have some persistence this semester!

4. TV. I admit it, I watch too much. But there are some shows out there that I just love to watch!

a. How I Met Your Mother

b. Big Bang Theory

c. House

d. Intervention

e. Obsession

f. Mad Men

g. Heroes!!!!!!!!!!!! I just started watching about a week ago, and am hooked!

h. Chuck- another great and new show in my repertoire

i. The Office

j. 30 Rock… don’t get me wrong, it might be 10th on my list, but it has been #1 in my heart for quite some time!

There are also others that i like catching… mostly home improvement and fashion shows!

Anyway, wish me luck as I descend into this fall, especially with my new Youth Pastoring portfolio… so much planning, organizing and studying needs to take place. I’m so glad that Brett’s new job’s busy season is at the same time as mine, it allows us both to work like crazy without feeling bad about the other being at home alone. Come Christmas time, Brett and I will reunite and have a blast together!

Yikes… I haven’t updated since Drive ’09?? Crazy stuff!

Well, the conference was awesome… I came home refreshed with tons of ideas! I also came home with three better friends! Felicia and I of course have known each other the longest, but I really feel that the conference helped us get to a new level that helps us out a lot when we work together… I’m so glad I can be so honest with Felicia and we both deal with each others’ honesty in a mature fashion… it helps us grow!

Secondly there was Jill. I BARELY know anything about her…. she’s such a quiet person, but I’m glad she came on the trip, because I feel like I know her just a little more… I haven’t hung out with her as much as I would have liked to since we got back…. but I feel that soon we will get together… soon, Jill!

Thirdly, Lindsay. She’s so hungry to learn about ministry, and about God, and how it all works on the vocational side… I just loved hearing her hopes and dreams for the future! I’ve even had the pleasure of having her as an intern for the summer… and I must say… if Cross Church doesn’t snatch her up out of Bible school, we are fools! Such a hard worker… so organized, thoughtful, and loves our youth to death… awesome!

In other breaking news, we got a kitty. Thor entered our lives 2 weeks before my birthday, and now he’s 13 weeks old… he’s tripled in size since we got him! He is a lot of fun, but can be very frustrating, as he doesn’t know when to stop attacking our hands and feet. The newest challenge was this week when I decided to paint our master bedroom. Curiosity equals white paws, my friends! Actually, as I’m typing this, he’s got one paw on my keyboard… he just wants to be part of the action!

Looks like this fall things will be changing once again. I’ll be taking a more active role in youth ministry than I had initially anticipated… at first I was a little put off by it, but I have warmed up to the idea, and know that it’s all part of God’s plan. I guess if he’s going to do work in our youth, I’d like to be a part of it!

What else? My sis and brother in law came out last week for holidays, as did Jordan and Nicole. Both were great visits! Jord and Nic were a little on the busy side with Joe’s wedding… it sounded like quite a wedding! I wish I could have been there to see, but understandably, I only really talk to Joe when Jord and Nic are in town…. But all my congratulations to them! Marriage is a fun challenge that you get to share with the one you love!

Speaking of marriage, Brett and I celebrated our second anniversary this week! It was pretty good. I don’t know whether it’s lack of sleep or just a change with holiday life, but I’ve been really cranky and sometimes unjustifyably short with the poor boy. Our anniversary was a nice change from that and I’ve been better since. Sorry, Brett :S. I’m so glad I’ve found a guy that will put up with my insanity… I know he loves me no matter what mood I’m in!

Anyway.. i’ve got 2 days of holidays left and some closet doors to paint… I’m kindof sick of painting and I think I may put it off until Monday… I should really get out and enjoy some of this time off!

Til next time (hopefully not so far in the future tho!)

Terrin

Well Georgia has proven to be even awesomer than I expected! It’s very humid here!

Here’s my take on our trip so far!

Friday: 6am we were on our way out of Winnipeg with our new GPS leading the way. Lindsay decided that we should name it “Hillary”. So technically, Hillary was leading the way! I didn’t get a wink of sleep the night before… kind of like those nights as a kid before Christmas morning: you were so excited because you had no idea what  was coming… you know it’s big, but you are spending the whole night trying to guess! So anyway, we are off and driving. We decide to take the 59 highway to get around the flood, but the border didn’t open until 8 am, so we had to wait for about 25 minutes just to get through.

Then we cut across to Grand Forks so we could take the I29… Then it was about 8 uneventful hours to Minneapolis. Construction was everywhere… this city sucks! After about 13 hours of driving with minimal breaks, we finally arive in Davenport, Iowa! Everything is so green here… it smells like fresh cut grass! We check into a Super 8 and go to find where Stewart and Taralee live, and a place to pick up food! We arrive and have a great catchup time with them, and I find out that they’re having another baby! Congrats!!!!!

The next morning, we are back on the road by 7:30. Time to drive through Illinois! We decide to expand the game of “horse” with some awesome new rules including roadkill and zombies and a point system! Felicia ends up with 183 points during her drive. Crap! About 3pm we cross over into Kentucky. I really did not expect it to be so green and lush… I always thought that Kentucky would be a little dryer… like Arizona or something… but nope! It’s green and lush!

Then we get into Tennessee! Oh my gosh! It’s awesome! It starts raining pretty good, and there are waterfalls coming off the high cliffs of rocks on the sides of the highway… we also notice at our first gas stop in Tennessee that the accent has become more “southern”! beautiful! Finally we enter Georgia!

The traffic is pretty busy here… even for like 8:30 at night! A later check to wikipedia tells us that Atlanta metropolitan is about 5 million people… ooooh i get it!!!! We find our hotel, the Hyatt, which is a cute little place with a great hotel room! We have a HDTV and ample space for 4 people! We also discover that there is a Starbucks right beside our hotel.. BONUS!

Sunday morning we get up, have some Starbucks and head to Northpoint!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEExcitement!!!!

We park, and begin walking to the church… I’m greeted by about 3 parking attendants with awesome Georgia accents and we head up to the door of this massive church… Beyonce’s “crazy in love” is pumping through the lobby speakers as more greeters welcome us into the building. The we see WaumbaLand (preschool), which Jill says looks like the children’s museum, then further down the hall we see UpStreet (sunday school) which is covered in cool traffic lights and signs and looks like it might be more fun than adult church! We get to the auditorium doors and we are greeted by more people!!! And now we have a cool bulletin, and this sunday they’ll be speaking about “staying in love”, which explains beyonce…. Now the DJ is playing “What is love” over the soundsystem and we’re bobbing our heads Roxbury style! The 10 before starts (their announcements are done via video for 10 minutes before the service). Then a special number: an 80′s power ballad…. strange to hear in a church that is packed out by several thousand people! Then the host greets us and the worship begins…..

Wow… not a note is missed and it’s nice and loud! not a lot of people are entering into worship… i expected it to be different than that, but oh well. I am enjoying observing the morning. Now it’s time for Andy. A screen rolls down to the floor of the stage and a lifesize version of Andy is projected on the screen! The sermon is great and when it’s over the people stream at a slow pace and we debrief the service… just awesome… this is “normal” down here for them… we were blown away!

Anyway, that’s part one!!!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish a very happy 12th birthday to my lovely niece, Taelin Howes!

I can’t believe that I was your age when you were born! I feel so old!

Happy birthday girl… come visit your auntie and uncle soon!

I must have like the world’s friendliest face. It must exude some sort of character of its own… like it screams to people, “please come and talk to me for about 37 minutes about nothing. Afterall, I have almost no work to do and am up for some companionship instead of doing my job”. At least to some anyway.

To clarifly, I’m a busy girl. Not in the “I don’t have time to check whether I brushed my teeth and put my clothes on in the right order” kind of busy, or even in the “I have so many deadlines” kind of busy. It’s more of a “I’m in the zone, bustin’-a-move, gettin’ my groove awn” type of busy. It’s often when I am deepest into this business that frequent visitors to my hallway decide to pay me a visit. I would love it if visitors came into my office during times of boredom (though it might cut into my “barrel of monkeys” play time).

Now, I don’t want to rant about getting visitors. I like having them. I like making appointments with visitors, going out for coffee with them, volunteering my afternoons with them (Jenna! ) and even counselling over the phone with them. That is all in my job description. DO NOT stop visiting me in my office because of this blog… you’re not what I’m talking about here!

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m frustrated that certain people schedule time in their very un-busy schedules to drop by –on a weekly basis sometimes– to tell me uninteresting details about their life (oh, I didn’t know that your uncle owns a sock manufacturing company!), try and convince me to take on their pet projects (I just really think you and I would make a great music duo… I mean, I’ve been told I have a voice just like William Hung, we’d compliment each other!), or just listen to their various rants about other people in their lives whom I’ve never met.

And this always happens when I’m in the zone. Got a bulletin deadline tomorrow the graphics are just starting to take shape? VISITOR! Need to phone a list of 30 people by 2:00? VISITOR! Having an intimate moment with God? VISITOR! Experiencing explosive diarrhea? VISITOR!

I guess it could be my brain subconsciously reminding me that times will only get busier in the next 2 months or so. June to December is CRAAAAZY. With year-end, summer interns, summer drop-in, fall kick-off, Thanksgiving and Christmas all streaming in fast-paced intervals, there is often little time to sit and read or gather thoughts. The first 4 months of 2008 and 2009 have been very peaceful and steady, even if we’re working 60 hours a week… it just seems easier, I guess.

Anyway, I think I really need to read a book or seek advice to learn how to give people the “I’m very busy” vibe… without seeming too rude. I’ve seen Pastor Alan give it and he smiles the whole time… I have so much to learn from my mentors!

Have a great week!

T