Christian FAIL

Yesterday I went to see Handel's Messiah at Moody Bible Institute. It was exceptional as usual. But one of the most fun parts was a brilliant conversation that came up in the car while trying to get out of the parking garage.

Moody has their own free parking garage and, as one would expect, it's filled with a bunch of Christians. While we sat in line for 15 minutes waiting to get out of the garage, we realized a painful truth: given the Christian aspect of this parking garage, we deduced that most people were trying to be nice by letting everyone else out of their park spots, thereby causing a monstrous backup in the parking garage. This is the problem with Christian parking garages.

This made me think of a website I recently discovered called "Stuff Christians Like" (yes, a parody of "Stuff White People Like"). I think it's safe to say that Christians like to let people out of their parking spaces. It makes us feel nice.

But this lead to a discussion about what other popular blogs Christians could parody (something that Christians also like). And then we came up with the best idea ever: Christian FAIL. Everyone thinks this FAIL Blog thing is so hilarious, but I'm pretty sure a Christian one would be way funnier.

So what is a Christian FAIL? We witnessed a great example when, while still sitting in the monstrous parking garage line, a car ahead of us refused to let someone out of their parking spot, even to the point of going around them. Christian FAIL. Then, shortly after that, we turned a corner in the parking garage to see a very Christian looking couple kissing. Moderately passionately. Holding a baby. In a Christian parking garage. Christian FAIL.

What are some other Christian FAILs? Maybe you forgot to write your tithe check last Sunday. Or maybe you ate your communion cracker right away instead of waiting for everyone else. Or maybe you mixed up Romans 3:23 with Romans 6:23. If I can come up with some good ones, I'm seriously considering starting a blog of them. The possibilities are endless!

Slurpee Pizza

Once upon a time I wrote this blog post about the old people that hung out at my mom's condo pool. In the post I talked about people with potbellies who wear bikinis. As a result of this, I started receiving visitors on my site who had actually typed "Bikini Potbelly" into Google search. I then decided this phrase deserved it's very own post with that title to get even more "Bikini Potbelly" visitors, however misguided they may be. That's the general idea behind this post. I want to see who does a Google search for "Slurpee Pizza."

But there is actually a story behind "Slurpee Pizza" and it involves me acting like a 12 year old boy which isn't necessarily a strange occurrence. What happened was, I was driving home from a Young Adult church retreat in Lake Geneva on Sunday night. As one would expect from a Young Adult church retreat, I had not gotten much sleep. When I don't get much sleep, I'm slap happy.

In the car with me was my fiance, Scott, and our friends Adam and Matt in the back. Somehow the conversation turned to the fact that when Scott and I get married, we were going to change our last name to Pizza. Mr. and Mrs. Pizza. We laughed about this and imagined what we'd name our children—Pepperoni, Sausage, Hawaiian, etc.

Finally that conversation died down and we moved on to my love of Slurpees. We discussed this for awhile and then I heard someone mumble, "Slurpee Pizza." Intense, over-tired, tear inducing laughter followed for a number of minutes. It was immature. And I'm still laughing.

Devil Frog

Remember yesterday when I talked about making devil frog cookies? Well I got a little freaked out when I read this in my devos last night, only hours after writing about the devil frogs:

Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. (Revelation 16:13)

Weird!

Jack-o-Cookie

This weekend Scott and I made some fabulous Halloween cookies. I always thought Christmas cookies were where it's at, but Halloween cookies are as good, if not better. I like them because you can be morbid without feeling guilty. I mean, when I made the devil frog for Christmas I felt a little weird about it. But devil frog for Halloween? Of course!

Scott is a creative perfectionist. This makes for some pretty sweet giant Halloween cookies:


I also got in on the decorating action:

Some cookies of note in this picture are the devil mummy ghost with red eyes (in honor of our viewing of The Mummy or old movie night), the polka dot moon, and Scott's witch's broom.

And we got morbid with a bleeding ghost:

Can ghosts bleed? I don't know. But this cookie fell apart so we figured we'd make the best of it. I would like to note that this was Scott's idea. I think I'm prouder than I should be.

Best Week Ever

Last week was pretty much the best week ever. Of this year at least. It was the best week ever for two reasons: California and MuteMath.

First, California. A friend of Scott's decided it would be brilliant to get married in Yosemite National Park (which it was) and seeing as in order to get to Yosemite, one has to fly into San Francisco, we decided to spend some time there as well. This was especially exciting because 1. It was Scott's first plane ride and 2. It was the first time I've ever been west of ... IL. It's not like I haven't been outside of Illinois. I've been east a few times and to Wisconsin about a thousand. Just not west.

So anyway, San Francisco was fabulous. On the first day we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge.


On the second day we saw a few hundred sea lions.


And took a one hour cruise around the bay where we saw Alcatraz.



Then we went on a cable car up a really steep hill.



The third day it rained and we got wet, but we went to the California Academy of Sciences which had some cool animals including a bunch of butterflies.


The fourth day was our last day in San Francisco and we saw a bunch of random things we weren't able to see earlier in the week like ...


The Transamerica Pyramid


The Full House houses


And the city at night from the top of a painfully tall hill.

Then we moved on to Yosemite for a couple days. We hiked and went to the wedding and hiked some more and saw some waterfalls. It was basically amazing and the weather was perfect.






Finally, to top it all off, we went to an amazing MuteMath concert on Sunday night. Now, MuteMath never fails to entertain but this concert was especially crazy on account of the drummer and his antics:

Paranoid

I'm kind of paranoid. Not about everything, just some random things. I'm not paranoid about flying, for example. However, last weekend I told a friend of mine that he'd choke and die if he rode a roller coaster with gum in his mouth. It could happen, I'm telling you.

I blame my mother for my paranoia and I recently found out that she blames her mother for telling her that she'd get trampled to death if she went to a Beatles concert. Also, my grandma's sister forbade her daughter from doing "The Jerk" for fear of her neck snapping. The 60's were a scary time.

One person who isn't paranoid is my future husband, Scott. I think this is a good thing. Like last week, my car battery died and I had to jump it. I was very concerned about this because I was convinced that I'd make one wrong move and the battery would either explode or electrocute me. In my defense, there are about a million warnings on the battery itself and then I read this website that told me the juice in the battery would make my eyes dissolve. How could I not be concerned about this?

But Scott reassured me by telling me that the only way I was going to get electrocuted by jumping my car was if I happened to get struck by lightening while doing it. Luckily, getting struck by lightening is not something I'm paranoid about. I think this is going to be a great marriage.

Finally, Some Happy People

Ok, I haven't blogged for awhile. Stuff has been happening like getting engaged and planning a wedding. On a sidenote: The wedding industry is EVIL. They know you need them and therefore know they can be overpriced and mean and never return your phone calls. But I will prevail and stick it to the man, as I'm prone to do. Maybe I'll blog about "stick it to the man" wedding planning someday, but not today because I don't have time on account of planning a wedding.

Anyway, this morning I was pleased to literally stumble upon (using StumbleUpon) a site called LMyLife. I found it a refreshing answer to two similar sites, FMyLife, and MyLifeIsAverage, both of which are kind of funny but generally cynical and negative. Granted, LMyLife still has some obscene stories, but most of them are just random things that made the writer happy. Sometimes it's nice to hear from people who are actually happy.

In that vein, I will now share a story of positivity and happiness. Last weekend I was at Great America with my fh (future husband) and two friends. It was a fabulous day at Great America with very short lines and lovely weather. We came to the Superman ride which is a newer one and kind of a novelty because you lay on your stomach to simulate the feeling of flying. As expected, the line was a little longer for this ride—45 minutes according to the sign. So the four of us were standing there discussing whether or not to get in line and this energetic Great America employee came up to us with passes to bypass the entire line for Superman. He gave them to FH and I immediately because we have season passes. He made our two friends answer random trivia questions to earn their passes. So, we went up the exit ramp and when the next car came in, they stopped the people in line from getting on, so that we could jump on. It was basically amazing. I'm going to Great America again this weekend and I fully intend to try the standing-outside-the-ride-looking-pathetic method once again.