The Secret Life of a Care Bear

Day 13: Goals

I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. -John 17:4

That pretty much sums it up.

Day 12: Something you don’t leave the house without

This is easy. I never leave the house without my purse! That’s a pretty lame post though, so I’ll also give you a picture of my purse and everything that’s inside it right now.

What you’re seeing in this photo, starting at the top left:
My phone, checkbook, camera case (I’m taking the photo with the camera), wallet, polka dot coin purse, pear coin purse (which I use to hold my lipgloss, a small mirror, and some medicine), shopping lists, this weekend’s church program, 3 reusable shopping bags, hand lotion, my keys, too many pens, a comb, ibuprofen, contact rewetting drops, and a sample of powder from Sephora

So basically, this is what I never leave the house without (you know, plus clothing, I don’t leave naked…). Some of these things aren’t ALWAYS in my purse (like the church program), but it’s representative of the general stuff I haul around.

Day 11: Favorite tv shows

I was going to write a big long entry about tv shows that was similar in content to the movies one, because I like lots of tv shows. However, most of them are pretty commonly known shows that everyone watches, or cartoons I watched when I was little. Blah. So instead, I present the two shows that I LOVE that not everyone watches.

Jonas Armstrong as Robin Hood

#1: BBC’s Robin Hood. This show aired on the BBC for 3 seasons, starting in 2006. Hannah introduced me to it and it’s WONDERFUL. It starts a very cute Jonas Armstrong as Robin Hood. Keith Allen is an amazing Sheriff of Nottingham, Richard Armitage plays an emo yet lovable Sir Guy of Gisborne, and Lucy Griffiths is an awesome Lady (not Maid!) Marian. There’s tons of anachronisms which mostly don’t bother me because the show is clearly not meant to be historically accurate. I am just fine trading historical accuracy for the awesome sword fighting Lady Marian. Season 3 kinda jumps the shark after a very emotional end to Season 2 that I won’t spoil for you, but I found myself wanting to watch it anyway. I’ve already confessed my love for all things Robin Hood, so this is spot on for me with cute boys, sword fighting, archery, and a bit of British humor. Some of the episodes are only slightly veiled commentaries on current social and political issues, but I don’t find it distracting. If you’re interested, you can stream it on Netflix.

Stargate SG-1 Cast

#2: Stargate SG-1 = <3 There are 10 seasons of this super cheesy, yet wonderful sci-fi show AND I LOVE THEM ALL. There are several other shows and movies in the Stargate franchise but I don’t like any of them nearly as much. The basic premise of the show is that the US military has a gate built by an ancient alien race that can transport you to any of the thousands of other gates in the galaxy. There is a big bad alien race that wants to kill/enslave us, and lots of other human cultures in the galaxy. Most of the episodes are them exploring the other planets they can get to with mini-story lines, as well as the bigger storyline with the evil people. Richard Dean Anderson (our good friend MacGyver) stars as the commander of the team and is HILARIOUS. Michael Shanks plays a SUPER CUTE nerdy scientist on the team. He’s my favorite. You should definitely watch it if you’re into sci-fi or adventure sorts of shows. You can watch all 10 seasons for free on Hulu. Also, Netflix streams them, and I think SyFy shows it semi-regularly. The show’s story continues from the movie Stargate, but you’ll pick up the general idea pretty quickly. I didn’t see the movie until after I’d watched most (or maybe all) of the show. If you’re confused, read a short summary of the movie on wikipedia. It’s not very good.

In case you’re interested, current TV shows I watch include: 30 Rock, Modern Family, Parks & Recreation, Community, The Office, Outsourced, American Dad, Family Guy, Glee, Make it or Break it (embarrassing, I know). I don’t watch all of these every week, though. 30 Rock & Glee are probably my favorites right now.

Something you’re afraid of

Good thing this only says something you’re afraid of, not your biggest fear, or I would have to write about spiders and I would be grossed out and jumpy all day! :)

Something (else) I am afraid of is bridges! More specifically, road bridges over large bodies of water. I feel that this is entirely justified and logical. If your car goes off a bridge into a large body of water, you have to first get OUT of the car before you can even tackle the part of the problem where you have to get out of the water without drowning! At least if I just fall off a bridge not in my car, I can swim. Of course, if you can’t swim, you should probably be afraid of falling into the water in general. I know I’m a pretty darn good swimmer, so that part isn’t a problem. (Assuming that I’m not maimed or killed just from the fall, and that the water is normal temperature and free from other hazards.)

Now, there are several different facets of this fear. First, you have to worry about getting into an accident where your car gets hit and goes off the side of the bridge. Secondly, there is the other sort of accident where you somehow lose control of the car and go through the barrier. Thirdly, there is the sort of problem I’m going to focus on today, where THE BRIDGE FALLS DOWN. (Doesn’t this sound like I’m writing a really horrible elementary school expository essay?)

Okay, all of you are probably familiar with the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007, where the bridge for I-35W over the Mississippi River collapsed. If not, wikipedia can enlighten you. (I will be making prodigious use of wikipedia for this post, by the way. Also, I am aware that my grammar is often poor and that I use too many parenthetical remarks.)

You may not be aware that bridges have a nasty history of falling down. I will now provide you with some of the lesser-known and less recent examples. I apologize in advance for anyone who develops a new fear of bridges, but hey, The More You Know™ .

Exhibit 1: The Silver Bridge over the Ohio River between West Virginia and Ohio collapses on December 15, 1967 during rush hour. 46 people were killed. Only 5 people who went into the river survived.

Exhibit 2: On May 9, 1980, The Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay collapses after being hit by a boat during a storm. 35 people were killed and 1 survived. The one survivor got lucky; his truck fell onto the deck of the boat.

Exhibit 3: The Queen Isabella Causeway, between South Padre Island and mainland Texas, is hit by a boat on September 15, 2001. 8 people died and 3 survived. Drivers did not see that the bridge had collapsed until it was too late, because the collapsed section was at the top of the bridge.

Exhibit 4: No one died on this one, but it’s just freaky. You’ve probably heard about it before. On November 7, 1940 the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (aka “Galloping Gertie”) collapsed into Puget Sound during high winds. The bridge was all screwed up and would bounce and flap in the wind. It had been built in July, so it didn’t last very long. The bridge was twisting and bouncing so much that the occupants of the last car on the bridge had to get out of their car and crawl off the bridge to safety before it fell. Check out this video:

So yeah, bridges=scary. And yes, I did just move to a city next to a river that requires me to drive over large bridges on a fairly regular basis. For the record, I prefer the I-74 bridge to the I-474 bridge or US 150 bridge because if I drive in the left lane, I’m not next to an edge. (The other two bridges have two different spans.)

Watch this video and imagine me doing some sort of country-western dance. Now imagine that I will be posting all three of the days I missed today! Ha! It’s not imaginary! I really will!

Okay, now that we’ve taken care of that, a few random things! (Because that wasn’t random enough?)

My first love! Drew Murphy, circa 1992.

I did some digging around at my parents’ this weekend while I was there and found the illusive “School Memories” book! Yes, this is the boy I talked about in my First Love post. Sorry for the poor quality. I used my phone to take a picture of the tiny picture on my 2nd grade class picture. I included my mom’s name caption so you would know it’s legit! :) I seem to have misremembered some facts, though, because he was NOT in my 1st grade class, only Kindergarten and 2nd grade. It’s possible he WAS in my reading group though, because I remember that we met out in the hallway or something.

In other news, I’ve decided to move my blog over to a REAL webpage, not the free wordpress.com service. I’m going to keep using wordpress, so it will look the same, but the blog address will change. Mark is doing this for me, by the way, so don’t think I’m especially smart at all this internet stuff. I’m not.

Anyway, I’m trying to decide what this new address should be! Should I just go with carriekate.com? carrieegli.com? carriegli.com?

Suggestions? Input? Random unrelated comments?

As you may have noticed, I’m taking a short break from blogging while I’m in Champaign this weekend. Internet availability here at la casa de mis padres is sketchy and I’m having family time anyway!
Rest assured, dear readers. I will return to my challenge tomorrow night or Monday with a flurry of posts. Oh yes, I have not been entirely idle! Post topics have been pondered and researched!

Downtown Peoria at night, looking over the river. Peoria is pretty!

While I’m thinking of it, I would like to mention that this weekend at The Vineyard Church is our launch service for the Peoria church planting team! It will be Ben’s last time preaching and he’ll be introducing the team. We have to go up on stage (eek!), too. So come to any of the services this weekend (6pm Saturday, 9:15 & 11 on Sunday) to support our team! Most of the team will only be there for the Sunday morning services, but Mark & I will be there on Saturday too. Hope to see you there!

Now, how about a few more Peoria pictures?

Looking towards the river and downtown from East Peoria.

Looking out over the Illinois River from Grandview Drive in Peoria Heights

Day 9: A favorite picture of your best friend

It’s hard for me to pick a “best” friend. Is it the friend I talk to the most, the one I see the most, the one I’ve known the longest? I don’t know. I have a few “best” friends, probably. So I think this calls for lots of friend pictures! Basically, this post is going to be about how awesome my friends are.

Yes, Hannah really is this much taller than me. Also, check out Ash creepin’ in the background. That totally makes this picture. PS: weird effects courtesy of Mark’s iPhone program he uses to take pictures.

I have a whole series of these photos of Adam & Hannah posing and making ridiculous faces. It was hard to choose just one!

I love that this is what Hannah, Adam, & Grace decided to do to pose for a picture.  Also, Adam looks like a velociraptor.

I love this photo because I love that I have friends who will make their own Harry Potter t-shirts to wear to the midnight showing of Harry Potter 7!

Andrew & Jenna both have awesome faces in this photo! I have even more hilarious photos of Jenna, but I thought this was probably the only one I could get away with!

Amy posing at Jill’s wedding reception. Love it! This is pretty much a stock pose for her. I could do a whole entry just on funny photos of Amy that I love!

Jill in her Sex and the City bachelorette party garb. I don’t remember what they are laughing at, but I’m sure it was mildly inappropriate!

I love my friends!

Since Mark & I moved about five weeks ago, we’ve been sleeping on an air mattress. We opted not to move our bed and mattress because the bed was getting really wobbly and we didn’t think it would go back together if we took it apart again. Our mattress was getting pretty old, uncomfortable, and painful to sleep on. (Ellen, it’s the one we got from you guys when you moved down there!)

We figured, hey, we’ll just buy a new bed and mattress when we move. We were already in the process of switching bank accounts which took waaaay longer than we expected, so we didn’t have enough money in either account to make a big purchase. Buying a bed got put off.

But I am proud to announce that we have now purchased a new bed and mattress set, which will be delivered quite soon, since they have them both in stock! Yay! I can’t wait to have a real bed again and to get our bedroom set up and decorated!

Meet the bed:

And I will leave you with one more YAAAAY!

Day 8: A place you’ve traveled to

Last March, Mark and I took our first real vacation as a couple to Destin, Florida. We stayed at a gorgeous inn right on the beach and spent 3(?) days just hanging out in the sun and relaxing. It was lovely. I’ll let the pictures speak.

This was the sunset on the beach the first night we were there. There was a nature preserve right next to the inn.

Walking on the beach!

Me standing on the balcony of our room.

This was where we stayed, Henderson Park Inn. Our room was the second balcony from the left, on the 2nd floor.

Mark chillin’ on the beach.

Mark is trying to make a pond or something.

My toes!

Sitting on the balcony, getting ready to eat lunch. We got box lunches every day to eat on the beach or our room.

Looking out over the back porch of the inn on our last night there.