Fun in...Centerville?

Yes, it is possible to have fun in Centerville, Texas! Haha!

This past weekend I met up with 3 friends I haven't seen in a while. We all used to work together in College Station and in 2005 each went our own ways. We've been able to meet up at two weddings since, one for Shelley and one for Tory, but it has been a while since Tory's wedding. Since we are all spread out over Texas we decided that Centerville was probably the most middle meeting point. Good thing we weren't looking for entertainment! =)

So here we are...standing in the wind. Not a great picture of us, but at least there was someone to take it for us.
Fortunately the food was pretty good. The service was not, but we weren't interested in a fine dining experience - we just wanted to see each other again.

My camera has this cool smile shutter function in which it won't take a picture after you push the shutter button until it registers a smile on the person's face. So here are lovely smiling pictures of my friends!
Time flew and soon we all had to say goodbye and get on the road again.
Shelley and I rode together, so we had more time to keep talking and sharing, which was so great.

Thanks ladies for a fun Saturday lunch. Thanks for sharing your lives and wanting to be a part of mine. Shelley, thanks again for driving! =) I love you girls!

Birthday Cookie Cake

At the church office they are famous for "scratch-out" messages on cookie cakes. For every birthday of a staff person we get a cookie cake for the staff on staff meeting days and there is always a message. No simple "Happy Birthday Joe" will do. It's always something creative, funny, sometimes has to do with a joke or something going on with the birthday person's life.

So this is the cookie cake for my birthday this year. I thought it was great! My pastor loves to call my clients "patients." He'll call me to talk about something for work and ask "How were the patients today?" I think he really wants to be one of my patients. =)

Summer at the Nasher...again!

So I was doing really well at updates. This summer is busy! It's a lot more busy than I thought it would be. Fortunately it is busy with fun things and my counseling rather than papers and projects and tests. Still, it's busy.

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Nasher again. Some friends invited us to go on a Friday night because the Nasher Sculpture garden shows older movies on a big screen out in the garden. We went to see the Wizard of Oz. We hadn't seen that movie in years, so it was really fun.

There was also an art festival going on in Dallas in the museum district. So we walked around to see the booths and what was going on. Josh and I did a coffee tasting at the Starbucks tent. We got to sample 4 different coffees and then choose our favorite to receive a quarter bag of coffee free! Very fun!
Here are the guys showing off their strength. They each won a hat.
More updates to come!

Fortune Cookie Wisdom

Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.

This is the fortune I got out of my fortune cookie today at Pei-Wei. I think it's pretty profound as far as fortune cookies go. Definitely beats the usual "Your plans will succeed" type of message.


Hope this brings about deep thoughts for the day, or at least reflection.

Salsa!

The birthday celebration continues! I really wanted to go salsa dancing for my birthday. I knew I wouldn't find anything for Wednesday night, of course, so I had been looking for Friday or Saturday. Anyways, after following several links, I found out that at the Nasher Sculpture Garden in Dallas (at the Nasher art Museum) they have summer concerts. And last night was a salsa band! How cool is that! So we went!The concert was outside in the sculpture garden. They had a stage and sound system set up for the band. People brought their blankets to sit out on the lawn and listen to the music. And there was a space to dance in front of the stage on the grass. You can sure bet we danced! We had such a great time! We danced and danced. There was a photographer from the Nasher there to take pictures of the event for their publication and he asked to take pictures of us while we were dancing! haha!
Of course, I don't have any pictures of us dancing, but here are a few we took.
This one we set the automatic timer on the camera and the only surface we had was on the bench. But it makes for a good view of my shoes! =)

Like I said, we had a blast! We were hot, sweaty, and tired when we left - which means it was a good night dancing.

My first quarter Century

Yesterday I completed my first quarter century on earth. Yesterday was my 25th birthday! Yay! I had a great day and enjoyed many birthday wishes, cards, some ice cream, and gifts. One of my friends took me out for ice cream after our supervision at the school and Josh and I went to dinner yesterday evening. We might still do more celebrating this weekend...we are working on coordinating schedules and stuff.

Last night we also spent a while playing with one of my presents. My dad got me a new digital camera! The one we had, while still acceptable, is now 4 years old and is somewhat grumpy at times. Josh has had several occasions in which it would not turn on. Now we have a fancy new one! And this camera is amazing! Not only does it take beautiful pictures, but it has so many features for different lighting, focus, etc. Also, it has picture editing...right on the camera!
Here are some of the results:
(note: the pictures might look a little low-quality. That is because we used the down-sizing feature on the camera for easy emailing and uploading. We took the pics at 10 megapixles and then down-sized for the upload.)Okay, here we are in the first one. Yay for birthday!
Now, check out Josh's smile in this second one! There is a feature on the camera to enhance smiles! Isn't that hilarious! There is also a retro edit to the photo to give it that old-picture style with black around the edges.

Okay, now check out my smile enhancement!First, here I am, not smiling too widely.
But then....haha! Isn't that crazy! Do you like the blur-the-edges effect?

All of this was done on our camera! There is also a red-eye correction and several other blurring/editing effects. Another feature is the smile shutter. When you put that on, the camera will wait until a smile appears on the face of the person in focus and then it will take the picture. We played with that for a while, too. I sat on the couch with no smile, then would laugh quickly and it would take a picture! and another when I smiled again!

You can also play a slideshow on the camera with music of the pictures you have taken. I just can't believe all of this! So much fun! Just thought I would give everyone some laughs today!

Smile big....gottcha!

More Memphis

We also went out to Mud Island on the Mississippi. They have built a scaled model of the river showing which states it passes through, the cities on the river, and the depth of the river along the way.It was really cool! You could walk through the "Mississippi!" And it was neat to see the different cities along the river as it flowed through different states.

This is one of the beginnings of the Miss. If you look closely you can see a little dam in front.

So that was another educational part of our vacation. =)

All in all we recommend Memphis for a weekend vacation. Let us know if you decide to go, we just might come along! =)

Memphis Trip

Josh and I decided, on a whim, to go to Memphis for Memorial Day weekend. We had so much fun! We decided on Memphis because we had never been there and found a great direct flight there.
This is at a park downtown. There was almost always some band set up playing. It was so fun to walk by, stop for a bit, and hear some live music.

This is a scene from downtown on Beale street. The buildings were all old and it had that quaint, old-town feel.
This is the first radio station that allowed Black men to be announcers.

Here we are with Elvis! He still looks good, huh?

This is us after dinner one night walking on Beale Street. This is where all the action happened. They block off the street at night so that it is one big pedestrian walkway. People just stroll up and down, getting something to drink, stopping to hear music. There were people set up playing on the corners, down alleys, and in almost all the restaurants. So fun!

We loved getting to hear music everywhere we went. We even danced in the street one time and danced on the patio of another restaurant.

On our first day there we went to the Rock n Soul Museum. It was a great museum and really helped us understand more of the history of soul and blues. It gave us an appreciation for Memphis and all the history that took place here. We got to hear about the greats like Elvis, BB King, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Al Green, and more.

We also went out to Graceland while we were there (Elvis' house). But we did not end up going on any of the tours. Just to tour the mansion it would have cost us $50! We were not that interested. So instead we found a pop-up book of the Presley mansion and took our "tour" that way! =) We got to see lots of pictures in the gift shops, see his planes, one of his cars, some of his jumpsuits, and a few of his suits. Pretty crazy how much of a theme park it is. Oh, and we did go in Heartbreak Hotel, which was pretty much just bright and bold with Elvis' face everywhere. =)

I'll put a few more pictures on the next post and what else we did.

Hey, baby, let's go to Memphis!

Here we go!

Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from Josh's graduation weekend that I am just getting to:The Seefeldt family after graduation! We are all dressed up and looking cute! Josh's grandparents were here for graduation too.
My dad and me looking at other students' architecture projects at UTA. There was a graduation reception and classwork displayed. Josh's stuff wasn't there, but there was some other cool stuff.With our friends, Clayton and Holly Chisum after dinner for graduation. They drove up from Cleburne to celebrate with us. Holly is due in mid-June! Yay! They are having a girl. Their son, Corban (the one from the crate picture) is almost 2 1/2.

This is Josh's cardboard chair that he made for a class. It usually sits in our dining room. It is made entirely of cardboard and is not glued together. The pieces all just slide together. Pretty cool!
Friday night at the Stockyards. On the left of the picture are Josh's brother and sister, Michael and Laurie, and on the right is my brother Matt and my mom.

Raising the Awareness, Part 2

Quotes from women about what worked to end the violence in their lives:

"Realize that it happens not to poor, retarded and uneducated people - but to your neighbor, your friends."

"The best advice I have for other battered women is to seek counseling. I sought counseling through the local mental health clinic after which I regained self-confidence and self-esteem. Prior to counseling, I believed it was my lot in life to accept the situation."

"My advice for battered women is "quit kidding yourself that the violence will stop." Seek legal counsel or a therapist who deals with battered women."

"My advice is to realize that you as a person have worth. Have faith in yourself and realize there is a better life for you somewhere - LEAVE! Promises are nice, but they rarely come true. There are sure to be people out there who love you and will help you in your new life."

(from Ending the Violence by Lee Bowker, 1998. pg 101.)

This book is based on research from the experiences of 1,000 battered wives the author surveyed. It talks about how women who are battered are not just beaten physically and sexually. They are also beaten psychologically, repeatedly told they are no good, that no one would love them, that they are lucky to have a husband or boyfriend. They are basically brainwashed into believing they deserve what they get, are less than a human, and have no hope for any other type of life. This is one of the reasons that leaving the abusive situation becomes difficult. Many women actually come to believe this is the life they deserve.

Just by being aware of this fact we can help women around us, even if we don't know they are being beaten. Be an encourager! Get to know the shy, reserved woman and tell her good things about herself. Be sincere and be consistent. She won't believe it at first. One of the videos I watched about escaping domestic violence was a vignette to demonstrate the stories of many women. In this story the woman had one friend (her husband kept her isolated) who continued to tell her how smart she was, how pretty she looked, how creative she was, and how many opportunities she could have for the future. This made her a safe person - a person who respected and valued the woman for who she was.

Let's be those kind of people for others around us.

And let's educate ourselves about the resources available - crisis phone numbers, shelter numbers - so that we can pass that on to someone in need.

Raising the Awareness

I've started my training at the women's shelter in Tarrant County, SafeHaven. Before I started reading and watching videos there, I did not know how prevalent domestic violence is. Here are some stats I got online:

• Approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States.
• Intimate partner violence made up 20% of all nonfatal violent crime experienced by women in 2001.
• In 2000, 1,247 women and 440 men were killed by an intimate partner. In recent years, an intimate partner killed approximately 33% of female murder victims and 4% of male murder victims.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, between 1998 and 2002:

• Of the almost 3.5 million violent crimes committed against family members, 49% of these were crimes against spouses.
• 84% of spouse abuse victims were females, and 86% of victims of dating partner abuse at were female.
• Males were 83% of spouse murderers and 75% of dating partner murderers
• 50% of offenders in state prison for spousal abuse had killed their victims. Wives were more likely than husbands to be killed by their spouses: wives were about half of all spouses in the population in 2002, but 81% of all persons killed by their spouse.

Under-reporting of Domestic Violence to Police

• Only about half of domestic violence incidents are reported to police. African-American women are more likely than others to report their victimization to police.
  
  
• The most common reasons for not reporting domestic violence to police are that victims view the incident as a personal or private matter, they fear retaliation from their abuser, and they do not believe that police will do anything about the incident.
  
  
• Even with this dramatic under-reporting, domestic violence calls constitute approximately half of all violent crime calls to police departments. For example, 49% of the violent crime calls received by the DC Metropolitan Police Department in 2000 were for domestic violence incidents.

Amazing. Think about that last section about under-reporting. That means we don't know how many women are getting battered each year or month or day. But we do know that many go unreported.

So why don't they leave?

Well, that gets complicated. I'll explain more as I learn more. Often times the women do leave. The general stat is that a battered woman will leave 7 times before she actually breaks away for good. Something like 75% of women killed by their intimate partners were killed when they tried to leave.

What can we do?

Be aware! Understand that it could be anyone, any woman you know!
Understand that domestic violence is a crime!
There is a poster in the waiting room of our counseling office that says: "You wouldn't hesitate to call 911 if your neighbor's house was on fire."
The implication is: then why don't you call when you hear someone getting hurt?

Don't hide behind the excuse of "It's not my business what goes on in that house." If your daughter were getting beat up, you would want someone to call the police, right?

Teach our boys to be men who know how to handle their anger. Teach them to respect others, not control and dominate.

Teach our girls that no one can mistreat them. Teach them that love does not include manipulation, fear, and violence.

Develop churches and communities of genuine care for one other.

Whirlwind week

It has been one of those weeks that is over before you even realized you got started. Last weekend was fun and exciting - and busy. I crashed on Sunday afternoon on the couch for a couple of hours - and I rarely do that. Monday we hit the ground running. Joshua started back to work full-time and I began juggling my job at the church and two internships and all the other things I usually do - cooking, errands, cleaning (in theory).

Monday was long as I first had a client in the morning and then tried to finish planning for my church event Wednesday evening. Tuesday I had to go back into the office to try to finish everything (which did not happen) and then spent all afternoon seeing clients. When I got home that night I still have stuff to type and print for the Wednesday night event. Wednesday morning I went over to the women's shelter counseling center in the morning to start my long training process. It was a little overwhelming to see how much training I had to do before I could start seeing clients. Then I had to rush over to school for my supervision class there, only to be told how much work is expected of me for that class. I was already starting to feel the beginnings of a cold, so I was feeling wiped and overwhelmed. However I had gotten a couple of phone calls about my event that night that I had to scramble to figure out. I tried to take a quick nap when I got home to be refreshed for that night, only to be bombarded with phone calls. Wednesday night we didn't get home until 11pm after my event - which did go well by the way. Thursday I spent ALL day at the women's shelter counseling center trying to get this training done. Friday I woke up feeling sick and yet still needing to go back to the WSCC to work on that training.

Last night I couldn't sleep due to feeling sick and having so much on my mind. Today I have done pretty much nothing - I had to miss a friend's baby shower and lunch plans with other friends because I need to rest and really didn't feel like getting up. It's just a cold, but this cold has knocked me out. The worst is that I can't sleep very well. Grr. I hate being sick because it wastes time.

I read that cherries are a natural source of melatonin, which helps you sleep. So I might be getting some cherry juice for tonight.

He did it!

Joshua is officially a graduate - twice! He has now graduated with his Master in Architecture. I'm so proud of him! He did an amazing job getting this degree in two years while working for an architecture firm here in Arlington. He made great grades, completed all projects, missed very few classes, and got several job offers along the way. Joshua has a God-given ability in architecture and it shows in his work. He has also excelled at his job and has been given promotions (more responsibilities) several times over these two years. His bosses of course want him to stay and are trying to get him to commit for as long as they can keep him there.Here he is getting his hood, a recognition of being a graduate degree candidate.

Last Friday Joshua graduated from UT Arlington. Our families came up for the event. We had the graduation and then a celebration dinner all together. I think we had about 16 people at the restaurant! So fun! On Saturday morning I planned a graduation party for friends from our church to get to celebrate with us. A lady from our church hosted the party and made delicious waffles! It was fun getting to show everyone Josh's work and letting our families meet some of our friends.Here we are with Josh's parents.

Congratulations to Joshua!

Movie Pick

I wanted to recommend a movie rental for anyone interested. On Saturday night we watched "Dear Frankie." You can find it in the foreign section because it's a Scottish film (so fun accents). We really didn't know what to expect but loved the movie. I'm contemplating buying it - and I don't buy many movies (in fact, I think we own under 10 DVDs). It's a little taste of life that most of us know nothing about. There are no inappropriate nudity or sexual scenes or innuendos. I think there is only one scene with "colorful" language - and it is used to reveal the true character of one of the characters.

So two thumbs up!

Bummed

I'm bummed. I broke one of our crystal pitchers we got for our wedding. I know it's just a "thing" and that it's not important in the long run. I know that the good news is no one got hurt. It's just frustrating, you know?

I had washed it and set it on the counter to dry. I knew it was a slightly precarious position, so I was planning on moving it. But then Joshua got home from renting a movie and I was trying to heat up the pasta sauce, get the veggies out of the skillet, drain the pasta, get everything on the plates, and get into the living room so our food wouldn't get cold before we could eat it. I totally forgot about the pitcher...until we heard the crash.

That's what's even more frustrating. It was out of stupidity. It didn't break because I was saving a child from touching a hot stove or putting out a kitchen fire or frantically binding a cut finger. Nope. I was just dumb. Grrr.

He's almost graduating!

Since Josh graduates in less than a week, we decided to take his graduation robe and hood out of their packages today. We had many laughs, however, when he tried it on. The robes for Master's graduates are a little different - and weirder - than undergraduate robes. The sleeves have strange hanging down points. And for graduate degrees you also wear a hood. The hood is strange too and Joshua had trouble figuring it out.
Me: Honey, you know those don't go on your head, right?
Josh: But it could!

For those of you who have seen that black and white visual allusion picture in which you can see either a young woman looking away or an old woman with a big nose, doesn't Josh look eerily like the old woman? =)



This is the one that has kept me laughing. It is so funny! Josh's hands are in the weird pointy-hangy parts of the sleeves.


We'll just call it "Graduate victory dance."


It's been a pretty entertaining Saturday!

Don't worry - he will look very professional and distinguished next Friday at the graduation ceremony. (But we know the real Josh!) heehee!

It is moments like this that I wish I were not such a planner.

It would be nice to be an easy-going, take-it-as-it-comes kind of person. I try really hard to be like that sometimes, but it's not working right now. And I have to work hard at it. Planning has it's advantages - things get done, schedules get figured out, people get places.

However, at this moment I'm a bit overwhelmed. I'm doing two internships this summer. I've been trying to get my hours at each location and figure out when I'm doing what. And it's not easy. Probably I will have to figure it out completely once I start. But I would like to know more right now! One of my supervisors is hard to get in touch with and at the other location I already have clients with set times. So that means I have limited flexibility at one place and little information from the other. Not good for planning.

It takes much effort for me to remind myself to trust God in what He has planned for me. I do trust Him - but sometimes it takes all my strength. I just want everything set up and perfect. You would think I would have learned by now that it doesn't work that way!

So I'm trying not to stress. Trying to take one day at a time. Trying to be patient and wait until I can talk in person with people. And hoping that I don't let anyone down or overwhelm myself with too much work.

Not a restful time for an overachiever!

Today we had a picnic for the counseling department at the house of one of my professors. It's usually a good time hanging out with friends, relaxing, and eating good food. Joshua was one of the skilled grillers.(Like the Starbucks aprons? Haha!)

And this is Hana, my co-counselor for this semester. She is from South Korea. I only have one more week with her until she gets a new co-counselor and I leave to do my internship. Exciting happenings.

Okay, back to homework!