Book Review: The Shack

I actually finished this book a while ago, but I have been so busy that I have not posted the review yet. The Shack written by WM. Paul Young talks about a man's journey back to a shack and his experience with God there. This book was very interesting and very moving. The author begins the book by the man taking his three young children to the woods on a summer camping trip. While there, the youngest of the three kids is kidnapped and murdered. The only thing the police can find that belongs to the little girl is her sundress in the shack. The book then jumps ahead two years and 'the great sadness' is still with the family. One Friday, the father decides to go back to the shack, he is not sure what he is going to find there but decides to go anyways. Once there, the shack is transformed into a beautiful house and God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit spend an entire weekend with the father. They typically do not discuss the murder, but the life that the man has lead and the faith that he leads now. This book was very interesting and for me there were a lot of things that were left to think about. If you are looking for a Christian or inspirational book, I would definitely recommend this. I would also recommend this book if you do not have a strong faith. It is not going to convert you right away, but it will make you think about your life. I give this book a 4 out of 5.

All Done

So last night was the last game of this Basketball Season. It was definitely a sad game in the sense that it was the last time the two seniors would play and we lost by a decent amount. There is a bright side to the game, since we finished the season 8-18 (5-11) we were able to play in the conference tournament. Unfortunately when in 8th place you play the 1st place team, thus resulting in a loss for the final game. All the boys played well and I think so far this has been my favorite team to work with throughout my three years of school. 

*To go back to the Beauty Announcement post, I was unable to try the new Clinique powder and will be going this weekend (for sure, I promise) to test it out. 

Another thing that I wanted to touch on was that while I was reading a magazine yesterday on our way to the game, an article caught my eye, it was titled 45 Ways to Feel Sexy and Healthy. There were some interesting suggestions in this article and the two that I liked the most and thought I would post are:

 #6 Memorize something- a password, stats for a meeting- quickly by chewing gum while you are reading it. Gum chewing enhances blood flow to the brain and can improve recall by up to 40%. 

#37 Fight allergy-induced sneezing and sniffling by locking lips with your guy. Smooching for half an hour has a sedative effect on your immune system, which keeps it from reacting to hay-fever triggers in the air. 

(please take note that I do not know how accurate these two suggestions are but I wanted to share them anyway.)

Beauty Announcement: Nail Colors and Something Interesting

So as you know, I love nail polish and my favorite brand to purchase from is OPI. They have their spring/summer collections out (released date was February 4th) and I cannot wait to go get them and try them. The OPI collection that is now out is titled South Beach with 12 new colors to choose from. I have not tried them but I can already tell you that Overexposed in South Beach and Miami Beet will more than likely be my two favorite. I also want to try their Bronzed to Perfection. Below is a link to the OPI website to check out the latest colors. The something interesting was another ad that I found by Clinique. This is very interesting to me considering that ever since I was young, my cheeks become very red. This is due to my body temperature and my blood rising to my cheeks. I typically always have red cheeks because once I get hot my cheeks stay hot, I could be freezing at one point in the day, but if I was hot previously, my cheeks are the exact same bright red color. So a solution? Clinique came out with this new powder that is a Redness Relief. It is called Redness Solution Instant Relief Mineral Powder and it says that it can 'cool' the skin. I am interested in finding out if this works and will let you know once I try it (I will probably going to get it on Friday, so we'll see). I have also posted the link below to this if you are also interested.

http://www.opi.com/

http://www.clinique.com/templates/products/sp_nonshaded.tmpl?CATEGORY_ID=CATEGORY22352&PRODUCT_ID=PROD14394

25 Random Things about me.....

So I have a facebook profile and the other day I was tagged in a note. This note was 25 random facts about my one friend. It was very interesting and my roommates and I started discussing what we would write and decided to do one as well. Listed below are my 25 random facts about me and I have added some others that I thought of afterwards.

1. I have naturally curly hair but most of my friends have never seen it that way. 

2. I am not spontaneous, hence why I don't typically act upon any opportunity. 

3. I save/collect pennies because their from my uncle in heaven. 

4. I have a busy schedule but if I have nothing planned or there's a snow day I can't find anything to do. 

5. I am a girly girl (love the color pink) that know how to use power tools (take that boy's scout leader). 

6. I read magazines backwards and twice (1st to look at pictures and 2nd to read the articles) 

7. My mom is above all my best friend and I can/do tell her anything/everything and she won't judge me. 

8. I have a security blanket that I call a pickle and to this day if I am sick, sad, or had a bad day I will grab it to comfort me. 

9. I sucked my thumb from infancy till I was in sixth grade. 

10. I sort things into any category (i.e. alphabetical, color, size, or shape) and I count (i.e. there are 808 metal washers in the green curtains in Mitchell Center) 

11. I am 100% terrified of heights. I even get nervous when someone else is on a ladder. 

12. To de-stress, I do crafts (bake, color, take pictures, scrapbook) 

13. When I wake up, I enjoy being quiet for at least an hour. 

14. I danced for 16 years and coached cheerleading and dance for at least six of those 16 years. 

15. I believe in God and try to go to church every Sunday. 

16. For my Barnes and Nobles job, I used to dress up as book characters (Winnie the Pooh, Clifford the Dog) 

17. I love to drive because I don't like sitting in the back seat. So if I drive I'm always up front. :) 

18. A child's laugh/giggle is one of my favorite sounds and a child's smiles is one of my favorite things. 

19. Don't give me a challenge you think I can't handle because I will do it and prolly 100% better than you thought. 

20. I love organizing and decorating. 

21. I love to fly and when around an airport, I get the itch to fly and want to hop on a plane right then. 

22. My occupation post grad school will be making a difference in children's lives. 

23. I apparently give good relationship advice (I wish I would just listen to it myself) 

24. I swear way too much and am trying to stop. 

25. If I were ever granted a free plastic surgery I wouldn't change my weight one bit, I would change the size of my calves ( I know you can't really do it but I'd try).

Some extras:

~ I own over 200 crayons, no joke.

~I have a mild obsession with OPI Nail Polish or any nail polish in general

~My favorite letter of the alphabet is A (not because it's the first letter of my name, but because I like how I can write it so many different ways).

~I have one fake tooth, you'll never guess which one 

Time Flies

Wow, I cannot believe that I have not written in over two weeks and so much has happened. Well not a lot, but enough :) So after our great snow day, the Basketball team that I am working with ended up winning two straight basketball games (before the snow day they also won so they were on a streak). The lost the next game, only to come back and win again so our record now is 7-14 and (4-8). Yes that is not a lot but in the past three years this is the most games won by the team so woohoo! :) The Super-bowl also occurred and I was neither a Steelers or Cardinals fan so I dressed in Steeler colors and friends of mine and I went over to one of our houses and watch the game and had a great time. Bad news about Ground Hog Day, he saw his shadow so another six weeks of winter...boo! I am so over the cold, the wet, and the snow. Ground Hog Day is also my sister's birthday and she turned 16. She has not gotten her license yet but it is coming soon and I am nervous to be on the road. Classes are good right now, I am taking kinesiology which requires math (I am so not good with math) so we'll see how that goes. I am also reading a new book titled The Shack, obviously once I am done, I will post a review (but I am encouraging you to read it too!) The best thing about this post is now we are 5 days away from another favorite holiday of mine! Valentine's Day! I cannot wait and I am going to start my crafts tonight for it :) Also read the post about my 25 things, it's interesting.

Snow Day

So I did not think it was possible, but it was. In my three years here at school we have cancelled classes two times due to snow. This is amazing considering that the first time they cancelled, my freshman year, they had not closed the school due to snow in twenty-two years. Now it is twice in three years!! The first time they cancelled it was Valentine's Day my freshman year and the ground crew at the school were not expecting the snow/ice to be that bad. It ended up being so horrific that the county it is located in was a level three and you could not walk without slipping. This year, the weather forecast said we were expecting 6-10 inches of snow and at least 5 inches of ice...well we got it :) and we also got the luxury of a snow day. Last snow day my friend and I trekked to my car to went somewhere, this time my roommates and I enjoyed our room by reading, watching movies, and playing wii. We also ventured off campus to grab some chinese food for a roomie dinner/movie night. Well we ordered our chinese and if you know any chinese place they always say 10-15 minutes...so we decided we should leave then cause the car was covered with ice and snow. When we got to my car we realized there was an 1 inch of snow completely covering the car. It took over 30 minutes to get into the car and chip away the ice so we could go pick up our food, but in the end it was so worth the delicious food and weird movie (we watcher Burn After Reading). 

Really?!?!

So today I took the boy that I help to Boy Scouts. They decided to work on their craftsmanship badge and in order to do this they had to build a shelf, by sawing a piece in half and screwing 9 screws into the holes. Well the boy that I worked with did not want to have any part of this, it could be due to the fact that he was last on the sawing and by that point he thought it was time to go and did not want to be there anymore. He also was afraid of the saw and did not want to be near it. After some coaxing he decided to watch the guy saw and actually had a good time helping measure and hold the wood. Next came the screwing of nails, well since there were 18 boys, and 18 shelves there was no room on the table for us to piece it together so we had to sit on the floor. Well after a good ten failed attempts to have him help me hold it together and screw in the screws, the assistant leader came up to me and asked if I the 'little lady' needed help. I said sure if he would like to hold the pieces together that would be great. He then proceeded to take the pieces from me move them to a table (he made room by having a kid move). He starts working on it (me standing there helpless) and has the boy I help come over and give the screwdriver a turn, the boy does but not with any strength so he tells him to try again, the boy I help is completely over screwing screws into wood, so I grab the screwdriver and start screwing in all the nails. The assistant looks at me with amaze at the fact that I can turn a screwdriver and according to him I apparently did it the right way, who knew? I could not believe that all the men in the room just decided that I was this helpless young adult who did not know how to use a screwdriver, they may have even been surprised that I knew what wood was! This infuriated  me to think that these men believed that I had no clue what it was. Just because I am a woman does not mean that I do not know how to do anything that a man should know how to do. I wonder what would happen if they found out that I knew how to use a hammer, a screwdriver, and a circular saw! Goodness!