i have found the calling of my youth...I will be a dectective.












or a puppeteer.














or a cook. (thats my grandma)











or a hiker.







(bear with me, i have too much free time and a scanner)


now for a quick montage of my beloved late puppy, Lady.




























and a final shot of myself to satisfy my vainity.


As a very sophisticated and blase fifth grader (really i have no idea how old i am here) Disney World had no claim on my interest. I am completely absorbed in my book, having just put out my ciggarette in the ash tray I am hovering over, my straw hat hiding my disdain for mickey mouse. and my brother is confused.

today i put a pear in my purse to eat during my break at work. and it got smushed. all over my library book.

after work i called my Dad to let him know my plans and i caught my parents while they were talking to my brother and sister in Japan. They held the phone up to the microphone so i could talk to them (which didn't really work) but in my attempt to communicate I shouted 'I love you!!' in the Borders parking lot, quite loud so the sound waves could make it all the way Japan. My cry was so convincing and full of feeling that some pedestrains misconstrued my meaning and shouted exclamations of love back to me.

I have been listening to the book 'Sister Carrie' on tape for the past two weeks. It is a very long book and I won't bore you with the details of the plot, only to say that I am hooked enough on the story that I am going to finish wading through all twelve casettes. The reader is a woman whose voice I find kind of annoying, especially when she tries to do men's voices, I can't say what bothers me, but something does. The tapes are really old some parts of the recording are damaged, but I think the damaged portions are my favorite. One minute the heroine is arguing with her lover when suddenly they are underwater! After a few minutes the waters will subside, only to suddenly engulf them when they are parting in anger! What an unexpected plot twist! Then, in casette seven, there is an echo and each line is repeated by a chorus of ghosts, mimicking the reader's voice. It is so eerie and I completely loose interest in the story, turning up the volume so I can hear the secret message the ghosts are trying to relate through the speakers. In the pause between each sentence you can hear warped fragments of what had just been said and I get goosebumps every time. I wonder what casette eight will bring!

I figured out how to post pictures!! This is a group photo from Lexington, Va, where I met all the folks with World Harvest Missions that are involved in the summer internship program. Can you find me?

Trust walk in the snow--isn't it beautiful!

Today was a wonderful day off, I finally took care of lots of things that needed to be done, like laundry and taxes. My Dad was helping do my taxes, poor man. 'Daddy,' I would ask winningly (though probably more whine-ingly) 'What does this mean on line 8a?' In the midst of his patient explanation I will interrupt suddenly and snap, 'okay okay! I've got it!,' growling as I continue on with the tax form, 'Don't be so patronizing!' My grumbling would go on until the next problem, 'Daddy? line 10?' Basically it comes to this, even when I ask for help, I hate being told what to do. Especially by my parents. Its like there is a light switch in my head and when any kind of didactic information flows from my parents mouth I turn into mr. hyde-christa, having no patience or curtesy at all, lashing out like a crazed hyena. And then I get over it until they try to tell me to do something again. Thank goodness for reverse psychology otherwise my parents would have given me away long ago. My Dad comments that his 'revenge' will be that I will marry someone just like him (goofy, warm-hearted, generous, kind) so that I will have someone to tease, tell me what to do, and drive me crazy all the time. What a charming karma!! (love ya Dad mwah)

ha and i blog again.

It has been two weeks since I have watched children at church or at the lovely home of the Fergusons, due to spring breaks and such things and it was wonderful to be back with the kids again. At church I helped watch the four and five year olds instead of my normal one and two year old crowd. It is so much fun to be around kids who can talk instead of just cry and point and poop (though, do not get me wrong, the sweet babies have their charms as well) but i really enjoyed listening to the long monologues of these budding orators. The gorgeous weather drew us out to the playground where a boys vs. girls game of tag immediately commenced. I, new to the group, had no idea that this had occured, that the boys were dubbed The Bears and the girls Baby Cheetahs, and that I was in the midst of a fierce battle. I was just running from anyone who roared at me, which was everyone. An astute girl, named Emily, sensing my confusion and fear, came to my rescue. 'Don't worry teacher, I will scare them off for you,' and she ran off singing at the boys who had cornered me, 'Will you come and dance with me? Will you come and dance with me?' I was dumbfounded by the innate intuition of this girl who knew that asking a boy to dance would indeed scare him soundly and cause him to flee. And flee they did. (though later Emily explained that it was her great speed that scared them off and she was just singing to make me feel better. Still, the image was quite funny). And so Emily and I, in addition to a little girl named Natalie, formed a third coalition in this animal war, the Peaceful Parakeets, and we cheeped and tweeted our way around the playground, flying out of harms way when necessary.

At work a customer brought me a book that they had found mishelved in true crime. It was President Clinton's book 'My life.'

Tonight with the Ferguson kids, we danced to veggie tales (I have to buy myself a cd!) and played with a long cardboard box that we cut eye and arm holes into, at appropriate heights for both Haywood and Hallsey. Oh how I wish I had a camera so you could see their thrilled faces as they tottered about in this box, shuffling their feet so that they were constantly knocking themselves over. Ah, the simple joys of cardboard.

***for my previous blog a new acronym has been suggested Many Atrciously Retched Christa Hours, please note this improvement*****


so i am going to buy a digital camera and am very excited about the possiblity of having lots of pics to post on my blog. i am doing my father proud by reading consumer reports and doing internet research and all those things that smart consumers do. i think i am going for a canon.

Tonight after the store closed the phone rang and it was a customer who was outside the door demanding to be let in because her clock just read 11 and we should let her in because we closed early (which we hadn't, it was clearly five after) but she was really angry, hung up on me, and i must admit i was a little afraid going out to my car that she would attack me. she didn't. i was mentally preparing my defensive retaliation just in case.

I have to get up early tomorrow and have a crazy day, child care from 9 to 11.30, Borders from 12 to 6, and babysitting from 6.30 to 9.30, and i am not tired yet. but i think i must go to bed or tomorrow i will die. will keep all posted on how i survived my crazy day (which, really, is nothing compared to school schedules of the old days) but i am an old fogie now and cannot handle such demanding constraints. thank goodness I will pass a carribou twice in the day ( the coffee store, not the animal)

i ran 7 miles today and must say I am immensely proud of myself. and it was very hard. well mi 1 and 2 were good ( and hilly), 3 and 4 hard, 5 and 6 okay, 7 very hard. thankfully the voices in my head kept cheering me on. heaven knows how i will manage 8 next week!

ok i really am going to bed now.

so it has been almost a month since my last blog. an awful month. and i will say no more about it, but thank goodness it is over! and now it is April and with April comes glorious spring and my last month working at Borders! I love Borders and books and the people there but I am very very very excited about doing something new. And I am hatching lots of plans of what to do if I don't get the job I want (really! really! want) in Colorado. bicycle across the US. Go to South America. Teach engrish in Japan. Live in a tent in the woods indefinately. do nothing for as long as possible. or do something I am passionately obsessively passionate about. I like the last option best. Because I think March (My Atrociously Retched Christa Hours) was awful because I allowed myself to become isolated from people and things I love. I allowed myself to become overcome by mundanity. and I want anything but to be stagnant--peaceful, yes, stagnant, no. And I was so consumed with my own emotions and self, so consumed with the lies about who I really am, that I stopped seeking out People. And People are essential. I love People. And to all of you that still have People surrounding you and you don't have to go far to have someone to be with, to talk to, do not take it for granted, relish in it. because People need People.

today when i was helping a man at the registers, I heard him lean over and speak to his son who was playing with the magazine rack. I didn't hear the whole conversation but caught the youngsters name, which was Copeland. I expressed my admiration of the name to the father and asked if he was called after the composer or was it a family name. He responded, both-the composer was in the family. i should have gotten the boy's autograph :)

i am grumpy today and the fact that i cannot pinpoint a reason why, other than the blasted wrong side of the bed must be harrassing me again, just augments my hatefulness. i cannot even stew in my meaness without being plagued by the knowledge that many more people have many more reasons than i to be grumpy. but, thankfully, i have reached deep within myself for hidden resources and have carefully sheilded my negativity from all thoughts of attitude being the paintbrush of life or other such nonesensical quotes that haunt my memory from middle school, and am still unabashedly a grump.

Favorite book titles of the day:
'The day my butt went psycho,' a book title not to be outdone by the other titles by the same author, such as 'Butt wars: the final conflict' and 'Zombie butts from Uranus,' titles surely to appeal to the 8-12 year boys they were intended for....um....and me.

'I will never not ever eat a tomato' another book from the childrens section. This is amusing simply because it reminds me of a time, when i was four or five, that i was staying at a friends house while my parents were out of town and i refused to eat my sandwhich at lunch because i did not want the tomatos. i was forced to sit at the table for HOURS until i ate it. i don't think i ever did finish the sandwhich. I am sure i was a snot about the whole episode, very much deserving the weighty sentence, but at the time, even at my young age, i felt the event quite unjust and was filled with all of the righteous indignation a five- year-old can muster. Not only did she want me to eat tomatos, she wanted me to drink fruit juice too! me, a girl who from birth only drank water, milk, apple juice, and the occasional hot cocoa. I think my dislike for plain, raw tomatos continues to this day out of sheer stubborness.

i am feeling bloggish.

word of warning: never get between a Yuppie and their coffee. bad things happen. very bad things.

so its amazing how you have mini-moments with people. sometimes, not often, but sometimes, in the time it takes me to find a customers book and give it to them, a connection is formed between me and the person i am helping. for me, these moments generally happen with old women, as it seems i have the same tastes and preferences as women of 60+ years. A few days ago i met a woman looking for a nat king cole cd (i love nat) and so as we headed over to the easy listening section, i asked if she wanted a particular album. She responed easily, no i just want something with ramblin' rose on it. I told her i knew the song and continued chatting and come to find out the reason she wanted the cd because her husband had passed away (bless his soul, said she) and she wanted to listen to his favorite song while thinking about him. She wasn't sad, she just stated the facts, and we found her the cd. we talked a few more minutes and she went happily away, saying that she would now think of me too whenever she listened to nat. i guess in my romantic nature, i like and find it beautiful that she can think of her husband who is gone without extreme sadness or bitterness, bitterness often seems closely tied to death. instead, she is able to remeber the time they had with joy. my written account does not capture the sweetness of this woman and even 'sweet' seems to be a word too saccharine and cliche to describe her, she was true, simple, honest, vulnerable, and loving. i liked her a lot.

so i spent at least a half-hour writing a lengthy and, dare i say, brilliant blog when i scooted my computer too far forward and -poof-it was unplugged and all was lost.
i fear i cannot muster a full recreation, but rather an abbreviated blog-ness.

I think each day is full of humor and awkwardness and things that make me laugh. Unfortunately, the little happenstances that make me smile and giggle ususally occur when i am by myself with no one to share it with, or no one understands why i find these things so delightful in the first place. What follows is a list of things that make me laugh or i just really like:

-my red cross shirt that says 'give a gift from the heart' ewww.

-climbing the ladders in the store, i love being high up and looking at everyone. i don't know, its fun.

-speaking of ladders, when i am an 'adult' (ie own land, have disposable income) the first thing i am going to do is build a tree house. Its going to be amazing, i am going to build it myself. And i will have an orchard, garden, and...Huge aviaries filled with birds. Maybe. When i have my tree-raising party you will all be invited.

-i like knowing where i book is without having to look it up on the computer.

-i like reading, so much that now i always have at least two books with me at all times. A consequence of my job, i suppose. i admire anyone that can convey a clear picture or emotion through a simply gathering of words-i myself am prevented from doing so due to my verbosity.

-i like walking from one side of the store to another in the most linear path possible.

-i like how everybook in the store has a spot, even though the books are always shifting and moving, as people take things out and put things in, they all still have their proper place.

-i like banging the espresso mush out of the espresso thingy-me-bob and scaring all the people around me. and i like putting whip cream on things.

-i like listening to my blinker click consistently against whatever music is on, slowly transitioning in and out of sync.

- i want to hike the AT sooooooooo badly. that is all i am going to say about that.

- i love organic peanut butter.

-i like watching other people trip and try to act like it didn't happen. don't think you can pretend it away! clumsy -ness is God reminding us to have a sense of humor. er, well me anyway.

-I like meeting people that you instantly have something in common with, its like an instant understanding of someone's soul, and then you never see them again.

-i like being the first one up and moving through the house, or driving, or walking when no one else is around.

-i like to walk or see other people walking or riding bikes instead of driving. i wanted to look at bikes today, to buy one, but the store didn't open until 11 am! i was there at ten and didn't want to wait. oh well, next time.

-i like changing my voice when i answer to phone at work, or changing the way i pronunciate words, thus throwing the customer off-guard, gaining the upper hand, and forcing the customer to buy books i love, all before they know whats hit them.

the end.

pink martini

So last night i went to a concert with my Aunt and Cousin. I had no idea what to expect and was doubly skeptical because the band's name was Pink Martini. hmmm. but i shall waste no words in telling you that it was amazing! It is a 12 piece cuban/ 30s crooner/classical group and I am in love with all of them (especially the cello). They played their own original compositions as well as classical works by cuban composers (except for balero by ravel, gorgeous), words fail to describe how much I enjoyed it. I bought a cd and talked to the band and had them all sign it afterwards. My friends, i cannot write more because the cd is playing and I have to get up and dance. I will make anyone a copy who wants it, so i won't have to dance alone.




www.pinkmartini.com

So today I went running for the first time in weeks! I have been an absolute bum and today I was like dude enough of this its time to begin again. so i did. and i remembered how much i love to run! yes, i am slow, but its like your lungs get cleared out and the brisk fresh air fills them up and you push yourself further than you expected you could go. And I just had to share, that as I was running, I came to that mental bridge that I have to cross every time I run, where I say to myself, okay you have gone far enough, and i let myself walk. But today I pushed on, said to myself 'I really am a NINJA!' and went on. Today three miles down, soon to be more and more.

I overheard a co-worker ranting about how silly Christmas is, that the romans just took over a pagan religious holiday a be-jillion years ago to show power and thus this holiday it simply a political power-play and that Jesus was really born in June etc etc. I think, for me at least, the historical development of this holiday is somewhat irrelevant and it doesn't matter when exactly Jesus was born, because really Christmas is a reminder of God's greater plan! That he knew that redemption for his broken servants (us) could only be granted through blood and a perfect sacrifice. And so, in His perfect plan, he gave us his son, the exact representation of Himself in human form, so that we can return to him. And the story, the story of Christmas, of Jesus' life, is all part of this plan that is necessary so that we can see God's greatness, His plan, and Praise Him for His mercy, grace, and power. So Christmas is just the beginning of that plan, the first light of hope for sinners, the dawn of a new covenant, a new law, the gospel. I know I can't express it as well as others, but this realization makes me want to shout and dance and sing! For God is so Good to us! And we know that His plan has already been completed, the sacrifice has been made and Jesus has already sat down on the throne beside the Lord, signifying his victory over death! Rejoice for we have been redeemed! Amen!

i was at my church orchestra rehearsal last night when one of the pieces struck me as oddly familiar. this familiarity was not of the "oh-this-is-my-favorite-hymn-which-i-have-heard-all-of-my-life" variety, but a far more unsettling "this-sounds-like-some-random-song-from-an-inspirational-movie-possibly-one-with-woopie-goldberg" familiarity. the song is titled "Glory to God" and has a reggae-esque (?i dunnno, beachy perhaps describes it better...iam not known for my musical accuracy) beat to it. well, i finally placed where the familiarity origniates from. Its a dead copy of the theme song from Free Willy. Yes, the movie about the whale. now, i ask you, how am a supposed to keep a straight face during the Christmas program with this mind association firmly planted in my brain?

Hallsey, one of the three adorable children i sit for, and i had a tea party tonight while her parents and older brother went to see narnia. One of my favorite things about her is that she answers all my my playful, teasing questions with a straight, serious (while slightly questioning my intellignce) tone. i attempted to capture some of her funnier moments in prose, but erased them when they fell shamefully short of campturing her truly inate sense of humor. all this to say, she is a riot. She names all her dolls and animals frivolous names like Annika and Serefina (names gleaned from barbie movies i gather) and dresses up in a princess costume evertime i come over. we tell lots of stories, her sweet voice always chiming in when she feels an elaboration to my plot is necessary. she went through this one morbid (and very funny) stage when she would make all the characters in the story die. I would have the princess in the tale living happily ever after when suddenly Hallsey would declare that, no, the princess fell violently ill and died. i hope all these deaths weren't due to her dislike of my impromptu fairy tales. she is as cute as a button.

look at me, just blogging away. (this is for amy's benefit).

so pride and prejudice was super good! very prettily filmed, lovely music, and, of course, a wonderful story. the best part was my grandmother's commentary and her swooning over mr. darcy every time he came onto the screen. ah i love that woman!

um. today is my day off and i usually begin my tuesdays with a list of things to accomplish. and generally they never get done. so it goes today. what i really think i need is a nap. :)

um, i think i am going to prague. stay tuned for more details.

i have been lax in my posting.
but, frankly, there has not been much to write about, though this is not a negative or sad observation, i have just been in go mode for the past few weeks.

blog topic #1: just home from a fantastic weekend at Chapel Hill. What a wonderful and talented group of friends I have! Amy- You had a fantastic, magnificent rectital; Jon- You were amazing(!!) in the cradle will rock! You owned the role. Matt- Congrats on winning the concerto competition, i cannot wait to hear you perform at the concert.

and Elisabeth is 21-hooray!
This is a very insufficient sum-up of the weekend, but i am an a concise mood. final statement, i had a wonderful time, i love seeing all of my dear friends!

blog topic #2: it is very difficult to soak your ear in salt water.

blog topic #3: be expecting an e-mail about a fantastic party. my mom's only condition about holding it here in charlotte is that everyone brings their instruments and that we all sing Christmas carols. i am not kidding, bring your instruments or my mom will jetison us into the cold.


Tonight i am have a date with my grandma for dinner and a movie. i am excited, there is no one i like talking about jane austin with more that my g-ma. can you guess what movie we are going to see? stay tuned for my next blog in which i will give a detailed analysis comparing the film to book versions and A&E movie renditions.

note to self:
in order to go to bed in a timely fashion, do not 1. take a long afternoon nap 2. drink a higly caffienated drink.

disregarding these suggestions will inevitably result in lack of sleep and late night blog entries with many misspellings.

i had something funny to say but i cannot remember what it was. oh well. i like costumes and such but i think halloween is only fun if you have cute little kids in plush costumes to tote around. Only a few trick or treaters came to our house and the majority of them were teenagers in "costumes." Costume prize goes to a little boy in a dragon costume- so sweet!

I think I am going to start taking some road trips. suggestions on destinations will be accepted, i think my first trip will be to the grand canyon. or maryland.