Four.Twenty.Eight

Nostalgia

I finally got some blogging inspiration from a message board I frequent.  Someone addressed the topic, "Remember When...?"  Here are some of mine:

I remember when...

• I had a pink "jam box" that I carted around everywhere so I could listen to my cassette tape collection
• We got our first CD player and my parents bought the first CD of Taylor Dane (ugh. why?)
• Our car had the push-button on the left-side of the floor board to turn on the brights
• My grandmother had a Lincoln Town Car with the button-code entry on the door
• My parents let me have a phone in my room and it was cordless (uptown!)
• I would play for hours on my Sesame Street swing set in our front yard (white, yellow, and green)
• I played games on our first home computer, an Apple IIc, and there was no mouse, only inputting commands and big floppy disks
• my grandmother lived across the street (actually across the pasture, sort of...) and she would let me walk over and pick roses from her multiple rose bushes
• Our phone number was 354-2414
• My mom sent me in the post office alone to buy 25 cent stamps from the postman, Mr. Cave
• I got up in the morning before school to watch "Donald Duck Presents" on The Disney Channel from our massive satellite dish in the backyard that you had to hand crank to get certain stations
• I could listen to my Bangles "Manic Monday" album on an actual album from our living room
• We got our first microwave with the turn dial that made a big "DING" when it was done
• After my mom picked me up from school, we would drive out to see if my dad was unloading his truck at the pump station.  If he was, I would ride back to the house (less than a mile) with him in the truck and I remember being fascinated by it all.
• Always looking out our picture window when my dad would leave in his truck (crude oil hauler) for work and I remember how he waved (still the same)

Tag!  You're it!  Feel free to blog about your "remember whens."

Four.Twenty.Eight

So, the answer to my "trivia" question?  Four.Twenty.Eight corresponds to April 28, 1999.  :::Oh my.  Nearly 10 years ago.  Getting nostalgic now.:::

On April 28, 1999, Sammy took me to his fraternity banquet as his date, brought white roses (points!), and afterward asked me to "make it official", so to speak.  Something just came over me and I said yes and the last almost-10 years couldn't have been better!

Oldies But Goodies

Over the Thanksgiving Holiday, I raided my parent's computer for pictures.  You see, I can remind my parents a hundred times to please send me the pictures from the ski trip, but they forget.  We are almost ready to go on the next ski trip and I still don't have their shots from the last trip.  Ah, well.  Since I was there, I plugged in my USB flash drive and took matters into my own hands.  I thought I'd share some of my finds on their iPhoto library.

Nope, this isn't us skiing "old school."  My dad is on the far left ready to go skiing with his brother and sister.  Those skis might be in the Smithsonian by now...



Yes, this is us coming back from our last day of skiing in Vail last year.  I recall this day being COLD, COLD, COLD and we threw in the towel early.



Me and my parents - looks like my dad's been at work... his pants are grubby.



Here's a few pictures of my dad when he was in the Navy.  He was stationed on the John F. Kennedy Aircraft Carrier in the Mediterranean Ocean.  Handsome!









This was taken at my grandparent's house when they lived in New Mexico.  I remember playing with all those necklaces.



And then there's this wild and crazy picture of Axel.  He was in my parents backyard and discovered their Golden Retriever's digging spot.  He was like a dog possessed.  Going crazy!  He looks all wild-eyed!

My, My, How Time Does Fly.

I don't have a lot of time to post, but happy anniversary hubby-o'-mine!

Here's one of the first pictures taken of us together.  I came to Dallas to visit in the first summer after we met.  Sammy took me to the arboretum.

Look, there.  All in love and stuff.

After a few years... the knot was tied.

And take a look at us NOW!!

Hee, hee.  Just kiddin'.

Love, ya sweetie.  :-)

Generosity? Skepticism? What'll It Be?

A thought-provoking post on the Don't Try This At Home blog got me interested in telling my little story from back in January.

Sammy and I pulled up in the dark to the Comfort Suites in Denver, Colorado, the one we always stay at on I-70 and Kipling Street. The drive was long, but the reward of being in the mountains was sweet. An expected-to-be-fabulous sushi dinner was ahead of us, and we wanted to get there really soon.

Just as Sammy got back in the car and we pulled out of the hotel drive-through, a beat up, grimy old car pulled up quickly beside us. The woman inside was waving her hand rapidly at us. The next thing we knew, she was asking us for money. She needed gas for the car and dinner. She was traveling from Grand Junction, headed to Kansas... My mind was already tuning out. At this point, our skepticism was growing. How many times have I heard this? She's probably not telling the truth. The several years we've spent living in a huge urban area had caused us to develop a hard exterior against this kind of thing.

As she spoke, I caught a glimpse of a kiddo in the seat beside her. Again, it was dark and difficult to see. After her spiel, I kept quiet, let Sammy do the talking. He is much better at this than me. He told her that we really just couldn't right now. She had the most dejected look on her face, like defeat mixed with a little despair.

Next, we headed into our hotel room, began unloading our things, and then began to dress for dinner. We discussed the incident, how it always makes you feel uncomfortable. Then one of us said that we probably should have given her money... she did have a kid with her, after all. We looked at each other with a look of conviction, with a look of failure. We knew we had failed the test.

Sammy decided to drive around the block a few times and look for her while I got ready. When he got back, unsuccessful at locating the woman, he told me he tried the few gas stations close by.

In the end, we were quite disappointed in ourselves unlike we ever have been before. It was a glaring case of conviction. We made a snap decision based on our big-city experience with so-called "panhandlers." The typical panhandler is not honest, and we had decided that, as a rule, we just wouldn't hand money out like that. This night was different, though. There was just something about her that got us. And we didn't act. Shame on us.

So, we conversed about the incident on the way to dinner. We concluded that we should have given her something from the cash we had on hand, and decided that God was probably disappointed in us. I kicked myself for not realizing that I could have easily parted with that big bag of snacks we had in the backseat so her child could have them.

All in all, did it matter if she was honest? Nope. Did it matter where she was going or what she was doing? No. If money would have made her happy for even a minute or two, then it would have been worth it. It wouldn't have meant anything to us - hardly a drop in the bucket. It was pretty obvious to her we could have spared a dollar or two: car full of suitcases (filled with expensive clothes), GPS unit on the windshield, cell phones, nice hotel for the night, expensive skis on the top of our late-model shiny SUV. Yes, our evening's ambiance was a little spoiled with our inability to leave selfish at home, we learned a valuable lesson, and we can't have a do-over.

So, if you ever encountered any person like the woman above, stop. Think. Act. You can act generously in God's love as he commanded us, or you can schlepp around in skepticism. What'll it be?

9 years ago today... a boat, a sail, some music, that guy...

Wow. It is nearly impossible to believe that I met Sammy 9 years ago this spring - spring of 1999.

This all came to light today because Sammy and I headed to Brownwood for me to attend my quarterly Alumni Association Board meeting. Today also happens to be the annual day for HPU Fest on campus, an all-day outdoor concert featuring several Christian bands.

Let's head back to spring of 1999. Sammy and I had been on a date or two, and the day of HPU Fest, as I sat out on the grass with a couple of my roommates, he walked up and said that a group was headed to the lake to parasail. Would I like to go? I agreed, not really sure I was even going to parasail. I could just go along for the boat ride, right? You see, a big deal when we were at HPU was parasailing. Our University Chancellor took students on his personal boat frequently to parasail on Lake Brownwood.

So, I "went along for the ride." Ha, ha. To shorten the story a bit, they did convince me to do it, and it was great! The not-so-great part was telling my mom that I had done something "dangerous." I think she is still convinced to this day that it is dangerous...

I called home very excited to tell her all about it. I told her... and I heard silence for, oh, 10-15 seconds. Then I heard the phone go down by the shoulder and she said very curtly to my dad, "Suzanne went PARASAILING on the LAKE." Next thing I hear was dad say from the across the room, "Well, you can't do anything about that now." Perfect response, and so typical of him.

So, that was my day today. Time goes fast. My memories at HPU are some of the best of my life thus far and I wouldn't change a thing. Every time I go back on campus, I remember how much I loved it there and how much my personality grew and changed over those years. I remember how much my Christian walk grew and changed, and how much I came out of my shell even after I thought I couldn't get any further outside it.

And then, I met that guy... who asked me to go parasailing... and now it's 9 years later. Kind of makes me happy and sad all at once.