Monday, August 15, 2011

My Crazy Week in Review

I can hardly help but apologize for my previous post. I hate being a downer! :( But I also don't think it's fair to not completely be honest with you about the ups and downs of my life. So, thank you friends for letting me be real!

Okay... on to more exciting things!

Last Saturday I babysat Parker. We had a load of fun together while he was awake. He loves washing his hands, getting out his little red stool, and putting it away when he's done. It is SO cute!


We had loads of fun just hanging out together and playing.



Spent time cleaning closets. No pictures. Trust me you wouldn't want them right now. D.i.s.a.s.t.e.r.

Sunday I fought a nasty migraine headache. All week dealt with bad sinus issues, and messed up weather {but I must admit I'm loving the coolness!}. It's made sleeping and breathing quite difficult!

Monday night I helped friends move stuff by organizing, carrying a drawer through the rain across the courtyard from Annemarie's apartment to Abigail's new one, held open doors, and hung out with Annemarie afterward. {We all work together, Abby's moving to where Annemarie lives now but won't be living in 3 weeks when she moves to WA :(, and Annemarie offered Abby their desk.}


After leaving Annemarie's house, I went to see Brian, Monica, & Parker. We had fun tickling and loving on Parker for the next hour or so. Here he is giving us his insanely adorable laugh! :)


Tuesday I worked from home through a myriad of pain, and got a lot of stuff--I'm so thankful I work at a place where this is allowed!

Wednesday I celebrated Annemarie's birthday with her by taking her out to lunch and hanging out together for a while after work. She's 25 now!


We aren't quite sure how we're friends as I loveeeee chocolate and she hatesssss it. So we split an apple cobbler a la mode at Chili's for dessert and yummmmoooooo!!!! :) That stuff was amazing.


Our final birthday lunch together. So bittersweet.


On weeks like these, I use all the help I can get for dinner!!!


Thursday we said farewell to our wonderful coworker Danny. Tough stuff. We had a little farewell party for him in the morning. It is SO hard to see him gone! But we're praying for his next steps as he trains to be a pastor.




I made some cinnamon rolls for the event. Yum. :)


Our special tea time groupies :) {albeit this isn't even half of them}. We have tea time every morning & afternoon, especially in non-summer months. I don't drink it very often, but it's still a fun thing to be involved in.



Surprise!




A little awkward moment and some quietness from Danny {which says a lot cuz he's not a quiet dude}, and I think he was just feeling overwhelmed with gratitude and emotion, so being the not-shy person that I am {and trying to help him out with the emotional aspect} I couldn't resist saying "Now you know how us women feel at all those showers!"

*laughter* Hey at least it lightened the mood. :)


**I rarely feel awkward with silences, I think comfortable silences or pauses to collect your thoughts is perfectly normal and something we need instead of just speeding through life & conversation. But I feel badly when I can sense that others are feeling awkward, so I tend to run full speed ahead with trying to help them feel relaxed. In this case, after I kept yakking a bit and sensed that it was overkill, I elbowed my coworker Tim next to me and asked him to help me shut up! ;) **



So humble and gracious, you could tell the emotion of the day was getting to him. We couldn't help but give him a gift with his favorite teas, which was a huge blessing to him. We love Danny & look forward to seeing him again when he's back in the area in a year after going through his pastoral training!



Thursday after work, I took a friend/coworker to Chicago's Midway airport. I'm so used to taking people to O'Hare that it doesn't phase me at all now and I think it's fun! This was my first time taking someone to Midway and it's definitely even more fun! It's just longer and harder to get to from where I live, but it's still fun, and I enjoyed the chance to explore another part of Chicago. LOVE it!!



Nice view from the unloading zone!


Danielle & I :)




Friday I had lunch with a monthly group of coworkers and it was a lot of fun! This was a long work day for me, about 12 hours, and afterward I went straight home and crashed. Friday's lunch was really, really great, and I'm so thankful for such a fun group of coworkers! Since our coworker Don had to miss it, the rest of us decided we had to take a bunch of pictures to show him later of us dipping our cheese curds in frozen custard at Culver's. So fun!!





AJ, Tim, me, & Abigail 


At the end of the day, our designers decided to prank our coworker Amy {this happens a lot} who was on vacation all last week. She was raised in a foreign country with missionary parents in her youth years, and loves all things America. But with her additional love of this other country, we just like to tease her about America... and hence:










Saturday, I had an amazing chiropractor appointment. It was soooo nice!! I felt incredible afterwards. Too bad it's always so short-lived. :( But we made some good progress with some other stuff too, and I'll post more about that later.

Sunday, we went to church and heard a special speaker, Pastor Steven Furtick {lead pastor of Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC, the fastest growing church in America}. He's incredible!!! For just this week, you can check out his sermon here. Keep in mind it was targeting our church, so you may not feel like it's totally applicable, but it'll give you a sense of who he is. You're going to be hearing much more of this guy over the next decade, I'm sure of it!


After that, I went to see a movie with my sister-in-law Becca, and then we met up with her 4 kids and played at the mall's play place and enjoyed some pretzels together, just chilling out. I tried to just soak in every moment with these kiddos, they're so special!





Today the big entertainment at work was one I probably shouldn't share in too much detail, but I wanted you to see that even though we work hard and I talk about how crazy it is, we definitely play too! :) This afternoon the guys were trying to figure out a copying issue and it was soooo funny. There were 4 of us girls just standing back laughing. :)


Wow. The end.

You should win an award if you actually read all of this and looked at more than half the pictures!! ;)


5 comments:

Liz Mays said...

I can't believe how busy your week was!

I've never been to Midway. I heard it's gotten a lot busier over the last few years. It used to be a little secret and easier to get in and out of than O'Hare, but it's not quite that easy anymore.

I thought your cobbler dessert was a burger bun on top of a burger at first!

Katie G said...

I have lots of comments.
1.I love the necklaces that and AM are wearing :).
2. I miss hanging out with you girls :(.
3. OH MY GOSH Amy's desk is hilarious. Way to go design department
4. Copy machine woes. I love it.
5. Bye Danny!

Rochelle said...

Liz, I can totally believe you of all people are blogging at 4 in the morning. :) I heart you! Yeah, Midway is getting busier but thankfully it's definitely less crazy than O'Hare! Too bad all the roads going to & fro are practically under construction or heavily traveled. Merh. - LOL I see what you mean now about it looking like a burger. It for sure wasn't... that was some awesome cinnamony-ness. :)

Katie, thank you! AM helped me pick out that necklace, and the one she was wearing was a bday gift from her mama. We miss hanging out with you too, especially at birthday lunch time!!!! When your bday rolls around we totally need a Skype lunch! ;)

Rachel Jones said...

Great update!!!! Seems like your workplace and coworkers are pretty great, what a blessing! Hope you are doing well - I need to stop by sometime soon and say hi to you, Karen and danielle :)

Rochelle said...

Thanks Rachel! We'd love to have you visit anytime, we have a pretty open door policy! :) Maybe all of us could do lunch sometime soon too! Karen gets back from vaca on Monday I think. Look forward to seeing you soon!