The Muppets

I love the Muppets.

More specifically, I love all things Jim Henson.

So here are some scattered thoughts about the Muppets and Jim:

Like many of my fellow 80s kids, Sesame Street was a staple of my childhood. I learned everything from how to count to 10 in Spanish to how to be a friend. Bert and Ernie were my favorites - little did I know that their friendship echoed the creative collaborations between masterminds Frank Oz and Jim Henson.

Once I hit pre-school, I would watch the Muppet Show on Nickelodeon in the afternoons. As Jason Segel recently said, The Muppets are a gateway drug to comedy like SNL and Monty Python. How right he is! The Muppets led to my love of 50s, 60s, and 70s classic television. I would stay up late each night to watch Nick At Night for Dick Van Dyke, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and my favorite: I Love Lucy. The clean, cheesy, and clever humor in these shows echo the vaudevillian roots of the Muppets. The only thing that has come close to the creativity, humor, and heart of the Muppets is Pixar.

A Muppet Christmas Carol will always be my favorite movie - [nerd] so much of a favorite that I sang "When Love Is Gone" as a sophomore in High School nearly 10 years after the movie was released. [/nerd] The sheer joy of the Ghost of Christmas Present brings me to tears as he sings to that crotchety geeser. It was also the first movie after the deaths of Jim Henson and Richard Hunt.

Then there's Labywrinth. It's such a freaky movie for a child to watch yet I preferred it to the princesses of Disney. It was about the journey made by a real, angsty teenager in an unreal, fantastical world - the first time I saw a flawed character that really did "come of age" in a non-children's movie way.

Jim Henson understood the need for humans to imagine and create. I really wish I could have met him. I'm still hoping I can meet Frank Oz one day. And Dave Goelz. And Kevin Clash. And Steve Whitemire. I'd just like to meet every Muppeteer.

My closest brush with Muppet-dom was meeting the original cast of Avenue Q, including John Tartaglia, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, and Rick Lyon. All were puppeteers for Sesame Street and other Henson productions. Rick also designs puppets - AWESOME! They were so warm to me; Stephanie even took me backstage and showed me around. I mean really, who does that? It just solidified my dream to work for Sesame Street one day. I don't care what I do, as long as I can work for their program.

Another memory is with my husband. On our way back from our Honeymoon, we stopped by the Muppet Exhibit at the Smithsonian - I walked in and nearly ran over a kid in my excitement at seeing Kermit. Jonathan had to run to catch up to me and tell me of the child's near destruction. The exhibit allowed me to share all of my geekdom with him; The Muppets are my Star Wars. My Lord of the Rings. This was my childhood.

And now just in time for my daughter to join the world, the Muppets release their first major motion picture in over 10 years! Our first date sans baby will be to see The Muppets on Friday. I'd say I've come full circle, but that implies that there won't be any more contributions from the Muppets. How sad would that be? Instead I'll say that is just another tier to a sweet, delicious cake.

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The movie was AMAZING! Without giving anything away, it exceeded every expectation I had. We are huge Muppet fans AND Flight of the Conchord fans. James Bobin (director of FOTC) directed this movie, AND Bret McKenzie was the Music Director. The music was incredible: heartwarming and funny. I was in love within minutes of it starting. I also cried at least ten times - I stopped counting.  It was the best first post-baby date ever!

Tearful Shadowfeet

I have the privilege of serving on my church's solo worship team. Every few months, we get together and sing a song so we can work on our craft and receive feedback. This time around, I sang Shadowfeet, written and sung by Brooke Fraser.

(Note: I'm a cryer and the entire team - and church - are aware. If the song is beautiful, has powerful lyrics, reminds me of my past, or even has an amazing chord progression, I tend to at least shed a tear.)

I was last on the lineup, immediately after my friend Megan who sang Kari Jobe's "You Are For Me". I'm not sure what the main cause of the tears were - the Kari Jobe song's message, Megan singing it and revealing her heart, the message of Shadowfeet, or all of the above. Whatever it was, I couldn't sing but a few words until the second verse. Rather than stop the song, my worship family used it as a teachable moment for the team.

"What do you do when a song grabs you emotionally and you can't sing it?"

It was amazing how everyone has had those moments of finding the balance between allowing the emotion to reveal the realness of the song and pushing it out so you can communicate the message of the song. It's a fine line that depends on the context - what is the message and who is the (intended) audience? Our church family isn't shy about God's grace in their lives - we will gladly show our battle wounds because we know they give God the glory for where He's brought us. This makes singing these kinds of songs especially difficult because they know where you've been and how amazing His grace really is.

This is what I couldn't sing:

Walking, stumbling on these shadowfeet, toward a home, a place that I've never seen

I am changing. Less and less asleep. Made of different stuff than when I began

And I have sensed it all along.

Fast approaching is the day.

When the world is falling out from under me, I'll be found in You still standing.

When the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees, when time and space are through.

I'll be found in You.

These lyrics remind me so much of who I was before I knew God. I was a child riddled with depression, confusion, and misplaced emotion. I knew there was something bigger but I didn't know what it was. I sought love and acceptance in people, dance, television, creativity, music; everywhere except God. I didn't even know God was an option! I began my journey with Him when I was 14 and went through the most crap after that point. Deeper depression, abuse, escapism, and deliberate disobedience to His word. His grace swept me into His arms again and I'm becoming "less and less asleep" each day.

I remain the only Christian in my family. It's heartbreaking that even after 12 years of following God, they still attribute my change to my own strength. I think they're excited that I have a hobby that I'm passionate about, but my walk with God is far more than scrapbooking or stamp collecting.  I make choices every day that either bring me closer to keep me from God. Regardless of the shame I have for my past, "He makes all things new" (another powerful lyric in the song and a powerful truth!). 

God is good and His grace makes me new. His strength allows me to sing through the tears - I can only rely on Him to communicate His messages. 

Vent

I'm going to vent for a moment.

Because of a friendship that went sour, I now have to tip toe around at work and church for fear that I may run into this person or cause them to speak poorly about me to others that we both know. I stopped all of my communication attempts back in November per her request (if you read my other blog, you know how horrid my November was). I still miss the friendship we had before things went sour. I'm still unsure what caused the sourness in the first place, but I know that after witnessing the recent behavior of this individual, I have no intention of pursuing a close relationship with them unless God prompts me otherwise. I honestly still pray for this person and want them to heal from their past hurts. We confided in each other about our pasts and our struggles so I'm thankful I'm able to pray for this person in specific ways.

Anyway, I just hate the fact that I have to be careful around her friends for fear that they know about the bitterness she (may still) hold for me. I hate that we can't even say hello to each other when we pass. I hate that I'm so bitter with how she easily discarded our friendship with no communication as to why. I don't hate her, I don't even dislike her. I know that something must be going on with her to make her do this to me and the countless others that she was once close to. Something is wrong and I want to help her through it -  but she's rejected my help. I've mourned the friendship and moved on.

Alright, I'm done venting now.

Mother's Day

(post from 5/6/11)

It's kinda sort my first Mother's Day!

weird..

To start the wonderful weekend, my wonderful baby daddy bought me flowers! His awesomness is heightened because of the stress that is going on at work:


I work in Higher Education Administration at a large University (the 8th largest school in the US). One of my major tasks, on top of managing 20+ employees and their duties, is to help plan Commencement. It takes the entire year to plan all of the details that go into one day (i.e. vendors, transport, "props", conferrals, diplomas, locations, pre-emptive strikes, website updates, communicating with staff, faculty, and students both digitally and in hard copy, etc). It's a whirlwind of AHHHHH that comes to head in the final two weeks leading up to the actual ceremonies. These flowers blissfully arrived to my office on the Friday of the first week of AHHHHH. My husband is freakin' awesome.

Now as we approach the second week, I am trying to eat as often as possible and stay as stress-less as I can under the circumstances of people not reading/doing what they're supposed to read/do. I love my staff and they are wonderful - I am so blessed to have them! They've been helping me maintain my sanity while picking up on ways they can help prepare everything.

On another note, Commencement also collides with the end of term excitement of final grades, exams, and Summer/Fall registration. Praise God for all of Jesus' little helpers!

Word Play

This may not be the blog for this post, but humor me. My brain is fried.

There is a difference between the "sex" and "gender" of an individual. Even though they are used interchangeably in everyday American conversation, they are medically very different. For example, in June we will learn the sex of our baby (male or female). The gender of our baby will not be known until their personality comes out (masculine or feminine). Ultimately, one can be a masculine female or a feminine male. Although to make sure I don't sound like a pretentious d-bag, I let it slide when people ask, "when do you find out the gender!!"

However, I will continue to dismiss resumes with typos and spelling errors.

13 Weeks

My kid is the size of a peach :)

Nausea is subsiding - I haven't barfed in 4 days!!! That's a new record!! Slurpees are still a constant companion. I still love dairy but can't eat as much meat as before. Steak is starting to get gross, chicken is a little better, but peanutbutter is tasting more edible each day.

My belly seems to be on schedule, too judging by this artists rendering of a behbeh inside a belleh. My next appointment is a week and a half from now. This weekend will be super fun- I get to see my family and go maternity clothes shoppping with mom and Lisa! yay!!



For all of my prego updates, please visit my other blog at http://askaprego.blogspot.com/

WOOO!

I've been bad at updating this blog - most of my energy is spent updating Trying For Life. I'm now in my second trimester and am enjoying every moment, from the weight gain to the barf - it's a beautiful reminder of God's grace that allowed us to get pregnant in the first place!

Things are going so well for us. Financially, we've been able to put money into savings each month which is something we hadn't been able to do since we first got married. We are so thankful for our church body, our home, our cat, our everything! God is great and life is good.

We're PREGNANT!

Hello friends!

I am overjoyed and shocked to announce that Jonathan and I are expecting a baby in October! We went through a long and difficult season of trying and we are thrilled!

I had been keeping a blog chronicling our journey to conception and now to parenthood. It's called Trying For Life and it is now open to anyone who wants to read it. I do not censor myself in the blog - it is full of frustration, sarcasm, hope, medical jargon, and personal experiences.


Here is a glimpse into our story:
We decided to start trying around Christmas of 2009. The blog itself started in February of 2010 when we thought we were pregnant - I misread a pregnancy test and started the blog within hours of the good news. A few hours after starting the blog, I re-tested with another brand and it was negative. (I never thought I'd be one of those women who would misread a pregnancy test, but turns out its a lot easier than it seems!)

Our town is a young town with conservative values, which means people get pregnant all the flippin' time. Everytime I logged onto Facebook it seemed that someone else was either announcing they were pregnant or just popped out another kid. I was especially frustrated with those younger than us or who had been married for less time (or not married at all) who were having children before us. I started charting, taking my temperature, and becoming overly aware of my ovulation, but nothing was working. In November, we had a chemical pregnancy which is essentially a very early miscarriage. It was devastating and we were more determined than ever to do whatever it took to conceive. We had testing, samples, extra doctor visits, and nothing happened.

Finally, at the point of surrendering everything to God and letting Him control our futures entirely, God allowed us to conceive!! Looking back, we wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Every bit of this pregnancy, from the nausea to the weight gain, are things that I am so thankful for and will not take for granted.

Good sign

Jonathan and I just had lunch at Fridays and the server asked if we needed separate checks. Apparently we were having so much fun that we didn't look married!


I think that's a great sign of a healthy marriage.

Ultimate Playlist

I made one of my new favorite road trip playlists:

1. Scenes from an Italian Restaurant - Billy Joel
2. Accidentally In Love - Counting Crows
3. King of Anything - Sara Bareilles
4. Who Says You Can't Go Home - Bon Jovi
5. Motown Song - Rod Stewart
6. I'm Alright - Phil Vassar
7. Feelin' The Same Way - Norah Jones
8. Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall
9. Come On Over - Christina Aguilera
10. The Two Of Us - NSYNC
11. Let the Music Get Down In Your Soul - Marc Broussard
12. La Vie En Rose - Pomplamoose
13. Falling For the First Time - Barenaked Ladies
14. Roly Poly - The Little Willies
15. Hope For Me Yet - Marc Broussard
16. Anthony - Nickel Creek