survey chain mail, circa 2000

When I was in 9th grade, me and my besties would email survey chain mail several times a week. As a tribute to that special time in my life, here's a random survey:


1. What time did you get up this morning? 5:45 am 

2. How do you like your steak? medium well

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? The Post 

4. What is your favorite TV show? right now, This is Us... of all time, The Office

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? California-Minnesota-Wisconsin-Colorado-Montana-North Carolina-Hawaii...all simultaneously. But, also, probably some cool countries that I haven't been to yet- Austrailia? New Zealand? Scotland? Ireland? Italy?  

6. What did you have for breakfast? a shake Madison made me and some ritz chips

7. What is your favorite cuisine? Nachos 

8. What foods do you dislike? frozen peas, spam, hamburger helper 

9. Favorite Place to Eat? Cisco's, BJ's, CPK, Pizza Luce, Moy's

10. Favorite dressing? Caesar 

11.What kind of vehicle do you drive? Suburu 

12. What are your favorite clothes? jeans and a tank top with zip up sweatshirt over it 

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? I'd love to see the Vatican and I'd really love to go to Scotland and New Zealand 

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? full 

15. Where would you want to retire? somewhere warm and near an airport so I can go on all the trips and a lake would be nice too, 

16. Favorite time of day? morning 

17. Where were you born? Los Robles Hospital, TO 

18. What is your favorite sport to watch? baseball 

19. How many siblings? 2 sisters

20.Favorite pastime/hobby: going on all the walks outside, cooking, singing, watching netflix while making crafts, learning Spanish, and hanging out with people I love 

21. Who are you most curious about their responses to this? I'd be curious if anyone responded to this!

22. Bird watcher? nooooppeee, wait! Actually, I just remembered, when I was in like 5th grade we'd sit on our little folding chairs on the driveway and watch the owls that lived in my neighbor's palm trees.

23. Are you a morning person or a night person? morning, as long as there's coffee

24. Do you have any pets? Autumn, the cute and obnoxious yellow lab

25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? I don't, but if I did, this would be the perfect way to announce it. 

26. What did you want to be when you were little? A grandma or a princess, and then when I got a little older, I wanted to be the president, an entrepreneur, an astronaut, or a financial planner. 

27. What is your best childhood memory? playing "20 hits" with my dad in the front yard (it was like baseball, not hitting each other), doing crafts at my grandma and grandpa's house while listening to Gene Autry Christmas music and drinking hot chocolate, camping in the living room on NYE and laughing hysterically with my family after my baby sister was telling "jokes," and waiting for Christmas morning with my sisters + Christmas morning.   

28. Are you a cat or dog person? DOG

29. Are you married? Yes 

30. Always wear your seat belt? Yes 

31. Been in a car accident? no, but one time I closed the garage door on my (new) car, then panicked and backed up, and it scratched the entire top of the car. 

32. Any pet peeves? so so so many. But, the biggest: smacking food, especially cake. Also, I wrote a post about that last year. 

33. Favorite Pizza Toppings? pepperoni, extra pepperoni, mushrooms, green pepper, and crushed red pepper.

34. Favorite Flower? daffodils, orange/red roses, and gerber daisies 

35. Favorite ice cream? the soy mint chocolate kind.

36. Favorite fast food restaurant? Taco Bell, but I haven't had that in like 5 years because I have a grown up stomach now, and it is against Taco Bell. So, Chipotle. 

37. How many times did you fail your driver's test? once and then instantly cried when I saw my mom after

38. From whom did you get your last email? The Greater Milwaukee Synod Listserve

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Target, 100%

40. Do anything spontaneous lately? I spontaneously followed the same schedule I've had for the last several months.

41. Like your job? sure do!

42. Broccoli? I'm not sure what you're asking. 

43. What was your favorite vacation? Fam trip to South Dakota, church trip to Montana, and friend trip to Mexico

44. Last person you went out to dinner with! Madison, Dave, Judy, Jesse, and Aaron 

45. What are you listening to right now? HGTV, obvi

46. What is your favorite color? blue

47. How many tattoos do you have? zero 

48. How many people will fill this out? It's really hard to know. Of the people that I know? 0. 

49. What time did you finish this quiz? 10:15 pm

50. Coffee Drinker? yes, and it brings me the same joy that the Folgers commercials suggest I'll have. I don't buy Folgers though. We have some Kona coffee that was on sale at the grocery store and it's delicious.

Fishing.

In second grade, our teacher had us all enter a coloring contest. I think the picture was of the Easter bunny. I remember sitting at a table with my friends and we were all coloring our pictures, and several of us started to criticize our pictures: "I don't know, I don't think I colored this very well," "See, I got out of the lines over here," "Your picture is wayyyy better than my picture," etc. (we probably weren't quite so articulate in second grade, but just go with it). All of us would say really encouraging things back: "What are you talking about? I love your picture," "yours is really good!"

And I remember realizing at the time that we weren't really criticizing our pictures, we were actually just fishing for compliments. Well, I think probably someone perceptive in the group noticed and called us all out, but nonetheless, it was memorable.

Since then, I've noticed when I think people are fishing for something. I think the most common fishing from people I meet is through self deprication that I'm supposed to disagree with or the "I wish someone would just do this thing... and I'm secretly/not-so-secretly hinting it should be you."

I know that I do this sometimes, not always consciously, but still, I know do it. And even though I do this sometimes, it doesn't stop me from being suppperrr annoyed when other people are fishing for something from me.

Here's how I deal:

1. Pretend I don't notice at all.

I had a friend once who would fish for me to share things with her. I remember I had a piece of chocolate cake, and she saw it and kept saying, "I wish I had some chocolate cake." I could tell she was just hoping I'd say, "oh, that's perfect, because I have some chocolate cake right here, would you like some?" and I was not about to say that. There's a good chance if I have chocolate cake, I don't really want to share it with you, but I might if you ask (nicely). But if you hint and fish around for me to offer you a thing that I don't even really want to share, you'll be waiting for a while.

2. Give in and give a compliment.

When I think someone is fishing for a compliment, I'm a little annoyed, but also, I think maybe they're feeling a little insecure about whatever the thing is, and so I'd rather cheer them up and reasure them, than have them feel bad.

I thought maybe there were more things that I was going to put on this list, that's why I put them in a numbered list, but I think this is pretty much it.

Bedtime Practices

Every night before bed, I write in 1-3 books: a gratitude book, and two of those little pocket calendars. I write at least 5 things I'm thankful for/ things that were good about my day in the gratitude book. A friend of mine got me the book 3 years ago, and I've been writing it most nights since. One of the pocket calendars I write down fun things I did: friends/family who came to visit, trips we went on, random festivals around southern Wisconsin, church events, family adventures, and our Friday afternoon dates. The other pocket calendar I write down when I do something that scares me. I want to be a braver person, and I think it helps me when I celebrate the things I do that make me nervous and/or are vulnerable.

They're pretty good practices and really easy to do. Those little calendars are like a dollar, and if you don't have a special gratitude journal, just get a regular one. Put them by your bed with a good pen, so you have to look at them before you go to sleep (I mean, only if you think this is a good idea and want to do it too).

Luxury

Now that I have a baby, my idea of luxury seems a little different. I did crafts alone for an hour while watching a terrible movie and it felt like a spa day. I've never had a "spa day" (although one time a lady from church gave me a coupon for a free massage/spa day at the tanning salon; I mean, I think the level of luxury of that is pretty self-explanatory), but I can imagine it's really restful. That's how I feel now when I go for a walk or make dinner or read the news on my phone in the morning. One time Jesse and I went to the movies and it was a pretty exciting thing for us. Life is really good and different. :-) 

Buggy the Bug

When I was in first grade, my bff Bernard and I made a "bug" out of paper (we pretty much folded a piece of paper a few times and put a smiley face on him). We named him, "Buggy." Buggy the Bug. We eventually made him a paper home for him to sleep, and sometimes we'd dig him a little cave in the sandbox for him to play in. During class, he'd take turns living in my desk and in Bernard's desk.

He was a faithful pet. If he got ripped or we accidentally threw him away, we'd just take out another piece of notebook paper, do a few fancy folds, and Buggy would reappear.

I miss playing games like this. I don't know that I ever grew out of playing and being weird and silly. Like, if I was hanging out with some friends at a bar or restaurant and they picked up a napkin and folded it and said, "hey, let's pretend this is a bug." I'd say, "definitely."

That's mostly unlikely though. BUT, I have a one year old. And he thinks everything is fun. I'm going to teach him all the pretending.

The gospel according to Coolio

Back in 1995, the best show on at 7:30 am was MTV jams. I would get ready for school as fast as I could so I could watch the top 10 jams. I got ready even faster when Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise was number one.

If it's been a while since you've heard it, now's a good time. It was THE JAM to 9 year old me, and apparently also to MTV. Here's a youtube.

I remember once my cousin made a copy of the song from the radio onto a cassette. We were all in the car with my great-grandma, and she let us blast it. We played it over and over again crusing around Thousand Oaks, while I'm sure my great-grandma rolled her eyes and/or smiled and/or sang it with us. I always smile thinking of that memory. I mean, how many great-grandmas do you see blasting rap? 

You may remember the first line of the song, "as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." It's a quote from Psalm 23. It's a popular psalm to read at funerals (it's a lovely psalm, so that makes sense). My great-grandma passed away 11 years ago today. I remember sitting by my cousin during her service and she flipped open the bulletin, and what was printed there? Psalm 23. She looked over at me and whispered excitedly, "it's grandma's song!" It was perfect. I think we did a few laugh-cries.

And that's how Coolio brought a little good news one time.

I miss my grandma and hope she's rolling her eyes at how ridiculous this post is. 

 

Are we there yet?

So, I think I've worked over 20 hours in the last two days, and we've got a sick baby who has so many boogers and woke up at 12, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, and 6 because of it, and also I've been getting this cold for like 5 days (I'm taking all the zicam, mom), and it's like 10:30 and I'm too tired for my little brain to be creative....SO, here's part of an article I wrote for my church newsletter today:

When I was little (ahem, younger), our family used to take a lot of road trips. Me and my sisters would cram in the back of the Ford Tempo with just about every toy we could fit in our little backpacks, all smooshed in, and we’d drive and drive and drive. Like every kid, we bickered half of the way: “Mom, she touched my leg!” “Dad, she’s bugging me!”, etc. And, like every kid, we asked the question that has been asked of every parent in the history of the world: “Are we there yet?”

Every day, we had a sense of where were going: what city we had motel reservations at, parks we could stop at, museums, etc. (8-year old me was mostly concerned about one thing on vacation: the motel pool. When were we going to get there so we could play in the pool?). Knowing the fun things that we’d be doing, probably made us ask it even more. Are we there yet?

I think most of us are aware of the shifts we’ve seen in the life of the church in the U.S. Technology is developing at exponential rates, the culture is changing, needs are changing, etc. We’re aware that we’re in between places, from how church used to be and from what church will look like in the years to come.

There are days when we might just be tempted to just turn around and go back, even though we know that we can’t really do that. And there are days when we want to ask over and over and over again, “are we there yet?”

 

Before we ask that though, I think there’s another question we need to ask ourselves: do we know where we’re going?

In a life of faith, in some ways the answer will always be “no.” That a life of trusting God means taking steps out into an unknown future, trusting that God’s going to be here. But, in the midst of that, we’re called to be discerning together. We are invited to share wisdom, share passion, ideas, hopes, and our imaginations for our community of faith. 

The rest of the article was about Bethel, so I'll just stop there. :-)

Perfume Commercials

... are really weird.

They're always trying to be whimsical or something. No one really smiles, and if they do, it's sort of this attempt at a blend between mysterious and mischevious and deep.

I think that's what is really weird about it to me, they're trying hard to be deep. And so serious.

Do people normally take their fragrances so seriously?

I'm sure the marketing experts would say something like they're selling luxury or adventure or deep-ness. But when we all really think about it, it's really just perfume.

I usually decide if I like a perfume because I like what it smells like and I could imagine that smell being around me all day. That's hard to do in a commercial, but somehow Febreeze and Glade Plug-ins are figuring it out. 

I mean, Febreeze is like $5, so I get that if you're trying to sell a $100 perfume, you've got to step up your game. But isn't it weird that all perfume commercials have this same tone? Do they have like a perfume company pact? Like, what would happen if someone made a perfume commercial where people wore jeans and smiled and complimented each other's perfume? I'll tell you one thing that would happen, I'd probably buy it.

I'm no advertising expert, but my advice would be: at least do a regular smile once in a while, and also, maybe don't whisper quite as much.

Evenings at the Weiss House

Let me tell you about a normal night at the Weiss house.

We eat dinner sometime between 6/6:30. It takes a while, because Aaron learned that vegetables don't taste as good as meat, so he likes to throw them or secretly hand them to Autumn. Then he cries when we tell him not to do that, because he really wants to do that and he's a one year old and you really can't do much reasoning with a one year old. So, we spend a while consoling him, and then tricking him into eating vegetables by hiding them under meat, or just throwing in a piece of a carrot when he takes a bite. He also wants to use a fork, specifically my fork or Jesse's fork. Inevitably we give him one of our forks and he takes an extra 15 minutes stabbing his food and then taking his other hand and grabbing the food and eating it.

Then we play for 10-15 minutes and do the dishes. Then we give Aaron a bath. He has three bath toys that he likes. His newest game is he takes each of the three toys individually and hands them to me and I say, "thank you" and then I give them back to him and say, "here you go." And then we do that 100 times. He almost said "thank you" today, so I'll call that a win!

Then we read a story, Aaron has some milk, we put him in his wearable blanket, and then he goes to bed.

At 8:00, we play HQ (it's a live trivia game on your phone) and hope we'll win money and we never do.

Then, I take a shower, and afterward occasionally will mindlessly scroll on my phone for 5 minutes in a towel and/or watch an 1/8 of tv show on my phone while I'm getting dressed.

Then, I write this blog. I often start writing about one thing, and get distracted and write about something else. That happened tonight.

After that, usually I eat a snack while watching HGTV with Jesse and we're in bed by 10:30.

I think College Kelli would think I'm kind of boring. She would be right. But, also, it's a good life. And I'm pretty happy about it. 

Alright, I'm going to watch HGTV and eat a couple ritz chips.

Candy Cane Pants

Move over LuLaRoe and other expensive legging sellers, I have 11 year old candy cane pants from the kids section at Target. #fashion

I bought these in college sometime, probably for some school event I needed weird clothes for- I can't be more specific, because I think that happened pretty often. They part of a whole outfit, with a matching white candy cane long sleeve t-shirt. The candy canes on the shirt formed a heart in the middle. 

I'm pretty short and small, so I can sometimes fit into kids' clothes, which is great, because they are WAY cheaper. I just bought a pair of little girl boots from Kohl's for $15. They fit. They actually fit better than the women's boots. I cut some velvety fringe off the back, so they'd look a little less "little girl". I drove down the street and saw an 8 year old wearing the same ones. She had cut off the fringe too. 

Now, these candy cane pants aren't actually leggings. They are little girl stretchy pants that are meant to go all the way to your feet. They go to my calf, which is nice for the summer. And as you can see, in the winter, you can just put a pair of white Hanes socks underneath and it looks great... it looks fine...it looks okay... it looks about as good as a 31 year old wearing little girl stretchy candy cane pants in February.

Jesse hates these pants, which makes me want to wear them even more. 

(Also, I mentioned LuLaRoe, Kohl's Target, and Hanes in this post. Do you think they'll like pay me for this advertising? Probably not LuLaRoe since I pretty much said that cheap little girl stretchy pants are better than their leggings throughout this post, but maybe the others? I have a feeling there aren't a lot of blogs that mention white Hanes socks?)

I mostly like coming up with titles.

Now that I've written 86 posts, it's a little harder to come up with some things to talk about. But apparently not too hard, because here's 46 more ideas for things I could write about:

1.     Medium-Large

2.     Perfume Commercials

3.     Why do I think I can critique Olympians?

4.     Luxury

5.     5-Hour Energy

6.     2w3

7.     The Gospel According to Coolio

8.     Change the algorithm

9.     Church Newsletters

10. 10 year college reunion

11. Candy cane pants

12. Bedtime practices

13. Arguing with God

14. Daniel Tiger

15. “Welcome to…”

16. Why do people hate being PC?

17. Ellen

18. Fav The Office Quotes

19. Whole Convos in Movie Quotes

20. My Old Friend, Nostalgia

21. Time Hop

22. A Few Life Goals

23. Feel stuff. It’s a lot better than not feeling stuff.

24. Thank You Cards

25. We have so much in common.

26. Our dog loves people too much.

27. I’d prefer to be laughing

28. Fishing

29. Wait, before I do that I need to check Facebook 600 times.

30. Always missing hundreds of people

31. Dream Home

32. Snapchat’s going to stop being cool in April 2016.

33. Boring and the best

34. When best friends know exactly what you’re thinking.

35. Wine is the grateful drink

36. Buggy the bug

37. Let me help you with that thing you probably don’t need help with.

38. Reasons why my kid is crying

39. Would you rather…

40. Survey chain mail, circa 2000

41. Myspace

42. What if I didn’t do this one thing?

43. SLL

44. BE PREPARED

45. What not to wear.

46. Just put a towel over those dishes.

I also think it could be fun if people who read my blog (grandma & grandpa!), thought of some random topics and I'll just find something to say about it. 

100% Serious.

So I decided I’m going to do this blog again through Lent! It’s been a cool way for me to be creative and silly and put myself out there every day.

I called this blog “10% serious” because that’s what I want it to be. Like mostly irrelevant, random topics that I reflect on with (hopefully) some wit.

Tomorrow I’ll be 10% serious though, because today I feel 100% serious.

I’ve been queasy and sad all day after hearing about the school shooting in Florida. I have a lot of complicated thoughts and opinions and fears about it (and all of the other school shootings as of late).

Here’s a bullet point list in no particular order:

• I struggle to want to say anything at all, because after each tragedy it seems like there’s a cacophony of words and thoughts, and what can I really contribute? And does one more voice just make it louder? Or unhelpful?
• I decided I’d write this because I don’t think I will sleep until I have words not just spinning in my head, and I really need to sleep. And, I also decided to write this because it’s the right amount of vulnerable, and that’s one reason for this blog. And also, because I have people in my life that I look to via FB for wisdom when something happens in the world and I don’t know how to make sense of it, and I’m sure they have no idea. The small chance I might be one of those kind of people to someone else, it’s worth saying.
• I prayed today and I thought about the students, the moms and dads, teachers, those who had to witness a kind of terror I hope I never know.
• I hugged my baby and cried because life is fragile and the world is scary and I feel helpless in protecting him.
• It’s not the first time I hugged Aaron and cried because of a mass shooting. It’s happened several times. He’s only a year old.
• He’s going to go to school one day. And I’m afraid.
• Why do AR-15 rifles exist? Who needs them?
• What makes a 19 year old do something like this?
• I get why people are so quick to jump to mental illness being the culprit, because we cannot (/do not want to) fathom this kind of violence and cruelty being a meditated choice.
• Can our country do more to support people who struggle with mental illness?
• There are many factors and many things we must address to make a safer world. I don’t think I know all of them. This is a complex world.
• ONLY thinking and praying is incomplete and seems trite.
• I care WAY more about my kid’s (and all of our kids and people, really) safety than your access to a type of gun that can kill so many in such a short amount of time.
• My husband hunts. He’s a responsible gun owner. I’m not against guns
• I don’t know anyone who is begging for gun policy changes means that we should simply ban all the guns? Why is it always perceived that way?
• I don’t know how our country hasn’t changed anything. Why is it so impossible to create some laws to restrict access to military style weapons?
• Our country needs more love and care and faith and grace and a sense of worth and community.
• This video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX4qUsgHa4Y It’s outdated, but it’s still informative and helpful.
• When there was the shooting in Las Vegas, I called and sent emails to my senators. I got a response from Ron Johnson, who responded a month later, and in that time there was another mass shooting in Texas. In a church. I’m going to keep writing and calling, even though it feels like I’m doing nothing.
• I often have my professor’s voice in my head (Andy Root), talking about this postmodern world we live in, and how with the access to more information, and the collapsing of time and space, the sense of risk goes up. It’s not that the world is actually more risky, it’s that we simply know about real life examples of the kind of horrible things that can happen, and therefore are more cautious, more fearful, see the world with so much more risk, etc. (i.e. Grandparents talking about getting to play outside all day without supervision, and parents today wouldn’t dream of doing that.) Is the world actually scarier or do we just think the world is scarier? Today though, I think the world is really just scarier.        
• It’s really tempting to turn off the news and close my ears and eyes.
• Sometimes I have to, because it’s too much to really imagine and think about. There’s a kind of numbness in that, and I’m not proud of it.
• I appreciate the “it’s a heart issue” response to this kind of horror, and I agree.
• I just don’t think it’s ONLY a heart issue. It’s also a gun issue.
• I feel uncomfortable talking about people’s grief and heartache, their very raw grief and heartache, and using it for debate.
• I also don’t know when else we would talk about gun policy reform with a sense of urgency and that it’s personal. When we wait, we’re pretty good at compartmentalizing it somewhere way down deep or outside of us, so that it doesn’t feel like it’s all that pressing to make changes.
• Everytime we hear about another mass shooting, especially school shooting, I think something is chipped away in us, and collectively, that grief and fear does something to us as a nation.
• I don’t understand the resigned position that even if we make changes to gun policies and restrict access to military style weapons, that it won’t stop criminals from getting them. That doesn’t stop us from making any other law to protect us? And also, less access is still better.
• I believe in God. My life’s work is grounded in the fact that I think that believing you are deeply loved by God changes your life. To know that we have purpose and freedom and grace and value, I really think that could change the world.
• But also, countries that are far more secular than ours don’t have the kind of problem with gun violence that we do.
• More people with guns doesn’t make us safer. Statistically it really doesn’t make us safer.
• I thought about the shooter’s mom. I don’t know anything about his life or his story or his mom, but I assumed he had one or has one. Could she ever have imagined this day when she held him in her arms?
• Please dear God, let me raise a boy who is kind and gentle and who couldn’t do something like this.
• I could write for like six more pages but I’ll stop now.

Tomorrow, we’ll be back to our regular programmed irreverence.