OK, so I’m finally getting around to blogging about this. I figure better late than never.
Part 1 is this. Seven of us from Stonebrook Community Church, in Ames, and seven from Mars Hill Church, in Iowa City, went to Slidell, LA from January 3rd through the 9th, 2006.
Everybody made it there and back safe and sound. Even more importantly, we did a lot of very good things that would never have gotten done, had we not gone! Praise the Lord for that!
Just to whet your appetite, here are a few photos from our trip.
http://iowa.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015228 (Sorry, Facebook login required.)
Here’s a small virutal tour of our Lousiana trip. (On Windows Live Local)
While it doesn’t seem this has been “officially” linked to yet on the GCC or Faithwalkers websites, it does look like the Faithwalkers messages have been posted. The best way to see the whole list is to go here.
Whether you missed the conference all together or want to hear a message for a second time (or, if like me, you only heard 50% of all the messages you did attend)…there should definitely be some great listening there!
When I have a pair of pants I love, I wear them until their dying day when the holes are just too awful to repair. Inevitably, I can never find another pair exactly the same because I had originally bought them four years or more earlier…and when I buy a pair of jeans, capris, or khakis I never know for sure whether they will become one of those treasured pairs or one I just tolerate (If I could know that for sure when I bought them, I would probably buy more than one pair).
On my mind currently is my most comfortable pair of Gap outlet flare jeans. They are getting holes in several places all at once, and will soon be too innapropriate to wear in public. When I bought these jeans I wasn’t paying attention too well. The first few years I owned them, I rarely wore them because they were just too big. However, during the early months of and after pregnancy they became favorites, and even now with my slightly-differently-shaped body than before ever becoming a mom, they are my favorite “comfy” jeans that fit even when I just way over-ate at a buffet. 
So, I need to replace them with not just anything, but with something else that can take the place of the jeans to wear when all my other pairs are less comfortable…but not be too big so as too look funny.
When I saw today that Goodwill had 50% off all clothing, I thought maybe today would be my lucky day to find a different pair of comfy jeans. It was my lucky day, but not in the way I was expecting. With the cold weather of the past couple of months, I had almost forgotten that my favorite pair of capri pants ever had also developed unsightly holes. These are not just any capri pants, but the capri pants given to my by my former roommate Kim. She had come home one day with three matching pairs of Old Navy Outlet capri pants — one for her, one for me, and one for our roommate Naomi. I have loved and worn those capri pants so much, and no other pair has been quite like them.
I practically gave a shout of joy out loud today in Goodwill when I found another pair of the exact same size and style of capri pants — the only difference being a that they were a slightly darker color. They are in near-perfect condition…and with the 50% off sale, I only paid $2.50 for them. I have often wished to find an exact replacement at a thrift store for a worn out pair of pants, but I never really expected it to happen to me. My greatest thanks to some random person out there who once again proved the point that one person’s junk is another person’s wonderful treasure!
I don’t know why I am so excited about this, but I really am. Our household is doing radio listening surveys for seven days starting today. So, you probably have heard of the Nielson ratings that measure TV audience. Well, the radio equivalent is called the Arbitron ratings. We got randomly selected to participate. They told me on the phone that we represent something like 1000 households in Ames (I may be off on that, but it was a large number). My first thought was, “Yea! I get to make WOI-AM look really popular!” It made me wonder how many other public radio junkies like me were randomly selected, and if somehow I would actually overepresent WOI-AM since I listen so much. Not that I would mind if that happened–I really want for them to look and be popular. It probably works out somehow statistically.
These people with the Arbitron ratings are serious about what they do — they send something in the mail to warn you they are going to call you, they call you to ask if you want to do it, then they call to follow up to make sure you get the survey materials in the mail. They said they will call during the week to check and see how it is going. I bet they call afterwards to remind you to mail the books back.
How it works is each adult in the household gets a little book to fill out where we write down any radio listening for the day, whether we picked it or it was something we randomly heard in a business or at someone else’s house. We then mail them in at the end of the seven days. I was having no trouble remembering to fill it out each time I turned the radio on and off today, so hopefully my enthusiasm will continue through the week!
