about pruning pretty petunias. and milk.

Have I mentioned my roommate Ashley, yet? She is from Minneapolis and she is wonderful. We have differences on the way we say things, as well as our personalities (for instance, she loves the color pink), but it has been so fun rooming with her and getting to know her. We recently rearranged our room so that we could put our desks next to each other. Yeah, we're cute.


Hello, Freddy's!
I am officially an associate at Fred Meyer! As unexciting as that may sound, I am thrilled to (a) have work and (b) have a paycheck coming my way. Because (a) means that I get to build relationships with people and (b) means that I get to eat. Both very important things. The only major downside to Fred Meyer is my uniform - khaki or dark pants and a polo. After graduating high school, I swore I would never wear a polo again since I had worn them since kindergarten. Oh well. :)

I am working in the garden center, which I really like. For my first day in the department (the first two days of this week were training), I spent time looking through all of the plants for scraggly, dying ones that we needed to throw out as well as pruning back petunia plants which were growing really well and taking over each other on the display tables. I pruned a few other plants, as well, and the verse in my head throughout that time was John 15:2 - "Ever branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and ever branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit."

While I am doing all of this, I have found that it is a great time to pray. I have been able to lift up in prayer the other girls on Project and their jobs, my family, my community group girls, my ministry opportunities in the fall, and my friends. What a blessing to have that time to simultaneously work and talk to Jesus!

I have also gotten to talk to my co-workers. The garden center isn't a huge department, so I work with the garden manager and one other man. The garden manager is a very friendly guy, and he and other FM employees joke around a lot. His name is Tom and I found out that he is obsessed with Thailand. He took a trip there by himself a couple of years ago, stayed for a month, and is now counting down the days until he goes back in January. This definitely peaked my interest since the Foltz family is there right now, and I have many friends who are going on missions trips there this summer. As far as Tom's spiritual background, he shared a little about growing up in church but losing both of his parents to cancer and having to overcome that. He says that he is working on his faith, but he has a very loose view of religion in that he seems to believe everyone has their own opinion and we don't need to talk to others and try and change their minds.

Another one of my co-workers, Steven, is probably in his mid-20s and is very talkative as well. We ended up cleaning shelves and merchandise together, so we had the opportunity to talk about a lot of things, both light-hearted and serious. I wasn't able to gauge his spiritual interest, but he knows a little about my faith, and I know that we are going to have plenty more conversations this summer. His family situation is a little rough, so I assume he isn't a believer, but he seems to have good moral judgment in some of the situations he described to me.



Gallon Challenge, Speed Style
That's right, we had a gallon challenge after Cru on Wednesday night. And - of course - I couldn't turn it down. If you aren't familiar with this term, it is where you attempt to drink a whole gallon of milk in one hour without throwing up. The goal is not to be the first done; the goal is to just not throw up, because supposedly your body can't handle that much milk in such a short amount of time. The boys organizing it bought whole milk (no cutting corners and cheating with skim - plus it is so much heavier on your stomach and they thought it would be funny since they weren't participating), and ten of us volunteered, six guys and four girls. They only gave us twenty minutes, which is definitely too short of an amount of time. The most impressive thing was a guy named Jesse, who chugged his gallon of milk in seven minutes, then held it in for another six or seven before puking.

BEFORE SHOT, me and Kelsie




When it came to the end, there were four of us who hadn't thrown up yet, and I had drunk the most from my gallon (probably about 3/4 of it). However, they decided to extend it ten more minutes and I just couldn't handle it any more, so I lost it. It was not pretty, let me tell ya. Now, an hour later, my stomach is still so full, and I have no desire to drink any more milk. Well, at least not until breakfast in the morning!