So I just came off a 5 day weekend. =) I had Friday and Tuesday off and it was so nice to have that time off! Originally, I was supposed to be entertaining an out-of-town guest but those plans changed, for the better! =) I got to hang out with my cousin, Olivia, who is in town from Kansas. She's in a Ph.D. program and is about halfway through. I also go to go see Shrek 2 (very funny!) at the Arclight Cinemas with my former roommate, Erin, and we got to do some shopping and eat some very good but unhealthy food at Pinks.

On Saturday, I finally got to sleep in and ran some errands. I was at Home Depot, trying to figure out which light bulbs most resembled the one I held in my hand when my dad called me on my cell phone, asking me how much chicken he should get for me from the Chinese grocery store. After hanging up the phone, I was putting the phone back into my purse but I missed and it dropped on the floor. As I bent down to pick it up, I noticed this guy standing next to me. Actually, I had noticed him out of the corner of my eye when I was on the phone with my dad. I was like, "Ooh, good looking guy!" but I hadn't looked like, directly at him. Well, later on, as I was wandering around looking for the rollers to go on the bottom of the closets at my house, we passed each other and it turned out to be a high school classmate of mine. Don't know if he recognized me or not but I didn't say anything to him. I mean, what do you say, "Oh, hi, I don't know if you remember me, but we went to high school together. Oh, and I saw you at Costco getting gas one morning before work!" He was at our 10 year reunion and I don't look much different from 2.5 years ago, but I look very different from when we were in high school. And then, even weirder, he showed up in my dreams last night! I generally don't remember my dreams. My roommate, Carey, says that you only remember your dreams if you wake up at some point during the night. Guess I didn't sleep that well last night. I know I didn't 'cuz I woke up feeling like I could use another 5 hours of sleep! Grrr....

I had my annual BBQ on Sunday and it was a lot of fun! This year, there were 8 kids there! My cousin and his wife, Cindy, brought their kids Micah and Toby (my godsons), a former co-worker, Melvin, and his wife brought their 4 kids (Vanessa, Alex, Payton and Kamryn), and my girlfriend, Jessica, brought her 2 daughters, Adrienne and Bethany (dad, Darwin, had to stay home with their new puppy)! People came and went throughout the day and at the end, my cousin, Susie, and her boyfriend, Ken, Pam, another cousin, Karen, and her friend, Pritish, stayed and watched Barbershop and had dinner! Oh, and another friend, Mike, came back after he had gone to play some basketball.

On Monday, I just watched movies, cross stitched, and had leftovers with a bunch of people! Then, Chris, Rita, and I went to see Troy. I wasn't all that impressed with it. I didn't come outta there totally wowed by the movie. It was quite educational though! It made me want to read The Iliad, but it's an epic poem and I heard that it's a very difficult read. Don't know if I want to hurt my brain like that. hahah =)

My dad changed my engine oil on Tuesday and I had lunch with Cze-Chao. Then, I went home and cooked chili and cornbread for my Bible study. We're going through a study on spiritual gifts and it's been really cool, in many ways! There's a new gal in our group who is just so incredibly hungry for God and learning more about Him and the Bible and stuff like that. She's only been a Christian for like, a year and a half. The trippy part is that my friend, Lily, was her junior high basketball coach eons ago! And, as it turns out (and this will shock NO ONE who knows me), the first night that Adrian came to Bible study, I discovered that I went to church with a girl with whom she's been best friends since like, they were 12! It's crazy how small this world is!

I've been so excited about this 8 week study on spiritual gifts (called Network) that I was telling the ladies in my Wednesday night Bible study about it last week and we got the idea to do it at Journey as a women's Sunday school during the second service! So, on Sunday, Claire and I went to talk to the assistant pastor, Wade, about our idea and he was totally excited about it! The 3 of us will be meeting tomorrow night to figure out all the details! I guess there's no better way to get involved at a church than to just jump right in! I hadn't even met Wade before last Sunday and I have been leading/facilitating one of Journey's women's Bible studies! Actually, come to think of it, it's the only Journey Women's Bible study. God's been doing some awesome work in and through that Bible study. About 10 of us started off together in the 40 Days of Purpose Bible study last Fall and we had such a great time that we decided that we wanted to keep meeting as a group! Well, I got nominated to co-lead with Sue, who had been leading/facilitating the 40 Days group, but she said that as long as there was someone else who wanted to lead, she would rather not lead. I felt kinda intimidated because I am the youngest woman in the group! There are women who are my parents' age and I wasn't so sure about being the leader/facilitator! But, it's been such an immense blessing to be in that group! In fact, we've grown to 20 women and are just bursting at the seams! So much so that we're going to split our group once the Fall rolls around. There's such wisdom to be gleaned from those who have gone before. Plus, it's totally different to be interaction with women who are my mom's age but yet are, culturally, a lot more like me.

In both of these Bible studies, I can totally see how God is working in and through the lives of all these women! And it's such a blessing to be a part of what God is doing! Through the study on spiritual gifts, I learned that my 3 primary gifts are Administration, Prophecy, and Wisdom. A lot of people think I have the gift of Leadership, but I don't. I'm not a visionary that a person with the gift of Leadership would be. I don't think big picture at all. I'm a details and logistics person. That's why I work well with people who are visionaries. They don't know how to make their vision happen and I don't ever have a vision. hahah =)