Souvenirs

First the excellent news:  I haven't had a sinus infection since March!  Sinus issues, yes, but no actual infection requiring antibiotics!  In less fun news, apparently the gods of illness were disappointed with my coming to Montana and not immediately getting the head cold/sinus infection/bronchitis from hell, so they decided to gift me with stomach issues.  Yep, again.  I woke up yesterday feeling nauseous and crampy and didn't feel completely human until this evening.  Blah.  It was less than fun.  But at least now I'm feeling better, and I can show you the tree I decorated on Thursday night:

This is the tree in Mom's office, and it has all of the ornaments she has collected from places she has visited.  Or, in some cases, ornaments from places we kids have visited and gotten ornaments for her.  She started collecting them 20 years ago when she and Dad and I drove to Washington DC and about a million other places.

Here is a close-up of one of the ornaments so you get a better idea.  Some of them are just gold, but others have lots of color on them.

I don't have a travel tree, so I thought I'd look for shoes from places I've lived or visited.

Montana!  These are U of M Grizzly shoes.  UM is my alma mater.  Plus, people tend to think that Montana is full bears that just wander around so everyone sees them on practically a daily basis.  I lived in Montana from birth until I was 24 and then I moved to 

 

Texas for 3 years where I lived with my aunt.  I also lived there again for a summer while I did my chaplaincy training at Children's Medical Center of Dallas.

 

From Texas it was off to seminary in California for the first where I have now lived 3 separate times.  Look!  More bears!

These are Penn State shoes.  I lived in Pennsylvania for a year for internship.  I don't like to talk about it.  But I won't hold it against these cute blue and white striped shoes.

 

I haven't lived in Hawaii, but the BSF did her internship in Honolulu, and I got to my 3 week cross-cultural experience for seminary on Oahu and stay with her.  My choices were Hawaii in January or South Dakota in January.  Um...duh.  Flip flops are perfect to represent Hawaii.  Except there they call them slippers.

I've been to Washington  DC three times:  Once in High School (the first time I ever flew and ever traveled by myself--totally freaked out the flight attendant with my crying), then that trip with the parents and all of the driving, and again in College for the Lutheran Student Movement National Gathering.  I would love to go back.

These are actually New Orleans Saints shoes, but I just like them for the fluer de lis. I've been to New Orleans twice. First for Mardi Gras when I was 26.  That was interesting.  Although my memories tend to be a little fuzzy...  The second time was as a pastor, taking kids to the National Youth Gathering.  I would also love to go back there, as I really haven't seen much in terms of touristy stuff.

I've been to lots of other places, but this seemed like enough for one post.  Now I'm possibly off to bed, but with the amount of sleep I've gotten in the last 2 days, I'm not sure how soon I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Gritty

I don't really believe that absolutely everything happens for a reason, but it is interesting to look back at things and see how they've influenced my life after.  For instance, living in Texas for 3 years taught me how to eat grits.  There was a woman at church (I think her name was Betty, or some other appropriate Lutheran name) who always brought cheese grits to potlucks.  The recipe was in the church cookbook, so I started making it myself.  Although I changed the Velveeta to cheddar, which probably makes me less cool in the grits world.  Want to know what makes me REALLY uncool in the grits world?  I love to eat them with dried cranberries, brown sugar, and soy or almond milk.  This is a sacrilege, apparently.  You're supposed to eat them with your eggs and sausage, or plain with butter and salt.  What the heck am I telling you all of this for?  Because the hubby takes his grits very seriously.  He pretends he doesn't know about the cranberries and brown sugar so he doesn't have to divorce me, and I am perfectly capable of eating grits for breakfast with eggs and sausage because of my time in Texas.  (We had grits for breakfast this morning, hence this looooong explanation)  I'm not saying I would never have tried grits had I not lived in TX, but the cheese grits definitely eased me in.  Otherwise I'm pretty sure cereal mixed with eggs would have grossed me out completely.  So.  In honor of those 3 years, here are some Texas shoes for you:

University of Texas golf shoes.  I don't know if they are official golf shoes, or just golf shoes for a UT fan.  I do know that UT fans are crazy (don't hit me, UT fans, you know I love you).

Awwww...for your baby UT fan.  Everything is cuter on teeny tiny shoes.

Can't include UT without including Texas A&M, because their fans are just as crazy.  When I first moved to Texas I coudn't figure out why so many cars had  ATM stickers (I was thinking Automatic Teller Machine).  Yes, I was a dork who knew nothing about sports.

I always like the sparkly shoes.  If  I were to become a rabid sports fan, I would wear sparkly shoes in the colors of the team of my choice.

I actually went to a few Rangers games.  They were fun in that boring live baseball kind of way.  I like baseball, it's just slow, so then I don't pay attention and always miss when something exciting happens.

 

Finally!  Some Texas shoes that don't have anything to do with sports!

Aaaaaand back to sports.  I've already posted these, since the Cowboys are the hubby's favorite football team.  See?  Sparkly heels.  Fun.  Weird, but fun.

 

I won't leave out the Houston Texans.  Shut up, sports fans.  I don't care if you hate the Texans or you miss the Oilers, or you're just grumpy because someone peed in your cheerios this morning.  Man, sports fans are sooooo touchy.

Texas.  Met some really good friends there, got to live in a different part of the country, don't want to move back there.  I so did not fit in there.  But, I got to live with my awesome aunt!  And it taught me to eat grits!  And drink like a fish, but that is a completely different post...