How Rob is Spending His Break

Today I was at work and Rob texted me to say he had a surprise for me when I came home from work. Naturally I was intrigued and begged for clues, but all he said was "it's not a nice surprise. it's more of a haha just to make you laugh surprise." My only guess was that he had shaved his chest hair into some pattern, but he told me that was wrong, but a good idea. I wouldn't put it past him.

My boss let me leave work early today (yay for Christmas break until Jan. 4th!) so when Rob picked me up he was practically beside himself with excitement to show me his surprise. I offered another lame guess that he was going to show me a YouTube video, but again I was shot down. When we got home he shut himself in the office to make one change to his surprise and then called me in.

Upon entering the office I was told to close my eyes and then get ready for "Bedinghaus Family Karaoke" which did immediately start me laughing. Rob turned on his "karaoke" and I was greeted with my least favorite worship song of all time, "Come, Now is the Time to Worship" scrolling across a powerpoint slide. I should note here that he specifically picked that song for "karaoke" because my dislike for it is so strong he thought that would make it even more funny. Which is true - it was quite hilarious. So the words are scrolling to instrumental music in the background which Rob quickly informed me he'd recorded all himself on his tiny electric keyboard that hooks up to our computer. I wish you could hear this - seriously - it's amazing (even if it is my least favorite song). He figured out the whole song and managed to even have a guitar solo coming out of a keyboard. Yea, I don't know how that happens either. The song ended with a tribute to Trans-Siberian Orchestra guitar shredding (we saw their show on Friday night) and Rob almost falling over in our office because he was playing his air guitar so hard. Seriously, this is what I live with. And I love it. I was laughing so hard I had tears running down my face.

**Disclaimer: I will also say in his defense that he did accomplish a lot of other things today on his break and he does not spend all his time recording random songs. It's his break - he can do what he wants. And if that includes making up random music to make me laugh, I'm all for more breaks.**

Rambling...

Whew - where does time go? Seriously - somedays you think it can't move any slower, and then suddenly you look at the calendar and it's ten days until Christmas. I could really use a silent night right now. Or a winter wonderland because then I'd probably get a snow day from work. Maybe.

So I thought I'd just ramble a bit in this post and give you a quick once over on what's been going on with us in the past few weeks:

End of the semester for Rob: Oh my - this is a huge praise today. Rob took his only final this morning and spent the rest of the day grading his kiddo's (his students - I call them his kiddos) final exams too. He said at dinner tonight he is going to sit on the couch all day tomorrow and do nothing. I think he totally deserves that too - he's worked so hard. Tonight we celebrated with a bottle of wine and are making sugar cookies now.

It's so exciting to have one semester behind us. I think we grew in our marriage this semester, recognizing how we can't take time together for granted and how we really have to plan to have quality time over quantity time. It hasn't always been easy, especially the past two weeks, but we have such a great support network here and a marriage that is intentional so we're in a good place.

Christmas! I still can't believe it will be here soon. I'm still not sure I'm completely in the "christmasy" mood, but I think having Rob done with the semester will really help. I have some shopping done, most of my Christmas cards sent out and now cookies in the oven. We're heading to Pennsylvania on Christmas day and that's what I'm really looking forward to. I miss my family so much and can't wait to spend days with them.

My job: This is probably the most uninteresting thing I have to talk about. Today was not fun - I was tired and didn't have many projects which makes the day go slow. I just don't know what to think about this job - it feels stuck and I feel stuck in it. Nothing has been said about making me a full-time employee of the company and I'm not sure how to feel about that either because I really don't think I want to work for this company long-term. On the other hand things like a raise and health insurance would be really nice....So we'll see. The job is a good lesson in perseverance though!

The Sing Off: I'm really into this four night show on NBC. We're watching it right now in fact. It's a competition show between eight a cappella groups with no band, no back up singers, just their voices. It's really amazing actually what people can do with their voices. It's definitely something different to watch these days.

Well, it's time for icing cookies so I'm out for now. Maybe I'll post some photos later!

A lot of Thanksgiving and a little bit of Christmas

Well, happy belated Thanksgiving everyone. I made Turkey Barley soup for dinner tonight and it's supposed to be a great way to use leftover turkey, but with it being Monday now, leftovers are long gone in this house. (Actually the leftovers were actually at my in-laws house and I think they were gone the day after...)

Anyways, no matter the status of your leftovers and if you're over Thanksgiving already, well, sorry, I'm going to revisit ours for a moment.

We went Wednesday evening to Cincinnati to Rob's parent's house and stayed there until Saturday. The weekend was great - a good mix of doing stuff and staying home and playing games. Thursday we all pitched in and helped dinner come off as a great success with lots of family gathered around and great food. Friday morning we went and cut down our Christmas tree and then the womenfolk went to see Sandra Bullock's new movie Blindside which was a good movie and Sandra Bullock is great in it. I had some thoughts about it, but perhaps those will come up on another post. Rob and his dad went to a University of Cincinnati football game that afternoon and then we all were home in the evening playing games. Saturday we hung around doing various things and then went out to dinner to celebrate Bob's birthday. Here are some fun photos of the weekend.

A little family rivalry? Yes, I think so. Colts rule, Bengals drool. (Although the Colt in the background of this photo - look closely, yes, it's Kayla - is getting pummeled by a Bengal...)

Settlers is always a good time

Rob taking our tree out at it's neck

I saved it, although cutting it is a certain death for the tree. Sorry tree.

Family time at the Christmas tree farm

We did not intend to match....Rob was on his way to the UC game

The birthday cake Lori, Lauren and I made for Bob for his birthday.

But now, it's on to Christmas. Ah, the joyous season. I love this time of year - I really do. It always goes too fast though so I'm attempting to savor all parts of it. We started off our Christmas season with decorating our tree on Sunday during halftime of the Colts game. (Of course not during the game - how could we?! We were glued to the screen during that insanely strange and amazing game).

Later Sunday evening I put up some other decorations around the house. This is a side note, but for those of you who don't know, every year my mom changes her Christmas decorations decorating with gold and another color all throughout their house. Examples from past years: red and gold, blue and gold, black and gold, purple and gold, green and gold, etc. She's amazing at decorating - seriously their house looks like it came out of a magazine at Christmas. I'm attempting to take on her tradition starting last year decorating with pink and gold (super easy because it was our wedding colors) and this year with red and gold. Thankfully she sent me some pretty red dishes and balls so that helped in my decorating. I think it's a great idea because it makes every year different and yet similar and so beautiful. So here are my red and gold attempts...

First, our tree. We had to rearrange some furniture, but it fit! Thank goodness. It's looks much prettier in real life than in this photo and it still needs a topper but all the ones I've found I think are tacky.

This is a little far away, but you can see some of my decorations on our white bookshelf. I like the contrast and balance of everything.

Bring it on Christmas - I'm ready and waiting. :)

Thoughts on Twilight

This morning, like most of our mornings, Rob and I had the Today Show on while we were eating breakfast. One of their feature stories was about the release of the latest Twilight series movies, ‘New Moon’ that comes out tonight at midnight. Now, I must make a disclaimer that I did read all Twilight books in a row this summer, (thanks to my teenage sister-in-law Kayla for lending those to me) and yes, I did enjoy them. I also did rent the first Twilight film, but didn’t see it in the theatres (side note: the book was way better than the movie in my opinion). I say that to tell you I am not against Twilight as a whole – I think good themes of love, self-control, friendship and courage come through in the books. Here’s what really gave me pause this morning watching the segment on TV – a poster a woman on Rockefeller Plaza was holding that said, “Yes, I’m in love with a fictional character!” I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that she means Edward – I could be wrong, but for the sake of my post, I will say that.

Hold the phone please – that is disturbing. To say that you are “in love” with someone implies that you have a reason to love that person. What reason has Edward given her to “love” him? (And I’m using love in quotes here because I do not think this woman is really “in love” with Edward – she is “in love” with the idea of him – obvious point considering he’s a fictional character!) To love someone first should probably mean he/she is a real person and secondly true love is very different than infatuation which I would pose is actually what this woman has.

No matter if it’s “true” love or infatuation, her sign and what it implies should make us think. If you’re familiar with the Twilight series you will know that Edward is a very strong, mysterious, dedicated, committed, self-controlled man. Some critics have even called him controlling and chauvinistic. Hmmm…perhaps women actually like men who have those characteristics? (Ok minus the controlling, chauvinism ones, especially if they are unhealthy things in a relationship). Is that what that woman with the sign is wishing for when she says she’s “in love” with Edward? But seriously, in the hearts of women, when they are so honest with themselves, what do they really want out of a relationship with a man? They want security. They want commitment. They want to be loved, cherished and respected. All things Edward offers to Bella. (Even when Edward decides to leave Bella in New Moon he does it for her sake and eventually he comes back and is so committed to her). How does Bella respond to him? She longs to marry him. She wants nothing else than to be with him. She goes into deep depression when he leaves her, even though she knows it is for her good. She decides not to go to college so she can marry him and eventually become a vampire. She refuses to give up their baby, even though she knows it might kill her. How many women have you met lately who would say their deepest desire is to be a wife and a mother? Many women in our culture are saying instead they don’t need a man to fulfill them. They don’t need children. They must succeed in their careers and climb the corporate ladder. And yet, millions of women around this country are screaming and freaking out over a story that portrays a man who is not weak, a story that says a woman can be a wife and mother and obtain her heart’s desire. I would opinion that there is more to the freaking out and the signs and the obsession over these books/movies than actually meets the eye. (Seriously – Edward (Robert Pattison is not even that hot!) Could it be that in the heart of all women they desire to have a relationship that is marked by security and commitment? That they are actually calling out for men to step up and be men and give that to them?

Perhaps you think I’ve overreacting and overanalyzing a story. Perhaps you think I’m saying women shouldn’t go to college and should be barefoot and pregnant all the time. No – that’s not what I’m saying. I want to make that clear. I’m saying that culturally, women of my generation and a few previous generations have been taught to believe that we will never be satisfied unless we attempt in some way to be like men. That we should not embrace the wonderful things about being a woman – specifically the ability to give birth and raise a family. Does giving up our bodies and our dreams to have children require sacrifice? Yes – tremendous sacrifice. Does the end result produce immense joy, perhaps, in my opinion, more joy than climbing the corporate ladder? I think so. There’s lots of arguments for both sides and I’m just trying to figure this all out for myself right now. I felt like I needed to say something about the amazing amount of freaking out women/girls are doing over this movie and what I think it says about the culture we live in and the underlying issues that are there.

What do you think? I welcome your thoughts and comments.

P.S. I forgot to mention that Indiana University is offering a class this coming spring called “From Titanic to Twilight” “which will examine the culture of girls and young women as consumers and producers within pop culture.” I would hope that this class would go beyond just the role of women in media and actually dig deeper into the role of women in our culture. Here’s a link to the full article if you’re interested: http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=72034&search=twilight&section=search

Surprise Party!

This past summer when the Bedinghaus family went to Hawaii for Rob's parents' 25th wedding anniversary we (meaning the four of us kids) had dinner together and decided we needed to do a little extra something for them when their real anniversary came around this month. We also decided the most meaningful gift we could give them would for all of us to be together. They admit themselves that they don't need more stuff!

It's amazing how fast November came from July! We worked over the past few months to plan a surprise party for Bob and Lori and it finally came Saturday night. Here's how it went down:

We decided all of us (including Nan) would show up for dinner and treat them at a nice restaurant. Then, we worked with one of their good friends, Cindy, to host a party at her home with a group of their closest friends. I talked with Bob and arranged with him to bring Lori to the restaurant so he knew about the dinner surprise, but he didn't know about the party.

So they came to the restaurant and we were all waiting for them hiding behind our menus. The look on Lori's face was so priceless. She was really happy to see all of us there and we had a great dinner all together.

All of us at dinner

As it came around time for dessert we mentioned that we were all having dessert somewhere else. They were even more surprised when we told them that they were going to be blindfolded the whole drive to the dessert. In the parking lot I gave them their blindfolds and Lori gave me a look that said, "You've got to be kidding me right now." But no, I was definitely not kidding! Rob drove their car and our caravan started off toward Cindy's.

We were definitely early to the party so we had to drive around their neighborhood for a while which was hilarious and awful at the same time. It was hilarious (at least to me) because we had four cars in our caravan and here we were weaving around their neighborhood and people kept staring at us. It was awful because poor Lori got really carsick in the backseat of her car, especially being blindfolded and going around in circles did not help! So I felt really bad about that because we didn't think about that happening at all.

But we all made it and all their friends yelled "Surprise!" when we came in and it was great. Bob & Lori were really surprised and it was a fun evening hanging out drinking wine, eating cake, watching football and enjoying Cindy's lovely home and decorations.

Showing up at the Weavers' house after everyone yelled "Surprise!"

The cake

Before they cut the cake....looking so innocent....

....and since they didn't smash cake at their wedding, they took advantage this time!

And after they cleaned up -- good thing they still love each other so much

Maybe this will be the family Christmas card? We're still looking for that elusive picture....

All of the fun and surprises aside it really was a special evening to tell Bob & Lori how much we love them and how proud of them we are for their 25 years of marriage. We appreciate their example in our own marriage and hope we get to celebrate their 50th anniversary someday!

Happy Birthday Rob!

Rob's birthday was yesterday, which happened to be his longest day of the week. It was a hard day, but he made it through knowing what was on the other side of long day Tuesday. The other side meant things Rob really loves -- pizza, presents and cake.

For me, much of Tuesday was spent thinking how I was going to produce a fondant covered cake Rob wanted. You see, Rob loves fondant. If you're not familiar with what fondant is, think about the last wedding you were at and chances are you had a cake covered in fondant. Also, if you're familiar with most cake shows (Ace of Cakes happens to be our favorite) you will recognize fondant as the stuff they basically make everything out of. It's that thick, sugary substance that is basically fat and sugar and gives cake that smooth look. And yes, Rob can't get enough of it. All he really wanted for his birthday was a cake covered in fondant.

We found a recipe online that promised to be fairly easy and had simple ingredients. I came home from work and started whipping up the fondant. It's made of corn syrup, shortening, powdered sugar, salt and vanilla. I thought my Kitchen Aid was going to die running its dough hook through the thick ball of fondant, but it made it and I received a smooth ball of fondant. I decided an easy decoration would be to make a Colts cake since we are fans you know. (We have jerseys - that makes us legit fans!) Anyways, I ran out of blue food coloring and my Kitchen Aid was making even more sad noises. So my fondant ended up looking more like the Smurfs came to visit rather than the deep Colts blue. Use your imagination.

Here's the final ball.

Unfortunately, Rob and I were to busy actually rolling out the fondant and figuring out how to lift it onto the cake to take a picture. It was quite large and hard to maneuver. It actually ended up tearing into two pieces, but we made it onto the cake. It wasn't as firm as it should have been, but it worked. I decorated it with Colts horseshoes and basically ran out of room to write "Happy Birthday Rob" and I didn't want to write "Go Colts!" on Rob's birthday cake so I ended up with....

I'm laughing even now as I write this - who makes a birthday cake like this?! I do obviously. Rob laughed out loud when he saw it too

A closer view

Rob didn't want to mess up the cake by putting 24 candles on it so we just put four. No, we are not celebrating Rob's fourth birthday. The four is part of 24...

Oh, and we had pizza from Mother Bears (a Bloomington favorite). Rob was a happy man!

It was a good birthday and we had a lot of fun. After cake (which was very good and SWEET!) and pizza we watched Biggest Loser. Ironic? Yes, I think so. :) Good birthday? Yes I think so.

Fun Fall

I've been saving up some photos to do a "fall" post and I guess with today being the first day of November, this is the day! We spent a beautiful afternoon in the local "wilderness" with our good friends Bethany and Andrew so I thought I'd put some pictures up from that and some other things we've done this fall in and around Bloomington.

We've only been to one IU men's soccer game this season, but we hope to go to at least one more. At this game they gave out free IU hats!

The gorgeous sunset over the soccer field

Bethany & Andrew

We went with Bethany & Andrew again to an apple orchard. There, we ran into this goofy kid who apparently loves carmel apples

Oh wait, I love that goofy kid & carmel apples too

Apparently we were to late in the season to actually go out in the orchard so we had a fun time finding a way to set up the timer on our camera and catch this picture

Sunglass girls!

It was windy and sunny - not good picture taking weather

Rob and Andrew were very sad the orchard was roped off

Ok, this isn't Bloomington, but we spent a fun weekend in Cincinnati at Rob's high school homecoming weekend. Here we are at the football game

Kayla all dressed up for the Homecoming dance. The theme was the Wizard of Oz so all the senior girls were supposed to wear red shoes....

I've honestly never seen so many different pairs of red shoes in one place! Also, all these girls rode on the party bus behind them....oh the joys of high school.... :)

Me and one of my favorite sisters

Sunday morning we had a Bedinghaus family tradition of going to Irons Fruit Farm. I don't think this photo is in the running for the family Christmas card picture, but it's still cute

The winning pumpkin and gourd

I accidentally sat in a mushy pumpkin and Kayla put her shoe in one too. We're matching. Unfortunately my butt looked more like I pooped myself. And yes, it did eventually come out in the wash!

Today we went to the Charles Deam Wilderness (Rob initially thought it was called the Deep Wilderness) which is part of the Hoosier National Forest. Bethany and Andrew knew of an old fire tower there that we could climb and see pretty far. We missed all the beautiful leaves by about a week, but it was still pretty. This is a shot from the top.

The day was so clear and perfect for being there.

The cars down below.

Starbucks makes it even to the deep wilderness. This was on our hike after we came down from the tower. On our way back the cup was gone so thankfully someone else properly disposed of the Starbucks trash

The fearless hikers in the gathering dusk. We could definitely find Andrew anywhere in that vest!

So there's some of our fall adventures. I just noticed that I'm wearing the same sweatshirt in most of these pictures...maybe it's a favorite? Yes, I think so. More photos to come I'm sure! And now it's starting to be more winter we can only have even more winter adventures....

A Working Halloween

Sorry for the lack of posts lately -- I started working again and suddenly all my free time has vanished. If I could please get that back that would be great....

Some of you know a little about my new job, but I'll fill you all in anyways. I got a job as a copy writer/editor at a local publishing house through a temp agency. It's an 8-5 kind of job that pays barely above minimum wage, but hey, it's a job! Not everyone can say that these days so I'm thankful. It's apparently supposed to be a 6-month gig until they can hire me on full time with their company -- right now I'm technically an employee of the temp agency. We'll see how it all goes down in the next few months.

I've worked for four days now and am still not really sure what to think about all of it. The company is fairly large (around 300 employees), but for me coming from a two person office where I had a huge office with a door (!) all to myself, that many other people sharing my space is overwhelming. It's awkward because I sit in a larger cubicle with two other women, but you can hear everything that goes on around you in the other cubicles. Other people's conversations, their sneezes, their ringing phones -- all of it. Zero privacy basically.

The first day I showed up they sat me at a table (not even a desk with drawers) with a computer and said, here you go, edit this. Seriously, it's a good thing I brought my own pen because they weren't supplying those! I'm still using my co-workers trash can and doubt I will ever have one of my own. Oh the glorious days of working at the Growth Council....if I only I would have recognized the small luxuries like trash cans!

So yea, it's been a very humbling experience overall because I'm basically lower than a paid intern and am definitely under-utilized in my skill set. To go from the place I was at the Growth Council, and all that I got to see and do there to this is very humbling indeed. I pray every morning the Lord would give me a good attitude about working and that this season would be a good lesson in being faithful in the small things, the lowest tasks, in order that I might be given more responsibility in the future.

Not that I want to overspiritualize this experience, but I do think the Lord probably has some good lessons for me here.

Anyways, I really got on here to blog about my adventures in corporate Halloween today, but apparently I digressed because there's so much to say in just setting up the context!

Probably on my second day there I noticed flyers talking about the Halloween party the company was hosting this afternoon. I panicked thinking that perhaps it was mandatory and frankly the thought of picking out a costume, pumpkin bowling and a mummy wrapping contest made me want to throw up. I've never really liked Halloween and all the hype around today's events only confirmed that dislike even more.

I showed up this morning sans costume (although I was tempted to write "book" on my face in tribute to Jim on the Office last night, but chickened out -- he was being "facebook" for those of you who missed the episode -- quite clever really) but not to worry, plenty of people made up for my lack of costume. Some of my favorites throughout the day included the woman who dressed up like a male co-worker complete with an eye-liner created beard, the man who dressed up in the costume from the kid on Where the Wild Things Are, and everyone's favorite - the woman who literally dressed like the pond and fountain in front of our office. Don't ask me how she sat all day long - she had an enormous piece of cardboard around her waist (the pond) and then her upper body was the fountain, complete with, I kid you not, a pointed silver cone on her head with tinsel coming out for the "fountain" part. She also put reflective material on her cardboard so she literally reflected off the ceiling when the lights hit her. Creative I do say.

The crowning moment of the day though was the parade. Yes, a costume parade. Imagine this - about 50 adults in full costume weaving their way in and out of the rows of cubicles throwing candy at their co-workers. Absurd was really the only word I could think of. It was so unbelievably absurd to me that not only are these people throwing candy at us, they are willingly dressed in costume and doing this while getting paid on their work time. Frankly the fact that Halloween is so popular in the first place, not just with children, but with adults too is rather scary to me. (Ha - no pun intended!) I think it really is a time for people to let loose a little and be absurd (and wear things they would never wear in real life) and I'm sure that my company thinks people need some lightheartedness every once in awhile. Personally, that's not really my thing and I think Halloween should just go the way of the dinosaur. Of course it never would, but really it should.

I will be very interested to know how they handle Christmas (most likely a "holiday" party, hopefully without the parade). I'm sure I'll give you the full scoop when that rolls around......

An Ohio Weekend

This past weekend we were all over the great state of Ohio. Months ago we were invited to a wedding on the east side of Columbus for a sweet Taylor friend, Megumi. Since we knew we would be in Ohio this weekend we planned to visit some high school friends of mine, Kyle & Suzie Yoder, in Athens, Ohio Friday night and Saturday. Kyle just started at Ohio University (not to be confused with THE Ohio State University) in their med school and Suzie is also getting her masters there in special education.

Friday we set out for our first stop in Columbus to visit Rob's cousin Maria and her husband Isaac. They took us to this really yummy Mediterranean restaurant called Lavash and then to a vegan bakery for cookies. Delicious! We had a great time with them talking and laughing. They also gave us a driving tour of THE Ohio State University which was cool for us to see. They got married a few months after us and unfortunately we haven't spent very much time together as couples so this was a great time to connect with them.

Hanging out with Maria & Isaac

After lunch we headed off to Athens to literally the middle of nowhere where Kyle and Suzie live. I had never been to southern Ohio before, but it is really lovely with the changing leaves and rolling hills.

A view from the car

Only in small town America do you see people like Jim Pancake running for public office. We thought his name was absolutely hilarious and well worth the photo stop. We wondered if his main campaign strategy was lots of pancake breakfasts?

Kyle and Suzie have a great living situation about 15 minutes from campus. They found a place to rent on a horse farm that converted old out buildings and houses for horse trainers into rental properties. It is very secluded and quiet. For Kyle and Suzie it is quite a change though because they used to live in downtown Philadelphia. I think they miss the city, but this season is providing rest and connection to nature again for them. We spent Friday evening eating soup and homemade bread, talking, laughing, and playing Settlers. Saturday Suzie and I walked through the woods on horse trails with their dog Ella and their landlord's dog Hank. We also had a driving tour of OU and learned some history of the town.

Suzie with a horse with a creepy blue eye. Apparently these are really famous and beautiful types of horses

A view of the horse barns

The four of us on their "front lawn" which is basically a huge field.

After our great visit with them we headed back up to Columbus for Ben & Megumi's wedding. We didn't expect to know anyone at the wedding, but we sat at a table with two other Taylor grad couples so that was great. The wedding was supposed to be outside on a patio at this mansion, but the forecast was calling for snow so they moved the ceremony into the same room the reception was in. It was a really beautiful wedding (minus the dj with his techno music) and a true celebration of Ben & Megumi. A small tidbit about them by the way -- after they set their wedding date on October 17th they traced back and figured out that that was the first day they met eight years ago! How cool is that? They've been together since then too so I think this day was extra special for them!

Megumi coming down the "aisle". I loved her 1940s style veil.

Rob and I with the happy couple

Cupcakes!

After the wedding we drove to Cincinnati and slept at Rob's parents house instead of driving all the way home that night. We left there at 7:30 Sunday morning to be back in time for church at 11:00. Whew! What a weekend! Needless to say I took a nap on Sunday afternoon. :) All in all a great time with people we love.