What I Did On My Summer Vacation

So, what did I do in August, you may have asked yourselves? Besides running & blogging like a crazy person, selling oil change cards when in Mpls, and traveling w/Tommy? Well, here are your answers.

• MOB MONDAYS - Monday nights, I & 3 other ladies watched all the Godfather movies. None of us had before. Why not?

• CHURCH-PLANTING BOOK - Worked on my church planting book. Made great strides with chapter 1. (draft finished in Sept.)

• COFFEEHOUSE - Hung out at the Red Rooster Coffeehouse a fair bit, computing, watching films they made, making art with people, talking w/folks.

• OPEN MIC - Every other Wednesday, there was an open mic. I performed poetry, laughed heartily.

• BOOK CLUB - On Wednesday nights. The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks.

• READING - Other books read: The First Wives Club, Father Fiction by Donald Miller, and The Gates of Zion by Bodie Thoene.

• DRIVING - Drove a bit w/Tommy along, a bit without. That's a yawn for most o' ya, but new for me.

• SPIDER SOLITAIRE - LOTS of it. Won a sad 4% of games. Can't believe how hard it is.

• DATES - w/Tommy: Mexican food, picnic in a grove of trees, Rise of the Planet of the Apes movie, diner breakfast, or the like. * l*o*v*e * :)

• CAMPFIRES - Spent a number of evenings sitting around the fire in the back yard with lots of people.

• TV - Watched full season of Switched at Birth. Learned lots about deaf culture. Cool show!

• COUNTY FAIR - We ate fair food...

• ...saw a fainting goat...

• ...sheep in jumpsuits...

• HUMANE SOCIETY - with Tommy, Zion and her grandma, Arlene. Super cute kitties.

• THRIFT STORES - There's about 7 on the main road alone! Dollar stores. Used book stores.

• TEMP JOB PURGATORY - Waited for the phone to ring w/a temp job. Never did. They didn't return my calls. No other temp agencies in town. Bleh.

That was August! I'm back to the real world now. Working, looking for work, etc. Wearing purple hair extensions & silver glitter eyeliner. You know me. ;) Thanks for joining the adventure online w/us! Here's to many more!! - Your carefree correspondent, Christy.

Run #35: 35 min. - LAST RUN

Christy Merry

has hereby completed 20 hours of running

in the summer of 2011.

Done. I am done! I thought today it would be fitting for me to do something special for the last run. I ended up settling for running through sprinklers. 3 in a park, and a bonus one on the way home. As I approached the third one, I saw a dragonfly, and another, and another. The sky was full of them, like they were celebrating the last day of my summer runs.

It was a fitting end. :) Thanks for your support!

* pic from The Compleat Wetlander

Run #34: 34 min.

Aberdeen. Aug. 27. I took today off too. A little research before this run revealed I only had 69 min. left on my goal. SO close! Nevertheless, it was hot. I wanted a short run, but had to add on some minutes to my shorter route so I wandered off and ended up at a rummage sale. There was nothing really great at this sale, except...a large framed copy of 'the SALESMAN SHIP' for free. I brought Tommy back later and we picked it up as a gift for our boss. I think he will love it. :) He's the 'motivational type'.

That's the excitement of that run! That, and that now I only have 35 min. left to go! Yay yay!! OhIamsogladthisisalmostdone. Strangely...the vegetarianism has not given me much of a withdrawal. I don't even think about it most of the time. Perhaps it might be worth continuing on for a little while when I get back? Or at least just lessening the meat intake? Thoughts to ponder.

Run # 33: 46 min.

Still Aberdeen. Aug. 26 (I took a day off on the 25th :) ). Hot, hot. 80s. I took my phone camera on this run. I spent a lot of time when I got out to my sunflower path, taking pics, and texting a friend I was praying for. The sun was high in the sky and I apparently kept heating up. I may not have had enough water before departing either. In any case, instead of an hour run (which I had planned due to my closeness to my goal!), I started feeling nauseous about halfway home and ended up stopping to rest in shadow behind a dugout in a park and calling Tommy to rescue me.

After one brush w/heat exhaustion this summer, I knew it wasn't wise to gamble on another. He came asap, armed with water for me and instructions: cool shower, fan, rest, etc. Heat exhaustion is nothing to mess with.

This little titch of it was worth it, tho'...for the beauty. :)

Run #32: 26 min.

Aberdeen. Hot. Aug. 24. Sorry it took me so long to post about it. I ran out of good pix I could 'borrow' from online so I wanted to take my own of this garden I love that I see on my runs.

Believe me, it's better than the things I found googling "mosquito bite on the back of my knee".

Magnificently Imperfect

"Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow,

an undeserved curse will not land on its intended victim." (Proverbs 26:2)

So, this is a little off topic, admittedly, but it reminded me of a few things. I like people to be happy with me. I don't get 'talked to' (you know what I mean) all that often, but when I do, I tend to take things personally. Once, when I was a kid, playing tetherball at recess with Tony Janick, with my back to the school door, I was so into the game that I did not hear the recess bell. On completing the game, I/we turned to realize the schoolyard was empty, which meant we were IN TROUBLE. Even though I hadn't done anything wrong on purpose, I pretty much shook with the knowledge of my guilt, my unworthiness, and when the teacher talked to us about it, it was hard not to cry.

But, on two distinct occasions in particular (again, I don't get rebuked too too often), I remember being really free from that. First, at a temp job I had, which was only for a few months, a month or so in I was captured by the distinct inner knowledge that one of my bosses was writing A LIST of my shortcomings and would soon call me to her office and talk to me. I was a good worker, though not perfect. And the thought of being rebuked for my imperfections was a little bit of a blow. However, tho' I have no idea how I knew that in advance of its occurrence, when the moment came I was prepared. I faced her, listened to her 10 grievances about how I sometimes forgot to put a sticker on a chart, or some other little things, and I was free. Light as a bird. It was her issue, her need to control things, that she was dealing with. It wasn't me. It wasn't about me.

Another time some fellow I had been dating (though not committed to/ie not a 'boyfriend') made some unfounded accusations about my intention to flirt with other fellows and manipulate him based on some comments I had made. In that situation, I stood my ground easily, and just countered with saying I did not think he realized how cruel and unjust what he was saying was. I believed he was better than that. Communication was discontinued. A long time later, I did receive an apology.

I run into too many folks that get verbally abused, or unjustly accused. I'm not the only one who has. All I want to say is, don't receive it! Don't stay in the situation if it keeps repeating. And remember who you are, not who you aren't. If the words are untrue, they won't stick, they won't land where they are trying to. You are free from that stuff! You're human, you make mistakes, you're magnificently imperfect. But that doesn't make you bad.

Whew! I have to go run. I was just reading Proverbs 26 (because today is the 26th) before I left, and thought, I have stuff to say about that! Now it is MUCH hotter outside...but I will persevere. The summer is almost over!! Yay! (because of the running goal, not because I dislike the season, like...*ahem*...some boy I know ;P)

Fundraising 1 Penny At A Time :)

After procrastinating sending the support letters for 2/3 of the summer, I finally wrote them. They are sort of the color of this pig. I was laying on the lawn with Zion (7) the next day addressing envelopes as we sunned together. She asked what I was doing. I explained that I was fundraising for one or some of the trips that Tommy is doing in the next 6 months or so that I might go on, or some other trip, and sending the letters out to people. This got her started on the subject of money. "I have some money! I have a piggy bank - can you guess how much money I have in it?" She talked about it for a while, and then said, brightly, "do you want to see my piggy bank? I can show you how much money I have in it!" I said "sure" and she disappeared into the house for a longish time. When she came back, she pulled it open and dumped what looked like a dollar and 75 cents or so, mostly in pennies. We then ate our snacks and chatted. She said, "I need help to put this back in" so we put the coins back in the piggy together. At one point she stops and hands me 7 pennies. Then she gave me 5 more. "These are for you. You can have those." "....and this!" she said, handing me a nickel. She was totally serious.

It reminded me a little of when I was a kid and found a letter from World Concern in the garbage. It said that they needed money to care for the lepers (I don't remember where). Upon learning there were actual lepers still in the world, I took it upon myself to organize help for them. I and 5 or so other kids (I'm guessing, this is 25+ yrs ago) went door to door offering to do odd jobs to raise money for the lepers. We raised about $14.16 if I remember right. I was just going to send it in, but my mom made me write a letter and tell them how we raised it. They called back a month or two later and asked me a bunch of questions and put an article with my picture in their newsletter about how "kids can give too!". It's funny. I don't think about kids as 'supporters of ministries' usually. I mean, I'm sending my letters to folks who happen to have kids, but mainly to their parents. It's an interesting thought.

Updates on my goals since the details given in my first post on May 31st:

1 - Still unsure which trip(s) I'll be joining on...obviously, I'm already on the first of them here in S. Dakota (story of how this came to be here). Helping orphans in Honduras? Lepers in India? Assisting a ministry in Wales? We'll see.

2 - Still hoping to raise $2,000. However, I'm not going to run more or less than the 20 hours I set out to, and weirdly pro-rate the hours run. I'm just going to complete the goal of running 20 hours, and I'm seeking 100 persons to pledge $1 per hour (total of $20 buckaroos). More or less works too, everything helps (!), I just thought that would work out neatly math-wise. (On that note, if someone could give $19.83 to offset Zion's $0.17....? KIDDING! ;P)

Thank you for all your love and notes etc. Literally, both prayer-wise and financially, I can't do this without you. Hugs to y'all! ~ Christy

PS - I'm sending out 'actual' letters so if you want one and are not sure I have your address, send it to me at hey@christymerry.com. But if you prefer just to read the blog & give, you can send a tax deductible gift via a check made out to Church in Uptown (with my name in the memo portion) to:

Christy Merry

c/o Church in Uptown

PO Box 19572

Minneapolis, MN 55419

* photo from brandmerchandise.com