Brain Unload

I have many very random things on my mind after a weekend where I spent much of my time in bed sick. I went through my Reader this weekend and realized that I had over 60 "starred items" that I had wanted to get back to at some point: either to read through again, comment about on my blog, etc. Don't worry, I won't share all 60 items in this post, but I will play a little catch-up with a post that has a little to do with everything on mind (from "starred items" to "Life in General").

So here, in no particular order, is my brain unload:

• Last Sunday a friend and I decided to hold each other accountable to losing 20 pounds by my birthday (we decided on that because it was 19 weeks away, so one pound/week). This Sunday I had lunch with her and I had already completely forgotten about our decision. So...apparently I wasn't thinking about it much over the last week. Oops. I needed to write it down somewhere to make it more real for myself - so there it is. Now I have to actually do it. Ugh.
• Why do I have 14 socks that have no matches? I FINALLY did laundry today (hadn't done it since I got back from my trip....) and I ended up putting ANOTHER sock in my basket of no-matches. Annoying.
• I went to the grocery store today for the first time in 2010. Not kidding. I'm also not kidding when I say that I only went because I was tagging-along to spend some time with a friend. I keep thinking that it's useless to buy groceries when I'm about to go on a trip, so I just don't buy any. Needless to say, my eating habits have been less-than-healthy. Need to change that when I get back from Lithuania.
• The Olympics started. I mentioned the last time the Olympics came around how I don't seem to get as excited about them as other people do (especially the Winter Olympics). But again, I was in bed a lot this weekend, and I happened to be watching when a Canadian won the mogul race (Canada's first ever gold medal won in an Olympics held in Canada) and then talked about his handicapped brother who motivates him to do his best. I cried (of course). I was hooked.
• I signed up for a free program at my gym where you wore a pedometer for a week, turned it in, and would receive a gift. After I sent in the pedometer, I forgot about the mystery gift that was on it's way, so imagine my surprise when I opened a box a few weeks later and found this:
A shirt, a towel, a bag, a water bottle, etc. The water bottle is AWESOME and probably worth at least $15, so I was pretty pumped I got it all for free. Too bad I already lost the water bottle. I used it at least once for both tennis and basketball, but I have no idea where it is now. Scatterbrain.

• I meant to put a picture on here of a cake I made for a friend's birthday, so here it is:
I got the idea online somewhere. It turned out pretty good!

• I mentioned that I was having a funky attitude last week, mostly having to do with being single, etc. I was reminded how unpredictable and hard relationships can be when I read this article about a couple I've been "blog stalking" for....maybe two years? I'm always encouraged by the grace, wisdom, honesty, and humility I see displayed in their lives. They have an incredible story, and an incredibly hard story. Their faith is so encouraging to me.
• There was a little Super Bowl Ad that generated a lot of publicity even before it was shown. I was reminded of a moment when I was watching ESPN from a treadmill at the gym and I almost started crying. Here's a news clip about the moment that I was reminded of during all the hype over that ad:
  
  
• So. The Vikings lost. I was really bummed, but it's not the end of the world. Sports have been a big part of my life and I'm extremely thankful for that, but I always want to make sure that I don't have the wrong priorities when it comes to sports. I liked a lot of the points about sports and faith in this article, so I wanted to link to it. That's all.
• Time. I think I need to rethink how I spend my time. Two quotes that have me thinking about time: "The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence, the grass is greener where you water it." (Anonymous?) and "The primary reason we do too much is that we have never taken the time to discover the portion of what we do that makes the biggest difference." (Andy Stanley). Hmmmmm.
• This video made me cry
  

Okay. That's PLENTY. Brain unloaded. Time to focus on work for the week and get going to LITHUANIA!