Thieves Steal Mac & iPod, Leave Dell in Plain Sight

i think the title speaks for itself.

prayer request

okay so i am not really one to ask for prayer on my blog, but seriously, i woke up sick this morning. i had to go home from work. this wouldn't be that big of a deal except for the fact that I AM RUNNING A MARATHON ON SUNDAY. both of my roommates had this over the course of the last 2 weeks and they were both out for like 4 or 5 days from it. i am praying that i can get over this thing by tomorrow, or at least the day after. i pumped my body so full of fruits, veggies, water, and vitamin C today that i think i am going to explode.

i've worked so hard for this...

we may not get fall, but we get springtime in february

i went for a bike ride around the back bay.





those wildflowers are taller than me!

stuff white people like

please join me as my race gets mocked. this is the funniest thing i have seen in a long, long time.

some of my favorites include the toyota prius, recycling, marathons, indie music, wes anderson, and public radio.

two short things, then bed.

two reasons why i like getting up early every day:

1) wednesday mornings, crissy and i usually meet at a church at 7AM to pray with some pastors and whoever else from the community wants to come, or is specifically invited to come (last week we had a few police officers come in to update us on the communities they work in and pray with us). anyway, this week we switched it up a bit because she was asked to speak about mika at a men's breakfast at st. andrew's church in newport beach.

"why would you enjoy getting up so early to go to a men's breakfast, mikkele?"
well, i'm glad you asked.

i walked into the room and there were about 45 men, all over the age of 65, staring back at me. these are your stereotypical/awesome orthopedic shoe wearing, sweater stylin' grandpas. we said the pledge of allegiance to the american flag, and then to the christian flag, and we sang "this is the day that the Lord has made" to one old man playing the organ. we sat around the table eating chili filled omelets and grilled hot dogs (yeah... breakfast of champions) and talked about the good old days.

"hey bob, how long did it take you to stop saying, 'i'm goin to the ice box to get the milk?'"
-or-
"remember when the baker would come by and sell those fresh made cream puffs?"

i loved those men so much.

2) this morning i grumbled my way out of bed for my 6 mile run. i talked myself into doing the whole thing (not cutting it short to 4 miles like i convinced myself i would do if i only could get out of bed).

now, i don't know when this happened-- i'm pretty sure it's been in the last 48 hours-- but it is SPRING in southern california. and california has WILDFLOWERS in the spring. that whole april showers, may flowers thing? it happens in february here. somewhere in the last couple of days the back bay has EXPLODED with wildflowers.

so, i hit the two mile marker (where i meet up with the back bay loop), and the sun is rising over the cliffs, reflecting off the water. the sky is a canvas covered in pastels: blues and purples and oranges. and there are flowers EVERYWHEREEEEE!! ahhhh! it was the most beautiful thing i have seen in so, so long. the flowers were so tall and out of control that i could see the sun rising through them. rays of sunlight poking through these rich yellows and greens and purples, in addition to the fact that the back bay is just gorgeous all the time.

anyway, the sunrise was perfect this morning.

now i have to go to bed because when i go to bed at 10:15 (like tonight) instead of 9:30 (my bedtime) i get cranky and don't want to get up to watch the sunrise (like tomorrow morning).

goodnight, bowl. goodnight, brush. goodnight, nobody, goodnight, mush.

my hair is short

heyyy its like flashback to two years ago mikkele...except cuter.



also, in case you are wondering, i AM wearing an apron in that picture. and i'm wearing an apron as i type this. because i've been baking. and because aprons are fricken sweet.

as you blog readers as my witnesses

today marks two weeks from the marathon, and i need to start taking into account the fact that the things that i eat have a huge effect on my running. so, as anyone who reads this as my witness, i am officially on a diet of whole grains, fruits and veggies, low-fat dairy, lean proteins, and healthy carbohydrates. no more of this binging on ice cream and frozen yogurt and salt and vinegar chips and chocolate cake business. yeah. i just made myself hungry.

just calm down.

this week has been craaazzzzyyyy!

here is a recap of/update on my life:

-sunday was my birthday. happy birthday to me! it was one of the best birthdays i have had in a long time. i LOVE my birthday and i always have these crazy outrageous expectations for it that never happen. but this year, i wasn't really expecting a lot, and it was awesome! my awesome roommates threw me a party, and it was SO much fun. it was a terrible/awesome art party, based around paco. we got dressed up and drank wine and ate cheese and fondue and did lots of other fun pretentious things like naming art. good times. for those of you who see my shared items, tiffany posted some pictures. they are also on facebook.

-i have been part-time volunteering with mika, a community development organization here in costa mesa. basically, i worked it out with my (incredible) boss to flex my hours at mindfire so i can put in some time with crissy, the executive director at mika. she is absolutely AWESOME, by the way. basically, i am "interning", meaning that i just follow her around and meet the people she meets and do little projects here and there and occasionally drink coffee with her discussing life and love and the community. it's only been a few weeks but the opportunities and experience that i have been exposed to are amazing.

-we are trying to go to disneyland as much as possible in the next couple of weeks because....drum roll please... my sister is pregnant. oh snap! aunt mikkele. her due date is in august sometime. anyway, apparently it is safe to ride rides at d-land until she starts showing. so disneyland, bring it! we went last night for a hour and a half.

-the marathon is quickly approaching. i have been slacking in my running the last few weeks (with the exception of my 20 mile run last weekend. what up!), so this morning when my alarm went off at 5:30 and i heard it raining, i almost cried and went back to sleep. but NO! i got up and i ran 8 freaking miles, dangit. i was soaked and tired by the end, but for those of you who appreciate the fact that i have a tendency to pick up stuff i find on the streets in the early morning, i found a shirt this morning on the side of the road. it's green and super cute and i think it's even my size. however, i won't know for sure until i clean it up and try it on. score!

-in big bear i ripped my last contact (that i had been wearing since i moved out here... oops) so i have been wearing wrong prescription glasses for the last week and a half. it has put me in a perpetual state of irritability as i absolutely hate wearing my glasses. additionally, i can't see very well out of them because they are the same ones i've had since i was a sophomore in highschool. regardless, it is all over now. i finally got an eye exam yesterday and they gave me a pair of contacts right then and there. i almost cried i was so happy, and everyone i work with is thankful because i am much more pleasant to be around now.

there is more, but i'm done now. i have to give my testimony tonight at life group. eek!

global cooling

i'm not saying i agree with either side, but i do like to mix it up* a bit.

global cooling.

["mixing it up" of course meaning that people have always believed that i am much more liberal than i actually am; therefore, it is expected that i am gung-ho about doing everything i can to promote the reversing of global warming, which would of course be contradicted by the fact that i am even advertising that there may be another issue. or maybe i'm just playing to the stereotypes. or maybe i really am that liberal. i guess we will never know... i also like to think this makes me "open-minded" in the true sense of the word, not just the sense that says if you are a democrat you are open minded and if you are a republican you are closed minded. but i digress.]

p.s. i'm also not saying that if this is true we should build bigger pollution producing cars and whatnot.

hey there delilah

okay so, i don't think i have really told many people this, but i am no longer a verizon customer. we have a t-mobile family plan now. this is not something i am happy about; my family basically changed plans on me without telling me. in fact, my brother walked in to work about two weeks ago and handed me a new phone. this is when i found out we had switched. i would have just gotten my own plan on verizon, but it's much cheaper for me to stay on the family plan. also, i have unlimited texting to everyone ever now, so there's that. however, this is not the point of this post....

the point of this post is that i have a new phone for the first time in about 3 1/2 years! it has bluetooth! it has a memory card! it has a 1.2 megapixel camera! what is a girl supposed to do with all this goodness? well, i'll tell you what i did with it. i sent a freakin song over the bluetooth from my computer to my phone because they can talk! this is amazing.

[side note: my car has bluetooth also, so margot and my new nameless phone can also talk.]

for the last 3 1/2 years i have kept my phone on vibrate because the only song that my phone could play was a piercing midi rendition of "brass monkey" by the beastie boys (which i heard on the radio the other day, and i laughed). but you know what? NOT ANYMORE! now i want everyone to call me all the time because every time my phone rings i will hear HEY THERE DELILAH! funny because my computer is named delilah. so in a way, my phone was like "hey there delilah, send me that one song... you know... the one you're named after."

yeah, okay, i am done now. because this post is getting dumb and i have to go to bed. i am going to run 20 miles tomorrow morning. oh. yeah.

sheriff pig, take 2

it has recently been brought to my attention that this story would be a lot funnier if you could tell how big the painting is. well... here you go. we have affectionately named him "paco the pig" and have hung him in our kitchen.

i'm going to go play in the snow

so, a bunch of us are going to Big Bear this weekend to celebrate my brother's 30th birthday.

what? but his birthday was LAST weekend! right. this is actually the third weekend we are celebrating. a weekend for every decade he has been alive. but i digress.

don't get me wrong-- i am excited to spend the weekend in a cabin with 11 other people that i really like doing absolutely nothing but relaxing and eating and having warm soup belly. very excited, in fact. i just think it's funny that we are going to visit the snow. the icy melty cold gross snow. yes, this is how we roll in california; we are cold on our terms. take that, universe!

also, i've been thinking a lot recently about why people put bumper stickers on their cars, and if i were to pick a sticker on my car, what would it be? what do i love so much that i would feel the need to project it to everyone on my commute to work? what opinion do i hold so strongly that i need to tell the family in the minivan next to me? what statement could i possibly want to make about myself that i only have a 3x8 space to say it in and would not be able to offer ANY more explanation on the subject?

my conclusion: "don't the clouds look beautiful today?"