Hello everyone.  I am here to say goodbye.  I have abandoned tumblr for my own blog at a different site.  You should totally check it out and follow me.  Okay?!  Okay.

www.maryannemarie.com

Every morning I drive about 30 minutes from Columbus to London, OH.  At first, it was a marginally nice drive.  I admired the scenery and the animals at the gazillion farms that I pass.  Now.  It is not as exciting.  In fact, most mornings I don’t really remember most of the drive.  Something tells me that is a bad thing.

So my newest form of entertainment is the sign outside of London Baptist Church.  They have one of those super cool signs that they can use to advertise or have written messages for those of us that drive by.  And here a select few for your viewing pleasure.

The first one I noticed actually angered me.  Which doesn’t happen very often. 

“The last time things were this bad, I sent a flood.  —God”

Right.  Because someone talked to God and that is what he said.  He sent Jesus for a reason.  Grrrrrrrr.  I wanted to walk in and have a talk with them, and then rewrite the message outside. 

“Can’t sleep?  Don’t count sheep.  Talk to the shepard.”

Could they be a little more cheesy?  Wait.  Maybe.

“You have to have a test to have a testimony.” 

I mean really?  I agree with that.  But why did you put it on your sign outside.  So for those of us that may not have had a hard life, we can’t have a meaningful experience as a Christian?  I guess, on the bright side, it gives me something to think about while I’m driving.

Any thoughts?

This past weekend I did something I have never done before.  I played softball on a team.  Yep.  I’ve never had the pleasure.  Actually, pleasure would not be the right word.  I am petrified of team sports.  Having someone rely on me to not mess up is just way too much pressure, mixed with a combination of scarring events as a child equals terror. 

So I’ve been trying to pratice so I don’t let everyone down.  Which includes throwing and catching.  One of those vital lessons that my father didn’t seem to think was necessary.  I’m getting better at throwing!  But catching definitely leaves something to be desired.  So!  I was designated hitter on Sunday!  That means no outfield for me.  I cannot express my sheer joy.  And, we won the game.  So all in all, a great first time.  And I have officially lost my softball virginity.

Now for the best part of the story.  Turns out that batting hurts.  It hurts my right forearm to be more specific.  So after a weekend of batting and throwing and catching, I pretty much thought I was going to die.  Or at least my right hand and forearm was going to fall off.  I didn’t realize how much I use my forearm muscles in everyday life until I couldn’t feel my hand to text or write or turn my key in my ignition.  To make matters worse, I had a puppet show on Monday morning.  Guess what muscles you use the most for a puppet show?!  That’s right, you guessed it, forearms and hands. 

Moral of the story:  Watch out for me after a summer of softball.  I’ll be able to squeeze your hand really hard and my forearm will be phenominal.

Tumblr and I are going to fight.  I even got blog love from my dearest friend, spokeit, and no one can leave comments for me.  Lame.  I may be switching blogs.

This week is national AmeriCorps week.  Which is basically amazing.  It gets me out of the lonely office and I get to help out other organizations.  Yesterday was lunch making fun for the Ronald McDonald House in Cincinnati.

Todays extravaganza was at a domestic violence shelter in London, Ohio.  There were a couple things for us to do, including organizing the garage that houses all of the donations and painting.  I took one look at the garage and thought that I would actually go insane if I even stepped foot in there.  I like organizing more than about 90% of the population, but even that would have overwhelmed me.

So instead, I chose to paint!  They needed the staff bathroom painted this lovely mint green.  So off I go.  I was feeling great about it.  I taped off all of the edges and got the paint all set up and got going.  I was doing pretty great, for a while.  I rolled the one actual wall that could be painted with a paint roller.  Then…it all went downhill.  I had to paint beside a cabinet.  It wasn’t too bad until I stuck my hair in the paint.  I did it again about 10 minutes later.  Now I resemble Rogue from X Men.  Yep.  That’s me.

After the hair incident, I stuck my elbow in the paint, dripped paint all over the floor, painted my pant leg, got it on my cheek (not quite sure about that one), and painted my phone. 

Moral of the story?  If you see me with a paint brush, you might want to go the other way, or at least stand at least 10 feet away from me.

I want to know why the reaction to tickling is to laugh.  I find it miserable/awful/if you ever do it I’ll kill you and if I could convince myself not to be ticklish I would totally do it.

I ran yesterday with the cutest dog ever.  Andy that is.  I went at a super odd time.  I ended up over at the school where we usually run around 2:30.  So all of the kids were still in school. 

Andy started out like usual.  Trying to pull my arm out of socket.  Luckily, we purchased a Halti (which if you have a dog that pulls, this is a gift from God), so he can’t really pull me anymore.  After a quick warm up, we started running.  He is fairly new to running, but he is getting the point now.  He loves to trot next to me, but if the wind blows just right he will catch a whiff of something.  So this results in a hilarious episode of running.  He smells this smell and starts to zig zag in front of me.  He will run for about 2 seconds to the right of me and then suddenly cut me off and run over to the left and then back again.  I’ve got to say, if I was watching this from afar.  I would die laughing.  I usually end up basically pushing him out of the way.  To which he responds by looking up at me like, “what?  why aren’t you running girl?” 

Oh and after about 6 minutes of running, once Andy’s tongue is hanging completely out of his mouth, we stopped.  That is when school was let out.  Andy, the most social dog in the world, is about to die out of sheer joy.  But sadly, no one wanted to be his friend.  He stared longingly at people as they walked by and then attempted to sniff a couple of butts, to no avail.  Oh well.  I’m sure he will recover.