red velvet is weird.

I lost myself this Valentine's Day. I surrendered to a trend and now must pay the consequences. 

There's a great big red velvet cake sitting in my fridge and I don't want to eat it. Every time I open the door its thick crimson layers glow at me with red-dye radiation. It's weird. There's nothing wrong with it. It tastes fine (albeit a little boring). The icing is tasty (if not a tad drippy). The cake is just really, really, really red. 

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I had always wanted to try my hand at a red velvet recipe. Not sure why. Red velvet just seems to be everywhere, dominating everything from bakery shelves to Pinterest boards, and I wanted to rise and meet the challenge! Look out, cake!

I'm all about reaching my goals. Big goals. 

Valentine's Day came around. Perfect, I think. I don't buy Wayne gifts. I make Wayne cakes. I'll make a red cake. This will be AMAZING. 

First of all, don't try to make a red velvet cake when you're in a klutzy state of mind (which for me is about 80% of the time. I am by no means a graceful swan, though my wingspan is rather impressive). Red velvet cake batter is, well, really red. And when it gets on something... that something will be red. You'll be happy to know that after some intense elbow grease my countertop is now only a pleasant pink colour!

I was excited to make this cake. It was going to look pretty and taste like Valentine's Day. Then the recipe told me to put a lot of red food colouring in. I did a double take. The recipe told me to put a lot of red food colouring in. I debated with myself, but ended up doing what the recipe commanded of me. My track record with changing ingredients around in recipes isn't so good. Recipes exist for a reason.

As soon as I put that horrendous amount of red dye in the batter, I thought, red velvet is weird. I don't think I'm going to like it very much. I stirred the dye into the rest of the batter. I looked in the bowl and saw my crimson reflection shimmering back at me in the blood-red batter. Something in my stomach fluttered. 

I thought, red velvet is gross. 

I baked the cake. I ate some of the cake. It tastes fine. It's moist and light and pretty. But it's red. Turns out I don't like it when things aren't the colour they're supposed to be. Cake is supposed to be white or yellow or brown. Ketchup is supposed to be red. Cake isn't.

I'm aware that it's a purely mental thing. Mind over matter. Suzanne's brain over red cake. Chances are, however, that red velvet will not be making an appearance in this kitchen again. But -- speaking of ketchup -- here's the 2013 version of Wayne's Valentine's Day card:

He loves ketchup on his mac n' cheese. Me... not so much (I'm not always this picky, I promise!). I also tried to compensate for the undesirable cake by making romantic shortbread cookies. Much tastier. They go nice with a cup o' chocolat chaud. And that's it for Valentine's Day, folks. Just another day of kitchen mishaps and cheesy greeting cards (HAH! Cheesy. Punmaster, right here).

how to make someone feel like a doormat.

I was in a pretty good mood when I walked into the office. The answering machine was full of messages and there was a mug of coffee calling my name -- I was ready to roll into the workday with enthusiasm.

Then I heard your message. There was nothing rude about it -- you simply had a question to ask, and requested that we call back. But there was something in your tone -- an inhibited kind of sarcasm -- that made me leave phoning you back until the very last item on my callback list. I had a history of your account up on the screen and files laid out in front of me like a row of defense weapons, ready to respond in case of enemy fire.

I'll bet you didn't think a desk job could be so wild.

I was wary when I dialled your number, and it turns out that my gut instinct was more in tune with reality than I ever thought possible.

Maybe you had a bad morning. Maybe your kids were driving you crazy. Maybe your wife was nagging you. But whatever was going on, the ear of the receptionist at your local chiropractor's office was apparently the most convenient place to let loose your fury of rage.

I get that you didn't like how much the bill was for. No one likes having to pay bills, especially when they're more than we expect. But screaming at the girl who does the invoicing won't change the fact that your family received services and as a result, must pay for those services.

You should know that you've set a personal record for me. I'm a person who avoids conflict like the plague, and as such have never experienced being called so many different things in the span of a ten minute verbal tirade before. Yeah, you kept it PG, but there's still something demeaning about being called idiotic, quacky, insane, and a thief -- and so much more that I really can't even remember.

You didn't really want to talk to me. You didn't really have any questions. You just wanted to throw a tantrum and make sure that I knew that you were severely unhappy. I wanted to hang up on you. Thinking back, I probably should have. No one should have to be forced to listen to what you said to me. And let's be honest, you were far beyond the point of being rude.

You probably didn't know that you had wrecked my day. You probably didn't know that when you finally hung up on me, it took all I had to not collapse into a pathetic mess of frustrated and ashamed tears. You probably didn't know that I spent the rest of the day trying desperately to hold onto the shadows of personal dignity that I still somehow possessed; searching wildly for an ounce of confidence that you hadn't completely stolen from me. You probably didn't know that you had that much power over somebody you'd never met before.

I didn't think anyone did, either.

Being a receptionist requires some seriously thick skin. I didn't know that when I started, but I'm getting there. I'm getting better at letting things bounce right off me, at moving along and forgetting the scalding looks I get. Now that I'm almost a year into the receptionist gig, I have a great deal more respect for those people who sit behind the counter, telling you where to go and what to do.

Next time you step up to a desk behind which sits a receptionist, ask them a question. Give them a smile. They'll appreciate it. There's a pile of charts that have to be filed, a long list of angry people to call, jumbled accounts that need major spring cleaning, and fingers full of paper cuts that need some serious love and care.

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Be nice to your receptionists. They're just doing their jobs. 

where have all the men gone?

My husband and I really like our church here in Michigan. Excellent worship, community, preaching... and a nice breakfast for college kids every Sunday morning before the service. I'm not a college student, but I still manage to sneak in for a meal. If we keep up with the latest slang people don't notice that we're actually five years older than everyone else at the table.

Our city is packed with universities and colleges -- particularly Christian ones. There are thousands of young Christian students in this city from across the country with dozens of church options to choose from. Our church really likes students, and they try and make it easier to come by providing transportation from a nearby college campus, offering free meals and rides back home, etc. Basically, all you have to do is get up in the morning and someone will make sure you get to church and get fed -- spiritually and otherwise. Every Sunday there are several rows filled with college students who really change the dynamic of our church community -- we think it's pretty cool.

But here's the strange thing -- about 80% of those college kids are female.

We haven't done any in-depth research or asked around if this is a trend in all the churches in the area, so it could be that there's a church a few blocks away that's packed with a bunch of college guys, but for some reason we find that highly unlikely. So -- where have all the men gone?

It's a challenge for Wayne and I not to be hard on the nameless guys who don't show up. Our church makes it painfully easy to come to church. You don't even have to walk anywhere or figure out a bus schedule. There's free cinnamon rolls!!! Honestly. Not to mention the fact that there's dozens of beautiful Christian college girls sitting around the table. Buddy, you'd have zero competition.

Okay, okay, I get it, the point of going to church is not to find a spouse. But let's be honest, that's definitely one of the perks of getting involved in a fantastic Christian community if getting married is on your bucket list.

I don't really know where I'm going with this post, other than that I'm confused by the lack of young men at church when I know that the nearby college campus is almost a 50/50 split of guys and girls. Basically: College guys, quit playing video games at a decent hour so that you can get up on time and get yourself to church. Man up a little.

That's all.

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epiphaneia.

The title of this particular post is Greek. I know this because my husband studies Greek... but mostly because I looked it up on Wikipedia. It means Epiphany!

January the sixth (twelve days after Christmas) is traditionally the day that Christians celebrate the feast day of Epiphany... except that we don't actually really celebrate it all that much. In fact, it didn't even come up in church this morning (although this may be because it's more of a tradition within the Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches). From what I've seen and read, there's a variety of practices and traditions done today (e.g. half-dressed men jumping into cold lakes), depending on the denomination, but in general, today's feast celebrates the manifestation of God through human flesh in His Son, Jesus Christ. That's feast-worthy, in my opinion.

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"No priest, no theologian stood at the cradle in Bethlehem. And yet, all Christian theology has its origin in the wonder of all wonders that God became a man. Alongside the brilliance of holy night there burns the fire of the unfathomable mystery of Christian theology."
                                - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted in Eric Metaxas' Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (pg 472)

 That's a good word for it -- unfathomable. That God would become a man and humble Himself to cover our sin and shame when we don't deserve it at all -- unfathomable.

We're going to celebrate our freedom in Christ today by eating pizza and Sabbathing. Yay!

a merry little christmas.

We've been in Ontario for the last several days. Tomorrow we'll be making the trek back to the G-Raps in order to get into our 2013 groove. Crazy how time flies! 

In the ten days we've been back with family our hands have been filled with chocolate, cups of coffee, many good gifts and adorable babies. Such blessings! The best blessing of all? Jesus, the Light. 

Have a beautiful New Year!

one last splash of fall.

I drew this thank you card a few weeks back. It went out to the generous donors who helped with my old high school's fall fundraiser. Thank you donors! You help the Christian education dream live on.

Now I have to draw a Christmas card... really really soon. Today is December, and that means time is RUNNING OUT. So -- onto the drawing board! But first, a coffee. And then probably some other errands and tasks. And then... well... maybe I'll get to it next weekend.