You know When You're Slightly Giddy

You know you're the wife of a youth pastor when you get slightly giddy when students change their facebook profile photos and use a shot you took!  

And a Thanksgiving bonus:  You know you're the wife of a youth pastor when you realize you also spend the entire weekend on a retreat doing many amazing, valuable, life changing things-like braiding hair, resolving conflict, taking photos, bandaging boo-boo's, painting nails, driving, asking a million questions--and don't end up in any photos to show you were there or doing anything at all, so you a take a photo with another lady staff who also worked really hard loving on students that weekend and didn't get in any photos and  to finish, you can't seem to keep a reasonable face after 10 hours of total sleep so you the photo you tried hard to get in to won't make any youth slide shows anyway. (I'm on the left) OH well. ;) It's the memories that last anyway. 

You Know With a Rubber Chicken

You know you're the wife of a youth pastor when your hubby can find a rubber chicken without any trouble.

My husband slipped out of church to prepare for youth group and as he left,I whispered to him, "For the games I will need two white boards, two markers and the rubber chicken." He replied, "I know right where the chicken is."

You Know With a Mickle

You know you're the wife of a youth pastor when you expand your vocabulary.

Last night was a 5th Quarter Party at our house. It's a gathering for the high school students after the home football game.  Last night we played a great game called "Wise and Otherwise". It's similar to "Boulderdash" except it uses obscure phrases.  I learned "mickle" and "muckle."  Who knew those were real words!?!? 
Some words I have to 'google' when I see things on facebook and then I am totally scarred for life.  But usually it's all fun and I'm glad to keep learning!

mick·le

ˈmikəl/

SCOTTISHNORTHERN ENGLISHarchaic

noun

1. 1.

   a large amount.

adjective

1. 1.

   very large.

   "she had a great big elephant … that's one of those mickle beasts from Africa"

determiner & pronoun

1. 1.

   much; a large amount.
2. 
   

And many mickle make a muckle!

You Know with "That's Nice."

This just happened.

You know you're the wife of a youth pastor when he tells you, "I just picked up some raccoon poop from the back yard for an object lesson tonight." And you reply nonchalantly, "That's nice."

True story.

You Know When you Rummage

You know you're the wife of a youth pastor when 'hand-me-down's' are tempting.

My JH age daughter got her first bag of 'hand-me-down' clothes from one of our HS students.  It was full of cute tops, dresses, jackets and sweatshirts!

A few items were too big for her and I must admit I did try a sweater on--but I didn't keep it  My daughter told me I was 'too old' to wear something so sparkly.

I'm liking this 'hand-me-down' thing--now, if only they were for me.

 

You Know When You Shoot

You know you're a youth pastor's wife when half of the photos on your computer/phone/camera are of youth ministry students and events.

As I was cleaning out photos on the laptop, I came across a series of photographs that I took of my feet.  A few months back, our youth ministry held a sweatshirt design competition.  The winning student's design featured an image of a pair of Converse shoes.  I was concerned about copyright laws and thought it would be best if I created our own image to use on the sweatshirt.  So, I laced up my Converse, grabbed my camera and started shooting!  About 30 photos later, I finally had 'the one.'  Now that the sweatshirts have successfully been printed and are currently being worn, I figured it was safe to clear off the unused images...now to have the courage to tackle youth photos from 2002. 

Here's the keeper:

Wearing the hoodie 1 mile inside a cave on the HS Senior Class Retreat--dear hubby and I)

My sweet daughter modeling the design

Thanks to Ty B. for the awesome design, to Justin E. for fine tuning/graphic design and Ben B. for the printing!

You Know When they say "I Do."

You know you're the wife of a youth pastor when you only attend 6 weddings in a season and remember the year you got invited to 15!