yesterday the artistic mood struck and i made this drawing/painting that i just fell in love with! i don't know if it's kosher for someone to say they love what they made, but i do, so i'm saying it...
i think this is the first thing i've made just for the heck of it in about 8 billion years.
or maybe 2.
i'm normally not motivated to create unless i'm making something for someone.

as i started drawing this i was thinking about the boy in the corner and how he looks like he's falling, but he doesn't need to be since he has wings... and he's surrounded by flying things that should give him a clue, but he's still just falling. and there's another guy over on the right that's holding on to a branch for dear life, but he has wings too.
right now i feel like i'm falling out of control, like i'm holding on to everything that i have to be holding on to, but there's too many things and they're starting to all slip out of my control.

i know the christian answer is to stop trying to be in control, just let 'jesus take the wheel', to 'let go and let god' :-)... but where's the balance? being a person with responsibilities, i still have to do things. i can't just sit here and stare at the wall.

i think for me personally, i just need some alone time. i'm surprisingly more introverted than i ever allow myself to be, and i lose myself in the people i'm around if i'm around them too much.

so my resolution for the day is to be alone as much as possible and use the time to do some purposeful sorting out of thoughts. we'll see how it goes.

the scoop, pt. 2

i figured you needed the complete picture... and by that, i mean more pictures! :-)

we decided that when you say, 'look excited!' it always means your mouth is open.


upon testing the theory, we proved it to be true. closed mouths just don't look excited.


...pretending to laugh at the movie


...first attempt at freezing, concrete-slab-sitting, cave-dwelling pictures, after which i said, 'give me that camera,' (implying he clearly doesn't know what he's doing)


...and i prove that i clearly don't either. or else i'm secretly egotistical.

the scoop

i'm so sorry, adoring readership, for being delinquint in my reporting duties! i have no excuse. i'm just delinquint. (i'm trying to identify with my students more by practicing delinquincy. haha.)

so here's the date scoop.

i'll just start by saying that it was all around a really fun time :-)
when i tell you everything we did you're going to wonder how the heck we fit it all in to one night, but fit it in, we did.

we started out by going to ruby tuesday's for dinner and taking a billion timer pictures -- any event is made more fun by timer pictures. i would post them all here for your viewing privilege, but you would then realize how retarded we both are, so here's one to just give you the general idea...


we ate with gusto then talked for quite a while... we played 2 truths and a lie, during which i found out that nick used to wear glo-in-the-dark fingernail polish back in his punk high school days. he also used to raise sheep and even won a purple ribbon in a 4-H fair! good things to know.

we then made our way to target where nick had another game for us to play -- we each went our separate ways for 5 minutes and chose gifts for each other. we then presented them, laughed heartily, and put them back.
nick picked out a spanish guitar fantasy cd with a dancy colorfully-skirted girl on the front to go along with our conversation about how amazing all dancy movies are and how i secretly dance with the best of them... he also picked out two t-shirts -- one had a stick figure flexing his enormous biceps and it said, 'the cops pulled me over for carrying these guns', and the other was homer simpson a la tony soprano, complete with suit and shadows (about 1/2 of our dinner conversation had revolved around the simpsons).
for him i picked out a ufo light, which i can only assume calls down the ufos since the highpowered light was so bright it cautioned against looking directly into the beam -- and was also shaped like a ufo... and to help him out with his exercising, i found him a pink terry cloth head band. he would have looked so cute...
it was a fun game! try it some time.


then we went over to his cabin and watched the movie displayed forthwith, which some might say isn't a date movie, but i would argue with any of those people because it was hilarious! i loved it. mike myers pre-pervert is really very funny. (fyi -- throughout the entire movie, harriet never looks quite that voluptuous, and furthermore, never wears such a tiny red dress... in case you're raising your eyebrows in consternation right about now)



we were sleeping, for reals yo, and this magical camera fairy came and took a picture of us...
then nick wanted to go driving around a bit. we found a spot at which we wanted to get out and see the bransonian lights, but it was freezing by this time, so we stopped by my house (which was conveniently nearby) and grabbed some blankets. then we made a nice little spot on a concrete slab thingie where we could look out over taneycomo lake and the branson landing lights. they were so incredibly flourescent that they drowned out the stars... but don't fret, we looked for constellations in the lights. we even found a few. one looked a lot like a parking garage, and another was similar to a long road that went on for miles and miles and miles...
we sat and talked for a while, until the cows looked like they were ready to come home, at which point he took me to my home. we didn't actually fit it all into the evening, and it was about 2:30 by the time i got home, but that's what the night's for, eh?

thus concludes the best first date a girl could ever ask for!


here's one more freeby to give you a glimpse of the entertaining personality that is nick fried. one of his specialties is blowing air out of his mouth really fast like a horse and taking a picture in the middle... it ends up looking so very cool! (and by that i mean not cool) it kind of reminds me of the horrendous faces i had captured in that one yearbook where i look like a troll... i'll have to find them and scan them in to do a compare/contrast. this is one of the more mild versions of a series that we could call 'skills in retarded face shots'

he was even doing it as a youngster...


so there you have it. the extended version of our first date. i hope it's been almost as enjoyable for you to read as it was for me to experience. i'll try to keep things a little more brief in the future, to balance out this enormously long post :-)

give yourself a thumbs-up if you made it all the way through.

first date!!

so nick & i are going on our first official date tonight!! we've been 'dating' for a week and a half now, but we haven't had a real live official date yet. can you call it dating if you haven't gone on a date?
hmm.
i think so. we have been :-)
the word of the day a few days ago was 'suitor' and i now call him that.
i.e. 'hello nick my suitor!' or he might say, 'this is your suitor, nick calling,' on voice messages...
cheesy, you say? well, maybe a little, but cheesy is so totally in these days.
cheesy is the new cool.

anyways, just wanted to let you all in on that news as i'm pretty excited about it! i don't know where we're going -- nick plotted up a plan. i wanted to be surprised -- it's more fun that way.
i'll be sure to give you the update on monday :-)

have a great weekend!

peace out brothahs.
(see? cool)

the further adventures of my small group

i realize there's only so much you can say about a small group, but this group of people has really become so much more than a small group to me. i'm just going to keep posting about them and saying how much i love them, okay? okay.
they're really my favorite people ever. and i mean EVER!!
and how cute is that djimbe player?! (djembe? jimbay??)
that's nick, leah, nate & sandy.


angie, emily, jim & erica


rob, cal, maren & sean


we're glowing! i love the orangey glowy action...


our fearless musical leaders


this is so fun -- that picture on my fridge in the background has been there for 5 years or more, inspiring countless people to drink their daily dose of calcium... at some point we realized that rob looks very similar to our friendly milk encourager. uncannily so, in fact, so we had him pose to see HOW similar...
and the picture don't lie!
rob's a little less cheeky, but other than that, this could have been his grandpa, who's to say?

All art is an attempt to manifest the face of God in life.

Cecil Collins

friendliness

this post is in honor of my friend casey who has the sweetest tenderest heart and warmest hugs...
we spent a cold drizzly sunday afternoon cuddled on the couch under an afghan and i was encouraged by her honesty and vulnerability. i've noticed that when two people are discouraged together and talk about it, that can be the most encouraging thing, even if there's no grand resolution of the discouragement.
love you casey!

ole mexico

this is the door i went through every one of my school days in mexico -- doesn't it look ghetto?! it didn't used to be quite so adorned.
a friend had these recent shots of our old binimea school and they're so nostalgic to look at. especially now that the school is in a brand-new building with a fence and yard...
strange.



this used to be a nice little 'grassy' plot -- it's now harsh concrete! what's going on?!


here's the church across the street.
isn't it amazing how images can hold such history? this mural is an integral part of the weave of my memories -- just because it was there every day -- sort of the backdrop to my life.


why didn't we realize how dorky we looked?! thankfully i'm hidden behind someone... where's waldo? see if you can find me...

so i'm back at school after the most glorious 2 days off EVER!
here are a list of things that happened:

1. had a house-cleaning marathon -- 4 1/2 hours of nitty gritty goodness
2. jumped in the nearest lake on the coldest night of the season with nine other people
3. e-mailed people i haven't gotten around to e-mailing for too long
4. had some good q.t. (that's quality time) with angie
5. had 2 home-cooked dinners that i didn't have to home-cook
6. had a couple conversations with nick that resulted in the phrase 'we're now seeing each other'!!
7. smiled so much my cheeks are now sore

all in all, i'm a very happy girl.

here's the polar bear club after having thawed out a wee bit...

in the back is derek, nick & rob
in the front is valerie, katie anne, erica & me, ben, tim (in the front) and zach. we took that temperature thingie to see how cold it was. we were prepared.


erica was a little tiffed at the pictures watching the neighborhood church fire -- she really is a lovely girl! i just like posting pictures that make you wonder...
:-)
jumping in the taneycomo lake will forever go down in my mind as the single most fun thing i've participated in! i don't think i've ever felt more alive and real and physical before. granted it was a bit cold, but it woke up my senses in the most amazing way... words can't really encapsulate the sensations that went along with jumping into water that made the 8 degree air feel warm. nick pulled me out so i didn't freeze into a lump and sink to the bottom. then we all went over to rob's house and thawed out around the wood furnace and ate pumpkin pie and talked and laughed for hours. it's probably my most favorite memory of all time.

i haven't said a whole lot about nick on here because he reads this, but now that we've defined the relationship, i can just say i really like that guy!
he's a good one.
i'm in a list mood so here's another list.

things i like about nick:
1. he makes me laugh really hard
2. he's completely himself 100% of the time
3. he's aware of people and looks for ways to serve them
4. he's a questioner
5. he likes to eat what i bake
6. he wants to go slow and build a solid foundation in our relationship
7. he has curly hair

okay i'll stop, but just for your sake...
i'll keep you posted on the rest. :-)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

last class of the day was just blissfully interrupted by the joyful intercom message that school is being cancelled for the next two days!!
there's nothing like an unexpected surprise to boost up the old morale.
we aren't supposed to have snow or ice, but the temperature is going to be in the single digits and i guess they don't want the kids catching their death of pneumonia out at the bus stops.

i intend to do a whole lot of couching. anything that can be done in the warm cozy cocoon of my couch will be done with much gusto.

oh, here's some pictures i took of the burned out church from across the street. it looks so sad up close!




the front half still looks semi-intact in a mid-construction sort of way. it remains to be seen if they'll resurrect the back half...

ice storm

this weekend, a little north of us was hit by the worst ice storm they've had in decades! many places have no power, trees have fallen over, there's just general chaos.

luckily, branson was only touched with an onslaught of rain and coldness, but not quite enough for the cold to turn the rain to ice. mostly enough to be very very dreary.
friday we went up to springfield for a movie (stranger than fiction -- so good!) and were amazed at the beauty of the ice on the trees...

it was dark so you can't see the amazingly glittery ice on the branches behind us... i tell you what though, it was amazing.


is it always true that the most beautiful things can be the most destructive?
or, as a friend and i were discussing yesterday, that the most painful times in life result in the closest dependence on the lord?
if i were an insightful writer, i would probably expound on that thought for a while...
i'm more of an internal analyzer though, so i'm just going to leave it there, stare at it, mull it over a bit.

quote for the day

"There is no event so common-place but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognise him or not... because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace."

Frederick Buechner

i love my small group

top row: dave, nate, sandy, maren, rob, leah, erica, casey
bottom: nick, me, sean & angie


angie & i


maren, erica, jennifer & casey


we had some really great discussions about compassion (being willing to involve yourself emotionally in a situation) and comfort (god helping us out). mostly i just love people sharing where they're at right now and where god is with them in it all. there really is something powerful about testimony.


now we just need to combine the good shots of each person from the group pictures to make one great group picture!
it's funny how there's always someone who looks less than good, no matter how many times you try :-)

follow up book report

so as to not leave you hanging in tense suspense, here's the follow up opinions on the bronte sisters... you might recall that i loved charlotte bronte's 'villette' immensely and was anticipating 'jane eyre' since that's the more famous one anyways...

well turns out, someone somewhere has it wrong -- 'villette' should be the famous one. 'jane eyre' lacks the hypnotic verbal descriptiveness that i so enjoyed in 'villette', the deluge of words that flow over you, carrying you along to this alternate reality the author creates...
'jane eyre' has similar characters and story line techniques, but the writing wasn't on the same level as 'villette', in my humble opinion.

and 'wuthering heights' is crazy! i've only made it through 10 chapters or so, and doubt that i'll finish it. it's so intensely dramatically emotional in a way that makes you think, 'why are they getting all worked up?'
i'll try to trudge through just so i can say that i've read it, but it might take me a while.

sunshine

it was so beautiful outside yesterday that a group of folk played some ultimate frisbee to celebrate...
my friend amy and i were the cheerleaders. i absolutely hate ultimate frisbee (refer to 9/11/06 for more...) but it was definitely fun to soak up some sun!

fire!! again!!!

but this time it wasn't my house, praise the lord.
although it was right purt' near it...
to give a little context for our neighborhood, pull up a little imaginary map in your head and put my house in the middle, then put right in front of it some storage units, and in front of that, a pub, and beside that a junk yard, and to my house's right, a trailer park.
not the greatest as far as location goes.
but we had a ray of sunshine -- some people were building a church right on the corner across from my house. i had visions of them getting the horrendous litter issues resolved, evangelizing the druggies in the trailer parks, and turning the pub into a bowling alley...
alas, someone else (insert here: druggies and alcoholics) must have had that same vision, and didn't like it too much so they set the church on fire!
(granted, this is all speculation...)

saturday morning, bright and early, the church is one huge roaring bonfire. erica, maren and i sat on one of our cars and enjoyed watching the firefighters scurrying about, doing their business.
i have two firefighter brothers, so it was fun to see in action what they do all the time!
here's some of the visuals:

the view from my front porch (blurry, but the only one i took to show how close my house was to the church)



watching the show...



this guy was poised and ready for spraying action, but never was needed. poor feller.

as i snapped shots of the excitement, i kept thinking how proud my dad would be of me, documenting the event as it unfolded :-)

anchored

last night i was doing some journaling, and it was one of those times when the lord speaks through his word right to my heart.

i brought my journal to work to share it.

i wrote:
i'm so tired, all around, but mostly tired of giving all of my energies to people and activities that i'm not as invested in as the ratio of amount of time spent warrants. i spend 7-10 hours a day pouring out to these punk kids who don't care a bit, and who i won't see again in a couple of years anyway. i want to devote my time and energy and caring into something lasting and solid, something i can count on. something i can trust to stick around.
i want to be building my life around something that is immoveable and dependable.
i want a home and a life around my home. i long for permanence, safety. i feel like i'm pouring my life down the drain, wasting myself.

father god, you are solid. you are dependable, trustworthy, permanent, safe. i want my life to not only be rooted in you but also to reflect your character by being a life of solidity. is it supposed to be enough to just be built around your safety? should i be okay with this wastefulness, this lack of firmness, as long as i'm centered on you? am i not supposed to count on people for the long haul and that's the point i'm supposed to be learning here?
if so, i have to say i'm not satisfied with that.
i want a home.

psalm 4
answer me when i call to you, o my righteous god. give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer. how long, o men, will you turn my glory into shame?

my glory is my femininity, my nurturing heart and caring tendency. my longing for a family to love and breathe life into. i feel its frustration turns it into my shame.

how long will you love delusions and seek false gods?
know that the lord has set apart the godly for himself; the lord will hear when i call to him.
in your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. offer right sacrifices and trust in the lord.

my discontent turns into anger.
i offer you my desires, father. i trust that you know what is beneficial for me.

many are asking, 'who can show us any good?' let the light of your face shine upon us, o lord.

so many people want to point out the good points of being single, the freedom and carefree nature of not being tied down. the problem is, i want tied down. so much freedom in relationships makes me feel like i'll blow away. i don't feel anchored.
the light of your face, the goodness of you, father, anchor me.

you have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. i will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, o lord, make me dwell in safety.


and then i did lie down and sleep in peace and safety.

isn't that amazing that a random choice of the psalm for the day should be so perfect for my heart?

he is a good god.