peter callesen

this guy's amazing! i was absorbed in his website for way too long... i can't even imagine the kind of time and detailed work that must go into each and every single thing he makes.

go be amazed with me.

psalm 27

i am still confident of this:
i will see the goodness of the lord
in the land of the living
wait for the lord
be strong & take heart and wait for the lord

through having this written on my hand today and thinking about it from time to time, i had a new thought. when i've read this psalm before, 'the goodness of the lord' has always been my focus along with waiting and being strong. but today the phrase 'the land of the living' kept coming back to me as an encouragement to be looking for the lord's goodness in this land of living people i'm surrounded by all day long. i want to be looking in these students that don't seem to have much goodness in them of any kind, and to be waiting and hoping in the lord that he is working his goodness in them. as in so many other instances, i tend to decide how i should be seeing the lord and when i don't see him that way i conclude he's not there. but what a good thought to just be strong and wait for his working, confident that he is in fact, working. he is here, even in these halls with the boys trying to get girls to flash them, even in my high-strung student whose clay project broke sending her into a nervous breakdown, even in my thoughts that are bored with saying the same thing 5 billion times...

be strong and take heart and wait for the lord.

he is good in this land of the living.

experimental hairdos, part. 3

i'm trying to move out of the swiss miss look, which i do enjoy immensely, but which might set me up for stereotypation. i really like this effort, although gravity is slowly pulling it down as we speak... it will probably be reinvented throughout the day. but for now, i like it. plastic clippy notwithstanding, it reminds me a little of ginger rogers or one of those gauzy-dressed dancers that would be swirling around fred astaire. gotta love those gauzy dresses.

joshua bell in the metro

this article is long, but it really reminds you to pay attention to the beauty in your day. it might not be that you stumble across a concert violinist, but there's beauty and art in the most mundane of things.

psalm 24

who is this king of glory?
the lord strong and mighty
the lord, mighty in battle
lift up your heads, o you gates
lift them up, you ancient doors
that the king of glory may come in
who is he, this king of glory?
the lord almighty, he is the king of glory.

this elusive contentment
is thin, light, fragile
i'm holding it tight
grasping with a furrowed brow
i'm afraid it's not real

sometimes repeating the feel of it
over & over & over
like a rhythm
like a prayer
makes it more true, solid & weighty

i can be convinced
i can hold it with both hands
i can turn my face from anything else, anything dark & low
the dark is just as real
but now it's the thing getting thinner
lighter, more fragile

as i hold on to this substantial joy

a date with casey

so the great event casey and i went to on friday night was a ballet! it was the first time either of us had been to a ballet and we had so much fun! it was a great date, all around. and of course, we made sure to photographically document each of the phases of the date.

allow me to take you on the tour.

we started the evening with maria's for dinner. it was just a couple of blocks away from the theater and had some of the most uniquely delicious mexican food EVER. i've never tasted its like, and that's saying something, being the mexican expert that i am!

we then proceeded to the landers theater to see romeo & juliet. (the ballet poster's behind us there...)

it was a small theater with all the fun ornate decor that makes a theater truly a theater. we were on the first row of the balcony and it was the most perfect of all seats.


it was so indescribably fun to sit there in anticipation when the curtain rose and the dancers starting doing their thing... romeo was a little awkward with his hands -- he wasn't my favorite to watch until the sword fighting scene -- then he was brilliant! he really did an amazing job conveying the rage and passion. that was almost my favorite part. not because of the action, but because of how well they all communicated through their dancing. juliet was a beautifully graceful dancer, and pretty tall for a ballerina.

we could see the dancers more clearly than my silly camera shows...


sadly, they both had to die in the end.

to console ourselves, casey and i had some custard. nick wanted me to have sugar since he had some animal crackers the other day and was feeling guilty about it. it was really hard to give in, but i went ahead and did it for his sake, you know.


casey was the perfect person to share this with. i just love that girl.

attractive attractions

i stumbled upon some of the most convincing reasons to come visit the area! springfield, missouri is the proud host of the springfield national cemetery which is the only cemetery in the u.s. where the dead on both sides of the American Civil War are buried side by side. the dead of the north and south, however, are separated by a low stone wall.

not only that, but it's home to all these famous people:

Brad Pitt, actor
Don Johnson, actor
John Goodman, actor
Bob Barker, TV game show host
Payne Stewart, professional golfer
Timothy Mcveigh, bomber and antigovernment conspirator

are you convinced yet?!
i know i am. i think i'll go tonight.

commenting and conversing

i have a little wondering to share.

i completely love when ya'll comment, and always want to respond, like we're having a fun conversation, y'know? but i've been a bit confused about how that should happen... some people respond in their own comment box, but what if one of you comments and then never goes back and reads a response? or other people go to commenter A's page and respond to blogger A in their comment box, which then leaves a completely unrelated little subject for people to scratch their heads over ('what they heck are they goin' on about?' they might say as they scratch their heads...)

in case you're of the variety that doesn't go back into comment boxes you've already frequented, well just know that i did, in fact, respond to all of your lovely comments from my last post in my comment box.
i wonder if there's some way for comments to show up over on the side, like a chat room dialogue or something. hmm...

whoa, now i'm really tired of the word 'comment'.

hey, guess what?! i bought local honey yesterday and am so super jazzed about it! this sugar fast is much easier than i expected because of how delicious i'm finding honey and how empowering it is to think that i'm avoiding a harmful processed substance and might live a week or two longer in the end!! hurray! thanks for the tips, ashley.

tonight my good buddy casey and i are going to a the funnest, coolest event ever that i can't elaborate on because it's a surprise for her but i will be sure to take a gazillion pictures of and blog about on monday. (... and the run-on sentence nominee of the year goes to...) so get psyched about that with me, would you?

thanks.

i like you guys.

thoughts

lately i've been thinking about what i've been thinking about.
it's kind of like looking at yourself in a mirror and there's a mirror behind you where you can see yourself looking in the mirror...
but kind of not, since there's really no point to the infinite number of mirror-looking-selves, whereas reflecting on thoughts has a definite point. i've spent the last few days feeling perpetually full in my mind. kind of like i just ate a lot of food, and it never digests. i just keep eating and eating, it keeps getting replenished. my brain has yet to stop thinking thoughts constantly, and when there seems to be a lull, i find something else i could be thinking about or doing which then occupies the mind with problem-solving thoughts...
i feel like i'm out of breath, but in a meaningless sort of way, not really accomplishing anything significant. i can keep coming up with things to make while my students work on their projects, i can keep planning what project they should work on next, i can keep replaying my last conversation with nick, i can keep reminding myself of the things i need to remember... but i feel a little empty in it all. like i'm mindlessly eating but not because i'm hungry.

what i'm working around to is the idea that i want to be thinking thoughts about the lord, i want my heart to be drawn to his goodness and mercy and plans and promises. during my first year of teaching, i used to write out verses on little scraps of paper and carry them around with me and read them over and over again. not really with the goal of memorizing them, but just to make them become a part of the fiber of my understanding of who god is and subsequently to be changed by that understanding -- my actions to be molded and reshaped into his, my passions to be rearranged. i don't know at what point i stopped doing that, but it was a good practice. maybe i'll take it back up.

my favorite verse that i remember from that phase was from psalm 43:

send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. then will i go to the altar of god, to god, my joy and my delight.

i love every part of that verse.

this is just a detention-duty-driven ramble on what happens to be going through my thoughts recently. no real point, except to encourage myself to be turning my thoughts more to the lord and less to mindless fullness. and maybe encourage you in that same pursuit if it happens to relate.

and can i just say i am absolutely sick of the phrase, 'are you kidding me?!' (insert attitudey teenager look of utter disdain) i've heard that from about 7 kids today and i'm about to smack them all.

see, i really do need to start carrying those slips of verse around again. i'm very unchrist-like.

newsflash

there's been some breaking news in my life of the epic variety. it's going to reshape my self-perception, my habits, my inner dialogue...
it's going to change the very core of me.

i don't like ice cream anymore.

for those of you who didn't hear ominous music in the background upon reading that sentence, let me just assure you that this is a very big deal.
my entire life has been an ode to ice cream, every day has been an effort to fit it into my schedule, every meal has been defined by the presence or absence of it. i'm not quite sure what to do with myself.

this revelation has been slow in coming over the last week or so, but it's definitely definite. i've gradually enjoyed the consumption thereof less and less, wondering why i continue eating it when i'm not really reveling in it as i usually do. but continue i do, purely out of loyalty to myself and my professed love.
but yesterday i just decided, you know, if i'm not liking it, it's just time to say i don't like it.

so there it is for the world.
if you need some time to process this and figure out how to relate to the new me, i'm okay with giving you that time.

considering this new development, it seemed apropos to go ahead and just skip sweets altogether. nick and i made a pact to go sugarless for the next month. he did it for lent, and lost 15 pounds mysteriously! (well, not so mysteriously, really...)
given the fact that i can usually tell an immediate reaction in my physical body when eating sweets (such as headaches, dizziness, etc.) it can't hurt to go without for a while.


i'm going to rediscover fruit. that's my goal for the month. maybe try out ones that i normally avoid...
we'll see how it goes. i'm not very disciplined. nick is. i think it will be a good pact-hood.

sunday

yesterday was a fun day for picture-taking. the high emotions of the weekend needed some mellowing out with a lovely walk. i honestly don't know when i've enjoyed myself more. i discovered the most enjoyable sensations in the whole world: walking into the sun with your eyes closed where all you see is a red blur and all you hear is the breezy birds chirping around you and all you smell is crisp new nature...

i also discovered that it's very entertaining to photograph your own shadow...


as my gallivanting carried me around my neighborhood, i found my favorite of all nostalgic things -- a propane tank! my grandparents have one in their backyard, and i used to love climbing up on that thing and sitting there forever, daydreaming away with the cold seeping through my jeans... erica said she has the very same nostalgic memories of HER grandparents propane tank in their backyard! i wonder how many people have the same nostalgic memories as each other. i guess that's just not something i've ever really compared notes with people about...

this is the star under which nick and i spent part of our first date... it's set into a concrete flat slab thing, and we sat there and looked over the town and talked. i was reminded of how thankful i am for nick fried in my life.

then when i got home, emily, maren & casey had brought chinese over for supper and we had so much fun trying to find the perfect timer picture pose. there are some shots that were deemed less than appropriate for blogging purposes... i won't show you those :-)

it was quite the process...
we started out with general all-around awkwardness (and emily looking like she's having a seizure...)

then we moved on to casey's neck getting swallowed by her bosom, me wondering who they'd attack next, emily trying out the zoolander's 'blue steel' specialty, and maren just wanting to look pretty... (also notice the giant hand-holding ball...)

of course we then tried out the excited faces, which are always my favorite (even though it looks like casey's getting ready to chomp a corn on the cob... the excited look is very dependent on the raised eyebrows, or so i've learned...)

but then we finished things off in honor of maren, all trying our hardest to look as pretty as we possibly could.

and just because this is already the longest post in the history of posts, here's a couple more:

up close with the giant hand ball... rather strange looking, i admit.

emily & maren...

and maren in the 'nerd' glasses, although she secretly thought she looked hot...


alright already, i'll stop with the pictures.
it's just so fun! i'm on detention duty this week. what else is a body to do during a solid hour of silence surrounded by sullen delinquints?! i ask you.

get ready for the week of the long posts!

friday

being a junior sponsor has it's certain obligations -- decorating for prom being one of them. saturday was blue eye's prom, so friday night was a fun time all around, making the 'vegas lounge' look prom-worthy. it was already a cool place with mirrored cielings, walls, and pillars, but for some reason having a prom means there has to be an abundance of gossamer draping, twisting, wrapping and covering every available surface. i'm reconciled to this fact from the last few years. having lori as a ladder buddy makes a seemingly needless job cross over to funland. we've done everything on ladders together for this school -- medieval dinner theater, proms, hanging giant shields...
it was time to photographically commemorate our partnership.
here's to my ladder buddy lori. she's my principal's wife and she laughs at everything i say. not hard to figure out why i like her.

i don't know where these came from, but giant silver men holding shell poles always spruce up a prom! the girls weren't too keen on the shell poles and were covering them with, you guessed it -- gossamer. after they were done i readjusted the gossamer to drape a little lower and cover their 'sensitive areas' which i find a bit more gossamer-needy than the shell poles. the poles gave them a dignified manly sort of look. like they'd just returned from spearing their own shell for dinner or something.

not only do the gold railings need a healthy dose of gossamer, but there's nothing funner than turning yourself into a gossamer hero a la zorro!

since my only option for a date to prom would have been silver shell-spearing man, i decided to skip this year.

the beginning of a better era

well, this weekend has been the most emotional of my life. god has definitely shown me more of his good character through nick this last weekend. after having a really good, honest conversation, we've decided to work through things together and head back in the direction of dating. i can't tell you how happy i am to be able to say that. having a week or two of not being together was so very hard, but so good for both of us. we've come to realize several different truths about ourselves and about each other through the process. we're going to take some time to ease back into it while thinking through what it can look like to be responding to each other in love with the other person's good as the main priority. that's an easy sentence to write, but as for what it means in real life... i don't know that we'll ever get it quite right! i'm willing to try anyway.
there's one for sure thing -- being apart has definitely shown me how deeply i care about nick. for a couple of days there it felt like i'd lost my best friend. i'm so grateful for him and how he's shown me so much grace through it all.

ambitious travelers

here's something funny for those of you pining away for a little french vacation... here's how you can get there!

1-Go to Google.com
2-Click on Maps.
3-Click on get Directions.
4-From New York, New York to Paris, France.
5-Read line # 23.

it's pretty simple, really.

(this is from someone's blog who found it on someone else'se blog... would hate to not give credit where credit is due...)

here's me, sandy & nate (who are getting married tomorrow!! he looks a little shell-shocked here...), dave & nick, then erica, maren, angie & katie ann, the hangers-on after the easter dinner extravaganza. there were seven other friends that came, but didn't happen to be there at the photo taking time.
i was a bit skeptical of such robust hospitality -- mostly because of the amount of work involved. but maren & erica were all gung-ho and they organized most of the planning, preparing, and cleaning. i had nothing to fret over.
i just got to enjoy all the fun friends!

the homestead has rearranged again -- i think i mentioned that drea moved out... well, is moving out, i should say. who would know how much stuff a single person could have?! all week long i've been rummaging around the house, finding more things that belong to her and stockpiling them on the table and kitchen island. it's becoming quite the formidable collection. if i don't do it, it won't get done though, and there's just something about unused stuff cluttering up space that makes me a little crazy.
anyhow, so here's the new 'family picture' :-)
it will probably just be us three for a while. maren's decided to rent the other basement room so as to have a bit more space, and it'll be nice to just have the two of us in the house.

the end of an era

i'm rather picture-less these days. sorry 'bout that. my current life just isn't being photographed, evidently... i'll have to remedy that situation here soon.

for all you devoted followers, just wanted to fill you in on a sadness, but a goodness at the same time. nick and i decided to stop dating. 'breaking up' sounds so damaging, and it really isn't -- we aren't broken, cracked or otherwise in disrepair. i would actually say i'm more whole than before we started dating. in just these three short months i have learned more about myself and grown in so many different ways than in any other three month timespan, that i can recall.
it was just very evident that the lord was moving us in the direction of friendship. nick's such an amazing guy -- my life has been enriched by him. i'm excited to see how god will continue to show more of his good character through nick.

this might be the end of a fun era (can you call three months an era? i choose to think so...) but at the same time, it's definitely the beginning of a new one that just might be even more fun, who knows? if you think about it, you might pray for us that we would be sensitive to the lord's directing in what this new era can look like, practically speaking. thanks. :-)

quiz: art or crap?

in keeping with my personal artistic bent, here's a quiz to make you feel like you're me for a brief few seconds...

easter break in review

hidy ho there good neighbors!

this break was so wonderful!! it got me pining after summer days. granted, the weather was less than wonderful, but the gigantic chunks of the day i spent sleeping & reading (and i do mean gigantic... i've never felt more rested up!), the kitchen cupboards i cleaned & organized (good clean fun, people), the quality fellowship at church, the huge dinner (all 15 of us in my tiny house -- erica & maren were excited)...

it was a little weekend of heaven.

and now, just 6 more weeks of school until it actually is those summer days!!

but then i suppose i'll be shifting into nanny mode, so it's not really going to be all lazy dazy...
a change is always nice though. and it's only part time. the other part of the time will be spent tiling the kitchen, bathroom, office, laundry room & basement hallway.
rather lofty goals for sure, but it's fun to shoot high, eh?
and fun it will be! i can't wait. suddenly 6 weeks seems too long...

breaking news for the day:

i have a crick in my levator scapulae. (i didn't know that muscle name 2 minutes ago, but it sure is catchy...) it's little things like necks that go unappreciated until there's some little crick that comes along and puts everything into perspective.

turns out, there's no movement that occurs without the say-so of the neck. it's a pretty involved part of the body -- and it doesn't even get its own delegation. it's not an appendage, it's not a limb, it's not a part of the trunk... it's sort of like central america. north and south americas don't claim it, but without it, you'd have to take a boat.

so in honor of necks across the world, i recognize you and say, 'thank you for the work you do.'

this weekend some folks and i went to this fellow here's concert. his name's charlie hall and the concert was so really good! he's a worship leader but not your typical praise music -- his music is very unique.
there's no way to describe it. there are some of his songs on his website but seeing him in person made me appreciate his music more than i ever did from his cds. he has a way of leading you into worship through the spoken word that i really liked. between his songs he would speak truths and thoughts and words that would direct your mind upward and into the person of jesus christ.

all throughout the concert i was impressed in a very real way with the living life of jesus in contrast with our state of death and need. it was like an idea of aliveness that had physical form and grew bigger and bigger.

wrapped up in that was the idea of how utterly other god is -- that's so reassuring somehow, that he is so much like us while so very unlike us at the same time. all the things i look for in him are based on things i look for in my father or boyfriend or friend, but he is above those things. and he is truly all i need.