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my nieces informed me at 7:15am today, standing on my front step with cupcakes and party gear, that i both look like a monkey and smell like one also. good thing they're cute.

celebrating the big 2-7. four syllables sounds so much older than three. good thing i get to go back to three next year.

various celebrations include:
*dinner with my in-laws on wednesday - quite fun. i'd never noticed before, but we laugh a lot when we're with them. i sure enjoy it when my father-in-law joins in.
*coffee with a friend who has her birthday the day before mine - the closest i have to a "birthday buddy".
*aforementioned surprise from marisa & the girls, which included a scrapbook from each featuring pictures of us together, many really awesome drawings of their memories, and an exhaustive list of the reasons why they love me.
*dinner with my family.
*late-night dessert with my girlfriends.
*dinner with m&l tonight.
*something yet to be announced with matt... no idea what he's planning.

i do like stretching this birthday thing out over the course of several days.

2009 in review

(since review posts are just about all i do regularly, we might as well recap 2009.)

jan: bought a house - our offer for which was accepted on my birthday of all days! celebrated my 26th birthday. proceeded to pack up life as we knew it.
feb: dedicated our house undercover, then got our keys a day late, but just barely. spent a week working harder than i've ever worked, and moved in on valentine's day.
mar: prepared for the church's move to the new campus, not the least of which included painting, unpacking, setting up and decorating all of the kids wing rooms. matt got laid off again.
apr: held our first outreach event at the new campus, an easter egg hunt, and celebrated our first sunday morning there on easter sunday. so glad to be "home". katey & rt were married at teh end of the month.
may: worked our butt off on the house. preached for the first time, with Don. took a quick trip to the lakehouse.
jun: celebrated matt's 25th birthday. had a housewarming party!
jul: another quick trip to the lakehouse. went camping with marisa & the girls. preached again, with Don.
aug: celebrated 5 years of marriage! moved in my inherited piano. went to summer camp too. matt got a part time job, which allowed him to work and supplement with his side business.
sep: preached for the first time on my own. matt went to copper island. started E3, our intense spiritual growth journey at church.
oct: creekside hosted it's first comedy club night. so much work; so much fun.
nov: celebrated thanksgiving with dad. got my first traffic ticket.
dec: gave an awesome pyrotechnic (sorta) kids message at christmas eve services. celebrated christmas with all the families; rang in the new year with friend.

happy new year!

december in review...

• crafted like crazy. barely finished it all in time for the holiday.
  
• wasn't quite as prepared for christmas as last year. oh well, not every year can be a real winner.
  
• met mark driscoll from mars hill. cool guy. i've always admired his teaching. we don't see eye-to-eye on everything, but that's not what matters.
  
• blew up a bottle of soda in kids church. that makes for the best teaching ever.
  
• went to the ladies ornament exchange at church. quite fun.
  
• dabbled in mystery shopping. still not sure if i'll keep doing it or not... but was a good learning experience.
  
• cut about 4" of my hair off.
  
• continued working through E3, creekside's spiritual growth initiative. am learning a lot about God and myself.
  
• went to court to discuss a little traffic ticket i received. thank the Lord for deferrals, and the judge who struck fear of traffic laws right back into the hearts of every citizen in that room.
  
• celebrated the birth of my dear friends' first baby. they're single-handedly responsible for starting the "let's buy a house" trend which caught on with all the young marrieds' at our church, so let's hope they're the start of the next baby wave as well.
  
• spoke to the kids at the christmas eve services on the difference between joy and happiness, using flash paper and a candle as a visual. was fun, but the real highlight was that my mom, grandparents and even bob's mom came too.
  
• reorganized my craft room. yay.
  
• changed up our christmas celebration traditions - christmas eve dinner was at mom's, and we spent the night, our first christmas, in our own home.
  
• am currently thoroughly enjoying a week's vacation. have deep cleaned a few rooms, organized a few things, crafted quite alot, and read even more.
  
• am ensconced in a book called "the light and the glory", the history of God's plan for and hand in America. i love history, i love God. good combo.
  
• celebrated mom's birthday today by going to see the new penguin exhibit at the zoo, which included brunch before and afternoon tea afterwards. what a lovely day!
  
• rang in the new year with our dear friends. waaay past my bedtime. i'm afraid i'm just not any fun after 11pm.
  

eat your pyromaniacal heart out...

christmas eve. big room full of people. kids message about joy versus happiness. and permission to light fires on stage. (ok, it was flash paper... and i didn't exactly ask permission... but still!)

as ready as i'll ever be...

*just barely putting finishing touches on christmas gifts.
*still scrambling a bit to cross off that handful of very difficult recipients.
*not altogether ready for my part of the christmas eve services at church.
*not sure when i'll find time next week to do my traditional and required baking.
*trying to stave off the holiday treats. only semi-successful. which is suppose isn't success at all.
*feeling like i need a few more stocking stuffers for matt, but have no ideas whatsoever.
*at least the house is decorated... please overlook the single strand of lights along our gutters, which is 4 feet too short, and off-center. and the fall squashes that are still on my doorstep. next year will be a hair more elaborate. promise.

november in review

• went to the zoo with allie. loved the penguins. and the flamingos.
  
• took pictures with marisa and the girls at the edmonds waterfront.
  
• trained a new volunteer in the office, which allows me to focus more on kids ministry. hooray!
  
• worked santa's little sweatshop like crazy. 1/2 of our christmas presents are finished!
  
• broke and fixed our dishwasher. nothing like a week of handwashing to make you truly thankful for that oft'-taken-for-granted appliance.
  
• made homemade yogurt for the first time.
  
• went to the edmonds treelighting.
  
• traveled to my dad's to celebrate thanksgiving.
  
• unearthed the christmas decorations - the last of our "moving boxes", and put up our christmas tree.
  

thankful for...

tonight:

• my dishwasher is broken, so matt helped me wash dishes today. bless his heart.
  
• then he took me out to dinner, so someone else could wash our dinner dishes.
  
• my washing machine works and is humming away on a load of laundry. handwashing clothes would be much more arduous than handwashing dishes.
  
• the house is quiet.
  

this week:

• i managed to stuff four days of work into two days, because wednesday is a holiday for us. so, it's basically friday. (you followed that, right?)
  
• a volunteer at the church who feels called to give a phenomenal amount of time in the office each week, freeing me up to focus on other ministry stuff.
  

overall:

• my boss is pretty awesome. good coach and mentor. wise guy. constantly challenging me. willing to invest the time in building into me much of the skill-set i missed when i skipped traditional schooling.
  
• having our own home. still getting used to the idea that we actually figured out how to buy a house.
  
• matt has steady work. not a lot, but always enough.
  
• making changes in my diet - the kinds of foods we eat. experimenting. feeling the difference little by little. looking forward to more results.
  
• ministry work is thriving, because the church is thriving. loving being a part of seeing so many lives changed.
  
• a good friend growing closer.
  
• a new friend growing closer too.
  
• my dad has chosen total dependance on Christ. this is the thing i am most thankful for this year.
  
• our needs are always covered, even when money should be tight.
  
• God is very, very good.
  

this is worth posting on the internet...

matt is the captain of a whirlyball team.

oh, you don't know what whirlyball is? well, imagine a basketball-like game using a lacrosse-like wicket and a wiffle ball. oh yeah - and you're driving in a go-cart. yeah, you heard me. like this:



the fascination started when we celebrated michael's birthday. then the guys decided they needed to start a couple of teams and join a league. yep, there are leagues.



in case you can't tell, matt's team is "cereal killers" and michael's is "bad donkeys".



i threatened to bedazzle their team shirts, but they wouldn't let me. so i made matt his very own logo. this whole fascination is kinda geeky, but very cute.

sabbath, part 2

still working, slowly and thoughtfully, through dan allender's "sabbath". today, reading about how our sabbath is a very small picture of the life to come when we enter eternity with Jesus, allender writes:

"The Sabbath gives us the opportunity to stand before the endless outpouring of superabundance and fill up our thimble of faith with a drop of the bounty ahead."

and in the same stream of thought, he writes of a friend who had recently passed:

"She is home; I am not. She is glorified; I am far, far from it. I can only cry; she is laughing, dancing, wildly free, and beaming with the roaring wet glory that has enveloped her being. I need music. She is music. She sings to Jesus, and he is dancing with her in his arms. The party has begun.

"Sabbath raises a small thimble to glory and says 'Thank you, thank you.' Grattitude is our only response to what pours out on our behalf. We have tasted his love for us amid the heartache of this world, then we can let him sing to us as we sing him as the only song that can fill us."

sabbath, part 1

a recent observation that i don't know how to "sabbath" has brought me to the book by the same name, by dan allender, president and founder of mars hill graduate school. allender's book is not so much a "how-to" but musings on the meaning and act of sabbath. he's poignant, deep and defines sabbath with beautiful words i've never considered before.

"Instead, we must ask, what beauty will you explore and get lost in during this day of celebration? What beauty will open your eyes to the questions God wants you to ponder in order to increase your awe and gratitude?

The Sabbath is the day to experiment with beauty that teases your hunger to know more glory. It is a day of study and silence on one Sabbath, a cutting out of a new kite pattern to fly on a wild breezy Sabbath another... What intrigues, amazes, tickles your fancy, delights your senses, and casts you into an entirely new and unlimited world is the raw material of Sabbath." (pg 46-47)

and then, on the role of time:

"Sabbath demands that we look at time from a different perspective than a linear, sequential, progressive process. The most commonly held view of time in the Western world was developed by Augustine. In his highly subjective view of time, the present doesn't exist - there is only the past and future. The past is entered by memory and is spent, gone and mostly regretted. The future cannot be known or remembered, therefore its uncertainty causes us worry. Time, for Augustine, is not a matter of joy; it is wearisome and hard." (pg 56-57)

awesomeness so far. i'm trying to take a little at a time so i can mull over the ideas. thanks for your insights,