megan and kenneth: (hours later) devastated. or concerned.
array of homemade goodies!
(mine is the perfectly symmetrical fruit pizza)
I just love allison and chelsea.
one of many model shots of our evening... with allison and kim
July 31, 2008
she was lipstick and luxury, chaste as a pearl...
megan and kenneth: elated!!!
megan and kenneth: (hours later) devastated. or concerned.
array of homemade goodies!
(mine is the perfectly symmetrical fruit pizza)
I just love allison and chelsea.
one of many model shots of our evening... with allison and kim
megan and kenneth: (hours later) devastated. or concerned.
array of homemade goodies!
(mine is the perfectly symmetrical fruit pizza)
I just love allison and chelsea.
one of many model shots of our evening... with allison and kim
July 27, 2008
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!
just a happy birthday shout out to the one and only Tracy!
whenever I feel sad, I look at this picture, and it cheers me right up. may it serve the same purpose in all of your lives.
happy birthday mommy :)
whenever I feel sad, I look at this picture, and it cheers me right up. may it serve the same purpose in all of your lives.
happy birthday mommy :)
but all I ever wanted help with was you
I've decided to share with you my summer playlist.
the soundtrack, if you will, to my ever-so-glamorous life.
1. Many the Miles - Sara Bareilles
2. Tables and Chairs - Andrew Bird
(+ the rest of "The Mysterious Production of Eggs")
3. Hoppipolla - Sigur Ros
4. Nothing But the Best - Frank Sinatra
5. Railway - Dispatch
6. Unsingable Name - Mike Doughty
7. Another Sunny Day - Belle and Sebastian
8. The Offer - Katie Herzig
9. Be Here Now - Ray LaMontagne
10. P.D.A (We Just Don't Care) - John Legend
11. Viva la Vida - Coldplay (+ the whole new cd)
12. Myriad Harbour - The New Pornographers
(once you get past the name, they're really good.)
13. PIcture to Burn - Taylor Swift (can't help myself)
14. My Doorbell - The White Stripes
15. In the Ayer - Flo Rida
16. A Man / Me / Then Jim - Rilo Kiley
17. Sing to the King - Passion Worship
18. Nothing (Without You) - Derek Webb
19. The Crane Wife 3 - The Decemberists
20. Just Like the Movies - Regina Spektor
so, it is potentially a little funny that I just made my own top-20 list as though any of you care what's on repeat on my Ipod. regardless, I'm going to go ahead and push "publish post" anyway. so there.
the soundtrack, if you will, to my ever-so-glamorous life.
1. Many the Miles - Sara Bareilles
2. Tables and Chairs - Andrew Bird
(+ the rest of "The Mysterious Production of Eggs")
3. Hoppipolla - Sigur Ros
4. Nothing But the Best - Frank Sinatra
5. Railway - Dispatch
6. Unsingable Name - Mike Doughty
7. Another Sunny Day - Belle and Sebastian
8. The Offer - Katie Herzig
9. Be Here Now - Ray LaMontagne
10. P.D.A (We Just Don't Care) - John Legend
11. Viva la Vida - Coldplay (+ the whole new cd)
12. Myriad Harbour - The New Pornographers
(once you get past the name, they're really good.)
13. PIcture to Burn - Taylor Swift (can't help myself)
14. My Doorbell - The White Stripes
15. In the Ayer - Flo Rida
16. A Man / Me / Then Jim - Rilo Kiley
17. Sing to the King - Passion Worship
18. Nothing (Without You) - Derek Webb
19. The Crane Wife 3 - The Decemberists
20. Just Like the Movies - Regina Spektor
so, it is potentially a little funny that I just made my own top-20 list as though any of you care what's on repeat on my Ipod. regardless, I'm going to go ahead and push "publish post" anyway. so there.
I've been thinkin about my doorbell, when ya gonna ring it? when ya gonna ring it?
went to visit thomas in the mountains! it was WAY fun. it is seriously the greatest thing ever that I live 1.5 hours from a weekend getaway in the Rockies! what a fabulous thing about my life. in moments like that short and beautiful drive, I wonder why I would ever want to move away from this state, ever. but then there are about 36,000 reasons to move to kansas too, most of them being people I love. so lucky for me, I don't have to decide right now. ha!
anyway. allison and I left around 5:30 friday night and were at crooked creek around 7:45, after checking into the Rocky Mountain Inn & Hostel. handy thing number two about this mini-vacay: hostels. cheap cheap. love it. anyway - we got to Crooked Creek and I just was practically in love with it immediately! we met up with thommy, then allison and I stayed for Club and Jonah Werner's concert. (Fun fact: Jonah, the CCR camp singer, was also my camp singer when I was on work crew at Trail West many moons ago. so so fun!)
Allison and I slept at our hostel friday night... woke up saturday morning when the two other inhabitants of our hostel dorm room woke up (not much choice there, they were, well, not considerate) and had a nice leisurely delicious breakfast at Sharky's... this really great little dive in Fraser. We went to camp, hung out for a few hours, watched the Broken Heart play, watched Thomas do his jobs (guarding lives), and visited with some fun Wichita folks too. I was having serious flashbacks to when I was at camp as a gawky, awkward 15 year old... we LOVED the summer staff boys. COLLEGE BOYS! we thought they were so cute and such a big deal... and we would stand around on the last couple days trying to work up the guts to get pictures with them. So I get there, and I'm not kidding, within 5 minutes, this gaggle of girls comes lurking up and is like, "um, Thomas, HEY! um, could we like, get a picture with you?" and that is when I realized that Thomas, my dorky little brother, is that summer staff heartthrob!!!!! I nearly died. It was incredible. Some things (15 year old girls, anyway) never change I guess.
happy happy sunday!!!
July 22, 2008
fruition: N: the point at which a plan is realized
hello pumpkins - as per usual, it has been a while. I have never been good at keeping things up... things like journals, blogs... checking my email and responding to them... you know, general communication kind of things. It is probably safe to say that I am a pretty big time slacker. But what else is new. Lets see... what do I have to share...
Life at this moment is pretty much consumed by TH 501: A Survey of Christian Doctrine. Someone today compared this class to trying to drink from a fire hose... I mean, a survey of THEOLOGY in 2 WEEKS? 4.5 hours a day... is a lot of theology. Especially for those of us (ahem, ME) who have, well, never spent more than 2-3 minutes thinking about theology without getting a big time headache. I do, however, have a big fat crush on the professor. He is brilliant. His vocabulary has me constantly baffled - I keep Dictionary.com open just to get through class with any semblance of a clue as to what's going on. Lovely.
The class itself is really challenging. Our first assignment was to look at the statement of faith for our churches - and I was embarrassed at the thought that it had never occurred to me to even glance at this before! Or, for that matter, ever! At any church I have attended! Based on denomination I can ascertain what some beliefs might be, but goodness! You would think that the basic theology and belief system of a church would be, I don't know, a deciding factor?? And so this leads me to the discovery that much of my personal theology is pretty skewed and fairly naive. Great, right? I'm not being challenged to any kind of detrimental point, but challenged I certainly am. Even core things I thought to be true (under what basis, though, I'm not sure) contradict one another to the extent that if taken far enough, one completely negates the other. AHH! That is a little window into my brain activity this past week and 2 days... this class is so fabulously rich and thick in material I want to know - but I'll be darned if I'm not getting a good butt-whooping in the process.
OH, in glorious news, I have pretty much completed my summer of wedding-attending. Praise God. I love a good wedding, I really do, but many more and I might just lose it completely. I can only travel so many times, buy so many dresses, and be surrounded by other people's love for so long (I kid, I kid) before I just start to, well, yes, lose it. I do have one wedding in September (Robert and Meredith, in Boulder) and one in November (Ruthie Ramseyer's in Wichita!), but those are well enough spaced out that I feel like I can deal. Glorious! Jess and Brock's wedding was wonderful in Wichita - Jess looked like a princess (according to Haven Yothers) and Brock was clearly so excited and happy and I couldn't want anything more for my cousin and friend! It is so hard to believe that little Jessi is married... the days of the metallic wigs and playing house are over, I suppose. I think that is the hardest thing about watching these women I love get married... such a sad reminder that our childhoods are long-gone and our friendships (as I know them) have to change. It is, though, such a gift to see each and every one of them (Jessi, Cally, Em, Jessica, Katy, Lainey, soon to be Emily too!) ... the list goes on) having found such wonderful spouses... the kind who we talked about, dreamed about, pretended existed in the form of bed posts... haha. Goodness... this is potentially the sappiest thing I have ever written on this blog! But, I feel as though I have let the cynic in me run rampant this summer (defense mechanism, perhaps?) with all these weddings, and it was time for a little sappy to get in there too. Plus, its my blog playas, and I do what I want!
Lets see what else is notable or worth sharing...
I am REALLY looking forward to reading "The Shack" when I am done with this class...
AND seeing the new BATMAN movie... yes, its true. I love Christian Bale.
I went to Cheyenne, Wyoming on Saturday. I have officially been to the state of Wyoming! We went for Cheyenne Frontier Days... the world's second largest outdoor rodeo, plus Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts in concert.
I am going to Crooked Creek Ranch this weekend (friday and sat) to see Thomas, who is on Summer Staff there, and to generally revel in the Young Life environment for just a little bit. I am seriously, so excited about this. Just to be on a camp property sounds like exactly what I want right now. I so appreciate those camps - and I am clearly biased - but even though it is not the camp I went to, the ambiance is the same... wonderful. Ahh. It was the first place where I understood that GOD wanted a personal relationship with ME; that I allowed Him into my life after a year of my leaders laying the groundwork. I recently got the chance to have coffee in Wichita with my YL leader from high school, Suzanne, who now lives in Germany (talk about good timing!) AND to see Jen Bruening, one of my leaders from the first time I went to camp, both of whom I love so dearly I could barely put it into words if I tried! I think I have just recently been struck by their impact on my young life... and I'm so thankful they took the time to invest in me. What a great, great blessing. My apologies for the random Young Life plug... but I love it. I unabashedly proclaim that I flipping LOVE that organization. Ha.
Ok. Well. This has been long, and well, slightly pointless. I remember in freshman english we had to do "free writes" which was basically like stream-of-consciousness writing... this was a bit like a flashback to that. So, it is what it is - and there it is. Or something.
I guess I should also say that I feel so blessed and so fortunate to be getting to grapple with the things I am (in theology, namely) - and while sometimes I'd like to play my "big baby" card, I really do feel that gratitude most of the time. I feel like I am constantly being shown the reason for things being the way they are... or glimpses into pieces of God's work in my life over my 23 years. Yes, some things I am figuring out a little late... but better late than never, I suppose. Sometimes, I'm dealing with something, and some random tidbit that some counselor or youth leader said to me will pop into my head. Seriously. And when I originally heard it, it may as well have been in Lithuanian. But somehow, now, it is illumined for me. As Alix Floyd would say... everything really is coming full circle, isn't it? Something like that.
Life at this moment is pretty much consumed by TH 501: A Survey of Christian Doctrine. Someone today compared this class to trying to drink from a fire hose... I mean, a survey of THEOLOGY in 2 WEEKS? 4.5 hours a day... is a lot of theology. Especially for those of us (ahem, ME) who have, well, never spent more than 2-3 minutes thinking about theology without getting a big time headache. I do, however, have a big fat crush on the professor. He is brilliant. His vocabulary has me constantly baffled - I keep Dictionary.com open just to get through class with any semblance of a clue as to what's going on. Lovely.
The class itself is really challenging. Our first assignment was to look at the statement of faith for our churches - and I was embarrassed at the thought that it had never occurred to me to even glance at this before! Or, for that matter, ever! At any church I have attended! Based on denomination I can ascertain what some beliefs might be, but goodness! You would think that the basic theology and belief system of a church would be, I don't know, a deciding factor?? And so this leads me to the discovery that much of my personal theology is pretty skewed and fairly naive. Great, right? I'm not being challenged to any kind of detrimental point, but challenged I certainly am. Even core things I thought to be true (under what basis, though, I'm not sure) contradict one another to the extent that if taken far enough, one completely negates the other. AHH! That is a little window into my brain activity this past week and 2 days... this class is so fabulously rich and thick in material I want to know - but I'll be darned if I'm not getting a good butt-whooping in the process.
OH, in glorious news, I have pretty much completed my summer of wedding-attending. Praise God. I love a good wedding, I really do, but many more and I might just lose it completely. I can only travel so many times, buy so many dresses, and be surrounded by other people's love for so long (I kid, I kid) before I just start to, well, yes, lose it. I do have one wedding in September (Robert and Meredith, in Boulder) and one in November (Ruthie Ramseyer's in Wichita!), but those are well enough spaced out that I feel like I can deal. Glorious! Jess and Brock's wedding was wonderful in Wichita - Jess looked like a princess (according to Haven Yothers) and Brock was clearly so excited and happy and I couldn't want anything more for my cousin and friend! It is so hard to believe that little Jessi is married... the days of the metallic wigs and playing house are over, I suppose. I think that is the hardest thing about watching these women I love get married... such a sad reminder that our childhoods are long-gone and our friendships (as I know them) have to change. It is, though, such a gift to see each and every one of them (Jessi, Cally, Em, Jessica, Katy, Lainey, soon to be Emily too!) ... the list goes on) having found such wonderful spouses... the kind who we talked about, dreamed about, pretended existed in the form of bed posts... haha. Goodness... this is potentially the sappiest thing I have ever written on this blog! But, I feel as though I have let the cynic in me run rampant this summer (defense mechanism, perhaps?) with all these weddings, and it was time for a little sappy to get in there too. Plus, its my blog playas, and I do what I want!
Lets see what else is notable or worth sharing...
I am REALLY looking forward to reading "The Shack" when I am done with this class...
AND seeing the new BATMAN movie... yes, its true. I love Christian Bale.
I went to Cheyenne, Wyoming on Saturday. I have officially been to the state of Wyoming! We went for Cheyenne Frontier Days... the world's second largest outdoor rodeo, plus Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts in concert.
I am going to Crooked Creek Ranch this weekend (friday and sat) to see Thomas, who is on Summer Staff there, and to generally revel in the Young Life environment for just a little bit. I am seriously, so excited about this. Just to be on a camp property sounds like exactly what I want right now. I so appreciate those camps - and I am clearly biased - but even though it is not the camp I went to, the ambiance is the same... wonderful. Ahh. It was the first place where I understood that GOD wanted a personal relationship with ME; that I allowed Him into my life after a year of my leaders laying the groundwork. I recently got the chance to have coffee in Wichita with my YL leader from high school, Suzanne, who now lives in Germany (talk about good timing!) AND to see Jen Bruening, one of my leaders from the first time I went to camp, both of whom I love so dearly I could barely put it into words if I tried! I think I have just recently been struck by their impact on my young life... and I'm so thankful they took the time to invest in me. What a great, great blessing. My apologies for the random Young Life plug... but I love it. I unabashedly proclaim that I flipping LOVE that organization. Ha.
Ok. Well. This has been long, and well, slightly pointless. I remember in freshman english we had to do "free writes" which was basically like stream-of-consciousness writing... this was a bit like a flashback to that. So, it is what it is - and there it is. Or something.
I guess I should also say that I feel so blessed and so fortunate to be getting to grapple with the things I am (in theology, namely) - and while sometimes I'd like to play my "big baby" card, I really do feel that gratitude most of the time. I feel like I am constantly being shown the reason for things being the way they are... or glimpses into pieces of God's work in my life over my 23 years. Yes, some things I am figuring out a little late... but better late than never, I suppose. Sometimes, I'm dealing with something, and some random tidbit that some counselor or youth leader said to me will pop into my head. Seriously. And when I originally heard it, it may as well have been in Lithuanian. But somehow, now, it is illumined for me. As Alix Floyd would say... everything really is coming full circle, isn't it? Something like that.
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