Breathe

Sometimes, as of late, I need to remind myself to breathe.
Inhale.
Exhale slowly.
Inhale again.
Ahh, that feels good :)

I've been working a lot these past few weeks and am out of the house pretty much all day. I can't even remember the last time I just chilled in my house. It's interesting, since I used to be such a homebody. I think it could just be the summer schedule, so things may settle down a bit after this weekend, once people are back from vacations and kids are in school again. We'll see.

Tonight is the first night in a long time that I haven't had to work, babysit, or whatever else all night. So I am home, working on unpacking my room some more. I moved into a bigger bedroom across the hall a few weeks ago and I am still living out of boxes some. (shows you how much I am here) I'm excited to put on some music and organize my desk!

I'll take some pictures of my house and room and post them as soon as I am all unpacked. Oh, and I still have graduation pictures and others to put up, too. I may just have to make a new online photo album...

Off to organize while listening to Carole King :)

House of Lights

Theology Fellowship was really fun last night, as is the case most Thursday nights. Our entire meal consisted of Trader Joe's yumminess :) And since we're discussing prayer at the moment, we did a manuscript study on one of the Paul's prayers to the Ephesians, found in Eph 3:16-19. I hadn't done a manuscript study in quite awhile, so it was really good to get back into that and we had many good conversations.

Afterwards, I looked up at the ceiling and asked John why there were so many hooks in the living room ceiling. He explained that when he lived in the house as a member of Bethany's Intentional Community, he and Kurt decided to have a House of Lights one night. They cleared out all the furniture on the main level of the house, brought in some small round tables and chairs, a stage and sound system, and had people manning the kitchen all night. And they also lit the entire first floor of the house with only candles and the fireplace, including hanging colored glass votives and candles from the ceiling, causing light to reflect off the ceiling and create colorful, dancing circles on the tables and floor. They served wine, gourmet appetizers and desserts, and people from Bethany read poetry, shared music, Scripture, etc. I guess John and Kurt actually held it twice while living in the house, but haven't had a chance to do it again since. Well, now that the house contains only offices in the basement and has no furniture on the first floor, we're planning on doing another House of Lights! Except, this time, John will have lots more help, since all of us in Theology Fellowship are really jazzed about the idea. We also talked about the idea of having the youth group offer their babysitting services in the Fellowship Hall so that the adults can just drop them off at the church and literally walk two houses down to spend the evening, and that way, all babysitters are taken care of and the youth group can make a little cash for various mission trips and such. Now the plan is to have a House of Lights sometime in late Nov or the beginning of December, which will be really fun with the holidays and such. I'm excited :)

Not much else going on. I've been working, housesitting, and babysitting, as well as been playing lots of Scrabble (I beat Emi by 164 last week!) and hanging out. It's been good.

Back from Cali

The roadtrip down to NorCal was a success!!
Sara and I left West Seattle around 5:20am and pulled into San Francisco/Walnut Creek traffic around 7pm, an hour earlier than expected! It may have had something to do with me driving 85 through all of Oregon :) Nothing too exciting happened on the trip: we didn't get lost at all, we only stopped a handful of times for either food, gas, or potty breaks (or all of the above), there wasn't TOO much construction on I-5, and traffic was only bad once we pulled into the Bay Area. We listened to lots of country music (and Charlie Brown Christmas about 11 hours into the drive), quizzed each other on the world's capitols (we both had Dr. Ediger two years ago and had to memorize all the capitols of all the countries in the world), and I taught Sara the state capitols while she recited the provinces of Canada. Yeah, we're geeks :) There were also lots of theological conversations (does God really test people? Do we actually have individual 'callings?') and discussions about certain guys, who will remain anonymous here. :)

Once we got to Walnut Creek, we ate dinner and Sara's mom drove me to Berkeley to spend the night at Karin and Jake's. I had to say farewell to Sara at this point, as she and her dad left for L.A. around 5am the next morning. Hanging out with Karin was a blast! I got to see her and Jake's apartment, their wedding pictures and video from last summer, and we had a good time catching up. Our visit was quick, yet it was so very good to see and catch up with such a dear friend. Hopefully we'll see one another around the holidays.

I flew out of Oakland Saturday afternoon. I got to navigate the BART - Bay Area Transit system - on my way to the airport - very cool. And I got into Seattle around 5:30pm, where I was greeted by Christin, who is finally home from E. Oregon - yay! She and I went to Alki and talked while watching the sunset.
All in all, I had a really great long weekend last week!

Here's one of my pictures from watching the sunset at Alki (more pics to come later):
(the mountains in the background are the Olympic Mts)

Procrastinating

Ok, so it's ten to 10pm PST, and I haven't packed yet for our roadtrip. I keep thinking "oh, I don't have to pack much - just a pair of capris, a few tank tops, pj's, Chacos, a good book, and my fracture boot." Seriously, that's all I'm taking with me to Cali. Unfortunatley, no swimming for me this trip; stupid ankle. Grrr.

Work was good tonight. I actually found myself wishing that I got commission, since I helped a family for over an hour and a half and sold them 1,200.00 worth of furniture and bedding! Sheesh! So I love working there, the people are nice, we do have nice stuff, but there are some things I can't justify spending that much money on. Ok, so investing in a good bed that can grow with your child could be a good investment. On the other hand, paying a lot of money for let's say, a onsie, is a little ridiculous. Hello people, have you not heard of Target?

I'm done ranting and procrastinating. Time to pack up my fracture boot and head to West Seattle to meet Sara and then head off for our roadtrip in 7 hours. So much for sleep!