Wordles are RED, and black and red and yellow...

Here's a link to this WORDLE. That way you can see it larger. This is a wordle of my post about Papa and Tyce.

**And here's one I made about Twilight because I am a dork...

NOTE: The links the wordle provides are crap. I have redone the links the more logical way and now you should be able to link to them. And all of my wordles in fact...

Beaches are not RED, but I still wish I were there again!

Got this picture from mom online a few minutes ago and thought I'd share since I don't think I shared any beach pictures back when I went. :)

Thanks, Blu for the hat!!

Groceries can be RED, and heavy, and bulky...

MY OVEN WORKS!! Well, actually, I am 100% positive that it does not... because they gave me a new one! Not a NEW one, but one that works and isn't actually as new as the last one. But hey, it heats up my food so I can eat it and for that, I thank God.

On a side note, one of my roommate's most common catch phrases when something goes right is "Thanks be to God!" Very fast. It cracks me up. I love it. So when she walks into the apartment tonight and I tell her "We got a new oven!!" She will declare, with her hand over her heart, "Thanks be to God" with a sigh of relief.

I was so excited about the oven that I made quiche AND cookie bread. I was also going to attempt twice baked spaghetti tonight from Whit (one of my favorites), but alas, there is not enough room in my little fridge for the leftovers. For once, I have too much to eat!

Thanks be to God. And God bless ovens. And pasta.

In other news, there is a major downside to living in the city: grocery shopping. There is a little local produce place about three blocks away which is all fine and dandy if you are picking up produce or the occasional expensive cheese, pasta, meat, etc. They have other things... just not a wide selection and at a greater cost to you. So alas, I don't shop there very much. I shop at Treasure Island which is just like Publix. They are all very helpful there and the selection is wonderful. Of course, they aren't cheap, either. They are better than the produce place.

So what sucks? That to do any reasonable amount of grocery shopping, I have to drive to Treasure Island for it is around... 8 blocks away. Or more. I'm not quite sure. Then of course, there is never parking in front of my place. Regardless, I park in the parking garage underneath campus. So I have to walk about a block anyway and then up three flights of stairs to bring the groceries in (four if you count the one I walk up to get out the parking garage).

I have GOT to find a better system for groceries.

Maybe it will be better once I actually have a stocked kitchen. I got chicken, mayo, lemon pepper, and craisins to make chicken salad. See? I remembered to get lemon pepper and mayo. Of course, I forgot the pickle relish and the lemon juice. And then I don't have traditional salt and pepper.

It goes on and on, trust me.

Just got the quiche out. It cooked for about an hour. Is that normal? Or was my quiche just very deep? I know nothing and it is so sad...

A Fine Frenzy is RED, she's a red head!

This song has been my obsession for a while now. Thought I'd share because it seems poignant to my ministry.

"Please? I know that we're different. But we were one cell in the sea in the beginning. What we're made of is all the same. Aren't we all not that different after all?"

That'd be the musical and lyrical genius of A Fine Frenzy. Check her (and the song, "Minnow and the Trout") out and let me know what you think. My friend Landry shared her with me after I enjoyed Starbucks Pick of the Day ("You Picked Me" which also has exceptional lyrics).

A Belated Post - My Goodbye Mix List

For those of you that missed out on the Goodbye CD when I left TN, I thought I'd list it out for you. This is, I guess, in case you wanted to track down any of the songs and listen to them on your own. My computer won't let me burn any more of that playlist, but I'd be happy to make you another mix... I love making mixes. :)

The Goodbye Mix - Summer 2008

(track title, artist, time)
1. Folkin' Around - Panic! At The Disco 1:58
2. Can't Get It Right Today - Joe Purdy 3:54
3. I Miss You - Blink-182 3:48
4. Keep The Car Running - Arcade Fire 3:29
5. Lately - David Gray 4:14
6. Goodbye George - Sandra McCracken 2:47
7. Hello, Goodbye - Beatles 3:27
8. Don't Kiss Me Goodbye - Ultra Orange & Emmanuelle 4:16
9. On Your Porch - The Format 5:12
10. Almost Lover - A Fine Frenzy 4:31
11. I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab For Cutie 3:11
12. Send Me on My Way - Rusted Root 4:25
13. Sticking With You - Addison Road 3:28
14. Will You Return? - The Avett Brothers 2:46
15. Lubbock or Leave It - Dixie Chicks 3:54
16. Carolina On My Mind - James Taylor 4:54
17. For Good - Idina Menzel/Kristin Chenoweth 5:10
18. Carol Ann - Michael W Smith - 3:35
19. Keepsake - State Radio 3:55
20. I Woke Up in A Car - Something Corporate 4:13

Internet is not RED, it is wireless goodness

And finally I taste the joy of having internet in my bedroom (and not across the street, 3 floors up in a scary computer lab). You can expect more frequent blogging from this time forward. And also because I now have school work 24/7 that I will be choosing to avoid as much as is humanly possible. What would you think of a pastor who slid by with C's and D's in seminary?? Kind of like the doctor who was the bottom of his class and is operating on your kid, eh? Right... guess I better go study some of those Greek vocab words, then, eh? So glad I took a semester of this stuff already in undergrad. Of course... we'll be breezing by all that intro Greek stuff at an alarming speed. So by the end of next week I'll be floundering. Lol. Wish me luck!

Rain is not RED, it is... clearish?

It is a rainy and drizzly day here in Chicago. I LOVE IT!

So my funny story is that I was fuddling with my umbrella at the front door of my apartment building... and I look up to see a pack of 20 guys, around my age, mostly topless, running in a large group down the middle of the street. IN THE RAIN.

Yeah.

I love Chicago.

I'm done with my first week of class. I have so much work to do but I feel so ready to do it. Of course, not at the moment because I am currently blogging... but you get the point. I have forgotten the last time my mind, heart, and soul were so stimulated all at the same time. How incredible it is to be here. I think it is partly the faculty and administration that make it the place it is... but also just being in the heart of a big city. Try to stay all safe in the classroom and ignore the world outside the seminary doors. Just try. It is impossible. I've seen people walk past the windows of the chapel during service. We cannot forget that God put us here for other people. We aren't a little theological bubble that builds itself up and up until we find ourselves feeling far above the world. Jesus called us to be losers and to walk with the weary and weep with the weeping. A girl did an amazing sermon about that today in chapel. How I wish I could simply record these things for all of you and share.

Well, you'll just have to visit me. ;)

Baby boys and grandpas are not RED, boys are traditionally BLUE!

That's my newest baby. That there sirs is the fabulous little 'tank' himself: Tyce Joseph.

Yessireebob, he is precious!

Was so nice to be at my surrogate home this weekend. Though I've found, it is funny the things that make me sentimental. I have been reflecting a lot lately on this new baby and my late grandfather.

I'll admit that I cried a little this weekend. I think it was a series of things, however that did it. It wasn't only driving away from my grandma's empty apartment. It wasn't only that she wasn't there. It wasn't only that she might never get to live in that apartment again. It wasn't even her friends out in the 'living room' asking after their dear friend. It wasn't even that she didn't have Papa there to support her.

See, I had made up my mind that I was going to find my grandparent's grocery store and get some 'Walnut' cheese (the place it is from is 'Walnut'... it isn't made with walnuts). And then I remembered that my mom loves their cake doughnut holes. So I figured I would stop in and grab those two things before heading back to Chicago.

I did stop by once I found it. Grabbed both items. Then it hit me. It was the weekend's stress, yes. But more than that, that particular grocery store was the location (I just accidently mistyped "love") of one of my last memories of my papa. I had just begun driving and he and agreed that I should drive us to the grocery store (and I must tell you, groceries were also important to him). He died later that year. He is also the "Joseph" that Tyce borrows his middle name from. So I am already very sentimental after having spent the weekend with family... with getting a new family addition... with seeing my grandma in a nursing home... with missing my papa... and then with having to do this all without my mother around. I cracked. I admit it. I wasn't sobbing or anything - I had to drive. But I was certainly again surrounded with the feeling or notion that family will always be HUGE in my life. Also, too, it is hard to be away from them. I mean away in all the varying senses of the word, too. I am here on my own (yes, with God).

Thankfully this melancholy did not last long. My old coffee shop manager called and we chatted for 25 minutes as I drove back to Chicago (eating my delicious walnut cheese, btw). So I guess I must continue to 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow.' I am so happy to have had Papa in my life, to have Grandma still, and to accept our newest bundle of love, Tyce Joseph. Thanks to my beautiful and wonderful family who makes each moment special in their own way with either words of encouragement, individual stories, memories, or sometimes, the quiet. I am truly blessed.

Labor Day is Red... and Blue and White!

p.s. Happy Labor Day!!


Okay. I'll go ahead and post the piece about home. Unedited. Let me know what you catch.

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On finding home - - 8-29-08

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have always struggled with the idea of home. Is it a place? A house that turns into a home in time? Perhaps it is meant to be some place that you are supposed to carry inside of you? Or perhaps it is another name for that mystical place above the clouds we think we go to when we die?

Though, to me, it seems cruel that we find home at some points in our lives and then not in others. More recently, I have begun to realize that home is entirely other and indescribable. In one of my favorite movies, Garden State, they are discussing the idea of home. Largeman says, “You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone. You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know... I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.” I can sympathize so much with that; home is an imaginary place.

Who hasn't been back to a house they once called home and found it void of that sentiment? The trees are different. The front door is a different color. But more than that. Different people live there. That's not your mother, father, sister, brother, or dog running around. That's not your home.

And for everyone at LSTC, we have not always considered this place our home. We have not always considered Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois, or the United States our home. But here we are.

As my best friend phrased it best when he wrote in his goodbye note to me, “Go make a home of all the hearts waiting for you in Chicago.” This is because we realized that home is not a building or a house or any real location you can put a push pin in on a big map. Home is the people around you.

That childhood house was home because you found family there. You played with your friends there. Your aunts and uncles came to visit you there. It was home because of the people in the house.

So in the past year, my best friend and I decided to make people our home. Not just anyone, of course. But people that get you. People that understand some small part of who you are as a human being. People that surround you and support you and celebrate you for all that you are and hope to be. People that notice the small changes in you whether you did or not. People that share their story with you and let you invest in who they are. People we find peace in.

So I guess all I have to really say is, I hope you find home here. I hope you find home in your community. I hope you find home when you go off into the world to start your ministry. And to steal the words of my best friend once again, “I hope you find home in all the hearts waiting for you.”

babies are not RED, unless there is something wrong

I just woke up after having some very vivid dreams. A mix of homes. A slew of new friends from Chicago were in the dream and we were playing some intricate card game where there were only two colors and you traded things and played in pairs... anyway. We started off in one apartment where two guys and a girl lived. And then when we went outside, we were in Chattanooga. Chicago friends... in Chattanooga. Very odd.

So this is Labor day and I am so thankful that at least some of the country has a break. I enjoy long weekends because that means I get to go visit family. It is still odd, of course, because I don't have my mother here. Maybe that's what is so odd about moving. You have certain pieces of your life that are familiar but then gaping holes in other places. Some of the STUFF is the same. Maybe even some of the PEOPLE are the same. But that's it. You go on with what you've got and make the unfamiliar the newly familiar.

I'll have to share with you the little piece about home that I wrote for the school journal thingy. I haven't submitted it yet. But I wrote it about the idea of home that we all have. So I guess that the theme is still on my heart. That and my cousins just got to bring their new baby boy home Saturday. And I cannot help but celebrate the fact that the baby does get to come home. My cousin gets to come home.

I have just been surrounded with stories about babies that stay in the hospital for weeks or months or who simply never get to come home. My friend L and I were talking about how we didn't fully realize the blessing that Abi is. She's healthy and happy. L was telling me about two babies she knew that were still sick in the hospital (one with brain damage). My Aunt was telling me about a little girl at her church that was born in January and has all kinds of heart trouble. And Songs From The High Chair linked me to a very sad blog about a baby boy names James who died last week after battling diabetes (and other things). I'm just so completely grateful that I get to be around these wonderful healthy babies that have been born this year. First beautiful Ila, then my cousin's little boy Declan, then my Abi girl, and finally sweet baby Tyce is here. Thank you God because they are all healthy.