This is my husband as the "groom" and myself in a chicken suit as "the best man". Does it get any more twisted?
Thursday, August 31, 2006
chicken?
This is my husband as the "groom" and myself in a chicken suit as "the best man". Does it get any more twisted?
book
I am currently re-reading the first book in the Mark of the Lion series called A Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers.
So good.
She is so descriptive and honest with her characters; in how they feel, what they do, what they think.
There is something about good, Christ-centred fiction that sweeps me away and causes me to think about who I am and (especially with this book) how I am being changed by God (or how I am hindering Him from changing me).
I heartily recommend it.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Treat Pick Of The Month
And this month's treat pick of the month is.....
Chocolate Covered Cranberries!
I've been enjoying some delightful dark chocolate covered cranberries (courtesy of the bulk section at my local Zehrs) but I'm sure that they are tasty when covered with milk chocolate.
With the weather changing (yes, autumn is coming...sorry to be the one to say it) cranberries just seem like the perfect choice for a season in-limbo.
And really....chocolate covered anything sounds like the perfect treat to me!
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
boo
Don't bother watching tv's newest reality sensation, "Celebrity Duets".I watched 1/3 of it before deciding that;
a) the celebrities aren't nearly talented enough - this would explain why they are actors/gymnasts/comedians instead of singers, and;
b) the judges aren't nearly mean enough, and;
c) Wayne Brady should be IN the competition, not hosting it.
And now many of you will look for it on tv and watch it just to see if I'm right.
Monday, August 28, 2006
babies
Last night (or rather early this morning) I had a somewhat disturbing dream.
I dreamt that I had a baby.
And in the dream that wasn't the disturbing part. In the past when I have dreamt that I was pregnant or had a child it was the most frightening dream - mostly I just felt ill-prepared or mad (for mainly selfish reasons like I couldn't hang out and do non-children stuff anymore).
This baby grew quite quickly and I think I was the most concerned that I wasn't going to be able to feed him properly. I couldn't quite figure out the whole breast feeding thing and was frustrated that he wanted to drink formula over natural breast milk.
There were other disturbing aspects to this dream which I won't elaborate...but it was strange and definitely got me thinking about parenting and all the wonderful and strange things that accompany having a child.
I did look into breastfeeding (the wonders of www.google.ca) and different styles of parenting (such as Babywise and Attachment Parenting)...it's all very interesting.
It will be interesting when I enter that phase of my life and figure out what's nice to read on the internet and what is actually practical and in the best interest of my child(ren).
I dreamt that I had a baby.
And in the dream that wasn't the disturbing part. In the past when I have dreamt that I was pregnant or had a child it was the most frightening dream - mostly I just felt ill-prepared or mad (for mainly selfish reasons like I couldn't hang out and do non-children stuff anymore).
This baby grew quite quickly and I think I was the most concerned that I wasn't going to be able to feed him properly. I couldn't quite figure out the whole breast feeding thing and was frustrated that he wanted to drink formula over natural breast milk.
There were other disturbing aspects to this dream which I won't elaborate...but it was strange and definitely got me thinking about parenting and all the wonderful and strange things that accompany having a child.
I did look into breastfeeding (the wonders of www.google.ca) and different styles of parenting (such as Babywise and Attachment Parenting)...it's all very interesting.
It will be interesting when I enter that phase of my life and figure out what's nice to read on the internet and what is actually practical and in the best interest of my child(ren).
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Jays
I haven't been to a Blue Jays game in...ok well, I have gone one other time this season but come on! There are over 100 games in a season - almost 200 I think.
However, I managed to win 4 free Blue Jays tickets to Monday's game against Oakland.
It was a great game. At one point we were winning 8-0. We were proud Jays fans. We cheered and clapped like trained monkeys and we had a grand old time.
And then Ted Lilly decided to let in 10 runs. And he dropped an F-bomb when he was pulled out of the game. Who does that?
And then the boo-birds came out.
Some other blog-worthy things happened during the length of the game.
Such as:
Kirsten giggling for pretty much the entire game at the thought of me as a snack girl. You know, the person that walks up and down the aisle yelling "Peanuts! Popcorn!" Or "Ice Cold Beer! Get your Ice Cold Beer!". It is a pretty funny thought, though. I think I'd like to be the slushy girl. Or ice cream girl.
The two teenage girls in front of us pretending to take pictures of their mom, but they were really taking pictures of Jamie and our friend John. It was pretty obvious, I thought but I just rolled my eyes and laughed. Oh Jamie...you've still got it. :)
The really big Diet Coke that Kirsten got. I thought it was funny but she did a good job of pacing herself.
Jamie waving like an maniac across the stadium to Tim who is blind (but not really) and couldn't see the tall, white guy waving like a blade of grass in a hurricane.
There are probably other things but I'm feeling quite tired and forgetful at this moment.
It was a good game and I'm glad I won those tickets. Hooray for free stuff!
However, I managed to win 4 free Blue Jays tickets to Monday's game against Oakland.
It was a great game. At one point we were winning 8-0. We were proud Jays fans. We cheered and clapped like trained monkeys and we had a grand old time.
And then Ted Lilly decided to let in 10 runs. And he dropped an F-bomb when he was pulled out of the game. Who does that?
And then the boo-birds came out.
Some other blog-worthy things happened during the length of the game.
Such as:
Kirsten giggling for pretty much the entire game at the thought of me as a snack girl. You know, the person that walks up and down the aisle yelling "Peanuts! Popcorn!" Or "Ice Cold Beer! Get your Ice Cold Beer!". It is a pretty funny thought, though. I think I'd like to be the slushy girl. Or ice cream girl.
The two teenage girls in front of us pretending to take pictures of their mom, but they were really taking pictures of Jamie and our friend John. It was pretty obvious, I thought but I just rolled my eyes and laughed. Oh Jamie...you've still got it. :)
The really big Diet Coke that Kirsten got. I thought it was funny but she did a good job of pacing herself.
Jamie waving like an maniac across the stadium to Tim who is blind (but not really) and couldn't see the tall, white guy waving like a blade of grass in a hurricane.
There are probably other things but I'm feeling quite tired and forgetful at this moment.
It was a good game and I'm glad I won those tickets. Hooray for free stuff!
Friday, August 18, 2006
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Purity
Wow. This is the best way I've ever heard someone explain why it's important to keep yourself pure (generally in reference to sexual purity) until you get married. I found this paragraph on Solo Femininity and I was blown away by how bang-on she was. (You can click on the link for the entire article). Basically the author (Carolyn McCulley) was responding to an email from a 39 yr-old woman who had kept herself pure but was starting to give up hope for a husband and didn't think she could hang on any longer.
Here is part of Carolyn's response:
The finish line is not the marriage altar, as good and right as marriage can be. The finish line is seeing your Lord and Savior face to face, in glory. Don't forget that when temptation comes around. You must remember that you are keeping yourself pure because it's your spiritual act of worship and praise (Romans 12:1-3)--not just because of the hope of a future husband. If you get married, your husband will no doubt praise you for your self-control and the gift of your purity to him. But your primary motivation must be to please your Savior, marriage or not.
Sometimes we forget that our primary reason for doing anything or pleasing anyone should be to please our Saviour. Any other reasons are secondary.
Thanks to Carolyn (also an older, single woman) for keeping things in perspective.
(Also check out this article she wrote about sinful judgement - I'm halfway through and it's enough to cause me to recommend it!)
Here is part of Carolyn's response:
The finish line is not the marriage altar, as good and right as marriage can be. The finish line is seeing your Lord and Savior face to face, in glory. Don't forget that when temptation comes around. You must remember that you are keeping yourself pure because it's your spiritual act of worship and praise (Romans 12:1-3)--not just because of the hope of a future husband. If you get married, your husband will no doubt praise you for your self-control and the gift of your purity to him. But your primary motivation must be to please your Savior, marriage or not.
Sometimes we forget that our primary reason for doing anything or pleasing anyone should be to please our Saviour. Any other reasons are secondary.
Thanks to Carolyn (also an older, single woman) for keeping things in perspective.
(Also check out this article she wrote about sinful judgement - I'm halfway through and it's enough to cause me to recommend it!)
Windsor
It's so great to spend time with good friends.
When I was younger and thought about one day when I was married and I would hang out with my married friends I definitely thought of myself being older - or at least feeling older.
It was so great to spend time with Regan and her husband (of one month!) Steve as well as our good friends Elisha and Mike who are back from the Dominican Republic for a month.
We visited Regan and Steve in Windsor and though it was a whirl-wind visit we managed to have a delicious picnic by the river, play frisbee, see Steve jump in the river to get the frisbee, see their house-in-process (a lot of renovations and fix-ups), see Talladega Nights, look at wedding pictures and just have some great conversations.
I had such a great time. I truly treasure these godly friends and feel so blessed to have each one of them in my life.
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
quotes
On the drive from South Carolina to Guelph, Jamie and I read a book by Mark Driscoll called Confessions of a Reformission Rev. Well, Jamie mostly drove. And I mostly read.
It was a great book full of witty and sarcastic remarks as well as deep insights on how he (Mark Driscoll) started a church of 40 people which is now a church of over 4000.
I've included some quotes because some of them made me laugh out loud and some of them made me stop and reflect.
Some quotes:
"The only way to have healthy community is to pursue God's mission of reaching lost people because community is an effect of mission, but not an effective mission."
Think about it. That one's a goodie.
"Leaders must frequently decide between offending Christ or a Christian, and Ghost-guided biblical conviction alone must determine the duties of church leaders. Otherwise, church leaders will waste their time washing dishes while their church sinks."
Another clever, yet oh-so-insightful comment.
"It is vital to name with brutal candor the people, programs, structures and ministry philosophies that are dogs needing to be shot. Be sure to make it count and shoot them only once so that they don't come back and bite you."
(the dogs he refers to are "the idiotic ideas, stinky styles, stupid systems, failed facilities, terrible technologies, loser leaders, and pathetic people". Don't ya just love people to give it to you straight?)
"Can you wield a sword and a trowel? In the days of Nehemiah, when the Israelites' mission was to rebuild the wall, Nehemiah had his people carry a trowel in one hand to build and a sword in the other to defend their work. As we build our churches in a culture no less hostile than that of Nehemiah, we too must learn how to both build a missional church and defend it from Satan, demons, and evildoers."
"The upstairs room at the fundamentalist church (where the first church he planted first met) was so hot that everyone was sweating like Mike Tyson in a spelling bee. During one service, a pregnant lady simply passed out and fell off her chair. This would not have been so traumatic if I were trying to plant one of those shake-and-bake, holy-roller churches where I smacked people on the nugget in Jesus' name so they could lie on the floor and twitch like a freshly caught trout on a dock and call it the work of the Holy Ghost."
Oh so classically brutal. I love it!
"Our rotating cast of worship leader tryouts ranged from screaming punk rockers - to this day, I have no idea why they were so dramatically depressed - to the kind of happy-clappy Christian praise musicians that you would expect to find playing on a karaoke machine at a Christian homeschool co-op reunion for kids whose moms made their clothes."
"In the end I realized that we labour with the exalted Christ, which gives us authority to proclaim the gospel of freedom. And we labour like the incarnated CHrist, which gives us humility and grace to creatively demonstrate and proclaim the love of Christ to fellow sinners in our culture."
"Jesus never sinned and, therefore, never repented, but because we sin, we must continually repent if we are to be faithful missionaries."
This one may be a bit long and slightly offensive to some but I think it rings of truth and irony so here goes:
"While visiting the various church services in proximity to our church, it struck me as curious that although all the congregations claimed to be Christian, they were clearly all on very different missions. One church was particularily confusing. They promoted homosexuality but made me take off my ball cap upon entering the church. It may seem odd that a male greeter who had likely had sex with a man before church chastised me for wearing a hat in church because I was disrespecting God.
The woman of this church, wearing a very nice, flowing, cutting-edge-of-1536 robe, talked about rainbows for twenty minutes while sixty or so very old people who were former classmates of Noah and eyewitnesses to the covenant rainbow sat scattered among one thousand seats or so and napped in Jesus' name. Between her sermonette, the written literature I picked up that told me how to bequeath my estate to the church when I die, and looking around the room at the equivalent of a Viagara before-photo of lifeless geriatrics, I truly could not discern why that church existed.
Down the street, another woman pastor and her gay male associate pastor with a lovely rainbow on his elegantly sassy robe both spoke passionately about the need to get rid of our nuclear weapons. Their message did not connect with me because I did not have any nuclear weapons. So I left early."
"I am intense biblical literalist who believes that the man is the head of the home, that the man should provide for his family, that children are a blessing, and that we would not have so many deceived feminists running around if men were better husbands and fathers because the natural reaction of godly women to godly men is trust and respect. For some, this theological instruction was as popular as a fart in an elevator, and they left our church."
"Many Christians wrongly think that hospitality is the welcoming of fellow Christians into their home and church for friendship. But that is fellowship. Hospitality is when Christians welcome strangers especially non-Christians, into their homes, lives and church."
Ok, so this was a mother-long post, but it was a good book - very challenging - and I would recommend it.
It was a great book full of witty and sarcastic remarks as well as deep insights on how he (Mark Driscoll) started a church of 40 people which is now a church of over 4000.
I've included some quotes because some of them made me laugh out loud and some of them made me stop and reflect.
Some quotes:
"The only way to have healthy community is to pursue God's mission of reaching lost people because community is an effect of mission, but not an effective mission."
Think about it. That one's a goodie.
"Leaders must frequently decide between offending Christ or a Christian, and Ghost-guided biblical conviction alone must determine the duties of church leaders. Otherwise, church leaders will waste their time washing dishes while their church sinks."
Another clever, yet oh-so-insightful comment.
"It is vital to name with brutal candor the people, programs, structures and ministry philosophies that are dogs needing to be shot. Be sure to make it count and shoot them only once so that they don't come back and bite you."
(the dogs he refers to are "the idiotic ideas, stinky styles, stupid systems, failed facilities, terrible technologies, loser leaders, and pathetic people". Don't ya just love people to give it to you straight?)
"Can you wield a sword and a trowel? In the days of Nehemiah, when the Israelites' mission was to rebuild the wall, Nehemiah had his people carry a trowel in one hand to build and a sword in the other to defend their work. As we build our churches in a culture no less hostile than that of Nehemiah, we too must learn how to both build a missional church and defend it from Satan, demons, and evildoers."
"The upstairs room at the fundamentalist church (where the first church he planted first met) was so hot that everyone was sweating like Mike Tyson in a spelling bee. During one service, a pregnant lady simply passed out and fell off her chair. This would not have been so traumatic if I were trying to plant one of those shake-and-bake, holy-roller churches where I smacked people on the nugget in Jesus' name so they could lie on the floor and twitch like a freshly caught trout on a dock and call it the work of the Holy Ghost."
Oh so classically brutal. I love it!
"Our rotating cast of worship leader tryouts ranged from screaming punk rockers - to this day, I have no idea why they were so dramatically depressed - to the kind of happy-clappy Christian praise musicians that you would expect to find playing on a karaoke machine at a Christian homeschool co-op reunion for kids whose moms made their clothes."
"In the end I realized that we labour with the exalted Christ, which gives us authority to proclaim the gospel of freedom. And we labour like the incarnated CHrist, which gives us humility and grace to creatively demonstrate and proclaim the love of Christ to fellow sinners in our culture."
"Jesus never sinned and, therefore, never repented, but because we sin, we must continually repent if we are to be faithful missionaries."
This one may be a bit long and slightly offensive to some but I think it rings of truth and irony so here goes:
"While visiting the various church services in proximity to our church, it struck me as curious that although all the congregations claimed to be Christian, they were clearly all on very different missions. One church was particularily confusing. They promoted homosexuality but made me take off my ball cap upon entering the church. It may seem odd that a male greeter who had likely had sex with a man before church chastised me for wearing a hat in church because I was disrespecting God.
The woman of this church, wearing a very nice, flowing, cutting-edge-of-1536 robe, talked about rainbows for twenty minutes while sixty or so very old people who were former classmates of Noah and eyewitnesses to the covenant rainbow sat scattered among one thousand seats or so and napped in Jesus' name. Between her sermonette, the written literature I picked up that told me how to bequeath my estate to the church when I die, and looking around the room at the equivalent of a Viagara before-photo of lifeless geriatrics, I truly could not discern why that church existed.
Down the street, another woman pastor and her gay male associate pastor with a lovely rainbow on his elegantly sassy robe both spoke passionately about the need to get rid of our nuclear weapons. Their message did not connect with me because I did not have any nuclear weapons. So I left early."
"I am intense biblical literalist who believes that the man is the head of the home, that the man should provide for his family, that children are a blessing, and that we would not have so many deceived feminists running around if men were better husbands and fathers because the natural reaction of godly women to godly men is trust and respect. For some, this theological instruction was as popular as a fart in an elevator, and they left our church."
"Many Christians wrongly think that hospitality is the welcoming of fellow Christians into their home and church for friendship. But that is fellowship. Hospitality is when Christians welcome strangers especially non-Christians, into their homes, lives and church."
Ok, so this was a mother-long post, but it was a good book - very challenging - and I would recommend it.
Monday, August 7, 2006
home
Home.
It's a good feeling to be home.
I wish I had blogged a long time ago - now there's too much to write and I'm uncertain as to where I should begin...or if I should begin at all.
I feel perfectly content right now.
I just spent 2.5 days camping up north with some friends.
It was great.
I didn't shower at all and felt extremely grimy.
I am clean now.
It feels delicious.
Most of all I feel overwhelmed. I didn't realize how many blogs I check and interact with until I stopped checking for 2 months and now I'm all behind on people's summer adventures, lessons, poetic rhymings and rantings.
But it's ok.
Because I'm on a vacation and I can check blogs for 3 hours if I want to.
It wouldn't be a good use of my time, but if I wanted to, I could.
And for a summary of the past 1.5 months:
After 4 weeks in Florida and 2 weeks in Whistler I feel - well...I guess I feel extremely built up. And peopled out.
I discovered that 5 minutes into the camping trip.
I feel ready for some alone time, quiet time, running time, sleep-in time.
In these next two weeks I want to let myself be pulled back like a sling shot. Pulled further and further until the tension is so tight.
I want to spring forward out of the gates into Frosh week and September and Summit and evangelism and discipleship and relationships and laughter and excitement and prayer and pouring out.
It's good to be home.
Good night.
It's a good feeling to be home.
I wish I had blogged a long time ago - now there's too much to write and I'm uncertain as to where I should begin...or if I should begin at all.
I feel perfectly content right now.
I just spent 2.5 days camping up north with some friends.
It was great.
I didn't shower at all and felt extremely grimy.
I am clean now.
It feels delicious.
Most of all I feel overwhelmed. I didn't realize how many blogs I check and interact with until I stopped checking for 2 months and now I'm all behind on people's summer adventures, lessons, poetic rhymings and rantings.
But it's ok.
Because I'm on a vacation and I can check blogs for 3 hours if I want to.
It wouldn't be a good use of my time, but if I wanted to, I could.
And for a summary of the past 1.5 months:
After 4 weeks in Florida and 2 weeks in Whistler I feel - well...I guess I feel extremely built up. And peopled out.
I discovered that 5 minutes into the camping trip.
I feel ready for some alone time, quiet time, running time, sleep-in time.
In these next two weeks I want to let myself be pulled back like a sling shot. Pulled further and further until the tension is so tight.
I want to spring forward out of the gates into Frosh week and September and Summit and evangelism and discipleship and relationships and laughter and excitement and prayer and pouring out.
It's good to be home.
Good night.
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