Sparrow

I saw this picture of a little sparrow singing his heart out while around him a storm threatened to blow off his wing feathers. Right now I feel a bit of the storm. Life is somewhat unsettling, and it's only by remembering that spunky sparrow that I'm not discouraged. I'm thankful for a God who keeps our hearts calm if we ask and choose to sing the song He puts on our lips.
Anyway, I know this is cryptic. :) It's meant to be, a little. And meanwhile, I am enjoying the spring weather and the thought of only three more full weeks of school and the anticipation of a trip out of town this weekend! I love fresh starts, all kinds: newly sharpened pencils, a just-filled glass of water, the way a soft-serve ice cream cone has that little swirled tip at the top. So spring and a different routine and new places are great.
God just reminded me of those things, and now I have more to sing about. Isn't He good?

Hat Thief

Here's something amusing from school today:
N (to G, his "special friend"): You've taken my hat like thirty times today!
G: No I haven't! Only five.
J: Well, five times six is thirty!
C: Where'd you get six?!
(My thoughts exactly, as I tried to pretend that my giggles came from the work I was reading.)
J (mumbling, looking confused): I don't know. (His face clears.) She stole it six times yesterday, I think.
Truly, my students' logic astounds me. :)

The Library

The Anderson library inspires me. When I lack creativity or feel like a sole-less shoe after a long day of teaching, a walk through the doors of the library is a breath of fresh air. I think it's the knowledge of all the knowledge inside. Redundant. But for a recovering sick-ee, it's about all I've got. Which is why I'm returning to the library. Tonight. Plus, two overdue books are putting pressure on my spleen.

My Favorite Picture

Updates

Downstairs, Mitch relaxes in dreamland. Upstairs, I sit in the "spare" bedroom full of junk and sunshine.

Time for an update. At the very least, I'll have this to look back on in five years...if the Internet does not implode.

In the last year, much has happened. New job, church, and home. New roommate. New name! Much has been amazing. Some not so great. I think of family who are sick, out of work, discouraged. Yet joy lurks, and the space around the darkest shadows shines. Life is not colorless.

Best events of 2007:
Communication & design learning at Union
Graduation weekend (again)
Guide internship
Finishing the first semester of teaching
Gettin' hitched!

Ah, the wedding weekend and its overwhelming emotions: stress, joy at seeing loved ones and friends, awe as you stand before the one you love and promise your lives to each other, shock when it is over and regret for the moments you missed with others.

And then, the honeymoon...

Hail, the conquering hero comes!


On the beach by the lodge.



And on Christmas morning!


More later.

Drifting

Probably blogging has slowed like the housing market because (unlike the housing market), I am busy. But even as I write this my head starts to shake because busyness should never bury me.

Right now sickness is threatening to bury. I feel myself slipping underneath the mountain of aches and sniffles, and in the back of my mind lurks the temptation to call a sub...until I remember that it will be more work than to go to school. Ah but I am thankful for my work, even when I can barely make it there.

I hung snowflakes and snowmen in my classroom as soon as the students let out for Thanksgiving break. Kristina, if you read this, know that I pine for snow like you have on the mountain, snow to run in and build forts out of and get stuck in so that I can't make it to school. Ha.

I love baskets. Did I ever mention that? Not too long ago I went to Hobby Lobby and purchased some baskets. Now writing this I feel guilty. Why? Because I recently read an article about the "buy nothing new" outfit/campaign/way of life. And I know that somehow I supported an evil industry. We'll see if "buy nothing new" makes it onto this next year's list of things to do. I'm on the fence, still. But right now I do like the way these baskets sit on the shelves Mitch built, holding fruits and pasta and beans and potatoes.

Also, I can't believe I missed Miss van der Molen and Greg Leavitt's duet. There are few opportunities in life to catch something like that, and the Boyds are some of the few/proud/strong/brave to enjoy/listen to/hear/endure it.

School

I should be grading. Instead, I am vainly trying to update this blog, a place to which my thoughts have dug in their heels and refused to go for awhile. Stubborn. Anyway, I type an update on my life, with some pictures to prove that there are people here in this "new" place. (It doesn't feel quite so new anymore.) The ones below are in my charge for eight hours each day.

Grandparents' Day! We played the chimes and did a skit. I felt like Miss van der Molen, my music teacher thru high school.
All right, must go. More later.

Indiana!

In the kitchen of my Anderson apartment, I found counter space! I've been unpacking on and off this week, and now almost everything has a place of its own. Except my mountainload of books. Those are stacked in boxes in the living room.

I'm not sure what I think of Anderson yet. I'm taken with the church, the school, the people. Not sure about the town. I haven't done much exploring so I'll hold off on any opinion yet except to state that it's pretty flat. :)

Guide Magazine

I realize my previous posting about Guide was rather cryptic. Mostly because I wrote thinking everyone would know what I was thinking. That never works too well.

So, if you scroll down, you'll see I've revised it somewhat. I briefly considered making up all of the details and laughing silently while reading the comments about my obviously gargantumly unrealistic account, but it's been done. So I stuck with the facts.

Friendly

Starting over in a new place makes me thankful for good friends. Or rather, it reminds me, "Don't take them for granted." It's easy to do that with people you've been around for years, who you feel comfortable with, who you'd think nothing of calling in the middle of the day for a chat or to get together.

New places mean building relationships all over again, from scratch, easier said than done.

Blast from the not-so-distant past

Go look up Jonathan Meharry and listen to his song "To the End."

Now, some pictures from Guide.


This summer I spent approximately seven weeks at the Review & Herald offices in Hagerstown, Maryland. There I was given a kind welcome as the newest Guide intern. I enjoyed eating lunch with the staff, writing, and siphoning creative juices off of Randy and the Guide team. Here I sit in my office at the Review & Herald. When they revamped the previously (mostly) empty room, Randy and Rachel kindly and ingeniously replaced a heavy, somewhat morose painting with these colorful Guide frisbees.


The illustrious editor, Randy Fishell, in his campsite/office.


You'll notice with some surprise that I've taken over (all that siphoning was put to good use). Randy and Rachel, the assistant editor, seem mildly amused.
Okay, well, this part isn't entirely factual. Randy let me sit in his desk like he would any other huge Guide fan. Seriously. All the kids that visit his office get to do that if they want, and get their picture taken. So as you can see, I'm still a kid at heart.


And part of the bi-daily walking crew. Such a suave group of hopefuls.
(I don't even know what I meant by that phrase. But this really is part of the walking crew. Every day around 10am and 3pm, staff takes a break. This was part of the group with whom I took my break--we'd walk around the building in the sunshine. When it rained, we'd walk through shipping and the bindery and the hallways. Once we went through "paper roll storage.")


Last, but certainly not least, Frank and Dolly DeHaan. A pleasant stay thanks in ginormous part to this wonderful couple! I stayed with them while I worked at Guide. They made it homey and often offered to take me places or showed me things that were going on at church or in town. A wonderful Christian couple.

Appalachia

Crikey! It's the Appalachian Trail!











Which way to Georgia?

Lost

I have come to the sad realization that I will forever be getting lost. It's what I have to look forward to everytime I visit or move to a new place: getting in the car, directions in hand, then ending up in quite a different spot than I'd imagined, or taking three times as long as I should have to get there.

Case in point: Sunday, I took myself off to Antietam Battlefield, the great expanse of hilly fields and woods where the bloodiest battle fought on American soil took place. I made it there fine, but soon realized 1) I had not entered at the beginning but in the middle, 2) I was on a one-way driving tour road, and 3) I had lost track of the tour signs somewhere in a tiny town and had no way back.

That's when I took Harper's Ferry Road through the moutains, into West Virginia, and finally out again by route of a freeway whose sign miraculously matched one I could actually locate in my spiral RandMcNally road map. Home to Hagerstown!

I love exploring. But I did get a panicky feeling in my chest when I realized I was somewhat low on gas and had no idea where I was.

One first-rate event was that I walked down to the Burnside Bridge (historical sketch, top right) and felt Mr. Reichert's chalkboard diagrams come alive. I was hoping to go to Harper's Ferry, as well, but that was before I got lost.

P.S. I just realized that the last several posts have been made on dates that are multiples of seven. Ah, well. If you add up the 2 and the 5 from today's date, you can still end up with the perfect number! Ha.

Engaged!

I still haven't found free wireless internet, but . . . I'm taking a slight break from work anyway.

Mitch and I are tying the knot!

December 23, 2007
Cedar Lake, MI

Una Postita

I shouldn't be blogging from work, and I can't blog from home. That does it. Tomorrow I'm hunting down free internet.

Wishes

Regarding dandelions, I feel ambivalence.

Cons:
Dandelions are considered a weed.
They stink.
They grow profusely, taking over yards and fields and highway medians.

Pros:
Dandelions are bright.
They scream, "It's spring!" after what has usually been a very long, very cold, very dark winter.
They grow profusely, taking over yards and fields and highway medians.

Plus, I love how dandelions seed. I like looking out over a field of smoky dandies in sunset, feeling the silky fuzz between my fingers, blowing hard on the seeds in hope of a thousand wishes.

I think the pros win. Except, why, oh why, must people be allergic to dandelions?

Happy Easter!

In tradition's (and Jesus') honor:
Carrie, Vanessa and I sat down to an Easter picnic breakfast.
It was amazing.
(Note the monkey bread.)

Ecstatic

Right: NOT the first picture to come up after Googling "ecstatic". But so worth scrolling down for.

Teach

At right: The first image that came up when I Googled "teach".

I have sent three resumes, complete with cover letters, this week. Really, I could have sent a few more, but trips to the post office and library and walks in the neighborhood and fields around my house have taken up a lot of time. Plus, I spend forever trying to find information about the schools and their surrounding countryside.

Then, too, my mom and I went shopping on Tuesday to look for a suit. I remember sitting in an education class my (first) senior year at Union, listening to Yolanda Blake tell how she, suitless, would have missed out on a potential job. Point taken, Mrs. Blake. Suit boughten.

Query: is boughten even a word?

Anyway, T.J.Maxx is a wonderful place. God found this suit, in my size, of an amazingly soft fabric, for a reasonable price. I put it on, hoping it would make me look older. It didn't. I tried squaring my shoulders, raising my chin and squinting down my nose at the reflection in the dressing room mirror, piling my hair on top of my head. The hair trick worked, a little. No wonder the stereotypical teacher wears a bun.

Auugh. What am I saying? I don't want to be a stereotype. Or old.

I want to teach, like Jesus. Radically.

...The Rest of the Story

I like Paul Harvey. I listen to his radio show and it makes me happy, like tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches with pickels and french fries on the side. Yum.

Anyways, the point is that I have my own "rest of the story."

It started Friday, when I realized I couldn't drive on I-80 due to closings. I read that they actually put gates up and that since I wasn't in a movie, it probably wouldn't work out too well to drive on past or try to fly or tunnel underground to get to Muscatine, IA.

So I sat cozily in my apartment, curled up with a mug of hot chai tea, my fuzzy blanket, and a good book. I even went to bed early.

Sabbath, I enjoyed the sermon and visited the Something Else Sabbath School class. I was very blessed. (Thanks, Kristina, for your hopings.) For lunch, my roommate and I were welcomed by the Nazarios. Amazing food and company, by the way. There, I found out the news of Krissy and Jeremy's engagement. Woo hoo! I think you might be able to read about it on her blog.

Then, Saturday night. Mitch called. We had sundown worship together and then worked on a work proposal for an assistant ranger position at Camp Heritage. I looked up some examples online; I'm not sure any of them fit. But we went through generals and I told him I'd work on it later. It was difficult to do over the phone. He couldn't see what I was doing and it was confusing. The proposal is important, and it was by the grace of God that we stayed calm and collected.

Afterwards...

I felt as blue as a blueberry. It had been a wonderful weekend, but...

I checked the roads and found I-80 was open and yellow and green across the state of Iowa. No reds, pinks, or closings anywhere. It was nine o' clock, and I started to get this half-baked plan.

"Mitch?"

"Yeah?"

"If I started driving to Iowa right now, would you kill me?"

"Yes."

"How badly?"

His voice changed. He said I was crazy. But there was hope and excitement and a little bit of joy. I think my insanity rubbed off on him.

So, that's how I ended up in Muscatine, IA at 3:00 Sunday morning.

Amazing...