TeeterTotter

I haven't blogged in awhile, but not really because I haven't had time. I just don't feel like it.

But you can't live life based on feelings. Even if I don't want to exercise, or clean a bathroom, or experience the sometimes awkwardness of new friendships, there are just some things I need to do.

This epiphany comes when things are new. It's a lesson God teaches me over and over, probably because I haven't ever learned it fully. Just when I congratulate myself on doing "well" something else comes along to remind me that, oh, maybe I could use some more work. Thankfully God doesn't give up.

Do you ever struggle between pride and inadequacy? I was thinking that today as I swept Headquarters' porch. I worry about fitting in here. I worry that I won't make the deep, close friendships I had in academy and college. I wonder if the academy kids who work in the kitchen will ever warm up. Will I warm up? Will I stop disliking this job? Do I have what it takes? Then, after a few sweeps, I actually started feeling puffed up as I watched the dirt fly. Obviously sweeping doesn't take too much--commitment, mostly--but I need that affirmation: I do have what it takes! Then God reminded me that my thoughts were way out of line...unbalanced. I didn't need to swing that far in either direction. First, I do have value--look what Jesus did for me! Second, without Him, I am helpless and hopeless...change my heart, oh God!

So that's where I am at, right now, in a nutshell--working in a beautiful place with Mitch, overwhelmed. Anyway, that's why I haven't felt like blogging. Every time I try to write, the blank space overwhelms me. I don't even know where to start.

But (five paragraphs later!) you can't always go by feelings.

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. :)

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.

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

Snow Day!

I didn't think we'd have one this year. Goes to show you pessimism is overrated.

My roommie and I woke up this morning to a world covered in white. Let me tell you, as we galloped through parking lot drifts to the Lifestyle Center for a morning treadmill jog, ours were the first footprints in the snow! It was beautiful.

Now the sun's behind the Thunderdome and the lot is mostly clear. Wind has swept a lot of the snow away; the grounds workers have shoveled and the plows have piled mounds of it, mostly, so school can resume tomorrow.

As for me, I've enjoyed sitting by the window, candles burning on the sill, clothes tossing in the dryer, and fingers typing...homework, job searches, e-mails. I've been thinking, too.

For those of you sometimes visitors who read my blog, I'm happy to say that, at long last, I have plans for an internship this summer! It probably doesn't seem like such a big deal; after all, I haven't blogged about it, and if I haven't blogged it, it isn't worth reading right? That's one fallacy.

So...I'll give you three guesses. Nope, I'm not raising alpacas in Montana. No, no newspaper job for me, either. Not even the amazing camp counselor/writer/designer position that Wendy dreamed up for me (thank you Wendy, Katie, and God). No, it looks like I'll be working (volunteering) at Guide magazine for a couple months this summer. Amazing! It's been my dream since...okay, well just since last semester. But it's proof that God works with dreams, even gives them to us in the first place. And, it's been an inspiration to me as I've seen one of my teachers work to make this happen. That's what I want to be for my students: an empowerer, a possiblity-maker. The cliche is true: it's not what you know, it's who you know. Which includes God, of course.

Before you go, here's a couple more pictures from this morning.

Snow!