Recovery

Not only the name of an EXCELLENT album... also what I've been doing this past week.

The latter is a very long story, so I'll save it for another post. The former is Jeremy Casella's new album and it's awesome. It's a mix of folk/electronic/awesomeness with strings... a mix that I didn't exactly like at first but I certainly do now. As always, his lyrics are incredible.

So (to my 2 readers :-p): I suggest you get your paws on it soon!

http://www.jeremycasella.com/store/store.html

bread!

In an excellent turn of events, Jeromie and I walked ~100yds down the road from our house to check out the last 30 minutes of a yard sale and walked away with 2 therma-rests and a bread machine for just under $30. I'm rather excited because we were planning on getting Jeromie a thermarest soon anyway, and we'd been contemplating a bread machine since Christmas in Alabama.

Sweetness!

oh happy day! (a brief synopsis)

This post, like, soooooo needs a picture. (hehe!)

But it, like, doesn't have one. I am, like, such a loser.



Well, I won't dwell on that. Instead I shall dwell on the fact that I am *not* exhausted right now or sad about going to work in the morning. I've had an utterly fantastic weekend on all sides.

The weekend started out with the arrival of some yarn I'd ordered to make a present for a friend, followed by seeing Guster in concert at Furman on Friday night. Albumatically (I made up a word!), I really like their music... but they were even better live.

Saturday morning, Jeromie and I drove up to meet with our wedding photographer guy. Nearly a year later, and the album is still in the works (partly due to us dragging our feet on selecting pictures). When we arrived, he was having trouble locating some files on his computer (namely, our album!). Jero looked it over and tried some things, then the photographer called Apple support who told him he'd probably lost the files permanently. As he and Jeromie talked, one comment made Jero go "Aha!!" and he got everything back to rights. The short of it is that we now have a couple of extra pages in our album at no extra cost. :-)

As if that weren't enough wedding-y goodness, we got to go to my friend Amber's wedding in the evening. It was beautiful and simple and awesome to see... I can't really do it justice in such a small space.

Today finished off everything perfectly with an impromptu climbing trip to Currahee (Toccoa, GA) with some friends from DCF. I think the two best parts of it were: getting out in the woods with Jero AND discovering that I could climb without a nagging pain in my foot. Hopefully this signals an end to six long, frustrating months of being sidelined with a foot injury. I even came home and took a short walk/run with Molly-dog!

So here ends a wonderful, Gusterful, climbingful, Jesusful weekend. I hope this also signals the beginning of a similarly awesome week!

boundaries, of sorts

Hehe... a month and some change later, and I finally remember my blog exists! :-)

A whole lot has happened since the last post, particularly at work. About the time of the last post, I was mulling over a request from the facility director that I fill in as interim coordinator for the program I work in. After a lot of prayer, I accepted the role on the condition that it truly be interim and that I could pick up responsibilities as I'm able. Since then, each day has been a test of my ability to set boundaries, to keep realistic expectations, and, most of all, to trust God to provide and to work for His glory in all of it. The position, due to the current state of the program, is definitely stressful, but I'm doing the best I can to provide some leadership and take some of the weight off other staffs' shoulders in the meantime. The middle of this week makes about a month in the position, and I will continue forward one day at a time.

As for knitting... those socks definitely did *not* get done in time for Mom's birthday, but I'm still working on them. They were the cause of some serious frustration though: I got to the heel turn, dropped a wrapped stitch, and had to get some serious help from Jan at The Needletree to frog back to the point before the gusset increases. I almost made the same error again when I got back to the heel turn, but this time I managed to rescue the stitch before it became irreparable (unless by someone more skilled than me). Needless to say, I got really frustrated at that point and put the sock up until I had the time & energy to tackle it again, which was hard to find for a couple of weeks thanks to work. Argh! I picked it up last weekend and am moving forward again - in the meantime, though, I had some fun felting! (Paper Bag from Knitty)

Dinner's ready, so off I go! (Jeromie cooked up some salmon and it smells AWESOME!)

Absent or Absent-minded?

Sometimes I wonder if I should keep my blog. I don't think many people read it (as I haven't really told many folks about it), thus it finds itself at the very bottom of my priority list most weeks. When I finally get around to thinking about an update, there's not really much to say (and no pictures to make things interesting).

So here's what I've been up to lately, in no particular order...

- Work - still part-time, still a tad disorganized. we're minus a program coordinator for the time being, so things may get a little more stressful in the coming weeks.

- Sinus Infection - knocked me out for most of this week... feels a bit wierd to start AND finish your workweek on a Friday. Monday I felt well enough to knit a little, Tuesday through Thursday, I slept... and read... and slept.

- Reading - A Sense of the World by Jason Roberts. I picked this one up after hearing snippets of it on NPR's Radio Reader and it is an excellent book... very well written biography of James Holman (1786-1857), who lost his sight in his 20's and went on to travel the world like no one else before him. I'd started it back in January, not made much progress because things just got busy, then just about knocked it out while out sick this week... READ IT READ IT! (Tis good!)

- Reading and Wrestling - Deuteronomy, some of Psalms, now James... Jeromie and I are reading through the Bible with some friends from house church. It's been hard not to read just for the sake of reading (and thus not even really be seeking God in it), but God seems to be mercifully drawing me back to Him in recent weeks, even though I am so prone to wander.

- Knitting!!! - after the bag, it's been a couple of small items (2 Calorimetries from Knitty, a cabled headband that I made up myself, an failed attempt at a notions bag, and the Two Movie Hat from this blog). Now I'm on to socks for Mom! Size 0 double-point needles were torture at first, but now I think I may be addicted. :-D

- Testing Limits - (of my stupid foot) - the pain in my right foot turned out to be a mix of joint inflammation & a tough case of plantar fascitis, so I've been doing as told to get it better. Until I ended up sick earlier this week, I'd been up to swimming and walking on a somewhat regular basis. Hopefully I'll be able to pick that up again this next week.

So that's at glimpse of what's been up. Jeromie and I are both looking forward to hiking again once my foot is all better... not being able to get out like that has been driving us both a little nuts.

Onward to Saturday! :-D

Knit-picking

Goodness, I haven't posted in a while. As for the outcome of the last post, no one ever looks at my nametag, so I just left it the way it was... I think I'll continue to do so until it falls apart. I guess I'm more like the grammar knit-picker than the grammar nazi.

Speaking of knit-picking, I've been knitting quite a bit recently. I taught myself several Christmases ago (4, it turns out) because I thought it looked interesting. It never really clicked until this time around. I had to rest my foot for most of the holidays in order to be able to function on it at work when I got back. Nothing like hating TV and having to sit on a couch for a week or so to make things click. Anyhow, Jeromie got me a knitting instruction/pattern book for Christmas (Stitch & B****) -- it cleared up my very few confusions about the process and resulted in a kerchief, a hat for Jero, and, most recently, a bag. I liked knitting before... I really like it now. :-) I still can't run, walk a lot, or climb much on my foot (thanks to me playing HC kickball), but I can knit and it serves as a similar enough de-stresser and a good creative outlet.

On the inside, the past month or so has been full of wrestling, doubts, and questions that are not readily answered. Some days, I ignore the questions and, honestly, I hate myself for that. I know that God will bring glory to Himself and teach me through the questions and the wrestling, but I just get so tired of bumping up against what feel like brick walls.

Anyhow, here's a picture of the bag, complete with Molly fur on the floor:

Mrs-spelling

I found a spelling error on my ID card for my new job. I'm debating whether or not I should request a new one. I have been called the "grammar nazi" before... I don't suppose I can deny that, since I notice most any grammar/punctuation/spelling errors.

The only concern I have is that perhaps it would reflect poorly on the organization, but I may be the only one who notices it.

Maybe I should just ignore it.

(Then the spelling-police part of me says, "Demand perfection!!!")

I dunno.

Grey Days, the December issue

I started a post nearly two weeks ago (never published it) entitled 'Grey Days.' Mostly it was because it was grey outside that day, but, to be honest, grey is how I've been feeling lately inside too. There have been a couple of ups, but mostly it's been this awkward steady range of grey. There's still light to see by, but it's cloudy most of the time. Circumstances change and the clouds move around... but it's still grey.

A lot of the things Jeromie and I have been feeling and wrestling with lately seemed to come to a head tonight at house church. All together, we processed where we were, individually and as a group. All the way home, Jeromie and I dug around a little more about it. I think that was the shortest 45 minute drive since we moved to Greenville. Needless to say, there are a lot of questions bouncing about in the open now. I pray, and hope that I will begin to pray more consistently, that God will do as He will with all of them. Not as I will... that would be quite a mess.

Off to bed to catch what zzzzz's I can. Maybe I can catch some for my mom...

Married Christmas

Ah! Now our house smells like Christmas tree instead of doggie-dog! This week has been awesome. Tiring, but awesome. My sister (Diane) and her husband (Drew) and Jeromie and I have sorted holidays out such that Diane and I are "home" at the same time, so we all got to hang out a good bit on Thanksgiving and yesterday. The time went by toooooo fast though, and I feel like we didn't get to actually talk as much as we'd've liked to. (Yes. I just apostrophized twice in the same word.)

Today was just me and my Jeromie... decorating for Christmas.

We found the perfect tree...




and decorated it...


and Jeromie took pictures...


and then we celebrated!



Twas muchest of fun... and, as Jeromie just pointed out over my shoulder... this is just the beginning!

i'm chile, not argentina

This caboose heater is looking awfully nice right now. If it worked. And weren't in Greenwood. :-)

Thanks to yesterday morning's power outage, the thermostat and/or furnace have decided to go on strike. Jeromie and I woke up to blank alarm clocks (which were not responsible for the waking) & no lights, took showers by headlamp, and wondered about the cause. The power came back on minutes before we walked out the door, and everything seemed fine, so we went on our way. When we arrived home yesterday evening, we heard a clicking noise coming from the thermostat and turned the whole system off. When Jeromie turned it back on, the clicking returned, with no apparent activity from the furnace. Combine that with a cold rainy night and a cold rainy morning and you get a cold sniffly Liz and a yellow lab who has chosen to curl up in a ball on her bed for the duration of the day. I'm hoping it gets fixed soon, as my brain and fingers feel frozen, but in a way I'm glad for the inconvenience.

Lately I've been pretty frustrated at the American bubble and especially the role I play in it. If I'm not intentional about it, life is fairly comfortable and the state of the rest of the world (including the world right down the road from my house) is fairly easy to ignore. Since realizing this, I've been trying to be more mindful but much of the time it takes a swift kick in the pants from God Himself through Scripture & circumstances to peel the scales back from my eyes... scales that seem to grow right back! There is homelessness and dire poverty within a few short miles of my house... and freezing temperatures don't discriminate. There again is the same across the globe and I sit here in relative comfort, able to cook up whatever my imagination settles on for dinner. It's not as if this information is new to me either... perhaps just in a new context.

I know that seeking God & His kingdom first is the best thing I could ever do, yet somehow in daily practice I seem to do nothing more seek my own satisfaction. It makes me sick to see this pattern repeating and yet I don't know what to do to break the cycle but seek the forgiveness that Jesus provides and pray for the help of His Spirit to bring lasting change.

I'm going to go do that.

-------------------------------
P.S. "That makes me nervous" is NOT something you want to hear from the guy who's working on your heating system.

Stirrings

This picture was taken just over two years ago... one crisp, late October morning in 2004. At that point I was driving too long and (most of the time) too early for a part-time job as a lifeguard. It's still amazing to me how time seems to fly and how things can change so slowly and quickly at the same time. At this point, I could wax theological about how God is changeless while I am always changing... and just because I don't doesn't mean He isn't (changeless)... but that isn't what strikes me most at moments like these. (And I am no good at waxing in any form... not even cars.)

I think what is stirring in my heart right now is, perhaps, a fresh realization of His mercy. That stirring itself is by grace alone - the Spirit rising like the sun to cut through the frost that remains in my own heart. I hope and pray for awakening - I've been asleep for too long.

red-headed stepson of photopost

Muahahahaha! Just this morning, I realized that I possessed some stellar material for "revenging" Will's "Son of Photopost" from April. It's not really revenge... the pictures and building were fun and they don't contain close-ups of any ugly faces (namely mine). I just wish I knew how to do the clever scroll-overs...

The following pictures were taken down in Charleston during a gathering of hooligans for Jeromie's birthday. That's right, hooligans... myself and Jeromie included. After creating a lovely sandcastle for my niece, Iona-zilla, to destroy ('cause she loves to)...





We channelled our creative energies into mummifying one our number... here are the results:



Step One: Bury Will in sand



Step Two: Make sure his ears are nice and warm... inside and out.



Step Three: Decorate in a detailed fashion.



Step Four: Ta-da!



Step Five: Release the hounds! (Will chases Arnold into the ocean)

oh me of little faith

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:25-34

The Yard Wars, part deux

We aren't finished, but progress has most certainly been made.

After approximately 5 hours of pretty much continuous work, we've gotten all the backyard shrubs under some semblance of control, made progress on the "weed-bed" in the sideyard, and mowed the front and back yard. We have some very cool neighbors who lent us their wheelbarrow and long-handled loppers, which made work go even faster (...all we had beforehand was the top of a banana box and some hand clippers). It feels soooooooo good to have gotten all of that done, but we still have a ton of yardwork left to do.

I don't think I ever realized how much things grow in pretty much the month of AUGUST around here.

Or how, in the course of a week or two, the weather goes from blazing hot to autumny cool.

I love autumn.

The Yard Wars

Slightly Overgrown.

That one phrase, I think, could perhaps describe more than just the yard at the moment.

Despite our growing arsenal of yard-care implements, the weeds continue to send their runners out to the far reaches of the yard and sprout again. Since this weekend, the freshly weeded neighbor-side of our yard has sprouted yet again, and so I'm conflicted about what sort of action to take. (I fought back with pre-treat stuff this morning... take that weeds!) It seems like I can't sit still, cause the weeds'll just keep growing... but I am NOT going to spend the whole day out there. :-p At the moment, it seems the best recourse might be spending a smaller chunk of time more frequently (with Jeromie, cause battling the yard is much more pleasant and much less discouraging when he's working beside me!). But that, of course, will require some discipline. We also need to call our landlord-type-people to see what kind of planting we can do to occupy all the open spaces.

Slightly Overgrown could also describe...

the mail situation - mail around the house behaves in a suspiciously similar manner to the ivy out back
the craft room - also known as the disaster area; it's the only room that still has unpacked boxes, but what's worse is that they're opened... just not unpacked... and their contents, being homeless, seem to straggle about the room.
Molly - or more specifically her FUR, which is everywhere and back in force less than a day after we sweep!

I feel like I should have these things all under control, especially since I'm still hunting for employment, but I DON'T and that's frustrating sometimes.

Aight. Now, with spirits somewhat lighter, I shall re-enter the fray! (with the realization that these are silly things to be battling and becoming frustrated with... and thus just working as best i can)

Lilo & 2 Stitches

Hehe, I have now had stitches twice in my life! Don't worry, I'll spare you... no pictures! For some reason, it's kind of tempting though!

Of all ways to get stitches, mine might be one of the dumbest... I was unloading the dishwasher at my step-sister's place and dropped a ceramic mug all of one foot into the top rack of the dishwasher. Not thinking it would break (cause it shouldn't have), I reached down to pick it up as it was falling and thus sliced my palm... cause the mug cracked in pretty much half. Needless to say, I'm feelin' pretty dumb, but pretty blessed since it could've been worse. :-)

On the previous subject of George MacDonald, Jeromie promptly located a site called Project Gutenberg (sp?) where all sorts of pre-copyright books are posted for general use in electronic format. As far as I can tell most of his are in their original forms, which is EXCELLENT. I promptly got my paws on one of the stories I'd been looking for at the booksale, called The Wise Woman, and loved it. George MacDonald's approach to storytelling, and conveying truth in story, is insightful and incredible to me, and so I am rather thankful to have access to his original writings. Now I'm trying to temper my reading of them with other books as well, as much as I'd like to just curl up with them all one after the other!

Another book I've been reading lately is J.I. Packer's Knowing God, and it's been thoroughly challenging to me. Perhaps that's why I haven't been as consistent as I should in reading it. As much as I very much want to be changed, there are moments (many) where I shy away from the conviction that the Spirit brings... because God is God and I, most certainly, am NOT... which is a very very *good* thing. I have more wonderings to explore related to this, but right now I've run out of time.

Off I go to begin crafting a fantastic work of art called home-made pizza. Ha. Or maybe off I go to begin crafting a plain old home-made pizza, as it will likely not be particularly artistic. :-D

reallybigreallygoodreallycheap booksale...

or reallybigreallycheapreallygood booksale...
or reallygoodreallybigreallycheap booksale...
or reallygoodreallycheapreallybig boogsale...
or...

I can't remember the actual name, but I think I've gotten the point across. :-)

Jeromie and I went this weekend and got a pile of good books for not much in the way of dollars, and the outcome has certainly made this week so far a little more bearable. However, it's also put me on a mission to find more of George MacDonald's books in their original (original republished is fine) form, as opposed to "edited for today's reader." Most of his books at the booksale fit in the latter category, which is a little frustrating. And by "edited for today's reader," I mean that they "translated" all the dialect and put cheesy romance novel [1] covers on the books. The one editor seems to do a good job of keeping the story & truth that MacDonald seeks to convey, but what about us folks that want to wade through scottish dialect and the story as it was written!!! ;-)

Aside from recently acquiring good books (which may just be distraction), my days have still been a mix of doubt and hope and perhaps a glimmer of faith. I hesitate to even call it that... because what resembles faith in me seems such a poor representation of what faith is. Sometimes I wonder if I even know what that means or entails!! I still feel like I'm finding my worth in work, which is really no worth at all... and it seems as if i will remain without what i consider gainful employment until i learn my lesson!

And so I will journey on. I know that God is at work, and I hope that my knowledge of this fact, and all that it means, will travel from head to heart again and grow deep roots. And not just knowledge of the fact that God is at work, but knowing HIM.

I've spent entirely too long trying to put this into words, and I feel like I still haven't touched on the entirety of what I'm even aware of what God seems up to in my heart and the ways that He's up to it... and, you know, the entirety doesn't belong here either. :-)

------
[1] Yes, MacDonald does put a romantic twist in some of the stories, but the author is a Scottish pastor from the 1800's... i think anyone that picked those books up for the cover would be sorely disappointed!! :-)

more fret-ful than a guitar

I'm feeling kind of braindead. No thought-provoking things to post (not lately). Just discouraged... and I don't want to be discouraging... so I almost don't want to post at all, but at the same time I don't want to just sit here quietly.

I'm in a spot of asking "how long?!" After praying about a certain job offer (that would require weekends & Sundays periodically), I turned it down (this was back at the end of June) because I felt that God was telling me to wait. I've spent the past month hunting in earnest for a job with reasonable hours, to no avail. I'd like to take advantage of this down-time for resting and seeking God, but it's gotten so incredibly hard not to worry and fret and feel utterly useless... and to trust, instead, that God will provide as He always has.

So I'm weary again. Now, I think, solely from worrying.

Argh.

mmmm...onkey business (?)

It's kind of hard to ramble freely while sitting in a library computer lab... with a time limit. But perhaps time limits are good things with me.

So it's 5pm on a Wednesday afternoon and I am at the library, not at work. Cause I haven't found a job yet... and that's what I'm here hunting around for. Honestly, that's a little harder to swallow than I thought it'd be back when I finished at DMH. I'm glad for a bit of a break, but at the same time I'd like to get out and into life with people again. Even so, I can tell that God has some things to teach me in my time off... something that has begun to sink in during house church and quiet time this week. I just pray that my heart would be open to what God has to say and where He's got in mind to lead me.

Well, off to more hunting/application-filling-outing.


e. to da r.a.n.d.

"yer gittin' hitched!" says Becki

Why yes, I did! :-D The Goudelock girls are extinct, as I am now a Rand! Perhaps I shall post pictures in a lil' bit... when I get them...

but now I shall go clean de old house! wif de Mountz! and de Jeromie!