laundry day

I've been reading "Notes from a Small Island" by Bill Bryson and laughing out loud with almost every page. Just had to share this:

"It has long seemed to me unfortunate - and I'm taking global view here - that such an important experiment in social organization was left to the Russians when the British clearly would have managed it so much better. All those things that are necessary to the successful implementation of a rigorous socialist system are, after all, second nature to the British. For a start, they like going without. They are good at pulling together, particularly in the face of adversity, for a perceived common good. They will queue patiently for indefinite periods and accept with rare fortitude the imposition of rationing, bland diets, and sudden inconvenient shortages of staple goods, as anyone who ever looked for bread at a supermarket on a Saturday afternoon will know. They are comfortable with faceless bureaucracies and, as Mrs. Thatcher proved, tolerant of dictatorships. They will wait uncomplainingly for years for an operation or the delivery of household appliance. They have a natural gift for making excellent, muttered jokes about authority without ever actually challenging it, and they derive universal satisfaction from the sight of the rich and powerful brought low. Most of those above the age of twenty-five already dress like East Germans. The conditions, in a word, are right."

very interesting

At (almost) 27 I already feel behind the times technologically. What am I going to do in the future?

my love/hate relationship with traveling

So while I love traveling I really actually dislike the getting there part. Here are a few reasons why:

1) Manhandling luggage. I know it's my own fault for not being a very light packer, but I can't help it, I'm still learning. I hate dragging luggage around: into the car, out of the car, up to the check in desk, onto the scale, oops! too heavy, back off the scale, take stuff out, onto the scale again. Then the carry on is too heavy because of all the stuff you've crammed in at check in. (I swear I weighed my bags three times and they were right on target. I think they rig those wretched scales.) So now the carry on is heavy and you've gotta wheel it around the airport with your purse/laptop case either bruising your shoulder or breaking your wrists as it rides on top of the wheeled bag. (When you finally arrive at your destination to discover that your bags made a side trip to NY you're actually rather relived because it means they will be hand delivered to you instead of you having to drag them around the airport, on and off a bus, and then into and out of a car.)

2) Accidents. When you've finally gotten settled with your luggage and you decide you deserve your favorite drink at Starbucks (a Venti Sweetened Passion Tea Lemonade) which you won't be able to have for the foreseeable future because they don't make it in the UK what do you go and do, after only having drank about 1/4 of it, but spill it all over the carpet by the internet station. Oh well, at least it didn't land on any one's bag.

4) Trying to sleep on the airplane. Number one the seat is hardly ever comfortable. Number two there is always too much activity to get more than a couple hours anyway. Number three, the elderly gentleman sitting next to you, while lovely, is quite fidgety, keeps dropping his pillow, and doesn't seem to mind getting into your personal space. So you just decide to watch movies instead and give yourself permission to sleep as much as you want when you get home.

5) (This comes under the love part... I think) When you go through passport control in Dublin the passport control officer, if a man, will most likely assume that the reason you've been to Ireland so many times is because you have a boyfriend here.

6) Trying to pay with a credit card. For some reason while I've been gone lots of place have stopped accepting payment by card. This is fine except when the only noticeable cash point at the airport is out of order...

7) International telephones... My US phone, while stocked up with plenty of leftover credit, refuses to work here which leaves me unable to contact my housemates letting them know what time I need to be picked up. So I try my UK phone only to discover that it's been cancelled due to disuse. Great. So I find a cash point that works and take a taxi to the house. No one is home. But now I have change from paying the cab and can walk up the street to use a pay phone. Where are these missing housemates? In town waiting for me. Oh dear.

I guess that's all....

Oh, one thing more not exactly related to traveling: I am not immune to catcalls or blatant stares, etc. while walking down the street. My favorite so far was yesterday when I was walking home from town a guy rolled down his window and just stuck his arm out with a thumbs up. (Girls probably aren't really supposed to talk about this for many different and complicated "polite" reasons, but I don't care.) I thought that was pretty funny.

saying goodbye

Last night was my last time with my three favorite girls ever! We had so much fun sharing brownies and cookies and playing and reading together. Sydney appropriately picked Fox in Socks for the bedtime book. That is the one book I have read more to them than any other. (When Sydney was 4 I read it to her every day for an entire summer!) You've gotta love a book that starts out by telling you to take it slowly and ends by asking if your tongue is numb. I had a bit of a struggle with all the tongue twisters last night as I was trying desperately hard not to let the girls know that I was crying the whole time! I think I succeeded because I only stumbled once during the "Luke Luck likes lakes" part and I read the "Cheese Trees/Sneezy Fleas" bit three times! But my cover was blown when we had a big group hug and I had to keep wiping my eyes. Shelby asked, "What are you doing?" and I said, "I'm trying not to cry because I'm going to miss you so much!" They are the sweetest, kindest, most creative girls I've ever had the privilege to care for. And that is saying a lot.

a long awaited update (perhaps I flatter myself too much!)

So, I guess the last significant update into my day to day life was written way back in the beginning of July. (Was that only a month and a half ago???) So, I figured it was about time for another!

I was in Florida for just under six weeks. I went down to be a summer nanny for the wonderful girls I used to care for before I left to do Transit and their wonderful baby sister who was born while I was gone and their wonderful cousins who live in Jacksonville. I think I can safely say that everyone involved had a great summer.

We were right on the beach, as you can see from this picture. This is the spot where I did quite a lot of reading when I was "off duty," not bad, huh? The summer was full of sand and water and sun and origami and reading time and ice cream and the dynamics of little girl relationships and naps and trips to the park and trips to the girls' Papa's tree farm and good food and all kinds of other fun things like getting caught in the rain almost every time I went out for a walk in the evenings. And big, beautiful rainbows.

No summer would be complete without a trip to the zoo and this one included petting and feeding sting rays. (Their "stinger" had been trimmed, apparently much like you would trim your fingernails.)

We drove back to Charlotte on the 29th of July, I think. It was definitely a Wednesday. And that evening I booked my flight to Ireland. I fly into Dublin on the 12th of September and will make my way north to Belfast where I will be living until I find a job or run out of money which I project will be sometime in December! No, seriously, I'm heading to Belfast to job hunt and make connections and do some volunteering and have committed to stay through December, which hopefully will give me enough time to find a job so I can stay forever, or at least two years which is how long my visa will be issued for.

So, naturally, I'm excited and nervous and thinking about packing way more than I'm actually doing the packing. And I'm sure to run out of time to do several of the many things I have projected to finish before I leave. So it's all rather exhilarating and tiring.

On a sort of side note I saw movies 24 and 25 of the summer this week. Time Traveler's Wife with my sisters, Laura and Emily, and Nights in Rodanthe with my mom.

I feel a bit like Clare in the Time Traveler's Wife. (If you haven't seen the movie or read the book I'm going to be giving away plot here...) In the scene where Henry travels to and from the bathroom. She's very pregnant, but has tried to keep herself from hoping about this baby because she has lost so many before. Henry comes back from travelling to the future where he meets their daughter, Alba. He tells Clare all about her and she says, "You mean it's all going to be all right?" It was such a moving scene and I feel like her. There's this thing that I've been dreaming about and hoping for and working towards for so long, but because it's been so long it's so very hard to understand that it's really happening. That the dream is becoming reality. I think it can't be true.

But in three weeks from today I'll be sitting (well, sleeping actually) in Belfast. And I'll never again have to cry when I leave Ireland because I don't know when I'll be coming back. It's all rather overwhelming.

So anyway, that's my update.

the second part of a little rant

In my first rant on worship I steered away from comparing the kind of praise and worship I was used to at MorningStar and the kind of worship I have experienced elsewhere. I still want to avoid comparisons of the, “this is better than that” variety. But I do want to talk about something I miss about worshiping at MorningStar.

I miss the waiting. In my (probably limited) experience with “pop worship” I miss the stillness. The lingering. I often feel that there are too many words, too much of one song following right after another. Not enough of being still. Waiting to see/hear what the Lord wants to do or sing or hear.

Why is it that often you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a worship service and a pop concert? One song follows swiftly on the heels of another with barely a pause. A song is set in a verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus pattern with little sensitivity to what the Holy Spirit may be doing in the room, in the hearts of the people. (I realize that I’m coming across a bit harshly right now. I don’t mean to imply that I think most worship leaders are not sensitive to the Spirit. But often things are moving along so swiftly I wonder if we have even given him room to speak.)

When the Psalms resound not only with the cacophony of praise but also with such statements as, “Be still and know that I am God,” “The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silent before him,” and “I have calmed and quieted my soul,” why are we so afraid to just be still, silent, and surrendered as a congregation?

When the Temple was dedicated in Jerusalem, and the Ark of the Covenant was placed inside, we are only told of the Priests and Levites singing one song, and a simple one at that: “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” Why then do we feel we need to compose complicated and catchy tunes for our services?

There have been many times when I’ve just wanted to shout out, “Wait! Don’t move on yet, something is stirring. Give the Lord a chance to speak.” Or when I’ve begun to feel a deep connection only to have to fight to hold onto it as corporately we’re now moving on to the collection song. I don’t want to be harsh and judgmental. I just feel so sad that we’re missing out on something vital.

Let the musicians linger on that chord progression just a bit longer. Perhaps the background singer has a prophetic song that’s going to speak to a place in someone’s heart that needs healing. Maybe the Lord is speaking something to the drummer, showing him a bit of His heartbeat. It could be that a member of the congregation is being given a prophetic dance. Or that the Pastor has a word of healing for the lady who just slipped in the back row. Perhaps there’s a simple song that the Lord wants us to sing to Him together, a song to help us express our love for Him. Maybe, just maybe, the Lord wants to show up and take over the service and completely wreck our hearts for him forever. Maybe, but we’ll never know if we rush on to the next song without pausing for a while.

(Also, I think we could use more waiting on our worship albums. Make it conducive for people to worship in their homes or driving in their cars instead of just entertaining them with our catchy tunes to sing along with. But maybe that’s just me.)

a theatrical summer

I have seen a copious amount of movies this summer. More, probably, than I've seen in the last two years. It was a great way to pass the time on the weekends in Florida, when I was off work and my European History book was getting a bit... tedious. So here they are, the summer's movies:

June-
Earth
Land of the Lost
The Proposal
Australia*
Up*

July-
Away We Go*
The Tale of Desperaux
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Confessions of a Shopaholic*
Last Chance Harvey
Rachel Getting Married
New in Town*
Miss Potter
The Ugly Truth
Michael Collins*
Nick and Norah's Infinite Play List
G-Force

August (so far)-
500 Days of Summer*
Penelope
Waking Ned Devine
The Other Boleyn Girl
The Wind That Shakes the Barley*
Julie and Julia*

So that's 23 movies. Some of these were brand new in the theater and some have been out since the mid 90s, but it was the first time that I've watched any of them. The stars are movies I'd recommend generally. My two favorites were Confessions of a Shopaholic and Julie and Julia. And my favorite kids' movie (and all time favorite Pixar movie) was Up, which was fantastic!