Uber Excited

I have ALOT to be excited for right now.  Basically I don't sleep very well because I lay there smiling...

1 major paper left

1 sermon left

10 days till Jonathan graduates from Seminary

11 days till we visit Danville

21 days until I have to be completely packed

25 days until Commissioning

26 days until Dallas

31 days till Puerto Rico

42 days until our first day at our new assignment (any suggestions as to where that will be?)

225 days until Christmas

Seriously, would you be able to sleep during all of this?

Earth Day 2008

So today was Earth Hour. From 8-9 PM we were all supposed to participate by turning off all the electricity in our homes, even some businesses were participating.  It is basically a worldwide energy conservation effort.  Other major cities like Copenhagen, Melbourne, and Tel Aviv also participated.  It is promoted mostly by liberals trying to raise awareness about global warming. I am not going to take a stand on that issue but I do very much support Earth Hour.  How cool is it that along with other people around the world we turned our lights off and played card games by candlelight as a small measure of saving our earth and her precious resources.

I tried to promote this a little on campus.  Several others participated willingly, some participated grudgingly, and others were not interested.  I am not sure why people get so upset about denying ourselves anything.  I was so happy Jonathan wanted to do it despite the fact that Maryland Women's basketball was on tv beginning at 8 PM.  (That is a big deal for him.  This morning we had to watch an entire Maryland Lacrosse game. Who watches Lacrosse?)

Many people may say, your one apartment will not make a difference, look at all the lights still on around the city.  Well I proudly turned my lights off tonight.  I avidly believe that yes, one person participating with many can make a difference. If I didn't believe that I wouldn't be devoting my life to Christian ministry.  I believe that we can impact the world ...but of course, that starts with me!

It is such a good exercise in humility to deny ourselves something.  Maybe you should turn your lights off at an hour you normally wouldn't.  Maybe you should unplug the tv when your favorite show is on.  Maybe you should get your kids involved and talk about the little things we can do to take care of the earth God has given us.  Of course now you missed your chance to do it in solidarity with others around the world.  But that shouldn't keep you from doing what you can.

What is funny is that millions participated in this without even knowing it.  Millions live without electricity on a daily basis.  We complain about one hour when millions will never know the conveniences of modern electricity in their homes.  Go to Haiti and try walking down the street after dark. I guarantee you won't be able to see your hand in front of your face because it is that dark. 

When are we all going to get that "it's not about you people!" (Deon Oliver)

 Life has been good here at the CFOT.  Monday we head out to our Spring Campaign locations.  I am very excited to be going to Escanaba, Michigan.  The only frustrating thing is the name "spring campaign" because we all know that it is not really spring yet and it is even more so not spring in Escanaba.  It has been getting nicer here, however, and I have reved up my exercise routine to get ready for our Caribbean vacation to Puerto Rico!  This week I ran over 10 miles. Pretty good for me. 

CFOT is great because we all get to live together and share in each others lives.  Jonathan is a favorite among the kids here so we often have little friends at our house.  One night it really looked like a daycare.

Today we had some boys over to decorate Easter Eggs.  The kit was only 99 cents at Target so I just couldn't resist.  I love decorating eggs.

We did have quite the mishap in our apartment last week.  I went to hang up my uniform after a long day, like usual and aparently it was one too many hangers and the bar could no longer handle it.  It actually bent in half!  And this was only my uniform side of the closet.  I had to remove everything from the closet because the maintenance guys (who take very good care of us) thought the shelving above should be reinforced as well.  Through the whole experience I learned a few things: (1) One can fit an amazing amount of stuff in a closet. (2) I have 42 pieces of uniform wear between both of us.  (3) On that side alone I had 68 empty hangers.  What does one do with so many extra hangers?  I've decided to try to take them back to the dry cleaners and see if they can do something with them.  It seems like such a waste to throw them all away.  And I still remember having to buy hangers once when I was in college.  If only I had known all I had to do was get a few things dry cleaned! 

 Well my blog is quickly becoming the place where I tell funny stories of the stupid things I do.  If that's the case, I can't leave out what happened on Saturday.  After spending a wonderful evening with some friends, Jonathan decided that it was time for a hair cut.  I have been cutting Jonathan's hair for about a year now (thanks to some lessons from Jean) so I was ready.  So I go out my clippers and went in for my first move and FORGOT THE GUARD!! Jonathan usually has a #4 in back.  I was in shear panic and immediately began to cry.  I felt so horrible.  I thought I surely had ruined Jonathan's hair forever.

So I called Sanhty and Jean crying and poor Jean came down and rescued us.  She did such a good job. People here noticed that he had gone a little shorter than normal, but nobody suspects it was because of my huge error until I tell them. 

So anyways, I can laugh about it now because it turned out allright.  The big question is, will I ever cut his hair again?  Well if I do, he will never have to worry about me making that mistake again!

Currently Reading The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives By Dallas Willard see related

So today didn't really go as I had planned.  I had high hopes of sleeping in, making pancakes, exercising, practicing piano, getting ahead in a few classes, and spending some time with Jonathan.  This is what happened instead...

So I am taking a class at Olivet next week. Since its only a week long class we have assignments to turn in before the class even starts.  Today a 6-8 page critical book report was due.  I completed this assignment a year ago because I was supposed to take this class last year and had done alot of the work when 2 weeks before the class I had to drop out.  So this morning I just was going to read it over and send it in.  But when I went to read it, it wasn't done!!! I only had 2 of the pages done.  How could my memory fail my so much! So at 10:30 this morning I realized I had to finish writing a critical book report on a book I read a year ago.  Ugh.  I spent the next 4 hours skimming the book and finishing up the assignment. Then...

I had to go to Caribou in order to post the assignment - something on our server keeps us from being able to do so here. So I hike on over to Caribou.  I grabbed a Caribou gift card on my way out the door just in case I wanted something.  This should only take a minute.  Well as I walk in of course I feel guilty for wanting to use their free wireless so I decide to buy a smoothie since I really don't drink coffee.  Well they start making my berrilicious smoothie when I find out my card only has $0.75 on it!  Oops.  All of a sudden I realize how ridiculous it was for me not to grab any other money - and my smoothie is now ready and I don't know what to do!  So I promise to run home and get more money.  But since I don't want to lug my computer both ways I quickly post my assignment (while drinking my smoothie since they didn't really know what else to do).  So I have to run home and get the correct gift card - along with some money just in case.  They were very kind - I was very embarrassed.

It was so annoying. Who does these things?

After that it was a wonderful day.