The Lusty Month of May

First may I say that if you  have not yet listened to Julie Andrews sing The Lusty Month of May from the musical Camelot, stop whatever you are doing & listen to it! Not only is it wonderful because it's a musical song or because it's about one of the best months in the whole year, but because it is sang by Julie Andrews.

I had the pleasure to meet Julie Andrews just over a year ago with some girl-friends from Luther Seminary. Andrews was touring the country promoting her new childrens book The Very Fairy Princess Takes the Stage. Since there was a large group of us who were obviously together - we were wearing homemade pink sparkly t-shirts & tiaras - we got asked to help the line move faster & visit Andrews together. She was as lovely as you could imagine. She shared with me that her birth name is Julia, but when she was adopted by her father her family started calling her Julie because it flowed better with Andrews. I wish I could be as pleasant as she is when it comes to people calling me Julie, however it is not my name. It makes me cringe & twitch when people call me Julie.

Back to the lovely Julie Andrews, if you haven't seen her & her daughter's Very Fairy Princess collection be sure to look it up. They make lovely gifts for ladies of all ages.

May was yet another month of transition for the Northwood Nelsons. Our superivsory leadership changed officially at work, I finished my third year of seminary, we celebrated family birthdays from afar, and Spring officially ended. Yes, we know that Spring technically isn't over yet, but for us Summer has begun. The days are longer with more relaxing time on my hands. I'm learning how to fill the days with a little work & more play. We recently bought a Nook Simple Touch & I plan to do lots of non-theological (although most anything can be seen as theological) fictional wonderfulness reading. In fact I just started the Hunger Games trilogy (literally in the last few minutes of being distracted from this blog by a text - Thanks A!)

Pa & Ma P visited from the Hoosierland this last week & we squeezed all four of us into our tiny apartment. It seems quiet now without them here. The reality is it has been a fairly quiet year when talking about the literal noise level of our apartment. This seems a bit silly to say when Pandora is playing Julie Andrew classics, my cell is randomly vibrating with new texts, & I just read out-loud the first few pages of The Hunger Games. While my parents were here we enjoyed some local treats such as Forestedge Winery, Leech Lake Brewery, & Itasca State Park. We ate lots of good food (we even had a picnic by Leech Lake), had daily cocktail time, watched a few movies, & played games. As Z put it, "It was a good staycation!"

Now onto June & the rest of Summer. It's already speeding by! Z's b-day is in a few days, "vacay" #1 is just around the corner, & our 1 year wedding anniversary is at the beginning of next month! Life is exiting in a slightly less overwhelming way this Summer & we're doing what we can to embrace it fully. There are dozens of bike rides in the near future on the miles & miles of paved trails now that my bike is spruced up with new pedals - thanks big brother for the gift & Dad & Z for putting the gift on my bike! God is good :-)