Sunday Snippits: good, bad, & awesome!

GOOD: Happy day to celebrate the church & its major reformation of the 1500s! Today we honor Martin Luther in his leadership for & with the church & give thanks for his outspoken ways of making his thoughts regarding what it meant for him & people in 1517 to be church known by nailing his 95 theses to the door(s) of the Castle Church, Wittenberg. What a fun way to end the blur of goodness that filled the last week! Ma & Pa N left early last Monday & Z & I busied ourselves as our only day working from our offices. We then went on to enjoy a little bit of shopping, continuing education, & fellowship with colleagues/peers. If you saw Friday Favorites you saw a glimpse at the beautiful few days we spent on a mini-vacay. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. And if you ever thought island life wasn't worth the escape after Labor Day, think again! It's a touch more quiet, the air is crisp & perfect for fireplace time, & the discounts are abundant in all the stores. We came home to newly painted offices, a few new pieces of office furniture, & new business cards. Oh, and of course a cuddly puppy!

BAD: Fatigue, and how it makes many weary of what's next. AND how that weariness buts heads with the honeymoon phase of what's new. Not pickin' up what I'm laying down? Check out this article regarding 'transition fatigue.' I'm not sure that the term 'honeymoon phase' needs much explanation, but there is much joy - just like there hopefully is in a literal honeymoon - that comes with being in a new setting with the fresh touch of grace being given at nearly every turn.

AWESOME: The refreshing feel of getting a new 'do.' As if enough else weren't new already, I hadn't had my hair cut in months & it was time. It's the piece of self-care that we all can give to ourselves at some point. Then there's the piece of self-care that comes from others. It's pretty awesome knowing that my parents visited with AJO & her family the other day & the very next day I received a card with pretty awesome stickers (it doesn't matter if you're 2 or 22 or more) from AJO. And all in between that AJO & I had a phone date too. Whoo, that's a lot of self-care given by self & others!

WORD: Having been out & about this past week I have a collection of short readings & devotions in my e-mail inbox. Deuteronomy, Thessalonians, Psalms, & the Gospel of Matthew. Themes of waiting, trying & trying again, being still, more waiting, & identity scatter the particular scripture readings. 

coming up: Carving & decorating the pumpkins in today's picture. It was quite a blustery day to pick out pumpkins, but fun none-the-less. No, we didn't purchase them all, but we did come away with roughly 22.5 pounds of pumpkin between 2 medium sized pumpkins & 1 small pumpkin. We will be simply enjoying the last week of October with whatever it may bring.

Sunday Snippits: Good, Bad, & Ugly!

Happy Sunday Snippits!

Another week has gone by in another blur of life.

So here we go with the GOOD, BAD, & UGLY of Juls of #LifeSpiritSparkle (use this hashtag to share the love of connection & networking)

GOOD: Last Monday Ma & Pa N made the trip back to MN safe & sound. It was good to have them here & to be able to show them where we're living. Ma & Pa P were here all week with a little bit of adventure each day. We found our way into Johnnie's, which Z & I had been wanting to check out. Tuesday afternoon I had some time to learn from the annual 3rd Tuesday Conversation (aka 3TC) offered through the ELCA Youth Ministry Network that happens each month. This months topic was about working through transition and conflict. Always a fun topic! Shout out to Interserve Ministries! Thursday we ventured to the quaint town of Charlevoix where we feasted on candy from The Taffy Barrel & jalapeno popcorn from The Poppery. It's a great place to vacation! Ma & Pa P made their way back to IN safely & welcomed family from AZ. While Z & I reacclimatized ourselves to our quiet home, made apple-butter with all the apples we had, & built our first fire in our fireplace!

BAD: Learning to juggle having guests & continue on with some personal matters is hard! I LOVE being around people, but I also am learning to carve out more "me-time" to take care of myself & my sanity.

UGLY: Our car & it's check engine light. And having friends & family who are hurting. and women's education rights in other countries (see articles on Malala)

WORD: Luke 18:1-8 God grants justice & so must we. In what ways do you experience justice in your life & how can you share that with others?

COMING UP: Skype dates with friends & a youth worker's retreat at camp!

Sunday Snippits!

Heya all, I haven't disappeared from the world of blogging. Life has just been ONE GIANT TRANSITION after another lately.

As of today I'm sitting in Z's new office space, mooching off the church wifi, & admiring our home out the window. Yes, Z will be able to see the whole front of our house outside of his office. We could send smoke signals from my home office to his work office!

Life is good & we're definitely still in a time of settling. Who would've ever thought recycling could be so complicated? We can't figure out where to take all our paper & boxes from moving!

Z officially starts his new job a week from today & I start my networking/building my job title a week from today.

I'll try to be checking back in later this week, but without internet at home, who knows what will happen.

Tuesday Tea Time!

Photo courtesy of The Kristen Project

This morning is gray & wet & I'm enjoying a cup of hot loose leaf tea (using my wooden tea strainer from my bro). No, I do not look all dawled up like the ladies in the picture. After I write this I plan to to embrace my push for Life,Spirit, & Sparkle with a workout.

We have started the move to get rid of things by donation or consuming (food) because we know our annual move will be coming soon. It's exciting & anxiety causing. 

How do you clean out your pantry?

It seems to me there is no consistant way to clean out the food you don't want to move. Sure you can donate some of it, but generally you can't eat all of it (First World Problem!). To use it all, you need to inevitably buy more groceries to make the meals you want.

And this doesn't even touch the books that have accumulated after another 4 year degree! Then there's clothes & kitchen accessories. Have I mentioned that my kitchen is maybe 12 feet long & 2.5 feet wide? It bleeds into our living room or sitting area & to be creative we have a "kitchen" table between the 2.5 feet of tile that is the kitchen floor & the carpet that is the living room.

This is what my tea conjured up because I sit on my couch & look at my apartment & know that it will not be my apartment in a month. Gotta love transition!

Here's to a non-anxiety inducing Tuesday Tea Time!

Sunday Snippits with the GOOD, BAD, & UGLY!

It's Sunday Snippits time! My mind is whirling after 1 too many tastes of caffeinated beverages in the first half of the day. Oops!

And we're back linking up with the ladies of

GOOD: Life is pretty easy going right now. This is a blessing after the whirlwind of graduate school, meeting my best-friend/husband, & moving once a year for the last 10 years. We've been enjoying time with friends & working on little tasks we've been meaning to do for months or even years. My most recent debate (with myself) is if I need a hardcopy address book or if I can fully rely on electronics. After this weekend of colossal summer storms & no internet, I've decided a hardcopy is still a good thing Thankfully, I have a blank address book that I've kept for the last 10 years! It was a high-school graduation gift. Another fun good thing this last week was playing bocce ball with friends before the 2nd massive storm & the next day enjoying a long walk to the fair grounds for the Back to the 50's car show. This was possibly our last chance of having deep-fried cheese curds that are fresh & delicious from the MN fair grounds. We also enjoyed a raspberry & pineapple twist dolewhip cone!

BAD: We don't have internet due to the damage of the storms. We're currently sitting in a Caribou & even their internet isn't reliable due to everybody else doing the same thing we're doing. Our friends are slowly, but surely packing up their apartments & moving for first calls & other adventures. The fear of loneliness is a little too real right now. 

UGLY: Summer has come roaring in with high winds, torrential rains, & fiery lightening bolts. There are hundreds of thousands of people without power & lots of other damage. Our car was darn close to having a giant old pine tree right on top of it. Campus was flooding & Z's phones (he was on call for head resident) were blowing up. It was chaos!

Coming Up: This week will be an adventure of everything getting cleaned up & restored. We've got a lot of fun, but sad events with friends as they are preparing to move to the next thing. Tomorrow night a St. Paul Saints game!

Friday Foto Fun!

Photo courtesy of The Line Media

As we transition with life there are places that I realize I haven't gone to regularly while I've lived here, but I will miss once we're gone. The Finnish Bistro is one of these places. Tonight we were blessed to be able to spend time with a potential student & his family & have dinner at the Finnish Bistro. There's always good food, good baked goods, & it's attached to a Dunn Bro's Coffee - or the Dunn Bro's is attached to the bistro. Dunn Bro's isn't my favorite coffee shop as a non-coffee drinker, but from our good friend PMc, we hear that they have the best coffee around.

When I was in college the place I always visited (often with AJO, MB, or JMDT) was Cup O Joe.

Where's your missing bistro or coffee shop?

Wondering what my next place will be...