Say Good-Bye to Summer

We have moved. September has come, Mel and Aaron have returned from their honeymoon and taken up permanent residence in our old house, meaning we got to move to what I’m now calling our ‘temporary residence’ until we find a place to live long-term. There are great things about our temporary residence. One of those things is how close it is to Barton Street and all the wonderful run-down yet somehow quaint storefronts there. Another of those things is our walk to church/my walk to work. It took us less than 20 minutes to walk to church on Sunday. We walked down side streets and cut through alleys like mad… it was great! One of the down sides to our temporary residence is that it’s maybe one block away from Ivor Wynne Stadium. Yesterday, we had to stay up until 11:30 to move our cars after the Tiger Cats game (which they lost… but it was close).

It’s interesting moving, only to know that you’ll have to move again in a little while. Most of my stuff is still in storage in friends’ basements. It’s funny that things I think are so important have now not been in my immediate possession for more than 4 months. Danielle and I are sleeping in bunk beds now. I’m on the top bunk. I feel a little bit like I’m living in a dorm room but it’s pretty fun.

I am on vacation this week. I will head to Sarnia tomorrow to visit my parents for a couple of days. I am going to stop in London and have lunch with my sister. I have a couple of things I’d like to try and figure out this week but mostly I’m just looking forward to relaxing. I am also going to visit Christine in Toronto on Sunday. September is always interesting. It is slow for a while… mostly because the summer has been so ridiculously busy that everything feels slow in comparison. I’m only working part-time hours at the church this year. I am looking forward to that and currently trying to craft a schedule that includes the various things I want to be involved in this year. That is another thing I’d like to get done this week… prioritizing the different things I want to be involved in and trying to make myself available to what God might want to do with my time. I’ll let people know how that goes.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Today is my anniversary. Exactly two years ago today, I moved to this wonderful city of Hamilton. It’s crazy to think of all the things that have happened in those two years and to see how different I am from then. I have no plans to officially celebrate this anniversary… I don’t think other people realize how much I love marking ridiculously random special days in my life… but I couldn’t let the day go by without acknowledging it. Now, I have a sermon to finish.

Rain, Rain

I don’t like it when it rains all day. You know, the days that are grey and chilled and the sun doesn’t shine. I especially don’t like it when these days happen one after another after another. I do, however, like storms. I would say, in fact, that I love storms. There is something about the sudden onset, the quick rolling clouds, the thunder and the lightening that reminds me of God’s awesome power. During the downpour, and directly after, I frequently want to put on my rubber boots and play in the puddles. When the sun comes out again I search for rainbows. It makes me happy.

Perhaps this says something about my life. The most difficult (but likely true) thing anyone has told me this year is that I don’t like it when things are hard. It is true. I spent a lot of time trying to make it sound like it wasn’t… but it is. I can handle momentary storms of crisis, but I don’t like having it rain day after day after day. I am not overly patient, nor am I good at perseverance. It’s something I’m learning in this whole waiting for a house process. I keep coming to places where I’m ready to give up, I call out to God for direction and He simply tells me to keep chasing the dream He’s put on my heart. I went out to look for a rainbow after the rain just now but there wasn’t one. I guess we don’t always get a rainbow.

Latest Newsletter

It took me a whole half-hour but I got my computer to convert files to pdf again.  Here’s the latest issue of my newsletter.

august-08-newsle

Life, in Light of the Weekend

I highly suggest taking a day to escape life every once in a while. While last Wednesday’s impromptu snow day did not solve all of my problems, it, paired with getting away for the weekend, has given me a new perspective on things. The weekend was wonderful. I had forgotten so much of what I love about being outside. I haven’t stopped to look at stars in too long so it was nice to be surrounded by beauty for an entire weekend. We swam a bit. I went for a walk each day. We read a lot and played lots of board games. I think I played two or three games of Scrabble, which I am horrible at but I love. We also had a campfire each night, which included marshmallows and hot dogs being cooked and consumed. I had a great time.

This week has also looked better in light of getting away for some time. I had some difficult but good conversations with Eric and Timmy early this week that God is continuing to use in shaping me. I realized on Tuesday that I haven’t been doing a great job lately of pursuing the best God has for me. Often I get so overwhelmed with the day-to-day that I start responding to people as problems to solve or crises to manage, instead of objects that deserve real love and have the potential to shape and change me. I think I do this most when I don’t know how to love them… because I know it doesn’t happen all the time. One more thing to learn about love I guess. Sheesh, don’t I ever get to know it all?

We are still looking for a place to live. Please pray for that… we know we won’t be homeless if we don’t find a place by September but the thought of moving more than once doesn’t really appeal to us. There is also one more girl who is interested in living with us. She seems pretty great. I am excited to get to know her more and I think she has a lot to teach all of us about practicing community.

Well, I should get back to work. I’m trying to spend the day finishing up a summer newsletter and preparing for my exit interview which is on Monday. I thought a little blogging break was due… hopefully now my brain can return to newsletter mode. Expect something to be out by the end of the day… if I can remember how to convert files to pdf.

Snow Day in July

Once again I have neglected my blog. It is never my intention but life gets busy or I get overwhelmed to the point where I don’t actually feel like writing about any of the things that are happening in my life. I strive to make this place more than just an overview of the exciting events on my life (although, for those who are wondering – Fraser Family Fun Day at the Falls was very enjoyable) and lately I just haven’t felt like I’ve really been in a good place to share what I’m learning or becoming. Today, however, I have succumbed to the guilt of knowing that there are millions of people all over the world who have no idea what is going on in my life… so here is an update.

I am stressed out about housing. We need to be out of our current house by the 1^st of September. We’ve been looking at places to rent for four months now and found nothing that I would consider actually living in. A couple of weeks ago we started looking at houses for sale. There are two couples who have indicated they would be interested in looking into buying a house for us to rent from them. This sounds great but feels six billion times more complicated then simply renting from Mr. Joe Toronto Slumlord. Honestly though my stress comes much more from not knowing what to pursue, than the basic fact that we don’t have a house. I am afraid that we will be so busy looking one way that we’ll miss what God is trying to provide.

Three Sundays from now I am preaching on community at church. I am fairly certain that I agreed to this ridiculous idea a good two or three months ago when I was fairly certain I knew most of what there was to know about the subject. Now I have no clue what I’m going to say… and I’m pretty sure getting up merely to announce that I have less of a clue than any other person in the congregation won’t go over that well. It’s interesting how God has completely challenged all of my ideas surrounding community over the last three months. Somewhere along the road of life we seem to have picked up the idea that community and sharing our lives with people is all roses and cupcakes and amazingness… but it is really, really hard. I am convinced that it is good though… I have been praying a lot lately that God will make me the kind of person who loves others, who perseveres when things get hard and a person who lives with integrity to the things God is teaching me.

I took a snow day today. Yes, it is July and no, there is not snow on the ground… but I decided I couldn’t go to work today. Originally I was supposed to be on vacation this week anyway but then things came up that made that impossible. I was already planning to take Friday off to get ready for our trip to the cottage this weekend. Last night, after having two consecutive crappy days at work in a row, I decided I needed a break. Everything looks better after some time away. I went to Wal-Mart with Danielle this morning, read my Bible, did some journaling and even got to have a great online conversation with a friend I haven’t talked to in awhile. All in all, it’s been a great day thus far… and it’s only mid-afternoon.

Swallowed by Summer

I will not lie. There is something about summer that completely consumes me. Perhaps it is that for most of my life summer has been a very separate portion of life… marking the end of one school year from the beginning of another. I realized this was still true for me this week when a friend asked me how I was and I couldn’t give him an answer, simply because I had been so consumed by everything that is going on this summer that I hadn’t really put any thought into the question. I will give the same excuse for not blogging in a while. It is difficult for me to stop and reflect long enough to write things down… but it’s a good discipline for me so I decided to make it a priority today.

The summer has been going well for the most part. I enjoy warm weather and the beautiful sunshine we’ve been experiencing. We’ve been keeping more than a little busy at the church. I’ve made four trips to and from the camp we send kids to already (but strangely only one stop at the dairy bar we pass on the way). We have an amazing and very gifted summer student working at the church which makes my life just so much less stressful. I love having the kids around… even if it means our work gets disrupted sometimes. I’ve also been able to do a couple of summer-y things like go strawberry picking, enjoy Canada Day fireworks and partake in at least one delicious picnic (never mind that all of those things happened on one day).

This week at the church we were running a week of day camp for our junior high students. We had about 12 kids over the week, 10 of whom came out each night. They are a really fun bunch of kids to be around. Each night I led team-building games, which was interesting and somewhat enjoyable. I really enjoy team-building games but I never like leading them because I compare myself to all of the great facilitators I have seen in the past. The kids seemed to enjoy themselves, however, and hopefully they learned a few things about leading as part of a team. I also got to tell them a Bible story twice during the week. I have always enjoyed story-telling but, until I started working at the church, I didn’t understand quite how much I love it! I think the nights when I got to tell the story were my favourite. I also think that will be my job for a whole week of day camp… which is even more exciting.

This year for Leadership Camp we decided not to bring in outside speakers but to open the opportunity each night to talk about a topic that relates to Christian life. We talked about worship, prayer, Bible reading, communion and baptism. I was really impressed at the questions the kids were asking and the comments they were making. God is doing some really awesome stuff in these kids and it’s neat to watch. I had some amazing conversations with a couple of the girls about faith and trying to follow Jesus and baptism and how the Holy Spirit transforms us. It was a great week.

Other than that, I am still trying to attack my list of things I want to do this summer. There is this zoo not too far from here. I drive past the turn-off sign each time I shuttle kids to camp and I really want to go. I checked it out online today and it sounds pretty interesting. I’m hoping that it’ll be like The Pinery Zoo we went to growing up… a little bit sketchy but amazing all the same. We have also yet to check out the drive-in… there just hasn’t been anything we want to see. I am also still trying to figure out if I can be at camp for a week this summer. I love camp a lot and not being there during the summer still feels weird… the week I was going to take off just doesn’t work anymore so I’m currently trying to find another week I could take instead. We’ll see what happens.

That’s pretty much life. I decided yesterday that due to this summer completely consuming me thing it is likely that summer would be a bad time of the year for me to make any life-altering decisions… which probably puts summer weddings out… not that there are any marriage prospects in the near future anyway… much to the chagrin of the 5-year-old at church that keeps asking me why I’m not married yet (she’s kind of the resident flower girl for all weddings lately so I think she just wants to make sure she doesn’t miss the opportunity). Yep, so that was a paragraph about nothing. Danielle and I are going to Chapters tonight… I leave all my money at home, make a list of the books that look good and request them from the library because I’m cheap. I plan on greatly enjoying my evening.

My Non-Holiday Weekend

Bad news first – I’m currently at work. Good news next – I have a cleaner office then I think I ever have. I wasn’t going to work today. I was bound and determined to take today and tomorrow off… and I probably would’ve too except everyone else is working… AND… Eric needs a place in the office for a desk. Yep, that’s right, after months of working together Eric and I are taking our relationship to the next step and moving into the same office. I spent this morning taking all the junk out of my office and moving it to the attic. Then I moved around all the furniture (I now have a sweet sitting area) and made a large enough space for his desk. He will work in the corner with his desk up against the wall so we’ll never have to look at each other!

The rest of my weekend has been just as great (all kidding aside, I really enjoyed cleaning my office this morning and lugging all sorts of stuff around the church). I went for a hike in the near dark with Sanda (and stumbled upon some sort of strange ghost tour type thing), visited Georgie at It’s Your Festival, dropped one of my favourite kids off at camp, played a sweet game of scrabble, cooked (and eaten) some great food, and watched my new favourite movie (3 and a half times).

Friday night a bunch of us walked over to Blockbuster to rent Lars and the Real Girl. It quickly became my new favourite movie… or at least top two (Juno is still pretty high up there). It’s an interesting story with some hilarious moments and some great subtle truths spoken. It has its flaws, as one of my less-idealistic friends was quick to point out, but I quite enjoyed it… so much that I watched it again on Saturday… and Sunday afternoon… and evening. It’s definitely worth seeing.

As for the rest of this holiday weekend. I think we’re going to check out the fireworks they have at Bayfront every year for Canada Day. They’re supposed to be pretty good. There is also talk of us going cherry picking tomorrow morning. I don’t like cherries all that much but it might be fun to go and pick them… and then I can possible make cherry cheesecake. We also have mass amounts of strawberries at our house though, so perhaps I should make strawberry cheesecake instead… oh, the decisions! Happy Canada Day everyone!

7 Things I Love about Summer

1. Slushies – I am developing a serious addiction to these cold, sugary beverages.

2. Thunderstorms – We’ve been having some CRAZY storms this summer so far. Today’s involved mass amounts of hail that kept coming, then going, then coming some more.

3. No School – There are three more days until all the kids will be off for the summer. That should make the whole not going to school thing less of a problem!

4. Camp – I had a great talk with one of the guys I used to work at camp with on Friday. He’s heading back to camp for a couple of weeks to help our new leadership staff get things off the ground. It sounds like it should be a good summer.

5. Weddings – I went to a great one yesterday. My friend Steph got married and is now moving to the United States. The wedding really was a great affair. Aaron’s hair looked really good. The rain didn’t dampen the spirit and the sun came out as the bride walked down the aisle. In between the wedding and dinner we got to play picnic type games with some kids. There were jelly beans, bubbles and Jones Soda (Steph’s new last name is Jones) on the table. What can be better?

6. The Drive-in – I haven’t been yet… but hopefully sometime this weekend I’ll get out for a movie.

7. Hanging Clothes Outside – this is a joy that I have only recently rediscovered. The dryer at our house takes a longer than usual time to dry clothes, so putting them outside has been both useful and enjoyable.

The Misadventures Involving my Car

The exciting life of me… So, I’m driving to church this morning. I thought something felt a little funny while I was going down the mountain. I was driving faster than I normally do and braking didn’t seem to be slowing me down. I didn’t think too much of it until I made the turn by the railroad tracks at the bottom of the Charlton access. It felt pretty out of control. I went over the tracks, going about 50 km/hr and saw that there was a red light at Stinson/Wentworth. I put my brakes on to stop but my car didn’t stop. I went through the light at about 20 km/hr. At this point I’m certain there is something wrong. I have to push my brake really hard to make it do anything, and even then the engine is pulling against it so it won’t stop. I make sure my pedal isn’t stuck. I try my parking brake to see if the brakes are the problem, that doesn’t work. I put it in neutral and try things again, still nothing. I try pulling into a parking lot, but am not able to stop before I hit something, so I pull through and continue around the block looking for a place to park. This is difficult since I cannot park behind a car, for fear of hitting the car. So, I circle the block with my foot pressing hard on the brake until my car finally comes to a slow enough pace that I am able to use my brakes while the car is in neutral. I park my car in the same parking lot I had tried to park in before. I call people for advice… and a ride to church. Thankfully we have a mechanic in the church. He took a look at things and fixed the problem… apparently after my service last Monday a few things didn’t get re-attached properly so they became loose and came apart while I was driving. Great fun… I thought I would share.