Bet you don't*

Do you ever hit that point in the middle of the night where you know you're going to be up for a while, so you might as well just start eating breakfast, showering, and pretending like you don't even want to sleep?

I hit that point. I've not missed that point. I was hoping never to greet that point ever again.

I've scheduled in (PENNED in. BLOCKED in. PROGRAMMED in.) about 20 hours of homework/project/reading time per week for the rest of the semester. Somewhere in there, I'll have to schedule in at least 5-10 more. Additionally, devos are now a morning requirement. I'll be taking attendance.

*unless you're Anne Johns

Philippians 1:9-11

⁹ And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, ¹⁰ so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, ¹¹ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

Bookmark

Kayla, Anne, Allison, and co. are watching a movie and Zach is watching Mike play in the house band and Katie is making hundreds laugh.

All good reasons to stick a bookmark on page 93 and go someplace that's not here. But not good enough reasons to stop before page 198. Because tomorrow the bookmark has to go in page 322.

Shakespeare, your life is eating up my life. It'll be a ten hour meal.

Lessons

God teaches us them. And it's okay to be open as a tool. But not like a cold, metallic tool. A living, breathing, fluid creature.

Vulnerability is so important. And love is so important. And God is so loving. Thank goodness.

a couple things I appreciate

My new-ish friends, Rachel and Kyla.

My old-ish friends, Anne and Kayla.

An awareness of God's love and a desire to pursue Him -- and all that pursuing implies.

A break from practicum before student teaching!

Zachary Aument, with his puppy-dog-eyes in all his genuineness.

Michael and his Michaelness.

Everything about the learning and relationships in small group.

additives

I added a Shelfari widget to the right-hand side bar. You can flip through to see my favorite books. If you hover your mouse over the book, it tells you things.

I've got everything I've read, am reading, and want to read listed and organized on Shelfari. I rate and review what I've read.

Fun. Helpful. Useful in the classroom. There you go.

Optimism. In this case: the cow is half full.

I've got time to get everything done. The papers and projects and tests will happen.

I'm going to get an alarm clock soon. I'm going to switch phones. I'm going to wake up on time and answer texts.

I'm going to love God and people and learn a lot about God and people. And stuff. I'll learn a lot of English-y, philosophical, historical, social, mathematical, psychological, Biblical stuff.

And I'll keep lists of things I'm thankful for and I'll keep track of memories I've lived in and I'll keep track of thoughts I've had amidst the thankful memories.

And hopefully, I'll continue this life-project of more God, less me. I'll look up more.

snapshot stories

This picture tells 4 short stories:

1. The floral couch lofted in East Lodge 202. I sat here when Nick, Zach, and Chris came in to do homework and play silly boy card games.

2. The cashmere sweater is soft and grey and Zach Aument's. He's washing my hoodie because Mike happened to shake me at the same moment that I picked up my coffee.

3. My eyes see Zach dancing to Over the Rhine's jazzy music.

4. My hands are holding 5 reference books that Mike gave me. I'm leading small group this week. Week three of our Advent study will focus on joy. No problem. Joy is my middle name.

Rachel: Mike, do you want to become a monk? Got Monk?

Mike: I... would like to go... to a monk place.

Bethany: For every pair of shoes that you buy, you should donate a shoebox full of stuff for that thing...

Nick: Children without borders.

Bethany: ...

Mike: Um, Operation Christmas Child.

Do this before you vote

Here is a website that gives a rundown of the educational platforms of all the presidential candidates (see the bottom of the page). Bookmark it and set aside an hour to review this. Education is the future of your children. There are some huge changes that are trying to be made, some of which are a little scary.

biebs

Bethany: Anne. Your lip's my biggest weakness.

Anne: What? Me?

Bethany: Yeah.

Anne: Wha -- do you know who I am?

I got Bieber on the brain.

1 minute of your time

35 seconds: It took 6 months, but I'm finally out of Ginger Peach Republic of Tea.

25 seconds: here's Anne attacking the inside of Rachel's boot

MUGS

Mug shot

I realized that I didn't get a picture with my dad or Mike or anybody while we were in Michigan! So I switched my profile picture to a throwback from New Jersey, instead.

Mugging

I'm reading about gruesome murders via Edgar Allen Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in an attempt to "get on the stick" with my capstone project. Lemme tell ya, this weekend is going to be AWLL about the HAWMWORK. Time to play ketchup. Ketchup and mustard.

Muggy

The inside of my head is a big, grey muggy sky. Seinfeld probably said it best:

“I never get enough sleep. I stay up late at night, cause I’m Night Guy. Night Guy wants to stay up late. ‘What about getting up after five hours sleep?’, oh that’s Morning Guy’s problem. That’s not my problem, I’m Night Guy. I stay up as late as I want. So you get up in the morning, you’re exhausted, groggy… oooh I hate that Night Guy! See, Night Guy always screws Morning Guy. There’s nothing Morning Guy can do. The only Morning Guy can do is try and oversleep often enough so that Day Guy looses his job and Night Guy has no money to go out anymore.”

Mug mug mug mug mug mug

I caved and got the mug I've been eyeing!!! AH!

spontaneous!

My dad was in Detroit visiting family. A measly 4 hours away. 29 hours closer than usual. SO! Mike and I drove up to surprise him. My grandparents, aunt, and uncle were in on the ruse.

We were a half an hour late, and my grandma tried to stall my dad from going to my uncle's house by pretending to call people on the phone. I didn't know she was such a trickster! She also told us that she needed to go to the drug store to pick up a muscle magazine so that she could cut out a picture of a muscle woman to make a card for her physical therapists. She's graduating from the rehab program for her shoulder. She also joked about using a playboy magazine: Mike, my dad, and I all covered our faces in shock.

Surprising dad was so much fun. I knew he was excited when he brought us a pizza after he dropped grandma back off at her house and stayed with us at my uncle's house. It was 11 pm and he bought a pizza. He took so long in the place that my uncle texted him, "Are you applying for a job??" There was much laughter that night: my uncle's full of "yucks," my dad is big on puns, and we watched Brian Regan.

The next morning, dad attempted to get us coffee. Since he didn't have a car, he wandered (with zero sense of direction) down the street in the pouring rain until he had to give up and come back. He, my uncle, Mike, and I went to Cracker Barrel. Mike got down to 2 pegs on the tee-game. My dad and I got down to 3.

After watching the Michigan/Michigan State game, dad left for the airport and we did homework. Grandma took us to Big Boys. We watched the neighbor's tree collapse onto his house. And then we took off. Mike was the DJ, so we jammed to classic rock, R&B, and some smooth John Mayer.

We hung out at East Lodge for a bit, attempted to find the tree frog that Zach had caught and then accidentally let loose, and talked about the classy Illinois fans with Jordan. The most eventful two days I've had this semester.

"Do you know if anyone owns an American Green Tree frog? Because I found one in the recycling room and they aren't native to Marion." -Zach Arneson, text

fence post

Make that clicking noise with your tongue on the roof of your mouth.

That

is the sound of a fence post

being planted.

Fence post? Is that the word?

Marker? Monument? Monolith?

October 11th. The day Peter the Great became tzar of Russia. Babe Ruth hit two home runs in a World Series game. A woman walked on the moon -- one small step for woman, one... small step for womankind. Mike and I have been dating for 5 months.

It's just one of those days, you know? Good to circle on the calendar.

MORE Bible stuff??? Yes. Yes, indeed. This just seems like good stuff:

“Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise. Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” Proverbs 19:20-21 NIV

If I were to remind myself of what my favorite book of the Bible is, I would say, "Well, it's Philippians!"

If I were to remind myself about my favorite verses in Philippians I would say,

Philippians 1:9-11

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

Philippians 2:3,5-7

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves... In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Philippians 4: 4-9

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

And to that I'd say, "Oh crap." And I'd get back on my knees and take my nose out of every body else's business and stick it back in my Bible/prayer journal, like I HAVEN'T been doing.

I'm thankful for the peace of grace and the promise of joy and the reminder for humility.

Long lost Nicholas

I found a picture of Nick Chavez's child-spirit on pinterest.

Allison

and I are so different, but also exactly the same.

Where we differ, we understand. We nod a lot. We smirk.

Where we're the same, we freak. We shriek, "EXACTLY!" a lot. We point up a lot. We say "amen." We relate it all back to God. And we mean it.

I'm so glad we clicked on facebook pre-freshman-year. I enjoy the re-clicking and brain-cog-turning and the rhythms of our head-nods. I feel as though we're both 30 years older than each other, constantly switching roles and pulling each other "up."

That picture was taken first semester, freshman year -- 3 years ago.

And so I throw myself on my knees

Anne and I headed community dinner for Exit Downtown. A blur of people helped -- it would take a lot of text to name them all. But their hearts for service were more beautiful than my own -- they were not locked into commitments or pressured by promises.

Despite the unpredicted setbacks,

(-the openness to exhorting prayer that lead to the church trickling downstairs over a period of 2 hours instead of all at once

-the inability of the water to boil for the first 45 minutes of prep

-the inexplicable sauce drought

-the pilot light on the industrial washing machine that threatened to poison the kitchen staff)

it went so well. :)

Anne and I were prayed over, and I committed the "strengths" of my life to God's glory. We spoke briefly to Mike and then spent some time in prayer. I have an inkling that the next couple of months will be a lot of prayer and a lot of throwing aside selfish thoughts. Trusting God with my life and my relationships chronically.

today, I'm the frog