autumn

I love the crunch of crisp leaves under my feet.

random

I was waiting at my bus stop this morning and some guy sauntered by, looked me in the eye and said, "You're hot." I'm not sure what the appropriate response in this situation should be, but I couldn't help but laugh at him. I'm up for a Saturday morning class, so I obviously don't care how I look. I haven't brushed my hair since Monday. And some random stranger finds me attractive. Strange world, this.

behold!

"Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand" says the Lord

Jeremiah 18:6

This morning in class we meditated on this verse. At first I thought "Ok, are you about done yet?" and then I realized how blessed I am to be held in the hands of my Creator.

As we continued to meditate, the image came to my mind of the potter we were so fascinated with in Japan. We stood there for 15 minutes, just watching him work. And he was making identical pots. Same shape, same height, same width. He methodically made them with gentle yet firm hands, skilled, knowledgable of their task.

At first I thought this is kind of a depressing thought, wondering, are we all the same? But even if we are similar, we still serve a purpose and are useful.

There were other pieces of pottery in the store which were extremely beautiful and expensive. Their purpose was completely different. But they don't underscore the importance of the ordinary.

The other thought I had was of the book A Single Shard which I read a few years ago for my Children's Lit. class. In it there is a master potter who is creative and comes up with a new design. He tries to become the Emperor's chief potter/artist, but due to the kiln destroying his first batch when the Emperor was visiting, he needed to send a boy to the Emperor with samples of his work. The journey was long and hard, and the boy was attacked by robbers. They smashed the pottery with it's beautiful design, and the boy is only able to rescue a piece about the size of his palm. Eventually he makes it to the Emperor who is convinced, even by such a small shard, the the potter is a master. I was thinking of James and Mike and Laura and Jordan...even if their "pots" have "broken" the shards that remain can speak so loudly and clearly of their Maker. The pot in the story did not serve its purpose as originally intended, but even the remnant fulfilled the purpose of showing the Emperor the Master's worth.

Have Thine own way, Lord

Have Thine own way

Thou art the Potter

I am the clay

Mold me and make me

After Thy will

While I am waiting

Yielded and still.

Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

~Robert Frost

i love jon gedney

You too could be a recipient of my affection. All it takes is a care package filled with homemade chocolate chip cookies and bubble wrap.
Haha, Mister sent me a package that I received today and the cookies still taste really good and it pretty much made my day. So I decided to devote this particular blog to him. Here's a picture of him with the cd wall behind him. All those free hours of AOL internet service...

yes

the candy mentioned in my previous post was durian flavoured

it has snowed in Calgary already

it feels like I will be reading for the rest of my life

Josh and I named my guitar Leslie Leona. but she goes by Leslie.

sweet old man

Yesterday as I was waiting for the bus in China Town there was a cute old asian man sitting next to me. He only spoke one word of English (as I discovered at the end of our short acquaintance) and that is "buh bye". So as we were sitting there, he was eating some candies, and he offered me one. I tried to politely refuse, but he wouldn't accept it, so I decided one couldn't hurt and thanked him. He gave me two. He demonstrated that I needed to open it and eat it immediately, so I did, not wanting to hurt his feelings.
Memories of my childhood immediately surfaced. Remembering when Barry and Cheri Williamson came back from Indonesia and were visiting us. We played with native hunting blow spear things, and had fun shooting arrows in our backyard. When they were leaving, they gave me a candy, which I gladly accepted, and as we waved goodbye I tried desperately not to hurl, because this candy tasted so incredibly nasty. They thought it was a fun joke, and I decided that in years to come I could look back on that moment with laughter.
Memories of Japan flashed back. We were doing the close-your-eyes-open-your-mouth Japanese junk food tasting thing. Josh was sitting next to me, with his eyes open, saying things such as "Good Lord, that's not going anywhere near my mouth!" "That eyeball is staring at me" and other such non-appetizing warnings.
Yesterday, that man gave me the same candy the Williamsons had given me, I'm sure of it. It was absolutely disgustingly horrible tasting. I popped it into my mouth with him looking on, and gave him a quick smile (which hopefully was not a grimace) and I slipped the candy under my tongue until an opportune moment to discretely spit it out.
Then, through our miming conversation, we discovered we were waiting for the same bus. And, surprisingly enough, we got off on the same stop. Right before the stop he shoved 3 more candies into my hand, and then said "buh bye".
So if anyone wants to taste the nasty candy, I have 4 available. Actually, 3 because Nicole wants one.
Also, I forgot the best part of the story. While we were waiting for the bus to come this man started stretching and doing karate type kicks and hand motions for a good 10 minutes. Highly amusing. The man is shorter than I am, and probably at least in his 70s. Dang he was cute though, haha.

themes

of journey, of waiting, of risk, of community, of contentment, of God's goodness, of blessings, of persevering in prayer, of trust

For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.
Psalm 33:4

stupid cat

Gilmore is really cute when he's sleeping. Otherwise, I'm seriously wondering if he's possessed. He is a psycho cat who goes nuts for no apparent reason. A few minutes ago the phone rang, so I got up to answer it, and, being my clumsy self, banged my knee really hard on my desk so I couldn't actually walk and so I sort of hopped to the phone. While I was on the phone Gilmore started attacking me...biting my hands and arms and legs (and Julie had just trimmed his front claws, but he still latched on). I kicked him really hard and sent the stupid thing flying and he, of course, tried to attack me again so I yelled at him really loudly (which sent Merissa and Julie running down asking if I was ok) and I'm hoping that he's now afraid of me and will no longer bother me. Good luck, right?
So why is this bundle of terror so adorable every afternoon when he naps on my bed? Why can't he stay in that sweet state during the rest of the day? Crazy cat.

1st day at seminary...

Today was a day.
I got all my sarcasm and frustrations out to God, so all you get is "This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it."
And one answer to prayer (not explaining the really long, frustrating story around it) is that we "floaters" are allowed to get transit passes. Don't have it yet...but I am allowed to get one soon. YAY! I started to get really excited and all these freshies were giving me weird looks, but they don't understand the difference between $70 each month and $155 for the whole semester when I'm already technically taking 18 credits.
So God is good and that is the conclusion of the matter.
Now I'm off to read until the rapture.

mmm, lazy long weekend

On Saturday I got to see Mel again and meet Lester! Our communications got a bit crossed and I ended up thinking that I was to "meet" them at the zoo, but really they wanted to "eat" at the zoo. So I got there at 1:30 and waited at the entrance where the C-train stops until 2:50ish when they came running out. They'd gone in the other entrance and then ran through the whole zoo when they saw there was another entrance on the complete other side, haha. So that was an adventure to start off...They were super sweet and paid for me (thanks guys) and we had fun eating (and meeting, haha) and checking out the animals. I'll probably put up some pics on my other blog one of these days. It was so nice to catch up with Mel, and funny because she was talking about her wedding dress and all these details right in front of Lester and he had no clue because he's deaf. Anyways, I was glad to finally meet him, because I'm in their wedding and I hadn't met him yet or given my approval, which he received, so it was good.
On the way back we shoved into the front seat because all Mel's stuff for school filled the truck. Only there really were not three seats in the front. Poor Mel got all squished up and we covered her with sweatshirts so we wouldn't get pulled over (which was good because there was a cop (and an ambulance) a couple houses down from mine).
Then I went to church with Ashley and Merissa and Adam...it was good. He was talking about vision...both for us individually (when he mentioned "teenagers need vision" he definitely looked directly at Ashley and me. we were like, "do we really look that young?") and as a church. So it was a good message...only sometimes I think that God only shows parts of a vision at a time, so I'm going through school right now because of the piece of a vision that He's shown me, but I definitely don't have a clear picture of what it'll be like at the end.
Yesterday Julie and Ashley and I walked in Prince's Island for the afternoon...heel leuk! It's finally summer again here...I love it! Today and tomorrow are supposed to be gorgeous also. Which is funny, because it's rainy and cold in Owen Sound. Ok, that's not funny I guess, but they had all the nice weather before, so it's nice to have the reverse now.
Welp, I think Julie and I are going to some provincial park soon for a walk...that'll be nice. I'm enjoying the long weekend by not doing work. Except for I did read while I waited for Mel and Lester at the zoo. Ok well, that's all for now folks!

skunk

I'm so sure our house got sprayed. I noticed it during our movie and I was like, "guys, do you smell skunk?" and they were like, "no...oh, yes." and it just got progressively worse. Merissa came down from upstairs and she has a cold and can't smell anything and was like, "guys, I smell skunk" so you know it must be bad. By the end of the movie we were all feeling pretty naseous, and Dan called to invite us to Denny's, so we figured why not? I'm pretty sure the not-quite-fully-baked mozz sticks didn't help my stomach too much, but whatever. We had a fun waitress. My room smells really badly. Maybe the skunk sprayed my window. I'm going to try to sleep now.

:)

I just had lunch with my friend Josh. I haven't seen him in 5 or 6 years. So that was really cool to catch up and rehash memories...fun times. I also met 2 of his friends, so that was cool too.
I'm excited about the whole "my friends are coming back to Calgary for school" thing because I haven't gotten to see a bunch of them in such long time. Yay hooray!
Tomorrow Mel and Lester are stopping by on their way to Red Deer, and we might go to the zoo. Heel leuk!
Oh yeah, and today is nice weather! And tomorrow is supposed to be even nicer (26)!
So now I'm in happy mood where I don't want to do work, but I'm going to force myself to read now. Doei!