"God is ALWAYS up to something, looking to bring life out of death."
--Floyd McClung

2 funnies

I went to an Avett Brothers concert with Cari, Jon, Julie, and Scott a few weekends ago. Since I've never heard the brothers, I got onto Pandora.com and listened to some of their stuff before going. Guitar, violin, drums, folksy rock, yelling, got it...not my favorite, but I could definitely appreciate them live.

The concert was supposed to start at 7pm. We all got lost in the rain, waited in line for tickets, and ate pizza for a while before going in to the venue at 8.30. The band went on and everyone cheered. Hippies started dancing and singing the indecipherable words to the songs. The 6 guys on stage all looked alike...they probably were brothers. They were playing guitars, violins, violas, drums...they even had one of their guys play two saxophones at the same time! I loved it.

About three songs into their set, I leaned over and told Jonathan: "This is so much better than their stuff I listened to online!" He looked over and laughed and informed me that we weren't watching the Avett Brothers...the guys onstage were the opening act.

--slap forehead now--

But, hey: check out Railroad Earth.


Today, I trecked across campus under the hot August sun with $212.46 worth of new heavy textbooks and landed at the Roasterie with Blakely. After heaving my load onto the table, I dramatically planted my head on my notebook for a second to cool off. When I sat up, my damp face had made a perfect forehead and nose-print on my notebook. I looked down at it for a second, then looked across the table at Blakely, who kindly responded: "If it's any consolation, it doesn't look that bad from here."

escape

Kim, Amy, Rachel, and I packed overnight bags and ran to the hills for some rest and quiet at Conception Abbey. We found Tom when we got there and decided he was allowed on our women’s retreat too.
It was so good.
We wore our play-clothes to climb trees and practice cartwheels, roll down hills and play with bugs, dance in the street and lay on the ground…and we broke some rules too. We laughed ourselves to the floor of our sparse but comfy rooms and talked about how quickly life was changing. We caught up on our reading and listened to good music. We watched a darn good sunset and we prayed.
It was so good.

florida highlights

Well. It's my last night sleeping in my old room on this trip home. I wish I knew exactly how I felt about it.
I brought Morgan with me this time. Back in the planning stages of this trip I asked Mom to schedule me a bunch of yearly medical visits that I never take the time to get done in Kansas City, so that meant I drug Morgan to 5 different doctors, dentists, opthamologists, phlebotomists, endocrinologists....not joking. She was a terrific sport about it, and then we finally got a good day at the beach.

Michelle's wedding was lovely. I got to meet all the college friends she made in the last four years since we've been every-day friends. Our lives are so different now that it baffles me. When she asked me to sing at her wedding a few months ago, I was terrified at the "yes" I heard myself say...but I actually surprised my parents and myself. It went pretty well and I even got compliments afterward from 6 of the 300 guests. Go me.

Oh yeah. I wore my boots.
But only to the rehearsal :)
It still mortified my mother just a little bit.

And speaking of which, I did something else to mortify my mother today. Somehow she still likes me, but I talked her into getting her eyebrows threaded with me. Yes, threaded. Heard of it? It's where a sweet little Indian lady lies to you and tells you it's a pain-free way to sculpt the perfect eyebrow shape by cinching your eyebrow hair between two pieces of cotton thread and yanking them one by one out of your head.
"Common Mom! It'll be a great new experiment....I mean experience!"
So I went first. As soon as sweet little lady started going to town on my forehead, I knew I had made a mistake. I squeezed the fire out of Mom's hand with every individual hair that was heartlessly wripped from my unassuming little follicles and thought to myself: "This week I've had three cavities drilled, blood drawn, and minor eye surgery...and this it definitely worse." I know you want to see it:

My advice: skip it. Take a good ole hot waxing any day over this. Sorry, ethnic beauty treatment; I shun you. And sorry Mom. But we totally bonded. And we got an uber-identical picture out of it:

And some sweet eyebrows that will last "at the most, three weeks". Thank you India, thank you terror.

Then Dad acted a fool to make us laugh.

Then my trip home was over.

That's my Opa

The rocket scientist. He changed the world.

guess what

Friends, here it is: my very first guilt-free blog from home.

Last fall when Tiffany moved out I sent the internet with her, among other things. It's been a rough road.

I've learned since then that if I sit in the living room in one very specific spot, with a strong wind and open window, and laptop tilted to a specific degree...I can get internet from a far-off unsecured connection. Sometimes. Mostly not.

THEN came the day that Emily (roommate #5) hung out with our neighbor and acquired the network key for her secured connection. From that day forward, whenever Em left her lappy lying around, I had internet at home. The only problem is that Emily's sweet little Dell has a malfunction we like to call "Blue Screen of Death", which is a tantrum Dell throws when you try to upload too much at once, or type too fast, or breath too hard. Dell shuts down and gives you the Blue Screen of Death for a while till she wakes up in a better mood. So we had internet sometimes...but it was always coated in guilt that we were thieving it from our neighbors without their knowledge.

Then we decided to approach our friendly neighbors and offer to pay half of their internet bill if they would share the key with all of us. The delightful ladies said they wouldn't dream of making us pay for internet that would only work in our kitchen. So now all our computers have the key! Whoopee! And I don't have to feel guilty anymore! Whoopore!

So now I can blog at will.

Tomorrow, I will blog about how I can't donate blood.

from Asresa

To my dear sponsor,
above all I provide you my respectful greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. How are you? How about family and neighbor? I am fine thanks to God. I have received your letter. God bless you. I understand that you are praying for me. I am happy that God gave you to me and you are influential for my life in school and for my future. I am attending my lessons carefully. I am attempting to be a good person, and strong woman in my target achievement, especially school achievement. Thank you for thinking of me from such a far distance. I hope we will meet each other physically. God may do this. Stay with peace.
Yours from Ethiopia,
Asresa.
Bye-bye.

Little honey, you have my heart.