Monday, July 24, 2006

rob bell = amazing!

Mmmm. Sounds like camp in my room (my windows are open).

Tonight, thanks to the cooler weather and the inspiration of Joy and I talking today, I went through a whole bunch of stuff in my attic. Old toys, school papers from middle school, etc. I have one box of stuff to give away, and 3 big trashbags that are each about half full of trash. Some of the stuff I found cracked me up. I still have yet to read my essays/creative stuff. I think maybe I oughta scrapbook some of them. That'd be fun, and a nice way to keep them.

Here's an interesting tally of things I found:
~ a Pog (remember those?)
~my Exodus scripture portion and quizzing stuff from that year
~a D.A.R.E. workbook with cartoon characters that are the same style as the Simpsons

Sooner or later I'll recover from this packrat syndrome of sorts.

But anyway, in greater news, I got to spend (part of) the weekend with people from the Easton church. It was amazing. Yesterday we went from the church to Arlington, VA....The highlights of the trip alone were taking pictures of things like the Pentagon (!) and a billboard that had a picture of a pig's head and "Does this billboard make my butt look big?" But our destination was to hear Rob Bell speak.

He was AMAZING. Whew. I can share some quotes and stuff but he talked about everything. For serious. "Everything is spiritual." And it wasn't a typical sermon type deal, with 3 main points or whatever. He just jumped right in when he got on the stage and said, "In the beginning...." and went on from there. AMAZING. Also hooray for dry-erase boards. "Yup." I took like 4 pages of notes in my journal, which I actually am almost finished.

As Jen put it (even though she wasn't there), he talked about "Life, the Universe, and Everything." haha.

On the way back we stopped at Carraba's for "dinner"--at this point it was about 8:30, and we didn't get seated till 9:30. Yikes. I had mezzaluna, which is some sort of ravioli type thing. I couldn't taste the spinach and Joy claimed there was chicken or something in there, that I wasn't sure I could taste. There were a lot of family stories shared at dinner. haha.

I spent the night at Pastor Kevin and Joy's (with only 7 week old Ryan there; the girls were elsewhere), and I got to hold Ryan a bunch while Joy got ready in the morning. Awww. They had cornpops there..."Spin the cornpops"

Lately people have been telling me they don't like babies. Have your own opinion, but having seen two baby boys this weekend (Ryan and 12 day old Roman), I must say, at first glance you can't tell them apart...cuz babies just seem to look the same. I've been babysitting 7 month old Cordelia, and just seeing the difference developmentally between them is crazy. Some babies are cute right away, or they're just cute because they're so little. Hm.

The service at Easton was pretty amazing. Something in Pastor Kevin's sermon I tied to both Brian McLaren and Rob Bell. Crazy.

And then, tonight, we watched this creation vs. evolution video. Rob Bell quote: "Faith or science? yup!" The movie had an intense "us vs. them" mentality going on. Crazy. I talked to Mom-Mom about it later (having Pastor Kevin's sermon in mind) and she said sometimes you have to have that separation, and can't always answer "yup"....Hmmm "Go go gadget brain!" and get ready for the fall! Yikes!

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Let me just say today was a pretty fun day, and I'm really tired...here's how it went; a real update is coming tomorrow.

7:45 am Woke up, took shower, got ready to leave
8:30 am Left a few mins. early to go to Jocelyn's
9 am Got to Jocelyn's
9:30 or so, left Jocelyn's
10:15 Picked up Ben at Queenstown
10:45 I guess, got Darlene at the Scenic overlook

...parked the car...walked around downtown...a LOT...took pictures...laughed...ate at Chick & Ruth's...etc etc.

Then after that, around 3 I guess we left Annapolis. It took us half an hour to go from the Wawa on 50 to get over to the other side of the Bridge--what should've been maybe 10 mins with no beach traffic. I dropped Ben and Jocelyn off at Queenstown, went to a graduation party at Kristin's, went home, and then *deep breath!* went to babysit for about 2 1/2 hours.

..........edit..........

Wow, I was so tired last night I left my wallet in my pants pocket and forgot that I had put it there...until this afternoon.

Anyway, yesterday was a lot of fun. After getting Jocelyn, we were driving along and she told me to go right. So I went onto the right hand side of the road, but she was still insisting for me to go right. haha she meant left. Almost like Magon that night we were on the beach. We also saw some roadkill, which she thought was an armadillo, but I think it was a chicken....hence you can make some "chicken crossing the road" jokes.

Hmm let's see other interesting stuff....We wandered around downtown, looking in random shops...Darlene saw a little pottery bowl, that was so cute she said she wanted to pet it. They had what I figured were "chopsticks for dummies" but actually it was something to grab toast out of the toaster. We also went to a running store called "Gotta Run."


MD State House

We ate lunch at this "delly" called "Chick & Ruth's". I had a grilled chicken sandwich, Darlene and Ben had hamburgers, and Jocelyn had a "petite" salad--that was the size of a plate. We think the regular size would've been in another bowl we saw at the pottery shop. One time a woman came from behind us and we--well Darlene anyway--wasn't sure where she came from, and then realized she came from inside the bathroom. Haha.

We wandered around by the city docks...and took pictures of the boats in the harbor/river/whatever. Then we walked over to the Naval Academy, and walked to the chapel...that was cool. The stained glass windows on the sides as you walk up all have verses relating to the sea.

We then went back outside, and then down to the John Paul Jones ("I have not yet begun to fight") crypt, where his body is. It's basically this round room (I guess it's right under the rotunda of the chapel), kinda quiet and echoey, where a middie stands by the entrance like one of those Buckingham Guards--"I am going to glare straight ahead and freak you out and not at all break my stare or laugh". When I went there on a field trip years ago, some kids were being loud, so the guy yelled at them. It was kinda freaky.

So...Darlene and I had made it almost all the way around (Jocelyn and Ben were moving a little slower--I guess they were reading more of the stuff), when her cell phone rang. HAHAHAHA. The guy didn't yell at us; I don't even know if he looked our way. So Darlene's digging through her purse, handing me her wallet, her water bottle, her keys. But no cell phone. Finally it stopped, and then she discovered--it was in her pocket. LOL.

Kristin's party was pretty cool. I knew about 5 people there, the kids from QA. Scott's going to UMD to do Communications and Drama. Yay for him. And Megan's going to Washington College (right in town) for Elem. Ed I think.

Last night with Sarah and Hannah, I must have pretended it was Christmas about 5 times. We also threw these little parachute things a bunch of times. It was nice last night that the girls were getting along fairly well, and I didn't really have to sit and play actively with them the entire time (whew. finally had time to sit and rest)

Today John Mark's dad preached again, on the Samaritan woman at the well. This time I liked the sermon--except how he skipped a few verses "because they didn't relate to his sermon".

Oh, and here are some comics I especially liked today:

Pearls Before Swine Jul 02, 2006