ahhh week 7--stress, some great news, and a fun event!

This is always one of my least favorite weeks of the quarter. There are 10 weeks in a quarter here, and right around week 7 (which we are just finishing up today) I always realize just how much work I have left to do between now and the end of the quarter. And it's always a little depressing and a lot overwhelming! Here's what I will be doing between now and when our plane takes off on Friday Dec. 12--not that any of you care, but I like making lists :)

• 1 5-page reflection paper on one of the most depressing documentary I've ever seen. It's called Juvies, and is about the juvenile "justice" system (I put "justice" in quotes because after watching this video you will become convinced that there is absolutely NO justice present in the system...it is apalling)
• 10-page Ethics paper on a topic dealing with the ethics of marriage or sexuality.
• Ethics take home final (have no idea how many pages this will end up being yet...)
• 2 book reviews on books I haven't opened yet
• 1 research paper on a topic pertaining to Islam...no idea what topic I want to look at yet.
• 74 response papers on a book to grade for the Intro to Youth Min class
• 74 final exams to grade
• 74 final projects to start grading (those won't be done til January)
• random wedding stuff that has to happen before Christmas (like finding my shoes, so I can wear them to my dress fitting, tracking down addresses of people we're sending invitations to, registering for gifts and a few other random tasks)
• Christmas shopping

Anyone else overwhelmed? :) I'll survive, it always do, but I hate hitting this point in the quarter and realizing how much there is left standing between me and vacation.

BUT, I did get some amazing news this week! My cousin is getting married in June and she asked ME to do her ceremony! I am so incredibly excited and honored to have been asked, it really was the high point of my week!

Also, last night was our friend Susan's commissioning as a member of Mosaic (the church Chuck has been plugged in to). To become a member they have a service once a month where they commission people into the community, and celebrate communion together. The presbyterian in me struggles sometimes with the way communion is celebrated here (it's a Baptist church, with a very different understanding of the sacraments than I have) but over time as I've attended this service (called Elements) I can appreciate what they are doing. And I love the idea of a service to commission new members. So Susan was commissioned last night and here are a few photos:

Susan being prayed for A big group of her (our) small group friends--part of our current small group and a lot of people from her former small groups.Grace holding Tom and Maggie's baby ToriWendy, Chuck, me, Joyce

Happy Birthday Susan!

One of our small group leaders, Susan, turned the big 3-0 this weekend! On Sunday after church our small group, and a bunch of other friends from her former small groups gathered at a BBQ place to celebrate. Here are a few photos:

One of our tablesThe birthday girl (in the center) with Amanda and ChristineMaggie with new baby ToriOur small group (plus a few people who I don't know...) from left to right: Chuck, Debbie, Theo, Wendy, me, Susan, Christine

Celebrating LIFE!

A good friend of ours, Kawika (Chuck's former roommate) has this amazing passion for life, art, music, creativity, and people--so he decided to bring them all together tonight! He hosted a "Celebrate Life" party and invited anyone who wanted to to come share a song, a poem, a story, a dramatic reading, a dance or anything else with us. Some of us aren't so...how shall we say...gifted? when it comes to artistic expression, but it was a wonderful evening to watch others share their talents! It was so relaxing, great music was shared, blank paper and crayons were readily available for those of us listening to the performances to draw, and even some stories and very powerful poems people have written were shared. Here are a few photos from the evening...

Kawika introducing the next actJosh playing a couple songs he's written--my personal favorite was in honor of Joel Osteen--an ode to the prosperity gospel, it was fabulous :)Kawika & Scott (Kawika is playing the harmonica)Dave on the mandolinThe boys, having created a bluegrass band, ironically have only written one song. A reagge song. It's praising "Ja" (short for Jahovah)Praise doing a hoola dance and Manu on the mandolin singing a song in Hawaiian

and...it's over! so moving on with life...

I'm done writing about politics for awhile, which I am sure some of you are thankful for! Election night is over, we have a new President, and it's my prayer that regardless of our particular leanings we can practice grace and respect for the individual the people have elected.

So, in attempt to break away from politics, ranting about James Dobson, or otherwise being opinionated, here's what else is new...

Chuck is healing wonderfully, neosporin is amazing and his scrapes are fading fast, thankfully! He's not sore anymore either, and we were even able to help one of his neighbors move late last night. It was 10 PM, and the two of them were trying to do everything themselves, and looked so tired they were about to fall over. So while I wasn't able to help carry much (I'm still on restriction from surgery) we helped load up a couple cars and the two of us helped them unload at about 11 last night. We figured we'd watched enough political analysis and we should actually go do something to serve someone :)

I'm starting to realize that in a few months I'll be (mostly) responsible for managing our food budget and figuring out meals for us (ok I already do that, but it'll be even more so when we get married!) and so I'm starting to research ways to cut back on spending, while still eating healthy and balanced meals. I've realized, through all my research, that eating vegetarian meals is almost always less expensive (meat just costs so much more than beans, rice, and a lot of veggies--especially veggies at our farmers market). So we've decided to go vegetarian a few meals a week, not in protest of meat or anything, but to save money, and practice eating healthier (meat isn't the best thing on our bodies, so we're going to try to cut that out a few times a week). I made an amazing (and incredibly inexpensive) vegetarian chili last night, let me know if you want recipes :) (or if you have any great, cheap recipes, email them to me!)

I got to have lunch today at the hospital where I will be doing my chaplaincy internship in the spring, a friend of mine is doing her internship there now and I went to join her for her hour break. It was great being there, and reminded me of how excited I am to be done with school for awhile and get to actually be with people who need pastoral care full time. I know it will be absolutely exhausting, and a lot to transition into (especially since it starts 1 week after I get married) but I am still pretty excited about it.

Wedding stuff is coming along wonderfully thanks to my amazing mom! She has flowers almost figured out (I'll see and approve them at christmas!), I'm ordering invitations this week, and we have a bunch of appointments set up for Christmas to sample food, get my dress fitted, meet with our photographer, meet with the DJ etc. Plus, we'll be in Florida for a couple days over break and will get to meet with Chuck's pastor from his church there who will be coming in to do our ceremony. We're getting pretty excited! My next project is registering for stuff...I'm hoping to convince my fiance to join me one Friday evening at Bed, Bath, and Beyond to start shopping...=)

I think that's about it for now!

and it's finally election day...

It's election day. Minds have been made up, votes are being cast all over right now, lines are forming outside polling places (and polling places are already reporting problems with equipment--including a power outage here in LA that caused a time out while volunteers re-set up the voting equipment outside in the parking lot...). I ran across two articles last night that I think are worth the read--not because I am some flaming Obama supporter, but because I think they raise excellent points, and are well written. I totally understand these aren't going to sway anyone reading this today, but they made me think, and I like thinking, so I thought I'd share.

The first article is a letter written by Jim Wallis in response to a letter written by James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family. Dobson wrote a letter to America pretending like it is the year 2012, and he is mourning the great tragedies that have befallen our nation because Obama was elected. Pornography readily available for children, churches not being allowed to meet in public schools on Sundays, homosexuality running rampant etc. I was furious when I read it. I think it is one of the most inappropriate things I've ever read, full of speculation, his own personal opinion, and made me want to separate myself from the so-called "religious right" as far as I possibly can. The rhetoric of fear and an over-active imagination is all this letter is based on, and I think was a horrific set of speculations used to scare people into voting for Dobson's candidate. What is even more ironic is that he begins by encouraging people to still maintain a respectful friendship with people who may not hold "our" beliefs. Riiiight. Because his fictitous letter just screams to those of us who disagree with him "please be my friend!" You can read his "letter" here. All I can say is praise God for Jim Wallis' response. Someone had to say it, Dobson, you were out of line.

The other article I found I just thought was entertaining & well written by the author of Blue Like Jazz. Donald Miller wrote an article called My Journey from Being a Reagan Republican to an Obama Democrat. It made me laugh at multiple places, and I thought I'd share.

Honestly, I really wish we had a 3rd choice for President--I'm not a gigantic fan of either candidate. But, we don't. I do think that we need to work on breaking away from the rhetoric of fear that has been used to make us dislike one or the other candidate because like it or not, one of these men will be our leader and we need to work on putting aside those feelings and do what we can to communicate respect and support for whomever we elect. I'll never forget being about 12 and visiting Washington DC on a family vacation. Clinton was in office, and my parents, both strong republicans, weren't huge fans. I remember one day standing outside the White House and asking my dad if he would be sad if Clinton was somehow hurt or assassinated in office (I have NO idea why I was thinking about this at 12!) He said that he absolutely would be. I remember asking why--"I thought we didn't like him Dad?" I'll never forget his response, a response I hope he still remembers he gave me! He said "Sarah, whether or not we agree with all of his policies and decisions, he is our president. Our country has spoken, democracy has allowed us to elect him, and after we cast our votes, even if our candidate doesn't win, we still respect the one leading us because he is our president." I don't know what's going to happen today, time will tell. But, I pray that at the end of the day, or at least by January, we're able to walk away from the mudslinging, rhetoric, fear, attacks and polarization the media has helped create and will be able to recognize that whoever is elected was chosen by the people to lead us and we owe them our respect because of that. And in closing, thank you Brian.

just to make you smile on monday morning

I woke up to Halloween photos of my darling "adopted" nieces today, which is just about the best way to start a Monday :) bet you can't look at these and not smile!

Bethie the Bumble Bee and Catie the CaterpillarI cannot WAIT for my wedding so I get to meet this little one!

a little Fall fun--and a not-so-fun-fall!

I was thinking the other day that I haven't really done anything photo-worthy in quite awhile, not since Sophie was in town and we went bowling. Life as a student has resumed it's normal routine--emails, errands and some class in the morning, homework and/or meetings in the afternoons, dinner with Chuck (or friends) and usually homework, small group, or just hanging out with my fiance in the evenings. I was convinced this weekend would lend itself to photo-ops, what with Halloween and all, but, well, I was a bit mistaken.

On Friday I got a call from the social worker at Huntington Hospital saying my fiance had been brought in after a bike accident and they needed me to come. I understand that they need to use the term "trauma patient" when something like this happens, but let me just say that those are the worst words to have to hear about someone you love! She was quick to reassure me that he was awake, coherent, talking, just getting xrays and CT scans done but was asking for me. So I raced over there and found him just finishing up with his tests. Thankfully, he is fine--incredibly sore, pretty banged up with bruises and big "raspberries" on his shoulder and neck from where he hit the pavement, but he's just fine. He was jumping a curb on his bike and in mid air the front wheel flew off! How in the world that happens is beyond us. So he remembers being in mid air and then woke up to paramedics. He stayed at my place Fri. night so I could wake him up every few hours to check on his clarity of thinking (something my dad, who is an ER nurse, made me do) but otherwise we've just been putting neosporin on his wounds every few hours. Thankfully, he'll be just fine. But, because of our 4 hours in the ER we definitely didn't go to the Harvest Party we were supposed to help with! So no fun Halloween pictures for us.

Saturday night though he was feeling much better and so I left him for a few hours to go to a reunion of my Company of New Pastor's group from the past year, which was awesome! This is a small group chosen by the faculty to journey together through one's last year of seminary, providing space for worship, prayer, sharing, and theological reflection on specific questions. We met once a month for about a year and haven't all been together since our last official meeting in May. So we put together a reunion last night which was SO wonderful! We made homemade pizzas (everyone bringing a topping), had a time of music, and then of sharing what has been going on in our lives, the ups and downs, from the last few months. It was a great time of praying for one another and encouraging one another. For the first time we invited spouses to join us (poor Chuck wasn't quite up to it!) so it was great having the addition of Alethia, Kristi, and Steve! I did take a few photos of that...

Bob in charge of the sauceDave and Christina ready with the cheese and the pineapple!Steve, Christina, and Dave continue the "decorating"Peter and Dave look like they are enjoying their meal!Ryan, Alethia, Bob, Kristi, PeterDave leading us in music

In other fun "fall" news, I passed all my ordination exams that I took back in August, which I am very thankful for. They were incredibly subjective tests, so the graders really could have gone either way...in a few weeks I'll get the actual tests back to see the comments that were made, but for now, I'm just thankful to have passed.

I think that's about it for this weekend! Here's to hoping next week is a little less eventful--or at least involves one less ambulance ride!