Well I'm takin' my time

I'm just a-bloggin' along...


Whew, it's been a little while. To sum up my week of blog-neglecting, life on campus and in Chicagoland has been utterly scrumtrulescent. Aaron and I visited Chi-town (since I guess that's what they call it?) to see brother-in-law Ben, we can now watch broadcast television in the comfort of our living room, and we had a particularly excellent breakfast-dinner this past Sunday. Out of everything though, I'm very pumped about two recent developments...

Through the Trinity Wives Fellowship I signed up to be an English conversation partner for any international wives/students who want to practice speaking the language. I did this through InterVarsity back in 2007 in China and had an awesome experience with it, so I'm really looking forward to this opportunity. We had an instructional seminar type of thing last Wednesday evening where I learned a few strategies on how to be a good language partner and where I met other people who were interested in the program. And I just now at this very second received the e-mail with my language partner's name and contact info! Yay!!! I can't wait to meet her!

So, Aaron and I think we may have found our new home church! For the last two weeks we have attended Northwest Bible Chapel in Chicago--it's a Plymouth Brethren assembly, which is the church tradition in which I grew up back in ol' Jersey. I'm not 100% positive that we'll be staying there for the long haul... but, especially since there's a strong chance that we will, it's so relieving and wonderful to belong to a church again. We gots to pray, pray, pray about it.


And to top everything off, my fantasy football team, the Dancin' Gary's, is currently #1 in its division! Huzzah!


<"

Warning: Here be bundt cake!

A few days ago Aaron thought it would be fun to invite one of his new seminary friends over for dinner, so last night we got to hang out with Jeremy and Elizabeth in our apartment!

(Artist rendering of September 17th's dinner. From left to right: Aaron, Jeremy, Elizabeth. Also--um--none of these people look like this, and our table isn't that tall. And we actually did provide food.)

It was an extra-awesome night in general because not only did we get to know some really great people, but it was also the debut of my bundt cake pan (thank you thank you Diana and Ben!!). Oh bundt, how I've missed you...

Dinner guests and bundt cake... I think this is the beginning of a beautiful trend!


<"

Tuesday's Big Question

What would my theme song be?


It's one of those big questions everyone finds themselves asking at some point in their life.


Someone asked me this about a year ago, and I didn't have any good answer for him then. I've since put the thought to rest but, as you can see, it has recently awakened and has been stirring within my soul. So, seeing that I've been struggling with this philosophical conundrum since yesterday-ish, I decided I'd venture a couple guesses and ask my husband for his opinion. For the record, this is definitely not* an excuse to post random songs for my own amusement. Definitely not.**



"United States of Whatever" by Liam Lynch... because [I think] I am pretty laid back... and as my nearest and dearest know, I too enjoy throwing dice in the alley. If by "throwing dice in the alley" you mean "eating lots of cookies". 



"I'm the Urban Spaceman" by The Bonzo Dog Band... since there's a chance I might be a figment (Fig Newton?) of your imagination! Oooh, twist!



And finally, this song from an old Juicy Fruit commercial. The lyrics don't so much capture the person I am as much as the overall essence of the song does--generally upbeat, cheesy, and created in the late '80s. 


Now it's your turn to play at home, friends and family--what would your theme song be?


<"


*"definitely not"="almost definitely"
**see above.

Friends and Fantasy Football

Alliteration!


Hey therrr! I trust you had a nice Labor Day holiday last weekend--oh that symbolic end to the wonderful summer season. Until next June, summer solstice! Aaron and I spent our Labor Dabor weekend in Muncie, IN eating tasty foods, playing geeky fun games, and hanging out in general with brother Ben Dean and his girlfriend Ashley. It was awesome. We really dropped the ball in terms of picture-taking despite having our camera with us, so, here's a picture of some food Aaron and I made on Wednesday.

And just this past Friday after I got out of work, we ventured down to the windy city. Nooo, not Amarillo. Chicago! We saw a bean...

Then we went inside the bean...

And then we journeyed around with RACHEL for the rest of the night!!!!

My dear friendly friend (and matron of honor at my wedding!) traveled from Pittsburgh for the CCDA conference, so we whisked her away from the Sheraton and did touristy things like... eat gelato. Look at strange photographs in the shop where we purchased said gelato. Take in a crazy view and learn about Chicago at the John Hancock Observatory. Discussed what Rachel should do on her "life quest"! Oh, I miss her already!!

Finally, guys, I'm playing Fantasy Football this year on a league with ten teams. Aaron complains that I don't play computer games with him, and I was curious, soooo---here's my team!

Dancin' Gary's! I still couldn't tell you what most of this means, but I think I'm winning so far. Nice. 


<"

Jab Jab Punch!

With all of this summer's craziness, it's been easy to set personal maintenance aside. Sure, I continue to brush my teeth and eat and all of that, but I haven't devoted much time to exercise in, well, a while. Although, I jump-roped for a bit soon after we moved to campus and I was completely winded after, oh, 3 minutes? Saddest three minutes of mine life!


Since I have Thursdays off from work most weeks and because Aaron is gone all day and because it was raining and thus couldn't walk across campus for the mail, I decided that I had no excuse to not exercise in the apartment. The result:

My butt should consider itself kicked!!! Kickboxing work-out video courtesy of our Netflix Instant Queue=Quite good.

Anyhoo, I should mention that I joined a small group Bible study through the Trinity Wives Fellowship here. Our first meeting was this past Monday, and I'm really looking forward to the next time we hang out, which sadly won't be for a week and a half because of the holiday. Three words: Dessert.Every.Monday. Oh, and the fellowship is awesome too. :D 


UNTIL NEXT TIME (which I promise will be sooner than this time)


<"

Tasty breakfasts that are bad for you on your first day of school and always

Yesterday was the first day of Aaron's classes at Trinity--and we both woke up to an infiltrating scent of bacon. BACON.

Unfortunately it wasn't coming from my kitchen, but if our hunches are correct, our apartment-neighbor below us had a very pleasant morning.

We haven't had bacon since our honeymoon in June, which, well, is probably for the best. Though we more than made up for it by eating one of these yesterday morning:

Homemade, non-aesthetically pleasing buttermilk cinnamon rolls! Take THAT, neighbor-bacon!

Oh, and here's a lovely picture of Aaron being happy for his second day of school. And terrified of his first day of Greek class. ;D

<"

There's singing in the mail room, crowds of people crossing the street too slowly...

The campus is alive with the sound of students!


What a weekend! Aaron attended his orientation events, and I tagged along for a few of them, especially the ones that promised food...! Though I had already been at peace for the most part about uprooting ourselves from the familiar and our move to an unknown place, the speakers from yesterday (who included representatives from campus life to Dr. Williford, president of the university) further put my feelings about being here at ease. The constant, perhaps even overwhelming, theme--more than policy, achievement, or even academics--was community. Community, community, community.

I'm all about awesome, edifying community. My friends are what I remember about Grove City College, not how well I performed in certain classes. Similarly, no job would've made my experience in Pittsburgh very enjoyable. The people who surrounded me, on the other hand--they made my two years there incredible. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that I totally got behind what was being said. And that was basically this: surrounding yourself with people you care about at Trinity will not only make your time here better; it will help you to survive it. 

Ah, but community-forming is a process for me. I remember writing in my journal when I first started at GCC about how I longed for people on campus to become familiar, you know, at least who I could say hi to on a regular basis at least. And perhaps after that, if I was lucky, I could find some people to regularly go to the cafeteria with, or talk to late at night just for fun at the student union. I'm shy, but eventually it happened--and later in my college years, surrounded by some of the best friends I've ever had in my life, I forgot what it felt like to be that unsure of future community attainment.


Here I am again! Some of those timid, uncertain feelings have returned. Large orientation events aren't really my scene, you know? But this time I am much more confident in the way God works to bring people together. I'm not expecting to be a part of any crew/posse/what have you tomorrow, the next day, the next week... But I am looking forward to being surrounded by great people, and being able to surround them. And it's nice to be living on a campus that understands just how important that really is.


<"