on a perfect sunday

Dude, the clouds today were fantastic. Have a looksee:



And this was probably my favorite conversation of the day:

Shibu: "Two, four, six, eight, ten! Jinx! You owe me a Coke."
Sam: "You're weird."
Shibu: "What? It's standard jinx rules."
Sam: "Dude, you're twenty-three years old."
Shibu: "Sratch that. I'm twenty-FOUR."

well said

While discussing a nightmare customer service issue...

me: And so I wrote a letter to a PO box in Arizona.

Jason: Was it in Roswell, New Mexico?

me: Yes, Jason. Roswell New Mexico, Arizona.

reading

Tonight I finished a journal, and was reading the first few pages of it since I'd just filled the last few pages of it. I liked this:

Lord, the seasons are amazing. How did you ever come up with that one? The way the earth works with the sun and the moon...the way the warmth brings us alive after a cold winter, and the way fall brings us relief after a hot summer. Perhaps the two most beautiful seasons are the ones of change.

I very much believe that's true. Literally AND metaphorically.

reason #8452 why i love julia

I say to her, "What?"

She replies, "Nothing. I was talking to myself. I forgot you were in the car."

par for the course

Today my friend Christina emailed me and asked when we could get together for dinner. So I pulled my calendar out of my bag and opened it to see when I might have a free evening. As I glanced at this week, I noticed that I had her birthday down for April 25. So I emailed her back and said, "DAMMIT. I can't believe I missed your birthday. Happy birthday a day late. What about dinner before church tonight?"

Right after I emailed her back, I emailed my roommate (whom I haven't seen lately because I'm apartment-sitting for Aaron), whose birthday is April 26. I emailed, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!"

Then I got an email back from Christina, "My birthday is today, you didn't miss it." Soon to be followed by an email from my roommate that said, "Close. My birthday is tomorrow."

I was astonished. Could I be THAT disorganized as to have two birthdays in a row wrong on my calendar? That's when I realized: today is not Wednesday. It's Tuesday. All day long.

Indeed, the birthdays are correct. I just have no idea what day it is.

weapons of imaginary destruction

Tuesday (my birthday) I was telling Cari and Suzanne about my day. I was just yammering on, "...and then Jordanne took me to Sonic to have a drink outside in the pretty weather. Then when we got back to the church, Jeff and Fish were in the hallway talking and so I stopped to talk to them and Jeff threw a cupcake at me and said, 'Happy stinking birthday!' cause he was mad that I wasn't coming to the meeting. It was funny, then Fish was all, 'It's your birthday? Molly's was Sunday,' and then Isaac walked out of his office and was like, 'Hey Amy! Happy birthday!' and so I shot him with my disc gun..."

Cari interrupted me, "What?"

"Isaac. Out of his office. I shot him."

Cari (who is a high school English teacher) said, "Amy, you're telling this story like my students. They write about things that they don't really have. They'll say, 'So I was walking in the alleyway, and the man jumped out with a laser beam shooter, so I pulled out my 747'..."

She stopped and looked confused, and Suzanne and I just stared at her.

Then she continued, "...and a 747 is an airplane, not a gun, so, 'we floated into the sky and flew away'..."

Suzanne and I were still blinking at her.

Cari, again, "So what did you have and why were you shooting Isaac?"

And like it was a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence, I said, "Well, Cassie decorated the door to the apartment this morning, so when I left for work there were all sorts of toys taped to it, plus a dinosaur and play-doh, silly string and plastic jewelry. So when I was at the church I was carrying around one of those little guns that shoots out foam discs."

"Amy, you did not turn thirty-one today. You turned four."

(Incidentally, I believe Cari was going for "AK-47" instead of "747." But, in her honor, I have nicknamed my disc gun The 747.)

sending a shout out

Happy birthday, Jason.
Happy birthday, Tim.
Happy birthday, Kelsey.
Happy birthday, Kayla.

I sorta feel left out being a day early. :)
I love you all, my friends.

y'all rock

Well, well, my friends. Thank you for making my first day of being officially "in my thirties" a lot more bearable. Between the door-decorating with silly string and dinosaurs as if we lived in the dorms, and the not showering until after noon, and the not working, and the sitting around lazily, I felt more like it was a twenty-first birthday than a thirty-first birthday. Come to think of it, on my twenty-first birthday I had to study for a marketing exam. (Drunk, nonetheless, because it WAS, after all, my twenty-first birthday.) This was way better.

Thank you ALL for the phone messages, and cards, and emails, and gifts, and meals, and acts of kindness, and even the jokes about my age. Each of you made my day in your own special way, even if I only got to see you for thirty seconds (or thirty-one, HA) at dinner. My world would not be the intricate, crazy, beautiful, and happy thing that it is without each and every one of you.

"I thank my God every time I remember you." —Philippians 1:3

oh crap

I'm 31.

Help me dry the tears.

just another day in paradise

Sometimes I'm so overwhelmed with beauty that I truly just lose words. Selah is definitely useful in these times. It's just that, "Oh my gosh, I'm so overwhelmed with how freaking amazingly beautiful life is that I want to cry." There is just no outlet for the response to God's glory that is so ever-present in this world.

Yesterday I slept in, enjoyed the morning breezes and took a leisurely shower, then drove to Lawrence to spend some time with Katie 80. There is just nothing you can do with an afternoon like that except lift your heart in praise to Yahweh. We met, tried on shoes, she gave me a birthday present that freaking ROCKED, we ate some fantastic Mexican food, then wandered down to Signs of Life (home of the best Americano ever), got Americanos, and sat outside in the 80 degrees watching a thunderstorm roll in, pound the pavement with rain, then roll out again. Moments like these are what make memories, these are the joys of life. That God made someone as cool as her, then blessed me with knowing her, then giving us time together with the gifts of beautiful weather and hilarious people-watching—well, God's grace is just very clear in that.

Then I drove home. I've been to many beautiful places in my life, and I must say that Kansas makes me cry it's so pretty. I've swam in crystal clear waters with stingrays, sailed a sunfish on a rural lake in Tennessee, peered over San Francisco from Marin County, pitched a tent off the Appalachain Trail, watched the sun sink into the Gulf of Mexico, stood on a beach at the Great Lakes—I could keep going. But Kansas? Kansas makes me cry. I don't know what it is, other than God's infinite creativity, that does it to me, but my heart bursts with joy to get to live in such a place.



Then I took a nap and slept hard, enjoying the sunlight and fresh spring breeze through the window. Then I went to church, and joined the party with the family of God. The party, the celebration, that Jesus is real and alive and the source of our freedom.

Happy Easter, everyone. HE IS RISEN INDEED!

well said

Kieran, having to plug in his laptop: "Man, I wish we had some sort of wireless power."

Caley: "You mean like a battery?"

this friday is good in many ways

Today, so far—and it's only noon—has been absolutely perfect.

8:30 Met Jordanne at Einstein Bros for fresh bagels, coffee, and chocolate milk. Sat outside in flip-flops, skirts, and t-shirts because it was 78 degrees. Most of the world (or Prairie Village, to be more exact) had not gotten out and about yet, except for a few of the eccentric ones, and it was good people-watching and good conversation with a good friend.

10:00 Got in the car to head to work, and the shuffle on the iPod decided to play Jimmy Buffett. Talk about perfect mood music.

10:10 Settled in for some reading on the couch in the MAP room at work. Read for awhile in a room that's bright with sunlight and perfectly cooled by a wonderful cross-breeze.

11:30 The wind blew a door shut and upon it's slamming, waking up and realizing that Harold, Shibu, and I were all asleep. Have I mentioned lately that I love my life?

AND it's Good Friday. My Savior died for me today. Indeed, today is a day for praise.

let's put that in the suggestion box

Tonight at Sheridan's, Tiffany was telling me about the Truffle Shuffle Concrete (vanilla custard with truffles in it) that her friend got the other day. I said, "Eww." She said, "Eww? Oh Amy, not the mushrooms."

Anyway, while looking on the menu for the Truffle Shuffle Concrete, she came across the Wedding Cake Concrete. Such a dilemma. As I was ordering my concrete with bananas and Reece's peanut butter cups, she asked, "Should I go with the Truffle Shuffle or the Wedding Cake?"

"Wedding Cake," I tossed out, still thinking that mushrooms and ice cream sounded horrible.

When they handed it to her she took one bite and immediately her eyes widened like a four-year-old who had just been placed in a vat of marshmallows and gummy bears. I said, "Wow, looks like it's good."

"Good?" She said. "They seriously need to consider changing the name of this from wedding cake to wedding night."

a piece of joy

Okay, you know how I'm apartment-sitting for Aaron. I have the patio door open (see: 78 degrees outside), and there is a child on the patio next door singing, "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" (you know, the Coca-Cola commercial) at the top of his lungs. He's a little off-key, but it's making my heart smile.

paradox

This world is broken, yet beautifully made. —Charlie Hall

That pretty much sums up how I've been feeling lately. I've been blown away by grief and beauty at the same time. Perhaps it's the time of year. Perhaps it's that I'm reading the psalms. Perhaps it's that something so precious to me has been ripped away and I am finding that I still have hope and that beauty is still abundant.

I feel like my spirit is a tangled strand of Christmas lights. Like, once I get one knot out, I realize that it made another knot further down the line. It makes me just want to leave that knot for another time and focus on a different knot on a different part of the strand—perhaps it would be an easier knot to deal with. It's overwhelming, and tiring, and confusing. I want to cry but I can't muster it.

Two songlines have been very life-giving to me lately. They remind me of the big picture, and keep me from losing myself in suburban Kansas in the spring of 2006. What matters is that I am God's, and I'm his for eternity.

Alli Rogers:
I am afraid of beginning because I don't know how to end.
But you have told me that the mountain before us would become a plain in our eyes.
So I won't despise the day of small things.

David Crowder Band:
You make everything glorious.
And I am yours.
(What does that make me?)

well said

"Ranch dressing makes everything better. I'd eat a shoe if someone put ranch on it." —Kathy, at dinner

well that took about five years off my life

This afternoon, about a quarter til four, I was in my office, ALONE, doing some mindless administrative things at my desk. I was stuffing envelopes, stamping the return address, sealing them, and then putting the stamp on, to be exact. A really conducive activity during which to put on the iPod and jam out, right?

It was all good, I was singing "Fearless" at the top of my lungs and slapping stamps on envelopes. Minding my own damn business...

...when I looked up to see a head sticking through the opening of the door. I think I jumped AND screamed. As I jerked the headphones out of my ears and tried to not have a heart attack, Becky just stood there doubled over, laughing.

I said, "You scared the SHIT out of me!"

She said, "The best part is I've been standing there forever. Oh, and you can hear you singing from the end of the hallway."

all in a day's work

I'm currently in the first week of my six-week apartment/cat-sitting stint for Aaron while he shoots a movie in Columbia. (He's playing a Mexican wrestler. And no, he's not Mexican OR a wrestler.) Anyway, today (my day off) around noon, I'd just gotten out of the shower and was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I heard a key in the door. I slammed the bathroom door shut and said, "Excuse me! Excuse me!" (There had been a note on the door that the exterminators were coming, so I assumed it was them.)

When I exited the bathroom I looked at the door, and the person hadn't locked it, so I walked up and locked it. I heard from the other side of the door, "Amy, it's Aaron! You can't lock me out of my own apartment!" We both started laughing hysterically and I said, "Hold on, I gotta put some clothes on." So I got dressed and then let him in his own apartment.

He said, "Dude, when I say, 'Mi casa, su casa,' you really take that to heart." I told him I thought he was the exterminator.

Anyway, his set call isn't until 8 AM tomorrow and he had some equipment to drop off in Kansas City, so he came back for the day. We made lunch and sat down to eat, and I said, "So, what all do you have to do today?"

He sighed heavily, like it was terribly hard work, and said, "I need to go work out; then I need to go tanning."

"Geez, Aaron. You sound like a Johnson County Housewife."

kinda gives a whole new meaning to that coldplay song

Me: Hey, Jon and Isaac, how was your trip?

Jon: Isaac got sick.

Me: Like, Ross-Geller-in-Space-Mountain sick?

Isaac: I don't know what that means.

Cari: Diarrhea.

Jon: That word just SOUNDS sick. It's gross.

Cari: Yeah, but if the word for diarrhea was "yellow," then that word would be gross too.

psalm 118:24

You know those days that start out kinda iffy, but then the proverbial clouds break—and at the end of the day you look back and realize that it was perfect?

That was today.

I just have so much thankfulness in my heart right now. For Jeff and Karen, Jason, Jon, Cari and Julie, Kathy, Julia, Becky, Cassie and Bryan, and especially Shibu. Oh, and also Alli Rogers and the waiter at El Mezcal. And especially God, for making Kansas beautiful, for making today warm and windy with the most amazing clouds ever, and for being so very fond of me—even when I can't comprehend it.

(Oh, and I must document that I beat Shibu at foosball. Which, of course, added to the perfection of the day.)

I can't believe I get to live this life. —Rob Bell

for april fool's day

No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it. Oliver Goldsmith