Update

I just saw we hadn’t posted anything since last September. Oops! Sorry about that. Does anyone actually read this? If you do, please comment so we know you are there. 🙂

I wanted to update everyone on our life. To adapt a phrase from Timon from the Lion King, our lives feel busy yet satisfying. (We are thankful that they are not slimy.) This semester of grad school has really picked up as we both begin working on our thesis (how do you pluralize that?). Jay is studying community conflict resolution and communication for his thesis while I research how reading instruction has changed over the past 30 years through doing an in depth study at one school in Springfield. We are both nerdy-excited for the whole process.

I acquired two more jobs this semester, bringing that to a grand total of 4 jobs. Trust me, my schedule is far better than that makes it sound. I get to tutor children for two of my jobs. One job is through a private in home tutoring company here in Springfield. I only tutor one sixth grader through this right now, and that is enough. I also get to tutor kindergartners and first graders with the Park Board after school program four days a week. I really enjoy this because I get to make my own lesson plans and experiment with what I am learning through grad classes. I also try to substitute teach a couple mornings a week if I can. Since my availability is so low, this doesn’t happen super often, which is okay for me.

Finally, I have my GA that I work at for 20 hours a week. Can I just brag on how great the professors that I work for are for a second… Last weekend I forgot to submit a paper by the noon deadline. The professor of the class (whom I had just written a huge research article for) texted me to let me know she hadn’t received it yet and wanted to make sure I was okay! She didn’t even take points off because she said she knew she was asking a lot of me recently and wanted to go easy on me because she knew I had the paper finished far before the due date (which is true) and was just overwhelmed with all my duties right now. One professor I work for has asked me to do many small things this semester and she feels like she needs to pay me in food and gift cards! I already have my tuition paid for and I get paid for my GA, so it’s kind of my job to help her, but I will take what she gives! We have enjoyed some delicious burgers from Grad School, a few drinks from Starbucks, some gadgets from Amazon and I was introduced to the sheer deliciousness of the granola bars from The Brown Egg thanks to this professor!

I cannot even begin to fathom how wonderfully blessed we are right now. We both have GA’s that we love, meaningful work, a wonderful marriage, an awesome house church, and are near our families and friends whom we love. I am not sure life can get any better.

Thanks for reading our update. My next post is going to be about some experiments that we are trying out that were inspired by Jen Hatmaker’s book 7: An Experimental Mutiny in Excess.

A Cabin in the Woods, and Other Updates

Our house church is taking a retreat to a cabin in Eureka Springs, Arkansas on the weekend of October 19.

We began preparing for the retreat in earnest a few weeks ago. At the time, we noticed that there were forty days between when we started preparing for the retreat and the retreat itself. There will also be forty days between the retreat weekend and the start of Advent, December 2.

I’m not trying to sound like the author of Matthew or anything, but the timing of the retreat does strike me as significant, especially for the purposes of spiritual formation. Forty day incriminates are perfect for establishing rhythms, for reflection, and for intentionally trying new things. For example, I have started journaling again. By the time the retreat gets here, I will have been at it for forty days.

The six of us are each going into the retreat with a distinct goal in mind. For example, some of us hope to produce a strategic plan document for our life, some of us hope to gain clarity on that elusive question, “What do I really want in life?” And some of us are aiming for an even more elusive goal: relaxation.

We have complied a few tools to help us meet our various goals. These tools mainly focus on heightening our self awareness. They include:

•     our detailed Meyers-Briggs profile. (Get questionnaire here.)
•     a reading from the popular book, Strengths Finder
•     The Five Question Exercise
•     Community Values activity
•     Twenty Statement Test (TST) asking the question, Who Am I?
•     Personal inventory emails, from the book Practicing the Way of Jesus
•     The retreat itself!

Our house church meets on Wednesdays. Generally we cook and eat together, do common prayer together, and talk/discuss/hang out together. It has been fun working together to plan this retreat. I think we are all looking forward to it in one way or another.

It is wonderful to have such a great community of people, and such a great rhythm of community, as part of our lives.

Adventures in Simple Eating

I love to cook. I like having lots of new foods to experiment with all the time. One of my favorite pass times is to look at recipes on Pinterest. I made a rule for myself that I can only pin things that are nutritious or for someone or something specific. Otherwise I would have only oreo pancakes and peanut butter brownie batter cookie dough cake pinned. I like to think that I take after my mom in that I am a pretty good cook, even though I make things she would either never make or think is gross.

 

That being said, simplifying what we eat has always been something I stray from. I made a resolution this year to “simplify.” When I made that resolution, I had easy things in mind like simplifying my shoes and clothes and stuff like that. I have successfully simplified many areas of my life, but not food. Why take away something I genuinely enjoy doing?

When I looked at what we spend most of our money on, it ended up being mostly food. We are good about going grocery shopping just once a week, but those trips are a bit pricey. So, as a challenge to ourselves (especially me) we have decided to simplify our diets for the next 40 days. We made a list of 11 foods that we are committing to purchase for the next 40 days as our grocery list. We are going to continue using the stuff we have in stock in our pantry and fridge, but if we run out, we run out. We will only buy these eleven nutritious foods:

1. lentils
2. quinoa
3. sweet potatoes
4. avocados
5. berries
6. spinach
7. fish 
8. wheat bread
9. peanut/nut butters
10. eggs
11. milk

 

We went grocery shopping for these items today. We ended up spending a fourth of what we normally spend. As our first meal, I made sweet potato burgers. They were pretty tasty. I am looking forward to challenging my culinary skills and trying new things using just these ingredients. Do you guys have any great recipes using these ingredients that you would like to share?

 

 

 

Venturing into the Silence

A few posts ago, I mentioned that we are part of a “house church” that meets at our apartment once a week. The book we are reading encourages us to do experiments to create space for spiritual growth. It has lots of examples of different things the author participated in that were foundational for him. One thing that was discussed was practicing silence. As a result, I decided to venture into what effect silence could have on my journey. Here are my thoughts after a week of 20 minutes a day of quietness…

 

At the beginning, it felt like 20 minutes was a very long time to sit in silence. What am I suppose to do with this time? Do I just sit here and hope something supernatural happens? I am naturally not good at being still. One of my strengths is the ability to get things done, so I am constantly doing and going and working on something. Stilling myself is not an easy task. 

A lot of meditation stuff that I have read has encouraged the practice of silence. The experts give a lot of techniques to make it possible such as focus on your breathing, say breath prayers, think of your thoughts as sailboats floating by and let them go, don’t hold onto them, etc. All of that stuff came to mind as I sat in silence each day.

On about the third day, I realized I would get a lot more out of this practice if I focused on something specific. Something about the character of God, a trait that I need to work on, praise, anything besides the blank wall in front of me or the back of my eyelids. So, I grabbed a Bible and scoured it for some special word to focus on. I came up with the phrase “Jehovah Jireh” or “Our God Provides.” Abraham names the place where he almost sacrificed his son this after God provided a ram in the place of the boy.

The idea of God’s provision is something that I struggle with. Especially financially. For some reason I think I can do a better job than God, as if I have it figured out. You would think that I would trust in God’s provision after so many times of cutting it close and still getting by, but I struggle with it anew every time. With grad school starting (praise God we don’t have the expense of paying for it!) and a delay in pay from our GA positions, now is one of those times when I question God’s provision.

So, I focused on Jehovah Jireh during my 20 minutes each day. I made that my breath prayer. Inhale – Jehovah, exhale – Jireh. The craziest thing happened after a few days. I actually started believing it. I had peace when I looked at how much we needed to pay for our books and parking pass and last minute expenses. I knew it was going to work out, because our God is big and He was going to take care of us just like He always does. My bank account didn’t multiply because I was trusting in provision, but my heart and mind felt more at ease about it than ever, and that makes a big difference. 

So, Jehovah Jireh to you today. God will provide for your every need. Rest in that. I know I do.

 

Interview with Daphne the Cat!

Daphne, where do you think we humans go everyday?
Daphne: “I don’t know, I’m asleep all day!
…Wait, you LEAVE all day?”

favorite song: I Whip My Tail Back and Forth! (or something like that.)

favorite book: Of Mice and Men

Least favorite activity: Pooping in the toilet.

If you could be any flavor, what flavor would you be?
Daphne: You may not realize this, but I’m too disdainful of humans to answer the question. However, if I were to answer, I would say… strawberry.

favorite food: Aristocats

hero: Simba and Nala

“Danger? I walk on the wild side. I laugh in the face of danger!” -Simba

Daphne, what color do you see things in?
Daphne: “Danger! Ha ha ha!”

favorite memory: the day Bethany picked me up from the rescue.

favorite animal: toy mice

favorite game: Fetch with Travis.

Biggest mistake I ever made: Going to a dog park.

favorite activity: Biting peoples’ noses.

most embarrassing moment: When the other cats noticed my pink claws and made fun of me.

word of wisdom: “Never stop playing. Or… always sit on the window sill. Or… always take pride in your tail.”

greatest mystery of life: I’ll never understand how to land on all four feet.

biggest fear: Snow

greatest achievement so far: climbing a fully vertical ironing board.

Solar Powered Cookies!

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Our Local Diet

Jay’s previous post on the Gastropub inspired this post on local eating. Last week, we had our first “community” meeting with friends who are interested in participating in a house church kind of experiment. It fed my heart so much. There was just five of us, but I think the group will grow soon. We have decided to eat a meal together each week and just hang out for a while, pretty similar to the community we had in Liberty. After eating, we do Common Prayer together and then discuss a chapter from a book that we are all reading. Currently, we are reading Practicing the Way of Jesus by Mark Scandrette. (Thanks, Scott for the recommendation!) We will write more about this group in the future for sure.

Anyway, last week during the discussion we realized how easy Springfield makes it to eat locally. There are tons of Farmer’s Markets and locally

My local food loot for the week.

grown produce and meat options. Fassnight Creek Farms is literally around the corner from our house! We all felt kind of silly for not utilizing these resources more. So, this weekend I had an adventure with the local food industry. I visited the Farmer’s Market of the Ozarks and was not at all disappointed. I went with my grocery list for the week and was able to get all of the meat, fruit and veggies that were on the list. I am particularly excited about the locally and humanely raised bacon that I got from Raised Right Meats. It has no nitrates or any of the yucky junk the hyper-processed meats at the grocery store have. After that, I went to Sunshine Valley Farms where I picked seven pounds of blueberries. Yes, seven pounds. I froze them for future use. I ended my shopping endeavor at Home Grown Foods, a locally owned independent grocery store with all local product. I got some pretty exciting sausage and milk there.I often go back and forth between the goodness of locally grown foods and the goodness of cheap food from places such as Aldi. I ask myself, “Is it wise stewardship to spend more on locally grown and humanely raised foods or is it better to get the cheap stuff that is shipped in and might harm the earth in the process?” It’s a hard question that I don’t think I have completely found the answer to, especially after spending quite a bit more on the meat at the farmer’s market than at the grocery store.  When I talk to people about vegetarianism, I always tell them that as long as the meat is humanely raised, I’m okay eating it. But I seldom act on that. Perhaps this little adventure into local dining will help me put a little action behind my words.

What do you think – which is better: local or cheap?

The Great Rib Adventure at Farmers Gastropub

The Farmers Gastropub isn’t just good. It’s excellent. Farmers is my favorite place to eat in Springfield.

Amber likes to be adventurous when we eat out. She loves to try new places. And when we go to familiar places, we both like to try new things on the menu.

This week it was my turn to select where we eat. So of course I broke protocol and chose and old place. But in this case, it was a good choice.

One of the daily specials was a half rack of ribs. Ribs! The server informed us that they had just got a pig in, so they were doing a lot with pork lately.

Oh boy, recent pig!

Actually, I almost didn’t get them—my routine-loving instinct was to opt for my old favorite, the familiar fish and chips. But Amber pointed out that  I could get fish and chips any time, whereas the ribs were the special.

Now, I suspect that we won’t be able to go back to Farmers for fish n’ chips for some time, due to our tendency toward trying new places—and there are a lot of great places to eat in Springfield. So, I was conflicted.

But if you know me, you know that I love ribs.

I have recently been disappointing with the ribs I have got at other places in Springfield. For example, I got a half rack  at Whole Hog Cafe that seemed to barely have any meat on it at all. So, I subconsciously wanted to guard myself against another disappointment of that sort.

But of course I chose the ribs. I also got hand-cut fries and mushy peas. (I love peas.)

 

When the food came, there were only three ribs on the plate. “Uh oh,” I thought. But as soon as I picked them up, I felt how heavy they were. It turned out that there was more meat on those three enormous bones than there would be on several half racks at Whole Hog!

They were mouth-wateringly delicious. Farmers Gastropub focuses on serving local and fresh food. As a consequence, the food is very flavorful. The pig that my ribs came from must have been as big as a Prius. And they must have been cut from near the spine, because the anatomy of the ribs varied somewhat from your standard fare. In any event, it was a mighty decent meal for a spontaneous Wednesday date.

The current focus of this blog is the conviction that adventures can be found in unlikely places. My experience at Farmers shows me that even eating can be a big and enjoyable adventure, whether we are at a familiar favorite or at some place new and uncharted.

Where should we eat next?

The Adventure of Moving

Jay and I have moved four times in three years. Prior to married life, we had each moved at least once a year, sometimes twice, all four years of college.

For me, this adds up to moving a grand total of 10 times in the past six years! Needless to say, we have it down to a science. Moving is no big deal anymore. It has actually become something of an adventure every time we move.

How will we decorate the new place? What kind of furniture will we have? How will the kitchen be organized? I ask myself all of these questions every time we move. Honestly—I know it’s weird—but, I kind of like it. I like making new spaces feel like home. Shh, don’t tell… I like change.

I think changing things every once in a while adds to the adventure of life. I like this part of the adventure. So, on to the fun stuff!

We are pretty settled in Springfield after being here for about three weeks. Jay and I are enjoying our jobs doing day camp for the Park Board and assisting the museum manager at the Discovery Center. We are thankful for our sweet friend Bethany and her cat Daphne who are part of our community living at the apartment. We rejoice in living in the same city again without the 300 miles between us.

My creative/crafty side has been on hyper drive since we moved in. I have made so many things that make our apartment more homey. I think our apartment is this cool gallery for all of our collective creativity. Check out the pictures below!

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Camp Life

For some wacky reason, I decided to receive minimal pay to entertain twelve  overly dramatic, argumentative pre-teens for eight hours a day for eight weeks this summer. I am in the middle of week three. At this point, I have joyfully exited survival mode and entered I-was-made-for-this mode. As bizarre as it sounds, I am enjoying my job. I get to play games, go swimming, be silly, and go on field trips with young people who are at a point where they truly need someone to be a model in their lives.

Why would anyone in their right mind actually choose to spend their summer with scary 9-12 year olds, you ask? Well, think of it as this adventurous quest to find a hidden magical jewel deep within the jungle on a deserted island. Who wouldn’t accept such a quest?

“Think of it as this adventurous quest to find a hidden magical jewel deep within the jungle on a deserted island. Who wouldn’t accept such a quest?“

I get to enter the deserted island that is an empty elementary school during the summer every day. The jungle consists of about fifty 5-12 year old children who all want to do fifty different things at the same time including rolling around on the floor as if someone just yelled “stop, drop, and roll”,  running from one end of the gym to the other unceasingly for thirty minutes convinced that if they stop then the cheetahs will get them, yelling simply because some other camper plays a card game differently then they do, making up games with a deck of cards with directions such as “hit the deck with the back of your right hand,” and seeing if they can get the newly purchased dodgeballs to get stuck in the rafters of the gym. Sounds like a jungle, right?

The hidden magical jewel that I am seeking is that fine line that a tight roper can’t even walk where campers don’t hate me for being too strict. Where they respect me enough to do what I ask without pushing the limit. Where they are comfortable talking to me about things that really matter such as how they really feel about their parents’ divorce that happened three years ago.

Where all twelve of them are actually having fun and are happy to be at camp. Where they all yell my name when I come into work after the kids get there and ask me where I was as if they were terribly worried about my well being. Where I can sense when one game is going sour before it gets too sour and start a new game quickly before one camper begins ferociously attacking another one. Where I sit back and watch as all twelve of my campers interact in a way that shows respect for one another and think to myself, “I actually get paid to do this.”

Do you see how awesome my quest is? Working with children is always such an adventure for me. I am honored to accept my quest and will fulfill it to the best of my abilities.