If you're looking for the posts about youth group on Wed, they are the next two posts down. This one is a little update on myself.
I've been making some major decisions this week. I'm going to be partnering with another Christian teacher in the area this coming year. There are a lot of schedule details that I've needed to think through - making sure that next year I'll have time to write and time to relax and time to clean house as well as teach and do paperwork and youth group. It's been stressful and I've kind of been fixating on it, which is good, because I'm really thinking it out, but last night at youth group I was just exhausted. And I even took a little nap before I came. I couldn't think why I was so tired until I realized that I was just emotionally exhausted from making that decision. So I'm taking it easy today, just doing the minimum of work, sleeping in, blogging.
My toe is still not fully healed. :( I had an ingrown toenail in my OTHER toe that I had to have removed, but I didn't have the doctor do his burn-it-with-acid thing this time, and it feels much better. Bit sore, but I think I'll be fine. :)
My Mom, Mark, and Emily are on a road trip! Visiting friends, helping at my Aunt's birth - I hear they're having a wonderful time, and I'm so happy for them.
Little by little I think I'm getting accustomed to the idea of moving out and the way the paths of my life will be different when I do. Those little paths: those are almost the hardest to lose. Some of them I want to lose, of course. Driving 15 minutes to the edge of anything will be a welcome path to lose. But how will I ever grow accustomed to the sound of cars outside my window? Instead of ducking habitually as I come up the stairs because our ceiling is so low, my stairs will be on the outside of my apartment. Instead of running in a full circle down the stairs from my room into the kitchen for a drink of water, I'll have merely to leave my room and step into the kitchen. So much will change; will it be good change?
I'm thinking of Samantha in Africa and my friend Amanda coming over this weekend for the first time I'll have seen her since her DTS. I'm thinking of Sue Thomas F.B.Eye and how the disk from the library skipped so Anna and I caved immediately and bought the fifth season (with the attitude that ain't nothin gonna spoil this for us!) and how strange and good it's been with just my sister, Ryan, and I here (Dad's getting back home today from driving coach bus).
I'm thinking of the amazing book I got from the library: An Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Life, and the Things That Really Matter which happened to show up in large print (horray for my eyes!) and has been a huge blessing for me. A curious thing about me: I like reading books about reading books. I do not know why this could be, but it's always been so. I've read C. S. Lewis' On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature at least twice, and I don't know why. It's boring and irrelevant, but I love it. I love Lewis' wit in disarming his opponents, his way of having gems of insight in even the most unlikely essays, and mostly the way he talks about books. Like they're old friends, interesting friends, new friends, highfalutin' and uneducated friends, deep friends. I like how he has more to say than "It was good." I like how he is focused enough to see the flaws in books and still be able to say why they are valuable. I think I just love the art - the art of it - of writing, of storytelling, of saying what needs to be said in the best way, of tricking the reader into growing himself, of escaping into another world which in the end is not so very unlike our own.
I'll announce the new directions my studio will be taking soon, I'm sure. Until then, pray for me, that I would choose wisely and not cave to the pressure to please anyone but God!
I've been making some major decisions this week. I'm going to be partnering with another Christian teacher in the area this coming year. There are a lot of schedule details that I've needed to think through - making sure that next year I'll have time to write and time to relax and time to clean house as well as teach and do paperwork and youth group. It's been stressful and I've kind of been fixating on it, which is good, because I'm really thinking it out, but last night at youth group I was just exhausted. And I even took a little nap before I came. I couldn't think why I was so tired until I realized that I was just emotionally exhausted from making that decision. So I'm taking it easy today, just doing the minimum of work, sleeping in, blogging.
My toe is still not fully healed. :( I had an ingrown toenail in my OTHER toe that I had to have removed, but I didn't have the doctor do his burn-it-with-acid thing this time, and it feels much better. Bit sore, but I think I'll be fine. :)
My Mom, Mark, and Emily are on a road trip! Visiting friends, helping at my Aunt's birth - I hear they're having a wonderful time, and I'm so happy for them.
Little by little I think I'm getting accustomed to the idea of moving out and the way the paths of my life will be different when I do. Those little paths: those are almost the hardest to lose. Some of them I want to lose, of course. Driving 15 minutes to the edge of anything will be a welcome path to lose. But how will I ever grow accustomed to the sound of cars outside my window? Instead of ducking habitually as I come up the stairs because our ceiling is so low, my stairs will be on the outside of my apartment. Instead of running in a full circle down the stairs from my room into the kitchen for a drink of water, I'll have merely to leave my room and step into the kitchen. So much will change; will it be good change?
I'm thinking of Samantha in Africa and my friend Amanda coming over this weekend for the first time I'll have seen her since her DTS. I'm thinking of Sue Thomas F.B.Eye and how the disk from the library skipped so Anna and I caved immediately and bought the fifth season (with the attitude that ain't nothin gonna spoil this for us!) and how strange and good it's been with just my sister, Ryan, and I here (Dad's getting back home today from driving coach bus).
I'm thinking of the amazing book I got from the library: An Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Life, and the Things That Really Matter which happened to show up in large print (horray for my eyes!) and has been a huge blessing for me. A curious thing about me: I like reading books about reading books. I do not know why this could be, but it's always been so. I've read C. S. Lewis' On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature at least twice, and I don't know why. It's boring and irrelevant, but I love it. I love Lewis' wit in disarming his opponents, his way of having gems of insight in even the most unlikely essays, and mostly the way he talks about books. Like they're old friends, interesting friends, new friends, highfalutin' and uneducated friends, deep friends. I like how he has more to say than "It was good." I like how he is focused enough to see the flaws in books and still be able to say why they are valuable. I think I just love the art - the art of it - of writing, of storytelling, of saying what needs to be said in the best way, of tricking the reader into growing himself, of escaping into another world which in the end is not so very unlike our own.
I'll announce the new directions my studio will be taking soon, I'm sure. Until then, pray for me, that I would choose wisely and not cave to the pressure to please anyone but God!