Friday the 24th was our six-year anniversary. Yay! We had such a great day! We were going to go apple and peach picking out at Eschelman's Farm, but they had too many vehicles end up stuck in the mud because of a week of torrential downpours; no fruit picking there. So, we went to the zoo instead. Joel lovedlovedloved his first time on the carousel! Then Joel got to spend his first night away from his mom and dad... and loved every moment. (And I was worried he'd miss us... silly mama...) We went out to eat and watched three movies and slept in until we felt like getting up. Phenomenal.
Neil organized a block party for our circle Sunday. What a great time! There were some people who didn't even know each other who finally got to meet after years of living a few houses from each other. Lots of kids, lots of noise and running and bubbles and bikes, lots of food and conversation. This is the first block party in 17 or 18 years for our circle, and it was a blast.
Our friends Ryan and Holly have a little 5 month old foster baby. The joy in their home is radiating throughout the whole world. Holly actually ran over to our house barefoot the other day to tell us! It is incredibly marvelous to experience this with them.
Classes are going well. Micro will be very interesting and psyc will be... over in 15 weeks.
I got a call this morning from my dear Andrea, and got to hang out with her for two whole hours this morning while she was in town! What an incredible blast. She is definitely going to change the world. She left to go back to Columbus in a Greyhound bus, something that I've never experienced. She said that last time she went back in a Greyhound, the driver got lost and it took them 6 hours to get from Toledo to Columbus. Seriously.
Joel is coming down with a cold, so this week I plan on trying not to get it.
It has been raining for a couple of days, and is going to allegedly continue throughout the week. Joel was starting to crawl up the walls with wanting to play outside, so I put shoes on both of us and outside we went, downpour and all! We had fun running up and down the driveway and sidewalks, and then he discovered a massive puddle in our backyard. Oh, my. We were out there for at least half an hour, running and jumping and splashing. We were both soaked, but I was nothing compared to Joel! What a blast. (I am going to be on the lookout for galloshes, though. Tennis shoes really aren't that great for getting so wet.)
After our puddle excursion, I brought him in (not by his free will, mind you), stripped him down to nothingness, toweled him off, and put him in his snuggliest outfit. I made him some hot chocolate and we snuggled on the couch for a while. Then, off to his nap.
I really do dig this momming thing. It is a great way to spend time. I'm kinda sad that tomorrow begins the fall semester classes. I'm happy to be back and learning, as I love school so much, but I am really going to miss Joel. We'll still have 5 days each week together, but I really love not being on a schedule with him and jumping into puddles...
The plotting begins...
Ah yes, a new issue of Make magazine has arrived in the Berg household. Joel simply could not stand to eat in his booster seat once he saw what his dad was looking at. That's why you see a lovely yet mostly untouched plate of Zucchini Delight on the table in front of him. (Just so y'all know, "Zucchini Delight" is the name given to the recipe by
Isa Moskowitz, not me. I really feel that it's important to clarify that.)
Other than that, friends are coming 'round quite a bit, which is a blast. This weekend Neil and I are playing at
The Flying Bean. I'm a little panicky about my flute choir, as we have two performances in the next month and I'm just hoping we make it through them. I've been knitting just a tiny bit, but I did manage to make myself a super cute headband. Joel is saying and doing tons more (for example, I taught him today how to give a proper tea party, complete with tea set we made out of an egg carton and with guests the likes of Ella the Elephant, Bunny, and Humpty Dumpty). We're in the early planning stages of an October-ish trip to Scotland, including, of course, the auspicious site of St. Fillian's Cave on the Fife coast. (Seriously, that rocks.) School starts a week from today. Our downstairs freezer is now full of tomato sauce made from local tomatoes and peaches from one of the local orchards. (That was a several-day project of picking, cleaning, chopping, slicing, cooking, and freezing, that was.)
I've happily found a reason to watch "Hot Fuzz" again - three friends are swinging by tomorrow night who've not seen it. We're going to watch it. I can't feel as though I've got a zillion other things on my list while I'm entertaining. Such a lovely movie.
"I would argue that there are deep, worldly systems of exploitation and entitlement that whole people groups have bought into, the whole idea that 'we deserve this'. At any time the first question in regards to the earth is not 'well, is there any way that we could use less?'; anytime the first spirit that you bump up against is 'it's our right to take all this', you're probably encountering a spirit of entitlement that actually believes the earth is ours and not God's. So, when someone comes up and says, 'well, it's just ours, we can do whatever we want', this is somebody who's so deeply into a system of entitlement that they've actually become an advocate of the very systems Jesus came to set us free from."
-Rob Bell, sermon from July 15th
Hear more of
crackus drivewaya michiganus. It really is lovely and incredibly important.
