January 2012
2 posts
December 2011
9 posts
mouse hunt!
unfortunately we recently discovered several co-inhabitants at win 3. we debated if we should adopt the cute little creatures and keep them as pets. they could teach us how to cook, lindsay suggested. just like in ratatouille. but they do make a lot of noise at night, even when we kindly request that they be quiet. but it was when one of them passed away under our kitchen sink and we were faced...
travel sister
there is nothing like seeing a sister after two years of separation and happily finding that you can pick up just where you left off. i missed my travel sister. it’s good to be with her now.
1 tag
you make hearts come out of my eyes
we got to jersey at 1:30 am after six hours of driving with bloodshot eyes and and excessive yawning. we pulled into the driveway, got out of the car and by the light of our cell phones found our way into the backyard to look for the house key. but it wasn’t in its normal place-or in any place that we could think of, and we began calculating how uncomfortable it would be to spend the rest of...
“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life”
– Proverbs 4:23 (via jinsollynne)
1 tag
1 tag
November 2011
10 posts
my breakfast biscuits in the oven, back by popular demand, may become a weekly tuesday night tradition.
we have christmas lights up, as well as a mini tree, and we’re alternating taylor swift and matt thiessen’s christmas albums. our house is so cozy!
there are currently six deer within ten feet of our front door. if we had a garden it would be frustrating, but since i don’t...
1 tag
jackpot!
when i was cleaning the house the other day i found a laundry card that belonged to a previous renter under the laundry machine. and it still had money on it! guess who did a free load of laundry today?
slightly embarrassed
the best part about having the house to myself is uninhibited singing, which may or may not be accompanied by dancing. it’s the most freeing thing to do. the other day when my roommates were in class i got in the shower and belted out hymns at the top of my lungs. so refreshing. what i didnt realize, though, that while the water was running and my vocal chords obstructed my ability to hear,...
2 tags
falling in love was the easy part
being away from him is the hard part. but hearing his voice on an international pay-phone call makes the hard part so happy too.
1 tag
“if i was crying in the van with my friend it was for freedom from myself and...”
– sufjan stevens
1 tag
my life in microarray →
strange things happen when i study for too long, so i’m not entirely sure…do they sing hallelujah at the end or is that just in my head?
taylor swift
when you’re driving down the interstate by yourself on a sunny fall afternoon there’s nothing better than rolling the windows down and singing to taytay on the country station.
on a completely unrelated note, i spent an hour at babies r us yesterday, looking for a baby shower gift for megan. everything was so soft and small and precious. it secretly made me want to have a baby just...
October 2011
10 posts
1 tag
bon voyage
they got underway this morning, and i always get a little sad when he leaves. good thing he never sends me his tracker until the patrol is down to ten days, because otherwise i’d waste way too much time hitting F9 to refresh the countdown. yes, i do have a life, i just like pie charts. and bar charts. and the tracker generates both.
i miss my sailor when he’s out at sea, when...
1 tag
Airport Shuts After Explosions →
even if i can’t go home, i like to entertain the delusion that i could if i wanted to. unfortunately, the headlines aren’t helping me out.
1 tag
skydiving
skydive the ranch. it’s a real thing. we really did it. we really jumped out of an airplane at 14000 ft. i’m not a huge fan of surprises, and he didn’t tell me until an hour before we left the house, but this was the best surprise present i’ve ever received.
as we were falling my instructor told me about a malfunction that his chute had earlier that day, and about how he...
1 tag
headline sadnesses →
Fighting shakes Yemeni capital (it shakes me too)
i miss the rains
Africa and Matt Thiessen. it can’t get much better than this. after my roommates had left the house this morning I screamed it at the top of my lungs:
It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you there’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do I bless the rains down in Africa
“Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him.”
– Psalm 62:1
Nobel Prize goes to Yemeni Woman →
cool, right?
2 tags
cape may tonight!
1 tag
You did not have a home
but You knew the whole world belongs to the meek
September 2011
12 posts
1 tag
sea urchin sex and other things
they don’t even have sex. they fertilize externally, and it’s easily manipulated on a microscope slide. but here’s the thing: when i made sea urchin babies in lab the other night i remembered something that i forget far too often, and i got that kind of feeling that you get when you’re standing in the presence of God Almighty. because watching the process of fertilization...
1 tag
so proud
i think it’s left over from my africa days, but incoming long-distance calls at unexpected times make me extremely uncomfortable. they make me think family emergency, sudden death maybe, definitely a tragedy. so when m called me during class this morning i got, well, pretty nervous. but, relief, and happy surprise, he got into flight school! on his first try (nbd). he’s worked so...
The President Returns →
taking miles off the distance
“i wonder what piglet is doing,” thought pooh. “i wish i could be there, doing it too.” just when were were about to finish louis sachar, he came across a first edition copy of winnie the pooh at his grandma’s house. so for the past week our skype dates have revolved around honey jars and woozle hunts, and all of rabbit’s relations (and i love that we read...
1 tag
Death Toll Soars →
(now would be a good time to pray for my blood-drenched home)
if we could open our eyes and see in all...
How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? 3 Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. 4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that...
Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts. →
2 tags
2 tags
blue like jazz
No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone.
1 tag
oil change
i learned the safe way to jack up a car, how to unscrew an oil filter, how to drain the oil, and how to fill it back up. the world looked so beautiful from under the car: the mosquitoes and the sand and the gravel, the oil trickling down my arms, and the boy in his work clothes explaining the engine to me. so i kissed him.
this weekend i spent some of the happiest days of my life on the back of...
jumping fences
i’m sorry i texted you at six in the morning (my jet-lagged body told me it was much later in the day!) but i’m glad you love me anyway and i’m glad you still wanted to get brunch. i love that we jump off bridges together, and that we walk all the way to trader joes and whole foods just to get their free samples, and i love it when we pray, looking up at the sky.
i love that...
August 2011
12 posts
nice people
like the man who helped me carry my suitcase up the stairs at the T station, or the man who gave up his seat in the exit row so i could accommodate my luggage.
2 tags
tough mudder
http://toughmudder.com/video/
pros: glory, a good time with friends, motivation to get back in shape, mud cons: excruciating pain, possible defeat should i do it?
“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved—-loved...”
– victor hugo
are you fasting?
the other day i walked into a store in downtown stuttgart. i decided against buying water because i wouldn’t be able to drink it out on the street in public: it’s ramadhan. oh wait…ramadhan didn’t make the plane ride over here. are you fasting? a standard question in the muslim world during a time when millions of devout men and women abstain from food and pleasure during...
before you turn around
the canyons and the seas, are they just what you need or are they less than what you’d expect to see?
1 tag
end of times
i ate my last prickly pear and my last shwarma. i drank my last rani burtukali. i kissed my little Arab babies one last time, i wrote notes and said my goodbyes. i cleaned the house, made the beds, and watered the plants. now all that’s left to do is to wait for my taxi to the airport. i’m sitting on my couch watching one last pirated movie: “where in the world is osama bin...