community

A magazine I subscribe to and enjoy is Relevant Magazine. They also have a ridiculously funny podcast that has made me look like a big weirdo on the bus numerous times.

Last year the people at Relevant started a new branch called Neue which is targeted toward church leaders. They put out a quarterly book zine with some pretty inspiring and thought provoking articles. I just read one today and it really made me think. Here's an excerpt from the article about community by Jimmy Spencer

"Community is simply the network of relationships that are birthed from working together. This important work is to reflect Jesus and His message so strongly that it compels those we encounter to ask us why we are so unique. We at The Sherma Movement call this Viral Jesus. Unfortunately, we spend so much time motivating and training people how to do the work of the Church, we often have little time to actually do the work. I would implore leaders to get workers into society and allow them to experience, and sometimes fail at, being Jesus to others. This work builds the Kingdom, matures us and produces real community amongst those who participate. This is the Kingdom of God.

We should be conforming people to the image of Jesus. Not ourselves. God community is a beautiful mosaic of different people and practices. Adding unique people to our community refines us into who God intended us to be."

As a leader in my church this really spoke to me. The community we are building in our college group....is it for fun, or for the Kingdom?

Five of us are going to New Orleans this weekend to help the baptist mission there hand out candy to kids on Halloween and to help get all their Christmas decorations up. This place demands a lot of hard work and a heart for that community, and I love it. Every time I go though, I'm reminded that I need the same heart for the people of my own community in Austin. I need to yearn to love those that others don't, but who Jesus would go straight to. I pray my church develops this same yearning that I so desire.

We are beginning a campaign to raise money to build a new sanctuary in our church in an effort to reach out to our community more. I pray that in this process we, as a body, grow closer together because we are all working for the same cause. I pray we remember that it's for the Kingdom of God, and not just for a newer bigger building.

This was long, I hope some of yall made it to the end. I guess I should stop reading articles that tug at my heart and read some for my class in a few hours, haha.

ps. I graduate in less than 8 weeks!
pps. I've been thinking about seminary lately and I feel very drawn to marriage and family counseling or something along those lines. If you think about it, pray for clarity in listening to what God has for me :)

full of oops

My blogging is getting really spaced out...oops!

I'd like to say it's because school is getting hectic (now that I'm so close to graduating!), or that I'm super busy at church all the time but it isn't and I'm not. Considering I have two writing intensive classes and a science, my work load is pretty easy, and I haven't gotten behind on anything which is just crazy for me, ha.

Church activities do keep me busy but not in an insane way. Our college group is going through a growth spurt, but I don't mean in the size kind of way. We've all grown so close together. Such a great way to grow in a church :) Even though I'm graduating in less than two months I plan to stay in the group until next December when David graduates (hopefully!!)

The rest of my life is filled with far too many Disney tv shows, food network competitions and whatever else David makes me watch. Don't get me wrong, these shows have their advantages. There are NO skanky girl commercials on late at night on Disney and the content and language is always clean. Though my humor level and knack for intelligent conversation maybe lowering, I find it refreshing to not have my mind bombarded with the level of sex, language, and violence that society has deemed normal for prime time television. When I do watch adult shows it's usually just the office, haha.

I say all this to then say, I'm still knitting! I just have this problem lately of starting a new project before I finish another one, so I never have pictures to share of finished projects. Soon I will be making my Christmas knitting list and knitting like a crazy grandma up until December 24 at midnight I'm sure.

My biggest project is that blanket I mentioned a few weeks ago. All I have is this pic from my iphone to show you, but I think it gets across how awesome it is. It's super soft too, I love it.

I'm almost done with a gift for some special friends and will post pics when they get to their new homes, hopefully sooner than later. I might also be doing a little halloween accessory knitting this weekend, we'll see.

This post was random and longer than I planned, oops!

I'm crazy..

so the other day i got sucked into trying to crochet again. It wasn't that bad and I understood what I was doing so I had the crazy idea to look into crocheted blanket patterns. I've always heard crocheting is faster than knitting so it seemed like a decent idea to crochet a blanket. after looking, falling in love with, and obsessing over the blanket idea I did a swatch run to see if I could even manage the crocheting.

I did. but. It was soooo slow! In the amount of time it took me to crochet a chain and then the first row on it I was able to do an almost full knit swatch.

So, I started looking for zig-zag/wavy knit blanket patterns and found a great free one on lion brand's ravelry page.

I went out and bought yarn and new needles for this project on Friday and I'm already through 2 5 inch stripes! I'm not sure why exactly I thought it was a good idea to start a new big project right now, but I did...ah well.

It's light gray, turquoise and peacock (so light and dark teal) and I love it. The yarn is from hobby lobby, called I Love This Yarn!, and is so stinkin soft. I'm hoping I can get it done in the next few weeks in time for the cooler weather that I'm hoping i coming soon.

81 degrees at 1am in October is just not acceptable!

lists

to knit:

• 485920 preemie caps (or until i use up my baby yarn)
• Sophie's green beret
• Christmas stuffies for my little cousins
• Christmas scarf for MeMaw
• David's annual Christmas hat
• Christmas gifts for the rest of my family

oh. my. goodness.

A lot of people I know are starting to have babies now too, so I want to come up with a cute knit/sewn baby gift to start making them all. There's pressure to make it cute and special enough to not get lost in the sea of baby stuff everyone gives. I love the thought of one of my knit toys becoming a childhood favorite :)

rain. rain. rain.

I know it's good for the earth and all, but I really hate driving in it...and I have a lot of driving to do this week. My Austin>San Marcos commute, jaw appointment in San Antonio today (my dad is driving half of the way!), and then on Thursday I'm headed to College station to see two of my favorite girls!

Yay for Sophie and Carolyn!

I'll be coming back to Austin Friday afternoon and then getting on a bus for Great Fall. I'm very excited about this year's Great Fall. Our college group has grown so much stronger and closer as friends, so it should be loads of fun.

On the knitting front I've been working on some premie caps for my church's Threads of Love organization. We knit/crochet/sew caps, blankets and vests for babies that are born premature. The hats are so tiny and cute. It amazes me that there are babies so small (I was a 9 pounder, and nearly 2 feet long...poor mom).

I wrote out my own pattern for the caps and I hope to get it up on here in the next week or so once I make sure the sizes I have are good. Maybe some of my knitting readers can knit a few up! You can seriously make on in the time it takes to watch a movie. I made a cute pink one while watching Bride Wars the other night.

Oh AND, I had a lovely lazy day with David yesterday. He didn't feel well and ended up staying home from school, then got some sad news from a friend so he was feeling a little blegh. I decided it was a nice day to be out and about so we ventured out to Bee Cave and got some yummy frozen yogurt at Yogurt Planet, got him a snazzy new hat at Marshalls and picked up a few other things along the way. We then ended up at his cousin's 8th grade football game where he ran a touchdown in the first play, then the team didn't score again, heh. It was beautiful weather though and enjoyable to sit with his family for a while. Then we watched Big Bang Theory with my mom and followed that up with Coraline with Casey and Whitney. A wonderfully relaxing day spent with the boy I love :)

i know he looks sad here but apparently this is his modeling face

long, strange, good weekend

It's been a long but good weekend. To give some background to how it started...I thought my head might be broken. Well, sorta. Wednesday night my head started hurting a lot where I hit it on my car window in the wreck last week. It worried me because up till then it only hurt if something touched it, but now it was hurting nonstop and making it hard to enjoy hanging out with friends.

So, Thursday morning comes around and my head hurts too much to go to school. I told my mom I was staying home and we decided it might be a good call to go see my Dr about it. We did so and I ended up getting a skull series done (4 x-rays of my head) later that afternoon. He also gave me some strong anti-inflammatories to get the swelling down from where I was was hit. One bad thing about these is he told me not to take any other medications for pain at the same time, so here I am with a massive headache and I can't take meds for it...yay.

Friday arrives and I end up sleeping all morning, which was well needed. David and I ventured to north Austin to get him some new chacos (and my awesome new water bottle) and to visit a place called Lucky J's. David had to do an art direction project with them as the subject so we figured we go see what they were all about. Lucky J's is a chicken and waffle stand. Does that sound weird? I'd heard of this combo plenty before since we watch the Food Network an insane amount, but I had yet to try it.

Ya know what? It was weird. Ya know why it was weird? Because it didn't taste weird! It was weird how unweird it really was. The overwhelming seasoning (I think mostly oregano) in the chicken batter and the sweet maple syrup married together perfectly. The waffle amazing on its on too, so thin and crispy. Even the sweet tea I had was good. I won't be surprised if David gets a craving for it sometime soon :)

After eating with David and taking him home I finally heard from my Dr on my way to choir practice. My skull is perfectly fine, no fractures, nothing weird...well nothing new and weird. The meds he gave me are working too, my heahaches aren't as frequent, I just get bursts of pain now and then. If you see me wince and hold the back of my head, that's what's goin on.

Oh yeah, I also got a new car today! We settled with insurance over my dead car and were able to find a good deal on this 2008 Mazda Tribute. It's like a baby version of my old car. I love it and I'm excited we were able to find it. The Lord provides in great ways. Hopefully I'll be able to drive this one for a long time, and get a new car on my own terms next time, and not from my poor car getting murdered.

ps. thanks momma and daddy for my car!! :)

a new love

David and I went to REI today and I found my new favorite water bottle. It's a smaller version of the big 32oz bottles that you see everywhere, at 16 oz. I like the blue and cute little trees. I like how the mouth isn't so huge that water dumps in my face everytime I take a drink. But, my favorite part...it fits in cup holders.

Ah, the simple things in life.

gretel

I finished my gretel cabled beret last night. Now it needs to get cold so I can wear it everyday! I used Cascade Heathers yarn in summer sky, on size 7 needles. It's so comfy and I can tell my head will be very very warm and snuggly this winter :) ok now onto pics.




ok and this song is amazing and I want this guy's cd now. Spencer Day. awesome.

my physics professor says..

slitterbom...instead of schlitterbahn

and

nucular...instead of nuclear

This class is way too slow and boring to wake up at 6am for. Especially after another 3 hour night of sleep. blegh. I'm already ready to climb back into my comfy bed and go to sleep!

injury induced insomnia

It's just past 4am and I can't sleep. Since the wreck, there is only one very specific position I can sleep in to not be in pain, and it's not on my side like I'm so used to sleeping. It finally got to me tonight and I just can't sleep. I'm hoping this vicodin kicks in soon so I can either sleep in the weird position comfortably, or let the bump on my head touch the pillow without yelling.

Anyways....in my attempt to get sleepy I thought I'd post some pics of my latest work. I'm going avoid typing too much more since I know my typing skills go down the drain on meds :)

saying goodbye to my dear explorer

birthday bow I made for Whitney's 22nd birthday, it looks too cute in her big curly hair :)

Whitney's other birthday present that I started last year and put off finishing till the day of her birthday this year (it's a giraffe by the way)

another birthday knit, this one for my sister's roommate/best friend. she loves owls and I couldn't pass up knitting something this cute :)