living united nation

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rainy friday

friday + 100% chance of rain all day long = NAP DAY! not quite. work gets in the way of my life so often. today is a perfectly good read a book and nap day. oh well. it's already 2.

my friend's mom is doing marvelously and hopefully going home today! thank you Lord for answering "YES!" to our prayers!

in other news, tonight jency is having friends over for chili and a bonfire. read the first paragraph. it might just be chili, a fire in the fireplace and a movie! nevertheless, i'm super excited!!! and we have fabulous friends who will be sleeping on our futon tonight so we have guaranteed wonderful breakfast companions! then all day tomorrow we get to hike and carve pumpkins and have fun with colin, april and the slatens for his TWENTY-EIGHTH birthday! gross. that's, like, gross old. (and it's really bad b/c i'm just 6 months behind him....)

anyway, my nap...i mean, work calls.

spiders abound

as some of you know, christopher and i have fought the spider battle the past few months of living in this little apartment of ours. now that the weather is a bit cooler, we thought for sure we had won the battle since we hadn't seen any lately. this morning while christopher was in the shower, i was getting dressed, pulled my pants out of my closet and laid them on the bed. i saw something on them and said "BLAST! they're dirty!" only to discover that it was not blessed, beautiful, non-venomous dirt, but a blasted, cursed, and soon-to-be-squashed spider. not only did the spider have enough nerve to camp out on my pants, he had actually spun a web ON my pants. *sigh* thankfully, he didn't run away when he was exposed. rather, he surrendered to the bottom of my shoe, and the web came off easily with no lingering effects. *sigh* i'm telling you people. shake your clothes out before you put them on!! always!!

in other news, a good friend left a message with me this morning that her mom is in the hospital here in chatt-town. my friend lives pretty far away, and she wants me to go visit her mom tomorrow. she was there for minor surgery and it turned into a "major problem" - but everything's going to be okay. dangit hospitals. pray for her and her family if you think about them today. we'll go see her tomorrow, and i'll update the world.

911

a conversation

me, with my fingers: "xxx-xxxx" (what i thought was a diane's cell phone number, which i don't really want to give out to the entire world, and of which has no combination of anything close to "911")

*ring*

*ring*

*ring*

a very-much-not-diane voice: "nine one one, what's the nature of your emergency?"

(pause)

me, very confused and shocked: "oh, i'm sorry...i dialed xxx-xxxx"

a very-much-not-diane voice, a little peeved: "well you got 911."

me, still shocked: "well, i'm sorry."

*click*


*all the events in the above story are 100% true and have not been altered in any way.

my hobby

HOORAY! okay i admit. i'm copying this from an email i just sent to my previous nanowrimo writing buddy b/c i don't have time to write it again. so yes, carrie, this does look familiar...so there...

lately chris has been playing the guitar A LOT. it's like, suddenly he's addicted to it. and i'm SO GLAD! what's good about it is that he wants to play, i want him to play b/c i want him to get better and write more songs, and when it's time to do something - like eat or help make dinner, clean the dishes, leave for work, etc - he stops. so it's not like he's freaky psycho about it. anyway, last night he said "i'm torn, b/c i love playing guitar, but i'm afraid it's making you more idle..." AND IT'S SO TRUE!!! whenever he's playing, lately i'm usually on facebook, and that's just disgusting. so i said "YOU'RE RIGHT!!! i need a hobby..." and we brainstormed about what hobbies i could do (besides the ones i used to adore that i can't do anymore b/c of my stupid arms...quiliting, journalling, etc...) and we said things like painting, playing harmonica (hah), and some other things. then, while going to sleep, it suddenly hit me. NANOWRIMO!!!!

for the uneducated, that stands for National Novel Writing Month. and why should i tell you about it when you can read about it here? carrie and i did it and both FINISHED two novembers ago. we both started to do it last november but both ran into unavoidable obstacles that stopped us. this year, carrie and some other friends did it and FINISHED this past...uh oh...was it may? nanowrimo officially says that you can do it whenver you want to, it just has to be one month, and the official national month is november.

so. i think i'm going to try to do it this year. yes, i'm busier than i've ever been. but that makes it more fun, right? and i thought about using the story that i already have about 2000 words on from last year, but i thought "no. a) that's cheating, and b) i want to go a different direction" SO I'M EXCITED!!! if anyone wants to offer their encouragement to keep going since there won't be anyone else around me doing it, i would be most appreciative. even a "how's the novel coming" email or blog comment would help. unless...hmm...unless i can find another crazy person in chattanooga. interesting...i'll get back to you on that one.....but still encourage. even if i find someone else to do it with me...any takers? it really is a LOT more fun than you think it will be.

in other news, i'm starving. okay, not really. but my tummy is rumbly. and i have nothing to dine upon. suzanne says she will cover the phones any time today...i might see if i can go soon. as in, now...

in more other news, this morning we woke up and the weather channel said it was THIRTY THREE DEGREES!!! WAHOOO!!!!! i'm so super pumped about cold weather this year. i'm really ready for it.

okay that's all.

i do

a weblog is a curious thing. i don't really have a journal anymore. i mean, i used to sit for HOURS and just write in my journal. but since my arms started mysteriously hurting (loooong story), i haven't really been able to write for extended amounts of time. so the journaling has more or less stopped. and i miss it. but i can't exactly do it here, and i mean really do it here. i don't mind you people - friends and strangers - reading a little bit into my soul, (i just misspelled that word "soup", laughed, and fixed it...) but not too deeply. but i need to ramble tonight, and i think it's an issue that needs addressing...whatever. anyway...and maybe it's b/c i'm newly married myself, but there's a lot of marriages around me that are struggling or failing or are already broken, and it's starting to majorly bother me.

i know these people who have been married for something like 20 years, have four beautiful kids, and the husband has been having an affair for three years. THREE FLIPPING YEARS!!! *sigh* there's a lot more to that one, but i don't really want to take the time to ramble about it. and there's another family i know where the husband had an affair this summer, the wife forgave him, "took him back" so to say, and he did it again. *sigh* there's another family with a really long marriage under their belt where the husband had an affair and they got a divorce and the wife tried to commit suicide. *sigh* and yet another family where the husband walked in last weekend and, after 22 years of marriage, said "i don't love you anymore. i'm leaving." *sigh*

i'm telling you people, something is wrong. i don't really have the vocabulary or the mind power tonight to talk about all the aspects of faithfulness, commitment and self control. but i'm going to try...forgive me if this is disconnected...

it's been amazing to me what God has taught christopher and me about this over the years. in our 5, maybe even 6 years of being friends, we have never, not once gone to bed mad at each other. i'm not trying to brag, that's just how it is. my whole life, i have held things in and not been honest about my feelings or when i was mad or upset or bothered by something someone said. then along came christopher and BOOM. i share everything. we used to call it "my bottle cap". it was a real, honest and deep struggle for me when we first started dating. i just wasn't used to talking about my "deep" stuff, you know? but now it's almost second nature. anyway...i have a point.

something that has also been key in our relationship has been that we tell each other when we have a "mini crush" on someone. MY GOODNESS that's hard. but i think it's healthy. and i have a very strong belief that that is where affairs begin. it makes sense...listen. or, read...

you're married or dating someone, and you notice someone else is attractive. maybe you spend time around this person in a group setting, or at work, or something. it really is no big deal to think someone else is attractive, so you don't think about mentioning it to your spouse, or date. then one day you realize you're alone with the person, or something, and prolonged eye contact is made. maybe even a hug. all the time you're thinking it's not a big deal, so you never tell your spouse about it. over time, the eye contact or hugs become regular. maybe the hugs become more and more prolonged. and by this time, your spouse probably knows that you're spending time around this other person and you would feel silly for telling them, or confessing to them, your "mini crush", if you will (will you?), b/c they will ask you if it's been going on the whole time you've seen the other person, they will get mad that you didn't tell them before, etc. that's when it has really taken root. b/c the further and further it gets, the longer the hugs get, the more used to doing other stuff with the other person you get, the more trapped you get. and you just keep going until a full-blown affair is going on and you look back and say "how the hell did i get here???" (excuse the language, but i think it's appropriate) but now, weeks, months, maybe even years later, it really, really hurts your spouse. why not just start in the very beginning when it seems silly to confess?

"i have a mini crush on christian bale". i spoke those words to chris tonight. yeah yeah, he's an actor and the chances are huge that i'll never meet him, but i still think it's important to get it OUT of my head into his ears. i went on a trip to italy about 3 summers ago and developed a crush on a guy...who was MARRIED. wow. that's a confession. i think that's when this hit me - that it's possible for it to happen to me. i really could have been "the other woman" in that situation. sheesh. now i'm getting personal. and it all starts in the mind. telling chris that when i got home felt awful. even though the guy lived in germany, i needed to get it out b/c that would have been a seed for the next guy. probably.

i am not saying that chris and i are perfect. and i am certainly not saying that we are immune to this happening to us. that's what's so scary for me. with all this happening to people around me - to people that i highly respect and love and admire - i spent about two weeks crying - i'm talking SOBBING, people - into my pillow telling chris that i had no idea how to keep it from happening to us. (he was pretty lost as to what to say or do...hah!) but i did know how. and i do know how. and it's a really valid, effective, and REAL answer - it's Jesus. now if you're reading this and you're not trying to follow his teachings, please start. and if you're reading this and you think he was just a guy that used to live on earth but was nothing special, with all due respect, you're just wrong. and i have proof.

with all this ugliness in the world in all the examples i gave in the second paragraph, there is hope. and there is no way that selfish, prideful, greedy, and lazy people (i use none of those words lightly - really think about them) can do anything good or hopeful. it has to be something bigger than us, something better that us, something smarter than us. and that something just happens to be a someone that actually knows me, and you, and what's going on in our lives. (it's Jesus, in case you missed it) andrew peterson has a line in one of his songs that says "All of my life I've held on to this fear. Its thistles and vines ensnare and entwine what flowers appeared. It's the fear that I'll fall one too many times. It's the fear that His love is no better than mine." well, his love IS better than mine, and that's why he is the answer.

reconciliation. it's such an amazing word and concept. i know this couple really well - he's a pastor - and this is their testimony. they've been married for, oh i don't know...maybe 15 years or so? and a year and a half into their marriage, he was totally addicted to porn (it's more serious and debilitating than you think), and she was having an affair. through a long series of events, they are still married - one of the happiest married couples i know, in fact. and have two gorgeous children. (he says that "they were feeding off of each other instead of off of God - like two ticks without a dog" and now they are "feeding off of God instead of each other - like two ticks on a dog"...if you will) THERE IS NO WAY THAT CAN HAPPEN WITHOUT JESUS. i'm serious. in matthew during the sermon on the mount, he says "But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery." i find it fascinating that that is the ONLY reason he gave for divorcing. don't you think he understands the severity? the pain? the deep, deep wounds that are caused by that sin? i've never thought about it that way before, but our church has had a couple of sermons on sexuality and sexual sin lately (listen to them here if you want to - they really are quite good) (oh, they're "Inside out Sexuality" and "Looking for Love: Oneness") (and "Looking for Love: Marriage" is one of the best, if not the best sermon i've ever heard) and the pastor mentioned that in one of them. so i can't claim that as my own understanding.

anyway, my point in rambling...i don't know. it's mostly to get all this down and out there. it's a serious matter and it's being ignored until it's too late. if you're married and you're reading this and you have a crush on or are being too intimate - even if it's just intellectually or emotionally, not just physically - with someone else, go tell your spouse about it right now. you have no excuse now. you've probably been waiting for the right time, and the right time is right now. seriously. go. and then pray about it. prayer is more powerful than you think. and pray for all the people in the second paragraph while you're at it...

sermon over.

sorry my public. i'm just not as clever a blogger as some out there. something not as serious or heavy is that we took a 2.5 hour nap today, and now we're burning a "sugar cookie" candle and chris is playing guitar. mmm. okay i'm done.

80s Party!!

check us out, dude. we're, like, totally awesome!!

MONTREAT!!

working at a school...ah, breaks! chris took friday off and we headed out to montreat, nc, to do a bit of camping and hiking. we encountered: a campsite five feet away from a mountain stream, threats of black bears, numb toes one night, warm toes the next, delicious hot dogs roasted over open flame, the beauty of taking a starter log camping even though it's cheating (so is using a lighter, right?!), the most difficult hike of my life, and the most breath-taking view of my life. enjoy the pictures!!





the nantahala on the way up.












the stream beside our campsite












our campsite!












build that fire, mountain man!!
















double-fistin' the dogs! or as chris says, "lyndsay's in the kitchen, as usual!!"











overlooking the most majestic view my eyes have ever seen. seriously. it's called "walker's knob" high atop greybeard mountain. that's what we get for walking uphill for 2 hours!!














see?












chris checking out the view.
















we hung the camera in a tree and took this one :)

















montreat! my goodness we had a great time.

Hope House!

we're going here today for the weekend!! this is the view from the front porch. oh man. i'm beyond excited.

four months!

we've been married four months today!! neither of us even remembered. i mean, while we were in each other's presence at least. in honor of being four months this side of our wedding, i shall revisit what was happening four months that side of our wedding. february 2006 - this was happening. OH MY GOODNESS! now that i'm finished laughing hysterically, i'm thanking God that i have such good friends as jency franklin, my maid of honor, who are bold and loving enough to stop a crazy bride from making such a horrible mistake. i'm talking about the dresses, not the flowers and poem my precious fiance' at the time brought me. that was pretty sweet, as in "nice and thoughtful" and in "totally awesome, dude!"

anyway, dear jency, bridesmaid of the year who prevented such a disastrous thing of ugly dresses taking part in my wedding, this one's for you! hear! hear!! *clink*

exciting discoveries

so last night as christopher and i were about to turn the light out and go into sweet sleep, he looked down at the sheets and stared. i said "what?" and when he said "nothing...don't look!" i BOLTED from under the covers whining "what?! what?! what is it?!?!" *sigh* it was a freshly squished spider. i'm not kidding. i've been waiting for it to happen, but i don't think i ever really thought it would happen. i mean, i am BEYOND THANKFUL that it was squished and not crawling around and at large, but still. needless to say, i didn't sleep very well. i think i woke us both up smacking chris repeatedly thinking i was smashing a spider (seriously). *sigh* so that's new. not to mention the GIANT roach and GIANT spider we killed in the past couple days in the middle of the living room floor....*sigh*

in other news, i have a friend who's having surgery tomorrow and i made a laid back mix cd for her last night. it has the following artists on it: jill phillips, sunvolt, tin hat trio, inga swearingen, paul simon, pierce pettis, mùm, dar williams, andrew peterson, gillian welch, bobby mcferrin, vigilantes of love, paul simon, and laura story. aren't you jealous?! raise your hand if you want a copy.

ps - happy derek?! :-P