"A universe that contains much that is obviously bad and apparently meaningless, but containing creatures like ourselves who know that it is bad and meaningless." 

(pg 42)

The fact that we know the world is meaningless reveals that there is a God because we know that there is more to life than just a daily routine, of eating and sleeping, there is a God to love!

Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity: A Revised and Amplified Edition, with a New Introduction, of the Three Books, Broadcast Talks, Christian Behaviour, and Beyond Personality. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001. Print.

At the Sound of the Alarm Clock

my life today: Heard the alarm, felt tired and not ready to face the day mumbled to Nathaniel "hit snooze." 

10 minutes later alarm sounds again. Reluctantly I got up to shower & ask Nathaniel to take Moses out & feed him.

After my shower I open to door & Nathaniel is STILL IN BED! Unhappy and harboring anger that he was still snoozing said  "What are you doing, why aren't you up yet?" 

My wonderful, groggy, and confused husband replied  "What? It is 3:00 AM." 

me "Nu-uh, I did not just shower at 3 AM."

The alarm had gone off to wake me up to take the puppy outside to pee as he is not yet able to hold his bladder all night.

Fail, well at least my shower for the day was done and we got a great laugh out of it later.

1 year Anniversary

Today is Nathaniel & my anniversary.

What did we do this past weekend to celebrate?

Well nothing for our anniversary, but as we are youth sponsors for the high school youth group at church we did go white water rafting on the Youghiogheny River in Western, PA! We drove the late crew who had sports Friday night and arrived at our camp sight around 3:00am Saturday Morning. We were up at 8ish had breakfast (thanks to camp hebron who supplied the tents, food, and had 5 persons who joined) and went to the river to wetsuits & prep.
 That day we were out on the river having a grand ol' time. We had 3 rafts & a ducky (looks like a kayack, but inflatable like a raft). We had the youth pastor who was the guide on the duck and  2 experieced captins, so the captin of our raft had been rafting once or twice but never been a guide. We did not have any youth in our raft (3 sponsors & 2 persons from Camp Hebron). For the least experienced raft we did great! Making it through all rapids & challenges but one with laughter, conversation, and enjoyment.

Unfortunately our raft did "kiss" dimple rock, the hardest & most dangerous rapid on our stretch. We hit a hard knocking 4 of the 5 of us out of the raft and tumbling through the rest of the rapid.

Here is a video on youtube I found of a guy sucessfully going through (a different raft type, but you get the idea). It is longer rapid, and imagine being IN the white waters without a raft in the current and capping water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czMc3e6W2UE
3 of the 4 of us manged to hold onto the raft when we dumped (the 1st big rock is dimple rock). Nathaniel stayed on, we got held up on a rock and the other 2 could not hold on at this point as while the raft was stopped we swimmers were in the middle of a strong current (the other 2 swimmers eyes were HUGE at this point). As they floated on Nathaniel was able to maneuver the raft around the rock it was stuck on to a better point and get me in. We then did our best to follow the other 2 and get them in, it took a bit as we could not get the raft still enough to grab the swimmer or swimmers close enough for them to grab on to a paddle. The 4th who dumped was not able to hold on at all & after falling & splashing through much of the rapid (& passing other rafts who offered her no help) was picked up by a raft with a family from Baltimore.

Quite the experience, while the fall was dangerous & NOT a great time it made a good story for us all to talk about around the fire that night. We all said we would go rafting again which says a lot about the experience of white water rafting as a whole.

A good adventure & a line to cross out on my bucket list (looking forward to next years trip & a successful run through dimple rapid)

What else for our anniversary? Well, meet Moses our new puppy our gift to one another. He was 2.5 months old when we got him from a rescue. He is a basset hound/beagle mix (although we think he may have more in him then that).  Right now he is 10 pounds, quiet, and loves to cuddle.

 

 Moses

We are quite happy to have him as we've both wanted to have a dog before we were married and were plesently surprised to get our landlords permission to do so a several weeks ago. Keeping a clean house gets the credit as they said they knew we would not let it ruin the apartment. We are thankful for their trust.

 

Sleepy Dreams

The night before last I was snoozing away.

As I was dreaming, I wanted to move this bundle of whatever to a different place.

I carried it out of the bedroom and dropped it in the music room.
Back in bed sometime later I woke up chilled and sleeply sat up reaching for the foot of the bed where my sheet and quilt must have been. Up not easily finding them I reached further and began waking up a little more.

It was then that I recalled the bundle I was dreaming about early was real. I vaguely remembered stepping over the box fan in the doorway and deciding the the music room was far enough for the sheet and quilt as I wanted to be back in bed.

While I am not sure what caused me to wake up enough to remember having the sheet and quilt in my arms, yet not enough to know that they belonged back in the bedroom, I am thankful that I did wake up enough to remember. As when I was groggily searching for the blankets later in the night it would have been much more of an ordeal and I would have woken up Nathaniel in my searching, lights would have been turned on, and an all out confused search would have begun. Still, I think about what a funny conversation my husband and I would have had over  which one of us was the culprit who had carried the blankets out of the room!

I am wondering if  I woke up a bit while stepping over the box fan, maybe it took a little more conscious effort alerting me enough to step over it, but not enough to fully wake up as I do not remember leaving the bed, or getting back into to, only dropping the armful of bedding. Although while I woke up enough that later in the evening I knew where the blankets where, I did not wake up enough to realize that my sheet and quilt belonged on the bed, not in a different room.

Today is Nathaniel's Birthday

Today is Nathaniel's birthday! His schedule for the day: work, Softball practice immediately following, and home around 8-8:30 tonight. So no birthday meal today, I hope to make a appetizer or something else light for him to have when he gets home from practice. We celebrated his birthday on Saturday going to the Phillies vs Braves game in the evening, and while we lost we had a great time! Nathaniel is the best and so while I wont see him until late tonight he does enjoy playing softball with the church so he will have a good birthday!

On another note, it has been not, humid, and dry here. That seems to be the pattern for most areas in the country right now so that may not be news. We have gotten a few light showers along with lots of wind and heat lightening; however, like many places the rainfall does more to increasing the humidity and not enough rainfall to feed the ground. Here is to hoping for rain for the crops.

YA 2012 Service Trip

For the Young Adult (college aged) service trip this summer we went to Camp Luz! 22 of us (including my parents who joined us for the week) did all sorts of camp prep work. My mother and I helped Rochelle in the kitchen most of the day; however, we usually had a couple of hours in the afternoon to help with the work projects around camp.

Some of the work projects:
Insilating the garage
Landscaping & weeding
Mulching...lots and lots
removing the old dock
painting
staining
and more...


It was great to be back on Camp property and be able to share a bit of my favorite place with a group of people who are great!

Making a house a home

This spring I spent quite a few hours hand digging up around my & Nathaniel's brick porch so that I could create a small flower bed. After a few big roots, many many small trailing roots, grass and weed clods it was finally dug up and ready!

If you look you can see a few tulips on the left that I bought on sale last year and planted in a small dug up space last December. On the Right under the bay window I planted Ferns, Iris, Hostas and a bit of mint all collected from extras my Grandma Andrews had in her flower bed! Thank you grandma!

Now after some shopping I have this! 

What is the big empty space for? Well I am glad to let you know that my wonderful mother gave me Zeni and Cosmos seeds that I planted in that space! They are just starting to sprout now and I am excited to watch them grow!

Now the chives in the front middle there have little purple flowers on them! The chives were another gift from one of my grandma's flower beds!

I am so proud of this hanging basket I designed! I think it looks fantastic.

 I do want to move my Trusty Rusty plant (the red leafy plant in the top picture), and I have weeded it already, the hard part of making the bed is done! This touch of color, while it is a small bed, helps make this house a home. I am so glad God created these beautiful plants for us to enjoy!


On a similar note: I noticed the all to familiar "popcorn flowers" on the ground today around the farmhouse apartment and looked up to see a Catalpa tree here, and as I looked around again tonight I saw another Catalpa tree! I am so grateful for these trees as they remind me of the home I grew up in! Thank you God for that wonderful surprise~