Miscellany

The countdown is on... 4 days till my race, about 20 till Europe!!! Yikes! There is too much to do till then, but hopefully it will all come together.


So far, I'm not too injured that I can't compete, so I'm going to do my best. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends Mandy and Robin in Toronto; they're kindly letting me stay over the night before the race. I'm excited to go to the runner's expo and hopefully get some free stuff:)


Tonight, our small group is meeting for the first time. I'm kind of nervous but looking forward to what this year will bring, and how we will blend together as a group. It's been a while since I led anything like this before and I'm very glad there are three of us leading. We're going to be discussing prayer for the first while, which is something that's always a challenge for me, so it will be great to get input from others and to explore all this together.


The other night, I couldn't get to sleep right away, and I started just thinking about everything that's going on, and I realized how important it is for me to take some time in every day just to process, and to allow myself to calm down for a few minutes. I really need this quietude in my life and I'm too stressed when I don't take those few minutes, and it was a time when I could refocus.


Church was like that too this week- I had to listen to some things I didn't want to hear, about our love for Jesus showing by the way we live with each other. So simple, but immensely hard to practice for me, a lot of the time! I tend to pick my situations where I can not be too bothered or inconvenienced, and that's pretty opposite from what Jesus wants. This is especially the case with my sister- and in the past, with my roommates- and it was an opportunity for my pretenses to be stripped away. Again. (Not fun.) It reminded me of Edmund in Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C.S. Lewis) when he is a dragon and he has to get all the dragon skin peeled off in order to go back to himself; I would say it's a pretty close parallel.


This has turned into a long post; again, my words escape with me:) I will update probably after this weekend, hopefully the race pics turn out okay!

my room (for lack of a better photo) :)

Why ain't it always summer? Why must it end? Who wants to put their shoes on? Not me, my friend (Anne of Green Gables musical) :)

Can you believe it's the second week of September? There's already a chill in the air and I'm still clinging to the last thoughts of summer.

I just have to say, I can't wait till my friends Josh and Laura have their baby- I guessed they would have it on the 8th but it looks like I was wrong. I can't wait to see photos of the little one, if you're reading this, hope all goes well, it will be such a cutie!

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of a visit from my Aunt Barb and Uncle Phil who were passing through on their way back from a wedding. I haven't seen them often the last few years, and they moved to the States this year, so it was a pleasant surprise.

We went out for lunch before they took to the road again, and had a great time catching up. Now I'm thinking...road trip to New York state? :)

Somehow, September is filling up so fast already, even though I'm no longer a student- it surprises me every year when every day almost I have somewhere I need to go or something I need to get done.

Right now, my time is largely consumed with training for this marathon - 18 days left! Yikes! - and trying to avoid injury. I am SO taking a break after this one! Hopefully I can actually finish the race, that's the goal at this point. (Of course, it would be a nice bonus to do it well- but we'll see...)

This year, I'm co-leading a small group in our young adults group, so I'm pretty excited about that, plus continuing with ESL conversation class. How did I get so busy for someone who's not a student? I feel like I have more (or just as much) on the go as when I was a student with three part-time jobs in the summer. And that's without family responsibilities like kids! To you moms out there, I don't know how you do it, but I applaud you!

I leave you with a couple of photos from Roman Holiday- I love the idea of dancing on a barge in Rome:) Who knows, I may get to try some of these things! We shall see...

Happy September!