Musings

Sheesh, it's been nearly a year since I posted anything! Whoops... Well anyway, here are some semi-creative musings I had on an early-morning walk to work out Morningside Road and through the Meadows...

I.
Triumphant she stands, face to the wind.
Bosom puffed out, proud, belly not far behind.
Leaning in to the gale, she wields her staff of power - a lollipop sign.
"STOP" it commands to the traffic.
Mouth scored in to her creviced face, outlined bright red
And showing off crooked old teeth within.
As her neon safety jacket billlows back,
Draped over the lumpy shape of her rotund form,
She catches my eye and laughs.

II.
The fog hovers,
Waiting for a reason to move on.
Sparrows rough-and-tumble,
Fluttering like a school of dried leaves.
Seagulls sit,
Fat,
Like pieces of trash left over from Saturday night's carelessness,
Waiting for food to show up.

-

Your Hands - Pablo Neruda

When your hands go out,
love, toward mine,
what do they bring me flying?
Why did they stop
at my mouth, suddenly,
why do I recognize them
as if then, before,
I had touched them,
as if before they existed
they had passed over
my forehead, my waist?

Their softness came
flying over time,
over the sea, over the smoke,
over the spring,
and when you placed
your hands on my chest,
I recognized those golden
dove wings,
I recognized that clay
and that color of wheat.

All the years of my life
I walked around looking for them.
I went up the stairs,
I crossed the roads,
trains carried me,
waters brought me,
and in the skin of the grapes
I thought I touched you.
The wood suddenly
brought me your touch,
the almond announced to me
your secret softness,
until your hands
closed on my chest
and there like two wings
they ended their journey.

Current Mood: Yummy
Current Music: Back to Black - Amy Winehouse

The Motorcycle Diaries

I love this movie. They've stopped selling it. How interesting to watch Che Guevara develop from an immature boy in to a revolutionary through his interaction with individuals within the context of creation. There's something mysterious and HUGE about that which really grabs me. I love the theme of travel, moving on, leaving behind.
"Dear Mom," he wrote, "What do we leave behind when we cross a frontier? Each moment seems split in two: melancholy for what is left behind, and excitement for what is ahead." I feel like that's the story of my life!

Current Mood: Satisfied.
Current Music: BBC Radio Scotland News.

Saturday Night Fever

I love it when I get in to 'the zone'. You're going to laugh when I say what I mean by the zone. Yes, I'm talking to you, Mom! Basically, I don't like cleaning. And I like it even less because (being a carer by trade at the moment) my work is (among other things) to clean other people's houses. So when I actually get in to the mood to clean our house, I go for it. So last night, at 10 pm, after working since 8am, I vacuumed the flat (and moved most of the furniture!), washed a mammoth pile of dishes, tidied up our kitchen generally, washed the stove top, scrubbed down the bathroom, hung 2 loads of washing AND mopped the kitchen floor! Tim, I'm sure, is glad that he had escaped to the movies at that point so he didn't get sucked in to the black hole that is AL's cleaning zone. It's hereditary. :-) (Love you Mom!) And, yes, it feels so good afterwards!

Current Mood: clean!
Current Music: Money - Pink Floyd

REV ROCKS!!!

Just got back from going to see one of my Navs girls in a rock gospel choir called Revelation (Rev).
If you hear 'gospel' and you think hymnals and choir robes, forget that!! There was a full band, plus the Edinburgh Uni drum society, amazing spotlights, and a choir of.... I don't know, 60+?
They sang everything from 'Amen' and 'Awesome God' to 'Hey Ya' and 'You Gotta Be'. At the end my friend Tori and I were up dancing in the aisles! I loved it. Some of the soloists were really great as well.

Running at 6.15am tomorrow and then doin a full day's work. Never in my life have I wished a Saturdays would pass quickly until starting this job! Oh well, it's not too bad. I eat my packed lunch in the garden at the Modern Art Gallery which is nice. Except for once I was wandering around and stepped on this stone circle and then after I was told 'you're not supposed to be on there' by some nosy fellow patron, I realised it was mean to be an artwork. Oops.

Current mood: ready for my bed.
Current music: A Day in the Life - Beatles.

Back from the dead... again...

I won't make reference to the fact that I haven't posted since last YEAR, but anyway there it is.
I was working today, which was fine... one of my clients lives in an area that's awkward to get to, so I ended up running to his house (jogging?) and back, and to the next client's house and back... over 10 1/2 KM!! I think that's over 6 miles, but not sure. So feeling a bit run over now! It's good for me I'm sure.

I'm looking forward to my day off tomorrow - going to sleep in, then meet a mentoree for coffee, and then meet MY mentor for coffee, and then I'm going to a gospel choir concert! The choir is called Revelation, and apparently they're really good.... plus one of my Navs girls is in it. Very excited. It's meant to last from 7-11pm! In true gospel music style. :-)

My friend Natalie came for dinner last night before choir, and she brought ginger cake that was iced with the most delicious white icing EVER! It was really nice and chewy. She said "I feel like my teeth are snowboarding on this icing." :-)

ONLY 18 DAYS TILL WE GO TO THE STATES!!!

Current mood: happy but knackered.
Current music: Sparks - Coldplay

1 Concert down, 4 to go!

Well we had our first concert on Wednesday night. It went surprisingly well (for a first concert of the season) except for the fact that once I went and sat down in the front pew... when I thought I wasn't meant to be singing... but I was meant to be singing. Oops. And one time I sang the complete wrong words on a solo verse. And the audience had the words in their leaflets. Oops.
But other than that it was good fun!

I had my 3rd driving lesson yesterday (yep, learning to drive a stick!) which was fun. I get to drive a Mini! My instructor, Graham, is so unflappable and laid back that if he was any more laid back, he'd be laying down. Which is good. He doesn't "grab the handle" or over react if I make a mistake. I've been out in mainstream traffic now, so today I asked Tim if he'd take me out driving to get extra practice. He did very well. He only grabbed the handle once and never shouted, didn't scream "Mommy" which was positive. And we're still married! No, seriously, he was encouraging and said that I knew everything I needed to know, just need to be confident. So that was encouraging. :-)

I can't wait to start making our flat Christmassy! I need some twinkle lights, my Christmas ornaments from TX, some holly branches, and also to do some seasonal baking... Mom just sent me a bunch of our traditional family recipes. Yummmm......

Current Mood: Mmmm... Buckeyes....
Current Music: My husband's voice! (Awww, shucks!)

My Life This Week...

-Last Navs meeting of the semester (for which I'm cooking as usual)
-Lunch with Dayspring, a friend from my old church St. Columba's
-Dinner with my friend Claire (in Choir)
-4 Choir concerts (www.rudsambee.org.uk)
-Hanging out with Tim-Bo
-Dinner with my soon-to-be-12-year-old friend Lydia
-Breakfast with my old flatmate Jude
-A 2 hour driving lesson!!!
-An open house for Aften, a friend going on a mission trip
-Making/buying Christmas gifts
-Somehow fitting WORK in there as well
-And volunteering at CAB, which I have to go to now

AGH!

Current Mood: Enjoying the sun despite the HAZARDOUS high winds
Current Music: Jesu, Son Most Sweet and Dear - Rudsambee

Happy Thanksgiving!

Okay so it's a bit early, but today was the day Tim and I could celebrate. So we cooked 2 chickens , 5 kilograms of potatos, some cornbread and a bag of black beans, and at it all ourselves. Okay, just kidding, we ended up having 16 people over for lunch in the end (the party kind of grew... we were even adding people at 1 O'clock today!) And they each brought a side dish to supplement the meal. Our last guests stayed til about 6:30 tonight, and it was SUCH a wonderful day! We got up at 7ish to start cooking and went to church, then came back and finished everything off. We loved it, and it was actually so easy to do, Tim and I said to eachother tonight that we should definitely do it more often. (I also thought to myself More Power To Catriona Lamont - the minister's wife at my previous church, St. Columba's - who does this single-handedly every blimmin' week.)

I was really praying that it wouldn't be JUST a day of eating (as Thanksgiving in America can typically be) but a really blessed day where peoples' relationships are deepened, and they leave encouraged and closer to God. I have to say, thanks to the Lord, I really think that happened. I saw a few significant conversations going on, and could tell that people were truly blessed by the community gathered in this house. I'm so thankful to Him. It reminds me of one day in my Texas home, many years ago, when Mom and Dad put on a Thanksgiving lunch, and we ended up collecting a selection of strays who didn't really have plans. I remember thinking, "Wow, this is cool, this is how I want to live life." (Lord, please give me eyes to see more clearly those opportunities to love people better in your Name around me.)

Music: When I Was Drinking - Hem
Mood: Mmmmmmmm....

Adventures Ahoy!!!

Well, today my mom, dad, and baby sis have embarked on an amasing adventure. They are going to INDIA for 2 weeks! The reason it's so amasing is that my sister, Skylar, will get to see her birthplace for the first time in her memory. They'll fly in to Mumbai, then go to Pune(and get to visit BSSK, the childrens' home where Sky was for her first 10 mos), Lonavala (birthtown), Dheli, Agra(Taj Mahal!) and Srinigar (we have close family friends that live and work there).

Skylar has always seemed extra-special to me because she is from India. Had the turn of events been different, she might not have been my sister. But I'm so glad she is - God sure knew what He was doing. I wish I could be with her as she goes to see this strange and yet familiar land. The preciousness of it is almost beyond words, and I can't wait to hear what her experience of it was like.

Love you Sky. Have a blast.

-Sis

Monday, Monday...

The weekend was nice. Worked Saturday morning and evening. In between I went to part of a training day for the Navs students which was helping them to think about what the core nugget of their beliefs as Christians are (known as The Gospel), and how they would communicate that briefly. I wasn't there for the bit where they went on to the Royal Mile and asked other people what they believed... I think they got allsorts. The students asked these acquaintances what things were most important in life, what they wanted to have accomplished by the end of their life, what they thought happened after death, who or what God was to them, etc...
Very interesting the responses! I don't people generally put much thought in to recognising and being able to communicate what their core beliefs are.

Sunday, we went to church at MBC and the sermon was definitely challenging: Matthew 6 says your heart is wherever your treasure is, so what is your stewardship of your money telling you? I had no idea that, after "The Kingdom", Jesus spoke more about MONEY than anything else! That is huge, and we don't challenge ourselves on that enough.
For Sunday lunch we went to the Wexlers', a couple from my choir, for curry. It was really nice to get some good time to chat with them. And in the evening we had our next-but-one-door neighbours Kris and Sarah over for tea and games. I love having friends so close by - it reminds me of Mom and Dad's stories of living next door to some friends, the DeVries', including late night card games, etc... :-)

Current Mood: Gearing up for Navs!
Current Music:... Nothing particularly. That's unusual!

Photos from our Kosova-European Tour! Sorry it's taken a while, but now here's a little taste of our trip with Tim's parents, Alan and Mary, through Kosova-Macedonia-Albania-Greece-Northern Italy-Austria-Germany-Holland-England-Scotland!


Prizren, one of Kosova's most beautiful and historic towns.
Traditional Albanian dancing (on the left) and music (on the right) at our dasma, or wedding party, thrown by Alan and Mary for their Kosovan friends! Albanian dancing + Scottish dancing = jump in the swimming pool fully clothed to cool off! Tim is dancing in his wedding suit behind the dancing guy in the stripy shirt...
Yours truly, dancing with friends at the end of the Dasma
With our friends the Berisha family!
Tim & Pup in Albania (only moments before Bessy, the Packers' faithful Volvo station wagon would get stuck at an off-road, deserted beach!)
An old monastery in Albania
Who invited those weirdos?!
Venice!
More Venice :-)
In Kolne with the Boeker familyOn ferry back home to the UK, exhausted
With the Whittaker family in Northallerton, where Tim spent his teen years. Yeah, we'd pretty much lost it by that point!

AL wuz here.

So last weekend I was in the Lakes District. My choir, Rudsambee, were singing with another band in Cockermouth, which is where Wm. Wordsworth was born. Can you see from this photo how he would have been inspired to such grand poetry? :-) It was lots of good fun. Here were interesting things about the trip:
1. Travelling in the car with Frances, the choir director. She's lovely and hilarious!
2. Frances' driver-side windshield wiper stopped working... the rain was chucking it down!
3. My lovely host couple, David and Bridget! To my delight, they adopted me for the weekend.
4. The tour they took me on around the Lakes District
5. Singing (duh)... for those of you in the know, remember the "Whistle Daughter, Whistle" song which I sang at my wedding reception? Well we sang it again this time, and the guy who arranged the piece was in the audience! No pressure...
6. Our meal at the Ostrich farm on the return journey (including sheep's milk ice cream!) and shortly thereafter passing a cafe car park containing at LEAST 100 Harleys.
7. And then running over a poor little pheasant who was too stupid to stay off the road. Oops!

Current Mood: Chirpy
Current Music: Tim strumming Ol' Bess (my guitar)

Got some new shoes...

What do you think? :-)