Out of ashes

Going to the Ash Wednesday service last night was a much needed time to just stop, reflect, and have the power of Christ's sacrifice resonate with my soul.

Look down

I used to find The Colbert Show annoying but slowly I've become a fan. Anyway, his guest a few nights ago was Robert Ballard, the oceanographer made famous by his discovery of the Titanic. I saw Ballard speak at the Mondavi Center two years ago and was in absolute awe of his expeditions, especially his exploration of ancient shipwrecks that are perfectly preserved in the Black Sea. The ocean is a pretty fascinating place and much of it's discoveries are yet to be made (maybe more would be made if, as Ballard points out, some of the money devoted to space exploration was instead devoted to ocean exploration). If you're at all interested, I'd highly recommend these two clips.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Robert Ballard

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Funny Political News

Christian Bale Parody
Joke of the Day

thinking over

It's hard not to feel overwhelmed by the state of our economy when it's pretty much all that is discussed on the news, on the radio, on the political blogs I read. And President Obama, whose name for many people is synonymous with optimism, has gloomily warned that 'crisis will turn into catastrophe' if there is a failure to pass the stimulus package quickly. But is it the right legislation that will have the most effective outcome? Well, maybe I could start with figuring out what's even in the bill...if I had enough motivation to devote a full day to reading the 780 page text. Bottom line: no one really knows a surefire way to get America out of this mess If the people who are supposedly experts in economics are scratching their heads about what to do, it's hard to feel reassured.

I have to remind myself that my hope is not in the things of this world and instead of worrying, I need to focus on how I can best love and reach out to those who most affected by the hard economic times we are facing. And maybe this will be the upside of the recession: helping Americans break out of our individualistic mindsets and rely on one another more to get through this hard time. In the end, it may be a lesson worth learning.

Workin for the weekend

I came in three hours late to work today after I called my boss and told her I needed to sleep in to catch up from my weekend. The awesome thing about my boss is, she totally understood and said to come in whenever I felt rested!

There are two kinds of weekends I relish:

1) the "lazy" weekend - David and I will sleep in until noon on Saturday, watch some TV, run our weekend errands (Target, Costco, etc.) and then come back and watch a movie

2) the "jam-packed" weekend - I go from event to event, trying to cram in as much socializing as possible

This last weekend fell under category #2. It began with a Threshold ladies night on Friday evening, complete with tons of delicious food provided by Chris Pineda (always a gracious host) and lots of good conversation. It was a great time of getting to know the other women in the group more deeply.
After a few hours with the girls, I left to spend the rest of Friday night with my hubby. We got out the necessary 'movie snacking' food (popcorn and Sour Patch kids) and watched "For the Bible Tells Me So", a wonderful documentary about the Christian faith and homosexuality. It was a poignant and well-done movie that showed the experiences of 5 different Christian families who had gay sons or daughters and discussed the journey they all had been on to learning to embrace both their faith and their gay family members. I would HIGHLY HIGLY recommend it.
Saturday came and after studying and completing an online quiz for my Abnormal Psych class, we ventured to Home Depot to look at paint colors. David and I have made a resolution to have our bedroom and bathroom painted before we possibly start grad school in the fall. I have never thought of yellow as a color I would like to paint a room, but I had a sudden realization that I really want to paint our bedroom some muted shade of yellow to give it a warm, sunny feeling. Surprisingly, David seemed ok with the idea, so we'll see...maybe our room will look like this?

I was then off to meet up with Bronwyn and Jarrod, to carpool to Kassey's goodbye party in San Francisco. What is a farewell party for Kassey without a huge gathering of all her friends in SF? I have to admit, I was looking forward to meeting her SF small group friends, since I constantly see pictures of these people all the time on Kassey's Facebook page ( she adds a new album almost every day it seems!). I really am invigorated by seeing old friends and meeting new ones and this was a perfect setup to do so! I'm also glad I was able to see Kassey before she heads off to pursue her dreams in NYC, it's always fun to watch friends take off on a new adventure.
After getting to bed at 3 am, getting up for church on Sunday was a little painful. But I'm so glad I went. Threshold is participating in a really cool series about Race & Faith during their Sunday morning adult ed class, and this week's session was really interesting. I think it's important to focus on racial reconciliation from a Christian perspective and how we as a church can be part of the reconciliation process. It helps that our class is so diverse and so there are lots of insights on the issues that are brought up.
After church, I had some downtime so I went to my parent's house and took Milo on a walk. This is one of the simple joys in my life, watching Milo run around in the greenbelt by my parent's house. He's a feisty little dog when it comes to racing around in the grass! Later on in the afternoon, David and I went over to the Howards to partake in some Super Bowl gluttony. I didn't really care about the game at all, I was more interested in watching the new "Office" episode after the game! It lived up to the hype, it was a hilarious episode. Favorite quote from Michael Scott helping recessitate Stanley from his heart attack: "Stanley! Barack is president! You are black Stanley!"
Well, the night got even better when the Howards reminded us that they now owned Rock Band....thus began a jam session that lasted well until 10 pm! I have to say though, I never want to sing Hole's "Celebrity Skin" song again, once is enough! All in all, another great weekend.