i felt you in my legs, before i ever met you

--"nineteen", tegan & sara
i don't know why, but i really love that line.


it's for sure been an interesting few days. my thoughts are everywhere. i know a blog is not the place to try to sort those out.

i don't understand people and why they do the things they do. i wish i did.
we all have secrets. we keep secrets because we are afraid of what other people will say or think. we don't want to deal with consequences. we want to do something that we know we shouldn't.

i honestly believe that everything we do comes out of a desire to find security and love in something or someone. we will constantly fail to find what we are looking for if we look to anything other than Christ. "perfect love casts out fear." can you imagine what it would be like to live in a society without prejudice, without judgment; just total vulnerability and acceptance. we can have that with Christ, but we don't. we will never be able to understand it this side of heaven. we are too imperfect. perfection scares us. it scares me, at least.

i've been listening to timothy keller* a lot recently--some sermons on the city, and living/being in community. i think he gets it. so often people look at Christians and exclaim "hypocrite!"...which is true.

because you know what? i am a hypocrite.

i claim to love everyone. i don't.
i claim to be accepting. i'm not.
i claim to not judge. i do.

but Christianity done right... what a radical idea. sell all your possessions and give to the poor. live in community. love all, regardless of race, status, "beauty", compatibility. take care of creation. peace of Christ. these are incredibly contrary to the idea of "survival of the fittest".

the problem is we are broken. we are hurting. we are dysfunctional. and we can't do it right. i want so badly to do it right.



*follow the link and scroll down a little and there are free downloads of a bunch of his talks if you're interested

mmm tasty, tasty sewer water

the largest sewage treatment plant in the world is opening up in my backyard on friday. it will process 70 million gallons of drinkable sewage water every single day!

hillary is coming to town!

yep.

i made this, part 3

this is probably the most awesome thing i've ever made. it's a pincushion shaped like a cat. he's eating a mouse that is sitting on a plate! sorry that the picture is blurry, you can't see the intricate details of the pink eyes and mouth and ears and stuff.

yeah, okay, i made that in second grade. that is all hand stitching, by the way. not bad for being 7 years old.

my mom still uses it. because she's awesome.

i made this, part 2

this is the hardest thing i've ever made. i am not kidding. it took SO LONG (like 6 or 7 hours) and was ridiculously complicated. my mom had to help me with the instructions. a lot.

i made this, part 1

it's a little "camera" purse made to hold a digital camera... or i guess you really could put whatever you want into it. regardless, i made it.

i stole the idea from here.

more to follow.

if you're into it

i cannot stop watching this. its so so funny, albeit relatively inappropriate.

happy slapsgiving everybody

this coming from the girl who will go weeks without a hug...

but seriously, can you do that? ban hugging? isn't hugging like necessary for life or something?

this is digusting

they made a trendy clothing line out of a homeless person.

it has been one of those days

when you come home from work to make stir fry and realized you've left your only carrots at the office with your lunch and you look in the vegetable drawer and there's hardly anything there, so you make stir fry out of broccoli.... and broccoli. mmm soyaki broccoli.

when you're backing up out of your parking spot because you realize how close you are to the person next to you and in the process don't realize that your mirror is SCRAPING ACROSS THE DRIVER'S SIDE OF THE CAR NEXT TO YOU leaving a line about a foot and a half long.

when you get a stern talkin to from one boss about something your other boss made you do. in addition to him making you do it and getting yelled at for it later, it has been causing you stress for about 2 weeks and you've lost countless hours of sleep and sanity in the process.

when your spanish teacher calls you out in the middle of class about questions you don't know the answer to and all you want to do is scream "usted es locooooooo, loco hombre!!!! y usted no es chistoso."

when you realize su espanol es muy malo.

when you unload about 75% of the dishwasher before you realize that the dishes are not clean and that's why your dishwasher "kind of sucks at cleaning the dishes".

i feel like i'm alexander and i'm having the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

just keeping it even

saw this this morning on rudy's blog.

i'm not unfaithful, but i stray

this is how i make the most of my time here

after work on friday night, armed with freshly brewed toddy coffee and a book on tape, i took off in margot for san diego to visit my good friend ben. i've said this before and i will say it again... i love you ben. so much.




also, on sunday, tiffany and i went to the garment/fashion district in los angeles to buy fabric because we are making all of our christmas presents this year. afterwards, we stopped by the felt club craft fair and picked up some fun trinkets.

last weekend, despite having only 2 days and a 16 hour round trip drive, allison and i took off for tucson, arizona for the weekend to visit my best friend in the whole world, lindsey.

allison is the blond and lindsey is the brunette and i am the girl in the middle with the hair that desperately needs to be cut


cheesecake "picnic" with strawberries and champagne. this was following the mexican fiesta with tacos and margaritas


all the cacti that i got to choose from


creepiest mural ever. tucson is so weird.

for those who know him, ryan moore was also here this week, staying in a hotel down the street from where i work, oddly enough. i got to see him briefly one night after work; unfortunately, we had conflicting schedules the rest of his time here so i didn't see him again.

also, this should probably be posted for good measure...here are two of my coworkers, andy and dan, on halloween



tonight i had the pleasure of going grocery shopping and delivering the ingredients for a thanksgiving dinner to an unsuspecting family here in costa mesa. i'd done things like this before, where i donated money or canned goods or whatever, but never before had i done the entire thing on my own. i was given a name and address and suggestions of what to buy. i filled the backseat of my car with cranberries and yams and potatoes and pies and a turkey and i pulled up to a house of a family who had no idea i was coming or why i was there. i dragged my brother and sister-in-law along for the delivery because i had no idea what to expect.

it was such a good experience. we walked up, stated that we had food for the family, and began unloading the car onto the kitchen counter. "what program is this?" one of the kids asked me. "no program. just some kids at a church that love you." they were speechless and a bit confused, but grateful.

i think this is how Jesus wanted us to be.



more adventures as they become available...

yes, i know the feeling, know you're leaving

currently obsessed with this album and especially this song:

two different things i read today that left me speechless in the face of ignorance

number 1

"Being a liberal is just a coping mechanism for low self esteem and/or bad parenting."
--i don't know where this came from, but i read it on someone's facebook

number 2

students for concealed carry on campus

Students for Concealed Carry on campus is a non-partisan, grassroots organization comprised of over 8,000 college students, faculty members, parents, and concerned citizens (about 90% college students and 10% faculty, parents, and concerned citizens) who support the right of concealed handgun license holders to carry concealed handguns on college campuses.

In the wake of recent school shootings, such as the massacre at Virginia Tech, SCCC contends it is now abundantly clear that “gun free zones” serve to disarm only those law abiding citizens who might be able to mitigate such tragedies.

Both the membership and the leadership of SCCC are made up of individuals with very diverse political backgrounds. Among SCCC’s organizers you'll find at least one conservative Republican, at least one liberal Democrat, and at least one moderate Independent.

SCCC has two main objectives. The first objective is to educate the public about the facts of concealed carry and dispel the many myths about concealed carry. The second objective is to push state legislatures and school administrations to grant concealed handgun license holders the same right—the right to carry concealed handguns—on college campuses that these license holders currently enjoy at most other places (movie theaters, office buildings, shopping malls, banks, etc).

Because SCCC fully supports states' rights, it is our policy to push for change at the state level, rather than at the federal level. The first step is to see "colleges" removed from the lists of places listed as "off limits" by the concealed carry laws in many states. The next step is to see other states follow Utah's lead in prohibiting state (tax subsidized) colleges from enacting their own bans on concealed carry.

SCCC does not feel that it is sufficient for states to leave this decision up to public colleges because school administrators typically interpret this CHOICE as a question of liability and, therefore, almost always rule to prohibit concealed carry on campus. Though it may sound cynical, most school administrators would rather risk having 32 dead students and faculty members (from a Virginia Tech-style massacre) for which they are not liable than risk having one injured student or faculty member (from an accident involving a firearm the administrators chose to allow on campus) for which they might be held liable. Taking the choice away from schools absolves them of liability.

Though SCCC supports concealed carry on the campuses of both public and private colleges, we strongly support the rights of private property owners; therefore, we believe that the issue of concealed carry at private colleges must be handled through negotiations with school administrators, rather than through state legislation. However, SCCC supports state laws which grant private schools and other businesses immunity from liability for the actions of concealed handgun license holders.

SCCC supports the legalization of CONCEALED carry by LICENSED individuals on COLLEGE campuses. SCCC has no official position on open carry, unlicensed concealed carry, or concealed carry on the campuses of primary or secondary schools.

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus is not affiliated with the NRA, a political party or any other organization.

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Declaring a campus a "gun free zone" may make some people feel safer, but as Virginia Tech taught us, feeling safe and being safe are not the same thing.

--that's probably the worst logic i've ever heard

gorebal warming?

in the midst of the trend, it is interesting to hear from the other side.

whether its true or not is irrelevant to me. as a Christian i am called to be a good steward of Christ's creation, regardless of the effects i may or may not see in my lifetime.

i won't regret saying this

this thing that i'm saying

Maybe I would have been something you'd be good at
Maybe you would have been something I'd be good at
But now we'll never know

Call. break it off
Call. break my own heart

-tegan & sara, call it off

i had a pretty good laugh at this

as it turns out...

smashing pumpkins

tonight i fulfilled this little desire in the back of my mind that one day i wanted to smash a pumpkin.

well, i mean, i kind of smashed it.

you know, just threw it really hard into the garbage can out back....and it smashed...

okay fine, i put it in a plastic bag because it was rotting and leaking weird orange squash juice and i had every intention of smashing it when i got outside but the garbage can was entirely full because tuesday is trash day so i just set it inside on top of everything and walked away; the only things smashed were my hopes and dreams.

"i'm a new jersey success story"

this website is amazing. it's the best if you go to the first superhero and work your way forward.

thanks to Travis for sending it to me.