first blog ever

I'm jumping into the world of blogging for two reasons. One is because both Ruby and Jen have blogged and have inspired me or encouraged me to blog. They are both beautiful, creative, caring, insightful women, and I want to be like them when I grow up!

Secondly, I want to start blogging so I can stay in touch with the two loving communities that we are at home in, both our community in Portland and our community in the LA area. We love you all so much and are so grateful to have people like you in our lives. We often wish that we could have both communities in the same place, we feel at home with all of you! And... let's be honest... I need this too as a way of transitioning into this new phase of life that is coming up. I'm always thinking about transition and termination and how to do it well :)

The purpose of this blog will be to share the daily events of life with family, friends, and our church body while we are near or far so we can stay in touch. I'm modeling it after what I have seen on Ruby and Lewis' site... just fun things that happen from day to day that are worth celebrating and sharing. So, in light of my new blog and it's focus on ordinary life events, I will share with you the long process we have been going through to get a normal-looking front yard.

As many of you know, several weeks ago a large tree fell that was on the property right in front of our apartment. Fortunately for us, it fell away from the building. Unfortunately for the owner of the van, it fell onto the street and was held up by this mini van. The day was different and an exciting distraction from important things, such as finals and homework. As a result of the tree falling, a long process of construction ensued and have been coming and going for almost two months now, between city workers, policemen, stump grinders, the pavement company, and now lawn maintenance.

The day after the first tree fell I realized an endearing little path through our yard and it reminded me of an author from one of my theology classes that talked about unexpected human made paths that pop up in response to a changing event. A few days later our yard was chaotic, broken plants here, mud spots there and a sprinkler head that had been tweaked and shot into our front door if we had it open when the sprinklers were on. We called maintenance and asked if the sprinklers could be turned off because they were making a mess out of the non existent lawn and added that we would like them to plant grass if possible because we want to use it as a porch area (a big request here at Fuller). Weeks later (that brings us up to yesterday) maintenance came and ever since it has been a 24/7 fiesta! The workers enjoy singing, festive music, long lunch breaks, and chillin on my front porch. It's like a holiday that I've never celebrated before... it just kinda lands in your lap and you go with the flow. So in honor of this unknown holiday I'm eating fajitas for lunch today and taking a long lunch break.

Here are some pictures of the lawn as it is now. We will both find out in the coming days (hopefully not weeks!) what it turns out to be... grass or maybe something else.