A Quote to Live By

My hilarious, fun, thoughtful and, might I add, beautiful friend, Abby, and I have been reading through a great book that I, and I would guess Abby, as well would recommend called Let Me Be A Woman by Elisabeth Elliott.  And despite the cheesy title, it has been such an uplifting, often admonishing book to view womanhood and marriage in a Biblical context when society is screaming around us for women to free themselves from such responsibilities of submission to their husbands and equality in all things.  This has been a particularly helpful book in our first year of marriage as I struggle to do all that God commands me in regards to my husband.  I read a passage today from the book that was a good summary of the author’s heart and purpose for the book.

And it is the will of God that woman be subordinate to man in marriage.  Marriage is used in the Old Testament to express the relation between God and His covenant people and in the New Testament between Christ and the Church.  No effort to keep up with the times, to conform to modern social movements or personality cults authorizes us to invert this order.  Tremendous heavenly truths are set forth in a wife’s subjection to her husband, and the use of this metaphor in the Bible cannot be accidental.

And a little disclaimer.  In the blog-world, I find it’s often easy to post ideas or theology in a way that appears that in fully accepting the line of thinking that you are also with near-perfection actualizing that truth in your life.  As I read this passage today, God brought to mind several instances in the last week that I chose not to restrain myself and not submit to my husband.  I have so much to learn in this area, and as I struggle to live this out in our marriage, all the more, the above passage resounds in my soul.  To have a marriage that reflects the relationship of Christ and His Church is something Nathan and I want so much, and I look forward to the day when I count more successes than failures.  Check out the book, it’s worth the read.

The anti-DIYer

I have a confession.  I HATE crafts or anything that starts with DIY.  I see phrases like the easy DIY lamp shade or the easy-as-pie-DIY-whatever and my first thought is “if it’s so easy, why don’t you just make me one yourself.”

I guess, if you’ve known me for a while, then this probably isn’t a confession but more a well known fact.  I chalk it up to being a youngest child and the ability to convince most people to do things for me.  Now, some of you, whom I’ve been asking to do things for me for years, know my tactic.  I don’t mind being creative or coming up with ideas, but put a glue gun in my hand to make that idea a reality and without warning my brain turns to mush and I swear I’m developing an allergic reaction to Michael’s.

This coming up with ideas and not bringing them to fruition is a disorder I have, some call it laziness, I call it stage fright.  Case in point, the plank of wood occupying a corner of my patio that my friend convinced me I could make into a sign to hang over my bed.  It’s been sitting there for 7 months untouched and growing a completely inedible variety of mushroom.  Or the window pane that I painted green with the intention of pairing with something cute to adorn our bedroom wall.  Yep, still sitting there for nearly a year now.

Why am I divulging my deep, dark secrets to you over my aversion to DIY projects?  Because, friends, I have another idea that I really wish to complete, and I’m hoping that by sharing it with all of you that it will motivate me to actually get it done.  I came across this jewelry frame and decided it was the perfect way to organize my jewelry without it looking tacky.

I showed the picture to Nathan and he declared it can be done (pray for his patience).  So this is my next project.  To find a gargantuan frame, some cute fabric and see it on my wall in a few weeks.  Yes, notice I’m giving myself ample time to complete it.  I’ll let you know how it turns out once it’s complete.

St. Patrick and His Day

St. Patrick’s Day means a lot of things to me.  It usually means a 7:00 AM phone call from my mother trying for an Irish accent, but usually resembling more of a pirate voice, wishing me a Happy St. Patrick’s Day.  It used to mean extra candy and goodies waiting for me at the breakfast table (feel free Mom, to continue that tradition).  It often means wearing green to avoid all of you pinchers out there.  And for us, this year, it means we will partake in a little Irish soda bread and stew for dinner tonight, and possibly, if I can convince Nathan, finding some green beer at a pub later.  My mother is one of 9 from a strong Irish Catholic family and they loved to remind us often of this.  I think that my mom could start her own gift shop simply selling all of the St. Paddy’s day memorabilia she possesses.  Yet another reason why my mom is so fun!

I ran across this article today telling the story of the original St. Patrick, who interestingly was never a canonized saint of the Roman Catholic Church.  His story is encouraging and makes me all the more excited to celebrate this beloved holiday.  The articles is written by one of Nathan and I’s favorite present-day evangelical speakers, Mark Driscoll.  Hope you enjoy a little Irish jig in celebration!

Oh Monday

I’m sitting here, on a Monday fighting off the blues.  After a sun-filled weekend of travels and having Nathan all to myself for nearly three days, he’s gone back to work, and I sit alone in my little apartment, working away in front of computer screen that neither keeps me company nor offers much hope of an adventure.  But, it can’t be all that bad.  I am staring at these spring beauties and enjoying a cup of tea, whilst slaving away in said small, dark apartment.

Daffodils & Tea: A sure sign that spring is upon us!

I found these for $1.29 at Trader Joe’s and Nathan bought me a few.  Daffodils are my favorite!  So instead of pining for the return of our weekend, I will update you on what we’ve been busy doing, in an effort to remind myself of all the fun things we get to do and to be grateful.

We attended our first marriage conference this past month and were encouraged and challenged to be working toward a marriage that glorifies and honors God.  We were also encouraged to learn that this doesn’t happen in the first year and that is instead a life long goal. (Huge sigh of relief)  Because that weekend wasn’t busy enough we made plans to meet a friend down in San Francisco for the Chinese New Year Parade.  So we ducked out of the last of the sessions from our conference (I know, how will our marriage ever survive if we’re already skipping class?), hopped on the train and were entertained for several hours by one of the loudest, longest, most colorful, and most enjoyable parades I’ve ever seen.  If you’re ever in SF for this event, I highly recommend it and it’s absolutely free!

As much as I love cooking, baking and all other food related activities, Nathan’s taken over a few nights a week for me in the kitchen.  Here he is hard at work creating a Parmesan Shrimp Risotto.

Yes, he is wearing an apron with a red heart button on it. See what marriage does to you?

Nathan’s work load just got lighter as they just hired on a Tech Director.  Nathan’s really looking forward to working with Pat and focussing more on music team and other areas.

The last few weekends we’ve been trying out a few other sights in the Bay Area that are all free.  Those include the Stanford Museum, in Palo Alto, and the Lick Observatory near San Jose.  The Observatory we’ve wanted to visit for a while but waited for a really clear day to go.

The Observatory sits on top Mount Hamilton and overlooks the whole Bay Area.  We drove up a very windy (not for the motion sick-prone) road for nearly an hour to reach it.  Once we reached the top we could look 0ut and see all the way north to San Francisco and when you looked east we could see the snow-capped Sierra’s in the distance.

View of the Bay looking east

We also hopped into a tour of one of their oldest telescopes built in the late 1800’s.  Apparently this is only used in the summer, and the floor rises for the viewer to peer through the end to stargaze.  Pretty cool.

36" telescope

It was nice to have some relief from all the rain we’ve been getting and enjoy 2 straight days on the weekend of beautiful weather.  It’s hard to believe that our 1st year of marriage is drawing to a close and we hope to find a day or two to get away to celebrate.  We’ve also been casually looking for another apartment and trying to plan our vacation for late summer/early fall.

Now that I am sufficiently reminded that I have little to be blue about, and get to do a lot of fun things, I can get back to work and pray for Friday to come quickly!