O Canada!

Of all the things I'll miss about Canada...

• Carmilk bars
• Heinz ketchup
• Canadian Currency (specifically loonies and toonies)
• Good iced tea
• Canadian culture
• Eh?
• Health care
• CBC
• Tim Hortons' chili with country bun
• Spruce/pine trees
• learning French from shampoo bottles/cereal boxes/everything
• Canadian Lumber, Canadian Tire, Real Canadian Superstore (etc)
  
• Holidays that, according to my calendar, are only Canadian...

St. David's Day
Easter Monday
Victoria Day
Canada Day
August Long Weekend
Labour Day ("Labour" spelled with a "u")
Thanksgiving Day (in the thankful month)
Remembrance Day
St. Andrew's Day
Boxing Day

• Small towns with 30 people, not 30 000 people

I will not miss…

• The winters.
• cold
• snow
• wind
• ice
• freezing rain
  

ICK. When I walk outside and the wind is blowing my hair and cutting into my skin and the ice makes walking and driving near impossible and I shovel the driveway, only to have the wind throw the snow right back in my face and small icicles form on my eyelashes within seconds…I just remind myself that next winter I won’t have to deal with any of this.

I’m hoping that being away from winter gives me a new appreciation for it. Otherwise, I’m not sure how I’ll be able to come back after two years!

Seriously?!

“I defile my tongue with sub-par coffee once a year because maybe, just maybe, I’ll win…another sup-par coffee?” - Nathan

All I can say is, “seriously?” Does Tim Horton not send any winning cups to Manitoba??? I won every time when I lived in Saskatchewan! And I hear someone in BC is on a winning streak…but Manitoba? Nope…I’ve been trying to win a new vehicle in Winkler for four years now! I’m not sure I’ve even won a donut in all those hot chocolates! I’m beginning to feel like my tongue is being defiled as well…

Excitement at the Post Office

I saw the most interesting thing in the Post Office this morning. I am so glad I got there at the minute I did. I’m glad I didn’t have to wait for parking so that I could see this. This, to me, is what small town life is about. This is what small town life, with a lot of seniors, is about. I burst out laughing (inside, of course – but my laughter almost exploded to the outside) when I saw this. It was kind of weird and kind of gross…and definitely made me never want to get old. But the lady was so sweet. She must have had a hangnail that couldn’t wait, because I walked into the post office to hear the unmistakeable sound of nail clippers. I followed the noise with my eyes, and there before me was a little old lady clipping her nails. Right in the middle of the post office!

Am I the only one with a sad, twisted sense of humour, or do you find that as hilarious as I do? Please tell me I’m not alone?

Stones

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
...
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
...
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
...
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak...
(Ecclesiastes 3)

As Ecclesiastes puts it so well, there truly is a time for everything. And in the past months/years, I have been learning to embrace each season as it comes. Of course it makes perfect logical sense, but to really live by this is much, much more difficult.

Fall was a season of lightening the load; of humbling myself; of allowing people into the secrets and receiving their care and support. There were a few months when I felt that I needed desperately to share what was happening in my mind and heart. (I was about to explode if I hadn't!)

In the weeks that followed the sharing of these "secrets" as I called them, I felt such tremendous relief and encouragement. It was the season for sharing, or "to speak" as Ecclesiastes puts it, and I embraced that. A time to scatter the stones which were my thoughts, and trust that they would fall on the right ears.

And now I feel that I am entering a season to be silent. A time to gather these "thought stones" to myself and to ponder what they mean and what God is saying to me through them. It's time to turn these things quietly over in my mind and with those close to me.

I assure you, God is moving. He is doing amazing things and I want to respond faithfully and with worship.

Will my blog be silent? No. Will I not share what God is doing? No. But I will be treading lightly. I will be holding certain thoughts close. Do I regret anything that I've shared here? Not at all. Thanks for riding along this journey with me. I invite you to continue with me as I enter a new phase of life in just a few months.

video games...

So…video games are kinda a big thing in our house. Well, they’re especially big for one specific member of our household. (disclaimer: when I say it’s a “big” thing, it’s only about 4-5 hours a week.) My husband does enjoy his gaming. In fact, this month he was trying to convince me that he needs a “catch-up” allowance so that he can actually have some cash in his sock basket once in a while instead of always spending the next month’s allowance on games before he actually sees any dough. Funny guy. But yeah, video games. Well, my hubby is pretty good at video games. He has a couple systems (which he has purchased with his allowance and received as gifts) and a decent number of games. He can pick up a game and right away knows how to play and where to go. He has finished (or wrapped, for the old-school readers out there) the majority of his games that he owns…at least I think he has. He loves to relax after a long week with a game controller (or remote as he called it this week – haha) in his hand and his eyes glued to the alternate world on the other side of that screen. Well, whatever works for him, I suppose.

And then there’s me. I grew up being quite the gamer. I was right on top of games such as Donkey Kong (Country), Super Mario Bros, and Top Gear (car racing). (yeah, we only had three games growing up…but two of them were pretty amazing!) My brother (and sometimes my sister) and I would spend our Saturdays trying desperately (and sometimes it was desperately) to pass just one more level…just one more world. Then we could save and come for supper. Oh, the good old days.

I remember trying to convince Mom and Dad to give it a shot. Every once in a while, they would humor us and sit down for a couple minutes and play. We would eagerly push the controller into their hands and quickly explain which button controlled what. Then we would glue our eyes to the television and watch little Mario or Diddy Kong walk slowly across the screen, only to walk straight into a “bad guy” or down a hole. Then we kids would laugh hysterically and try to explain what to do differently in that situation in order to stay alive. I remember Dad, especially, protesting that these games were so confusing because he didn’t know where to go or what to do! I thought that was so strange because it was a side-scrolling game and there was only one way to go…forward. Little did I know that games would eventually become 3-D and one could not only walk to the right, but also to the left, front and back! What innovation! Now I watch Nathan play video games and he tries to convince me to take a turn. Every once in a while, I’ll humor him and sit down for a couple minutes and play. Nathan eagerly pushes the controller (or remote) into my hand and quickly explains which button controls what. My mind barely grasps what he just said and the game is starting. I’ll wander around and soon the screen turns red and I’ve met my maker. I just shake my head and protest that I didn’t even know where I was supposed to go! (and what a dumb game it is) Life is a vicious circle…

Sometimes my brother comes over and, when hubby isn’t home, we sit down and turn on the X-box. We choose a game that we think we can handle and each grab a controller. Twenty minutes later, when we’ve figured out how to turn the system on and get the game going (selecting two players is especially difficult), we fumble our way around these strange virtual places and laugh like we were 10 again. Neither of us has stayed current with the gaming world…he, like me, is much more comfortable with the old-school Super Nintendo controller in hand and games like Donkey Kong or Super Mario on the screen (which, by the way, we can wrap in just under an hour now).

Twenty Five Things...

Have any of you heard about the “25 things” note that is going around Facebook? Ok, maybe I should re-phrase that: Have any of you not heard about the “25 things” note that is going around Facebook? It’s like a very contagious virus! It seems everyone has been touched by it! I thought it might just be a thing that I had gotten (at least 25 times) but it turns out that pretty much everyone in the world of Facebook has gotten it! Most nights Nathan and I turn the radio on to CBC as we are falling asleep and listen to the program “Q”. (Yeah, we go to bed early these days) I was surprised to hear even the host on the program mention this! He likened it (yes, I used the word “likened”) to the old-school chain letter! I thought, yeah, that’s exactly what it is! Does anyone else remember chain letters? I suppose that’s a question that I already know the answer to, considering that the average age of my blog readers is probably about 29. We all know what I mean when I write “chain letter.” I used to love chain letters when I was a kid. I was always the person who mailed away a pack of stickers, or pretty panties, or a pair of socks. I don’t recall ever receiving anything in return. Weren’t we always promised something like 25 or 30 of whatever we sent? I’ve gotten slightly cynical over the years. My negative experiences have corrupted my faith in the chain letter system. I am suspicious of any letter which promises great gain with a small investment. What? Really? I’ll receive 625 random thoughts from others and all I need to do is come up with 25 random thoughts of my own? Wow! That is too good to be true! I could be reading people’s random lists for hours! Needless to say, I overcame the almost overwhelming temptation to start my own list of 25 things and tag 25 of my friends to join in the fun. I probably have 25 reasons for leaving you all in suspense over what my list would be. But I also have a list of 25 other things that I should be doing right now instead of typing this...

More tired, random thoughts...

I am so ready for a long weekend. Nathan and I decided that the person who invented the February long weekend was a genius. Then, we thought that it was probably the government who came up with it, and we had to withdraw our statement.

I have been SO tired lately. Maybe it’s the lack of sunshine…or maybe it’s how busy I’ve been during the days working at home. Whatever it is, it’s got me in a funk and I’m hoping the long weekend will snap me out of it.

I’ve been thinking lately about going back to school…about finishing my BA. It would give me something to do while Nathan’s in class, and I might be able to use it in ministry in the future. The thing is…it’s not something that I feel like I need to have to be able to be involved in ministry as a wife. But what if I want to be employed, myself, in a place that requires me to have a BA? That is definitely a possibility (especially if we don’t have kids). A few classes could help me (some ministry or practical theology courses) but some of those old testament courses I just have no interest in! Plus, I have a terrible time listening in class, so I’m not sure that I would come out much smarter in the end anyway! Oh well…something that I’ll have to keep mulling over in my head.

Another thought has been selling the house. How much do we ask? I know, I know…get in a professional who can tell us what it’s worth. But if we can guess how much it’s worth and save ourselves a bit of moo-lah, well, I’m all for that! My goal is that, by the end of the weekend, I’ll have the house ready to be shown to potential buyers. In the past week or two, I’ve been going through the house, room-by-room, and paring down what we own. While I have gotten rid of a couple garbage bags of “stuff” but it has left the basement a disaster zone! I have boxes and piles of stuff that are either packed or ready for the garage sale. I’m going to need to hide those piles and boxes so that it looks like we still live there for potential buyers!

Well, that’s about it…more random thoughts from second street. It’s sure hard to write when I'm just wanting to sleep the day away. Oh well...there's at least something for your entertainment!

Random Thoughts From Second Street…

- My shoulders are stiff from walking around on an inch of ice for two days…but I can’t really complain, because the ice means that the temperature was above freezing…which means that it is warm…which means that there really is such a thing as spring! There is still hope for summer…sometimes in winter I forget that warm weather is real…it’s not just a wonderful dream that I once had…

- I haven’t been working a lot lately. Winter is a lot slower around here than summer is, so I’ve gone from 35 hours a week in summer down to about 15 hours a week now. I’m enjoying having more time at home to figure out what we’ll try to sell at our garage sale, what we’ll move, and what we’ll take. I’ve also enjoyed being able to have supper ready for Nathan and doing extra things again like baking buns/bread, keeping things not only tidy, but clean, and keeping the laundry done and put away. And God is taking care of us financially, despite both of us making less than we were six months ago, so that’s an extra blessing!

- What am I reading? Hmm…I just finished “Blindness”, by Jose Saramango. It was VERY well written and it was an interesting read…there were no names throughout the entire book, yet the characters never got confusing. There were other things that the author did as well which made the reader feel blind while reading the book. I definitely recommend it. Then, I read “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd which I also recommend. It, too, is fiction, and also a very well written book. (It was refreshing to read two books in a row that were both so well written! It makes me more picky about the next book I read though!) If you haven’t read these and enjoy deep, thought-provoking literature, you could read either of them. And if you just want to lose yourself in a story, which I sometimes do too, these are also good for that. Now, I’m working my way through “When the Heart Waits” also by Sue Monk Kidd. I’ve only read one chapter, but it is also a worthwhile read. When God asks you to wait, we try to busy ourselves with waiting, thus finding it difficult to wait. What we need to do is just be still…don’t think about waiting as doing nothing…just deliberately…silently…wait.

- I have been craving pizza lately…and I had it three days in a row over the weekend. I can’t believe that I spent the first 21 years of my live loathing the very existence of pizza!

- I cannot make cinnamon rolls…since I’ve been married, I’ve tried almost a dozen times, and I only remember one instance where they actually worked. I just don’t understand…I follow the recipe to the letter (and I NEVER do that!), and they’re either dry or not cooked in the middle (yet crispy on the outside). I got a headache last night because I was so mad that they didn’t work yet again! I put so much effort into making them and then I have to throw them away because they flop. Nathan suggested that maybe it’s the oven I have. I’d like to go with that explanation…it is pretty old and weird…but why, then, does everything else turn out wonderfully???

Yup, so those are some of my random thoughts. Of course there are thoughts of children and moving and school and such…but random is sometimes a nice break from the world of seriousness…

My challenge to you, should you choose to accept:
Think of a random thing from your life. Got it? Is it really random? Something that you’re not stressing about at all? Ok. Good. Now click on the “Comments” link at the end of this post, and share your random thought with me. Do it…

Oh, Lennox...

Dogs are just like kids in some ways, and though these ways are few and far between, something Lennox did yesterday really reminded me of something a kid would do.

I was trying to clean up the kitchen so that I could take a picture for a “for sale” flyer. So, I moved Lennox’s mat (which is usually between the kitchen and living room) and all his toys to the hallway/bathroom while I took the picture. By the time I picked up the camera and walked to the other side of the kitchen, he had already brought one of his toys back to the kitchen floor and was on his way back to the bathroom to get another one. How can you get upset with that?! He just wanted to play! He didn’t know that I wanted

a clean floor for the picture! I tried putting his toys back in the bathroom and ran with the camera to take a picture. Too late again. He’s quick! This time he lay down on the floor with his ball and started chewing on it. Well, a dog in a picture is fine (makes the place look homey), but not so much for anyone who wants to buy a house. So I finally figured out that if I called him to me, he would come sit at my feet, ball in mouth hoping to play, and I could quickly snap the picture while he looked up at my with his big brown eyes. It worked and I got a good picture!

New Blog...ideas?

Seeing as how in a few months I will no longer live on Second Street, I will be starting a new blog as we start a new phase of life. I have a few ideas for some names for the new blog, but I'm open to ideas...can you think of anything creative? Please share!

Be sure to keep your eyes open in the next few months for the big blog switch!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes….Announcements regarding…life…

By now, many of you know a bit about who I am. You probably have an idea of where I live (creepy?) and what my husband and I do for a living. You may even know that I have a dog, Lennox. Well, a lot of that is about to change. My world is going to be turned upside down…and I’m curiously, cautiously excited about it.

For the last 3 ½ years, Nathan and I have been living in southern MB, 3 of those years in our beautiful little house on Second Street. I’ve been working in the office at a lumber yard. Nathan has been the youth pastor at one of the churches here. I’ve been teaching piano lessons to some great girls one afternoon a week. Life is usually very routine, and I like it.

On Sunday, we resigned from the church. We had been feeling that God was giving us the ok to move on, but with fall’s circumstances, we pushed these thoughts aside and focused on healing and being here. In January, we re-opened the “future” package and took a long, hard look inside. What is God calling us to do now? We were prepared to set aside all thoughts of moving on if that was what God was asking us to do. After much prayer and many hours of talking through different possibilities, we felt that God was calling us back to school.

We are hoping to sell our house this spring and move in late June/early July. We have to be here for this next grade 12 grad…these are the youth who were in grade 9 when we started here. We’ve been with them all the way through senior youth (minus this year). In August, we hope to move as much stuff as we can pack into our little Toyota Corolla and make the long trek to Fresno, California. Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary is calling our name. Nathan will take their two year Master of Theology program. This will allow him to either continue on in pastoral ministry or to work in a Bible College setting. At this point, we’re not sure where we will be after seminary. I guess it could be anywhere!

But so far this email has been so formal. That’s kinda how announcements are. Tell what’s happening…share the details. Now it’s time for what I’m thinking about it!

Like I said before, I’m “curiously, cautiously excited.” I feel peace about the decision. I feel supported by the church and by our families and friends. I feel excited about the thought of experiencing something so new and different very soon. But I am also curious about what it will be like. I don’t know all the details about the move (which I don’t feel like I need to know…it’s not stressing me out) but I’m curious as to how it will all play out. I’m cautious because I don’t want my excitement to cloud the last few months I have here in town. I want to make the most of my time here, because I have some wonderful friends and I love life. I don’t want to look back and wish that I’d been more present here instead of always having my mind in the future.

It feels good to have people know what our thoughts are for the future. It was getting more and more tough to always be guarding what we were saying. Now we can mention selling the house and school and moving and we really don’t have to worry about who hears.

Well, that’s our news! Anyone know someone who wants to buy a house in our town?

Walking on Water…

As I was listening to God this morning, I got this image of Peter stepping out of the boat and walking on the water to Jesus. I was Peter. I was walking on the water with Jesus. The water was my life and I was trusting Jesus to keep me afloat. Then, Peter/I started to sink. It was a fact. The water was coming up my calves…my feet were sinking into the water…I WAS sinking. It wasn’t a lack of faith, I didn’t think. I just took note of the wind and waves around me and looked down and my feet were getting more and more wet. I cried out to Jesus, and he asked why I doubted…why I lacked faith. Well, I didn’t…I just started to sink and cried for help. Then I realized that I’d noticed the waves. I’d tried to make sense of what was happening…of where I was walking. But Jesus said that it’s not about facts when you’re with Him. It doesn’t matter that water doesn’t normally hold people up. With Jesus, it does. It doesn’t matter that we’re not making as much money as we did before. With Jesus it covers our expenses and more than it ever did before! It doesn’t matter that I don’t understand. It’s about having faith that with Jesus it IS possible.

Because it is, isn’t it?