i woke up this morning for work and it was SO beautiful outside. i love love love this time of year – crisp winter still lingers, but there is something new and fresh brewing in creation:)

yesterday was amazing.
i turned in an article on the justice league here at Hope for Print Media II. I love writing things that I believe in… and I had my Engaging Christianity and Psychology class, which is 1 1/2 hours of mind stretching, faith questioning, and God glorifying goodness. I love it. it makes me think there is hope yet to build bridges on every level of human intellect to the waiting world…

anyway… and then i picked up my check made a deposit. this may sound trivial, but not for me!:) I count the days and plan my groceries, budget, and social life around every other friday.

then i got to try a new recipe with my friend nicole. we baked brownies with these interesting ingredients:
2 tablespoons flour
12 eggs
10 oz. nonsweetened chocolate
3 sticks butter
3 cups sugar

i think that’s it. yep it was an experience, but they turned out well.
we took them to an event last night that literally made us weep.

i can’t describe it – not the kind of cry you get when you put in a romantic comedy, nor the kind that comes up when you say goodbye to a loved one, nor really the kind you get when you “just need a good cry” to mull over some personal things. No – this weep was a deep, heavy repentant weep for the things the lady was saying and for the church.

I don’t know how much I can say in cyberspace (even though no one reads this:), because of her protection, but I sat there for 2 1/2 hours and felt ashamed. This woman is from a different background and she became a Christian. But she told stories about how the church didn’t know what to do with her. So many times she was a soul needing comforting, encouragement, and actual rescue from a life-threatening situation and the church didn’t know what to do with her.

i don’t know how i could explain in a way that would make others understand, but it did change me. it was beautiful.
after that, my friend nicole and i sighed. we are so blessed.
we went back to our house transitioned into a night of what not to wear and smoothies with mangos. i like mangos. a lot.

today is going to be great, too. after work i’ll have some wondefully relaxing time, hopefully talk to my family – who i have sadly neglected as a result of my cell phone breaking – and then i get to unload the band.

not just any band – MAE. that’s right i’m unloading the band and i have a t-shirt that says staff. their concert is tonight and i am STOKED. i dreamed last night that my friends pat, dusty, and casey surprised me and were coming to the concert. except it was weird because i was actually the director at a camp and we were at my grandpas old house in iowa. yeah that part didn’t make sense, but the part about them coming up here i wanted desparately to be true.

friends are so special. maybe the most special thing.

I just thought I would add some pictures of my housemates and holland…

we are all crowded around some stellar artichoke dip…

This is a sweet scene in Holland. Fall is definitely a good time to be alive here.

It’s nice to look at pictures of summer and fall because right now we’re in a snow storm. my relationship with winter is special. on one side, i remember getting up extra early to do chores when i lived on a farm in iowa… i think of them fondly now, but back then i was bitter – cold and otherwise:)

but now, especially in holland, i can look and appreciate the big, fluffy flakes. sometimes it feels/looks like sprinkling cotton candy from the sky. i do enjoy that. .. and sometimes I even like walking through it. but today, for some reason i’m just cold.

it’s that kind of day that you wish you were still in high school because class would be canceled and (where I lived) you wouldn’t be able to get out. SO… bring on the hot chocolate, good books, movies, and lounging. …

maybe that’s why today is less exciting – it’s saturday, i’m working, i have homework for classes that won’t be canceled on monday, and i am tromping around in the snow… but that doesn’t make it any less beautiful… i think we might try to go sledding later… always a good choice of winter activity!:)

last night i attempted a first for me – beef pot roast. what you should be saying is – why is this college gal making the main course of a Sunday dinner back at the farm? well, good question. I wanted to surprise my housemates with a “sweet” dinner.

See, growing up valentines day was a big deal. Sure, i brought home the bounty from my elementary, heart-shaped envelope with candy and innocent love messages. That was special, but not as much as our family’s valentine’s day dinner. It was always beautiful and perfect. the candles, pink and red decorations, the hand-made cards with poems waiting on each place setting, the pink tapioca and heart shaped cakes with sweethearts decorating the top….i hope you have a picture in your mind of this wonderful occasion..

so this year, i wanted to replicate this for my house, because we’ve kind of become a family of sorts and we don’t often give quality time to reflecting on how blessed we are… hence the pot roast. i wanted something different, something more homelike. and when i left my house after christmas, my mom send a beef roast from the locker. (there’s something about good, Iowa, locker meat that just beats all that pre-packaged plastic from the grocery store… something that says – i’m homegrown and quality)

i started planning everything in my head and sent letters out to all their parents to get them to help… i won’t get into the details, but my point is this: how do women do it? i put in the roast yesterday at 8:30, adding vegetables and spices throughout the day. i started decorating and setting up at 4:30 and after dinner was over at 8:30 I was completely wiped. To top it off, I was so nervous about the dinner that i spaced off during a current events quiz in my comm. class.

the thing about a surpise is that people don’t know what to expect, so they expect something. it could be totally different than what the surprise will actually deliver. i was nervous they would be disappointed.

everything was perfect, though. from the stories we told to the table settings, to the food, to the gifts, to sitting on the ground around the coffeetables because it was the only thing long enough to seat all of us.

it was another amazing reminder of how we are blessed and loved and put in community for a reason.