Authentic Relationships

Just started this book, Authentic Relationships by Wayne Jacobsen & Clay Jacobsen. Three chapters in, and I'm challenged beyond belief and have underlined probably half of the book so far. I need to read this book one sentence at a time so that I can chew on each line and let it change me.
A couple of highlights from just the first chapter:

anyway

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self centered.
Love them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Be good anyway.

Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People need help but may attack you if you try to help them.
Help them anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

From a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan,
a children's home in Calcutta

Isn't that good? But wait, there's more. Here, the book is talking about Zacchaeus, and the story of how he went to see Jesus in a crowded area, climbed a tree to be able to see better, and Jesus approached him and invited himself to Zacchaeus's house for lunch. This was incredible, because everyone hated Zacchaeus, a tax collector. Picking up in the book now, they write:

Zacchaeus had met someone who was truly focused on others--someone who took an interest in him without trying to manipulate him for his own purpose.

Zacchaeus had never seen anyone act that way before. The Romans used him to do their dirty work, and his own countrymen loathed him for it. He had learned long ago that to succeed in life he had to take care of himself even at the expense of others. But this approach to life had left him a lonely man. Jesus penetrated his loneliness with a simple invitation to lunch.

That was the only miracle Zacchaeus needed. As far as we know, he didn't see any blind eyes opened or any lepers healed that day. The simple acts of one anothering--an offer of lunch, an opportunity for a new friendship, and a few hours of conversation--rocked his entire world.

...Every encounter Jesus had was like that. He did not engage people for what he could get out of them, but for what He could give them out of God's life. Because he was not focused on himself, he was able to touch people with the deepest treasures of God's love. And that made all the difference.

Adventures in the Oklahoma wilderness.

So, I woke up Saturday morning in the mood for an adventure. I spent the morning online, trying to find something interesting to do outside of the city. We headed east!





We stopped in Chouteau at the Amish Cheese House. They sell spices, candy, jellies, honey, canned goods, cheese, meats, etc. etc. It was very neat. We bought several things, and had lunch there...sandwiches on homemade bread with homemade (I think?) cheese. It was so delicious.



I wish I had a picture of our lunch. Delish.
From there, we continued east. We were on Highway 412. A few miles from Chouteau, 412 splits into turnpike and 412 Scenic Route. They run parallel to each other and join back up 30 miles later or so. So...Google maps told us to take the turnpike, but looking at our map, we're thinking that the scenic route is probably going to get us to the right place too, and hey, we're on an adventure, right?

According to Wikipedia, Scenic US-412 is one of only two scenic special routes in the country...the other is in Maryland. I don't really know what that means, but I believe it. I believe that there is no other place in the country quite like that 30 mile stretch. OK, maybe I'm being a little bit dramatic about that, but seriously, Caleb and I kept seeing things that just made us go, "Really??? Did you just see that?" For example.



Vacuum cleaners perched atop fence posts.




Pecan Grove Family Mobile Home Park.


We could've taken pictures about a dozen more oddities we saw along this road, but then we never would have gotten to....

Natural Falls State Park! Home of a 77-foot waterfall, accessible by a 3/4 mile hike through the woods. Fab.u.lous. Pretty much my idea of a perfect Saturday.

Stream below the waterfall.

The water was so pretty. Like, a dark blue-green, and pretty clear, actually.

Small waterfall along the stream.

<3

The big, tall, pretty part of the waterfall.

Looking down at the bottom of the waterfall, from the top.

It was a very happy day. Oh, I forgot. While in Choteau (since this is the 3rd time I've written that name in this post, this is also the 3rd time in like 15 minutes that I've had to double check how to spell that name!!), we also stopped in this little...I guess you'd call it a flea market, but it was better than any flea market I've been to. Maybe all of the flea markets I've been to were just really picked over. There were tons of treasures in this place. Amazing. Came home with these antique blocks for my momma...

...If I can bring myself to give them up, that is! They are so cute.



Here are the goodies we brought home from the Amish store. Raspberry, peach, and apricot jams, noodles, pecan crunch (like peanut brittle), peach cider, jerky, dried parsley, poppyseeds, cream of tartar, cinnamon vanilla nut cappuccino, lemon cheesecake spread mix, cinnamon rolls, and cinnamon bread. Mmmm Mmmm.

And, last, I also came home with these silly things from that flea market place. Yellow cowboy boots? I think I've been in Oklahoma too long. :)

6th Consecutive Snow Day = Creativity.

So, we've had this massive blizzard here in Oklahoma last week, with another 8ish inches of snow predicted for tonight/tomorrow morning. All this time in the house has found me cleaning, cooking, and watching TV. Today, it was time for something new!

I found inspiration and instructions here.

I made a yarn-wrapped wreath with felt flowers. Ta-da:



It took forEVER to wrap the wreath with the yarn, but it was worth it:



Making the felt roses was fun, although I kept burning my fingers with hot glue.



Close-up of the flowers (so cute, right? I want to make bunches of them!):



My friend Tricia came over today and spent part of the day crafting with me. She decoupaged (sp??) these letters...how adorable are they??? (even though they are OU :)



Ah...so fun! :)

Thoughts.

I'm at home, sick, from school today with a yucky bug of some sort, so after a full day of sleeping and trying to recuperate, I thought a blog post was in order.
Things we've been up to lately, and thoughts I've been having lately.

• Church-hunting. I love visiting different churches. I love belonging to a church family (of course), but I really love visiting other churches. It amazes me how I can walk into a place where no one knows me, and yet join with them in singing and prayer and feel an incredible sense of unity with strangers. As my mom says all of the time, and I find myself saying more and more often, Heaven will be good.
  
  
• Speaking of feeling unity with total strangers...it's been a fun K-State football season for us. We found that a group of K-State alumni here in town meet at a local sports bar to watch games together. Haha...it feels like an un-awkward family reunion, with people we don't know.
  
  
• Whenever we get stopped by people because of our purple apparel (which happens more often than we thought it would), it just sort of feels like we're talking to an old friend. I think it helps that K-State doesn't really have bandwagon fans...probably since this bandwagon isn't really going anywhere. Maybe that will change a little if K-State basketball lives up to the hype this season. Probably not, though. I don't know. I like our fans. I like sincere people...people who are sincere fans of any team...or anything, really. Sincerity is good. I think about this stuff a lot. I think about the things we are passionate about and what that says about us. Okay, done with that now.
  
  
• More later.

Summertime!

A few highlights from the last couple of weeks:

• Conference realignment truths and rumors...what an emotional roller coaster. We're happy with where we're landing. Still in the Big 12, minus Colorado (who cares) and Nebraska (whatever).
• Camping trip with friends from church...what a weekend! Aside from the humidity and two dozen bug bites I discovered last night, it was so much fun! Camped at Beaver's Bend State Park in Broken Bow, OK. Involved a lot of steak, a tiny raft, campfire envy, many trips to the "comfort stations," a lot of boat talk, and lots of great conversation and company.
  
• First trip to Big Splash water park, resulting in first sunburn of the year. Why can I never remember/believe that the sun still burns, even on cloudy days??
• Our church is meeting in homes this summer, while we prepare for new space in the fall. They met in our house a week ago, which was fun. It felt nice having people in our house...we need to invite people into our home more often!
• The week before our church met in our house, I looked around at our kitchen and dining room, which was still mostly covered with the ugly wallpaper that the original owners put in. Awful. Awful. Awful. I peeled it, sanded the drywall, primed, and painted two coats of "water chestnut." It looks SO much better. I am so proud.
  
• Spent lots of time with Miss Megan...at the splash park, watching movies, sidewalk art, getting Ocean Water from Sonic, painting nails, having sleepovers.
• Next project is to unpack all of the boxes that didn't get unpacked when we moved. There are quite a few...and right now, they are occupying our spare bedroom. Someone needs to plan to come visit so that I get some motivation to get this bedroom cleared out! :) Any takers?
  

Bailey

Bailey

Meet Bailey, the newest member of our little family. She entered our lives almost four weeks ago, and she is pretty much the greatest thing ever. She's now a little 15-week old beagle puppy, who loves her bed, loves chewing on everything, loves to lick bare toes, and loves to cuddle.

Of course, there are the not-so-good things about having a puppy. Although she hasn't had too many accidents, she really doesn't seem to be getting the whole potty-training thing. So, if you have any secrets, please let me know. Also...the chewing. She hasn't ruined too much yet, but she did chew through a lamp electrical cord and a video game controller cord. Annoying, but not devastating, I suppose. We have this bitter apple spray that is supposed to keep her from chewing stuff. It works really well, but I can't really go around spraying every single thing in our house that she's not supposed to chew on. Oh well. We just try to keep a close eye on her.

More pictures to come.

Wednesday!

It's Wednesday, which means several happy things.

• The week is over halfway over.
• I'm about to leave for Journey Group, which is always wonderful.
• K-State plays in the Sweet 16 tomorrow...which means I'll be wearing purple to school.
• 9 weeks from TODAY, I will officially be on my summer break.
• Spring weather is HERE!

Spring break was fun...full of great visitors! Jennifer & Valisha (a couple of my old roommates at KSU) stopped by on their road trip to Texas. Jason, Susan and Amanda (3 of Caleb's siblings) were here for a few days, and my mom & brother were here for several more days! It was great...and they helped us work on our house a ton! We got the livingroom/entryway painted. Twice. After SOMEBODY got a coat of paint on it and then decided she hated the color... won't mention any names. Anyway, it's now a deep shade of green.
We also got our bedroom painted. It was an awful shade of lilac. It's now a nice shade of mocha. So, I still don't have any pictures to show you, but that's on my to-do list for tomorrow evening. We'll see if it actually happens. They're sitting on my camera, patiently waiting to be uploaded.

Okay, so this was a mostly pointless blog post, but I just felt happy about it being Wednesday. Later gater.