Easy, Ernesto

The last 2 weeks in Minnesota were almost totally sunny, and in the upper 60s and lower 70s. For those of you who don't know this about me yet - fall weather is my DRUG. God has literally wired my mind to function at full capacity with all the right chemicals when fall is happening around me. No lie. So needless to say, it made me happy.

Coming back to grey, grey, grey, cloudy, grey, rainy, more rain, grey Raleigh kinda sucks a bit. lol Hope this storm passes soon and without much damage to people's lives.

I don't get it

My boyfriend is a complete and total spaz. When we are apart, he is as good as dead to me. He has some sort of moral or mental failure which prevents him from contacting me. At all. Completely at all. None, nada. And we've been apart more of the last 2 months than together. But when we are together, we are so happy that we should be married.

And they say girls are crazy? Come on. I never knew a boy could be on SO MUCH CRACK!

I don't know how long this will last. Probably not long. It has been fun and magical, and it has been frustrating and torturous. Here's to settling it once and for all in September...

The Wailin Jennys

...and I like them. And they're playing in Greensboro (1 hour away) on October 20. Coooooool.

Sad to be leaving

Well now that it's 9:58pm on the night before I fly out of Minnesota, I'm sad to be leaving. I'm really sad. It sucks saying goodbye. Just typing this makes tears start to come to my eyes. I know my Mom will cry tomorrow, just for a second, but she'll cry. And I'll know that it's okay that I'm leaving, but it still sucks living far from my family. And yet it really makes no sense at all for me to be here. I guess I could have bigger problems... I mean I love my family, we're constantly connected by phone, I see them a few times a year, and I have great opportunities that cause me to live a couple plane rides away. I am doing fine. It's just that people are the most important. And... well... I don't know if any of you have experienced this... I know Amanda has... but when you come home and you can visit friends or family, though you really want to visit your friends, there is something sacred about your family. Friends, as they say, honestly do come and go. They let you down. Well family can let you down too, but they don't disappear. Each time I've come back to Minnesota, I've spent less time with my friends and more with my family.

The people you love - be it blood-related family or church family or just true friends or whatever - people are pretty much everything.

Because I want to see the Smokies

I've wanted to take a road trip to Tennessee for so long now. I am GOING to take a roadtrip there this fall. It just occurred to me that there's nothing stopping me. I'll invite James (if he's still waiting for me when I return. lol) I'm inviting you freelancers who are also largely free from schedules, and yes you know who you are. But ultimately I am just gonna go... even if it's just me.

10,000 Lakes

Ready for another 12 year old girl style journal entry? Heh. Today we went to Silver Lake. Actually, all I wanted to say, is that I rode in the boat my brother restored, and also we got to ride his friend's jetski. It is the first time I've been on one and it was soooooo fun. HELLO walking on water! It's crazy how you go so fast that you're just skimming and the water surface becomes like any other surface. After taking my Mom for a wild spin, I came back to shore and asked my brother to drive. Yep. We capsized. Well we turned on a big wave, which threw me over and I was hugging him so tightly that he came off, too. HA! All we could do is laugh like crazy. It was a great thrill because we suddenly got over any fear about falling into the middle of the lake. The jetski battery was dead so we were stranded... his friends came out in Mike's boat but for some reason it was going at a snail's pace. Apparently some pin was lost, and Mike's boat died, too. Finally another boat rescued us - 6 of us - desperately holding the little 1960s boat and the jetski together. Good times... I wish I'd had my camera out there.

I'm only here for a couple more days. You know, being on vacation has made me lethargic. I mean, I've been moving... we've been doing a lot... but my muscles are so tired and don't want to do much. Now that I re-read that, it sounds very normal for vacation, but it's just a strange feeling.

My family keeps hinting that I should move to Minneapolis.

I'll be sad to go, but also glad to get back to Raleigh. I need as much of a life rhythm as possible right now. I do wish I lived near my family... maybe someday but not in the immediate future.

World Peace

I work with a Christian economic development organization. My Dad, as a side business, is starting an online directory of services and products that might be called New Age. It's really much more than that... it's hard to put a name on the whole thing, but you can see it here.

It's hard to say where I'm at spiritually. I'm a Christian but... not in the typical sense, maybe. I can't even describe or understand myself and my relationship to God. I mean hopefully soon I will be able to, but I'm not really at that point yet... I'm growing.

Anyway, last night my Dad and I went to Red Lobster late for drinks and appetizers (yum). We spent the whole evening talking about my Dad's favorite... what do I call him... teacher, speaker, peace-loving man... his name is Eckhart Tolle and his passion is the power of NOW. Honestly, I have listened to some of his CDs, and what he has to say is very good and non-threatening. A person from any religion could listen and benefit in huge ways because he's talking about presence, awareness, consciousness, being, LIFE! He's not talking about anything that conflicts with our religious beliefs. In fact, Jesus understood this stuff about presence very well. Consider the lillies...

My Dad kept trying to convince me to listen to it. I told him I want to, the only thing keeping me from listening is not fear - it's lack of time. I'm bad at time management anyway (I like to just have fun)... add to that the fact that I work for myself and it's just hard to take time for quietness. Of course that's the world's worst excuse and I know that.... all I have is now. That's all I have. (Do I even believe that? It's true!)

The original purpose of this post was to say that this woman here in Fargo has a little operation going and it's all focused on peace - everything from inner peace to global peace. She left a voicemail on my parents' answering machine looking for me. Her message was a little funny cause she was like, "I heard all about wonderful Jen and her work on this planet, and I'd like to talk to her." Uhh okay. (She literally said 'on this planet' about 5 times.)

I finally called her back today, not sure if she was interested in hearing about my writing/communications work, our church life attempts, or what! Turned out she was interested in the economic development work I'm doing with the non-profit. I told her all about it and she was very interested. She asked if I would come and speak to a small group to share more and give them opportunities to get involved, possibly.

That's when I had to bring in the C-word: it's a Christian organization. Everything we do is unabashedly Christian. We bring clean water to the poorest communities in Africa, yes... it's very tangible... but we never leave it at that. Clean water is our way of telling the story of Jesus as the Living Water that quenches all thirst. If I am totally candid, I will tell you that even that makes me slightly uncomfortable sometimes. It's like providing basic resources to dying children is stipulated on them letting us talk about God as we know him. (Don't I sound so modern? So sickeningly contemporary and skeptical? Hah.) But if who we know God to be, in Jesus Christ, is true, then what's the problem? Why the uneasiness in me? Maybe it's because I know how this will be carried out. I know the people will do it with a missions-minded frenzy. Ugh. There's so much I can't even really say on here because I'd hate to say key words that are google-able.

Well finally I told this woman that it is a Christian organization and every project we do is marked by that. She was disappointed, I could tell... but she kept finding ways for us to get over that divide and still have me speak to her group. I just thought it would have made them tremendously uncomfortable, and maybe me, too. There would have been no way for them to engage with our organization in particular, because they never would have agreed with the way we do it. Clean water and church planting? They would have none of that.

So... sigh. I was glad I didn't get roped into that, but kind of bummed that there is a division between me and this woman. We both have photos of girls from around the world in our homes. We both have a heart that leaps when we think about children in poverty, and creating opportunity, and common life, that sort of thing. But the way we go about it is so different... maybe that's fine. It just is a divide that I wish wasn't there.

Out of the running

Can I just tell you that on MSNBC, the guy just said:

Pluto is now the William Hung of our solar system.

HAH!

Also, they keep talking about how it will take years to update all the world's textbooks. I wonder what the total cost is of something like that. That'd be fascinating trivia.

Hope you like my new look

So... this is exciting... Blogger has a new beta version! Go through your dashboard to find it and switch to it. The coolest part is that it's integrated with Google. Which, by the way, is taking over the world, but creatively and smartly, and so that makes it ok. :)

Yes, the orange slice is random. I also wanted to put a red leaf there so I played with that for quite awhile in Photoshop. The editing system they built into the back end of the new Blogger Beta is awwwesome.

Pluto no es una planeta

So I woke up today and found out Pluto is no longer a planet. What next - the sky isn't blue? The grass isn't green? The world isn't flat?!

It's just funny that facts can change. It makes me feel small and humbled in a good way. Less sure of myself but in a crazy way, more sure of grace.

The Open Door

I admit it, I'm excited about Evanescence's new CD releasing on October 3. I don't even have their previous ones, but I started liking them just as they retreated from the public world a couple years ago.

God gave us laptops, and there was much rejoicing

Squidoo's How to Set Up Your Office in a Coffee Shop

Required reading for all my freelancer friends.