Yoo-hoo!!

*this was actually written a few weeks ago, but never got published here! More posts to come soon... promise :-) *
If there were a book about running off what little blog readership you may enjoy, I could write it. But here I return all over again, like a dog returning to its v... never mind, awkward analogy.

Welcome back. It's a new semester, a new day. I'm working now, and I'm kind of getting in over my head in everything in life right now... but somehow I'm loving it, as usual! Once again, I have a whole new stack of books to read the size of which Levar Burton would envy. I bet he's never even read this much, despite his decades-long(?) career at Reading Rainbow. (By the way, I just realized he has a Twitter account, and it's highly disturbing. Thank you, Google.)

I had to be at school at 8 this morning for a special class session. If you know me, you know that is not a good time for me to be anywhere. But it was quite interesting and helpful, and I am very glad I went.

Now I must go read Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry, which I am reading for a class. I must note that it is sort of fun to read this book 12 years after it was written, now that the whole purpose-driven thing has suffered a bit of a backlash, as has the classic youth ministry concept. But regardless, I am learning a lot from it, and I often find myself wondering what people were even bothering to criticize to begin with. Argh, am I making sense? I think a nap might be in order for me!
Much love, yo!

Return of the Rose

So I think I am about to make Attempt #3 to make this blog thing work. I really need an outlet for all the crazy ideas (which my dear Grandma born in Mississippi would pronounce "idears") spinning around in my head, and where else but here? Believe it or not, I have actually had reasons to account for my lack of posting:

1. I think of all these funny stories but hate to share on here because I'm afraid I'll wind up accidentally hurting someone's feelings.

2. I fear my stories aren't any more amusing than anyone else's, so therefore no one would be interested.

3. I have an unwillingness to share anything that could possibly be construed as controversial on here for fear of hurting people's feelings.

4. My fears of Internet technology.

I'm always so blasted afraid of hurting people's feelings. But considering I try to go out of my way to be diplomatic, I guess it's worth the risk! Here's why I want to blog:

1. Perhaps something I say could encourage someone who stumbles across this thing.

2. Maybe people out there will be easily amused by my everyday stories, because I am easily amused by the everyday stories others share.

3. I need to be more disciplined.

4. I don't need to be afraid of Internet technology. This is 2010.

And no, I never overthink anything! ;-) And now, without further ado, let's see how it goes....

Hey, Ava-baby!

Hey, Ava-baby!

(Said as O.J. Berman would say it in Breakfast at Tiffany’s)

Miss Meli Mac Mac Mac!!!

Assuming there's a "you" out there reading this, you should check out my dear old friend Melissa's blog.
I am absolutely loving it and can't wait to watch her become the Pioneer Woman of Pittsburgh! (Even though she actually has quite little in common with Pioneer Woman... except that blog superstardom surely awaits! That and she could totally take on anyone in any of Pioneer Woman's photography contests.) In fact, I hope to make Rose Monkey bigger and better in the near future, and Meli is totally my inspiration for doing so. After all, none other than Melissa Ann McMasters (thank you MAM) got me writing to begin with, back around 1989, when we were next-door neighbors on Bobbitt Drive. At the age of 5. Yes, folks, that is what we did for fun. I showed up at her house one day and was zazzled (I am so sleep-deprived that I am now inventing words like "zazzled") to see that she had in fact written multiple books, and I made up my mind to do likewise. So we would get together and write, you know, in between playing Barbies and trading erasers and listening to the "Buster" soundtrack and pretending to be British royalty and all the other things typical elementary schoolers do.

I will be forever grateful to my parents for choosing to purchase the house next door to hers, because many of my fondest childhood memories -- and beyond -- have somehow wound up involving that girl. Sometimes I wonder how different things would be for me today had I grown up next door to someone less amazing, less talented, less brilliant. It would not have been a good thing, my dears.

And on that note, I am off to get some reading done for class. Au revoir!

So very busy...

... but this article is too good not to share:
Christopher Hitchens' brother Peter traces his conversion to Christianity

Since moving here...

Best surprise:
The snow - how crunchy and fluffy and fabulous it was.

Least favorite surprise:
The constant cold and generalized dreariness and lack of sunshine up here. Today is gorgeous, the sun is actually shining, and I'm so happy about it that I haven't broken out the sunglasses a solitary time all day, just because I want to soak it all in! (That actually sounds medically risky, but I'm hoping you understand. I've really missed the sun!)

Most delicious treat:
Chocolate chip cookies from Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen... yummmm!!!!!

Most frustrating moment:
Getting lost around Norton Hall! That place is so completely confusing, and I took a few too many wrong turns/wrong staircases/wrong hallways the first several days weeks of class!

Most awkward moment:
Definitely reaching for one of those pop-up table thingies in a lecture hall and grabbing a guy's leg instead. Yowch. Then turning around and saying, "I am so very sorry."

Another surprising moment:
Hearing someone say, "Hey Chris!" at the mall and actually be referring to my Chris. (I'm convinced that the grocery store near our house is staffed entirely of Chrises, so it doesn't mean much when someone says "Hey Chris!" around there.) It was nice to run into someone Chris knew from work in a city where we don't know many people at all!

What I love most about the house:
The wooden floors. The basement. The swingy doors in the basement. The sliding door to the master bedroom. The marble countertops. The newness of so much of it and the vintage quality of the rest. Its character. How can I pick just one?

What I love least about the house:
Its distance from campus. OH - and the sad little bathroom floor upstairs!! Don't worry, we will be tiling ASAP. I'm thinking a white-marble-subway-tile thing in keeping with the marble and old-school look of house.

What I love most about being back in school:
Intellectual stimulation from somewhere besides the blogosphere. Love it! :-)

Live from the Library

Well, I'm doing it, folks. I'm blogging live from the library. And I don't even feel bad about it, because one guy a few rows over from me is typing even more loudly than I am! HA! Take THAT, Type Guy!

I must say this library is growing on me. It smells like a library should smell, and that is one thing you don't find just anywhere anymore. I'm hanging out here between post-class socializing and Pilates, which doesn't start until 4:45. I should be studying - and I soon will be - but I thought it could be fun to blog for a sec. Perhaps if I spent more time post-class socializing I wouldn't have these odd tendencies to blog from the library.

In fact, I'm such a nerd that I didn't realize that it was possible for a student to have an assigned desk in a library - let alone an assigned office! Oh, but it is - and actually the fact that this is surprising to me probably makes me that much less of a nerd than I even think I am. I actually just completed a tour (de force?) in which I wandered around this place in circles, looking for a non-assigned desk that I could make my own for the next hour. In doing so, I'm sure I totally disrupted some people (you know, the ones cool enough to have assigned desks) what with my sloshing water bottle and footsteps and all.

On to other things: I love this campus. It's really gorgeous. I have a window seat, and I'm looking out across the quad right now. I just wish I knew more of the people here. The good news is that we think we may have potentially found a church, and getting settled in at a church would help things significantly.

On another note, I'm ready to move on to new topics in one of my classes. Each class period I get all worked up and want someone, anyone, to challenge some of what the professor is saying - if only to say "yours isn't the only compelling interpretation of this text" - and yet it rarely happens, and when it does, I can tell the challengers wimp out and start saying things like, "Maybe I don't have a clear understanding of what you're saying." I obviously don't blame them, because I don't even say anything to begin with. Honestly I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'm ready to move onto something much less speculative and abstract, and much more practical and impacting on our everyday lives.

And on that cryptic note, it's back to the books for me! Au revoir for now!

Learning Lots and Lots!

... because that's what you do in seminary. You get challenged, you get stretched, you are forced to grapple with why you believe what you believe. It's daunting, it's humbling, it's overwhelming, it can be scary sometimes... but it's truly quite the incredible experience, and it is an unbelievable blessing to be here. Chris and I were totally impacted by Thursday's chapel message by David Platt:

http://www.sbts.edu/resources/chapel/chapel-spring-2010/the-cost-of-following-jesus/

Do yourself a favor and download this. Then listen to/watch ALL of it. (Trust me, you will want to hear everything he has to say anyway!)

I really don't have any words to add to the message he brought. I'm actually still trying to process everything he said.

The sad news is that I had to watch this amazing message online, because for some reason it is profoundly difficult for me to appear in chapel in person - probably because it's at 10 am and class isn't until 1 pm. And I know it's online anyway. Any normal person could, of course, study in the library between 11 and 1... but alas, I feel so self-conscious every time I go in there! It's just so. very. quiet!!! My jacket makes crunchy noises, or I have to type on my computer, or I have to sneeze, or my chair squeaks or something, and I just feel like I'm disrupting everyone's lives in there. I'm just too ADD for places like that. But this message has mightily inspired me to make it to chapel next week. I don't want to miss a minute of what God's doing here!

The Rise of the Ironic

Quite interesting article I just ran across over at Relevant:
Rise of the Ironic Class
This is a topic I've thought of before, and I thought they discussed it quite well.

More to come tomorrow!

YAYAYAY!

Things are looking up in old Louisville! We are having fun, feeling settled in, getting things together! And it gets better... Mom and Dad came to town to visit for the weekend! AND Carissa and Roy are coming at the end of the month!

This is a quick post since they're here, but I wanted you to know...

A) I am still alive. Things have just slowed down at Rose Monkey due to my sudden realization of the sheer volume of reading requirements I have for class. Which I am loving, by the way. I really am living the dream, reading all day long - punctuated by the occasional lecture on campus or visit to Starbucks with my friend Monica.

B) I will be posting pictures on here soon - as soon as our camera is recharged!!

C) We ate guacamole tonight with dinner - quesadilla pie - and it was GOOOD. Maybe I'll post the recipe soon! :-)

That's basically it for now. Much love! :-)

Confessions of a Rose Monkey

So today I thought it would be fun to go in a totally different direction (something, by the way, that happens frequently when I'm driving, because I have NO SENSE of direction WHATSOEVER) and make a list of things that are true of me that I've always been slightly ashamed of. Things that I'm learning to embrace. Things that formerly embarrassed me... and maybe still do... but I'm working on just accepting. If you can't change it, embrace it. Blog therapy, if you will. :-)

- I am a picky eater. That means no red meats, no American cheese, nothing fried, choosiness when it comes to selecting chicken, and a constant effort to introduce new foods and combinations to the diet so that I don't tire of the ones I already like and eat all the time. What's more is that I've always been this way, like even before I knew how bad for you fried food is. This, of course, opened me up to a world of teasing as a child. "She eats HEALTHY STUFF!!!! She hates HAMBURGERS!!!" Well, it's true. What's so funny about that, yo? (I do, I might add, keep this under wraps as much as possible in social situations to avoid hurting people's feelings or being rude. FYI. I don't want people to think I'm like Bruce Springsteen, who, as we Pop Video addicts of the '90s know, was once kicked out of school for "excessive weirdness.")

- I love thermies. I have a collection of the snuggliest thermies evvvahhh. They currently get the most use under lounge clothes - which shows how far I've come with this. Back in the day (middle school, probably), I attempted to wear them under everything from like October to March or April, so I probably went around looking like a snowman all the time... which, on second thought, may not have been so bad since I weighed no more than 80 pounds back in those days. Oh, and side note - thermie pants should ALWAYS be tucked into snuggly socks. ALWAYS. That keeps the entire leg fully covered and maximally warm at all times. Now, once again, you may think I'm a crazy goon for saying this, but I'm not the only crazy goon out there who adheres to this standard. In fact, upon spending the night at my grandparents' house as a kid, I discovered that my Granddad also followed this lovely rule, independently of my influence. Smart man.

- When I've been reading textbooks for an extended period of time, I start talking like a textbook without even meaning to. Just ask Chris or Jennifer Williams or basically anyone who ever knew me during school: I start saying such things as, "I foresee a twofold solution to this problem" and other assorted textbook-sounding junk. I apologize. It's nerdy to the max, I know. (I also know that "to the max" adds instant nerdiness to anything you're trying to say. And no one will take you seriously.)

- I adore sleeping in late. In fact, as I write this, I just woke up. (This probably says a lot about the content of this post.) This, like the food-pickiness habit, are things I have tried and tried and tried to break - to no avail. I guess it's just who I am. I'm Rosemary's granddaughter, the spitting image of my... never mind, hate that song!!! UGH! sorry! (But if I have to suffer with it stuck in my head, so should you?) As far back as I can remember, Saturdays have been my sleep-in days, and you can't take that away from me! However, now that I don't work on Mondays or Fridays (for now, though hopefully that's about to change), I am attempting to discipline myself to wake up sometime before 11:15. It's not working very well. So I'm sitting here in my lounge clothes (with thermies) (and socks tucked in) typing this pre-breakfast. And it's 11:35. Oh well.

I should probably stop now, before I scare away what little of an audience I have from reading this blog anymore. Much love, and adieu for now! :-)

House, snow, homesickness... and other updates!

As of last Wednesday, we have no longer been homeless! We closed on the house Wednesday night and have been moving in ever since. I never realized what an undertaking moving is for two people to handle! Thankfully, we were able to enlist the help of some new friends in moving the particularly heavy stuff, but we still have quite a long way to go to get everything where it ought to be. 


It's also amazing the sheer volume of stuff I can accumulate. I suppose my new year's resolution has been to de-clutter, and moving has given me an excellent opportunity to do so. For example, am I the only one out there who buys something like shampoo, doesn't love it but doesn't hate it, and then stubbornly holds onto it for a year or more just on the off-chance I decide to use it again?! Is this a psychological condition or what?! Regardless, it is now either in the trash... or has been given to Chris, who has gotten more rejected goodies these past few days than he rightly knows what to do with. 


[The amusing thing is that as I am writing this, I am sitting at a kitchen table cluttered with all sorts of randomness I have yet to find a home for!]


However, I can't help but compare and contrast this move with our previous two - which makes me miss my parents terribly. Not just because of the help they gave us, but mainly because of their presence. Plus, now that I have so much time on my hands during the day, I miss my Grandma too, and Chris's family, and my friends. I keep wanting to call Carissa up to come hang out or bring homework over since she gets off work early and I have all this time... but that's of course not an option. Last night the homesickness set in really intensely, and I broke into sobs. We usually eat out with my parents Sunday nights after church, and it was my first Sunday night away from them. Chris just hugged me and let me cry - which was exactly what I needed!


These crazy mixed feelings have taken me right back to fall of 2001. New at college. Totally alone. Walking into the cafeteria for orientation and not knowing a soul. Being jealous of those who already knew people and those who met people and bonded with people more quickly than I did. Thinking I would never find solid friendships there. Terrified of being alone on a weekend with nothing to do but study. Sneaking into the bathroom to cry so my roommate wouldn't see my tears. Putting on a big smile so that no one would know how lonely I was. But I refused to transfer home, because I had this nagging feeling that OBU was where I was supposed to be.


Back then, I could not imagine that a time would come when I would walk into the cafeteria and have to decide which friends to sit with that night. Or four years later, when the tears were coming, not because I was homesick, but because I didn't want to leave that place. Or seven years later, when I would walk down the aisle to marry the man of my dreams, surrounded by my amazing bridesmaids - six of whom I never would have known had we not gone to college together. 


So I guess that's what will get me through this homesickness here and now. Chris and I know that this is where we are supposed to be and now is when we are supposed to be here. We are insanely grateful for this privilege, and we are amazed at the events that have transpired to bring us here. Now I guess we just have to trust that the friendships will follow - and be grateful for free night and weekend minutes to call everyone back home! (Plus free anytime minutes to those on AT&T plans ;-) We really are blessed.


I almost didn't share this. I know it's long, and I know it's kind of sad. But it's what I'm feeling, and I want to be honest. Writing helps me work through these emotions, and maybe this will be of benefit to someone out there who reads it.


OH - and there's been snow! :-) Ha! Pure, sparkly, crunchy snow. Love it! I guess that makes the transition a little more fun. 

Rose Monkey... where'd that come from??

Well, it's an hour until my first class here at Southern... and I am camped out in the hotel with Ava, nice and warm while it's cold and snowy outside. Speaking of snowy, I went to Indiana last night, because that's where the closest Super-Wal-Mart was, and I had to call a friend just to say hi from Indiana. Indiana just seems so... cold... snowy... non-Southern... faraway! Obviously I'm showing my lack of an exciting life by saying this, but it's true.

So when I was talking to my friend, she asked what's with the name Rose Monkey? Wellllll, when I was tossing the idea of keeping up a blog, I couldn't think of a clever name. And that transported me to another time and place... 6 years old, on vacation in Arkansas with parents and grandparents... and going through a phase in which I named anything that came into my life Rose. In fact, had Ava come along back then, I'm sure Ava would have been Rose Bird. (That softens the blow a little bit, doesn't it, Ava? I mean I know Ava's not the most manly name around, but Rose?!) At some point on that trip, someone bought me a stuffed monkey wearing a pink dress - who became none other than Rose Monkey!

That story just illustrates how my odd little brain links random places and events... and really I could do no better coming up with a blog name than just going with the classic Rose Monkey.

Pluckin' out the old feathers...

So we did it!!! We are IN Louisville, ready to start school at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary tomorrow. I would say we have moved to Louisville, but we are currently living out of a hotel.

We were supposed to close on a house on Friday, but alas... apparently the closing process is a good deal more complicated than it was six months ago, so here we are, chillaxing with a contraband bird in our room. That's right. Ava, our parrot (who we originally thought was a female but later learned from the vet that he's a male), is currently shuffling around in his cage and intermittently calling out, "COME HERE! COME HERE, BABY! HEY BIRD!!!! BIRDY BIRDY BIRDY BIRDY!!!" all while we try to keep him undercover so we don't get kicked out of the only home we have.

Ava has also been plucking out his feathers - a truly disturbing habit he develops when he gets too stressed out. I think it's a visual representation of how we feel right now with all the waiting, waiting, waiting! :-)

I know this all sounds rather dramatic, but really we are loving it... for the most part! We are quite blessed because we aren't having to pay for the room. Because the banker feels bad for setting a closing date (and time) for Friday (at 3:30 p.m.), she is graciously covering the cost of our room until we finally move into our home. Which we hope will be tomorrow.

Until then, we're adjusting to Louisville life... to the Eastern Time Zone... to life in a place where we only know a couple of people. I think this will be an adventure. I will keep you posted on this blog as we go along, so buckle your seat belts (cheezy I know) and get ready for a ride!!!!!