Last night Mike and I got pets. We didn't go out and buy pets but took some from my parents house. Some of you may recall that my sister and I had 2 frogs, Nelson (mine) and Xena (hers). Well, since my sister has 3 horses, a dog and a cat at Dr. Dolittle's, oh! I mean my parents house, I didn't think she'd mind if I took the frogs.

Mike and I got them a new swanky home (a steal of a deal, big, beautiful vase from Winners) and some new decor as well (river rocks). Unfortunately, Xena was looking to be twice her normal size and after some research Mike found out she has hydrops--edema under the skin. It can be caused by a whole host of different things and there's not much we can do. So she'll either get better or head to the big pond in the sky. Between last night and this morning she shed her skin. We're hoping it's a good sign (I hope it's not because she got bigger again).

In any case, our African Dwarf Frogs/African Clawed Frogs/African Jewel Frogs (they have a few names for the same dang frogs) are 7 years old and have lived well pass their projected 12 months, and are now adding some froggy love to our basement.

Octobertastic

It's October and the sun is all shiny-like and giving a little heat. This means that soon the leaves will be crunchy and I shall smash them with my mighty flip-flops! I've very much appreciated the lack of rain. Beacuase of it, my feet have been unusually dry for this time of year. I only wish I had a hammock to curl up in with a blanket and some hot tea to nap. Oh, and right before that happened I would have to win the lottery so I could spend my afternoons napping in hammocks. I should start playing.

Other than day-dreaming, we celebrated Thanksgiving a week late with both of our families (Mike's on Saturday and mine on Sunday). Gosh, I love turkey! There were also a couple of friend's birthdays celebrated this weekend...always a good time. Our Hallowe'en costumes have finally been decided and now we just need to grab a few things to get them in order.

The timer is buzzing on the oven (just making my man cookies) so I should grab them before they mutate into blackened pucks.

Uno!

While waiting in a Shoppers Drug Mart line-up yesterday I heard a young cashier and what was obviously her young friend talking about how they needed their eyebrows waxed really bad. I had to stiffle a giggle as the friend said, "Totally, like, if I don't pluck I get a total Uno brow."

Now maybe this is new to the youngin's lexicon and I'm just too old to keep up with it now, but if my eyebrows could sprout card games I'd have a pluckin' good time!

Random is as random does

As if I wasn't random enough on my own, I've been tagged.

Here are the rules:
1. Post the rules on your blog.
2. List 6 random things about yourself.
3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post.

1. I'm OCD with the way I like my Starbucks disposible cups: The 'B' on the cup and sleeve need to line up with each other and the mouth piece on the lid needs to line up with the 'B' as well.

2. I have a stuffed Simba (yes, The Lion King) in a 'pouncing' position that I got in Disneyland when I was 12 or 13. He travels with me everywhere-from Kamloops to England, from Oregon to Australia-and makes a great pillow substitute in a pinch.

3. More than just disliking the smell or what not, I have a slight fear of outhouses. I have, on many occassions, gone to the bathroom in a bush when an outhouse was readily available.

4. I've had 2 concussions. One falling backwards off a rope bridge at camp and one being swept off my sister's horse by a branch while grazing him bare-back.

5. I have a terrible sense of direction. Very, very terrible. I get my left and right mixed up while driving all the time. My parents used to say that if you shook me up in a wet paper bag and I'd never find my way out.

6. I often pretend I can speak French. By often, I mean daily. If I dont know a word, I make it up. In truth, I took it until Gr. 11. I skipped class to go to Starbucks one day and it turned out it was the day we learned how to conjugate verbs. That messed me up for the rest of the year.

I don't know who's left to tag. If you haven't been, considered yourself tagged:)

Oh, and Mike blogged for the first time in a year.

On Sunday night we were at a church-type gathering, talking about culture in relation to faith and as a core component/belief of the group we were with. I've always, up until Sunday night, heard it preached the same way: "Yes! Let's engage in the culture of our day! Lets invite them to our church and engage them there!" I hope that doesn't come off as offensive. I don't mean to offend, but a lot can happen between my fingers typing and when I hit "Publish" and it gets to your eyes. But I'm not here to defend myself, just to share something I learned and cannot get out of my head since I learned it:

"The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood."

~John 1:14 The Message

I always have such bold intentions of keeping this more updated. And then life picks up and before I know it we haven't had one free weekend in September and my poor blog is, yet again, out of date. At the moment, I'm a little burnt out, on a down-swing from a stressful week, and am now suffering the consequences with a nasty cold. I drank some herbal decongestant tea and the good news is that it seems to work. The bad news is that it tastes like I steeped a gnome and they recommend 3 cups a day.

With Mike in school (ECE) 2 nights and 1 day a week it's been quite the balancing act figuring out "our" time together, the things we have to do and the things we want to do. We are not always entirely successful and often it's the later category that suffers, but, oh!, we are learning!

Recently I was at a womans retreat. We had the usual coffee and tea and yummy things to eat as well as stamping and making a card. But we also had some yoga, a game of "I've never" that turned a little PG when we ran out of things to say, and took some time to walk a labyrinth in reflective/contemplative prayer. The tables were decorated with sunflowers and quotes from various people. This one was my favorite and I'll leave you with it now.

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows that I can move in.

Let eveything happen to you: beauty and terror.
You need to keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself be seperated from me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

~Rainer Maria Rilke