not all who wander are lost…

Last weekend was a busy one! Friday night I went to watch my little brother play one of his championship little league games with my family. It was a good game - really close and Andrew got on base several times, stole a base, and scored a run for his team. Then I took my other brother, Patrick shopping for new clothes - he hadn’t been shopping in several years and ended up with pretty much a whole new wardrobe. His fiance’ is excited to see him in new clothes when we go up to Boston the week before his wedding.

On Saturday, my sister Katie and I went down to Hampden for the annual “Honfest”.

The Hon is Not a Dying Breed

HonFest is a local tradition. The Bawlmer term of endearment, Hon, short for Honey, embodies the warmth and affection bestowed upon our neighbors and visitors alike by historic working-women of Baltimore. HonFest is an annual celebration in honor of these women.

Since 1994, HonFest has grown from a tiny Baltimore’s Best Hon pageant behind Café Hon, to a nationally recognized festival that covers four city blocks on Hampden’s very own 36th Street. In recent years, the festival has been acknowledged by The New York Times, Rachel Ray’s Tasty Travels, Nightly News with Brian Williams, The New York Post, Southern Living, The LA Times, HGTV, CNN, and just this April by The New Yorker.

We had fun walking around the street and the shops in Hampden. Katie especially liked the India specialty store and the local fair trade shop. But it was pretty hot and humid, so we didn’t stay too long. Then we went together to a fabulous bridal shower that my good friends Becki, Emily Joy, Erin, and Donna threw for me! Those girls are amazing! They made tons of great food, decorated the room beautifully, and had fun games and favors. You can find pictures of the shower at:

http://abiandandy.wordpress.com

That evening I had a good time with my family and especially enjoyed visiting with my Aunt Trish who came all the way up from southern Virginia (about 7 hours drive) to spend the weekend with us and go to my shower.

On Sunday, my sister Emily and I took my dad to the ball game! It was Emily’s idea - and we had a great time! She wanted to get nice seats for him, so we ended up trying out the “All you can eat” box seats. I had never done box seats before - they were really nice! Part of the deal was that we got our hands stamped and then could go out and hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, peanuts, ice cream, soda and lemonade whenever we wanted. It was a close game between the Orioles and the Pirates….but the Pirates won it in the 10th inning.  We really enjoyed spending the time with our dad and I really appreciate the great example of a caring, Godly man that he has always been to me.

Emily, Dad, and I at the game - Father’s Day 2008

My little brother Andrew kept himself busy while we were gone….he made a tent in the front yerd! He ended up sleeping out in it all night and I took these pictures of him before I left for work on Monday morning.

Last week I was exhausted all week.  I think the weekend away in Georgia wore me out!  I went down there for Memorial day weekend to meet and visit with Andy’s mom and the rest of his family down there.  I left work a little early on Friday and flew down to the Atlanta airport and met Andy at his gate - he left right after work on Friday and flew in from Fayetteville, NC.  His mom, sister, grandmother, and their dog all came out to the airport to pick us up.  It was great to meet them and we all had a good weekend.  See pictures from the weekend:
abiandandy.wordpress.com

So I went home early a few nights last week and slept, and I got to sleep in on Saturday (a rare treat these days), but I still don’t feel caught up.  Oh well.  I’ve got way too much going on, as usual for the next few months - nearly every weekend is accounted for already.  And I’m trying to wedding plan and visit with a lot of people up here since I’ll be moving away at the end of the summer!  Crazy times.

I created a wedding website to help keep all of our family and friends up to date on any wedding related info and let them get to know us a little better.  I just added a blog there too and will try to update that blog every week or so.

www.abiandandy.com

Feel free to check it out!

wow - it has been forever since I’ve put anything up on this site.  I have been pretty busy with a little bit of everything.  Youth group stuff is going well - we had an incredible time with our 30-hour Famine.  I was very impressed with the 20 middle and high school students who gave it a try and for the first time in most of their lives, voluntarily went without food for 30 hours to raise awareness, money, and canned goods for the many, many people around the world and here close to home who go hungry everyday.  It was a really neat thing to see them so motivated to let other people at our church know about all they had learned about hunger.

But my biggest news is…….

Andy and I got engaged!

On March 1, 2008

We had been thinking seriously and praying about the idea of marriage for the month or so before, especially since we found out he was moving away.  We took my parents out to dinner the day after Valentine’s day and talked to them about it and Andy asked for their permission to marry me.  So I knew it was coming….but he was really cute - we had a free Saturday afternoon and he wanted to go to the inner harbor again before he left town.  We walked around (it was a little windy and cold) and then we went up to the the “top of the world” (Baltimore’s World Trade Center - which the guide told us was the tallest 5 sided building in the country or the world?  I can’t remember, but something like that).  We were looking around when all of a sudden I turned around and Andy was on one knee!   He asked, I accepted, and we’re both really excited about the future together!

We were already planning to go visit with some friends that night, so we had a great time showing off the ring and sharing our excitement with everyone.

(thanks Emily Joy for the last couple of pictures!)

was celebrated last Sunday, Jan. 6th. At my church they have a neat tradition of actually giving out “epiphany stars”. These stars are simply a laminated stars with different words written on them. These words are supposed to be something to think about - journey with - throughout the year and see how God uses them in your life. Then on epiphany Sunday, whoever wants to can share about their journey with their stars from the previous year before we get new ones. There are always really interesting stories about how God spoke to people in different ways through the word that was on their star. My star last year was “power”. I didn’t have any amazing story of anything God did through that word….but I kept it all year up on my mirror in my bedroom and was reminded that it’s not by my power that I can do anything, but by God’s power. This year I got the word “Attitude” in parentheses underneath of it they had put “(positive)”. I am sure I will need to remind myself to have a positive attitude many times throughout this coming year!

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Happy 2008!

Hope everyone had a great holiday season. I had a good time of relaxing, sleeping late, hanging out with family, friends, and the boyfriend.

I know I’m late in posting holiday greetings and haven’t had anything up here in a while. I can’t even say that December was any crazier busy than usual….I just think I needed to take some time off to relax and refocus. I didn’t do or have a lot planned for the youth group and they were all pretty busy anyway - so it worked out well to take a short break. Now I’ve got to get back in gear!

Annual Family Christmas Movie and Dinner
(and we celebrated my brother-in-law’s birthday)

Here’s a pic of an original painting I just finished on Dec. 30th.

My friend, Tiffany, commissioned me to do this painting as a Christmas present for her boyfriend (who happens to be my “adopted” red-headed brother, Steve). Tiffany asked if I would do it way back in May, and I said that I would love to and thought I would have plenty of time over the summer to paint….well that didn’t ever happen….so as usual, I work best under pressure and I just barely got it done in time for their gift exchanging on New Year’s eve. I am not so good at cityscapes, but that was Tiffany’s only idea/request of subject matter - something Baltimore. So I decided to do a impressionistic view of the pub where we hang out most Wednesday nights down in Fells Point. I couldn’t resist adding Steve and Tiffany in the front….

He liked it. Tiffany was happy. It was fun to do and fun to get paid to paint (usually I give paintings away as gifts).

anyone who knows me, knows I strongly dislike snow.  Some have even seem me cry upon seeing snow….nurmerous times.  I just hate the cold wetness and the bleakness of it all….the white sky and world do nothing to inspire anything but sadness in this artist. 

When I left my house this morning, it wasn’t snowing.  As I drove to work, the white flurries started.  I decided that I was going to try and not be so depressed about it this year.  And today hasn’t been so bad.  I still strongly dislike snow, but I’m trying to just deal with it and pretend like it doesn’t bother me so much.  It has snowed all day.  But I decided to go out on my lunch break and buy a fun warm hat at Ross (since I forgot one this morning and to help with the cheering up).  Now I’m waiting around work since I have a meeting at church that hasn’t been cancelled as far as I know.  I don’t figure that there is any good reason to deal with all the traffic to go home, only to turn around and come back out again. 

Last night my friend Erin came over for dinner.  We had a good time catching up and talking about our weeks.  After dinner, she helped me put together my advent wreath.  I love advent!  Our church gives us an advent wreath kit each year with fresh greens, candles, and a devotional.  We made the beautiful wreath below (sorry for the picture quailty - it’s a phone pic) and then read the advent devotion for yesterday.   My family grew up doing advent and reading devotions after dinner.  It was nice to be able to share that with a friend!

This weekend was slightly a blur.  A good blur, but a blur nonetheless.  Friday was a relaxing night in with the boyfriend over for dinner.  Even though he’s going through a lot right now, we both just had a great time relaxing together and not doing or thinking about much of anything.  Saturday morning I had good intentions of getting to the gym…..but didn’t wake up until after 10am….so it didn’t happen.  I had lunch with my artsy friends, Jennifer and Alex.  Alex was in town for Thanksgiving during her off-shift (she works at a wilderness therapy place down in the mountains of NC) and always has great stories.  This time was no exception - she was telling us about the girls she works with and how she was recently stalking Ani Difranko in Ashville.  Good times.  Then Jennifer and I went to a bridal shower for a girl from our Bible study.  Made it home just in time to go grab dinner with boyfriend and head over to another one of my high schooler’s plays - Romeo and Juliet. 

After church on Sunday, I met with my 2 parent volunteers to go over scheduling and events for spring.  It was supposed to be a brief meeting, but ended up being nearly an hour and a half.  It was good to get so much done though and we were all glad we had taken the time to get it (mostly) squared away now - before all the holiday craziness.  I’m excited about what we have planned - but it also a little intimidating, because I know its a lot more than I did last year and going to be a lot of work.  But I think it’s still all manageable.  Especially when, as we are leaving both the parent volunteers start divving up all the tasks, such as scheduling, emails, getting parent chaperones, etc. - so that I can simply plan and run the activities and be there for the kids.  Which is great - because the details are what bog me down. 

Some things we’re planning for next spring:
- In January: my Bible study group of girls (young adults in our 20s-30s) wants to do a sleepover for my youth group girls where we share with them some of the things we’ve recently been studying about women of the Bible - maybe focusing on Esther and watching the movie “One Night with the King”.  I think this will be a really neat thing - I love to expose my youth to young adults who are living their faith - since there are very few young adults at our church right now. 
- In February: 30-hour Famine - which will be another first for this church.   The youth have been begging to do a lock-in and I decided if we were going to do one, it may as well have a good purpose!  And I just think it will be a good, new experience for them in fasting and thinking about hunger in the world. 
- In March: The youth have annually cooked, served, and provided entertainment for a fancy dinner to the senior citizens in our church.  It’s a favorite event for both the youth and the seniors. 
- In April:  Our church’s annual youth group retreat.  It was an incredible time last year - and a first for me to plan/write material for the whole retreat weekend.  A lot of work, but very worthwhile. 
- and we’re gearing up for our second High School mission trip.  And I’m really excited because I already have a parent chaperone on board!  Last year I was begging and God provided at the last minute - this year I’m really praying for more youth and we’ll need more chaperones….

It was a “big” youth group night (middle and high) - Sunday Night Live - this week.  And I had been praying about it and had done a little thinking/planning during the week.  I had a vague idea about the scripture point and thought illustrations through enough to know that I was going to play some games and do some activities with newspaper - so I had spread the word to parents to save their recycling for us.  But that was about it.  I unfortunately waited until Sat. night/Sunday to do most of my planning.  But it surprisingly didn’t take long to come up with the programming and talk for the night.  I was kind of amazed and wondered if I was slacking off and not going as deep or interesting as I used to…but after the night went off well, I realized that maybe I’m just getting better at it.  What used to take me days and days to think through just to come up with the ideas, then setup the details hours and hours ahead of time….seemed to have taken me so much less stress and time this week.  I guess I know a lot better how to plan activities that will last long enough, but not too long, know my youth well enough to know what they will “get” easily and what they won’t, and just am a lot more comfortable with it all.  We ended up playing games and making snowmen out of newspaper.  Then finding happy vs. sad stories and talking a little about them.  We talked about advent and Angel Gabriel bringing the “good news” and then they dramatically retold the Christmas story using newspaper costumes and different themes.  Sounds a little cheesey - but I’ve got a pretty crazy bunch that likes that sort of thing.  We did some worship and I read them the lyrics from the song Rebel Jesus by Jackson Browne (Bebo Norman recently did a neat cover of it on his new Christmas album).  We discussed the song and their thoughts about the Christmas season.  

The Rebel Jesus

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants’ windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes
They’ll be gathering around the hearths and tales
Giving thanks for all god’s graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus

          Well they call him by the prince of peace
          And they call him by the savior
          And they pray to him upon the seas
          And in every bold endeavor
          As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
          And their faith in him increases
          But they’ve turned the nature that I worshipped in
          From a temple to a robber’s den
          In the words of the rebel Jesus

          We guard our world with locks and guns
          And we guard our fine possessions
          And once a year when christmas comes
          We give to our relations
          And perhaps we give a little to the poor
          If the generosity should seize us
          But if any one of us should interfere
          In the business of why they are poor
          They get the same as the rebel Jesus

But please forgive me if I seem
To take the tone of judgment
For I’ve no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In this life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus.

On Friday night, I had a little time to cook - and made a meal that I really enjoyed.  I made this Chicken with Tarragon Cream Sauce.  It looked like it was going to be a little time consuming, but really turned out to be quite easy - only took 20-30 min.  I substituted dried dill for fresh dill/tarragon, and I used 1/2 heavy cream and 1/2 skim milk (next time I may try doing it all with skim milk and see if I can still get a similar consistency).  It was so good and creamy - picky eater boyfriend came over and actually enjoyed it too!  I served it with rice and salad.  Enjoy!