Coming soon... Eranus!

As a perk to the rental of the lens this week, I took a couple of shots for my friend's nonprofit website that I'm building for him.

It's coming soon, we still have to transfer everything over to his hosting company and register a domain name, but for now, here are some of the opening shots from the front page:

Woodruff Family

My sister asked if I could take her family's Christmas card pictures this year. Of course I said yes... and used it as an excuse to rent a toy for the weekend... an f/4 L 24-205mm lens. Oh, my goodness, I am in love!

Loving without strings

Sometimes we have a problem loving without strings.

I think this is because we're taught from a very early age to not get screwed over, so we want to make sure everyone/thing feels balanced and equal.

But that's not very biblical, is it?

We absolutely should love without strings. We should show love to others no matter what the price to ourselves.

Why we love the New Testament

Talk to any Old Testament scholar, and they will tell you the church by far does not concentrate enough on these texts. They will tell you that without this earliest of histories of the church, we cannot fully comprehend the stories of the early church (i.e. New Testament). While I agree with them on so many of these counts (please read your Old Testament! Learn about Covenants and Levitical law!), I have redacted why exactly we love the New Testament so much. Both good and bad.

• New Testament is a quick, easy read-While I feel Numbers is very important in understanding the exodus fully (who knew?), you have to get past all of those censuses and names that, to us, seem to mean nothing
• New Testament is one big, bad, life application book-Do this, don't do that, love the Lord, etc... Truly, and unfortunately, we only tend to read the Bible for what it's going to give us in a tough time. If you need to know how to make a decision, you probably won't be surfing in the part of the Bible that tells you not to mix meat and milk (PS-there is life application in the OT as well... In case you weren't aware, just read Deuteronomy)
• We secretly like to hear people getting yelled at-Paul was all about scolding some people for their bad habits. OK, so maybe "all about" is a little unfair, but let's face it, the New Testament is filled with Paul's letters talking to the sinners of the early church about what they do wrong.
• If you love science fiction-Revelation, 'nuff said
  

Life, unexpected

I've been updating a lot on facebook but I'm pretty sure friends are annoyed with me by my incessant updates. So I figured I would take it some place where people actually have to hunt me down a bit. Or just a place where I can talk to nobody. Just space.

I'm moving out of my house this week. I've had a couple of sad moments, followed by reminders that I'm not really moving out, just displacing myself for a couple of years. A friend came by and helped move on Saturday. I was a mix of overjoyed to have the help (I thought I could do it by myself, but truly there was no possible way) and kind of upset, to be honest, that this person (me) who has 1500 facebook friends and who knows hundreds of people in Charlotte couldn't find more than one person to help. If I had known someone only had one person helping a friend move, I hope I would've shown up. But maybe I would've been the one complaining that it was too early/too hot/I hate moving/fill in the blank excuse here. But as Kelli and I were lugging heavy furniture out, it would've been very nice to have manly strength helping. Still, I logged it into my Livestrong journal as 3 hours of weightlifting. What? Is that wrong??

Now that my furniture is gone, I'm sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor. My couch is still here, so I was tempted to sleep on that, but opted that a sleeping bag is a much better option. Molly had a hard time getting used to it, though. She would crawl underneath the entire sleeping bag and then realize my feet weren't there and get very confused. She's so used to sleeping with me, but I think she's going to be crated at night while we're staying with friends for the next month. I don't want to risk accidents, and then she'll have a definitive "it's bedtime" order. Oh, yeah, in case it wasn't clear, Molly's my dog.

We got our tuition bills a couple of weeks ago. $9800. For one semester. Of that, about $4000 is paid. I'm trying not to complain about my scholarships, really I appreciate that at least $4000 is paid, but if I really stop to think about it, putting that other $5800 (per semester) hurts a bit. And that doesn't include books. This is where I plug that if you happen to be reading this, I would not turn down a Cokesbury gift card or two. Just saying.

I had an interview on Friday. This has been my third interview. I decided this time around (for all three) that I was going to be completely, 100% truthful and me. None of this dodging questions because it's an interview or giving the "right" answer. After 12 years of being in the working world, the one thing I've figured out is that if you answer the way you know they want you to answer, you'll just end up in a miserable situation. So, when the question came up of "where do you see yourself in 5 years" I answered truthfully. Only God knows. For the first time in my life, I'm letting go (and letting God. Sorry, too cheesy, I know).

The ordination/candidacy process has been interesting. Don't get me wrong, I completely appreciate that the UMC runs people through the ringer to be ordained. But unless you love the UMC... and I mean really love the UMC... you're going to give up after about step 3. It's this corporate process where everyone answers the same questions and goes through the same steps and then at the end of the day if you jump through all the hoops just right, you're ordained. Poof. But if you really have the heart of a servant, you just want to serve. You just want your love of Jesus to shine through so brightly that there's no denying it. You don't want to wait 6 years and write 15 papers and take 15 written tests. You just want to serve.

When I get married...

A few weeks ago on Twitter, someone posted information about an organization called With this Ring. It's a cool concept. Basically, instead of giving money, you give away your diamond engagement ring and they hock it (my words) to give drinking water to a well in Africa.

My first thought was, that's a neat idea, but I would never do it. My engagement ring and the day it's given to me will be precious. One man, one ring. That's how I feel. No way am I giving up my engagement ring.

I started wrestling with that a little later, though. There's no way I would ever give up my engagement ring or wedding ring, but I would surely give up the diamond.

Weird random factoid about me that very few people know. After a hard break-up, I always plan an element of my wedding. I'm not going to tell you how much of my wedding I have planned, but it's a lot.

Still, as I have planned my wedding over the years, I have never been able to settle on what kind of diamond I want. I see people's rings and think, "Oh, that's nice" but honestly, I don't really like any of them for myself. And I have that disease that a lot of women have, which is that if it's not bigger than my friends', please do not bother.

So I'm putting this in writing. For whatever man gets to marry me (that's right, I said it, "gets to") please save up for a reeeeally nice diamond ring for me. I'm talking, a Tiffany's, platinum, 5 carat diamond ring.

But when it comes to actually proposing, give me a simple band that says something unique to us. And donate the Tiffany's diamond ring money to a cause we both feel is worthy.

Half-Marathon

Now that I've had a couple of days to recover (well, other than a wrapped foot, a band-aided toe, and sore muscles, that is), I figured I'd share my thoughts and experiences about the race.

First off, there is nothing more exciting than lining up with 9,000 people to run a race. Nothing. OK. Maybe Christmas when I was 5. And hopefully my wedding. But other than that, nothing quite as exciting. I found the first 10 miles extremely easy, comparatively. I didn't train quite as much as I should have. Although I was pretty diligent about getting the mileage in, I don't think I pushed myself hard enough to complete the mileage as quickly as possible. So, although the first 10 miles were a piece of cake, the last 2 miles proved to be nearly impossible. I actually had a thought go through my head of "Oh, my gosh, I'm not going to finish this thing."

If you've ever run in Charlotte, you know how hilly our best running roads are. I've heard other runners describe them as "rolling." OK, let me explain... I think of rolling hills as slight hills, not as hills that make you feel like you're hiking up a mountain. Not that there were many of these, but there was definitely one on Colville Road. The rest were ok, I guess, but many complaints were heard about the hill on Morehead. Honestly, I don't remember this. Probably because I was trying not to black out.

Getting to the start line was difficult. There were several spectators standing directly beside the start line, which is understandable, but for whatever reason the people with numbers on their chests trying to get through had no sort of priority for these spectators to move. I barely made it to the start line on time, and there were several others that were having a hard time getting there as well. Still, running with a crowd that large is pretty cool. Next time, I would like to be able to run fast enough that I fit into one of the pace groups. One of the struggles that any runner will tell you is figuring out which of the crowds you need to stick with, and which of the crowds will be too fast or too slow. Unfortunately, they do not offer pace groups for "extremely slow, barely making it through" runners. My only option is to speed up.

Like I said, the first 10 miles were incredibly easy. Although I wasn't running with anyone, there was a point (at about mile 8 or 9) where I looked around and thought, "Wow, this is so cool... having this many runners with me pushing through!" I kind of felt like we were on a stroll in the park with friends (except, running of course). I told you I was with the slow group.

I will definitely run with a fuel belt next time. I didn't want to run with a huge water bottle strapped to me, but the ones made with little bottles were super expensive. So, I did without and relied on the water stations. The water stations were correctly instructed to give us half a cup of water (any more than that will make you throw up), but I was still super thirsty by the time I finished. Next time I run, it will be with a nutritionist guiding my caloric, salt, and water intake.

The last 2 miles were horrific. Serious thoughts of stopping crossed my mind. And not in a "I'll just give up" kind of way, but in an "I'm not sure I have the ability to finish" kind of way. There was a band at the final (.1 mile) stretch that played "I thank the Lord for what you've done for me" and I literally started crying. I was really tired. I wanted to go home. Or, at least, sit down.

A friend asked me right after if I would do it again. I said absolutely not. Honestly, though, I can't wait for my next one. I'll just try to train longer. This was the start to my training. Next year, watch out!