Team Building... or something

He was in our building for a short time. He stopped by the cubicle I was in to help out. He visited other offices just to say "hi" and then he was gone, but behind him he left the smell of a thousand farts. It dazed people enough to stop their work. Oh it was bad. I have never smelled anything quite so strong.

Jayme at the end of the hall quickly yelled, "GET THE SPRAY!"

I turned around in time to see Carol sprinting down the hall spraying air disinfectant.

Now that's team work!

Sounds I love

• Leaves crunching under my feet. I can't walk between the buildings at my work without stepping on at least one leaf. I look like a crazy who can't walk in a straight line, but the complete fallness of crunching a leaf is worth it.
  

• Walking through a city by myself. It's noisy and quiet all at the same time. There are sounds all around but none of them are directed at me, so in the midst of all of the noise there is silence. I kind of image that that's what peace sounds like.

• Snow under foot. It's unlike any other sound. It's a mix of a zipper, a crunch and a rustle. It reminds me of walks in the snow as a kid.
  

• The roar of people at a party. If you take a break from playing Taboo and listen, it's interesting. It's loud and yet you can distinguish individual people's voices. It's a mix of everyone and yet no one is heard alone. It's the sound of community.
  

• Rain. It puts me to sleep.
  

Paris

I spent one day in Paris in July of 2005. We stopped there on the way back from India. We had spent the previous day touring the Taj Mahal, took a red eye flight to Paris and flew back to the states the following day. It was an exhausting trip.


I enjoyed Paris but I was tired and we didn't see much. We spent most of the day trying to read a map and find food. We ate in a McDonalds for lunch. I hated my team for that, but I got over it because I was running out of money and was happy to eat something.

My team was tired of seeing the sights so we decided to play one hand of Euchre at every stop we made.

We played at Sacre-Coeur Basillica:

On the subway:

At Notre Dame:

At the base of the Eiffel Tower:

At on the top of the Eiffel Tower:

That was our head nod to being tourists in Paris. Maybe some day I'll go back and really experience the city but for now I can say that Josh and I won a game of Euchre in Paris.

It's better if you don't read it. Really.

I know this isn't really a surprise to anyone, but my posts on the weekends are lame. Stupid NaBloPoMo makes me do it.

So here you have it. A lame post for the sake of posting.

And a pretty picture of fall:

Cranium

I love me some group games. Catch phrase is my favorite, but I haven't played it in a long time.... Last night Ben and and I had dinner with some other couples and we all played Cranium. It was such a fun game, but I didn't contribute to the team much. I couldn't spell Khaki backwards or act out "hormones". Ben did a great Kramer impersonation and another team member got frustrated acting out "Gone with the Wind".

It was a good night!

P.S. In case you hadn't seen enough pictures of Ben and I all dressed up, you can see our professional pictures from our wedding celebration here.

Interview

I had a phone interview yesterday. It went really well. I think that there is a good chance they will offer me the job. I'm just not sure I want it..... I've never had this problem before. At least we have this weekend to think and pray about it...

Car

We decided to sell the Honda CRV. Selling a Miata right before winter just didn't make any sense. We can always try and sell that in the spring if we need to.

It was a hard decision to sell the CRV. Neither one of us were really thrilled about trading either car down to a powder blue Olds. And yet, now that we've made that decision we are excited about it. We had figured that going into ministry probably meant that we would have less stuff and need to live more simply. There will always be people who need our things more than us and at times God may ask us to give it to them.

We try very hard to hold our possessions with an open hand. To enjoy them while we have them, but not mourn for them when they are gone. To treat them as things and not part of our worth. It's hard to do this. It's so very easy to get attached to so much stuff. Cars, furniture, clothes, random junk. It's very easy to view all of it as though it were ours and we have keep it. In reality it's God's stuff. He can do with it what he pleases. He will always provide for us. All we need to do is trust Him and be good stewards of what he gives us. The key is that a steward doesn't hoard things, he uses them for things that he thinks the owner would use them for.

So selling the car feels good. It feels like we are one step closer to where God is calling us. It's helping us take serious our commitment to live simply and without debt. We are doing it. We are making one more choice to get to where God wants us to be. And as much as I hate that old blue car, it feels so freeing to let the CRV go.