More miscellany

We just had a random update, but apparently there are lots of little bits of news to report these days, from the mundane to the sublime.

The circus came to my little town last week. Half a block from my house. I thought about running away with them, but then I remembered that clowns make me a little nervous. I also thought about recruiting some circus folk for some kind of clown ministry or liturgical acrobatics so I could get out of writing my sermon, but I restrained myself.





My landlords, who live upstairs, found a stray kitten. They're calling her Lucky, and she now lives in our garage. She is tiny and adorable, and very affectionate. She is clearly not quite healthy. Something's up with her eyes, at the very least, but she's such a little sweetheart. I hope she survives.





And, finally, First Lutheran got a new baptismal font. It's been in the works for a while, and I got to help my supervisor shop for the pottery bowl and ewer (pitcher). We found them at The Grand Hand Gallery in St. Paul, and what a fun project to get in on!





The two pieces were made by different artists but they coordinate beautifully, and they both complement the wood finish perfectly. The base was made by Nerstrand Custom Cabinets. It matches the rest of the chancel pieces and it is stunning.

Random updates

First things first...thanks be to God for relief from the sweltering heat. I hope I don't see this again anytime soon:





In other car-related news, mine recently flipped over to 100,000 miles. It happened as I was returning from my visit to dear little Annika. Note the speedometer; I pulled over to take the pic. Had to circle a parking lot a couple times for the last tenth of a mile or so, but I wasn't cruising along at 75 whilst simultaneously wielding a camera.





In the true spirit of randomness, check out these cute cows from the Iowa Welcome Center at Lamoni, where we stopped on our way back from visiting sweet little Dayla (and her parents, of course) in Kansas City.





Meanwhile, Sami survived the trip to and from my parents' house during my vacation, but she wasn't happy about it. She spent much of her time in Iowa hiding under my bed. At least she doesn't look particularly tense.





And here she is checking out some daisies I had in the apartment. Nice little snack for her until I deprived her by making them inaccessible. She has a rough life.

Latest randomness

It's been quite some time since a dose of randomness, so here we go...

• I've been a little skittish about chanting liturgy. It still isn't one of my strengths, but I did it of my own free will a few weeks ago at Trinity, even when I had an easy out, so I guess that's some kind of progress.

• Check out this classy set-up from a restroom at Sears at the Mall of America. I made a quick stop when my visitors from home were here, and boy am I glad I got to see this.

• I posted this on Facebook a couple weeks ago: "Yet another joy of small-town life: Today my postmaster called me to say, 'Just after you were here, a package came for you. Thought you might want to know in case you want it today.' Quite a contrast from my St. Paul mail carrier who used to literally throw packages down the stairs to my door." My postmaster is so great!

• Based on a piece of wisdom I found on the interwebs, I recently shifted my jewelry storage. Now I use some of my teacups so I get to enjoy their prettiness while being able to see my earrings better. And it freed up space in my jewelry box, which was getting over-crowded. Beauty and functionality together...it makes me happy every time I walk by.

• Mileage totals are gradually rising: 2,098 miles in April, 1,121 of them for church-related activity. After eight months of internship, I've put 13,261 miles on my car. Always on the go...and that doesn't even account for all the miles logged as a passenger!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I identify my ethnic heritage primarily as Norwegian, but I am one-eighth Irish (as closely as I can calculate, anyway), and today's the day to celebrate it! I love St. Patrick's Day.

In the spirit of the holiday, let me offer you a couple of well-known Irish blessings.








And a joke from one of my pastors:

What's Irish and sits in the rain? Patty O'Furniture.

Yeah, I work with truly awesome people. Enjoy the day!

Latest randomness

It's been a while...here's an overdue batch of random observations.

• My dad found two typos in my January newsletter. (They were corrected online, of course, so you won't find them, but I don't think anyone else caught them before they were printed.) I never do that, so it's a memorable event.
• In another small-world moment, a woman from Gol, who is one of my WELCA ladies, has a daughter who lives in the Kansas City area and attends the same church as my brother and sister-in-law. When she was there for a visit at Christmas, she figured out that the Dayla Jertson listed in the prayer concerns in the bulletin must be my niece.
• I did it again, and it's always at Holden! Wine on the alb, but much less disastrous than last time. Somehow I managed this without even touching the chalice. You'd think a tray of pre-filled glasses would be safe, but there were a few drops lurking on the edge of the tray. Fortunately they didn't even really sink in so they were easy to remove.
  
• December mileage: 1,724 total (943 for work). A lot of it was my trip home. January mileage: 1,444 total (974 for work). The monthly totals are creeping upward.
• Super-excited about the noticeably lengthening days. There may be a light at the end of the snow tunnel.

Another battle scar

Clearly I am not responsible enough to own an alb (liturgical robe) as nice or as sentimental as the one I have. First there was the unfortunate wine incident, then a few weeks ago this:





I had finished worship at Grace and was heading to Vang. I must have been moving too fast, because I caught the sleeve on a handrail on the stairs and it tore. Fortunately, I do have some basic sewing skills, and I'm quite happy with the repair:








Just a tiny pucker, not so bad. And by the time I finish internship, my alb will be quite broken-in and full of character!

No interwebs, but way too much snow

I haven't had internet at home since last Thursday. It's pretty much a miracle I've survived this long. Thanks be to God for the many generous and wonderful people who've helped me weather this crisis! I have a borrowed netbook for now, and a new computer on the way.

And you can tell how out of practice I am...apologies to those of you who are seeing this post after already seeing the half-finished one I accidentally published earlier. Crikey.

Meanwhile, I was not amused about having no internet while the heavens dumped a billion inches of snow on us. Or maybe like 16. Whatever. Check it out.


My neighborhood.

My driveway.

Target parking lot. There were piles this big all over the place. Much more typical of March than December! I did hear that our area has already had two-thirds of our annual average snowfall. We're in for a long few months indeed.

Toasty-warm apartment

This really should be filed under "even more randomness." You've been warned.

As I've said before, my apartment is lovely and I'm very comfortable here. One little drawback is the very drafty back door, which opens to the garage.*

I recently woke up one morning to a 58-degree apartment, and I knew the back door was the problem, so I promptly went to Target, the great problem-solving center of our time.

I got a full-size sheet and a spring-tension curtain rod, and voila: heat-retaining curtain. (My parents have been doing this at their house for as long as I can remember, so I can't take credit for the brilliance. But that doesn't make me less brilliant in general, of course.)

Within a few hours, it was back up to 72 degrees. Now it is usually 70-72 in most of the apartment and 52-58 in the back hallway. It may not be the most attractive thing you'll ever see, but that curtain works wonders!





Check out the billowing from the draft and the difference in pressure or whatever (geeky theories here and here):





* Soon this won't be as much of a problem. My landlord is insulating the garage even as I write this. And I think he's even planning to heat it, but I'm a little unclear on that part. Either way, it's very exciting!

Time for another random post...

It's been quite a while since I posted a string of random observations, and you know you love 'em! So here goes....

We had a baptism at Grace recently. The little guy did remarkably well through the entire service. His brother (who was probably 2) did well too, but was a quintessential 2-year-old. He roamed a lot and provided endless entertainment for all of us. Here's Pastor Judy holding the newly baptized during the final hymn. (The fact that I just up and took a picture should give you an idea about the laid-back vibe of this service! For the record, I do still remember the main point of the sermon.)




This frightens me a little. It's outside the gas station in Dennison. I have yet to open it, though there is a bit of morbid curiosity compelling me to do so. Sorry about the night-time picture. It's hard to tell, but it's just a big box with a flip-up lid.




It was bound to happen eventually...I finally met someone from one of my churches who attends Zion Lutheran Church of Amor when she and her husband are "up north" at their cabin or lake house or whatever. This is the church where my friend Phil is serving as intern, accompanied by his wife Rachel. I visited them in early October. Minnesota is a remarkably small state when it comes to this sort of thing!

My hair is turning white more rapidly than ever. I don't know if it's because I'm solidly 30 now (can't even say "just turned 30" anymore) or if it has to do with internship. Maybe both? Not sure how much longer I can hold out on the coloring....

And, finally, my mileage for November: 1,070 miles total, 654 of which were for Official Intern Business. I'm still not fully in the swing of visitation, so I'm sure it'll go up when I'm doing more of that driving on my own. Cumulative total is now 4,585. And I'm sporting some nice new tires as of late November.

So there you have it. Random minutiae. Consider yourself informed.

Voting and more

Random experiences from Election Day...

I got to vote in the cutest little township hall ever. My last polling place was the Lauderdale City Hall. It was just fine as polling places go, but the Warsaw Township Hall (which is nestled amongst some cornfields) was much more charming.








There's a big grain elevator in Dennison. Yesterday it was raining flakes of some kind of agricultural commodity. (Looked to me like little corncob bits but I'm pretty clueless about such things. Do they actually grind up corncobs?) Whatever it was, it looked pretty cool swirling around the curbs.








I got to ride in my first Serious Farm Pickup, complete with broken mirror, brake light that never went off, and an apparent inability to exceed 40 mph. My supervisor (here she is driving) borrowed it to transport some stuff, and I got roped in because we did a pastoral care visit together in conjunction with the transporting. Good thing I didn't chop off my foot with that knife that I didn't see until now!








Just another day in the life, eh?

Looking like home...

My new apartment is starting to feel pretty cozy. I have (almost) everything unpacked, I know where (almost) everything is, and I've even added some pretty stuff to the walls. So we've gone from this:





to this:





I am especially fond of the little red end tables, because I spray-painted them myself and they turned out great! For $16, I have two end tables that are tall enough to be easily reached over the arm of the sofa, and large enough to hold more than one drink. It's exasperatingly difficult to find those two qualities united in an end table, in my experience.

It's pretty crazy that a sofa, three chairs, and a huge ottoman only take up half my living room.

Here's the new addition to my space, a photo taken by my friend Rachel, which I won in a drawing on her blog. I chose the print because I knew I'd love the pop of orange, but I also love that it depicts the tulip that grew outside my last apartment.





I have one final project left to tackle: the photo wall. Here it is in the planning stages.





I'm sure you can see why it's not done yet. I thought about not putting it up, but decided I really need an infusion of family and friends in this place where none of them are local. My goal is to have this little section of my "cloud of witnesses" in place before All Saints Day (which you're sure to hear more about, since it is one of my favorite church festivals).

Nosy kitties and blank posts

If a completely empty post showed up in your blog reader a few minutes ago (I deleted it but I think they stay in the reader list), you can blame Sami. She always has to be right in the midst of the action, so here are her two usual positions when I'm at the computer.








If I were not holding the camera with my right hand, she would be sprawled across both of my arms. And, yes, I am outing myself as the nasty person I never wanted to be who lets her cat on the kitchen table. Rest assured that I thoroughly clean said table before anyone else eats at it.

Anyway, on this particular occasion, she somehow managed to hit some keys and publish a post before I had typed anything, even a title. She's a talented little nuisance, that one. I just wanted you to know that, despite my clumsiness, it wasn't my fault this time.

And, with that, I'll try to refrain from posting about Sami for a while, lest I become the crazy cat lady, even with only one cat. But if she suddenly publishes a post that isn't blank (it would most likely be a rant about me not feeding her in a timely fashion), I'll have to explain myself.

The ridiculous and the adorable

Ridiculous (and disturbing): Halloween/Christmas fusion on October 4.




Adorable: Southern sun + radiant in-floor heat = happy kitty.

More occasional randomness

Here's what's up:

I'm editing the post to add this fascinating tidbit: my mileage total for September was 1,508. Of that, 827 miles were for internship-related travel, the other 681 was personal (mostly those four trips to St. Paul and back). Thankfully, the driving wasn't nearly as unpleasant as I had feared, though that will surely change come January.

It feels like spring and the bugs seem to agree. The box elder bugs are out of control, though they stay mostly outside. The ladybugs (or Asian beetles or whatever they are) have moved in. I am walking the line between constant and merciless crushing or just cohabiting. If they choose their location within the apartment wisely, they escape my wrath. The creepy wormy things do not. There is no escape for them.

I have a cold and I'm not happy about it. It's been about a week and a half now and it's gradually improving but it won't just go away. That's what I get for my ongoing struggles with self-care.

Last night at confirmation, my eighth-graders actually remembered a lot of what we had talked about last week! I was shocked and ecstatic. It's gratifying to know that some kernels of knowledge are sinking in even though they never stop talking and rarely appear to be paying much attention. They are a great group, though, with really good questions. Last night they came up with arguments for and against flags in the sanctuary (all on their own, prompted only by the presence of the flags). And they twisted their brains into knots trying to figure out the Trinity, also all on their own.

My friend Jennifer is beginning her journey to Liberia even as I write this. I will really miss having her around for daily check-in calls, but of course I'm delighted that she will finally get to spend time in person with the man she would have married in August had his visa been approved.

Now I have to get back to sermonizing because tomorrow I head to Underwood, Minnesota, to visit my friends Phil and Rachel. And, of course, Klaus! Our other friends, Ben and Stephanie, are planning to come too, so it's sure to be a good time!

Awesome pastors

Just to share my excitement...a quick inventory of fun facts about the pastors I get to work with this year. I haven't even spent much time with some of them yet, so there's much more to learn.

And this doesn't even take into account all the other fabulous and fascinating pastors in the area with whom I attend text studies, conference meetings, and other such events. I'm one lucky intern!

Among my seven pastors...

• one started his ministry as a Catholic priest
• one has a passion for social justice and for the church's witness in society
• one has a deep love for the liturgy and its power to communicate something about God and our relationship with God
• one has published a book of devotions and has another book coming out soon
  
• one has fascinating ideas that sound like what you might hear from an "emerging church" leader, even though he's certainly not your stereotypical 20-something hipster
• one is a nurse
  
• one used to do congregational and individual mediation
• one is an avid golfer
• one keeps goats and other such animals
  
• one is a fabulous chef
• one is originally from Norway
• at least two or three of them can polka like pros
• they all have great affection and respect for the people they serve

Slices of rural life

Here we go...the first of many such incidents, I'm sure, with harvest season fast approaching. I took this picture through my windshield, since I was certainly moving slowly enough to capture the moment.





Somehow, though, getting stuck behind a tractor doesn't bother me even 10% as much as getting stuck in urban traffic. I don't know why that is. Maybe a tractor being out and about feels more productive to me, but I know the cars backed up on city roads are full of people bustling about being just as productive, so that doesn't really make sense.

It's probably just more enjoyable to be out in the open space with a lovely view of the landscape and fewer vehicles actually involved in the "traffic jam." Less claustrophobic than sitting in gridlock surrounded by cars (and their exhaust) with nothing but walls to look at on either side of the road.

Anyway, this happened on Sunday, the same day I saw 10 wild turkeys on my way to church. They were in two groups right near the road; sadly, I didn't have my camera out and ready. Lesson learned!

The turkeys seemed pretty interesting and a little out-of-the-ordinary to me, until my supervising pastor shared what she saw on the way to church, and my turkeys suddenly seemed much more mundane in comparison. She saw a man with a broom sweeping...wait for it...a gravel road!

If anyone has any ideas what that could possibly be about (other than a very unfortunate and seemingly hopeless case of OCD), by all means, share your thoughts. Could there be a logical explanation for this that I'm just not seeing? New workout trend of some sort, perhaps? Sweeping where there's no hope of ever finishing the job so you just have to keep your upper body in motion forever?

Pardon my randomness...

A few observations and occurrences as I get settled into my new home and start my internship:

• I officially set up my new post office box (which had previously been unofficially set up by phone) and found a paycheck waiting for me! Someone's on the ball here!
• With the paycheck was a $450 mileage check for September. I knew I'd be doing a lot of driving, but that is A LOT of driving. Methinks it's time to find some books on tape...Kenyon Public Library, here I come!
  
• I forgot how dark it is in the country! I hope my eyes adjust for all the aforementioned driving I'll be doing. I was sort-of caught off-guard on my first drive back from Northfield the other night. It's wonderful to be able to leave my windows open at night, though, without being awakened by building lights, traffic, and sirens.
• I'm super-happy that the Target and Cub in Northfield are only 10 minutes away. Just sayin'.
  
• I set up a bank account today and met three people who work there who belong to my congregations. They already mentioned the famous lutefisk supper at Vang, and it's like six weeks away.

More on my actual first-day experience soon!

All moved in

I made the move this weekend from my Luther Seminary apartment to my new place in Dennison, Minnesota.

I could not have asked for a moving day to go more smoothly, and I owe huge thanks to the dozen or so people who helped load and/or unload the moving truck. My parents, especially, are such troopers. They've helped me move eight times in the last 10 years and they still keep showing up every time!

Sunday was a tough day, saying goodbye to friends and to the lovely people of my teaching congregation. That's never pleasant, no matter how excited I am about what comes next. But of course we'll still be in touch. In fact, I spent much of Monday talking on the phone, video calling on Skype, e-mailing, exchanging Facebook messages, and chatting online with various friends. I really diversified my communication, and I'm grateful for these many options, as well as for the friends using them!

As predicted, Sami spent most of the moving day cowering in terror behind the toilet. Such a sad sight. But she seems to be settling right in to her new home, don't you think?





She's in seventh heaven with these nice, wide windowsills and southern sun. And, yes, that is a sweet old-school Winnebago in the background.

Meanwhile, when I arrived I found a very thoughtful welcome basket from my landlord and his girlfriend. It contained very helpful things like hand soap, hand lotion, tissues, new towels, and their phone numbers in case I needed anything. Plus a Dennison Days t-shirt just for fun.





I'm not as unpacked as I might like to be, but I did manage to find the necessary tools to make brinner (breakfast for dinner) tonight, so I'm making progress. Tomorrow is my first day of internship, and my supervisor's low-key plan begins at the gloriously late hour of 10 a.m., so we're off to a good start already!

Refuge from chaos

I'm interrupting your regularly scheduled "seeking beauty" series to bring you up to date on Operation: Move This Stuff. Packing began in earnest yesterday and I've made great progress. It's starting to look like a real-life game of Tetris in here as I stack boxes.

But my cat, Sami, had a little trouble with the chaos. Luckily, she found a safe haven between the panes of glass (or plastic, as the case may be) in the bedroom window.





She'll hang in there for the next few days, but moving day won't be pretty. Sami generally thinks moving day = apocalypse, and she hides under or behind various pieces of large furniture as they disappear one by one. Then she usually ends up cowering behind the toilet because it's the only thing left. Poor kitty.

New pastor

Yesterday at my teaching congregation, Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Roseville, we celebrated our first Sunday with our new pastor. The last called pastor of this congregation, with whom I worked during my first year of seminary, was here for 25 years, so it's a big change to switch pastors at that point. Our interim pastor served well for the last year, and really helped facilitate the self-study and call process. And now we welcome Pastor Tim Bernard, who returns to Minnesota from Michigan, along with his wife and four children.

The call process is a funny thing. You really have to trust the committee designated to handle it, because the rest of the congregation has no input until the final stages, where they vote on the recommended candidate. The congregation has to trust that the committee, through multiple interviews, a visit to the candidate's church, and prayerful discernment, has made the best choice for the congregation.

In this case, I think we're in good shape. This congregation did some thoughtful work on their self-study. They recognize their strengths and weaknesses, and they're open to new ideas (at least most of them are). I think Pastor Tim recognizes their strengths and weaknesses as well, and is eager to help them cultivate the new ideas they need.

He mentioned at the beginning of his sermon that people had asked him if he was nervous. He said yes, but not as nervous as the call committee probably was, since they'd have to take the heat if he failed somehow! But, no worries. Pastor Tim preached a good sermon, he has a warm and relaxed presence, and he seems to have energy around integrating children into worship, all of which is good for this congregation.

I'm only hanging around here a couple more weeks, but I'm looking forward to returning in a year and seeing what exciting new things are developing!