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Day’s Verse:

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens.

2 Cor. 5:1

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…Hopefully our tent will not be destroyed on this trip, anyway! 😉

Zoe and I are off to Lake Annette Thursday for my first backpacking trip of the year. Also, it is my first Dad-free backpacking trip, and I consider it a test of the skills I am supposed to have learned over the last 13 (or so) years of our backpacking together. We are excited despite the fact it is only a one-night trip – simple in and out, up to the lake and back. I am also keen to see if my hauling a 20-lb weight around in the backpack on my and Ian’s walks will actually help in a real backpacking situation. I anticipate us having lots of fun, hopefully staying out of too much trouble, and enjoying ourselves thoroughly. Both of us have plenty of backpacking experience, so I doubt we will have any major mishaps unless something crucial gets forgotten. Continue Reading >>

Did blogging catch on so well because people like thinking in short paragraphs? Because people like to fit the world into clever or valuable links summarized in a few words? Because people feel they are heard by putting their briefly-outlined lives on the internet?

– KF –

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Day’s Verse:

A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart is the spirit broken.

Prov. 15:13

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A blog worth reading – Mrs. Sundberg.

It’s funny, you know, that for years I yearned for summer. Now it’s a time of dry heat — try 100 degrees in the sun, if the Fergusons’ thermometer is to be believed — and long days. A certain type of calmness settles over everything, a feeling that though things ought to be done, they don’t need doing now. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll dig up the grassy ground cover like Deborah asked us to; tomorrow I’ll vacuum like Jane asked me to; tomorrow I’ll email the guy at WPI and ask some questions about transferring. Sometimes I wish I’d had the sense to go to a Washington state school or, once I left Clark, transfer to one. Why leave Washington at all? It’s a state of such beauty in the summer and calmness in the winter; at least there’s no snow. I doubt I’ll ever have a hankering for snow once we come back from Worcester for good. God’s good guidance follows us everywhere, however, and I do believe that now I’m in Worcester He has a plan for me there. Continue Reading >>

Saturday we joined thousands of over-the-hill couples in the afternoon sun at Marymoor park listening to Garrison Keillor talk us through a wonderful Prairie Home Companion. It contained all the best parts of his shows – Guy Noir, private eye; Lives of the Cowboys with Dusty and Lefty; and the sound effects man who does all the sounds (including some very realistic feedback, golfing, and helicopter noises) with his mouth. The show also included some excellent fiddle, mandolin, and guitar songs. I always forget how relaxing Garrison Keillor’s voice is, that smooth easy way of talking and ad-libbing that he works so nicely into the show, as well as the details about the show’s current location. He talked about Marymoor Park (said it was in Kings County; oh well, what’s a little misplaced “s”?) and throughout the rest of the show threw in references to Seattle – “come to think of it, he was from Seattle,” that type of thing. Lives of the Cowboys was set in Redmond. We enjoyed ourselves enormously despite the fact we sweated like pigs under the sun – it certainly wasn’t only 73 like dad’s car said when we arrived, and definitely wasn’t overcast and drizzling like the weathermen predicted. Ha! I smeared myself with zit-inducer… I mean, sunblock, and thereafter gained a fake tan as all the dirt particles in my viscinity magically stuck to me. I itched my face and my fingernails came back greasy and dirty. But it was worth it, and worth waiting for an hour to get out of the park, and worth being two of the fifty people at the show under 25, to sit there relaxing and listen in person. Continue Reading >>

Once upon a time… just kidding; I wouldn’t start a blog that way! I’m actually at the UW right now, in the Mary Gates building (I think) watching over 30 8th and 9th graders. They’re finishing their last day of a bioengineering camp that Mom helped put together and run. I got recruited to keep people on task and hold hands if need be. The computer lab is pretty nice, although they’ve got older monitors. The machines are running the 2003 version of everything, which is kind of weird since Microsoft is always reconfiguring things just enough to be confusing but not enough to be frustrating. Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:

He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

2 Cor 12:9

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Yesterday, checking on the baby birdie progress, I startled the remaining to birds. They had grown adult feathers and looked grown-up, but I did not expect them to both skitter away from me on shaky wings. They both landed in the garden, one on a bush and one hidden away. They have not come back yet. The mother found one of her offspring hiding, investigated it, and flew away again. I think the babies have left the nest for good – and even if they had not, Deborah cut back all the dead plants and made it a much less hospitable nest. We hope the adult birds will nest there again, though. (I hear small peeping outside, so perhaps they have returned after all. I hope so, because if they were too young to leave and only flew away because I scared them, they could die and that would be my fault.) Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

James 1:22

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Everything is so quiet in the summer. No hurrying to catch the shuttle, no smiling at strangers I see every day, no waving at the nameless WPI employee who hauls trash cans in a red pickup truck. No long hours at Clark alone, wanting only to have a place to belong, to be alone. Far from desiring to escape people, I find that with a return to Seattle comes an increased isolation—if that’s possible. Listen; you can hear Ian breathing as he sleeps, curled up with one arm outstretched, worried about nothing in the world. Continue Reading >>