10 Simple Pleasures

I was tagged by Catsi...so I guess people DO read my blog. Anyway here goes:

1. Going home on a sunny day after a full day of work
2. Having a clean apartment with a fridge full of food
3. Spending a day in the park with my camera
4. Getting a bear hug
5. Checking off items on my to-do list in my planner
6. Watching a good TV show/movie with good friends then discussing it afterwards
7. Sniffing warm towels fresh out of the dryer
8. Drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows
9. Finding and eating a good bag of gummy bears (where green = apple and red = strawberries) ;P
10. Taking a shower after a great workout

Hmm...who to tag (who hasn't been tagged yet):
ThePrefixAstro, brianchiang, AzN_homeboy, taitcha, lizaroo, Muchacha737
Write your own list and tag 10 more (I know I only tagged 6, but I don't have many blogging friends who I know read this...)

Portable Wealth

More thoughts from Sunday school.

So this past Sunday we talked about Abraham and his wealth. The question was, is our wealth portable?

My first reaction was, yeah, I have a bank account and am not a homeowner. However, as my table continued discussing what exactly wealth was, we realized that it includes social connections as well as education and experiences. That made me start to think: I've spend the last 4 years of my life investing time, energy, and money into my Psych education. Almost all of my decisions has been based on pursuing a PhD in the field - my current job and location is based solely on my career aspirations.

So...if God told me to take these past 4 years of time and monetary investments and to move to a completely new field to serve Him - could I do it? Although I want to say I could, at this point, I'm not sure I can honestly answer yes. It'll be something I have to wrestle with for a bit...

for the love of money...

Can't believe it's almost time for open enrollment for my benefits next year. I keep forgetting it's the end of September. It seems like just last week my supervisor and I were gushing over pictures of her daughters' homecoming. Apparently homecoming is coming up again in a few weeks!

I'm taking the money class for my Sunday school class this fall. One thing I love about how James P. is teaching the class is that he's not focusing so much on money itself, but seeing money as a representation/symbol of our relationship with the world around us. Last week we studied the fall in Genesis and how it severed our relationship with God (no longer walking with Him in the garden), each other (blaming one another), and God's creations (blaming the serpent, kicked out of garden, cursed to toil the earch). We studied how the end of chapter 2 described Adam adoring Eve and contrasted it against the end of chapter 4 with Lamech going home to two wives and boasting about the young man he killed. One thing I can take away from this is praying about how my attitude/use of money reveals my heart. For example, spending more than what's reasonable on fashionable clothing may represent placing my identity on appearance rather than in the Lord, pride and judgement against others, and contributing to the degradation of our environment through purchasing materials that aren't made from or processed by enviro-friendly methods. I dunno - I guess that's simplified a bit. Still, I'm excited about where this class is headed. This week we're studying the life of Abraham and how most of his life seems to (surprisingly) revolve around the accumulation of wealth.

Appropriately, last week's Time Magazine's cover story was about Christians who believe that blessings from God equals monetary riches. It makes me realize how our understanding of God is often so flawed and influenced still by the world around us.

One thing I learned on Sunday that I never noticed before is that God purposely took Adam through a journey of realizing his lack of a partner before providing him with Eve. I think that's kinda neat. I feel God often works that way: He has us realize our own needs before He provides us with the answer. I think that's why growing in our Christian walk is so difficult: before fully realizing our blessings, we must first experience what's void in lives without God.

"Spiritual Sundays"

I went skydiving on Saturday. Here are some pictures.

Having Church, Sunday School, and small group all on the same day is great - except come Monday I realize that I have a lot of "topics" to process through and have to focus on one at a time throughout the week.

Topic 1: Making Life Work
Pastor Chuck has been preaching through Ecclesiastes. This week's sermon was on Ecc 1:12-18 . His point, I believe, is that most of us are involved in the pursuit of "making life work." We accumulate knowledge and wisdom (through the media, books, school, each other) to find ways to make our lives "work". However, greater knowledge usually comes with a greater realization of our ignorance, and solutions to our problems may generate even greater problems. The reason that Ecclesiastes states "What is twisted cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted" is because we're never meant to be able to fix everything and achieve our "ideal life" through knowledge. Pursuing knowledge to this end is futile; if knowledge can solve our problems, we have no need for God.

I find that I spend a lot of my time reading magazines and newspapers to figure out how to practically arrange my schedule and lead my life from day to day. I have this idea in my head of what it will be like to live an ideal life. My language is usually filled with the phrase "I should." However, when I follow the schedule I create for myself, I tire out and start losing control over my life. Instead of getting angry at myself, I need to realize that my focus shouldn't be on what is the ideal life; it should be on living for God. Of course God values self-discipline and self-control, but instead of focusing on what I should and shouldn't be doing, I need to focus on the mission of God and how to honor Him and serve Him best with my time. Sometimes it means taking care of myself and doing things I enjoy, sometimes it means serving His church. I need to stop trying to be this ideal person living in this ideal life, and start praying about who God has created me to be and how I can best live for Him.

Pictures from DC

Baby Tai Shan trying to get to his mommy


Still trying...


There he goes.


Random giraffe

For the rest of the pictures:
Labor Day Pictures 1
Labor Day Pictures 2

Labor Day Weekend in D.C.

What a crazy vacation. I'll post pictures later!

Friday

• Flew into D. C. through the outskirts of Hurricane Ernesto - the plane was rocking back and forth even after we landed!
• Learned the wonders of the D.C. Metro system and learning about cool security things from Mel
• Lilly's goodbye party at Mel and Andy's

Saturday

• Deezy makes it to Mel and Andy's!
• Watching the Michigan football game with a bar full of Michigan alums
• Breaking my resolution to eat healthier by ordering nachos, chicken strips and beer for breakfast
• Sleeping through the 3rd quarter (I'm just not a football fan!)
• Shopping around Georgetown and rockin' the Labor Day Weekend sales with the gang and Audrey
• Grocery shopping with Mel, Andy and Deezy
• Trying very hard with Deezy to stay away from sweets
• Ended up giving in to BBQ chips and ice cream
• Cuddling up all together to watch a movie

Sunday

• National Mall with my girls: Hope diamond, Washington monument, Capitol Building, World War II Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Memorial, World War I Memorial, White House. (We tired out and gave up before getting to Jefferson and FDR)
• Crossing the border to Virginia
• Shopping at a HUUUUUGE DSW store and getting boots for $6
• Watching Friends bloopers
• Andy joins us at the bar
• Missed the last metro back to D.C. so instead taking the cab

Monday

• Meeting up with Christine and John at the zoo
• Baby panda, baby elephant, and other animals
• Sushi for lunch
• Visiting the Embassies
• Packing and plane ride home

Still trying to get my apartment together since I haven't really felt settled back home for over 2 weeks now. Work is picking up and I'm literally swamped with paperwork - yesterday I gave up working at the desk, pushed my chair aside, and just worked on the floor of my cubicle!

Murphy's Law

This has been an incredibly stressful week!! God is faithful, and things are falling into place...although a bit more last-minute than I would prefer! 3 applications in! I'm 1/3 done!! =)

Leaving for D.C. in 2 hours...this is NOT a good time to start feeling sick!!