I love October. My birthday month, cooler weather, and (at least in the Midwest), blue, blue skies. I have many memories of riding my bike and noticing those skies, and feeling they were particular to my month.
I keep thinking it’s the first week of October, because we’ve been so busy, but really, we’re nearly half-way through. I also keep thinking it’s the beginning of the school semester, but really, I’ve already turned in multiple assignments. I had a great visit with my mom and sister, and I have a new nephew. The world is full.
In the past two weeks, our school had an Ahimsa Day, in which I was in a play/dramatic sharing, and participated in a panel on forgiveness–I was representing the Christian perspective. (Tough to do, in one single-spaced page!) I published my brief remarks here.
Last weekend, I was the on-site events coordinator for a dialogue conference. Big ideas, great professors and leaders, me running around making sure catering, welcoming, materials…everything in order. Thank goodness for Matt, who takes some of my load with grace and aplomb. Dinner parties and a bridal shower thrown in for good measure.
I’m also finishing work on a project for the Jains, it looks like I’ll be going back to India this summer, and helping shepherd the Journal into more growth. AAR next month, plus Thanksgiving/Christmas with family. We’re re-booting the community garden.
So many good things. I find myself in a lot of “spontaneous thankful” prayers– just walking around thanking God for everything I have. As fall comes on, though, I am thinking about Advent, and the need to be a little more intentional about my prayer life.
Other notes: I’ve started reading the Game of Thrones series. Not great, but pretty good. I started using an app on my iPhone that tracks how deeply you are asleep, and only starts the alarm when you’re coming up out of a deep sleep. You have to keep the phone on the bed near you. It’s working, and kind of cool to see my “sleep statistics” every morning–the graph of when I was in deep sleep, dreaming, and when I was not. I’ve been driving more, with the manual transmission; it’s okay. Serving as a Teaching Assistant is going well, as is my work in the Writing Center. We’ve had Remy for a year, and I can’t imagine our life without him.
We housesit for two friends and they came back from a mini-vacation with so many beach stones. While we caught up, I played with the stones, organizing them by color and shape. Pleasing.
Some amazing Chihuly glass I saw while visiting my sister. Oh, the color. Oh, the abundance.
Cool old bricks in “Bricktown,” in Oklahoma City. I love how each one is stamped with the maker’s name. Again, pleasing texture.
Girl with dog and torch 