Love, beauty, Page France, Awesome Chicks, Earl Grey Green Tea

Again, this has been a long time coming. I just want to note a conversation going on around me:

Chris is sitting next to me, asking Jenna questions from this game Andrew bought at the thrift store entitled "Urban Myth", where you have to guess whether the myth on the card is true or false. When asked whether slinkies were sold on every continent, Jenna's logic went something like this:

"Hmmm, that would mean they'd sell them in Antarctica...do they have stairs in Antarctica? No. I'm going with false."

Amazing.

Anywhoo, an update on my life:

I wanted to write a post a while ago about an amazing conversation Jenna and I had about the nature of love. Here is the readers digest version: Could it be possible that all love is Narcissistic? Meaning, when one falls in love, are they not simply falling in love with the version of the person they have created in their mind? Is love not simply finding someone that provokes ones own imagination, and fufills some prior standard that you have created in your own brain that you are simply projecting onto another person? Do you really ever truly love someone, or just the image that you have of them? This certainly explains why some people fall in love with aweful people, because they have only fallen in love with their own version of that person, not who they really are...Just a thought.

In other news, this past Saturday, we were blessed with a day off, meaning, for the first time in about a month and a half, we had more than ONE DAY OFF IN A ROW!! So, this is what 2 days off in a row looked like for me: (if you just want the "thoughts on life" portion of this update, just skip this section)

Friday:
The girls and I (steph is now playing a lovely song on the piano, I am quite distracted by it, and it makes me feel like i should be writing a love song or something right now...) planned a "boys appreciation night" for the 6 other male team members, consisting of us writing encouragement notes to them, and sealing them with corks in wine bottles, and then sinking those wine bottles with bags of stones in the lake, and then hiding building supplies in the forest for making forts on the beach later, then making a truck into a pirate ship, then getting them pirate costumes, then making them a treasure map with all their treasure/building supply locations, then having a sweet campout on top of a sandhill overlooking the beach, with grilled cheese and beer and wine and banana boats and smores and guitars and blankets and wonderfulness. (I am quite sad to say that because of their fort-building efforts, many a boy now has poison ivy. Woops!)

Saturday:
I wake up from my surprizingly good sleep under the fort in the sand at about 6:30, and I'm on the road by 10 (Getting a 138 speeding ticket along the way), heading towards Waterloo to see Joanna et les femmes fantastiques! We go to the market, I buy 5 packs of blueberries for 5 dollars. We go to Zellers, intent on finding a sprinkler to purchase and jump through on Joanna's lawn. Joanna's french friends come over, I get tired from lack of sleep and take a nap instead of sprinkler-ing it up. Later, we take a walk through Waterloo park, go to the grocery store, where I feel faint and so start eating the first thing that I encounter, which is a box of life cereal. We get some iced tea goodness at starbucks, hit up LCBO, go back to the house. We make bbq chicken and peppers while the frenchies make us home made pina coladas, and the 8 of us who have now assembled at the house decide to move a table and many many candles out on to the lawn to have dinner. The frenchies also make us sweet potato fries, followed by a home-made chocolate cake dessert that cosists of melted 70% chocolate...holy crap. I have wonderful table convo with Blythe, Jo and I take an encouraging walk around the neighbourhood, and I also bring the pot of chocolate mix along and eat the leftovers with a spoon while we tell each other how awesome we are.

Sunday

I meet Jenna at her house near Burlington, where I meet her parents who are wonderful, and her 1 year old dog who is actually 90 years old inside. We take the go train downtown where we discover downtown has actually turned into the Sahara Desert. We meet Laura Mensinga briefly in Kensington, where she tells me about her potential trip to Rwanda, and I get uuber exctied. Jenna buys a dress. We check out our potential new home for next year, and are greeted with a socially akward man who was exactly who I thought he would be, and also his socially akward room mate who stands around far-too-tight bike shorts and short shirt, while contradictorally eating a bagel and drinking a beer. Needless to say, we were discouraged. Then, we miss our train by 3 minutes, equalling more discouragement. But, all is not lost. We will renew our house-looking one of these days, and find the community we are seeking, or else create our own.

Regardless of the downs of this weekend, Jenna and I talked on the way home about how this summer has already been filled with thoughts of beauty and love. I am constantly romanced by God. I find everything beautiful, I find everything romantic. I find myself falling in love on a daily basis, not with anyone specific, but just everything in general. Every moment here (well, maybe not in the barn...barf) is beautiful. I get overwhelmed by the peacefulness of this place. I smile to myself throughout the day thinking about the beauty that surrounds me. When I'm away from this place, I desire to be back here, and I only hope I can find a place in the fall that makes me feel this alive. To feel a part of the beauty of God is something that I desire for the rest of my life.