I Must Be Delicious

A couple weeks ago, I had (what I'm pretty sure was) a spider bite on my cheekbone just under my right eye. (I've still got a scar.) Then a couple days later, I got another on my second toe on my left foot as well as a bite on the outer side of the same foot. Now, I'm pretty allergic to spider and insect bites & stings, so my foot swelled up quite badly. It was starting to get painful to walk. I'd lathered on the Benadryl cream during the day and took a tablet by mouth before going to bed. Luckily, I didn't have to go to the doctor (although I was about an inch away from going). Now, I have a bite on the back of my left arm very close to my armpit. This one's pretty painful and is getting larger.

My conclusion? I must be delicious.

Craziness

So, I'm reading this crazy book called The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. It was written in the mid 1300s by, you guessed it, Sir John Mandeville. It's pretty funny, but not in a hilarious sort of way, more in a "why that's odd" sort of way (but at times, it is humorous).

Pretty much this guy is like a tour guide explaining the way to the Holy Land. Whether or not he actually had been to the places he described, who knows, but he talked about them very matter-of-factly as if he had.

One paragraph he was writing about the way from one city to the next and then all of a sudden he wrote about this beautiful lady who had been turned into a dragon by a goddess and the only way to turn her back is for a knight to kiss her (as a dragon) on the lips. This is also all written in between professions of Christianity and why the Greeks are wrong for believing the type of Christianity they do and his is right. Now, if God is the only god, how could there even have been a goddess who turned a lady into a dragon?

Anyway, this book is pretty amusing. I'd recommend skipping the introduction, though. I fell asleep reading it. It's all about whether or not Sir John Mandeville actually visited those places and whether or not he was British; and then if he didn't visit those places and/or wasn't British, he was even more of a great writer for being able to write as if he had and was. Apparently this book was THE book to buy if you were travelling to the Holy Land.

So why am I reading it? My friend Keli did a paper on it and was describing some of the craziness in the book to me. My interest was sparked.

Has anyone else read this craziness?

Today is the Greatest...

Today, Chase found two possible houses to rent! One landlord even said we might be able to coax him into a six month lease! Sweeeeeeeeeeet! (Chase left a message for the other.) Both have reasonable rent. One even has a wahser & dryer. Of course, we still have to check them out.

More good news: my boss gave me a bonus today for doing a bunch of work so quickly.

And I got a good night's sleep for the first time in a long time.

What else? We're going to Agape Fest on Friday to see David Crowder Band. I got me some free tickets they sent to the radio station where I work.

And how could I leave this out? According to SmashingPumpkins.com: It's official, The Smashing Pumpkins are currently writing songs for their upcoming album, their first since 2000. No release date has yet been set, but the band plans to begin recording this summer.

Things seem to be on an upswing, praise God.
(And if they weren't? Praise God just the same!)

To House or Not to House?

That house wasn't exactly what one might call nice, yet it was expensive. Hmmm. I'd have to agree with Chase when he said it was perfect for three single college guys who would split the rent.

So, the home hunt is still on. No need to worry, we have back-up options, but we're holding out...

House?

We're going to look at a house to rent tonight! It's in a fantastic location super close to church and just down the road from the grocery store. There's already a washer & dryer, too. Hopefully we can get them to come down on the price a little bit...

The Greatest Show on Earth?

Last night Chase & I went to see the circus (Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's)...

... but I would not call this one The Greatest Show on Earth...

Don't get me wrong, I love Ringling, but this was a one-ring show and pales in comparison to the three-ring shows I'm used to. I feel like we got jipped! There were only two clowns, no big cats or zebras, no wheel of death, no fire, and there were dogs catching frisbees and a lame musical number; yet tickets cost just as much as the three-ring show.

We did get something out of this event: it is very important to discipline children! There were tons of way cute kids there, but the kids sitting behind us had zero respect for those around them. These girls were probably between 4 and 6 years old. Their mother and grandmother kept using soft voices telling them to "Please sit down" and "Be careful, you might hit someone" or "Tell that girl you're sorry" (girl referring to me several times when I got hit, kicked or grabbed). In fact, these children were given no consequences and got coloring books despite their blatant misbehavior. This made Chase and me very thankful that our parents cared enough about us and those around us to discipline us.

So, while this show wasn't the best, I would say it would have been a good first circus experience. I would recommend seeing a one-ring show if you've never been to a three-ring. But everybody should experience the three-ring show at some point in their lives. AND for anyone with a baby (or a baby in the futre), you can get a free ticket from Ringling.com.

Prospect #2 is a Bust!

Turns out the trailer we were going to rent is in a high crime area. We were told by 3 friends (one a police officer) we'd be better off not moving there... Needless to say, the home search is still on!

Yippee! We Won't Be Homeless!

I wasn't actually worried that we'd be homeless or anything, but I thought that would make a good title. This morning Chase & I visited a trailer that we'll soon be moving into! I'm pretty pumped. No more upstairs neighbors stomping around, 2 full bathrooms, 2 bedrooms and a little room we'll make into a study, an open kitchen, and blue almost shag carpet, all at a very decent price; what more could we want?

So, as Chase & I were standing there discussing whether we think we should move into this place, we looked over and saw what looked like blood splatters on the wall. The man showing the place to us had told us the previous tennant had gotten rowdy... Turns out it was actually ketchup from a bottle that had exploded...

Time to get back to work. I just thought I'd share the exciting news!

Pink Trailer

So we (and by "we" I mean "mostly Chase") have been looking for a place to move to next month. I gave Chase a bunch of numbers from the online classifieds to call. The first place we looked at was a pink trailer in Cambria. The fact that it was pink should tell you all you need to know... but here were some other details about said pink trailer... big puddle in the yard (possibly septic?), sinking floor inside, things rigged on the walls and across the ceiling, falling apart bathroom, gunk in the fake wood panelling, and an obviously homemade counter/bar in the kitchen. It was about what you'd expect in a pink trailer. Needless to say, we will not be moving there.

We do have some other prospects though! Chase looked at a townhouse today, got some more phone numbers to call about other townhouse/apartments, and found a (hopefully much) nicer trailer. God-willing we'll be moving mid-May into our second home together!

Let's Cause... a... Scene!

Wow. Chase and I went to go see The Format last night with John Robert in this tiny venue known as Hi-Pointe in St. Louis. I have to say it was an amazing show... definitely their best perfromance out of the three times I've seen them. Slight hearing loss, being bumped into repeatedly by these two drunk girls, and smelling like I rolled around in an ash tray was worth this show. I found a chair to stand on and took this sweet picture:

(You can click on it and see it a bit larger.)

Yeah, standing on the chair gave me a nice view over the tall guys who came and stood right in front of me and over the guy that was my size who came and stole my "window." I've come to the realization (albeit, not a new realization) that, in general, concert-goers aren't what you might call considerate. It's all about getting the best view you can get and shoving people out of your way to get maybe two inches closer to the stage no matter how much smaller they are than you (or in the case of the earlier mentioned girls, how much bigger).

How much this parallels to our human nature, and American society in general! We focus so much on ourselves and how well we can see the show that we fail to notice the five-foot-nothin' getting trampled in the pit. I know I'm just as guilty as anyone focusing on what I don't have or all the stuff I'm supposed to do that I miss opportunities to share and minister to others. Or I convince myself that other people look busy or just don't want to be bothered, so I don't even attempt to share Christ with them. I know I'm going to have get over this espcecially before going to Poland, where Chase and I along with Caleb & Keli will be sharing Christ for a couple weeks this summer (God-willing).

As The Format's song The First Single (Cause a Scene) says, "I've gotta get myself over me."

A Wedding, Some Peeps, & Shelley is Way Cool

This weekend Chase and I made the trek down to Kentucky. Andrea & Tye got hitched in Cincinnati. I've got a couple pics I'll post later. At the wedding, I saw some guys from Beechwood class of 2000, a couple guys I used to go to church with, and Shelley (the hottie) and her former roomie Julia. Ok, I'll post one picture from the wedding...


Sometimes I think it would be weird to see and/or talk to people I knew from high school, but it wasn't really weird to see these guys. But then again, I didn't really talk to them. Had we had conversations that lasted more than three sentences, it may have turned weird.

Talking with Shelley (the hottie*), though brief, was pretty sweet. For anyone who doesn't know, Shelley was one of the Young Life leaders at Beechwood when I was there, and she's a hottie*. She pretty much discipled me when I first followed Christ. She was, and still is, one of the coolest people I've ever met. I learned a lot of things about God and following Christ through her. My old NIV Study Bible is filled with highlighter marks from our Bible studies. (I think that whenever I saw something highlighted in her Bible, it must have been very important, so I highlighted it in mine as well.) Now, Shelley's a wife, a mom, and getting ready to adopt a bajillion kids... Okay, one here soon, and then probably some more. But I'd bet she'd adopt a bajillion if she could!

Chase and I want to buy some kids... er... adopt some day. Shelley's got some cool stuff about going through adopting a child from Ethiopia on her blog. I totally recommend reading it if you get a chance. If you're not into the whole reading thing, she at least has some way cute pictures of her kids on there. And if you're not into the whole reading thing, you wouldn't have gotten this far in reading my blog, so you can't use that as an excuse! Go read Shelley's blog NOW!


*I'm not quite sure how the whole "Shelley is a hottie" thing got started. I'm not the one who started it, but maybe I did send out a chain letter about it six or so years ago...