In His Feathers

Fabulous news. The book is finished. The book that I spent many, many hours designing, researching, reading, typsetting and redesigning, and redesigning....long story. But it's done! And it's been printed! Here are some pics....my name is even inside.
The cover was designed by Rob Haan. Looks good, Rob.





I would recommend the book. It's about Sharon Bomgaars, a woman diagnosed with ovarian cancer. It's a collection of a few of her journal entries, telling her story as she lives through treatment options, her children growing up, and her dedication to her faith even as she comes face to face with death. It's pretty inspirational, the kind of story that will make you step back from your life and appreciate all the little things a little more.

Forever young

I had an interview today...to be a babysitter! I'm kind of excited about the possibility. I met the baby tonight and she's such a sweetie, just 13 months old, and so adorbable! Hopefully the parents think I'm a good candidate cause it'd be a good way to earn some spending money. Plus the family has digital cable and nice house...nice little perk. Never had a babysitting interview before.

On the other end of the age spectrum, I've also been paired with an elderly lady from my church to visit and call once a month or so. I just found out today, so I haven't had a chance to talk with her yet, but the senior center coordinator said she is super excited for me to come visit her. I'm pretty excited too.

Even though I love my neighborhood with so many young adults around, I kinda miss the 'family environment' I had at home. I think that's why I'm trying to get involved with a variety of things. Diversity is good.

post-concert 'can't get enough of the music' phase.

Most concerts I've been to have been pretty good. But now that I've seen third eye blind in concert, I know what a great concert is. I guess it helped that third eye blind has been one of my favorite bands ever since 7th grade when the infamous 'semi-charmed life' took over the radio. But as the lead singer Stephan Jenkins said last night, "we were kidnapped by the radio." 3EB's music is mesmerizing to me and deserves the devoted crowd that they have, despite the mere 3 albums released in almost 10 years. The vocals gave me goosebumps and I felt like I was in a dream. Ok, I know that sounds pretty extreeme, but i loved it. They played a solid 2 hours to a sold-out House of Blues and it was fantastic. ah. Unfortunately, the security guards confiscated my camera before I even got in the venue, so I don't have any pictures to share. That was pretty disappointing. Plus they charged me $2 to confiscate my camera til the end of the concert!

But pretty much this was a great weekend. Sar came to visit and we went out friday night with a few other girls, had a good time of course...right sar ;) Relaxed a lot on Saturday did some shopping, went church and an art fest, took a nap on Sunday. Beautiful.

insert catchy title here.

It's been a while since I last spoke on this blog. Maybe you don't care and if that's the case, I don't owe you an apology. However, I do know that some of you are devoted readers of my blog, so I'm sorry for the lapse of time.

A lot has been going on, so I guess I'll use that as my excuse.

This past weekend Dana came for a visit. It was great to see her again, catch up, and have some quality sister-bonding time like the good 'ol days of sharing a room with her. Ok, so when we shared a room there was no such thing as quality sister-bonding time and I'm not afraid to admit it. Most of our conversation back then was spent arguing over whose side of the room was whose and who was hogging all the blankets. Thankfully our relationship has progressed immensely and we can talk about much more important stuff :)

Today, Sar is coming in to visit. She's on her way to Grand Rapids for grad school, and Chicago just happens to be on her way! Tonight I think we're going out with some other girls and then tomorrow we're hopefully just gunna hang out and catch up on eachother's lives. i'm excited to see her again. I'm a little jealous of her as she is going back to school very soon. I haven't even been out of school for 4 months and already i miss it.

Other things that have been happening:
• The massive thunderstorm yesterday and the leaky bus on the way to work. I felt like I was in a sinking ship :P
• I saw The Exonerated on wednesday night (a play about innocent death-row inmates)
• In His Feathers has been printed (the book by James Schaap that I designed last semester) Be sure to check it out and look for my name inside :)
• My 3 month work review went really well.

Upcoming event: I'm going to a Third Eye Blind concert this weekend!!

sox-35th

I ditched work this afternoon and went to a white sox game with a co-worker. Don't worry, I had permission.




Me and my co-worker, Rachel.


These were the super ambitious kids in front of us. yes, they had 6 signs. It was difficult to see much of the game. But on the bright side, they were featured on the big screen twice. One time I could see my arm between their signs. It was special.


I obviously met Shoeless Joe Jackson

semi-charmed life

I've painted an extreemly rosey picture of my life here in Chicago thus far, but I must admit, I've had my share of home-sickness. Don't get me wrong, I still LOVE the city. I still LOVE my job (99% of the time) and I LOVE being on my own. But the past couple days have been pretty rough on me, as some of you have experienced first hand...I miss my family a lot. i miss my friends back home a lot. and I often struggle with my decision to move so far from my mom and my dad....both of whom I miss and wish I could be around more to support.

Thankfully I have a couple of amazing friends who've lended me their ears so that I could verbally dump out a lot of what I've been holding in the past few months.

I feel a little better today. Still not the greatest, but I'll survive.

If any of you have some favorite bible passages that may help me cope with my homesickness, or with my struggle to understand God's plan for why I am where I am....let me know.

hello planet earth

My co-worker showed me this really neat website where this guy developed a system to visually graph the structure of websites. He uses colored dots to represent different types of links found on a website and the whole thing creates this really beautiful artwork. He's also included an applet where you can type in your own website or the website of your choosing and see how it's structured. Check it out at: www.aharef.info/2006/05/websites_as_graphs.htm

Friday night I went to what you could call an art gallery opening. It was a group of high school students involved in an afterschool program that teaches them creative writing, illustration, painting, and dance. It really wasn't about the art, but more importantly, about the students. All of them were hispanic and based on some of their poems and short stories, most of them have experienced some pretty awful stuff as far as gang violence and death. Walking around to each of their tables was really interesting because every time I did I could feel a pair of eyes watching me. A couple times the artist/student came up to me and asked me what I thought about his/her work. Much more up-front and bold than I thought they'd be. But it was very obvious that they were proud of themselves, like this was their shining moment and they were drinking in ever little detail about it. It was actually one of the more stimulating art show openings that I've been to. The art was high school level or below, so it wasn't that, but the interaction with the artists was really good.

I found out about the opening at church last sunday. One of the creative writing instructors made an announcement at the end of the service and I ended up talking to her afterwards. She's about my age and her dad is the director of the program called AuthorStrate. We got to talking about why I was so interested in the program and she found out that I'm a graphic designer. Turns out, their non-profit just received a bunch of funding to buy a bunch of mac minis and software and start up a graphic design course, and they're currently looking for someone to help teach it! So she took down my contact information, and we'll see what happens from there. She said it would be about 3 days/week after school, or around 5pm. Hopefully we can work something out so that, even if I can't teach the class, at least I can be involved in some way. I'll keep ya'll posted if I hear anything more about this.

Hope you enjoyed the novel. Don't forget to check out that website!!

wanted: advice!

This is a free for all...make you're opinion count and give me some advice on my dilema!

I live in this apartment, this very nice studio in a great location, semi-close to downtown. I live by myself, therefore rent is not cheap, neither is the utilities (I have electric heat....come winter this will be spendy). Ok, so I have this apartment which I love, but it is expensive. Right now i'm doing fine financially, definitely watching my spending, but I'm still making more than I'm spending. However, come winter I have to start paying that heating bill and I have to start paying back my school loans. Neither one will be cheap, and this makes me a little worried about my future finances.

So, I've been praying about it...for quite a while, and I think God has presented me with an option.

I met three girls at church. All three went to Northwestern in Orange City, and they live together in a four bedroom apartment quite a ways north of where I live. Well, they've offered/suggested that I move into the 4th bedroom in their apartment. So yeah, that would save me for sure $400 a month on rent alone. Pretty insane.

So now I have to decide if I want to move again....making that my 3rd move in 4 months. The room I'd be moving into is pretty small and doesn't have a closet. Plus there is only 1 bathroom for 4 girls. I don't think it'd be such a huge deal, cuz the girls seem pretty laid back. But it's been a while since I've had roomates. I've always liked having my own space, especially if I don't know the other girls so well. So the idea of having roomates again doesn't excite me too much. Plus, it's pretty far from my job, so the commute would be even longer than it is now. Another factor is that their lease is up at the end of April. I don't know if they're planning on staying longer than that, but I for sure have to stay in the city til the end of May for my job. I don't know what I'm going to do after that...

But yeah, I'd be saving a lot of money.

So things are up in the air right now. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. Give me some wisdom.

the inner tourist

today was a sad, sad day. I had to say goodbye to Dani and Mike, who have been in Chicago since Wednesday evening. I think saying goodbye was so hard because we had so much fun these past few days! That and the fact that I don't know when I'll see them again. But we did have a blast, despite a few minor set backs like the airport baggage claim, the pouring rain and the broken elevator in my apartment. Four flights of stairs aren't the most fun. Other than that, I sure had a blast. Shopped a lot, walked a lot, shopped some more, walked some more. We went to the top of the Sears Tower this evening...it was pretty sweet, I have to admit. I wasn't too big on the idea at first, but I found my inner tourist and had a great time. The best was just getting to see them again and having Posty ridicule me constantly about being an artist. I think he wants to be just like me. :) I miss you guys already!
I'll post pictures of the weekend later.

what are the odds

I saw the double decker bicycle again today.

manna of my life

So I don't literally have manna. I don't wake up every morning to find the floor of my apartment covered with food for the day. But every morning I do wake up to abundance, blessing and generosity from the Lord in many other forms. They may not be as visible as manna, they may not even be as necessary to my daily life as food. But the things the Lord has blessed me with is the manna of my life. I am alive. I am healthy. I have a loving family. I have three amazing sisters. I have many close friends. I have a job. I have a place to live. I have an air conditioner. I have food in my fridge and clothes in my closet (an abundance of clothes indeed :P) I have eyes to see the world, the differences between people, and a mind to think about the things I see. I have a passion for art and creating. I have hope and I have forgiveness.

I have a lot. An abundance of manna.