back in the saddle

I have not written in several weeks, so I’m pretty sure that anything I write tonight and for the next week will be fairly terrible, although I’ve been known to stumble into brilliance accidentally. That’s always fun. When you’re tired and cranky and want to sleep and feel like you’d just as well wipe your butt with printer paper and publish that instead of the words you’ve been hammering out for a couple years, and then instead of cashing it all in, you decide to write for ten more minutes and something beautiful lands on the page. It stares at you, blinking a few times like a young doe or a cartoon puppy, and you can hardly believe that it belongs to you and that it’s resting there on your page. It’s like the most wonderful thieving, when something ends up on the page that you never intended, something that you just stumbled into, but since you’ve found it, and since your hands happened to be the ones touching the keys at the time, you get to claim it as your own.

next week

I am headed up to Long Lake for a week at Pine Haven Christian Assembly to spend time with a crew of senior highers. My dearest friend Jesus, being so wonderfully omnipresent, will be up there as well. It works out great, you see.

I'm teaching a class this week on evangelism. I wouldn't mind your prayers. Not just for my class, but for the Holy Spirit to move this week and to shake these kids up in real and lasting ways. Pray that I can be a conduit of God's love and that I will have the energy to keep up with the campers! Pray that the kiddos come ready to listen to God.

Pray that I would be able to carve time out of the busy camp schedule to be energized by Scripture and time alone with Jesus.

I'm sure I'll have some fun pictures to post when I come back!

Sometimes it is overwhelming to love so much.

If I were crazy about just one thing, I could pour myself into that and that alone. I could hone my skills and dedicate my time to it.

But I like so many things. I feel a little spread thin.

THE NOVEL
There's the book to think about ... think about, work on, discuss with Anna, write another scene. I wish that I could spend more time with it, to be honest. If you were to ask me what I've been up to, THIS is what I have been up to. I have random moments where I'll suddenly think, "Toast. This scene needs to have toast in it." Then I will have to go find that scene and somehow manuever some peanut butter toast into the mix. It's kind of strange, I know. I talk about my characters and their struggles with my roommate, and I keep my ears tuned for anything funny that my co-workers say at work that could somehow wriggle itself into the text.

MY FRIENDS
I haven't even been a very good friend lately. I've been so focused on the book. But I know and love so many people, and I feel like I need to keep those plates spinning.

YOUTH GROUP
I love my small group. LOVE. Those girls are such a blessing to me. Still, I always need to be thinking about our next meeting. Thank goodness I've had so much help this semester with wonderful guest speakers (Kristin, Jessica, Dora, Tracy, and--tomorrow--Eir)!!

WORK
Always something going on with work. And often, it's not just a little something, but a biggish something -- like preparing a message to share with a youth group or school chapel. Right now I get a little break from those things, but I'm taking on some new responsibilities too, so ... busy busy.

CAMP
I am attempting to prepare a class worthy of the senior highers who will sit through it. I have seven pages of curriculum and eleven books checked out about Luke 15 and Jesus' parables. This is probably my most stressful thing currently.

BOOKS
There's so much I want to read! I am in the middle of Order of the Phoenix, Devil in the Details (about OCD), Irresistible Revolution (getting put on the backburner since it stirs me up), and Run with Horses. I have nine things requested at the library right now.

TRAVEL
I am driving four hours down to Sioux City, IA, for Danae's wedding on Saturday--and four hours back the same day! I decided just to hammer it out. I've also just purchased tickets to fly to PA to see Megs and Jordan for a few days. I had imagined that this visit would take place after camp--and thus, my class would be over with--but instead it's right before, so I have the added stress of needed to prepare for camp and my class while I'm on vacation.

BIBLE STUDY
I'm a part a community group with some other members of Trinity City Church's launch team. This doesn't take too much time or effort, but it's just another thing added to the stew. A terrific thing, and I am LOVING it. Plus we meet at the Lairs, so ... sweet babies too!! :-)

Blah, you all probably just thinking I'm a whiner. Maybe I am. It's wonderful, though, loving so many things. I just feel very stretched. I would love to take a month and just read-read-read all the wonderful things that I am interested in. But then I would miss my book. I want to write-write-write and focus on nothing else for awhile, but then I would miss my friends. I want to be a good friend, but if I don't have any alone time I will go mad. So, you see, it just kind of needs to be a balancing act.

But I do feel grateful. God, what a life You've blessed me with!

right now

I am sitting in my living room, on my couch, and in the room are two other people:

Des, a high school math teacher,

and

Matt, a high school math teacher.

So ... yeah. I will give you snippets of the conversation:

"Geometry ... Algebra Two ... double dose ... Trig ... Pre-Calc ... 'Alex, don't choke another student' ... failing miserably ... getting A's ... normal ed kids in a special ed classroom ... grade easy ... I am sexually attracted to numbers."

Ok, so not the last thing. Made that one up. But math teachers, I tell ya. I kind of want to ask a question like, "So what do you think of Goldbach's Conjecture?" or "What is a factorial exactly?" just to see where the conversation goes. I wonder if they'd like to watch an episode of NUM3RS with me.

I love the way Des' mind works. She was listening to Supertones lyrics: "My thoughts are like a circle with Jesus in the middle." She started to think about it geometrically, like with concentric planes or something like that. Now that is funny.

Matt just said, "Ooooh ... trig identities! I LOVE trig identities!"

I want to roll around on the floor laughing.

They would probably feel the same way if they listened to me with my writing friends. "Similes ... metaphors!! Imagery!!" We are big nerds too. I just want to clarify that I know that, so don't anyone get mad at me for teasing math nerds. I am an English geeks. It's all good.

***this is much later*** Now they are having a math argument ... something about elimination and combining like terms, and there is laughter resting right on top of my stomach, threatening to escape, and I think I'm just going to let it out. Kay, that's all.

picky typing

I starting writing seriously in high school, and even though all my poems were terrible and immature and image-less and revolved entirely around my future romance with Zac Hanson, no one else around me was writing anything better. When I was in tenth grade, the high school got internet access, and every student was given an email address. Since email was an entirely new concept to all of us (and to the rest of the world), we emailed each other. That is, other students in the high school. While they were sitting in the same computer lab. “Hey Terri!” I would yell to the back of the lab until she looked up. “Go check your email! I just wrote to you!” “Okay!” she’d holler back. We were too fascinated with this new way of passing notes to recognize the irony.

One study hall, with a pass to the lab, I was emailing Terri, who sat beside me, probably emailing me. I wrote:

Hey Terri,
We should probably look into the cost of renting an RV for our big roadtrrip.

I caught the extra r right away, but as I moved my pinkie to backspace to the offending letter, something struck me. I was going to delete the i and the p as well—and they hadn’t done anything wrong. They didn’t deserve to be deleted in such a quick, thoughtless manner—I mean, just because there was an extra, useless r in the word didn’t mean that I had to get rid of the original i and p as well. They were serving their purposes just fine, and there was no need to—in a sense—fire and replace them when they were in the right spots, doing the right things.
Instead of backspacing, I reached for my mouse, moved the cursor to highlight the second r (the first one had the most right to be there as it had gotten there first) and then deleted just that letter.

Sure, it had taken five or six seconds instead of one or two, but wasn’t it worth the extra time to see justice done?

This is the life of an obsessive-compulsive. Thankfully, this is one of the quirky, funny things and not one of the painful, hurtful things.

draft

EXPRESS HEALING

“When things start going better, they continue to go better.”
Dr. Kim Je Lee

“When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse for some time;
but when things once start going right they often go on getting better and better.”
C.S. Lewis

If the doctor and the scholar are correct, then I am in for a good ride.
Today OCD is less than a pin-prick in my flesh.
Tomorrow I do not even think its name.
Next week I am liberated of all medication.
A month from now I begin my national tour of public speaking:
“My Life as a Free Woman: Living OCD-Free.”

Within a year, I am married to a man in ministry/part-time model,
editors plead for my poems, and my size two blue jeans are loose.
In the evening, after I set aside my notebook of brilliance,
I turn to my charming husband, and I say, tentatively,
“There was a time in my life when I used to have troubles.”

Then we laugh—because what does that even mean?
Tomorrow we are throwing a party for all our closest friends,
and we cannot be bothered with memories
of by-gone days that did not love us
as we are loved now.

a letter to my alone time

Dear, dear alone time ...

How I have missed you this weekend! While I thoroughly enjoyed the company I kept this weekend in a large northern Minnesota cabin, I definitely missed you. I missed our times together, spent reading or writing or just chilling out max, relaxing all cool. That said, I'm very excited for our time together this week! See you SOON!

Love,
Jackie

hello facebook?

I am wondering if my blog will now be imported to Facebook. Watch out, world.

it's nice to be sure of something

When I realized that my favorite color was red, I wanted to make it a national holiday. You see, so many things in my life are so often unclear, so when something certain occurs in my life, I want to throw a parade. I wanted to hire a big band that would play the blues, only in a sassy, feverish way, and we would call them “the reds.” I wanted to break out my old high school trumpet and play a fanfare, calling all attention to myself for my big announcement: “Red. It’s my favorite.” I wanted to buy red dresses, make red art, take color crayons and find the perfect shade of scarlet and then carry it around in my purse. Whenever I could fill out an “about me” section online, I would write, “I am Jackie Lea, and my favorite color is red.” I wanted to have a “Red is My Favorite Color” party. I was absolutely thrilled to know something with certainty, to have no doubt. Blue had once won me over, and yellow was still important to me, but somewhere along the way, red stepped to the front of the line. When I looked up and noticed that it was on the winner’s podium, I stood to my feet with raging applause. “Let’s go around the room and say something interesting about ourselves.” “Okay, me first. I’m Jackie, and my favorite color is RED-RED-RED!”

posty posterson

Just trying to get back into the swing of things, into the habit of posting.

My friend Tracy is at 40 weeks in her pregnancy, and I'm the on-call babysitter for their 2-year-old Emma if Trace goes into labor ... I'm so excited! I can't wait for Lair Baby to come join us.

It's really so strange how I'm at such a different stage of life right now than many of my friends. Many are married, having children, living a very different life than I lead. And I like mine. I do. And I love that I get to love their sweet babies.

I don't know. It's just weird. My friends have been married for years and years, and I'm nowhere near it. (Or am I ... Lord? :-) ) Oh well. I'm writing a book. They are popping out babies and I have a baby of my own. They measure in inches, and I measure in pages. :-)

I'll be done now.

there once was a boy

whom i loved.

but he did not love me back, only a little bit.

just the tiniest bit to make me keep hoping.

one day i got sick of it.

i told him that i would always care about him, but i couldn't chase the friendship anymore.

the end of our friendship was very civil.

here is the saddest part of that story:

i still miss him.

draft

“Have you ever been to a tenebrae service?”
“Like around Good Friday? Yeah, I went to one at my church last year.”
“Tenebrae is Latin for ‘shadows’ or ‘darkness.’ What was your service like?”
“Well, seven votives were lit on the stage, and after each one of the seven last statements of Christ on the cross was read, one light was extinguished until we all stood in the dark there in the sanctuary and sang a hymn.”
“Imagine the darkness of that original Good Friday,” she said. “Think about it. Imagine being a Christ-follower standing there beneath the cross on the very day He died. This Man who had made such mighty promises is nailed to a tree and is dead. If I were there, I think I would weep at the base of that cross until my tears dried up and I simply sat in shock, staring at a dead body, hanging limp. Should I go home? Should I stay? What is the use of anything now? How will I readjust to life without purpose?”
“You’d feel like you lived a day too long, and now there is nothing for you,” I said.
“Exactly,” said Judy. “I bet those early Christians—in the interim darkness between the cross and the resurrection—could understand your misery.”
I waited. I was missing the point.
“On Sunday morning, Christ rose from the dead and conquered death!” she said. “Victory was just around the corner.”
“Oh.”
“The cross—that looked like the end of all hope that Good Friday—is now the symbol of hope for Christians today. We rejoice over the cross.”

trust

Over the past several months, some of the craziest/worst/stressful times have -- looking back -- been such lovely opportunities to trust Christ. I, of course, try to trust Him at all times, but as Scripture says, His strength is made perfect in my WEAKNESS. I am grateful that with Jesus, hard times can still be sweet.



Every August, I used to go to the Valleyfair amusement park in Shakopee and spend the day with camp friends. I remember one year (right before college, maybe?) when I finally decided to go on the Power Tower.

The Power Tower is a vertical thrill ride where riders are raised 250 feet into the air and then are plunged into a freefall at about 50 mph. You experience at least three seconds of weightlessness.


I was absolutely terrified and -- to be honest -- not quite sure how my friends had suckered me into this. Now, I'm not a coward, but I don't do always do so well with anticipation. I am scared of giant roller coasters not because of the tremendous drop but because of the long, slow, clicking climb to the top. There is too much anticipation. (Why can't roller coasters just start at the top? I seem to remember the Six Flags roller coasters doing this -- what a smart idea!) So the idea of getting strapped into a ride that would slowly raise you VERTICALLY up 250 feet into the air with the ONLY "reward" being that I could leave my stomach far behind ... well, it wasn't my favorite part of the day.


So, you take off your shoes and sit on this black plastic slat jutting out from the machine and get harnessed in, and then you're off. The slow, killer ride to the top.


I remember sitting at the top of the Power Tower, looking out over Valleyfair as the sun was setting, and the best way to describe how I was feeling at that moment was


SHEER TERROR.


But it was up there at the ride paused for what seemed like MINUTES, with the "fatal" drop looming ahead (or beneath!) me, I realized, God, I need You to get me through this. I need YOU to sustain me. I was surrounded by friends, but I felt it was just me and God up there on the top of the Power Tower. Me, glutted with anticipation and fear, and God -- and the knowledge that I had nothing to lean on but Him.


Meh, it probably sounds like a silly experience to you. I'm not sure how to describe it in a way that really captures how I felt at that moment, but I have never forgotten those stolen moments with my Savior up in the Shakopee sky. I guess that my point is that hard times can make us lean into God in ways that we just naturally DON'T when life is peachy. Hard times can really be so sweet.


These past few months have given me some hard-but-sweet opportunities to rely on Christ. They're incredibly uncomfortable, but it is such a lovely thing to be held by my Savior.

i am a terrible blogger.

maybe if I knew that people were following my blog, i would blog with more consistency.

so's you knows ... i've been working on the novel a lot lately. every day, actually. it feels good to be consistent. i'm reminded often of how much work is left on the book. i go from feeling wildly excited ("I wrote a BOOK!") to very overwhelmed ("...and it is not accomplishing all I want"), but it drives me to prayer ("Lord, make it all that YOU want!"), so that is a good thing. The entire process over the last two years has been intertwined with my relationship with Christ. my hope is that the final product (someday in the far away future) will honor Him-- that it will be something that He and I have written together, something that makes Him happy.

it has a long way to go.

currently reading: Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne (thoughts, anyone?) and Running with Horses by Eugene Peterson and The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle.

just finished: Goblet of Fire (relax, it's only my second time through the series!) and Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott.

next up: Crazy Love by Francis Chan. It's been pretty hyped up to me, so we'll see how it goes!

i miss people. i miss camp people. i miss the shadow of a boy.

i wish i had more time. Jesus, make me productive in the 24 hours You grant me each day.

i love my small group.

ana, anika, arianna, nicole, tiff, jessica, lauren, brookie, gabi. they are precious. i love love love them! they are sophomores, juniors, and (one) senior in high school, and i meet with them on thursday nights, and we have a ball. love it.

decisions

I am a writer. I have been saying so lately, with confidence. "I'm a recruiter--and a writer." It feels good to be able to boldly label myself.

Let me show you something:
1) I write with quite a lot of consistency. I write most days.
2) I am loving the process of writing a novel. LOVING IT.
3) When I hang out with friends, I want to schedule writing dates.
4) I have been drawing the line, telling acquaintances "no" when they ask for certain favors. This might seem kind of cruel, but it makes me feel devoted actually.
5) I turned down an opportunity to help host the NWC spring variety show (which would have been SO FUN!) because I want more time to write.
6) I turned down an opportunity to be the primary speaker for a week of CAMP because I knew that the amount of prep work would take me away from my novel.
7) I turned down an opportunity to lead a week of morning devos/experiential worship for the same reason as above.

In other words, writing is a priority to me.

Many nights I pray about my novel, the writing process, etc., and I often find myself thanking God for making me a writer. It's interesting because--well--if I wasn't a writer, I guess I'd never know the difference. But I am and I do. The other night I prayed that I delight in words but that I also delight IN THAT DELIGHT.

I am blessed. I am a writer.

And so long as the world hasn't seen my manuscript yet, I can say that with confidence. :-)

i'm honored.

I was asked to be the keynote speaker for a week of camp.

But that's a big deal ... and a TON of prep work ... five messages!

And I'm VERY busy working on a novel.

Thoughts, anyone?

oh my goodness, i'm in love.

this is emeline grace, the daughter of my college roommate tracy.

she's two and AMAZING.

don't you just love this picture?? me too.

i have long hair again, in case you didn't know.

blonde too.

i wonder

what makes me think that I will succeed at blogging this time around?

I consistently blog for awhile and then lose interest ... I'm guessing that that will happen all over again.

Today's thought: I love my co-workers. We laugh so much in my office! Today Brian, Jessica, and I pranked one of our student workers, who was answering the visit office phone. We almost made her cry, but even she thought it was funny once she knew it was us! (Sorry Brenda!)

Tomorrow ... who knows?

Love,
jackie lea

ash wednesday

I went to my first Ash Wednesday service tonight. We did the whole ashes-on-the-forehead-in-the-shape-of-the-cross thing, and I thought two things:

1) This is probably the most cult-like thing I've done in a long time.
2) I love these visual reminders in Christianity. From dust I have come and to dust I shall return.

Love,
jackie lea

i haven't blogged for about a year now ...

but what if I started again? Would anyone read it?

Life lately:

Writing like crazy! It's been nearly two years working on my novel, and it is coming along, although there is still a long ways to go!

Trinity City Church ... I am on the launch team of an Evangelical Free church plant in St. Paul.

North Haven Student Ministries ... I have a small (but growing!) group of girls whom I meet with on Thursday nights.

Northwestern ... still enjoying admissions. Love my co-workers and the high schoolers and the college students, all.

Jesus ... always amazing. Yesterday, I was singing "Jesus, Lover of my Soul" and thinking about how incredible it is that the Holy and Almighty God loves my soul ... wow.

What else, what else? After a blogging hiatus of a year, there is much to be said. But we'll leave it at that and see who still follows this blog.

Comment if you read this!
Love,
jackie lea

my book!

In case you didn't know, I've been writing a book since May, and it's really coming together. I just spent time organizing my book into chapters, and I'm very eager for the next stage of the process!

Pray for me!

um ...

the email dialogue spiralled into a hurtful argument. :-(

our friendship might be over.

got an email today

and it was good but hard. i cried. but i'm ok. really.

or at least i will be. :-)

i wrote an email today

in which i asked a friend if we were going to stay friends. i was pretty straightforward about things, and i may have ruined a friendship. however, it wasn't going very well, so something needed to be said.

... or am i just too demanding of my friends?

trying again

So I think that maybe I will start blogging again; I'm a little nervous that my blog will be boring, but I'll give it a go.

Right now, I am working on my book. I have a first draft and hope to have another one soon. I am still working with the big picture and not ready for line editing yet, but we'll see how things go! I'm so excited! I've been loving the process, and I hope that my book (about my life with OCD) will be interesting and even helpful to others.

Life has been good, pretty busy. New news: I am a teenybopper once again. This time around, I love the Jonas Brothers. :-)

book.

i wrote one. a first draft at least. and i'm proud of it, but tonight i wrote for about 2.5 hours and ended up with mostly crap.

it's friday night, just past 11, and i'm actually going to bed earlier than during the week when i have to work in the morning. i am SO tired.

headed home tomorrow, should be fun!

post a comment if you read this, so i know who's out there!

Campus Construction -- Summer 2008

to my sister

kristin,

it is hard to blog when it feels like no one reads it. i know that you are not no one, but yeah.

i yuv you.

the life i lead

things have been so crazy busy. too much so.

some fun stuff though! i went to the teen convention in rochester last weekend and saw camp peeps! FUN! then i worked quite a lot this past week and had a retreat with my NHC youth group this weekend.

and now i am sick.

goodie.

so i did pretty much NOTHING today. i feel like such a bum, but i want to get better.

i love Jesus and people. how are you, friends?

Jesus

He is so good. So amazing. So full of grace. I love Him.

oh this head

sometimes it is so out of control.

and seemingly connected to my stomach and sick feelings there.

blah.

Jesus

There is salvation in Your Name.

blessing

my co-workers are super fun, and i like them a lot.

we are currently at Le Bourget Aero Suites in Bloomington; we stayed here last night on our counselor retreat, and we had lots of fun yesterday. :-)

it's nice to like one's co-workers. thanks, Jesus. :-)

Remember, friends

That Jesus is not the means to an end ... knowing Him is not something to do "in the meantime" while waiting for a "greater" reward. HE IS THE GREAT REWARD. If you are saved, you have already received your life's greatest gift.

And there's still more to look forward to: knowing Him more, loving Him more intimately, and spending forever in His presence.

Amazing.

"Volunteering has been very good to us."

My roomie Desiree said this on Friday. :-)

We recently volunteered for the Newsboys concert at NWC ... and for helping, we got to attend the concert for free.

Oh, and um, MEET the Newsboys.

:-)

And we ushered for Acquire the Fire this weekend ... and on Friday, we got these awesome FLOOR seats (at one point Ron Luce was like RIGHT THERE in front of us!).

Hence, Desiree's comment.

Thank You, Jesus, for the great opportunities in our lives!

how is everyone?

update me on your lives!

i've been kinda crabby this week ... pray for me! I'M praying for me! haha! i don't want to be crabby!!!

Love,
jackie lea

YAY LIFE!

Thank You, Jesus, for my delightful family and friends, for the adventures You put in my life, for the opportunities, for the relationships, for the happy moments.

Thank You for JOY.

Thank You for the cross and for the resurrection, and thank You that we may know You.

so

i am writing poems.

who wants to see?

yg

yg
Originally uploaded by jarujav

my cute youth group!

life

oh life. it's so fun, isn't it? i feel almost giddily happy right now, with a tiny little titch of crabbiness. sounds contradictory, but i'm just telling you how things go. :-)

atlanta, for those of you who care, was great and difficult and hard ... my class is about "thinking theologically," and as we did our meta-thinking, i re-realized how much i love the Word of God. it got me thinking whether i should be in a theological studies program as opposed to the youth min leadership one i was in. being the lovely OCD-sufferer i am, i thought about it a LOT while in atlanta.

i've prayed about it and talked with people about it, and i've decided not to continue with the youth min leadership program. note: this does NOT mean that i don't want to do youth ministry! in fact, i imagine that i'll probably be "in" youth min til i grow senile. but i don't necessarily want to learn "tools" of the trade. i will likely never be a standard "youth pastor" at a church.

so, now what? i don't know. theological studies? they have it at NWC. writing? that's what i feel passionate about, but i don't know ...

part of me just wishes there were more TIME. i would love to have extra time to focus on God, Scripture, people, and learning. 24 hours, wow. please pray that GOD will show me what direction to go.

on a sidenote, i feel like i'm growing up. still crazy, just growing up.

oh, snow.

it's heeeeeere ...

i pretty much hate cold weather; i don't like bad roads and getting the bottom of my jeans wet. i don't like having to start my car 20 minutes before i leave somewhere.

so why was i feeling so happy tonight as i drove home sloooowly, pleased as punch to be a minnesotan?

:-)

blogging

why do i go through spurts where i never blog and times when i do everyday?

sweet minnesota

i'm home. i'm glad.

the past five days have been SO STRETCHING. i'll share more soon. in the meantime, you can pray for me. i'm not sure what i'm supposed to do with my life.

love,
jackie lea

my day

has been so long!!!

Got up at 6am; Linds took me to the airport. My flight was just fine, and the Atlanta airport was a piece of cake (so much for the warnings I'd heard!). My hotel is pretty great ... Southern hospitality, I tell ya! I picked up the phone and dialed the front desk, and they answered, "Miss Sommers, how can we help you?" Yikes! Haha!

I explored downtown a little this afternoon, nothing major. Tomorrow class starts! I hope I'm on top of things!!! Jesus, help!

How is everyone?
love,
jackie lea

tomorrie

atlanta.

pray!!!

love.

the update

LIFE! Augh! Crazy but I love it.

Here's what's up with me ...

Fall travel
Done! I've been on the road for most of the last month and a half, but I'm home again!

Grad school
Just one class: Thinking Theologically in Youth Ministry. It's going well so far, but I mourn a bit my evenings, which no longer belong to me. I finished my textbook last night (well, actually, I woke up [I'm sick] around 3am and read for about an hour, finishing it off), so that's good. Still, I have another assignment due this week, and then ...

Atlanta
I travel to Atlanta next Wednesday through Sunday for my on-site class. I've never flown alone before, and I'm scared. :-S

Youth group
Fabulous. Love those kiddos.

Church
Fabulous. Love North Haven. I've been there nearly a year now.

Jesus
More than fabulous. I adore Him.

hello?

anyone still read this? besides seestor? :-)

monday

i start grad school! pray!!!! :-)

grad school

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

i just booked my flight to atlanta in november for my first in-person, on-site class!

I'M SO NERVOUS ... AND EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!

sigh

finished my harry potter book last night. and cried.

missed the characters today. cried again.

obsessed with literature? who, me?

thought you'd be glad to know ...

that i feel like i am RADIATING happiness right now. :-)

it's 12:43am, and i'm reading book 7, and i love my life, and i LOVE my LIFE.

thank You, beautiful Savior, for ... everything. Your loveliness astounds me.

my life as of late

if i had to sum up my recent life-activities in 3 words ...

work
Harry
Potter

money

ack.

life

absolutely crazy. but still wonderful. but still crazy.

soon i'll be traveling for work and life will (in some ways) settle down for me, so i'll be a more routine updater.

how's life for YOU? post a comment; i'd love to hear from you!

thanks for asking, luke ...

i did get my blood test results back, and they seemed normal to the doctor. since things are NOT normal, i have to go back. :-(

great day!

Hooray, today was lovely!

Details:
church at wonderful North Haven (i'm really thinking about becoming a member) and seeing the youth group girlies

lunch

work shopping

made banana cream pudding

washed the dishes

wrote my next draft of my story for writing group

read HP5 for a bit

went to Vespers

now i'm home, and i'm happy! :-)

writing all that down, i realize that that might not look like the greatest day to most people, but i feel SO productive! and, as i said, happy! :-)

if i could talk to eir, that'd complete my night!!

lifelight 2007!

hooray! i'm back in sioux falls for the lifelight music festival, fourth year running (for me)!

a bit of history: it was at lifelight last year that i began to be a consistent blogger. :-)

i'm excited to meet lots of great new sodak peeps! pray for me, des, rachel, and sarah, that we connect with lots of kids and have a blast! :-)

bed time

but i'm up posting on my blog.

i love my life. i DO wish i could sleep for about 4 days straight though.

love.

happymeal

doesn't a happymeal just seem like something a person deserves after having their blood drawn?

i didn't get one for myself, but something about it seems quite right.

i survived today, OF COURSE.

results should be back in a week or less. pray for me!! love love!

doctor tomorrow

and i am scared to have my blood drawn. hopefully they will discover what's wrong with me though! pray!

love love,
jackie lea

long time, no blog.

i'm sick. pray for me! i go to the doctor on tuesday.

lots has happened!

camp was fanTASTic! but of course!

i spoke for des' youth group in the mankato area.

whit had a High School Musical 2 party at her place last night.

i love my life.

35W Mississippi River Bridge

Today it collapsed.

This is the road I take to go to eir's house.

It is a bizarre thing to watch news coverage of devastation that has occurred in my own backyard.

My stomach feels sick, and when it begins to settle, I look at the TV screen and there it is again. This is about 7-8 miles from where I'm typing right now. My roommate was ON this bridge 2 hours before it collapsed.

Please pray! The death toll is up to 6 so far. I feel so sick when I think that I might know someone involved. I am watching Facebook status updates to see that my friends are ok.

circular?

i have been a consistent blogger for nearly one year now ... labor day weekend will mark the anniversary.

congratulations to me.

megs!

she's back in MN for three weeks for a med school rotation at the U!

huzzah!

we had dinner tonight with amanda; then they came over to my house and we looked at megs' africa pics and watched her camp videos.

WELCOME HOME, MEGS!!!!

emmaline!

i went to tracy's baby shower today, and it was lovely seeing her! i saw her for about an hour last october, and not since then, so it was nice to not only go to her shower but to spend a few afternoon hours with her at her parents' house too.

yay for old friends!

yay for baby emmaline joining us soon!

it's so waaaaaaaaaaaarm ...

blah blah blah.

write to me, people.

love,
jls

stunning

that's what jada was in her wedding yesterday.

sigh

i'm lonely for some of my friends right now.

twins, kiddos, and lana

My office went to a Twins game! This is me and Rhonda, one of our lovely student workers. Her eyes are not always like that.

Twins lost. :-(


My cousin Jim has four kids: Abby, Matt, Kate, and Tommy. Jim's sister Cathy has one: Liam. Liam and Tommy both turned one. We had a party. This is Matt.


My dad ("Uncle Tom" -- actually Tommy is named after him!) bribed the kids to hug him for $5. NO problem for Abby; she loves dad! Matt too. Kate ... hates everyone. All she had to do was shake his hand to get the money, and it nearly killed her. Notice how uncomfortable she is!!


Lana and I went to lunch!! We ate breakfasty foods at the Edina Grill and chatted, and it was LOVELY. Oh I love her so much! Afterward, we went to a couple stores, including Anthropologie, where we found this book.


Here I am, posing with "my" book.


Me and Lanners!!! She's soooooooooooooooo great!!!

i miss

eir.
camp.
whit.
dro.
kevy.
megs.
camp.
b'dewayne mcgirr experiment.
my mom.
eir.
camp friends.
rochester friends.
college friends.
tracy.
camp.
NWC peeps.
camp.
eir.

a 2nd go

today i sat by my friend anna (who just started working at NWC) during our weekly all-campus "Office Bites" get-together, and i had so much fun throwing out funny comments back and forth with her.

if you knew my story with anna, this would seem more special to you.

anna was probably my best friend my senior year of college, but we had a major falling out. we weren't holding grudges against one another, but we basically couldn't be around each other without fighting. i didn't go to her wedding.

just recently we started a writing group together, and it has been great having her in my life again. we had a great talk a few weeks ago where i got to apologize for being such a jerk. she said i didn't need to apologize again, but i wanted to, and she forgave me. it was actually pretty cool.

and so today, sitting beside her out on the nazareth veranda, quietly firing out these witty one-liners during a presentation, i thought about how FUN she is and i realize how BLESSED i am to get a second shot at this friendship.

pretty cool, eh?

blah, etc. (cont'd)

at least now i've gone jogging.

i feel bored.

i mean, i have more than enough to do, but i miss people. my life is more fun when i have opportunities to see my peeps.

b'dewayne. i have 7 meetings/intervies/appointments/etc. at work tomorrow. sigh.

blah blah blah blah blah

i miss peeps; there's not enough time in one day; i'm really tired; i need to go jogging; i want to write beautiful things.

and funny things.

backio.

today, back to the shanty.

tomorrow, back to work.

next month, back to CAMP!!!

right now ...
i miss eir!

i have quite a lot to do this week, and i feel a little stressed. i'll survive.

love love.

Sonshine!

Sonshine was a buh-LAST! :-)

i loved having so many of my worlds collide in one location!

sonshine

i'm there!

it's so fun!!!!!!

pray for us!

love,
jackie lea

update for chas

first of all ...



I GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL WITH THIS GUY! He's on Big Brother this season. And yes, Chas, I've been watching. It's so weird!

secondly ...

kevy is fighting forest fires in wyoming this summer after a year at Itasca Community College. found out today that it's not what he wants to do for LIFE, but he's enjoying his summer. GREAT KID. loves Jesus.

kristin is working in st. clizzy for Preferred Credit. i just hung out with her last weekend when we found Kev's stuffed squirrel "Slappy" -- we were sad that he left her for the summer, but mom told us later that it was INTENTIONAL so Slappy wouldn't get hurt or lost or something. HILARIOUS! tough firefighter, pshaw! ;-) Kristin's great. loves Jesus.

mom is great. loves Jesus.
dad is great. loves Jesus.

in general, i love my family and they love Jesus. and i love Him too.

life right now

yeah, i haven't been a very faithful poster lately, have i? sorry to my fans. hahaha.

things have been great. i went home for the weekend and hung out with my delightful family (sans kevy, who is valiantly fighting flames in western wyoming). i wish he coulda been there. we had fun swimming and chillaxing, and we took dad out for his bday/father's day (both late) on sunday. he wanted to go somewhere really nice, really fancy ... culver's. hahaha!

i got to visit with lana on the phone the other night, and that was lovely too (as is she). AND i talked to TRACY yesterday, who is mighty preggers with the lovely little emmaline. (btw, to update you on my other impregnated comrades: alison finally popped out shawn michael, stubborn little bugger, and bizzers' cutieface miriam is still chilling and maybe doing gymnastics in her comfy womb.)

more than you wanted to know, probably. as michael scott would say, "TMI ... too much information. i used to say, 'don't go there,' but that's -- pff! -- lame."

COMING UP ...

writing group tomorrow night, and PACKING for ...

SONSHINE thursday-sunday. i am kinda exhausted thinking about days of recruiting in the heat, BUT i'm really excited to see so many people i LOVE LOVE LOVE. IF YOU'RE THERE, STOP BY THE NWC TENT AND SAY HELLO!!!!

life seems so busy sometimes, like right now. i'm trying to cut back, actually, partly in preparation for grad school this fall. I'M REALLY EXCITED!!!

for those of you who are prayer warriors, please pray ...
for me and my Sonshine crew
for megan, one of my incoming students, whose mom was diagnosed with bone cancer in her jaw. there are a lot of kids in the family, and megan's mom is in texas for surgery right now
for hot springs, south dakota, and the fire there and for the other wildfires
AND
for the brave folks FIGHTING the fires, like my baby brother kevin whom i am SO PROUD OF.

love love,
jackie lea

4th of July

i had a WONDERFUL time in rochester for the 4th. whit's family took me out for lunch, and then later, the hemmers and dora and katie came over, and that was great! we watched the camp video (hooray!) and ate some good food.

then WES came over! YAY!

whit, dro, jill, kellie, and i went to the fireworks, and IT WAS SO FUN! dora, whit, and i made silly like comments and comparisons for every firework. :-) hahahahaha!

then we went back to whit's house, and WES came over again and played Apples to Apples with us girls for awhile! :-)

whit and i got brunch with wes the next morning too.

I LOVE ROCHESTER. I LOVE WHIT. I LOVE BEING AT HER HOUSE. I LOVE ROCHESTER FRIENDS. I LOVE THE 4TH OF JULY.

another good day!

work went very well, had lunch with my office at chilis (awesome blossom, extra awesome, hahaha), came home, read, went shopping for jada's shower, jogged, wrote a bit.

i'm going to go sit down at my desk and write s'more. fun stuff!

I'M SOOOOOOOO GLAD TO BE WRITING AGAIN!

sweet productivity!

I prayed that today would be productive, and THANK YOU, JESUS, it was!

I got a ton done at work, had lunch outside with my friend Anna, and went jogging tonight. I read some of my new book tonight, watered the lawn/played with the dog, and now am sitting down to write.

I miss people a lot. I miss my camp friends, and I miss the NWC peeps. I miss my roomie Des, and I miss my darling eir.

And my arm hurts.

BUT what a great day! :-)



P.S. Ten points to anyone who can tell me what tree it is that smells SOOOO GOOD outside!

faith restored

thank you, lovely posters.



i went back to work today after being gone more than there for the last two weeks. i feel behind. i'm still leading my team, but the distance between me and number two is down to just ONE STUDENT. insane, no? i'm going to lose.

(fyi, we don't actually FOR REAL compete against one another; we're a team. but we do have friendly competition. hee hee.)

tonight: finish cleaning my room (it looks great), maybe go to borders, jog?, write for a while. sounds good to me.

my sleep system is all out of whack after sleeping so much while sick and going to sleep late/sleeping in, so i'm forcing myself back into the swing of things.



i just ate ice cream for supper. i am so irresponsible.

i need affirmation

post if you read my blog.

sometimes i feel like i'm mostly just keeping a diary.

one more day

home from work, still trying to "rest off" that camp bug.

i sure do miss eir. and a lot of the old gang. i hope whit is having fun at camp right now.

i am re-reading the narnia books. they're so great.

i'm overwhelmed.

i wish

i could write poems as lovely as shells that glow.

i miss camp.

this past week, going outside in the evening has given me strange reminders of pine haven. sure do miss being there, my fellow counselors, and the kiddos. and being away from the "real world." i'll be back in august.

eir asked for camp stories. here's an excerpt of my email to her ...

I LOVED MY FAMILY. it was probably one of my top three families ever, we had so much fun. laughed a lot. I laughed so hard that my stomach and back hurt on the volleyball court one day. I haven’t laughed like that in YEARS. it was so good. our family’s name was “the b’dewayne mcgrrrrrr experiement: awkward flowers of Kuwait” -- please enjoy. there was a boy in our family named matt mcgirr who’d never been there before, pretty quiet boy, and he was one of our family mascots. it was soooo great.



erick klein and I talked on the dock til like 2am one morning. that was great.


whit and I prayed on the dock in morningside one day. nice.



my family’s lip sync was so funny (at least to me); it was like an aerobics video. I was on the low-intensity side and eventually fell out of my chair and “couldn’t get back up” but tried to keep up with the leader nevertheless. tay thought I was funny!!!! yay!



on thursday night, they had 90 minutes of a “response time” where they could visit different stations like “I serve” or ‘I forgive” – and I was one of like 8-10 faculty who sat in the commons area, waiting to talk to students. we stayed pretty busy. I got to have three good conversations that day. sigh. I love camp. and kids. but mostly Jesus.



I taught a class. it went fine.



gavy was there. he shaved one day and I kept saying, “There’s that baby face I love!” HAHAHA.



Andrew prayed in his family like this: “dearbabyJesus …”



andy Siemens looks grown up!!!! crazy how they change!



London impressed me with his maturity and leadership even though Kevin and jay weren’t there.



paige allen is gorgeous. so is Tanya hahn.



buncha kids talked to me about nwc.



I LOVE EMILY STRALEY. LOVE HER.



lesseeee …. oh I don’t know, lots of things. DORA was in my family! I love her. we went canoeing one day.



megs’ and my activity night went GREAT!

camp and cindy

these are two tiny samplings from camp and from cindy's wedding reception.

see more pics on my facebook account!

love,
jackie lea

hotel

and exhausted.

i drove 6 hours out to two rivers, wisconsin, today to see my darling friend cindy, and it was SO WORTH IT. it was so much fun. 6 hours with her, her GREAT husband ben, and her fun friends. very fun.

we ate, took some pictures, and we DANCED FOR HOURS!!! it was great.

again, pictures to come.

but for now -- sleep -- then tomorrow: back to the shanty to resume "normal" life. :-)

THANK YOU, JESUS, FOR YOUR MANY BLESSINGS.

and for Your mercy.

back

and exhausted.

it was great.

God is so lovely.

i adore teens.

pictures and stories to come.




but first -- sleep. then tomorrow -- cindy!!!! this will be the first time we've seen each other in 3 years!! I'M EXCITED!

(but exhausted.)

goodnight!

CAMP

oh my goodness! camp is TOMORROW.

I'm so overwhelmed!!!

I'm so excited to SEE PEOPLE and to hang out and to worship with Dro and Whit and Megs and Jon and Erick and Heather and Dani!!!!

I LOVE CAMP PEOPLE.

Wow, I had a great day today.
Tricia made french toast for me and Linds.
Went to 9th/10th camp meeting; was great, saw camp peeps!
Bec and Matt and Mir came over.
Went to London's grad party, fun!
Jeff and Alyssa came over.
Megs is BACK IN MINNESOTA, and STAYING IN DES' ROOM RIGHT NOW, and GOING TO CAMP WITH ME TOMORROOOOOOOOOOW!
great day, eh? tiring too!

Plus, somewhere in there i packed and bought a swimsuit and did loads of laundry and wrote a note for london.

I'm really overwhelmed but just gonna deal with stuff in the morning. There's still work to be done before headed to Long Lake.

Oh Long Lake! Long LAKE!!! I'M COMING!

camp.

so very, very soon.

i love Jesus.

goodnight.

sequels

aren't they so sad sometimes? especially when you just LOVE the original.

i'm still processing. The Last Unicorn is one of my top 10 books, and I just read the short sequel to it.

It's SO strange ... I felt happy to be with those characters again. I could hear their voices, and when they said or did things, I thought, "Oh yes, that's just like her," etc.

And now it's over, and as I said, I'm processing. I guess it was a good, fitting ending.

I wish there was more to read. I should pull out the original and be with them again.

i have good friends

i really do.

got it.

exhausting. hahaha!

unfortunately ...

now my profile is missing.

can anyone say, "jackie is not an html whiz"?

figured it out

and now my entries are left-aligned again.

and i can bear to look at them.

i hate that my entries are centered

but i haven't had a chance to figure out how i screwed up the template yet.

how are you all?

love,
jackie lea