England...the picture of fogginess

believe it or believe it, this is my wee town of Penrith on Monday at 3:30 in the afternoon!! can you believe that?! 3:30!! it gets worse; it's completely dark by 5:30. sad i know. but the pic gives you a taste of what my hood looks like...pretty english huh? i must say, i like it.

anyway, life has been busy, but good. we had a fund raiser on Fri evening, it was a pudding night. not jello pudding, but dessert pudding :) you actually can't get jello pudding here unfortunately. i was very excited personally to have Mon off work for all but 1.5 hrs! which meant i could do all the mundane things of life, like going to the post office and the bank, which quaintly enough is only open Mon-Fri 9-5. not very convenient for anyone that works, but hey that's small town life for ya!! but back to my day's events, i also got to go the gym, which was nice cuz i had literally been to busy to go the whole week before and i got some shopping done! so all in all it was a great day!

as for now, i'm working, but not too hard and dog sitting! yep that cute little dog Maizie in an earlier picture is the one. Her owners are the people i'm staying with and they are enjoying a couple weeks in the states with Rachel's family for thanksgiving. she's made me realize i enjoy my freedom and selfishness way too much to want a pet of my own much less a child!! what solidified this decision you ask...when i realized i couldn't go out after church cuz i had to come home and walk the dog...yep, i then realized that to have a child meant giving up all freedom of what i wanted to do. some would argue there are other perks to balance out that sacrifice, but i'm not too sure...in case you're unsure of my level of seriousness on this topic, fear not, this is mostly said tongue in cheek!

my battery running out means i must bid you goodbye, but just for now

the picture speaks for itself..

"when i die, i may not go to heaven. i don't know if they let cowboys in. if they don't, just let me go to Texas cuz Texas is as close as i've been!"

can you imagine 41 songs about Texas? i can cuz my favorite "cousin" Jordan just sent me 2 CDs worth of songs about Texas!! it's awesome! the first country music i've listened to in 3 months or so... feels good!

this classic postcard is also courtesy of my way too cool cousin. all y'all from the south will be happy to know that it is now the background on my cell phone!

Jordo, what can i say... you've outdone yourself with this care package. texas ranger baseball cards, a pic of sponge bob, a don't mess with texas postcard, some good 'ol american comics strips, some pics from like 9th grade or something, and a few other odds and ends... you crack me up!

as for me i spent this past weekend away at a youth workers conference being renewed and inspired. it was a great time to get away and be renewed through some incredible worship times. and now... back to work!

Half Term

...so aparently time does not stop to wait for you to catch up. i realize it's been nearly a month since i last updated you on how i'm doing and you've probably given up all hope of seeing anything new on here. i beg you, hang in there. i will try to be a bit more consistent in my updates. but life does get busy, so i apologize for my lack of perfection!

this past week was half term, which means no school for a week!! here they do school in 3 terms as opposed to our 2 semesters. it's basically year round school. its kinda nice knowing you'll have a week off every 6 weeks or so. although, like school, its never really a whole week off. there's always some homework to do! but no worries, i got lots of sleep in my efforts to keep my body healthy so as to fight off horrible English flu and cold bugs. the first few days of the break i spent out in cockermouth with the Bebbs (Bebbingtons), visiting and relaxing. i don't recall doing much at all, which is just how i wanted it! somewhere in the middle of the week i took a couple of girls to the "big city" of Carlisle, which is just 20 miles or so north of us, and is in all reality a far far cry from a big city...but compared to Penrith it's the place to be for shopping! it was good fun and i got a great pair of corduroy trousers (pants quite often means underwear here!) for under 5 pounds from H&M! i was super excited about that purchase. in fact i'm wearing them now! sad to say that was actually the highlight of my week. i did some work the rest of the week and of course slept in every day!

this week i'm back to work and at full speed! we have a camp this coming weekend called Contact and it's for years 7-10 (6-9th grade). We're doing lots of last minute planning for that and our running our usual schedule. please be praying for the kids coming on the weekend as many of them are not Christians. Pray for us leaders that we have wisdom and energy and love, especially towards the end of the weekend!! this is a great time to get to know new students better and deepen old relationships.

just for humors sake, here's a couple of pics of some guys i work with and one of me "rockin" out on the drums just before a youth event we did! take care, until next time...