Basement Guts

Basement before.

Basement Now.. Stay tuned for "Basement after".
(This is the same view btw).

YESSSSSS

View from the condo (NITE)
View from the condo. (DAY)

Skiing. I essentially took a private lesson today and it was AWESOME. Unbelieveable. I can't believe I like a single solitary activity this much. It's ridiculous. You should have seen me this morning kicking my parents out of bed to hit the slopes. Like a kid on Christmas morning. Not many trails open not many people around.. but the man made stuff is just fine by me. I had been avoiding pushing myself or taking anymore lessons, but I am so glad I did it today. Got many helpful tips and improved my form considerably. Swiss Alps? Here I come!

Yeah Bears

Congratulations to the Wash U Bears Volleyball team on their NINTH National Championship!!

Tips toward more picturesque speech

Overheard.  Peter the Brit talking to my co-workers regarding a firm they were about to fire:

 

"Oh ya mean we have ta coll so-and-so and tell em they'ra packa wankas?"

"You mean we need to call and tell them they are a PACK OF WANKERS".

 

So funny.  Wankers.  Used in business conversation.

 

Ya pack a wankas.

Gott ist Gut

Before I get into the pics I have a few things to say! First and foremost GOD is amazing! So I am halfway around the world, feeling a lot spiritually dry, and not deserving of anything good from Him. I had been thanking God for the cool paintings I got to see that made my eyes tear up and my breath catch in my chest, and I asked him to give me something else. Today he started the wheels moving.



In our wanderings around Basel I noticed that there was a Basel Vineyard church office on our street. This was interesting to me because I know a lot about the Vineyard organization and I was excited to check out a service while I was over here sometime. However with all the travel and work I was hard pressed to get my carcass out of bed at any sort of hour that would get me to a church on a Sunday morning. So I went online and found that the Basel Vineyard meets at 5:30 PM (!) in a real live church building that is LITERALLY across the street from my hotel.





It is nuts.





I emailed the church and asked if they had any English services. They replied and said no but were happy to let me know that the worship songs were sometimes in English.


So I did some praying that I would get something out of the service and asked the God of tongues to help me out a little with the German. And boy did he. I walked into the church and it was very warm and inviting, a stark contrast to the empty churches I have toured in all over Europe. I spoke to no one and sat down. A man sat next to me and asked me in German if I would put his jacket on the edge of the pew. I said "English?" and he repeated in English. He then asked if I could understand anything and I said "not a word". So after the worship time (which was SOOO in English and SOOO familiar to me, I knew every song) this man TRANSLATED the ENTIRE service to me. We were annoying people around us so he moved with me to the back of the packed church to finish out. It was amazing. It makes the fact that I am going to be over here for nine more months almost exciting, and certainly bearable.



It was a wonderful gift. He said he wouldn't be there the next time I was in town, but I think sometimes words aren't needed.

Now for the continuation of the visual tour.





The Basel Fesitval at night in front of the Rhine:





A church in a quaint little suburban town called Arlesheim, and below Becky, Grace, John (in his easy to spot da-glow coat) and Dave.

Me "riding the weiner" dont ask.

Another Klee at the Basel Kunstmuseum (Happy Birthday Ange!!!)

IN Schwitzerland, it's not "Schwarm". This (and tons of other random words) was carved into a really neat wooden table we ate dinner on one night.

It was also way too "Schwarm" when we went "Swisser-dancing in Salsa-land".

It was awesome. Really awesome. I danced with a short Brazilian all night who only spoke Spanish, so I got to practice my Latin moves and my best second language! Hace calor, verdad??

A screaming Gargoyle atop the Muenster Church tower that we climbed today.

Below, back in Arlesheim, a JOHN DEERE tractor in a Swiss barn. Thought that was worth capturing. Even though the pic is hard to see... it's there alright.

Inscribed on a cave on the way up to the Arlesheim castle. I couldn't agree more.

This wine had my name on it. Look closely.

Cousin to the Zurich Blue cow and the Basel red cow of blogs past... I present to you.. the Arlesheim Cow. A cow of different colors.

More Random pics

Lausanne? Lugano? no LUCERNE!

Took a train to Lucerne today. I was so bummin that my travel-mates wanted to leave at 6:10 in the morning to get on the 7am train..."that one goooes faster, and we'll get there quicker!'... I would rather take longer, sleep longer and...why can't leave at noon again?
Anyway, I am not bitter anymore. Inspite of stepping off the train at 8:14, and freezing, and having nothing open until 9am, (Never thought I'd say this, but thank God for Starbucks) it was an amazing day. We couldn't see the surrounding mountains, because the lake fog didn't lift all day, but we did go see a few really 'rock star' things.

First, we sat at the aforementioned Starbucks and drank hot chocolate and dined on Luxemburgerli's and chocolate tarts I got at the train station.

'Luxemburgerlis are little yummy light treats that come in all different flavors. They look like little hamburgers. Buns made of meringue, and a macaroon filling. Oh they are sooo good, and they are so light, that they 'melt' if you keep them too long. The instructions on the box say "EAT TODAY" or something.

Then we trekked across the old wooden covered bridges to "The Lion". Amazing little tribute to some Swiss mercenaries who died defending the French King back in blah blah blah.

Inscription under the Lion says: "To the Brave and Loyal Swiss. "
I bought gloves and a hat as a necessity! It was nippy.
Then we continued to walk around Old Lucerne until my piggies hurt. We finally worked our way back toward the train station and into a museum where there were Chagall, Klee, Picasso, Monet, Renoir, Matisse paintings and sketches. Did I mention they had Chagalls? Oh man. I love his work. I almost cried when I saw a whole room full of his stuff, some I had never seen before. It was GLORIOUS. Happiness on canvas. He is quoted as saying:

"Will God or someone give me the power to breathe my sigh into my canvases, the
sigh of prayer and sadness, the prayer of salvation, of rebirth?"

I think God did:

And I sadly, cannot recreate it on your screen in the brilliance that it is in real life...

Another gift from God, to my eyeballs, and heart.

Sad-Light Savings Time

I have said before that my favorite day of the year is the day we get an extra hour of sleep.

 

This year I am sooo bummin because in Switerland, that is a different day than it is in the states, and as dumb luck would have it.. it's today.  That's right, the day I travelled over here.  Which means, that the extra hour of sleep not only doesn't count, it actually is worse because instead of being wide awake at 5:30 whining on my blog about jet lag... I'm wide awake at 4:30 whining on my blog about jet lag.

 

Oh the horror of missing my favorite day.   To add to the misery, since it is a different day in the states, the opportunity would have existed to have this day twice!  To get two hours of extra sleep on two different days, but alas, i will be in Switzerland when the States fall back, so I miss that too.

 

Woe is me.  I cannot think of a worse stroke of luck. 

 

:) 

 

Miss everyone already.  This is going to be a long, lonely stretch.

At a glance.

Listening to: Easy Silence by the Dixie Chics....Awesome.

 

Packing for:  Three weeks in Switzerland, one in Colorado, and two more in Switzerland.

 

Praying for:  Fanned Flames, Far away Friends, Soon to be Far away Friends, Giving Trees, a purpose.

 

Paying for:  Renovated basements, new luggage.

 

Hoping for:  Everything...

Door Numbah Three.

Ok Jan, Jan Meyers. I had you sitting on my dresser for awhile, and I finally read you.  I started to read you and couldn't finish you about two years ago.  So I picked you up again and I am so glad I did.

 

Because your words are better than mine.  I pray that if you read this and you are in the same place I am (and I know you are out there) that these will encourage you as they did me from "The Allure of Hope":

 

"When a woman finds herself thrown out of the Restaurant of Hope, abandoned to the cold dark alleyway, she can pursue the path of "hovering".  Hunkering down over the steam grate, she can lower her expectations to the basement and try to be satisfied with merely surviving. Or she can pursue the path of "clamoring", trying in her own strength to make herself beautiful enough to be invited back into the restaurant.  This pathway is a dead end like the other.  But there is a third pathway.  The final option in the alleyway is an option that feels foolish.--the option of hopeful remembrance and vision.  Frederick Buechner says, 'The world can be kind, it can be cruel.  It can be beautiful, and it can be appalling.  It can give us good reason to hope, and good reason to give up all hope.  It can strengthen out faith in a loving God, and it can decimate our faith'.  The alleyway makes this clear. 

 

Choosing to respond to hope requires courage, vision and patience. The third path looks like this: "How sad.  How very sad. I've been ushered away from the meal I know the chef intended for me.  As I look around this alleyway, everything I see is cold, dark, and lonely.  I'm going to slowly look around at the harshness of this place, and then I will weep.  I will weep for what has been lost.  Then I will set my gaze through that back kitchen window. From just the right angle, I'm able to see the table where I once sat.  As the back door opens and closes, the aromas of the kitchen hit my senses and remind me of what I had.  I will not cover my eyes; I will not cover my nose.  I will allow myself to be reminded of what was.  And I will wait.  I will not wait merely for the meal to be restored to me --THAT MAY NEVER HAPPEN.  But I will wait for God.  It is His gaze, His care for me that haunts me, and His seeming abandonment that puzzles me.  In the waiting I will wrestle with my own personal dilemma with the chef.  And in the waiting I will offer my presence to those around me; I will find opportunities to love."

 

And a Child Shall Lead them...

"Hope is a Bastard."

 

...I am often heard saying.

 

It is.  Hope for what your heart really wants and you will likely be disappointed.  Unless...

 

Unless, as Brad said, sitting on my couch: "Unless your Hope is in Christ.."  Unless it's in the one thing that does not, that cannot, disappoint.

 

I take a hard look at life these days and it seems I, as usual, need to be kicked in the actual teeth before I use my spiritual eyes.  In a world where decay and wrinkles and death and heartbreak and betrayal and cancer are inevitable, I have been shown reasons to hope.  Redemption is all around us, if we would look.

 

God is teaching me hard lessons to grasp, in relatively easy ways.  Comparatively speaking, that is.

 

A little Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (or Supernanny..love it!) sometimes are all it takes to make me recognize how easy peasy I have it.  Talk about some REDEMPTIVE TV. 

 

A little 8 year old gal who had been fighting cancer just found out that she has it again.  A little spitfire girl, who, the first time around, started saving her change and buying stuffed animals for other kids in the hospital who were fighting cancer.  So of COURSE they are gonna build that girl and her family a house.  GEEZ, I'd build this kid a house myself.  When they interviewed her this little girl without a single hair on her head and an inexplicable light in her eye, when asked where her energy came from, she said:  "We pray... A LOT.  I love praying, it makes me feel better." 

 

Accuse me of being over-emotional... or even naive, or even dumb, but when you have faith like a CHILD.  Like a CHILD with nearly incurable CANCER... When you aim at heaven... sometimes Earth gets thrown in.    Aim at Heaven and you spend your nickels and dimes on teddy bears for others, and you also heal.  Aim and Earth, and gripe about your lack of healing and you just have two kinds of cancer.  Aim at Earth and that is what makes you say things like "Hope is a Bastard".Or something like that.

 

Man.  God is Good. Yes, even the God who allows all things to happen, all tragedies to assail his children... all chemotherapy... of all sorts.  

 

Man can be good also.  We are not a hopeless race, doomed to destroy each other.  There is hope.  Even if it comes in waves.

 

There is also an Extreme Home Mansion for each of us in the hereafter.  Perhaps complete with every video game system ever conceived.  Perhaps something better.  Like a Citrus s Peach Fresca drinking fountain.   Whatever it is.. it will have my name on it, and it will...FOR SURE... make my eyes bug out of my head.

 

 

And me without my chalk...

As seen in a department store.

Needless to say, this visibly startled me. Poor decapitated sportswear dude-equin.

Bound

Just got finished reading a Lisa See novel where Chinese footbinding was discussed.

 

The main characters foot was dainty by Chinese standars at 7cm. 

 

That is 2.75 inches.

 

That is exactly the length of MY BIG TOE.

 

I would have been fetching water in China...or just stomping on the high class.

The God of Rain.

Thanks Carrie, this spoke to my busted up Engineer soul,

 

From John Piper: 

 

Job 5:8-10

But as for me, I would seek God, And I would place my cause before God; Who does great and unsearchable things, Wonders without number. He gives rain on the earth, And sends water on the fields. Job 5:8-10

...Is rain a great and unsearchable wonder wrought by God? Picture yourself as a farmer in the Near East, far from any lake or stream. A few wells keep the family and animals supplied with water. But if the crops are to grow and the family is to be fed from month to month, water has to come on the fields from another source. From where?

Well, the sky. The sky? Water will come out of the clear blue sky? Well, not exactly. Water will have to be carried in the sky from the Mediterranean Sea, over several hundred miles and then be poured out from the sky onto the fields. Carried? How much does it weigh? Well, if one inch of rain falls on one square mile of farmland during the night, that would be 27,878,400 cubic feet of water, which is 206,300,160 gallons, which is 1,650,501,280 pounds of water.

That's heavy. So how does it get up in the sky and stay up there if it's so heavy? Well, it gets up there by evaporation. Really? That's a nice word. What's it mean? It means that the water sort of stops being water for a while so it can go up and not down. I see. Then how does it get down? Well, condensation happens. What's that? The water starts becoming water again by gathering around little dust particles between .00001 and .0001 centimeters wide. That's small.

What about the salt? Salt? Yes, the Mediterranean Sea is salt water. That would kill the crops. What about the salt? Well, the salt has to be taken out. Oh. So the sky picks up a billion pounds of water from the sea and takes out the salt and then carries it for three hundred miles and then dumps it on the farm?

Well it doesn't dump it. If it dumped a billion pounds of water on the farm, the wheat would be crushed. So the sky dribbles the billion pounds water down in little drops. And they have to be big enough to fall for one mile or so without evaporating, and small enough to keep from crushing the wheat stalks.

How do all these microscopic specks of water that weigh a billion pounds get heavy enough to fall (if that's the way to ask the question)? Well, it's called coalescence. What's that? It means the specks of water start bumping into each other and join up and get bigger. And when they are big enough, they fall. Just like that? Well, not exactly, because they would just bounce off each other instead of joining up, if there were no electric field present. What? Never mind. Take my word for it.

I think, instead, I will just take Job's word for it. I still don't see why drops ever get to the ground, because if they start falling as soon as they are heavier than air, they would be too small not to evaporate on the way down, but if they wait to come down, what holds them up till they are big enough not to evaporate? Yes, I am sure there is a name for that too. But I am satisfied now that, by any name, this is a great and unsearchable thing that God has done. I think I should be thankful - lots more thankful than I am.

Grateful to God for the wonder of rain.

 

Semi Mono-syllabic commentary on too many things.

Four year plans: Yeah Right.

Grandmothers: Seriously...

The lack of returns in my blogs lately: What is up with that?

Flopping of the spirit and the flesh: How can they war so fiercely?

The removal of fruit! YES! WAIT.. NO!

The evidence of fruit: More Please.

Crainial Ridges: Where?

The Sauls leaving: Wah.

Foxes Re-treating: Hooray.

Fried Chicken Embryos: Fun-ny.

Funerals: Sorrow and Glory.

Brave Girls: D.

Brave Guys: P^2

Expensive Furniture: Why?

Six weeks out: Weird.. but Yay.

Time to unravel thoughts: Gift.

Beth Moore: Can there be too much?

WEST WING 7: Never Too Much.

A Boy Named Sue: Classic.

Not burning the cookies: Atypical.

Not making the cookies: Typical.

Beautiful things: Hurt.

Hurt. Anger. Rage. Sorrow. Passion: He permits it all.

Control. "I'm fine": He spits that out.

Lies: Hold no water, grow no gardens, heal no wounds.

I am a Spice Girl: Pretty Much.

I am loved: Very Much.

Future: Awesome. Terrifying. Awesome.

Labor

I spent the weekend with my folks playing mad golf. Did i say "mad"? I meant... BAD golf. This was the first time I played 18 holes two straight days in a row, and I am falling apart. I had some funky foot thing, my normal left knee pain and my broken heart to deal with. It was good to be around family and around the Lord again.


He has felt far.

My brother (and the aforementioned Lord) got us an eagle on a 441 yard par 4. He drove to the neck of the green and then putted from off the fringe for an 873 dollar skin. The only one in the tournament. Pretty awesome. Because I am on the team I got a sweet cut of that dough. So that was cool... even thought all I did to earn it was show Dusty how NOT to putt it. Heh.

Taylorville, Illinois is the town where I was born and raised. We went by our old houses and old schools. It's a lovely farm town with lovely people who, suprisingly, are dance/karaoke machines... they danced all night after the golf tournament. I didn't know this about the townspeople because we left there when I was only nine, but my folks said they know how to party. It was a joyous time, even though I was pouting I ended up dancing and having a good time.

There joy amidst the similar sorrows that any tight knit community has, sorrows like the scorned ex-wife, who is anorexic, high, and aging beyond her years from some hard life. There is her brother (the one MY brother mentioned, "who peed himself two years ago"...) who wore an air-brushed button-down AC/DC collared shirt and ended up passing out in a golf cart, I think, for the remainder of the night. But there were no fights and I was amazed that the certain feuds hadn't torn up the community over the years, that they could still all come together and hang out and get along and have joy.

I think karaoke almost cannot be fun unless the patriarchs get involved. This dude got up and did Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone. " It was awesome, complete with backup line of about six macho men doing do-wop moves in sync, in golf hats and sun glasses and the whole bit. Have you ever seen this happen between fathers and their college aged sons?

How does it feel?
How does it feel?
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Bob, it feels pretty great to have finally been honest with myself. Weight has lifted.

Farmland is really beautiful. There is nothing particularly exciting or hip about cornfields, I suppose, but I grew up around them, so they were really nostalgic and calming.

I think if you really want to, you can find Gods hand anywhere in creation, and I love that he does that.

I also love my brother and my parents to pieces. They are aweseome.

Surgery in ten days. It can't get here fast enough.

2 Corinthians 4. Blessed me today.

Bless you, Friends.

I shouldn't have worn mascara today...

Cause the boy and I broke up. 

 

Suck.

Peace

Deep inside me I believe in the fairy tale.

 

No matter what I say or write or think.  My deepest desire is the Rider of the white horse.

 

That is how I know that I am His.  

 

 

Swiss National Day (Our Fourth of July)

Didn't know my camera could do this. They were spectacular. If i can say that word.. which I'm not sure I can get away with. These were truly like nothing I've seen before.

Basel Part II and Zurich.

Red cow of Basel:
Blue Cow of Zurich. I think they are cousins. Don't Jump Blue Cow.. you have too much to live for...

Contruction company with Daisy logos on all construction equipment. Back-hoe, trucks, bobcats. Never in the US.

Breakfast every morning. Not bad! Hot chocolate to die for. A sign on a table. I agree. It's no picnic.
Grace has a horrible rash that has taken over her body. I am helping her get relief. It's no picnic for sure.
Lake Zurich!!

Hotel Zic-Zac. Rock and roll theme, We stayed in the Rolling Stone room.

Grace and I taking a self-portrait. Frau Munster in the background. Zurich at Night.
Ferris Wheel. I haven't been on a Ferris wheel in ages. Amazing views of the city.

Stories need to accompany some of these pics, but I will elaborate later. It's' all I can do to get these on the web!