"Take me, take me to the riot..."

My jewelry box is a shaming mess. It is a beautiful jewelry box that Matt made in 10th grade for his girlfriend at the time. She gave it back (I KNOW! I thought 'she whaaaaaaat'....) and Mattdecided it to give it to his wife one day. When he told me that story I was already thi

nking, "I want that jewelry box". And now I have it and it's a mess. I totally lose points for that.

I have a cameo from my paternal grandmother's jewelry box and a cameo my mom bought me at a vintage market when I was in high school. I have my etched mushroom pendant Arie made me when she was in high school, double-sided, brass and copper, no big. People are all over it whenever they see it. There's a large sea shell necklace Matt made me with a shell we combed off of China Beach on our first Married Valentines. There's the lava rock from our Honeymoon. It's apparently bad luck to take lava rock off the Hawaiian islands but we did...and we're still married. That one's a necklace too.

And then there's my engagement ring. Months of teasing, multiple sketches, fake outs, and finally a truly breathtaking, unique and bragging-worthy ring. Inside the band it read 'my beloved' in Hebrew and a tiny emerald (Matt's birthstone) is tucked away as well. It's me in ring form.

He took designs from Art Deco architecture and filigree off of Tsarina Alexandra of Russia's diary. It's a platinum solitaire, clean and flawless. And I absolutely still brag about it. Even though now it's totally obnoxious to everyone around me.

Dehn Adeen "NaBloPoMo": Noyabr Vtoroi

Dear Tofu curry you are super delish inside my belly. And I made you all by myself.

P.S ~ Dear Dr. Dempsey, you could totally win at Movember. Ginger Beard for the win!

"With his long johns on Pa went out creepin'..."

Whoohoo for prompts!

A lover of blogs and a true sufferer of writer's block, I LOVE websites that ask me fun questions. National Blog Posting Month is a website that provides tools for people that are looking to post more regularly (and become the next great thing). They also say they offer "moral support, inspiration, and camaraderie" for those involved in the blogging community. Gives it a formidable hue, no? I'm not going to sign up for those camaraderie things because that sounds...scary but I will willingly take their hints and tips towards better blogging.

The last prompt posted was "What childhood belonging do you still have in your possession?"

Though I desperately wish it could be my fuchsia dinosaur stuffed animal from my toddlerhood that mysteriously disappeared with nary a trace, I have only my baby blanket that my great-grandmother crocheted for me. Tucked in the Porcheron abyss of a crawl space are still things like my 'quiet book' (AS IF I needed any help with that) and my 'prayer pillow', things that will make me squeal when I have poop-sack, beanheads of my own. Mom, three points for you for being a sentimental mama. No woobie capes, but my blanket is folded and duck taped into storage with a crocheted robe from the same grandmother, one of my dad's mega soft t-shirt that he laundered to a suede finish flipping houses (that I also think my mom tried to throw away many a time) and a vintage beige clutch I filched from my mom when I was in high school and never gave back.

Seriously, what. Cutest lobster EVAR.

Hope your halloween was deliriously cute.

"I love that boy and he is my friend...I wave to him from very far"

Oh Russian, how did this happen between you and me? Oh yes, I ignored you. I know how much you don't like that. Duly noted.

Casa del Dempsey (I pillaged that from here) has been a scholastic internment camp lately. I feel like it's been a little too long since I said, "Yo Husband I love you like for real". I've been saying it in my head because life is moving at the speed of sound. My artful and persistent propensity for procrastination has reared its head once again. I had tricked myself into being VERY proactive thus far and then I did a research proposal that I had known about since Sept 7 last night at one o'clock in the morning. Matt didn't feel sorry for me. I didn't either.

K and whoa. This is magical. Magical.

We're church shopping right now which is lame. Though it makes me kind of heavy hearted to be in this process, Matt and I are praying a lot more together and we're talking about what we're looking for and what we need which is perfect.

He becomes more and more of my favourite person everyday. To doing a bum dance while he's flossing his teeth (after I convinced him to), to the eternal improvisation of his 'Baby come to bed' song when I'm brushing my teeth and to his ceaseless, imaginative, god-honoring, locked-like-a-steel-trap mind. To making me laugh, and making me mad. To constantly reminding me to strive to be what God intended us to be for each other. Mwah!

I love these. They are my favourite. Brown ones. Happy Fall.

"See Jesus, see Judas...See Ceasar, see Brutus."

This is pillaged from a 'Blog of Note'

10 Things about Myself that I think are interesting:

10. I'm going into debt for a degree that won't get me a job. Creative Writing is a blessed department but it houses the people in the world who will be asked 'Where do you wait tables?" after they tell people what they do for a living. Going to school won't make me a better writer. It will make me a more aware writer. It will arm me with connections, possible publication credits and lots of constructive feedback but the quality of my talent relies heavily upon my passion for growth and my humility.

9. I'm a year into my marriage and I'm twenty-one. I am twenty-one chronologically at least. Age is a disarmingly amorphous concept for me. I don't feel twenty-one because I don't have any idea of what twenty-one is supposed to feel like. I'll be twenty-two in a couple of months but when I say that I find that no expectations boil up within me. I don't know if being married

saved me from all that. Marriage has absolutely been the most enlightening, emboldening, dynamic and refining experiences of my life, of life period. No I'm not too young. No it's not always a cake walk. Yes it is the best. The best.

8. I'm obsessed with words. I love them. I love how they sound, I love how they feel, I love how they act and what they mean. Taking another language has proven that to me. Assonance and alliteration. Syllables. Consonants. It is all great. Tickling. Jamaican ginger. "Sail in the frail bark of flesh".

7. I am already a published author. I don't actually count it among the things I brag about (like the facts that I have a hot husband or that I'm learning Russian). It was an amazing experience and it taught me a lot about who I am as a writer and what it takes to be a mature writer. Becoming a mature is still a ways off for me but I at least know some of the things that are required. The published (and unpublished) writers I know I respect very much because they all learned it the legit way.

6. I come from a very peculiar, gorgeous French-Scandinavian family. Each and every member

of my family I hold a great amount of respect for (even though at times I do not like them). Oo menya yist dve costri (I have two sisters) ee adeen brata (and one brother). They are some of

the most creative people I know. My parents are just freakin' real. They've done real shit. They've seen real disappointments. They've been through the actual trying times of life, everything from "I hate my job" to "I hate myself" and they are still here and they are not afraid. They are powerful.

5. I am a Christian and that is one of the most conflicting statementsof my personhood. I am aware in a way I can't ignore that I (and therefore my life, thoughts, and actions) do not exist in a vacuum. I've struggled since I was in junior high, staring at the Jerry Falwells and the George Bushes of the world to try and associate what I believe as the same as them. But then I look at the Rob Bells, the Donald Millers, the Henry Nouwens of the world and I absolutely adore who they are and what they stand for. I do not only believe in Christ, I have given my life to him.

4. I absolutely had more fun as a blonde.

3. I love my in-laws. Legit. Some people have horror stories about their in laws, which in most cases is just people being...people. It's the family you got without a choice by making a choice to make your own family. Matt and I went on vacation with his parents this summer and it was so so so awesome. They make me laugh.

2. I have three scars. One is on my left eyelid from when I had chicken pox as a kid. Now eyelashes don't grow there anymore. One is just below my left eyebrow. I was hit in the face by a metal clothing rack when I worked retail after graduation. I had an awesome shiner for a couple days. And I got workers comp! The last runs all the way up the inside of my left calf from when I was landscaping before I got married. It's about 8 inches long and I scraped it against a piece of plastic poking through a garbage bag. And now it's here forever.

1. I play the trumpet, I love to dance and I sew. I'm not Miles Davis, Mia Michaels or Maria Von Trapp but those are things I love. I have a beautiful silver trumpet from a beautiful grandfather of mine. I have hips that sway from everything from the national anthem to Stevie Wonder. And I made my wedding dress and I liked it.

*Ya Zn-eye-oo moy moozh ochen sympat-ichni

Bloggity blog.

Life is busy. We are busy. I have resorted to my post-secondary diet of something slathered in peanut butter. That is how I get my daily dose of protein and corn sugar.

(Did you know that they are trying to rename high fructose corn syrup to corn sugar. It's so that people don't panic when they see it in EVERYTHING. Kind of defeats the purpose if you're telling everyone. "It's the same thing we're just calling it something different." They talk in the article about HFCS being no different from sugar nutritionally and that there's nothing fundamental to it that is bad for you. But it's in EVERYTHING and it's never in a reasonable dosage. It's mega syrup in everything from bread to batteries to chocolate milk to soda pop. This is my soapbox.)

We have plans that do not include (or even really accommodate)

anything school related every evening this week. That is rare for us but we are engaging our community, and pushing ourselves out of our shells and good for us and all that. Whew. Good friends, great conversation. Thanksgiving was fun and it already seems like such a long time ago.

Workshopping will start up soon hopefully. I did a really great job of making the snow ball and then setting it down on level ground so nothing has happened as of yet. We'll find a hill somewhere. This is Vancouver. The application to Creative Writing is at the end of March. Let's all be praying for this and I will write my fingers to nubbins in the meantime, yeah?

In Russian today, she talked to us a little bit about major cities in Russia, like Moscow and St. Petersburg. Seeing pictures of the landscape and the cities filled me with this desire to go there so bad. I was at a meet 'n' greety thing last night that was really fun and there was a girl there who taught English in Eastern Europe, specifically Moldova. She said there is such a profound need for people to be invested in those cultures. They are third-world in their economics and their society but they are first-world in their values. It is in that push and pull that everything breaks down. I don't know what I will do when we get to Russia but I believe God has put it on my heart all these years (almost a decade!) for a reason. Apparently, a Russian writer described St. Petersburg as like a lady: a total mess during the day but once the sun sets she shines and stops you dead.

I'm far better at night than I am in the morning too. I totally get it.

"I want you to notice...when I'm not around"

I have my 12 Project picture, I do! September has, needlessly to say, so crazy. Matt and I found ourselves at the bottom of the pool so to speak about part way through September as we tried to balance full-time studies on two accounts, committing to small group, trying to make good on some promises we made regarding our families in the summer, and trying to see each other enough to enjoy it in the process.

But now it is fall. And I am happy.

It smelled like fall the other day, crisp and soundless like I remember of Calgary. The leaves are falling in a magic array of burning. Then yesterday it was so foggy that you couldn't even see the North Shore across the water. This place trips me up. But it's October and I'm still going running in shorts and a t-shirt.

Life has been amazing in the face of the flurry though. We played host three days in a row which I know is laughable to some but today I want to stick my head in a box big time. And the last week has essentially been a bender. I have vowed myself to explicitly water for the next week so make up to my liver a bit. We have some really great friends through small group and church and Regent, all people that love God and want to glorify him in loving each other. Such a cool circle to be a part of.

Thanksgiving is next weekend!

Vegan Yum Yum (at right) speaks my language. She interprets needlessly but classically meat centred dishes to be meatless in a

way that makes me wishes I could actually cook as well as I think I can. (I'm also not totally sure whether it's that I can't cook or whether I am an apathetic eater at best.) Holidays with friends are wicked fun. Maybe Thanksgiving in particular. It is a time where you are thankful for all you have and we have so much to be thankful for. And you get to experience the dining habits and traditions of other people. We never had candied sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving because my dad is a purist among other things. I had had them at other get together and never really understood the huge deal. But then last year we did Orphan Thanksgiving with Ange and I had these candied yams that redefined what they could be. No marshmallow gunk on top, not too sweet. Just right. We're doing it with Scott and Jo this year. We both have...compact homes so it will be funny to see how we manage with large quantities of food and multiple guests.

~And how mega cute would stuff like this be to have as some of your serving dishes. One day. When we plan to STAY. Etsy man, it's the place.

~This lady does things with Jell-O that I never thought you could. Reminds me of Cami.

~ I saw this yesterday. Such a great movie! I want to BE Aaron Sorkin sometimes. He writes the best dialogue.

I can tell you mine, I can tell you mine, I can tell you lies

What is our capacity to be changed? And what seeps into the cracks of our synapses to facilitate that change? What is the Trojan Horse of our heart? I know for me it is music. I can hear something over and over again; I can be trying to memorize something or wrestling through an idea. Put it to music and that's all it takes.

Matt and I watched a movie the other night, on the recommendation of the Schantzs, called The Kingdom. Scott was talking about the very last scene in that film where the four FBI agents are talking about their project in Saudi Arabia. One of their comrades was killed and Jamie Foxx says, "I told her don't worry. We're going to kill them all." It was a very striking scene in the film put to a kick ass song by Explosions in the Sky. It calls to mind something very profound about justice. Justice is something very amorphous though. It can be seen as vengeful or motivated out of anger and how do we as believers encounter that. How do I reconcile the fact that if someone harmed my husband, I would hunt them down and beat them to death. How do we change our path, a path that is shaped by our history. How do we exonerate those motivated out of hate towards us, while still being authentic. I don't believe that God would ever condone blood thirst but the God I believe in, you don't have to read much through the Old Testament to see a God of consequence. How do you forgive? How do you live in a world where so many people are motivated our of hate, where it is instilled in them from so early in their journey.

Norm threw it down this morning. We're moving through Acts right now (which I am mega pumped about. I LOVE Acts) but this series is going to take us 22 months. Which is a long time. January of 2012 we'll be thinking about something new. Early in Acts, the Holy Spirit is talked about a lot. The Holy Spirit has always been this entity to me that I didn't have anything to associate it with. I knew God. I knew Christ. I knew the Holy Spirit was kick ass and I knew it was important, I just didn't know why. I'm finding it now. The more I dive into the Word, the more I own it. I've always felt it but I feel like it's mine now. We have the BEST community around us right now. Scott and Jo are SO great. But on Sunday, Norm was talking about the Holy Spirit and what it means to be changed by it. You have Salvation by being changed by the Holy Spirit, by it dwelling in you. The 'Spirit gives you utterance', it gives you a new language to speak in, a new mission. Norm asked, "Why would the Holy Spirit dwell in you and make that change if you don't want to be part of the change." It's a valid question but at the same time there are numerous examples of Christ being part of our lives when we don't deserve. Sarah had something on her fb the other day about "Mercy is something we get that we unfortunately deserve. Grace is something we do not deserve." Christ entered into this whole bowl of shit for us. With us in mind. Knowing that and choosing that (actively wanting it) is where the change happens.

~P.S: Oh yeah and today I almost dropped my wedding band down the drain. Not good.