my favorite season.

fall is my absolute favorite.

i love everything about it. the weather, the colors, the food...

brian and i talk about how it is interesting that leaves and weather are so beautiful (the most beautiful, in my opinion) right before they die. how that's what fall is; things dying to give way to new life later in the year. but everything seems so utterly different than what i think something dying would be like. yet, every year i am astounded with the things that happen all around me. and i could look at it as nature just running it's course, but it's so much more than that to me.

we have been here two months.  two whole months. 

i was thinking the other day about friends that live abroad, and the processes they have to go through to adjust. (we aren't really going through those same processes living in new jersey, of course. which  i am reminded of all the time... how different it would be moving cross culturally then moving to new jersey...) but we are still adjusting. only two months. seems like way longer most of the time.  but now it's fall and i cannot believe all that has happened already.

i feel like we are sifting through this huge pile of golden wheat. that we are, much of the time, getting somewhere and really sorting through the good and the bad. that we are growing and learning. that we are seeing things in a new way, and there are so many new gifts that we are given each day through the process. the wheat (as it were) is so useful and can be so interesting to look at. but can be so heavy and overwhelming (when it's in a pile, especially)...

so learning how to focus on the pieces that are in front is still where i am at. and really figuring out how to best use those here and now will take me awhile i think. but hopefully not too much of awhile...

oh, and above are pics of NYC and my school.

things in our sight lately

it feels like i don't have enough time anymore.

my first conclusion is that i am not used to working full-time, which cannot be the case, as i have been doing such for four years now...but i just am not fully adjusted to my new schedule. (i think brian agrees)

it has been a really busy couple of weeks. i have learned the following:

1. new jersey drivers will always honk at and yell at you unless you have a tri-state area license plate...so there will be lots more to come of that for us.

2. it's expensive to live in new jersey. you are close to MANY things, but they all cost money.

3. you can interrupt as many times as you want in a conversation with someone from new jersey, to relate or show that you are listening (which they also do to you). i have found this to be sometimes fun and sometimes jarring in a conversation.

4. you shouldn't drop your phone in yogurt the same week your husband's phone's battery dies. you will not have an easy time communicating with the people you love and miss with no phone.

the above pictures are from: the beach, a library at georgetown we visited while visiting our friends michelle and joel and also a basilica there that is really welcoming to internationals at catholic university, a new pic of my polaroid wall i am pretty excited about, and a picture of brian's toy shelf he is really excited about.

love you and missing you friends and family.

where we lay our crowns.

so often i own the things i hope for. or am good at. or just things about me that make me who i am. i have been realizing lately all of the things that i wrap my identity up in, and how those things change or can so easily be taken out of context...

and mostly of how i need to lay my crowns, all of my hopes and dreams, all of the things i have been made to be or wish to be, at the feet of the king, and only at his feet. and how each time i take them away from there is a step (or a leap) away from all things good, all things full and right. 

so i am working on that. :)

and, by the way, i had a first full day of school today. it was a good day. :) i have a lot to learn, but i think i will be a good teacher. :) i have some pictures that i took of the kids, but they are polaroids, so i will have to scan them in. and brian and i went to the beach on labor day. it was awesome.  beach time in new jersey, who knew?

one other update that is also awesome, are the friends we have been meeting here. i get lonely pretty fast i have hence realized upon moving. within days of kirsta and kyle leaving (yea, probably right away) i was totally and utterly missing friends. and god is good (all the time, right? when will i trust that...) we met some. ALREADY. and they are better than i expected. the two we are closest to are also the closest in distance to us (they live a block away). their names are ruth and blake (and isaiah and leiorah their twins!) just a short story of how we met them (and there have been so many meetings like this! both in brian's grad program and outside of it! it sometimes seems like all of this was set-up for us beforehand...) 

we went to visit a church,  thought it was ok, were walking out, a guy walks up to us and starts talking. turns out he is a professor at rutgers (we find out later through our new friend blake that this guy, whose name is dean, is one of the most renowned living philosophers in the world today! he teaches at rugters, and is one of the heads of the doctorate program there) and he, his wife tammi and their kids take us to lunch. at which we find out that he also collects punk and jazz records (like over 4000 records, people. we have been to their house and seen them. brian was in HEAVEN. drinking bourbon and listening to records with dean. couldn't be more perfect) AND he collects comic books...so wait, lets get this all in one sentence. the first person we meet at church in new jersey is a philosophy professor who collects punk and jazz records, and comic books, who loves jesus and his family...and he kind of looks like neil young and john lennon. amazing. so anyway, dean and tammi take us to get some thai food, and then after a fun lunch, ask us if we would like to meet some people in our neighborhood. to which we of course say "yes please. we have no friends here. " and they say, " there is a couple that moved a block away from you last night, and we were going over to say hi. do you want to come, too?" so we went over un-announced with people we had just met two hours before to met other people we didn't know who had just moved the night before, who were named ruth and blake.  and now we're friends. and they are truly wonderful.

good story, huh?