A good day in Chicago.

A good day in Chicago yesterday:

• Hung out with Lois; always edifying conversations.
• Met up with my big brother @ L'Appetito, just a few blocks east of the agency.  He was feeling a little sick, but it was great to see him.
  
• A casting for a German sportswear catalog.  I haven't been into Elite in a while, so it was really good to see some of the other models & agents.
• Lois & I went up to Wicker Park to see Stacy, the girl I worked with at the Bridal show.  We walked Stacy to work, then stopped by Cafe de Luca for soup & coffee.
  
• Fun time on Amtrak hanging out with the crew in the Cafe Car.
• A happy birthday phone talk with my big sister.

L.xo

Running Cafe Aroma.

Hey friends,

Cafe Aroma, where I'm working, is run by The Vineyard church, and the pastor right now is kind of the general manager. However, he has a lot going on, and he has started talking to me about taking on more of the manager role, so he wouldn't have to be concerned with the day-to-day business of it. I told him that I couldn't do it without Cathy, the amazing woman I work with (we complement each other well & make a great team), so plans are now brewing (pun intended) for Cathy & I to try our hand at running the cafe next semester.

L. xo

P.S. Brandon, thank you for your letter in the mail. I really liked it, and it helped me think through some of my blogging issues. I love old-fashioned mail.

News.

Hello friends,

You are my audience. My friends & family who want to know what is going on with me. And please, if you read what I write, and are glad to have read it, leave me comments. I think when this becomes what feels like a one-sided conversation it's discouraging. Thanks!

Some news items:

• We moved to a new apartment through Keith's resident manager job, and it is wonderful. It's a two-bedroom that's over twice the size of our place at Lamoine Village. It really feels like I am a woman with a home. We are still just praising God for it. He taught us so much about contentment in our last two tiny places, and we are so thankful for that. Now it feels like our territory has been expanded.
• Keith is the new worship leader at the Vineyard church here in Macomb. They lost their former worship leader a few months ago, so one Sunday Keith and I guest-led worship there. To make a long story short, they loved us & created a paid position for Keith as the Sunday morning worship leader. It was hard to leave the Crossing, but the guys there commissioned us with all the best wishes; praise God.
  
• We first got to know the folks at the Vineyard when I started working at Cafe Aroma a few months ago. I was in the market for a local coffeehouse job and some good friends of mine had worked there in the past. So when they needed some help, I volunteered & it was a great fit. Cafe Aroma is run by the Vineyard church. I've had a vision for coffeehouse ministry for probably close to ten years, so this was a neat opportunity for me. Right now I'm working Tuesday through Friday 11a to 2p, and we often play music there on Friday nights for Open Mic. So come by & visit sometime.
• Speaking of Cafe Aroma, Nate & Mere's band Leaving the Boats came & played an amazing show there on October 24th.
  
• I was in this movie with Shia LaBeouf.
  
• I got myself a new Moleskine journal & I love it.
  

Love,
L. xo

Dictionary.com Word of the Day: Limn.

limn \LIM\, transitive verb:
1. To depict by drawing or painting.
2. To portray in words; to describe.

Oh, yes, I write, as I limn the familiar perfections of his profile, "you look very well."
-- Kimberly Elkins, "What Is Visible", The Atlantic, March 2003

In telling these people's stories Mr. Butler draws upon the same gifts of empathy and insight, the same ability to limn an entire life in a couple of pages.
-- Michiko Kakutani, "Earthlings May Endanger Your Peaceful Rationality", New York Times, March 10, 2000

But used faithfully and correctly, language can "limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers."
-- John Darnton, "In Sweden, Proof of The Power Of Words", New York Times, December 8, 1993

What a wonderful word. To limn people, things, ideas is what I have such strong urges to do. Oh, Lord, show me how.

A new little miracle.

Welcome to the world, Marlo Valentine!

Congratulations, Jensie & Andy!

Could this beautiful little baby be real??

Planning my trip to KC...

The blogging cycle.

I've been going through my cyclical blogging identity crisis where I question the purpose & audience of my blog.  But I'm working through it.

If you read my blog & enjoy it & would like to see me write more, would you leave a comment?  Let me know what kinds of things you like to read about from me.

Thanks, friends!

I heart my poloroids.

I've had this vision for my blog title image for a few months, and have finally realized it.

What do you think?

I'm in!

I made the cut: I am in Eagle Eye!

I'm now on imdb.com, and someone mentioned me in a review.

It's been so exciting and strange...

Fike & Dana.

My latest aid in worship & source of edification: Fike & Dana. A beautiful couple ministering to their local church in Colorado & beyond. Their music worships & glorifies GOD in joy & suffering.

“In & Out of Season” was a bridge album between the happy-go-lucky praise-a-thon’s that permeate East Texas and the much more melancholy, pain-ridden honesty that the Fike’s encountered in Colorado. There were two parallel truths that ‘Seasons’ attempted to communicate, not so much as adversaries, but as companions… “Life is hard” & “God is good”.

“The Morning is Come” was another bridge album. It’s goal was to align another set of seemingly opposed ideas… “Sin is real” & “God has healed”. So often, post-modern Christians live a life resigned to the certainty of sin, but not so much to the certainty of God’s presence in their lives. “The Morning is Come” was Fike & Dana’s attempt to communicate the idea that God has given us all we need to live our lives in the palm of God’s hand. -fikeanddana.com

Thanks for introducing me, Lois!

Watch this short film!

A trailer:

"The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns, with a special focus on the United States. All the stuff in our lives, beginning from the extraction of the resources to make it, through its production, sale, use and disposal, affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues and calls for all of us to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something. It'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever." -storyofstuff.com

Watch the whole thing at www.storyofstuff.com.