the love of a dog

I'm currently dog-sitting for the day. Our neighbor is getting new carpet today, and so her dog can't stay in her apartment while she's away at work. So, Mona (the dog, not the neighbor) is here in our apartment. Which is great. Charlie loves Mona. She's his second favorite dog in the complex (nobody can ever be greater than Huckleberry in Charlie's heart). They play well together, although today Mona has a sore hip and Charlie has a sore foot, so while they try to play, it's a little pathetic. Mona, however, also loves me - as does Charlie - and so sometimes Mona will come and lick me and ask me to pet her, so I do. But Charlie does not appreciate this, so he comes and nudges his way between Mona and me and gives me more kisses and asks me even more emphatically to pet him. They've apparently worn themselves out, and so Mona is laying at the foot of the couch, and Charlie is laying on me, which doesn't work very well, since he's a big long sausage dog and weighs over 50 pounds. But, he's got to one-up Mona and prove that I am his person and he loves me more than Mona ever could. Ha.

Also, Charlie stinks pretty bad and needs a bath.

I guess it's time for a real live update, aside from videos of my dog and pictures of my terrifying future child. I am officially done with summer classes, which feels pretty dang good. I finished ahead of the deadlines, even, although that had a practical purpose. Jeremy's family is coming to visit us on Monday, and they'll be staying for 2 weeks. So, now I've got no more homework to do while they're here, so I can entertain them while Jeremy has to go to class, etc. But, in celebration of a month with no papers to write or books I have to read, I'm reading a novel. I haven't done that since last summer. Joe Jones by Anne Lamott. Anne Lamott is a Christian fiction writer, which I normally hate with every fiber of my being, but my Mom and my sister both like her, who also normally hate Christian fiction as much as I do (my sister sometimes will read a Christian book, but only on the toilet, for that is where they belong, she says), so I'll give her a shot. So far it's good, but I'm only on page 42. It involves two people who broke up after living together, a "sexy" old woman, and a gay man...so...there's that.

In other news, Jeremy's family is coming for 2 weeks on Monday. Jeremy and I enjoy when people come to visit us, not only so that we can see the people who are visiting (which, yes, is one big reason) but also so that we have an excuse to see or re-see things in the city. So, we keep trying to plan out days with Jeremy's family, but then realize that maybe we should ask them what they want to do first. Anyway, if anyone feels like taking a trip out to LA - come on over!

We're also enjoying our youth group/worship work. We're currently trying to get some of the youth involved in the services, and we've had a few of the kids interested. After watching these kids for a month, we've noticed that when people are asked if they want to do something, nobody will say anything until someone else does it first. So, we're hoping the more we get different people involved, the more people will come out of the woodwork and want to get involved, too. So, that's our project at the moment. But, the services we lead are going well, and the kids seem to enjoy them. There was one week a couple weeks ago where we had a previously-agreed-to service to lead at another church, so when we told the kids we wouldn't be there next Sunday, but another band would be filling in, we saw lots of faces drop. And there are two high school kids who have so far refused to do anything church-related, but then when they heard about Jeremy and me and our service on Sunday mornings, they wanted to come. And they've come for 3 weeks now. So that's all very encouraging...and it's exciting to get to be at least a small part of these kids lives. It makes me want to keep pursuing some worship stuff here at Fuller. I've been focusing more on cultural stuff and urban stuff, which I also love - but this job always reminds me how much I love the worship side, too. Which may mean I'll drop my concentration and just do a general M.Div. so I can diversify a little bit - but we'll see.

I also got new shoes yesterday. For $10 at Target. Now I have something to wear on my feet besides my falling-apart flip-flops. Awesome.

And I guess that's it for now. These posts always end up way longer and more boring than I anticipate them to be when I start. Sorry about that.