What I'm Listening To

I love audiobooks. I like listening to them in the car while I'm driving, and I love listening to them when I'm doing housework or running errands. But they can be expensive, so I have been lately exploring the world of free podcasts, and thought I'd post a few I'm enjoying:

• This American Life: This is a weekly radio program on NPR which runs about an hour long. Each week's program focuses on a theme, and they'll usually have 3-4 stories about that them. I've been listening to it on the radio for years, and the podcast used to cost money. I'm thrilled now that they're making it available for free.
• The Moth: The Moth is a story-telling project in which people tell true stories live and in front of an audience. Some of them are funny, some are stunning, and all of them are really well done. I came across it because there are some of the Moth's stories which are included in some This American Life episodes.
• Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me: NPR's news quiz. Funny, and I always seem to catch a bit of news that eluded me throughout the week, and then I'll go find out what the heck they were talking about.
• Jim Kelly's Free Reads: a NH writer who is reading his work in a serial format and posting semi-regularly. I'm still listening to archives, so I haven't been paying attention to how often he posts, but he keeps commenting on how he's missed posting dates, so I'm guessing it's irregular. And on August 5 he posted a friend of his reading a story based on a mix of Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein, and the second half of the story is yet to be posted! It's a good story so far, so I really want to know how it ends. Right now I'm listening to Jim Kelly's novella, Look Into the Sun. I've really enjoyed his short stories, and I'm loving the novella. A lot of his stories reference NH things, especially Portsmouth. He's a better writer than reader, but whenever I can hear the actual writer reading his work, I'm not complaining.

I also bought The Shack on audio a few weeks ago. I liked a lot of it, tossed away the portions which kind of dig at organized religion. Basically the story is about a man who's daughter is killed, and he has a crisis of faith. In that crisis, he actually meets with God as three persons in a shack in the woods, and talks about what they want from him, who they are as God, and what it means to have a relationship with God. My favorite parts are how God the Father says about everyone "I am especially fond of that person," and the time he spends with Jesus talking about being human and living in God.

So that's about all. A whole post, and I don't talk about house hunting at all! Yay for me.

Nope. didn't get it

Well, it took a couple days to hear back, but Ian finally got a response on the house from this weekend. It went for "well above asking."

Moving on...

Sigh... Goodbye Sundays...

Youth group will be starting again soon. We had our first planning meeting today and we'll be doing more planning for the next several weeks, and I love working with the kids and playing games and talking about God with them. It's hard to give up Sunday nights though, mainly because it's the time we spend being lazy and doing nothing.

I think for me it's especially hard because I have rehearsal first thing in the morning on Sunday (at 9:30), and then mass, and then usually it's family stuff (or lately, looking for houses stuff) and then going back to church by 6 and finishing up around 9:30. So it's 12 hours of going going going, which is not really a day of rest. Since Matt works on Saturdays, Sunday is the only day when neither of us is working and coming home drained.

Lazing around on Sunday evenings is something I'll miss, but I also know that we have a really good time most Sundays. More, it makes us think about our faith and our relationship with God. It gives us opportunities to share our experiences, and it puts us in places where we can pray with the kids and each other. I know that all the years I've worked with the kids have deepened my faith.

Yesterday we looked at a house before Matt went to work and two more after he got out. The first one turned out to be the best; one of the ones we saw in the evening was right on Mammoth Road and pretty ragged looking, though it did have a good backyard. The other one we saw in the evening was a gorgeous Victorian which had been faithfully restored inside, but the electrical was very out of date, the yard was miniscule and the neighborhood was kind of beginning-to-be-sketchy looking. The one we saw in the morning will need a rehab loan to take care of pet-soiled carpeting and the results of what must have been out-of-control teenagers. The yard was smaller than ideal, but the neighborhood was good and it's on a dead-end street. So we offered on it. But the house apparently had several offers on it already, so we'll see what happens. I am trying not to let my heart get caught up again so quickly.

In between while Matt was at work, I ran errands and hung out with John. We were supposed to have gone minigolfing with him last night, but we had to go look at houses. But John and I had a nice visit in the afternoon while I made soup and did some cleaning.

So that was the weekend. We're supposed to know tomorrow if our offer gets accepted, and I'll post here tomorrow evening when I get home.

Really, Why Does It Feel So Much Like Dating?

First of all, thanks for all of the encouragement in the comments. I know that we are very lucky that we are even able to be looking for a house right now and that we will eventually find the right one. It was a big blow on Thursday because we had really felt confident that we were following where God is leading us.

So why the roadblock? Were we wrong? Or does God want us to go through these struggles to teach us something? Is there anyway to know for sure? As I said, we'd "put out a fleece" to try to figure out what to do. Here's one of the things we did: We had pretty much decided what we were going to offer, and so we had my friend, Mitch, go through the whole house with us and give us an estimate on how much it would cost to do everything we wanted to do. We had decided that if his estimate came in below a certain number, we would go forward. It came in below, so we went forward.

We had felt so sure, and things were clicking along so smoothly, that it really was genuine surprise to find that it was not the house after all. And that's what makes me really feel like it's like dating. All the people at work, telling me that they know that the right house is out there for us. That there's a reason and a purpose to all of this. And finding out the house went to someone else really does feel like I had a crush on someone and then found out not only that they were seeing someone else, but they just got engaged.

Well, Darn.

So we're still looking. We saw a house this morning that has a lot of possibility to it. It need a LOT of cosmetic work and probably a new roof. The yard's a little small, but other than that it looks pretty good. We are seeing 2 houses tonight. One is billed as "ready to move in" and one is kind of in between the one this morning and the "ready to move in" house. And we pray and pray and pray.

Also, I don't know what happened to the settings on my blog, but I've lost all my font and formatting buttons. Who stole them?

(ETA: Now they're showing in firefox, but not internet explorer. hmmmm)

Kind of a bad day

Woke up this morning and checked my email to find an alert from the real estate website that the house we are trying to get is now listed as pending, and we haven't heard from our realtor. We're probably not getting it. I am so incredibly bummed about it. And more, I am confused and frustrated about what we are supposed to be doing. Both Matt and I have felt like this is the house God has been leading us to. We've had several things happen in prayer or when we've "put out a fleece" so to speak which gave confirmation that this was right. So now what?

The way I feel right now is hard to express, but here's the song I was listening to on repeat as I was driving into work this morning:

Hello Lord, it's me your child
I have a few things on my mind
Right now I'm faced with big decisions
And I'm wondering if you have a minute,

Right now I don't hear so well
And I was wondering if you could speak up
I know that you tore the veil
So I could sit with you in person
And hear what you're saying but
Right now, I just can't hear you.

I don't doubt your sovereignty
I doubt my own ability to
Hear what you're saying
And to do the right thing
And I desperately want to do the right thing

But right now I don't hear so well
And I was wondering if you could speak up
I know that you tore the veil
So I could sit with you in person
And hear what you're saying but
Right now, I just can't hear you.

And somewhere in the back of my mind
I think you are telling me to wait
And though patience has never been mine
Lord, I will wait to hear from you
Oh Lord, I'm waiting on you

Right now I don't hear so well
And I was wondering if you could speak up
I know that you tore the veil
So I could sit with you in person
And hear what you're saying but
Right now, I think you're whispering

Sara Groves Hello Lord lyrics

I just learned I can post to my blog through my phone by texting. So let's see how this works.

A Day Up North

Matt and I both took the day off yesterday and went up north to Lincoln for a day of hiking & swimming. The day was gorgeous, and the hike was awesome even though the water was really too cold for actual swimming. But we had lunch, waded for a bit, and took a good long walk in the woods. I got a bit of a sunburn on my face and back and shoulders, but the bugs weren't bad at all. On the way home we stopped in Tilton and did some shopping in the outlets. We had dinner at the Tilt'n Diner, and then came home and played video games for the rest of the evening. It was so nice to have a day to spend together without an agenda or obligations. We didn't have a specific time to get up, or a plan on where we were actually going. And because we had all day we were able to talk or even just be quiet together without feeling like we had to get everything in in a short period of time. We talked about the house search, his job search, and a whole lot of nothing important. It was just a great day!