naturalism

for andrew's birthday shannon planned a party for him, but unfortunately since it's summer most people were away so we were just a small gathering. one of the highlights was that we were told to all dress up as andrew. i was quite pleased with my costume - it required more effort than brendan's, he just wore a plaid shirt and a tool belt. i wore airwalk shoes (andrew has a pair of black ones), some long shorts with brendan's boxers (there was a big hole in the bum of the shorts so i needed to wear the boxers so my bum wasn't exposed. i actually found a patch for the shorts and ironed it on on saturday). my orange shirt that has a funny slogan on it (andrew often wears shirts like that) with one of b's two plaid shirts. i wore my glasses, a toque and a sticker that said "hello my name is andrew". then to top it all off i drew on a soul patch. it was fun. and i felt dressing like a boy was pretty comfortable - PLUS it inspired shanno and i to be much stronger when we were moving around heavy long tables. funny how clothing changes our ability. no doubt if i was all dressed up fancy like i wouldn't want to move around tables, much less be strong enough.

bren has this great skill at finding really amazing sites and blogs then sending them to people who are interested. yesterday she sent me two. the first one was a blog entry written by a girl saying that she's done the whole pro-life thing, pro-gay rights, pro-women's rights, pro-peace, etc etc. and has found that it would often make her anti the opposite. which she doesn't like. so instead of being pro causes, she's now pro people. i like that. i like people. i value people. i believe that there is something redeemable in everyone, so being anti any people group doesn't work. i can be pro-people. i can rally for people and always keep their humanness as the focus of my cause.

anyways, the other link she sent was to this online photo article about how kids live in different parts of the world. it reminded me a little of the 'babies' documentary. these kinds of glimpses into how other people live is important. they give us perspective. they give us a dose of reality that we don't get often enough. check it out (click across the numbers at the top or the arrow button). the world is full of extremes. i was left once again longing for everyone to have enough.

at the moment, for some undetectable reason, b and i don't have a lot of money for extras these days. but we have enough :) we've been scaling back to what we need this week and sifting out our wants. it's a good practice from time to time. having limited spending money can be fun. it makes me appreciative and be more careful with how i spend my allowance. it made buying my mumford and sons album even more fun. plus, we made andrew's birthday gift instead of buying, which turned out to be extra fun since it was a challenge and we had to be creative.

 

you can understand dependence
when you know the maker's hand.