"Jesus for President"

This is an interesting article about Shane Claiborne's new book, how he's been traveling around America in his veggie-oil powered van talking about politics, and how young evangelicals are the new swing vote.

oh, mr. rochester

Today, an honest-to-goodness chimney sweep came and cleaned our chimney, complete with a grisly, graying five o'clock shadow, and a top hat. (or as close as one could possibly find as far as top hats go.) His name was Larry and he was quite the conversationalist.

Tonight was night two in my continuing trend of hanging out with complete strangers. On Monday night I attended a classic rsvl. local show with my friend Liz. She knew everyone. I knew about one other person. There were some amazing acts. One guy did a "Genie in a Bottle" cover. Another guy went into one of those long, drawn-out stories where he claimed he sent in some songs to recording studios, didn't copyright them, then started hearing them on the radio a year or so later. This was shortly followed by a medley of all the songs the recording studios ripped off of him. If you're curious as to which songs they stole, some of them included "Ice Ice Baby" and TLC's "Scrubs." However, this guy wasn't too terrible. Other than that, it was about the most awkward thing I've done all year. Unless you count tonight, where i played that game (where you pass around the beeping thing and try to guess the words...i can't remember what it's called) for about 3 hours with people I had never met before.

In other news, I'm completely unable to resist my traditional summer reading habits. I started out with good intentions, just reading stuff on my list and not revisiting old favorites. But I finally gave in and started rereading Jane Eyre for about the 50th time. I can't help it. I mean, Slaughterhouse-Five was great, but sometimes I just need old friends. I'm holding off on Harry Potter, though. At least until I've finished something remotely ambitious.

old stuff

I just found these pictures from fall break, but they're slightly summerlike, so...

genius

Sometimes i get cravings to do lots of DIY projects....like making lamps and ridiculously cool stuffed animals, and reupholstering furniture. Anyone else?

"our neighborhood is the bermuda triangle"

My dad refers to our yard as the bermuda triangle now. Thanks to Arkansas's newfound love of extremely windy weather, with storms that make all of the pine trees in our yard lean over at 45 degree angles, we got another visit from our best friends Ed and Barbara, who take away all of our fallen trees and cut down the ones leaning on our power lines. My poor dad. Between our house and our neighbor's, I think we've lost over 30 trees since January. I am now an expert brush-hauler.

happy birthday, molly!

in honor of my dear roomie, whose birthday is today:
the one and only arlo guthrie.

also, i want a rabbit.

so...

I used one of those zero-turning-radius lawn mowers today.

I thought I was going to die.