I miss..........

................this little guy waking up at 6 in the morning!
...........hanging out with these 2 girls in Ellen's room and watching Rach wear air cast shoes.
........getting out of a car after being in it for 5 minutes and having sweat soak through my shorts!
.........buying food and other goods like toilet paper, eclairs, water in a baggie or laundry soap form a shop like this.
....................finding a ton of photos on my camera of this person.

i should write a book.

my life is SO random. i have a very very weird life.

i had a dream the other night and if bethany kanhoffen is reading this i can already picture her sighing and clicking the red x in the top right corner of her screen. she is not my dreams' biggest fan.

you see...i have these really intesnse, really life like, really ridiculously detailed dreams. and i wake up and like to tell people. bethany would HATE listening to me tell them because she said -and i quote- "your dreams are one big detail and nothing ever happens and so i sit there for 10 minutes while you describe the socks you were wearing in it."

but last night i had this dream.

i was at the west edmonton mall skating with this guy i just met (from my real life) and my roommate tori and my niece ava. this guy was doing all these sweet tricks and i was getting mad at tori because she couldn't tell me what they were called and i kept asking "is that a sow cow?" (i dont know how to spell that properly). Then this guy comes over to me and says that will smith and david beckham are skating on the rink with their kids and so i zoom over to where the supposed celebrities are and i'm doing all these really sweet stops which is cool cause i just learned how to stop in hockey skates last year or so. Turns out it wasn't will smith or david beckham and then all of a sudden i'm on this cliff face with the entire cast of Surivor Gabon and I'm watching them scoot across this massive cliff holding onto this thick twine with only their hands and their feet are dangling with 100 feet of nothing between them and the rocks below. They all get across and get on these elephants that are trying to stay on the rock but its like a giant cliff so some slip and fall down the cliff with the survivor contestants on their backs still. I make it across and all of a sudden i'm in this elevator with this muslim woman. but its not just any elevator. its the elevator from my friend krista's apartment building and this woman has her 8ish year old son and her husband who doens't talk with her. so this little boy is trying to talk to me and i can't undestand him but i notice that the lady has a plastic bag full of books so i look and say " oh!!!! are you reading infidel?! thats SUCH a good book i love it!" and she takes the book out and its the exact same cover as infidel but with a different woman and she says "no!"

and then......!!!!!!!1

I'm in Niger and saying it "neeejere" instead of "nigh jer" like i'm all up on how to say that country other than from what i heard anderson cooper call it a couple years back when the famine was there. and i'm talking to bethany on my phone telling her i've been to tanzania and niger within like 4 hours of eachother. and it was so weird. so i go back home and my mom and her friend shawna are sitting on our veranda (except we dont have a veranda) and they are both wrapped in fleece blankets (i hate fleece blankets especially bethany's that she wraps around her pillow each night) with big slippers and mugs of tea watching the rain. And i tell my mom and she doesn't really care.

Then i wake up for real cause my roommate jenn woke me up for some reason and i said ...." OH MY GOODNESS JENN!!! I JUST HAD THE WEIRDEST DREAM!" and she said "oh really amy? what was it about?"



and 15 minutes later her eyes are glazed over and she looks like she's sleeping standing up and i'm pretty sure she's never going to ask me what my dream was about again.


but i'm thinking that i should make a blog devoted soley to my dreams and i could call it something cool.

my linguistics prof would have a fit if she saw the sentance structure in this post.

An Ode to the Mollieroontoonsmcgoons.

I have a best friend. Her name is Bethany. I also have a best cuzzie. Her name is Mollie. I love the both and i love them the same and i love them different. but the same still.

This is an ode to mollie.

One time mollie took my car ( black beauty) and drove it up against a fence and scraped beauty's haunches.

One time me and mollie went to extreme pita and i asked for a lot of lettuce because i LOVE lettuce and the manager got mad at me and was really rude and told me it wouldnt fit. then he asked if i wanted salt and pepper and mollie said she wasn't sure it would fit. and the owner followed us outside and yelled at us and told us not to come back. and we yelled FINE BECAUSE WE ARE MOVING TO TORONTO TOMOROW ANYWAY!

One time me and mollie went to mcdonalds and ate the amount of food 5 construction workers would eat.

One time me and mollie went to a john mayer concert and took photos with a dead deer on the way home and told everyone we knew that we had driven over it.

One time me and mollie spoke in accents all day to eachother.

One time me and mollie went to this fair on my 22nd birthday and almost barfed because the ride was spinning so fast.

One time me and mollie worked with this guy who's girlfriend had 2 bunnies on leashes.

One time i told people i loved to go to sleep to the sound of hamsters running in their wheels and mollie laughed really hard.

A lot of times me and mollie meow'ed to songs on the radios and video tapped ourselves with the camera on the dashboard which we drove.

One time me and mollie went on a run and ended up running to 7-11, buying slurpee's 2 bags of chips EACH, walking back home and cutting through some random person's sketchy backyard broken down fence.

One time me and mollie found this really dirty urine-y dog and brought it home adn then to the police station.

One time me and mollie called the bylaw officer and told him our neighbors could hide a family of baby deer in their front lawn.

One time me and mollie babysat my neice and nephew and after they had gone to bed, we played rockband for 3 solid hours.

One time me and mollie were at her dad's and talked about my neice ava for like 3 hours and could not stop laughing.

One time me and mollie decorated the ice cream store for our amazing bosses as a going away present.

One time me and mollie went to a white trash party and looked SO HOT!

One time we went to capital Ex and videotapped ourselves on every single ride.

Every day at work me and mollie would make up dance moves in front of the big windows at the ice cream store and people would look at us like we were nuts.

One time me and mollie nailed tarps to the roof of my garage for my huge africa fundraiser.

One time me and mollie made up a really funny nickname.

Everytime with mollie is fun. and I love her. and i miss here.
and here is my ode to her.
you better comment mollie.

Hosea

So its been a while since i've posted. ive been super busy with all my really sweet nursing classes, making new friends, and just getting myself organized again. I'm a creature of habit and in order for me to feel calm, i must have my environment juuuust so. So thats what i've been up too.
This summer i did a lot of reading from the Message just cause i like it, its easy to read and i get distracted a lot less easily!

Anyway- this past week I've been reading Hosea and its a book i really really love. I seem to love odd books like Habakkuk but maybe its just because i've never paid attention to them before so they are all kind of "new". (how sad is that considering my lifetime as a christian?!)

Reading Hosea showed me how I'm just like Israel and Ephraim. I know the God who saves me, who protects me, who guides me, but sometimes its just a major hassle to follow him! And when i'm feeling the major hassle feelings, i stray. I look to myself and other things to meet my needs. I distort my concept of God into someone (and often times just something..) to be there only when i actually need real help. But all those little times throughout the day-during those little details- i "forget" who i serve, and go my own way. More like I make a conscious decision to stray and have an afterthought of "maybe i should repent for that".

Jesus can't just be a higher power for me. I think thats what Israel thought him to be. Just this power that you can call on that will swoop down on you when you dial 911, and that floats away as soon as the problem is solved.

How selfish! How selfish for me to think that the God who created me, knitted me together, loved me into being, shouldn't be a part of my daily life. I'm not a 'sunday' christian but sometimes i find myself being a "8am-11:34 am" christian with a major or minor slip at 11:35.

I have this roommate who seems like she litterally breathes love for Jesus. She's in NO way ashamed of her faith and she actually consciously lives that way, breathing love for jesus (not to mention love for others). Thats what i want to be like.

God in Hosea wtih Israel is like God being pissed off at me, for doing dumb stuff, for NOT doing some stuff, for being lazy, for being embarrased, for being tired, for being fake. But here's be beauty...Here's the BEST PART EVER!

He won't desert me. Sure he's mad for a while, but he wants a relationship with me. and he wants me to want to have a relationship with me. And he's going to allure me, speak tenderly to me and lead me to the desert.(vs.14) Cause God knows that its in my dryness that i hear him. Its the desert that i'm receptive.

And its my fault that its not like that all the time. But.....http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=967 says " In our ugliness, God doesn't beat us. He entices us with what we deeply want. He knows we thirst and He offers living water. He knows we feel ugly and want to be enjoyed and He offers perfect love. He knows we want to be perfectly accepted, and He perfectly accepts us. What we deeply long for can only be met in God."

He waits for me. Thats the best part.

My New House!

Our kitchen table and J laughing.
The other view of our kitchen.
We have this nice big kitchen with tons of room for J to bake all kinds of goodies for us. Tonight its apple crisp!
My crazy roommate J. She is always smiling, always singing! T is behind her at the sink, doing out dishes while me and J goofed around.
My room! The painting above my bed is done by Patrick, one of my friends from Uganda! It was hung over my bed in UG and says "no weapon fashioned against me will prosper".
Our beautiful living room with paintings by our roommate J!
The other side of our HUUUUGE living room. Isnt it cool?
Our big windows plus a sweet birdcage where our new budgie is going to live.
Our hallway is so long!
We got these gorgeous gladiolas from the farmers market to put right at our front door. They're a liiiiitle bit dead now though:)


Right now my roommates, J and T and I are sitting at the kitchen table with our laptops, having a little computer party, listening to Death Cab. I love my house. I love my roommates. I love where i live.

I spent the whole summer being sooo anxious and nervous to move and to make friends and i prayed so hard that God would provide me with Godly women to live with. One who can encourage me and lift me up and laugh with me, and with whom i can do the same. And wouldn't you know....my prayers were answered!

This weekend i went into Toronto with friends and went to this church downtown called Forward Baptist. They have a young adults worship service once a month and it was awesome. It was the first time since being home from UG that i really truly felt the Holy Spirit on me and i had to get out of my seat and move to the back so i could being a little bit of Africa to the sanctuary during worship!:) When i'm really in the spirit (in the inner courts my UG friends would say), i need to move and dance and kneel and pray with lots of space around me. So there i was, in the back couple of rows just givin er!

Then i came back home to my wonderful roommates. T is so cool. She's a lot like me in that she likes to shop and find good bargains! J is probably one of the most sincere people i've ever met. Rach and Air would call her a beaming ray of Jesus sunshine! B is sweet and sarcastic and so funny. Shes an international student and is the only christian in her family so she has this passion for Christ like nothing else!

We're going to be having weekly-ish house meetings that we lovingly call 'family alter'. It will be a time where we decompress from the week, hangout, pray for eachother, and talk about the house and stuff like that. All my UG friends had family alter with their families and i suggested the name and its so much more warm than a house meeting i think:)

I have my first class tomorrow morning at 8!!!!!!!! It'll be an early morning so i can catch the 730 bus to school. The girls and I are watching Amazing Grace and then i'll be heading to bed. I'm taking Anatomy and Physiology, a chemistry course in Nutrition and Nursing 100, and Nursing 101! I'm really excited for this one assignment i have. I have to bring a visual represntation of what nursing means to me and you better believe i'm bringing in africa photos!

God bless you all!!!!