Wow, so it’s been a while. No, I didn’t die, but yes, I did sort of...fall off the face of the cyber planet for a few months. (This post may therefore qualify as some sort of indication of resurrection. I may celebrate this fact later by taking out the garbage.)

            Part of the reason for this lengthy sabbatical is that, after solemnly promising myself that I wouldn’t be returning to the bookfield ever again after last summer (for mostly wrong reasons), I ended up out on the bookfield this past summer once again, and in looking back, I’m sincerely grateful, both to have had the opportunity to generate some income and for all of the rich lessons that I began to learn during the experience. (Yeah, baby!)

            In the nearly-month-long gap between the end of my time on the bookfield and now, life has been a little bit of a blur, but the experiences and the memories have been a spectacular eclectic mixture.

            At the beginning of the semester, I moved into the parsonage of an ancient Methodist church with four other young women, each of whom is incredibly unique, ridiculously hilarious in her own way, and is a rich addition to the culture and conversation within our little place.

We’re renting the house, and on the inside, it kind of looks like the last people who lived there were hippies. Or maybe they were colorblind. Or maybe they were colorblind hippies. I mean, come on—who paints their bathroom Pepto-Bismol pink and lays puke-yellow carpet throughout the entire house?!

...in an attempt to preserve our sanity, make the house slightly more homey, and build a sense of family spirit, the five of us have undertaken to do some minor remodeling during the past month. (We watch The Property Brothers for inspiration when motivation runs low). Having armed ourselves with plaster, putty knives, paintbrushes, hammers, a miscellaneous assortment of screws and nails, paint trays, and sandpaper, and thus equipped, we have spent the past several weekends pretending to be amateur contractors (we’re doing pretty good at the amateur part. The contractor part, not so much). The results are somewhat amusing, generally happifying (the house didn’t burn down after we re-wired the light fixture—which was a source of much rejoicing), and the process is...probably one that will go on indefinitely. But whatever. We’re learning, and we’re having fun, and we’re not wrecking too many things in the process. (We hope). 

Since every home needs to have a mascot, the hideous little creature pictured below has been lovingly dubbed Mephistopheles, and because looking at him is almost enough visual stimulation to cause one to experience an epileptic seizure, we try to keep him out of sight as much as possible. We accomplish this by hiding him in odd places for discovery by unsuspecting housemates. This particular day, he showed up in the bathtub. He migrated from there to the freezer, standing guard over the frozen strawberries. The next day, he was found strung up in Kristina's closet with a woeful expression on his face. I really want to hang him by his neck from the chandelier one night after everyone's in bed, but the opportunity hasn't presented itself yet. We're also discussing sending him in a care package to a friend of ours in Iraq (we thought he might make a good addition to someone's dog tag). 

It's sure to be an interesting year, and hopefully one filled with as much growth as laughter. I must be off at the moment to spend a few hours administering CPR to plastic men without hearts (I confess, I feel the outlook for this particular patient population to be rather...grim).