Saw the Once pair on Jay Leno. Contrary to my contrary review of the movie it really is a movie with quality that lingers. Meaning, it's still there in my mind. With lots of other things in the mind.

Worship songs. Calling all input on the best worship songs of yesteryear. I'm looking to make a great mix of such and whether or not old albums of mine, yours, and others get it all together. I would like to compile some good lyrics at least of some.

Like randomly in the shower or driving or thinking an oldee comes to mind and singing must happen even if just for the chorus....hum the verses in mumble, and then 30 seconds later I totally forget the whole song as I was lost in the thoughts spewed on and out after singing.

And you Covenant alumni know the ones I'm talking about. REMIND ME OF THEM IF YOU HAVE A MINUTE SOMEDAY! Email them to me in a month! Help me capture some of those fleeting moments.

So, that's Casey there up on the very high pitched roof cleaning out our chimney.


THE ARK! Saw this hilarious posting at a Denali (Mt. McKinley, tallest mountain in North America? You knew?). Anyone at the Ark in Kenya knows a deeper meaning of hilarity in this. Look closely. What about we ringing a bell for an Aslan, cheetahs, and rhinos?

Pitfall on Atari Classic - Play it! I've been thinking of it all day as I was taking trips down into our crawl space. Don't worry we're not getting over-cluttered or anything. All that's downstairs is camping equipment, coolers, and travel dog kennels. Now that your mind is at ease from the obsession of simplifying belongings. Oh that's me, my, mine brain.

Our dogs look on anxiously as a freshly cut tree limbers and creaks on a still standing tree.

Well here's cheers to posting this before the power goes out again. A stands for Africa - no, A is for Alaska and no apparent reason for power outages. Dear People reading this right now ("p" capitalized for proper respect to you all):

Did you know that it's like we're living in the late 1980s up here in Alaska? Not quite hair styles, but definite frontier like technology and electric companies (1880s?) People's points of views and thought patterns are not progressive at all, and things are quite slow as a society in general. It's nice, but it's strange sometimes.

And don't get me started on the 80s music lovers, kids and adults and old people (?). The RADIO STATIONS - OH THE RADIO STATIONS! Disgusting! Everyone still in northwest Ohio, be thankful for universities and 89x and other big cities near by. Thank God for iTunes and inTune family and friends to supplement.

In fact, some new music is needed to sooth my mind for the last 2 weeks of my yearly zombie observance of school starting. But don't worry, this year I have resolved to accept the end of summer and shall defy the brick wall syndrome attitude (see any August entries for the past 5 years and you can bore yourself with that wine). Yes I would like cheese too. I have choosen to embrace my 8th year of teaching, and I'm 30 years young you know.

Alaska Photo Journal Update:

Just got back from our unoccupied acreage. We (Casey) cut down a mini-view over our bluff. Mountains barely viewable, don't mistake them for clouds - look underneath clouds :) From a two story (or a three story?) house it will be quite nice. My job during the task is to hold the dogs, stay away from falling trees, and keep my eyes peeled for wayward animals. It was hot out there! 77 degrees! That's like 90 or 100 for those of you acclimated elsewhere.

Before:


After:

I decided not to post the bear feces we saw, but you must know it was not fresh. Safety first.

In other news, check out our STRAWBERRY BED! Just planted this June and already bearing fruit!


And as previous posts acknowledged, here is our shed progress - concrete foundation posts. It'll be about 12x16, and it's just going to have 9 log posts, 2x4 rafters, and a Denali green metal roof. No walls. We're going for a river rock floor too!


Finally, here's a cool little portable speaker beside a pink shuffle, both compliments of parents for bday! Been meaning to post that for a week now:)

Today is beautiful after several days of all clouds, or partly cloudy! NICE! Energizing. Need to go back outside!

Another Trip Home quick recap - more than a week later - and now with PICTURES!

Classic old Church of Christ water tower!

And down the road at the BGCC summer picnic, Dad hits a liner, and I hit Mr. Baez with a throw (sort of). Mr. Herald pitching, good old days for sure!

It was bliss to visit and catch up with many, many fam and friends over the two week trip home for Amanda's wedding! The wedding was beautiful, simple, and nice. Defiance was busy with traffic but nice by the river for a few days, and the rest of my days were spent in bg with croquet, tennis, Panera salads, breadsticks, DQ's ---you know all the must haves :)

Tennis was the daily event with dad! Catan happened one and a half times, quilt guilding and showing, then shopping and relaxing cute cat time at 1156 filled up the rest of the time.



The trip ended with a bang of packing (simultaneously Mike and Shelby were packing for the west) into 4 bags from our one bring: large square, large duffle, small square, and one (new) bag over bag of golf clubs included. Well, at least those were the descriptions we gave the airport for identification and delivery of our lagging bags - flight changed from Detroit to Phoenix, Anchorage TO Detroit to Chicago, Anchorage.

Daily news from this actual daily day was that we squared/measured the post holes for our shed and poured concrete! We worked for 5 hours and it was fun to finally get started - too much rain and clouds here! Actually though it clears up beautiful around 10 pm prompting trips to the mountains like.......

A good standing segway into my birthday recap: got up around 10 am and got ready for our friends to arrive from Anchorage. With plans for a mountain drive, up 12 miles from our house, it was cloudy all day and they didn't arrive till 6 pm. We headed north to eat dinner at Sheep Creek Restaurant, then to Talkeetna, obligatory Northern Exposure comment for that is the town it was based on. On the way home from there we decided it was clear enough to go for the mountain drive and it was beautiful and dusky at midnight - lots of light though for normal people.

Got back at 1 am and ate ice cream cake. That was that, I'm 30!

'Twas the night before that 30th year of life marking day! Tomorrow I am more elderly, or senial if you will. Since getting back from Ohio I have been quite the lathargic space cadet to prove that elderly statement true. HA!

It's all good and enjoyable to think of 3 decades of life!

Now......a Movie Review for "Once":

Rating = A, partly due to the Bear Tooth theater scene in such an Anchorage viewing, rating also partly due to needing a good creative process and musical uplift, and a third part due to anticipation and enjoyment of finally seeing it. :)

Overall though, the ending was not desireable and quite abrupt. Being swept up into the passion of the music was, however enough for me and the movie (more so the music) pulled me into it in all the right directions of my own connections and life thoughts - if that makes sense.

Unfortunately the plot was too lacking. To make up for that (?) the actors themselves were enjoyable enough to watch interact.

Ireland! I love it! You must go there to know......There is a spirit of music and soul thoughout Ireland that is unlike any other thing I've seen or felt in my life, and this movie brought me back there. The dinner party where people just sang out whatever they wanted and people clapped - EXACTLY!

In the end, it was all about the music, not to mention the adventure of it raining today as to not work on the property and sloop out off to Anchorage for a pre-birthday celebration! NICE!

Yes, I got the soundtrack. How can you not? Swell Season too prob tomorrow :)

Tomorrow we have friends coming over with an ice cream cake! And secretly right now I thought I was up late enough to get a sneek peek at Dad's fun birthday blog (and mom's? hee,hee - you're okay if not mom :) - but it being 4 am there, I'm too out of it to try waiting another hour or more.

Hope the west coaster siblings are livin' it up! I'm with you in heart at least! :) check ya for now

We're back and the sleep recovery is complete. After yesterday's errand running, 7pm took me through 11 am without interruption in sleep!

Napping in Detroit airport and after checking in online that morning, all the sudden we double checked with the desk finding out they changed out tickets sometime without calling us, etc. We had to run to the gate all the way across the airport, got our tickets printed and barely made it to the plane.

Needless to blab, our luggage was lagging behind and got delivered yesterday! NICE!

So today we are just straightening up the house and unpacking while being with the dogs that we missed :)

I refuse to think of school one ounce but it is creeping in on us.....August 15 is the start, but I will claim we have a whole month at least until next week!

Well, my brain is not sharp after sleeping so much and I have open gym to run tonight. Enjoy the west coast siblings and enjoy your home mom and dad.

Let's see here....

Last Wednesday we celebrated my birthday early and I got one of the best gifts ever: a 30 year old Mary scrapbook! It had pictures of both Lungstrum and Edwards, as well as pics, quotes, stories, and letters from the years and from the fam members! WOO! I wasn't expecting such a great, great gift! Thank you!



Thursday I went to Mom's Black Swamp Quilters (BSQ) guild meeting and it was very nice to see all the talented and joyful quilters interacting. I picked up some quilt jargon like, "Slice and DIce", "Nine Patch", and "Joan was the best president we ever had" comments. WOO! It was wonderful to watch mom speak up front too, as she told stories of fabric creations, finds, and final product quilts. The audience oo'ed and ahh'ed. I also enjoyed the several who went up front at the end to proudly display their current projects. God is there and He is good!

Other than that, we have been hanging out, playing tennis (Dad isn't reporting the scores correctly on his blog - currently it's been 6-4/8-5, 7-5 with me up only 2-1 and a major wind factor today to frustrate all :), shopping, surprise visiting with Jenny Mavis and clan, cleaning up the basement, appreciating mom's talent, eating nice food, playing Wii, watching Music and Lyrics, and going to the Phlashlight/worship night that doubled as a MOM'S QUILTS ON DISPLAY DEBUT!! Her quilts look wonderfully vibrant and dynamic up on the walls of the church with their own labels, spotlights, and artist history write up.

Movie Review: Music and Lyrics: B, enjoyable, worth seeing not owning, fun music, predictable but still want to watch, a few hilarious scenes. "Mhmm..yaaau..I'm fine....................I wrote..................I have a pen......." Hysterical scene where she tries to confront her ex-boyfriend and show him up as finally making it as a "writer".

Church and picnic tomorrow! Hopefully we won't have to dodge any piles of water Mom!

I am enjoying being with my parents very much so :) More pics to post soon!

Today was a nice sleep in at 912 Holgate - Ohio world! 12 noon happened after getting up at 7 or 8 every day since thee arrival.

The trip home thus far has been good, good, good. We started off with a big bang. The big bang that started the universe and we became apes first.

Day one had 3 or 4 breakfasts minus 2 (?) and a 7.1 megapixal camera!

Next: My love......TARGET! WOO! Pink postage stamp sized music pod! Earphones!

A Canton, Michigan, Ikea run through was timed for 20 minutes - difficult but done. Then off through busy Detroit traffic and a super hot sunny day of baseball. The first three innings were great and Indians-ful. The rest was my collapse of exhaustion and lots of standing wedding party people in the next row of seats. No viewage of the game from that point on, left in the 7th.

This weekend's wedding recap:
Friday rehearsal was a nice drop off of dad practice and mom and gramps applebees yum yum chop. After a bit of clam baked sitting around, we went back to the nice Holiday Inn Express and more konk out time for me - missed BW3s!!! argh!

Saturday was a late wedding start and a nice shady park atmosphere of Bruce rhetoric. Before it all started though we went to Walmart (tennis racquets anyone?), Dunham's (where dad got me an expensive $10 putter, ha!), and Joann's (where mom let me borrow a coupon for a scrapbook). Plus, somehow Dad and I got a set of tennis in miraculously! WOOHOOO!!

The reception was quality, golf course held, and golf card playing. And yet it was cut a bit short feeling ready for no more people time. Later that night I got Mom, Grampa, and partly Dad's "Family History" stories for my ancestry book!

Before Mom, Dad, and Gramps headed east yesterday we checked out the Cabin Fever coffee shop - must get all decor for my house. Brunch was quicker than expected at the inlaws, and over when we arrived fashionably wrongly late. Eh.

Also, yesterday's college reunion was a success seeing 4 old buddies and most of their kids too. A highlight though was playing full court (equals 30 feet in length) 8 foot rim bball all day with Casey, his bro in law, bro, dad, and friend. Top it off with 9 - 10 pm tennis with Mavis pal and that's a good day.

Tomorrow we're headed to Cabela's first for a rifle scope, then to a dentist office stop for mom Sanford.

For today to be low key was nice :) We rested and cleaned up, and I got my ring cleaned and checked for its setting. See you soon beegee'ers, see you later Defiancetown on Wednesday!