What a College Co-Ed Does in Her Spare Time

Remember that whole getting to assignments and spreading out the work load thing I was talking about last post? Well, here's what Kathryn and Em are doing in their spare time on campus between classes....


Okay, cute. I appreciate them taking first day of class pictures on campus.


They both got a shot, good. Good.


Snack time? Colouring time? They are in college right??? I'm going to go with stress relief. It makes me feel better and less stressed. ;-)


Oh wait....Invader Zim is being chased by evil bubbles. Bubbles? *sigh* What can I say? Art kids!

Dual Enrollment

I now have a college student...and a high school senior...all wrapped up in one. Kathryn finally got her ACT scores back and, despite being denied accommodations, she beat the minimum acceptance scores for admission to Piedmont! whoo HOO! It was really nice finding out too because Lee, the son of a college friend of ours, who is an admission counselor for Piedmont called Kathryn personally on her cell phone and congratulated her on her acceptance into the dual enrollment program. Talk about personal service!

[Dual Enrollment (a.k.a joint enrollment)- the process of a high school junior or senior attending and taking college level courses to receive credit in both institutions. Thereby getting high school credit and college credit simultaneously.]

No need say we were very happy! Kathryn will earn 12 college credits this year! After the official acceptance letter came in the mail we marked on the calendar the dates to go up for pre-registration and all the fun administrative stuff.


Notice her folder with all the pertinent paperwork etc.inside.

Luckily Emily had also been accepted months earlier because she took her SAT ages ago (We're slackers what can I say? Slackers and at the mercy of the whole accommodation scam. Bleh! :-P) Anyway.... Kathryn and Emily went to the pre-registration day and got their schedules, IDs and parking passes...



...they are full fledged co-eds now!



Shortly after all the pre-registration excitement the first day of class was upon us. Now, you must understand, Piedmont is an hour's drive away. The girl's first class is at 9:00, which means they need to hit the road around 7:45 a.m. to get up to school, parked and over to their class room. That means Kathryn has to leave our house at 7:15 a.m. to meet up with Em at 7:45 a.m., which means Kathryn has to get up around 5:45 a.m. to get showered, tame her hair and perform other cosmological feats of daring do to herself. Five. Forty-five. A. M. We are so NOT morning people this is killing us!

For years we have laughed at the poor public school kids that have to get up at this ridiculous time of the morning to get to school at an inhumane time every day...*sigh* Karma is a b!#$%. But I must say, for the first day of classes, both girls were looking quite chipper and perky.


Back when Kathryn was in private school, every year we would take her picture on the first day of school by the front door. For a few years there it was quite amusing to see the rapid growth as gauged by the constant of the front door. So here is the obligatory first day of school front door shot.


The girls met up at Em's house to follow each other to school since their licenses are still restricted to driving family members only. (They can carpool in the same car in another couple weeks.) We were just amused at their clothing choices. They did not consult each other about their choice prior to that morning. They just did it. Independently. More proof that they share the same brain! ;-)


Aaahhh, the obligatory Charlie's Angels pose, sans the third angel.

So my little co-ed has been going to classes a few weeks now. She has had to turn in a paper and a few unrelated paragraphs in English and has taken a test in Stats and actually did pretty good. She's doing okay. I'm just going nuts because the whole spreading out of the work and doing stuff as soon its assigned hasn't sunk in yet. While I'd love to let her fail for the sake of learning that concept, I can't. These classes will actually count toward her college GPA and credit so I don't want to sabotage that. I just can't figure out how to get through to her how important it is. I can make her do the work when I say, but until she internalizes it and comes to the realization on her own, it is simply a battle of wills and real learning has not occurred and wisdom has not been gained. Oh well, we have a whole year...maybe by May it will have taken hold.

Steampunkery

Getting into the whole Steampunk spirit as I get ready for Dragon*Con we are inspired to redecorate the den in Steampunk chic. While I was looking for inspiration one day in Hobby Lobby I hit the mother load! Hobby Lobby has all kinds of steampunkery items to really finish out a room.

(Please excuse the photo quality - I only had my cell phone to take pictures with.)

Great faux leather and wood decor boxes.


It looked like a mini trunk!


The frames have that warm antiqued gold look and the Victorian decor. Perfect accent pieces!


More good wall decor.


A multitude of clocks to choose from!


I'm a sucker for analog Roman numeral clocks or watches.


This pedestal clock was soooo cool! The clock face spun around to a barometer on the other side - how very scientific.


More awesome Victorian-esque clocks.


A nice occasional table. The wood was a nice rich looking cherry. The drawer and doors opened for fashionable storage.


An antique map lamp.


An antique globe lamp!


Nice brassy desk lamps.


Fun shelf decor items. Globes and a mounted pair of binoculars.


Almost Deco looking desk tool set.


Small desk telescope.


Nice amber ginger jars.


The same ginger jars in ruby.


A cabinet for curiosities. Closed.


Open. Three glass shelves for display items. I actually bought this cabinet. I have almost filled it up with our various curiosities.


A matching desk organizer. I was trying to figure out how to mount 2 or 3 on top of each other.


Pretty decorative ruby glass bottles. Nice colour punches for a dark vignette.


More lovely Victorian-esque accent pieces.

I wanted to buy it all! But seeing as how we don't have the new furniture for the den yet, I couldn't justify getting all that and not know what I would need where. Just waiting to be able to go shopping.

She's On a Mission from God

Kathryn is now officially an Intern for our youth group. It started out simply enough. The adult leadership of the youth group kept mentioning to Nathan, our youth minister, that we should reinstate the youth intern program just to help Nathan out with so many of the little bits of detail work he was having to deal with with the loss of our assistant youth minister. An added benefit would be to groom some peer mentors too. A month or so after this had been discussed in the adult meeting Kathryn approached Nathan and told him she wanted to help out more in youth and was there something she could do? So one thing lead to another and soon Nathan had a 'want ad' placed in the youth newsletter calling for applicants for Intern positions. Nathan was hoping to get at least 4 applications. He wound up with 6! After application essays, interviews, prayer and deliberation Nathan 'hired' all 6 kids. All 6 kids are great and will be a big asset to the program. Nathan wants to theme this 'class' of interns with the Blues Brothers. Nathan says "They are on a mission from God."

Mission from God or not, they are still learning a bit about planning, logistics and church policy. Their first official activity they did was to host a 4th of July Block Party. They decided they would roast a pig, have a slip and slide and have other games to play. It went off pretty good but the adults had to keep reminding the kids that the party was their gig and they were the 'hosts'. The kids were having a hard time not being a youth member and stepping up to being a leader. But for a first shot they did good.


Here is Peyton, Kathryn and Emily.
Peyton and Kathryn were helping serve the BBQ dinner and Emily was figuring out the video camera to get some footage.


This is Adam and Nick...the token boy interns. Yes, they are as goofy as they look. Absolute nutty, sweethearts, but good guys.


This is Amelia, she was manning the dessert table during the BBQ dinner. She's the keeper of the keys. The Interns have one of the church offices to call their own and Amelia holds the one and only set of keys to get into the church and the office. She will pass them off if some needs to get in the office, but the kids determined Amelia is the one they can trust to keep up with them!

I'm just so proud of Kathryn. She stepped up to put herself out there to be a servant and to me, that is huge. Am I having to remind her of meetings and intern obligations? Definitely. But she takes care of what needs to be done and I believe with enough practice and training, she'll be handling the commitments on her own by this time next year. Leadership does not happen over night but over a long period of time. Given enough time, leadership can be trained into someone. I just hope Kathryn ultimately realizes what a great honour and privilege this is and that she will get the most from the experience.

Shuffle Off to Buffalo

Kathryn went on her annual mission trip to Buffalo, NY again. She left early on a June morning with about 12 other folks heading up there.


Loading up the bus with all the luggage and equipment they will need.

Every year our church sends a couple of mission teams to Seneca Street UMC to help out up there and to show the kids that there are people they can count on that will not desert them and that love them.


Duluth UMC Mission Team 2010


Loaded up and ready to roll!!



Going.


Going.


Gone.

So many of the kids that Seneca Street ministers to are from broken homes where the father is in jail and the mothers are, for the most part, strung out on dope or alcohol. The church, as part of their mission, feeds these kids breakfast lunch and in some cases dinner. The church is a safe place to come where the kids can get help with their school work or just life in general. When our youth go up there, they put on a Vacation Bible School. This year was very exciting. We had 120 pre-registered kids for VBS.

The first year I don't know that we had any kids pre-registered for VBS. Most of the kids or families had a wait and see attitude. That first year there were about 30 kids that attended VBS. The next year there were pre-registered kids and about 50 showed up. As the years went on the numbers increased. Kathryn tells me that the first year was very hard. The kids were street tough and very closed to outsiders coming in wanting to be friends with them only for the outsiders to leave and never be seen again. That was the paradigm these kids were used to. That first year it took nearly the whole week but our kids finally got through to those kids by the end of the week and the Buffalo kids actually warmed up and opened up to out kids. The big test came when they were leaving. The Buffalo kids asked, "Are you coming back?" When our kids answered, "Yes!" The Buffalo kids wanted to know if they meant it. So when we showed up the next year, as promised, that was huge to those kids. So many of those kids, so hungry for acceptance, affection and affirmation were running up top our kids asking if they remembered them. I am happy to say our kids did remember those precious faces.

Every year it gets better up there. The church is really making a difference in the community and our kids can see lives being changed in the kids up there. This year Kathryn told me there were now youth interns at the Seneca Street church, which is amazing! They are moving in the right direction but they are still figuring out the whole servant heart thing. I think one of the most thought provoking moments the whole week was when at one point our kids were doing some work around the church.; painting, repairing, etc. Some of the youth interns from Seneca Street walked by our guys and were making fun of them saying stuff like, "Haha! You have to work on your vacation!" "You have chores to do! Do your chores!" That sort of stuff. But our kids just looking at them amazed and said, "We want to do this. This is why we came here" Then the SSUMC kids asked, "How much are you paid to come here?" When our kids replied, "Nothing. We pay for the privilege to come up and serve." Kathryn said their jaws dropped in utter disbelief. The SSUMC kids asked how much we pay to come up there and our guys told them, "$250" That just blew those SSUMC kids away. Kathryn said they just kind of went on off after that but you could see the little wheels turning in their heads.

I sincerely hope that the presence of our kids up there and the other churches that go up to help touch those lives in a way we may never know or understand but that it will help them change their family tree and to seek a better way than what they have always known. We can only follow Christ's example and go and serve. What fruits we yield may take a while to ripen but hopefully we will help yield good and abundant fruit.

Mostly Steampunk Insipration

Not much has been going on lately...

We went to see Toy Story 3 in IMAX 3D for the mid-night premier. A couple of Kathryn's friends from chuch joined us at the theater.


It was a tight night for Kathryn and I because that was also the night we had tickets to see Little House on the Prairie the Musical at The Fox. That was the first show in the current theater season we have tickets to. So, that night we drove downtown, saw the play, left before curtain call, and then hot footed it back up to The Mall of Georgia where TS3 was playing. We cut it close, but not too bad. Butch was there and had already found Lauren and Michael and got our tickets. They were hanging out waiting for us to get there. I was, but wasn't, surprised at the crowd at the theater. The average age of the viewer was probably 18-21. Yes, it was a midnight show, but still, I expected more kids. The theater was nearly sold out.


This was after the movie and most people were gone.

The movie was fantastic! The cliché, "I laughed, I cried, I cheered for more." is quite apropos here. Pixar did not disappoint, the story could have fallen flat but it didn't and the writing and story twists were great.

Swim season is still going on. Kathryn will miss 2 meets and about 3 weeks of practice...her last meet showed the lack of practice and next week's meet will too.

Kathryn is currently in Buffalo, NY on a mission trip to Senaca Street UMC. The youth have been going up there for several years now conducting VBS and service projects and, in general, just being there for some hurting kids that could use some friends. Over the years the Buffalo kids have come to trust our kids and really look forward to our week up there. If we do nothing else, I hope we show those kids that someone cares and that God cares about and loves them.

We continue to look for inspiration for our family room and all things steampunk for it. A couple weekends ago Butch and I went to IKEA to see what they had and get some ideas for tv units. We saw quite a few choices and made some notes.


This is the system we really liked, but this particular configuration won't fit the wall it will go on - too wide.


Three sections across like this might work, but I'd still like more storage and I do like the back wall section like the previous set up.


This configuration is pretty spartan but it has the back wall piece. We would add another side section, probably a vertical storage cabinet...


...sort of like this, but not this product line. The rounded lines to this style are too modern and would be too hard to integrate as steampunk. The others have a nice Bauhaus-ish, industrial look that would work in a steampunk theme especailly if I went with the dark brown finish. I'll have to soften the edges with textiles and more organic elements but it could work...

After IKEA we went to another store, The Dump. I had read about The Dump and wanted to see what it was all about. It is only open on weekends and it is high end furniture that is last season, over stock or some other condition to land it at The Dump. Furntiture can be up to 70% off regualr retail there. It was pretty amazing. As much as I liked the stuff at IKEA I found some awesome pieces at The Dump! The only problem is, what is there today, may not be there tomorrow. They only have what is on the floor. No overstock inventory. No warehouse. Which is too bad. I saw a set I loved that would be steampunk perfect! But we aren't ready to buy yet. :-(


This is the small curio cabinet sort of thing in the set I loved.


Mathcing end tables. Not crazy about the red tops, but it is something I could work with or live with...


Love the details on these; contrasting wood, rivets, natural oiled finish.


The tv console...check out the riveted metal top!! Squee!


Metal top - extreme close up. Just had to!



Sweet leather club chair...


..the "rivets" are shotgun shells!! How League of Extraordinary Gentlemen can you get?


Love, love, love this side table. Leather top, spindle legs, brass tacks...


...again, had to do the extreme close up.


These were a neat set of tables of various size. If I got them I'd darken up the wood a bit, but still, they are cool. Very warehouse, water front, industrial looking. I even like the candle hurricane on top.


Details from the piece. Check out those cool, brass, caster wheels!


Another line of a similar style. I loved the rivet details and unfinished wood.



Cabinet of curiosities! Very rough, barnwood like finish. I adore the brass finger pull handles.


Another cabinet of curiosities that I would LOVE to have! It is a true antique from India. That is Hindi handwritten on each drawer in gold paint below beautiful scallop shell brass finger pulls. But what was so absolutely amazing about this piece is, you could tell it had been a storage chest for spices/herbs. I opend one drawer and got a strong wiff of sandalwood. I thought the wood of the drawer was sandalwood, but when we opened other drawers and we got distinctly different aromas from each drawer. It. Was. So. Cool! I want that chest so bad! I doubt it will be there when we can start purchasing pieces.


Some steamy timepieces. The larger ones measure 4 feet across easily. Very large!


More of the large and modest sized timepieces...or should I say, 'chronometers'?


Another antique I really liked. It looks rather Persian to me. It would make a beautiful wall hanging with some soft light behind it.

This is a set of more 'polished' end tables. I really liked these too. They still had a steamy feel to them but were a little more sophisticated.

So the good news is, finding steampunk furnishings won't be as hard as I feared, it is becoming so much more mainstream. The bad news is, all these cool items at The Dump will be gone most likely when we go to purchase. The good news is, I shouldn't have too much trouble finding a suitable substitute.

I found some cool steampunk accessories today at another store. I took pictures. I'll post them later. I'm really getting itchy to start pulling the room together! Too bad I have to wait until our finances allow. Hopefully it won't be too much longer. Guess I ought to start drawing up plans. At least I'll feel like I'm doing something! ;-)