not a day goes by...

seven things

2006-01-18T13:37:00.000-05:00

Seven Things To Do Before I Die:
1. go back to Spain
2. go to San Fransico
3. design my dream kitchen
4. walk hand in hand in a park with scott when we're old
5. go on a mission trip with scott and our family
6. have my own Christmas traditions
7. learn to surf? maybe?

Seven Things I Cannot Do:
1. cut straight
2. draw a straight line (even with a ruler)
3. spell
4. drink coffee
5. resist a good sale (i'm working on that one though)
6. drink beer
7. ice skate (well technically i can but i perfer not to after a semi-tragic skating event when i was 5 years old)

Seven Things that Attract Me to My Spouse (not necessarily in this order!):
1. His sense of humor
2. His good looks
3. The way he follows rules and directions.
4. The way he takes care of me.
5. That he wants to be a great dad!
6. The way he values people, community, and mission
7. His creativity

Seven Things I Say (or write!) Most Often:
1. "hey friend"
2. "want to go to Target?"
3. "i love you"
4. "we don't exsit for ourselves"
5. "do you want to come over for dinner?"
6. "not a day goes by"
7. "hey baby"

Seven Books (or series) I Love:
1. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
2. The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling
3. Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
4. Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller
5. MudHouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner
6. The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
7. More Than Equals by Chris Rice & Spencer Perkins

Seven Movies I Would Watch Over and Over Again:
1. Miss Congeniality
2. Crash
3. Two Weeks Notice
4. The Christmas Story
5. When Harry Met Sally
6. any episode of Friends (not really a movie, but i could watch them over and over)
7. Remember the Titans

Four People I Want to Join in:
1. Scott
2. Mike (because i don't think he did one yet)
3. Mom (who doesn’t have a blog, but who could email me her answers and I would post them for her- just like kari's mom)
4. Allison (because she started blogging again for like a minute and then quit again)

the difference is

2006-01-16T16:30:00.000-05:00

we've had a wonderful winter full of clementines. people walk in the door and grab one out of the fruit bowl on the table. so easy to peel, so tasty, the perfect snack. but it never fails, inbetween juicy segments of clementine, someone is sure to ask; "what's the difference between a clementine and a tangerine?". well my friends, i did a little research and here it is.

Clementine: "Similar to the tangerine/satsuma/mandarin, but worse basically." (i disagree with this statement). "A watered down version, one could say it is slightly 'off' when put up against the tangerine. Perhaps the best-known Mandarin by name, Clementines have been popular for years, especially in the eastern U.S. Their arrival in the markets in winter is cause for celebration. Clementines are all small to medium-size, very juicy, very sweet fruits. Typical ripening in coastal California (north and south) is January to mid-April; in inland California and Texas, it's November to January; and in low-elevation deserts it's November and December. In the early 1990s, growers in Spain, which holds almost a 90 percent share of the world's clementine export market, broadened their scope. By 1999 they had increased by 10 times the amount of fruit sent to the United States. Morocco is another great source for clementines. Clementines can be almost seedless or contain as many as 20 seeds, they will produce seeds if a pollinizer in nearby."

Tangerine: "Blissfully easy to peel compared to its cousin - the orange, this sweet fruit also tastes like one, but with a slightly less tangy flavor. There is barely any difference between the tangerine and satsuma. Both however are superior to the clementine. "Tangerine," it turns out, was a marketing term that has no bearing on actual varieties but is applied to many Mandarins and Mandarin hybrids. The tangerine is named after Tangier, the port from which the fruit was exported for many years. Tangerines generally have seeds; their skin is redder than that of a clementine".

for my researcher friends, feel free to add more information on the difference if you find anything else.

freshly grown

2005-08-17T09:28:00.000-04:00

i love the farmer's market. and that is saying a lot since the wilmington farmer's market is one block and mostly plants. but i really do love it. i have gone a few times this summer and got some squash and tomatoes. last time i got a basil plant and today i got an eggplant. i usually buy from the same older couple. i think they seem nice and their prices are nice as well. this couple has probably had a farm their whole life and together they are trying to fight the consumerism that runs rampant in our country. ok, maybe they're just selling vegetables, but the message is louder than that. buying at the farmer's market makes me feel like my money is actually going to people instead of corporations. there is a certain amount of pride that comes when i buy from the people that actually grew the vegetables and worked the fields. everything isn't harris teeter perfect looking but they sure are tasty and the farmer's market only sells what is in season, not what can be grown in a greenhouse somewhere. i like knowing that i am supporting something real and something that is part of a family's story.

i wish our famer's market was larger but maybe the small size is part of the charm too.

blueberry? hmm

2005-08-11T22:08:00.000-04:00

tonight after the leadership retreat part one, we went to coldstone ice cream. usually it's not my favorite place. i think it is really expensive. and with all those flavors scott still gets mint chocolate chip. crazy huh? tonight we went with two coupons (one 50% off and one free, so it was quite the bargin!) well thanks to my good friend kari's blog recommendation i tried blueberry. i was excited about it. i like summer flavors. so i got blueberry with cake and blueberries. well....

it doesn't really taste like blueberry. sorry kari.

and what were they thinking get rid of cake batter? are you kidding me?

4:03 and no one's here

2005-08-11T21:55:00.000-04:00

it was 4:03, the meeting was supposed to start at 4:00 and not one person was there. not one...out of 28. is this a bad omen for my coming year? please say no!

yes, today was the leadership retreat for my students. and it was supposed to start at 4:00, and it was in wilmington. and the first group of people showed up at 4:07.

this was the first gathering of my new leadership team. i don't want to be pessimistic but that can't be a great sign.

but after a delayed very typical wilmington start we began. and actually, it was a fine meeting. people were pretty interested in the topics, they were talking, and actually seemed pretty excited about the fall events.

so who knows what this fall will be like. i think i am looking towards the fall. i mean, i've done this a lot but there is also an energy about this time of the year which is nice.

so 4:07 and the fun began...and the fun keeps going.

femininity

2005-07-27T18:05:00.000-04:00

today at the book/psuedo bible study we talked about femininity. my homework from last week was to define femininity. so i did. i realized that one of the main things that bothers me about this whole study is that i feel like it limits me. i feel like we are creating some definition of who i am supposed to be and i feel like the definition is way too small.

well, here is my definition. a fair warning though, i started rambling a bit. all of a sudden, i realized i was writing a blog entry.

Femininity is who a woman is. Femininity is about women reflecting and representing God's own character. If God, himself created both masculine and feminine qualities than femininity is a gift, a blessing. It includes compassion, warmth, love, charity, parts of God's own self. Authentic femininity is any woman living out of the truth of who she is meant to be, who she was created to be, a daughter of a loving God. As she lives more out of her gifts, her passions, her God breathed self, she creates femininity. We limit the fullness of femininity, when it is reduced to dresses, cooking, or even motherhood; it's a continuum. Femininity is lived out and developed in relationship with God, others, herself, and creation around her. It is in the restoration, the making of things right again, that femininity becomes synonymous with holiness and righteousness. Some may some femininity can be defined, I say femininity must be lived.

Femininity is the odd assortment that makes me love tea parties and have a nose ring or the love of cooking and the interest in poker, the enjoyment I get out of marriage and the pleasure I get from being alone. None of these paradoxes that describe me make me more or less feminine. They make me more of myself. And I like myself; I like the complexities of my inner self that make me more interesting. The thing is, I believe all these intricacies are tiny fragments making me more of who Jesus wants me to be. I like the fact that I care deeply about poverty and social issues and yet still am slightly addicted to target and port city java. I like how I can crave the spiritual disciplines and I can crave a cosmo. I like that I have been known to smoke a cigar and I pray that my friends to more deeply know Jesus. I like that I love to read Harry Potter and Eugene Peterson. I'm not afraid to ask tough questions and yet I love to hear the hearts of people. I like that it is Christ in me working all things to completion. I like that this too is part of the sanctification.

we were talking about modesty as well and my friend liz summed it up nicely,
"it's about adorning beauty not adorning body"

weddings & engagement

2005-07-26T13:09:00.000-04:00

this weekend my friend anna got married. it was a nice wedding, simple, southern, and classic just like anna. her groom, mike was very cute and very nervous. during the vows, he jumped the gun and said "i will" before the pastor was done. better eager than delayed! it was sweet. the wedding was at the chapel on furman's campus. it was really beautiful.

last night we went out to celebrate our friends chris and leah getting engaged. they were very excited and of course had to keep repeating the story of how chris proposed.

i like weddings and engagements. when you are engaged everyone is so happy for you, everyone knows you're in love, and wants to be helpful and encouraging. then you get married and the fuss around you fizzles fast. scott and i were talking about our marriage and how wonderful it is. engagement is the fun part but marriage is the life part. not that marriage isn't fun but there is something fantastically wonderful about being married. i love when scott comes home from work and we cook dinner together. i like that tonight we have a laundry date. i love that every morning i wake up next to him. i love being married. i love that i know that scott and i will be together. it really is fantastic. i am so glad to share my life with him. i quess what i am saying is that i really enjoy the normalcy of marriage. it feels so right.

another day, another storm

2005-07-20T16:36:00.000-04:00

here i am again...using my laptop unplugged. good thing i got one of these now that we have a storm every day. ahh, summer at the beach. more crashing thunder, more pelting rain, more cracking lightening. (does lightening crack?)

i'm sitting on my bed blogging. quite frankly i am bored out of my skull.

gilmore news: i watched 2 more episodes of gilmore girls. that makes 8 since monday by the way.

good news: i got some money donated for a lcd projector to use on campus. excellent. welcome to the technological age.

travel news: i am leaving friday morning for anna's wedding. i had a nightmare that i forgot my bridesmaid dress so i already have it hanging in the hall.

movie news: we watched oceans 12 last night. i think it's really funny. also rented the notebook and national treasure. (why didn't i watch the notebook today? it's not like scott is all that interested in it. hmm).

blog news: scott began blogging. well sort of. as soon as he puts the link on my blog you too can visit it. he is the computer techie in the family. we all have our gifts.

spell check news: is a word really misspelled if it isn't correctly capitalized? isn't that more of a grammer error? and is it really an error at all if it's intentional?

weather news: tomorrow chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon.

i'm so depressed

2005-07-18T14:59:00.000-04:00

after 2 & 1/2 days of reading the sixth installment of the harry potter series, i have finished. and i am depressed. quite a book it is, very good indeed but oh, so sad. now in efforts not to spoil the book for those who haven't made their way through it yet, i shall just say that i was surprised by the book. it moves a bit slower than the last two but the ending will get you. i am not ashamed to say i cried, and there are very few books that make me cry. the battle between good and evil continues.

i can't wait

2005-07-13T20:06:00.000-04:00

i didn't feel like it would be appropriate to include this in my last blog so i wrote this one...

i can't wait for the new harry potter book!! :)

i am still the same

2005-07-13T19:47:00.000-04:00

i've been going to this book study led by a woman from my church. it is about being an "excellent wife". sounds good huh? i mean, i could learn more about what it is to be an excellent wife. i'm teachable.

well how about every week i leave feeling frustrated and misunderstood. a few weeks ago we talked all about having kids and how scott and i are missing out on God's greatest blessing by not having kids...now!! i felt like everything was taken out of context from scripture and it was incredibly frustrating.

enter today: this morning we talked about our identity as wives. not as believers, not as disciples of Jesus, but as wives. apparently i am missing my God given calling by not allowing my whole identity to come out of being a wife. and no, i'm not kidding. being a wife, being Mrs. Scott Barc is all i should be. to put it bluntly, i totally disagree. my whole identity comes from who i am in Christ and who he is making me to be. being a wife is part of that, even the biggest part, but so is being a friend, and being a faithful minister (professionally and in life), making honoring decisions, and the rest of the areas of my life. being a wife doesn't define me, my relationship with Jesus does.

what bothers me most is that when i got married nothing in me died, i didn't become someone else. i would say that something in me perhaps came more alive, more to fullness but i am still the same. i still having a calling, and i still have gifts, and a brain, and i definitely still have opinions. and all those things are being transformed by Jesus and although a lot of those transformations happen through and in my relationship with scott, my marriage isn't the only place God reveals himself.

sidenote: why is it that if my husband has to ask/tell me something more than once i'm not being submissive but if i ask/tell him something more than once, i'm a nag?

what we (this small group) wrestled with today is what our calling in life is. is it about making God known or is it about being a wife?

just to clarify, marrying scott is the best thing i've ever done. i love being his wife, i'm down with the submission thing too, but marrying him didn't remove my sense of self and my "big calling" (ie: to know God and make him known), marrying scott gave me a whole new arena to live that out.

she's dying

2005-07-11T23:25:00.000-04:00

my grandmother is dying. she has lung cancer and only told us in april. apparently it is pretty bad. i haven't seen her since april when kim (my sister) got married, also the weekend she made the announcement. she has been doing chemo but my mom told me tonight that the doctor gave my grandmother a time table for how much longer she should expect to live. she has once again chosen to leave out important details. she isn't telling us how long the doctor gave her. why? isn't not knowing worse? she has smoked all her life. i struggle with feeling angry and bitter. it's not a press release, you smoke...you get lung cancer. mimi, my grandmother had the audacity to say it isn't related to smoking. oh yeah and i was born yesterday.

and now she is dying. it doesn't feel very real to me. i have only lost one grandparent in my whole life, and that was when i was pretty young. besides my grandpa, no one close to me has ever died. i am thankful for that. my life thus far has been about celebrating life...birthdays, marriages, babies, not about mourning death. this begins a whole new part of my life and honestly i don't know how to approach it.

to make matters worse, mimi and fafa (where did we get those names?) live in ny. not exactly a weekend trip. this is ridiculous, i am complaining about visiting ny, not about my grandmother dying. maybe i am in denial.

i don't think i know how to deal with death.

the funny or maybe even ironic thing is this, when we visit mimi and fafa they have this thing that they have always wanted the grandchildren to do. there are a million of us so really it is a good idea but now seems so morbid. the things that we grandchildren would like to inherit we put a sticky note with our name on the item. always seemed smart until the day she actually told us she was dying.

i know, i know, it's been forever

2005-07-11T11:59:00.000-04:00

now, don't ask. i don't know why it has been so long since i have last blogged. a lot has happened since then. matt moved in with us, we went to the beach with kari and mike, scott and i celebrated our one year anniversary, i had a birthday party, the family visited, we went to greensboro...man, i need to blog more.

i was reading some of kari's blog and i was inspired. she writes often. i should write at least sometimes :) thanks for the inspiration friend.

today i am taking the day off, last week i was in greensboro working and i am tired. it's nice to be home and do things here. i skipped church yesterday and scrapbooked for 5 hours. i think i am out of control.

scott and i really want to move to greensboro. we want to live in glenwood which is a pretty poor and slightly sketch neighborhood. this is scary for us in but right now our fears have less to do with the neighborhood and more to do with getting jobs. it is intimidating to think about new jobs and starting a family (in a couple of years). we haven't ever had to make decisions like these. but we are talking about a year from now and that is a long time from now.

emily, my favorite sister in law and i were supposed to go the beach today. we both have the day off, but alas it is raining. perhaps another day. maybe i'll scrapbook some more! haha!!

look, i promise i'll try and blog more but i might need a reminder or two to get back in the habit.

the internal dilemma

2005-06-09T16:12:00.000-04:00

where do i start?

when i was starting this blog, i was thinking about the things i am interested in and my career. i am in full time ministry and yet i didn't really want to list that as an interest or even as my career. i have been an active follower of God for over 13 years. that's a long time. i have worked in full time ministry for over 4 years. the thing is that i feel often i get pigeon-holed into this type of person. i feel like i am often fighting this image of "that kind of Christian". i am always afraid that people will learn that i am in full time ministry and then every stereotype of Christians will come rushing forward. the truth is, i battle those images everyday. at my church i often feel like i am the "liberal" woman who works in full time ministry and isn't scared to ask questions and yet when i am at work i feel so conservative...i just want my friends to know and love Jesus.

the reason that i am bringing this all into the light is because the other day when i was looking for blogs to read i would feel a bit of a grimace as i found a christian's blog. i was doing to all those people what i fear people are doing to me. i was judging them. i felt like i just wanted to meet someone "normal" and not have to have a conversation about whether or not God wanted me to have chicken or beef for dinner. so for that i am sorry, i am sorry that i judged some of the people that might be just like me. a christian and normal at the same time.

i should mention that it's not that i am embarrassed being a christian, often i am just embarrassed by christians. fine line ya know? i feel like i have to explain myself when i tell people i follow Jesus and even do it professionally :) i care about people, i care about social issues, i read books and listen to music, and on top of all this i desperately love Jesus and want to know him and make him known. that is what i am about...call me conservative, call me liberal. i want to know Jesus and make him known.

my prayer for myself is that i would take some risks, that i would get to know some people, and that i would have the courage to be me...christian and all.

so i think i will adjust my interests and my career. i said that i wanted to get to know myself and some other people better through this whole blogging thing. this is a good place to start.

(man, who would have thought blogging would be so vulnerable)

postsecret

2005-06-07T17:34:00.000-04:00

while i was looking around for some interesting blogs to read i happened to find this http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ the name is postsecret and it might be one of the saddest things i have ever seen. it is simply a blog compiled of people's biggest secrets sent in on mostly handmade postcards reflecting the secret. the brokenness is sobering. even now, i am at a loss for the way i feel. it is like an anonymous confessional but one of where the confessor isn't always repentant. the truth is, i have my share of secrets, the truth is we all have our share of secrets but when did secret sharing become another website? the postcards were about death, priorities, identity, sex, love, everything... and for the most part they were totally void of hope. is it therapeutic for the secretkeepers to send in postcards with their admissions? does it lift the guilt, the shame, the power of the secret? i don't know.

i guess it reminds me of in blue like jazz when tony the beat poet and don miller are talking about the sin nature. am i not capable of all those things, those secrets that hold power over lives? it makes me want to live vulnerably in front of people who love me and know me. if i had some life altering secret, i wouldn't want to have my secret made known through a postcard on some blog. i want to believe that there are people in my life that would speak grace to me, remind me of who i am, remind me that i am more than brokenness and secrets.

that blog is somewhat haunting. it stays with me even now, the feelings of hopelessness and hiding. what does it say about a world where the safest place to admit isn't really a place at all? there is no accountability, no speaking of truth, no reminders of better days and hope to come.

the book baton

2005-06-06T10:08:00.000-04:00

kari just sent me one of those batons...ya know, music, books, etc. i have to admit, i am glad that i got the book one rather than the music one. i would have been stumped if i had to do the music one. let's just say, i like music and really all kinds of music, but i'm not so good at those "what is your favorite album" stuff. now that i think of it, i'm not so sure if i'm good at "what's your favorite book" stuff either.

Total Number of Books I Own:
well, definitely not as many as kari. but i still have a lot. one of the great things about my job is that they send me free books all the time. i love free books. i don't always read them but it still looks impressive. hehe. i just went and counted one row of a bookshelf and then multiplied it by the number of shelves in the house, let's say about 400ish. wow, that's more than i would have thought.

Last Book I Bought:
i recently bought The Mermaid Chair (which by the way is good, but not as good at Secret Life of Bees) and i also bought Real Sex by Lauren Winner. (sidenote: i can't find the underline button on my blog). i also bought United by Faith, but that was more for work.

Books I'm Reading Now:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, that is a re-read but i am gearing up for the sixth book. i think i still have a chapter or two in Real Sex and Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

Recently read:
The Kite Runner which i liked a lot! Harry Potter IV, Mudhouse Sabbath, Mermaid Chair (obviously since i bought it last)

Up next:
This summer is designated to "reading with eugene". i am planning on reading several books by eugene peterson. up next is running with the horses and his newest one Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. i also am reading a few books for work including one called Lunch at the 5 & 10 which is about the Greensboro civil rights sit-ins. and of course the newest Harry book coming in july. i need to get a beach read book though since i am going on vacation in a week!

Books That Have Been Important To Me:
Blue like Jazz...ah so good, my kind of book so along with that Girl Meets God and Traveling Mercies. Also Celebration of Discipline, i love it. i am totally into all those spiritual disciplines.
I guess that isn't really a ton of books. Those are some of my favorites but there are probably more.

i don't know who i am passing this onto since i don't really have any blogging friends yet besides kari and mike. if you read this and you aren't kari and mike i am passing this onto you. so enjoy. :)

a weekend away

2005-06-04T22:06:00.000-04:00

this weekend scott (my husband) and i went to visit some of his college friends. they live in a small town not too far from here and it was a nice visit. we only were there for about 24 hours but it was still a good time. the couple we visited have been married for about a year just like us and it was our first weekend all together. i have been noticing lately that scott and i spend a lot of time with my friends from college but not a ton with his friends from college. it seems to me that for him still getting together with his college friends would be so much harder. for me it is still part of my normal life that some of my friends would visit. i was happy to visit some of his friends. i knew scott in college but we weren't together then and we weren't even at the same school, so being with some of his "college buddies"(as he calls them) helps me see a new side to him. scott was carefree and got to reminisce about things i don't really know about. for me, interpersonally, it was a stretch. although this couple is very nice, i don't know them very well and i had never spent an extended period of time with them. i noticed i was trying a bit harder with them then with some other people. you know, when you are with people that are just easy to be around, you just hang out you don't have to do something all the time. this was different. silences were more awkward, conflicting opinions a bigger deal. over the past few years my friends have really become scott's friends as well, i hope that is beginning to happen with his friends as well. the truth is i really had a good time this weekend even though it was a stretch. i was glad and i am still glad that we went to visit them. if anything, i got to know scott a bit better. that is always worth it!!

2005-06-03T16:14:00.000-04:00

this is my second first blog. let me explain. i just finished writing my first blog and i was trying to do spell check and then it was gone. i am not off to a good start.

so i am obviously new to this whole blogging world. my best friend has been blogging for years. apparently i have been missing out. well, hello blog world!

i don't really know what to say, which is ironic since i already said it once and it got lost. i am feeling a little awkward about this blogging thing. what if noone ever reads it? what if it sucks? will have the ability to say "oh well"?

i guess my hopes for this are that i would get to know myself a bit better. when i read other blogs, it seems as if people are so self aware. i want some more of that awareness, my own that is. also perhaps i can get to know some others better. we shall see....or maybe i shall see?!

for now, that's all i think.