Recent Tragedy

Last Sunday I woke up to four missed calls and a text, all from my mom.  Naturally, I wondered which of my relatives was in the emergency room.  However, I was completely unprepared for what she said.  Tammy called this morning.  There was an accident.  Elijah didn't make it.

At 12:30 am, our dear friends' oldest son passed from this life into the arms of our Lord.  A recent high school graduate, Elijah was headed to boot camp in three weeks, scheduled to depart on his 18th birthday.  He was a leader in the church youth group, an excellent percussionist, and a gifted athlete.

There are so many things to say.

My broken heart is aching.  But this pales in comparison to the agony of my brothers...Elijah's five siblings...his parents...

This is not fair.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding."

The town's response to this event has been nothing short of miraculous.  What an incredible blessing to count this my home.

God's presence is so much more visible than ever before.  He has already worked wonders through this tragedy.

I wish I could describe the profound, grief-stricken, worshipful beauty of Elijah's memorial service, but I don't think it could be put into words.  Elijah's life meant so much to so many, and his faithful commitment to Christ has reached the entire community and far beyond.  Through his death and his parents' constant witness in the following days, hundreds - perhaps thousands - have heard the gospel.



Thanks be to God.

Elijah Todd Davis
September 2, 1995 - July 28, 2013

2013 Wedding No. 2

As I mentioned in my previous post, it has been a big year for the apartment friends...

...which brings me to

Meghanne's wedding!

I was the maid of honor for this wedding, so I was busy for the entire event.  Certainly not a bad thing - it was an honor to be the maid of honor.  (Too much honor?)

Let me set the stage for you.  Meghanne's favorite-beyond-all-favorites color is pink.  I figured this out pretty early on during our roommate-ship.  

It went without saying that the bridesmaids dresses and basically everything involved with the wedding would therefore be pink.  Therefore, since a picture is worth a thousand words, I present you with a post that is almost entirely pictures.

Bachelorette party:

(Please forgive the photo quality - all photos are either from my phone or taken from Facebook, which is admittedly deplorable.)

The bachelorette party was great.  We went to Fire and Ice for lunch and then walked around Boston, keeping mostly to Newbury Street to go shopping.  Woo!

After it was all over, I put together a scrapbook!

And then it was time to head to Rhode Island for the festivities.  Here we go...

Rehearsal dinner:

(Confused?)

Getting ready:

(I wrote my speech on my phone...and then I scrambled to try to write it on paper that morning.  I ran out of time.  I used my phone.  Hashtagfirstworldproblems.)

On the way to the church!

Favorite picture of us...

(CLOUD OF PINK.)

Ceremony:

Flowers:

(Super pink!)

And reception:

And once again, the beloved apartment was reunited!

It's so wonderful having watched Meghanne and Jon's relationship blossom from the very beginning until this stage in their lives.  I have spectacular friends.  If you feel like reading about that, my entire maid of honor speech is below, because I think it says it all better than anything I've written here.

And this time, while I spent a lot of time running around doing stuff, this time I had the world's best date.

If you've made it this far, congratulations!

The Speech:

I met Meghanne during our freshman year of college at Gordon.  Through a number of connections but mostly through the music department, we became close friends and eventually roommates.  I quickly learned that Meghanne considered wedding planning to be one of her most frequent past times, which I has no problem adopting as one of my own.  This led to numerous purchases of premature bridal magazines, the most memorable of which involved a trip to the grocery store at 10 pm on a "school night" for a magazine and some Ben and Jerry's.  Not wanting to be the typical "Gordon girl" - a common stereotype that usually came in conjunction with the somewhat derogatory phrase "ring by spring" - we made a point to hide the magazine under our other purchases as soon as we saw other college students wandering the aisles.

We made it stealthily all the way to the cashier, who loudly asked, "Oh, are you getting married?"  Meghanne thought fast and answered, "No, my....sister is getting married and we're going to her bachelorette party and we want to help her come up with ideas for the wedding..."  We thought it was entirely convincing.

It's worth noting that all of this happened before Jon even entered the picture. Another common past time was making lists of what we wanted in a future spouse.  We thought these lists were so important that I actually took the time to write them down.  So, as of early sophomore year, here's a portion of what Meghanne was looking for in her future husband.

- strong Christian
- has an appreciation for music
- will dance...extensively (all kinds, minus sketchy)
- likes kids and dogs
- good conversationalist
- has an equal say in matters
- doesn't mind talking
- has red hair

Clearly, the next step was to keep an eye out for said Perfect Match.  But our good friend Amber took a look at Meghanne's list and said, "You know...I don't think your perfect match is here yet.  I think you're going to meet a tall, red-headed transfer student, and he'll be the one."

I think it's safe to say that truer words have never been spoken.  Sure enough, the following year a tall, red-headed transfer student showed up in Meghanne's life, and things have never been the same.

But while we joked around about finding the perfect combination of characteristics in our future spouses, we also talked about marriage and what it meant to have Christ-centered lives.  We sought to prepare ourselves to strive to be the wives of noble character described in Proverbs 31. Meghanne...you've been preparing your heart for both this day and the rest of your days together for so long.  You look beautiful today, but what shines through your relationship with each other is a love for God that far surpasses the beauty of today.

Jon, I can't imagine a better person to be Meghanne's husband.  The way you treasure and cherish her in all of your actions, words, and attention toward her is such an incredible witness for what a godly relationship should be.  All of the above makes me fully assured that we can confidently relinquish her to you :)

I'm so blessed to call you both my dear friends, and I feel privileged that I have watched this relationship grow from the very first email Jon sent on February 6th, 2010 all the way through to this wonderful celebration of your marriage, and I can't wait to see how it continues to blossom and grow in the years to come.  

2013 Wedding No. 1

This year has been an important one for the apartment friends.  Let's recap:

Diana's wedding!

As usual, I'm well behind on blogging.  Like...months behind.  Which means that I'm now blogging about a wedding that happened on April 27th.  Nevertheless, it will be blogged!

It was a beautiful Saturday up in Maine.  They couldn't have possibly asked for better weather the entire weekend!  I traveled up with two good friends part of the way, dropped them off at their house, and then continued up to the island for two hours.  The following morning, I met Diana for breakfast.  Here's what went down:

Me: "DIANA!  You're getting married TODAY!"

Diana: "I know...isn't it horrible??"

Of course, she didn't really mean it.  She was beyond excited to actually get married, but I think it was a little overwhelming to realize that her months of planning were finally coming to fruition and there was nothing more she could plan.  I'd say that's a little stressful.

At breakfast, we ran into Laura and Nathaniel! 

Turns out when a wedding is a tiny town and you know many of the folks invited, you and your friends are very likely to take over fill up the local inn.  Meghanne and Jon arrived later that morning and Jon took a room upstairs (Meghanne stayed with me - roommates for life?).  Lauren and Nathaniel stayed in the room one floor above.  Catherine, Beth, and Joel stayed in a room adjacent to ours.  It was a glorious reunion.  

Later that afternoon, we all headed to the church and witnessed the union of two dear friends.

Their love story is beautiful, but that's worth a blogpost of its own.  Summary: read Anne of Green Gables.  Remove all the initial consternation between Anne and Gilbert, and you have Diana and Nathaniel.  What a blessing to be a witness to something so sacred and precious.

Once the ceremony was over, we headed up the hill to the reception.  I was sadly dateless due to the official blog boyfriend's business trip to India:

(I actually missed him even though this photo makes me look gleeful...)

We ate cake, chatted with friends, and watched Diana and Nathaniel dance.

It was beautiful.

After everything was over, Beth, Joel, Catherine, Meghanne, Jon, and I ran around Deer Isle in the dark.  Everyone else in town was asleep (at 9 pm).  We walked in the middle of the road.  We swung on swings in the playground.  I tripped over a curb and went flying about three feet before landing (I was fine).  We acted like we were back in college, and then we went to bed.

Finally, we met up for breakfast and then we headed home.  

A Bird's Eye View

Today was a great day due to a small thing.  As in...literally a small object.  But before I can talk about this small object, I need to provide some background information.

Our office building is luxurious in that everyone has his or her own office.  I am lucky enough to have a window office that looks out over a large field that may or may not be a swamp.  If it is a swamp, it's been enormously beneficial in allowing various animals to inhabit the area surrounding the office building.  My friend Maria and I have often spent a few moments of our otherwise busy time gazing out the window upon the likes of groundhogs, cardinals, Canadian geese (curse the geese...I'll never escape them!), and even a huge red tailed hawk.

(via)

That was a glorious day.  It sat in the tree next to my window for a full 15 minutes!

Enough background.

Maria walked into my office today with a Christmas gift.  Inside said Christmas gift was a bird watching guidebook and a pair of binoculars.

New.  Favorite.  Object.

I've never been a bird watcher, but all of a sudden I felt like I understood the heart of hearts of all bird fanatics out there.  I have a full book of 121 birds to search for and check off the list!  I have 121 glossy pictures to marvel at!  I have binoculars with which to peer into the sky and watch the 121 birds speed across the horizon!  HOW COULD ANYONE DO ANY WORK WITH BIRDS IN THE SKY??

So if you walk past my office for the next, oh, I don't know...year...expect to see me with the binoculars glued to my face.  I will put a check mark next to every single bird in that book if it's the last thing I do.

All else is for the birds.

Reminiscing

I miss these girls.






That's about it for tonight.

What do YOU do on the weekend?

Have I ever mentioned how much I love construction paper? If not, here it is: I LOVE CONSTRUCTION PAPER AS MUCH AS I LOVE COOKIES.

[That's saying quite a lot. You have no idea.]

Do you still need an illustration? We'll assume you said yes.

Last Friday night, my friend Ali and I spent over three hours creating things out of it. After she left, I worked on my project for another two hours. Result? A chain of construction paper flowers. I was pretty proud of myself.

Omnivorous Antipescetarian: Confirmed

I hate fish. Whoa.

Like the kind you eat, not the kind you keep in a bowl or a tank or whatever.

I had thought that maybe if I tried some again, maybe my last fish experience would have been long enough in the past that my taste buds would have matured and I would magically think that the taste and texture were the grandest things in the world. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

Last night, our choir had a very fancy end-of-the-year fête, including a gourmet meal with four courses: (hors d'oeuvres), soup, (palate cleanser), entrée, cheese, dessert. I took a lot of risks at this dinner. I ate both pea soup - the greenness of which has always perturbed me a bit - and foie gras. If you didn't know, that's made out of goose livers. Like I said...RISKS. (Good risks. As it turns out, pea soup is pretty tasty!)

But then came the salmon wrapped in bacon, covered with oyster sauce.

Dread came over me. What should I do? I resolved to try it. Be brave. Show the world that you are not intimidated by your food. It sat like a lump on my plate. Why is it so pink? I like red meat...but red fish? I cut off a large bite. No sample sizes here. Whole hog. I put the fish in my mouth and chewed. This texture is different then I imagined.

Then I tasted it.

Oh gosh. It's getting fishier...and fishier...and FISHIER! AHHHHH!!! IT'S LIKE EATING CAPE COD!!! QUICK! DRINK WATER! EAT BACON!! MUST. EVICT. FISH. FLAVOR. IMMEDIATELY.

At this point, I knew that I could not subject myself to eating another bite.

I know without a doubt that it was not the fish that was bad. Everyone around me was saying how splendid it was, how finely prepared, how flavorful, etc. I commend the cooks and servers for their top-notch cooking and serving. I wanted for nothing, and the evening was delightful. With the fish came green beans and mashed potatoes, which I ate with great appreciation and rapidity.

I did, however, discover that I really, really can't handle seafood. It seems to be anathema to me. Be forewarned, those of you who dine with me regularly.

Tales of Me & the Roommate

Meghanne is my eternal roommate. Ok, not LITERALLY eternal, but we've lived together for two years now, and we're cohabitating yet again for the summer. Who's to say we won't live together forever?


That nice picture is all fine and dandy, but it doesn't really sum up our relationship. Let me try again.


Ahh. Much, much better.

In any case, today I will tell you a story about me and Meghanne.

(Preface: Meghanne and I have a slight...affinty for weddings. Not our weddings. Just weddings in general.)

Setting: Wednesday night, junior year of college. 10 pm.

"Meghanne, we've had the longest day ever. I'm so, so tired. And yet, I don't want to go to bed yet," says Jillian. "I KNOW. LET'S GO TO THE GROCERY STORE AND GET WEDDING MAGAZINES AND WATCH THE WEDDING PLANNER!!!" replies Meghanne, all in verbal caps lock. Jillian finds this to be a brilliant idea. Generally, you wouldn't peg her as the let's-all-read-wedding-magazines-and-pick-our-engagement-rings kind of girl, but suddenly, the reading-wedding-magazines-and-watching-a-chick-flick part of Meghanne's plan seems to be the best plan in the entire world.

Jillian and Meghanne race to the grocery store. The clock on the dashboard reads 10:32. Luckily, Shaws is open until 11. Upon entering the store, they immediately recognize imminent danger: other Gordon students are grocery shopping! At risk of ruining their reputations as sensible people, they sneak to the magazine isle, and, disguising the incriminating material at the bottom of the basket by covering it discreetly with Ben and Jerry's ice cream, they make their way surreptitiously to the check out.

"Oooooh, are you getting married?" the check out lady asks politely and somewhat excitedly. Eyes on the conveyor belt, they reply in unison, "....noooo...." "Oh dear, I remember when I was your age. My girlfriends and I would get wedding magazines and watch girly movies while eating candy. It was so much fun. Is that what you're doing?"

Quickly, Meghanne comes up with an excuse to preserve our compromised feminine integrity. "My sister! (Sidenote: Meghanne is sister-less.) My sister is getting married and we're having a girly night with her and the rest of the bridesmaids and so we needed this magazine and the ice cream so that we could have our party and it's a surprise so we're getting it late tonight so there's no chance she'll be here."

The checkout lady may or may not have believed us. We will never know. What we do know is that we get safely back to campus, the magazine and ice cream double-bagged so that we won't be accused of being "typical Gordon girls" or "Ring-by-Spring fanatics."



Of course, by retelling this story, I've sort of already done that, haven't I?

Fotobooth Fun

Hello world!

I am writing today in order to explain a photo collage which apparently grows larger upon the commencement of one clicking somewhere on the surface of it. This collage came to be in existence because my sister, the notorious and infamous Jillian Griffin, who i'm sure is known for her blog posts throughout the interwebs, opened photobooth on her computer... Apparently the fun does not end after this outrageous photo taking program is running. We spent nearly an hour creating funny and inexplainable facial expressions as well as body gestures to entertain ourselves in the evening.

One would think that you would use effects to have the most fun, but that is not the case. Simply have an excellent time on good old normal mode and off to the races one goes. You see, I have found that there is not so much ingenuity or perplexity involved in the making and observing of photos that rely simply on the effect to make them funny, like having two faces and four arms. All you really need is to have the soft susurration of your imagination prompt you, within three seconds, to plaster onto your features an indelible moment of creativity that is now saved to less than one kilobyte of space on your hard drive. Congrats you've made a photo!

Well over the course of that one hour, I had a most excellent and bodacious adventure. *Bill and Ted fans insert laugh here* I hope that everyone who reads this blog tries out their own version of photobooth or crystaleye or whatever type of program you have so that they all can have as much fun as my sister and I did. I dare you to try it :)

K, Later all

(Jillian's brother, not v v v)

Jour de Boston avec Sara et Moi

I love it when normal plans turn into great adventures, don't you? I mean, there was that one time when Diana and I went on an errands run and it morphed into a grand day of exploring. It was the best day ever.

Today was a day like that.

Sara and I have been friends since 4th grade (ish), so we have a lot of adventure stories. Usually when we get together, it involves baking things. You can learn all about our baking adventures here, here, and here.

While our expedition today did indeed involve food, we didn't actually make it ourselves. Weird, I know.

This picture isn't from today, but I've put it here anyway to make you jealous. I'm nice like that.

Sara had never been to Pinkberry because she went to Wheaton out in the faraway land of Illinois, so this was new for her. It was thoroughly enjoyable for both of us, because...let's be honest.

WHO IN HIS OR HER RIGHT MIND DOESN'T LIKE PINKBERRY??

Right. No one.

In any case, we finished our glorious frozen yogurt topped with mochi, chocolate things, waffle cookies, and (in Sara's case - remember how I don't like fruit?) pineapple. Then we had to go find Sara's car.

As previously mentioned, Sara has lived in the faraway land of Illinois for the last four years and therefore doesn't know where things are around Boston. Totally understandable. However, I'm a little weird and I absolutely love driving in the city. I know pretty much the musical area of Boston, so finding an obscure street in Charlestown was going to be a challenge. Especially since both of us are from Vermont and therefore don't think to bring or even own a GPS. Go figure.

(My camera is currently elsewhere. I'm putting in random pictures of Sara and me right here so you get the general idea of us.)

This is already long enough so I will give you a very brief (written) snapshot of what went down next: Figure out where we need to end up. Take 93 North. Take correct exit. Unfamiliar territory. Turn around. Realize we don't want to pay the $3.00 Tobin Bridge toll. Get off at a random exit. Turn into a sketchy area. Lock car doors. Drive in circles in the general direction of the Tobin Bridge. Find a road that leads to 28 South which joins Storrow Drive. Find Route 1 South. Find correct exit. Find where we need to go. Elapsed time: 45 minutes. Stop signs ignored: 1. Mom-arm flinging: 1. Missed exits: 2. Times we were actually lost: 0.

We decided that getting turned around in Boston is fun. Somehow, that seems paradoxical to me.

LA FIN.

WHOOOOOOA Blogger died yesterday. Not cool. Mostly because it took with it all the most recent posts from all the blogs I read via Google Reader (that thing is the bomb, you know...) and has been slowly replacing them all day today. Thus, every time I check Google Reader - a pretty frequent occurrence - I am misled to believe that I have a whole bunch of new things to read, and really, I have none. How am I supposed to keep up on the blogging world?!?

[Overreacting a bit there, don't you think? Oh well. Life must go on.]

So I'm done with student teaching now. Done DONE DONE! The elementary kids are so cute. One girl gave me a super cool homemade card and hugged me a total of four times.


The rest of them signed a big card, and a lot of them wrote funny things...



(Names have been removed to preserve anonymity. You know. Because the school might come and assassinate me.)

I felt so loved.

After school, I went to the mall with The Apartmentmates to celebrate and get some new summer clothes. I decided that having had all my current clothes for several years, it's probably time to update and upgrade the wardrobe. I got a skirt, a hat, a shirt, a dress, and a necklace or two.


Here is my shameless plug for my new favorite store. I used to think that Forever 21 was totally overwhelming, but I recently discovered that it's more like a slightly-more-organized T.J. Maxx or Marshalls or something. In short, if you have the time to go digging, you'll probably end up in the dressing room with a few rounds ("No more than six, PLEASE!") of articles of clothing to try on. As stated above: new. favorite. store. Moral: go shop there, and if you're willing to sift, it'll be well worth the time, provided you want vintage-y clothes.

Now I'm sitting here on my bed with my bowl of dip and a bag of carrots...


...feeling (almost) awfully footloose and fancy free, wearing a lacy dress, and blogging in between bouts of playing(?) clarinet...


...amidst the disaster zone that I currently call my room.


By this time next week, it'll all have to be packed up. But for right now, I'm going to enjoy the freedom of no more paperwork while I block out the fact that I'm going to miss those little buggers.