This Florida Girl can build a fire!

I had a great thanksgiving weekend! Amy Ruth has been here since Tuesday. We spent Tuesday afternoon showing her the beautiful sights of San Fransisco. We ate at our absolute favorite chinese restaraunt, the House of Nan King. It's been so fun to have Amy Ruth around again, just like old times in Saint Louis. We have had some great conversations and good times with the three of us together and all of us in relatively healthy places lives, ocmpared to our time together last year where we were all really struggling with school and life. So nice to all be healthy and enjoying life, together.

Thanksgiving was a joyous day. Amy Ruth and I got up for a Thanksgiving jog, and then we hit the kitchen hard making the 22 lb. turkey, stuffing, sweet potato rolls, custard pie, and many other goodies. Around 2 pm, Brooke and her family arrived for the festivities. The preparations lasted probably another 2 hours or so, despite my goal to be completely done and relaxing by 1:30 pm. Ha! At least I am conquering my idealisms in the kitchen early on in life. Once we got all the food on the table and all ten people seated around our huge table (one of God's blessings this year), we said grace and I was able to reflect on all of God's goodness in my life. Looking around the table, I was reminded of God's gift of friendship to me. I had friends from college, Saint Louis, and now California all seated around me and representing the different stages of my life where God has provided community for me. I am so thankful for my own family who, being absent from my table was something I felt throughout the day. But my friends are absolutely who I want to be with if family can't be there. I did get to talk with almost everybody except Dad. (Happy belated Thanksgiving, Dad!). After eating, Brooke's siblings and Amy Ruth, and I all crashed on my bed for a quick nap. Six of us in all were squeezed together like little children, except we are all anything but little children. It was such a comforting feeling to relax and enjoy friends' company. After the nap, we cleaned and watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special.

On Saturday night we had a wonderful time with the youth group. We had the youth group over to help us decorate our Christmas tree, drink cider and eat holiday pastries, and watch the Charlie Brown Christmas movie. They each brought a picture of themselves and put it in an ornament to put on our tree. Now we have our tree already up and it is full of the faces of new friends in our lives who we know will continue to become a big part of our lives as the years go by.
So why did I title this entry "this florida girl can build a fire"? Well, can you believe I built my first fire tonight? It was very thrilling to watch it take off and develop into a roaring fire. What can I say...I have never built a fire before so this was
really exciting for me. I hope you are all well,
I have gotten many emails from you guys...please know I have gotten them all and really appreciate knowing you guys are able to read about what is going on. I hope to email you all back sometime this week. Also, I changed the settings on my blog so anybody can comment, so you no longer need an account with blogger to comment. Just click on "comments" and type away!

A time to play

The Lord Your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you with his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. Zephaniah 3:17

I had an excellent weekend. I spent a few days last week working all over the house, accomplishing many things on my long list of things to do. I gave the house an all over clean, and I painted my office a delicious green color on a whim Saturday. It wasn't exactly what I envisioned, but I am still pleased with the overall transition. Color really is important to me. Now I can feel inspired in my office and not bored by the washed out, gray panelling.
I also went to the coast yesterday with Brooke, Linda, and Maggie. Both Linda and Maggie are friends I have made here. We had such a great time. We took our cameras and have a wonderful time taking pictures of each other. It is so fascinating how people change once they get behind a camera. Some people become more alive and flirtatious, while other people I have photographed become nervous and uncomfortable. Here are some of the highlights of our adventure.
I have realized how much I need to take time out from my busy life to play. Yes, that's right, run and jump and play like a five year old girl. Each of us women really needed this yesterday, and I think these pictures show how much we enjoyed playing. This may sound wierd, but I
honestly feel like I am worshipping God when I play. It is an act of faith to leave the cares of our
lives in God's hands and play like a kid.
I love the verse I listed at the top because it speaks to me of God's tenderness for us. His love lets me live carefree. It also speaks of his playfulness in that he will sings loudly over us. I hope that no matter how busy my life becomes I always take a little bit of time to be carefree.
Tomorrow our dear friend from Saint Louis, Amy Ruth, is coming for a whole week and we are going to have our thanksgiving feast with her and Brooke's family. It will be wonderful, but definitely incomplete without my family. I do miss you guys, especially around the holidays! Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope to post pictures of our feast for you all to enjoy!

Good Intentions

Two pairs of earings, a cool leather watch, a pair of jeans, a red handbag, and a brown chenille wingback chair are what I have to show for my "adventure to the coast" today. Matt and I set out with every intention to make it to the Pacific today, but one thing led to another and we ended up going thrift store shopping in Atascadero (a town next to us about the size of Paso Robles). It all started when Brooke called us to see if we wanted to meet her for lunch, and we said yes. That is where our journey took a detour. But all in all, it was a great one! I love having Brooke only 4 minutes away. Anyways, I promised a picture and here we are after lunch today---a picture of the coast will have to wait for another day!

Headed to the Coast

I just wanted to write a quick note before Matt and I take off to the coast today. I had an early morning at work today, serving up foamy lattes, and when I came home I greeted my husband with a "We should drive down to the coast today!" He is game for the adventure, and so we are headed out in a few minutes, and I just wanted to share my excitement. I love getting away from Paso Robles because I feel like I can breathe when I am in a bigger place, whether it be the nearest city of San Luis Obispo or the coast which is huge and majestic. It gives me a chance to breathe in deeply and not feel like I am trapped in a small town. While I am glad I live here, I am still and will probably always feel like a city girl deep down inside me. I am taking the camera, and I hope to get some good shots of our adventures. I hope to share about my trip when we get back. Bye for now.

City Girl in a Small Town

Ahhh,
Here I sit in my little home office (Yes, I have my own office) listening to the delightful music of Karen Peris and enjoying a cup of coffee, thinking in utter disbelief that I am actually going to start this blog I have been dreaming about for months. Now that I have the entire United States separating me from all those I love on the East Coast, this blog is just one attempt to lessen the distance between us. Some of you may have been to California, but for most of you, my life is probably pretty hard to imagine. So I want to help you know me and the daily happenings by writing a little bit throughout each week. I know that I will probably be inconsistent with my writing, but I will make an effort to post at least two posts a week. If I do more, hey that is bonus!

I don't quite know where to begin with my life...I'll start with the beauty around me! California is so different than the East Coast. I am surrounded by rolling hills dotted with majestic oak trees. I am about 40 minutes from the coast in a little town called Paso Robles. The rainy season is in the winter, and after March, it doesn't see rain here again until November. So as you can imagine, the grass is golden-brown most of the time.
While it has it's own western beauty, I do miss the incredibly lushness of the East--- but I keep reminding myself that it is only grass, and God has blessed me with lush growth and blessings here in people that I struggled to find, especially during our time in Saint Louis. Some of the pictures here are ones I took of some friends at church. I have been trying my hand at photography, and I even was hired to do some senior photos. While I really find that I love and even need to feed the artistic longings in me, it is just a hobby at the time.


Within the first three weeks here I got a job at starbucks. I
knew I would immediately need something to get me out of
the house and meeting people so that this transition would be more pleasant and less "huge" than I imagined it would be. Getting a job has helped me to feel rooted here and has kept me busy. I applied for some social work jobs, but upon the interviews and even after receiving a job offer or two, I realized that I would rather serve people coffee and work with all different kinds of people at a coffee house than do any sort of social work at this point. All of the jobs I applied for seemed so exhuasting, and I realized I would probably have very little energy left to help with the Youth ministry or have relationships with people in my church. I find myself really being drawn to the idea of working at starbucks and developing an unofficial counseling ministry at my church. Walking through life with the people I know and love is much more the realm that I desire to use my counseling training. So, as long as the tiny starbucks paycheck helps pay the bills, I am off on an adventure of joy mixed with the reality of penny-pinching!


This was a great picture (with the Berkel Family) that we took on our trip to visit our east coast friends before we moved out here. Our journey out west was a very, very, very stressful one. Matt and I drove a huge moving truck filled with our stuff. The radio didn't work and neither did the cigarette lighter, which meant we had no way to plug in an any music attachments. 2200 miles driving with the sound of the wind beating against the roof of the truck overhead will drive anyone crazy. We discovered about 1 hour out from our destination that if we close one of the tiny side windows, the banging noise would stop!! Very ironic. Anyhow, Andrew, was so awesome to come with us and help drive our car and we towed the van behind us. Beside the bumpiness of that trip, our transition here has been nothing short of remarkable and full of kinds loving grace to us. One by one, blessings have popped up along the way during our move and in our transition here that have solidified in our minds that this is exactly where we need to be!

I hope you all enjoy reading about my and Matt's life. I am looking forward to sharing my heart and life with you all, and I am also looking forward to the quiet moments I can take in front of this computer screen and reflect of the goodness of God in my life. Until then, Goodnight all.

Love,
Alina

P.S. I would love to get comments from you all. If you have an account with Blogger, you can post one to this entry. It is free and it is easy to get an account. Also, there is no obligation to have a blog (I think, but check it out for sure).

Welcome to my new blog...

Announcing the arrival of "me" to the web. You have arrived at my newest endeavor to keep in touch with all those I love. This is just a test to see if I am on. I look forward to keeping you all in tune to the fabulous adventures of matt and alina.