| A tiny blog |
This week Lance and I have been working on preparing for the class we are teaching next week: Godly Relationships. This is a much anticipated class for some of the students - girls in particular. We'll be addressing friendship, dating, marriage prep. I have been reading many books on this topic and have opinions from my own personal experience. The thing is there are so many differing opinions out there. I have swung back and forth between the "don't date until you know it's the person you'll marry" and "go ahead and date as long as it's someone who has characteristics you'd like in a spouse" camps. I don't know where I stand - but that's not even what is ultimately important. We want to pass on God's truth to the students, not just our own opinions. The tricky part is the Bible doesn't really address dating - I don't think it was part of their culture. This morning I am working on the first session - "The Compulsion for Completeness". The authors of the textbook (Les and Leslie Parrott "Relationships") write, "If you try to find intimacy with another person before achieving a sense of identity on your own, all your relationships become an attempt to complete yourself"
Do any of you have comments about this topic? Opinions? Bible passages? Great books? I'm curious to know your philosophies on dating.
Well, back to work for me. Hope you are all well.
Aimee |
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| The Gala |
Lance and I got back last night from Fort St John. The gala (a fancy dinner fundraiser for an addictions centre) went well. Lance really enjoyed working with the other musicians. I had a great time talking with Ruth - a student who came along because her boyfriend was playing and she used to live in Fort St John. The food was great. People participated generously in the silent auction. People gave positive feedback about Lance's well planned and executed concert and his thoughtful personal stories. Some negative aspects were things getting way off schedule, cutting into practice time, disruptions to the concert (they were so far behind schedule that they interupted Lance's concert to announce and serve desert - this changed his concert into background music while people talked loudly and ate desert) The night was so off schedule we got to our beds at 4:30am Sunday morning - the itinerary said 12pm. Yikes. The organizers of the event were grateful for the effort Lance and I put into the planning, they appreciated Lance's openess about God's work in his life as it relates to addiction. I drove with Ruth and Aaron - the roads were great, an answer to prayer.
Lance and I are glad to be home. Now the next busy week begins. Next week we are teaching a class on relationships. Friendships, Dating, Preparing for marriage. This week will be spent in hardcore preparation.
Tomorrow morning I am going skiing with my friend Jenna -- this will start my day off well. Guarenteed it will wake me up. Neither of us are that good at cross country skiing but we're trying to learn. I'll report back about how it goes.
I better get to bed.
Aimee |
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| Shower Song |
I am trying to win a contest on the Abarbalog. Dan issued a challenge for people to make songs up in the shower and he would pick the best one. I made mine yesterday morning. Lance and I live in an apartment in a girl's dormitory. The fluctuating water temperature seemed like a good song theme to me. I shared the song with Lance last night and this morning while he was getting ready for work he was singing it. Here it is:
"I-live-in-a-girl's-dorm-showertime-blues"
(4/4 time, rock feel, "burning" needs to be held for two beats to have the right feel, starts on beat four)
I'm burning step back one two
Lather while I wait and then try again
I'm burning step back one two
Now the water's cold I'll rinse really quick
I'm burning step back one two
Arch my back, rinse my hair, keep my body burn free
Now I'm clean, now I'm rinsed, Should I shave my legs today?
NO WAY!!!
There's my song. |
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| Before Church Blog |
Good morning bloggers. Today is a good morning for me. It all started with yesterday morning. We got a dump of snow! Now, we were expecting snow - flurries. We woke up to a foot of snow and it was still coming down hard. Being a native of southwest BC where snow fall is infrequent and short-lived I LOVE SNOW!! I like the cozy feeling of being inside. I had hot chocolate in the morning, lovely.
Lance and I worked really hard on the Fort St John Gala stuff yesterday. Around supper time I said, are we going to have any fun today. We did some more work and then around 10:00pm the fun began. My idea for fun was to go for a walk in the snow. We bundled up and headed out. It turned out to be quite the trek. We blazed our own trails and were up to our knees at times. I was really goofy and kept pretending that were tracking/chasing people - hoping to be upon them by dawn. We had a great time - it isn't cold here (-5 C) so were didn't freeze, except where our jeans were wet. When we got home Lance made a great snack, which he wouldn't let me help with. My brother called so we talked to him and his girlfriend. Then we ate our snack (apples, cheese, triscuit, peanut butter, guacamole doritos, oranges and tea) and talked. Then we got ready for bed and Lance got out "The Chronicles of Narnia" which we have been working away at in spurts. He knows I really like the stories. Lance read a chapter (we're in Voyage of the Dawn Treader) and we went to sleep. A very fun night. Tons of fun packed between 10 and 12:30.
I think I woke up happy because yesterday ended so good. Today I have a challenge. Lance is playing in the worship band, so I dropped him off at church early. I'm not an experienced snow driver and some parts of the roads are bad. In 20 min I pick up my friend Jenna and head for church. I've planned my route avoiding all hills (yeah yeah it's not hard I'm on the praries) I made up my mind about this last night when we saw a little sedan (with bald tires I'm sure) spin its wheels like crazy trying to get up a hill. I even parked the van in the parking lot across from the school so I don't have to struggle out of the school's parking lot and up a little hill. I'll let you know how it goes (the drive home from church went fine, I just go really slow)
Okay that's all for now.
Merry Christmas.
Aimee |
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| Get with the Program... the blogging program |
I'm so interested in reading other people's blogs that I don't keep up with mine. But maybe you enjoy reading mine and would like me to "get with the program".
The latest at the Odegards:
It is Thanksgiving break - all the students have gone home or to friend's houses until Tuesday afternoon. We are enjoying having an empty dorm. Lance blared music this morning while we sorted through the foot high stack of accumulated miscellaneous papers beside our computer desk. (I came across a folder I had - ingeniously I thought- labeled "in progress". I groaned, I hadn't touched the contents of the folder since I wrote the label, and that was way before we moved to Alberta, well over a year ago, not exactly in process)
We went up to Edmonton today - to shop. Now I like shopping, I love getting new clothes. The problem is... Lance and I are trying to live simply, within our means, and non-materialistically. I have been reading a book lately called "Living More with Less". It is a really good book that emphasizes conservation, recycling, global awareness. So, since reading this book I don't feel as free to buy clothes if I don't need them (unless of course they are at a thrift store or on a super sale). Lance needed clothes, but I didn't. I was so disappointed. I wracked my brain and thought that if we found a decently priced pair of pants or nice shirt for work, then I could buy them.
I will not describe the whole trip but will say it included some tension due to my overly thrifty (read stingy) nature and uncommunicated expectations. We hadn't really talked about how much money we'd spend on clothes for Lance. We just agreed that he needed a couple shirts and pairs of pants. As someone who does most of her shopping at thrift stores, paying $50 (and that was cheap) for a pair of pants is agony. When all was said and bought, we left the mall with: two pairs of pants, two button up shirts, one sweater, one golf shirt and one skirt (which wasn't on my list and wasn't a super duper sale, but those sale prices always look so good when the original price was ridiculous, it was half price) Lance looks great in all of his new clothes. I don't have a tally on the total spent, I asked Lance to cut off all the tags when we got home, so I wouldn't add up the prices and then feel bad about the total.
Things to feel good about: The clothes are all really cool and Lance will wear them a lot because he likes them. Lance discovered where to get clothes he likes (too bad the prices are so high we can only buy sale items) We got to practice working together to understand where each other was coming from. I got a cute jean skirt. The clothes Lance got will look good with the clothes he already has. My husband will look really good at thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. I got a sugar-free ice cream cone at the end of our trip. (Everything felt better after my first lick...then I started worrying because you're not supposed to use food to cheer you up... I explained this to Lance and then said I wasn't going to worry about it, but just enjoy feeling good)
Currently I have a sugar-free pumkin pie in the oven. Lance is at a friend's researching songs to sing at the upcoming addiction awareness gala. The pie is almost done, then I'll head to bed and read I think.
That's all for today.
Aimee |
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| Flights and Basketball |
So I looked into airmiles flights to Fort St. John. I found a flight, the only thing was that it had an overnight layover in Vancouver. No problem I thought -- Melanie lives under 5 minutes from the airport and it would be so fun to see her. I needed to check the schedule with Lance and then get Lance's dad to book the flight (they're his airmiles). Meanwhile I phoned and left a message with Melanie about the possibility of me coming out. She called back and left a message saying that in no uncertain terms would I be spending the night in the airport, unless of course I wanted to in which case she'd understand, then she interupted herself and said she wouldn't really understand. Anyways my rude machine cut her off and she had to call back to finish her message. Well, after all that excitment I discovered that I had looked into flights for the wrong weekend. Argh. So I called again with the proper date and found out that they have no available flights -- after I hung up I burst into tears, I had gotten my hopes up. I'm going to call again tonight, who knows, maybe it was a computer error (I doubt it, but why not try) Oh, I know why not, they're not open... Maybe I will try on Monday. But I'm not getting my hopes up, I'm getting used to the idea of not going. There is a reunion at CLBI that weekend (alumni of the last 5ish years) so it will be fun to stay and see students from last year. Also, our friends are really good to look after me when Lance is gone, so I should be okay.
Today I went to a local school and played basketball with some CLBI students. It was so fun. I really like to play hard. It was also fun to surprise the guys with how good the girls were. All five of the girls (there were 7 guys) who played were quite good so it was a competitive and challenging game. My body is thanking me for the exercise and the rest of me is thanking me for the fun. Writing about basketball spurred a memory. When I was in grade 8 (ish) I used to say, "Boys and basketball, what more is there to life" -- my best friend Belinda and I thought this was quite funny because we didn't really think it was true. But maybe we acted like it was -- Platinum Blonde readers may remember an entry long ago about my "boy crazy" days.
Thanks for the suggestions for Lance's concert - I will pass them on to him.
Hope you are well.
Aimee |
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