It hit and possibly passed 100 degrees in Portland today. To quote a co-worker, "We're not equipped to deal with this heat." Nestle is responding by begging for ice cubes and trying to move as little as possible.
Hopefully, this means that the beach will be clear & warm next weekend...
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
The Journey
This morning at church, the message was about Abraham's journey and his up's and down's with God. I realized that I haven't cut Abraham enough slack in the past.
Yes, on two separate occasions he claimed that his wife was his sister and allowed her to become the mistress of two separate kings. One of these instances was when she had to be over 80, Sarah must have been HOT.
However, this morning, it struck home with me that Abraham was waiting for God to fulfill his promise 30 years after it had originally been made!!! I don't know of anyone today would could walk in faith without stumbling on just a promise for 30 years. If God spoke directly to me tomorrow with a promise for my future, and then waited 30 years to make it come to pass... I can't even fathom how many times I would lose faith and disappoint him just like Abraham did.
Thank heaven that my God is a God who values the process. It is indescribably beautiful to me that while he longs for my continual constancy, he also willingly forgives my perpetually falling short. I have enough self-awareness to recognize that I am a dramatically different person than I was ten years ago, or even three years ago. But I stand in wonder at what may be in store for me over the next 10, 30, or 50 years.
Our speaker Dallas said that we frequently don't understand the value of our own stories. That got me thinking about my personal story and I realized that, over and over, seemingly above all, I leap.
I left home at 18 to attend college half-way across the country where I didn't know anyone.
After college, I moved to a new city where I knew only 6 people on the promise of only a part-time job.
I married a man my parents didn't meet until 3 weeks before our wedding.
2 years after marrying that man, we picked up everything and moved. With no jobs, no place to live, no friends.
Six months after starting over in that new city, my husband re-enrolled in school to enter full-time ministry (a livelihood I'd promised myself I'd never again be dependent on).
Every month, we wait to see how God will sustain us.
Increasingly over the last few months, Proverbs 31:25 (the profile of a Godly woman) has become my inspiration: "Strength and honor are her clothing, and she can laugh at the time to come." I know I'm a long way from being able to laugh at the time to come, and I can only hope that someday I am worthy of being equated with concepts like strength and honor. I aspire to that kind of confidence, surety, grace.
I'd been a dancer all through high school and college, and only now do I realize that I've not only been launching my body through thin air, I've been doing the same thing with my life. With only faith and a promise that I am not leaping alone. I'm also coming to terms with the concept that I will fall, he will let me fall, but I'll have help to get back up.
Yes, on two separate occasions he claimed that his wife was his sister and allowed her to become the mistress of two separate kings. One of these instances was when she had to be over 80, Sarah must have been HOT.
However, this morning, it struck home with me that Abraham was waiting for God to fulfill his promise 30 years after it had originally been made!!! I don't know of anyone today would could walk in faith without stumbling on just a promise for 30 years. If God spoke directly to me tomorrow with a promise for my future, and then waited 30 years to make it come to pass... I can't even fathom how many times I would lose faith and disappoint him just like Abraham did.
Thank heaven that my God is a God who values the process. It is indescribably beautiful to me that while he longs for my continual constancy, he also willingly forgives my perpetually falling short. I have enough self-awareness to recognize that I am a dramatically different person than I was ten years ago, or even three years ago. But I stand in wonder at what may be in store for me over the next 10, 30, or 50 years.
Our speaker Dallas said that we frequently don't understand the value of our own stories. That got me thinking about my personal story and I realized that, over and over, seemingly above all, I leap.
I left home at 18 to attend college half-way across the country where I didn't know anyone.
After college, I moved to a new city where I knew only 6 people on the promise of only a part-time job.
I married a man my parents didn't meet until 3 weeks before our wedding.
2 years after marrying that man, we picked up everything and moved. With no jobs, no place to live, no friends.
Six months after starting over in that new city, my husband re-enrolled in school to enter full-time ministry (a livelihood I'd promised myself I'd never again be dependent on).
Every month, we wait to see how God will sustain us.
Increasingly over the last few months, Proverbs 31:25 (the profile of a Godly woman) has become my inspiration: "Strength and honor are her clothing, and she can laugh at the time to come." I know I'm a long way from being able to laugh at the time to come, and I can only hope that someday I am worthy of being equated with concepts like strength and honor. I aspire to that kind of confidence, surety, grace.
I'd been a dancer all through high school and college, and only now do I realize that I've not only been launching my body through thin air, I've been doing the same thing with my life. With only faith and a promise that I am not leaping alone. I'm also coming to terms with the concept that I will fall, he will let me fall, but I'll have help to get back up.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
We're still here!
Ok, I've been feeling recently that it's time I got serious about this blog again. There are too many of you who we love that are too far away to not keep in touch.
Here are some basic updates!
After 14 years, 5 schools in 3 states, Adam finally received his bachelor's degree!
The best part is that he's also simultaneously a year into his first master's degree (first of two in the program he's attending at Western Seminary here in Portland). Overall, Adam loves his school and the curriculum. There are some incredible teachers at Western and he's doing everything he can to soak them up. He also gets extremely frustrated by some of the "old school" methodologies and professors. In plain English, Greek is not Adam's friend (even more specifically, Professor DeJong is not Adam's friend).
Adam is also a week away from finishing his two-and-a-half-year internship at our church, Village Baptist. He had started the internship as a way to test whether full-time pastoral ministry was where God is calling him. He's since discovered that it's not, he's more passionate about working in the academic realm, as a teaching pastor or professor.
He's also been heavily involved in the training/continuing education of musicians within our service. This has been an awesome outlet for him, challenging his current skills and helping him develop new ones. He has recently taken up the mandolin and is contemplating a ukulele.
Together we lead/host a lifegroup (small group, home group, whatever each church likes to call them) at our home on Monday nights. There are four other couples besides us. We are right in the middle age-wise, but have been married the longest. One couple has a 9 month-old boy and another one due in October. These couples are truly a blessing to us, the church family that we've longed to find and put down roots with. Ironically, over half of our lifegroup are also involved in the mid-week band practices and rotate through playing on the nights we serve at the Portland Rescue Mission. We've become the Band Geek Lifegroup, and Adam thrives on it (I love being able to claim that my husband is a rock star!).
I'm still working at Charlotte's Weddings. For about a year now, I've been working as an assistant manager, helping run the store, do some of the ordering and problem solving. I've even helped with hiring/training. The position has it's ups and downs, but I still love working with 14 women and having almost no inter-personal drama. These girls are truly a family (including the owners taking us out for pedicures & brunch):
I'm also still working on the board of Lunacy Stageworks. I help keep the meetings on track, take notes, and lead the team that finds new scripts/plays for us to do. When able, I act in our shows. In fact, doing "A Company of Wayward Saints" last February was a dream since college for me (the great reviews and attendance by the playwrite didn't hurt either!). I'm hoping to be in another show this fall, "Clean House" by Sarah Ruhl.
When not working, I read voraciously, watch too much tv on my computer, have become completely addicted to Pinterest, and learned to be a halfway decent baker.
I think that's a decent wrap-up. Oh, Nestle is huge, bouncy, and always excited to go running or to bed.
Here are some basic updates!
After 14 years, 5 schools in 3 states, Adam finally received his bachelor's degree!
The best part is that he's also simultaneously a year into his first master's degree (first of two in the program he's attending at Western Seminary here in Portland). Overall, Adam loves his school and the curriculum. There are some incredible teachers at Western and he's doing everything he can to soak them up. He also gets extremely frustrated by some of the "old school" methodologies and professors. In plain English, Greek is not Adam's friend (even more specifically, Professor DeJong is not Adam's friend).
Adam is also a week away from finishing his two-and-a-half-year internship at our church, Village Baptist. He had started the internship as a way to test whether full-time pastoral ministry was where God is calling him. He's since discovered that it's not, he's more passionate about working in the academic realm, as a teaching pastor or professor.
He's also been heavily involved in the training/continuing education of musicians within our service. This has been an awesome outlet for him, challenging his current skills and helping him develop new ones. He has recently taken up the mandolin and is contemplating a ukulele.
Together we lead/host a lifegroup (small group, home group, whatever each church likes to call them) at our home on Monday nights. There are four other couples besides us. We are right in the middle age-wise, but have been married the longest. One couple has a 9 month-old boy and another one due in October. These couples are truly a blessing to us, the church family that we've longed to find and put down roots with. Ironically, over half of our lifegroup are also involved in the mid-week band practices and rotate through playing on the nights we serve at the Portland Rescue Mission. We've become the Band Geek Lifegroup, and Adam thrives on it (I love being able to claim that my husband is a rock star!).
I'm still working at Charlotte's Weddings. For about a year now, I've been working as an assistant manager, helping run the store, do some of the ordering and problem solving. I've even helped with hiring/training. The position has it's ups and downs, but I still love working with 14 women and having almost no inter-personal drama. These girls are truly a family (including the owners taking us out for pedicures & brunch):
I'm also still working on the board of Lunacy Stageworks. I help keep the meetings on track, take notes, and lead the team that finds new scripts/plays for us to do. When able, I act in our shows. In fact, doing "A Company of Wayward Saints" last February was a dream since college for me (the great reviews and attendance by the playwrite didn't hurt either!). I'm hoping to be in another show this fall, "Clean House" by Sarah Ruhl.
When not working, I read voraciously, watch too much tv on my computer, have become completely addicted to Pinterest, and learned to be a halfway decent baker.
Monday, March 7, 2011
The Oregonian Reviewed my show!
A critic from the Oregonian was in our audience last night. Here's what she wrote:
One of the great things about going to the theater is that we can watch a man experience the pain and humiliation of slipping on a banana peel and we can feel completely free to chortle with delight. If we did this in real life, we'd be branded unfeeling sadists and our fellows would rightfully keep their distance.
The drama, as we have come to internalize its conventions, permits us this emotional distance. Arguably, our understanding of this conventional way of relating to actors begins at the very start of Western theater with the masked actors of ancient Greek drama. The masks served as both a disguise and a physical barrier, a way to further distance the players from the audience. The masks reappeared in Italy in the 16th century in a form called commedia dell'arte, where actors played specific, well-known character types while wearing masks that represented each type.
"A Company of Wayward Saints" is Lunacy Stageworks' current production about a traveling commedia dell'arte troupe, Le Compagnie de Santi Ostinati, searching for a way to finance its trip home. They seem to have found it when the Duke of Spokane (there are several local references, including a particularly timely one about cavorting with a wench in a bioswale) promises to pay for the trip if they will put on a show to his liking.
In the first part of the play we meet the performers, commedia dell'arte types all. There's Harlequin (Glenn McCumber) who serves as the master of ceremonies, Scapino (Samuel Holloway), his zany apprentice who juggles and somersaults. Both actors make their roles memorable by their ability to express character and emotion with their bodies.
There is Harlequin's wife Columbine (the grounded Heather Lundy Kahl) who keeps him in line, cranky old man Pantalone (Daniel R Somerfield), flirtatious Ruffiana (the delightful Chelsie Thomas), and Joe Clayton as Capitano, the blustery army officer.
Then there are the young lovers, Isabella (Corinne Elizabeth Christian) and Tristano (Chase McNeill). In the first part, they are not masked, but their expressions and movements are so mannered that they might as well be. She is preening and flirtatious, he is earnest and easily flustered. Finally, there is Dottore (Gregory Barrett), physician of Bologna (or "baloney," according to the cat calls of his troupe members), who wears a mortarboard cap and a mask with bushy eyebrows, and is a blowhard and a know-it-all.
Despite some very funny antics, there are problems in the troupe. Personal differences have arisen, and there is talk of breaking up. The central question becomes whether they can overcome their individual egos and function as a single unit to achieve the common goal of reaching home. (It should be noted that despite the storyline, director Sean B. Kelly has the actors working together flawlessly.)
The second part of the play holds an unnerving surprise: The actors have removed their masks -- and the conventional behaviors that functioned as masks. The audience is forced to confront a group of performers who have become much more like themselves. Suddenly, we are a little worried at having laughed at the banana peel.
In terms of the storyline, some time has passed. The silly young lovers have transformed. Isabella is now a woman in the throes of labor and Tristano is her anxious husband, outside the birth room, hearing his wife's primal moans and fearing everything that is unknown and beyond his control. The Dottore is now a wise and compassionate figure who counsels and reassures the father-to-be.
The scene is very moving, not just because it is powerfully acted, but because we have been put off balance emotionally. It's as if a taciturn and somewhat silly friend we've known for years suddenly breaks down and confesses all his tragic secrets. Removing the masks demonstrates the power these terrific actors hold over us. As an audience we follow them willingly, from masked to unmasked, from emotional distance to absorbed intensity.
Eventually, the troupe does manage to pull it together. In this way, not only does the troupe learn to form a community that works toward the common good, but that community is shared with the audience, who celebrate the good fortune of those on stage.
Note: The performance on March 5 ended with Gregory Barrett, the actor who played the Dottore, proposing to lighting designer Lindsay Bernal onstage. It was a delightful moment, made all the more interesting by its reflection of the central motifs of the play: Here was yet another unmasking that actually brought the actors completely into real life, and here was a celebration of renewal shared by us all.
-- Carol Wells
"A Company of Wayward Saints"
When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 8 p.m. Friday, March 18
Where: Sellwood Masonic Lodge, 7126 S.E. Milwaukie Ave.
Tickets: $15, lunacy
stageworks.org
stageworks.org
"A Company of Wayward Saints" is Lunacy Stageworks' current production about a traveling commedia dell'arte troupe, Le Compagnie de Santi Ostinati, searching for a way to finance its trip home. They seem to have found it when the Duke of Spokane (there are several local references, including a particularly timely one about cavorting with a wench in a bioswale) promises to pay for the trip if they will put on a show to his liking.
In the first part of the play we meet the performers, commedia dell'arte types all. There's Harlequin (Glenn McCumber) who serves as the master of ceremonies, Scapino (Samuel Holloway), his zany apprentice who juggles and somersaults. Both actors make their roles memorable by their ability to express character and emotion with their bodies.
There is Harlequin's wife Columbine (the grounded Heather Lundy Kahl) who keeps him in line, cranky old man Pantalone (Daniel R Somerfield), flirtatious Ruffiana (the delightful Chelsie Thomas), and Joe Clayton as Capitano, the blustery army officer.
Then there are the young lovers, Isabella (Corinne Elizabeth Christian) and Tristano (Chase McNeill). In the first part, they are not masked, but their expressions and movements are so mannered that they might as well be. She is preening and flirtatious, he is earnest and easily flustered. Finally, there is Dottore (Gregory Barrett), physician of Bologna (or "baloney," according to the cat calls of his troupe members), who wears a mortarboard cap and a mask with bushy eyebrows, and is a blowhard and a know-it-all.
Despite some very funny antics, there are problems in the troupe. Personal differences have arisen, and there is talk of breaking up. The central question becomes whether they can overcome their individual egos and function as a single unit to achieve the common goal of reaching home. (It should be noted that despite the storyline, director Sean B. Kelly has the actors working together flawlessly.)
The second part of the play holds an unnerving surprise: The actors have removed their masks -- and the conventional behaviors that functioned as masks. The audience is forced to confront a group of performers who have become much more like themselves. Suddenly, we are a little worried at having laughed at the banana peel.
In terms of the storyline, some time has passed. The silly young lovers have transformed. Isabella is now a woman in the throes of labor and Tristano is her anxious husband, outside the birth room, hearing his wife's primal moans and fearing everything that is unknown and beyond his control. The Dottore is now a wise and compassionate figure who counsels and reassures the father-to-be.
The scene is very moving, not just because it is powerfully acted, but because we have been put off balance emotionally. It's as if a taciturn and somewhat silly friend we've known for years suddenly breaks down and confesses all his tragic secrets. Removing the masks demonstrates the power these terrific actors hold over us. As an audience we follow them willingly, from masked to unmasked, from emotional distance to absorbed intensity.
Eventually, the troupe does manage to pull it together. In this way, not only does the troupe learn to form a community that works toward the common good, but that community is shared with the audience, who celebrate the good fortune of those on stage.
Note: The performance on March 5 ended with Gregory Barrett, the actor who played the Dottore, proposing to lighting designer Lindsay Bernal onstage. It was a delightful moment, made all the more interesting by its reflection of the central motifs of the play: Here was yet another unmasking that actually brought the actors completely into real life, and here was a celebration of renewal shared by us all.
-- Carol Wells
Sunday, February 27, 2011
We're Open!
This last weekend was the opening weekend for "A Company of Wayward Saints." We were operating amidst dire predictions of Snowpocalypse 2011, and it definitely affected our turn-out. However, the opening night on Friday was fantastic. Great house, good show, and a wonderful reception afterwards. We had food donated from a couple of local restaurants, a local chocolatier (one of the actor's girlfriend is working on becoming a professional confectioner). We even had a professional DJ. As production manager for the show, I gave a toast, which felt super weird, but all in all, was great fun. Another highlight of my week was emailing George Herman, the playwright, inviting him to attend our show. I nerded out over that a little bit, gloating to Adam that I'd written George. No response as of yet, so no idea if he got the email, doesn't care, or is just slow technologically. Whatever, I emailed George.
I also spent most of the morning on Wednesday at work doing bits for a video blog Krysta wants to start on Youtube. We filmed six different spots (I did 2 of them), to be posted every other week or so over the next few months. As soon as those start going up, I'll put a link to them in here.
It was a crazy weekend, and I definitely crashed last night. I spent most of today attempting to catch up on cleaning, and then had a couple of friends from Charlotte's over to watch the Academy Awards.
Tomorrow, I knuckle down. Go back to the gym (literally didn't have time over the last week and a half). Spend the annual three hours doing our taxes, woohoo. Grocery shop so that Adam has something to eat while he studies and I have something to take to work to eat apart from dry cereal.
Everything for Adam is pretty much business as usual. He got a 96% on his first test of the semester this last week. He's studying to preach his next sermon from Romans in a few weeks. Next week, he registers for his two community college classes, a basic English composition/writing class, and a western civilizations class.
Hugs to all.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Playing Catch-up
Whoo, what a month.
Ok, thank you everyone for the birthday wishes and gifts! The day itself was kind of odd. I had to work, so we didn't really get to celebrate. However, Krysta let the other girls working that day and I try on some of the prom dresses. And Adam had wine and presents waiting for me when I got home, which was really sweet.
Work has been crazy this month. I've been running the front desk on Saturdays, and we've been averaging 48 appointments on a standard 9 - 6 day. While this is great for the store's bottom line, it pretty much feels like getting hit by a very loud hurricane that leaves dresses everywhere. On Friday morning, Krysta and I hauled a bunch of our prom gowns to Century High School where we dressed the girls who were escorting all the male contestants in the "Man of the Century" Pageant. It was so much fun working with the girls, they had great energy, loved the gowns, and marketed for us like crazy.
The show has been gearing up more and more. We start tech rehearsals this weekend and open next weekend. It's really coming together beautifully, and I'm thrilled to be part of this project, especially having loved the script for so long. We just recently found out that George Hermann, the playwright, actually lives in the Portland area. We're really hoping to entice him to attend our talk-back session after our matinee show, but haven't gotten a response from him yet. The guy is roughly 92 now and wrote the show over 50 years ago, so his mobility and enthusiasm may not be in our favor.
Tonight, Adam and I went out for dinner as a late birthday/early Valentine's treat. We tried Yuki Sushi over in Hillsboro, and it was a lot of fun. The restaurant was tiny, but service was excellent (our waitress was this little Asian mom-type who recommended great sake), and the food was really good. May have to go there again.
Adam is surviving spring semester with some frustration. Tomorrow he's meeting with an academic advisor at Portland Community College to figure out the two gen-ed classes he's planning to get out of the way here. We're both hoping he can keep his head above water when he's in the midst of four classes instead of the three of last semester and two at the moment. Fortunately, his campus visit at Western Seminary was very positive. We have lots of hope for that once we're done with Ozark and the bachelor's degree.
I'm trying to attach a picture from the prom assembly and from the show, but blogspot isn't loving me right now, so we'll see how it goes.
Christian out!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Multnomah Falls
While Marv, Linda and Cammie were visiting for Christmas we took a few hours to hike around Multnomah Falls, just outside of Portland. Here's some pictures from our trip.
Hope everyone had a great Christmas!
- Adam and Cori
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Staff Pics from Work
Charlotte's was recently selected to appear in Vows Magazine (the industry publication for bridal world). We all had to show up an hour early and wear black last Saturday. The pics actually turned out pretty cute.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
Hi all! We hope you're warm, happy, and have plans to eat too much with friends/family today!
We decided to host a dinner for any other couples who are recent transplants to Portland as well. As it turns out, there's only one couple coming. Steve and Katie moved here from North Carolina in August. Steve is a lawyer and Katie is a professor at a local college. They had friends out here already, but didn't have any plans for Thanksgiving. They said they'd just been planning to stay home and have a chicken. I told them that we were making tofurkey, so they may still want to bring the chicken.
Adam's making his honey-roasted fake turkey, roasted vegetables, and mashed potatoes. I'm making cornbread, vegetarian stuffing, and my mom's peanut butter bars. Steve and Katie are bringing okra (this will be an experiment for both of us), apple pie, and wine. None of us are particularly into football, so we'll probably play board games instead.
In other life, Adam is finally winding down the end of his semester. He's working on two exegetical papers, and then goes straight into finals. He's pretty much holding on by the hair on his chinny-chin-chin, and counting down the days until he gets a couple of weeks off for Christmas.
Charlotte's is pretty much same-old, same-old. We're already beginning to get fully-booked on the weekends. There was minor drama last weekend. We were hosting a trunk show for Aire Barcelona on Friday and Saturday. On Thursday, Suzanne had me call the designer for the tracking numbers on the boxes. It turns out, the dresses were still in Utah and weren't scheduled to reach us until the following Monday. Obviously, since our trunk show was on Friday and Saturday, Monday just wouldn't work for us. Most of Thursday was spent arguing with Aire that they were going to upgrade to over-night and pay for it themselves. Krysta was finally able to pick up the gowns from the FedEx hub late Friday night, however it was definitely not our most successful trunk show. I'm sure part of this was also due to the fact that Aire is one of our most couture (read most expensive) designers. On the up side, I did get to play with my most expensive dress to date, $4500!
Last weekend, I had a family of African descent. They were hilarious! The mom spied the dress she wanted her daughter to wear on another bride, so I had to steal it from someone else's appointment. She loved the gown, it had "The Drama" she was looking for. She had to practice dancing in it. On the surface, it was an ideal appointment, loved the dress, loved the veil, loved the jewelry, found bridesmaid dresses. They wanted to get everything taken care of so they wouldn't have to worry about it all later. I'm like "Awesome! Let me get the paperwork." The mom responds with "Great, and then we'll start talking price." And my heart sinks.... They're going to want to haggle. We don't haggle. The gowns cost what they cost, we only mark them up what the designers say we have to price them at. Eventually, I gave them a couple of discounts, on bridesmaids, on accessories, and they left happy... Three hours later! That was a marathon appointment, but it was one of the most fun experiences I've had at the store.
After five years with Verizon, Adam and I finally switched cell carriers. We realized that we were paying as much for calls and texts with Verizon as we would be for full smartphones with web and data with T-Mobile. Adam being the tech-guru that he is, has been researching phones for the last six months. We both got Samsung Vibrants and actually managed to find brand new, un-opened ones on ebay, saving us about $300 from what T-Mobile would charge. T-Mobile also has the option of a no-contract plan, which is also less expensive than something that would lock us in to two years with them. Win-win!
We have officially hit winter here in the Northwest. This last weekend we actually had some snow, and of course, the entire city panicked: "Get your chains, stock up on food, estimate hours for your commute!" Total accumulation: 1/2 inch. But it has been ridiculously cold, not reaching above 30. We've been walling ourselves off in the second bedroom around the space heater.
Looking forward to the holidays. Love and miss you all! Christian out!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
My Husband is Awesome
I asked Adam to remind me to take my soda out of the freezer before my show.
He attached a note to Nestle's collar and sent her over to me saying "Hey Cori, did you get your rockstar out of the freezer?"
Then he created an even in our Google Calendar and invited me to "Cori getting her rockstar out of the freezer."
This is what happens when Adam doesn't want to do his homework.
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