Creatures of habit I guess

I was at a coffee shop tonight waiting for my friend to show up when I received a phone call.  It was this girl calling about an ad I put up on allMSU for a textbook I've been trying to get rid of.  Unfortunately for her, I had already committed to selling to it someone else.  I ended the conversation by saying "well thanks for calling, have a great night."  Her reply was "okay thanks, talk to you later."

How often do we say things and have no idea what we're talking about?  Obviously, there's very little chance she's going to talk to me later because she doesn't know me and really has no reason to ever call me again.  Every now and then I'll accidentally say "you too" when someone says something to me.  A couple weeks ago I was at Subway and the guy who makes me a sandwich at Subway and says "thanks, enjoy your sandwich."  

"Thanks, you too!"

I bet he didn't like me very much when I said that.

Great way to spend an afternoon

Just got back from the Grosse Pointe South football scrimmage.  Beautiful day for football.  Met some kids.  Ate a couple free hamburgers.  It was great.

Some parents were handing out t-shirts there.  I think they are shirts that parents have bought because each shirt had a last name on the back.  The front of the shirt says "Who's Your Devil?"  Wonderful slogan if you ask me.    

I'm not sure who my devil is, but I'm excited to find one to be!

Also, there are some 5 year olds that dress better than I do.

New friends

I finally met the rest of the family when they returned home from vacation Thursday night and it was great.  I ended up hanging out with two of their girls (age 4 and 6) for about an hour.  Here are some highlights:

• Fished a tomato out of their fish pond for the 4 year.  She then rinsed it off in the hose and ate it.
  
• Pushed the 4 year old on the swing for about 10 hours.  It was only 15 minutes but it felt like that.  She's a tough negotiator when it comes to "number of pushes left until the new guy can leave."
  
• I was challenged to go all the way across all the monkey bars (about 8 feet).  Somehow I made it without completely splintering both my hands.
  
• Watched them both dribble the basketball and do their best moves.  They both used the word 'cool' to describe it about 57 times each in the span of 2 minutes.
  
• Listened to the 4 year old stress out about her packed schedule the next day.  She wasn't sure how to fit in "playing on the swing" while she was already planning on sleeping in, coloring in bed, jumping on the trampoline, more coloring, AND riding her bike.  I could only offer my sympathy.
  
• And finally, as I began to walk away from the house to go running, I had this final exchange with the 4 year old: 
  

Her: Are you leaving your car?

Me: Yes...I won't need it to go running!

Her: If you leave it in the street, it'll get stolen.

Me: Well, that's where your dad told me to park it.

Her: Well, you should listen to him I guess, but if you, it'll get stolen.

Me: I think it'll be okay, it hasn't gotten stolen yet.

So as I started to jog away, she yelled this:

"I'll pray for ya.  God bless ya!"

Should be a fun time living here :)

'Tis the season

Every year, during this very week, the air is filled with the sounds of whistles, pads hitting, yelling coaches, and the click-clack of cleats on pavement.  Yep, it's the official start of week of high school football practice.  It's also the official start week of all the other fall sports, but there's something different about football.  Maybe I'm just biased though.

I live about a pitching wedge away from Grosse Pointe South HS, and just a little further away is their football field.  Today is the first day of full pads and it couldn't be any nicer of a day.  So all morning I've had memories of the glory days back in high school replaying in my head.  It's been quite a long stroll down memory lane. 

I still miss playing football.  The heat.  The camaraderie.  The lights.  Maybe I'll watch Friday Night Lights this weekend.

In other related news...I might be an 8th grade football coach!

Clever license plate?

I saw this license plate last night and thought it was funny.  Then I realized that the car was a BMW and not a Jag.  I'm not sure if that fact makes it funnier/more clever or kind of dumb.  

Trees

One of my favorite things James Granger has taught about is in Mark 8:22-25. It's now one of my favorite stories. It's about a blind man who receives his sight back from Jesus by way of His spit. In the midst of the process, Jesus asks the man what he sees and he responds, "I see people, they look like trees walking around."

The idea is that we too see people as trees. Simply put, we see people as boring and emotion-less objects that are there to be looked at, ignored, or exist simply to get in our way, rather than unique creations made in the image of God.

It's been tough transitioning to Grosse Pointe. I feel out of place. Every day, every car here looks like it's been washed and cleaned, everyone dresses nice, and everyone has a dog to walk in the evening. Men in suits and bluetooth devices in their ears walk around at lunchtime. Most houses are huge and look nice and the ones that aren't huge still look very nice. I'm sitting at a Panera right now and in order to follow my rule of buying something whenever I sit down at a coffee shop/something like that, I bought a bagel, the cheapest thing on the menu (for $1.70 nonetheless!) It's a community where I feel like everything is more expensive and nicer than what I bring to the table. Obviously, it's full of great people with great hearts who love Jesus and people that need to be saved by Jesus; it's not really different than Mason, Northville, or East Lansing. But still, my first impressions are only what I see.

Through my first few days in Grosse Pointe, I'm fighting and praying to see people and not trees. I'm praying for God to put people in my path that I can love and whom can love me. I'm excited to see what happens.

And there are plenty of actual trees here too.

Drama on the 18th at Michigan's Adventure

I went to Michigan's Adventure (I actually just realized it was Michigan's Adventure rather than just Michigan Adventure.  I had to go back and correct all of them) for the first time with some friends yesterday.  It was a lot of fun, and will probably be more fun next time because I'll actually bring my swim suit.  I didn't realize it was 75% water park...oops.

One highlight was t-boning a random guy on the go-karts.  It was entirely his fault for poor driving and not knowing what to do with a slow car: get out of the way for faster cars :)  Oh, and for trying to needlessly cut me off on a curve.

We also went putt-putting.  It had been a while since I last hit the mini links, so I wasn't expecting great results.  And I certainly wasn't expecting to shoot a +26.  Yep, 26 over par.  I don't know if I've played a tougher course than this one.  Most holes had a crowned finish to it so putts had to be hit at the perfect pace to go in.  There were also lots of little pieces of bark sprayed all over, presumably from other players walking through and such.  On almost every hole my ball made a detour for the worse after hitting a piece of bark, stopping behind obstacles, running into hazards, and occasionally jumping off the hole entirely.  I finished the day with one par and one dramatic birdie on the par 3 18th.  It was about 12 feet uphill into two pipes that trickled down to the hole.  Somehow I made it into the better pipe in 1, and sank a 10 footer to birdie.  

+26 sounds a lot better than +27, right?

(Sorry about no pictures.  I tried to post a picture of Shivering Timbers - an old wooden coaster that was my favorite, but Blogger wouldn't let me)

It's working now...here's a picture of the beach we stopped by after the park.

Experiment = failed

This morning it took about 20 minutes to sweep up a bunch of the mayflys (or fishflys as they call them around here) that had died overnight.  These little things just fly into your house and die on you.  Great.  They were in a bunch of areas: the kitchen, where they got in, a few in the living room (where I had lights on while I was doing stuff) and a few found their way into the bathroom (where there was a nightlight that I didn't notice before).  It's not fun to find 15 of these things laying in your bathtub when you want to shower.  

Add to the list a half-dollar sized cockroach and huge centipede to the list of insects that have joined me at some point in time for some period of time since I've moved in.  I'm glad to say they no longer live here.

So I put some duct tape on where I thought all the mayflys got in.  I turned the lights on in the kitchen and within 5 minutes a bunch had gathered on the window.  I checked in 5 minutes later and found about 10 had made their way in.  So I went crazy and duct tapes practically the whole window.  Needless to say, this problem needs to be fixed.  I'm hoping this will be the final time I spend any time thinking or worrying about this.

It'll be a much longer summer if it's not.

Back in action

So this morning I played some flag football.  One of the guys in Grosse Pointe that I know brought me and I was able to meet some cool guys and play the sport that I love.  It's been over a month since I've done anything even slightly physically demanding.  It felt really good to run around out there.  I played fairly cautiously because I was nervous about my still healing orbital.  The doctor told me to wait 5-6 weeks until I do anything that could involve contact, and it's been pretty much 5 weeks on the dot.  So I'm at the bare minimum. These two pictures are of my shoe that completely fell apart this morning.  Guess I'm in the market for a new pair of shoes now.

I walked around a little more today.  I found the Village, which is a cool place with ice cream, coffee, Panera, Borders Books, and a Moosejaw.  I'm writing this from Caribou Coffee, which might have to become my new favorite coffee shop (mostly by default because it's really close).  I think there's a Beaners somewhere around here, but it's not within walking distance.

By the way, places within walking distance of my house is my new favorite concept.  Kroger and CVS/Rite-Aid fit are both really close.  I bought a few groceries from Kroger and I'm already missing Meijer.  Guess that'll be another new thing I need to get used to in my new home.

I'm to Michigan Adventure tomorrow!  My first time there...should be fun!

New Roommates

Well I've been here in Grosse Pointe for about 24 hours.  Today I had lunch with a guy who is a recent GP grad and MSU-bound.  He's excited to be a leader in East Lansing and it was great to spend some time with him.  Then I spent the rest of my day getting organized and putting some things away in my new home.  I walked around the downtown for a bit, bought some milk, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and red vines.   Took a couple long phone calls from two great friends, and figured out that my internet will continue to be questionable and my tv doesn't work.  BUT...I do have some new roommates.  About 300 mayflys found their way into my little apartment and are now glued to whichever light I leave on.  I'm not sure what to do about this other than avoid looking up.  

I guess I've got an alternative answer for the "what's up?" question now.  Especially if my name was Luke Granger.

Home (Bitter)Sweet Home

Well I made it to Grosse Pointe.  After a few long days of moving out of East Lansing and re-organizing and re-packing in Northville, I'm here.  The family I'm living with has this apartment above the garage that I'm living in.  It's spacious, clean, and now that the air conditioning units are running, comfortable.  Maybe I'll post some pictures in the next few days.

It's been a tough transition for me over the past week or so.  I've gone from the comfort of living in East Lansing to the excitement of living in Ecuador, transitioned for a week or so in Grand Rapids/East Lansing/Northville, and now into the unknown of Grosse Pointe.  

I'm excited and anxious and completely unsure of myself all at the same time.  I know about 5% of the people I know in East Lansing.  

I'm a little tired, so maybe I'll finish this post tomorrow.  I know I'm a little behind on blogging...I'm hoping to write something about Ecuador really soon too.  The truth is, life has happened pretty fast in the past 6 weeks.  Hopefully I'll catch up.

But for now, I've got a new home.  I'm missing the old like crazy already, but I'm holding onto the promise that it'll be great sooner rather than later.   Good night!