3. the female perspective

My classroom. Daniel lovingly helped me rearrange my desks.

As I was reading my husbands updates, I was realizing that it lacked all the ooey, gooey, emotional stuff. So, it is hereby my goal to be the contributor at a heart level. Daniel and I started nannying this week for a local family with an 11-year-old boy and 9-year-old girl. We only looked after the 9-year-old, Clara, this week, taking her to the Dallas Museum of Art, the mall to window shop, and the local pool, among other places. We also played a lot of games. Mostly Yahtzee and Sleeping Queens. We have never watched younger kids together before, so it has been fun to see the roles we take on. I am more of the "why don't you go ahead and put your dishes away..." or "15 minutes until we are leaving..." kind of person. Daniel is more the hands-on type and the protector. He is always making sure Clara is safe and that she is having a good time. He will make a good dad someday.

Nannying has definitely forced us into a routine this week, which is nice because we have been getting the days of the week confused all summer. Last night, we realized we were tired, though. We also realized that we were bored in the confines of our own apartment. There was plenty of cleaning that needed to be done, but decided that cleaning was a Saturday morning activity not a Friday night thing. So, Daniel suggested watching a movie. I suggested dressing up and going out to window shop or do a photo scavenger hunt. As you can see, we are people with two very different personalities. And here, that turned out to be a great thing... and a lesson in compromise. I knew that I would feel regret if I sat in front of a movie and came back to my senses two or three hours later, because I would have felt like I was wasting my time. Had Daniel gone on a photo scavenger hunt after an exhausting week, he would be drained even more. So, we agreed to leave the apartment and see what strikes us when we are out. We ended up stopping at Knox Street, where we had taken Clara earlier that day to see what it was like at night. We went inside the three-story Crate and Barrel, where I was mistaken for an employee (this actually happens all the time). After that, we walked a couple of blocks down to Starbucks, to watch the people and cars go by and enjoy the cooler (85 degree) Dallas air. As it turns out, we both really enjoyed a simple night out, and even though spending $10 at Starbucks seemed unreasonable when we are fairly tight on cash, we decided that these types of expenditures are worth it to throw a little fun and romanticism in our world.

This morning, we cleaned. Partly because it was driving me crazy to have our clean clothes still in baskets and not hung up. And partly because Jama keeps asking for pictures. :) Our car is clean, house is clean, and laundry is done... all at the same time. I don't believe this has ever happened to me before, and it feels so nice. And there is a cheesecake baking in the oven. Hard work needs its rewards, and Daniel still needs his birthday cake!

Bedroom/hallway (We LOVE built-in bookcases)

Bathroom

Walk-in Closet!

Me writing this blog in bed :)

The kitchen - view 1

The kitchen - view 2

Study/ guest bedroom

Eating area/ living room

More living room

Now onto other ponderings. We really like it here. I thought that we might before we moved, but I had no idea to what extent. The church we have found is really neat. The youth led worship on Sunday, and I was reminded of how much I love young people. Another great thing is how much people value art and culture. I feel actually very humbled by this, because I know very little of either, but it is neat to be around. To the extent that instead of annoying kiosks at our mall, there is art -- sculptures, flower arrangements, fountains, etc.

That's all for now. Nannying tonight for family #2 :)

2. birthday(s) and sun-rays

It’s been a little over a week since the last post, and not much has changed. The heat’s as persistent as ever, the clouds are as puffy as ever, and the rains are as scarce as ever. It’s been clear skies the whole time we’ve been here, aside from some accidental raindrops that the heavens dropped on our windshield as we were driving home one night. There weren’t more than 15 of them, though. Yesterday, however, was the first time we had overcast skies pretty much all day. It cooled it off enough that we could leave the sunshade down in our car and the steering wheel wasn’t burning hot when we got in to go somewhere.

It got quite cool one day last week. We were out running errands, and in the midst, stopped off of Lovers Lane for our Chick-Fil-A fix (no joke, that’s where it is). When we got out of the car, it was around noon, and we braced ourselves for the heat. Instead, we were shocked to find it noticeably cooler than we had expected. I think I even remember a soothing breeze in there somewhere. When we checked the temperature, we were even more shocked to find that it was 92 degrees. Never would I have thought of 92 as “cool”. But that was then.

Jill and I continue to enjoy settling in to the

land and culture here. As of yesterday, we have been here a month exactly. In that time, we’ve discovered a few more things that make living here quite neat.

First of all, there are the U-turns. Along the main highway that we use, as you get off onto the access highway that parallels it, there are lanes set aside for those people who haven’t yet learned the area and need to go back the way they came. The nice thing about these U-turns is that you don’t even have to wait for the light to change. They’re completely separated from the other lanes. Just follow it around, and your course is corrected.

Secondly, we discovered with some friends that there is an X-box Kinect in the Swiss Tower common room for Tower-dwellers to use—an excellent tool for exercise as well as fun.

Another valuable aspect of life here is the Swiss Tower community e-mail list. Through this list, anyone can post an e-mail with a need or a question, and within a few minutes, someone answers. All sorts of free stuff shows up on this list, too, but you have to be fairly quick to nab it. With smartphones and (therefore) mobile e-mail, people are fast to reply. We’ve completed our apartment with two lamps and a futon, all by replying to the list—and all for free. And the best thing we’ve come across so far just happened to coincide with my birthday:

We actually celebrated the day before my actual birthday, and it worked out nicely. For the majority of the day, we enjoyed the water and the sun at Hurricane Harbor in Arlington (with the help of plenty sunscreen to keep from being baked alive and flip-flops for when the ground was way too hot to walk on). After our fill of slides and pools, we headed out to catch a delightful dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. Once we’d gotten our food, Jill went over and told the waiter something I couldn’t hear and came back with a grin. It didn’t take long to figure out what she’d told him. Servers began to gather around, and I braced for the song. But first, they got me up in front of the restaurant, tied a paper towel around my head so that the two ends stuck out like giant ears, and gave me a paper towel tail, a bucket and a spoon. They then announced that, while they sang happy birthday, I was to hop around the restaurant like the energizer bunny and bang on the bucket with the spoon. So I did. And while I didn’t end up getting a free dessert afterwards, they did give me a complimentary birthday “Eat at Joe’s” mason jar, which I appreciated…considering.

Our plan following Joe’s was to go catch a drive-in showing of the 3^rd Transformers south of Dallas. But, having enabled mobile e-mail on our smartphones, we saw that someone in Swiss Tower was giving away free tickets to a musical for that night. Thus we came upon a better evening activity than a drive-in worth much more for much less.

We replied to the e-mail and claimed the tickets, headed back to Swiss to change into nicer attire (which is when I realized I was still wearing the paper-towel bunny tail), and picked up the tickets. Then we made our way in the evening warmth to the Fair Park Music Hall, where we enjoyed excellent seating for Guys and Dolls. And it wasn’t even my actual birthday until the next day!

On my actual birthday, we continued the festivities by visiting the GIANT Half-Price bookstore here in Dallas, going to see Transformers 3 (at an indoor movie theater), and eating at Jack in the Box, where I did end up

getting a free birthday dessert (via coupon) without the singing or hopping.

So while the heat remains, I’m happy to say it has done nothing to get in the way of some dandy birthday celebrations. More of what happened post-birthday soon!

1. from the mountains to the metroplex

How do you tell a story? What makes a story meaningful? What makes it interesting? What about a story captivates those who read it, watch it, or witness it? What about those who are in it? How do you tell a story while it’s happening—particularly while it’s happening to you?

Who knows? But such a telling is exactly what I’m attempting here—the story of Daniel and Jill in Dallas, Texas.

This particular story’s beginning is etched in my memory as final images of family, standing in their driveways, waving farewell. It was in the last days of June when Jill and I left our home for the wide-open spaces of Texas. We drove all day on June 28^th from Knoxville to Memphis to Little Rock, Arkansas and on. A front of severe storms lined our journey that day. I think it was around Jackson, TN that we drove under some clouds that were so low, it seemed a tornado was trying to form. With the sky an unsettling green, we put Jackson behind us as quickly as we could. We stopped at a Chick-Fil-A for supper on the other side of Texarkana, and it was easy to tell we were in Texas: they had packages of hot sauce and salsa as condiments.

There are two things I remember about that night as we drove into Dallas. First was the distant skyline of Dallas as we approached in the evening sun, with the eastern lake on either side of us.

Second was the feeling as we drove onto the campus of Dallas Theological Seminary: it didn’t feel strange, it felt right, and it felt exciting.

The next few days unfolded nicely. After subleasing an apartment for the night in Swiss Tower (where we now live), we spent the afternoon of the 29^th at the DFW media “unconference,” where I was happy to find a room full of people devoted to the ministry realm I have come here to learn.

For the next two nights, we slept on an air mattress in our empty apartment until we were able to move our stuff in on July 1^st. Having packed all our belongings in two U-pack cubes (totaling 672 cubic feet), we met our moving truck at the ABF facility where the cubes had been delivered. The movers unloaded the cubes and reloaded the stuff onto their truck, and then followed us through downtown Dallas traffic to our apartment building, where they unloaded all of our stuff into our apartment. We had been worried that our furniture wouldn’t all fit well, but it ended up fitting perfectly.

We spent the next several days unpacking. We ended up catching fireworks twice: once in Addison (just North of Dallas) on the evening of the 3^rd (it was a large event, but we ended up not having to pay for parking, somehow), and again on the 4^th in Waco, after having a cook-out with a good Baylor-friend of Jill’s. We ended up missing the Fair Park fireworks, but I was told later that they weren’t that great.

Since then, we’ve spent the majority of our time either exploring the area or lounging in our apartment. Exploring Dallas has been fun and a whole lot easier than expected. Anything we could want is usually no more than 10 minutes away in any given direction—including NorthPark Mall (a mall 10 minutes away!), a Chick-Fil-A, plenty of Jack-in-the-Box (they’re everywhere), and tons of burger joints (they’re even more everywhere!).

We have begun to make some friends in the apartment building, as well (we even dressed up like cows with one couple for Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A). The most helpful discovery we’ve made is that the apartment swimming pool is the fastest way to make acquaintances, since over 2/3rds of the families here have kids.

Our church-search has been quite successful. While only two Sundays have passed since we arrived, we have found a church to attend. The first church we went to didn’t quite represent the diverse demographics we’ve discovered in Dallas (though the thing about a city is that there’s demographic “pockets” from one sector of the city to the next, so it makes it hard to tell the overall diversity factor in places). The church we went to last Sunday, however, has a little more diversity and seems more suited to our predispositions. We could continue this search indefinitely if we so desired, since there are tons of mega-churches in the area as well as small churches. Since arriving, I have heard Dallas referred to as the “buckle” of the Bible belt, which I find intriguing.

Throughout our transition here, we have been impressed at how faithful God is in His provision for us. We believe fully that this is where He has called us to be, and He has made the way for us. Now it is a matter of following Him here, step by step, as we embark on this journey. Aside from trying to come up with a cute and creative way to include Dallas in the title of this blog (since that is where this story is unfolding), I wanted to acknowledge as well that, while this is the story of us in Dallas, the story is His, and there wouldn’t be a story if it weren’t for Him. So what is this story about? As far as I can tell, it’s about us discovering the Almighty’s love in learning authentic service. Welcome to dAllas!