What's in Your Wallet?

Last week while I was sitting at my favorite coffee shoppe I decided it was high time to clean out my wallet. You could guess that I was bored. Or you could just know the truth. I like to clean things. Since I wasn't at home the only thing readily available to clean was my wallet.

While cleaning my wallet I had a deep thought. What if someone had handed that wallet to me ten years ago and let me go through it, allowing me to get a sneak peak at my future. What would I have thought?

The first card I pulled out was my health care card. Lifewise. What?! No more Care Card? Has all the talk predicting the fate of the Canadian medical system come true? No more universal healthcare? Perish the thought! Hmmm...the upper right corner has a business name. That must be where I work. Or maybe where my spouse works. I hope it's not where my parents work. I'd hate to be a dependent at twenty....something. The card does have my maiden name on it. That's strange, I guess I'm not married yet. That's not part of the ever agonized over 'plan'. Back to the business name...I've never heard of it. I've actually never even heard of the WORD that names the business. If you haven't figured it out I'm refusing to name where I work online. I've always been paranoid. That hasn't changed.

The next card I found was my car insurance card. Geico. Hmmm...not ICBC. This is getting fishy. Has Canada privatized everything? This card has Royden's name on it too. Awesome. Things must have worked out between us. But there's that pesky maiden name again. Are we living together?! Have we given up the faith?! This CAN'T be right.

AAA Card. I must still own a crappy car. Not BCAA, just plain AAA. I must live in Alberta. That makes sense since they'd be the first to privatize everything. Hey...I think that Geico card said I drive a Jetta. That makes me laugh since I drive one now. I hope it's not the same one!

Funny money. Well, at least I don't live in Alberta.

Washington State Driver's Licence. I look pretty. No, really...I do. I know that sounds like I'm conceited. I guess sometimes I am. I have pretty days, and ugly days. I have an exceptionally good picture of myself on my licence. In fact it may be the best picture ever taken of me. I would gladly show it to you if asked. I'd have another moment of pride upon noting that my weight has hardly changed since high school. That'll come in handy for that 10 year reunion;). Washington eh? Well, last year mom and dad took Royden and I there and we had fun. I don't know how we'll ever drive there but at least we'll be close to Tooth and Nail!

There are a handful of other cards in my wallet, some of which would have likely provoked false pride...my professional licence. Others would have provoked laughter...a Montana Ranch business card with the name 'Nate' on it. (sorry Nathan, I'm used to it but still can't call you that:). Of course my greencard would have cleared up the whole 'losing my religion and living in sin' thing.

So here's my question to you: What's in your wallet?

Final Tone

This last weekend was set aside to paint the office. My lovely painting wife tackled the project while I gave moral support. Before you look down on me for sitting on the painting sidelines, remember I only did it to spare my life. You see; Ruth is somewhat of a perfectionist. And when you add perfectionism to something she's skilled at like painting, then it's best to stay out of the way. The woman knows how she wants it done, and it doesn't include me with a brush in my hand.



...Or a roller. I did make use of myself while I was banned from the office I made potato soup. And I mowed the lawn. But none of it really added up to the effort Ruth put in to make our office look really cool and masculine. It helps me draw cool pictures.

Ruth even let me pick out the color. She even tried to go along with it when I originally wanted mustard.

Instafil to fill the holes in the wall. Instafil to fill the latte shaped hole in my wife's stomach.

There's a reason that Ruth had this rare window to disassemble my drawing den. I've been working for the last year on a 4 book graphic novel series for Zondervan. This month marked the completion of the first book. 150 pages, early mornings at the drawing table before work every day, it's been a long year.

But now it's done and I have time to shut down the computer, sleep in, go in to work at usual times, watch tv in the evenings...but not for long. I have to start book 2 next week.

Thanks to Ruth who not only paints our office brown, but graciously let's me chase this crazy comic dream.

Sabbath for Sanity's Sake

Ruth and I took a Sabbath this Sunday. A real one. We actually rested and took a day to do nothing but enjoy the day. It was really very nice. It of course started with a cup of home brewed espresso poured over a steamed milk. yum!



It also involved me blogging some of the pictures and events I've gotten behind on. One of those being our visit from Grandma and Grandpa a few weeks ago. We always love having them around. It usually means for good discussion and prayer, and food, and fun. We took them to Ballard locks before church on Sunday. We'd never been there before so it was kind of interesting.




The exciting event (for me) this weekend that also deserved some blog shots, was the final molting of my asian giant mantis. This last molt revealed wings, and a slightly larger size. It's pretty big now, and very entertaining to observe. I haven't been taking a lot of photos lately so it was really nice to break out the camera on this sacred sabbath we took.



You know, God gave us the sabbath for our own benefit. He knows we have to "toil in soil" and work against the thorns of the earth so He asked us to politely take a day off and rest. Hey, if He needed it, I think we do too. But the sabbath can mean different things for different people. For people like Ruth it means taking a bike ride, going for a walk, not having any appointments. For me I realized, it means to go change the light bulb on the porch and find a tiny little spider hanging from a thread - take him inside - give him a little photo shoot with the macro lens...



...take him back outside onto the porch and finish changing the light bulb. That was really refreshing. I have no idea why. Sorry for all the insect pictures.

I did have to go to the grocery store for some items, one of which was cream of wheat which we were out of. I didn't get cream of wheat, I got some other hot cereal stuff instead by accident. But it happen to have a muffin recipe on the back. Ruth responded to my mis-purchase by cooking muffins. I need to buy the wrong item more often.



But no banana chocolate chip muffin is really truly complete without - you guessed it...



...another coffee. And that's pretty much what we had for dinner. We spent the rest of the evening with the Millers and the Mark watching the movie.

Lesson learned: Sabbath is for Sanity's Sake! Take a Sabbath! Take a walk! Take a picture! Take a nap! What ever you need to do. God gave it to us, all we have to do is take it. So work hard, play hard, and then have a second cup of coffee! That's my new motto.

NYC

I have a very special wife.

One of the things I love to do (and don't do very often) is plan a surprise for Ruth. I used to surprise her with special things more often when we were dating - of course. When you're dating you're trying to show the other person that you're worth spending time with, that you think of gifts and plan trips ahead of time because you care for the other person. Then you get married and you stop "dating". I vowed to never stop dating Ruth. I haven't been very succesful in the last few years. It's hard to plan surprises that cost money when you share a bank account.

Especially a surprise trip to New York.



I sometimes still can't get it right. Like for instance, planning a trip to New York in the middle of winter, right after a blizzard. That said, we still had a great time. We loved the city and would love to go back. The first part of our little adventure was figuring out the subway system.




The break dancing guys had nothing to do with figuring out the subway, they were just down there, so I took a picture. We figured that every city should have subways that run thorugh the entire city. I don't know how anyone could live without them. Buses are dumb. Subways - cool.

But this is what we had to do every time we prepared to step outside...



Bundle up! It's freezing! It actually warmed up a little over the week and made the walking a little more pleasant. But we couldn't wait to get back to the "warmer climate" of Seattle. Bring on the rain! It's better then blowing snow!



The thing we enjoyed most was the beautiful architecture.








We took the ferry to Stanton Island and back. The was the free way to see the statue of liberty!

Ruth took that last one. Nice shootin!

Ah yes, Dunkin Donuts on Wall St. The other thing we were dissapointed in was the lack of espresso. Starbucks was literally the only option. Dunkin Donuts was ok, some of the capaccino in Little Italy was pretty good, but there were no decent, home grown, espresso stands anywhere. These signs kind of cracked us up...

It was like starbucks for dummies, "did you know you can customize your drink? One shot, two shot, three shot". Why don't they mention four shots? I've had that before. It should be an option.

Ground zero. The freedom tower is in processes.

And then there was our hotel.

It was a hip little place just down the street from the Time/Warner building and CNN. The room was tiny (150 sq ft) but it was still amzingly comfortable to crash at the end of a long day of walking.

We missed a lot of pictures. Both times we were in Time Square, Grand Central station, and at the top of the Rockafeller building were 'no camera' days. It wasn't easy to bring along all the time.

All in all it was a blast...

...of cold wind. Looking forward to a summertime follow up. And for the record - Dunkin Donuts just taste like Tim Horton's donuts. Nothing special there. But the italian food is a whole other experience.