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Community group, costumes, and jigging on rainbows

Around mid-September, our church’s Bible study groups started up for the new school year. This is our 3rd year with (approximately) the same crowd–here we are the first year:

Our second year we took no pictures. Blast! I accept full responsibility . . . or maybe I’ll share it with Carrie, who also has a nice camera. If she agrees to be half a scapegoat, that is.

A few weeks ago I broke out my camera to record our third year together, thus ending the photographic drought.

It was Carrie’s birthday the next day, and Halloween was forthcoming. Girlfriend loves to dress up (remember when she conned us into that Regency Ball? More about that very soon), so she decided to put on a costume. How I love that girl.

Our Bible study leader (and my wonderful web admin) David also, um . . . dressed up.

And under the hat . . .

David? Why are you wearing that frightening cap on your head?

Don’t call me David. My name is Holy Streaks of Fire.

While all this was going down, his lovely wife served treats:

Freshly baked apple pie!

I’ll take two.

Our group meets every Thursday, alternating between David and Beth’s house and our apartment. We converge at 6:30, and everyone brings their own dinner. We spend the first half an hour eating together, and then move into prayer and study of whatever passage was just preached on the previous Sunday. I love how we get the chance to go over the same Scripture, because so frequently different themes emerge. Hearing the different perspectives of the people in the group really sheds light on the depth of the passage. We’re going through the book of Esther this fall (the series is called “The Hidenness of God” since Esther is the only book in the Bible in which God’s name is not mentioned) and there is so much more there than I ever thought.

I love when there’s so much more there than I ever thought.

In fact, it happens almost every time I open the Bible. Huh.

Anyway, I’m so glad we’re hosting every other week and am enjoying it thoroughly, in part because it forces me to clean the house on a very regular basis, and in part because when the study ends, my husband and I get to stay put in our cozy little abode instead of trekking our chilly way home on the El. I’m also glad for the chance to grow my hospitality skills–and what better way to practice than by having people over consistently?

But, if I’m honest, I’m also excited because of this:

Pies.

And other things. Like cakes.

Or cupcakes. Or brownies.

See, living with only my husband, sweet treats go a long way. If I chance to make a cake (I admit, a rare occurrence), we rarely get through the whole thing before it has to be tossed in the garbage. And remember those Peanut Butter bars and how it took us from April to September to consume 1 single batch?

And let’s talk about appetizers for a minute. I adore stuffed mushrooms. I love fried onion rings, dips, hummus, pot-stickers. I love little bite-sized savory snacks.

I even enjoy the lovely Velveeta-based treat, Queso.

But again, as with the dessert problem, when there are just 2 people in the equation, you can’t exactly go about making large batches of appetizers, because they just don’t keep long enough for us to get through them.

So in conclusion: I am excited about studying God’s Word. I’m excited about sharing our lives with our group, praying with our friends, sharing our joys and burdens, tears and laughter, answers to prayer (be they ‘yes’s or ‘no’s or ‘wait’s)–but I’m also excited because now I have an excuse to make cakes and appetizers that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to make.

Does that make me sound terribly superficial?

You know what, who cares how it sounds! I heretoforth embrace it! And I embrace myself! Everyone should embrace themselves and and do a jig on a rainbow. Do it! Do it now. I’ll be jigging right beside you . . . in spirit.

Tomorrow, Chile con Queso! With Velveeta. Gird your loins! And gird ’em well. They’ll need it after chowing down on this snack.

Color-coordinating my closet

Hello, my name is Jenna. This is my closet.

Oh wait–that’s the futon covered in a mess of clothes.

Wait a sec . . .

. . . let’s see . . .

. . . okay, here’s my closet!

Yes. My achy-breaky closet. There is no rhyme or reason to it. When I first moved my apparel into it two years ago, I had a plan: skirts were on the left. Then came pants. Shirts and sweaters to the right, and dresses to the far right. But as time progressed, the organization became haphazard. One might say it came under the Rule of Misrule. Here’s the left side:

(love that grey sweater with the cable pattern down the sleeve, by the way–one of my finds at Plato’s last year that’s been a faithful staple)

And here’s the right side:

Skirt? Flowers? Stripes? Sweater? Orange! Electric blue! Whoop de doo!

Complete chaos, I’m telling you.

On a totally unrelated note, check out these shoes:

They’re from Target. They’re my favorite. After years pretending I hated pink, I finally matured and started admitting that I like pink. I’ve found new freedom in being a girl, and liking the things that sometimes girls like.

But shoes are not today’s topic!

So some things you may not know about me:

1) I really like clothes.

2) Clothes are pretty cool.

3) I like to wear them and not be naked.

4) I like to feel pretty when I’m wearing them and not being naked.

The problem is, if I happened to have a particular item in mind, I couldn’t aways find it in a timely fashion. So on one hapless Saturday when my husband was out of town, I decided to change my life. My sister Heidi had a lovely closet with all her clothes hung in an ordered rainbow of colors, which I had gazed up with wonder in Alaska–so why couldn’t I?

I started by flinging things around. That’s a good way to start any project. Hence the futon covered in stuff.

Yep, there it is again. Flinging things around makes one feel so dang productive, doesn’t it?

My next step was to start rehanging everything. I decided to start with black on the left, followed by grey and white, and kind of work my way into a spectrum of color.

This took about 2 1/2 hours. It would’ve taken much less, but I also used this time to purge (which requires trying something on 5 times before finally putting it in the discard pile), and to figure out how to combine my fall clothes. See, I forget how to layer in the June-September span and have to re-learn how to put everything together.

Down to the last few things . . .

It was fun. It was especially fun because no husband was around to enter the room and exclaim in horror “You have too many clothes! Burn the whole lot of ’em!” or something extreme like that.

We wouldn’t want that. Nope. Not that he would ever do or say that–but I don’t know if he realizes how much is actually in my closet.

Here’s the finished product!

A closer look at the black to white spectrum on the left side:

And a closer look at the more colorful spectrum on the right side:

Now when I open my closet I feel like I’m shopping in some kind of posh store. Opening the closet has become much more exciting. Finding that one dusty blue colored cardigan has become a cinch. I highly recommend this process.

Which brings me to this: what does your closet look like? If any of you are inspired to color-coordinate your closets and want to send me before and after pictures (or already have color-coordinated closets and want to share the beauty), I’ll put together a post with all the pics.

Hooray for organization! Hooray for clothes! Hooray for being a girl!