figs again!

you know how when you learn something new, it inevitably pops up in your life again?
i guess that's what figs are for me this year. it's a good thing i learned what a fig was this summer because i had to pull out my fig knowledge again this week.

this is a strange segway into the jist of this post, but if you know me, you know that i enjoy random stories. so hang in there.

i have been getting weekly emails from a popular website for 11 weeks now, and this week, it claimed that, "Your baby, just over 1 1/2 inches long and about the size of a fig, is now almost fully formed."

see? i needed to know about figs again because my baby is the size of one!
ok, now the fig portion of this post is over. breathe easy.

this is the official blog/facebook announcement that ben and i are going to be parents! or, already are parents of a small fig-sized child.

we've known for awhile, so i won't be appearing on "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant" on TLC. (if you haven't heard about this, i'm not sure i believe it. but it sounds interesting. i haven't watched it yet)

the baby is due May 13th. which means i get out of school early! that is cause for celebration.

here is a little picture of him/her, taken about 3 weeks ago. cute, huh?


so that is our big news! we are very excited. and oh yes, if you haven't heard, my buddy erica is pregnant, too. smiles.

A First in Teaching

Teaching is always an adventure. An adventure in seemingly-senseless paperwork, ever-changing schedules, lack of bathroom breaks, and oh yes, spending all day with 10-year-olds.

But this past week, I experienced something new. And I have to share it.

To begin the math period, my students have a math warm-up of a mere four questions. Some breeze through it in 30 seconds while others could take a year and only answer three of them.

After a short time, the students pass their papers to the right and a classmate corrects their work. It's quick exercise and allows me to see how well the students are retaining their skills.

Now, the scenario is this. I have just walked around to the groups, quickly picking up the stacks of corrected papers. I arrive at group 6 and immediately can tell something is amiss.

I scan the group but everything seems normal. I must be imagining things.

"Please hand me your papers, you guys." (Yes, I'm one of those teachers who still says 'you guys' even when referring to a group that also includes girls. They tell you not to do that but old habits die hard.)

Four of the students hand me their papers. J.P., we'll call him, does not. Nor do I see it on his desk.

"J.P., where's your paper?"

no response.

I look to the other kids, raising my eyebrows and giving them the teacher look that says, "Someone had better tell me what's going on RIGHT NOW."

A brave soul ventures to tell the unfortunate truth, "Umm, Ms. Fink, he ATE it."

Yup. ATE his worksheet. Because he only got one answer correct.

I guess it made sense to him.

And just to clarify, he didn't quite eat it. I know, because I instructed him to open his mouth and watched him spit out the soggy, wadded-up ball of copy paper.

And that's my job.

A Year Ago

Look at those two young lovebirds. That's what I'll say maybe in a few more years because we actually pretty much look the same.

But I wanted to commemorate the events of September 17th, 2009. For it was that night Benjamin asked me to be his wife and I said, "Yes!" And now here we are. Married and all.

At this moment, I am exhausted from a loong week at school and we're going to watch a movie. My vote is The Godfather. I know I've been horrible at blogging but I have a free Saturday tomorrow so I'll try, ok?

gobble gobble

I hate when exciting things happen to me when I'm all alone. I've realized that in order to fully enjoy an experience, I have to share it with someone. Maybe that's why I made this blog after all...

Anyways, the other morning, just after Ben had left for work, I was washing the dishes at my kitchen sink. Believe it or not, this is not the exciting thing I want to share. That comes later. Now, when you stand there, slaving away, you have a great shot of the backyard since we don't have any curtains covering our glass sliding doors.

I was probably humming along when something caught my eye in the backyard. I stared out the window to see...a turkey??

Excitedly running to the door, I realized that this was no loner turkey, but rather, he'd brought a party with him. You guys, there were FIFTEEN turkeys in my backyard. Yup, I counted.

After they passed my yard and traveled to the neighbors, I was brave enough to venture outside to sneak a few pictures. I've heard turkeys are mean ones, so I wanted to keep my distance.The turkeys appeared to be some kind of rebel group, constantly turning their small heads to and fro, as if they were on the lookout for the big boss turkey to bust them for escaping.

Now, what happens next is what Ben thought was so ridiculous of me, but I find completely normal. I started whistling at them. Like, a lot.

Perhaps it sounded like a warning whistle, because one by one the turkeys flew/staggered into the air, landing on a big branch further in the woods.

See them all sitting there? Fascinating...

So there you have it, the weirdest thing to stumble across my backyard this week.

fig: a fruit of the tree belonging to the genus ficus.

somehow i always seem to wind up in the strangest situations.

i thought i'd share that yesterday afternoon i found myself on a stranger's back porch, stirring fig jam on their outdoor stove.

i know. curious?

it all started because i happen to love purchasing fresh vegetables from local farmers. like, the kind that sell the goods from their front yard.

all summer i've been frequenting a house around the corner that's home to an innumerable amount of sweet Asian folks. they sell all kinds of things from a little green table in their front yard. i always give them an extra dollar for their cute-don't-speak-english factor.

but sadly, aforementioned neighbors haven't had any veggies out on their stand. so i had to look elsewhere.

after a nice visit to my darling stout family, as i was driving home, i spied a large garden adjacent to a house. my mind started to wonder...do they sell...oh yay! a sign that says "cukes"!

i pulled into the drive and noticed a "help yourself, honor system" sign hanging on the post with a scale. i happily selected a couple tomatoes and indeed, one cuke. (that's cucumber for those of you who don't abbreviate words like the cool kids)

after weighing and paying, i thought i was slipping away unnoticed to my car. but that's when i heard her voice.

"buy any figs??" she shouted from a distant porch.

figs, figs, figs....what are figs? i thought to myself. oh yeah, figgy pudding! wait, that doesn't help me at all. i found myself calling out to her, "umm, no, ma'am, i don't really know what to do with figs!"

and that's when she waved me over.

being the polite girl i am, i joined her on the porch.

soon, i was learning all kinds of things. how to make fig jam (3 cups figs, 3 cups sugar, and 1 large packet of strawberry jello for those wondering), how to can it, how her husband's hearing aids pop out often, and how she loves her husband having a garden because it keeps him from bugging her all day.

she convinced me to buy some figs, but first she had to get them from the house. this lent to her trying to get her husband's attention for the next few minutes, as she was unwilling to leave the fig jam. it apparently needs to be stirred constantly. realizing i wasn't escaping without figs, i offered to stir for her while she went in to get them. it was at that moment, standing alone on the porch, that the strangeness of the situation occurred to me.

she returned with a large plastic bag of figs. 2 and 1/2 pounds, to be exact. i paid her $2.50, smiled wide, said goodbye, and bounced off to jeepy.

not having time yesterday to a.) go buy strawberry jello mix and b.) make fig jam, i figured i'd make it today.

that was until this morning.

when i smelled something kind of like wine wafting its way through the kitchen. indeed, my figs furmented overnight and were resting in a good amount of fig liquid within the bag.

alas, i did not make fig jam.

$2.50 wasted? i think not. for now i have this blog post.



p.s. i found this nice quote while researching figs:

"When eating fresh figs, consumers are advised to take plentiful water with them to avoid unfortunate intestinal results."

a good word.

I've recently been spending some time reading 1 Timothy. I've been using John MacArthur's commentary to aid me when my own interpretation is lacking. Which is often.

This morning, the text was Paul giving his testimony and basically praising God's grace toward him, the "foremost of sinners."

I always appreciate a good discussion on the grace of God (nod to the title of the blog) and MacArthur did not disappoint. He broke down the text into six elements of grace: the source of grace, the need for grace, the power of grace, the extent of grace, the purpose of grace, and the response to grace.

My favorite was this, "Through God's grace, Paul was strengthened. God not only graciously elected him to salvation but also graciously gave him the strength he did not have or deserve, but needed to live out that salvation."

It reminded me of the great truth that all that God asks of us, he provides the grace for us to do it.

What a great and gracious God.

a tour.

I would like to dedicate this post to my dear friends Kate & Erica, along with my sister Kelly. For they have not seen the house and have requested these photos.

Well, here she is. In my effort to sqeeze Jeepy out of the picture, I did not capture the rest of the garage door. I hope you'll be ok without it.
Ok, upon entrance, this is what you see. Allow me to brag on my handy husband for a moment. Those built-in bookshelves? Yup, Ben made them. Mostly because when we moved in, there were holes that had been punched in the wall from the previous owner. I sure do like them, though. Up the stairs is the portion of our house we do not yet frequent very often. (When we fill this house with children, it will be a different story.) It includes such rooms as the "book storage room," which could be called an office if either of us ever did any work up there. Also located upstairs is the guest room, which you shall see in a moment. And don't forget the bonus room, which has a pair of couches and a bookcase filled with DVDs. Yet no television. So we don't go in there too often either. None of those rooms are very pretty, so I skipped them. Call me vain.

Guest Room: The original picture didn't turn out and I was too lazy to take another. So in this one you can see the bed in the mirror. Pretty artistic, eh? I just painted that room green for the arrival of Megan when she came to visit in June.

On my way back downstairs, I thought I'd snap this one from the upstairs landing to show you how the living room/eating area mesh. Hope you don't have vertigo. (kate, vertigo!)

And here is where most of the living happens. It's a conglomeration of my old furniture, Ben's bachelor pad furniture, wedding presents, and some sweet Goodwill finds. I'm constantly trying to warm up the gray walls with sunny colors.


To the left of the living area is where we eat all our meals. I'm realizing my ONE flower looks so lonely. But I did cut it from my own garden, which is fun. The other flowers are like, marigolds and stuff, so you can't put those in a vase. Alas, the cheese stands alone.
Two kitchen pics for you. This is obviously before I begin making a mess of things, er.. cooking.

And lastly, I will leave you with the backyard. Before it got insanely hot, we enjoyed pleasant evenings out there. I pray that time will come again.

Some of you may now wonder where the owners of this home rest their heads at night. Well, have some respect for our privacy! Just kidding. Really, the bedroom is quite nice but not 100% finished. So I'm holding off 'til then.

I hope you have thoroughly enjoyed your tour. Now, come visit and see it for yourself! Guests always welcome.

my theory.

i have this theory about making yourself do things you don't like but feel like you should like them.

ben thinks it's ridiculous, but i still try to convince him that he really might like onions, peppers, and board games if he keeps eating and playing them.

i'm just saying, i used to only eat iceberg lettuce and ranch dressing as my "salad."
it can be done.


that's a little bit of how i feel with regard to blogging.

i think that i should have a blog. i even want to have a blog. but it seems hard.

that quote "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a small step" comes to mind.
i went through a phase where i read a lot of quotation books.

so this is my step. it's official. i'm starting a blog.

when i told my friend erica, she immediately texted me, "what?! are you pregnant??"
which i find funny, because in my mind i might have been waiting to have a child before creating this blog.

but hey, my life is interesting as is.

and so this journey begins. we'll see how it goes.