Currents

I'd like to apologize for the silence that's been happening in this blog, it's been a while since we've posted, and even then it was not regular. I have, however, decided that's not very kind to those we don't speak to very often, so beginning today, I'm going to be posting every Thursday, the last day of my school week. This one will be a little long to catch you all up, but they should be pretty manageable after today.
First things first: our church has recently opened up a new location in the U-district which actually meets on the campus in Kane Hall, which contains the school's largest lecture halls, currently we're in the second largest. We started up a few weeks ago, and things got off to a roaring start. Everything was very well planned out and prepared, and the new sermon series on Luke kicked off that same week, so things lined up nicely. The series on Luke has been well received, even one sermon on abortion, and Pastor Mark has a lot to say. You can listen to these sermons and others on the Mars Hill website. After the sermon, there's a Q & A time, and the UD pastor, Matt Jensen, and usually a few others field questions brought up during the sermon. It seems that the church is really reaching the school, and we're very encouraged about it. Please keep praying for our church.
Adele is no longer the lead teacher in the Butterfly room, she stepped down a few weeks ago to let the other teacher, who has been and will be there for longer take over the lead position. Her stress level has dropped appropriately, and she still gets to spend time with all of her favorite kids.
I've begun school, and I'm currently working on a lapstrake catspaw dinghy. The last plank is finally on, and for much of the rest of the quarter, I'll be making and installing the seats, trim, and mast for this boat, perhaps even sails and rigging. Also, a friend of mine, Ryan Down, skippers a wooden schooner currently docked on Lake Union. He has hired me to completely redo the galley, which me and my Dad will be designing, and may include a home-built refrigerator(!). He's paying me in trade by teaching me to sail, both on his schooner "Lavengro," and on the smaller boats at the Center for Wooden Boats.
I think that's all for us here, but we're happy and content, and more in love than ever. Please write or call, we'd love to talk to you.
-Kevin Rory Connally

Samson

A couple months ago now, Kevin asked how I'd feel if he cut off his hair; I was skeptical. For our entire marriage, and friendship too actually, his hair has been longer than mine and I had really made peace with that being the state of things. How would I recognize my husband without his mane? But that was exactly the point. Where he wanted to be a bear, Kevin felt more like a lion with the thickness that it continued to have, even at the awesome length of well over a foot. He couldn't possibly be serious. I decided that he would forget about it, and so dismissed the question forever.

But he couldn't forget. While I was in Louisiana, Kevin asked again, this time with more urgency, if it would bother me for his hair to be cut. "How much cut?" Quite a bit. I wasn't comfortable with jumping into the decision, so I suggested: "How about you get a good trim up and see if it's just the way it's hanging that's bothering you, rather than the length itself?"

Kevin agreed and we got a shape up at a local barber shop, which came out fine but didn't seem to make much of a difference. "Give it a few weeks."

It was okay. Kevin still felt that something was not right- we talked it all out and on Friday night we spontaneously agreed that a haircut could be good. I parked him in the hallway where the mess would be most manageable and set out to Totally Revision Kevin. It took over five minutes to hack through the ponytail alone, and then I shaped it up until we felt okay about it. The photo documentary below was rendered for your enjoyment.







I think we're actually going to go a little shorter because after he washed it it turned into highschool hair.
So there you have it.

More Boat Stuff, and some others.

So, more boat stuff. Me and Meg just finished the boat we started working on forever ago, which is tight, but it took us way too long. We chose to do some very intricate and foolish, although beautiful things, like the tank trim, which took forever and I don't think I'd make that decision again. But we're finally on to the varnish, which is nice. I like varnishing. So anyway, I think I mentioned earlier that I'm building an oar. If I didn't, there's a lot of back story, but suffice it to say, there's a fellow who wants to move his boat without an engine, so he needs a sculling oar. I'm building it for him. I'm almost done with it, I'll finish it this week, which is very encouraging. After that I'll be able to take it out with him and test it, trying different blade shapes and seeing which works best. So that's what's going on there. I'm excited about that. Then, also for you interested, I talked to Dave, and decided on what I want to build in the wooden shop for myself. I haven't quite talked to him about this boat, but when I spoke with him about the peapod, he was not enthusiastic, and suggested some others. The boat I chose was one of the others. So while we haven't really discussed this, I'm pretty sure he'll like it. I'm going to build a flatiron sharpie skiff. You can look up a picture of one on the google machine, they're pretty sweet. But the best part is that they're easy (ish) to build, relatively cheap, and good sailers and rowers, which is what I'm looking for. I'd like to make it 15' or so, but we'll see what really works. It may be that I need to make it shorter just so I can get it down to the water. Who knows. That's another thing, I need to figure out where to put it, and how to get it to the Sound, and a few other logistical things. But I'm working on all that. For the summer I'm still figuring out what I'm going to do, but there's a summer internship available at the Center for Wooden Boats down on Lake Union, so I'm shooting for that, and it's only open to students in my program, so the odds are good. That's really all for now, perhaps there will be more updates later. Toodles!

The Story Iris Wrote on April 18th

Once upon a time there was a fairy and the fairy’s name was Jewel. Jewel liked to fly and jewel heard the bats said: “Take your apples away and don’t eat them any more. The end.” They wanted to be eaten from the big fairy but a la loo came back to dead. The end. They lived with the bad fairys, one named Jack, the other named Jill, happily ever after. They are the good fairys. They sing “I love you, you love me, you’re the best friend who we should be. With a great big hug and a kiss from you to me, don’t you say we I know you.” Because they’re good fairies. They had a some tape like this tape. The bats didn’t love them any more. They said, “Take the apples away. Throw them right away. Don’t eat them any more.” Then they had problems, like bad words to say. “I lav yur yur lav may.”

Res Ecclesiorum

I don't know if that's right. It's supposed to say "Church Things," but I think that means I'm supposed to use the ablative, but I think Ecclesia isn't even Latin, it's Greek, so who knows. Brendan. Brendan knows. Anyway, I promised a Church one a while ago, but it hasn't happened yet, so here it is. As some of you know, December 28th was my last time playing with Achilles Heel, the band I helped form to lead music at the Lake City Campus of Mars Hill. Since then, there were a number of Sundays that we went to Ballard, because we needed a seven o'clock service. We felt really at home there, since both our community groups attend there (Brendan's group and Rachel's girl group) and we just know a lot of other people there, but still felt that we were supposed to be at Lake City. So we went to a member's meeting up there, and felt pretty out of place, and not in line with their mission for reaching Lake City, so we decided to move back to Ballard permanently, which we did. It's been really good for us. We started serving down there, serving communion at the seven o'clock service, and we've been loving it. Right now Mark is going through 1st and 2nd Peter, speaking about suffering, and it's been very good for the congregation. All the sermons are online, and there's a booklet you can print off too, I would recommend it. Community groups are also good. Brendan's keeps growing, Adele's girl group is also supposed to be pretty good, but that's only hearsay, I don't go. So, during that time on Monday night that our house is filled up with women, Jon Lewis and I go have Pub night, and go over our weeks: what we saw Jesus do, what he's been doing in us, what we're reading, that sort of thing. But recently we decided to turn it into a community group, and we're thinking it'll get kicked off around the middle of May. So that's awesome. There's a few more projects that I'd like to get going as well, but I need to talk to people and see to things; generally get things more nailed down before I publish it. So there's that. That's what's been going on at Church.

More Boat Stuff, and some others.

Ok, so. Update from last time. I'm back in school for Spring quarter; which is tight. I'm still in the fiberglass shop, which is not. It's not that bad, but I'd really rather be in the wooden boat shop. So, if you'll recall, or maybe not, maybe I didn't tell you about it, but last quarter we built fiberglass hulls from molds, which was the most unpleasant thing I've ever done. I hope it never happens again. Anyway, now we're trimming them out with wood; that's nice. When we slapped the thing together, I was working with Matt and Meg. Meg isn't very experienced, and takes a while to get things done, but works hard, and is a very pleasant artistic person. Matt's a good woodworker, but a pretty passive aggressive person, knows exactly what he wants, but makes you pull it out of him, won't just tell you, or just do it, and always made sure things were absolutely perfect, which never happened anyway. Needless to say, I get along better with Meg, and not so much with Matt, but he's not back this quarter, so it's just the two of us. Which is good and bad, because it means that we make decisions way faster, and don't have to talk over everything we do three times, but we're also down a person, and like I said, Meg's not very quick. Oh well. So, we decided to use fir and ash. Things are going pretty well, the grain on the fir is intense. It's really tight vertical grain, and the ash is wide and crazy. So that's tight.
The next thing is that I'm going to be building sculling oars for a sail transport company here in the Puget Sound. That's right. There's a company that moves local organic produce around the Sound with 0% emissions; by sail. And the head of the company, whom I met at a SPOA (Seattle Peak Oil Awareness) meeting, wants me to build sculling oars for him. Since they're 100% emissions free, they don't use engines, and need a mode of propulsion in harbor or in calm seas. So I'm hoping to be making some of those this quarter, and I think I've decided what boat I want to build in the wooden boat shop. The Bekabune will not work out, due to various factors, so I wanted to build a Western boat. I'd been thinking about many different designs, including Dinghies and Dories and the like, I wanted something that was rowable, but could also take sail, and eventually it struck me. There's a boat in the wood shop right now that almost finished, and it's always been my favorite there. It's a pinky sterned peapod, which means that it's dewdrop shaped, and it's gorgeous. The wood, the shape, the form, everything is perfect. Peapods (which are typically double ended and resemble a garden peapod) were originally used in New England by lobstermen, and are extremely manueverable. I found a design for an Oregon Peapod by Benford Design (you can see the lines drawings if you google image search those words) that is 11' LOA and has a beam of 4'-6". It's pretty tight. The Planking will be pretty difficult since the stern is so intensely bent, but we'll see what happens. So that's what's going on schoolwise. Work is still work. It's getting to me, because I don't ever produce anything there, I only sell things, which means I have nothing to show for a day of work except a paycheck, and that's pretty frustrating. I suppose if I really liked what I did, that would be it's own reward, but I don't. It's ok. But saying the same thing over and over again is no fun. There's only so much you can say about chilis. And then you have to deal with dumb customers too. Sometimes it's the stereotypical tourist who knows nothing, and feels like he has to prove to you how much he knows, sometimes it's the 40 year old mom who knows exactly what she wants, but asks your opinion anyway, and then contradicts you and tries to prove why she's right for three minutes when I would have been perfectly happy just letting her pick what she wanted in the first place. And convincing people that you know what you're talking about is hard. That's frustrating. I sell fruit for a living. I know what I'm talking about. If I tell you the fruit is good, it's good. If I tell you it's not in season, it's not in season. I don't see a dime of what you spend, I have no reason to lie. If I don't know, I'll say I don't and ask Sean or something. Come on, guys. Anyway, that's what work is like. Sometimes it's nice, but I'm definitely ready for another job this summer.

Catching up again-

We've been busy busy, as you can tell from the lack of recent posts. Later this week I'll upload pictures and do a post on our trip to see Patrick and Kim, but for now I just wanted to throw a few things up:

It's hard to keep track of everything as it happens- my journals have been super sparse lately. We've both been trucking along in school and work; Kevin is finishing the second bench for our kitchen table, among other things, and I have my first morning back to my old schedule at work. The last two weeks I've been working full time subbing for a teacher who was in Mexico. It will be nice to have that paycheck come in, but I'm more and more mystified that anyone could do that all the time! It's hard enough trying to keep up our tiny little house, relationships with family and friends, personal sanity and time with God. I absolutely cannot imagine adding in a child or two on top of that schedule! But it was good for the time being. Now I'm determined to not lose the momentum I have of keeping busy, but excited to channel the energy into other priorities that have been neglected, especially recently.

My class started two weeks ago, and it's going pretty good. There was some confusion at first about how many students were officially registered and our room, but I think it's all settled now. We discussed peak oil the first week, the transition concept the second week, and this friday we'll be talking about food and medicine. We'll be meeting in our house, since we all hate the room they put us in on campus, at 6:30.

It's been great to spend the last few weekends with my family in Bremerton. Hanging out with Iris is always super fun, and every time I see her she's a little bigger. She has the most delightful personality I've seen in a three year old, and better words than most of them. Easter was nice to relax with family, in spite of the brother situation.

Our application for the position in Japan is underway somewhat: I've distributed most of the reference forms and have started gathering information.

It seems like a lot has happened, and I can't really process it all yet. Daddy gave me a copy of Randy Alcorn's Heaven after the reception when his brother died a month ago. I'd been thinking about heaven it seems like quite a bit before that, so it's been really helpful to read through that and organize my thoughts, have all the references in one place, and just let the vivid images sink in. I finished that this morning while Kevin was journalling, and it's been encouraging.

That's the summary.