TheLionRampant.net

Dear loyal blog readers,

Because our internet has been cut off, I’m currently sitting in Starbucks and having paid my ridiculous fee of 5 GBP to connect online, I’m now virtually connected — for an hour anyway. All this to say, I’m not sure we’ll be on much, if at all, between now and Sunday morning when we leave. We’re off with the Urminskys to Prague until Friday!

David and Bryce are exceptionally excited about the meaty Czech food and the many kinds of beer they’ll be able to have. I think the fact that it’s cheap is also making them salivate. Neyir and I will go off and shop and do other girly things I imagine while the guys stop in another pub to try to meet the locals and try all the brews.

We’ll have stories and pictures when we return!
Love,
Ashley

I posit a sort of question over at Intellectuelle. Feel free to jump on in to the discussion.

Last Thursday I learned that the elders at Christ Church in Pasadena have agreed to call me as an Assistant Pastor. It took me about 30 seconds to accept. I’m so excited.

We’ll be leaving the last week of July, and I start the first of August. Now we have to start making arrangements to fly and ship all our stuff.

In other news, our interent access will be cut off momentarily, so our response time to email, etc., may be a bit slow.

Yep, that’s right, we’re moving back to Pasadena — where we came from, 3 years ago. It’s crazy; it’s exciting; it’s nuts and it’s sad to leave all at once. I’ll let Bryce write a post filling you in on his call. For now, and for those Edinburghers or those close by, I’d like to selfishly promote ourselves and our moving sale.

First off, you can find photos of most of the items here.

Below is a list of the items we’re selling. Make sure you check back later for more things as we remember other items we want to sell!

MOVING SALE

Furniture and odds and ends available between now and 25th July 2006
We need to sell all of this asap! Therefore if you have an offer for any of these items, please let us know!

BEDROOM
Double bed (mattress and box frame) (£500RRP) £40 Available from 15/7
Single bed (mattress and metal frame) £20 Available from 15/7
Bedding thrown in for free!
Double bed mattress only (RRP£120, 1 year old) £30
Brown wood 5-drawer bureau £7 Available NOW
Ikea white bureau (4-drawer) £20 Available NOW
1 white/wood wardrobe £10 Available NOW

KITCHEN
Kitchen Table (with butterfly insert); seats 4-8 £20 Available from 15/7
4 Kitchen chairs £7/ea Available from 15/7
Sideboard (has small burn mark on top, easily coverable) £15 Available NOW
Microwave £15 Available NOW
Condenser dryer £40 Available NOW
Slow cooker £15 Available NOW
Small hand blender £5 Available NOW
Rice cooker £5 Available NOW
Various kitchen items £best offer Available from 15/7
(bin, cookbooks, teapot, iron, serving pieces, small George Foreman grill, sandwich maker, roasting pan)
1 Ikea step stool £5 Available NOW
Red and white small kitchen cabinet £10 Available NOW
2 black/wood chairs £5/ea Available NOW

MISCELLANEOUS
1 women’s mountain bike (hardly used) £40 Available NOW
1 men’s mountain bike (nearly new) £40 Available NOW
White Ikea Billy Bookshelves (4 full, 1 half size) £10/ea Available NOW
2 Blue chairs £5/ea Available from 15/7
2 Green chairs £7/ea Available from 15/7
Coat rack £5 Available from 15/7
Cordless phone with 3 handsets (£65 RRP) £20 Available 15/7 (link)
2 small Ikea side tables (beech effect) £5/ea Available NOW
1 large desk £15 Available from 30/5
2 Ikea fold-up chairs £3/ea Available NOW
1 large cream floor rug £7 Available NOW
1 blue, red and tan floor rug £5 Available NOW
2 Ikea fold-up tables £4/ea Available NOW
1 silver/white shade small lamp £5 Available NOW
Electrolux the Boss hoover £10 Available from 15/7
Plastic drawers on wheels £5 Available from 15/7
Small Ikea table lamps (2 white, 1 red) £5/ea Available NOW
6 gallon Dehumidifier (RRP £80) £20 Available NOW (similar to this)
1 Nokia 3410 mobile phone (bought 2003) £10 Available NOW

*You must pick up any and all items you are buying

Here we are looking very British (Ashley as you can see is sporting a lovely red hat more reminiscent of Englishness, while Bryce is quite obviously adopting the Scottish get-up):

To see more photos, primarily of Jonathan and Sarah’s going-away party, click here and here.

I’ve seen a number of posts on people’s blogs about summer plans and reading lists. Maybe one day I’ll get a summer vacation again! (A professorial summer probably just looks like research plans and class preparation rather than lazing about in the sunshine reading novels). For now though, what is quite hard about doing a PhD is that there is no ‘down’ time given to you; you have to make it. Hopefully this looks like actual hard work rewarded by a good rest. More often than not, I tend to procrastinate and turn out decent work rather than my best.

So, if I could make a summer reading list that was long and involving I’d like to read:
–the entire collected works of Francis and Edith Schaeffer
–current emerging church stuff to see what it’s about; how the people involved are defining it; what’s helpful about it and what may be too wishy-washy
–a number of books on teaching and educational theory
–All of Nathaniel Hawthorne

…and probably loads more as the inclination stikes. I’d have to throw in the requisite fun, silly novel as well for holiday reading. (Our first summer here in Scotland we went on holiday to Greece and I took Joyce’s Ulysses for fun reading; um…I made it through about 100+ pages).

Although I might not get loads of fun reading in, here’s what our spring/summer looks like so far:
May — Trip to Prague with the indomitable Canadian duo, David and Neyir

June — Friends from CA are coming to visit mid-June; Ashley flies home to interview at Providence; Bryce’s family comes and we go to Skye

July — Ashley’s family comes for Bryce’s graduation; trip to Amsterdam for a week and London for the weekend; pack, move and all craziness as we think we’ll be moving back to southern California.

August — move from Ashley’s parents’ home to an apartment. Try to buy cars and subsist on ramen noodles until we get a pay check.

As “The Da Vinci Code” comes out Friday here in the UK, here are a few excerpts from an article that engages with the book and the movie from a Christian perspective.

First reasons why DVC has taken on the status of truth:

The Church has done a poor job of equipping its people for the work of debunking silly stories like this one, but all the blame cannot be laid at the feet of the Church. I know many churches where Sunday school classes in church history or the background of the Bible are readily available, and yet people stay away in droves. Our penchant for self-help classes, counseling seminars, and books on anything but the stuff of Scripture has left us thoroughly unable to respond when arguments contradictory to the faith and claiming to be based on history are put forward as truth.

On theological questions to consider after viewing the film and how it illustrates worldview issues:

The Da Vinci Code, unless it takes the extraordinary step of departing significantly from the book, will certainly have much to say about God, about the supernatural, and about sources of moral authority. It will have some notion, both in the form of assumptions and direct statements, about where evil is to be found in the world, and it will promote some idea of how that evil can be defeated. The way the characters are presented will say something about the filmmaker’s view of human beings and their relationships. Christian should have a clear, biblical understanding of all these topics; they are theological issues that form the core of one’s belief system.

Here’s the rest of the article.

Update: Bryce also pointed out a great site about DVC here.

I finished my last final this morning. That’s it. I’m done with seminary! I’m not gonna win any awards for my performance on this last final, but I suppose it could have been worse, too.

Since I’ve already been licensed to preach, I’m now eligble to receive a call to pastor a church, so I’m sure the job offers will begin to roll in over the next few hours as word gets out < /sarcasm>

It hasn’t really begun to sunk in yet that I’m actually done. I think it’s gonna take a few weeks of going to bed before 4.00 AM, not studying constantly, and sleeping in, before I can get my head around this.

I’ve still got a ton to do in the next few weeks and months, though. But I think I’m gonna take the afternoon off.

I just checked Yahoo weather at 3 pm here and you won’t believe what the temperature is.

Guess what?

It’s 73 F (23 C)!

Yes, I know you’ve all fainted in disbelief and are just now getting back to the fact that, yes, it actually has the capability of getting that warm in Scotland. (I bet with soCal’s ‘June gloom’ we’re even warmer than them!)

AND there’s not a breeze — which, frankly, means that I’ve found it too hot.

Yes, the native Californian has admitted that she’s acclimated and is thus slightly scared about moving back to the LA area in August when it’ll be much, much hotter than 73.

May in Scotland has got to be my absolute favourite time of year. I’m always smiling! Here are a few reasons:
1. Lots of sun! I never think that I’m that dour during the winter months but I do realise once the sun comes out how much I probably wasn’t chipper.
2. Green! In California, we don’t have this amazing, yellow electric green.
3. The Botanic Gardens — Everything’s in bloom and there are loads of people about. And they all get ice cream even when it’s windy.
4. Taking walks with my husband — We used to walk together after dinner nearly every night in Pasadena. And the urge strikes us again when it warms up in Scotland. We talk better together while walking than while sitting.
5. Daylight hours increase — On the chance that it’s still overcast, we still get light from about 5 am to 10 pm (with the sun setting around 9 pm but then we get about another hour of civil twilight).
6. Wearing a light jacket — gone are the scarves, tights and gloves. Now I just put on a jean or corduroy jacket and I’m set to go.
7. University clears out — The undergraduates all have exams in May; but when they’re over the library and other facilities are purely the domain of the postgrads. Thus less people = more work done (theoretically at least).
8. Gets me in the mood to travel — I love that the Brits all go on exotic holidays all at the same time. It means that everyone’s planning their summer holidays in the sun. (Granted we have too much work to do and not enough money to really think about travelling this summer…) (The summer travel bug isn’t alleviated now that my parents have just come back from the Caribbean; check out some pictures here as well as my dad’s blog for more).
9. Barbequeing — Jonathan and Sarah have a lovely BBQ that we borrow. This means we get to make hamburgers (steaks are rather too pricy) on occasion!
10. The pink trees in the Meadows are in flower — And I need to go get some pictures of them!