Happy All Hallow's Eve

I grew up boycotting Halloween, sincerely believing that it was "Satan's holiday". This article that I read last year, together with this article, drastically changed my perspective and opened my mind to celebrating October 31st as All Hallow's Eve - the antecedent to a glorious All Saints Day.

As one of the authors clearly stated, the calendar of the Satanists is a perversion of Christian seasons - there would be no Satanists if Christians were not around. Until we cease to cower in fear and take dominion of what is God's and ours, the Evil One will continue to have his heyday.

What better way to repudiate him than to embrace this holiday with mirth and delight?

Yes, I'm looking forward to tomorrow. And to a marvelous time at Harvest Parties with both families and friends... because it's Hallow's Eve.

~ Mrs. Arcfide

October

What better thing to do, on a lovely afternoon, than to go for a walk and embrace the cool, crisp air of fall? Even more so when one resides in a small college town with gorgeous buildings to behold.

I loved Singapore with all its modern buildings and impressive infrastructures; that city will always hold a special place in my heart.

But maybe... just maybe, early 1900s architecture will grow on me. And I'll call this place my home.





"Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn." - Elizabeth Lawrence

"October is nature's funeral month. Nature glories in death more than in life. The month of departure is more beautiful than the month of coming - October than May. Every green thing loves to die in bright colors."
- Henry Ward Beecher

~ Mrs. Arcfide

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

~ Mrs. Arcfide

Happy Birthday, Aaron

Thanks to Scrapwow, I just completed my first digital scrapbook page.

It's another reason to celebrate. :-)

~ Mrs. Arcfide

Timber Ridge

Photo courtesy of Isaac B.

Last Friday, we were invited to spend an evening with some of our Canadian friends who were attending camp meetings in a neighboring town. We joined them for supper, an evening service, and a time of singing around their campfire.

It was a delight to bump into several other Friends of friends as well, and match real life personalities to different well-known names and faces.

One of Aaron's lab students was amazed to find him in the crowd! What a small, small world.

~ Mrs. Arcfide

100 Days & counting

Weddings occur in one day. Marriage is for life. It's hard to believe that Aaron and I today celebrate the "First 100 Days" milestone of our lives together.

"Just a hundred days?", you may ask. Though we still qualify as newlyweds, some mornings when I wake up beside him, it feels as if we have been married for longer.

Divorce statistics among Christian adults (the highest among faith groups), are high enough to cloud even the Most Hopeless Romantic's view of marriage with cynicism. Marriage counselors advise couples to be prepared for a transition period that includes disagreements, misunderstanding, and disappointed expectations.

Some couples psych themselves by reading dozens of marriage preparation books (this is not to say I discourage them - I've read dozens myself!) that touts compromise as the key to mutual happiness. Others delay matrimony until they are ready (whatever that means), and still others decide to remain single for life because divorce is too painful or troublesome.

The downside to these views is that many couples end up unhappy with their compromises when they each settle for less-than-their-ideal. There exists no point in life where a person will ever financially or spiritually "arrive," thus becoming marriage-ready. What better lessons in learning and living are there to learn than the ones we gain from real-life experiences? God grants wisdom to those who unwaveringly ask! By the time many young adults meet society's expectation to complete college, find a stable job, and then marry, they are not-so-young adults anymore. Hundreds are tempted to sin and commit fornication simply because they were ready for marriage long before our society said they were.

Have I for one moment regretted marrying? Not one bit.

Am I sorry I "married young"? Not at all.

I love the thought that my husband and I, in our early twenties, are able to begin our family.
I love hearing him whisper that I am his. I love sneaking up behind him with hug attacks and kisses. I love how he calls to ask how my day is going. I love ironing his clothes. I love how he understands my thoughts even as they tumble out disjointed. I love gliding my hands over his back in massage. I love how he commands me to "Relax," as he slow dances me around our Study - and how we laugh when he notices we had been dancing to the Funeral Eulogy. I love memorizing scriptures with him. And all the melodramatic, tortured sounds we make as we review our monthly budget together.

I love the Love and Respect we share.

Oh. And our predisposal for stopping in the kitchen to renew our wedding vows.

~ Mrs. Arcfide

Short stint to Indianapolis

I got to meet Marissa this evening! She was visiting some friends at the Indianapolis Training Center, and Aaron and I were invited to kidnap her for a couple of hours. We drove to Starbucks for supper, and spent several hours gabbing, just getting to know each other better. Meeting LJ friends face-to-face is such fun!

Marissa's a sweetheart, as Chantel would say. I loved every moment we spent talking, laughing, and thinking together. Yes, we actually enjoyed some intelligent conversations! I had been afraid my mind would fail me (like it is failing me right now), but I managed to share at least one credible thought. What a great evening. ;-)

~ Mrs. Arcfide

"Narcissistic Self-Publishers" have a sense of humor too

~ Mrs. Arcfide

The Hsu Times

This afternoon, I chatted on IM with mrscaleb. She is going into labor any day now!! O_O

I also got to talk to two girlfriends back in Singapore for more than an hour over Skype. The video had slow playback, which made for weird visual-audio co-ordination. Other than that, I was just happy to be able catch up with, and hear my sissies' voices. Poor girls, if I were awake up to 5am like they were, I wouldn't have managed to still be as pleasant! Not sure how they do it, but sure seems as if the batteries they run on never die.

In other news, Aaron came home hankering for McDonalds'. For the first time since we got here, we ventured by foot beyond our parking lot to the restaurant with the golden arches across the street. Someday, with a girlfriend, I'll walk just a little further to its neighboring Starbucks... *daydreams*

My husband also brought home his first stack of test papers for grading today. Seeing those brown envelops on his desk brought back memories of my dad doing the very same.

The two differences?

My dad *never* once had to borrow a red pen from me. And. Aaron brings papers home in a backpack. My dad used a brief case. So my husband has to be the cooler geek. Or educator. *ahem* :-P

Gosh. Isn't he starting to look professorish? I can't seem to escape men from academia...








~ Mrs. Arcfide

Fireproof

So many friends recommended seeing this movie, that two days ago, Aaron and I obliged. When I learned that its creators were the producers of Facing the Giants, I knew this was going to be good.

Every couple should see this. If ever a movie demonstrated the need for love and respect in marriage, this one did. If ever a movie demonstrated how husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church, this one did.

It is unashamedly Christian. Go see it!



~ Mrs. Arcfide

Recycling our "wedding stuff"

Is frugality to innovation what necessity is to invention?

Since Aaron and I might be entertaining our first guests this weekend, I was slightly more motivated to re-look at the pieces of decoration that have been laying around our home since we first moved. I have been surprised at how long it has taken me to get things unpacked and put away, but we're finally mostly organized.

The focus of our decoration has mostly been relegated to our bedroom, study, bathrooms, and kitchen as those are the most "lived-in" areas of our home. Surprisingly, we rarely use our living room at all --- perhaps its lack of furniture and isolation has everything to do with our disinclination towards it.

Knowing how well I love pictures, my husband generously gave me several gorgeous frames and wall decorations from Hobby Lobby for my birthday. They quickly transformed our bedroom from utilitarianism to homey coziness. I was one happy camper.

Our budget, though, restrained us from purchasing any other items for our kitchen. Yesterday morning, I was inspired to reconsider some of the candles, basket, and roses someone had kindly saved from our wedding. We had a cranberry-red themed wedding, so I was uncertain how red would interfere in our blue and oak-wood kitchen. In the end, the results weren't as tacky as I'd feared. Those different colors appear relegated to separate hemispheres of our kitchen. :-)

I used a silver 5 lights candle stand we purchased from Craigslist, some scotch tape, some porcelain votive candles I already owned, and some creativity to create this look:



~ Mrs. Arcfide