Have you heard of these countries?

Andrew and I were looking at a world map today, and I noticed so many countries that we never hear anything about on the news (to be honest, some of them I don't remember ever hearing about before in my life)... Thankfully we have the Internet, so we can learn all about these "mystery countries" if we choose!

Oman, Eritrea, Central African Republic, Gabon, Mali, Togo, Benin, Mauritania, Bhutan, Myanmar, Macedonia, Tunisia...

I just thought it was interesting that apparently there's nothing happening in these countries (and some of them are pretty large) that would make them "newsworthy" in the eyes of the American press. How strange that, before this evening, I really had no concept of these countries; yet all the years I've been living my life here in America, people have been living, loving, and dying in each one of these countries. It doesn't matter if I knew they existed or not. A simple, obvious thought, but one that is making me "ponder" this evening...

Walking in the Light

"If we walk in the light as He is in the light...the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin."
1 John 1:7

"The love of God working in me causes me to hate, with the Holy Spirit's hatred for sin, anything that is not in keeping with God's holiness. To 'walk in the light' means that everything that is of the darkness actually drives me closer to the center of the light."

~ Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest

Celebrating our 11th anniversary

Andrew and I had a lovely vacation to Southern California last week to celebrate our 11th anniversary, which was on the 8th. We drove down on Wednesday and spent two nights at a KOA in San Diego, staying in one of their one-bedroom Kamping Kabins. While in San Diego, we explored Seaport Village, Point Loma, Coronado, and the San Diego Zoo.

Then we headed to Riverside for two nights at the Mission Inn. On Saturday, our anniversary, we attended the wedding of Andrew's cousin's daughter, then on Sunday we visited the Slavic church in Hollywood and then had lunch with friends afterwards before driving home to Sacramento.

I'm so grateful to the Lord for giving us 11 years together. The years have gone by quickly! I look forward to many more years together as we continue on in this journey of marriage.

A few pictures:

The view from Point Loma














Us (the happy couple) :-)














Andrew enjoying the Pacific Ocean

I wish I were a better blogger!

I read so many different blogs with witty, insightful entries. I'm a writer...I should be able to do the same! I don't work very hard at my writing, though. It's a gift that needs cultivating...too often I let it stagnate. I lack the motivation I need to really write... not just put words on a page to convey information, but use words as tools to create something new, something beautiful.

Maybe that's part of the problem...wanting to write something new, but feeling like anything that I could say has already been said, and probably much better, by others before me. It often feels like, what's the point? What do I have to say, or write, that hasn't already been said or written a million times before?

But if God has given me this gift, as I believe He has, He obviously intends for me to use it -- in a way that glorifies Him. So although I won't promise it will happen overnight, expect to see different kinds of blog entries here in the future. More of a variety...not just pictures and vacation notes (although those things have their place, too).

What better place than a blog to experiment with words?

Friends and Family

I had a wonderful visit in Oregon, and was able to see many friends and family members while there!

Here are a few photos taken during my time in the Great Northwest:















My dad had all four of his kids with him for Father's Day...it might be a long while before that will ever happen again!















My sister Anna and I took my nephew, Ben, to the mall, and he got to ride in the car stroller...it was so cute!















Without prompting, he even did the "typical guy thing" of driving with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the "windowsill" -- it was funny!















We got to see our friends Nate and LaSarah and their two kids, and spent a whole afternoon with them! What fun! Here's LaSarah and me on Multnomah's campus...oh, the memories! (We all met while attending college here!)















I also got to visit my friend Galina and see her newest daughter, little Jenny. She's a month old. I was privileged to be present for the birth of Galina's first baby, Miriam, in 1999. Jenny is her 4th child -- where does the time go!

Remember, you can click on the pictures to see them larger!

God is so good to surround me with such great friends and relatives in my life...He knows just what we need!

I'm in lush, green Oregon!

I drove to Oregon yesterday, to visit my sister for a week...the drive was about exactly 11 hours, and I was listening to a 1960s radio dramatization of The Lord of the Rings trilogy (on CD) the whole way...as I pulled up in front of my sister's house, I was almost through the end of Return of the King! It made the drive go quickly for me, which I'm grateful for!

So I get to hang out with my nephew Ben for a while...he's walking now! That is a new thing since I saw him last. He'll be a year old on June 24th. He's quite the little cutie pie, as I think you'll agree:


I'm loving the new town my sister and her husband moved to a few months ago...it's a small town, and closer to the coast, so there are LOTS of trees...and the air smells fresh, like being at a camp! I'd love to smell that every day!

Anyway...I'm happy to be here...I really miss hanging out with my sister. I'm glad for times like this when we get the opportunity to be together!

Time flies, I guess...

It must be 2026 already...that's the only explanation I can think of for the letter I received in the mail today, which reads, in part:

Dear Sarah,

Our records show that you haven't yet registered for the benefits of AARP membership, even though you are fully eligible.

...As a member, you'll have the resources and information you need to get the most out of life over 50.

The letter went on to tout the benefits of belonging to the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons): Exclusive discounts. Dependable insurance programs and investment resources. Important health-related information. And so much more.

Hmmm...and I have a hard time convincing people I'm 30! I don't think it would go over so well if I flashed an AARP membership card for discounts when eating out or shopping!

Not that getting older is a bad thing...there's just no need to rush it!

Sorry so quiet...

I haven't been able to think of anything to blog about recently...sorry! I know it gets kind of boring when you keep checking someone's blog and there's never a new entry!

How can I make this worth your visit?

Hmmm.... Do you see a family resemblance here?

Say Cheese!

My mom and my sister Anna were down here in California last Thursday through Saturday to attend a Women's Prayer Summit with me. We had a wonderful time of fellowship with the ladies from my church.

Before we left for the event, I asked my mom to take a picture of Anna and me. The flash wasn't on, so she didn't realize the picture had already been taken, so she kept her finger on the button. What follows is the progression of photos she took as I realized she was taking more than one photo!

Notice how the beautiful smile never leaves Anna's face; she's like, frozen in time!

I bought a robot!

Yes, I have moved into the era of the Jetsons with my own personal household robot...

Well, it's only a robotic vaccum cleaner, but still!

Meet Rover, my new Roomba Red from the iRobot Corporation (this isn't Rover himself, just one of his many look-alikes):




















Rover will vacuum my floors for me while I work on the computer or do laundry or read. Just push his buttons and he's off!

Rover can sense when a spot is extra dirty and he spends more time in that area...he also has a sensor that keeps him from falling down stairs (although we have no stairs in our house, so that's not an issue for us). He covers a lot of ground, and has little side sweepers to get dust and debris from along the wall's edges. He's not too noisy...definitely not as loud as a regular vacuum cleaner!

My cats aren't quite sure what to think about this new addition to the family, but they tolerate him; as long as he isn't heading straight towards them!

Now if only they'd make a robot that could clean my bathroom for me...

God is so creative!

These are some of my favorite pictures from a trip to the Sacramento Zoo a couple years ago...I love seeing the creativity of our God expressed so wonderfully at the zoo! (Remember, click on the pictures to see them bigger!)

Two of my favorite things!

A moment of grace...

I am not prone to clumsiness. I don't usually drop things, run into things, trip over things, etc. Today, however, I had quite the ungraceful moment!

I'm currently working in our church library on Monday afternoons. Western Seminary from Portland has their Sacramento campus on our church campus, so there are usually several students in the library on Mondays when I come in.

Before I went to the library, I stopped to get a Jamba Juice. A nice, big, fruity smoothie! I was looking forward to drinking it as I worked throughout the afternoon (it's been hot here lately). I came in through the back door of the library, walked through the back room, and up the three little steps into the library itself. It was at this point that something went wrong.

I don't know how it happened, exactly, but as I stepped into the library I fell. It felt like slow motion...and next thing I knew, I was on my knees with my broken Jamba cup in front of me, all the icy, sweet contents in a pile on the carpet. The two students in the library were perfect gentlemen, going to get paper towels to help clean up the mess, and then later, offering to go to Jamba Juice and buy me another drink (how sweet of them).

I was able to laugh about it -- which encouraged me, because if something like that had happened to me in high school, or even college, I would have been mortified! I was only mildly embarrassed, and soon got over it...which shows me how much I've matured since then. I guess there are perks to getting "old" after all!

But the thing that stuck out to me the most was how the two students bought me another drink, even though they don't know me that well and it was no fault of theirs that I had tripped and dropped my drink. It was a moment of grace...something undeserved. It made me think of how many things God has given me, in His grace, that I don't at all deserve. I'm so glad we serve a gracious God!

Keep your eyes open for a moment of grace in your day today!

Yes, I love technology...

(You get a golden star sticker if you know where I got the title of this post!)

You know how I wrote about board games a few posts ago? Well, a friend of mine who is currently living in another country saw the post and invited me to play some games online with her...so yesterday, she and I played the Yahoo.com version of Pictionary, and then several rounds of their version of Boggle! It was so much fun...and just amazing that we are half a world and several time zones apart, but we can get together online for some fun game time...what a blessing!

Thanks to my dear friend! Let's do it again soon! (Hey, and if anybody else wants to go up against me in Boggle, or any word game, for that matter...I welcome the challenge! Just e-mail me and we'll set something up!)

While we still have the chance...

I came across this quote yesterday:

"Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them and while their hearts can be thrilled by them." ~ Henry Ward Beecher

I strive to live my life like this, to let my friends know how much they mean to me. I love that line in the quote about filling their lives with sweetness. That's my goal!

My mom recently lost her best friend of 30 years to cancer. In reality, we don't know when our last day on earth will be. We should make the most of each day, never missing out on an opportunity to tell our loved ones that they are loved! Think of all the things you would say about your friend if you were asked to give a euology at his or her funeral. Why not put those things in writing and send them to that friend today (speaking of them in the present tense, of course)? Your friend will be thrilled, and the Lord will be pleased at your expression of love!

I'm so thankful to God for my friends!

Dr. Suess -- in Latin!

Two books that I ordered from Amazon.com arrived today:

Cattus Petasatus and Virent Ova! Viret Perna!!















Yes, perennial Dr. Suess favorites The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham, in Latin!

I don't speak Latin. I've never studied it. But I love words and language, and etymology fascinates me. The official definition of etymology is: the history of a linguistic form (as a word) shown by tracing its development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing its transmission from one language to another, by analyzing it into its component parts, by identifying its cognates in other languages, or by tracing it and its cognates to a common ancestral form in an ancestral language. See, to me, that's exciting! I often pick up connections between words in English, Spanish, or Russian, and a lot of it traces back to the original Latin or Greek or whatever.

So I am having a lot of fun reading through these books and seeing if I can recognize any of the words based on the fact that so many of our English words have Latin roots and foundations. (Thankfully, there's a handy vocabulary list at the back of each book!)

These books are so much fun for language lovers like me! I had a great time reading through Virent Ova! Virent Perna!! this morning. If you like languages, too, learning a little Latin really broadens your "vocabularic" horizons (yeah, I made that word up just now)! And these fun books are a great way to start!

I'm such a nerd!

Board Games

I'm sitting here feeling a little sad, and do you know what triggered it? Putting a dishtowel away in the linen closet and seeing our shelf full of board games.

In my family growing up, we'd often play board games together in the evenings. Whether it was Life, Boggle, Uno, or Scattergories, we passed many hours together laughing and competing and just enjoying each other's company. Likewise, at family gatherings like birthday parties or on holidays, we'd play Pictionary with our aunts and uncles, or I'd play Battleship with my cousins. It's just what we did in our family, and it brings back a lot of good memories for me.

Hence the shelf full of board games in my linen closet. The sad part? I have nobody to play them with now that we live so far away from my family. Andrew's family just isn't big on board games...they'll play them occasionally, but family get-togethers with the Romanovs mostly consist of eating and talking. Not that there's anything wrong with that; it's just different than what I grew up with. It's a different type of family dynamic.

So I sit here tonight, missing the way my sister and I could beat almost anyone if we were teamed together in a game that required getting your teammate to guess what you were drawing or acting out (it's that sisterly brain-connection thing). I miss trying to get more words than my Mom when we'd play Boggle together. I miss sitting around the kitchen table with my family, snacks on hand, and just getting into a good game together.

I think, though, that what I really miss is not the actual playing of the games, but the closeness and the togetherness that playing board games together fostered. It kind of makes me sad that we all live so far away from each other now. My board games sit collecting dust on a shelf -- colorful, boxed reminders of a chapter in my life that will never come again.

Wanna play a game, anyone?

A few funny pics...

We stopped at a little store to have some of the "best ice cream in Israel" (it WAS yummy) and they had these funny cow statues everywhere. That's the moon in the distance!





























Mud! :-) (That's my bro Nate on the far left and Andrew on the far right!)















Doesn't this camel look like he's cheesing for the camera? :-)















In our Jerusalem hotel room. Ironic, isn't it?

Random pics from our trip...more to come later!

Me in front of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.















Me at the Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem.















Nate (my brother) and Andrew floating in the Dead Sea.














Andrew emerging from a mud bath on the shores of the Dead Sea.

God smiled, cont.

Blogger wouldn't let me insert any more photos in my entry about the baptism, but I wanted to show you this picture I took of the group that went after ours, because it shows so clearly how there were rain clouds all around, but sun shining down on the baptism site.

(You can click on it for a larger view -- for some reason that feature isn't working for the pics in the previous entry...)

God is awesome!

And here's a picture of everyone that was baptized from our group (plus the two who did the baptizing):