sundayness.

i'm shopping. i need to land somewhere, church community-wise. goodness knows with this new job, this girl's gonna need some support. as much as i like to think i'm invincible...i'm really not. i know it's only the third week of me in my cottage, but i'm excited about what God has in store for me in the new area i find myself residing in.

i googled a church last night. it was a twenty-five minute drive this morning. i didn't mind. the scenery is gorgeous. it's the same route i'll be taking to work.

i walk into the church foyer, removed my fingerless gloves and hat and say hello to the older man at the door. he tells me, welcome. i say, thank you...i'm new. he says, i know. i reply, i guess there's no point hiding then is there? we laugh. he hands me a package and walks with me to find a seat and off he goes. worship. talented musicians. familiar soundboard. it's an allen & heath...possibly 24 channel like at the vineyard. once a sound mixer, always a sound mixer? i barely notice the drums. good mix. i'm harmonising up a storm as i worship, totally lost. encouraging words are spoken throughout the congregation of about seventy people. a woman my age looks over and smiles. i smile back. relevant message. some more worship. it's over. i look up and the older lady sitting next to me scoots over and says hello. we chat for...ten minutes. her husband comes over to say hello. then the pastor's wife comes over to join our conversation and she too says hello. we grab tea. she runs off to find someone else to say hello to me. i meet her. it's the woman who smiled at me during worship. i chat to her while her toddler daughter smiles and makes faces at me. pastor's wife comes back and wants me to say hello to another woman my age. we chat. it's all good. the man who welcomed me? his wife comes over to say hello. the older lady who scooted over to me initially? she and her husband invite me to lunch. i'm overwhelmed by the amount of hellos i've just received and the introvert in me is SCREAMING FOR SOME ALONE TIME to process what's just happened. i ask for a raincheque? she says next week? i say yes. she asks if i have any food allergies or any severe dislikes. i didn't have the heart to tell her about the low carb/low gi/ gluten-free road i've been on for the past year.

so. i have a lunch date next week. did i mention the pastor coming up to say hello too? i told him the welcome i've received is a testament to this church and i know God will bless the people who've welcomed me this morning.

i walk to my car with a permasmile plastered on my face and say outloud, God, how cool are you? and i laugh. i've been church shopping i've been asking God to help me find a place to land and set up camp for a bit. i think i might have found it. super cool. praise God.

changing gears now. i'm wandering the historic town and the last time i was here i didn't get to see the castle because i spent the afternoon on a hillside smoking a cigar. aha. on the way to the castle, i saw signs for an art deco fair. i smile because this reminds me of viareggio with the girls this past summer when we went to italy. we stayed in an italian beach hotel that was decked out in art deco. i had to go in. i like memory lane.

next up. castle. things were looking good.

until i noticed this. poopies.

so, i settled for a walk around the castle. if you can't go through it...walk around it?

this is a picture of yours truly wearing her friend's jeans-that-back-in-september-she-couldn't-button-up-but-now-has-no-problem. yeah, sarah...those are your jeans i'm wearing. many thanks. i love 'em. the boots? bought during my england trip august 2007. still going strong.

i remember studying this guy in my american literature class when i lived in new hampshire. this also reminds me of that awful-narrow-minded-pompous-ass-of-an-american-teacher i had. i know not all americans are like that. just this specific one. he docked marks from my essay because i used the british form of spelling certain words, which i learned in the canadian educational system because hello! i'm canadian. and then he made a public display of me in front of the ENTIRE class when i tried to explain to him that my form of spelling wasn't wrong, just a variation, and that if it was wrong then all of England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and any other country that teaches English is wrong. i look back and think he was such a jerk because then he said, hayley...where are you located right now? stupefied, i said, uh...dover, new hampshire? and then he had the balls to say, yes and here in the united states of america we spell words this way. my smart-ass gene hadn't fully matured at the age of seventeen yet, so i was humiliated of course. i kinda remember being sent out too for sort of talking back? i have a vague memory of talking to someone in the english department, but i can't remember now. this was probably the start of my complex with men. later on for another assignment, he told us to write a fictional short story. he told us to write what we know. i wrote about a girl uprooting and moving to a new country and trying to find her way. i remember getting a good mark. gee, thanks buddy. oh, and i also remember him insisting i lost a textbook and demanded i pay up. my parent's wrote a cheque and in the middle of the summer of 2000...guess what showed up in our mailbox? a returned cheque with a note stating the textbook wasn't lost.

yeah, that's right. stupid head. i have a love/hate relationship with the states. now...THAT was a tangent.

what the heck is that?

i tell myself this every once in awhile. and it was quite validating to see it in book form today.

i stopped for a late lunch. but, before that i ducked into boots (a pharmacy) because i'm out of aloe vera and i need mascara. secret to great skin? aloe vera. i'm serious. i've been using this stuff since sixteen. this tube was ridiculously expensive. i think i paid 10 dollars for it. (after the currency conversion). no matter. i can't live without this stuff. well, i'm sure i could...but it wouldn't be pretty.

out of habit i ordered filtered coffee with hot milk. i'm liking the black coffee these days and i completely forgot that i don't do that anymore. such a snob. aha.

funny story. the waitress asked where in the states i was from. oh, i laughed. she apologised and i said it was totally okay. i usually cut the person's uneasiness at this point by asking them if they've ever been to the states, because then i can relate by telling them i used to live there. seven times out of ten they say yes and then i ask them which part they visited. and then all is forgotten. she told me she toured new york to florida to new orleans last summer and had a blast. i can imagine that would be a blast. there's something intriguing about the deep south.

this is the carrot and cumin soup. it was yummy. i'm getting used to setting up camp and eating solo in restaurants. i always have a book with me. what? you think the whole table-for-one is gonna stop me? it would've a long time ago...but not anymore. life's too short. and...i'm currently getting over myself these days...so i don't care anymore.

although, i might draw the line at going to a brewery on my own. i do want to do this one day. tour beer. hmmm...beer.

i know this is bad form because i was driving, but there's a few tunnels where i live...and i'm fascinated every time i get to go through one. you can't tell in the picture but there's these crazy huge vent fans hanging from the ceiling and you can see the blades slowly go round. it's so industriously memorising. the lights on the ceiling remind me of a runway...and i also love airports too. that's enough for now. byeeeee!