Jen Russum

And we’re off…

And we’re off…

To Seattle that is. For SIXTEEN days. Yes, you read that right... 16. 10 days of paid time off for Micah and three weekends in the mix. It's kinda crazy, but fun. Here is the predicament though. How do I pack for such a trip? I love packing LIGHT. Like love it. My college roommates know this. One of them even taught me how to pack a zillion shirts into a packing cube. I heart packing cubes. I was tempted to challenge myself on this trip to packing to most efficiently I ever have before (except that one time I went to Europe and wore the same pair of gauchos the whole trip...except I don't call that efficient; I call that just plain ugly). Here's what I was thinking... you know how they do those specials in the magazines like "How you can transform 10 articles of clothing into six different outfits for work, play, a night out on the town...?" I thought I could do that - one great pair of jeans, two cardigans, a cute tank, a dress, one pair of shorts... And then I realized this is IMPOSSIBLE. Here's the thing about our trip...we are CAMPING half the days we are there. Yes, camping. Some of you might be camping haters, but I love camping. However, it makes it very hard to pack. See, we are spending this weekend in Seattle visiting friends and family - church, going out to breakfast, lake party. But on Tuesday we are going camping with friends for a few days. Then we come home for the weekend and have more friend, family, church, dressing up time. Then we go back out for another camping trip with Micah's family the following week. Then we come back for one more weekend with my family and I think family portraits might be involved. See the problem? Camping means sweats, shorts, a few swimsuits, junky clothes to run around and sit by the fire in. Church and portraits and meeting up with old friends means cute cardigans and sandals and tank tops. And hopefully we will be celebrating our one year anniversary somewhere in the mix, and that just might require a nice dress as well. So no ten item packing for me. I'm taking two bags. Ugh. (Thank you Southwest for free checked luggage).  Did I mention that half our time will be spent in eastern Washington where it's HOT and the other half will be in western Washington where it tends to be a bit chilly even in the summer? See - I have a huge packing conundrum on my hands! But I am so excited for this trip! Looking for lots of time with mom and dad, sister and brother, Micah's fam,  my closest childhood friends, my old roommates, church peeps and our camping companions. So I am going to cram it all in my bag and head to the airport! P.S. Even though I dislike cold weather, I am secretly excited to pack some sweatpants into my luggage... ... Read more

Flowers Fade Friday: Love is Obedience

Flowers Fade Friday: Love is Obedience

I just finished reading John 15, which just has to be one of the most beautiful passages of the whole Bible. Jesus is the vine. We are His branches. We are to spend our lives on this earth bearing fruit for God's glory, and in that we will find joy and our "joy will be full" (John 15:11). But to abide in Christ, the vine, means we must love Him, and there is a little twist to loving Christ; it means we must obey Him. There is really no getting around this in Scripture. I can't love Christ and disobey Him. I can't love Christ and obey Him most of the time or when it's conveninent or easy to do so. In John 14, Jesus says "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (v.15), and then again is John 15, He says "You are my friends if you do what I command you" (v.14). Sometimes this obedience "if" is a big "IF" for me. My pathetic, selfish heart does not always want to obey God. Now that I am married, my biggest tester of obedience is Micah (whether he knows it or not), because I see him so much more than anyone else. Micah is an amazing husband, but he's not perfect. There are times when Micah is legitimately sinful toward me (and, of course, I sin against him as well), and it's in these moments when I look at Micah's sin that I feel myself not wanting to obey Christ. What I want to do is point out Micah's sin, at least once, maybe twice, get angry, then give him the silent treatment and resent him for the next couple of days. Then I remember that the Bible tells women to win over their husbands with their "respectful and pure conduct" (I Peter 3:1)... even if their husbands are unbelievers! How much more should I respect my husband who is a believer? And that's when I have to stomp out my pride and show God my love by obeying Him, which means forgiving my husband and talking about things patiently when I am hurt or mad. It's not always fun, but I can say that it leads to so much more joy in my marriage than harboring bitterness or erupting in anger. And I will leave you with one my all time favorite C.S. Lewis quotes: ... Read more

Haboob?

Haboob?

Really? A Haboob? That's what it's called? I call it a disgusting dust storm that made my throat hurt and got dirt all over my car and my house. I think the keyboard feels a bit gritty as I write this... So on Tuesday night, Micah and I experienced our first true desert dust storm. Supposedly, this was the worst storm the Valley has seen in decades. I have heard about these storms before from my mom, but I never paid much attention to the details. Randomly enough, I overhead a conversation about dust storms a day or two before ours happened. I can't really recall anything from the conversation, but when I walked outside two nights ago to take out the garbage and hop in my car to head to the coffee shop, I instantly thought, "so THIS is a dust storm." Lets's just say the garbage bag got left at the bottom of our apartment stairs and I quickly decided against a trip to the coffee shop as I ran back into the house while choking on dirt... But even though my throat was full of dust all last night, my living room/car/patio need a good cleaning, and the ground outside looks worse than old dirty snow at the end of winter... I must say this dust storm was quite fascinating. Micah was actually driving my car to the car wash of all places when he saw the storm rolling in. He said it was crazy looking, but since he didn't know what it was, he proceeded through the car wash and came out into the middle of a dust storm... let's the say the water from the car wash combined with the dust has ironically put me in competition for the dirtiest car in Phoenix right now. Here are some pictures I took last night during the storm. A blogger isn't afraid of some dust (actually I had to rescue my bread that I left to rise out on our patio - bread making Arizona style - so I figured I would snap a few pics). Sorry, these photos are not edited, but I just couldn't bring myself to take the time to edit pictures of dirt. I'm sure you understand... By the way, we got a new hummingbird feeder. I wonder if the birds will still like it now that it's covered in filth. My bread. I saved it!  And here are some pics of the aftermath... See? Dirtiest car in Phoenix. This is what happens when your car door gets opened during a dust storm. Ewwww. How do you get this cleaned up? I tried to get my car washed today, but everybody had the same idea. The line at the car wash must have had at least 20 cars in it at 11am on a workday! I decided the wash could wait, but I almost could not escape the parking lot because there were so many cars wrapped around the whole lot and practically spilling out into the road. Just a glimpse of the car wash line... maybe tomorrow? Oh well, I'm pretty sure there is still a little dust in the air anyway that would probably make it dirty again instantly... Well, haboob (that's really it's scientific name!), it was nice (interesting?) to meet you, but I wouldn't care if you never came around again.... This is what it looked like from above. Oh. My. Gosh. ... Read more