December Daily {:5:} Starbucks, Sewing, Singing

I started the day off with a business meeting at Starbucks.  Believe it or not, I actually don't go to Starbucks that often.  I know that I love coffee, and the coffee shop is right there on my street, one little block away.  But why pay for a coffee when I can drink one right here in my own house?  So I only go when others want to.  Confession: I do love their muffins, as is evidenced by the empty plate.

I forgot to take pictures all day long today, seriously.  Oh well.  The next part of my day would've been a great photo.  I asked my friends to swing by my place after our meeting to help me put my couch back together.

Yes, you read that correctly.

See, I have a sectional couch.  And for whatever reason, one section often disconnects itself from the others.  It's a real lone ranger.  Anyway, try as I might, I can't get it back together by myself.  I tried the other night until I was so frustrated that tears came.  I figured I shouldn't cry over my couch.  (Not again, anyway...if you forgot that story, click HERE.)  It really does take two people to put the thing back together, so my friends, while thinking I was crazy for a moment when I asked for this particular kind of help, were gracious to come help.  It took us about five minutes, but we got it.  (You know what else I can't do by myself in my apartment?  Change my lightbulbs in the hallway.  I'm too short, even standing on top of my step stool, to reach them with my high ceilings.  Let all the "how many Americans does it take to change a lightbulb" jokes commence.)

After fixing my couch, we went to the craft store to look at some supplies we might need for our classes.  (Sidebar: the craft store is a very dangerous store for me.  It's worse than Pinterest because it doesn't just spark ideas, it enables them with everything I need to create right before my eyes!)  We had lunch in the mall, all three of us ordering well-done cheeseburgers.  Mine came out still moo-ing, and so I sent it back.  In all my years in France, that might be only the 2nd, maybe 3rd time to ever send anything back.  But this guy was still bleeding, and I just couldn't stomach it.  You should probably be glad I didn't take a photo of it.

I had about two hours to kill before my next thing, so I worked on finishing my quilt homework for next week's class.  Here's how that fan block is coming:

Then I headed off to meet with my friends for our small group like meeting.  We get together each week to sing, pray, and study the Word a bit.  Because we're a multi-national group, we sing in different languages.  We have a booklet we use that has the words written in Arabic (on the right page), and then phonetically and in French on the left page.  When we sing in other languages besides Arabic or French, we have extra pages printed (like last week, when we sang in English).

I shot a little video while we were singing so that you can hear, and get an idea of what it's like for those of us who worship in another language other than our own heart language.  I don't know all the words at all, but I do know when they're saying "hallelujah," and "peace" (salam).  I often have to follow along with my finger, as I did about half way through the little video.  Listen for the hallelujah!

One of my friends came up to me afterwards to ask a question.  I'd included her in a group email I'd sent out to almost all English speakers.  She speaks English well enough I thought she's understand the gist of the email.  When she saw me, she said she didn't understand one phrase, "hang up."  I thought for a moment about the email, perplexed, because I'm sure I didn't write "hang up."  I told her what "hang up" means, and then she pulled up the email on her phone.  Turns out she didn't understand "hang out." Ahh.  English is kind of crazy that way: many of our verbs have entirely different meanings depending on the word immediately following the verb.  (Is that a preposition?  An adverb?  A prepositional adverb?  I have no idea.)  I explained what "hang out" means--and that's what I'd invited her to come do.  What a big grin covered her face then!

It was cold enough I took the metro home.  I live about a one minute walk from the metro, and where I was tonight is also about a one minute walk to a metro...and only about a 7-8 minute walk from my house.  But...I figured two separate minutes walking with a warm metro ride seemed better than the faster and colder walking.

Funny how in the summer I avoid the metro because it's warm, and in the winter I take it precisely because it's warm!  :)  No weird dogs or black outs on it today, though.  Because there is currently a bus strike going on, you think we'd see more people (and thus strange things) on the metro, but not today.  I suppose maybe the people who normally take the bus are just staying at home during the strike?

Until tomorrow...