Welcome to my virtual home!

called me paranoid but i'm not posting a big announcement on facebook that i'm off to india for two weeks with John (i.e.; home unattended) so i'll post it here, instead, among friends. :) we leave tomorrow morning.  last night, a couple friends asked if i was already packed.  i wonder, who are these people who pack two days in advance?  i'm packed with almost 12 hours to spare and i call that an achievement, even if 8 of those 12 hours should be devoted to sleep.  still, that's 4 whole hours i could be packing that i won't be.  THAT is definitely an achievement (for me). i did a proust-style interview  today (got a little distracted there as i read Proust's answers -- i wasn't so deep).  when asked what interesting fact i recently learned, i answered, "the GORUCK didn't break my foot."  keep in mind, we're trekking in india.  a broken foot would majorly disrupt our carefully laid plans.  and we don't need my foot disrupting plan

John and I have an ongoing game where John makes the bed and arranges the pillows in an artistic fashion then titles his creation.  He was particularly proud of this installation called Hiding Pillow .  Here's a shot of the artiste with his creation (c 2012).  As John explained it to me, the large pillows are turned around in their quest to search for their young, fellow pillow.  Eagle eyes will be able to spot where the pillow is hiding. In other news, we attended an Underground Dinner last night.  This underground food craze is all the rage across the US though we've only recently learned of it.  The couple sitting next to us were treated to dinner by their brother who runs underground dinners in Jackson Hole, WY.  The crew that puts on underground dinners in St. Louis is known as entre.  Here's how it works.  We signed up for entre's mailing list and received an email a month ago, asking us if we wanted to join their dinner June 15 or 16.  We signed u

with so much recent activity, it's surely time for an update! here's a re-cap of what the "sensational Spears," as Lisa named us, have been up to . . . Once John learned that Florida State was going to Nashville to play in the NCAA Finals, he took a day off and drove the four hours to watch. I joined him in the wee morning hours, after an eight hour bus ordeal involving narcotics police hauling a couple guys off the bus in hand cuffs (other than that, the rest of the trip was pretty tame). We LOVED the Grand Ol' Opry and the botanical gardens in Nashville where dogwoods were beginning to blossom and multi-colored tulips covered the grounds. Mom visited the next weekend and we donned lab goggles and visited "the pit" at the regional semi-finals of a Robotics Competition put on by FIRST . Then we headed to the absolutely gorgeous Shaw Nature Reserve to enjoy spring in full bloom in St. Louis. We were treated to an off-the-beaten-path peak day for b

it's beginning to feel like spring around here -- temps rising (though they never got truly cold this winter), an anticipation building for what's right around the corner, the Hine fam birthday month! John and i have been enjoying lots of fun activities in our part of these United States known affectionately as "the Lou." we checked out the Blues v. Blackhawks hockey game last week and were treated to the hometown Blues wining against their arch rival Chicago Blackhawks to a sold out crowd. as we left the arena, fans honked their horns three times and other fans cheered back, "let's go Blues!" we've also been exploring the culinary niche known as paleo. the most recent experiment was beef enchilada cabbage rolls . despite the sound of that, John and i agreed that this experiment was a definite success (provided you go easy on the chili powder). tonight's slated experiment is shepherd's pie . i guess the cat's out of the bag; we do m

"open your eyes to behaviors you've grown used to that [God] wants you to grow out of" ~Colleen Brown, CRM Lent Devotional "[Outside America], people make time for relationships. In America, people make relationships fit time." ~John Houmes

sunday evening, i witnessed one of the most precise, amazing performances i've seen. shen yun is masterfully choreographed, performed, and costumed. imagine sleeves that extend yards past a dancer's hands that seem to float and hang mid-air as the dancer throws her arms up. imagine jumps a la rudolf nureyev that end in a perfect landing without even a wobble of one's foot. these dancers were MASTERS. now the really interesting part is that shen yun is also a platform to promote falun dafa . imagine dancers facing a backdrop of a five-story tall buddha. next, the dancers transition off the stage and appear to be flying through the air towards said buddha. i tried to find a video to clarify but all i could find was shen yun promo clips which conveniently omit buddha. as much as i love dance, it's a bit hard to stomach a religious and political agenda cloaked under the guise of protecting 5,000 year old cultural traditions. still, it's great to see dance in st

"A human Savior who is free from original sin and never commits sin Himself remains truly human because sin is not inherent to human identity; rather, sin is a later addition that ' de -humanizes' us. Adam was truly human before he sinned (Gen. 1:26-27)." ~ TABLETALK , Feb 8, 2012 After reading John Eldredge's Beautiful Outlaw recently, I've wondered if I sometimes miss out on God's view of me as a human made IN HIS IMAGE, rather than merely a sinning but saved human. Eldredge is on a mission to get us to experience the playful, disruptive, extravagant personality of Jesus. That book and passages like today's TABLETALK reflection leave me with that niggling feeling that I may be missing out on something . . .

TEC @ the Railway Exchange Building is my new office space. Arch Grants (I'm not posting the web link quite yet b/c it's under revision and looks pretty archaic at the moment) is my latest project and a team of four amazing individuals pitched in to relocate our entire office for me last night. Here are some photos so you can see the massive piles of office supplies we basically pilfered from an office that went out of business. Ok, full disclosure: we did NOT steal these supplies, we just got them for a steal. Turns out office desks can be pretty darn heavy but thankfully John and the Arch Grants' intern, Carter, were on-hand for the heavy lifting. John's turning into quite a mover after helping a Nepali family on Sunday relocate a few blocks away. So anyway, this is where I'm now spending my days. No views of the Arch but I do have a window that looks onto an old building with lions' and dogs'(?) heads attached (look closely since my computer camera

before you worry, st. louis will probably never be "home home" for either of us but i had the thought last night that john and i were beginning to make ourselves at home in this city. a couple vignettes that come to mind . . . john watching the football game with a few guys from church; wandering about downtown, getting to know my area better and appreciating the local architectural marvels like the Old Cathedral and Old Courthouse ; actually having people to hug or say, "hi" to when we go to church. i'll keep building the list because it helps to recognize how blessed we are to be here!

Many have been asking about a tour of our home so here ya go. I'll walk you through it . . . First you enter our entryway. We hung onto a couple small tables our landlord left in the house and have a favorite verse hanging near family photos. Through the door on the left of the entryway, you enter the kitchen. We've had to be creative with storage and use the island shown and another island that came with the home for pots and pans then there's another cupboard in the hallway, opposite the powder room where we store mugs, our veggie steamer, plates, bowls, etc. Moving through the door on the right side of the kitchen photo, you enter the hallway with the cupboard and the pow der room which is really a fancy name for a half bath but since the home was built in 1921 it is actually correct to call it the powder room (not pretentious at all!). Moving through the hallway, you ente r the dining room where we also have our Christmas tree. There's a ton of light in our home

Yes, Kelly was right. The survey derived from a game of Apples to Apples where Kelly and I held that fundraising was more violent than Dracula (who Grant and John thought surely more violent than fundraising). Due to the low response rate, John might have to pose this question to his facebook friends. For a moment, however, consider those evening fundraising calls or images of opponents used to raise funds for political campaigns or the marketing tactics of organizations that prey upon the elderly. Surely those could be deemed violent, at least at times. Furthermore, fundraising really exists whereas Dracula is merely fictitious so any supposed violence is pretend. There. I rest my case.