the story i find myself in

this day began with rain waking me up this morning, but in a very peaceful calming soothing way...i love the sound of rain in the morning...then i headed to pick up amanda for our day of city and sand. when i arrived i found peanut butter waffles and eggs and bacon! i love my fiance!! after breakfast we headed up to the Fashion District in downtown la. thank goodness it stopped raining by the time we left, so we had a beautiful day to walk around town in. after some shops full of bridesmaides dresses and sunglasses for five bucks we headed south to oceanside!! it has been a great night here - dinner with the sharps, a nice walk on the beach watchin the sunset, and now an evening of planning wedding invitations, listening to music, and learning adobe illustrator. tomorrow we are off to camp to enjoy good friends and hopefully some time of planning and prepartion for good ol sept 10th! good night...

Posted by ashdown at 4/28/2005 10:47:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

so its another early morning here in ca. just dropped off amanda at school and i am now chillin until 10am, when i have a meeting with troy, keith, aaron, and dan about summer. i am soooo excited about summer!! its gonna be dope...if only i could find a female vocalist...i'm sure it'll come together sooner or later... so yesterday i picked up The Last Word and the Word after That, affectiately known as the heretics guide to the bible! heheh....anyways, i am excited to dive in. off to another day here in cali!

Posted by ashdown at 4/27/2005 09:07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

so here i am, back where i began this day, at good ol its a grind! i am just chillin with amanda this afternoon and it is great!!the day was great, i got to spend some time this morning updating blogs, changing the yb website, chattin with friends and the like. then i headed out to the car wash to clean my babys car, and on the way to lunch with steve, i got to hang with kelly for awhile. it was so great, i miss that guy. then lunch at WAHOO's with steve. we had a great conversation about forgiveness and community. he was talking about how he is learning that forgiveness is more like recognizing that people will always fail us and we must choose to love them inspite of that. so many times i think of forgiveness as waiting for someone to wrong me, then i forgive....but i think it is deeper than that. what a great thought to think that love is choosing forgiveness - always. after lunch with steve, i headed out to see eric wakeling down in santa ana. i love that man. he has been a great mentor and role model for me and my life. he has been with me through good times and bad, has opened his house many a time to a friend in need. what a great man of God, thanks eric (and bea too) for your love for me! i respect you greatly. so now we are off to an evening of fun! today marks 10 months together! woohoo!! peace...

Posted by ashdown at 4/26/2005 08:19:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

here are some photos from the show...enjoy! the stage: rockin it like the apocolypse...

Posted by ashdown at 4/26/2005 09:48:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

so i am sitting here, back at my fav coffee house around fullerton, its a grind! yesterday, i hopped on a plane around 11.45am and landed safely at SNA around 4.30pm. thanks continental for the free ticket, i am excited to be back in town and see my WONDERFUL fiance, plan the wedding and catch up with people here. this past weekend was great, we had a great gathering at Sacred - our buddy stephen from durham came and spoke for us. check him out at two and two makes five, he is moving to south africa with ServLife later on this year. he is a stud. and then after a short afternoon, i headed back to comedyworx to setup sound and video for MY FIRST SOLO SHOW!!! it was sooo fun. we had like 40ish people show up for our first Sundays @ 7, what a great time. it was funny, i was sooo nervous before and the 6 songs that i did went by so fast - it seemed like i did 2. anyways, it was a great time - many thanks to ryan sharp, mike barnet, and others for writing amazing songs. also thanks to Terry Dineen for headlining the show and brenda for displayin her artwork. we recorded the show, video and audio, so next week i will hopefully have some clips to put up for your listening enjoyment! on a side note - i finished reading robert webber's Ancient-Future Faith on the airplane. great resource. he has some great thoughts and his communication of where we need to grow as evangelicals in this world we now live in is great. i highly reccomend his work. i will post up some thoughts later. enjoy the day!

Posted by ashdown at 4/26/2005 09:28:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

"in the end there are only two possible attitudes which Christians can adopt toward the world. one is escape and the other engagement." - john stott "christianity began in Palestine as a relationship, moved to Greece and became and idea, went to Rome and became an institution, then came to America and became an enterprise." -richard halverson (from NieuCommunities) some great thoughts here...this ministry called NieuCommunities obviously believes in high engagement with people and partnering with God in healing the world. check out the video, it looks pretty cool. on to the quotes... i wonder how much as a 'christian' culture we have decided to esacpe it all when we turned into an 'enterprise' as halverson says. i think these quotes are very deep and very accurate. look at jesus - talk about engagement, i mean come on! the man embodied engagement, not escape. yet how much of the christian culture now is all about escaping this world and this culture and creating our own 'holy huddles'. i think these guys are right on. God help me to be a follower who engages this world, your world - for your glory. give me strength, wisdom, and discernment as i continue to grow as a follower of the Way. have your way in me.

Posted by ashdown at 4/20/2005 11:32:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

oh yes, what we have all been waiting for... your friend and mine, MIKE DEVRIES is back blogging!! keep up with him here: _awakening finally, the rabbi is free to think aloud again!

Posted by ashdown at 4/16/2005 09:29:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

so i finally got to talk to my old boss at Dream Sports Center yesterday and he said he would put me on the schedule to ref and put me on a team!! there are goods and bads about this....the good thing is that he originally told me i wouldnt be able to play, because i was leaving for the summer. and now i am playing tonight!! yeah! the bad thing is that he told me that i would be able to ref on a regular basis when i first got here, but now i am only reffing this week and then i am just on the 'fill in' list. bummer. and i just did my taxes and i owe so freakin much money it is unbelieveable....money stinks. i hate money. anyone know of some work for the next 2 months? let me know...

Posted by ashdown at 4/12/2005 09:02:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

april 24th, 2005. comedy worx in downtown raleigh. 7pm. 'ashdown' makes his debt as a solo acoustic artist. should be fun....now if i only had songs...

Posted by ashdown at 4/08/2005 09:02:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

here comes the virtual tour! enjoy!! all the loft apts enter from gound level and walk up this cool staircase entrace. we love the window and the hard wood floors at the bottom! as you approach the top of the stairs, this is your view, looking straight into the living room to the left is the hallway to the bedroom built-in bookshelfs!! yeah!! here is the bedroom: a HUGE walk-in closet, seriously, this closet rocks!! here are 3 photos: the master bathroom: as you come back through the hall, you can see the spiral loft stairs here is the staircase entrance to the loft the left half of the loft the right half of the loft the loft hall way and closet the total view the loft bathroom - cool shower!! on to the the next post and the kitchen!!

Posted by ashdown at 4/05/2005 10:29:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

after you come down the loft stairs, and hang a right, you enter the kitchen: as you make your way through the kitchen, you are headed to the dining room area and the door to the deck. also, if you look left, you are back in the living room! we really like this cool little counter! another plus is this half bath right off the kitchen, to the right and a washer/dryer hook-up acroos from the bathroom. (ps-anyone looking to get rid of an w/d? let me know!!) here is the dining room and all its glory... and the door to the deck, to the left of the dining room/area here is the deck, i love how big it is...might be calling for a hammock.... at the end of the deck is a nice little area for a table and chairs and storage here is the living room as you come back in from the deck another shot of the living room here is the view from the top of the lotf stairs and the top of the TWENTY-FOUR root ceilings!! YEAH!!! thanks for coming on the tour...hope you like it and much as we do!!

Posted by ashdown at 4/05/2005 10:27:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

so today, i was headed to HELiOS with chris to get some work done, and he needed to stop by Family Christian Bookstores. if you know me, you know if have a love.hate relationship with this store. i love that i get a pastors discount, but i pretty much hate everything else. i think it was birthed when i was in mission viejo at sunshine bookstore and i saw a prayer of jabez mouse pad. really? a mouse pad? and thus began my distaste and vomitus reactions when entering these types of stores. so today we are checking out and by the counter i see "heaven's dew" - chapstick. (instert explitive here) seriously!! christian chapstick!!!! come on people!! this is the same place where i can by my 'passport to heaven' for .50 and i can by 'scripture candy'. is this what our good news has turned into? a marketing campaign? yet another reason i want to be associated with followers of The Way. i dont want to be associated with that type of 'christian' from that kind of bookstore.

Posted by ashdown at 4/05/2005 12:58:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

so on friday we got up super early so that we could actually be walking into an apt at 9am when they opened, so we could see all 67685758309345 apts that we had planned for the day. this day we were super organized, had all the apts sectioned off by location, i know-big thinker now, so we first headed out to the beltline and six forks, saw a few places, but nothing spectacular. then over towards falls of the neuse/atlantic area and we went in this place called, the barrington, that was rad!! amanda loved it, but it was right at our cut off for price, so we documented it, but thought it was still a little too expensive. after that area, we headed out to the creedmoor area, and went in a bunch of places around lake lynn. at every area we went to, we had the pre-planned apts to see but always saw others around. so we went in one place by lake lynn and upon leaving we saw the entrance to Cumberland Cove. we had this crazy lady pam take us around the complex, and i absolutely fell in love with the Dover apt, and they were running a special that had a 2 bed, 2 bath 1200 or so sq ft for $100 less than usual! so if we really wanted this place we would have to put money down on it on saturday. so we documented it and kept on going...the day was coming to an end, but amanda was flipping through the book and saw this place called Strickland Farms (a big shout out to my dogg kelly) and we headed out that way. at first, i was thinking man, this place is kinda far, but after driving in the next day and talking with others, it really isnt that bad, and i actually like being out a little ways...the road it is on feels kinda 'country' so that is great. anyways, we make our way into the office and phil, the coolest apt worker we've met yet, starts talking to us about floor plans. well all he has to say is 1 bedroom 'with loft' and amanda's eyes gut HUGE and she is like 'lets go see it!!' so we make our way to the apt and it is everything she has dreamed of!! it is about 1200 sq ft and has an amazing living room with 24 foot vaulted ceilings! yes!! so we make the tour and fall in love. (it wont take me until sat am to fall in love, but i do and i think we will be moving their in july/aug!) the coolest thing about it was phil, he is going to waive all of the application fees, admin fees and such and then they dont cash the deposit check until we move in!! yes!!! so on sat we woke, headed out to Strickland Farms one last time before amanda left, and they just let us go look around the place, so i had my camera with me and we snapped some photos! i will post them soon. after loving it again, we decided to finish the application and i will be putting down the deposit this week! after the photo shoot, i took amanda to franklin st in chapel hill and we walked all around, going in the cool cd stores there. the next event in our day was to finish registering, check out our story to see the details. so then it was back home to spend the final evening together...or so we thought... check out her blog for the adventerous morning we had, how she was able to stay and extra day, and fly first class home. what a story!

Posted by ashdown at 4/05/2005 09:41:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

so after a long day on monday, thanks chris for the day off, i headed to staff meeting with the boys...and after that amanda and i went to go register!! yeah!! we spent the afternoon at pier 1 imports zapping all the good stuff and then headed out to pottery barn at the mall. i love registering...it is soo fun!! it was a little difficult trying to choose certain colors and stuff because we hadn't looked for a place to live yet, but none the less, we were successful in registering at those two stores, only one more left, bed bath and beyond, which we decided to leave for another day. on wednesday we woke early and headed out apartment hunting!! we would come to find that this day would be the least productive and most frustrating. instead of doing my homework, i just decided we could go look at places that i thought looked cool and were in the area in which i thought we could afford to live. well, all that to say after a full day of going in about 444254879 two bedroom apartments, of which all were over our price range, we were quite dissapointed. but we did find one place that had a loft, which was really cool and a sweet spiral staircase, so that was promising. after an evening of pool at our local hangout, the fox and the hound, we were ready to call it a day. we (amanda) decided we should pick up an apartment guide and go on the interent to look for places, where we could enter in the info that we wanted for a specific apartment. she is soo smart. on thurs am during another meeting, she plotted out our day and we were off again! thursday was way more encouraging, we were only about to see about 3547 places on thurs afternoon, because we didnt start until around 1pm. but we found some places that we liked, but not necessarily THE place to live. so another night of research on the web and in the apt guide and we were prepped for friday!!!

Posted by ashdown at 4/05/2005 09:15:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

well, if you've read amanda's blog anytime soon, you know that she got to spend an extra day here with me and it was amazing! although the morning was super early, it was so great for her to be with me yesterday, at Sacred and then at a leadership meeting we had last night. (which by the way was incredible, it felt so unifying, to sing and pray around the fire outside...i love my new family!!) she left today at 3pm, so that was sad...bit i will see her in 20 days...that doesnt seem that unbearable...we shall see... now to our week here, she came in late friday evening, and then we headed to southpoint on saturday with mom and carolyn amidst the rain. sunday was our easter experience at sacred, and it was incredible. i put together some imovie projects, nothing close to timber fame...but it was cool none-the-less. after church we headed back home to dinner with my grandparents and some needed r & r. we woke up early on monday morning and head to IKEA. now being that we are on the east coast, the closet ikea is outside of washington dc. yeap, a good 4.5 hr drive! it was so great though, we went with ken and brenda, enjoyed ikea and then to the patomic mills mall. what a day. thanks ken and brenda for driving...amanda and i pretty much slept the whole way home! hehehehe i think thats enough for this post...off to the next...

Posted by ashdown at 4/04/2005 03:24:00 PM | Permalink | Comments