I know life could be better... but I sure don't know how!

Today was a great day, and I didn't even document everything that was wonderful. Not pictured: hot fudge lava cake from Cap City Diner. God's amazing grace and His love that goes exceedingly, abundantly above all we could ask or imagine (or often feel.) Friends. 

What you do see is: 

Glorious snow! Columbus almost has the record depth recorded in a long time (which, sorry, is still nothing compared to Grand Rapids.) Above: spelling out hi Exclamation Mark in the parking lot, with my pink rain (er, snow) boot as the dot. The snow is up high enough and my real snow boots have lost their comfortable and waterproofed layer for me to giddily prance and Charleston through the snow in my slush-proof, drift-proof pink boots. Thank you, Target, for making these six years ago and selling them for cheap because they weren't cool yet.

Besides snow, my day started out with homemade blueberry pancakes with lemon zest from a simple mix, like this one. Behind it is rice and black beans, to which I added nacho cheese - delectable. The only thing made from a box is that oddly-colored vanilla pudding: tastes normal (mostly) but it's a very funny shade of yellow. That is just one example of why I don't use mixes: when you mess up something from scratch, it's okay, everybody does it. When you mess up something from a box, people look at you funny. But at least I have never forgotten to add the brownie mix to the oil and eggs! (Side note: Yes, I am fully aware that sometimes I have cravings like a pregnant woman. Rice and nacho cheese? Electric pudding? Lava cake?)

Amazing thing that happened today - free tickets to Ingrid and Mat next month. That's right, free. Ingrid Michaelson and Mat Kearney are two of my very favorite people - I even refer to them on a first-name basis - and I was stoked to be holding these tickets... free of charge. I knew I came to OSU for a reason.

Other great things that you'll be hearing more about later - books I'm reading and my pending trip to Calvin to see the conference meet. Broken-Down House has talked about how true faith requires trust, not understanding - I'm working on that... Divine Nobodies is on my list of books to read this weekend, and Alf the Sky  - oops, that's Half the Sky is a book by Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times contributor, on "turning oppression into opportunity worldwide." Want to hear about current forms of slavery and sexual abuse? Want to know what we can do? Ask me, or read that book. Or read a recent article of his (shorter than the book and very informative and moving.)