being Presbyterian in New Jersey

Sometimes, my awesome adventures get more awesome.

So, after Tuesday's adventure, it was my goal to continue to let life take me cool places, but to maybe keep it under control, at least till my thesis gets done (draft one due in less than a month!). This weekend I had a few outstanding plans: Saturday was babysitting the Z children up at camp, and getting together with some of the Human Ecologists somewhere in between camp and home. Both of those were excellent-- I had little Will attached to my arm for almost the entire afternoon (we go way back) and had a lot of fun playing outside in the beautiful weather before kicking it back and owning at Cranium while eating awesome foods from around the country and world and trying Sangria for the first time at Kristen's house (she rocks).

Today's plans included singing at the early service at my church (in the place of someone who might not have made it due to her imminent grandchild) and then heading out to Allentown to visit with my Malawi teammates and report back to their congregation about our incredible time there this summer. It seemed pretty straightforward and like maybe I wouldn't end up driving off anywhere else. But then I felt the urge to go on facebook while I ate my Cheerios before church and right at the top was my friend Emma: "is being commissioned at Allentown Pres. this morning." Not that New Jersey is huge, but I think being Presbyterian makes it smaller! She was the chaplain at camp this summer. She is from western Pennsylvania, from a town where I chaperoned my church's junior high mission trip last summer-- I have slept on the floor of her high school, I have worked with people from her church, including a guy whose mom used to babysit her and apparently saved her life when she was young, making it possible for me to know her and make all of these connections in the first place! And now, here we were, in Allentown. It was really awesome to see her! We decided lunch was in order, so I figured we'd head over to Hightstown to a diner my cousin brought me to once, because that would put us next to a nice county road that would send her north and west to Princeton Seminary, and me south and east back home.

Except I missed the diner because I was too busy enjoying that part of the state-- very historic, roads are all named for towns (Hightstown-Princeton Road) and taverns (Burnt Tavern) and mills (Browns Mill), interspersed with quite a bit of farmland.

So then I lead her north on CR 571 figuring we'd find something to eat. I just continually missed signs until it was too late. Until we were practically in Princeton. We eventually stopped for Chinese food which we went back and ate in her dorm. It was so so awesome to catch up, a really nice surprise added to an already pretty wonderful morning for me. So cool what a small world we live in, especially when that world is in a small state and we're part of a big community within it.

Goal for the week is actually to do no excessive driving, more specifically, to stay in my town except when I go to school on Tuesday.