oh, i’m thinking, thinking about this little blog i’ve come to love [so much] a lot lately. i’ve been blogging since september of 2007 [it's the funniest thing to look back-- but don't judge me, please.] hard to believe it’s been over three years of recording my life on this… internet thing. from no readers a day, to hundreds of readers a day. everytime i look at my blog stats + see how many people read my words it both scares me and excites me. thank you, truly. there are new things coming for this blog next year. i have been really intentional with my brainstorming and my thoughts about what i want this blog to be. a re-design is in the works & that thrills me.

i want to invite you, every now & then, to join me in my yesterday. a little post about my yesterday. i’m assuming you weren’t a part of it in real life [and even if you were, perhaps you'd like to read the re-cap in my words?] so i’m hoping you’ll find it interesting. my yesterday included:

* waking up next to my friend shinae
* eating egg whites and rice bread for breakfast
* reading a few chapters of isaiah, a few chapters of hebrews
* being joined by candace at nine o’ clock
* stopping at starbucks en route to the airport for a smoothie [for me] + a vanilla latte [for candace] + nothing [for shinae]
* chatting in frustration with the lady at the YVR air canada booth & leaving with an answer we didn’t enjoy
* planning to visit port moody that afternoon [one of my happy places]–but missing the exit
* throwing plans out the car window & driving to crescent beach instead

* finding a parking spot + stopping for photos in the sunshine [although the weather hovered around 0*C]
* walking into a ridiculously warm wired monk for lunch
* ordering a chicken salad ["um, i might as well tell you exactly what i want on it because there are about six things i don't want"] + a grande americano
* watching shinae enjoy her mango smoothie. an expressive one, that girl.
* swapping stories over lunch [shinae spent three months in australia, three months in mexico this year with YWAM. candace has been too many places to count on missions trips--they both have such incredible hearts for people. they love people with the love of Jesus exactly where they are. it's so cool.]

* taking a quick walk down to the water, to snap a few photos
* standing in AWE of beautiful british columbia. we’ve been all over the world & we still love it here best
* freezing our butts off + deciding 3 minutes was long enough in the great outdoors
* driving home, watching candace pour through my huge bag of “clothes to give away.” — she found a few things
* later that afternoon, when friends had left, wearing 2 pairs of pants + a huge sweatshirt to run 3 miles
* dinner with the parents & an evening spent watching the time traveler’s wife with bethany

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without further adieu, i now introduce you to stuff + things. a weekly or bi-weekly or monthly or whenever i feel like it “column” on this blog. i realized i like too many things & want to write about too many things. rather than spend time wondering how i’m going to convince you, my blog readers, that there is a unifying theme, i’m going to call it stuff+things and leave it at that. no unity here at all. so don’t look for it. ;)

1. i think looking through my second shooter’s images after a wedding & seeing behind the scenes images are so fun. i liked this one. it was during the getting ready time at the theatre, before their first look. i chose to wear bright red tights to the wedding, #1, because i love bright tights and #2, because i knew chelsea was going with all red accessories, too.

2. my passion, a recently released EP by jesusculture. i downloaded this on itunes last week. it’s only three songs, but they are all blowing my mind, especially the title track: you are my passion. the lyrics are incredible. download it. worship along.

3. edgehill cafe was one of the many coffeeshops i visited with sarah last week in nashville, but it’s the one that stuck with me! gorgeous, cozy interior. an old-fashioned, hand-drawn blackboard cafe menu: full of wintery soups, fresh salads, appetizing sandwiches. i loved their loose leaf tea selection & their creative way of displaying and describing their espresso-based drinks. there were plenty of tables, booths, outlets for our laptops. bookcases full of hard cover art books + novels. i loved the natural wood everywhere. i’m a sucker for the rustic look. next time you’re in nashville, GO.

4. my father. yes, that’s my father, back in the 80s. isn’t that hilarious? one night we were over at his sister’s place, scrolling through old photos on the computer and that one popped up. “oh my goodness, it’s JEMAINE.” i grabbed my iphone to document this sight. classic terry peterson. hahahaha. he was such a babe. my father honestly makes me laugh so hard. while i was growing up, he was always in a corporate job, on the go, busy, busy. he retired last year and i’ve gotten to spend so much more time with him. in the past year, i’m not sure if he’s gotten funnier now that he’s less stressed? or it’s simply that i am actually around him to hear what he says? either way, cracks me UP. this morning we were driving and all i could think about was work. i turned to dad, “UGH, it’s so frustrating. i have two settings: work 24/7, or work never. sucks!” his response? “that’s weird. sorry you were born messed up and maladjusted.” a few moments of silence. “i have about 105 settings. only one of which is GO. the other 104 are various stages of inactivity.” — this afternoon i created a family twitter account for us. @thepetersonfam — follow if you think we’re funny. we think we’re funny.

p.s. this afternoon i got an email that @terr_the_bear was now following me on twitter! i guess my dad thought that if i was going to put him out in the twitter world via @thepetersonfam he better get himself out there too. i’m not sure if he’ll actually use it. perhaps my mother (@loisdelaine) will take it over and tweet for him, like she took to logging in & updating his facebook status. [one year he was on a business trip to china & she updated: "terry peterson is having a great time in china!"]

5. coldplay’s new single, christmas lights. everything coldplay does is brilliant. i saw them in concert last year [and checked it off my "bucket list!"] and they blew my mind. one of the best concerts i have ever, ever been to. worth every penny of the $100. this song has been on replay & the video is fantastic. coldplayTV also uploaded a low-res version of chris playing it solo on the piano. check it out. i was so inspired by it that i sat down a couple of nights ago to the piano. i took piano lessons for ten years. i play once every three or four months now & it’s the biggest shame. new year’s resolution: get back on the keys.

reading & playing music is like a language. i’m attempting to learn french & it’s a really difficult process as an adult. i grew up in music lessons [from age 3] and i don’t remember a time when i couldn’t read sheet music. that must be what it’s like to grow up in a bilingual household. that being said, i’ve always been fluent in the “language” of music. but two night’s ago? i seriously struggled through a few pages of sheet music. my fingers would start to play the notes automatically [as i imagine a bilingual person thinks in a different language without translating back to english] and then i’d mess up. i’d stare at a note blankly and have to count the bars to figure out if it was an F or an A or a D. it made me feel like the stupidest kid alive. i came upstairs to my mom & said, “that SCARED me. i will not forget how to read music. more piano playing begins now.”

that’s all i got. how didya like those unrelated thoughts?

i’m sitting on a comfy couch in wired monk, next to a fireplace & a four foot tall christmas tree. christmas jazz is playing over the speakers, i’m drinking a grande americano, my famished stomach has finished polishing off a low-fat apple oatmeal muffin. yesterday i was up at the crack of dawn to be at the nashville airport. after saying goodbye to sarah, i boarded my plane to salt lake city. from salt lake city, i flew to seattle. from seattle, i traveled to vancouver. all in all, it was a twelve-hour day of airports. exhausting! i was falling asleep on top of my laptop at tim hortons in the vancouver airport waiting for my parents to pick me up.

the funniest thing happened yesterday, as my second of three flights landed on the seattle tarmac. i have a pair of riding boots that i absolutely love; i bought them from somewhere lame like J.C. Penney two years ago on a 50% off sale. they are scuffed up, a light tan on the toes instead of the original rich brown. the zipper has broke twice before & my repair costs for the right boot almost surpasses the cost for the pair. they are my favourite boots: i will not give them up. well, while putting these babies back on to leave the plane, the zipper broke. completely. so now i have a left boot that zips all the way up & a right boot that’s flopping around completely unzipped.

slightly embarrassing. i grabbed my bags and walked off the plane, the leather of my right boot flying out to the side. i sat down at the first seat i found and searched in my bag for something, anything, even a big hair elastic i could secure it with. found three mini safety pins. managed to prick myself three times, proclaim “crap!” three times, before fascinating it enough to walk. i needed tape. some kind of tape. i asked four different airport people for tape, even at a coffeebar. “tape? what kinda weird canadian drink is that?!” they were probably thinking. finally, somebody handed me masking tape. brilliant. i then had to take two different trains and walk fifteen minutes to get to my next gate to board to vancouver… with these tapped together boots. so cool it hurts.

p.s. all the photos throughout this blog post were from the town of franklin, tn. sarah & i spent the day there tuesday. we spent the afternoon working on our laptops in the merchantile, drinking earl grey tea & going back to the unlimited salad bar a second time. we walked down the decorated streets, shopping at haven, rock paper scissors, philanthropy. she & i also had a franklin-day two years ago when i was visiting sarah in december 2008. if you want to walk down memory lane with me, click here. — ohh nashville. i fall in love with that city more, each time i go.