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ellen_leann
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Name: Ellen
State: Illinois
Birthday: 9/23/1984
Interests: Well, let's see... piano, guitar, singing, camping, photography, running, ULTIMATE FRISBEE and my team that is Allihopa. Making scrapbooks and cards and crafts, reading, and drinking soy milk with ice and a straw...
Expertise: laughing.
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
AIM:  ellbell03
Member Since:
9/24/2003
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| just kidding.
almost lover being xanga. i want to print out every single xanga post one of these days, and put them all in a binder. blogging is an amazing time capsule, and i am online journaling's #1 fan.
i've moved on to a new place, and would like to keep it quiet for a little while. just felt like my xanga needed a little bit of closure.
life is good.
things are difficult.
be alive.
be well.
what is love?
faith is hard.
grace is big.
those are some lessons i thought about, and wrote about during the last 5 years. no doubt these themes will continue in pattern throughout my whole life. something about journaling, and something about sharing it, creates motivation and inspiration in me that comes from self-expression. the same is true for anything i do with art, music, activity... Gifts from God ---> expression amount to motivation and inspiration to live well, in truth, in faith, in mess, and in attempted [read: usually failed] discipline.
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| I'm sitting here at a table on the balcony. It's chilly, and my fingers are a little stiff, but I keep warming my hands over a little candle that I got at urban outfitters a few days ago - sweet meadow ginger scent - I thought of you, Mary Jardine.
23 birthday presents, opened a few at a time throughout the evening, which started with coffee and ended at the beach by moonlight. We rode a gondola down through waterfalls and gardens to the nicest restaurant I've ever been to, and after dinner we went downtown. We ran into my friend Mike outside of the bookshop... Mike, who lives on the streets more to be a witness and help to people, and for simplicity's sake, than because of necessity. He made me a paper flower bouquet with one real rose, and some pine needles and incense sticks to say "happy birthday." I picked out a big, pretty childrens book - Unwitting Wisdom - Aesop's Fables - as my one book. Nat had me close my eyes, but I knew we were headed to the beach because I remembered the drive. We got there and climbed down the cliff to the sand and spread out a mexican blanket. closed my eyes again, and he set the last 4 presents in front of me. With a headlamp on, I opened the brown paper packages (tied up in string, of course): some comfy insoles for my running shoes, a bike helmet, and a thermarest... all things that I had mentioned wanting. The last present was a black leather bible, and it had a thin slipcover on the front of it. I said, "this is beautiful." Nat said, "Yeah, I loved this one. And I had it engraved." He slid over the cover and in gold lettering it read, "Nat and Ellen Fondell." I gasped - a big one - and turned to look at him and he was on one knee with a small burgundy box, and the most sparkly, exquisite ring I have ever seen.
"Ellen Leann Moore, would you marry me? I promise to love you for the rest of my life."
I think I might have screamed a little, and I said, "OH my goodness, oh my GOODNESS... YES!" and threw my arms around him and laughed and burst into tears, and he slid it onto my finger...
It's all a blur, but we have it on video because he set his camera up on the rocks while my eyes were closed. I was completely overwhelmed and a complete spaz, but he said that my reaction was beautiful, and so suprised. We ran up and down the beach in the waves, yelling to the moon and to the couple by the campfire far away that we are getting MARRIED!! i'm ENGAGED!! yaHOO!!! and then ran back to call our families and share the news they had been waiting for all night.
haha...
i can't believe it. i've barely slept the past few nights, and i wake up in the morning so excited about planning a lifetime together... it's odd, because we are still us, but it feels different and better. like moving forward, or the next step, and one that makes the most sense. He wrote my dad a beautiful letter, my mom said, and my dad wrote him back saying yes, of course, absolutely...
i will take any and all wedding ideas gladly... i already have a little notebook with pages of ideas and dreams and lists. some of them are secrets, but one thing i've always loved is the idea of having it be a potluck style reception... i
want it to be full of people that i love, and simple, and lovely.
i can't wait for all of this, and i want to enjoy everything before it.
just wanted to tell you the story...
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| My hair is short, which makes me feel more mature (it's been short for a while.)
Not having any way of contacting people other than email/letters is more wearing on me than I imagined it would be... not being around people who know me is the same, but this one has been so good for me.
We're leaving for Santa Cruz/Mission Springs tomorrow morning. Nat has been making some ultra-cool and secret birthday plans for Sunday, and I'm excited to see Bianca, and all the old haunts of last summer.
My four girls - Kristine, Liz, Barbara, and Julianne. All beautiful, mature, sensitive, and vibrant girls. Radically different from each other, and from me. Missing their homes, friends, family, like crazy - more than they thought as well - but waking up every morning saying, "Well - I'm here - and these are the people I'm with... so it is my job to love and get to know them, and make them family." I pray hard that this will become a reality. We're still in the beginning stages. I don't like to rush things, and I don't want them to force relationships - but I'm looking forward to the comfortability that will be when we have all connected more fully.
Nat is doing a fantastic job with his two guys, Logan and Jerry. Logan's dad is a millionaire and he has many stories of European vacations, his new iphone, his mini-cooper, etc... Jerry grew up with his mom who sometimes would drop him off at the side of the road, or bring him to his dad's because she didn't want to handle him, and she was drunk... As different as you could ever imagine from each other, and there is a lot of tension there. Nat is being so patient and kind to each of them, and I love to watch it. I think they are learning, because the past few days they have held very normal conversation with each other about movies, cameras, and sports. This is a wonderful change from quiet sarcasm and quick, cutting remarks.
We went and saw the biggest tree in the world - General Sherman. Actually, I think it's the biggest living organism in the world... and it was very, very big. We saw a branch that had just fallen off a while ago - and it made a crater in the cement.
It is still sinking in that this is my life, that making sure that these students have a year full of love and acceptance and growth is my job, that mountains and the ocean and giant redwoods and mild temperatures are right outside.
I like that. I miss all of you. Come visit, if you want a vacation. If you want to be pen pals - - I do too!
Ellen Moore
c/o Ventana Ministries
1050 Lockhart Gulch Rd.
Scotts Valley, CA, 95066
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