tea and cathedrals

How hard is my life?

2012-01-09T09:55:00.003-06:00

Alexander nurses for 2 hours every time he nurses. My nipples feel like they're being hammered through with red hot nails every time he nurses. And when he nurses shorter, I'm in a horrible, stressful dilemma of whether to pump, or see if he needs more milk right now. My emotions are all messed up and I miss my husband when he's at work almost to the point where I can't function.

I was just texting with one of my sisters who's reading a diary of someone who was on the Oregon trail. She had her first baby in a covered wagon at the age of 16. Like many other women, she probably got pregnant again right away and was that way all during the many months hard journey. And then, when the journey ended, life was probably still pretty much just as hard. Those women didn't have hot baths, or perfume bottles surrounding them to make them happy, and all they had to put on their excruciatingly sore nipples was a probably literally starving baby. No tea, no hot chocolate, no bottle for their husband to feed to their baby when they were too tired.

My life is really easy and when I think about these women, I think I can handle this.

Alexander Jake Hansen

2011-12-29T07:49:00.005-06:00

Born Monday, December 5 at 3:56pm
9lbs, 9oz
21 1/2 inches long

After birth he spent many hours awake and looking intently at everyone. When he does that he has the same little frown-y face his mother had when she was a baby. (It's so funny to see! He looked at me like that right when he came out and they handed him to me!)

His favorite music is the John Rutter Christmas album. He calms right down when he hears it, no matter what is wrong. I'm thrilled for him to hear and enjoy so many well-crafted suspensions so early in life!

Everyone is doing well and the birth story will follow eventually. (after the nursing story gets worked out!)

a date on the calendar

2011-12-02T09:22:00.004-06:00

Today is my due date! :)

I never realized how silly I thought it was for a doctor to pick a due date until last Wednesday, when my doctor told me that we'd be doing a sonogram at my next appointment to check fluids and the baby's safety, since it will then be past my due date. If you're going to check on my baby, why not do it this week, today, while I'm here? It just seems so primitive to be so bound to a date on the calendar like that, especially when you're a highly trained, experienced doctor with astounding research and technology in your brain and at your fingertips. And you're hung up on a calendar date?

With all the knowledge available in modern medicine, it amazes me that they still actually assign specific days as due dates to expectant mothers, since one thing they do know is that they can't accurately predict when labor will start for anybody! Maybe they assign dates because it makes it easier to pigeon-hole you into a category of some kind. As far as I'm concerned, my "due date" is between the middle of November and the middle of December, and that's all anyone really knows.

So then, since about the week before Thanksgiving, I've been trying to stay ready, with a clean house and bags (sort of) packed and all that. The Christmas tree is up, the baby's room is all finished, the cloth diapers are all set up and ready, my mind is all peaceful about labor now and, the biggest relief of all, as of yesterday George is so clean that I don't have to follow her from room to room with a strongly scented candle anymore to cover up her smell.

I finally chose the baby's going home outfit, which was kind of hard for me. I was glad it was hard, it sort of assured me that I'm still me, even just shy of 200 pounds now, not wearing anything but sweats (me?!) and going through ten different personalities a day. Here's his outfit:

I am totally obsessed with the pears!! It's from a Japanese company called Sckoon Organics.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this is a boring post or not. Too many words, not enough pictures, probably. Here is quick cell phone picture of our Christmas tree from where I sit. (No, I'm not moving to get a better angle, you'll just have to know that I have moccasins and a TV. And that it's all wonderful and GRAY outside today!!!)

That's all for today! My brother is coming over to do yoga with me and hang out, and then tomorrow I'm getting a pedicure at a fancy pink place with some of my sisters. Have a great weekend!

A tale of two rooms

2011-11-07T09:29:00.024-06:00

I wish I had taken more before pictures, but you all know what junk and boxes look like. Yesterday I started out with two very junky, box-filled rooms and ended with two functional rooms instead. (Actually, I also started the day with a gross kitchen, (full of flies to boot, thanks to the heater fixer leaving the door open so much) and ended with it perfectly scrubbed and mopped for the first time in ages. And don't even ask me about the dog hair I swept up! But this isn't about that...)

I think this is the beginning of my being able to relax. I suddenly realized that if I've been tense and stressed the whole time leading up to labor, how will I suddenly be able to turn that off and have a relatively non-stressed labor? Sounds like a miracle anyway, but since I'm going to try for it, I realized that all this tension about projects is going to make it impossible! So, yeah... Relaxing, even with a few chores left, is starting NOW.

It's not quite finished, but here are some shots of the baby's room at this point.
The crib is mostly full of birthing class books and clothes that need to be washed and sorted, and I decided to leave the stack of suitcases since I needed a little table to have by the chair while I'm nursing.

Still waiting on one last piece of furniture for the corner over here,
but right now as I type, that piece of furniture looks like this:
Oh, and those things above the changing table are these sort of airy balloons made out of starched yarn. A friend from college threw me a baby shower and she made like 50 of them as decorations! I love them! Here's a better look:

You're not surprised that my baby's room has a piano in it, are you? The wall over it is going to be covered with the letters of the alphabet, all decorated differently by each of my Dallas shower guests! I like my big stack of music next to the toy shelf. Of course, that probably wont last there once he is old enough to be interested in it!

And on the toy shelf there is a special little toy that Aunt Amy brought back from Spain. It's a real carousel that spins and everything!

Wish the picture were better quality, but you get the idea. It's really beautiful and so old-fashioned!

I really like the dresser top, with the tiny little plant. (it's real!)

And finally, the office. Still not very pretty, but you could barely walk in there before yesterday and there was no bookshelf, just books all over the floor!

At long last I have a little sewing and craft corner in the office, which means, aside from work space, I have an actual place to put my sewing and craft STUFF!

Everything you see on those shelves was holding up the baby's room from looking neat and tidy.

So yeah, that's what I did with the extra hour yesterday. Thanks for listening!!

Where did I ever get the energy?

2011-10-24T17:54:00.009-05:00

"To give truth to him who loves it not is only to give him more multiplied reasons for misinterpretation." ~George McDonald

It's such a relief to just stop talking when you realize the person you're talking to isn't interested in the truth about anything.

I was afraid that if I stopped making the effort to share, I would change and become completely superficial. Being superficial scares me to death. I thought that sharing truth and myself was all that kept me from becoming that way. But it turns out I'm still the same. Nothing at all has changed. Only now I am free to stop caring what they think, and to stop talking.

it's October!

2011-10-17T10:13:00.015-05:00

We have about 7 weeks until the due date! There are still so many projects to be done, not to mention practicing, and all the family commitments we've stocked up to do "before the baby comes," that sometimes I just lie in bed all day, completely exhausted and overwhelmed. Some days I have all the energy in the world, but most days I can only eat and sleep and rest while dishes pile up and fluffs of dog hair waft around the house and the list gets longer.

But, October is the best month ever, I love it so much. I almost like it better than Christmas! My projects may not be happening, but this weekend we went to a pumpkin patch and took pictures together. Those are still on the camera (surely you weren't expecting to see them!) but here are some cell phone pics of the lovely pumpkins we got! Picking them out with my Love made me so happy!!

This one seemed magical:

Here are the others--I couldn't believe we got a white one! In person it is such a delicate, glowing white that it seems like it's made of moonlight.

Settled in their new home:

Speaking of the front porch, I got the most wonderful rag rug to go right inside the front door.

It looks and feels as if it's been made out of old t-shirts, and the colors are just what the living room needed. I thought Steve might not like it, but he did!

Here are my pumpkins riding home in my lap from the pumpkin patch. It seemed like my tummy was one of them.

Happy October!!

Clock

2011-10-05T17:55:00.012-05:00

Feeling under the weather this week, I decided to stay in bed today, and while I did, I listened to Sense and Sensibility on librivox.org (version 3 has an un-annoying reader!)and finished a clock I had started working on years ago. It was a normal old one that I bought at walmart when I was 15 or something; it was similar to this one:

I painted the hands with gold metallic paint, covered the face with magazine pictures, (that's the part that took years, because I only choose pictures that I'm really in love with!) and brushed Mod-Podge on top. I so love Mod-Podge because of the cute label on the jar:

My phone's really bad at close-ups, but for now, here's what it looks like now:

I hung it in the kitchen and I'm pretty happy with it. I really love it, actually. Hopefully I'll keep posting pictures of the projects I work on.

Under the Influence

2011-10-01T08:31:00.033-05:00

Yesterday I had some great finds at Treasure City Thrift. I'll tell you all about what I got, but this post is about something else: one of my treasures was a $4 pair of jeans made by a brand exclusively (as they say) for Barneys. They're beautiful, amazing jeans and they fit me just about like all my other non-maternity pants fit me: close-enough/I-don't-wanna-think-about-it. They're my usual size though, so it'll probably work out. But buying something with Barneys New York in the tag made me suddenly aware that I have a bit of a history with that store, or at least a funny, one-sided relationship.

All stores want you to feel a certain way when you walk though them. Stores like Urban Outfitters and Free People set a cool, rebellious, youthful mood. Anthropologie is young but more nostalgic. Places like Dillards and Steinmart try to make you feel sufficiently rich and lovely at the same time as practical and like you're going to get a good deal. Then there are stores like Nordstrom, Saks, and Neimans that go for rich, pampered and able to afford it. (whether you really can or not doesn't matter.)

Some of the higher-end stores tend to make me feel inadequate (at least money-wise) or fat, or like maybe I shouldn't have worn what I'm wearing, or just plain sad that I can't afford anything in them. They make me feel wishful about life, but in an "I'll-never-be-that-skinny-and-rich" way, not in a fun way. Not all stores do that to me, and I'm sure I shouldn't give any of them that power, but succumbing to marketing strategies is something of a twisted hobby I have. It's fun. But Barneys is a little different.

Don't get me wrong, they're still that kind of store. In Dallas at the mall, I used to walk through Barneys all the time on my way to less astronomically expensive places, and not a single salesperson ever even spoke to me! Of course, that's Dallas anyway, but in the equally snobby Neimans or Saks, even on a bad hair and clothing day somebody will talk to me.

When I walk through Barney's though, I suddenly realize that I am feeling the way all the other fancy department stores are attempting to make me feel when I walk through them. But the others don't quite do it. Maybe it's the chic, modern yet over-the-top chandeliers in Barneys, although other stores have those. Maybe it's the fact that Barneys is a smaller store, where I am physically closer to the merchandise- to the feel and color of the fabrics and the smell of the leather and perfumes. Maybe it's the fact that there is a lavish, sweeping staircase instead of an escalator, or that they have a much smaller beauty department because they're more selective about the brands. There are wonderful lounge corners with interesting chaise lounges and love seats. The over-sized velvet chairs at the bottom of the staircase always haunt me, attached somehow like Siamese twins, and remind me of some daring, haute couture Alice in Wonderland.

The whole store strikes the perfect balance between being seriously, snobbishly rich and letting you almost forget that you're not. It makes me wishful about life in the most fun, inspiring way possible. In Barneys I remember what I routinely forget in other high-end stores: that good taste and an imagination matter a lot more than having and spending lots of money. So in a way, I already have what they sell. Not so much that I don't enjoy dreaming of $80 eye shadow or an extra $1300.00 to buy that lovely-smelling leather train case. But I am inspired, excited, content to smell the leather, touch the silk and go home with new ideas, thrilled to have seen so many beautiful and luxurious things all together in one place.

September

2011-09-28T11:06:00.011-05:00

Our birthing class started, I had a wonderful baby shower, found a lot of baby furniture by stalking craigslist 24/7, and joined a small book/Bible study. Steve started p90x and a men's group at church that meets at 6:30 AM! (ouch!!)

All that is great, and the baby continues to be fine, but I've been really tired and overwhelmed. I'm already at home all the time, but pressuring myself to accomplish a lot, so much that I've started to freak out again whenever anyone wants me to eat lunch with them, meet for coffee or be their friend. (Does anyone else understand this, by the way? It seems like so many other people have plenty of room and energy in their lives for lunches and new friends, and here I am, a stay-at-home wife, and I hyperventilate if someone asks me to coffee.) Anyway...

So, Steve suggested I take a day off of sorts. Just hearing him suggest a no-pressure, order-a-pizza-for-lunch, paint-your-nails and watch-too-much-Mad-Men kind of day really felt good. (He really suggested all that!) I even bought paintnolish for the occasion:

Don't judge me, they were buy one get one free. (which is good, cause Butter of London is usually like $14 a bottle! It lasted really well though and I've been wanting some forever!)

My day off was a week ago and now I've started sleeping way better. Sometimes I even wake up in the morning to say goodbye to Steve and then find myself waking up again around lunchtime! Still have a big list to do, but now I feel like I can actually do it.

So... I can never tell if these sort of updates are too boring for blogs or not. I have a hunch they are. But I will say that I am about to post pictures of a bunch of stuff I've been doing, so maybe that will make up for this.

baby's room

2011-09-02T22:49:00.004-05:00

I walked to Urban Outfitters from our hotel in San Diego and got this to hang on the wall in the baby's room! I love it so much! Here's a tiny picture. You have to go to the link to really see it...

Steve thinks it's mildly creepy, but understands why I like it. I think he just can't imagine it all together with the other things that will be in there, and it would be sort of creepy if it were the only decoration or something. That being said, if that's what Steve thinks, then I can only imagine the invective it will invite from people we know who have less imagination than he does. Some of my nursery ideas bring out that reaction, it seems.

Anyway, I'm in love with it and it makes me so happy! I'll probably hang it over the piano, since that's going to be a part of his room for a while.

Am I not normal?

2011-09-02T20:19:00.005-05:00

Steve and I had a great time in San Diego this week! It was about 35 to 40 degrees cooler than our typical weather in Austin, and we simply ATE UP being able to go outside!! (I also ate a bunch of lobster every day, and chocolate chip pancakes.)

Anyway, I finally checked my email this afternoon after a week of not being able to, and I read the most horrifying, stupid email ever from the preggers club thingy I'm part of. It's a club of sorts for people in the same stage of pregnancy as you, so you can go online and see what questions everyone has, etc. It's a great way to get help and advice and know what's normal, but this last email was kind of freakish. It was entitled "12 Things You Miss While You're Pregnant." Here are some of the things people said they missed:

Wine
Sushi
Deli meat
Unpasteurized cheeses
Cookie dough
Eggs under easy (EEWW!)
Coffee

Aside from the fact that I will NEVER eat an egg that is not cooked to the consistency of concrete, I've consumed ALL of the things on this list in the last 24 hours! Except the cookie dough, that's been almost a week ago. But there's still some in my fridge! Well, and I've mostly only eaten cooked sushi.

We went to a 5-star restaurant last night and I had a glass of red wine with dinner. We ate lunch yesterday at a fabulously darling gourmet sandwich place in La Jolla and, you guessed it, I had a sandwich! And mac & cheese, and strawberry rhubarb pie.

I drank a latte this morning with my chocolate chip pancakes. It wasn't huge, but it wasn't decaf either. And as far as unpasteurized cheeses, well, I eat those every time I go by the cheese sample place in the grocery store. In fact, I've come to not believe in pasteurized dairy products of any sort anymore, but that's a post for another day.

Anyway, what the heck?! All of these testimonials of what people aren't eating during pregnancy should totally freak me out, and they do a little, but to be honest, I think I'm fine. I make a conscious decision before eating anything I eat, which I always did anyway, and, well, I'm okay with that. But I'm sort of freaked out that I'm not freaked out. Maybe I should write this on the message board, although I would hate to see what all those people would tell me is going to happen to my baby.

unique birthday card

2011-08-18T15:54:00.008-05:00

My friend Amy, who is spending the next few months in Spain, sent me an email of fun pictures for my birthday; just things that make me happy! I wanted to share them:

This next one's funny, because right before Amy left for Spain we had a whole conversation about something that had reminded me of these lines:

"Ahem, are you wearing the Ch-"
"The Chanel boots? Yeah, I am."

When she lived in Austin, Amy and I were always doing the next new thing to our nails together.

Thanks, Amy!! :)

Languages, dreams and...another post?!

2011-08-16T11:57:00.013-05:00

I guess when it rains, it pours, even with blog posts.

I have more energy now that all plans difficult, dreadful or busy for the summer are pretty much over. Now is the best part, because I feel good and can finally be at home and focus on our life a little bit. I have nothing to look forward to for a while except my birthday tomorrow and our trip to San Diego in a few weeks. Life is good!

I had a strange little dream. I have mentioned before that I am having the ridiculous problem of not working on any language right now because I cannot decide on one. It's between German, French and Spanish, since I have varying degrees of semi-proficiency in each of those already.

Anyway, this must be really bothering me since I dreamed about it! In my dream, I was walking down the halls of some place that seemed like a high school. I looked in the window of a classroom in what I somehow understood to be a sort of language department, and the teacher motioned me inside. She was giving a test and wondered if I would like to take it, just for fun. Would I!?

The kids were already busy working on their tests, so I quietly thanked the teacher and sat down at one of the tables to begin. I was to translate some sentences into English. When I looked at them though, all the verbs had German verb stems but were conjugated with French verb-endings! I think all the other words were just German. In the dream I was totally stumped about how to translate any of them, and I woke up before I realized that it would still all go into English just fine! I loved that dream, and woke up feeling that I had narrowed it down to German and French. I'll save Spanish until my friend gets back from nannying in Spain, later this fall.

But still, which to choose?

Blogger Question

2011-08-16T09:11:00.003-05:00

For the past several months, my links, over there ---> cannot be edited. An error code comes up every time I try to click on the little editing icon. I can't add any links or change the ones that are there. Does anyone know what is going on??? I tried asking the discussion blog thingy about the error code, but they had never seen it...

Thanks! :)

gratefully happy.

2011-08-15T17:01:00.008-05:00

I don't want this to turn into a venting-only blog, even though I am glad that it can serve that purpose sometimes. (and perhaps this summer has required more venting than usual.)

Anyhow, the world is so beautiful and I am sometimes in awe that I am allowed to notice it!

It rained yesterday and was CLOUDY ALL DAY the day before!

I have a healthy baby in my tummy and I feel fine!

It is almost my birthday.

My husband loves me and is very reasonable and kind.

Our dog is the best dog ever.

I went to a clothing swap and I now have CLOTHES!

I love my Kincey.

The piano is TUNED!

Because of my kind and patient husband, my Mimi's chandelier now hangs above our pale mint green dining room table. It reminds me every day of the influence of beauty and fun and creativity that the Lord let Mimi have in my life because she let the Lord have influence in hers.

I might get new crayons soon. A box of 120!

I've gone from zero knitting skills to being able to knit dishcloths and scarves in one week!

We are doing quite well on our house-organizing projects as the summer progresses.

I am so grateful for the Lord's kindness, and how He uses even the ugly things of life to create beauty in us. What a wonderful God! The true Maker of fairy tales!

Stunning

2011-08-15T14:26:00.023-05:00

Sometimes, people just leave you with your mouth hanging open. And then you have to vent.

I was recently told that we could not use one of the names that we're thinking about for our boy, because he'd get beaten up for it. It was a name that, when I suggested it, my husband did not write off as a sissy name, like he has one or two others I've casually thought about.

Our VERY short list is William and Joshua, but the slightly longer version still includes Levi (not sure if we've really agreed or if that one's just on my list) and, the terrible name that "YOU CAN'T name a kid": Winston. The middle name, no matter which we choose, will be Jake, in honor of our sweet nephew who went to be with the Lord three years ago. Well, the way this person protested, you would think I had said we were thinking of naming our BOY Jennifer or Katy. Or Fart.

The source telling us that name should not be used (who, to be quite fair, didn't know it was on our short list) comes from such a different world than I do; a world where guilt is a tool (which is okay with me because I don't really do guilt-I made that decision in my late teens and have never regretted it), and where waiters will spit in your food if you even nicely complain about it and kids, apparently, don't like the name Winston. I know it is not entirely people's faults when their minds work that way. It is the kindness and grace of God that continues to teach me (and I know will some day teach them) not to be that way!

It's not that nobody's ever been ugly to me. It's not that I've never seen someone be teased because of their name; I've even been teased for my weird spelling more than you would think. It's not that I can be sure that no waiter has ever spit in my food. I try to treat most people in a way that would prevent them from feeling a need to spit in my food though, and maybe this person has not tried that. I don't know... There is just so much beauty in the world, and it strikes me so often that I just feel a lot of joy, and then I don't think about all the ways that someone could hurt me. I don't think about anyone beating up my kid, and if someone does, I'll cross that bridge with the Lord's help when I come to it.

Anyway, about names, I've heard that one has to develop a thick skin about these sorts of things because many people have strong personal opinions about all things relating to child-having and parenting. My feelings aren't hurt, as much as I am just sad to remember that there are really people who come from mindsets like that. My husband doesn't mind it at all. He has a knack for doing what he knows is right without being rankled by people who disagree with him.

Anyway, since I just made our list of names a bit more public, I should say that I'll be happy if they're names you like, and if you don't, then you can have a better day by feeling grateful that I am not naming your child. See? Everybody's happy!

this says it all

2011-08-10T15:21:00.003-05:00

To be honest...

2011-08-06T23:25:00.011-05:00

1. Right now my Love is playing the guitar again for the first time in ages! It makes me so happy! He's practicing Yellow.

2. I just did all the dishes. ALL. DONE.

3. I've been wanting a very good chocolate for a while now. Just one. To have with a tiny glass of sparkling water.

4. I feel really behind on German, French and Spanish right now, but I just can't choose which one to work on. Not being able to choose is making me way too stressed!

5. I'm thinking of switching to raw milk. And definitely never buying any more 2% milk. The nastiness of low-fat milk is more unfathomable than I even knew. (or imagined, and that's saying something!) I'm trying not to believe everything I read, but still.

6. Now that we're actually having a child, I'm more excited than I ever knew I would be about teaching it!

7. Tonight my dad called me and we talked for half an hour about England, and how much we appreciate it's having spent 1,000 years hashing out self-government and freedom of religion for us, about New York City, and about the setting moons we used to see over Copano Bay when we did the paper route at 4:30 in the morning.

8. I feel really claustrophobic about social media for some reason right now! Just knowing it's there makes me feel acutely overwhelmed.

9. The baby moves a lot now! Being pregnant is way funner than it used to be.

10. My 16-year-old sister Abby made a pretty much perfect-looking (I didn't get to taste it, being 200 miles away) coconut cream pie for my dad. She's really interesting and can do anything.

11. We've decided to continue to throw around names but not choose one until the baby's here.

12. We're going to San Diego before the baby comes!

13. I am so, very, really tired of caring what anyone thinks of me. How could I have cared enough to get this tired of caring when I already thought I didn't care?

14. I'm excited about my 2 baby showers I'm going to have!

15. I took my sewing machine to be fixed today and I cannot wait to get it back!!!

16. My Love's sister and her husband are coming to visit next weekend, and I'm thinking about what I hope to get done before then. We always have a really great time with them, even though I always feel a little apprehensive the whole time, that I might say or do something she'll misunderstand. (Amendment: I don't worry about it anymore because I don't think I ever do or say anything my husband's family does understand. And that's okay!)

17. Almost finished with The Return of the King. It will be the first time I've actually finished the series.

18. First knitting class tomorrow.

19. My mind has been really cluttered lately and it's starting to wear on me.

20. I'm going to make ice cream cone cupcakes for my birthday. They're going to have cherries on top and candy on top and decorations on top and I'm really excited!

21. I'm going to go make some tea.

I'm 21 years old and have no pertinent thoughts or opinions.

2011-07-25T10:02:00.014-05:00

Giving up is hard. It is especially hard for me. It always has been. Allowing people to think what they want without trying to force them to understand me has never really been my strong point. In fact, it's probably my weakest point ever. It's pretty clear what causes that weak point, when I start to think about it.

What inside me, besides plain old pride, could chafe so strongly at being completely and totally misunderstood? And I don't mean something I said, I mean my entire identity, person, purposes, meaning, whatever. I admit that it must be my pride that causes me to be totally frustrated at being treated as an idealistic child, rather than a normal 20- or 30-something adult, simply because I've been blessed with more imaginative excitement about life than the average 20- or 30-something. (although I think that depends on who you know. I know many people who are like that.) What besides selfishness could make me dread being around someone simply because they treat me that way? Why should I care so much that someone, perhaps through no fault of their own, does not know or care that I question and study and think to know how and why I believe what I believe? Besides, is that why I think through things, just to get credit for it?

Anyway, I'd like to shop to make myself feel better, but the budget for that is all gone this month. (Oh poor me.) And since I can't shop, maybe I could bake something, but oh, I can't because we're out of butter AND grocery money. We have eggs I could bake with, but I have to save them for eating, since my body will not forgive me anymore on the days I skip an egg, it seems.

This is a tangent, and we're far from starving, actually. This week, for dinners, I have the stuff to make pizza, lentils and rice, fried chicken and mashed potatoes, beans and cornbread, lettuce salads, chicken quesadillas, and that's without being at all creative. I have plenty of tea and half and half. And I really could make bread, and I have some jam. It's just I want to cream some butter and sugar since I can't shop. This is very, very good for me.

I feel better already, because this is simple. The problem: I'm upset because I'm misunderstood. The cause: not their misunderstanding, but my pride. The solution: to obey and learn what I know God wants me to learn in this and just let go of the pride.

What about if I just pray for the ability to let go? What if I just do that and then go practice? I did recently learn that when you pray for obedience, you get peace.

Living in Worship

2011-07-15T10:08:00.006-05:00

If I could just remember Jesus on the cross, paying for my sins, I would not have the pride to get angry with people for hurting me.

If I could just remember Jesus on the cross, there because of my inability to understand or meet God's standard of holiness, I would not be so upset when people misunderstand me. After all, I didn't understand Jesus.

If I could just remember Jesus on the cross, and the fact that I caused Him to go there, I would not be anxious about the future, because I would be remembering how kind He is.

If I could just remember Jesus on the cross, because of me, I would be so thankful all the time that I would not have room for worry and fear, prideful anger, or bratty ungratefulness.

If I could just remember that Jesus died on the cross for me, it would change my life.

It has changed my life that I know it, and remember it a little bit, but the more I remember it, the more it would change me. Is that what it means to be freed from your sins?

answered prayer

2011-07-11T08:52:00.006-05:00

I prayed for obedience and I got peace. I asked Him to take away the worry, because the worry is too heavy for me and besides that, worry is disobedience.

On a little road trip with my Mimi this summer, she told me of some times when she has said, "This was not where I thought I would go, but Lord, if you want me to be here, then this is where I will be." There are so many things in my life about which I do not say that, but instead, fight for the way I think it should be.

I don't know why surrender is so hard for me, when I know that God loves me and doesn't make a mistake! But the peace that comes from not fighting is worth the surrender.

2011-07-07T16:07:00.006-05:00

I just got home from the grocery store and I'm really tired and need to go eat a snack. I'd just like to take a moment to say how thrilled I am to see that not everyone dresses their little boy in bright, toy-print covered colors all the time.

I know it's trivial, but those pictures give me the encouraging idea I am not the only person in the world who wants to dress their baby like a person, not a doll. I know there is a time and place for colorful, casual, smothered-in-baby-print clothing. It's called home, and it's probably most of the time. But I'm hungry, I'm in an opinionated mood, and I needed to say this.

a ticket

2011-06-15T13:19:00.010-05:00

I woke up this morning to see a facebook status of a distant friend from one of my music theory classes. He said:

"Dear friends, our little boy, Joseph Lee Erickson, is with Jesus and was born today at 3:52 PM. He was 9 lbs 4 oz and 23 inches long! He's a big, beautiful boy that we love and will miss so much. Thank you all for your prayers and support."

I was shaken with shock and sadness. I don't really know this man anymore, and I don't know his wife at all, but it did not seem a complicated or abnormal situation, from what I could tell. Every month on facebook, the daddy put up fun little updates that said things like, "Our baby is the size of a cucumber." or whatever. His excitement at the normal progression of the pregnancy was evident. You look at these situations and just say, "Why?"

I know of 5 or 6 people who have had births like this, some family, others friends or even friends of friends. Of course the next thought is, what if that happens to me?

My mother reminded me of something that I usually remind myself of in these situations: In her book, The Hiding Place, Christian author Corrie ten Boom remembers going regularly to Amsterdam by train as a little girl with her father. One day at the station, shortly after being faced with the death of a little baby, she told her father that she was afraid to die, or afraid that something bad would happen to her family, and that she would not be able to bear it.

Her father answered, "Corrie, when we go to Amsterdam on the train, when do I give you your ticket?"

Little Corrie's answer was "Just before we get on the train."

Her father said,"That's right, Corrie. You don't need your ticket until you are about to board the train. But I always give you your ticket just in time. That's how our wonderful heavenly Father is. He always gives us just what we need, and He is never late."

Ever since I read The Hiding Place as a little girl, that little story has given me so much comfort and insight into God's care for us. When I worry about what could or might happen, I have to force myself to remember that I do not have a "ticket" to bear those things now. They are not trains that I have been asked to get on. If and when I am asked to get on one of those trains, the Lord will provide what I need at the moment I need it.

2011-06-14T22:18:00.005-05:00

Tonight I discovered that another of my siblings has a blog: my sister Kathleen. I discovered her to be a pretty good storyteller, something I had not really had occasion to see before. The dog walking post was quite fun.

Anyway, I read a post of hers that happened to be also something she had talked with me about previously, something interesting that had been on her mind that was now on mine as well. I had some more thoughts about the subject and put them down rather inefficiently as a bunch of comments on her post. Rather than make a whole blog post restating it all, I'll just link to it here.

new prayers

2011-05-31T11:27:00.004-05:00

Throughout my teens and 20s, I have been deeply impressed more and more by how my parents have prayed for us children, especially the unique, detailed things they asked of the Lord for each of our lives while we were still unborn. My mother and daddy both wrote down those prayers, and it builds my faith in how amazing God is to see the answers that have come so many years later, in such different ways than might have been foreseen.

I used to think I would be some other mature, awesome person when it was my time to pray for my unborn children. The time has come sooner than I expected. I'm not mature and awesome, but I still want to be like Jesus, my graceful and gracious Mimi and my never-boring, long-praying parents.

I know that more prayers will come to my heart, and to Steve's, but this last week I have wanted to pray that this child will be mighty in the Lord and boldly tell people about Jesus. I guess I would pray that for all my children, but it seems special for this one.

The only other thing I've thought of yet is this: I really pray that this child will be able to hear harmonies like its mother. On the surface, it seems not the deepest of prayers, but singing harmonies with other people feeds my soul, and I would love to have a child who would be able to share that with me.

I thought of it while home last weekend. The whole family, even Daddy, stayed up late outside, Daddy and Stephen churning a broken ice cream maker with a wrench, all of us telling stories and laughing, but mostly singing together. When I can turn to one of my sisters and say, "You go up, I'll go down" and the rest of the family sings the melody, it is one of the best moments in my life, and always has been. I feel blessed to have been made so amazingly happy by something that some are never able to even notice or care for. People are all blessed in their own way, but I am very grateful my way, if that makes sense. I'm sure everybody feels that way. I hope they can.

So, bold sharing of Jesus, and harmony. I'll be interested to see what other prayers come into our hearts for this one.

feel the power

2011-05-23T08:33:00.003-05:00

(Oh, I can feel it.)

In the next month, I need find something to wear to:

3 showers
a graduation
2 rehearsal dinners, and
a wedding. (in which I can't be too outlandish because I'm the pianist.)

I do not know how most of my clothes will fit me in the next few weeks, but I feel some sort of satisfying powerfulness at the thought of not buying anything new. Anyone can go buy something and turn up looking great, but I mean to take on the challenge of using (gasp!) what I already have. I think I trust my own creativity and weirdness with my clothes to be able to come up with at least a few interesting things. It should be fun. Wish me luck!

Somewhere over the rainbow...cake.

2011-04-27T12:51:00.005-05:00

Sometime when I'm not sick, and when I finally get my flour out of the box marked "PANTRY" I'm going to make this exciting cake that makes me so happy to look at!!!

source

On Groups

2011-04-21T13:47:00.007-05:00

I was talking with a woman recently, my Bible study leader, in fact, and I shared that since I am pregnant and not sure what that holds for me, I may not want to commit to being involved in the Bible study in the coming fall semester.

She said she understood, but proceeded to tell me how nice it is to be involved in a group of other moms, how it would really help me and bless me to be surrounded by others going through various stages of the same thing.

The idea of surrounding myself with a bunch of other moms who I otherwise would never be in contact with, and with whom I probably have little in common bugs me. Of course I'll need help and advice. I know how to take care of a baby, an infant, a newborn. Odd as that seems for a first-time mom, I know all about it. Not everything, and I've never been the one ultimately responsible for the child's well-being, so on that level, it will be very different.

But the general things, cleaning that cord-leftover thingy before it falls off, bathing, doing the nose thing when they have boogers, spit-up, teething, horrible, blow-out diapers, forcing liquid vitamins down their throats, taking two year olds to the bathroom in Walmart..I've been there, done that, thankyouverymuch. It was the only life I knew for quite some time. That's what I did while others my age were going to highschool, or 5th grade for that matter, having boyfriends and playground drama, and then those same kids wanted to know what I'd do when I got into the real world. In many ways I was the one who was already there.

Anyway, this post isn't even about that. That's a sidetrack and it remains that I've never been a mother and will need someone to call, someone to ask, "Is this normal? What do I do when...?" But why does it have to be a designated group? I have a quite experienced mother. I am blessed that she is here for me to ask those things. And I also have freinds, lots of friends and cousins, and aunts, and just people around me! Some of them are mothers and some aren't. Some are used to babies and some aren't.

All I'm saying is I just don't get why, on every side these days, there are people telling you to be in a group. I AM in a group, it's called LIFE!

Is it really the case that so many people have so few human connections in their daily lives, that they have to join a group to have that? Do I have such a completely unique situation that I am sheltered and narrow-minded in thinking that it is normal to be naturally connected with people?

Those Without Preschoolers Need Not Apply

2011-03-24T12:16:00.014-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about taking people for who you think they are instead of who they are. It's hard sometimes, because you have no idea who strangers really are. This has been in my head the last couple of weeks. Then yesterday at BSF, this happened:

There's a woman in my BIble study group who seems to treat me that way; like some person she thinks she's figured out, but she actually doesn't know who I am. She pointedly ignores me and only speaks to those who have problems with their toddlers. She seems to enjoy telling then how she fixed hers. (like, a year ago, because her kids aren't that old yet and she's still nursing one.) I tried to join a conversation she started about 5-yr. olds, because a girl my age was saying that she homeschooled hers. (I'm curious about people who homeschool and why they choose to do it, since it was the default setting in my life for so long.)

But this woman wouldn't let me. I felt that she thought I had nothing to contribute. She does the same things with her answers in our group discussions. I don't have any children, I have a pink streak in my hair, I wear scarves and heels, feather earrings and weird second-hand Michael Kors leather loafers. I seem young, I guess. She seems to treat me like a "whippersnapper, " some young hipster, because I don't have kids; like I'm some young spoiled person whose experiences in life are meaningless because changing diapers isn't yet part of my daily routine. I was terribly annoyed. I shouldn't have let it get to me, but I could hardly pay attention in lecture. She's the kind of stiff-minded person who would think I haven't been a Christian very long because I have a streak of pink hair.

I wanted to go to her and tell her that I practically grew up at BSF headquarters, that my grandmother is mentioned in the founder's memoir, that my mother and grandmother have some of Mrs. Johnson's and Mrs. Hertzler's china in their china cabinets. That I am one of seven homeschooled siblings who used to memorize whole chapters of the Bible in King James as part of their grade school curriculum. That I had probably changed more diapers by the age of 14 than she has so far mothering career. That I watched my mother breastfeed from a very young age. That my mother had six of us without any pain medicine whatsoever. (For some reason, I'm proud of having been had with no pain meds. haha! It's not like I was the one in pain!)

Why does my blood boil? It doesn't matter what this woman, this obviously in-a-tight-box, uncreative woman, thinks of me. But see what I did there? I put her in a box, not any better than the box she has me in. I don't like it. I don't like any of this. It's pride, I know, on both sides. But so bothersome. Really, what would it look like if I just sent her an email, so that she could think of me correctly? Horribly arrogant, but since I don't even care what she thinks of me, she can think I'm horribly arrogant, as long as she's sufficiently impressed that I know as much about kids as she does, and more about BSF.

Who is this hideous, arrogant person inside of me?

2011-03-19T12:28:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I think the word glossy is glossier than gloss itself.

the vanity table

2011-03-18T09:58:00.011-05:00

Mimi's vanity table represents my earliest memories of becoming what I hope to be someday. I was just there yesterday, in the bedroom at Mimi and DanDan's house. The vanity table is no longer there, Mimi has it beside her bed in her new home, but in my mind, I can still see it there in the old bedroom with the lamps glowing around it. My experiences at the table, and lounging on Mimi's bed talking with her while she got ready, are some of the times that are the deepest in my heart.

That table is a place of comfort and glomour, warm light and mirrors, soft cozy socks, silky nightgowns, an incomparable array of makeup and perfume bottles...It is the place where I realize that it's not the end of the world that my favorite jeans have become too tight, that my chin is pointy and my nose is long, that my marriage isn't perfect, that I'm not perfect. It is rich with stories, laughter, the truth of God's word being lived out through the grace, kindness and beauty of my grandmother.

I am a granddaughter of the beautiful lady who sits at this table to prepare for her long days of cooking, serving, decorating and being gracious and lovely at BSF Headquarters. Somehow, the makeup, the perfume, the well-chosen clothing and the tinyness do not matter, even though they are so there and so lovely. It matters that I choose kindness over criticism, prayerfulness over no prayer life, beauty over ugliness. Choosing to treat people carefully, as the eternal creatures that they are is choosing beauty.

Mimi always chooses beauty.

I'm not sure this post would make sense to anyone who has not known my Mimi, but I am working on my articulation of all this. This has been my first attempt.

Love!! (from StyleScout)

2011-03-05T22:44:00.014-06:00

Maybe it's because I'm always guilty of throwing on boots with my adidas work-out pants, (and tucking them in!) or maybe because I SO wish I could wear turbans all the time, but this picture gave me energy and bolstered my resolve to really wear my clothes, all of them, not just the things I am used to wearing. Putting together different, non-rut sorts of things is surprisingly easy when you realize it doesn't matter. What's going to happen? they're just clothes.

This one was fun too:

And I like the dirty-ish wash of the guy's jeans. I might think that they really are dirty, but look at that girl's boots. A girl with boots like that would not make out with a guy whose jeans are generally filthy on a normal day at the park. No, it's just a wash I think. London street fashion.

I'm not opinionated

2011-02-28T10:38:00.002-06:00

I love real things. The false world that is diets and endless gyms and celebrity-following is so repulsive. I don't know how anyone can stand it. In my life, I have real foods, real sugar, real cream, real stairs.

Small portions of reality are better by far than huge portions of fake things.

A post for February

2011-02-28T10:27:00.002-06:00

You know too much is going on when it's March and you've been to church twice this year. Life has been a busy monster these first two months of the year. Not bad, but too busy to continue normally, that's for sure.

We had a New Year's Party, the next weekend was normal, then Steve left on business, then I met him in Vegas, then it was February. My Dan Dan died, we all got together and had the memorial, then we were sick, then was a big wedding, and now it's now.

I feel paralyzed by the many projects I want to do. The beautiful open, unstructured days of my present life overwhelm me. If I were working, I'd want to cancel it, but now there is nothing to cancel, and I still stress out. Human nature.

I want to enjoy the fresh air and the fresh time, and stop putting things off.

Chesterton Quotes for Thought

2011-01-24T08:58:00.017-06:00

I was online looking for a specific quote from G. K. Chesterton, and I found several others that have to do with my thoughts of late.

This reminded me of my recent Twilight post: "A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."

This next has to do with my problems about loving with abandon what God gives me, and still being willing for Him to take it away. "The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost." I don't know how that helps me, but it does a little bit.

Here are a couple that help me when I have complainy thoughts about my body:

"When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?"

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

And I just really identify with these:

"Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."

"Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life."

"Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable."

And for good measure, here are some funny but not less true ones that give us a glmpse into that odd, awesome way in which Chesterton thinks:

"The word 'good' has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man."

"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."

"It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it."

(I quite agree with this next one.)

"Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist."

"Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel."

I am going to Las Vegas tomorrow, to be with my dear Love, who had to leave last Wednesday. I'm going to try, and I hope you do too, to a lovely week, remember to be grateful, think poetically about cheese, and not to free anything from being what it is.

creative influences

2011-01-22T10:45:00.017-06:00

Too often I allow myself the lazy luxury of being influenced by the results of other people's inspiration and creativity.

When I think about creativity I think, what do I create, anyway? Not much, for someone frequently called "creative." (Not that it defines me just because other people think it, but, you know I'd like to really be that.) I create music I guess, when I sit down at the piano and just play to see what comes out. I don't capture the music though, so I can never re-create it. Sometimes I make things out of yarn, or draw things that I want to make or have. I create new ensembles from my closet when I have the energy. I paint furniture bright colors when I get bored.

It's very easy in our day to overload on the sort of second-hand inspiration that one finds from being exposed to other peoples' artwork, clothing designs, movies, music, photos and crafts; being exposed to other peoples' lives, really. And most of the time the people behind those influences are strangers to us. We have available many magazines and shops, not to mention millions of home, clothing, craft and design blogs where someone else's ideas are brought to life. A little goes a long way. I would like to be inspired by what is already around me: nature, cities, conversation with interesting people, colors, music, the rooms in my house and the shape of my life. I am, when I slow down and allow it to happen.

I want more of certain "outside" influences though: photographs, books, and music. Photographs are visual art, of course, but I mean photos like my brother's, that show life as the seer sees it, without any pretentions, as opposed to the kinds of pictures in magazines and other media. Music is important to me right now because for several years, I was so burned out that I quit listening to any music at all. I miss that and am getting back into it, seeing what is new and what old things I have missed. Books are just a given, although I guess it depends what they're about, but history, theology and stories are generally what I read. Since those are all part of real life, I don't consider them something I get too much of.

There is nothing wrong with taking in the fruit of other minds and spirits, but I just want to practice making that a secondary influence, some forms of it at least. The world of visual arts and fashion needs to be a lot less prominent in my thought processes. And I want to challenge myself daily to answer the question, "What have you created today?"

Sure, I have time on my hands, and in most other stages of life, I could not do this as thoroughly. But right now is the time I have, and I am happy to use it. I don't feel that I have time on my hands, but that is because I use it, thinking about things like this, and hopefully, being more creative.

Twilight

2011-01-08T13:10:00.027-06:00

I like the idea of the story, I really do. Dramatic, melancholy romanticism has a special place in my heart. I have not paid attention to a lot of the hype, but I did have intentions of some day reading the books. Until several weeks ago, when I found this: Reasoning with Vampires, a blog whose writer describes it as "serious criticism of grammar and literary technique, satirical mockery, and plain mean-spirited bitchery."

Like this blogger, I was not prepared for the inconsistency of the writing and characters in general, not to mention all the grammatical mistakes! Reasoning with Vampires takes those things and highlights them, making it obvious to anyone who paid even scant attention in 4th grade English class how scary it is that these books were published, let alone becoming raved-about best-sellers. Each post speaks, quite hilariously, for itself.

This blogger is unbiased enough to be genuinely delighted when Meyer (in a rare and special happenstance) gets one right.

And here is one of my favorites:

It's not for everyone, but I have gotten many hours of histerical laughter from reading this blog, as well as a gratefully-received warning not to waste time even starting to read these horribly-written (I like hyphens) books.

Heute ist Freitag :)

2011-01-07T12:29:00.009-06:00

Today, my thoughts tend towards pop-tarts. And playing Chopin's f-minor Ballade.

Rush Limbaugh just said "happier than shaved ice."

I really like my ensemble of clothing today. Long, full black & neutral patterned skirt (tiny geometric pattern, just so you know), camel colored, 3-quarter length sleeve shirt with a map in one corner, orange beanie, brown combat boots.

(On that note: Several people have asked me to start doing "what I wore" posts. I'd love to, but one of those people should please sit down and show me how to get pictures from the camera to the computer.)

I am in the stage of the new year where I get the urge to watch the entire extended version Lord of the Rings trilogy. Every January for the last few years it just happens that I crave those movies and watch them all in a row! I am one third of the way through and I have gotten tons of ironing done.

It's a beautiful day in Austin today, but this week gets a gold star in my book because we had one fully cloudy, dreary, rainy day that lasted 24 hours! I was both shocked and thrilled not to see the sun.

trust & fear

2011-01-06T09:21:00.012-06:00

I am always excited at the beginning of a new year because lately, by the time the year ends, I can look back and say, "If you had told me a year ago I would be here today, or doing this or that, or whatever, I would never have believed you." All of those huge changes have been happy, good changes in my life, and sometimes I feel a little scared by that.

But God is not capricious, He does not have fallen human qualities like the gods of the ancient myths. He is good (Psalm 34:8), and does bless His children (Matthew. 7:11) and He does enjoy giving good things (James 1:17). But He is more interested in making us holy than happy. (Scripture reference, anyone? I guess it's more like a theme through the entire Bible, huh?) I am reminded of that by books, pastors and the lives of friends who are going through really tough times.

I trust Him to do what is best, but sometimes I am really afraid that what's best will be really sad and hard for me. How can I trust Him and still fear the future? Am I not really trusting? He has shown me that He is good and faithful over and over, and I believe Him. But I am still afraid.

I recenlty had a realization. This doesn't really answer my question above, but then again, maybe it does: From time to time, or in certain moods, I think about how hard it would be to lose anyone in my life who I love. I think about the loss of that relationship, that person's perspectives and humor and presence. Life is fragile and at any moment, we have to be prepared for that loss, or at least aware that it could happen. (I suppose it's never possible to be prepared.) But I recently realized that I never have to be afraid that I will lose the Lord--His perspectives, His humor, His presence. How basic, how fundamental to everything I believe, but I had still seemed to fear that along with the rest. Well, not consciously, but I had never thought about the fact. It was as if, in all my fearing thoughts, He said to me, "Here is something that you don't have to fear."

I am so grateful for that! But with the rest, I still struggle.

the only perspective I have right now

2011-01-06T08:43:00.004-06:00

I have about five year-end blog posts saved that I just cannot finish. So much has happened this year and my mind keeps doing a recap, but always from different angles.

I think about prayers I have prayed for people, prayers that seem for now to remain unanswered. I keep praying. Then I think of all the prayers I've prayed that God has answered the way I had hoped: we moved to a city we love, my Love has come back safely from all his trips--I have been spared that awful phone call that's always in my imagination. He loves his job and has the energy to persue his hobbies, our place in Dallas has sold, we like our apartment, our cars have no problems at the moment, we had a lovely Christmas and Thanksgiving. I do not take these circumstances for granted. God is good, and when He answers my prayers this way, I feel that I understand His plan. But that's a pretty shallow, human perspective.

When I pray for a friend's husband to come back to her, and instead he leaves her with no hope of reconciliation, when I pray for someone to be saved and they die without my ever knowing whether they were, when I pray for someone to be healed and they're not, then I wonder about His plan. But just because I don't understand doesn't mean He isn't good. These things just remind me how limited our perspectives are as human beings. I say that in fear and trembling because I know that there will come times when I will not be able to see His blessings or imagine that I understand His will so easily, and I pray that I'll be able to still say then as now, "God is good."

Only one thing didn't "work out" for me this year in the way I thought it should: I applied to the master's program at UT and was not accepted. I was disappionted, but also kind of relieved. I still feel that this time in my life has been so blessed, and I am excited that the Lord obviously has some other direction for me right now.

thoughts after Christmas

2010-12-27T09:56:00.020-06:00

As I wait for my Love to wake up, (on a day off when we're FINALLY at home) I am pondering.

Our Christmas was beautiful this year. It seems to just get better every single year! How grateful I am that we were able to spend it with family, traditions and love! I loved every minute of it!

I had an awesome time in worship at church on Christmas Eve.

My Love got a guitar for Christmas, and practices SO much! It makes me really happy to hear him.

I've had a new-to-me theological thought: leavened communion bread brilliantly reflects the theology of the churches that use it.

How I love '60s kitchenware.

Somehow I've suddenly become aware and very thankful that I was brought up in a home where the free discussion of different and opposing ideas, philosophies and religious and political theories was not considered a faux pas.

Also pondering next year and what it will bring, since all the changes in this past year were completely unexpected.

Pondering all that has changed since last Christmas, and it seems that everything has gotten better for many in our families, including us.

I am grateful not only for the blessings, but also that I am allowed to notice them.

2010-12-21T10:16:00.001-06:00

It's odd to think that the desire to be very grown up is childish.

I credit this thought to C. S. Lewis and not my own less inquisitive mind. Still, I am having an interesting time thinking about this thought today.

among other things, an alternate view of Dallas

2010-12-19T19:46:00.013-06:00

For whatever reason, it seems that Dallas is way more relaxing when you don't live there. AND when the company puts you up in a lovely hotel where you sleep really well, send your husband off to work in the morning and relax, crochet, drink coffee and paint your nails while you wait for your friend to come and pick you up. That was last Thursday.

This past weekend we stayed in a Dallas hotel again, this time for a dear friend's wedding. It was so much fun. We wore red dresses and got our nails done all together, and I was really, really happy for the couple. My dear Love was amazing, patient, and so sweet in helping me just be there for the bride. He ran errands, brought me breakfast, dropped me off, picked me up, transferred my getting-ready stuff from one hotel to another, and at one point, filled our sink with ice and had champagne waiting for me! He's a love.

Also, we got to have our dog with us this trip. It's so fun to have her in a hotel room, her funny excitement, her wagging tail and her careful jumping up onto the bed.

When the festivities were over and we had checked out of the hotel, we drove through our old neighborhood, past our condo (just to see the "contract pending" sticker over the "for sale" sign) and took our dog for a walk around the little pond where we always used to go. It was a perfect way to end the trip. I hadn't realized until then that there are things about our Dallas life that I really miss, even though Austin already feels like home. Speaking of home, we are finally back in our little apartment, eating tuna, watching football and planning Christmas.

I couldn't sleep.

2010-12-08T23:25:00.005-06:00

After several weeks of living under the crippling burden of sickening news, I give up: God is in charge.

Given my patterns of worrying, I believe that sometimes, in varying degrees of smallness. As a fallen being, it is impossible me to see things as they really are. God's perspective is so vastly different from mine, that I can only see what seems to be. In Isaiah 55, God says,

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Psalm 33 reinforces the fact that He does exactly as He plans, without letting human devices get in the way.

13 The LORD looks down from heaven;
he sees all the children of man;
14 from where he sits enthroned he looks out
on all the inhabitants of the earth,
15 he who fashions the hearts of them all
and observes all their deeds.
16 The king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
17 The war horse is a false hope for salvation,
and by its great might it cannot rescue.
18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
19 that he may deliver their soul from death
and keep them alive in famine.

The size of a king's army seems like it would have a lot to do with saving him in battle. But the Lord says it doesn't. He, the Lord, chooses what happens with kings, armies and battles, and every person whose heart He fashioned. Another Psalm says, "Some trust in horses, we trust in the name of the Lord our God. Some trust in chariots, we trust in the name of the Lord our God." Often I live as if so many other things can be trusted in. They can't.

With thoughts and situations more troubling than usual right now, there is nothing I can do but this:

20 Our soul waits for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.
21 For our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
22 Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.

It's what I should do all the time.

Isaiah 26 (I can't remember which verse) says, "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You." Having my mind "stayed on Him" is really difficult at the moment, but on the other hand, there really isn't anywhere else to go. He's the one in charge of the outcome, and I know He can be trusted. I don't know why horrible things happen, but I'm truly grateful to know the One who does.

It's A Wonderful Life

2010-11-22T14:30:00.007-06:00

I would just like to say that I love champagne. And the sorts of glasses it comes in. Champagne glasses are as good as or better than what comes in them!

Today is a day with my Love--he is off work, and I don't have to practice. I played some fun old music but did not practice anything!!! And we are drinking champagne and eating cheese and crackers and apples, and watching It's a Wonderful Life.

Champagne while watching a black and white movie is the best. And my Love is the best.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

2010-11-10T08:11:00.005-06:00

I took one of those facebook quizzes the other day, and got Ariel. I like The Little Mermaid well enough, and my Love even likes it, because it's a Danish fairy tale. At least, the Hans Christian Anderson version. There might be others, I don't know.

Anyway, the quiz result said these sorts of things about me:

"You are a stubborn, headstrong girl..."

"You would do anything for love, even risk other peoples' health and happiness..."

"You would also do everything you can to correct mistakes and misunderstandings..."

"Deep down, you seek the truth in things and follow your heart."

These are silly little time-wasting quizzes, but what I loved about this one was that my husband completely agreed with everything it said about me. All the things the quiz said about me, he says about me too. I just liked that.

sumptuous

2010-11-08T11:59:00.011-06:00

I've been so apathetic about my piano-playing lately. It demands too much energy and emotion to make the notes into music, and I feel I have a tired mind and dry spirit these days. I am always missing my Love, since he's been out of town every week for the past couple of months, and the pressure of recording soon is also taking from me.

Anyway, I just remembered another time in my life when I felt this way, tired and with nothing to give. At that point, I was reading along in the first couple chapters of Lamentations, vaguely wondering what I was supposed to get out of this seemingly boring book. I came to the bottom of the page, just before it was time to turn, and saw this:

But this I call to mind, and therefore have hope:

What a time to turn the page! I was surprised, after I turned, to see these words which I have sung all my life but had not thought about in quite some time:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him.

The Lord is my portion. His sweet mercy of which I need so much, is new every morning, and belongs to me! He shares Himself with me- his creativity that spun huge galaxies and the intricacies of a Bach fugue, his mind that imagined sunsets, hunger and food, the richness of romance, chocolate, pumpkin rum pound cake and caramel apples. When my soul is dry, He is never lacking in beauty for my eyes and spirit, and love for my heart, and usually, even rich, lovely physical food.

He brought me to his banqueting table and His banner over me is Love. ~Song of Solomon 2:4

He is rich in all good things, and we are a part of those things if we stand under the blood of Jesus as God's children. Being included in and invited to goodness and good things reminded me of that picture so much.

And since He is rich in all that, I don't have to find it in myself, because honestly, I just can't. So when I play the piano and it comes out lovely and not dry, I know it's from Him and not me.

Singers and dancers alike say, "All my springs are in You." ~Psalm 87:7

THIS is what I think about...

2010-11-04T18:37:00.006-05:00

...when I think about making clothes.

It's just the perfect kind of thing I always think about making. I saw it on this British style blog. Thinking about it is a good break from practicing and stressing about UT.

After practicing...

2010-10-12T17:26:00.011-05:00

I am left tired and hungry but amazed by the dizzying intellect that is Bach.

As a side note, I was in church while visiting my husband's sister and we sang one of my favorite hymns, O Sacred Head Now Wounded. Well, actually, we didn't sing the words I knew, (which I absolutely love) but the music was the same, a melody from a 1600s love song, later harmonized by Bach. Hearing it played on the organ made me almost imagine that I was in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, hearing Bach play it.

Anyway, back to the present, there's nothing like a 5-voice fugue to make you stand back in wonder.

Bach's stunning mind made fugues. And God made J.S. Bach.

crying over spilled chicken

2010-10-11T14:12:00.010-05:00

My darling blue hen-on-nest covered butter dish broke today. Well, the lid did, anyway. Dropped clumsily from seven or eight inches above, it shattered into a million pieces on the counter. I think anyone who has granite countertops on purpose is out of their mind. I'm a person who passionately loves each dish that I own, and the granite countertop has been cruel indeed, in the few months I've occupied this apartment.

But, I ordered a new butter dish online, and I'm very excited because it's jadeite!

Nothing special about jadeite, really, except that I've been obsessed with mint green for the past year or so.

In other news, we had a wonderful (and these days, rare) weekend at home together! A date at the riverwalk, dinner with family, a football game (not on TV) and Thai noodles. More later.

(For the record, I decided to cancel my order for the dear, green chicken. I liked it but I think I should just wait until I come across one randomly again and not spend $$ just to fix everything that breaks in my life.)

When we get a house...

2010-10-04T09:44:00.003-05:00

...I'm going to remember this:

I think it's so charming to have dishes stored out in the open. It's practical too, if they are things you use every day, like teacups, teapots and coffee mugs. I thought one usually could not do that without having those doorless cupboards that not many houses have these days, but just putting up your own shelves like this is a lovely idea!

our favorite things

2010-09-29T09:26:00.022-05:00

That last complainy post was just me keeping it real, I guess. I mean, I know I have such a fabulous life that I should never have stress or reason to complain. Living in such a wonderful place in a wonderful city, having my own piano and the time to use it, not having to go to work right now, having a patient husband who loves me and lets me take care of him, having family and childhood friends living nearby.

And suddenly perfect weather, which I celebrated last night with my first yoga bikeride, and also riding my bike all the way to my freind Ellen's house without being afraid about sharing the road with cars!

Anyway, since we are finally pretty settled here, I thought I'd do a post about our favorite things here in Austin. And the best part is, we can walk to most of them and bike to all of them!

The food trailers. They're all over town and there are cupcake trailers, snowcone trailers, sushi, barbeque, and mostly taco trailers.Tacos are my favorite but Hey Cupcake makes me happy too.

Then there's Stubbs, right next to our apartment:

where you can get barbeque...

or go to a concert in their backyard.

6th street isn't far away either. It gets pretty crazy at night. Here's what it looks like on a typical Friday or Saturday:

Woodrows is our favorite spot in 6th street. It's on the calmer end, where fewer college kids go. We walk there every Thursday night, and there's always a wonderful taco trailer parked right next to it.

Here is where we go late at night for great people-watching. Notice the glowy orange candles.

Here's Barton Springs. It's fresh, cold water, even in triple digit summers!

This is also one of our favorite walking places.

We love that Austin has so many lakes around it, with hike and bike trails.

And we also love that we live in the hill country now, and when you leave town, you see the blue hills far, far away on every side.

We just love living here.

Thanks to everyone who unwittingly contributed pictures though google images. This technologically incompetent person really appreciates it.

Sorry about all the sunshine

2010-09-28T17:56:00.004-05:00

An unmotivated day today. I would not allow myself to go out to the storage unit to look for my fall clothes, because I was supposed to practice. But I hardly did at all, so I should have gone.

Wanted to go outside and take a walk, but wouldn't let myself because I was supposed to practice, which didn't happen because I was dreaming of doing other things. None of which I did because I was supposed to practice.

I am going to try this thing called a yoga bike ride tonight with my dear freind Ellen. It's where you meet at a certain spot downtown and ride bikes for a while and stop at the park and do yoga. The yoga instructor leads it. I'm a little nervous about the ride because my bike doesn't have gears and Austin has some pretty big hills. The worst that could happen is I'd have to get off and walk up a hill, so it's not that bad. And I'm excited about the yoga part. This will be the only thing I have accopmlished today.

I think it wears me out to be away from my Love so much. In the last three weeks or so we have probably seen eachother for about 4 hours total. He has been traveling and working late nights, a couple Saturdays and even a Sunday! He likes his job, and is so sweet to time to be with me as much as he can, even in crunch time. I'll just be happy when this particular crunch time is over.

Oh, and the shooting at UT today just sort of made me sad. I was glad that the guy did not hurt anyone else though.

Life's a fairytale

2010-09-17T10:04:00.008-05:00

To me, the essence of a fairytale has something to do with the unseen and the unexpected, the way it ends. It always has to do with truth, love and beauty, and with evil and ugliness going away.

I've been thinking about how life is really the ultimate, true fairytale. Not because I'm young, and nothing bad has ever happened to me yet, but because I know a God for whom truth and beauty are the rule and death is not the end, and love conquers all.

mars hill

2010-09-14T10:04:00.003-05:00

How has 20th-century science fiction encouraged the rise of new religious ideas? What motivates so many people to seek celebrity status, and what sorts of institutions enable their quest? How do modern assumptions about freedom differ from those held in pagan antiquity and by premodern Christians? How did the 1960s counter-culture mutate into the 1980s cyber-culture? How do educational technologies affect our assumptions about what education means? How might concern for redemption survive in some films that seem relentlessly dark? Why is sociobiology a bad place to look for convictions to sustain political life?

I took these questions from a little pamphlet that came with my subscription to Mars Hill Audio Journal, given to me for my birthday by my brother, Stephen, who himself is a longtime subscriber and from time to time has shared issues with me over the years. Those questions above are listed in their brochure as examples of "the sorts of issues that deserve thoughtful consideration by Christians who are eager to understand the shape of contemporary culture."

I have always felt driven to be a student of cultures, histories and languages, at times without quite knowing why. This wonderful journal brings up answers, opinions and questions that have never occurred to me, as well as reminding me why I search. It follows everything from literature, art and music to technology and philosophy- one of the best birthday presents ever!

Hear a free sample here. :)

a new thought for fall

2010-09-10T01:03:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking that I should just calm down and have a nice Fall. A Fall with my practicing, my yoga video, my cooking, my reading list, my learning German, and my Love having a happy job. When else might I ever have a Fall like this? Stop stressing, stop putting things off and stop being scared about graduate school. And stop hiding from the next step.

I'm 71% neurotic?

2010-09-07T08:51:00.013-05:00

In my Bible this morning, I found a note card with the results of a personality test scribbled across it, Steves results on one side, mine on the other. I don't know how long ago we took it (I found it in Daniel 6), or even what test it was, but looking at it made me laugh at how different we are.

It rated certain salient qualities, and here's how we came out:

Openness: Steve, 76% Me, 90% (I do just like to get everything out there.)

Conscientiousness: Steve, 89% Me, 10% (I guess I don't really care, y'all.)

Extraversion: Steve, 4% Me, 91% (not surprising)

Agreeableness: Steve, 87% Me, 44% (not surprising either. It seems that being right is often much higher on my list that being agreeable. I'm working on that.)

Neurotic: (what does that even mean?) Steve, 43% Me, 71%

So thank you for that assessment, now anonymous personality test. You can clearly see who is the kind, quiet person, and who is the loud, careless, neurotic one. And since the parenthetical comments are only about the author, it would be fun to see what Steve would say in his parenthetical comments, if he had a blog and made a post like this.

In other news, we had a really awesome time together all Labor Day weekend! :)

book review by a stubborn girl

2010-09-03T10:03:00.011-05:00

Steve and I are starting a new year in Bible Study Fellowship, studying one of my favorite books ever, Isaiah. The closer it gets the more excited I am. We have not done a structured Bible study together since the one where we met!

I was thinking this morning on why I've loved Isaiah so much ever since I first read it. Its main themes match the over-arching themes of the Bible: the rebellion of Gods people and His anger, judgement and mercy towards them. Being a thoroughly stubborn person myself, I really identify with Isreal when God calls them "an obstinate people" and says that their neck is made of iron and their forehead of brass. This is an accurate picture of how I am naturally, without God's grace.

Knowing the awful kind of person that I am without Jesus makes me so passionate and excited about these parts of Scripture--the parts about God's mercy on a stubborn people. It's just too awesome that God allows me to see the other side--the part that He plays when His people rebel. Part of it is awful judgement, but the other is the mercy.

Psalm 107 is a little like a condensed version of Isaiah. I ran across that it when I was 15 or so, and it struck me then, and still does now, because it lays out four awful people and their situations and shows what God does to change them. It makes me so happy because each one of the rebellious people described is me. They are what I look like without God, confused and in sad circumstances, brought on by rebellion. And each one is rescued in a different way by God's mercy. They have ashes and He makes beauty out of them!

And knowing that He is my God, too, and does for me what He did for them, and gives me beauty for my ashes, is the most amazing thing in my life and it is what I try to live under. It is easy for me to forget, by being caught up in the moments of living and stress, but the ultimate fact of my life is Gods mercy. I can never stop being so touched and so excited by it.

raquel allegra

2010-08-27T20:37:00.009-05:00

I noticed this designer a couple of seasons ago, and I'm hooked on everything she does. I want to wear all of these clothes every single day.

I love the colors, the soft look of the fabric, its flow and statuesqueness. The clothes pictured here aren't her latest designs (although I love them too), but they just speak to me. Don't you love looking at them?

A burning thought for this evening:

2010-08-22T22:46:00.002-05:00

Part of being truly classy is being able to get over it when you see people who aren't.

a musing

2010-08-10T11:13:00.008-05:00

In the last decade, I have become conscious of the fact that people who lack imagination have an extra capacity for hurting my feelings.

I do not have words to fully explain this. If you have an imagination, you probably understand perfectly already. If you don't, I can't help you.

It must sound snobby, but I feel so sad for people who don't have one. It is not an I'm-better-than-you kind of feeling; it's an I'm-so-truly-sorry-you-have-to-live-that-way feeling. I want to reach out to people whose imaginations are dead, but their misunderstanding responses hurt me almost as much as thinking what their lives must be like.

God must have a perfect imagination. Even the most brilliant human imagination would be nothing compared with His. Perhaps that's why He never hurts me in that odd way. I know we cannot all be the same, but I think that, when we were created in God's image, we must have been meant to have some of His amazing, imaginative creativity. No doubt, many still have a tiny touch of what that must have been like. When Christ's kingdom comes on earth, and we are whole, like Him, as we were meant to be, maybe we will all have good imaginations again.

drum-roll, please.

2010-08-09T15:52:00.014-05:00

I can't hold it in any longer. I've tried all my life to enjoy baseball. I've tried many different self-manipulative strategies over the years to make myself like it: I've pretended, in hopes that real feelings and interest would come, I've liked it for the sake of friends who love it, I've eaten more than I thought possible at games just to keep from death by boredom. Once, I even made it a part of my old favorite rain-or-shine pastime: flirting. That was loads of fun, and the bat boy gave me a ball, but all this to no avail.

Like every normal American, I have some wonderful memories having to do with being taken to baseball games, that I would not trade for the world. But (as I am finally able to admit to myself) when I go to games, I enjoy everything but the game: the junk food, the jumbo-tron, the people-watching, the company of whoever I go with, but I could care less if there is baseball going on along with all that. In fact, I'd rather there not be. It distracts from conversation since those interested always have to pay attention to the game at all costs. And when, heaven forbid, I happen to be with someone who is watching baseball on TV, I find myself breathlessly looking forward to the commercials. At the end of summertime, when football and basketball are long gone and all that is happening is baseball, even my favorite sports radio station gets almost completely boring!

So, it is with unbridled relief that I announce, after nearly three decades of effort, farce and staunch denial, that I don't really like baseball! Football and hockey are wonderful, basketball keeps me entertained, and even golf is at least surrounded by beauty but, in my oh so relevant opinion, baseball in and of itself, without food and good company, does not quite make the cut to being called "interesting."

a thought for the morning

2010-08-05T08:22:00.014-05:00

Once again, my brother Stephen concisely articulates an idea that I've often thought about in a very blurry, non-verbal way, but never could have said:

"Given the universe we live in, its richness of detail and endlessly changing variety, given the quantity and quality of the characters, the Mandelbrot fractal of a shape their relationships make and how each of us fit into all of it, with our five plus different ways of sensing the world, I can only conclude that the reason any of us (even occasionally) find ourselves bored has to be some deep-seated and profound blindness that is, in a way, more mysterious than anything else."

Just for the record, I don't know what a Mandelbrot fractal is, but I think the blindness he speaks of must be because we are fallen creatures, who have sinned. We are not quite what we were meant to be, so it is too difficult for us to fathom the wonderful universe and even more, the God who made it. I am so excited that that will change when we get to Heaven!

These thoughts bring to mind something C.S. Lewis said in The Weight of Glory:

The faint, far-off results of those energies which God's creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what now we call physical pleasures; and even thus filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be to taste at the fountainhead that stream of which these lower reaches prove so intoxicating?

In this essay, which I always think of when I am trying to figure out Heaven (I did a post about that once), Lewis also speaks of the peculiar craving that beauty awakens in us; how beautiful music or a sunset, while we enjoy them so much, still leave us feeling that something is missing, or that we did not enjoy the beauty as much as it could have been enjoyed. I cannot remember exactly how he put it, but he speaks in the end of how, when we are with the Lord, we will be able to fully understand and appreciate the beauty and complexity of the universe. He calls it "getting in."

Every time I think about these sorts of things, I am so overwhelmed and happy. Happy that God is so good and that He will one day allow us to enjoy Him fully.

Memory of the Day ~ my swing

2010-08-04T09:41:00.008-05:00

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

These words remind me of my dad's voice, and my old swing he made for me for my 7th birthday. My mother painted my name on it, in curly yellow letters, with flowers all around them. Daddy would swing me and quote Romans 8, bit by bit, having me say it after him, until I had it memorized.

Swinging and learning that scripture from my dad is one of my most engrained memories from childhood. The swing was attached, next to Kristin's blue-lettered one, with long yellow ropes to a branch high on of one of the huge oak trees in our front yard. That branch has long since been chopped off and probably burnt in our fireplace. The swing wore out completely, and what remains of it might still be in the garage. But I remember the first half of Romans 8 as well as any line from Disney's Robin Hood or That Darn Cat, or any other of the childhood movies we obsessed over with our friends the Shenks.

Thank you, Daddy. :)

thoughts on today

2010-07-26T11:50:00.005-05:00

I think these pretty lilies in the new background look a little scary (THEY'RE GOING TO ATTACK!!!), but I really liked the green circles.

I am really tired and my brain is having a lot of trouble getting prepared for my piano lesson tomorrow. We will leave Austin tomorrow in time to be in Dallas by 9AM, Steve for his meeting and me for my lesson, and to repaint the complained-about front door of our condo.

On our weekend trip (more later), Steve took us all to Castaways and I got a heavenly soft LUX shirt-dress nightie, pink paisley pants by Elevenses, a beautiful pair of pink and green wings (my Love says you can always use a good pair of wings), a navy shirt to replace my falling-apart one, and a milk bottle to put red wine in.

I am making this stew for dinner. I hope the Bulb Hunters don't hunt me for borrowing their picture:

After an unexpectedly late night full of much driving and singing last night, I am going to eat a ton of it and drink some red wine and go to bed this evening at about six o'clock.

I want candy

2010-07-22T17:50:00.010-05:00

It occurred to me today that an adult is only a child who knows how to control itself.

Of course, I know. Of course. I've just never defined it that way for myself. But it's true. Adults (and I guess I'm speaking for myself here) are just as whiny, it's just they don't whine out loud (most of the time). We all just walk around controling our inner child, I suppose. It's just a funny way of thinking of it that struck me today. And I don't know about anyone else, but I have conversations inside my head a lot of times that go:

"I want that."
"No."
"YES."
"Maybe tomorrow, or after you've accomplished something."
"But I just want it now."
"No."
"pleeeeeease?"
"No! Just walk away."
"Okay."

And then I finally agree with myself and walk away and find something else to be happy about, but isn't that weird?

I wonder if it happens to anyone else. It happened to me in Whole Foods today, by the soap, by the cheese, and then again by this display they call Candy Island. I felt like I was firmly monitoring a child, and then I realized it was just me.

I don't usually use the word "suck."

2010-07-22T14:35:00.009-05:00

There are some groups of people whose manner of living life and expressing themselves is so different from my own, that I know that about 95 percent of what I say around them is sure to be completely misunderstood. It's really discouraging, so I just end up hardly talking at all whenever I am with those sorts. Which is fine; I don't have to talk, but when I don't, I'm afriad of being thought to be bored or snobbish. When I'm with my best friends or my family, I am one of the most talkative, witty, even outspoken. But with some people, I can hardly comment on the moment, much less tell a story, and the more I talk to them, the less they respond and the stupider I feel.

It's not that I'm not uncomfortable around new people. Sometimes with mere acquaintances you know you're on their wavelength and they're on yours. I'm just talking about people who are extraordinarily difficult to get to know, and in the meantime, you're pretty sure of being 5 percent understood. How does one overcome that? And the worst of it is, in my current situation, I know that I'm the one who is hard to get to know, I'm the one who is strange and unfathomable and misunderstandable. And there's really nothing I can do about it. I never wanted to be normal, but I didn't realize that being from an out-of-the-ordinary background could be so inconvenient. Most of the time it's more than worth it, but other times it kind of sucks.

words, words, words

2010-07-19T22:54:00.010-05:00

How many trillions upon trillions upon gazillions of words have I heard in my lifetime? It must be equal to the number of stars in the Milky Way, and maybe more. My first thought is, no wonder I speak this language, the English language. How could I possibly help it, with the sheer number of words have been thrown at me again and again and again?

I picked up a pencil to doodle on some paper, and words came out onto the paper, filling it in a very short time. Words, random words, and phrases I've heard that I'll never forget. Simple things, but the sort of combinations of words that always stick in our minds, like "Two plus two equals four." Movie quotes: of the millions of them stored in my brain, fifteen or twenty poured out from the pencil almost without my knowledge or permission.

"My clumsy hand!"

"Clumsy me!"

"...odds and ends to buy..."

"Just charge everything to good old Mitch. He's loaded."

"Katie Scarlett O'Hara!"

"He's got his tiger."

"What goes on in that pea-brain of yours?"

"I've been turned into a cow. Can I go home?"

"Why anyone would wanna be an orphan is beyond me!"

And then, from a note I saw today in my aunt's kitchen, written by my cousin to her mother:

"Take some to work. Tomatoes, rice, potatoes, salt. Yummy and fresh!"

Writing is one thing, and that happens to have stayed with me and come out with the rest, in pencil, but it really is the spoken word that dominates our lives.

Obviously, we could speak any language easily if we could hear it that much! That is rather comforting, since I aspire to learn so many. Not that I will ever be able to hear any of the languages on my list that much, but it comforts me that speaking them would be so inescapable if I could. I'd love to go on a fast from English, but it pours and pours and gushes around inside my mind. French trickles and sometimes flows, Spanish attaches itself, unbidden, to everything, but German has not quite found enough room.

On n'habite pas dans une paye, on habite dans une lange. (One does not live in a country, one lives in a language.)

This quote was somewhere in my very first French textbook. How incredibly true. Language changes the objects around you. When you first start learning a new language, a bad (but normal) habit is to translate each word in your head to what you know it means in English, instead of letting the new word become it's own symbol of it's meaning, if that makes sense. How different the world becomes when, instead of thinking "Tisch means table," you look at a table and SEE ein Tisch. Different to see das Fenster and not the window, after all. And these are only objects that we use to live our lives. What about life itself, it's complexities and feelings and flow? All tongues have humanity in common, but if everything is represented by different words than you're used to, there really is some slight difference in your reality. Some people would say words are words, that a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet. That's quite a compliment to the rose I guess, but by any other name it would not be a rose!

It's something to think about.

dreams & reality

2010-07-17T08:46:00.012-05:00

People keep getting after me to post agian, and I guess the only reason I had not was because time has been moving so fast that I thought I just did. Things have been happening. There have been places to go and people to see, audition pieces to learn, and not much time to catch my breath. I have been trying so hard to be effiecient with my time- and being even remotely efficient takes a lot of thought for me- that even my dreams have been hurried and hectic. I remember trying to use one dream as efficiently as I could.

A few nights ago I dreamed that my grandfather died. A few other things happened in the dream too, but his death was the main thing. It was handled so strangely by the family, I can't even tell how, but I just remember thinking, "This is not how our family usually does things; I think this is a dream." As the dream continued, I became certain I was dreaming. You'll have to forgive that I was not too sad anymore about the death from then on, knowing I would wake up and it would never have happened.

Still in my dream, I ended up randomly at my normal HEB, a good place even in dreams. I thought, "I know I'm dreaming, but in reality we're out of bread, so even though this is a dream, I better get some bread while I'm here, so that when I wake up, I won't have to make another trip to the store."

Back to reality for a second: This dream also happpened the night after I broke one of my favorite bottles of perfume. It smashed so hard on the tile bathroom-cupboard floor that I could not even hear the shattering sound. That put a damper on my day for a while, so that night, when I realized I was dreaming, I also thought, "Since this is a dream, maybe I'll wake up and my perfume won't be broken anymore."

"No," my dream-self said, "That happened while you were still awake." I had to take this chance to try to save my big, pink Ed Hardy Love Kills Slowly, and I said stubbornly back, "But I got bread, even though this was a dream. Let's just say that that bottle broke during the dream, so now it wont be broken." My dream self wouldn't have it.

I always hear that when people have lucid dreams, they use them to try to do something that they would never be able to do in reality, like flying, or kissing someone they secretly love, or punching a teacher or colleague or someone they can't stand. I always thought I would do that too (not so much the kissing one--I don't have to be in a dream to kiss my Love, although I would) but the punching one is especially exciting. I've flown in dreams without knowing I was dreaming before. But no, I did not try to do any special thing, I just wanted to fix something I broke and be more efficient with my day by not going to HEB twice.

When I woke up, I did not have any bread for toast, my grandfather was still alive, and my bathroom still smelled strongly of fruity, pink floral top notes.

let's be honest with ourselves

2010-06-19T23:30:00.016-05:00

I always say, somewhat snobbishly, that I have no room in my head for modern celebrities. I think and care about history and theology, about how languages fit together, how music fits together, how siblings fit together, and how my clothing and accessories fit together, not about what some narcissistic idiot I don't even know wears to Starbucks! I subscribe to a couple of fashion magazines, but I don't know how people can stand to read those Hollywood gossip magazines they have by the checkout in grocery stores! Such trash. Is there really anyone who reads those?

Well, the other day I bought one such publication, whose title I had never heard of and cannot remember. Like probably everyone else who reads these things (if those people really exist), I bought it because of what was on the cover. It was Prince William. Somebody heard somebody heard somebody say that someone told someone told someone told someone that he might get married. I paid $3.99 for that information, plus a couple of pictures.

Anyway, the shocking fact that I bought the magazine prompted my realization that I do want to know more about some celebrities. Agyness Deyn, for instance. I've paid lots more for magazines with her in them and on them. Of course that was British Vogue --a good $10 to $12 if you're buying it in the US-- but I didn't have to have it for the fashion inside that time. Agyness is a british supermodel who I think is so cool. Ditto for Kate Moss; I'd buy an article about her. Or the queen. I'd buy something with Queen Elizabeth on the cover a lot sooner than something with Michelle Obama or Laura Bush.

Foreign gossip. British. It's as interesting and alluring and fun as their accents. Maybe the American Hollywood scene is so unattractive because it already rules the entertainment world, and don't even get me started on all the reality show stuff. But give me British supermodels or British royalty any day and I'll eat it up. Which I suppose makes me a hot tea-drinking, accent-mimicking hypocrite. But I'd rather just be that than read American celebrity gossip.

I'll just leave you with these lovely shots of Agy:

watch this

2010-06-17T13:31:00.004-05:00

This video articulates something I have often thought about and also been guilty of. (I know, there's a preposition on the end of that sentence. Sometimes things are not as they should be.)

oh please.

2010-06-15T16:29:00.010-05:00

A conversation I had recently has stuck in the forefront of my thoughts for the last week or so. I mentioned to someone, a person who knows how to play the piano, albeit not a degreed musician, that I have a lot to practice before I can play well enough to audition for graduate school. Probably at least a part-time job's worth of time at the piano for the next few months. And this person did not believe me at all. This person thought I was being too modest. This person thought I was a perfectionist. This person seemed to think I was just saying that to be nice, and actually said they thought I could walk up to UT and play right now, and UT would let me in. (A lovely vote of confidence. I appreciated how it was meant. I mean, she was just being kind. Maybe I just don't get that kind of politeness.) I don't think this person reads my blog, but I feel compelled to say a few things in response, just to clear my head. Those of you who know me well probably already know this:

I am not an overly modest person nor a perfectionist. I leave things when I know they could be better. My sight reading isn't the best, and I only work on it whenever I want to, which is mostly never. I procrastinate. I'm sort of selfish, and sometimes I think rude things. I leave my kitchen, my bedroom, and my thighs alone when they could be much improved. I'd rather be happy than perfect. As a pianist, I've never had very solid technique, and while that worries me a bit, I don't do much about it. And my modesty goes as follows: I can naturally play by ear. I think most things I cook are delicious. I think I am rather musical. I think I am pretty well-rounded. I think I have a gift for learning languages. I think I'm a pretty nice person. I think I interpret Chopin way better than a lot of other pianists. I think I'm a pretty good catch for my husband. I think I'm tolerably pretty and have a mostly spot-on sense of style. And I think it will be a hell of a lot of work for me to get into graduate school.

Thank you.

exultant complaining

2010-06-13T18:53:00.006-05:00

My husband is sleeping. He seems to be catching up on sleep lost months ago, before he even left Dallas. Change can make you so tired and hungry, not to mention give you a terrible cold.

Sometimes, when my dear Love sleeps during the day like this, I can't quite get motivated to do anything but wait for him to wake up. On days that he is away at work, my mind is more settled in the familliar routine, but this lovely afternoon, I cannot do any of the little things on my mind. Nothing sounds interesting except being with him. Practicing does, but probably only because I can't do it, since it would wake him up. So blogging seems the next best thing today. I will blog a little about my new life...

What has changed since I moved here?

Well, I now buy fresh eggs at $2 a dozen from the little ranch where my sister works.

I have time to work out now, but still don't. I think I'm waiting til I can dance again.

I can walk to the library from our apartment, and am getting my own library card soon!! This is the best thing, second only to having HEB, since I've come from a place where they make getting a library card incredibly difficult, and even sort of expensive (well maybe not, but definitely not free), and I could not have my own because Steve already had one! They discourage more than one per household, which I thought was very mean.) But here it's easy, and I am allowed my own! I have already been to our library once and checked out (on Steve's card since I still don't have mine) some books about jazz voicing.

I would love to just break out into an "I'm so glad to be out of Dallas because..." song right now. It's negative, I know. I should want to say "I love Austin because..." but the facts of the matter are, that nearly all the things I love about Austin are quite common in every other part of our state. (Well, except the music scene, which is of course a huge deal. And the myriad taco stands. I've never seen so many and they're all awesome! I'm very soon going to be fat from tacos alone.) Only Dallas is strange and harsh and doesn't let you have a library card if one person in your family already has one. Only Dallas doesn't have HEB. Only Dallas is severely unfriendly to cyclists and pedestrians. And out-door seating at restaurants is entirely too rare there, and bringing your dog to one is unheard of.

I could go on, but I really shouldn't. I just heard Steve coughing. Poor thing. This really is a very lingering cold. Maybe I'll go see if he wants to listen to the audio book we're currently "reading."

I just think it's going to be a great summer! :)

happiness and over-harsh criticism

2010-05-28T10:57:00.023-05:00

I am happy to live in downtown Austin and near the hill country, where the night air smells as it should; happy to have sheer white curtains with knots at the bottoms like I saw everywhere in the apartment windows in Chicago, happy to be able to walk to the pharmacy and the post office, (happy to be able to walk, period!) and happy to have a husband so happy with his new job.

I am happy to clean my apartment, happy to correct people's grammar, happy to have time to practice. (But will I?)

I read this article in Smithsonian magazine (we have a gift subscription) last night. Its tone seems quite serious to me, but judging by the content, it is a feeble or perhaps too subtle an attempt at tongue-in-cheek. It cannot mean to be taken seriously. If so, it is an arrogant display of blatant ignorance of the purpose and tradition of stories and storytelling, whose author seems a product of some sad, sanitized, politically correct "utopia" where truth does not exist and morals are relative. If meant as satire, it fails rather miserably at being witty, funny or enlightening, as any good satire ought to be. If this is the best the magazine can do in the humor department, what is one to make of their supposedly serious articles? Just putting it out there...

Today I am going to clean, practice, hopefully manage to squeeze in my long overdue physical therapy exercises, and make a blueberry pie.

2010-04-06T17:53:00.004-05:00

I think I have not blogged in so long because living alone is mildly depressing to me. Steve's new job in Austin started just a few days after my last post, almost a month ago. We have seen each other at least every weekend since then, but adjusting has been harder than I ever thought it would be.

The depression is something of a shock, since being alone has never been hard for me. In fact, it used to be inspiring, liberating and all sorts of nice things, even since I was married. But living alone, I respond by being totally uninspired. Maybe it's because of my crutches, which make doing things sort of hard, but that just doesn't sound like it would matter to me if I had the inspiration and energy to make something happen. Anything. Piano, sorting out closets, studying German, shopping for wedding shoes, reading, anything.

I think I just need to adjust and then I'll be fine.

how dare you think I'm not busy?

2010-03-09T15:56:00.013-06:00

(Not you personally.)

I've been so sick these days that I have forgotten that what I have been waiting for has finally happened: it is now okay to publicly mention that we are moving to Austin! I am so excited I can't stand it! We have a little apartment down town that we will live in until we have had time to get to know the area and find a house.

Anyway, more later. I have been pondering why I should be so sick so often. I do not have children, a stressful job, or a stressful husband. Why am I all the time tired and worn out? It must be something I do to myself. Just an aimless pondering. Although if I could find out, I could fix things.

I rarely sit down. Well, not as much as I could. I even less often sleep late, even though I could almost every day. Once at a family gathering, I commented to a distant relative, " Oh, I would never have been able to be ready for this trip if we had tried to leave before 5 anyway." Or something to that effect. She seemed genuinely shocked when she relied, "Really? What were you busy with?"

What was I busy with? I was rather annoyed at her presuming that I have time on my hands. What am I ever not busy with?

But slowly it dawned on me that, to a sort of, well, for lack of a better word, outsider, my life looks as if it should not be busy at all.

I teach about 13 hours a week or so. A mere fraction of most peoples' work weeks. Add to that coming and going, and keeping the house spotless for the students who come here. Fine.

Dance classes 7 to 8 hours a week. That's by choice, and it only takes up 3 mornings. It's the
only work-out I have, besides the occasional hour on Saturday at the gym with Steve.

Practice? I practice rather inconsistently, several hours a week right now. So, not much.

All I have to worry about is our itty bitty condo and Steve, who is so low-maintenance. Indeed, what could I possibly be busy with?

Well, hmm... I do cook a lot for us, even though I don't have to. Steve is happy with sandwiches or whatever. I probably cook almost as much as I will when we have kids, because I am always making huge pots of something to put in the freezer or something I can pop in the oven the second I get home from teaching.

I do sit down and facebook, sometimes. Not even every day anymore. Probably more days than not, but not for hours on end. And I obviously don't blog terribly regularly.

I don't have any TV shows that I watch regularly. I never watch TV during the day, and only maybe in the evening with Steve. I do talk on the phone a lot to my mother, father, brothers and sisters. A lot. And a few friends I talk to now and then. And laundry and walking the dog and buying groceries. Thinking up, and then locating and buying, music for my students to play. Going places on the weekend to see family. I don't know. Studying my favorite languages semi-regularly. Going to lunch with a friend. Painting a piece of furniture. Reading the occasional book. It just seems that every day goes by and I hardly sit down during it, except to teach.

Of course, it's annoying that people assume otherwise, but I think they just project their un-busy lives on me.

if you're interested

2010-02-19T20:01:00.010-06:00

Some days are picture perfect, even if they're simple, or full of un-unique sorts of pleasures. Some days are especially perfect if you forget to mention that you spent part of them teaching.

Today, I wore my new boots, and a fun old ragged-edged striped skirt with a bustle. I wore my pink sunglasses. And, just as a side note, I am enjoying my last month as a redhead. That's another story.

After dinner at the mall with my mom and sister, I came home with a new black Kenneth Cole shirt ($22!), my tummy full of Chinese food, and my neck drenched in Parisian perfume. I didn't practice as much as I should have today, but I did go to an extra ballet class, and when I got home from the mall, I sat down at the piano and a beautiful, old standard sounding sort of imrpov came tumbling out. I felt sort of surrounded and inspired by the perfume, and the music just sort of went with that.

I am currently on the couch wearing socks, (very important) lovely soft jammies and dr. pepper chapstick. Drinking chamomile tea and eating some belated Valentine's chocolate from a student, watching the Olympics.

memoirs of a good day

2010-02-01T23:11:00.010-06:00

Today is a new month. I have a new grocery allowance, a new lease on catching up on my Bible study, and I have practiced a million times more than I had the beginning of last month. It was a happy day today. Here is what happened:

I went to the grocery store and got some awesome groceries that we really needed. Now we finally have CEREAL!!!

Our bed got clean sheets on it. (it's always good to have brand new clean sheets, especially when half the usual occupants of your bed are animals!)

Not that having animals is an excuse for changing the sheets, I mean, I would have done it anyway. Is this tmi? Okay, moving on...

I made a TON of rich, good chicken stock.

Well, not really a ton. More like a couple of gallons, actually.

I had tea and chocolate pound cake.

I changed my calendar in the piano room, and taught a little boy who is playing three actual classical pieces and nothing out of method books. Woohoo!! :)

I scrubbed and scrubbed my kitchen. See? Here is my cute little sink area in the process of being cleaned.

I made bread and creamy potato soup, and talked into the night with my husband about possibilities.

new trend/blogging habit

2010-02-01T09:45:00.003-06:00

I am suddenly posting a lot more on the fashion blog I have with my sister. :) It was a really dead blog for a really long time, and it's finally not, so go check it out!

Excuse me a moment.

2010-01-27T22:58:00.007-06:00

Sometimes, late at night, I just want to say things. I have specific things in my mind that I wish I could say, to people and also just to nobody. So I suppose I'll just say them now. Nobody listen, okay? And if you are listening, these phrases are not about you. Here goes:

1. Why do Dallas moms annoy me when I see that they are SO skinny and well-kept and worked out and made up? It's because it looks like they spend WAY more time on themselves than on anything else in their lives altogether, let alone their kids. But then, when I see obvious "home school" moms, I'm equally annoyed that they seem to think it's a deadly sin to spend any time on their appearances at all. And it's a deadly sin not to have '80s hair.

{Disclaimer: I mean to utterly ignore my audience (supposing I have one) in this post, but I must say that if you're a home school mom and you happen to be reading this, I'm sorry. You are present company, and you're excluded. I've seen all that I can see about what it takes without actually being the mom myself. I've seen my own mother for the past 30 years, 26 of which were spent (and are still being spent homeschooling. My mom is really strong, but I've seen the numerous nervous breakdowns of others who tried what she did. I've seen the denim jumpers, I've seen everything. I know, you don't have time for yourself. I admire you. I get it. I will probably be you someday. I just don't know why on earth so many women, these people with no time at all to claim for their own, can somehow still have '80s hair. I could show you pictures of them by the thousands. But there are nice, well-balanced, pretty moms who wear what they want and don't have cutting edge hair, and they are fine with me. Even pretty ones are fine, or stylish ones, I just, I don't know... there is just that certain kind in Dallas sometimes. Anyway, I'm rambling...}

2. Oh, but I'm supposed to be rambling tonight. Going from point to point, saying non-specific things that require explanation, and then not giving it. Saying things that require being backed up with facts, and then not giving any. Kind of like someone else did tonight. (Today is Wednesday, January 27th.)

3. I am sad because I might not get to go to this once in a lifetime bridal shower in March in San Antonio.

4. I do not require being made to feel better.

5. Oh, you wouldn't be interested, since it's about things you've never thought of and I'm sure you couldn't bear to have a new idea imposed upon your mind.

6. I am excited about life. Something big is about to happen I think... Perhaps it wont, but it might.

7. Why do so few people understand the grammatical structures of their native English? It's highly annoying. I passed a bookstore, a Christian bookstore, which had letters in the window that said, "Let your cup runneth over." Now, I am aware that the 23rd Psalm says, in the King James Version, "My cup runneth over." But if you want to let yours run over, it's a completely different matter, and there is no use for the '-eth' in that case. These days, the suffix '-eth' has been replaced by '-s' or '-es' depending on the word. So, if I said, "Let your cup run over," there would not be an 's' unless I made a mistake and said "Let your cup runs over," which would be ridiculous. I had this figured out before I could read, I'm sure. (I had heard the Psalms in the King James plenty of times by the time I was 7 which, yes, is how old I was when I could finally read.) You see, I've never been the brightest, but isn't this obvious? And I don't have much hope that anyone else understands it. I know my mother and siblings do, but I have tried to explain it to other people and they just stare at me blankly or with thinly veiled boredom. I have seen 'eth' misused hundreds of times, besides that instance. But aside from this problem, there are so many other more pressing and habitual misunderstandings of grammar that I am just no longer disposed to withhold internal judgments on the people who misunderstand. I'm sure they have had ample opportunity to learn.

One time, in a college English class, sentences were written up on the overhead so that we could practice finding and correcting the passive voice. One of the sentences, I quote verbatim, because I have never forgotten, said, "To error is human, to forgive is divine." When my turn came to speak up, I tried to point out that 'error' is a noun, and the verb is 'to err.' Nobody understood or would listen any further, not even the teacher. (I don't think she deserves to be called Professor.) Yes, of course that is mean of me. She was probably so wrapped up in wanting us to understand the passive voice that she thought I was just misunderstanding and not finding it, and missed the point entirely. I hope. But I thought I explained it pretty clearly.

8. Speaking of thinly veiled boredom, I am writing a random story, to post soon. I was inspired by some pictures in Vogue a few months ago.

9. This keyboard on my shiny new black computer feels good to type on.

P.S.

2010-01-27T21:27:00.002-06:00

There is finally a new post on the beauty blog today. Go check it out! :)

101st post

2010-01-27T20:55:00.005-06:00

My Love was my 100th post! Isn't that sort of fun?

I just wanted to post something using my brand new laptop that he got me today. My little old mac was so bad, I had to be in one small square inch of our living room floor to get internet at all, and even then it was really slow and would sometimes drop for no reason.

So, I can now blog from any room in the house, or sit on the couch at any angle, facing any direction and still be online! I am really excited. So happy and un-frustrated. I did not know how much it bothered me to have a terrible computer until I got a lovely, wonderful one.

my Love

2010-01-23T15:30:00.026-06:00

My husband is so tall and handsome and wonderful.

I loved marrying him.

He is very manly and I love how he always mostly wears boots.

See the boots?

He puts up with me patiently, even in the car.

He LOVES his doggie. :) It makes me really happy to see them together.

I have always thought that he has a quite perfect nose,

and his smile makes me really, really happy.

Every single time I see it.

He is always so kind to me, and extraordinarily patient. He is even willing to do impractical things that I love, like camping,

or going to tea places and things like that.

He loves me so much, and being his wife makes me happier than I ever thought someone could be.

sin and bad storytelling

2010-01-17T14:11:00.002-06:00

I wanted to share this post my brother recently sent to me and my sisters. Its message was simple but very important to my life. Especially the part about telling ourselves scary stories. I'm guilty of that. Anyway, I like that blog and I will be looking at it more often now that I've been reminded of it.

Platitudes and Tolerance

2010-01-11T09:11:00.022-06:00

After writing this post, the thought crossed my mind that I could have titled it "Zero Tolerance for Platitudes," but that it would have been far too cheesy. But I still had to share it with you. Sorry.

Platitude. An ugly word with an ugly meaning, I've always thought. I recently saw the word platitude defined as follows:

a trite, meaningless, biased, or prosaic statement that is presented as if it were significant and original.

Webster's dictionary defines it this way:

1 : the quality or state of being dull or insipid
2 : a banal, trite or stale remark

These definitions make sense to me, as I've always heard the word used in a negative light. But the other day I heard someone use it in a positive way. Quoting a statement that was un-insipid, relevant and quite true, the person then happily called it a platitude, almost as if to give the quote a compliment. Maybe they meant to say homily, which was much more what the statement was, I thought.

Anyway, in church yesterday, our pastor was talking about how important it is for Christians not to get sucked into the mentality that Christianity is fine for us at home, and fine for Sunday, but we need to leave it in it's place, and not take it into real life with us, to school, to the office, etc. To not get stuck saying, well, this is what I believe, but it may not be true for you. The truth is, our pastor said, Christianity is true for everyone, whether they know it or not, as difficult as that is to swallow in the "tolerant" world we live in. I agree with this statement, but it sounds so outrageous to our habitually, or should I say blindly tolerant culture.

I think tolerance is the new "morality" in the vacuum left now that truth has been declared nonexistent. There is so much talk of problems like racism and bigotry in our culture. Since absolute truth doesn't exist, there is no moral standard to tell me, "Every human being was created by God in His own image and therefore has dignity and value, so I should treat them as I would want them to treat me." No, if absolute truth does not exist, then the other person is a pile of atoms and cells just as I am, so if I don't like them, who says I have to? Tolerance does. Tolerance is the new god. In the absence of truth, and hence a moral code, society has to force people to act on the Golden Rule while telling them it doesn't exist. Because if it existed, that might offend somebody.

Of course as a Christian, I don't advocate being ugly to people, regardless of race, class, lifestyle or what have you, but I cannot say that I value anyone simply because I am a nice person, or because I am "tolerant." I value all people ultimately because God does, and He commands me to as well.

Sadly, most churches in America sheepishly give people options, to be believed if one feels comfortable believing, rather than the Truth, to avoid being considered "intolerant." I think that is why the church has become so irrelevant in the culture. The American church in general has made itself trite, insipid and banal. A platitude.

(this post seems a little rough. I am trying to put my thoughts together more coherently, but for now, I am just posting it anyway.)

It's only the 9th...

2010-01-09T12:42:00.007-06:00

New Year's resolutions are restrictive and harmful to my creativity. Let me explain:

Resolutions are so cumbersome to me. They ruin my life and I never accomplish them. For instance, I am not one of those magical people who always fits into their jeans or who never thinks their face is fat. But if I ever promise to go on a diet, I wake up thinking, What can I eat? When can I eat? When and what can I eat after that? It works better just to think, okay, I'll just eat a tiny bit less of everything and that does the trick for me. Well, the same thing happens with resolutions. I wake up thinking, I know I said I would, but I'll do it tomorrow, or How long can I go without doing it? and then live the rest of the year with the discouraging knowledge that I didn't do it.

So, since there are things I would like to change about myself and the way I live, and since New Year's is sort of a good time for new beginnings, I decided that I will just do whatever I want all the time without over-thinking it and making it a big deal. I did not select anything specific to change, but only made that one decision. How is it going?

So far, I have...

~kept a cleaner house

~read a lot more than usual

~put things away when I didn't feel like it but wanted them put away

~eaten more chocolate (I am eating a Cadbury Cream Egg this minute! Yes, they are already out on the check-out stands at our Kroger)

~completely stopped stressing about when to dye my roots again

~been more organized with my time

~eaten more pasta

~never missed a day of Bible study (it's only the 9th, I know.)

~felt excessively grateful at my current ability (and it's been a long time!) to see my collar bones in the mirror (under the skin, of course)

~bought a year's worth of awesome skincare (for way cheaper on ebay) and the first matching set of bra and panties I've had since I was 14

~given in and corrected peoples' spelling errors on facebook (I've said before, grammar I don't care about--facebook itself is nothing but a blight on the world of grammar it seems, and typos are understandable, but out-and-out misspellings are not. If people don't like it, they shouldn't misspell things.)

~probably pleased my general acquaintance far less than usual by not fretfully considering their opinions in anything I've done.

It's been great!!!

I just thought this was funny

2009-12-14T14:18:00.002-06:00

It's just from facebook, but I liked it. :)

themes of the year, and I am vindictively happy about the cold

2009-12-13T22:44:00.008-06:00

(Maybe vindictive isn't the right word, but I love it. It is what I feel when, as in most winters, we are cheated out of any cold weather whatsoever and "winter" is an elusive treat that ends up skipping us until next year, when we will wait in vain for it again.) I want more than a tiny, token "break" from summer, I want winter!!!

I am cozy on the couch drinking grapefruit juice and eating cheese toast, with way too much caramel popcorn in my tunny and football on tv. It's a good place to be.

My students just had their recital tonight. They really pulled it together at the last minute--after the rehearsal, the recital usually feels like a Christmas miracle. It was stunning and I actually thought, "Did I teach them all to play like this?!" and almost cried. (This happens to me these days, now that many of my kids are out of methods almost completely...)

And they all gave me presents at the end. There was a Starbucks gift card, a really yummy little loaf of spice bread with chocolate chips in it, awesome tea from Israel, two lovely candles, a picture album, caramel popcorn, and Sarah Palin's book.

It has been a good winter so far, quite cold and gratifyingly cloudy, so I am mostly satisfied that seasonal weather has not been completely elusive. We have Christmas lights on our outside banister, and the inside of our house is all decorated too, and cozy, and I have somehow had time to watch a lot of football and cook dinners. I am a little bit skinnier than normal, due to a bunch of dancing and then 8 days of being in bed with strep, and then more dancing. It's true that nothing tastes as good as being skinny. (If you're really that vain, which I am.) Anyway, tasting stuff isn't usually what makes you fat, it's eating a lot of it, so I guess you can have your tasting and be skinny too.

Since the year is about to end, and I am leaving my quiet a home a week from tomorrow and not coming back until January, this might be my last chance to reflect at the same time as having internet. I've been reflecting already, if you didn't notice. This year I learned that not trying to please Everyone is so worth Everyone's displeasure. I have even learned to take the displeasure as something positive for me, since it is a sharp reminder that I am no longer expending the energy to please, and am therefore happier and healthier anyway.

This year also seemed to revolve around evangelism for me, too. Sermons about it, opportunities with it, things jumping out of the Bible, stories from friends about it, all that sort of thing. Not really an odd thing to pair with not pleasing everyone, when you think about it. And it's funny, because last year was focused around obedience. I guess personal obedience has to come before you can share your faith. It couldn't be the other way around. Not that I'm all obedient now, but I'm more on the way than I was...

I don't choose these focuses, but when I look back on a year, I see the theme. So I wonder what next year's will be. I am starting to think maybe it will have to do with being kind. Impossible to be sure, but I have just been thinking a lot more about kindness recently. I just want to be as kind to Steve as he is to me so he can see how it feels.

I just want to...

2009-11-05T12:56:00.012-06:00

I want to make this tea cozy, only bigger for my big teapot:

I want to have a birthday party that looks like this:

I want to have these mushrooms in my patio garden.

I want to make these gloves. AND wear them.

I want to eat these:

I want to wear this: Tights with tall socks, with heels and some cozy sweaters and a scarf.

And I want to have these goats for pets, like she does. :)

glamour goat

2009-10-26T10:19:00.003-05:00

This picture and its caption totally made my day. I LOVE goats!!! I can take or leave Madonna, but I am SO HAPPY to live in a world that has goats!

"Madonna totally looks like this little goat."

a quote for today

2009-10-22T12:31:00.007-05:00

"I am sick and tired of people saying that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, you are unpatriotic...We should stand up and say, 'We are Americans, and we have a right to debate and disagree with ANY administration!'"

~As shrieked by Hillary Clinton to attendees of the 2003 Jefferson Jackson Bailey dinner in Connecticut

Can I just add to that, KEEP IT UP RUSH LIMBAUGH AND FOX NEWS!!!! (and the rest of you!)

Is it just not obvious to most Americans that Obama's attack on people/organizations who do not agree with him is utterly outrageous and un-American and scary? I don't care if you love or hate where Obama is taking our country, this situation is showing his true colors and they are frightfully anti-free-anything. (except health care, it appears. We'll see how that goes.)

Having said that, I feel better and will now continue recovering from three hours of dance class. Thank you for your time.

Cat

2009-10-18T15:09:00.013-05:00

from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and other verses from The Red Book
by J. R. R. Tolkien

The fat cat on the mat

may seem to dream
of nice mice that suffice
for him, or cream;

but he free, maybe,
walks in thought
unbowed, proud, where loud
roared and fought
his kin, lean and slim,
or deep in den
in the East feasted on beasts
or tender men.

The giant lion with iron
claw in paw,

and huge, ruthless tooth
in gory jaw;

the pard, dark-starred,
fleet upon feet,
that oft soft from aloft
leaps upon his meat
where woods loom in gloom--
far now they be,
fierce and free,
and tamed is he;
but fat cat on the mat,
kept as a pet,
he does not forget.

~pictures by Steve and The Kince~

sister & brother

2009-10-03T10:02:00.006-05:00

Waiting for Steve to wake up and hang out this morning, I was wandering around facebook (in between videoing Steve snoring) and I found this picture of Micheal and Kathleen.

I love it because I miss them (and all my family--don't worry, I will eventually stumble across pictures and stories about all of y'all!) and it reminds me of when they were little, because they were always together then. As little bitty kids, they'd wake each other up so early almost every day, and go outside as if there were going to be a meteor shower or a rainbow or, I don't know, something they couldn't possibly miss, out in our yard. I'm sure they could tell me what was really going on, and what they were playing, all I know is that I was awakened so many mornings by their tiptoeing and whispering in the grass outside my screened-in bedroom.

And now they're almost completely grown-up.

2009-10-01T13:17:00.002-05:00

And now, a very sensible opinion from Coco Chanel:

I don't understand how a woman can leave the house without fixing herself up a little - if only out of politeness. And then, you never know, maybe that's the day she has a date with destiny. And it's best to be as pretty as possible for destiny.

My sentiments exactly, though as usual, in fewer words. Thanks, Stacy!

narcissism (is fun!)

2009-09-27T18:14:00.011-05:00

This is me with my new red hair! It's even brighter in person, and most people who have "noticed" it (a couple of students and the lady at the music store) have made funny generic comments like this, "Well, looks like you're ready for fall!" Or "Wow! That must open up a whole new color palette for you to wear." (huh? If anything, I can't quite wear red and orange as well as I used to...) Like they think it's horrible, and don't want to actually say so, but don't want to lie either and say it looks good. I really like it!

In person it looks kind of like this, but a little redder.

It took two boxes of hair dye! And then my sweet Steve brought me flowers to match:

about delight & peacefulness

2009-09-25T10:56:00.004-05:00

My dear lamb, Delight, in his picture on my desktop, reminds me that I am a sheep and that I have a good Shepherd.

Such a good Shepherd, who even cares about the details of my life, who gives love and mercy and not what I deserve. It is nice and relaxing to think about, because if you have a shepherd, then all you have to do is follow. You don't have to worry about tomorrow, or yesterday.

"Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need. "

~Psalm 23:1 (The Living Bible)

Heaven?

2009-09-23T10:03:00.006-05:00

Heaven isn't somewhere else. I've been thinking about it. Lately I have been reading the Bible in search of what Heaven will be like. Not reading anywhere specific, just watching for glimpses. I tried to explain my idea of Heaven to someone recently and was asked what I was smoking. But really, I don't think that Heaven is somewhere else. I think Heaven is the Earth, when Christ comes back to take eternal possession of what is already His. When the kingdom of God comes, like it says in Revelation, when the new Jerusalem comes. When the knowledge of the Lord has covered the earth as waters cover the sea.

If we die before this happens, we go to be with the Lord, but is that really a place? Well, He says He is preparing a place for us, (John 14:2) but it seems like the Bible talks more about that place coming to us than us going to it. Sometimes, it even talks about God coming to live with us, and not the other way around. "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man." (From Rev. 21:3)

I don't know all the whens and whys, but I do know that Heaven, as we tend to think of it, a quiet, otherworldly place with angels and harps, is never described in Scripture at all. I wonder why that is the traditional view. Where on earth (hah! no pun intended) did that come from? What is described in the Bible is the new Jerusalem, (Revelation 21:10, Micah 4:1-4) the new heaven and the new earth, (Rev. 21:1-2) God's kingdom, and what that will be like. (Isaiah 11:6-9)

As Christians, we can tell that we already live in a picture and a shadow of what the new heaven and new earth will be like. Because when we see the earth--the trees, the grass, the animals, the people, the moon and stars, any beauty at all, any harmony, any glory---we are seeing a tiny bit of what God intended and intends His world to be. C. S. Lewis puts it far more articulately:

The faint, far-off results of those energies which God's creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what now we call physical pleasures; and even thus filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be to taste at the fountainhead that stream of which these lower reaches prove so intoxicating?

~The Weight of Glory

I cannot pretend to know what it will be like, but sometimes it strikes me: What if it really is the same, only without all the effects of sin? If God's kingdom comes here to earth, will the same trees and seas and mountains be here, only glorified as they were meant to be? And then what about Paris and London, and all the wonderful cathedrals? But those are man's creation. But if the earth is redeemed, well, I just don't know. But it is so thrilling to look forward to it--the earth being more of the real thing than it is now, like C.S. Lewis said at the end of The Last Battle:

Lucy looked hard at the garden and saw that it was not really a garden at all, but a whole world with its own rivers and woods and sea and mountains. But they were not strange: she knew them all. "I see, she said. "This is still Narnia, and, more real and more beautiful..."

It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia, as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste. Perhaps you will get some idea of it, if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley... And on the wall of that room opposite the window there may have been a looking glass. As you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different--deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more.

And finally, my favorite thought about the reality of Heaven, because I really believe that in writing this one line, said by Aslan to Lucy, Lewis captured what this life will mean when we first step into the next one:

"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."

1. the letter to the church in Ephesus

2009-09-18T08:54:00.016-05:00

I have always had a fascination with the letters to the churches in Revelations, so in my own study of the book, I decided to start with those.

Before Jesus dictates to John the seven letters to the seven churches, we get a physical description of Jesus as he appeared. The beginning of each letter includes one or two aspects from this description, each has something different. I am not sure if I will find out why here and now, but I am just going to focus on each letter and see what I learn in general. Any insights are welcome.

The first letter (chapter 2, verses 1 through 7), to the church in Ephesus, is from "him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, and walks among the seven golden lampstands." Earlier, Jesus explains to John that those stars symbolize the angels of the seven churches, and that the lampstands symbolize the churches themselves. That is the picture in our minds as we read the letter:

I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and have found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But this I have against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. To one who conquers I will grant to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

After reading through the letter the first time, I found it surprising that Jesus had a problem with that church, because they seem so exemplary. Much better than I am. They "have not grown weary." I grow weary all the time and just quit; weary of having faith, weary of praying, weary of reading the Word. Weary of the most basic things, in the easiest of times. I did not go back and research the cultural background of Ephesus at that time, but I'm pretty sure that just being alive then and there, not to mention being a Christian, was way more difficult than it is here and now. So anyway, that's the example I found for my life from this church. I really was convicted about the flabbiness of my faith and my walk.

Next, the rebuke Jesus had for them. They had left their first love, the love they had for God when they first became Christians, I think. And what to do about it? First, it says remember it (the first love) and second, to repent and do what they did before, when their love was still on fire.

Do? But they seemed to be doing all the right things already. And then this passage came to my mind:

If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. I Corinthians 13: 1-3

So, Jesus wanted them to go back to the love they had for him in the beginning, because loving the Lord is what makes our obedience real. (If you love me, you will keep my commandments. John 14:15) So, loving is obeying. Obeying is loving. But what is love? Then it hit me:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. I Corinthians 13:4-7

I know this passage is in the context of how people should love one another, but if this is God's definition of love, it makes sense that we must also love Him this way! Not that God is human, that he sins and lets us down, or that we would have to be patient with him, and bear with him, and things like that. But when you think about it, we are often impatient with God. We are resentful and arrogant: unwilling to endure, unwilling to believe all things, and bear all things, even unwilling to hope and rejoice with the truth! The letter to the church in Ephesus helped me to see this, and I am so excited because it is a new thought for me--a new perspective on what really loving God is.

I learned from this first letter that I need to have some grit in my spiritual walk and not just give up every time I am tired. I also got that new picture of what loving God looks like.

I still do not quite see why that particular picture of Jesus was given to us at the beginning of the letter, but I still really hope to learn the significance of that someday.

Revelation

2009-09-18T08:42:00.003-05:00

Beth Moore, who has been a particular blessing in my sister-in-law's life, is teaching through the book of Revelation for the next few weeks. Knowing how dear Revelation is to me, this sister invited me to do the study long-distance with her. Two things have happened with that:

We discovered that there was no workbook for the series, so I would not really have a resource to participate in the study. I was really disappointed but decided to see what I could learn from sort of making "workbook" on my own, by studying deeply and asking questions, instead of just reading. I got really excited about that project and started right away.

Then my SIL has started scanning in the worksheets that she gets from the Beth Moore study, so I actually can participate after all!

So now I am doing the Beth Moore study and my own study, and I have decided to blog about the results.

just a word

2009-09-17T14:27:00.007-05:00

grit :

firmness of mind or spirit : unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger

How 'bout it, America? What ever happened to such a vital part of our collective national spirit?

Many people these days believe they are entitled to EVERYTHING, except to give life a good try with their own gumption, creativity and yes, grit. The people who once formed this country and it's government had little else.