my Love

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

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

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...

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

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

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

(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...

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. :)