Søren Kierkegaard

It is only in love that the unequal can be made equal.

:: Jet Lag ::

It's like a punch in the face.
Everyday.
For a week.

The end.

Musings from the Emerald Isle

After a very stressful week of having essentially no internet connection*, I find myself happily situated in my old friend Ro's tech-friendly home. 

(Thank You, Lord, for internet. I had no idea how web-dependent I'd become.  I feel almost as if food and water had been restored to me after a long fast.)  

I am in Ireland.  

The country of my mom's family origin.  

The obsession of my youth.  

A long-held dream is being fulfilled in this trip. You only have to look at my bookshelves to understand how deeply I've longed to see this place; with titles like McCullough's Wars of the Irish Kings or the more well-known Irisih Fairy and Folk Tales from the incomprable Yeats, the Rachel-brain of my early adulthood was fed on the history and lore of Ireland. I lived my Irish ancestory for about three years.

Though I've become more pragmatic in my 30s than I was a decade ago, I still allowed myself to go there emotionally on the ferry over from Holyhead. I just thought...just felt...what was it like for my ancestors 150 years ago?  The boldness of leaving your homeland for a country across the sea was no small thing back in those days.  Did they leave because of English oppression?  Did they leave because of one of the potato famines?  Did they leave to be near friends and family who had already left because of famine or oppression?  I imagined some great-great-grandmother finding her sea-legs on the deck of a wooden vessel, gettting salt-whipped from the ocean as she leaned over the side of the boat railing to look at the wake left by this monstrous ship carrying her away from her homeland.  Was she poor?  Was she more excited than sad? More scared than excited?  I tried to enter into her emotion, succeeding only for brief half-seconds -- those snatches of time inbetween the snapping of photos and the curling of excited toes.  I was on the Irish Sea, after all. I couldn't allow myself too much nostalgia or I'd miss my own 21st century experiences.

Aside from reincarnating my great-great-grandmother's journey (albeit, on a different body of water), I very much wanted to throw myself into the sea -- to give myself up to the waves and mingle with the history of my people.  (In the end I didn't take the plunge; perhaps what stopped me was not wanting to ruin my smart phone, but we'll never really know.)  I also allowed myself to believe in mermaids during my three hour tour, because surely if they exist anywhere it'll be off the coast of Ireland?

After safely landing and waiting ages for my luggage (and supressing the very great urge to scream "I'M IN IRELAND!!!!!  WOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"), I finally made it outside to Ronan.  How very dear to see him!  He was one of my dorm mates in France, which is how I know him, and until yesterday I hadn't seen him in nearly a decade.  When we were "at Uni" he used to come into my room at all hours of the night to argue philosophy -- hours in which I sorely wanted to sleep but hadn't the heart to kick him out. I love his house, I love his wife, I love his dogs, and I am loving being here.  Tonight we're running off to go see a more picturesque part of Ireland.  Photographic evidence of this journey will be forthcoming upon my return to my native land, but for now, I wish you all well and hope your week is turning out as fabulously as mine.

*My friends in England turn their internet off and unplug it! during the day.  They only turn it on for about 20 minutes to read and return emails right before they go to bed.  It's...killing...me...

Priority #1 for the next two weeks:

Image from SimonFree.com

That bit about never forgetting...

Yesterday I rolled out of bed, threw clothes on, spent 8 hours standing in front of a saw wondering the whole time if we'd bombed Syria, had lunch in the car, rolled home, showered, threw clothes on, went to school, got home an hour past my bedtime, and, finally, went to bed. 

The one time I wasn't "doing" but was simply "being" was when I decided to have dinner at my favorite little Vietnamese bistro by school.   I was noshing on my vermicelli with tuong ot toi when all of a sudden "Shotgun Tom" Kellyyyyyyyy's voice came over the radio and said, "September 11th.  Twelve years.  We will never forget."

Um...in the words of Tonto: "Whaddya mean we, white man?"  (I'm a bad patriot.)

I want to see beautiful things.

I'm bored with city life. I want to smell the Redwoods or dip my feet in a mountain stream or be able to see the stars. I need a serious camping trip. Like, the backpack your food in and sleep in the open air type of camping trip.

Never gets old...

C.S. Lewis

In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles [Williams] is dead, I shall never again see Ronald [Tolkien’s] reaction to a specifically Charles joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him 'to myself' now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald.

Adventure Time

I found out yesterday that my good friend Rachel doesn't like adventuring.  This was a huge shocker, because we've known each other quite a long time and we are greatly alike in many other respects. So I assumed she was like me.  I love adventuring.  If I've gone six months without travel I begin getting depressed.  (I also rearrange my furniture on a regular basis.  Essentially, I thrive on change.)

The last few years have been quiet for me because of being sick and living at home and having surgery.  My passport also expired within that time frame, so I haven't traveled internationally since 2009, and that was just to Canada.   BUT, two weeks from today I get to fly off to the UK for my best British friend's wedding. I will also be visiting one of my ancestral homes, Ireland, for a week. :D :D :D

:D

I am euphoric. 

Barbara's take on Julian of Norwich

"All will be well and all will be well and I ain't be trippin'."

Hidden Community

Until I decided to have surgery most of my friends didn't know I was sick, and it's only been a year and a half since I began openly talking about endometriosis. What I've discovered is that I'm part of this hidden community: the community of those who have suffered. To one who has known pain, it is restful to be with someone who can look you in the face and say, "I get it." It is restful to know you're not gonna hear, "But you don't look sick!" or any of the other well-meaning-but-misguided maxims people throw around (humans don't know what to do with brokenness). I don't ever want to be in pain like I that again, but I'm really grateful to be a source of comfort and rest to others who have or still are suffering. I saw he relief on another face today as I spoke with a man about what it's like to be in so much physical torment that you don't understand how you're still alive. "You understand," he said.

Yes, sir. Yes sir, I do.

Art for now

I wanted to post yesterday about the 50th anniversary of MLK's "I Had a Dream" speech, but I never got to it. Maybe I will in the next few weeks.  There's lots I have to say about race, but this week I'm simply too busy to write anything meaningful.  So I will direct you instead to you my favorite artist:

Marcia Furman

If you read this blog regularly (i.e. we're friends in real life) there's a strong possibility you've already heard of Ms. Furman because of me. :)  This woman paints what I would paint if I could paint, which is why I love her. Here's my current fave: 

"Doubts - they get the best of me" by Marcia Furman

If you like her style you can buy cool things at her Etsy and Zazzle shops.  (Also a good place to go if you're dying to buy me a present but have no idea what to get...)

Restoring Childhood

Come All You Weary

(Also, I've decided I'm going to learn the drums someday. [Magical Someday.])

::Goal::

That,
when my feet hurt from work
and I have homework
and housework,
I would be
as patient
and kind
and smiley
and invested
with the 6-year-old
as I am with
the grocery store clerk
or my best friend on the phone.

This is adulthood; this is growth; this is my goal.

At the Back of the North Wind

"Well we won't dispute about it," said Nanny: "you've got a tile loose, you know."
"Suppose I have," returned Diamond, " don't you see it may let in the moonlight, or the sunlight for that matter?"
"Perhaps yes, perhaps no," said Nanny.
"And you've got your dreams, too, Nanny."
"Yes, but I know they're dreams."
 "So do I.  But I know besides they are something more as well."

First Day, First Grade

I know she's nervous when she has a meltdown simply because I ask her to throw away her trash from breakfast.

I'm nervous too.
I want her to have a good teacher,
and not that curmudgeon from her summer class who didn't even like children.
I hope she makes a good friend -
just one good friend -
who fights by her side,
unlike that little blonde brat from kindergarten who treated her like a pariah
(don't let people treat you like that, sweet girl!  They're not worth your time).

People are mean.  I want to protect my sweet babies from mean people.  I want to keep them from my childhood heartaches.  First day, first grade, is hard on me too.

Favorite Smells

Summer camp
and Aunt Carol's house
and the shampoo I used when I lived in France.

One Thing Remains

One Year Anniversary

One year ago today, about this time, I was going under anesthesia.  I was shaking-nervous and my pre-op nurse who was as old as the hills (or older) didn't make matters any better; her eyesight was so bad she pulled out a magnifying glass to fill out my paperwork, then immediately afterward put the magnifying glass down and was like, "Now let's start your IV!"  After getting horribly bruised I requested she find someone else to to do it.  Then she gave me narcotics after I told her they do bad things to me, and I thought I was going to die before I even got to the operating table.  Then she used latex even after I told her I was allergic...

But enough amusing tangent.  This post isn't about Nurse Ratched.  This post is about a year.  A year of being pain-free. I called Bekah this morning to thank her for doing my fundraiser, then unexpectedly began crying on the phone.  (How can I ever thank her enough for doing that?) When I think about the decade and a half leading up to surgery...when I think of all the pain I pushed through, sometimes ignoring, sometimes trying to fix...when I think of the despair I warded off for 10 years that finally caught up with me in 2011...when I think of all these things, I don't know how I ever got through my 20s.  I actually broke down crying really bad yesterday thinking about it; God, I never want to go back to that place.  I don't know how I did it; I could never do it again.  I am so terribly, terribly grateful not to be sick like that anymore.  The annoying little maintenances, like not eating gluten or like going to PT, are small potatoes compared with the pain and dread and hopelessness I suffered (and tried to ignore) for so long.

I've been realizing something else this summer: I no longer know myself.  I think I mentioned in a recent post that my mood is far more stable than it ever was. This is because my hormones are balanced since I no longer have a thousand little estrogen-makers living on a diseased colon. I don't freak out about things like I once did, I don't get angry as quickly, and I'm (generally) in a happy mood.  I think...all that energy I used controlling my moods and reactions - what can I do with that now?  I want to grow into this healthier me; I want to live well and do things well and feel things well. There are differences in my life that some would consider minute which are, in fact, huge.  Like, I can go months without journaling; I used to not be able to go half a week without it.   It may not seem like much to a non-journaler, but that's how I used to process my life.  I...I don't know, I somehow don't seem to need it anymore.  Who is this new me?  How do I interact with myself?  How do I interact with God?  With others?  With my family?  I don't know yet.  With only a year in this new body, I haven't had time to figure it out.

Yet I press on, full of gratefulness to God, my doctor, and everyone who helped me through surgery via prayers, money, and emotional support.  It has been a good year.  I look forward to the years to come.

------

I got this tiny little potted rosebush a year ago today:

She is now over three feet tall!

There's a time and a place to die, but this ain't it.

Hilarity

Sister to 6-year-old niece: Get used to disappointment.
Niece: Aunty Rachel's used to disappointment.

And We Change (part deux)

Makeup came up in convo today.  If you've known me for any length of time you know I don't like makeup because I feel it's just one more way for women to look at themselves every morning and say, "I'm not good enough, so I'm gonna hide mysefl."

(I know, I know, makeup can be fun, blah, blah, yeah.  I know.)

Anyway.  I used to be so vehement about this.  I mean, I would get really bothered by people depending on their makeup.  It wasn't just, "I don't wear it because I don't feel I need to change myself to fit into some unattainable standard of beauty," it was, "I don't wear it because of reasons stated above, AND YOU SHOULDN'T WEAR IT EITHER!  LET'S BURN OUR BRAS!  LET'S MARCH ON D.C.! WOMEN, UNITE!"

Despite my former extremism, today as I sat with a group of people I've only known for six weeks the topic of makeup came up and I realized three things:

1. I still don't wear makeup and still for the same reasons, but I'm now largely ambivalent about it. 
2. I haven't talked about this in probably three years.
3. I didn't want to talk about it today. 

How ashamed 21-year-old Rachel would be of 31-year-old Rachel!  I can hear what she would say: Don't you have any convictions, you washed up old sell-out?? Then she would proceed to present her argument on women's rights and equality and objectification and hound me until I conceded.

Wow.

I'm so glad to be old.  But more than that, I'm glad to be healthy.  I think I posted this somewhere (though I took a lot of my endo posts down when I was job hunting): surgery did wonders for my hormones. All those little pinprick points of endometriosis were creating excess estrogen in my body, which made my emotional state extreme every single day of my life.  Post-surgery when I had my first period I also had my first PMS.  I'd never had PMS before; everyday had been PMS before surgery.  My whole like - my whole life - my emotions were strong and tended predominantly toward the negative.  In hindsight, I think I was depressed for the entire decade of my 20s.  Life was extreme and induced extreme reactions.  Nothing was "meh"; everything - including something as minor as makeup - needed a stance, an opinion, an argument, a thesis, a campaign.

Thank You, Lord, those days are behind me.  No wonder I'm exhausted. 

Friendship!

It's so great, guys.
The investment of years is worth it.
The good times.
The bad times.
The times you wonder, "Why are we friends?"
Yeah. 
Life is good.
Make friends. Keep them. Stick with it. It just gets more beautiful.

Sometimes

you want something for a very long time.
Like, say, for 22 years.
And you don't get it.
And after 22 years, you begin to wonder if you still want it.
Are you weary from the waiting?
Have you given up?
Or have you just changed?
Maybe if you're given a chance to get it, you'll figure it out. 

Using the Good Stickers

When I was a child, I didn't use the good stickers.
Those heart ones, with the glitter --
yeah --
those stayed in my sticker box.
My sisters didn't use their good stickers either.
Instead, we would hoard them up like little misers until someone suggested we trade.

Trading stickers.  Yes.  The best part of my childhood.

One by one the stickers would be pulled from their boxes and lined up facing the potential buyer.
Two unicorns for the big, shiny heart...
Three little Lisa Franks for that one big Lisa Frank...
(How Lisa broke our hearts with every spotted puppy and rainbow unicorn!)
The trading would get fast and furious, with Bekah (the sweetest of we six) always the wiliest, most heartless trader on the floor.  Somehow she managed to secure all our most coveted stickers while keeping her own.  (Oh, Bekah, you always did get what you wanted.)

But like I said, despite the frenzy of our own little Wall Street, when the floor was closed for the day we didn't use our stickers.  They were our treasures, more rare than black opals.  On special occasions, like when sending a gift to my penpal in Georgia, I would use one of the Good Ones; this always meant you were a dearly loved piece of my life, because with the sticker went at least one-sixteenth of my heart.  So rare was my sticker usage that up until college I had a sticker box with a decade's worth of "the good ones" squirreled away.

My niece isn't like me.  She's an only child, so she doesn't have to share every little piece of everything that comes into her life.

She uses her good stickers as soon as she gets them. (And the 10-year-old inside me dies a little each time she sees the paper peeling off its backing. Don't use the good ones! she screams.)

And We Change

I wore a strapless dress today.
My 16-year-old, baggy-shirt-wearing self would not approve.

The Cabin in the Woods

One day,
I was talking to my baby sister who,
like me,
is an introvert.
And I said, "Sometimes, when I'm so tired of people I can't stand it anymore,
I mentally go to this cabin in the woods--"
and before I was finished she screamed out,
"I HAVE A CABIN, TOO!"

My sister just got a job as the relationship manager of her IT department.

Also, she's ginger. The jokes are endless.

Homeopathic ER

Uncovered

From a very young age I learned the importance of knowledge; mainly because I discovered that when you couldn't verbalize an experience or emotion, the world punished you.  It was your sister who started it, but you who got the spanking; there was a real sorrow in your heart or pain in your body, but you were told to go to your room and cry because the adults around you didn't want to hear about it.  I hated childhood, because it was so isolating; I would never go back.  The world does not bend to understand the heart of a child, it works instead to bend the heart of her or him.

So, I learned to read when I was three years old and by age eight was reading everything I could get my hands on, including my mother's 20-year collection of Reader's Digest.  I didn't know what sex was, but I was reading about kidnapping and rape when I ought to have been reading about Barbar the Elephant and Ramona Quimby, Age 8.

Thus it began: my life-long project of grabbing Knowledge and wrapping it around me as a cloak against the winds and the rain of the angry world.  In adulthood I have pursued subjects at which I excel, in which I can own my coveted Knowledge.  I write, because I read, and I understand the written word. I am a linguist, because I understand people's hearts and can wrap my own heart around their burning need to communicate, to be heard.  I travel, because it gives me Knowledge of the world and its people, which in turn makes me a better linguist, which in turn makes me a better writer.  I have jumped off cliffs and lived in boldness in so many ways, but always in ways that produced more Knowledge, without too much pain to myself.

And now I am 31, needing a more steady income than being able to pick out an accent in a crowd can give me.  So I am back in school to become a sonographer.  Great income, get to work with people (which I'm relatively good at), and have travel/ministry opportunities.  It's a good path for me.

But.

The program requires physics, and physics requires algebra, and I haven't taken algebra in 10 years.  Not only that, after I finished algebra at the age of 21, I turned and started running away from it as fast as I possibly could, because I didn't understand it and couldn't (quickly) excel. In short, it was too painful.

So this summer as I study physics, my cloak of The Right Answer which has protected me for so many years has been stripped from my shoulders, and I am found beneath it to be naked and three-years-old, shivering and crying.

Malala Yousafzai

"We realize the importance of our voice when we are silenced"

And this is why I told someone the other day that one of my best friends lives in Jersey.

(I'm @GracefulEwe.)

I always knew I liked Dustin.

James Patterson

"I'm comfortable in my own skin, but I'm certainly not impressed with myself."

Lover Of The Light

My favorite part is when he's picking out the tie. So simply elegant.
Also: Mumford (+) lyrics = A+++.

Baba W

She was so much older than my grandmothers, because my best friend's parents were so much older than my parents.  But with the age, perhaps, came the wisdom. 

And peace.
She was peace, personified.
She was joy.
She was graciousness.

How can I describe her?  How can I give you a taste of this beautiful slice of my life? A person wanted to be around Baba, felt better around Baba, couldn't help loving Baba. Baba was so much at rest with who she was and what the world was. She is what comes to my mind when I think about who I want to be. I miss her rolling Russian accent. I miss hearing her pray in her native language. I miss her roses and her back house and her kitchen and the little jar of candy on the coffee table. I'm glad I knew her, and grateful that her memory is almost as strong and fresh as her presence even years after her passing.  It...she...reminds me to hold on to peace and let myself give grace.

God, that I might be like Baba.

Storage

Well, it's happening. The infamous storage unit in Oregon is being emptied and its contents reunited with their owner.  The truck won't get to me for another two weeks, but two weeks is a short wait when I haven't seen my things in three years.

(Things.  In French, directly translated, les choses.  I said this a lot in France, because I say it a lot in English.  Months and months into my stay a friend finally said, "Rachel, we just don't say les choses like you're using it.  Say, maybe, mes affaires instead."  Way to teach me not to be so vague, Cyril.  Your voice will be in my head til I die, correcting me every time I use the word "things." Kudos.)

So tonight I am listening to All Good Things Come From the Desert and rearranging mes affaires yet again, anticipating the tight squeeze it'll be once my second half arrives.  Half my wardrobe.  My favorite books, to be added to the almost ceiling-high stack in my closet now.  Dishes I still won't need for a while.  A bike.  My desk - that last one so important and greatly missed these passing years, but I find it a bit painful to think about fitting it into a crowded bedroom that already has to make room for my niece's toys, a bed, and two dressers.

My things.  Mes choses.  Mes Affaires.

And Christopher Miner.

The rearranging, the anticipation, the music...I feel like I'm 26 again.  I feel like I'm neurotically in like with T.J. and discontent with my life.  It's funny how just the right combination of things can throw you back like that.  I'm not discontent, and I no longer like T.J., and I'm certainly not 26.  But music can rub on your heart scars sometimes, pulling them just the right way to remind you there was once a wound.  It's not bad.  Sometimes it's nice to remember what life was, even to enter the emotion for a second, like watching a sappy movie.

Did you now scar tissue can have its own blood supply?  Scar tissue is not, as so many assume, dead tissue, but living. That's why its still sensitive sometimes. But the little pinching reminders are good.  They say, "This is what your life has been; this is what you've been through.  Remember, and be grateful.  Embrace the growth."

Nerd Love

I'm baaaaaaack!

Well my dears, I privatized for a while and thought about deleting, but here I am again.  I like this outlet.  I like looking back at old posts and remembering my life.  It is good.

You know what else is good?  My life.  I've had a good life.  I've lived, and that has made it good.  Kierkegaard talks a lot about venturing and risk; I think, as a young man, he did not risk enough in life and later regretted it.  I, however, am a master at risk (with both success and failure) and have no regrets.  (Well, very few, and the ones I do have would be silly to most people.)  I don't think you can live with regret and live with heart at the same time.  Risk and venture are part of life and we can only work with what's been built before.  So if I step out and risk something and it fails, what have I lost?  Nothing.  I have gained everything.  I have gained knowledge from my failure, I have gained boldness by learning how to fail.  I have been broken of perfectionism because failure has taught me I am imperfect.  I've learned to give grace to others in their failures, and I've learned to let go of the ideal for the sake of the real. 

I love risk and I love failure.  Because of this, looking back, I love the life I have thus-far lived. Even in the hard times (Endo!) I have lived fully, and to die today would be no loss.  What a lovely life I have been given.  How beautiful life is. I am content.

(Of course I must acknowledge my parents, cause they never held me back with fear or caution.  This is a great rarity among parents, I think, and I am blessed.)

LDs (Long Distances)

I want to hold you. Put my arms around you  and squeeze tight for a moment.
I want to kiss your forehead and tell you, "It's gonna be alright."
I want to cook your dinner and tell you, "You are loved."

Oh friend(s),
would that my arms were long enough
to reach across the miles!
Would that I had seven-league boots!
I'd be there in a minute to
hold the baby when he cries
or
hold you when you cry
or
simply do the dishes.

You carry my heart in
Texas,
Carolina,
Michigan,
Georgia,
Paris,
and Kentucky (to name a few),
and I carry yours.
As yours hurts,
mine hurts.

It is so hard to be far away while you hurt.

Between Peers

Lilly: Candy IS breakfast!
Anne: Totally!  I mean, what else would you eat for breakfast?  Candy or boogers.
Lilly: You can't eat your boogers!
Anne: Yes you can!  I eat mine all the time.
Lilly: Gross.

Wade Burleson

The more our corporate worship looks like Old Testament Jewish worship (i.w. a holy building in which to gather, authoritative male priests who rule over others, and a sacrificial system of actions designed to please God, etc...), the more our corporate worship is unlike Paul's and early believers' worship of Christ.

(From this post.)

Of Palms and Sunday

I haven't been to church in, I think, over 2 months. The reasons are varied and have to do with things like transportation, homework, and a month-long illness, but whatever the excuse this record is strange for a child of JMS, a woman who was (is?) at the church building at least four out of the seven days a week can give us.

(Sometimes it's good a week cannot give us more. Sometimes we need to feel like we're beginning again, no matter how arbitrary our seven day time frame actually is.)

But today is Palm Sunday and a huge part of me wishes I wasn't trapped in this apartment with no car and no hope of making it to this morning's service. I've wrestled with the Church these past few years - ever since that awful thing happened and I left a group of people I loved. Ever since I learned to not trust church leadership. Ever since I began realizing that the hyper-authoritarianism in current church culture is really, really sick and terribly wrong.

Despite these wrestlings, today I want to go to church. Perhaps it's to commemorate a day that the Church the world over is celebrating. Today isn't just Sunday, it's Palm Sunday. Today we celebrate Jesus pre-crucifixion when, for several happy moments, people recognized His goodness. Something about my tired soul just wants the traditions, the celebration, the cheesy skit where members of the church lay palm branches in the aisles and wear robes and look ridiculous. Thus far 2013 has been hard, with unwanted suitors who couldn't understand "no" and family divisions and a terible flu and loss of transportation. It's been good hard, too, with school and my nonprofit and sharing sweet times with the same family members who like to divide. But I'm exhausted from its fullness. I just want something simple, familiar, like a Palm Sunday service.

When your life vaguely resembles a 1996 Ellen DeGeneres film

Mr. Wrong

This just saved my life.

Mitochondria

A&P is the most fascinating class I've ever taken. Ever.

BBF* is engaged!

This means I'm going to England for a wedding, baby! Oh yeah.

*Best British Friend

Free Music

Page CXVI and The Autumn Film are giving their full library of music away for free this month at Noise Trade.  Click here!  Page CXVI is their hymns, Autumn Film is their non-religious stuff.

Come on and meet the elements

Endo Blog

Hey guys,

Life is super busy and I just don't have time for regular blogging.  One of the things that's keeping me busy is that I'm starting a non-profit for endo sufferers with three other women.  I'll be blogging occasionally over here: http://endononprofit.blogspot.com/.  You probably won't see me much at this blog for a while.  In school, living with six other people, and starting a non-profit all while job hunting...life is busy.

XO,
Me

From the mouth of a 5-year-old

Response to hail: "It's raining rocks!"

Hungry on the way home from church, talking to herself: "There's nothing else in the car, so I HAVE to eat these."  Yep.  She was referring to her boogers.

The Best of Blogs

I know I haven't been blogging much lately.  My 2013 has proven to begin much busier than I thought it would - with such unanticipated events as helping my best friend move and, oh joy, jury duty.  So in lieu of my own thoughts, let me share with you the blogs I go to almost everyday:

1. Dos Family (this is my fave of all faves)
2. Chris Blattman (his subject matter fascinates me and he is one smart cookie)
3. Istoria Ministries
4. Kita Walks

Two others I read on occasion:

1. The Wartburg Watch (cause I think it's good to keep authority in check)
2. Roger Olsen (though I don't actually enjoy this blog.  I don't know why I keep reading.)

There are other blogs I read, but they're less public and don't feel free to put links up.  And really, the top 4 are the only I look for every single day.

.:First day of the new year:.

Friends for 27 years!

Perfect sunset, January 1, 2013

Sunset at Newport Beach

G.K. Chesterton

If Syme had been able to see himself, he would have realised that he, too, seemed to be for the first time himself and no one else.