Outdoor Explorers

Kirk and I had the afternoon free on Friday. For the first time in a long while, we chose to spend it outside. We shucked through the McDonalds drive-thru, picked up our hamburgers, cokes, and fries, and headed out to a local seminary where we could sit at a picnic table by a lake and feel the wind blow through our hair. This particular lake is dark and choppy—very Northern—and we could see the wind blowing through the hanging moss “hair” of the cypress trees, too. It was quiet and peaceful, with different birds clucking and cacking in the air and no other sounds at all.

Then we discovered a giant anthill under our table, and many ants crawling our legs, so we headed to the bookstore and browsed around for an hour.

The next morning, we decided to go on a hike. Kirk knew a great place about forty-five minutes away. We pulled on our faded jeans and hiking shoes and headed on out with the windows rolled down, all the fresh fall air whipping in and out of the car and us crying, “I can’t believe how insanely gorgeous this day is!” about once every two minutes. It was divine.

We pulled up at the trailhead, signed our names in the guestbook recorder, and then stepped onto the trail. Kirk relinquished his camera to my ever-curious eyes, and I stopped every few steps to photograph some new view.

Entrance to the hiking trail.

Trees that look like nymph ladies dancing.

Cool tree bark.

This was going great for about ten minutes . . . until we discovered the spiders. At first it was just a thin, medium-sized web high above our heads on the trail with a bulbous, small-to-medium spider who scampered along the web and out of sight when he saw us stopping below to stare at him. Kirk proceeded ahead on the trail, walking under the web above us, while I stood rooted to the spot, staring upward with mouth agape. I couldn’t move. I’m pretty afraid of spiders.

After Kirk reached for my hand and persuaded me that the spider had moved away, I slowly let him pull me along the trail underneath the web, my eyes watching it steadfastly in case the spider decided to descend by his webstrings into my hair or mouth.

This fiasco over, we kept moving along. I relaxed for a moment and put my photographer eyes back on . . . until Kirk pointed out another web, this one above our heads but off to the right a bit, and this one hosting an even bigger spider. It was definitely medium-sized, and you could clearly see its black and yellow stripes. A banana spider, Kirk said. A big one, I said.

Now I was beginning to realize that perhaps these spiders were indigenous to the place, and perhaps we were trespassing upon their ground. How many more would we see? I can tell you the answer: more and more. And they just kept getting bigger and bigger.

My body had gone totally tense by now. I dropped further and further back on the trail from Kirk, who had taken the lead so that he could scope out for spiders and keep us from walking into any elaborate webs. “I don’t know if I can do this,” I whispered. “I just don’t know if I can.”

The verdict was settled when we saw the biggest spider of all—splayed out to the full glory of its size in a giant-sized web at the right side of the trail. This spider was huge—at least the size of my entire hand, palm and fingers included. (Because I refuse to post a picture of these hideous creatures on my blog, you can check them out for yourself by clicking here.)

I screamed, then screamed again. “I can’t do this, hon,” I said. “Okay, let’s go,” Kirk said. Of course, this meant we still had to walk back along the trail, underneath all the spiders and webs again, in order to get back to our car. I was a wreck by the time we made it. The muscles in my back were so tense, and my arms were sewn at my sides.

One question I have is, are all woodsy trails like this? Will I ever enjoy a hike again without worrying about spiders dropping into my hair, down my clothes, or into my open mouth?

Because the weather has suddenly turned so gorgeous, with a sweet smell and a crisp fall nip in the air, we are determined to enjoy it to the full, so today we took lunch at the seminary again. We sat at a table on the concrete patio, under the library overhang to avoid the ants this time, while Kirk finished a paper and I continued my way through a second reading of Eat, Pray, Love. After about an hour, I closed my book and got up from the chair. “I’m going to go walking around a bit,” I said, and I headed out onto the grass that leads down to the lake.

But I didn’t just walk around—I tromped. By this I mean I picked up my legs so that my knees came up real high, then slammed them down to the ground for a good tromp sound. I tromped down to the lake, stood for a moment and took it in, and then imagined that an alligator was laying hidden in the brush and could come up from behind at any minute and gobble up my legs. (I know, I have a vivid imagination!)

So I tromped my two legs back up toward the patio, making my way in circles a couple times just because I wasn’t done tromping yet, until I finally landed back at our table. As I tromped, I was telling my body, my lungs, myself, my God, and that whole space of land that I was so really and truly alive.

Going Home for Christmas

Well, it's official. Kirk and I just booked our flights home for Christmas in California. Woohoo!

I'm so excited about this trip, as I've been walking through a pretty homesick season. I miss getting regular cuddle time with Kate and hours and hours on Sara's couch. I miss my family, and I miss my mom's house. I miss my home church, Rock Harbor, like crazy on a pretty regular basis.

Basically, I miss the familiarity of the place I spent twenty-five years of my life, and I miss the people in it. I even miss the temperamental freeways.

It's been rough lately, being so far from home and from my established community. I keep wondering if God will bless me with deep cords of friendship here in Florida, too, and when that will happen if it does. I wish I could say *presto!* and watch a beautiful group of new friends materialize before my very eyes. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. I keep wondering if I'm doing something wrong, missing something obvious, not looking in all the right places.

So, obviously, I'm pretty darn excited about this trip home. It will be good to have facetime with folks I love, and especially for the cozy Christmas season.

Inspired Today By . . .

This lady. Or should I say, this First Lady.

Kirk found a great article in Newsweek today that tells a fantastic story about what moves Maria Shriver, and it in turn moves me. Shriver's heartbeat in this article basically boils down what I'm passionate about and working toward in 450 words. I'm going to tack the printed page above the desk in my studio space . . . once the studio space is finished, of course.

To top it off, through the article I also learned of a women's conference that takes place annually in Long Beach, California, not far from my old stomping grounds. Someday, perhaps even as soon as next year, I'd love to attend.

The cool thing about the conference this year, though, is that it takes place on October 23. Which is, um, today. Great timing, to have learned of it on the same day that it's running! It was fun checking out the website while knowing thousands of women are there right now, enjoying all that the day has to offer.

Two other cool things I learned about the conference . . .

The first is that the conference is hosting a live luncheon webcast in about 20 minutes. Naturally, I'm tuning in. It will feel like I'm really there!

And the second is that I found a forum where women are responding to the question, "What do you do to make a difference?" In the response thread titled "Support, encourage, challenge, and inspire women," I read the following stories:

"I facilitate women's bible studies. Whenever a group of women get together to grow, learn & encourage each other magic happens. We laugh a lot, cry some, pray, eat, discuss families, careers and connect on levels unimaginable. At the end of our time together we have collectively gathered strength from each other until we meet again next week. We know that no matter how much life happens in between we have sister friends that we can count on."

"In the 12 step fellowship of NA there is a womans conference that is held in different parts of the US every other year. We get upwards of 5 thousand chicks praying in one room at one time there. The energy is so uplifting and so positive it moves me even today."

"I recently created and started teaching a class for older women who want to go back to school for their degrees. (I was 52 when I graduated from UCLA a couple of years ago.) Mature students (who are mostly women) face different challenges than younger students. We may have less energy but we've got life experience and focus in our favor. While working full-time and carrying a full load of classes, I had to find ways to work smarter, not harder. These strategies and general information on the California community college and university system are what I share in my classes. Although my degree was FAR more than a career move. It changed how I view the world…but it also changed how I view myself. It gave me a sense of what I'm capable of achieving. It was also an amazing journey - one that I wouldn't trade for any amount of money! It's exciting to encourage (and help equip) other women to take the plunge too!"

Wow. Women are amazing, aren't they? I just love their energy, their creativity, their giving nature, all of it. (If you are a woman, then this means YOU!)

Caught on Camera

This scene made me laugh. Especially after hearing the news about

Charity (see below for more details). This scene shot at a neighbor's house, just right around the corner from us. The aftermath of some high-school shenanigans, no doubt. I wonder how long it will take them to clean it up?

I'm Sad for My Friend

My friend Charity has cancer. This hit all of us in the blogosphere community who know her like a bombshell. Laura has invited us to share our feelings in our respective spaces, and she is graciously compiling a list of those reflections. So, here goes.

I've found myself weeping throughout the afternoon. Who can read about capital asset management and business valuation after hearing news like this? Somehow studying for a quiz doesn't seem all that important now.

It's strange how you can find yourself missing someone you've never met. Strange how the fact of your loving that person hits you square between the eyes, or straight to the center of your heart, when you're faced with this kind of news.

I love her. Even though I've barely known her.

Yet what I've known has been precious to me. Charity will never know how much her sweet life has impacted me personally, but it has done so profoundly. As I shared with her in a comment on a recent post she wrote after a long absence, even her silence moves and teaches me. Though she does not comment frequently here, what she does contribute always carries substance and gentle encouragement that soothes my spirit. Her name is one that always makes my heart leap when it shows up at unexpected times in the comment conversations my blog sometimes begets.

That's about all I have to share right now. That, and the fact that I'm beginning to grasp that loss really is an inherent part of our lives, and I really don't like that God has allowed it to be that way. Why must we bear the pain of losing those we love? Is it to increase the leap of joy we'll feel when we recognize one another again in the New City? I hope so. Maybe then we will fully understand what we meant to one another here on earth, in the time we shared together.

A Very Cozy Moment

After having stayed up last night until well after 4am, it's no exaggeration to say that today finds me t i r e d. So, after claiming the car from Kirk when my morning class was done, I swung by China Garden for some takout Chinese and then headed home for a quiet girlie afternoon with no stress.

One of my secret indulgences is that I occasionally read chick-lit. The first book was way back in 2000 with Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner, which I promise is not anywhere near as scandalous as it sounds. The second was The Devil Wears Prada, way before it ever became a movie. And the third was In Her Shoes, Jennifer Weiner's second book that also, for fun, loosely incorporates the main character from her first book as a periphery character at a certain point.

Of what did my afternoon consist, then? None other than the chick-lit film adaptation of In Her Shoes, which I further confess that I own. I think Toni Collette, Cameron Diaz, Sean Feuerstein, and Shirley MacLaine make a great ensemble cast for this fun, quirky movie about two sisters who have absolutely nothing in common.

After lunch, then, I headed into the bedroom with my laptop, curled up in the bed with the shades drawn just in case I eventually decided to take a nap, and settled in for this afternoon flick. Pretty soon (read: less than 2 minutes later), Diva wandered in. She stood at the side of the bed, looking up at me with her plaintive eyes like she always does, which is her way of waiting for an invitation to hop up on the bed and join me. One pat to the velour blanket on top of the bed is all the invitation she needs, and she jumped up in a flash. Then, as I was laying with my head propped up on a pillow to watch the screen, she finagled her way into the little crevice between me and the laptop, then moved to block the screen entirely with her body, so that I could do nothing but attend to giving her a snuggle rub on her head and cheeks for a good, long time. (I had to pause the film, of course.)

When I was finally able to scooch Diva away from the screen, she sat herself down on her haunches in the little crevice and just stared at me with her wide blue eyes. She does this often -- sits and stares at me, I mean. I would call it creepy if she weren't so darn cute. I'm especially helpless to her gaze when the blacks of her eyes are contracted so large in a darkened room that they barely evidence the light ring of blue surrounding them. Add to that the soft, downy white of her chest, and I'm a goner.

So here we were, two girls with our girlie flick between us and tons of pats and snuggles. Sometimes I get so caught up in her cuteness and how much I love loving on her that I can't help swooping her close to my chest in a tight squeeze of love with a big kiss smacked on the top of her head. Unfortunately, she hates this. Besides being beautiful, Diva is also skittish. She has been this way, Kirk says, since the day she was rescued from an alleyway behind an opera house when she was just weeks old. Who knows what she saw of the big, mean world before she was rescued and brought, matted and mewling and fearful, into the pet rescue center? (The rescue from behind the opera house is how she got her name, by the way, and not an indication of any snootish personality.) To this day, Diva shrinks from being held too close or feeling too closed in, which is unfortunate for those of us who want to suffocate her with squeezes of love!

I confess that I've succumbed to my need for a Diva-squeeze fix twice today (so far!), but she has thankfully stayed close and allowed me to coax her back to my side for more docile strokes of love. This, I know, is because she trusts me.

I sure do love that girl and our cozy girlie time right now. No boys allowed -- and that means you, Solomon! :)

Quiet Space

I haven't felt much like talking these days, both in real life and in blog land. A part of me is trying to figure out what this means, trying to hold together in my hands the many fragmented pieces that might be contributing to this need for quiet space inside, while another part of me feels like all that work of holding things together to figure them out is just too noisy.

So, there's a lot going on and many thoughts and feelings rumbling around in my spirit, but most of them sound really muffled to me. And while I could take the time to tease each of them out, doing so feels not quite right, right now. Something is telling me to just let the process take its course, to just be in this space without need for explanation, without trying so hard to make some sense as it goes on.

I will say, though, that the best thing that could have happened in this space of quiet happened for me last night, when I got home from my third night of hospice training. Kirk was laying down, reading, with just the soft light from the nightstand lamp going, and I came into the room and sat on the bed next to him. It was the first time we'd had to spend with each other all day, since we're on opposite school schedules this month and my hospice training took up the evening. We just sat on the bed, talking gently and quietly with each other for a while, and I began to see the beauty of our care for one another in that moment. We were listening, really listening, to the other share thoughts and impressions and news from the day, and then offering something back in return. The conversation meandered over a lot of subjects, all joined by this spirit of listening and sharing in a true, real, and gentle way together. It really soothed my spirit. It made me feel safe and held.

What I Wish I Could Tell Her

Dear Grandma,

I still miss you.

Sometimes I imagine you still live in your apartment on Magnolia, sitting at the dining table with a guest visiting, fingering a clump of fabric as you listened and spoke, just one clump of many that were layered into dozens of plastic boxes stacked in the closet by the bedroom door. Even though you hadn't quilted in so long before you died, those clear boxes with their many textured scraps and prints are always nearby in my memories of you. I love that quilting was an important part of who you were.

I don't know if I ever told you, Grandma, how much I regret the way I responded on the night that Grandpa died. With all of us crowded into that tiny apartment you shared with him, I went coward and mustered a reason to leave. "Grandpa wouldn't want us to sit here mourning and crying," I said. "He's in heaven with Jesus now." And then I went to party at a friend's house, snaking through the crowds of people in that house and wondering that whole time how I could have left everyone, and even my grief, so easily.

I always wished I could have apologized to him, and could have grieved properly when he died. I didn't know how, Grandma. For so many years afterward, I used to pray little prayers to him in heaven, asking him if he understood, telling him how much I wished I could redo that moment and all the days after his death, wishing he could come back so that I could begin to memorize the stories he was famous for, the ones everyone alludes to but I do not remember. I imagined that he'd look down from heaven, with all the knowledge Jesus gave him once he died, and would forgive me and love me in that place, understanding even more than I could understand about myself back then.

Now I picture you up there with him, both of you so happy to be together again after all those years. You were so sad toward the end, just missing him every day more and more. I wanted to understand that kind of love, and now I'm glad I do. It makes me smile to imagine the two of you looking down upon the large family of us left here, watching us go about our daily lives, smiling when we offer our thoughts and prayers up to you still, wondering if you can even hear us voice them.

Even though I know you're happy to be with Jesus and Grandpa in heaven now, and that you're free from pain, I still wish you were here, Grandma. I wish you were still that constant presence back at home, always welcoming us with so much gladness and a kind heart whenever we would come to see you. I wish for one more day I could sit and play cards with you, and listen to the stories of your life. I wish I could tell you about Kirk and how much I have learned in my life with him. I wish I could tell you about how it feels when I write a story, and about the kind of stories I want to tell, and how I'm doing something new with my life that feels more true than anything else I've spent time doing before. I wish you could have known more of me while you were here, Grandma.

I have some news to share with you, Grandma, that is special for me to tell you, especially, about. This month, I learned that a place called Hospice of the Comforter was looking for volunteers to record the life reflections and stories of their hospice patients. This caught my attention because of how important people's stories have become to me. I see so much dignity to be had in a person who wants to look at their life and fold it into some kind of meaningful understanding of their life's offering on this earth. And I also know that since God has gifted me with an ability to write stories well, perhaps this is one way I can bring glory to Him in the service of others with some of my time right now.

When I told Mom about this opportunity a couple weeks ago, she said it reminded her of what I had always hoped to do for you -- to write down yours and Grandpa's stories so that all of us could have your memories preserved as a legacy handed down, to remember where we came from and the people that you were. It surprised me when Mom said this, since I hadn't made that connection when signing up.

But then, when I received the volunteer application materials in the mail a few days later, I really made the connection. Grandma, I can't tell you how overcome I was with sadness at your passing as I read the materials Hospice of the Comforter had sent. It made me remember that you had hospice care when you were dying. Somehow my volunteering for Hospice of the Comforter suddenly made me feel closer to you, even though my first signing up to work with them hadn't been about that at all.

But even more than that, I was filled with so much memory about my intention to be the one in our family to record your memories. I never did that. I know you know this, but it helps to admit it out loud to you. That is another thing that I really regret in my life: never having gathered your story while you were here. I remember getting started on it the summer after I graduated high school, when I came to visit you in Minnesota. It was the first trip I'd ever taken by myself, and I began to ask you questions about your life growing up and when you first met Grandpa. It was all with the intention to start writing it down, but then I never did. Years later, we all kept saying it should be done, and I always intended for the person to do it to be me, but still I let other things get in the way. I got busy and didn't make it a priority. And now the opportunity has passed forever, except for what we might piece together from our own memories. Still, it could never be the same. I am so sorry for failing you in this, Grandma. I hope you can forgive me.

Sitting there, reading those hospice materials last week, I was really struck with grief that you are gone. And last night, during my first full night of orientation and training, you were never far from my mind. There are so many ways we do not make as much of the days as we should, and I really feel that is the case in my loss of you in my life.

I wish that you were here. I trust that you are well. I love you.

Love,
Christianne

I'm Stuck at This Here Table

Along about 4:45 this morning, I woke to the unmistakable sound of my cat about to cough up a hairball. This happens every couple weeks and is really disgusting. Paper towels are entirely useless in this operation, no matter how Brawny may boast. My hands inevitably get wet with the acidic goop. Blech. Double blech!

I was particularly attuned to this sound because just yesterday it occurred to us that our kitties, who have taken up an official residence on the new couch and booted us effectively out, might eventually throw up on it. It has happened numerous times on our bedspreads, and when it's coming, it's coming, and there's nothing you can do about it unless you have the foresight (or forehearing, I guess, in this case?) to scooch them gently off the bed before the matter launches out of their mouth. (Unless you've witnessed such a spectacle before, you might not know that you get advance notice in the form of the sound of choking.)

So when I heard that distinctive choking sound, I went wide-awake and tried to determine where the sound was coming from. Thankfully, it wasn't coming from the open door to the right, which leads into the reading nook with the couch. It was coming from the left, and it sounded like it was coming from somewhere within the bedroom. As neither cat was on the bed, I began to breathe a little easier. They would not be staining our bedspread again anytime soon, either.

Sufficiently appeased that our new couch and bed were safe for the moment, I waited for the hiccups and throw-ups to pass . . . 1 . . . 2 . . . 3. (Our cats always throw up at least three times in a row.) Then I lay there trying to decide if I had the energy to get up right then and clean it up or wait until morning. It didn't take long for me to realize that Kirk would be the fall guy if I didn't get up and do it now, since it had happened on his side of the bed while he was fast asleep. I really didn't want him to find out the hard way what had occurred while he slept if I he happened to get up before me in the morning.

So I got out of bed and snaked around to the other side of it, quietly calling each cat's name to determine the location of the crime. (Hey, I didn't want to step on it in the dark with bare feet, either.) "Diva . . . ? Sollie . . . ?" Neither one came.

I decided not to chance it further in the dark and chose instead to approach it from the other direction. (Our bedroom has two access points -- one from the hallway on my side of the bed, and one stepping down from the kitchen on Kirk's side of the bed.) I went back out the door to the hallway and into the farmroom and turned on the light. No cat and no throw up there. So far so good. I continued around and into the kitchen and turned on the light. No cat and no throw up there, either. Good.

Now it was confirmed the crime had indeed taken place in the bedroom, on Kirk's side of the bed. With the light from the kitchen casting some sheen on the wooden floors in the bedroom, I stepped into the bedroom and bent down to try to locate the messes on the floor against the sheen.

I couldn't see any.

Hmm. Weird. Now it was time to investigate the underside of the bed, as we have a big space under there that the cats sometimes like to inhabit.

It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the dark under the bed, but I thought I finally located three blobs on the ground, the largest of which was actually over by my side of the bed, near my nightstand. I stepped back into the kitchen to grab a handful of paper towels and then headed to my side of the bed to take care of the main event.

At this point, Solomon intercepted my path. I waited as he lumbered under the bed. "Maybe you're the culprit," I whispered, since I still didn't know who had done it.

With the coast finally clear, I swooped down upon the lumpy mass on the floor. I picked it up and looked at it. It moved. I suddenly realized I had picked up a cockroach. I flung the towel, along with the cockroach, back down to the ground with a high-pitched whisper-squeal: "Ew! Ew! Ew!"

I was hoping but also not hoping this would wake Kirk up. So far, nothing.

I stood and stared at the paper towel on the ground. I could only presume the cockroach had fled under the bed, right below where I usually sleep.

"Eeeew!" I high-pitch whispered again, shivering and wriggling up and down with the willies.

At this point, Kirk did stir in the bed and mumble, "You okay?" I told him what had happened, but it didn't register in his sleepiness and I got no more response. Darn!

Now it was dawning on me: I had caught a cockroach and brought it close to my face. Ewwww!!! Not only was that creepy and crawly and disgusting, but it also meant that now I couldn't clean up the rest of the mess under the bed, nor could I reasonably go back to bed. Go back to bed with the chance that the disgusting creature would climb up the wall and into bed with me? No way, man!

So now I'm out in the farmroom. It has slowly occurred to me that I'm stuck out here, since I sure as heck am not going back in the bedroom until Kirk wakes up and can help me bring closure to this fiasco. So, for the time being, I'm checking blogs and e-mail and figure I can start in on my homework next. Pretty soon I'll start the tea brewing and pull out my Bible, too. Maybe I'll read a little in my Mother Teresa book. Because as of right now, I've got a few hours to kill.

I am such a girl.

Jehovah Jireh

So, about three weeks ago I started praying a quirky little prayer. God, please help us finish furnishing this cute little house in more creative ways than we can imagine.

I started praying this prayer because I began to see that our current financial situation was not going to get the house furnished any time soon. This had been okay for the past three months, when we could still legitimately say we had just moved in and were getting used to our new school programs, but now we were getting to the point of wanting to settle in, truly. When people came to visit, we wanted to offer them more than a hard chair to sit upon at the dining room table. When we finished doing laundry, we wanted to store our clothes in something other than plastic boxes on the floor. And when I start the focus groups here in our home in the coming month, I want the girls involved in the groups to feel safe and welcomed into a comfy space that feels homey and secure.

So I decided to start praying the faith prayer. I was prompted to do this because I kept remembering the story of a lady I met a few years ago who had gone through a horrific divorce about twenty years prior and suddenly found herself living alone in an empty house with pretty much no possessions to speak of. (Thank goodness our situation hasn't been anywhere near as drastic as hers.) In that devastating place, she told God she was relying on Him to give her everything she needed, both emotionally and physically. And then she came home from work the next day to discover a ton of good furniture had been left on the front curb of her property. She had no idea where it came from, and still to this day does not know.

What can I say? I felt inspired to branch out and humbly request for God to provide for our needs, too. On the same day I prayed that prayer for the very first time, I even got up out of my seat at the dining room table and opened the front door to see if God had prompted someone to drop a couch at our curb in the few minutes it took me to articulate the prayer . . . or perhaps decided to miraculously drop one out of the sky Himself, just because He can.

He hadn't.

It took me a few days to let Kirk in on this new approach to our situation, since I felt kind of silly for praying it in the first place, and especially silly for getting out of my seat to check on it right afterward. But eventually, of course, I told him, and then every few days after that I would give him an update.

"Um, sweetheart?" I would call into the other room from where I stood at the front door or the window.

"Yeah, hon," Kirk would call back, having no idea what I was up to.

"I just want you to know that there is no couch sitting at the edge of our curb."

To which he would laugh, and I would laugh, and then I'd go into the other room and shrug my shoulders. "It could happen," I'd say. And he would say, "I know it can. And I love you for your faith."

This whole time, I knew God would work it out, even though I also knew it could take a really long time. Like, maybe His creative way of helping us would be to help us find a way to set aside some extra money from the budget every month until we saved enough to buy some items. That could take a long time, and it really didn't seem feasible, given the constraints of our budget, but it could happen.

Thankfully, that's not what happened. What happened really was a creative surprise, just like I had prayed it would be.

For one, my mom came into town last week and told us she wanted to buy us a housewarming gift. She said she'd been planning it for some time and had either a TV or a couch in mind for the gift. Wow! Since we'd made a conscious decision to go without a TV for the time being, we opted for the couch. How amazing that the primary item I'd been hoping God would drop onto our curb ended up being the very first item He provided.

Ta-da! We found this brand-new couch on sale for a great price that included five gorgeous overstuffed pillows. And the material is microfiber, which works great when you have oft-shedding kitties, such as we do. (Thank you, Mom!!)

For instance, Diva likes to shed her hair all over the place . . .

And so, for that matter, does Solomon . . .

But the story doesn't end there, folks! This past Friday night, after we had already picked out the couch with my mom, we went to the Night of Joy festival at Disney with our friends Tom and Cindy, who had received five free passes. After singing at the top of our lungs and dancing to our hearts content at the wonderful David Crowder Band and Chris Tomlin concerts, we headed out of the park near midnight, happy but exhausted. (And we would certainly feel that exhaustion in our leg muscles in the days to come, especially the calves -- from all that jumping up and down!)

On the way to the Monorail that would take us to our parking spots, Tom turned to us and said, "You guys have a complete bedroom set, right?" I didn't think much of this question, even though we'd spent a good length of time earlier in the evening discussing Tom and Cindy's upcoming move into a new home. It seemed like a pretty simple, straightforward question to me, and besides, I was really tired.

"Um, yeah," I said. "I mean, the house came with a full-size bed, but no nightstands. No dressers, either, actually. But we're okay for now." At this point, I was just answering the question, not even connecting it to the question Cindy had posed to me earlier in the evening about a set of backyard patio furniture and whether we had need of any. (We don't.)

"Well, we have a complete bedroom set from our guest bedroom that we can't take with us in the move," Tom replied. "It doesn't come with nightstands, but it's a queen four-poster bed with a dresser and a chest."

Whoa, I thought. A queen-sized bed and a dresser and a chest of drawers?! All of these items sounded like heaven to me.

"And you don't need the set?" I asked.

"Nope."

Now it was becoming clear what was going on: they were offering this furniture to us. I turned toward Kirk and shared the news. We turned back toward Tom and Cindy. "So, are you wanting to sell it, or loan it out until you have need of it again?" Either of these options would have been fine by us, since they'd still mean getting a great set of furniture for much, much less than it would cost to buy a new set.

"Well, if you guys can use it, you can take it off our hands," Tom said.

Double whoa.

So now, because they're moving in two weeks, they need this bedroom set out of their house within the next week. This means that very shortly, another room in our home will be full of next-to-brand-new furniture, for just the cost it takes to move it and then take Tom and Cindy to a nice lunch for being so generous to us, their friends.

God's goodness and lavish behavior just never ceases to amaze me.

The First Cigar

When we were in Paris on our honeymoon, I was tempted to try smoking cigarettes. It just seemed like a romantic thing to try for the first time in Paris. But Kirk, talking sense, said, "If you don't like it, you might regret having done it. But if you do like it, you might not want to stop." Smart man.

Last night, though, I did have my first smoke.

We had just left the Enzian Theatre, trying out a new French film in advance of my mom's visit, as she flies in tonight for a week's stay. As the Enzian is a great place to spend an evening with a film, with tables and comfy cushioned chairs dotting the landscape of the room and a great selection of food and beverages from which to order as you watch the latest independent film to breeze through town, we figured it would be a fun time to share while she is here -- if the latest film was worth seeing. (We made the mistake last time of taking her to see The History Boys.)

So we went for a preview. This week's film is My Best Friend, about a rich man who has no friends and, even worse, no idea how to make them. Being proud, he makes a bet with his business partner that he can track down a best friend in 10 days. Chaos ensues.

Having decided the film was cute but probably not worth viewing again with my mom, we headed home. On the way there, though, we stopped to pick up a bottle of wine. And when Kirk went inside the store to do the honors, he came out with an additional purchase: petite cigars! (These were, of course, for him. He enjoys a fine cigar every now and again.)

When we got home, he poured each of us a glass of the Franciscan cabernet, and then we headed out for a walk in the moonlight. This was not only a romantic idea but also so that he could smoke out of doors.

I thought he looked quite handsome and much the philosopher-intellectual type, smoking his cigar as we strolled down the lane, and I told him so. He, in turn, offered me a try.

What could I say? At first, I didn't say anything, just took the small, slowly burning article between two of my fingers and held it up to my nose. It didn't smell like cigars usually smell (meaning, badly). In fact, it smelled somewhat nice.

"I don't know how to do this," I said. "Is it going to ruin my lungs?" I didn't like the thought of my lungs being stained for good at my first puff, even though I've inhaled secondhand smoke plenty of times.

"Not a cigar," he said. "You breathe it in, but you don't inhale." That sounded pretty Clinton-esque to me.

"How do I do it?" I asked. I was nervous, but also a little mesmerized, staring at the little brown paper-shrouded piece in my hand.

"You breathe in deeply, from your lungs, and then you puff it back out," Kirk said. "But don't inhale."

I tried it. Nothing.

I tried it again. Nothing.

"I think I'm breathing in with my nose," I said the third time, coughing. "It burns my nose when I do that!"

"Yeah, that will burn if you do that. Don't breathe with your nose. Breathe from your mouth."

"Okay." I tried it again. This time, when I exhaled, smoke came out. "Wow! I did it!"

I held the cigar in front of me, examining it critically. "That wasn't bad," I said.

I tried it again. "Hm. I kinda like it. It tastes kinda . . . good." Weird. I never thought it would taste good. The smell always made me think it would taste awful. Except this cigar really didn't smell so bad. And going in and out of my mouth, it had a smooth, almost yummy taste. Did I just say yummy?!

We kept walking, each of us with our own cigar, the puffs of which we interspersed with sips of wine. We headed down and along the lake at the end of the street, then up to a small park with a bench that overlooks a pond. We sat down and watched the moon, which was covered with a thick veil of mist.

"She looks modest," I said quietly.

Kirk raised his glass. "To you, moon, for the beautiful eclipse you offered us this week."

I raised mine up. "To you, moon."

The orchestral murmur of croaking frogs sustained us in the moonlight, as we finished the cigars to their very last puffs, then slowly turned toward home.

She Moved Me

So, did any of you see Becoming Jane this weekend? Kirk and I went Friday night, and then again today, on Sunday afternoon.

The first night, it left me feeling dumb and speechless. I don't mean dumb in a stupid sort of way. What I mean is, I couldn't speak for about an hour. I went home and lay myself down on the bed and listened to the soundtrack for about an hour, until I was ready to speak.

And when we finally spoke, Kirk and I discussed beauty (which is what I felt I had encountered) and whether it requires any fitting response from us, or any response at all. Because I'll be honest: the film raised feelings in me that I hadn't felt in a very long time. I felt like I couldn't speak because the need to respond in some visceral, productive, articulate way was so strong, and I knew I couldn't do it justice. I couldn't measure up to the feelings I felt inside. I didn't even know what such an attempt would require.

We finally happened upon the possibility that perhaps what beauty actually requests of us is worship. If we are moved by beauty and turn to God in response, then some of the pressure is off. We get to be human, responding to a great God who is more infinitely beautiful than we can imagine, and He doesn't require perfection in response from us because He knows that we are human (even though we don't believe this of ourselves sometimes). Then we are free to respond in a human, imperfect way. But if we turn from beauty and try to respond out of our own strength, we will fall mute and dumb and lost. It just can't happen. We aren't strong enough, in our actual makeup, to handle it well.

I don't like this arrangement very much, because the fallen part of me wants to be strong enough to respond out of my own ability and merit, without having to turn to God first and then become human as a result. For some reason, I keep wanting to be superhuman, even though I find humanity intensely mysterious and wonderful much of the time.

Then I went to see the film again. It had the same response. I couldn't speak very well, but at least this time I could identify some more of the reasons why. A few of the scenes moved me beyond words: the scene where she is staying in London and, in the early hours of night, conceives of the Pride and Prejudice premise; and the scene at the end, where she is giving a reading of that great book, and her words are more perfectly placed and filled with understanding than she could have known in her earlier years. For some reason, both of these scenes filled me with such longing.

I haven't written to express myself creatively in some time. Even though writing is as much a part of me as my own breath, I haven't regarded it with the respect it deserves in my own life. Plainly put, I am scared. I'm scared I'm not up to the task. There is a whole landscape inside my soul that has yet to be traversed because I'm afraid. I despise myself for this fear. I've basically shut it down because I believe am not up to it. I've given up trying. I've moved to other pastures. Unfortunately so.

All that aside, the last thing I'll say is that Anne Hathaway is, indeed, a believeable Jane. I had my doubts, as usually I see Anne Hathaway as an actor in a role. She's cute, but she's still just usually herself. But she (thankfully) broke free of that stereotype for me in this important role. I saw her as Jane, plain and simple. And I was thankful.

New Haircut!

Welcome to my new hair, folks.

Green Things

I find myself surrounded by green these days. First, there's my new Mac's cover . . .

Then, there's my Mac desktop . . .

Can't forget my Mac screensaver (which randomizes gorgeous forest photos at a slow, reflective pace) . . .

And then there's me . . .

Green is such a gentle and inviting color, isn't it? It's friendly in a soft-spoken way. It imbues one's awareness with growth.

Growth. That's what I'm about these days.

Photo Woes

So, I've got a few ideas for some fun new posts, but they all include photos. Unfortunately for me, that means having to pull out the big camera, stage the photos, upload them to my hard drive, and then fiddle with Blogger in order to get them spaced just right with the text. For some reason, Blogger never behaves when I include photos with my posts (anyone else ever have problems with this??). Anyway, the posts themselves are simple and in good fun and really shouldn't require that amount of work. So, this is the reason for the lag.

This is also the reason I've begun to get in the mood for a small, sleek, highly pixellated digital camera I can keep in my purse for snapping quick shots whenever I get the fancy. In that dream reality, I would then quickly and easily upload them to some as-of-yet undiscovered perfect photosharing site that lets me do all kinds of fun things I want to be able to do, like categorize my photos, write unique captions, create quality photobooks to order, and upload individual photos via URL to my blog. Oh yeah, and somehow streamline the process for uploading all my thousands of photos currently stored on my hard drive through Picasa. Argh!

You can see why I might be stalled. :-)

Get Caught Up Sometime

If you'd stopped in at my house tonight, you'd have found me, at least for a portion of the time, wandering aimlessly about. After the Harry Potter blitz of the past couple weeks, I found myself craving more of the imaginative story experience. I wanted to get caught up in something that would captivate my imagination and turn off my analytical brain, which has become somewhat weary of all the thinking I've been doing in recent days.

The only trouble was, I was hard-pressed to find such a book in this house. My nightstand is riddled with business books and startup books. Another of my bookshelves is full of books on soul care. The cupboards of my built-in bookshelf open to reveal lots of nonfiction of the theological, travel essay, and personal memoir persuasion, loads of fiction I've already read dozens of times, some classics I've never been able to finish, and some other literary fiction I've been working on for over a year. Those classics and fiction selections are unfinished precisely because they're too serious -- definitely not "getting caught up" material.

But then, off to the side of the very top shelf, hidden behind the post that divides my side from Kirk's side of the shelf, I spied it: the Narnia series box set. It's a box set I've had for years and must confess I've never read straight through. I think I've only read two of the seven books, which means there was loads more to be enjoyed.

I'm so glad I found these books! They fit exactly the need of the moment. For instance, check out these two enjoyable gems from the first book, The Magician's Nephew:

1) The two main characters, a boy and a girl, discover there may be a way to sneak into an old abandoned flat a couple doors down from where they live. Both of them think but do not say that the house might be haunted. Instead, they try to be brave. The boy says the house might be taken by pirates or a criminal gang in the night. The girl, on the other hand, says her father mentioned faulty pipes. And do you know what the boy says to that? "Pooh! Grown-ups are always thinking of uninteresting explanations." I should say they most definitely are! This line made me laugh.

2) When the boy and girl find themselves in a strange wood and are about to start exploring their way around, they get into a quarrel. And here's how Lewis narrates it: "The quarrel lasted for several minutes but it would be dull to write it all down." Ha ha ha! That made me laugh, too. Imagine, a storyteller who doesn't want to bore his young readers with dull details. I love it. I had to read that part aloud to Kirk, and then I giggled some more.

I can heartily appreciate a book that not only takes me outside myself and fills me with wonder but also makes me laugh. This is, no doubt, why I love the Harry Potter series. But it's also why I can appreciate C. S. Lewis, a longtime predecessor to J. K. Rowling.

One Favorite Girl

One of my favorite girls, Kate, is coming to town tonight and staying until Monday. Know what that means? Great conversation with one of my favorite people in the world for almost four days on end! She'll be the first to see our new home in its as-of-yet incompletely furnished state.

Besides planning a fun and girlie thing to do (afternoon tea and scones, anyone?), Kirk and I plan to cook a few good meals, play a few fun games, and take her on the relaxing and scenic Winter Park Boat Tour. Oh, and she's also requested an afternoon at Gatorland, inspired by my hub's enthusiasm. :-)

So you may or may not see me around for a few days. Know that I'm basking in blessed Kate-ness . . . and loving every second of it!

Weekend in Paradise

Alas, I didn't take near enough photos of this trip. I spent more time enjoying it than documenting it! But I did learn that the six of us enjoyed each other's company with lots of laughs.

We learned quick who the best storytellers were (Kirk and Tom). We also learned that car rental reservations mean nothing to island workers when there's a big celebration going on. We got stuck with the last available car on the entire island for our party of 6: a Ford Liberty SUV . . . that seats 5. As you can imagine, it made for interesting seating arrangements, especially for a location with scores of hairpin turns and steep hills!

We experienced the shortest prayer ever, compliments of my husband, on the first night: "Lord," he prayed. "You know. Thanks!" This served to lighten things up considerably among the group, and it, of course, got loads of airtime in conversation throughout the weekend.

We got stuck in a pelting rainstorm on a boat, which we laughed about . . . later. And we happened upon an idea for an animated screenplay, which we titled Mongoose Love, inspired by two mongoose we saw . . . er, loving on each other. We figure Pixar will pick it up and we'll all make millions. :)

And now, for your viewing pleasure, some photographs. Sorry I couldn't supply more!

Us (of course)

Tom and Cindy

LaKeisha and Ivor

Sunset on first night

Sunrise on first morning . . . a storm approaches!

Private boat tour of the islands . . . and about to get BURNED!

British batholiths on Virgin Gorda

Lunch on a private island

STORM ON THE BOAT!! (not pictured)

Touring St. John (my personal favorite)

Slowdown Time, Anyone?

I was driving to Target tonight (something I hate doing -- I am not a Target fan, for the record) to return something Kirk bought and to find some casual wear for myself for our weekend away. Since Kirk bought the shirt that I was returning on his own credit card, he gave it to me in case they needed the card to return the charge on it. (They didn't, through the miracle of technology -- which is, ironically, about to be the theme of this post.)

Since I had his card with me, we agreed it would be best to put my new clothes on that card, too. I've never, ever done that before -- used somebody else's card, I mean, even if they offered me to -- and the whole thing made me nervous. As I drove, I played out potential disasters in my head. What if they're a store that still asks to see the card to check the signature? What if, even worse, they're a store that still asks to see the card in order to check it against ID?

Normally I'm all for this. I used to work in a bank, and you just see enough problems happen to people with their bank accounts and debit cards to render you a personal militant on financial privacy and protecting against identity theft. But tonight I was rooting for the other side. I was hoping they wouldn't care who really owned the card I was using.

Then I remembered that Target uses one of those "insert your own card" machines at checkout. You slide the card in, the machine gobbles it up, and then it spits the card back out. I usually pay with my debit card in these places, which means I just type in my PIN number and am good to go. It's like using cash. Nobody asks questions to see the card if you're doing it this way. But what about a credit card, I wondered? Even if I get to slide the credit card myself into that gobbling machine, does Target make its employees ask to see the card afterward in order to verify name and signature? As you can see, I was back to square one with my questions.

Before I knew it, all of this squirming got me reflecting on how things used to be. I pictured a small-town supermarket, where the cashier would take your plastic card and make an imprint of it with his handheld imprint machine -- or, in even more ancient days, would write the number of your card by hand into sixteen tiny square-inch boxes -- and then ask you to sign the triplicate form after he made the imprint. It used to be an ordeal to pay for things this way, and I can imagine it was almost like the cashier was elevated to offering some grand, supreme service to customers who chose to charge their purchases with a card instead of paying cash.

Can you imagine the lines in those days? It must have taken forever to get through with your shopping back then! And yet, since nobody knew any better, it was par for the course. I can imagine you just endured the expected wait time for checkout because that's just how long it took. People in that world that existed not so very long ago must have had massive amounts of patience stored up in their veins without even knowing it.

Fast-forward to today and we find ourselves in Impatient City. If the machine doesn't read our card on the first take -- and especially on the second! -- we get frustrated and a bit snippy. "It's not reading my card!" we complain. "What's wrong with this machine?" (I know this is what we do because this is exactly what I did tonight when it took three tries of my own sliding into that gobbling machine for it to still not read my card. I eventually had to hand it -- the card that was not my own -- over to the cashier to slide it himself in his register. You can imagine my horror as I handed it over, given my aforementioned anxiety at using Kirk's card. I prayed multiple times: Please don't look at the card, please don't look at the card. What a weird prayer! But things worked out all right. Turns out, the kid didn't give a rip about whose card I was using.)

The point I'm getting toward is this. We're so attuned to high-speed living, depending on technology to simplify every process, that we expect it as a matter of course. How different this thinking is from twenty years ago, when we had no idea just how much we could actually master with a machine and how much of our daily grind could be relegated to a machine's brainy genius.

And all of this made me wonder: is there anything in this world that we expect slowness for, and maybe even desire it? I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Mac and Cheese

You're not going to believe this. Well, maybe some of you will. Kirk got a new computer this week -- a 17-inch MacBookPro that came with the tuition for the new master's program he started this week -- that has some of the most quirky features you can imagine finding on a laptop:

1. It takes pictures! Say, for instance, you want to add a contact to your address book. Say, additionally, that the person you're adding to your address book is sitting with you at the table. All you have to do is flip the screen around so it's facing your friend, click on the "take video image" tab on the contact screen, and a live camera screen pops up, complete with a 3-2-1 countdown to picture time. Voila! You have an instantly placed picture icon for their particular entry in your address book. Amazing. A computer that takes pictures.
2. The keys glow in the dark! I mean, seriously. Ever try typing things out at night, with only the light from the screen to guide you? With this sweet baby, you'll never have to strain to find the ampersand key again. Just turn off the lights and watch every letter, number, and symbol on your keyboard glow to life with luminescent backlighting staged underneath the keyboard. Whoa, that's seriously cool. It's even cool to watch it happen. You'll turn the lights on again, off again, on again, off again, just to get an instant thrill at the flick of your wrist.
3. It has a magnetic plug! You may think you're simply plugging in your comp for a regularly scheduled power-up, but what you're really doing is saving your computer's life. I mean, who hasn't sat working at the computer while it charges its joyful little heart out, when suddenly the phone rings and you have to jump up to grab it -- only to trip over the plug wire and almost lose your foot and your hardware to the merciless hard floor in the process? No more. This time when you trip, all you'll lose is the slight gait in your step as your shin slights against the cord -- and then keeps pushing onward, all because the cable connecting your comp to the wall is a simple piece of metal held in place by nothing but a small magnetic force.

I think it's safe to now state the obvious: I want one.

I think it's also safe to confess that I have no idea what the "cheese" part of this title has to do with this post . . . unless, of course, you count the obvious bit about taking pictures. Please don't state the additional obvious fact that this post, in and of itself, was cheesy.