When it snowed last week (I am desperate for it to stop snowing), Mike took this picture of one of the first signs of spring covered in ice. To him, it was just a picture. I saw an image that represents so many of my own struggles: I begin to trust and allow my heart [...]
Categories: Books
I doubt anyone is still waiting for the big bathroom reveal. You will have to forgive me . . . it takes me a while to settle in and get pictures hung and figure out where our things are going to go. But we hung pictures this weekend, so I am going to show you [...]
Categories: House
When I found out about the Around Downtown in 80 Minutes competition that Triad Stage was putting on, I immediately asked Mike to compete with me. He declined. Politely, of course, saying that he’d do it if I couldn’t find someone else. So I called Alisa, who agreed right away. With Scott and Brandi’s help, [...]
Categories: General
Just like last month, please link your own good things in the comments! We will have another good things party!
February 1 – Cleaned out all our old magazines. Filed the recipes and book reviews I wanted to save. Total dorky happiness about it, yes.
February 2 – Best workday lunch ever. I would explain it, but [...]
Categories: Good Things
Mike has gone skiing with our youth group, so I am on my own this weekend. Unfortunately, I have developed a bit of a cold. I am hoping it’s nothing more serious than that. I have had a low-grade fever for the past couple of days. So the exciting Friday night at my house consists [...]
Categories: General
(This picture reminded me of some old-school Derek Webb, but instead of running across a box of letters, it’s a box of music. Just go with it, okay?)
We haven’t done this in a while!
—
Dear Man on the Next Elliptical,
You are coughing or snorting kind of a lot. It is very distracting. And also weird. I [...]
Categories: General
Today at lunch, I finished this year’s Coretta Scott King Honor Book, Mare’s War. I received it from Random House a few months ago and thought that it looked interesting, but never got around to reading it (I know I read a lot, but I still don’t get to read everything I want to). I [...]
Categories: Books
A while back, I read an article that was talking about poor relationships with in-laws and making suggestions about how to “fix” that problem. The article, written by someone with good in-law relationships, was essentially based on the idea that you should check your own attitude first and if you are nice and pray a [...]
Categories: General
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtsofan/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
“If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the [...]
My mom really knows how to pick ‘em – YouTube videos AND basketball teams.
Categories: Sports
Within every subculture, there are things that probably seem meaningless to an outsider, but are important indicators of hierarchy to those within. You see this with school uniforms, when students do whatever they can to indicate their status and individuality. A hairbow, the right kind of shoes, a certain style of hair. (If you don’t [...]
Categories: General
For several years, I was a scrapbooker. I started to say that I was an avid scrapbooker, but I am not sure that’s true. I think avid scrapbookers are the people who buy all the little trinkety things that go on their pages. And that is not me. For me, scrapbooking was always about putting [...]
Categories: General
Raskolnikov felt sick
But he couldn’t say why
When he saw his face reflected
In his victim’s twinkling eye
Some things you do for money
And some you’ll do for fun
But the things you do for love
Are gonna come back to you one by one -The Mountain Goats, “Love, Love, Love”
Fact: Everything I knew about Crime and Punishment before reading [...]
Categories: Books
Previous Male Bakeoff Entries: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and last year’s Best of Show.
Have I ever talked about our slight obsession with Sky Mall? Mike and I are fascinated by Sky Mall. Who needs to shop in the air? Why are their products so weird? Where can we put this globe that would secretly open [...]
Categories: Funny Stuff
Life is a constant Advent season: we are continually waiting to become, to discover, to complete, to fulfill. Hope, struggle, fear, expectation and fulfillment are all part of our Advent experience. -Life Is An Advent Season, Connections, 11-28-1993
This was a week that could be called, at best, a bust. We are just not equipped in [...]
Categories: General
We have had quite enough snow and cold already, thankyouverymuch. Today I am longing for spring.
“Spring is like a perhaps hand” by E. E. Cummings
Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully
spring is like a [...]
Categories: Poetry
After I saw the newer version of Pride and Prejudice, the one with Keira Knightley (also known as the one without Colin Firth), I remember reading a review that said that, after being used to the miniseries’ leisurely pace, this version felt as if Lydia had you by the hand and was pulling you through [...]
Categories: Books
-A friend of a friend has started a blog for girls to write their reviews of books that they read. If you love hearing what young people have to say about books as much as I do, give it a look (and give them some encouragement in the comments).
-Scott Westerfeld’s take on the Amazon/Macmillan showdown [...]
January was filled with books and organizing and exercising. I have to say, to be honest with you, 2009 kind of sucked in a lot of ways. But this was a good beginning to the new year.
I know many of you also write “good things” posts, and I would love it if you would [...]
Categories: Good Things
I feel compelled to write what is surely the obligatory J.D. Salinger post. (Not that that’s a bad thing.) I only read The Catcher in the Rye once. Just the one time, as a freshman in high school. My librarian gave it to me and said, “I think you would like this.” And I [...]
Categories: Books