i am unfinished

take these broken wings...

playing hearts, i lost.

( . . . )

wendi, to pervy/avacado/chico/kiwi/verdi the bird:  "you're as worse as a baby."

if all goes as planned, i'll be moving into the estrogen house in march, since i'm there practically everyday now anyway.

surprise party

saturday night we pulled off jamie's surprise birthday party.  there was food, beer, wine, friends, family, music and, later, a loud game of catch phrase between 12 good friends.  halfway through the third game, cori started asking, "what's that smell?"  wendi got up to make sure the oven was off, then followed the smell down the hall to her flaming bathroom. 

a few lessons:  lit candles go on clear counters, not on the backs of toilets below hand towels; fire extinguishers should be readily available; the smell of a campfire lingers, while the smell of a bathroom fire invades.

urban farming

my friend jamie has turned part of her lawn into food.  today she pulled up her first carrot and cut it into thirds to share.  someday, a commune...with beets and kale, okra and brussels sprouts, meyer lemons and figs, chickens and goats, and, the revolution.

soothing the hurt

who am i?  the Romance whispers that we are someone special, that our heart is good because it is made for someone good; the Arrows tell us we are a dime a dozen, worthless, even dark and twisted, dirty.  where is life to be found?  the Romance tells us life will flourish when we give it away in love and heroic sacrifice.  the Arrows tell us that we must arrange for what little life there may be, manipulating our world and all the while watching our backs.  "God is good," the Romance tells us.  "you can release the well-being of your heart to him."  the Arrows strike back, "don't ever let life out of your control," and they seem to impale with such authority, unlike the gentle urges of the Romance, that in the end we are driven to find some way to contain them.  the only way seems to be to kill our longing for the Romance, much in the same way we harden our heart to someone who hurts us.  if i don't want so much, we believe, i won't be so vulnerable.  instead of dealing with the Arrows, we silence the longing.  that seems to be our only hope.  and so we lose heart.  (curtis and eldredge, the sacred romance)

[regardless of controversy over this particular book, these few words are fitting and helpful for the morning.]

insight

when i was in texas we spent quite a bit of time reading nurture by nature, a parenting book based on the myers-briggs typology.  we talked about what josh might be, but mostly we read our own sections, and were amazed at how accurate it all was.  mine, i realize, can be quite annoying at times.  "stephanie, your jeans are blue."  (too blue?  does blue look bad on me?  should i be wearing black?  is this the wrong color blue?  did you stop texting me because my jeans are blue?)  i'm working on that...slowly.  the subtitles for our chapters were the most revealing...  i hope to learn, someday, how to suppress my annoying features while keeping the good.

jesus, oh jesus...

been here before

josh's mom let me borrow her mscl dvds.  mmhmm.

what myers-briggs type is angela, do you think?

josh kosh

keepin' austin weird

josh still loves me, but not as much as he loves diane.

so far we've cooked, cooked, cooked, filling j-dawg's freezer with lots of good stuff (that he won't even attempt) to eat.  his mommy got my butt back to the Y, and even dragged me along to church today.  now most of us are napping or getting ready for an afternoon of sugar cookies and homemade kolaches, then playing with lightning, doc, ramone and mater.  tomorrow, a trip to the blue hanger store, perhaps, more cooking and dinner with new friends.  always good to get away at the end of the semester, and ALWAYS an awesome time with josher, my favorite yellow-lovin' two-year-old. 

do you hear what i hear?

david, at bible study, sang to us from mary's song.  it began quite holy and sacred sounding, and somewhere in the middle took on a "meatloaf"ish identity.

(i know, the quality sucks...still funny...at least for those of us who were there...)