My Heart Leaps

I owe this post to my friends and loved ones. In the last year, "my people" as I term you all have tirelessly issued encouragement and patient words of wisdom to me during my year-long season of starting from scratch with God. Indefatigable ears have listened to my angry tirades, dejected whining, and tear-filled frustrations. I can't thank you all enough for your support, God speaks through you and I am validated, in part, by the excellent people I know who still accept me in all my messiness.

So in short, I guess I'm saying that I'm back. I am in God's Word and I can't believe how much I missed these stories. My friend Laura Karlin is someone who breathes life into scripture, brings its context to the 21st century, and reminds me how rock awesome God's narrative is. Thank you, friend. It is truly a living Word.

I've been praying more, I still don't hear God like I did when I was young, but I will wait and I will try to be better about listening for him. I have seen small miracles through prayer recently and I am gonna go ask for some more of those, they're amazing!
Be still and know that I am God Psalm 46:10

I've decided to "put both feet down" in San Diego for now. I am going to try to live more presently and accept this as my home for a while. I will be slightly less available to those back at home, but know that my phone is always on (literally) and all of you are in my prayers. I miss you more than I can say.

I am in a growth group training so I might lead a Bible study in the not-so-distant future and I'm asking God what His will would be for that because I know if it were up to me, I'd sit back and be a participant in a Bible study, not a leader.

I think God's been trying to draw me near to Him all this time, I fought His mighty embrace but He just kept hanging on to me! I finally submitted at first, with bitterness, but gradually I'm beginning to receive His closeness.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your prayers, encouragement, and example.

I Love Me Some Sci-Fi

One of the things that makes life worth living: reading a book that's so good that you want to sing its praises from a high tower, such is The Book Thief. I'm still working through it and it's going slowly yet quickly, slow enough to savor with Harry Potter-esque momentum. I almost skipped work to read it (I've never skipped work yet after more than a year, I'm overdue), problematic.

NOTE: If you don't care at all about science fiction, you can stop reading now (bye Alison and Heather!)

As has been my tradition since my mother's unit on science fiction—which she taught in the spring—I'm gearing up to cram my spring sci-fi reads. Also, I used this genre as, what I realize now, an escape mechanism after my grandmother passed away a few years back. I think I read almost 25 books in a matter of months, can't say I'm unproductive in grief!

Anyway, if you have any suggestions for what I should read, I'd love to have them. On my list of hopefuls: another Asimov (probably one of his collections of short stories), The Enders Game, A Brave New World (I'm beyond excited to read this), Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land, 1984. I'm stoked (I can legally say that now that I've been a SoCal girl for a while now).

Her Morning Elegance

I dedicate this blog post to my Alison who is undergoing so many refreshing, messy, necessary, and brave changes at this time. Moving away is the best hardest thing I ever did, if it's more hard than best before you go, give me a call. Love ya.

These are the women with whom I rang in the new year, WHAT a blessing!

My mother made an observation about our generation the other day; "You know, between the Facebook, blogs, Myspace business, your generation is extremely self-involved." Naturally, I was at first defensive but couldn't muster any response that could prove the contrary. This got me thinking, "What do I get from this blog, but more importantly, what can I possibly say that would make it worth reading and advantageous to others?" I don't have the answer to this yet, but I would love to hear your thoughts. Would you like editing tips? More stories about strangers? Book lists? Recipes? I can only offer what I know, but I'm open to suggestions!

If you're here for an update, I can help with that:

What I'm reading: The Book Thief (it is AMAZING, I can't believe I'm not through it yet, but it is wonderful and I'm at least happy to not be rushing this story)

What I'm cooking: One terribly gone-wrong turkey chili recipe (threw it out), one successful souffle, one "dump cake" which was so good I had to ruin it before I ate the whole pan (so, after eating too much of it, threw it away too), a curry-coconut pumpkin soup that was divine with a few tweaks to the recipe, and a couple dozen pre-made Trader Joe's choc. chip cookies for some friends.

What I've been doing for fun: Watching The Happening with friends (we laughed through the whole thing), basking in the fabulousness of Lindsey, Annie, and Courtny's new home, and trying new coffee shops (wi-fi nomad that I am). Driving with the windows down in our 80-degree weather, I'm completely in awe of this climate. Enjoying restaurant week with a hot date (thanks Jenni!)

Happys: Reading the Bible again, being back in my bed, reading while sipping tea I got for Christmas using water from the tea kettle I was gifted with too, seeing the ocean, the fact that my workplace brews Starbucks coffee everyday, my new vests I got for Christmas, early spring cleaning. Sharing Sarah's excitement as she continues to expand her circle of friends and community, Alison's excitement as she moves to Rochester and actually having the experience to back up my advice to her on moving.

Crappys: Work is really hectic right now and I'm nervously taking on my biggest editing project yet, I miss my people in NE even though I love being here in CA and can't imagine being anywhere else, my resistance to getting into a workout routine--why do I make this so hard?

I'll think of something enlightening and hopefully useful for my next post, but for now this is my update for 2009 and I hope all of you are having a good start to the new year!

Doin' Fine in 2009

New post coming soon! First thank you notes, then blog.

Give More Presence

There's this fantastic event my church is holding this Sunday, they're putting on a church concert and "Christmas Shoppe" featuring items available for purchase to benefit different organizations and causes. I am so excited!! Of course the items are just gravy, the true fun is to know that one's money goes to a good cause. Obviously, most of you reading this won't have an opportunity to attend, but the good news is that everyone can give differently this year in his or her own way.

To motivate others to attend, Flood Church ran this film you'll see right away if you follow the link below. Please do so, I challenge you to be unmoved (besides, the graphic design ROCKS). Enjoy and consider ways we might challenge ourselves to give more of ourselves and less stuff; something I'm guilty of every year.

And yes, I did steal my post title from the video, I admit it.

Booked for the Holidays

The Christmas holiday means more than the birth of Jesus, cookies, and snow; the holidays promise extra leisure time to curl up with a good book. Previously, this was always done with the knowledge that time was short and the next semester of school would recommence and banish any time for the written word not found in textbooks or handouts. Oh what joy and rapture that I am no longer required to bury my nose in over sized tomes such as Media Ethics, Golden Age Spanish Poetry, and Cognition: Study of Philosophy. These days I have time to read whatever strikes my fancy which includes the following:

Currently inhaling The Book of Lost Things, now I haven't finished it yet but I'm nutso-crazy-o about this story! I highly recommend if you enjoy any form of fairy tales retold. I'm also trying to get into Broken for You, it's fine, a little chick lit for me, but fine. Won't judge it until I finish it. I also started Everything Is Illuminated which promises to be as rewarding as the first book I read by Jonathon Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

I went on a sexcapade through some classic racy novels including Madame Bovary, Daisy Miller, and Lady Chatterley's Lover which make a sophisticated yet sexy little set, if I may say so.

I finally got around to Reading Lolita in the Tehran, which was much more enjoyable than I thought it would be and I now deeply regret missing Azar Nafisi's visit to the UNL campus during my time there.

To make my mother happy, I read The Hound of Baskerville a mere five and a half years after she assigned it to me in senior English class. It reminded me how little I enjoy the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't conundrum of detective fiction. If you figure out the mystery, then it wasn't a very good mystery after all because you were able to solve it; but, if you are unable to solve the mystery in time and are forced to rely wholly on the voice of the narrator to explain its inner workings, then there's great dissatisfaction to be had in yourself for not being clever enough to solve the puzzle. What a ridiculous genre of literature.

I thought A Room with a View was very romantic and I'm pleased to have read my first E.M. Forester novel which was extremely well written.

Other recent reads include: Christ the Lord by Anne Rice (I rate it **/*****), The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff (****/*****), Slaughterhouse-Five by Vonnegut (**/*****), read the play Death of a Salesman (***/*****)and The Crucible by Arthur Miller.