update

i really did a great job today... rocked the flock!

and if you ask nicely, i might email you the link....

and now....

tomorrow i am speaking (twice) at my dad's church here in KY. i am looking forward to it, mostly, tho i've never really done this in front of my parents before. at least i am mostly just telling my story, and it's hard to get your own story wrong! :) and as a bonus, i have some new clothes to wear, thanks to black friday sales. :)

it's been a shockingly restful week here - usually time races so fast that we feel panicked at trying to relax before we have to go home. but this time, days have passed at a leisurely pace, full of naps and happiness. everyone is feeling it... it's been so, so nice. i am grateful for it.

all in all, lots to be thankful for. i hope you are having a thank - full weekend, too.

happy thanksgiving ... or

... as we like to say around here, 'happy birthday to me!' yes, it is my birthday on the actual turkey day this year. so think of me while you give thanks. ha!

peace out - talk to you after the holidays!

for cynthia

here we are, me and cyn, back in the day!

hmmm. maybe i should have put on makeup before i took my own picture? ah, well. raw and real, right?! this is me today - after a long friday that included the gym, the store, lunch with a friend and various and sundry running around. and we are having company for dinner tonight...

this is my house - view from the street. we rake a lot of leaves in the fall...

this is because i told you i'd be honest, cyn. but in my defense, i find homes in the south severely lacking in closet space. this is the Closet of Shame.

brace yourself.

heaven help me!

this my vanity - i am a big fan of the bracelet, as you can tell! i couldn't bring myself to photograph my closet... sorry. :)

this is my bathroom window - love the pink! love curtis for letting me paint our bathroom pink! the little teacup on the floor is the only receptacle our cat, satchmo, will drink out of. he's weird.

this is my bed! and i really do try to keep it made - honest! hey - i showed you the Closet of Shame! why would i lie about my bed??

these are my girls! they come in two brown haired, brown eyed styles. bendy...

and not bendy.

but both styles come with mess. this is the Playroom of Shame. i usually just shut the door and walk away.

this is meg's room. she's the bendy one.

this is kyra's room. she is the no-so-bendy one.

this is the view from my deck. here is where we see the deer, foxes, snakes, black widows, praying mantis', etc. we love the yard!

this is curtis' workspace (but my computer desktop paper, with the little rat... cute, huh?) it looks over the yard. and it's always chaotic. *sigh* it wouldn't but me so much if it weren't in the living room...

ooo - the dining room! i love the dining room. usually it's pristine, but we are collecting up odds and ends to take to KY for thanksgiving. so far this is kid craft stuff, presents for my dad, and some vino.

my kitchen table - roses and fruit. notice i have abandoned the fruit bowl once and for all. i just put the fruit in the middle of the table - it leads to a far smaller accumulation of crap! :)

stupid birds. fezzik is in the blue cage on top of the fridge, next to where the real cage hangs, while we wait for inigo's feathers (and self-esteem) to come back. *sigh*

this is satchmo - usually he is bounding around like he's on crack, but i happened to catch him coming out of a sunny nap in meg's room. dozy kitty.

this is my front hall. it makes me happy. i love scarves. scarves and bracelets.

pig of happiness! best book ever!



here is my chair. my chair and holly's chair. this is where the magic happens. i sit in this chair, with holly all tucked in beside me, and write this blog (i am here right now, and she is all furry and purring - it's a good life!), send emails, surf the web, read (note the books under the little table - they are my "on the go" books) and generally chill.

there you have it! i forgot to take a picture of my built in bookshelves upstairs, but i'm too lazy (and holly is too cozy beside me) to get up and fix that. so you'll have to use your imagination! :) i hope you enjoyed the tour! :)

thank you

you people have restored my faith in humanity! :)

keep an eye out - if you've been following these comments at all, Cynthia, my best friend in high school, has asked for pictures of my life. ergo, i planning a photo essay of my house/life - real & raw! no cleaning! (well, maybe just my bathroom) no editing! no pictures of someone else's house! because when the people speak, i listen! ask and you shall receive! :)

have i mentioned lately that my birthday is a week from today! woot!

oh, dear.

where have all the commentors gone? i've tried birds, politics, making fun of myself, serious posts... *sigh*. i guess it's the price i pay for reading all of your blogs without commenting. karma. (blogma?)

a rare political statement

politics is sticky in america, and it's odd to be an "alien" at this time of year. this is the first year i've ever followed american politics at all, and if nothing else, it's been interesting!

i watched obama interviewed on cbs on sunday night - and i found myself (again) impressed. he was clearly intelligent and well reasoned, and not leaping from grandiosity to grandiosity. instead, he seemed to have a sober assesment of the long climb ahead of him - and the country - and a solid committment to continue putting one foot in front of the other. i have to agree with jon stewart - when obama speaks, i get the sense that he is who he says he is. i get a sense that he is more than just a talking head.

my enjoyment of the interview went to a whole new level when michelle joined the conversation. watching them i couldn't help but notice the way she called him on his crap - like trying to wax eloquent about doing dishes. she wouldn't let him get away with it. and that's good - because i think a wife who will call her husband on the small things will call him on the big things, too - help him stay true to himself. this is the sort of conversation curtis and i would have - a couple who love each other, and know each other. once again the sense that they are not fabricating a marriage for the public, but rather are people who are working to keep their marriage together, who have genuine love for each other and for their daughters. the idea of having that kind of first family makes my heart happy. i hope that they can find ways to protect and sustain that.

i was excited, listening to him. hopeful. (how cliche!) i hope he's the man who he says he is. i hope that he finds wise counsellors and has the humility to listen to them. i didn't agree with either candidate on every issue, but i am optimistic that obama could lead well, and we could see positive change for once in a long while.

don't judge me!

woot!

i got a cd in the mail today that i totally i forgot i ordered - preordered, actually - on amazon! mmmm. little davy archuleta... remember him? from american idol? the little boy with the sweet disposition and the golden pipes? color me a dork, but yes, i voted for him. :) and now i own his debut album. so there.

now if you'll excuse me, i have to go listen to it....

woot!

the debacle, part III

well, we had to separate the birds. no matter how hard we tried, fezzik kept plucking inigo. resources online said to separate them until the feathers grow back, so we did. this time, no birds escaped - thanks to my 8yr old who suggested we use the goldfish net to catch one of them. worked like a charm! where was she last week when i put them in the new cage!?!?

we have the cages side by side - since finches are social birds - and they fly up to the bars and look at one another, in a way i can only describe as "longingly". so i felt bad when inigo was getting plucked, and now i feel bad that they're lonely. i'm damned if i do, and damned if i don't. *sigh*

whose idea were these birds, anyway?

oh, dear.

so... classes at my gym are free for members. and today i took my first class - a "zumba" class. this is basically aerobics disguised as latin dance - not a bad idea, actually. but... i have TRAGIC white girl rhythm! i am a walking example of every cliche involving "white people can't dance"! ack! but i am not a quitter! i am going to go back to zumba next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, so help me! i will get my salsa on if it KILLS ME. or makes everyone else fall down laughing....

this time i really mean it!

last night curtis and i had a fantastic time with some great people - josh & mamie. we've known them for 4 years, and moved in the same social circle, but never really spent a lot of time together. when we did, tho, we always left saying, "we should get together sometime!" the last time we said that, it took nearly 2 years to happen! then this fall, we realized that we have to be so intentional about our time, our actions & our plans! "we should..." has turned into "are you free this weekend" - because if we don't do it "on purpose" time slips by.

it reminds me of something i read by francois fenelon. he was speaking specifically to the spiritual life, but it is true for all manner of life - marriage, parenting, frienship, work, success, finances, etc. "you already know a great deal more than you practice. you do not need the aquirement of fresh knowlege half so much as to put into practice that which you already posess."

gulp.

and guess what? "putting into practice" takes intention - takes living "on purpose". trying to be intentional has already given us the gift of a deeper friendship with wonderful people... i wonder what other gifts of life are waiting to be discovered by living my life on purpose?

the bird debacle continues!

oh. my. gosh.

so.... inigo finally started to grow back some of his feathers, (leaving him looking very bed-headed all the time), but we decided to go forward with the larger cage, thinking it can only help if they are happier. so today, i set up the new cage and proceeded to experiment with ways to transfer the birds from the little one to the big one in the least stressful way for all those involved. eventually this approach led to inigo's escape!! so here is this small, already stressed grey bird, flapping like mad through our entire main floor, suprisingly low to the ground, being lunged at by cats, (both had good chances), and me, hurling towels toward it like a maniac...cursing the whole time! i caught him when he flew behind our media computer and got a bit stuck inbetween the cables. thank goodness! so i finally get him into the bigger cage with fezzik.... who starts immediately plucking him again!! ACK!

so i am hoping that it's a reaction to the momentary stress, not a return to the long term plucking... or so help me...

quote of the day..

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."
— Albert Camus

the story of my life!

he he!

make your own at www.myheritage.com! woot!

well done!

i spent much of the last two days at a retreat center in the sticks - taking some personal time to reconnect my heart to God's heart. the things that came out of that aren't really fodder for public consumption, but i wanted to say a couple things. first, if you can get away for a day, do it. i strongly recommend this center too - inexpensive, beautiful facilities, and a glorious natural setting. secondly, there is nothing, and i mean nothing, in the whole world as beautiful as a forest in the fall. walking along the creek, surrounded by nothing but trees in their full cloak of vibrant colors is absolutely breath-taking.

i think it's because a fall forest is a whole human experience. the smell is intoxicating - there were moments i had to stop and just breathe. it's interesting at this time of year, as leaves fall & die, the forest smells so alive... it smells like life. the crunch of my feet was the sound of being 9 again, walking to school in early october. the splashing of the creek over rocks, the songbirds music, the sudden crack of a branch - woven together they are nature's symphony. the fresh scrubbed air that you can almost taste, the feel of the knotted walking stick in my hand, the aching beauty everywhere you look... my whole being vibrated with "well done, God. you do good work!"

he ain't heavy...

i couldn't make it through life with you! i hope you all know who you are - but if you're not sure whether or not you are on that list, feel free to assume you are! :) big love from me to you.

victory!

we won! we won! we won the camp out pumpkin carving contest! take a look at our creation! mwaaa-ha-ha-ha!