currently reading 'a sacred romance' after having it casually mentioned to me about a thousand times lately by most people in my life - unrelated, of course. God is good, He draws us even when we are clueless, bumbling waifs.

it's so nice when i can actually get out of the house first (or at least second or third) thing in the morning and go for a good long walk. it clears my head, it gets me out of my self. today knasas went with me and we pet a horse, picked some flowers, and found some good garage sales. by the time we arrived back home, chad had gotten up and had some bible time and breakfast...could me getting out actually be motivating for him as well? we struggle with being late night people and living with early riser kids. maybe we'll get it together one of these years...

planning to see waterdeep tonight...i look forward to it. who knows how much longer they'll be playing like this. chad has been taking drum lessons from brandon...what a teacher.

kids naptime is half over -i better go relax before the next wave hits...

so i've decided on a curriculum for next year. it involves collecting about fifty children's classics - or at least great stories - from a list that coincides with the unit study. i'm finding that a good chunk of the titles are out of print, and very hard to find. so i've been on a treasure hunt, trailing through ebay, alibras, homeschool book sales, and anywhere else i can think of. it's quite exciting to find them one by one, and i'm looking forward to this new approach at homeschooling - spending lots of time on the couch reading to my kids. you'd think, bookworm that i am, that this would be a regular thing in our home, but sadly, as of late, it's been hard to make the time. i'm too free-spirited to be much good at scheduling, but i'm going to try in the fall.

oh, yes...my little blog. i've been neglectful, though it has not been to sit around and play solitare or anything...life has just been very full as of late. i've been tremendously enjoying a copy of anne lamott's 'traveling mercies' that linds sent me...helping my fam finish up spring things like preschool, awana, college...spending time with good friends, attempting to clear out some stuff in our house that is no longer needed (and maybe wasn't in the first place), watching the nightly lightning show all week. it's good to be in full blown spring.

lights bright lights
bright red lights
brake lights
blinking on and off for miles
it seems
in front of me
stop and go
add to my woe
i hate
being late.

an email exchange from yesterday...

Hi - I wanted to know if it is possible to order back
issues of Consumer Reports. I am interested in the Feb. 2002 issue.

Thanks, Lisa
*************************************************************
Are you in the media, a subscriber or just interested in
the article? My department deals only with the media but we do have a
customer relations department.

Jennifer Shecter

*************************************************************
Oh, I'm just interested in the article. Can you connect me to the right
department?
Thanks again,

Lisa
**************************************************************
You know what, just give me your address and I can send you the one issue.
I hate bureaucracy and hate to inflict it on anyone.

Jen Shecter
***************************************************************
i love it.

"the drinking part of my stomach is THIRSTY!...but the eating part is full." - kansas. our weekend in a nutshell - a scrapbooking workshop, taking the whole fam out in the pouring rain to get a good deal on a composter and go out to breakfast, hanging out at the animal shelter looking at all the kittens too little to take home, napping, cooking, church, spending sunday with dan and rosa at our place, then on a house searching tour all over northeast kansas ranging from the scary (an 1800's farmhouse miles from nowhere with bad plumbing) to the familiar (going up to holton to show them chad's mom's beautiful old victorian monstrosity that will be available in the next few months)...and we actually went to bed early last night. good times...

so i'm having a taste of what it would be like to have kansas in school..sort of. our homeschool support group (sounds like a ten step program, but it's really much more :) offers sat testing every year for grades k-12, and kansas is taking the first grade one this week. it's a three day thing, six hours a day, and he's doing really well as far as sitting for long periods of time, filling in bubbles with a sharpened #2 pencil - whether this is a worthwhile way to spend time for us remains to be seen. he's also had a ball running around with other kids his age who are homeschooled also, and i'm so looking forward to being more involved in this group next year. jesse won't be in preschool, and chad's not taking classes in the fall - probably - so hopefully that means a bit more relaxed family time.

"there are few experiences as depressing as that anxious barren state known as writers block, where you sit staring at your blank page like a cadaver, feeling your mind congeal, feeling your talent run down your leg and into your sock. or you look at the notes you've scribbled recently on yellow legal pads or index cards, and they look like something richard speck jotted down the other night. and at the same time, as it turns out, you happen to know that your closest writing friend is on a roll, has been turning out stories and screenplays and children's books and even most of a novel like he or she is some crazy pot-holder factory, pot holders pouring out the windows because there is simply not enough room inside for such glorious productivity."
- anne lamott.

...spending the weekend in kansas city for two waterdeep shows. it's nice to spend time at the new earth with friends, a tradition that may soon be no more as we know it (or at least a much more sporadic occurrance).

rem was on sesame street again today. shiny happy monsters...heh. mike mills and stipe always can at least look like they're enjoying themselves, but peter gives the feeling that he thinks this is too silly for him.

I’m sitting on my porch step among the pots of annuals I planted yesterday and today – the sunny marigolds, the floppy old straw hat pansies, the stout and gorgeous zinnias in all their deep flaming orange glory. It is a grand evening as far as the weather goes – it is neither warm nor cool, it is that perfect mystery temperature inbetween, with a soft stroke of breeze to boot. I smell smoke – some farmer out leaning on a rake, burning his fields out in the prairies that surround our rural neighborhood.

Birds are calling to each other tree to tree – one chatters, one chirps back. All are singing in their own way, and this pure music is easy for me to feel a part of. My dark blue jeans spill over onto my light blue flip flops, the cement is hard to sit on but I don’t mind. The beginnings of sunset are light charcoal grey and soft peach, pale yellow and faint washed out blue. I can hear Lucy murmuring and singing to herself in her crib upstairs.

The grass is beginning to grow long, the chocolate mint is emerging fragrant in the perennial patch.

I wonder if it will rain tonight.
I wonder if the farmer will finish with his fields.

planted flowers and did some yard work today...it was really nice. standing back to look at something you just made a little more beautiful has a theraputic effect, i think.

my kids are big fans of Franklin the turtle. i noticed the other day that bruce cockburn sings the little theme song before every episode...heh.

random biographic thoughts for the day - i think all cookbooks ought to be spiral bound...i don't think one can take too many pictures of their kids...i like my sugar in the raw dissolved in my espresso before adding the cold milk and ice to my latte...i'm an overly sensitive idealist with a healthy dose of women's intuition...i really want to make it to the ocean or the redwoods very soon...i hope my a/c in my little van can be fixed before july.

sometimes life feels like a salt sea breeze, bitter and sweet, sandy and clean. once in a while the record slows to a stop, there's quiet inside, and my mind is free to wander and explore. not too often, but still it happens, that i feel the smile of God on me, as if i had already learned to make my life a gift and let it be poured out for others.

so now i think that chad should find a job in colorado...i miss the air there. i've been known to miss the air in chicago though, and am awfully flighty in my onward and upward desires for drastic change sometimes...this week started out with a raging thunderstorm, but has ended on a brilliant, calm, beautiful sunset overlooking a rolling field - i say this figuratively, of course. chad and i have been missing each other on every turn lately, letting our lack of communication skills shine, and generally making life miserable for each other. i realize that as for my part, this is in large part due to the events and memories i never dealt with from my growing up years, and i'm at a point where i'm just ready to do just that. ready to let go, to move on, to grow up, to let it be. and chad is taking steps to deal with his own closet demons - and for this i am glad. here's to poking our heads out of the sand...

"in acceptance lieth peace" - amy carmichael

"The idea of doing yet one more tour and spending three months in a studio... There's not a window in any studio I've ever been in." - Bill Berry, 1998

this day is for tears...many tears for many people. from the deep darkness of my own heart to places far beyond, the recurring theme today has been sad news after bad news...hurtful situations, searching souls, lost little children sitting in the dirt of the world and it's painful circumstances; some trying bravely to maintain an outward sense of confidence and the illusion of everything being just fine; some openly weeping and wailing, others sitting so still and quiet you wouldn't even notice them but for the splash of tear after tear hitting the blank page before them...
i linger at the drastic and hardest hit, but there are more out on the fringes, those ones may just be a little sad and lonely, or just confused about something...they are worth mentioning too, because they are - though not as acutely - suffering; and need God's grace all the same to pull though this veiled life on earth. i feel a bit lost myself, and confused about some things that are forefront in my daily life right now. i feel distant from my God, who I am told longs to comfort me and fill me with His perfect peace that PASSES UNDERSTANDING - but i am wandering in the maze of thinking i have to understand and make sense of it all...oh, when will i learn? when will i just rest, let go, believe that all He has to offer is also for me? I feel very exposed of soul writing all of this down, but the general sense of damp cellar cloudiness that is in the air today - over phone lines and through email inboxes, at work and under my own pillow - was just to much to keep in.

oh, i guess i should post something about lucy, too...she ate three bowls of honey nut cheerios for breakfast today..hard to believe she will be TWO this summer - where does the time go?