Whimsy Smitten

Five-Minute Friday: How to Trust When You're Ready for Battle

2012-02-10T13:43:00.000-08:00

Trust

This boy… this boy who I've written about, the one you've prayed for, and how our hearts entangle and he is mine even though he isn't… he's lost in the world about now, in need of a set of arms to claim him, a name on a case load, a blond-haired kid in a sea of them. And I am on the other side of a state line, arms opened and screaming to be heard, fighting for this child who everyone's forgotten to fight for.

I have left messages and scrawled out frantic e-mails, I have come farther by the grace of God in this man-hunt…this teenage-boy-hunt… than I thought I would. I have names, I have phone numbers, I have laws and code numbers and certifications to back my fight, and I am ready for battle.

But now, Friday afternoon and the sun going dark in his time zone, there is nothing to do but wait.

And trust.

Because it is not my battle. It is His.

Because no one fights for the blond-haired boy like the one who he belongs to -- The Daddy that does not die and does not leave and does not kick him to the curb.

And I wonder.

If this is a culmination of everything that hasn't made sense for all these years. If God has been prepping me for such a time as this.

I do not fight with swords, I fight with words and research and a love that's stronger than state lines.

I fight for love with love.

And I see the swirl of this whole wide life and all the rusty weapons I've collected without even meaning to, the way He equips. The way He is orchestrating this. The way He makes me trust in the darkest middle of uncertainty, and the way I can, which surprises me. The way having no control at all will make you trust in ways you never thought you could.

I fight for love with love.

-- linking to Gypsy Mama's Five-Minute Friday, on the topicof trust.

Pray with me, please, for my boy, for the one whom I'm trusting God to provide for, for the one I'm fighting the system to reunite with, for the one I'm asking God for the privilege to care for again. Pray that He is in the right hands, that this all unfolds the best way.

Twenty-five Painfully Uninteresting Things

2012-02-09T23:54:00.000-08:00

For reasons I can't go into now, this has been an incredibly emotionally exhausting 24 hours. I am drained and gloomy and if I tried to write from the heart right now, it might look like the scary scene in a horror movie, so I'm going to refrain and join the 25 things linky party, instead. Nothing cures broken-heartedness like random blabbering and shopping for a shabby chic comforter...OMGRUFFLES. (Oops, I forgot to say "spoiler alert.")

Here goes:

1. I went to an allergist the other day and had the most amazing hour of medical information I've ever had. I am feeling hopeful about all-around health/body improvement.

2. I might be gluten intolerant... a blood test was done, awaiting results.

3. In the meantime, I may or may not be eating all the gluten-full products I can get my hot little hands on just in case the test is positive.

4. Allergist begged me to toss my down comforter. There was much crying and gnashing of teeth over this.

5. But then I realized it was an excuse to shop for new pretty bedroom stuff and OK, you twisted my arm. Retail therapy, it is.

6. Tonight, I'm going to T.J. Maxx and Target.

7. Heaven closely resembles the inside of T.J. Maxx and Target only with gold instead of linoleum on the floor. It's true. Look it up.

8. The terrible twos got nothing on the torturous threes, and it comes, this week, with a side of vicious older-kid sibling rivalry and a competition for the most dramatic child that ever lived. At this point, my kids just might kill each other and I just might let them.

9. My house goes from zero to disaster in 0.3 seconds, and I think my husband and kids are conspiring to break this record.

10. IfIhavetopickupdirtytissuesorchewedupfruitsnacksofftheflooronemoretimeI'mgoingtolosemyeverlovingmind.

11. This month, I went 8 days without coffee. I sincerely regret ever leaving my true love, and we have been happily reunited till death do us part.

12. I am officially going on 6 weeks with the bronchitis/pneumonia/sinus infection/world-class cough that will probably be the death of me. Someone, write a eulogy. Gold-paved Target, here I come.

13. Although I love the freedom of working at home, the lack of creativity in my job is absolutely.killing.me. Something has to give, here. Spending 8 hours a day in a creatively sterile environment is sucking the life out of me.

14. I signed up for a fiction writing class. I start in 6 days. I've never written fiction before, should be fun.

15. My 8-year-old daughter, unbeknownst to me, went to school with one sockless foot today. She told her teacher it was because she "only had one sock" (she has exactly seventeen thousand six hundred and eighty seven pairs of socks at last count). Last week, she left her coat in the car and came home with one the school had given her "for kids without coats". The faculty at her school either thinks we are dirt poor and can only afford one sock at a time or that I am the least attentive mother in the history of the world. In reality, my investigative skills are just not that sharp when the kids leave the house at 6 a.m. and the sun hasn't even woken up yet.

16. Since I started writing this, I have since been out shopping at 3 different places and had an impromptu dinner date with my husband.

17. I'm not dead yet. Target's floor's were just plain old linoleum.

18. I bought a Shabby Chic comforter but bought it home and didn't like it. Tomorrow, I'll exchange it for the one I had planned to buy before I went inside the store and got distracted.

19. Now that we're here and settled in, it is becoming apparent that our hearts are still very much planted in the foster care system. Progressing, prayerfully, toward certification back in this state and excited to see if/when/what will develop from there.

20. I have had an incredibly trying week emotionally, physically, and spiritually, but it has also been a week of tremendous clarity and a haze of peace and acceptance is beginning to form over the whole lot of things.

21. It is 11:31 p.m. right now. My youngest just walked in the room and said, "Good morning," then proceeded to have a melt-down. He is wide awake and royally ticked off. This is bad news, friends.

22. Yawn.

23. I have an unnaturally strong affection for red and white polka dots. And peanut butter cups. And decorating magazines. And French fries.

24. I aspire to buy a shoddy old 70's camp trailer and spruce it up with some thrifted love and loads of elbow grease, then use it as our home away from home for camping.

25. This took me longer to write than 90% of the posts on my blog and it was probably less interesting than 90% of the posts on my blog. I got bored with myself somewhere around number four. I am putting my own self to sleep, I'm so boring.

G'night friends... if I can still call you that after that long and arduous link-up! Zzzzz....

(Linking to: PerfectlyImperfect's 25 Things Linky Party!)

What I'm Saying No To Now

2012-02-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I declared a year of no.

It was necessary, and so far, it has served me well.

Sometimes, no feels like freedom.

Sometimes, the ability to say no allows some amazing yeses into your life.

Part of no is letting go. And so, in the interest of disclosure, there are a few things I need to tell you, a little bloggy business to get out of the way so I can clean my plate.

-- in{RL}

I love {in}courage. Like, really really love them. If there is anywhere in the world that I feel at home, in words and in flesh, it's there. I love the women, I love the heart, I love that Jesus is all over that place in the ways I recognize Him best. And I'm excited about what they're doing this year for in{RL}, the un-conference -- the conference that comes to you and opens doors and opens homes and builds relationships. It's beautiful and the idea is necessary and wonderful and I jumped the gun and signed up to host a local gathering right out of the starting gate. I had big visions for this, friends, big dreams related to how I would use in{RL} to connect locally, to reach out and reach in and my head got carried away and my heart got lost in the midst of it and now a scheduling conflict and… well, it's time to exercise that "no" button… time to lay it down, this time. Will you fill me in on what a lovely time you have at in{RL} this April?

-- Definition

Once upon a time, I started this blog as a crafty place, a home décor blog to showcase DIY projects and decorating. (What? Who knew?) Yeah. Obviously, I haven't done much of this lately. This place became something more, something different, a place to bleed my heart all over and process all these daily journeys. It bugs me that the name of my blog is so ill-fitting, and I've fussed and toyed with the idea of splitting off, of leaving this place for home décor and the like, and starting a new place for the overflow of the heart, but this seems to be the substance of this place and I don't want to mess with what works. A break-off might come, still. Home décor might come, still. For now, though, I'm just letting this wonky place be whatever it is and I hope you find bits and pieces of whatever brings you over this way.

-- Control

Or, the illusion of control of my health. It's been a weird road the last few months with fibromyalgia and other chronic health conditions I'm struggling with. I've been sick and sicker and spiraling downhill quickly. Because I'm a control freak, I've tried to head this off at the pass, convincing myself that I could alter my experience with a certain exercise program, with dietary restrictions, with this or with that because it feels a lot like weakness to admit that I have to rely on prescription medication to get me through the day. But… I'm weak. And in the interest of strengthening my life as well as my health, I'm going to take it day by day and swallow down whatever it is that gets me through without making this my fault… acknowledging that perhaps, I don't have much control over this aspect of my life and it's time to lay it down and learn the lessons that come along with the unexpected gift of chronic illness, not the least of which is that we are not ultimately in control of these bodies, this life.

-- Spiritual Should-Do's

Do you have spiritual should-do's in your life? Things you think you should do because as a Christian, it's what's expected of you or puts some kind of check mark on some cosmic checklist of goodness? I do. This is not holy, it's not biblical, and it's not necessary, but it's one of the lies I believe about the ways in which I do not measure up. I struggle with it and sometime I'll get around to working out all of how my year in Texas fit into that and what I learned in that regard. Coming to Oregon meant leaving full-time ministry and there's a big checklist hovering over my head lately… a guilt about where my ministry is now that I'm just a regular working mom getting through the week and not pouring every minute of my life into "the least of these". I feel just a little spiritually less than lately, and this is only a lie that I believe. I am coming to learn that this place is a ministry, that being here for my children is a ministry and that, while I will be asked to do other things for the sake of the Kingdom, I cannot give what I haven't received, and part of being a disciple is experiencing rest and grace and learning when you need to be filled. So my spiritual should-do's are on hold while I learn to be filled that I can someday spill over with what I've been given, not out of duty but because I simply cannot contain it.

-- Technology

I admit, like the rest of the world, I am getting more and more attached to the technology that I am ever tethered to. My phone at my hip while my hands are on the keyboard at work and I've got Facebook and Twitter and Blogger and Netflix and Audible all streaming information to me at the speed of light. I have a stack of books I'm dying to read, and ones I've committed to read and review, but can't manage to find the time to read them. I'm trading tech time for page time and hoping to reconnect with my love of books, time outside and away from the screen, and the concreteness that comes with reading books in print (and sorry, I just haven't been able to get on the Kindle/Nook/eReader bandwagon yet. I need the touch and the smell of real books!).

That's all I've got the energy for today, friends, but thanks for sticking with me through these brain-dead and disconnected thoughts.

What are you saying no to, today?

Laughter and a Million Joys to Find

2012-02-06T12:48:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, the hard plastic bench at a fast food joint with free Wi-Fi and sweet coffee feels like a soft bed… a peaceful retreat.

I headed out early this morning for some hours without little people, and I'm chuckling ironic at the flood of lunch-hour teenagers that surround me here. Seems I can't escape, but as I listen to the laughter, I'm spurred back to life and I remember myself at that age, how easy it was to find things to be happy about, when the weight of the world was crushing around me and yet, I carried a tin lunch box and wore plaid golf pants just because it made me smile, and time spent with a handful of friends could cause uproarious laughter. I wonder how long it's been since I laughed that hard.

I wonder when I became a grown-up.

And in the cackle of this social experiment otherwise known as lunch break, when I can breathe in long and deep the aroma of French fries without any tiny hands on me, that I nearly want to crack a wide smile and remember that there are a million sources of joy to be had… that one only has to be aware.

I catalog… those million joys…those thousand gifts…and count them, one by one, with Ann.

-- Errands and writing time all by myself this morning, a chance to breathe

-- Getting a doctor's appointment at the last minute

-- A few more things to try on the way to wellness

-- Having health insurance

-- Beautiful sunny weather that excites me for spring

-- Lung-fuls of clean air

-- A fun new photo app on my phone

-- A lazy SuperBowl gathering at moms

-- Sweet potatoes

-- The rest of the day off, feeling well enough to catch up on housework

-- Toddler kisses, in high supply these days

-- Open windows, breezy days

-- Finishing Genesis in my in-depth study, moving on to Exodus

-- My 'Keep Calm and Love Mercy' bag from Relevant, with proceeds to The Mercy House

-- My blog reader, a ready source for inspiration and encouragement always at the ready, always ready to fill me up

-- Mt. McLaughlin, snow-capped in my rearview, blinding and beautiful

-- Comfort in cast-offs

-- A tax refund to come, this week

-- Free Wi-fi

-- Things I'm free to release from my life, and more to come on that, dear readers

-- Laughing teenagers, an inspiration to smile

-- The longing that returns me to the Word, over and over to fill my cup and then some

-- Losing track of time

What I Could Have Missed

2012-01-31T20:54:00.000-08:00

I'm still in my clothes. Pajamas from yesterday, now stained with iodine and blood from the nurse's first IV attempt, when my vein blew out and stoic me welled with tears and my arm burned hot and blood rolled down. Three nights without sleep, not even a minute, and the lights and blips and beeps of the hospital room are exhausting while I'm trying to suck thick air into these dysfunctional lungs.

It's the same rigmarole as always -- I get sick, then I dehydrate, then my systems begin to fail, but today I'm home again and my jaw isn't locked any longer and I am full of intravenous saline solution to give my weary blood a boost.

But the coughs keep coming violent, and my head is rattled and my throat is raw and my body hasn't made it out of bed yet. Between doses, a break in the codeine-haze, so I pad slippered feet to the kitchen and remember what happens to homes when moms are paralyzed to bed. Twenty-four hours without sweeping or straightening, rinsing or fussing, and this habitat is worse for the wear. This is what life looks like when Mom goes out of order.

But I am restless in this bed and I will cough prone or I will cough prostrate so I put my weary self in the shower and rinse off the yuck. I putz and straighten and put on purple gloves at the sink because the house smells rotten now and I marvel at how quickly all my daily work gets undone. I dig beneath the weariness and find the joy here, while suds multiply in a stinking sink, and recall a time when the work of this home-life didn't feel like much of a gift. When dishes and diapers and puddles on the floor felt oppressive, when I longed for success of a different variety, when childhood friends would look sideways at the grown-up and domesticated me, and they'd click their tongues and say, sadly, "You could have been so much."

But today, I smile, because I am out of bed despite the war my lungs are waging, and I have traded pearls and cocktail parties, briefcases and penthouses for purple dish gloves and sticky faces and I got the better end of things. And when I glimpse, briefly, into the me they think I could have been, I don't recognize her at all and there is nothing bigger that I could have done than look into these creamy faces with tangled hairdos, click-clacking away at the work that provides with a child on my knee, sneaking a peak every so often at the man on the other side of the bed but on the same side of this life. I can't imagine living without this daily chaos, this happy bedlam with its do-it-all-again-tomorrow comforts and too many Band-Aids and erupting fits of laughter because without them, with my pearls and my parties…

I could have missed so much.

On Choosing Not to Love

2012-01-25T06:17:00.000-08:00

I was at the drug store yesterday, in line for a prescription, and a woman in a purple jacket melted down…. just… went to pieces right there in the prescription line.

“I can’t DO THIS ANYMORE!”

She screamed at the stunned cashier, who blinked quickly while everyone stood there staring, watching Purple Jacket Lady hurtle her backpack into a shelf full of laxatives and antihistamines.

“I can’t wait for OVER AN HOUR HERE ANYMORE!”

She screamed guttural and clawed at her blotching cheeks.

“I AM NOT GOING TO DO THIS! I AM NOT GOING TO DO THIS WITH YOU PEOPLE ANYMORE!”

...Read the rest here.

Today? I'm honored to be featured over at BibleDude.net. Join me there, will you?

(Also, linking this to Walk with Him Wednesdays at Ann's place, on the topic: The Practice of Love.)

A Year of No

2012-01-24T09:19:00.000-08:00

Source

I'm a striver.

You know, a climb-the-ladder, always reaching, trying, working, moving, going, onwards-and-upwards sort of girl.

{This is, I'm sorry to admit, mostly motivated by guilt or a feeling of not-good-enough-ness.)

It's always gotta be more. Not to have more but to be more, to be better, nicer, prettier, sweeter, more attentive and organized and disciplined and perfect.

And in my traipses around blog-land, I see that many of you have deemed 2012 a year of yes. A year to grow… to "feel the fear and do it anyway"… a year to take the reins and face your life headlong as you lean into the wind. This is beautiful. And for a minute, I nodded in agreement. Yes, yes! I want a year of yes! I want to embrace my fears and get ahead. I want to be better, be more, be everything to everyone all the time! YES!

And therein lies the problem.

I am yes. All the time. I am always embracing and accepting and reaching out to take the next rung in the ladder, convinced my efforts should be stepped up, just a little… bit… more.

And so.

I'm declaring a year of no.

A year of learning to be instead of to go. Of sitting down and watching the fog roll in just to marvel at the beauty, just to live right where I am for awhile. To experience my year of home for all the precious moments I usually miss. Because it isn't turning out to be what I thought -- this home thing. I figured I could ride the theme for all its decorating glory, an excuse to fluff and primp and hang and paint… a satisfaction for what my home could become.

Instead, I am finding the joy in mediocre. I am finding that sometimes, just okay is enough. And that when friends fly far and long to visit and I lament that my house isn't done, they couldn't care less because they came to see me and they see me in what I've managed to get on my walls, and they see me in the creative touches I've made around my home. And while I thought I wanted a home whose corners were posted around the Internet, I've learned that I only want a home whose corners are piled with the makings of a life that is all and only gift, a place where we are us and life is love and the messy and the graceful and the ugly and the beautiful all blend together to resemble a life that fits.

I've lived here a month now and I only just discovered that there is a creek at the foot of our property. It's a creek you cannot see, but only when I get silent, when I sit on the back deck and listen, I hear the waters rushing through the hills and valleys of this land. I've discovered, by slowing down and paying attention, that there is a dirt trail on a hillside in the distance, and people ride horses up and down this road on a regular basis. There's an osprey nest in the tallest tree and a white speckled horse that runs circles on the ranch-land below. We have a miniature waterfall, only 6 inches high, a fairy ravine made of rocks and sticks in the side yard, and the deer sneak in our gate at night to graze. There is so much quiet beauty here, and I wonder what else I've been too busy to miss.

Numberless still, I count with Ann, the gifts:

- A birthday surprise, friends from afar.

- Loads of familiar, long-missed laughter that feels like a different kind of home.

- My children forming bonds with people that matter to me.

- Snowmobiling on Sunday, a different kind of worship in a different kind of sanctuary.

- A confirmation of my calling as a mom and wife -- a realization that I am exactly where I should be in this big wide life.

- Time, and how it slows deliberate.

- Patterned paper, in high supply and versatility.

- Lunch with mom yesterday.

- Grace to change our minds.

- Surprise toddler kisses.

- A heart stirring, a question on my mind - our family incomplete?

- Quiet love, reaching out in the night with tangled arms and hearts.

- Water… clean and drinkable and so easily taken for granted.

- Mail delivery.

- Soft pillows; deep sleep.

- Strawberries in January -- summer sweetness in the dead of winter.

Five Minute Friday: Vivid. -or- When the Cat Gets Out of the Bag

2012-01-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

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Five minute Friday. Today's prompt? VIVID.

{GO}.

Husband has a surprise. A big one.

But he delights in my delight and is no good at keeping things from me. He wrestles with the secret; his mouth corners turn up in excitement.

A friend spills a few words, innocent, and oops… the cat is out of the bag.

I know that within hours, I'll throw my arms around my dear, dear friend, taking to the skies to make this a memorable birthday. I try and count… how long has it been? How many years?

I can't remember.

But I think of him and hear his laughter, our laughter, and it feels as if he's in my living room already. I see our faces, lit in hysterics and the kind of joy that knew me before I even knew myself. I giggle at my son's antics and I know that soon he'll be laughing along with me, and the sounds of my friend's laughter echoes in my ears -- so very vividly. His eyes dance vivid, too, and my kids throw arms around their "uncle", because we are the kind of friends that morph into family and he might as well be a brother, an uncle, a permanent fixture in the story of my life. He loves my family because I love them, and he adores the children and oh, man, he hasn't even met my youngest, yet, the one I secretly carried within me the last time I saw my friend. I can't wait to hear that laugh again. Excitement tears through me even while I wonder how badly I'll miss the others -- the rest of the group that made up our little crew of friends, those hearts that leaned on one another while we inched into adulthood, while we helped each other become.

{STOP}

Linking to:

In which I curse at God and call you a hopeless murderer.

2012-01-17T10:54:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: This post is not for the faint of heart. Not everyone will agree with me, here, and that's totally okay. But the post below contains some raw and honest language, so don't say I didn't warn you.

Source

Sometimes, my faith confuses me.

God only knows what the people around me think of my beliefs, at least those who know me well enough to know that I sing worship songs to Jesus with my hands lifted and also say 'shit' with some regularity.

And if we're being honest here, it feels a little strange sometimes to call myself that -- a Christian. I mean, I am one, in the raw and realest way you can be. My heart is wholely and solely in the arms of Jesus, but the word Christian can be so… icky… sometimes, and it makes me think of Jesus as a slimy Pat Robertson with a southern accent, banging His Holy Gavel on a condemning platform, calling out "sinner!," "sinner!" and glaring down his nose at gays and alcoholics and potty-mouthed soccer moms while he listens to Focus on the Family on K-LOVE and denounces public school children for their wayward education.

But that really isn't Jesus at all… not even a little bit, and I still haven't figured out how to reconcile my faith with the weirdness of the body of believers and all our little idiosyncrasies and why we can't just get on with it and agree that we're all royally screwed up and in need of heaps and loads of grace and love on each other and cry together and sometimes look at one another and then up to the heavens and say, "Well shit, God, what am I supposed to do now?" (Because we're all saying it, really, in one way or another, and if you aren't, then you might want to stop reading because I'm probably no one you want sitting at your lunch table, anyway).

It's harder, too, in ministry, because when you wear that badge, that label, you're supposed to be a representative of Jesus all of a sudden, like you weren't already just by acknowledging his deism in the first place. But when you're in ministry, this weird little game happens in your head where these rules lay down upon you and, if you're me, you suddenly look around and realize that none of this really looks anything like the God you know, and the ministry lifestyle starts to look like a competition for some kind of consecrated brownie points and you wonder what you're really after anyway, and the whole thing starts feeling like a spiritual ride on the carnival ride The Scrambler, only with more prayer and (a little) less vomit.

It may have been why I had to leave Texas… because I couldn't bring myself to get over the layers and layers of extra crap that somehow gets added to faith when it begins to cross into religion, and I couldn't keep my big mouth shut when pointless religious rules overshadowed the ministry we were trying to accomplish (which was supposed to be love, pure and simple, but started to become a war over proper church clothes and acceptable reading material and who got the award for memorizing more Bible verses).

And while we're on the subject, let me just bow right out of that competition now. I'm not a better Christian than anyone. I might just be the worst, even -- the most wretched and helpless and confused of us all. And wrong or right, I can sleep better at night when I'm just keeping it real here. I connect with the real nitty-gritty of my faith only when I'm honest about that, when I sit in my mess and say I'm a mess, and opt out of the game of having arrived in the faith and think I've got any right to tell anyone else how they're supposed do it. My feet are dirty, too, and the only way Christ can redeem me is if I haven't already achieved holiness for myself (but I try... ohhhh, do I try like a damn fool).

I am learning that being a bad Christian is better than being a good one. Because if you think you're a good Christian… well, that's a problem already.

And I'm not saying we all should throw up our whiskey bottles in the air while we rip up the Ten Commandments and crank up our gangsta rap, but I just wish us, as a church, would get off it already with the big act we're putting on -- the one where we think representing Jesus means pretending we know how to be Him on this fallen earth and we see each other's petty efforts at goodness and give one another a hand, because love might be the only good thing we really can do in this world, but none of us will really ever understand the depth or height or breadth of love as long as we're breathing.

I'll take a mud-streaked, tear-stained Bible full of parts I don't understand over the leather-bonded edition that says only what I want it to any day of the week. The real Christian life, the one Christ led, is full of prostitutes and cuss words and dirt and shame and poverty, and the only way I know how to connect to any of it is to see my shiny white Sketchers for the dirt that's on their soles… to wrestle with the disgusting reality I don't want to believe but I can't make go away -- that I am as wretched and sinful as a murderous pedophile, that he is as good as me, that our feet are equally dirty, and that grace… extravagant grace… covers this whole hot mess, and that until we've really grasped that and let it change everything about us, we don't really understand faith at all, and no amount of holy water can clean our dirty soles and dirty souls. It's all grace, friends, and the day I get to be a good Christian... the day I'm holy enough to bow down and wash my own feet, is the day I'm really in trouble on this journey of faith.

So, you wash my feet and I'll wash yours and we'll ruminate on this love thing together while we try and fail and laugh at ourselves and finally admit that we can never save the world... we can't even save ourselves.

----
Linking to:

What the Calendar Remembers

2012-01-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

Snow has dusted our little cottage on the hill and, though I am (sorry) not a big fan of snow, it sure looks cozy around here today. And the beauty pulls me from my funk a bit, even if I'm tender-hearted, tired, and a little full-headed today.

While MLK day is historically of course a very important, impactful day to observe, in my heart's own little personal world, it tends to be a day of tragic anniversaries. Californians may recall it as Northridge Quake day, an ominous one for my family because of our proximity to the epicenter that day, decades ago… the way our hotel buckled and shook while walls imploded and concrete bridges collapsed within earshot and we sat, only children, barefoot in a dark broken parking lot with hands over ears from the car alarms blasting, watching gas tanks firework in the distance and drinking beer from dented cans to combat the shock because it’s the only thing we knew to do when the world was crumbling beneath our feet. But this earthquake-shy girl is tender, too, today remembering beautiful, full-of-life young friends lost to the world on this day, a few years apart, and other small slivers from MLK-Mondays past that have wedged their way inside. I am sobered to remember how tragedy strikes hard on promise-filled days and always without warning, and deliberate to remember, too, that it's all redemptive, even the hardest parts, and that the day reflects, too, a man's Dream of a better world.

So the sky is expansive this Monday for the snow and the way a calendar reminds. But I aim to see today more for what it is than what it represents in a head that catalogues joys and sorrows and assigns arbitrary meaning when I am too small, really, to see what He sees here, by each thread that weaves together the whole big story, snowflake by snowflake.

My thoughts have lingered on small sorrows from days past and I breathe deep and break through it, snapped back to the present like the close of a flashback scene in a television drama. Today there are no death-tears, no broken windows or broken hearts or earthquake rubble. There is only love, and snow, and a house in the process of becoming home.

Under blankets, we nurse coughs and sniffles around the cottage, and kids in jammies look wistfully toward the thinning snow, but mom shakes her head and serves up cherry-flavored syrup that protects little throats and twists little faces into grimace. This is what mothers do, even when my heart would rather soak up fits of snowball-fight laughter than read temperature gauges and dosing instructions, today, but love is love all the same and I'll take it as a fevered head upon my lap when that's the way it comes.

Friday will be housewarming around here, and I will focus on what needs doing now until then, when friends and laughter fill this place because, after all, no amount of paint or picture-hanging can make a home, can it? Only the footprints of loved ones in the carpet and the love that leaks out of mouths and brings the odd combination of plaster and wood and food and joy and fabric and words and tears and memories together to make a place home.

First, my gratitudes today…. with Ann… and always compiling, stockpiling, yet still without numbers, since I stick them always in journals and lists, phone apps and scrap papers and have lost the composure to keep a system of numbering in place. It is possible to count without numbers, I've discovered, and so, I do:

- Gentle snow that is tangible peace, falling like manna.

- Cough syrup, and a hacky toddler willing to drink it.

- Kids visiting grandma's yesterday, some quiet to work on my creative space.

- Kids back home now, where they belong.

- My desk space set-up, inviting and so "me".

- My laundry room to crafty space conversion, progress made.

- A husband who encourages me, some days, to leave the dishes in the sink because he sees me for who I am and not only what I do.

- The quiet cacophony of the life I wished for and got in abundant measure.

- My children that love and even like each other, most days.

- A few unexpected work transitions that have me enjoying my day job much more lately.

- A compassionate boss.

- Winter sniffles that slow our pace a bit.

- Our Compassion International sponsored child, Muhayimpundu, in

Rwanda

- My husband's old land cruiser project, a creative outlet for the man who puts us all before himself so often.

- My children having health insurance and a doctor we trust.

- Words With Friends - a tiny bit of intellectual stimulation in the midst of my brain-mush days.

- Being asked to collaborate on a totally foreign-to-me writing project that inspires creativity in new ways.

- My daughter's love and compassionate heart for cultures different than her own.

- A working vacuum cleaner.

And, as if this post isn't long enough, and because I value the accountability I find here (since it lights a fire under my butt to get things moving): A list of things I'd like to accomplish around the house pre-housewarming/late birthday party (items in italics are things I need Mr. Smitten's help with):

January House to Home Project List

- Whole house clean - kitchen, bedrooms, living areas, bathrooms

- Break down and repurpose or burn remaining moving boxes

- Finish setting up desk area.

- Make vinyl quote for desk/office wall

- Make/hang misc. wall art for desk/office wall.

- Hang curtains behind bed.

- Buy curtain rod and hang curtains across slider in master bedroom

- Buy curtain rod for master bathroom and hang curtains

- ~~Hang 'love' banner in master bedroom~~

- Bring white chair in from garage for master bathroom dressing area

- Bring extension cords into master bath for heater

- Hang towels that match master bath (label)

- Empty hall closet, set up mail/bill pay/filing area inside

- Move desk from boys' room into master; move mirror from garage onto desk in master

- Clean/unpack entry way boxes/misc., mop tile floor

- Empty black hutch

- Bring vintage stove into dining room; move black computer hutch into boys' room.

- Bring big filing cabinet into garage

- Bring smaller filing cabinet inside and swap out files from big one

- Clean K's room and consolidate stuffed animals/toys, take box to garage or donate.

- Bring remaining books in from garage, put away in hallway bookshelves.

- Find/replace missing knobs on coffee table drawers.

- Take legs (and doors?) off sideboard and make entry table by back door

- Hang hooks over sideboard for coat hanger

- Bring in antique radio

- Hang some wall décor in master bathroom.

- Unpack boxes in hallway

- Hang hallway photo gallery

- ~~Empty laundry room, bring black dresser and cubby bookshelf inside~~

~~- Decorate laundry space~~

~~- Set-up and organize craft supplies/creative space~~

- ~~Wrap cardboard boxes & label them for decorative craft storage~~

- Clean living room and entry hall overflow piles

May love find you today, dear friend. Thanks for reading.

Thirty two.

2012-01-11T17:54:00.000-08:00

I am an intensely right-brained person.

Sometimes more intensely than others.

And though I'm probably more organized and methodical about my life now than I ever have been, I'm also aware that it's a coping mechanism I've learned over time -- how to corral the chaos into labeled bins and systems -- but not, ever, because its second-nature for me to do so.

I turned 32 today, and while writing something was on the top of things I wanted to do on my birthday (translation: the one day a year where I can guiltlessly do whatever I want), I didn't have anything pressing I wanted to say. Instead, I thought I'd make a list of 32 things I wanted to do this year.

Yeah. Epic fail on that one, I'm afraid.

This proved more difficult than it sounds, because as the list unfolded, my conscience ran off with my imagination, and I found it hard to reign myself in from creating a to-do list of responsibilities like "get that box of papers filed" and "clean out the garage."

Can I confess to you that filing papers and cleaning the garage are not actually things I ever want to do? (Who does though, really?) And thus began a war with myself about what the point of the 32 Things list was really about.

I scrapped the "should do" list and created a "want to do" list, but that wasn't working out so hot either, because a lot of my "want to's" are "shoulds" that I only "want to" wipe out for the sake of clearing space in my brain. My "plan to" list didn't fare well either. And I realize now, how badly I have to clear myself of the straight-jacket of "supposed to" so that I can experience the real meat of this life -- things that never appear on anyone's to-do list -- things like "love extravagantly", "laugh hysterically", "listen deliberately", and "internalize the sheer beauty of God's grace until it changes everything."

Aren't those the things that matter?

Ultimately, I discovered something about myself that I probably knew to be true but connected with in a very real way today.

Nearly everything that drives passion inside me, that makes my heart skip a beat and feels extravagant and beautiful and refreshing to me, when I let myself go there, is about creativity. I am closest to God when I am communing with the creative process, when I am delighting in that which makes my heart soar.

Of course, I've always considered myself a creative person, but trying to catalog the things I crave, those I cherish close to my heart, the things that would really nourish my spirit as an individual and a woman were creative actions - setting up a craft space, taking long stretches of time to write, connecting with nature, painting, decorating, baking, and finding encouragement in those activities. I've been daydreaming, lately, of working toward a goal of making a living by creative endeavor, something I've been on track for many times in the past but have always sabotaged my efforts for fear of failure, for doubt in my own abilities and talents. I'd love to reach the goal in a few years... and more planning and prayer to come in that regard.

See? My right-y brain is taking me off track already.

The point? I think I'd like 32 to be an age of creative nourishment for me. I think this works nicely for my 2012 word for the year ("HOME"), too, since home, to me, is mostly about a place where one can be most safely and comfortably their authentic self... where I grow and spend the hours trying to squeeze as much living as possible out of this one life.

I'm pretty excited about a few recent developments that will make creative time fit easier into my full-time-work-at-home-mom-of-3 lifestyle. One is that I was able to re-work my day job hours to arrange another day off during the week, giving me 3 "weekend" days off work each week.. This is huge to my stifled brain, not to mention my tired (of sitting in an office chair all day) butt. Another is that my mom is gifting me 24 kid-free hours to enjoy as I please this upcoming weekend. Hubby works the night they'll be gone, so I'm deeming this my Create-Space Bonanza. Everyone's heard of the sentiment that every woman should have a room of her own, and I'm inclined to agree. Being that we don't have an abundance of bedrooms in this house, I'm happy to expand the purpose of our laundry room and looking forward to the overhaul. Stay tuned for this decorative kickoff to my year of creative nourishment. (And trust me, 24 hours isn't nearly enough to contain the amount of crafty/sewing/artistic ~~crap~~ supplies that this tiny space will house. I do feel a challenge coming on. Squeeee!!)

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Anyway, there's a bottle of Cupcake Prosecco chilling in the fridge just waiting to be guiltlessly enjoyed tonight. Happy birthday to me!

I'm a MoneySavingMom. Are you?

2012-01-08T21:30:00.000-08:00

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You can't toss a squirrel over a tree these days without hearing someone talking about extreme couponing.

Wait, what?

Anyway. As I was saying… these days, we're all interested in saving money. More than that, lately, I've realized that we have such an abundance of stuff and our share of financial stressors, and I've really been taking drastic steps to reduce the financial impact our lifestyle has. Small changes have helped.

I've never been a coupon clipper, but naturally, with all the buzz about it these days, I've watched from afar. A few months ago, MoneySavingMom.com shared a phenomenal Target coupon deal that I jumped on, resulting in my getting 4 pairs of my favorite jeans (Excessive? Maybe. Maybe not.) AND two t-shirts and a sweater shipped to my door for around $6. Total. Yeah. I was so excited about that, I told anyone who would listen and started to reconsider my position on the whole couponing thing.

A few weeks later, I was blessed to attend the Relevant Conference in Pennsylvania, where I gleaned some in-person wisdom from Crystal Paine, the brains behind MoneySavingMom.com, and received a sneak preview copy of her soon-to-be-released book: The Money Saving Mom's Budget: Slash Your Spending, Pay Down Your Debt, Streamline Your Life, and Save Thousands a Year

This book is chock-full of savings ideas, couponing wisdom, budgeting techniques, and EASY ways to save money and improve your financial health without having to become a financial advisor. I can't stress enough, my favorite part of this text was Crystal's easy, practical advise for real families with real budgets. So many financial books I've read assume everyone has stockpiles of assets, thousands of dollars in savings, and a desire to live successfully on credit. This book met me where I am (a bit taxed financially, living paycheck to paycheck, wanting to eliminate our reliance on credit), and it gave me some simple steps that left me feeling hopeful and not discouraged or defeated.

Another amazing thing? All proceeds from the book are going to Compassion International, and well… I love to support the work of Compassion however/whenever I can. The book releases on Jan 9, but you can preorder it now through the link above. Highly recommended! And, while you're at it, if you don't already follow MoneySavingMom.com… what the heck are you waiting for?!

I'm happy to say that the last month has been a very encouraging month financially, and this book certainly had a hand in that. I even bought about 75% of my groceries with coupons last week! Although I'm not sure I'll be turning into a coupon queen anytime soon, I have started some financial habits I'm sure to stick with.

1) Meal Planning: The biggest bang for my grocery buck (and, let's face it, with 5 people in the house, lots of our budget is ~~wasted~~ spent on groceries each month), is meal planning. I purchased Household Menu and Coupon Organizer, The and used it to help plan affordable meals for the month. This allowed me to plan for some new recipes I'd found on Pinterest and wanted to try (success!) AND make sure my grocery budget wasn't going in the trash on fridge-cleaning day, nawutImean? I discovered we could eat much more affordably than I'd thought because I was so used to going to the store and buying a variety of items that we'd combine into meals later. Being more deliberate, a few hours a month, means our meals are less stressful and best of all, it saved me HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS this month. We should come in at the end of the month for less than $300 for all groceries (including toiletries, etc.) for a family of 5. Not shabby, and we're not eating like paupers either.

2) Meal Remix: Re-thinking our typical "meal" and ingredients made menu planning easier and more affordable. Often, I'll use a bit less meat in a dish than usual and add some extra veggies… healthier and makes our meat budget stretch. Also, finding other sources of protein besides eating meat with every meal. Did you know corn, beans, and rice are a complete protein when eaten together? Now you do. Other affordable alternatives: Baked potato bar, pasta with fresh tomatoes, basil and parmesan, taco salad, etc. Plan a leftover night once a week to make the most of the hard work you've already done.

3) Coupon stacking: Since I shop at a discount grocery store (Food4Less) and buy generic, my usual purchases are already at bottom-line prices. (In fact, my husband works for a mainstream grocery store where we get 15% off most items, but we typically pay such low prices at the discount chain that it doesn't make sense to shop where he works, even with the discount). During my couponing experiment, I discovered that I could still buy generic at the discount store for less than the value of the coupon I had for a name brand product. This happened so frequently that it took the wind out of my coupon sails, but I did score a few tremendous deals by "stacking" coupons – combining a manufacturer coupon with a store coupon to maximize the discount. Our Safeway had a huge buy one, get one free sale the week I went shopping, and though I normally don't shop there, it was worth an extra trip to stock up on meat and snack foods at B1G1 prices. Adding coupons to the deal meant pennies on the dollar, and I walked out with a few items for nothing or next to nothing. Paying attention to inserts and big store sales may do just as much for your grocery budget at clipping coupons, so keep that in mind if you don't want to go through the hassle.

4) Money talks: Once upon a time, we had a cash-only budget and the results were incredible. Over time, the lure of the swipe-with-ease debit card suckered us back in, and along with it, lots of our hard earned moolah seemed to disintegrate into the atmosphere. Now, we're transitioning back to cash-only and loving the concrete reality of not being able to overspend in certain areas. IMO, the number one way to keep your budget on track is to use cash and tell your money where to go.

Ultimately, I don't think you'll be seeing me on an episode of Extreme Couponers anytime soon. But you might be seeing me around here a lot more often, with the time and stress I'm saving with the few financial changes we've made (with very little effort, I might add).

It's good. Really good.

Don't forget to order your copy of The Money Saving Mom's Budget: Slash Your Spending, Pay Down Your Debt, Streamline Your Life, and Save Thousands a Year today! (If you tweet/blog/Facebook about it, you can even pick up a free copy of Crystal Paine's new e-Book, 21 Days to a More Disciplined Life while you're at it. See MoneySavingMom.com for details). How's that for killing two birds with one stone?

Frugally yours,

WhimsySmitten

Sticky Sleeves, A Timely Word

2012-01-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

It is blue dawn now, and a layer of ice glistens from atop the deck railing, wispy fog streaking the landscape like pulled-apart cotton balls. Quiet settles out there and in here, and I lay my arm in a drizzle of pancake syrup and pronounce it good. After all, this is home.

So that seems to be my word, this year, having never done the word-for-a-year trend before, but heavy on my heart this January that life, this go 'round, needs a bit of definition, some pronouncement upon it for the next few hundred days. I asked Him for a word, to settle something into my heart, and he gave me one.

Home.

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And yet, I fought it. It wasn't very profound. Shouldn't this be the year of Giving or of Grace or Faith? The year of Prayer or Simplify or Grow or Fly? I wanted to Dream, to Create, to experience the depth of Peace this year.

You can, He said.

At Home.

So even as my friends erase my address book entry for the 21st time in 15 years, I settle into a season of home. Of learning that of all the things I strive to be, the who I am at home is the who I was most created to be.

And while this sounds so warm and fuzzy, it's more of a difficult concept for me than for most, I suspect. I am rather domestically disabled, at times, but heap upon the expectation that my home be perfect…warm and inviting and filled with creativity and love and delicately hung window treatments that perfectly frame the world beyond. The world where I can be somebody and I want to make a difference for all those people out there, in the world, and my sights can grow long and distant and far too grand, sometimes, with the idea that if I could only be good and perfect, I might earn peace and grace.

But I am somebody already, nearly everything to a few little hearts and a big one here and there are walls that contain all I really need to do or be in this wide world, and it starts, I know, right here, at home.

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Linking to:

Home is Where the Crumbs Are

2011-12-28T09:47:00.000-08:00

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Home has been a bit of a fluid concept for me the last few years… four moves in three years, hauling belongings across the country… and back again.

But now, we're home.

And I know that home is late-night laughter and lame TV. Christmas lights on the deck rails and buckets of toy cars. Making lasagna and salad and bread pudding and eating it with the people I love.

We have a house. A beautiful house with views for miles. A house I wouldn't have dreamed to ask for, and I'm incredibly grateful. It's not the house that matters, of course, but permission to live inside. Folding towels and putting away dishes feels like an incredible gift, lately. My own coffee mugs in the cupboard, a bed big enough for us both, replacing the batteries in the smoke detectors and kissing my children goodnight in beds of their own. It is a gift to choose your own shower curtain and eat off plates of your choosing...to wash laundry when it suits you and dry it in a dryer that doesn't shut itself off and to know in which drawer the can opener goes. Perhaps I hadn't realized.

And I am enjoying every minute of this extravagant gift -- toilets to clean and floors with crumbs and work to do to pay for bathroom trashcans and a few more bookshelves to make this place just. right.

Here, my heart has begun to find rest.

Rest to unwrap the impact of the last few years. Rest to learn again to love and trust the One who holds it all in His hands. Rest to make a home for my family and the freedom to really live in it. Rest to discover creativity again, to find beauty in joy and happiness, now, instead of merely striving for purpose in pain and worry.

And since coming home, I am remembering what it is to be a mother… a wife… a woman… a sister… a daughter. I hadn't realized I'd forgotten, but I had. And here, I am me again.

Welcome back, me. Welcome crumbs and dirty towels. Welcome grocery shopping and paying bills. Welcome half-glasses of sweet red after dinner and frozen pizza now and then. Welcome floors to sweep and windows to wash.

Welcome, home.

Wishing You a Peaceful Christmas

2011-12-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

Home, Again

2011-12-06T10:54:00.001-08:00

I'm alive.

(Surprising, I know.)

In the last couple of weeks, I've worked like a madwoman, looked at a dozen houses, pigged out on turkey, spent Black Friday in the emergency room, hobbled around on crutches, got diagnosed with gout, designed a tree for the Festival of Trees, dropped out of my chronic pain study, decided on a house, signed a lease, cleaned the new house, and, in 4 days, we'll be moving in to this home in the hills with a killer view. It is decidedly free of shag carpet and other people's furniture.

Hallelujah.

Sunday morning, I will wake up to this (and this is the actual view from exactly where my bed will go):

Beautiful. And I am so, so grateful. The price is right. The space is plenty. The yard is abundant, the view extravagant. And the Whimsy is happy. Oh so very, very happy.

I'll probably be absent while moving, but before long, I'll share my home-making escapades with you all as we begin life again in our own place. (Yay!)

Thanks for bearing with me, friends. <3

Let There Be Thankfulness to God

2011-11-21T06:40:00.001-08:00

Let there be thankfulness to God.

That's what the runner says, draped across the table, bringing a smile and reminding me not to rush too quickly toward the fast celebration of Christmas, but linger awhile, in a place of gratitude.

Thanksgiving is next week and the holiday, this year, for us, will be full of family and wonderful food but will also be just another day on our calendar. Work days for us both, right in the middle of our work week, we'll squeeze turkey and football and laughter in on lunch breaks and celebrate a breakfast meal and a postponed dessert. I think it's what I need this year, though. A break from the fanfare to realize the simple truth that Thanksgiving is not a day but a state of being, that gathering around the table and the knowledge that expressing thankfulness to God can be an every day reality and not just a once-a-year hooplah.

It's one of the reasons why I love the entire Ever Grateful collection at Dayspring. It reminds us, in runners and on aprons, on desert plates and cake plates and coffee mugs, that it's all gift and we are wise to thank Him for it all, every day, every meal, every cup of hot, steamy, life-giving, deliciously chocolatey coffee.

This month is a lean one for our family. The entire year is, really. And yet, I've got more to be grateful for than ever. It is not about celebrating what you have, I am learning, as much as it is celebrating who you have, and whose you are.

And if, like me, you happen to be temporarily without a dining table of your own, the table runner also makes a great end-of-bed runner, to carry the concept of thankfulness right into your bedroom, as well. It's on sale right now for $17.49 (!!!). I loved it so much that I ordered the matching apron, too (adorable and also on sale, for $12.49).

Follow my affiliate links in this post to DaySpring and check out the great prices they have on the Ever Grateful collection, among other things. This month, they are offering 30% off all wall canvases (awesome) and buy 1, get 1 tote bags (hello Christmas gifts!). Swoon. I just love DaySpring.

15% off on all gift purchases. Coupon code: 15OFFGIFTS

Get $10 off orders of $60 or more from DaySpring with promo code: 10off60

What Good Christians Do.

2011-11-16T09:13:00.001-08:00

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Good Christians go to Africa.

Or, at the very least, to the soup kitchen.

They go to the bad neighborhoods and evangelize the homeless. They risk their life in countries closed to the Gospel. They give everything in order to serve.

And if I understood anything at all about Christianity, it was that my choice to follow Jesus was first and foremost a call to die.

I knew that the only way to make God happy was to find those verses in the Bible about feeding the hungry and caring for the orphans and widows and live them wholly to the detriment of all else. I knew that the only way to be a good Christian was to do something drastic in the name of the Lord… and that then, and only then, would I be enough in His eyes.

I didn't go to Africa. I wasn't good enough to do that, after all, without a degree in Missions or International Ministry. I didn't even have a passport, but I had a willing heart.

Instead, I went to Texas. I cared for orphans. I put on my Christian smile and my Christian uniform and I said the right catch phrases to be one of those women who give everything up for the calling to love the least of these.

Except that I wasn't.

I was drowning in my own effort, I was grasping for God in a dark, hopeless place inside myself – farther from Him than I'd ever been. And I didn't know what to make of it.

I knew how it was supposed to work. Good Christians go into full-time ministry, then God rewards them with warm fuzzy feelings and a gold star in the Book of Life. That's how the equation was supposed to go – I'd been told that my entire Christian life – but no matter how I figured the numbers, my math just wouldn't line up right. I couldn't get the right answer.

I've never been good at math, so I puzzled over the integers. Gave up belongings. Check. Left my family. Check. Cared for orphans. Double check…carry the one…

But the pit continued to grow and the algebra of giving and serving continued to puzzle and I wondered if maybe Texas wasn't far enough but was afraid of what I already knew. I wasn't a good enough Christian. I wasn't satisfied with all this selflessness because I was a rotten, weak, selfish girl who probably hated all things holy and was doing more harm than good there, and Jesus probably couldn't love a girl like me anyway.

So I left.

In the leaving, I laid down my good Christian. I left her in Texas where she belonged because I had no use for her anymore. I scooted across the country with a moving truck of things I wasn't leaving behind this time in the interest of running… just getting away from the incredible expectation of the kind of life I knew I could never lead. And I sort of whispered "I'm sorry" to the idea of serving Jesus with my whole life because I'd obviously failed at that whole thing, and I might as well just get back to my regular old failing life where I wasn't dragging anyone down with me.

But a funny thing happened.

Jesus met me. Right there when I stepped foot out of the moving truck. Right in the middle of my mess and though I'd looked for him all along, I found Him only when I looked beyond the expectation of the holiest kind of me. Only when I had failed and admitted that I wasn’t holy at all and had no good at all in me – when I finally knew, once and for all, that my ugly, messy love just paled in comparison to the love of a Father that never had to try.

"Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God." -2 Corinthians 3:5

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Linking up to: http://www.mommadaybyday.blogspot.com/

We're reading through Emily P. Freeman's Grace for the Good Girl (affiliate link). This week is chapters 2-3. Join us... but even if you don't.... please, please read this fabulous book. Truly life changing.

On Valley Girls and House-Shaped Idols

2011-11-14T07:36:00.001-08:00

Have you ever wanted something so bad that you were sure God was withholding, just to watch you squirm?

Or that maybe He was teaching you a lesson about longing and the desires of the heart and the things that really satisfy? But you just wanted to learn the damn lesson already so you could just go on and have that thing you really want – the relationship, status, job, move, baby, trip… or that shiny new widget with your name all over it?

And maybe you sorta have a little bit of an attitude about it, and you cock your feathered bangs and side ponytail to the heavens and whine like a teenage valley-girl, "Hey, God, did you, like, forget about me? What about what I need, here? Have you ever thought about that? Furshur."

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No?

Only me then. Except I'm (thankfully) a few decades post feathered bangs and side ponytails. It's that pissy missy attitude I still have trouble shaking.

Right now, for me, it's a house. The great unattainable.

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And not even my own house. I'm not even asking to be able to paint the walls here, just a nice neutral bungalow with a dishwasher and a garage and a backyard where my kids can play. Something without shag carpet, please.

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I did my time in Seventies Haus (the ranch) and Eighties Haus (the children's home), and now, just maybe I can graduate up a decade. C'mon Craigslist – hand me a nice Nineties Haus this time around. We're not talkin' granite countertops here. I'll rock an art deco lampshade, if I have to… maybe some flesh-colored stucco or a brass-trimmed fireplace.

Wait, how about Fifties Haus or Turnofthecentury Haus with some cute built-ins and hardwood floors… doorways I have to duck into with glass doorknobs and hazardous wiring. Oddly shaped bathrooms with subway tile and piles of character, maybe a sun porch off the back for good measure.

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You see the problem, don't you?

This thing I want? This house? This fresh chance to make a home?

I want it too bad. I daydream and night-dream about what our eventual rental will look like, where I'll put the black hutch or the distressed coffee table. About what color the throw pillows should be, and I've logged thrice the hours on Craigslist than in my Bible, of late. And every time I shiver 'cuz this house is always freezing cold and I can't go flip on the heater in someone else's house, I cringe and shoot up a snarky "thanks a lot, God" while I ruminate on what I deserve.

It's a problem, friend. And confession is good for the soul.

Because I don't think that God withholds good things from His children.

I think He withholds idols when we're in danger of letting them destroy us. And I think he protects us from the desires of our flesh when our bank accounts and the size of our faith aren't ready to bear the weight of those desires.

We're one paycheck deep into new jobs. We're six weeks out of a whole former life. And man, how impatient I am for the world to spin as I would have it.

But right now, God is telling me to quit wiggling and wait. Sit still for awhile. Rest in His provision – his purple-carpeted, 42-degree, love and laughter and garlic-bread filled shacking-up-with-my-in-laws provision. He protects me from myself, and in the middle of my stubbornness and the living room that isn't mine, I'm grateful for it.

And so, so sorry for the valley girl impression.

--- Linking to:

I'm a Recovering Good Girl

2011-11-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

I'm a try-hard. Actually, I'm a try-harder, since try-hard never manages to measure up. And I care desperately what you have to say to me, about me, about my worth.

(As Emily P. Freeman says, "If you wonder what gives you the authority to define me, I will say it is because you exist. I must have worth and it is up to you to give it to me…I beg you to see me, to notice my goodness, to ignore my failure, to be inspired by my beauty, to be captivated by my essence." (Grace for the Good Girl, p. 17, 18)

I shouldn't do that, of course.

I know where my value comes from.

But I am afflicted with a syndrome that makes me ever striving toward a make believe notion of good enough.

I am a good girl.

And this book? Grace for the Good Girl by Emily P. Freeman…. Well, I'm only on chapter 1, but it's rocking my socks off.

"I taught people around me that I had no needs and then was secretly angry with them for believing me. Somewhere along the way, I got the message that salvation is by faith alone but anything after that is faith plus my hard work and sweet disposition." (GFTGG p. 13, 14)

Can I get an "amen"?

…And all the bloggers said…Amen.

Maybe you're a good girl too.

If you'd asked me a month ago if I was a good girl, I'd have shook my head. Nope. Not hardly. Good implies … well… good. And I never feel good. Not really. I'm not even well behaved. I am prone to surfing the internet when I should be cooking something nutritious for my family and craving a glass of wine every now and then and ten minutes ago, I devoured an entire king-size Snickers bar without coming up for air. I sometimes watch rated R movies and used the "s" word yesterday and considered, at least twice this week, running away to join the circus.

Good girls don't do things like that.

Reading this book, though, makes me realize just how much good girls do do things like that. They tell themselves all kinds of lies about the hundred arbitrary ways they'll never measure up… and then suffer in the misery of persistent failure.

If you don't already have a copy of this book, do yourself a favor. Join me. Buy it, read it, soak up the truth that has already begun to penetrate my mask-wearing heart. And thank you, Emily P. Freeman, for writing such honest and beautiful words that cut to the core of this people-pleasing, try-hard heart.

Linking up to: www.mommadaybyday.blogspot.com.

Buy this book through my Amazon affiliate link and support WhimsySmitten.com!

{Book Review} Beautiful Girlhood and The Companion Guide to Beautiful Girlhood

2011-11-07T09:17:00.000-08:00

I have been surrounded by boys my entire life. First an only girl with two brothers, later in the workforce, and eventually as a houseparent to eight boys, in addition to my own three kids. I'm outnumbered even in my own house, my husband and two sons trumping us girls in the gender war.

The testosterone-fest that is my life makes me truly appreciate the unique feminine beauty that I feel blessed to experience by watching my only daughter grow from an infant to a young woman. Raising girls is so different in so many ways from raising boys, and as my onliest daughter grows into a young lady, I really enjoy the feminine bond we are strengthening every day.

This is one reason I was excited when I had the opportunity to read and review Beautiful Girlhood revised by Karen Andreola and The Companion Guide to Beautiful Girlhood by Shelley Noonan and Kimberly Zach. Another was that I had the opportunity to meet Shelley Noonan recently, and hear her share some of her story. This is a woman who understands the power in embracing your beautiful girlhood.

Beautiful Girlhood was originally written by M. Hale and published in the 1940s, but was revised in the 1990s by Karen Andreola. The book has beautiful, descriptive langauge and reads like a nonfiction version of Little Women or some other classic literature. I sort of felt, reading it, like I should be donning a corset and bonnet, and I don't say that to be contrary. The book retains a classic nature that transcends pop culture in favor of addressing timeless issues like trust, purpose, and modesty.

The Companion Guide to Beautiful Girlhood is exactly what its title suggests -- a companion on the journey through these topics, a springboard for discussion, growth, and connection between, for example, a mother and daughter reading the set together. It offers a Bible study outline, journaling topics, discussion questions, and real-life application of the issues that coordinate to the text.

While it was suggested to me that that the books were for use with girls ages 8 and up, I found that the language made my 8-year-old's eyes glaze over, and she wasn't really able to comprehend much of it. I continued reading the book and companion guide solo, and have used the topics as a springboard for more age-appropriate discussion of the topics. A tad academic in nature, despite its flowery language, it will likely go back on the shelf for a few years until I feel she can maintain a clearer grasp on the text.

There was one concerning element for me in the books, and that was the underlying message that all women were purposed to be wives and mothers, and that this is necessarily the desire of all women. I know many women in Christian service who are not mothers or wives who have struggled against the evangelical culture's message that they have less value to the Kingdom because of their choice, or even circumstances beyond their choosing, such as the arenas of infertility and singlehood. I am cautious about furthering the notion in this day and age that a woman's value is determined solely by her family (or future family, or lack of family as the case may be), because it is my sincerest belief that her value is determined by God's love for her, whether she marries or has children or learns how to keep a home.

All that said, I will probably revisit this set of books when my daughter is older, mainly because it is offers an excellent springboard to discuss topics in the book on which we agree and those with which we disagree, to encourage my daughter to have a healthy self-concept of her internal feminine beauty, but also an invitation to engage in topics like purpose and family where the lines may not always be clear.

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If you're interested in purchasing Beautiful Girlhood and The Companion Guide to Beautiful Girlhood, I invite you to use my affiliate links in the post above, or below, through Amazon.com. Thank you!

Also, please note, the authors offer an additional companion text titled Beyond Beautiful Girlhood, appropriate for older teen girls/young women.

The Gift of Chronic Pain

2011-11-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

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The bad days are the ones when I can't grip the coffee pot to pour the water and it rolls from the sides of the black plastic into a mocking puddle. When I throw the bagel across the kitchen because I can't hold the knife steady to cut it and it's only just a bagel so how can it upset me so badly? My knuckles are twice the size they should be but the pain is not just in my hands but my back and neck and eyelids, foot arches and earlobes and hair follicles. It all. just. hurts.

Besides my knuckles, everything looks right and people can't understand because I have good days too. Sure, my under-eyes sometimes pool with fatigue from the insomnia of this pain but there are no bandages, no battle wounds, no wheelchairs or braces or sickly props to illustrate the state of things inside my body…just a smattering of golden bottles with childproof lids, narcotics and anti-inflammatories and drugs that fool my brain into convincing my nerves that the pain is imaginary. These bottles I can't even open on days like these, even in my desperation to tear into them and suck down the chemical relief that really only takes an edge off that which never really goes away.

And my enemies are can openers and blinding headaches, office chairs and fall weather, ballpoint pens and uncomfortable mattresses, all of them giants to this aching David with pills in my slingshot, shooting tablets and capsules into the eye of the Goliath challenges of cutting an onion, brushing my daughter's hair, getting a good night's rest, or, the toughest one of all, sitting in a chair. I am angry because my mouth is full of ulcers, sores that no one sees but makes eating so difficult and when I am low and need comfort, even my husband cannot kiss this leper's mouth.

It feels like weakness, you know, when you require assistance to wrestle with a can of peaches, when you call for help to defeat a box of laundry detergent, and when you watch while, with ease, those other folks you know can do these things without effort. It bubbles up and I despise the helplessness, I create more pain for myself in the struggling stubborn refusal to be weak and needy. I am not fragile.

Still, the jelly jars must be opened. The tennis shoes must be tied and the twist-tie has to go back on the bread bag. The coffee must be made because I need the hot, dark liquid like I need the caplets in the golden bottles, to soothe my insides and stave off sleep but more, so I can wrap my aching fingers around the steamy mug and feel the warmth of relief through my hands.

In this needing, I unwrap the gift of chronic pain.

I am willfull and obstinate, a stubborn girl who wants control over this life. But in the pain and the daily struggle, He teaches me dependence…surrender…the truth that I am in control of nothing. I cannot rule over a bagel or a bread bag and I cannot rule over this world, not even my own corner of it. These prescriptions do not heal me and I am laid low before the only one who does. This girl who doesn't want to need anybody needs people around me like I need air and when no one else can really understand, I need a God who does. How this humbles my prideful heart.

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It is a gift difficult to accept. My hands tangle in the bow and I am slow in tugging off the shiny paper, mangled knuckles throbbing in the unwrapping. And in the midst of the painful receiving, I am learning to have gratitude to the Giver for even a gift I would not have chosen.

Gifts are made to bless, and yes, even this. It is a thankfulness not come easily, but earned in the walking through hard places and the learning that the best gifts, the ones that sustain for eternity, are those farthest from our wish list. This has been the gift of growing lower, of learning how to need, and a ticket to a journey closer to the only thing my heart can ever really desire.

Becoming Relevant

2011-10-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

Hi friends. I'm missing this quiet place while I'm away in Harrisburg at The Relevant Conference.

I wish I had time to tell you how amazing and beautiful and redemptive the whole thing has been, but I am short on time and long on things to process about all I have learned and experienced here. I only will leave you with a few words from the Five-Minute-Friday exercise we did in a session today with Lisa-Jo (live and in person!) and a short prayer that is on my heart.

Five Minutes of Becoming:

Being here has, in so many ways I never expected, been about… becoming.

About embracing and discovering and admitting and coming to a place where I realize that I am in progress. That I, too, am, like all these other amazing and beautiful women… in process.

We are becoming.

We are becoming bloggers. Becoming writers. Becoming friends and family and kindred spirits…becoming beautiful and honest. Becoming like Christ. Becoming like us.

Becoming like me.

And before arriving here, I believed that I had a grasp on what that meant. What it meant to be and to become. That coming into myself was something I had already slid into, was already (sort-of) there, and that this would be about learning and networking and growing and taking a step forward.

But as I’ve been here… as I’ve soaked up the amazing beauty that is all around, and as I have remembered the sound of the whisper of God… I have realized that it was always about becoming.

Becoming a woman whose purpose is clearly defined. Not as a blogger, not as a writer or a mother or a kindred spirit, a friend or expert, or anything that is outside of the love of the Christ that redeems this broken heart.

Being here is about becoming less, about coming more into the central love of the cross, about bending low and laying down my striving, that I would know what it is to be authentic.

My prayer:

Lord,

I remember what the whisper of God sounds like, now. I remember how your love brings me to so much fullness, it leaks from my eyes. I remember that you gave me this thing within, this thing that drives me and makes me discover and connect and experience and grow…and thrive and thrill and break open with joy. And I have doubted in my abilities, but I rest now in yours. I rest in the assurance that you know what you’re doing, that you have redeemed and ordained every word for a holy purpose.

And I thank you with a gripping gratitude for reminding me. For whispering your breath so I can feel the wind of it. For nodding to this frail heart and spurring me onward. For the way you created this world to be so relational, and our hearts to delight in others. For lighting the fire beneath my stunted heart, again. For love, Lord, big and wide and high and deep.

That I would feel you here, *this* close, for the rest of the time here. Thank you for the blessing, Lord, and that I would be so bold to ask for more … Bless me more, fill me more, with knowledge, with community, with connection, and with the stirring of your Spirit.

Fill me, Lord, with your purpose, your dream, your truth. Help me siphon all the *me* out of this experience and soak up the *you*.

In your precious name,

Amen

So You Had a Bad Day...

2011-10-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

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Anyone else had that kind of day?

You know, the kind where you forget its picture day until morning and all the kids’ clothes are being washed, and you mix-up the lunch plans you made, and run around all day wondering where the time is going since nothing is getting done? Where you try and make an easy cinnamon-biscuit dish for breakfast, but since your mother-in-law doesn’t have a Bundt pan, you substitute an angel food cake pan with (surprise!) a removable insert, and while it bakes, a river of sticky sugar-glue seeps out the pan’s crevice and floods her state-of-the-art convection oven and the smell of burnt maple syrup fills the house and trips the smoke alarm (while everyone else is still asleep)?

A day where you wake up with a strange, itchy rash on your face and cold sores on your nose (!!!) even though this has never, ever, ever happened before in your entire life, and then the power struggle with your toddler begins before the sun is even up? And then you bicker with your husband in the grocery store while you have to wait two hours for prescriptions to be filled, and then you have another encounter with the same oven when you burn the macaroons because you set the timer for twelve hours instead of twelve minutes, and somehow also drastically miscalculate payday and now you’re left wondering how in the world you are ever going to afford to eat during the trip you’re traveling across the country for in 31 hours for 5 days with $50 to spare after hotel costs?

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Aaaaaaaaaaaand when you are in severe pain because your fibromyalgia is flaring and your head is pounding because your contacts are six weeks overdue for replacement. When you try and fix something broken on your blog and wind up wasting hours trying to figure it all out and make the problem worse, then argue with your oldest son and give up on your youngest son halfway through bath time because there is poop on the floor and you just don't have a bathroom-floor-mopping and a hair-washing left in your soul tonight, even though it’s not even 7:30 p.m. yet, and only one of those can wait until tomorrow?

Those kind of days?

Yeah. Me too.

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I am hiding in my bedroom now, taking a breath, whispering a prayer to wash away this wretchedness. Perhaps God is reminding me of all I will enjoy a break from this coming week, in Pennsylvania, even though I will be longing for it while I'm away. But I am ready, tonight, to slip between blankets and shake off the day in peaceful darkness and be grateful for comfort and the promise of much wonderfulness later this week.

What better way to combat the blues than gratitude, friends? Counting blessings just now, even without numbers, along with Ann.

- Leaving for Relevant in 2 days. Can’t believe it.

- A day off work.

- A bit of daydreaming, today.

- New employment, and resources to pull from in our tight times of late.

- Twitter, and the bursts of joy it brings me throughout the day from brothers and sisters full of encouragement and humor.

- A husband that loves to cook (good for a girl that loves to eat, yes?).

- A movie, to put me in the mood for Pennsylvania.

- A work schedule I love.

- A workload challenging enough to keep me focused but easy enough that I’m not stressed out.

- Being back at our home church, and the sermons that leave me lingering on truth all week long, marinating and tenderizing.

- The overwhelming joy at being home that has not yet faded.

- A ‘welcome home’ banner that still hangs across the front porch, though we’ve been here a month now.

- A neighbor friend for my children, just across the street, new to the area, also.

- The hope that we’ll have our own place soon, and the fun of imagining homemaking possibilities.

- Beef Wellington that turned out fantastic, and the time and ability to try a dozen new recipes in the last week or so.

- Having been able to ‘steal away’ twice this month so far for writing dates to work on my manuscript.

- NaNoWriMo, starting Tuesday.

- You, and your comments and input that have blessed me significantly this week.

- The truth, in this:

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Amen, and amen.

Multitudes of sweet blessings your way tonight, friend.

Introducing Myra at MyBlessedLife.net - AND - A DaySpring Giveaway!

2011-10-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

Update: Giveaway has ended. Congrats Karen Logan! You won the DaySpring giveaway! Enjoy your tote (my birthday is in January, so feel free to send it back to me. Just kidding, of course!) Enjoy, Karen!)

It’s no secret around here that I love {in}courage and DaySpring from the bottom of my heart. After all, it’s thanks to them that I’ll be in Pennsylvania in a few short days, soaking up all the learning and fellowship to be had at the Relevant ’11 Conference. The most exciting part about all this, though, is the chance to hang out with some of my favorite bloggers, not the least of whom is my new friend Myra over at MyBlessedLife.net.

Doesn't she just look like someone you want to be BFF's with? Wait 'til you check out her blog!

Myra is a wife, stay-at-home-mom and awesome blogger who offers her readers a plethora (yes, really… a real, actual plethora) of tasty recipes, frugal home décor suggestions, DIY ideas and tutorials, delicious giveaways, and the kind of real-life goodness we can all apply to our home, family, and faith. I particularly enjoy her always-timely reminders on living faithfully and trusting God.

I love, love, LOVE her appliqued 'BLOOM' pillow.

White Chicken Chili? Yes, please.

Tutorial for Myra's adorable and funky fall napkin rings.

I could go on and on, but I'll let you go check out MyBlessedLife.net now and marvel in the gifts splashing all over the bloggy pages at Myra’s place. You can thank me later. ;)

And for those of you who won't be able to attend Relevant, don't forget that {in}courage is bringing the beach house right to you this April, with {in}courage {in} real life, a world-wide {in}courage conference coming to your town. Check it out, and register to attend. I promise, it's the least expensive conference you've ever dreamed of attending. Go see for yourself!

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As if that weren't enough excitement for one day, here's another little sumpin' sumpin' for you, today: A DaySpring Giveaway!

But not just any DaySpring giveaway... a giveaway of a particular little lovely that I picked out just for you, a 'Just Trust God' jute tote bag, featuring Psalm 25:5.

Isn't it cute?! Too bad I can't win a giveaway on my own blog, or I'd enter like a jazillion times. Luckily for you, then, it's up for grabs for one lucky reader.

Speaking of entering... here's how: Do any of the below items, and post a comment to let me know. Please post a separate comment for each item, in order to get the most entries to win the tote.

- Become a new subscriber of WhimsySmitten, right here.

- Become a new follower of WhimsySmitten on Twitter: http://twitter.com/WhimsySmitten

- Visit Myra's site: MyBlessedLife.net, and comment here, telling me your favorite recipe, craft, or DIY project on her site.

- Subscribe to MyBlessedLife.net, or comment letting me know that you already subscribe.

- Register to attend {IN}RL (that's {in}courage {in} real life) in your area this April, then comment here to tell me you did (It's only $10!!).
- Follow @DaySpringCards or @incourage on twitter

With that many ways to enter, you have no excuse! Entries will be closed and winner will be announced here on this blog on Monday, October 31, so hurry! There's not much time! GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED.

Size: 18"L x 14"H x 6"D
Made from 100% jute
Lining: 100% cotton in coordinating color
Sturdy handles with 12" drop
Message and design on one side only