What are you occupied with this week? Buying school uniforms? Scrambling from a/c to a/c? Reeling from the Bachelorette decision?

We’re scurrying along like mice in a marathon. Our little feet are scrambling away, but there are moments when we don’t feel any closer to a finish line. If there even is a finish line.

It’s been a fun month, though. We had lots of visitors at the Home, and however much it strains us, our kids had a blast with all the programs and camps and swimming and hiking. We’re also working on a big project for Serious Creatures (I’ll share more later this year), preparing for a new iteration of the education program at the Home (which begins Monday), and preparing for our housemate to return for another year to hold it all together alongside us.  Brady and I remark often that there’s a fine line between faith and cuckoo, and we sometimes wonder if we’re on the side of the line we think we are.

But the many-plates-spinning scenario has pushed me back into some necessary best-life practices, and those have been glorious. We’re taking time for solitude each day. We’re going out. I’m planning my weeks and spending the working part of my days accordingly. There’s a sense of daily rhythm developing even though one day can be unrecognizable to the next. I’ve hoped for that. Prayed for that. But I knew I was praying for a miracle. Good news! I’m happy to accept miracles, however long or short-lived they may be.

What I’m listening to…

I’m listening to music again! I’ve been using it as a mood elevator and cacophony-drowner-out-er-er.

I never got into Spotify. I tried, I did. But it always lost me somewhere between rebuilding my playlists and the radio stations serving up LOTS of music I wasn’t interested in. But I’ve been trying Apple Music (no need to rebuild playlists!) …and I’m kind of loving it. There are the customary glitches first-adapters encounter, but the beyond-excellent custom radio capabilities more than make up for it.

Are you on Apple Music? Listen to a little Sleeping at Last or create a radio station from Taylor Swift’s I Knew You Were Trouble and tell me what you think.

What I’m reading…

Confession time. I’ve been reading, but I haven’t finished anything in far too long.

I’m re-reading the David Allen classic Getting Things Done and it’s pretty much the reason my life isn’t spinning out near Saturn at the moment. I knew I needed to revisit his task and project management principles, but I’d forgotten how truly life-changing they are. So happy to be reading this again.

Game of Thrones (the book) has been picking up, and I’ve been meandering through this book on the Enneagram (whoa), and I’m dabbling in other works as well. I’m hoping August can be a month for wrapping these up. I have so many books that need getting to!

Watching…

It’s guaranteed to be a fan fall in our house where Star Wars is concerned, and we kicked it off with Star Wars Rebels. Have you seen it? Uhhhh… LOVE it. The first episode didn’t grab me, but soon I couldn’t wait to see the next episode. And the next. And the next.

We finally finished season two of Reign. The fantastic finale had me wishing we hadn’t waited so long. And of course, SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE!

Elsewhere and so forth…

Brady gave a TEDx talk several months ago and they finally posted it. He talks about using your story to pick a “thing” to be about in the world. If you’re the TED-talk sort, check it out!

Anne Bogel has me wanting to watch this Documentary on the September Issue of Vogue. Have you seen it?

And finally, this Star Wars comic con behind-the-scenes bit might have just watered my eye a bit. Can’t. Wait.

What are you looking forward to this Fall?

Hi.

It’s been a while. Life has been… well, life, and has been full of priorities elsewhere. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t always get to post as I’d like, but still. Five months?

We’ve been adjusting to Lebanon and learning the things and, surprise! That and seventy kids make a full life. Add a small business to that and I can’t even tell you what you get. Maybe you get crazy. Which is probably why I’ve been away so long.

Anyway, as we’re figuring out this new life-of-many-hats… one of the neatest things has been the chance meetings and lovely people along the way. That’s how I “met” Kris, actually. She heard about our work in Lebanon through Serious Creatures and asked if we would share with her Grace Table readers. Of course. And we’d love to. And thanks, Kris.

This post was complicated for me. There’s the part of selecting from a million tiny experiences and then whittling one into a short telling. Then there’s the part where, like the man entrusted with the single mina, I’m condemned by my refusal to act on knowledge I really do have. Writing this post is changing me on the inside, still.

If you have a minute, check out the post over at Grace Table. And linger a while after reading… Kris has a fantastic group of contributors with a wide variety of perspectives. I bet you’ll find a little something extra while you’re there.

I always want to read more books. If I go too long without exploring times past or hearing new-to-me ideas or happening upon intriguing fields of study I get kind of pent up and cranky. It’s like my brain decides it’s been caged up too long and revolts.

It took me a very long time to notice this. And really, I only figured it out after repeatedly watching the revolt make a big fat mess in the middle of my favorite relationships. (Sorry about that.)

But it’s not just reading more books that helps me be my better self. It’s reading more books of a certain type that makes the real difference. I love a quick movie-type read that has me page-turning through the early hours, but those usually don’t have the elements that let my wild-monkey-of-a-brain out for a run.

I bet you’re similar. It might not be histories and culture that let your brain play in just the right way, of course. For you it might be poetry, or engaging characters, or quantum physics, or spiritual memoirs, but I’m guessing there’s a difference in the soul-soothing for you between various types of books.

So how do we get more of these reads into our lives? 

One way that’s been working well for me lately is to make a list of topics I’m currently interested in reading about. I don’t mean a list of anything ever that in your wildest dreams you’d want to read about. I mean what’s on your mind right now.

Here are a few of the questions I use:

• What book have I wanted to read but have been putting off?
• What subject is on my mind a lot right now that might be better thought through with the input of an outsider?
• What am I wrestling with right now that could use some encouragement?
• What books have my friends been reading lately which have sparked my interest?

Assuming you’re reading regularly (and here’s a tip for jumping back on the reading bandwagon if you’re not), all you need to do is start referring to your list when you’re ready to begin a new book.

I’m a big fan of reading whatever a person feels like. It’s easier and more impactful that way. But choosing between books that we’ve already decided matter to us (rather than browsing that ever growing “to read” list) moves us toward books we feel like reading AND that matter in the broader scope of our lives.

I’ve been using my annual reading sub-goals as my list, and have had my best reading month in a long time. The books are timely and enjoyable but are also nurturing my mind and life in directions that are important to me.

What better books are on your list this year?

Demonstrations like this are all the news this week. But there’s more here than meets the eye, reflections of the beauty that is Lebanon.

For one, the group was able to gather. I’ve been around the Middle East, and more often than we realize, this sort of gathering would land you in prison.

For another, the group did gather. They have the freedom to express themselves, and they did. “Charlies” and “Ahmeds” (Who most often do not cross paths in sectarian Lebanon) stood in solidarity. Declarations in French and English and Arabic.

Lebanon is neither fully eastern or western in its collective leanings, making conflict a permanent part of the fabric. But on this one day, in this one space, conflict elsewhere brought this small group of people together.

I hope one day “Je suis Lebanese” rises higher even than this. For today, I’m encouraged.

For the last three years running I’ve failed hard at my annual reading goals. Last year, in fact, I shared exact quotes where Brady makes total fun of me and insists I’ll never meet my reading goal. Nothing like someone who believes in you, right?

But he’s just calling it like it is. 2014 was a repeat of 2013, which was a repeat of 2012. And perhaps I’m setting myself up for another round next year.

Except that really, seriously, truly-madly-deeply… each year I’ve desired and intended to read 50 books. And it’s not the 50 books per say, it’s the routine of finishing one book a week that I’m after. And it just so happens that 50 books a year would mean that I’m finishing a book a week. And that’s the person I want to be becoming. So I’m going to keep aiming for it even if I fail for five or ten more years running. Because there’s something tragically lame about lowering my aims to accommodate my undesirable habits.

So I’m still aiming for 50.

Last year I began setting sub-goals, and I’m going to stick with that this year. When I remembered to review them, the sub-goals kept me moving, so I’m tweaking them and trying it again.

Here’s what I’m aiming for in 2015:

Total:  50 Books.
Monthly:  Three of my finished books should be from different topics/genres.

As my sub-goal, I’ll read at least 12 of the following 16 items/categories:

• Game of Thrones #1
• The Last Battle (the final Narnia book I’ve never read)
• Re-read Harry Potter 6&7 (finishing up last year’s HP re-read goal)
• Memoir (probably food-related)
• Writing
• Prayer
• Beauty
• C.S. Lewis or related (probably the McGrath biography)
• Storytelling
• Kingdom
• Habits or neuroplasticity
• Child Psychology or Education
• HSP or Enneagram
• History or Biography
• Something I’ve been long meaning to read (like Walking on Water or Dune)
• Something I’ve been meaning to re-read

Some books would count in more than one category, but no harm in that, right?

And I miiiight even push myself to round things out with Modern Mrs. Darcy’s Reading Challenge for the year, but my track record doesn’t make that too promising.

What do you want to read in 2015? Do you set goals or just wing it?

I’m ready for a new year.

Twenty Fourteen was a monumental year for which I’m so thankful. We went all in with our business and all in with a new life direction. For the second time, we parted with (nearly) all our possessions and moved internationally. We endured periods of waiting and severe unknowns and came out on the other side. It was exhilarating. And it was exhausting.

As I write, we live in an un-furnitured apartment and work in the highly-trafficked common area of a Home for abused and neglected kids. But our apartment has a lovely view and our work has real purpose and it’s obvious we’ve traded down and traded up simultaneously.

As 2015 dawns, we reach our 3-month anniversary here in Lebanon. And I need the re-centering and re-focusing that the turning of the numbers incites. Who do I really want to be? What is the best I can give of myself in 2015? What is it that I’m uniquely responsible to give and do and be with the whisper of life entrusted to me?

Though things barrel forward on every front, and my lists (oh gosh, my lists) teem with tasks and figurings and unrealized possibilities, I so badly need to pause and reflect and recenter.

In these first days of 2015, I’ve been coaxing reflections from their corners-of-hiding. I’ve used my go-to prompts (What was great? What could be different?), and I’ve borrowed prompts, and better than those, I’ve given my mind space to meander and I’ve let it lead me to things I should be thinking about (minds are great tools when you give them some breathing room). I’ve probed our home-life habits, our business trajectory, and my spiritual realities (soooo different than my intentions can those realities be), and I’ve surveyed the 2015 reading landscape (details coming soon).

I needed the new year to cue all of this, but I need to not keep waiting for a year to arrive before repeating the exercise. One of these years, twelve months will be the majority of what I have left.

So my one major “goal” for the new year is to regularly take time to reflect. To set aside time, often, to revisit the aims and words and work I desire and have been given.

To have a bit of built-in accountability for this, I’ll share bits of them on the blog this year. If it’s July, and I haven’t posted how I’m doing, that means I’m failing. If that happens, please start sending howlers to spur me to action, would you?

As I aim to do that (something I’m obviously failing at), I’m curious how you do it. Do you set goals/aims/intentions/whathaveyou around the turn of the year? If so, how do you revisit them as January becomes April becomes August?

It feels like six. I don’t know how it works, but if you split your time between continents it does the bizarrest things to the felt passage of time.

And while things in week four are far easier than they were in week one,  I still feel like I’m in the throws of transition. Maybe it’s like adjusting to new babies: at a month in you’re only realizing how whack things are and still have no idea how to adjust them, nor the energy to even think about doing so. (So I hear, anyway.)

I’m starting to notice that the hardest part of long-distance moves is developing new rhythms. The old way was just so natural. I knew my on-the-way-home grocery stop would exactly 12 minutes. I knew what roads to avoid at what time of day. I knew where to hide during a break so that I could be alone in my head without being interrupted.

But then the familiar left, and with it, all sense of rhythm and instinct. And I find myself flustered, and bumbling, and frustrated.

I don’t know when I can reliably take a shower, because it requires me to be to be home during at least 2 hours of government electricity (which is off half the day, though I never know which half). I don’t know when to do laundry, because it requires about 3 hours of government electricity, and I have to be home if we (surprise!) go dark in the middle of the load. Braving the grocery store (and the roads that get us there) is still a pretty big event, and difficult to force ourselves to tackle at the end of already-exhausting days. (Did I mention the work week is 6 days long here?)

All of this means I’m eating a lot of junk food, which exacerbates the felt lack of norms and rhythms.

I’ve moved enough to know it won’t last forever. It’s counter-intuitive, but trying harder doesn’t improve things any faster. It only frustrates things and makes me (even more) miserable.

So instead of berating myself for another week of lame dinners, missed blog posts, and destroyed-house-ness, I’m trying to go a little easy on myself and make time for things I enjoy. Today I’m stirring myself another cup of nescafe, enjoying the clouds and rain and cold (the upsides of this transition), and lingering a bit longer over Order of the Phoenix.

This is hard for me to do. I feel like it “shouldn’t be that big of a deal” to get through everyday life. I feel irresponsible for taking a break when there is so much to be done and so little I’ve accomplished. But I also think a little breathing room can go a long way.

I’m guessing I’m not the only one in transition right now. Which means I’m likely not the only one berating myself for not getting the “new” just right yet.

So maybe it’s time for a glass of wine and a soak in the tub, or a small dive into whatever helps each of us feel most feel like ourselves. The stopping helps. Really. It releases tension, for one. But there’s also something about the space in a stop that gives room for things to fall into place, which is a significant step toward new rhythms.

If you’re in need of one, take a stop with me, will you? I’d love to hear how it goes.

I’d wanted to make it out to San Francisco since they’d moved there from Texas several years before, but our brief visits stateside never allowed it. But here was this split-second of a chance, so I took it. His wife, Lauren, and I conspired behind Kevin’s back, and I rolled in on a late-October Thursday to congratulate my friend.

The year since has been an amazing one for Saint Frank. They’ve been written up in everything from DWELL to Bon Appetit and repeatedly named in lists of the top coffee shops in the US. So in celebration of this amazing year, I’m going to share why else I love Saint Frank (besides my love for its founder) and (finally) post these photos that have been dying to claw their way out of my computer all year.

The first day, I sat at a far table along the main bench and watched the steady stream of patrons file through. Some were there to work, some to meet a friend, but all were commenting to one another about the coffee, whether they were comparing it to intelligentsia or rightfully oozing commendations for the alfajores (a to-die-for dulce de leche shortbread sandwich cookie).

If I had to choose one coffee shop for the rest of my life it’d be Saint Frank. Because I could definitely live off their pastries and cappuccino for a while. Until I die of diabetes of course. But it’d be a lovely go until then.

But Saint Frank’s excellence is not the only reason to love them. The best thing about Saint Frank is that they’re up to great good.

From bean to cup they emphasize relationships, connection, simplicity, and service. In short, they value humanity. They look at everything from the neighborhood to the coffee industry and say, “What could be more lovely here? How can we bring that about?” And not just for the sake of being awesome, but for the sake of the people and communities they serve.

Read more about their story and their farmers, if you’d like. And next time you’re in San Francisco, visit them at their Russian Hill location (on Polk street next to Crunch Fitness). The cappuccino will change your life. And tell Kevin hello for me, will you?

P.S. Isn’t their natural light just the best?

The first time I had it I was on my back for 5 days straight. (Well, when I wasn’t on the toilet, that is.) After that first time it just kind of comes and goes as my body adjusts to its new normal.

Don’t feel sorry for me, though. I not-so-secretly love sick days, which are some of the only times I allow to binge-watch whatever I want and all-around indulge myself in whatever I feel like. It makes the misery a sweet one. I fancy myself Lewis-esque in this respect (liking sick days), though he made much better use of his time in bed than I do as he was a better chap all-around and also without an iPhone.

How do you feel about sick days? Love? Hate? It’s complicated?

Anyway, here are some goodies from the web this week:

A person “being born” into something doesn’t make their thoughts irrelevant, even if that thing is privilege.

Where we go wrong with expectations, and how we might go right instead.

Lovely editions for book shelves (though of course I’m partial to these from my friend Dana).

Several failed female reading groups (non-fiction) have me wondering if this might be a good alternative.

Also from Joanna, 12 Words Even Smart People Get Wrong. (Yes, you want to read it.)

Life will never be “balanced.” Instead of worrying about that, consider thinking about it like this.

And in case you’re wondering, mosquito traps like this are a total waste of time.

Hope you’re having a great weekend!

As we walked into the office the next morning, a kid was kneeling against the wall in the directors office with his hands behind his back. The workday was bustling around him, but he didn’t move.

Seeing that the scene had our attention, the director nodded in the boy’s direction and said, “He’s being punished.”

“How long will he be there?” Brady asked.

“Another 20 or 30 minutes.”

Uhhhh… Cue internal alert system: Don’t look shocked. Act normal. Poker faces everyone!!

He continued, “Everyone hits them. They get hit on the street, hit by the police, hit by their parents. We don’t hit them. So we have to do something else.”

I’m culturally adapted to the near east. Where “working” meaning being physically present regardless of what tasks are or are not completed. Where people won’t tell you no, even if the answer is a flat no. The operating by “wasta” (favored relationships) and mediators. Where everyone has been at the losing end of someone’s need for power and later made sure they were on the winning end. I get it.

You know what I’m not culturally adapted to? Life with kids without families. Specifically, kids who’ve had enough bad stuff happen to them that either they don’t have parents (victims of the Syrian War, for example), or the court removed them from their parents. And not in some American I-left-them-in-the-locked-car-for-three-seconds way, but in a the-father-killed-their-mother-in-front-of-them or tried-to-sell-them-to-pedophiles kind of way.

Turns out I’m not so acclimated to that.

And of course, if you put 30 boys used to defending themselves on the street in the same room, they’re going to start knocking each other around. And, being the protector of all the kids, you have to discourage this. And let’s just acknowledge that time-out isn’t going to cut it for a 13-year old from the streets. So you figure out another way to make them not want to do it again.

That kid limped out of the office, and my American sensitivities made it hard to watch. But in a world where there are no privileges to take away and where violence is a normal part of making it out alive (even at eleven years old) and where they didn’t have the opportunity to be enculturated into healthy norms, what do you do?

And while that punishment is different in severity from the world of my upbringing, it’s also different in severity from the world of his upbringing. In the exact opposite direction.

The challenges of family-less-ness don’t end with discipline issues, of course. You know all those little things you just “catch” from your parents? How you talk to people you don’t know, for example, or how to carry yourself, or how to puzzle through everyday decisions? These kids are entirely without.

My hope is that one day they will no longer be without. That one day there will be enough adults that these kids can have lots of good examples and be able to spend one-on-one time with people who care for them. But for now, we’ve got what we’ve got and, like all of us in every situation, we’ll do the best we can we what we have.

I’ve been re-reading the Harry Potter series, and last night I got to the part after the Triwizard tournament where Harry is beat up and exhausted in every way possible, and yearns for sleep from his hospital bed. He has no parent with him, of course, because they were killed when he was young. And then this happens: Harry’s best friend’s mother “bent down, and put her arms around Harry. He had no memory of ever being hugged like this, as though by a mother.”

It’s this exactly that they don’t have. Someone they trust to hug them like a mother. One day, I hope they will.

Until then we jump in. Bandaging kids who cut themselves, deeply, on purpose. Providing activites so they can have something to do during the day, and dreaming up ways to accomplish the impossible.

Except I can’t help but think it might just be possible.