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Wow, is it really July?

Lil’ E turns two years old this month. I’ve been a mommy for 2 years. Holy cow.

On another note, I wanted to share some photo highlights of the last few weeks:

The Vintage Goodness shoes has a little story to it: I bought those shoes at a resale store down the road, Rerun, for 5 bucks. A few weeks later, I was shopping at a larger resale store on Hawthorne called Vintage House, and the shoes, exact same but slightly less wear, were behind a glass case and on sale for $69!!! They pulled them out for me, as they came with a box, and these shoes were made in like 1974 or something. The bargain shopping section of my heart was very proud!

Other than this, work has kept me pretty busy this week so I’ve not read much of my reading list yet, just a few chapters of A Hundred Years of Solitute. Vehrdey en-terrr-esteeeng!

This week we start working on the top stairs unit of the old house we are living in. It was built in like the 20’s no doubt, and has since been split so that each floor is its own apartment. The family that we moved with has moved into the downstairs unit and we have been staying in the studio/office in the backyard for the last two months, sharing a bathroom and kitchen, etc with the other family. For a list of hilarious inside jokes (I think?) about how this is all going, check out Chris A.’s experimental site, “Sometimes Friends Fight“.
I feel very fortunate that our landlords are into sustainability and green building. They have encouraged us to look for low VOC paints for the walls, remnants of wool carpeting for the bedrooms, and bamboo wood floors for the living and dining rooms. I’m so excited!!!

Church today was interesting, I even thought I might need to blog sometime about it… maybe call the post, “The Inerrant Word of God”. I’ll let you use your imagination at this point. It will probably be far more interesting than my actual thoughts!

Thanks, Eddie, for your encouragement about reading all those books! See- you’re holding me accountable, I love it!

Ohhhhh man. I’ve gone and done it now. First a book club, then Powell’s (perhaps the coolest bookstore ever?). A sure recipe for disaster. Especially with used book prices, how can I restrain myself? SO… summer reading list follows (and hopefully won’t grow long before I finish just one of these books!):

• one hundred years of solitude, gabriel garcia marquez
• the maytrees, annie dillard
• abide with me, elizabeth strout
• the left hand of god, michael lerner
• as if love were enough, anne taylor fleming
• everything is illuminated, jonathan jafran foer
• the year of magical thinking, joan didion
• east of eden, john steinbeck
• the inner experience, thomas merton
• saint francis of assissi, g.k.chesterton
• sophie’s world, jostein gaarder

FYI- has every one already subscribed to No Impact Man’s blog? It’s fairly interesting, to say the least. Check it out if you haven’t yet.

In high school, I would have never joined the book club, if my school even had one. For the first couple years, I was too into dating and boys and sports and “popular” clubs to commit social suicide (phrase stolen from the movie “Mean Girls”) by joining something called a “book club”. Yikes. The last two years, I would not have joined said club for completely different reasons. Would all book’s be approved before a committee of Southern Baptist preacher’s for its fragile, innocent youth to read? Then, no sir, not me, that is too “worldly”.

It’s odd, to me, how life goes from one pendulum to another, for a time resting in some semblance of a balance, a fence, a happy medium, until “whish” -its off to the other side, propelled by new knowledge and conviction.

To gain some footing in the scene of the church here in Portland, (not, I might add, a Southern Baptist church), I saw this month’s book and meeting details in the bulletin and decided this was now for me. The book, Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Things“, was interesting (sadly, was the thing I liked most about it the fact that a church even picked a “NON” christian book?). The table of 7 people seated at Urban Grind Coffee House was even more interesting. Opinions, personalities, backgrounds: spewing out in awkward self-preservation with little awareness (it seemed to me(!)) of our own insecurities. The leader coining herself as an “over-educated, slightly bored, twenty-something” struck me. First off- “over educated”? Not I, said the fly. “Slightly bored”? Please, have a two year old with you 24/7- the sure cure for having “too much time” on your hands. “Twenty-something”? Now I will relate to that, though sometimes I wonder if my stretch marks and worry lines would agree. (Don’t worry; my rambling about a book club brings me back the reality of my own immaturity.)

And I am only just now realizing that I intended this post for much nobler topics of creation and revelation while at the foot of Multnomah Falls today. Again, twenty-something DOES fit the bill.

In a nutshell, lets just say I’ll be reading lots of books this summer in feeble hope that I’ll fit in better with this “over-educated” crowd Partially, anyway. Partially because I actually want to read more books.

Here’s the Falls, hopefully this speaks for itself:

Got your attention didn’t I? Seriously, though, I’m in love with lots of new things these days.

1. Lara Bars. Suggested by a friend, I checked out the site and plan to order as much as I can afford.

2. “Living Fresh” show on Discovery Home. So, okay for real, who is studying my life and coming up with a show that includes just about everything I love, from organic food, sustainable living practices, crafts, and so on. Just add a little of #3 and I will just have get paranoid.

3. Books. Not a new thing for me to love books, but some new books. Finishing up this one, moving on to:

• If Grace is True; Why God Will Save Every Person, Philip Gulley and James Mulholland
• The Inner Experience; Notes on Contemplation, Thomas Merton
• The Left Hand of God; Healing America’s Political and Spiritual Crisis; Michael Lerner (may not be what you think)
• Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterson
• Saint Francis of Assisi, G.K. Chesterson

My goal is to finish them by May. Hold me to it!!!

So, I’ve got to get to work again, but wanted to share those tidbits for any one looking for something to do. Recap- Lara Bars, Living Fresh, new books= tru luv…

1. Wednesday night, (which means LOST, duh,) was purty cool- in a “what the heck?” sorta way. I was rebuked for talking too much by the other attendees of our little Lostie get-together… something I really must work on. But, hey, it made for a dramatic and memorable night, for better or worse. Sorry guys! Only human.

2. Anna Nicole’s death was quite the ironic surprise to see on the news… and then quite the annoying “beat a dead horse” after about a day. Take the damn DNA, bury the corpe, figure out who the daddy is (if you can), and make him pay child support. (I don’t care who the heck gets the dang money so long as the baby is taken care of!) Then pray that the baby grows up with the closest things to loving parents possible. What NOT to do: keep putting this on the news when there are truly more important things going on in the world, after all.

3. Freezing temperatures outside another thing that we could say ENOUGH! to. I love the cold and don’t wish for that 9 month summer any time soon, but this FL girl is not used to it for this long. Lil’ E doesn’t even own enough pants for this.

4. We went through a scare this week, thought we would be forced to move and freaked that we aren’t ready to buy but would also hate to rent due to various reasons. I didn’t even manage to get 30 hours of work in this week due to worry and research on preparing for moving— and all for not because our current landlord is now willing to sign us into a year lease so we have some security when the place sells. (We had only monthly security since our year lease was up over 2 years ago- so when they decided to sell and some buyers might be looking to move in, we realized we only truly had through whatever month we had paid on to stay!) SO-THANK GOD! (really.) We can stay on our current plan to try to get out of debt and save for a home and buy at the “right” time, … whatever that means.

5. Hubby finishing up school this semester- all signs point to graduation this April and possible MBA aspirations soon after. My own graduate school goals are up in the air– beginning to think I should go for a degree or grad certificate in Instructional Technology rather than Creative Writing. I know. I’m one big dichotomy, I swear. And I can’t even spell.

6. We participated in a community event this weekend, (not something we think outside ourselves enough to do often). And this community event wasn’t exactly something that would earn us charitable or neighborly partipation points any time soon- it was the Kiwana’s Pancake Festival. (noooo, I didn’t eat any pancakes and forgo my dietary restrictions- but I did take some pics of my “boys”)

7. Watching the news right now and, believe it or not, I’m much happier seeing news about Bill Murry being in Tampa for some golf game than more news about Anna Nicole.

8. Church was really good this morning. That Pastor Tim packs a mean sermon. Not that he’s mean. Quite the opposite.

9. Speaking of church, I’m reading more into my book, and thought this quote a good one to share:

“…unfortunately, so much of what we’re currently fighting against (’we’ meaning the church in America for starters) isn’t the real enemy, and so much of what we’re fighting for isn’t the real prize. Largely we’re fighting to get something back — a lost status as the civil religion of the West, control (political, too often) over things that are out of our control, a priviledged position as the favoured religion of the Empire, protection of the middle class from the lower and upper classes, and so on. These are futile fights. We’re also focused on fighting symptoms like abortion, promiscuity (hetero or homosexual), divorce, and profanity. We might add terrorism to the list. But these are not the disease. These are in many ways the symptoms of the very disease that we inadvertently tend to support, aid and abet, defend, protect, baptize, and fight for — a system sick with consumerism, greed, fear, violence, and misplaced faith (in the power of the Economy and the State and its weapons).”

10. I have no idea why I counted to ten in this blog except for the sheer backdoor it created so that I can now stop.

Ya’ll, I love to blog- I think the whole thing is about one of the coolest ideas to come along in a while.

However, I have been working overtime nearly every week– and you all know that to get an 8 hour day of work while watching Lil E’ at the same time takes about 11 hours to do. Plus that little thing called raising a child is work, just not paid in money, (but of course, in much richer ways.)

And I’m not telling you WHY I’m not blogging (because that’s kinda annoying, as if you have nothing better to do than wait for my posts every day), I’m just telling you what I have been up to… a back door way of explaining my lack of blogging.

Well, I’ve started reading this book that I’ve avoided reading for 2 years… waiting for that perfect phase of my life that I have the least amount of time and mental energy to devote to this fantastic read. But, I’m very glad. Check it out… if you’re ready!

Perhaps my biggest regret is not blogging after LOST last week! It was great- sort of a child of the promise in relation to the first 6 episodes last Fall. Two big moments: What the heck were they doing strapping Carl to a chair with magnifying eye wear and flashing images/messages across a big screen in front of him? Woah… And of course, the totally out of no where guy getting hit by a bus. And, low and behold I think I’ll be giving Juliet a chance before saying she is evil again…and we all know writers meant this episode specifically to change MY mind about Juliet, gosh darn it.

Well, its time for bed for me- I know, I know, its not even midnight, WHAT HAVE I DONE WITH VIVIAN??? I’m tellin ya, I find it just as unbelievable- but tis true.

G’night!

Came across this in this morning’s reading, and I thought it nice enough to share:

“What then shall I do this morning? How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order — willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern. … There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. … A day that closely resembles every other day of the past ten or twenty years does not suggest itself as a good one.” - Annie Dillard, The Writing Life