July 29, 2010 @ 6:23 am | Filed under: Soul Food,Uniquely Me
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| Free photo collage created with Smilebox |
living simply, summertime memories
July 21, 2010 @ 6:21 am | Filed under: It's a Girl Thing,Pure Sunshine,The Writing Life,Uniquely Me
I love beautiful, simple things.
Like old aprons with a rich history, books with a timeless story, people with a look of love in their eyes, and days dotted with laughter and meaning.
There is something about real simplicity that speaks volumes to my soul. It renews me somehow, reminds me of all that is truly important and all that is not.
Simplicity is an apron tie that binds my heart strings…
I appreciate the brilliance of the Kindle, but on some days there is nothing that gives me greater satisfaction than holding a book in my hands…breathing in that deeply musty scent and fingering the pages even while the words take my mind to a place far, far away.
I adore my iPhone and all of the apps and texting and messaging it allows me…talking to many friends at once without really talking at all…But on some days there is nothing that does my heart more good than to sit down over a cup of coffee with a friend who knows my heart and talk for real…and laugh and laugh and laugh…and even cry a tear or two if the moment calls for it.
Simple, beautiful things. They are the apron ties that create simple, beautiful moments…
And I’ve learned how life often hands them out.
Good and beautiful moments followed by trying and sad. Complex hurdles and challenges balanced perfectly with simple happy days. Intricate layers of learning and knowing, feeling and being, moving forward and being content to simply reside in the moment.
I don’t think I’d have it any other way. I love the simple, the good, the happy. But without the trying, the complex, the sad, the good just wouldn’t seem as good and there would be no desire to inch forward…to the better that is just waiting to be realized.
(1) my grandmother’s apron…worn thin and stained from a lifetime of making pecan pies for the family! (2) my newest find in Natchitoches, Louisiana – love the retro look! (3) the apron I’m TRULY jonseing for…it’s calling my name!
I find myself challenged lately to really think about the broader scheme of life and circumstances, and how to have a greater understanding of purpose.
Wanting to live purposefully and knowing that, at any given moment when things seem just as they should be – whether it’s enjoying a luxurious morning with a delicious book or a relaxing afternoon with a dear friend over a cup of coffee – my awareness alone for the simple and beautiful things in life is the beginning of my purposeful journey.
I’m trying to capture these thoughts and more for a new story I’m working on this summer. Without further ado – may I introduce you to my summer writing project…a way I’ve found to mix all that I love (people, books, God) with all that I find inspiring (food, aprons, writing).
Here’s a peek…I hope you enjoy!
The Apron Ties that Bind Series:
“Amanda, Jessica, Elizabeth and Lauren are more than mere sisters. They own and operate a business together—their family’s old world-style Italian cafe. Four sisters—four distinct personalities—and four ways of managing the cafe their parents willed to them.
Amanda, the eldest and the most conservative, runs a tight ship and keeps a strict eye on finances.
Jessica, the free spirited bohemian of the bunch, finds life inside the restaurant too confining for her taste.
Elizabeth, quiet and loyal, is the peacemaker, putting her own ambitions on hold for the sake of her feuding siblings.
Lauren, the baby of the family, is exuberant and carefree, oblivious to her sisters’ quandaries as she spends her days in college classes and her evenings chatting up the neighborhood boys who venture into the cafe.
As life and love stir the hearts of the Benetti sisters, they struggle to find their own place in the world…without losing each other in the process.”
If you don’t mind, keep this story – and me – in your prayers!
Embrace YOUR apron ties today! Let the binding {and more of life’s simple, beautiful moments} commence…
July 14, 2010 @ 6:36 am | Filed under: Pure Sunshine,Soul Food,Uniquely Me
There is something refreshing about things that are real.
Real chocolate. Real deals. Real people.
When we walked into this old-fashioned hardware store on Saturday and spotted glass-bottled Cokes for sale for $1.00, it was a REAL deal waiting to happen.
Not to mention that it was an “honesty policy” and you merely pulled your ice cold beverage from the cooler and left your dollar in a simple attached tube that read:
”LEAVE $1.00 HERE”
There is something so refreshing about moments like this one.
Moments where you find tiny treasures hidden amongst the dusty ordinariness of normalcy. Moments where those treasures remind you that it’s the dust you truly treasure, ’cause that’s where the work is, that’s where the memories are, that’s where love resides. Quiet and paitent…waiting to be lived.
Moments like this are refreshing.
There is something equally refreshing about sharing them with someone who is the real deal. Someone who says what they mean, and mean what they say. Someone like my MJ.
Today is his birthday, and the birthday boy will be on the Red-Eye home from Chicago sometime later tonight.
I’ll ask him Thursday morning what he wants to do for his big day (even though it means we’ll be celebrating a day late) and he’ll shrug and say, “I’m doing it already.”
And then we’ll pretty much just hole up in this happy solitude playin’ life by ear. We’ll sip coffee at ten and shower by eleven, or maybe noon. We’ll have a loose plan for dinner, meaning all the while to shoot for a real, honest-to-goodness night out, but in the end we’ll probably have another impromptu living room picnic.
We love life, love our home, love each other.
We love the beauty of our languid mornings and cozy evenings, but sometimes it’s during the in-between that we notice most what makes us happy. It’s during the demanding weeks when he’s on the road and I’m immersed up to my neck in school or writing that I’m more inclined to notice just how extraordinary the mundane moments can be.
I’m reminded how happy my favorite coffee mug makes me.
Or how much I love hot baths.
Embracing the real things rises to the occasion best when life is nitty gritty. Or when it’s tough and busy and not-always-fun.
But today is good. It is very, very good.
It is real.
And I do love real things.
Happy Birthday, Mike!
living simply, summertime memories
June 28, 2010 @ 6:13 am | Filed under: Soul Food,The Solid Rock,Uniquely Me
I try to write down my day’s agenda early in the morning, before anything can possibly happen to alter… The Plan. I do love a good plan, and when it comes together all smooth and delightful, well – that is one good feeling!
It throws me off to have it wrecked before midmorning. So the past week has been a challenge in flexibility and in “going with the flow.”
All of which is good for the soul.
Or it at least sounds as though it should be good for the soul anyway.
Instead of doing a load of whites on Monday, towels on Tuesdays, spending 3-4 hours writing each morning, I’ve been learning the art of simply sitting. Sometimes I sit and wait for my grandfather to eat. Sometimes I wait for him to finish a story. Sometimes I wait for him to wake up. Sometimes I wait for him to walk with slow, halting steps across the room.
And sometimes I wait for nothing more than another moment to learn a little more about this man who loves me so much.
Although this might not be the week to ask him just how much he loves me. I’m the one asking him multiple times a day if he’s drinking enough water, or if he’s hungry. I’m the one handing out medicine and cautioning him to use his walker and that I think it’s time to take a breathing treatment.
But I’m also the one on the receiving end of some really great stories and the one who’s caught a twinkle in his eye a time or two. I’m the one who’s seen frustration, anger, and sadness – manifested by unshed tears- all swiped away hurriedly by shaking, wrinkled hands, and this completely melts me.
These days don’t call for The Plan or any plan. These days ask simply for acceptance. For each moment to be acknowledged and embraced because it exists and it is important.
Not all days work out according to The Plan, and perhaps that’s what makes each morning’s new mercies even better.
daily agendas, living simply, plans
June 24, 2010 @ 7:35 am | Filed under: Soul Food,Uniquely Me
We’re on the brink of another sacred weekend, those all-too-precious 48 hours of togetherness, and it’s always a lovely feeling. On Friday nights, an aura enters our home – and although I’ve never quite been able to put a name to it, I think it’s just an extra dose of love.
We hoard our weekends like little treasures, and while sometimes I think we should be making efforts to visit interesting places or socialize more with friends, the truth is that home is our favorite place to spend time. And when we’re both there…it’s pure perfection.
I have all these dreams of making home the best place possible on this earth. Like citrusy-smelling candles and open windows in the springtime and soft music, dim lights, and living room picnics on long winter evenings.
Home is where you hang your heart. Where it goes to seek refuge from the beating it may take from the outside world during the week. Where it finds solace from the winds of adversity.
And where it recharges so that – when it emerges from the walls of home again – it is able to operate at full capacity, giving and caring for all the duties and responsibilites that make up a productive life.
So home is not confined to a house, to a building with four walls and a roof. Instead home is where the heart is. With the people we love and the ones who love us back.
I’m not “at home” this week, nor will I be this weekend.
And yet my heart is preparing for another sacred weekend anyway. Because it doesn’t matter where we are, or who we’re with, my heart is most at home when the work week comes to an end and MJ’s week on the road comes to a close.
We won’t be in the place we’ve lovingly turned into a home that we adore this weekend, and instead he’ll join me here at my parents’. Where he’ll help me prepare meals, spend long amounts of time in conversation with my grandfather, and more than likely feel less than comfortable sleeping in a bed that is not his own. And yet…
…our hearts will be at home.
September 3, 2009 @ 6:49 am | Filed under: Family,Uniquely Me,he said she said
“The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.” - Frederick Beuchner
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(journal entry from mid-May)
Tonight was a quiet evening. We sat in our (now) small living area – Mike in his chair, with his computer (doing sales call reports) and me in my spot on the sofa, with my computer (doing homework.) It was just a few minutes before nine when there was a knock on the door.
I think it startled us both. In the couple of weeks we’ve been here, we’ve not seen many people, let alone knocking on our door.
Mike set his computer aside and went to the door. Even though he was less than twenty feet away, I could neither see nor hear our visitor. I could only hear Mike’s side of the conversation.
“No, thanks, we don’t really need any this time.” He closed the door and locked it. “That was a local high school girl selling cookie dough for—”
He stopped mid-sentence and I can only guess it was because I had sprung up from my seat and was at his side when he turned around.
I opened my mouth and tried to find a voice for the overwhelming pull that had propelled me upward in the first place. I spit and sputtered, uttering words that seemed to come from out of nowhere. I’m pretty sure that ‘community’ and ‘witness’ and ‘part of the plan’ all came out of my mouth in that brief twenty second period, but I don’t know that it made any kind of sense at all.
Mike unlocked the door and stepped out into the breezeway outside our door, looking down the hallway for the girl. She was at the next apartment.
“Hey, I think my wife wants to buy some after all.” Mike beckoned her back.
I spent the next five minutes introducing myself to Kenesha, a striking African-American teen with the most beautiful blue eyes I think I’ve ever seen, and buying the white chocolate-macadamia cookie dough that – truly – we did not need. Even as we chatted, I was almost mesmerized by her personality, and I even had the briefest of seconds when I thought – again - how unlike me this was, to be so involved in an animated conversation with a complete stranger.
But there was an unspeakable pull toward this teen that began while I still sat on the sofa, before I’d even laid eyes on her, or heard her voice.
After I handed her the fourteen dollars for the cookie dough and then shut and locked the door, Mike chuckled from his chair. “Think we’ll ever see that cookie dough?”
I was silent, still kind of in awe at what had pulled me from my spot on the sofa in the first place. Somehow I knew it wasn’t really about the cookie dough at all. We sat in total silence for about five minutes. And then Mike spoke.
“Do you ever get the feeling that we’re here for more than just the reasons we think we’re here?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
September 2, 2009 @ 6:35 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock,Uniquely Me
One of the great mind destroyers of college education is the belief that if it’s very complex, it’s very profound.” - Dennis Prager
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(originally journaled in early April 2009.)
The past few weeks have been surreal.
I can scarcely believe we are actually doing this. I keep waiting for the REAL me to rise up and say something along the lines of “what the…?” But there is nothing except certainty that is flowing smooth and easy inside of me.
Even as I pack the house in the late night hours when I’m all alone, moving through the rooms and hallways, I have no qualms about this decision. It’s the nighttime that is usually the breeding ground for fear and trepidation and – some nights – I keep waiting on it. But it’s a visitor that never knocks.
My logic tells me that surely I must have been konked on the head and awakened with some other woman’s rationale and emotions. This is NOT me. I worry. I fret. I resist change.
I’m emotional.
But the reality is that I’m calm and certain, in a way that I just can’t explain. In less than two weeks I will walk out of this house – this style of living – and I will walk into an apartment over an hour away. We will know no one. I will stay many, many nights by myself while Mike is on the road. I am leaving behind the concept that “bigger is better” and the theory that as I get older, my “things” should become bigger, nicer, finer…
I sit here tonight and wonder what happened to the woman I was. When I look in the mirror as I brush my teeth, I look the same. But I no longer recognize the inner woman. I don’t know her. I think I should be afraid.
But I’m not.
I go to bed with peace and awaken with a quiet excitement.
I don’t know what to expect, but I do know that I should be expectant.
(Two weeks later…)
Tomorrow the movers will come.
By this time tomorrow night, I will be preparing to spend my first night in Commerce. In an apartment. In a community that is so unlike any I’ve lived in before.
Boxes are packed and labeled. Many will go with us into our new home, but even more will go into storage. We are losing over 1400 square feet of living space with this move, so – in ways even we had not anticipated – simplicity is truly finding us.
It’s a funny thing. Sometimes the very thing we ask for, pray for, finds us and takes us by surprise. Very seldom is it packaged the way we’d imagined, or presented in a way we’d recognize.
But it is a gift, nonetheless, presented by Him, simply because we requested it.
There have been so many mini-miracles (is there such a thing? are they all huge, and that is why they are miracles…?) to transpire over the past couple of weeks that we have almost been amused. I’m pretty certain that I have both, laughed out loud and broken down and cried, because it further solidifies that this move is the one thing that needs to be done.
Even in the moments when my logic kicks in and I run through the mental list of just why this is a crazy move, and just who probably now thinks we’ve lost our minds, and where I’m headed…even in those moments I can’t ignore the obvious.
Too many things have aligned in short order. Too many people have unknowingly been a part of this plan. Too many past prayers and nights and days spent in restlessness -knowing that I was in the big middle of the deep, learning to swim and tread water, and yet not being able to see the other shore. In a crazy, crazy, definitely unforeseen way, I’ve reached the banks and I’m crawling ashore. It’s certainly not where I’d pictured myself washing up. The beach is not white and sandy like I prefer. The water is not crystal clear and cool to the touch. It’s not paradise. It’s not my dream.
But for some reason that I am still helpless to explain, it has become…home.
Tomorrow I go there.
life lessons, living simply, walk with God
August 31, 2009 @ 6:36 am | Filed under: Family,Soul Food,Uniquely Me
I’ve been the quietest I’ve been in years…maybe ever…these past several months.
As an aside – I’m sure if you were to ask Mike, he’d beg to differ with that last statement! I’ve been talking, for sure, as we’ve been planning, implementing those plans, and making various adjustments these past few months. But, other than journaling it and talking it out within our four walls, I’ve not been too vocal on much except surface…stuff.
When I shut out the noise around me, good or bad, I can truly focus. Regain some clarity, perspective. There is a tranquility of spirit these days and – while it is something new for me – it is definitely something I hope to keep.
There is one area though that I am resolving to bolster even more. It is one of my weaknesses: time management. I want so much to do well in so many different areas that I find I am constantly tending to the urgent and – in the process – often ignoring the important.
Putting out fires is necessary, goodness knows, but what I so often perceive as being a burning forest usually turns out to be nothing more than smoldering embers. And sometimes when I get back to the important, the passion, the energy and the drive has already been spent.
My heartbeat lately has been to find God and then join Him in what He is doing. In this protected, tender space that is my life right now, I feel a real need to maximize the time. To not only be productive in my work, school, church and family life, but to really be cognizant as I go through my day of the people around me. What they are facing. Decisions they are making. Hurts they have.
My life has slowed, for sure. I don’t know that I will ever truly understand the scope of what this time is about for me. I feel almost certain that, at the very least, I won’t glimpse the meaning until I’ve faithfully trodded this path until I come to the next leg of the journey.
The last thing I want to do is to fill this time with busyness instead of progress. There are some things – some people – that I can do nothing about, nothing for. Some things just need to be left alone. I’m trying to learn that, accept it.
Only then can I cultivate the important. I want to grow a garden during this time, and nourish it with time spent with Him, time spent in reflection, time shared with loved ones, and time in knowledge and understanding.
Today begins the new fall term and, with it, I am starting a new book. I’m excited about both…and also nervous about both. Beginnings – as fresh and fun and exciting as they can be – aren’t really my forte. But they are crucial and I know that these first days will set the stage for the next weeks and months. I want those months to be productive ones. And I know what it will take for that productivity to even have a fighting chance.
This morning I lay it all down, all the components that make up ME.
I ask for eyes to see the realities.
Ears to hear His voice.
A heart to love without borders.
And arms strong enough to cradle it all.
Family, living simply, school stories
August 27, 2009 @ 7:08 am | Filed under: Uniquely Me
“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” - John Pierpont Morgan
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It was the Friday after the New Year. 2009.
We drove east on I-30, headed towards TAMU-Commerce. I had a two-o’clock with my new advisor, and Mike tagged along just for the ride. For several months I had kept a running list of pros and cons for switching schools. There was a huge part of me that resisted. Probably the part of me that normally can’t stand change. But it had become all too clear that I had two choices: change schools or settle for the major that I didn’t really want.
Sometimes I question my decision to even go back to school. As much as I enjoy it, the time and energy it takes sometimes exhaust me. I miss the massive amounts of writing time that I used to take for granted. I miss spending lots of time with friends. I could live the rest of my life without finishing school, without teaching…and my life would still be full, vibrant and happy. It’s not as though I need to do this.
Yet…I do need to.
I’m not sure when or where I knew it, I only know that somewhere along the way I intuitively knew that this was something I was meant to do. As the first couple of years slid by, I have alternatively loved/despised school, but I’ve not wavered about the fact that it was something I needed to do.
So on this Friday I was scheduled to meet with Dr. Bolin and chart the remainder of my school career. Even as we drove, I commented several times that – really – the drive is not bad. Already I was assimilating myself to the realization that I would be on this very road a lot as I commuted back and forth.
Looking back, we have no clue who made the first move, spoke that first word…For someone who marks milestones by emotions and feelings, I have no memory of this particular milestone. It’s very odd. I only know that something happened along the drive that day. I looked out the window as we passed a certain section of town and I felt a pull. A sense of somehow belonging. Of somehow having a sense of purpose there.
I couldn’t identify what it was that I was experiencing and it never occurred to me then to voice it. I simply attended my meeting, made academic plans and then we drove home.
It was much later – back home – that the surreal began to take place. We looked at one another and it was Mike who spoke first.
“I…I felt something today.”
I didn’t question his words or the tone with which they were spoken.
I knew.
life lessons, living simply, school stories
August 26, 2009 @ 9:19 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock,Uniquely Me
“The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity.” — Winston Churchill
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Be still and know that I am God. - Psalm 46:10
I knew that change was coming to my life.
Normally, I don’t do change. At least not with any kind of ladylike grace at all. It usually involves a bit of kicking and screaming, asking why, and – more often than not – results in lots of hot tears.
Why is it that some lessons are just so hard to learn?
My heart is a tricky place. Just when I think I have all its rooms cleaned up and ready to pass inspection, I trip and fall over something I thought I had already picked up and put away properly.
When I want too much, I become a very unhappy woman. And it’s never things that get me twisted, it’s matters of the heart, a longing for that one, single, solitary place inside of me that has yet to be satisfied…
It was during times alone with Him that I began to ask for simplicity.
And it was in the darkness of those hours before Him, when I could no longer hide and found myself stripping off everything that was trying to bind my mind, my emotions, my purpose, that His voice found me.
He began to uncover the makeshift bandages I had placed over bruised spots. His fingers caressed the scars, and He spoke whispers of comfort that moved a long-needed breeze through my soul.
For the past year I have been so acutely aware that I was being prepared for something. In almost everything I took a part in, it was shown – again and again and again - that I was to walk out into the deep and that I was to do just this one thing.
One thing at a time.
I have found that if you do that ONE THING and then the NEXT one, and then the NEXT one…before you know it life has evolved, situations have evolved and…I have evolved. And evolution equals change.
One day that still quiet voice penetrated to the depths of my heart; I listened, sensing an important message.
Simplicity, I can give you.
I instinctively knew I should stiffen at those words, but I no longer had the energy. Wasn’t I on my face, tears streaking my face, my throat raw from the time spent with Him – acknowledging that my ways needed to fade away so that HIS way could be made clear?
The struggle within me died in those moments of surrender. I didn’t know where He would lead. I didn’t know what He would have me do.
I only knew that I could no longer hide. Could no longer numb the pain. Could no longer live a life that was merely reactive.
I rose to my feet, not knowing anything more than I had said yes.
To what, I didn’t know.
