sunday morning post about my good friend Brooke Fraser

I"m sitting here posting a blog on a Sunday morning.
You are not hallucinating. Breathe deeply in and out.
I have not fallen away from the Lord or from church set up or any of those things.
Say a prayer of thanks. We are having church at our house tonight
instead of this morning because we are going to have a potluck and
toast marshmallows while studying the scriptures and learning about deep things.
And toasting marshmallows is not fun in the day time.
Hence, church at night. Kind of fun. It's always fun to change things up.
So I am sitting here leisurely drinking a cup of coffee and
wanted to pass on a quick message (or not so quick)
to all of you regarding my good friend, Brooke Fraser from New Zealand.
Singer, song writer, worship leader, poet, humanitarian.
Okay, so she's not really my good friend.
Brooke and I met on youtube via my other good friend, Sophie (BooMama).
Okay, so Sophie's not really my good friend either.
But she makes me laugh all the time.
And I believe if we did sit down for a cup of coffee,
we would thoroughly enjoy talking about little boys,
the excitement of High School Musical 3 coming out on the big screen
and the merits of pound cake.
While that is neither here nor there, she is my link to the music world.
I peruse her daily linky interwebby awesomeness to find out new artists to enjoy.
A few months ago she had a link to Brooke Fraser.
I watched her Shadowfeet video a gagillion times in a row.

Until Scott said, "Good Lord, woman, find another song to listen to!"
Or something to that effect. So then I started listening to her song Albertine.

Her song to a small boy in Rwanda, keeping faith with him, sharing his story
with the world. And it made me cry. Because things of that nature do.
Fast forward to yesterday, when I received e-mail from World Vision.
Our family supports two sweet little guys from Africa through their relief
organization who are Jack and Will's age.
World Vision keeps their child sponsors updated on events they are hosting.
And World Vision partners with Brooke Fraser to tell stories of Africa
and about touching the world and helping Jesus heal some hard places.
Brooke is coming to San Francisco to Slims for a concert on September 14.
Look how all these good things are coming to pass!
Brooke Fraser and World Vision spreading a message of hope in my backyard.
So all that to say, if there is anyway I can,
I will be getting myself to that concert.
And I wanted to let you know so that you can get there, too, if you live close by.
Or if you want to know more about sponsoring a child and bringing clean water
and hope to someone far away.
Or if you just want to watch Brooke Fraser's Albertine a gagillion times.
Because it is that good.
By the way, this is officially the most link happy blog I have ever posted...
click on everything...it makes it more fun and exercises your fingers more.
Maybe I'll see you in San Francisco.
I'll be the one mouthing all the words to Shadowfeet.

thoughts about today

I think the craziest thing about life is that it just keeps going.
There are no stops and re-starts. No do overs. No re-writes.
And so each day is its own story.
Full of its own possibilities and its own struggles.
I find it very difficult to keep myself saddled to the day I am in.
To be present in the dailiness of life.
To enjoy the quiet and the chaos that meld into my day.
My mind tends to wander. I find it difficult to stay put in the now.
I frenquently find myself visiting my yesterdays.
I replay the things that have already happened over and over,
re-living them and trying to pull up the scents and feelings of past moments.
Smiling at the glorious moments of life that I have spent well
and then cringeing at those more hideous moments that I would like to re-do.
Like the one just yesterday when things got away from me a bit
and I had a brief melt down over my children's lack of shoes
in light of the fact that we needed to be in the car headed to school.
The one where I began shrieking in banshee-like tones,
"Where in the name of heaven are all the shoes? The ones that go on your feet?
The ones that you wear EVERY SINGLE DAY? Is there not a pair to be found among you?
Have they, perchance, hidden in a magic wardrobe and are EVEN NOW visiting Narnia?"
Or something to that effect.
Those are the moments I would like to re-visit and perhaps tone down a bit.
Maybe take a breath and calm myself and clasp the wayward shoeless children to my heart in a loving embrace, saying,
"Dearest of blessed children, whom I love with all of my being,
would you be so kind as to find your footwear and do it in a timely manner
so that we will not be late to school, my sweet little apple dumplings of goodness?"
Maybe I would drop the part about the apple dumplings of goodness
but you get the picture.
But the thing is that moment is done. The shrieking has been done.
The crazy mommy yelling about tennies will live long in the children's memories.
And clearly, while I was not the sweet mother that I desired to be,
there is nothing I can do to change that scenario.
But there is this. What I do have is now.
This moment. This time. This day.
And because of new mornings and new mercies, this day can be different.
So that is my prayer. That I will be aware of this here and now.
That I will recognize the possibilities of goodness and mercy that I can pour
into whatever situation that flings itself at me.
That I can find the good grace to breathe and see the choices that lay before me.
And that I will shriek far less today than I did yesterday.
Even if the shoes are visiting Narnia.

200th post (ella ella eh eh)

It just seems like yesterday that I first posted about my supergirl underwear
and here we are 200 posts later..... I have a fondness for a good bicentennial.
(I know that bicentennial refers to "200 years" but since there is no word
that means "200 blogs", I'm going with it.)
Of course, I've only been privy to one other bicentennial event...
that would be the one in 1976 when I sang "This Land is Your Land"
with my kindergarten class at Yankee Ridge School in Urbana, Illinois.
It's all rather fuzzy and I can't figure out how I was in kindergarten in
July but it's one of those things that stays with you.
I believe I wore some phat bell bottoms that day that matched the red and blue fuzzy yarn that tied up my pony tails. Good times. Good times.
But I was trying to come up with a way to celebrate my blogcentennial.
This last year and half has been kind of huge.
Emerging from a haze of post partum depression.
Selling my first book.
Surviving another year of church planting in the SF bay area.
Rounding the corner on a decade of marriage.
Growing out the bang-tastrophe of 2008.
Connecting with new friends across the interweb (tsgs unite!).
Trying to get a handle on this whole "mothering" thing.
Realizing that plucking my eyebrows is part of my husband's love language.
And then of course, going to Sonic for the first time.
These are all monumental in their own right.
And here you have been plugging along with me, reading away, encouraging me
with your comments, feeling my pain, laughing with me (or at me),
shooting up prayers on my behalf, telling me to keep on keeping on in this
journey of Christ following and that you are doing the same.
And I realize that without you, tsgs, this blog is nothing more than me talking
to myself on my laptop and that's just plain sad. And a little creepy.
So all that to say I thought for my blogcentennial
I would write a song to show my gratitude for your willingness to show up here
and spend some of your life with me.....
(or steal a catchy tune and stick some of my own words in because that is a
whole lot easier and requires a whole lot less energy and creativity.)
In honor of Tired Supergirls Everywhere (or at least to the ones who read this blog).
To the tune of Rihanna's mega hit Umbrella....

The TSG Anthem of Thanks

When tsgs stand, we stand together
I hope we'll be tsgs forever
You're comments always make my day
You're the best - always have nice things to say
200 posts -some dumb - some clever
I'm thankful you're reading now more than ever
I love you more than a marsh-mella
I love you more than a marsh-mella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
More than a marsh-mella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
More than a marsh-mella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
More than a marsh-mella
(Ella ella eh eh eh eh eh eh)

Just so you know, it is very difficult to find a word that rhymes with umbrella.
And also, just so you know, I like marshmallows a lot.
Especially on smores and floating in steaming cups of hot chocolate.
So when I say that I love you more than a marshmallow it is deeply felt.
And you should know that I'm real thankful that you keep showing up here.
Clearly, I'm tired and little punchy
and I really should just keep to writing my posts early in the morning
when I'm coherent and not try and re-write lyrics but I just want wanted to say.....
Happy blog bicentennial, dear tsg reader! You are the best, you really are!

back to reality

We're back home in California doing laundry and
trying to get the smell of something fermenting out of our garbage disposal.
Who knew a disposal could go so terribly wrong when not used for a week?
Life never ceases to surprise, does it?
I am spending my morning in my robe, making lists and more lists,
of groceries and school supplies and returning uniform shirts that don't fit
and getting all my ducks in a row before the boys start school on Monday.
This Monday Will starts kindergarten.
That is something else I can't quite get my head around.
That my curly headed baby is ready to join the educational process.
Again, life never ceases to surprise.
I have a few conflicted feelings about Will's newest season that I mentioned on Faithchick.
You can read it HERE.
When Jack started school 2 years ago along with his friend Grace,
Melissa (Grace's mom) and I stood in the courtyard and cried.
Our dear friend the school administrator walked by us blubbering and said,
"Oh, give me a break. They'll be fine." And of course they were.
We weren't but they were.
This year Grace's younger sister, Faith, will be starting kindergarten with Will.
So all that to say...Melissa, meet you in the courtyard this Monday at 8:15.
And bring the tissue.

some people have never been to sonic before

I know that all over America there are Sonic drive-ins.
I believe that my good friend Paula even praised the good Lord
at the sight of one once. Because they are that fantastic.
But we had never been to Sonic before.
We've lived out our entire lives up to this point sans Sonic.
Apparently there are 168,894 different drink combinations available at Sonic.
If you are really thirsty.
So this past Saturday night, Scott, the boys and I, along with our nieces,
Aly and Claire, googled Sonic and
made our way to the nearest beverage mecca of the world.
We unloaded the car and went inside.
AND THERE WERE NO PEOPLE INSIDE. NO PEOPLE, people.
There was a board with what you could order and a telephone.
And then there were tables. With telephones on them.
But no people to tell your order to or pay or to chat with about the weather or
question about the location of the ketchup packets.
And you have never seen such a bewildered bunch as the 7 of us
wandering through out the Sonic saying to each other,
"Where are all the people?" and "There is no place to order." and
"Do we pick up the phones?" and "Where are all the people?"
Do you remember Mork from Ork? Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady?
Brendan Fraser from that terrible version of George of the Jungle?
Hapless people thrown into circumstances totally out of their element?
That was us. Finally, we got brave and sat down but we still didn't pick up
the phone because we were so baffled by the lack of people.
And then suddenly a real person came out of the back delivering food
to someone else and we got really excited.
Like when you are at the monkey house at the zoo
and you are looking in the cage knowing there are supposed to be monkeys
but no one sees any monkeys until someone yells,
"Hey, there is a monkey! Behind that branch! It's a monkey!"
And everyone is relieved and excited because you knew there were supposed to be monkeys there but up until that point no one could see any monkeys.
So Scott called out to the Sonic person who was trying to go hide in the back again,
"Hey, can you help us?" and we pelted him with questions like,
"Do we order on the phone?" and
"What if we want to pay with a card?" and
"Why are there no people?"
I believe it was at this point that other people in the Sonic began to laugh at us.
Outloud. So that we could hear them.
Unbelievably, we got our food. And paid. And found the ketchup. All without people.
And the beverages were scrumptious.
Especially the cranberry limeades and the chocolates milkshakes.
And their ice is crunchy goodness in a cup.
They are little granules of icy perfection,
You could munch on them all the live long day.
So all that to say, we have officially been to Sonic.
But next time we go we are sticking to the drive thru.

we're out here in the wide open spaces

Scott and the boys and I landed in Colorado amidst a rain storm.
We're squeezing in a much needed vacation before school starts
We are here to take a long deep relaxing breath.
And out here there is a lot of free air to breathe.
Let me say that there are some cool things about Colorado.
First of all, there is space. And then more space.
And just in case they think someone might take up all that free space,
the City of Fort Collins has designated some more space
that can not be built upon... for spaces sake.
Coming from the San Fransisco peninsula,
we don't know what to do with confronted with open non built out space.
We are disoriented with all the fresh air and start saying things like,
"Don't they want buildings here?" and
"There's so much sky...I never knew there could be so much sky?
and "Why does it take so long to get to the next stop light?
Are there always 3 miles in between stop lights?" and things of that ignorant nature.
But the boys are loving it.
Because grandma and grandpa have a big chunk of yard called pasture that surrounds their house. Yep, pasture.
Which is just a nice word for...some more space.
And the other cool thing they have in Colorado is wild life.
Coyotes. Prairie dogs. Rabbits. Grasshoppers. Frogs. Critters.
And we have found even some dead critters.
Carcasses of some poor creatures that have passed on.
And apparently, nothing brings more joy to a small boys heart than a carcass.
This is something I didn't know.
So far we have discovered a dead bunny, a dead prairie dog and a tiny dead frog. All in various states of decomposition which has the boys revelling in talking
of guts and beetles and skeletons.
Be still their quickly beating little boy hearts!
So we are sitting back and enjoying the space and the critters.
And enjoying the sensation of taking a deep full relaxing breath.
Ah!

what are tired supergirls made of?

I never liked that rhyme "What are little girls made of?"
Sugar and spice and everything nice.
Because that made me think of a crystalline cinnamon sugar coated little girl.
Too sweet for words. And that I was not.
I was further nauseated by the rhyme "What are little boys made of?"
Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.
That really got my imagination going with thoughts of some sad little
boy made up of orphaned dog tails and snail slime with snakey tongues. Ick.
But today I saw this quote in a magazine and it got me thinking....
The things that we love tell us what we are. Saint Thomas Aquinas
And as of this late Wednesday evening, pondering the people and things that I love,
I've come up with a list of what this tired supergirl is made of.
I am made of...
3 sweet boys
1 funny man
chocolate chips
laconic summer fans
The #1 Ladies Detective Agency series
tomatoes on the vine
all manner of family...parents, siblings, cousins, in-laws, etc.
all things robin egg blue
kisses on the cheek
cool pools on hot days
belly laughs
Jesus
Erica's homemade jam
lip gloss
Purvi's Indian tea with fresh ginger
75% off sales
summer quilts
kindred spirits
card games with the boys
the 1/2 an hour of morning quiet before anyone else in the house is up
beach sand (underfoot not in my swimsuit or ground into the van floor mats)
happy endings
McDonalds coffee with 1 cream
answered prayer (preferrably immediately answered prayer)
and the sighting of a new minted magazine in my mail box.
That's me as of summer 2008.
How about you?

there's always tahiti

Sunday morning did me in again. Yes, it did, tsgs.
Yesterday was one of those mornings where I am quite sure that the devil was
alive and lurking somewhere outside my front door in the star jasmine.
Let's just say, first off, that the Olympics are going to kill me.
Here is a psalm of lament about the Olympic viewing schedule:
Woe, unto you who do not own a dvr or whose children have lodged legos into
your vcr rendering it useless in the taping of late night world events.
Gnash your teeth and weep and wail.
For though you may feel joy in the night watching the Olympics,
anger comes in the morning. Along with grumpiness.
And a general puffiness in the eye area.
So needless to say, due to my late night Olympic viewing,
I was a bit on edge Sunday morning when I was getting the kids ready.
Because I was sleep deprived and all. Then the children where having shoe trouble.
Jack and Will were having trouble with their shoes because when I said,
"Put your shoes and socks on", they heard
"Play more with your Star Wars action heroes."
And then there was Addison whose newly purchased shoes had blistersed both heels.
It seems I bought them too small and he was not having them,
nor was he having the 12 pairs that I hauled out of the deep reaches of our storage shed.
He was hysterical. It was at this point that Scott called. And I said,
"Do you hear this? All the craziness?"
To which he was very compassionate and said he was sorry.
He ventured to ask if I could bring the recorder with me when I came to church.
To which I answered, "I am going to Tahiti."
(Because it is totally logical to entertain thoughts of tropical islands when all
hades is breaking loose in your living room.)
So with a lot of crankiness and sharpness of tone, I loaded the 3 boys into the car.
We made a Payless Shoes stop on the way to church, lest my child show up barefoot.
We made it to the theater a few minutes before the service started.
It was when I went to leave my children to go into the service that Will
and Addison decided to have simultaneous nervous break downs.
They had to be held as I walked into the service so they couldn't break free
and cling to my legs.
I was able to stay in the service due to the heartiness of the teachers
in the face of my weeping children.
Let's pause for a psalm of blessing in regards to Sunday School teachers:
Blessed are those (Nicki and Glen) who clutch other people's sobbing children
so that people can flee to the sanctuary (movie theater) therein.
Blessed are those (Glen and Paula) who watch other people's children
and teach them the ways of the Lord even when other people's children
are wailing and lashing out.
Blessed are those (Glen) who turn the worship music up loud so the hysteria of other
people's children can't be heard in the main service so that people can pretend their children are fine and sing worship songs and listen to the message.
Blessed are those (Paula) who understand when other people's children are worn out and let them nap until the service is over.
And so goes another Sunday. And though it may be difficult to believe,
being in the service soothed my troubled Sunday morning spirit.
And I believe the Lord was there, in spite of blisters and nervous breakdowns.
Sundays never seem to look like or feel like or turn out like I want them to but
somehow amidst the chaos and the tears, with the help of good friends and helpful
Payless shoes employees, he meets me in these wild moments.
Even when I'm not in Tahiti.

good call

I've always enjoyed cooking.
But lately it seems that the energy that it takes to cook
is being sucked away by things more pressing.
It all came to head last night when I realized that as I was making dinner,
I was actually referree-ing a football game.
Whilst mixing, baking and laboring over a hearty meal for the family
I was throwing down flags (or dish towels as it may be) and making calls.
Toss the salad.
"Jack, you may not use your brother's head as goal post. Stop throwing things at him. Penalty on the play!"
Flip the burgers.
"Will, do not stick your finger up Addison's nose. Illegal use of hands!"
Set the table.
"Get off of each other! Let go! Face Mask! Off sides! Penalty!"
Or whatever it is those refs say when they are totally ticked off at the innapropriate actions taking place on the field.
For some reason right about the time I start to pull out the dinner fixings,
my children use all control of their faculties and common sense and go nuts.
Two days ago while I prepped the chicken,
Addison dumped all the playdough into our kiddie pool. Playdough? Pool? Not good.
Yesterday, as I cut up the veggies, Jack formulated an ant killing concoction
that included a large amount of cinnamon and performed a mass killing on the
family room carpet...he assured me that it would smell good because of the
cinnamon. CINNAMON? CARPET? NOT GOOD!
All I'm saying is that no refs in the NFL are expected to cook a satisfying
meal while running up and down the field.
You just don't see them sauteeing while doing all their fancy hand signals.
And so I'm thinking, tonight...no cooking. We're doing take out.
I would say that is a good call on my part.
The ref needs a break.

a good word

Yesterday, my sister, Jenny, and I took the three boys to see my brother, Chris.
He was in town staying with my cousins, Beth and Tim and their kiddos.
That warrants an out of town trip since Uncle Chris lives in Missouri.
On the way Jenny and I spoke of all things important like summer and
homemade jam and cousins and money and sales at Macy's
and church planting and weight loss and exercise and
"For goodness sakes, there is no screaming in the car on the way to Napa."
Okay, that part was just me, not so much Jenny.
As was the "No, we are not listening to Radio Disney right now" and
"I'm sorry that your hands are chocolatey, Addison,
but you have to use your words instead of shrieking like a banshee" and
"We still have an hour to go. When you ask me how long it takes to
get there every 10 minutes, time will continue to go by very slowly."
But on the way, Jenny got out The Message
(a modern paraphrase of the Bible by theology professor/pastor Eugene Peterson)
and read to us out of Paul's 2nd Letter to the Corinthians.
And the phraseology of The Message? It gets to the heart of things.
We had just been discussing some hard parts about living,
because, tsgs, there are hard parts about living
and Jenny read this from 2 Corintians 4:
Since God has so generoulsy let us in on what he is doing,
we're not about to throw up our hands and walk off the job
just because we run into occasional hard times.
(I kid you not, people, I had JUST been telling Jenny, I was ready to walk off the job, so to speak, because life gets crazy and DOES NOT TURN OUT the way I tell it to.....)
We refuse to wear masks and play games.
We don't maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes.
And we don't twist God's Word to suit ourselves.
Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open,
the whole truth on display,
so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves
in the presence of God.
We had to read it twice because it was so very good
and called us up short about things like trying to control the outcome of things
and sticking with what God has called us to and keep our lives open and truthful.
I thought you might want to ponder it, too.
Check out 2 Corinthians 4 in The Message. It only gets better as you read on.
It's a good word.