the blue colored week of advent

I was so touched by this email from my friend Kara (a Presbyterian minister in Minnesota) tonight:

"Oh, I meant to tell you - our poignant and wonderfully honest blue Christmas ritual was the other night. We put our prayers on these balls and lit candles for people. I posted other pictures of it on the church's FB account, but I wanted you to know you and your church were held in prayer that evening. For courage to stay with the grief."

Yay for Christmas and hope!

my husband will be on NPR

That's fun to say! David's short story "Things We Knew When The House Caught Fire" airs on NPR's Selected Shorts over the next week! Here is the schedule.

Nashville, TN WPLN-AM 1430 Sat Dec 18 5:00 PM
Dallas/Fort Worth, TX KERA-FM 90.1 Sat Dec 18 7:00 PM
San Francisco KQED-FM 88.5 Sat Dec 18 8:00 PM
San Luis Obispo, CA KCBX-FM 90.1 Sun Dec 19 6:00 PM
New York, NY WNYC-FM 93.9 Sat Dec 18 10:00 PM
New York, NY WNYC-AM 820 Sat Dec 19 1:00 PM
Austin, TX KUT-FM 90.5 Sun Dec 19 5:00 PM
San Francisco KALW-FM 91.7 Sun Dec 19 5:00 PM
Seattle KUOW-FM 94.9 Tue Dec 21 10:00 PM

1954's house of the year, and "who you finna try?"

Drooling over this house in Portland. It was 1954's house of the year, I guess.



Cracking up at this poor guy just trying to watch tv. He did handle the situation effectively.

an irishman tells it like it is

yerger house

This house makes my mouth water. I have that response to certain inanimate things and it's weird, but my mouth will water over wedding dresses and diamonds and mid-century design. The portfolio of this house is one of my super happy places!

the pain spans the atlantic

My internet friend Hugh (whom I know through my blog) lives in England - he has grown children and his church that he's been at for 30+ years has recently made changes weirdly similar to the ones my church is making. The parallels are very strange, but it's nice to have someone who understands even if they live across the ocean. I got this email from him today and it warmed my heart, I wanted to share it and also have it here for archiving purposes so I can go back to it and remember.

Stephy, I was just on Facebook looking at nothing in particular when my thoughts turned to you and, this is the freaky bit, I felt your pain! I don't know how or why but just for a minute or 2 I felt it and it was like being crushed inside. It didn't stay with me because I suspect it's not mine to keep but at least I can now share just a tiny bit of it. When I pray I can now pray about that pain. I don't think I'm nuts (depressive - yes, nuts - no) and I do know that sometimes I hear things from God that I know can't be from me. This, however, was a first, totally out of the blue and, oddly, something to treasure. God bless you and, as always, prayers from across the pond.
Hugh

i want a yacht and really that's not a lot

I told Judah the other day that I didn't want anything for Christmas (him: "Why not?" me: "It's how I'm rolling." him: "You roll terribly.") but I think I lied. On second thought I think I want this necklace


and this dining room table would be nice too.



And maybe an electric kettle. And that's all.

my xmas 2010 mix

Almost all the songs are retro, hope you like it. Click the picture to download. xoxoxo

sadness update

The waves of grief over church come and go. Today I felt new grief after a few days of feeling better. TheRapist says this sort of thing is cyclical. So at least I know it's normal. But I've been crying so painfully I've had to pull the car over, and stop and walk when I get to thinking about it when I'm out running, and lock myself into a bathroom stall while I'm at work for five measured minutes doing the the kind of sobbing where your mouth is just open in the ugliest possible way and your stomach convulses from dry heaving/hacking and tears are running down your face but you can barely make a sound. The grief feels like it's right under my skin over my heart. This is the part where I feel my heart kind of shrinking and getting small and hard. I have this cartoony visual of slushy liquid concrete pouring into my chest to protect my heart from this happening again because this is the most painful thing that has happened to me since my parents disowned me. I want to fight against my heart getting hard though. I have to feel this pain and believe it will be redeemed because if I don't do that, I believe I will have to kill off a vital part of myself and I think I have to hold out this hope. The most painful part could be that my young children are asking why this has happened. This church has been their family as long as we've lived here. So I'm holding this while I'm feeling this crazy pain in my chest cavity, me peritoneum or pleura you could say (I see those words all day at work) and trying to grieve this well and with heart and hope.

Bollocks.