Monday, June 30, 2008

A Donation...



today, june 30, 2008, i cut my hair.  it has literally been the same length for something like 10 years.  i take that back-i cut more than 1/2 inch off once in ten years.  but for the majority of a decade, it's just been long, mostly in a pony tail and sometimes, depending on the budget, highlighted like a good suburban mom.


i (well, actually a stylist named denise) cut over 10 inches off and donated it to locks of love. believe me when i say, i had no intentions of getting anything but a trim when i walked in the salon today.  but the mood struck me and there was no turning back as i listened to the scissors squeaking through my pony tail. kind of a liberating and petrifying, melancholy moment.  like saying goodbye to an old pal and hello to a much a needed change.



so, someone out there will be wearing my hair while they're waiting for their own to grow back. i'm so honored to help. who knows.  maybe i'll grow my hair out and do it again.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Growing









today is my 34th birthday.  i'm sorry, did i just type 34?  geez, louise, when the heck did that happen.  i swear i just turned 18.  a great day overall:  read several chapters in my summer fluff novel, made homemade blueberry pancakes for lunch, played in the dirt, took a 2 1/2 hour nap, got take-out for dinner.  blissful.

i guess birthdays and new years always make me introspective for a minute, leading me to recap where i've been and where i'm going.  this has been a year of big changes and growing pains.  and i have this sense that god's using all this to get me where he's wanted me for quite some time now.  i'm usually slow on the uptake when it comes to listening anyhow and then the actual doing part, well i'm part of some procrastinator's paradise.  somehow, i have time for everything else, but the real change stuff gets pushed to the side.  it's hard and uncomfortable and it's not instantaneous and it requires paitence...all of which are accurate descriptions of breakfast time at my house, let alone my soul work.

how/where am i growing?  well, certainly in the torso region.  that's undeniable.  i think right now, i'm developing like a geode.  you know, one of those rocks that doesn't seem like much from the outside, but when you crack it open its chock full of gazillions of beautiful crystals. basically, i'm not doing much purposefully to grow.  i haven't connected much here in terms of groups or organizations or committees, if that's how you evaluate growth.  i haven't filled up an address book of friends, but the few i have made are keepers.  

what i have done is just take the time to experience the change.  to let myself take time to adjust.  to grasp the bigger picture.  and it hasn't been graceful or smooth or even joyful.  it's been a little lonely, a series of trials and errors and exhausting.  but at the same time, all the change feels right in alignment with where i'm supposed to be.  the move, the pregnancy, the kids' adjustments.  sometimes being where you're supposed to be is, at first, as uncomfortable as being where you don't belong.  but if you take the time to make a new you-shaped depression in the dirt, you'll find that it fits and it just takes patience to get over the transplant shock and time to be watered in. 

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Summer


we have planned nothing this summer.  well, almost nothing.  our summer is officially filled with whatever we want it to be filled with.  no swim lessons, only a short-lived free camp through our church for the middle two, no long vacations to prepare for, nothing.  and we're so good with that.

we do have people coming in to town for visits.  that will be exciting!  we do intend on soaking up rays at the public pool not so far from the house.  we do plan on reading for the library book club, but only because we want to.  we do plan on using up the bubbles and sidewalk chalk to the best of our ability.  we do plan on sight seeing in our town a bit more.  but there's no schedule, no time table, no "have to's".  

tomorrow?  well, it's going to be unseasonably chilly.  so we'll probably play uno.  and make lunch.  and take naps.  but that's just a rough sketch and it's all subject to change.  i love summer.


Sunday, June 1, 2008

Sneak Peek





i love ultrasound 
pictures.  after the other 
kids were born, it was 
creepy how much they
 look like themselves in these.  
the shape of their little 
heads are completely 
recognizable, their 
little profiles unmistakable.  
but beforehand, it's a mystery 
even with this sneak peek. 
 but now i have a face to put 
with all the kicks and bumps. 
even though it's a face with 
really big eye sockets.