Rough Draft

Here we go again...

Back again...one of the worst things about being sick is how long it takes to get caught up afterwards. But things are going well...work is good, Eric is good, life is good.

One of my friends from work is getting ready to move to North Carolina, so we had a big going-away bash this week. A group of us got together to make her a present - we each knit a panel and then I sewed them together to make a blanket (this project is one reason I haven't been blogging much!). I'm so happy with the way it turned out, especially considering that three people learned to knit just to do this project! But the coolest part of the whole thing was that I've never been involved with a group of people who were so excited about GIVING a gift. I want to bottle their enthusiasm and pass it around at Christmas time.

Anyway, here's my friend Effie (the one who's leaving) with our finished project. Unfortunately you can't see the whole thing...there are a couple of stripes missing. But you get the idea.

Out sick

Not much to report...just etting back on my feet after being sick all week.

Catching Up

Not much to say...I just got back from a few days in Seattle visiting my sister and her family - great time as always. Now I'm trying to get back on track at work with a crazy busy week coming up.

But with all the rain we've been having lately (continuing today), the ceanothus and California poppies in the back yard are starting to bloom - I think we're going to have a really spectacular display this year. I get such a lift every time I go in the back yard (or look from the window, if it's raining). I'll try to post some pictures soon.

What's fair?

I recently read A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett, and now I'm listening to the audio book (both excellent, by the way), and this little bit of dialog stuck out:

Tiffany didn't know what to reply except: "It shouldn't be like this."

"There isn't a way things should be. There's just what happens, and what we do."

This seems like a good quote for those times when life smacks you upside the head, and all you can think is "This isn't FAIR! Why is this happening to ME?" It's a very pragmatic way of looking at things. But I'm pairing it with another insight: years ago when someone I loved was in the midst of major difficulty, I was talking to a good friend about my feelings of helplessness. I said "And all I can do is pray." She said, "It's not ALL you can do, it's the BEST thing you can do."

Let Your Life Speak

I've been reading a really cool book (recommended by my sister) called Let Your Life Speak, by Parker J. Palmer. It's short but good - very interesting insights into vocation. I would've liked to get ahold of this book a few years ago! But Palmer also makes clear that living your vocation is a life-long process involving ongoing change. Here's one of my favorite portions:

If I were ever to discover a new direction, I thought, it would be at Pendle Hill, a community rooted in prayer, study, and a vision of human possibility. But when I arrived and started sharing my vocational quandary, people responded with a traditional Quaker counsel that, despite their good intentions, left me even more discouraged. "Have faith," they said, "and way will open"...After a few months of deepening frustration, I took my troubles to an older Quaker woman well known for her thoughtfulness and candor. "Ruth," I said, "people keep telling me that 'way will open.' Well, I sit in the silence, I pray, I listen for my calling, but way is not opening. I've been trying to find my vocation for a long time, and I still don't have the foggiest idea of what I'm meant to do. Way may open for other people, but it's sure not opening for me."
   
Ruth's reply was a model of Quaker plain-speaking. "I'm a birthright Friend," she said somberly, "and in sixty-plus years of living, way has never opened in front of me." She paused, and I started sinking into despair. Was this wise woman telling me that the Quaker concept of God's guidance was a hoax?
   
Then she spoke again, this time with a grin. "But a lot of way has closed behind me, and that's had the same guiding effect."

Hee. Can you relate?

Busy January

Ah, the blog. I started off so well this year, but got bogged down with so much going on this month. Here's the short version, in no particular order:

• My brother-in got married last weekend. Lots of fun, great wedding (and I admit I had my doubts - Ivan seemed so disoriented and forgetful the week before the wedding that I thought for sure it would be a Murphy's Law wedding...but it was perfect, of course). Congratulations Ivan and Treana!
• The in-laws were back in town (see above) for 10 days...it was a challenge. We love them a lot, but they can be difficult people to be around.
• My in-laws fired my mom as their real estate agent, because their house had been on the market for 6 months without an offer. I think my mom was relieved, because she had done all she could and it was stressing her out. But I know it hurt her feelings to be fired. And of course, in less than a week with the new agent they got an offer. Sometimes being involved in a family just sucks.
• Emotional roller-coaster with my brother: he's been on disability for mental health reasons...found out this month that the house he's renting is going to be sold and they have to find another place to live...his wife is pregnant with their third child, and the timing on that is really rotten (honestly, if I had known I would've ponied up the cash for birth control, I swear). Then he got a job and found a new place to live within a week...if he can deal with the job things will be okay for now, but he still has to deal with his larger life and marriage issues. Please pray.
• On a more positive note, went to a 60th birthday party for my old boss, Ed Piorek. Ed is still cancer-free and doing really well - and the party was awesome.
• We're dog-sitting a very sweet 12-year-old German Shepherd while Ivan is on his honeymoon...Dakota is a good dog but doesn't like to be alone...he broke out of the yard yesterday while Eric and I were both at work...neighbors found him and put him back in the yard, but he got out again...Eric had to do some emergency hole repair this morning to keep him from getting out again.
• We're trying to restore some semblance of order to our lives and house now that all the relatives are gone...it's a process.
• My husband is still awesome - I'm so stoked to be married to him.
• We've had lots of rain this month, but today was clear and beautiful and I hung out in the backyard with Eric and Dakota and basked in the sun and read magazines and listened to the birds - amazing day.

I think that covers most of it. What's new with you?

Anniversary post, part deux

We had a great time last night - I usually work on Tuesday nights, but I switched shifts so Eric and I could celebrate. Usually we go out to dinner or something, but a few days ago we happened to be driving past a local movie theater and saw that they were going to show Dr. Strangelove - one night only - happened to be on our anniversary. It's a movie we both love and is one of Eric's all-time favorites, so the timing of that was another nice anniversary gift.  So we went to the movie last night, and they asked a trivia question before the movie, and I knew the answer and won 2 free movie passes! And it was great to see the movie on a big screen, and it's always good to go on a date with my favorite man, so we had a wonderful anniversary.

P.S. Here's the trivia question: Peter Sellers played 3 roles in the movie, but originally he planned to play 4. Which character in the movie did he decide not to play?

A: It was the Slim Pickens character, Maj. "King" Kong (Full disclosure: I couldn't remember the character name, but I knew it was the Slim Pickens character and no one else knew the answer, so they gave it to me).

P.S.2: Happy Anniversary Stacy!

How cool is this?

Today is Eric's and my 8th anniversary - hard to believe it's been that long. I know it's a cliche, but the time really does fly. I'm still so grateful for him...he's an amazing man, and every day with him is a gift.

When we got married 8 years ago, my boss at the time, Ed Piorek, performed the ceremony. In his homily he used a passage from one of Henri Nouwen's books, about trapeze artists and trust - it was a really good illustration of a marriage even though that wasn't Nouwen's original  context.

For almost a year now, I've been on an email list from Nouwen.net - a daily meditation from his writings. I like it a lot. It's always short but profound, and gives me food for thought for the day. So I log on to my email today, my anniversary, and lo and behold, the daily meditation is that passage about the trapeze artists and trusting the catcher that Ed read at our wedding! I'm blown away - I guess it's my anniversary present from God.

Epiphany

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped in away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no imformation, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This:  were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?  There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt.  I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
- T.S. Elliot, The Journey of the Magi

I love this poem and thought I'd post it again this year...maybe it'll be my Epiphany tradition.

Updates

I finally got around to adding some things to my book and movie lists and will add a few more as I get the time.

And if you're looking for a movie to see in the theater, I highly recommend Sideways. Very well done - we're still talking about it a week later. As a little bonus, we were able to identify a few wineries we've been to on our own travels. Fun.