I am so, SO content with my Advent and Christmas this year. I feel like we’ve been able to do so many lovely things to celebrate the season. We paid attention to Jesus’s birth by throwing our Advent house party and doing meditations around the Advent wreath with ThPM. We served (a little) at a homeless shelter that our friend is connected to. We made little gifts for our friends. We found a really thoughtful gift for Eden’s hard working teacher. We spent a lot of time with our family.
Today we had our annual “Downtown Day” with the girls. We took the metro bus — which the girl’s think is as fun as a roller … {read more…}

(Hey all. I posted twice today and could used the feedback on the first of the two. So, if you are reading this please scroll down and read the monastery post as well.

I feel really grateful to have been a part of so many lovely things these past few weeks. ThPM hosted an Advent party a couple of weekends ago. We turned four rooms of the house into theme rooms — shepherds with a strobe light and glow-in-the-dark decore; a stable in the basement; the womb room with a shrine to the fetal Christ in the den. The best by far though was the beautiful and elaborate Magi’s Study in our bedroom under … {read more…}

So this is what I’ve been thinking about monasteries. Paul and I have always wanted to live life out, long term, with others. We’re not generous or brave enough to live common purse, and we’re too messy to share a kitchen with most kid-free folks (and we pretty much only have kid-free friends.). But nonetheless we keep holding on to this idea of life together – not just metaphorically together in some philosophical way, but physically together as well. We’ve been toying with the idea of the monastic order for a long time. Looking at if for clues for how people in a fragmented, mobile society could live more intentionally together. (Paul also thinks it’s a model that holds clues … {read more…}

I’ve cried so often these past few days. It’s odd how I won’t cry for ever, then suddenly these spurts of tear seem to well up for awhile.
Today I saw my friend Colleen Echohawk-Hayashi for the first time in—what–maybe a year? We immediately teared up upon seeing each other. How often do you have friends like that? Those were good tears.
Early in the week one of my oldest friends, Wendy Chamberlain moved away from me again. This is not uncommon. Wendy and her family live in Nepal and only get to come back to the states every three or four years. We were so lucky to have them with us this Summer – exchanging childcare so our kids could … {read more…}

I haven’t been blogging lately. My migraine medicine made my heart freak out, so I had to stop taking it. A faulty valve in my heart is making it impossible for me to take most of the traditional migraine meds. Now I’m in pain again almost every day. I’m still seeking a solution, but it is slow going.

I was describing how my current only-if-you-have-to meds made me feel to my friend, Gwen. I told her the pain was gone, but the side effect was that I felt like my whole brain was gone too — like my head was a big helium balloon. It takes me forver to think of the answer to questions like “Do you want ice … {read more…}