Dirty House Thankful

March 27, 2012 By 3 Comments
catchingfireflies.com via Pinterest

  Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what He has done for me. (Psalm 66:14) For the prayer book I've been following for the past few weeks (The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle) and its collection of scripture that keeps sticking in my head. Like Psalm 66:14. "I will tell you what he has done for me." What a beautiful calling to live into... A house littered with toys and cardboard boxes and missing its kitchen table (the weather was so nice … [Read more...]

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Good Thankful

March 20, 2012 By 8 Comments

For a sweet birthday celebration. Look at that guy in his hat! For a backyard and dear friends and good food and all these kids running around who somehow belong to us. How did that happen? For how turning one automatically makes a baby into a little man. All the sudden Brooksie is such a grown up. Yesterday he insisted on walking all the way into August's school. No being carried for him. So, I held his hand and we walked like snails across the lawn and into the door and down the hall. For … [Read more...]

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Fainting + Blistery Walks + Baptisms and New Churches = Thankful

March 13, 2012 By 7 Comments
The Rosemont College Chapel where Liberti Main Line worships

A Thankful Tuesday List: My tendency to hit my funny bone and faint is kind of a joke in my family. I pass out, not when my life is at risk or I've truly destroyed a significant part of my appendages, but when I fall down on my knees or hit my elbow on a counter. Such a dorky problem. So, Sunday morning, when I banged my knee on the wall while getting into the shower (going on one hour of less sleep than usual), it was sort of inevitable. I'm thankful for my husband who woke up to my … [Read more...]

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Thankful Hopeful

March 6, 2012 By 4 Comments
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Living in Texas where sunsets look like this from the back deck Rocking side by side with Brooksie on the front porch swing at my parent's house, my arm around him, my left hand holding his left, our right hands in his blankey The sweet hope of hearing morning songbirds in March. Spring is coming! The community around my parents that has been bringing food almost every day the past week, and that will keep on bringing food after I leave My boys going to sleep last night when they were … [Read more...]

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Hard Thankful

February 28, 2012 By 43 Comments

"One act of thanksgiving, when things go wrong with us, is worth a thousand thanks when things are agreeable to our inclinations." -St. John of Avila (via Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts) My brother Brooks' lifelong friend died Sunday night. He had brain cancer. Jeremy was a groomsman in Brooks' wedding. My brother loved him. Brooks has been in Haiti, working with some orphanages. He left last Wednesday knowing that his friend could pass away before he returned home. He's supposed to speak at … [Read more...]

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Fat Tuesday Thankful

February 21, 2012 By 5 Comments

Writing posts two nights in a row at 11 pm because I spent the evening with friends. My husband's heartbreaking skill at searing and roasting a pork chop. Creating a Goo Goo Dolls station on Pandora while our friends were over last night. Wow, 90's music was the best. The "Hoe Cake Hoe Down," my dear church's version of a Mardi Gras party, a pancake dinner and country dancing. It was last Friday night, a day I spent feeling crazy emotional, with snotty crying children who couldn't get outside … [Read more...]

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A Very Valentine-y Thankful Tuesday

February 14, 2012 By 11 Comments
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It's Valentines Day! If you are reading this in the morning, I am probably in my smiliest morning mood, the one I reserve only for special days. August and I will be popping open the can of cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Then we'll move quick from them into a mid-morning mixing and baking of "pink velvet" cupcakes (box-mix courtesy of World Market). Ahhh, the sugar intake of Valentines Day! I love Valentines Day for its heartfelt kid-ness. I love handmade valentines. I love candy and cookies. I … [Read more...]

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The Man Love Raised: A Thankful Tuesday post

February 7, 2012 By 25 Comments
Pawpaw and my brother (Big Brooks) at their shared birthday party last month

Last night, my 89-year-old grandfather fell and hit his head and broke his hip. I got a text from my dad while my boys were in the bath. Time after time, I've thought we might lose him. Last year at this time, I was 7 1/2 months pregnant and trying to make plans for how I'd fly home to Amarillo from San Francisco if I was needed. He recovered. He has always recovered. This past year, though, he's folded deeper and deeper into the shadow of age. He can barely walk and he is mostly unaware of his … [Read more...]

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Vroooom Thankful

January 31, 2012 By 2 Comments

That my baby has learned how to use sound effects when pushing his brother's cars around on the floor. (Can vroooom count as his third word?) For the sound effects that have become a significant part of my communication skills. I catch myself saying: "Boom!" and "Splat!" while I chop the slices of cucumbers my kids are about to consume. How did everything become a sound? (Btw, my friend Cat would say that my sound effect making is not solely based on having kids. She'd say that I've always … [Read more...]

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‘The hours illuminated and celebrated’: Thankful Tuesday

January 24, 2012 By 3 Comments

"Cast out from the luxuriant friendship and ease of the hours, we feel a blankness, a sameness, an aloneness, a lack of sense to all our doings and even our accomplishments. We attend the hushed memorial service for a dead friend and find the list of his achievements moves no one in the assembly, but the atmosphere does quicken in the crowded room when his daughter speaks of all the many things he loved and everything and everyone he held in his affections. The dogs, the chopping of wood, the … [Read more...]

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