It’s Friday! And you know what that means! It means another birthday tea. Two little girls born in October, two birthday teas, so much baking. But it also means that Monday is Halloween, ugh, and Reformation Day, yay. I was looking back through my archives for that Halloween post of long ago–ten reasons to hate Halloween–and there it was, only last year. My feelings haven’t changed at all, so I guess I won’t bother writing that one over again. This... Read more
[Update, I have been variously corrected today that Mr. Tomlin did not write this song. Please absolve him from the guilt of writing this song, but not from singing it. And accept my apologies for wrongly attributing it to him. I don’t have time to go back through and take out his name so please also just forgive me for not doing that.] Yesterday I solved all the world’s problems, and so today I thought I’d just have a few... Read more
Last week, among the many links that I was busy gathering to no effect or usefulness, I came across this musical number. I’m linking the Patheos article that so rightly articulates why the song is musically boring, and why the theology is also very dumb. I watched the song several times. I suppose I should say ‘listened to’ but it was more interesting to watch the people on stage, and try to wonder what it would feel like to be... Read more
Well, you might have noticed the great tragedy of there being no podcast and links yesterday. I came to the end of the day alarmed and amazed. I think I have been blogging steadily and unrelentingly without missing a single day for more than a year now. I guess I would have to go back and look. It’s so much a part of my routine that I never pass over it. Except yesterday. And that’s because I really really needed... Read more
I’ve written before about how Saturday nights are often a great trial. This isn’t something I would have noticed if I had never had children. But once Elphine was born we immediately were able to see that she could sleep beautifully every night of the week except Saturday night. If she were going to cut a tooth, or have a growth spurt, or just be out of sorts, she would do it on a Saturday. And so on down the... Read more
For a while now that I’ve looked out my bedroom window it’s been what I imagine Lothlorien would look like. Green with luminous gold behind. But now the wind and rain have had their devastating effect, which I guess in the point. There is still a single green tree, gradually fading to yellow, but the glory has vanished. We made it over to the Cider Mill, briefly, inbetween lengthy amounts of school work and frustration. There we gathered a pumpkin... Read more
Oh ah, here we are at the end of another long week. Today, dammit, we’re going to finish all our school work and then do something fun in the rain. Why in the rain? you ask. Well, we couldn’t do something fun on the nice bright sunny warm days of this week, because we just couldn’t, that’s why. No, we carefully waited for the rain and the wind. Why do you have to do something fun? you ask. Because we... Read more
Second Verse same as the First….sorry, I’ve been wanting to say that for three whole debates now. I watched the wretched thing out of obedience to my husband, who, for reasons I cannot begin to understand, was excited and happy to see both of these people on the screen. A tiny phone screen, but a screen none the less. I, on the other hand, have physical symptoms of revulsion any time I hear either voice. My whole body tenses up,... Read more
Well. This is alarming. Utterly depressed myself on Twitter for ten minutes only to end up with social apocalypse. The article, as your finger is hovering over to click it, is about the epidemic of loneliness in modern life, and the sharp catastrophic rise in mental illness. The thing is packed with depressing statistics landing, somewhere towards the bottom, with this: “Loneliness has a comparable impact on physical health to smoking 15 cigarettes a day: it appears to raise the... Read more
“Boy,” I said to a friend yesterday evening, “I botched the glorious reveal of my cover today.” “Given the title of your book,” she said, “that’s oddly fitting.” Indeed. I like to think I have my life together, but really, there’s no way I do. Whether in keeping the kitchen sort of clean, or remembering to read the bible and pray every day la la la, I cannot do even the simplest of tasks to the level they deserve or... Read more
Preventing Grace
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