Through the Glass Dimly

I remember laying on my twin sized bed in my college apartment, in tears, wondering how I would be able to afford a wedding dress to get married in.  I honestly thought I might not be able to have a wedding dress. Of course I got married in this amazingly beautiful dress that was super unique and completely me, unlike the other 5000 dresses I looked at and disliked. And I found it about 60% off, and it fit me like a glove, other than needing to be taken up, as it was a little too long. I had a song, which is written about my favourite passage of scripture, played at our wedding by my wonderfully talented brother, because of how I doubt God sometimes, and how silly that is, because I've always been provided for in ways that from time to time have blown my mind. I wanted that song to be our theme song for our marriage, and the first year of our marriage proved that it was. I look out the window the birds are composing    Not a note is out of tune or out of ...

This has been an unusual week. We live in the basement suite of a house. Over the last month of living here, I've been irritated on numerous occasions with the tenants above us who have yelling matches and frequently make use of the "F-bomb" during said yelling matches. Not good when you have a one year old learning to speak. And also not good when you are trying to get a baby to nap during the day. I had just imagined that we would probably move out at the end of our 6 month lease because of this (although we love the basement suite-its quite cute!), but last weekend we found out that these loud tenants would be moving out. They are an odd pair of roommates. A woman who seemed to be in her late 50's, who most obviously has lived a hard life, and a man who appeared to be in his mid 40's. The man had a bad temper, and the woman was always peaking out her windows in, what was to me, an I-Spy-With-My-Little-Eye creepy kind of manner. I never actually met either o...

As I write I am 9 weeks pregnant with baby #2. For the last 3 or 4 weeks I have felt really really yucky. My confession is this: Pregnancy seems to bring out the worst in me... I was thinking about that the other day. My mood is never worse, my energy so low, my ability to make dinner almost completely goes away, and I seem sad all the time in what should be a HAPPY joyous time. The nausea medicine I just began taking last week makes me sleepier than sleepy all day long. I am so not proud of this. Some people are good at being pregnant. Some people are still sick, but manage to maintain their super-woman-hood: ie my sister. Lindsey is pretty amazing to me. All her talk about cleaning and cleaning products and making fabulous meals, while having all day morning sickness... well that sounds miraculous to me. Washing a load of laundry is probably the extent of my energy expenditures during the day... and that is just washing it and drying it... I can never quite seem to get it fol...

I suddenly awoke to my heart beat sky rocketing. It was literally 180-200 beats per minute. I hadn't had a bad dream. I wasn't extra stressed about anything in life. I was 25, 9 months into a brand new marriage, and was living in Houston, Texas surrounded by good art. That morning changed everything. My husband called an ambulance and the paramedics came. I laid on my couch in my living room while they struggled to find a vein to start my IV. Finally, after 5 attempts the iv was in. As I searched for my husbands face and held his hand I was told they were going ton push a drug that would cause my heart rate to beat normally. My heart was still pounding 180-210 per minute, and was extremely irregular. My chest was beginning to ache from my heart working so hard. "This is going to feel really weird" they told me, as I grasped Josh's hand so tightly and stared into his eyes. And with that they pushed this medicine that made my veins feel greasy, made my heart f...

I don't write because I don't think I have anything brilliant to say. I don't create because I don't think I will make the greatest piece of artwork ever made. And I did not write this because its brilliant (it most definitely is not), but because writing has a kind of therapeutic value for me. I always felt like I had something to say before, but I'm in a new stage of life... a stage where I know very little about anything. You can always know that your life is going to change dramatically whenever you get to a point where you think you have things figured out. You think you have the puzzle pieces that make everything make sense. I remember wanting this. Desiring to be a wife and stay at home mom so badly. I remember my sister saying something like, "Shouldn't you aspire to be something greater?" I was so mad. So now this is my life. Its funny how 10 years changes you as a person. How different I am now from when I was 17 and in high school,...

I love soup! It’s such an easy thing to make and have homemade-fresh-on-hand. Once upon a time I would make a big pot of soup once a week, and it would serve as lunch for my little two-person family throughout the week, or for a quick supper on a busy night with added homemade biscuits.  I have always heard of Butternut Squash Soup, and have wanted to attempt it. Today seemed like the right day, as I had a bit of extra energy (energy which is gradually leaving me completely as I am now 36 weeks pregnant), a butternut squash, some alone time while Josh was doing yard work for a woman at my parents church, and a need to eat something wholesome for lunch. I absolutely LOVED this soup. So I thought I'd share the recipe with you. It has such a rich creamy texture with a warm fall spicy sweetness. Let me know if you try out the recipe! Butternut Squash Soup Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter (you can substitute a cholesterol free substitute if you prefer) 1 small onion, ch...

I'm pretty sure this song will forever remind me of this pregnancy. I listened to it so much when I was first pregnant, driving to work and feeling oh so nauseous. I heard it again last Sunday morning, on the way to church, and it meant so much more to me then. Since Josh isn't legally able to work right now, and I was put on modified bed rest just a few days previous to said Sunday morning, I was struggling in my spirit. I don't want to complain about how bad I have it. I am blessed. However humbling it may be, it is pure grace that we are able to live at my sweet and generous parents home right now. I could just as easily be out on the street this very moment, but I am blessed with a roof over my head, and food to eat, though I will not say that it is easy to live like this. Wondering how we will pay bills, and whether we will have what we need for Ellie when she arrives. Needless to say, this is not the position that I had dreamed of when I thought of ...

Remember how when you were three years old it really made you feel like your daddy loved you when he let you climb up into his lap and just rest there? Or how you really knew your mommy loved you when she saw you watching her with awe whilst she put her makeup on, and she dabbed just a smidge on your cheeks? As children we saw that our parents loved us when we got a brand new pretty pink dress instead of a hand-me-down, or that brand new Safari Barbie Doll we wanted oh so much. But even then, as children, we did not think about how our parents loved us with everything they did, including the difficult things, like not allowing us to go to that school party that was on Sunday because it was better for us to go to church than to do cool fun things with our friends, or giving us the hand-me-down clothes so they could provide us with other good things like food to eat. I've been thinking about the love of God a lot for the past few weeks, and how sometimes its a comfortable kind of ...

Patience. There's a certain patience that is required in being a woman. Its a lesson that I've been learning for a while now. First, the patience was knowing who I wanted to marry, and having to wait for said person to get ready to marry me. It only took eight years**.... but still. So there were many many nights of tears, wondering why. That story is far too long and we won't go into it now. I'd rather talk about other issues of patience, but I did want to let you know that, yes, patience is something that I've struggled with... at least since I was 15, if not my whole life. So then you get engaged, and then you have to wait for the big day. The wedding day. Then you're married. And everything is lovely. You are learning how to be a wife. How to meal plan. How to manage to keep the whole house/apartment clean. How to budget. How to do all these things and still hold down a grown-up job. And then it hits you. Because there is always something else. ...

I was standing in a barren desert surrounded with brown sandy nothingness. All I could see for miles was dry earth, sand, and a couple of tumble weeds. The sky was an eerie yellow color with a faint hint of blue. It was a Dali desert. It made me feel queasy. I must have been standing there for a while before she said to me, "This is the place I love to come and remember that I never have to have children. This is my happy place." I turned to see a friend of mine who I've actually only met in person once. She was guiding me through this desert place gently, smiling. I asked how this could possibly be a happy place for her, that it made me feel nothing but anxiety and nausea. She smiled and said, "This is the path I've chosen." Then, I was alone again, wandering through the sandy meadow, quietly aching inside. When I woke up this morning, I could not get that dream out of my head. So rich in symbolism. So... odd. I told a co-worker about it, after I had be...

So, for a long time I saw myself as one who would fit well in a Corner-Office-With-A-View-Museum-Curator-Position. I would have all these wonderful contacts, I'd get to talk art theory all day long, I'd get to have a real voice in the art world. Even now there is something alluring in the sound of that description, and I was pretty sure that my life would feel pretty much complete if I got to do something like that, as long as I had a husband at home who would do the laundry, and the dishes. I'd have to make enough so that I could have a nanny for my children, and make sure that we could afford to live in the best neighborhood so that the children could go to the very best of public schools, where they would have so many opportunities to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. Because programs, and "those" people that teach our kids, are, of course, the best way of forming well rounded children. This, of course, was before my Purple-Pilgrimage began....

I used to be under the impression that I would really be something if I could get an amazing, well paying job, a husband that loved me, and that at that point we would equally get stuff done in our home. I'd probably cook (because I enjoy cooking so), and he'd probably clean. If we had kids, we'd both take equal child rearing duties. I had it planned out. We'd share the leadership in the home as a team. We'd get equal time to relax in front of the tv. We'd go on romantic adventures at least once a month. I thought I'd be really something if I could just become a powerful woman, a force to be reckoned with; this great famous artist/writer who wore a modern "power suite", probably peacock blue, with a pale green button up shirt, and some fantastic scarf that I bought from someplace exclusive and underground. Complete modern woman. Hear me roar. I'd sell thousands of books, my art would be shown at museums and high end galleries. I used to loo...

Oh how weary are the days that we labor on this earth. While we are young we labor over school work, we toil with our friendships, we fight through the questions about who we are and who we want to be and why we are here, we seek to fall in love and find that lasting love that will last a lifetime. When we get a little older we work to find the perfect job, and then we expend all our energy to bring home a paycheck. Perhaps we get married and then we have to figure out what life looks like as a wife, doing housework, making dinner, paying bills, perhaps still working in a career. Afterwords, we may find ourselves being blessed with the opportunity to carry children in our womb, give birth, and raise little minds and souls in the fear and admonition of the Lord. I don't know about the latter part (the making babies and raising them part) but I do know most of the rest. Its easy to get weary. Perhaps I'm just weary today because I'm trying to adjust my circadian rhythm. I...

So, I get to plan dinner for the next week and a half because my parents are out of town. Its back to the old days of figuring out what ingredients I have, what produce needs to be used up, what new recipes I can cook, and what old recipes I can cook. Here's the menu for the week: Saturday: Tex Mex Beef Enchiladas with black beans and rice Sunday: Dill Roasted Garlic Chicken with greens Monday: Penne with Italian Sausage and veggies with a Romaine Salad Tuesday: Chile Garlic Chicken Legs with an Asian Veggie Stir Fry Wednesday: Asian Rotisserie Chicken Salad (using left-over roast chicken) Thursday: Perogies and Cabbage Rolls (which are frozen from a previous batch of cabbage rolls) Friday: I'm working this night, so left-overs And there you have it. I'm hitting the grocery store to get the missing few ingredients.

Edward Weston, Pepper , 1930 Last night I dreamed that I was grocery shopping at "my" Fiesta on Alabama and Dunlavy in the Montrose area of Houston, Texas. I was showing all of my female friends about how awesome Fiesta is for prices. I remember picking up a tin of cocoa powder (of course it had to have something to do with chocolate) and saying, "40 cents. Can't beat that." Before I moved to Kelowna, I had certain rituals that I did every Saturday. Saturdays were my favorite days because, well, I worked Monday through Friday nine to six every day, and Josh didn't have Saturdays off. Saturday was mine. Saturdays belonged to me and I loved them. So I would wake up around nine or ten in the morning, head straight to the coffee brewer, where I would make 6 cups of coffee all for myself. Of course, they've always called me the coffee snob, so this coffee was something dark-deep-heavenly like Sumatra (from Starbucks) or Rowanda (from Taft Street Coffee). On ...

"I like to start my notes to you like we are already in the middle of a conversation." As if we have been talking about the pursuit of super-womaninity for weeks, no, years. For the last little while I have been fascinated by women who seem to sore above the rest, accomplishing amazing feats like not hitting the snooze button. A woman who is able to spend time on her hair and makeup, have quiet time, eat breakfast, go to work all day, come home and cook an amazing dinner, do the dishes, wash the clothes, clean, pay the bills, manage the budget, spend quality time with her husband, and go to sleep having accomplished all her hard work for the day. Oh, and how about adding a few kids in there and doing the mommy thing as well. Perhaps we can't always get it all done. But I do know a few people who come quite close. I lived with my sister for a few months in 2007. I believe this is when my fascination with super-hero qualities began. My sister had just had her second baby an...