Thoughts on messes.

I am in love. With a woman. My cleaning lady.


We'll call her Diane. Because that is her name. Folks... I know that it seems a little bit like cheating to get a cleaning lady, a little, shall we say.. extravagant? But TRRRUST me. This lady, for a measly 20bucks an hour makes my life easier. What's weirder, is that she seems to love doing it. I had her come over this past Tuesday and I was promising myself to not be one of those peeps who cleans their house before the cleaning lady comes over, but I couldn't help it.. I was straightening and fussing the night before like a goon. Didn't seem to matter, this gal came in, and it almost brought a tear to my eye to see THROUGH my glass shower doors once again. I didn't think it would ever be possible. I didn't think I could ever let Cary Murphy see my house ever again. But now, I'd let her eat off my shower doors. I'm not sure how that would work, maybe I'd spray someting jam-like on them and squeegee it onto some toast? Dunno. Anyway...it was one more task I got to take off my list of things to do that week. It totally freed me up to not feel guilty about not doing it again, and getting back to living life. I don't know if I'll become a regular or just get quick fixes once in awhile (is this how drug addicts start?) but I do know that it was SUCH a blessing WELL worth my time and money. May I suggest similar gifts to any and all moms out there for this upcoming holiday?

May I suggest not getting your hair dyed three times in one day? I hate my hair right now. For it to be my natural dirty blonde color ever again, I will need to Sinead it all off or let it grow striped-ly out. Two-tone Malone.

For those of you privy to the cleaning lady discussion, I had this post crafted before that conversation came up.. so don't think I'm beating this dead horse to a bloody pulp.

But do think that I am amazed and awed, humbled and happy to be clean.

I have finally done it.. lost the last retainer in my set of four. In less than six months I have lost six total pieces. One to a lawn mower, one to a church gymnasium, two to a random place I have yet to figure out, no make that three, and now, one to Qdoba. I'm a mess.

Why is that Lady Screaming?

A portion of one of my engineering drawings. Monty says: "Why is that Lady Screaming?"

Ramen Noodles

Great people go to my church. It's really cool. Props to Mary Schawacker. Cool lady. Makes the place run like a top.


"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."


Nice walk today with a most excellent companion.


Nice burning on the top of my red feet. I have been known to be allergic to certain types of carpet fibers... Which is nice. No more dancing and being silly for me!
The palms of my hands swelled up as well. Strange freaky freak-ness.


Nice Dinner and Movie company on Friday night. Fracture is a good flick, go see it. See if you can figure it out.

My brother shattered his personal best record this weekend at 474 YARDS. That's right. YARDS... that almost five football fields and thirty past his last PB.


I love my hammock. LOVE IT.


I love my yard. I love spring in St. Louis


Love love love.


Grace like Rain.

Guitar Playing Goat

Gray, quiet and tired and mean

Picking at a worried seam

I try to make you mad at me over the phone.

Red, eyes and fire and signs

I'm taken by a nursery rhyme

I want to make a ray of sunshine and never leave home

No amount of coffee, no amount of crying

No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine

No, nothing else will do

I've gotta have you, I've gotta have you.

The road gets cold, there's no spring in the middle this year

I'm the new chicken clucking open hearts and ears

Oh, such a prima donna, sorry for myself

But green, it is also summer

And I won't be warm till I'm lying in your arms

I see it all through a telescope: guitar, suitcase, and a warm coat

Lying in the back of the blue boat, humming a tune...

Lines from the Weepies are running through my head. As much as I wish that Jane wasn't so perfect at being my musical barometer, she is. I like a lot of the music she so graciously sends me. It feels like cheating. Like I didn't dig around fifty music festivals and find these diamonds in the rough, it almost feels like I'm not allowed to lay claim to the music that steals her heart as mine. But once you drive through the stiffling rain, broken wiper banging on something that it shouldn't be banging on, and find yourself flipping the arrowed buttons on the steering wheel to the tracks that sing YOUR life, you really cannot help yourself. They feel like an old college buddies, hugging your heart and letting you know...Hey girl, I been there... and I sang about it..and we danced to it.

"Sometimes rain that's needed falls, We float like two lovers in a painting by Chagall, All around is sky and blue town, Holding these flowers for a wedding gown, We live so high above the ground, satellites surround us.

"I am humbled in this city, There seems to be an endless sea of people like us, Wakeful dreamers, I pass them on the sunlit streets In our rooms filled with laughter, We make hope from every small disaster, Everybody says "you can't, you can't, you can't, don't try." Still everybody says that if they had the chance they'd fly like we do."

Just wow...

2006

2007

What a difference almost a year makes....Case, I'm glad we have taken turns each looking somewhat normal in each of these pics...

He Said.

He said to her in her foul, depressed, icky mood:
"I love you more when you are like this."
"How is that possible?" she asks.
He said.. "Because that's when you need it more."

Birth Pains and Hope

It is said that people should live more in the moment.

I don't think I'm one of those people. I think I live too much in the moment.

The sky is drizzly and cold grey like the scarf I'm knitting. My muscles are tight and knotted with tension of a soul that cannot find it's Jesus. Can not find it's peace.

Perhaps it really is the illusion that they say it is. That contentment is never really found. That mostly you get out of the creaky bed in the cold grey half-hour late morning and you put one foot gingerly on the creaky cold hard wood and you take another step...and another... take a shower, sing a little... let the hot water work out your knotted muscles and your sore, world weary back.

And you breathe and you laugh and pray and breathe and wander and waffle and you wonder about the point. You wonder if you are doing "it" right... whatever "it" is. I have never quite felt that I am doing "it" right. I think sometimes I wrongly live for what other people want, at other times I think I'm only living for myself. I am so terrified of not being perfect.

Ladies, let me be frank, is it so abnormal for a woman not to want to be a CEO? Check that... knowing ME is it weird that I don't want to be a CEO? I am not built for it. In my young life, by the worlds standards I am highly sucessful. Especially considering that if you have a roof over your head you are considered among the richest people in the world. I have a roof AND a basement. Granted it's a basement that has crushed pipes and drippy valves and a furnace that sounds like an old man, but still it is real estate nonetheless...

I'm built for knitting and cleaning and smiling. Giving grace and hanging pictures and making art and writing and mourning and dancing. I want hot glue guns and a garden, a swiffer vacuum and mini-muffins.

I do live in the moment, oh yes. So much so that those close to me think me a bit fickle...crying one minute, laughing at a commercial the next.

I feel my pains, I feel joys, I feel things that remind me that I'm, indeed, alive. But I am still in a prison of sorts. I give it different names, but it's bars are made of shame. Shame for not being ambitious enough. Shame for having an attitude that says "I just don't WANNA". But I will because I hafta! I think the elders are all right. About most things, really.

I do not like being told what to do. The times in my life where I show the least grace to people does not have to do with substance abuse, sexual immorality, abortions, homelessness, rage, greed, or wrath... to those sins I find my heart tender and compassionate.. my hate wells up and boils when I am condescended on. When people tell me what to do and how to do it like there is no other option I do not like it. Because I am certain that no human is ever right all the time... Not even me. I don't know why it irks me so, but it irks me like nothing else.

Proverbs 29:23
A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor...

there seemes to be no sin in the bible that is more punished than pride...

I have enough of it...

Jeremiah 49:16
The terror you inspire and the pride of your heart have deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks, who occupy the heights of the hill. Though you build your nest as high as the eagle's, from there I will bring you down," declares the LORD.

I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

I tremble.. who can stand?

Can I go where He went?

Hooray for:

Being wrapped in blankets and belly laughs on my front porch with wine and a backdrop of spice bushes and tulips.
Cowboy Boyd's Rasperry Chipotle Salsa.
Beautiful Upstate New York.
Trips to Chicago, Superdawg and the House of Blues.
Buildings that disappear into the clouds at night.
Seeing where my boy grew up. Seeing how he grew up.
Growing up.
DietCoke,DietCoke,DietCoke,DietCoke,DietCoke,DietCoke,DietCoke...
Margarita on the Rocks!
Mowing the front lawn.
Getting the Mini-Muffin recipe that I have been begging for for years and years, given to my by the folks who consider me the daughter they never had.
Liz visiting my church.
Angela eating my vegan nuggets.
Charlie Brown Christmas.
Huge wheels of cheese on the salad bar at dinner.
Humility. From Pastors, Associate Pastors, Boyfriends, and self.
Baby showers bring May flowers, and pens wrapped in flowers, and flower seeds, and cookies shaped like flowers.
Notorious D's Mom.
Easter.
A date for Forest Park.
Leviticus 8.
My boyfriend getting a sexy new ride.
My funny co-workers who actually get my jokes.
Jesus. Sweet Jesus. Whom I need to pour grace on me, whom I need to carry me, whom I need to teach me.
Al-be-coy-kee.