On Gardening

Some one asked "Are you who you are on your blog or are you who you are right now sitting in front of me sad and low?"  The answer is Yes.  I also told her that I was due for a big laundry-airing blog soon and that I was unsure of how to unravel all of the tangled kite strings in order to be coherent, encouraging and real.  I was a bit "blogstipated". 

 
I am not always idealist pie in the sky, or head in the cynical gutter of real-ism.  I am sometimes potato on the couch... or yuppie in the park.  A Dork on the dance floor or a Lonely girl under heavy blanket.   I am always a Work In Progress.  I don't want to be.  I want to be done progressing so I can just chill out.  So that the angry little anxiety monkeys that seem to take up residence on my trapezius muscles will get vertigo from being up there so high that they will jump over to some shorter person.

Cheesy spiritual analogy of the month:  I am this garden hose.  All my life I have been dreaming about and prepping for watering this one very specific type of plant.  This plant is quite rare and no where to be found.  Afraid that my well of water will dry up if I water anything else in the meantime has made me choke off the flow to the other thirsty plants.  I look at their brown and dry leaves and say "What?  Don't look at me!  I don't' have any water...God is going to water you.  What?  Oh this?  This kinked hose? You see this water, MY water, is waiting for something else.  I can't spare a drop.  As I wait for this plant, search for this plant, attempt to plant this plant myself... the water stagnates and grows moldy things.  

Grrr... brownness, dryness, crackly-ness,  is all I see...maybe I should just water the stuff around me.  If the vegetation that grows up chokes out space for this plant I'm waiting to water.. then so be it.  I'll still have a really awesome garden and the water that once bred mosquitoes will flow and be used.  Because maybe that one plant doesn't exist anyway.  Maybe I'd rather have a garden of randomness. 

Maybe, just maybe, that water wont dry up.

I noticed that on another blog she consistently ends it with things she loves.  I think that is grand.  The cynic in me wonders if it's so she doesn't jump off a roof everyday.  I can relate to the need to list my "happies" so that the monkeys don't choke me, mash my heart down to an unrecognizable pulp and then tap dance on my head. I have decided I shall do that more often to bust up the parties they have. 

So here a bit randomly, is another sort of list. 

Deb...I still think about you and Noah... a lot.
Steve.. I still think about you getting shot.  It wigs me out.
D.. I still think about your mom.
Beth.. I still think about your brother.
A&M…I still pray for you.
A…I am praying like MAD for you.
Marc…I am happily jealous of you and live vicariously through you. Although that word isn't going to fit on the board.
G-ma Murl… You are gonna bounce.
Blazer...I think about your past few months.
Liz.. You just rock my socks off like always and I'm so proud of you like always.
Jodie...How you do what you do and make what you make in the time that you make it... is anyone's guess. I'm inspired and terrified that my kids, if they ever shall exist, will know nothing other than chicken nuggets until they are off to college and have only the photo they came home from the hospital with to show for their upbringing.

Babies of St. Louis.  I don't know all of your names, but I somehow want you all to know that I am your Crazy Aunt Lindsey even if you have never seen me or if I wasn't around to give you an appropriate shower gift or hand knit you booties.

In my post-speech analysis. I did not mention Barack Obama's name in the previous paragraphs.  I must want to run for president in 2012.  I DID however use the pronoun "I" several times.  So… that must mean that I think somewhere deep in my heart of hearts... that I just didn't want to type my name out again. 

Cruz it's really not about "me".  ;)

Words

Scrabulous is Fabulous.

 

Ch-ch-changes. Hello Zack, Goodbye Phil, Hello Ryan. Goodbye House Group (?) Hello Isaiah.

 

Did anyone else notice the olympic closing ceremony dudes were wearing Bike helmets?  Of all the dough they spent on that thing, you'd think their hats would get a little more creative than that...  They were the same color as the toe-nail polish of the indifferent woman in the chair next to me at Le Nails.  (Like... Metallic Gold, Red, Black and Metallic Silver cross-hatchies).

 

The chain is glowin'

 

Lafayette and 9th is hard to find.

 

GO USA VOLLEYBALL.  Men, Women, Indoor and Sand, I love it all.  Woo hoo. 

Overheard: "I think the men's team are all really ugly.." 

"I don't care, if you can hit a volleyball like that I would marry any one of them, even the libero, in a second" 

"What about that guy with the breathe right strip for Brazil?" 

"Are you kidding me?  He's Brazilian?  It wouldn't matter if he didn't know what a volleyball was..."

 

Dumb Things I said this weekend:

 

"So Anne, do you ever watch the Closing Ceremonies?"

"I always thought Dred-Locks just appeared." Courtney saved me by saying "When I was little, I thought that some people were just born with bangs and some weren't".

 

Dumb Things I did this weekend:

 

Drove the wrong way to the wrong Llywelyns.  After paying 4 bucks to park, drove the wrong way to the right Llywellyns. 

Drove the not fast way downtown and then drove around Lacledes Landing for 40 minutes getting too ambitious for the 'perfect' parking place.   

Drove the wrong way to get to Deanas house for lunch. 

Drove the route to work on my bike with hot water in my bottle.

 

Apparantly, getting a Lincoln makes you drive like like a crazy person.

 

I'm having an open house party.  For me.  For being back in the country and for my birthday in September.  Come one, come all.  Millions of babies will be welcome. I'm saying this now so I attempt to get my house in proper order for such an event.

 

Noah

Little Noah passed away yesterday.  Today would have been his first birthday.

 

http://thelauers03.blogspot.com/2008/08/364-days.html

Cleaning

Thus, when my heart opened up so very big, and gulped some fresh air.. some emptiness followed... as it often does when you stop running from yourself so hard.  So I'm sitting here now, in a little bit of expectancy, hope and above all, oddly enough some peace. 

 

Just peace.

 

It's quiet, it's full, it's pregnant, it's as if I've made room for something in my soul by taking out some garbage. 

 

It's like an empty apartment waiting to be furnished... yeah that's it.

 

The crap out on the curb is rather rotten and... as I see now, not inconsequential.

 

And I bought a Lincoln.  So I'm also a pimp.  A lonely pimp.

I like this guy...

You should check him out too.

 

http://johnshoreland.com/

Isaiah 43

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and the waves will not overcome you. Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name you are mine. For I am the Lord your God. I am the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I am the Lord. Do not fear.

When you walk through the fire, you'll not be burned. And the flames will not consume you. Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name you are mine. For I am the Lord your God. I am the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I am the Lord. Do not fear.

The Shack.

Hello Friends.

It has been a long while; a long while since I've felt like myself. I have some major de-compressing to do, some culture shock to get over still, but double the friends in facebook to remember my time in Switzerland by. (Aside: There it is again.. ending sentences with prepositions... can't that little rule go by the way of wearing white after Labor Day? I just can't seem to avoid it...)

I just finished a sort of "ordained" sickness. I felt like junk on Sunday when I went to church and felt even junkier on Monday morning. I didn't go into work and I was pretty much out like the losing end of a prize fight until 3pm that day and didn't feel much better Tuesday morning. But while I was lying there comatose, I did get some quality reading in. It was work to prop up my head, which weighed exactly eight-hundred pounds according to my sore neck, but once I got it positioned, I spent some sweet time with God and read The Shack.

He reminded me that he invented laughter. He reminded me that he cares for sick kids, and for broken men, and for the ugliest of sinners. He reminded me that he likes Over The Rhine and the soundtrack to Juno too.

He remined me that life with Him is not a dry mouthful of saltine crackers with no milk to be found. He told me tenderly that life with Him is beauty, honey, light, and song. It's decadence in food and drink. In meatloaf and chocolate chip cookies, and fresh baked bread and canoes and blue workshirts and tool belts and cars. He is in every single good created thing. He's in it all. And he likes it. Really. He listens to angry music and angry souls and loves them in return.

He's not grandpa. Judging. Hating, Rueing the day you were born. Still pissed at you for nailing his boy to the Cross. Nope. Not even close. Life with him is not dictated by your last mistake.

He's smiling, hoping, waiting for you to walk up to the Gate so he can bear hug you, make you collard greens, show you more of Himself, teach you more things, and laugh with you.

Not sure why I can't grasp this very well. I want rules to follow because I can do the rules. I am pretty good at the rules. (Well kinda..) I want to know that I am going to be ok. And I think that I am. It will be ok. In this life, maybe not, but I'll never be alone, and in the next life, I will be playing in waterfalls and walking on water with Jesus.

He isn't the author of disaster and evil. He will bring good out of it anyway, but he doesn't purpose it or punish us with it. Man, why is that so hard for me to wrap my thick head around? Why do I re-learn this every freaking time? I'm really not doing this justice here in my petty amateur ramblings, you need to just read this book and see what you think. It's fresh water on your soul. Any person feeling like God has given them the short end, needs to pick this up and read it.

Also, my streak of running away is over. I am done with religion, done with guilt, done with anything that is not in line with the Truth of who God is. I do not want people looking at me to see some one beating herself (and others) up with a shower rod. That isn't who God is. It's not who I want them to see in me.

Hallelujah.

I'm single again, by the way. Hard stuff, but it is the right answer right now.

I'm at more peace than I have been for well over a year.

It's good to be home.