Janruary

I can't tell you how delightful it feels...

...to put some creative SPRING back in my step.

Even though my only camera is on my phone...

I think you can tell I've been quite busy.

(Ruby likes to observe the art up close. Preferably

while she's wearing adult clothing.)

I roasted a lady-like chicken for sustenance.

And I made a plum tart/pie/thing for dessert.

(I ate this whole thing by myself while Dustin

suffered through P90X in the other room. Sucker.)

Then I spent some time with a mismatched baby.

(I adore him.) (My use of parentheses is wild and rampant.)

Then we flew to California so I could hold my other favorite baby, Ike.

THE END.

Rigoletto, anyone?

This too shall pass

There was a shooting in Seattle late last summer. A man died--a man who had a very hard life, filled with addiction and homelessness and poverty and a lot of living on the fringe. The man who shot him was a Seattle Police officer who perceived the man as a threat. The city of Seattle is turned completely inside out over this--how could a policeman be threatened by an inebriated woodcarver? People are furious.

But I am just so sad. I'm sad because that police officer is a guy we know personally. And frankly, he is a man of incredible character. I don't know what happened that day, but I do know that this loss of life is a tragedy. And I could never, never, never believe it was a calculated murder. Or that his action was motivated by racial prejudice. It was a horrible, painful tragedy that makes me sad for the vulnerable people on the streets of Seattle and sad for people like Ian Birk--people who have tremendous integrity and have to make terrifying split second decisions every day in the name of public service. They are human beings.

If you're the praying sort, send a prayer for our community and the fractured relationships we're trying to sort out. Nobody wins here, and it's going to take a long time for this to heal.

Priorities? Oh, they're darn straight.

Lately we've been watching quite a bit of Friday Night Lights. Yes, we are five years behind the rest of America, but our friends won't stop talking about it. However, it's been about a month of three-episodes-per-day watching. We managed to go out for Dustin's birthday and patch our leaking roof, but otherwise, that's all we've done since Christmas.

So today in a staff meeting, we had a little prayer time. (That's not so weird if you work at a church.) I was praying and I took a little pause, and then I prayed the Panthers' motto:

Dear God,

Please give us clear eyes, full hearts, so we can't...lose.

Amen

Apparently the Lord's Prayer just wasn't at the top of my mind. Apparently my mind is full of NBC television.