Addictions

Chocolate and sudoku. I had decided to indulge in both just a few moments ago and... my brain is nearly so pleased now, it is quietly crawling to a back corner for a little nap. Not so good, as I still have some work to do after this little lunch respite.

So just consider this a warning. One you won't find from the Surgeon General on a chocolate cup cake left over from a great little baby shower you were at over the weekend or that harmless looking grid of numbers on usatoday.com.

CAUTION: Combining chocolate substances with computerized mind-puzzles may cause meltdown.

h2 name="conquering html angst"

Yes, man created the webpage. And like so many things, molded it so that, in the end, the created would confound the creator.

Before I say any more, I first have to "publically" thank my dear, dear friend B.K. (contributer to Word Nerd) for her help and patience with this humbled typer. I may have given up long, long ago (at least weeks ago when I began), if it weren't for your encouragement. Thank you.

I really thought a blog would be easy. I thought I could be clever in my posts. I thought I would be forced to write everyday. I thought I could figure out how to modify the Template.

After several days of typing sentences in various areas to see where they'd appear, time traveling with blog entries and playing virtual scrabble with the template editor, I have an announcement to make:

I have added links of my choosing in my side bar! I have included links in the text of posts! I have added my very own recommendations section that does exactly what I want it to do! I have joined the ranks of the accomplished and ...

I guess that's more like three and a half announcements. Anyway. Check those things out. I guess all that's left now is to try to write tomorrow. (*smirk*)

What transcends

Have you heard anyone say, "Time is all we really have," "Today is all we have"? Lest we get into a debate of what "have" means, suffice to say deep down we all have the feeling that every thing we see and experience will same day pass by to make way for future generations.

But what if we were truly made to transcend time?

Sense memory - a single whiff of a crayon box and I'm back rummaging through the desk at my grandparents' farm, reading the names of my cousins scrawled in purple and green. Story - the children from the Narnia Chronicles never do age, because I can always turn back the page and see them again donning fur coats (if fiction is too easy of an example, apply this to history - the Egyptians, Socrates, Lewis & Clark all live again when we encounter a piece of them). Birthdays - if it were true that I felt older this February than last, it seems I should be able to feel my age from month differ from today, or last week, or yesterday, or one hour ago. Instead I have been assigned a number as a means to count myself. Sleep - a moment drags as I stare at it, but let me sleep and I may be aware of only a few seconds and not hours passing.

Of course all these have individual disciplines to study why we experience them . But I prefer to by awed by our ability to live outside of the clock we have made for ourselves. Let me act sillier than my age and dwell for a day in a sunset. Let me believe I have seen my eternity in a water droplet and all mankind in a line of poetry.

We are meant for something beyond this time, this body and this world. This moment is the beginning of our understanding of the One who put it all in motion - who watches us even know to see if we realize the gift we have been given.

Scraping Thoughts

While de-icing my windsheild this morning, my mind wandered to a family I love that is going through some pain of saying goodbye to a family member. I thought I couldn't love them anymore, but what is it about pain that draws us closer? A joyful child draws us near, but a child that has fallen makes us reach deeper and expend ourselves further to him.

The lines of an Over the Rhine song came to me (ones I have struggled in understanding what Linford and K. are saying to us): "Pain is our Mother; she helps us recognize each other." Complete strangers are more than just backdrop to our lives if they are in pain... At a gas station this morning, a man was on the phone, obviously giving directions for someone to pick him up. If he were crying hysterically, I may have forgotten my own schedule, the consequences of my own life to see to him first.

Dare I take this one step further? What if we didn't wait for Pain. On any degree. Like thirst is actually a late cue of our being dehydrated, pain is late indication that love is needed. And I have a one-word definition for love: selflessness. It is impossible to be selfish and love. Likewise, try to be unselfish and not feel love.

I will be at that funeral tomorrow. I've resisted the current of love that runs so deep for that family for a long time, and, in part, I fear what may be turned loose as I mourn with them and rejoice in life and salvation with them. But we were made relational creatures. Christ himself calls us to love, as it is the definition of all law.

January Shopping

Iv'e decided the best part of Valentine's Day marketing is cheap chocolate in metalic pink wrappers. Say I'm wrong.

Here's the past two days in Haiku (though I said I wouldn't)...

01/19/06 Will my daughter read my journal over the phone to her daughter
Grama warote about
movies, nor her father's death.
"Cleaned," read: "Cried to sleep."

01/20/06
Spring visits today.
Breeze and sunshine kisses while
withholding the green.

Haiku-a-Day

A foiled trip to the grocery store on June 6, 2005 inspired a poem "No Food for You" and a self-imposed challenge to write a Haiku every night before I go to sleep. And really, I have been more likely to write about a day more than the seventeen required syllables because of this exercise. Here are the January editions, with the intention to continue posting the assignment.

01/01/06
Hot tea. Christmas lights,
the dream of Could Tomorrow.
True words. Happiness.

01/02/06 I don't have tomorrow off
A day spent with books,
machines. Teach me not to hate
the coffee grinder.

01/03/06
What is (exactly)
that It I waste, asks the girl
asleep by seven.

01/04/06 (10:20pm)
"I love you" in crayon,
her construction paper world.
Pink stickers, black string.

01/05/06 For L. and M., Eph 3, Ps 127, Ps 47
Wedding words framed in
glass, frozen before the vows,
your before your birth.

01/06/06 Camp Mack
Familiar world shrunk,
fit into a child's shoe.
Set sail for far shores.

01/07/06 The excuse for no lines almost works itself
Leslie's Michigan
wedding, late night returning
to Milford and camp.

01/08/06 The wind is mute, its lovers sing
My wall stands against
southwest wind. A song of bricks,
window panes, and trees.

01/09/06
Dropping from the sky,
more truth like green glass beads, hard
beauty in my hand.

01/10/06
When you look at me
[find my tower, rescue me]
I'm. There. To be. Seen.

01/11/06 someday I'll marvel at my girlsih figure
Dinner: potato
chips, one McDonald's Coke, and
one Rice Krispy Treat.

01/12/06 Wing Shadows
Bring me words of
that which is hidden, not yet
sight, sound, but alive.

01/13/06 Krista's
Car-singing Abba
wet January weddings
toast and step and laugh.

01/14/03
Take a spin in my
Cincinnatti; crest and curve,
your heart livin' high.

01/15/06
Aren't I beautiful?
Did you see me? Wait. Here's my
better side. Call me.

01/16/06 Too late to send cards?
Christmas finds its way
back in closets, cancelled stamps,
snowmen hide in shelves.

01/17/06 Consuming January
Snow like crumbs nothing
new. Blanket, sugar, frosting.
I'll taste it again.

01/18/06 Swept off my feet by a 32" Superman
I'll run at you, full
(hugs are meant for absorbency)
speed, caped, shoes untied.

Beginnings

This space is based on the theme of my life, Jeremiah 17:8.

... Like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit. (NIV)

Insights, laughter and the overflow of my heart yet to come.

In My Ears and Eyes

Look at me doing the updating thing!!

I will try to keep this page update with what I am consuming/recommending:

BOOKS:
The Dreaming Tree, C.J. Cherryh.

MUSIC/CDs:
The Reminder, Feist - simply beautiful.

MOVIES/TV:
Ratatoullie (twice!!), Transformers, currently "Gazelling" to Veronica Mars season one.