I am a rough-edged woman without grace. I stumble over my long legs, oftentimes falling mouth-first upon my foot.

In college, I took a literature class that I adored. The teacher explained formula fiction like this: the books you read in the airport.
Westerns, romances, mysteries.
Formula fiction romances consist of a flawed heroine -her flaws endear her to readers because they relate to flawed human, being one themselves. There’s a one-flawed man who is a romantic combination of gentle and brawny: a violin-playing firefighter, a cowboy with an affinity for culinary arts, a sleek business man with a soft spot for underprivileged children. The heroine is usually formulated to be the perfect cure for the hero’s one flaw. Enter Nicholas Sparks and a troubled piano-playing soldier who bonds with neglected children.

There’s often a villian in the form of another woman, and this other woman is often buxom, sexy, and powerful. She is not perceived as weak…

As I listened to my teacher, I realized in one life-altering moment that in accordance with formula fiction -which I could easily reason is REAL LIFE (*sarcasm sign*) -I WAS A HEROINE.
My perpetual gracelessness is my signature MARK.

My favorite sub-genre in formula fiction is Fairy Tales. I’m such a sucker for imaginary worlds where goodness, with all it’s nobility of heart and glitter of dress, always trumps evil.
I believe, religiously, that I AM ROYALTY. As God is The Great I AM and I am His literal daughter, this makes me Noble. I believe it with all of my heart, and while it brings me immeasurable peace it also unnerves me because

I trip a lot.

I’m not saying that to use my heroine-ness to manipulate you (here’s lookin’ at you, Bella). I seriously trip A LOT. I am Jesus’ SISTER and I TRIP. I say stupid stuff. I burn bacon every time.

I long for a tutor with a feather in his cap to rap his knuckles on my front door and say, “It’s time for princess lessons.” And then we’d spend hours learning important things like manners and posture and how to stop tripping.

On Saturday, I went into the city with a friend and she turned me on to the app “Audiobooks.” I downloaded it, and Sunday afternoon I tucked my earbuds in and decided to take a chance on James Allen.
“The Heavenly Life.”
I walked toward the sunset and listened to his words -every sentence left like a sermon. He told me that I had answers within myself… ALL of the answers. Five minutes into my walk, I realized my posture was pretty darn-near perfect. I was walking taller and I listened to him talk of simplicity of God, my Father, and of love.
I fell quickly in love, realizing how formula fictionish it was that the student should be blushy-cheeked about her teacher. I watched a flock of black birds make their way over the nearby fields and my heart swelled as I listened to James Allen, Tutor, talk about The Open Road.
He told me no one can hurt me without my consent.
He told me what was in my heart.
I spent 30 minutes being instructed, inspired, chided and enraptured.

I came in my house, kicked my shoes up and exhaled.

I didn’t set out on my walk KNOWING I was walking into A Princess Lesson, but I came home feeling just like I had.

As the weariness of Monday begins to set in, I can hear James Allen telling me that I Have Answers Within, that This Life is Not a Beginning and an End but A Small Piece of a Greater Journey.

James Allen also reminded me that as I am, so are you… and I just wanted to log on and invite you to your own Lesson in Nobility.
Google James Allen today and you’ll find a few lessons.
You might also find out that he’s already married and that he died 100 years ago. It will come as a HUGE shock, but you’ll be able to tap into your true center and overcome the grief.

A friend recently challenged me to post three pictures that I feel beautiful in. Right now, my perception of beauty is so different than what it once was, and I decided to take her challenge, just to dive a little deeper into the perspective shift going on in my life right now.

I feel beautiful in this picture, taken when my son wasn’t quite one year old. The lawn in front of my tiny trailer was flooded with irrigation water. I was a stay-at-home mom full time, and I had two little kids in diapers. I took them out into the water and soaked up THAT MOMENT with them.
That moment wasn’t about my make-up or my hair or anything… it was about water and little children. It was about sun and gratitude. Every time I see this picture, I am in awe of my capabilities, my blessings. It is full of beauty to me.

I used to work hard for what I thought beauty was. I spent a lot of time in front of the mirror, and my emotions spiraled on the spoke of what others thoughts of me. If they thought I was pretty, I was.
It hurts to write that. It hurts because I know more now. I guess the older I get, the more I tap into the natural self-worth I had when I was three, strutting around the house in plastic beads and a diaper… never more sure that I WAS AMAZING.
The last few years have stripped some pride away (though not all) and I can say that I took some time yesterday to reflect on my beauty. Here’s a little honesty:
I don’t remember the last time I bought bonafide foundation. I bought some tinted moisturizer for my birthday in 2013.
I don’t remember the last time I bought face wash. or moisturizer. or acne cream. or walked into the aisle in the store filled with stuff for my face.

I went to get my hair done the same time I bought tinted moisturizer… in 2013.
The last time I splurged on clothes was at a thrift store. I spent $80 and had a new wardrobe. I tend to buy clothes that look good on me but won’t go out of style. If something doesn’t fit in that category, I don’t have time to mess with it because trends and I don’t understand each other. Like, AT ALL.

There was a time in my life -a very dark and scary time -when I let trends take over. It wasn’t the trends that were scary (although they kinda are), it was deep emotional pain and confusion. I employed An Obsession with Appearances as my main battle tool. I worked on my face, my body, my hair, my house… I tried to force my ideals of what beauty was into the trash bin and exchange them for what I saw in catalogs.
It was stifling.

One thing that makes me and you awesome is our stubborn unwillingness to BE STIFLED. After a few years in that place, I broke free. I stopped numbing the scary, dark pain with trying to COME ACROSS AS PERFECT and started melting down instead. I stopped asking the world what was beautiful and starting asking MYSELF what was beautiful.
Like Elsa built her ice castle, so did Alicia kick everyone out of her soul until she learned to love again.

That’s what I see in this picture… I see strength in a woman who is running to God and offering herself to Him, offering her family and flatly refusing to be stifled, to let darkness claim her.
I see her wearing clothes she’s had for years. I see her dressing her kids in Wal-Mart clothes and not stressing about the photo shoot because at this point, she’s learned how beautiful NATURAL and SIMPLE is. I can see my worth in this picture.
And the lighting… I see so much beauty in the lighting, and I’ve felt for some time now that God made The Sun JUST for me, for my family: to warm us and nourish us and let us know that HE IS THERE.

As I thought more about beauty and what it is to me, I realized that I found beauty in myself THAT DAY. So I flipped my phone’s camera around and snapped a picture in the moment.
Here’s my uneven skin that I LOVE. I find myself covering it less and less, proud in a way of the way it looks. The brown mask that popped up during my pregnancy with Alice and never quite left, the moles… my mom’s nose, my Dad’s mouth. My blue eyes that Alice wears around.
Everything on my face works well enough -my eyes are blind, but they work! My nose smells well. My ears selectively hear like CHAMPS. I can taste, talk! This incredible body does incredible things like BREATHE all by itself!

Sometimes I look in the mirror and sorta… fist pump over it all.
This is huge for me.

Part of my dark and scary pain was believing that I wasn’t quite enough in any area at all ever. Just a little MORE weight off. Just a little MORE eyeliner.
Just a little MORE healthy eating.

I would look at magazines and my head would register ALL AT ONCE that what I saw wasn’t real but that it was beautiful and I would never be able to access self-acceptance. I was a mess. I tried to earn my way out of it because when I earned, there was always MORE… and MORE was all I needed, right?
More praise, more money, more clothes, more.

I hated that I could see the lies in the magazines and ads but I still believed them. That was pain, right there.

Today I can honestly say that when I see photoshopped pictures, I’m turned off. I finally SEE the lies and believe them. The first time it happened, I cheered and smiled so big my face almost broke. So I bought chocolate and rolled my windows down. V-I-C-T-O-R-Y
When I finally came to know and understand I DIDN’T NEED MORE BECAUSE I WAS ENOUGH, the lies became clear.
I am enough, I have enough, what I have to offer is ENOUGH.

And yesterday I was sporting crazy hair -I’d gone to bed with wet hair from a hot bubble bath the night before. I braided it, woke up, unbraided it and BAM. Hair done. I put clothes on. I applied mascara and Bag Balm to my lips, and then I went out and LIVED without worrying about MYSELF AT ALL.
I played with my kids at the park. I talked with a good friend. I ate good food and soaked up good sun and ate the first corn dog I’ve had in YEARS (good job, Safeway, on your gluten free stock). I made root beer floats.
I held hands, took kisses. I washed dishes. I smiled at my house because I like my decorations which look nothing like anything you’d find in ANY catalog.

My husband came home and we shared some really amazing moments… moments I’ve come to treasure because they’re genuine -absolutely void of pretense.
I felt beautiful as he wrapped his tired arms around me, and he saw it. I see beauty in my every day, in the soul and body work I do.
After I’d spent a day working and mothering, I looked just like someone who had been working emotionally, physically and spiritually ALL DAY. He looked at me and said, “You are so, so beautiful.”

I believed it. Because I already knew it for myself.

Beauty not as the world and society gives… but beauty as GOD gives. I am His Daughter.
I am enough.
I have enough.
What I have to offer? ENOUGH.

I don’t need more. Not today.

Two night ago, I went to bed near tears over a situation involving a woman I’ve been researching. I can find facts about her. I can read about the ship she traveled to the US on. I can look at her picture, know what wars raged during the years she lived… but I can not get my hands on her POETRY. I am on the cusp. The VERGE. I HAVE THE REFERENCE NUMBER TO HER BOOK OF POETRY as it sits in a library some 10 hours North of where I am now. At midnight, I finally tossed my phone aside and dug my head into my 8 year old 9-foot long body pillow that no longer retains it’s shape but adores me and appreciates me for who I am.
It understood my frustration. My big, fat pillow always understands.
“Are you okay?” my husband asked.
“I’m not. I can’t get my hands on her poetry. It’s RIGHT THERE. It’s teasing me,” I hunkered down into my brother’s old sweater, the one that reminds me of him every time I wear it.
“That must be frustrating,” he said.
“It is… I feel like it’s frustrating me more than it should… like, maybe I’m obsessing over it.” And that’s when it hit me.

I’M THE GINGHAM CHECKED LADY.

A few weeks ago as I mindlessly scrolled through my newsfeed, a picture stood out to me… it was of a woman dressed head to toe in red-check gingham, sitting on a red-check gingham chair, surrounded by house clad heavily in red-check gingham. And yes -she was holding red-check gingham wares.
She proudly admitted her obsession. She can’t live without red-check gingham. She needs it, she craves it, and it brings her intense amounts of joy and fulfillment.

I wanted to think she was crazy. I did. I wanted to say, “Whoa, overkill lady. My chi is off kilter just LOOKING at this picture.”
Do you know about chi?
I know about it. I watched a segment of a clip on television a few years ago about how clutter messes with your chi. This makes me a chi master.

I tried to force myself to be turned wholly and completely off by her crazed obsession with ONE THING, but I couldn’t. In fact, if we’re telling the truth, I was kind of proud of her… do your thang, Gingham Gal, and send the rest of the fabrics packing! Rouge your knees! Roll your stockings down!
Her devil-may-care attitude toward chi is, well, interesting. SO INTERESTING that I haven’t forgotten about her and have spent more time than I’d like to admit trying to track her picture down again.

The thing is: I have the same sort of issue with chi.
My house is overrun with stories, my closet full of them! And at the risk of putting my whole self out here, I will now admit that I HUMANIZE EVERYTHING IN MY HOUSE.

Alice has been sick (and mean, GOSH, she can be mean). I stayed home from work last Monday to take care of her feverish little body. As she rested (and screamed and demanded candy and chocolate) I poked my headphones in and streamed one of my favorite classical music stations on Pandora. I cleaned marker off the walls, the doors, and the toys. I fixed my wallpaper. I washed some windows. I used ammonia and bleach and paper towels and Beethoven. I found myself in a state of gratitude toward my furniture. Loyal servants of  The Shackish Realm! I decided to show my appreciation by oiling all of my wood furniture. I started with my piano, and I imagined my piano exhaling, sighing, closing it’s harp-eyes and soaking in the oil treatment. It’s gratitude was SO FREELY GIVEN and touched me so deeply, it gave me the energy to oil the table and chairs. Their gratitude exceeded that of the piano… why? Because they deal with spills, fights, and The Deets Family Rear Ends. They needed that oil more than anything else in the house. As I applied the oil to my 4th chair, I vividly recalled a day in 6th grade when my favorite teacher handed me back something I’d written in my school journal and said, “Alicia, you have such an active imagination. Never lose that.”
I was horrified. LOSE IT?
She spoke of my imagination as if it were some kind of background tool to be picked up, tossed aside, and lost at will.  She had no real grasp of just what my imagination WAS to me!  It was as real and vital to me as my beating heart!  And YES, I’m aware of how Anne of Green Gables that all is, and I will tell you that reading that book was uncanny.

It was like someone stole away into my soul, plucked a chunk out and wrote a book.  I don’t know whether I loved it or felt violated.

I pick up toys and remember where they came from, who gave them to whom, and sentimentality washes over me. The Shackish Realm is my haven and safe place where I know I’ll wake up filling totally and completely warm and at home, surrounded -not by gingham check -but by stories from my life. I have to find a balance, you know, between which stories matter and which can go, otherwise my little home becomes overrun… QUICKLY overrun.

Right now, we have 3 kids in one room. Walking into it is dreadful. It’s Chi Hell. I get so angry because we work so hard to get it clean and two days later it looks like every cliche every Mom has ever come up with all rolled into one: Pig Sty and Barnyard and Filth and Tornado and Hurricane! I declare it a Shackish State of Emergency on a regular basis.
“Get in here,” I say, “And clean this up! You have GOT to get rid of some TOYS! There are kids out there with no toys, so figure out what you want to donate. All broken toys must go. Line the boots up on the west wall. Toddlers, come with me. There is water in the kitchen to your left should you need it, but use it sparingly because there is no time set aside for bathroom breaks.”

I’m thinking of investing in an orange reflective vest for these moments.

I walk in to check on the their progress, and that’s always a mistake.
“Where’s the donation bag?” I ask.
“Right here,” Guys hold it up.
I crack it open and THAT’S WHEN IT HAPPENS. The stories leak from the bag and float up to my ears.
“Trent, are you SURE you want to get rid of Buzz Lightyear? You worked so hard to earn the money to buy him,” I hold him up, and somewhere in the distance, a solo violinist accompanies me.
“Mom, he’s broken,” Trent points to Buzz’s limp wing.
“I know,” I pause at this point to let the violinist really have his moment…
“You said broken toys need to be thrown away,” he said without emotion and I began to wonder if I was the only one hearing the violin.

And that’s when Guys tilt their little heads and are hit with the realization that THEIR OWN MOTHER IS CRAZY, and they can’t donate her because she won’t fit in their bag.

I have to hand the bag back. I have to close my eyes. I use my imagination and pretend I’m one of those birds who puts their head in the sand when things get scary.

I have gotten better. I have gotten MUCH better. I don’t think any amount of cleaning clothes and toys will make the kids’ room easier because it’s a small room and three kids is a lot. They don’t own crazy amounts of toys, and if they each had their own small room would definitely have room to spare because their toy collections have been substantially whittled down. I’ve gotten better at deciding which stories are important and which are not. I remember that I blog a lot and lots of stories are recorded forever here… so it’s all right if the one eyed stuffed puppy gets The Sack.

My chi is of the utmost in these cluttered times.

I’ve been spring cleaning since last Monday, and I truly hate my life. Cleaning is not only difficult for me but it’s downright robbing. I pulled everything out of my kitchen cupboards, wiped them down, threw three black trash bags full of crap out, and that was awesome. But THEN? I had to put everything away in an organized fashion.
Do you realize what this DOES to me? I was so frustrated. I KNOW there’s a better way than my way when it comes to organization, and I can’t seem to TAP INTO IT. My right brain sends all of it’s energy to my left, and I try, try, try. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can… and the ending result is? I CAN’T! I spent 7 hours in my kitchen, trying to make, “Name the Fridge Spill” into a game but IT ISN’T A GAME WHEN YOU’RE PRETTY SURE THE ANSWER IS COW’S BLOOD MIXED WITH SUPER GLUE. As I scrubbed that spill, I decided when I was done, I was going to kick my feet up and write a series of children’s books in order to make JUST ENOUGH to hire a housekeeper.
Because gosh.

I tried sitting down to write when I was done. I tried to lay back and let all of the wasted energy I’d sent to my left brain BACK to my right and the blinking cursor on my screen mocked me.
Nothing.
Here.
Nothing.
Here.
Nice.
Try.

It’s a trade off I hate. I hate so much.

I wonder if the Gingham Check lady ever tried trading in her Gingham for Chi and ended up feeling like she’d rather die than have Chi and so brought back her Gingham, nevermore to part.

I don’t know. I don’t know.
All I know is that Spring Cleaning is well underway, and my kids are afraid of me because, as Alice has learned to say, “She Cwanky.”
Cwankiest Ma in the West.

I have, at least, the hope of knowing that Spring Cleaning only comes about once every four years (don’t. don’t correct my right-brained math) and so I’m off the hook until Lacy is 12 and Trent is 11 and at the point, they will be doing it all.
Why? Because, I’ll tell them, four years ago you came to Mom on a Monday and told her you needed costumes on a Tuesday and MOM DELIVERED because SHE HOARDS.
“Oh, you want to be Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane? No problem! I happen to have coururoy and red denim and fringe and a sherriff’s bagde RIGHT HERE. Grab my glue gun, babies.”
I didn’t add, “and someday you’ll return the favor, my pretties.”

We’ve been watching a lot of “Once Upon a Time” (heaven help me, I just about took down the house when I watched Season 3 Finale… it was so smug. So SO smug. I don’t even want to see season 4. But I will. You know I will) and I’ve perfected a range of accents, my favorite being Mr. Gold.
“All magic comes with a price, dearie.”

(Three cheers for finger guns!)
And seriously what I pulled off with those vests? THAT was MOM MAGIC… something we have in spades around here.

“How did you know I didn’t clean behind the door?”
“Mom magic.”

Well, that and my Chi was off…

Last weekend -meaning 9 days ago -I was hurt. I had been vulnerable and afterward felt very unseen. It cut deep.

As I’ve delved into learning about myself -truly learning how I work and what makes me act and respond the way I do -I have found that I dull pain frequently. I dull pain before pain comes. I dull pain when it comes, and after it’s gone, I numb up for the inevitable next round.
It’s all very, “Life IS pain, Highness.”

I could feel the pain hitting hard -the emotional BANG that reverberates throughout my entire self… and I wanted to run. I wanted chocolate, a movie marathon, an escape nap. Tears began welling up in my eyes, and I wanted to STUFF them back down as far as I could.

But I know too much about myself now, so I cried instead of swallowing. I know from past experience that pain doesn’t stay, nor is emotion reality. I knew that it wasn’t the END of the world, and that knowledge gave me courage to let the pain in. If I let it in, let it course it’s way through and out, perhaps it wouldn’t rear it’s ugly head later on at some really, really, really inconvenient manner and/or time and/or place.
I prayed. I cried. I told my Father in Heaven that I was HURTING. I was feeling pain.

There’s something about our culture that makes FEELING PAIN AND HATING IT seem like something only weak chickens do. We look at the shame culture facilitated by Jillian Michaels, and we hate on ourselves.
In my case, I just numbed the pain to a do-able level and carried on, Sailor. But you know what that got me? That got me very sick. Very, very sick.
I became emotionally sick, spiritually sick, and even physically sick.

I can’t Numb and Stuff anymore. I have to lean in, FEEL it go through and out of me…
I woke up the next morning and took a pile of things that represented -to me -feeling unseen. I put them into a burn pile and one by one by one, I burned, burned, burned.

As the smoke rose and the fire grew, I felt a cleansing happening. Without actually SAYING the words, I was letting myself know that I was enough, that I deserved to be seen and my NOT being seen had nothing to do with my shortcomings.  I can’t EARN my way to being seen by others.
Each item I burned brought on a new wave of pain, stuffed resentments rose up through my soul and out through my eyes. I cried more.

There was pain. It was uncomfortable.
But there was also peace. Is it possible to feel peace when you’re uncomfortable? I’m learning that life is really just like that for me… an uncomfortable experience with a peaceable undercurrent.

I don’t always FEEL the peace, but I have the knowledge that it is always there should I choose to take my pain and pride and fears to God and say, “I’m afraid that my future will be a painful string of experiences in the which I feel walked on and unseen. Please take this fear. Please take it and YOU worry about it. There is no possible way my worrying will change anything about my future. Please take care of me, my future, and my pain.”

The prayers I said that day went up to God in a steady waft of smoke… my tear-filled smoke signals to heaven.

Later that morning, I went to church smelling like someone dumped perfume on a bonfire.  Church brought more tears, and when I felt them welling up, I let them fall.
After church, I fell into an exhausted sleep, and let my body REST. And in the days following, I wrote about my pain. I felt waves of it hit after the fact. Some days were exhausting. It was hard not to shame myself for feeling pain.

My house still hasn’t recovered from when I was sick the week before, and I had to let that go.
I talked honestly with my kids, hoping that in doing so I was giving them permission to be honest and open as well -to feel their own pain instead of hearing shame inside of their head telling them to STUFF and NUMB.

I didn’t handle each wave of pain perfectly. I numbed my second wave very well, lashed out at my kids, and spent the next day apologizing and trying to pull myself back into an un-numbed reality.

When I numb pain, I numb peace.
And -more than anything -I crave peace right now, even if I have to be uncomfortable.

I’m not a dog person. I’m not a cat person. I’m not really an animal person at all because I’m terrified of them. I even struggle to scoop tiny goldfish up with a net because THEY MIGHT JUMP.
That might make me sound like a wimp, but just remember how you are around stuff that scares YOU. I don’t know how my fear of animals came about, but it did and I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t petrified of them. I can’t trace my fear back to being bitten by an aggressive dog or snarled at by a big, fat cat.

I think I must have been born this way.

I once had a parakeet that I loved like crazy. I hauled him around with me in a shoe box. I finger trained him, and he spent a lot of time on my shoulder. When I was in 6th grade, I got sick. I stayed home from school and camped out on the couch. I pulled him out of his cage and he sat on my shoulder. I didn’t mind, but after awhile I thought he’d be hungry or something… I tried to put him back in his cage and he refused to go. It wasn’t like him. He usually did everything I wanted him to -poor thing. I tried again, but finally gave up and went back to the couch. He stayed right with me.
When I started feeling better, I tried to put him back in his cage and he went right in.

That bird was a special sort of champ.
And so I realize that while I’m no animal person, I tend to get attached to particular critters…

When we were offered our puppy, something just felt right. I don’t know what it is or why I felt like I’d probably die if I didn’t get to claim this pup… but I will say that I think my gut knew that this dog is one of those creatures that’s going to make it past my “NOT AN ANIMAL PERSON” wall.

He’s so pretty.
That alone really boosts his case.

While I’ve been sick, he’s kept close to my sick bed.

He’s kissed Alice all over her face and hands and feet and she squeals in delight, “He’s kissing us!”

And so I maintain that I am no dog person. But I am an Apollo person.
And he’s an Alicia dog, and together we will do great things.

So last evening, I started this super cool new diet that’s totally free. I think I lost 7 pounds last night alone.

It’s called Food Poisoning or something like that.

I’m out sick today which means my house looks incredible and I’m using my down time to teach my baby her alphabet in Chinese, French, and German. Or not.

I was taking a super hot bath last night to try and help ease my discomfort when Alice came in, bringing a waft of cold air with her.
“Hi, Mama!”
“Alice, hi… where’s Daddy?”
“He gone. He all gone.”
“He’s gone? Outside?”
“He all gone.”
“Where’s Lacy?” I asked her, hoping to get a little help getting the baby because she can only be around a bathtub filled with water for about 30 seconds before she gets INTO IT.
“Lacy play Leapster.”
“Okay… don’t touch the water, okay?”
Alice’s hands gripped the sides of the bathtub and she wiggled them forward, backward… testing, testing…
“No touch,” she echoed.
“Can you get Lacy?” I asked.
“Oops!” She smiled innocently at me, showing me her wet fingertips, “I touch.”
“Can you get Lacy?” I asked again, my nausea was getting the better of me and I needed help.
“You do it, Mama! Say… LACY! HI HEED YOU! PLEEEEEEASE! Say please, Mama.”
SUCH a problem solver.
If you want something done, Mom, do it your own capable self.

(Hi heed you is Alice-speak for “I need you.” And I must say it’s pretty much impossible to resist when she uses it and holds her little arms up to be held.)

That said, I’m leaving you with a list of what I’m grateful for today:

1) indoor plumbing
2) heavy blankets
3) wool socks
4) Gatorade
5) recliners
6) electronics to keep Alice out of the toilets
7) diffusers
8) indoor plumbing

Happy Hump Day, all.

Yesterday, Chinese Acrobats came to my kids’ Elementary School (hey wait, MY Elementary School too!) and they were fantastic.

I turned to each of my kids and spoke to them in their native tongue (they each speak a different dialect, this you understand).
“Lacy, look at their bodies! Look how far they came to show them to you… all that work and practice, and they are really strong. Don’t you see awesome God made their bodies and how well they work and how YOU have one JUST like it?” She looked down at her white arms and said, “Well, KINDa.”
“Trent, it’s AWESOME! Right? They look like Power Rangers, right?” His eyes lit up and he said, “Yeah! That’s CRAZY!”
“Alice, it’s PRETTYFUL!”
“Yeah! Preddyful!”

She created that little mash-up all on her own, and we’ve adopted it.
Later that day, I found Trenton and Alice putting on a routine all their own.
“PREDDYFUL” Alice said, her voice muffled in her own little chest.

Trenton came down and with a voice I can only describe as tempting said, “And THAT’S NOT ALL.”

It really wasn’t.
I got TWO shows yesterday.

My kids are going to be famous. Prettyful and famous.

Thank you ALL for your book recommendations! I got some really amazing input, and I’m going to compile a list to post on my sidebar for you all to see. Hopefully later today, if the batty acrobats will keep their little limbs and my sanity intact.

I used to read a lot.
I loved Library Day each week at school. I loved the possibilities lying in wait on the shelves. The characters, the stories, the adventures! The books all seemed to whisper at me all at once. I loved the smell of books, the collections upon collections of series!

The Babysitters Club
American Girls

I borrowed The Work and The Glory from my friend’s mom in 7th grade. I tried my hand at classic literature now and then, and when I was finally able to digest a page in less than a month AND understand what it was talking about, I began devouring F. Scott Fitzgerald and all manner of Janes: Jane Eyre, Jane Austen!

As I grew up, I found less and less time for reading. In college, I spent all of my time reading music instead of books. After my miscarriage, I floundered around my studio apartment, hungry for comfort but unwilling to ask God for it because I was angry with Him. So I bravely put on pants, bravely stepped into sunshine, and bravely went to the campus library. In the books, I was Home again. I could smell them, feel them -characters hiding away in yellowed pages, whispering their own narrations.
I made my way to the classic literature section -always and unfortunately the least crowded section in the library. I put a few Austens under my arm and checked them out.
Once I was home and out of the scary sun, I curled up on my creaky bed in my dirty studio apartment and I read. I read for hours, and I fell asleep when I fell asleep and I read when I woke up. Jane Austen’s plot lines have always fallen a little flat, but her characters are round enough to MORE than make up for it.
I limited my diet to Oreos and I literally blew through a box of tissues.
I found my comfort. Was it the best kind? The most filling kind? Well, no… not if we’re talking about my SOUL. When I turned the last page and ate the last Oreo and wadded up the last tissue, I still hurt. I was still very much empty.
I could have checked out more books, bought more Oreos… but I knew after a week’s time, it was time to go back to school. It was time to face the ugly music of a life without a life in my belly.

The blessed ending of this tale is that I ended up with life in my belly much sooner than later, and that life grew and grew and screamed her way into, around and through Mother Earth. I quit reading because I was busy keeping up. That is to say, I quit reading for soul food. I found myself reading all kinds of INFO books that told me What To Expect and gave me 1,001 Baby Names and taught me The Proper Care and Feeding.

All those “helpful” books burned me so bad I quit reading ALL TOGETHER.
Several years later, my husband gave me a walnut-stained bookcase for Christmas. I put it together myself which means a few of the shelves are upside down, but I like it. My husband has offered to fix it, but I insist on leaving it.
The bookcase reminds me of my ME ness, and I like seeing the hardware on the outside sometimes. As I pulled my books out of storage and lovingly put them on my shelves, I felt an old spark deep down in my gut.
It WANTED those books.

I leafed through pages. I smelled a few pages. I threw away a few books that were were cool when I was 17 and absolutely insipid at 27.

I could hear the whispers coming up through the yellowed pages, and I longed to listen to each one individually -to dedicate a week to each one! But by then I had two little kids, so I simply put the books UP and left them there. I was pacified with the books at least being seen instead of in storage bins.

I have three kids now.
I’ve given up on keeping up.
And the burns from the helpful books have healed.

I’ve found myself slowly awakening that vital part of me that NEEDS yellowed books that smell like attics. They have antiquated bodies and timeless souls, and THAT ALONE makes them something I can not live without!

I can’t stand much fiction written after 1960, but I know there’s goodness to be had. I finished a book last night and immediately picked up another one and as I did I could almost hear the fans in the stand standing up in unison and giving a shout, “She’s BACK! She’s BACK!”

In the last few months, I’ve re-read a book about a Holocaust survivor. It touches me so deeply I cry each time I read it.
I read Stephanie Nielsen’s book and hated it and loved it. I made myself finish it in two days because it was too agonizing to drag it on more than that. I couldn’t believe how jealous I was of her burns! Her hospital bed! I wanted to rage at the universe that so many of us (me) were suffering so quietly and unseenly and there were no hospital beds for people with fatal wounds on the INsides. I also loved how much I related to her healing. It took me 8 days to recover from her book.
I read a few books written about people who found God through their trials, and I laughed and cried with them.
I read FICTION WRITTEN AFTER 1950 and it didn’t send me into a pint of chocolate ice cream to assuage my despair at the decline of English intellect.
(I should probably pick up a book about humility after this?)

I’m reading a book about auras which is confusing and fascinating me all at the same wonderful time.

The more I read, the more I remember myself. The more I find I WANT TO READ. Reading begats more reading.
I’m finding that I’m drawn primarily to TRUE books -books about stories written by the people the stories happened to. I want more than anything to be this kind of writer: The Kind Who Tells the Stories That Others Can’t Tell For Themselves.

I go to the Internet and I research people and I find their stories and I wonder WHY EVERYONE DOESN’T KNOW THESE STORIES?!

My book list seems to be growing.
I’m happy about this, and I feel it’s time to reopen my library. And WHEN I DIE, my children will be forced to get rid of my crap and thereby will my posterity spend at least one solid week rifling through BOOKS.
That is my dying wish for my posterity.

My great-grandmother left her apple trees to nourish me. My books will likewise nourish the ones I spawn.

I plan on adding a bookcase next to my bookcase, and if all goes write (bah dum dum), I’ll have an entire WALL of books and it will be my soul’s happy place. When I listen to guided meditation and they ask me to find a place in my mind where I feel calm, I will GO TO THE WALL OF BOOKS and unwind the tension in my shoulders, unwind the tension in my mind and iron out the creases of myself.

God is by far the best at ironing me out.
I’m just realizing that books are a sort of second in command.

I hereby promise myself that on this day, February 2nd, 2015 (Happy Birthday, cousin Kimmi!), I will buy one new book each time I get paid. I also promise myself that the books I buy will be quality in every sense of the word. This means I will NOT be buying 1984 because it freaks me out. I will also not be buying Nicholas Sparks because his books freak me out.

My shelves at present are filled with church history, family history, all manner of Janes, The Help, Robert Frost, Nora Ephron, Dr. Seuss, Ben Franklin, and Dorothy Parker. I own an antique Eugene Field poetry book… I picked it up after finding out that my grandfather was named Eugene in honor of the poet. As soon as it came in the mail, I inhaled the attic smell and then laughed out loud because his poetry took me completely by surprise. Here:

Grandpa would never eat a child, let’s just be clear. Eugene Field was infamous for his humor and wit, and I love linking his name to my family and adding his poems to my library. I just have to screen the passages I read to the littler ones at bed time…

ALL THAT SAID.
I’m going to write a list of the books I’m going to add to my library. I need a reference point in case I forget what I want. I also need might re-title this post “GIFT IDEAS” and hope Danny’s on board with unsubtly.

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Night by Elie Wiesel
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Peter Pan (Xist Classics)
Cheaper By the Dozen and Belles on their Toes by a couple of Gilbreth children
The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

And these should get us started well… a few paychecks’ worth of nourishing soul food.

What would you add to it? A biography? An adventure? A pack of poems? A book on humility?

January 31st, 2015

7:00 am -My alarm goes off. I only hit snooze twice and get out of bed by 7:15, in time to pick up the living room and start baking boxed gluten-free muffins.

7:30 am -My cousin, Rissy, knocks on the door and we quietly start watching the first episode of “Death Comes to Pemberley.” We don’t waste time with “howdeedos.” We know the children will wake up. I go into the kitchen to cut up fruit and pour juice into a fancy glass pitcher so we can drink it from fancy glass glasses. I dump half of my Nutella into a crystal sugar jar. I put down my wrinkled vintage tablecloth onto the piano bench. We pause the movie, bless the food, and we fancy feast.

8: 30 am -minutes before the first episode ends, Lacy wakes up. “Mom, I wet the bed, but only a little.”
“Thank you for telling me,” I say and hand her a strawberry slathered in Nutella.

8:31 am -Trenton wakes up. “I peed the bed, Mom,” he says. I laugh a little. I make a mental note that hot chocolate before bed isn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.

8:45 am -Fifteen minutes into the second episode, Alice wakes up. She runs full-force into the living room, sending out rays of energy through her wide open arms, “GOOD! MORNEEN! NEIGHBOR!” She watches a lot of Daniel Tiger these days…

9:00 am -I change Alice. The kids raid the Fancy Feast and there are no strawberries left. I am reminded once again of how grateful I am for closed captioning.

9: 15 am -Alice is only wearing a shirt and a smile. I think of diapering and putting pants on her again, but I’ve learned how stupid that can be, and I don’t like doing stupid things usually.

10: 15 am -I take Apollo out to use the bathroom and think of my new mantra, “Accept where I am” because instead of focusing on a dog’s read end, I’d rather be inside with the Nutella and Edwardian Murder Mystery.

10:45 am -The Who Done It is up, the Murder Mystery is over. Rissy goes home. Alice finds the crystal sugar jar with Nutella and has her way with it. I let her because she’s finally quiet. I’m also a little jealous because she’s still pantsless and hiding behind the couch where she doesn’t have to share the Nutella and no one needs her.

11:15 am -Alice squats and pees on the carpet. Potty training continues to evade us despite our best efforts. I begin to wonder if I should take her out with Apollo…

12:20 am -While blogging, my phone rings. I answer it. I walk into the kitchen to find 6 packages of Swiss Miss and two crumbled gluten free muffins dumped onto the floor. I open my new broom as I talk on the phone and break it in well. I can’t seem to use a dust pan and talk on the phone at the same time, and my phone conversation is very important so I stop sweeping. Unbeknownst to me, Alice had been vulturing the situation and as soon as I looked away, she sat next to the pile of powdered cocoa and gave it a good tossing.

1:00 pm -Danny comes on the scene and sweeps the kitchen properly.

1:10 pm -Alice gets a bath.

1:20 pm -Mom is frantically trying to get everyone out the door to watch Holbrook High School’s 2 o’clock matinee performance of “Alice in Wonderland.”

2:01 pm -we pull out of the driveway to catch the 2’o clock showing. We will be late. But Alice is wearing pants.

2:20 pm -we walk into a darkened theater together. Lacy laughs at all the right jokes -even when they aren’t obvious, and this makes me very proud. Trent laughs at all of the obvious jokes and the crazy costumes and this makes me laugh as well. Alice says, “OH CWAP” over and over -she was only parroting one of the performers who went off stage and forgot to turn their mic off.

4:00 ish pm -Lacy begs for a picture with the Cheshire Cat.

4:10 pm -Lacy and Trenton beg to go to the park while Danny and I shield ourselves against the cold breeze outside. There is no sun out. We promise the kids that we are going somewhere WAY COOLER than the park. We are going to a place where it’s warm and cozy and pants-optional (apparently). We are going HOME. They hate us.

4:30 pm -I am struck with a genius plan to create a Pediatric 12-step program for electronics.

5:00 pm -The breeze dies down and the sun comes out. I look up from my book and out the window and begin to soak in the splendor of the golden sun shining on the billowy rain-looking clouds when my toddler plants herself on my lap. “Want walk-walk wiff ‘Pollo.” My immediate reaction is to try and talk her out of it, but she’s already got her shoes and her jacket, and I begin to realize that instead of looking at the sun outside my window, I could actually soak some of it up with my favorite people. I spend five minutes arguing with Alice, just to hear her adorably insist on “WALK WALK” and “COME ON!”
“Can I go potty?”
“No! Walk walk wiff ‘pollo.”
So the kids and I venture out to Grandpa’s farm with our coats on. Well… MOST of us.

5:07 pm -Trenton runs from Grandpa’s farm back home to get his coat.

5:15 pm -Trenton finds two small adjoining puddles on the road and begins using a stick to unite them. “I’m going to shovel out the mud so they can be one,” he says, and I immediately think of yoga and how I use it to shovel out mud so my body and spirit can be one. It helps me make better decisions throughout the day, and I take a picture to remind myself that children can be profound… especially mine. Then I flip my hair.

5:25 pm -I am refreshed. The sun, the evening, the golden rays, the children, the accepting of where I am… the muddy road of Dad’s farm holds some kind of magic in it.

5:30 pm -held hostage by the Evening Enchantment, I persuade Lacy to make some popcorn for us all to enjoy on the porch. She makes specialty popcorn with kernels and a lunch sack and melted butter and a microwave.

5:32 pm -I remember that I not only have a dog, but cats as well. And it looks something like:

The Enchantment begins to weaken as I gaze upon Poor Kitty:

5:35 pm -Lacy informs me that she’s very sorry, but she’s broken a bowl… it had melted butter in it, but now? The Enchantment weakens further.

5:37 pm -Alice steps in wet dog poo. The Enchantment dissipates as I pull Alice’s shoes off and dry heave.

6:00 pm -I make taco soup.

6:15 pm -Alice begins a rowdy game of “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not” on the kitchen table:

7:00 pm -We begin watching the original “Cheaper By the Dozen” as a family. The kids complain about taco soup.

7:15 pm -The kids lose interest in the movie.

7:30 pm -Alice falls asleep too early because her afternoon nap was cut short.

8:20 pm -Danny cries at the end of the movie and hugs me very tightly.

8:30 pm -Tampon and pad wrappings are found on the floor… how handy that Alice is peacefully slumbering *right* at the time her dirty work is discovered. That kid is all cheek.

9:15 pm -PJ time, scripture time, prayer time.

9:20 pm -Alice wakes up. Of course she does.

9:30 pm -Lacy reminds me that she’s peed her bed and wonders where she will sleep since Mom forgot to wash her bedding?
“Didn’t you say it was just a little bit? I’d assumed you just went your pants a little…”
“It IS a little! The spot on my bed is like…” Lacy’s arms make a rather large circle and I drop my head.
“You can make a bed on the floor.”
Lacy is horrified.
“Trent you can sleep next to her since you wet your bed too.”
“Um, Mom?” He asks, cautiously.
“Yeah?”
“I slept in YOUR bed. ‘Member?”
I begin mentally singing Queen in my head, “Is this the real life?…”

10:00 pm -The kids are in bed. Their door is closed. I get into bed and just as I put my glasses on the nightstand, Lacy calls out to me. Once, twice, THREE TIMES THE LADY! I put my glasses back on, turn the light back on, go into her room.
“Alice is playing Trent’s Leapster,” she points to the toddler who is truly addicted to other people’s electronics.
I ask her to shut it off. She obeys (!!!! Hello, Bright Spot!) and I tuck her in. I close the door. I turn off the lights. I put the leapster in bed with me.

10:05 pm -Lacy is up, Lacy is slamming her door. Lacy is trying to help Alice get her bottle. Because their bedroom door doesn’t sit on the hinges right, Lacy can’t close it.
SLAM, SLAM, SLAM

10:06 pm -Glasses on, lights on, “Lacy, do not get up again. Alice, GOOD night.” Lights off, glasses off, “no escape from reality.”

2:45 am -Alice is up and crying. Her cries aren’t normal, and as a mother I instantly know she’s thrown up. It’s a gift… it serves it’s own grotesque purposes. I put her into the tub. I begin a rinse cycle on the clothes I left in the washer. I find she’s thrown up twice: once in the hall, once in bed. I strip bedding. I wash the baby. She hates me.

3:10 am -“I want Let it Go” and we are snuggled on the living room floor. Alice throws up again. THREE TIMES THE LADY! I rejoice that the wash cycle has *just* started and instantly throw in her shirt and the blanket she made her deposit on. She’s chipper and snuggly and when I put a new shirt on her, she gushes thanksgivings. She sings “Do You Want To Build a Snowman” with the most adorable voice and the most deplorable breath.

5: 38 am -I wake up on the living room floor to the sound of Frozen’s menu. Alice is sound asleep next to me. I start the movie over again and turn the volume down. Alice sleeps better with a little noise.

5:40 am -I go back to bed and pride myself on getting to the bottom of why I’m looking older than the 29 year olds I see on TV. I drift off to sleep to the theme song of “Days of Our Lives” and laugh a little remembering the day my Dad came home for lunch and found me watching the day time soap with my Mom. He wouldn’t let me watch it anymore, and I was pretty devastated. At least my own life holds it’s own little thrillings.

Although you can’t actually SEE it, I’m basically buried alive right now.

These. Are the days of my life.

Yesterday was a Seattle Day in Northern Arizona -a steady drizzle that confused us all. In Northern Arizona, we are used to cracked, dry hands and lips and hair. We’re used to crashing, flashing monsoons that sweep in as fast as they sweep out.
Calm, steady rain isn’t something the desert is used to.

I fell asleep Thursday night to the sound of softly falling rain -it was right out of the pages of a novel. Providing, of course, that the heroine of said novel was in the habit of falling asleep the lying LONG WISE across the short side of the bed because there were boxes on the long end of the bed that she’s always too tired to move… I curled up in a endless nest of pillows and blankets and listened to the rain in peace for 3 whole minutes before having to get up and go to the bathroom. So maybe my life isn’t as novel outright as it is in my own head?

I woke up to rain falling, and tracked my package on Amazon, just as I’d done every 30 minutes the day before.
Friday morning finally delivered the good news: my package was in town.

I’m mildly suspicious that I buy stuff from Amazon solely because I want presents in the mail. And now Amazon has those precious “add-on” items that mimic the treasures in actual check-out lines.
OF COURSE I need chapstick and a lint roller and batteries and a package of 4″ plush monsters! Thank goodness I saw these or I would have forgotten!

But this package was different. It wasn’t full of anything I thought I needed in order to live. Instead, it was full of things I simply WANTED.

For the first half of my marriage, I could feel this brilliant sort of… I don’t know, potential. I could FEEL it. I couldn’t put my finger quite on what it was, and the most maddening thing about it was that I couldn’t GET TO IT. There was some kind of invisible, impenetrable barrier keeping me from accessing something I KNEW was there.
I could feel it was a good thing.
I could feel that I wanted it.

But for the life of me, I could not have it.

My husband and I complement each other really well. He adds numbers and I write words. He organizes my drawers and I make him laugh. If I were to commission a painting of us, it would depict us holding hands… him sunk just a few inches into the solid ground with his brow furrowed very Dannyishly and me floating a few feet into the hair, a helium balloon pulling me up up and away.
I keep him from dying of Serious Stress, and he keeps me from dying of recklessness.

The combination of our personalities, weaknesses and strengths is the stuff that makes Really Great Homes, and I could FEEL that, but getting my hands on it felt *just* out of my reach.

I am impatient, and I am a hard worker, so I decided to EARN my way through the invisible barrier. I decided to kick it down, scratch it down, beat it, break it and GET MY HANDS ON THE PRIZE. My Dad raised me with work, and I’m a capable gal. I read so many books about relationships. I read so many theories -each theory a thick weapon used to knock at the barrier, each weapon failing.

So many failures. I finally gave up and sat down beaten and sweaty next to the stubborn barrier and felt no amount of satisfaction that usually comes after years of honing my focus in on one project. Because I’m so impatient, spending YEARS on one thing is significant. Having my efforts fail? My devastation ran deep.

In third grade, I read Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” in one day. One SCHOOL day. I hid it under my desk during class and read. I sat on the ground during recess and read. I hid under my blanket with a flashlight and read. Once I begin a project, I HAVE TO FINISH IT. I’ve often felt this same drive when opening a bag of Swedish Fish.

But this project? This barrier project? This reading project? It was the most futile thing I’d ever done, and when I realized it, I felt very stupid. I put away all of my relationship books and turned away from my relationship to spend time focusing on WHY I’d spend so much time foolishly.

I took myself for a figurative walk -figurative because I wasn’t actually PHYSICALLY capable of walking around much when I realized the barrier was the boss of me -and I ended up finding MY SIDE OF THE STREET. I stood and admired it from the road, and I have to say: I was pretty impressed over all. There were colorful plants, cement stairs leading up to a beautiful little shop where I sold pieces of myself for much less than they were worth.
Great deals!
Pretty plants!
Sunshine!

I took a few steps closer to soak in my awesomeness and that’s when I noticed that the plants were fake.
Of course they’re fake.
I can’t grow stuff! I knew that! I kill all plants! My thumb is black with garden shame.
It didn’t long to see that the plants weren’t the only fake thing on the block… my entire store front was a prettily plastered FAKE FAKERSON. The store front was beautifully masking an old brick building that had fallen into disrepair from neglect. The store front suddenly looked like a gigantic band-aid -it’s beauty lost on me. The side of my store was cracked -deep cracks ran along the sides and bled into the ground.

I peered through the windows and found -instead of the insides of my shop -my own reflection. Each window was, in fact, a mirror. The mirrors were cloudy and dusty, so I huffed and puffed and blew my breath onto them and polished them with my sleeve.
My reflection became clearer and clearer, and I began to see that I was impatient. I was controlling. I was more powerful than I imagined -more opinionated than I thought.
I was sensitive and I felt everything that came my way. My life was an endless succession of absorption -I heard everything, felt everything, smelled everything, remembered everything… and I was tired from the rapid stream of stimuli. Did everyone feel like I did?
Did everyone have fake store fronts and fake plants and cracked walls?

I thought about looking around, but again: my Dad raised me to know about work and what work does. I didn’t have time to be wondering about other streets… my street needed some serious help.

As I opened the door to my shop, I found so. much. garbage. on top of a lot of greatness. It was dusty and dark, so much neglect!
Had I really spent so much time perfecting the appearance of the outside of my shop that the inside got THIS BAD?
I rolled up my sleeves and began the hard work of GUTTING OUT MY OWN STUFF. I threw away the fake plants and opted for more authenticity -big, stone lions that don’t bite or need any nourishing but still invite folks to stop on by for cookies.
I hacked down my fake store front and found that the original store front was REALLY WORTHWHILE though utterly lacking in trendiness… the longer I looked at it and the more time I spent with it, the more I came to LOVE THAT FACT. The lack of trendiness became it’s warmest feature.

The more I cleaned and swept my own shop, the wider my door swung open, the more visitors I had. More sunshine spilled into my once-darkened store.
I began raising my prices on my more worthy wares, realizing what I had to offer was seriously worth extra effort. At the same time, I began giving what I had to offer freely. It didn’t make any sense as far as appearances went, but my gut was so happy with the situation that I let my worries about appearances fall into the dump with my store front.

One thing hasn’t changed about my side of the street -the windows are still mirrors. I do my best to keep them clean so I will always have a clear view of what’s really going on with me. It seems the more I sweep my own street, the clearer and cleaner my mirrors become.
That’s what I like to call efficient housekeeping.

In my GUSTO of GUTTING, I threw out ALL of my relationship help books. I evicted Dr. Laura. I found that the barrier I’d been sacrificing myself to tear down wasn’t mine to tear at, so I could LET IT GO and let God deal with it all. It was time for me to turn away from the tension of tearing and controlling and face the beautiful music of acceptance.

And for a few years, I enjoyed the sunshine. I enjoyed the rain. My side of the street went from being false and unsafe to AUTHENTIC, STURDY… I worked hard to make it a safe place for my soul to stay. After all, I’m going to be here for the rest of my life. I stayed far away from self-help books and was very wary of any Internet advice… except when wax was spilled on carpet or red hots were stuck in nostrils -those were the days where tension and acceptance diverged in the woods and I took the lower road most traveled by.

I’m here to tell you that THIS FRIDAY, I barely made it through work. I couldn’t stand that it was SEATTLE RAINING and I wasn’t at home with a book, especially because I knew there were NEW BOOKS in my mailbox.
They weren’t digital books! Because I’m impatient, I love digital books. But I also love BOOK BOOKS, and I ORDERED SOME SELF-HELP BOOK BOOKS with crisp new pages and real covers and everything!
I looked in my mirror the other day and felt like I was ready. I’ve stripped my soul and polished my mirror enough to see that my biggest issues are
SHAME and
FEAR
and I knew there were some great books that might help me NOT LIVE MY LIFE from a scared and shameful place, even though shame and fear lurk EVERY STREET IN THE WORLD, no matter how clean the owners’ keep them.
And so I go in search of the proverbial lamb’s blood to keep the misty fog and shame and fear BACK AWAY FROM MY SIDE OF THE STREET. They may pass by, but they may not stay.

THIS FRIDAY, I raced home from work, to the Post Office, picked up the baby from the sitter and then DID NOT MOVE FROM MY RECLINER FOR HOURS.

Seriously.
I spent a rainy afternoon reading a book under a throw blanket. It’s the stuff dreams and true living are made up -the place where they meet.
When rain falls from heaven, it brings a bit of heaven to earth… and I ransacked it like a pig in mud.

Opening my package, I realized I’d accidentally marked my books as gifts. I laughed as my gift receipt fell into my lap. I think I’ll accidentally mark ALL of my Amazon orders as gifts from now on because what are goods and wares if not gifts? And really -these books are my gifts to myself.

I’m finally ready for another layer of Gutting with Gusto.

My toddler climbed into my lap as I read and caught a glimpse of the back of my book.
“It’s Mama!” she said, and then I became the happiest mother in the world. She thinks I look like THIS.

It’s Good Friday on My Side of the Street.

And if you want a visual of my street cleaning, listen to this… my street cleaning sounds like this song. This song is me. This song is me gutting. Sometimes peppy, sometimes dramatically, sometimes sweetly, sometimes profound: