surprised by pain

Every time I think I've got a handle on it, something will happen, and all the pain of losing my family will rush back over me and take my breath away. I wonder what my sister is fixing for dinner and whether my brother likes a girl. I wonder if they feel the weight of lost years like I do. I wonder if they stop and stare numbly at pictures on a facebook profile wondering what happened to kids who used to read books together and chase each other around the yard. I wish becoming me didn't mean losing you.

pretty glacier, pretty valley

I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that some of our nations most magnificent scenery is the result of some vast, glorious glacier melting away and leaving behind such splendid rock work as can be seen 24/7/365 at Yosemite National Park. I would therefore submit that glacier melt is not inherently bad. Whether or not it's bad right this moment is for wiser souls to determine.

a rant in miniature

Not voting or voting for a third party does not mean that you sold out, don't care, are a blinking ideologue, or otherwise don't deserve to be recognized as a part of the political power structure. For a lot of America not voting means expressing a no confidence vote in the candidates and the political structure. This isn't apathy. It's reality. Until the right-wing Christians realize that the Republican Party is bleeding them for their shiny happy family values and their shiny American dollars without wanting any actually part of the Sovereign Christ who established our moral foundation we're going to be in trouble. Until the bright-eyed left wing Christians realize that Democrats just want to pluck their tender heart strings and weave a soothing song of compassion into wide scale theft we're going to be in trouble. Instead of waving slogans and banners around a Washington alive to the lust of power and dead the ways of God I vote we give them a finger waggling, thumbs in the ears, "neener-neener" salute and go back to trying to be good Christians. I'd say this nation has had too much political wrangling and not enough disciplining. Votes haven't changed very much of anything for the better in my short lifetime. I think we'd all be better off doing more praying. I'm better at blogging than praying, but I'm going to give it a shot. Good night this nation is insane! The loonies are running the nuthouse, and I think somewhere along the way we gave them the keys.

both feet and a dehydrator

I think Allen's right about me tending to jump into things with both feet. Now that I've been trying to plan backpacking meals (I didn't realize that we've got at least 15 trail days planned for this summer -love it!) I'm realizing just how much I tend to dive into things. I mean, who wants to eat freeze dried Mountain House breakfasts when you could eating hot buckwheat cereal full of dried fruit, nuts, and spices? Ok, I can dehydrate cooked grains in my oven super easy. What about dinner though? Freeze dried is expensive, foil pouch chicken is boring (and tinned meat is just suspicious to me), and all the cheap dehydrated veggie mixes contain things we don't like -namely green peas. I can't have Allen getting sick 15-20 miles from a trail head. Turns out I have a friend who can loan me her dehydrator, so now I'm looking at prepping a whole season's worth of dried veggies and sauces =D which I suppose will also double as our emergency food supply should Loma Prieta strike again. Of course in a situation where things fall down I'm not sure where to actually store this supply...It's not like I can put it a shed in the middle of the yard in case the house is structurally unstable. Maybe we just keep praying that we don't have another Loma Prieta down here. Anyway, I'm excited because this will mean I can have backpacking meals for virtually the same cost as eating at home and with about the same nutritional value. However that does mean prepping something over 22 quarts of veggies for dehydrating. This doesn't count ground meats or rice/pasta. Oh boy. Is it too late to just buy them? :D The good news is that once on the trail meals should mostly be confined to pouring the contents of a bag into a pot and boiling up with some water and a little oil to replace the fats you have to take out to dehydrate your meat.

Butternut Squash Soup with Wild Rice and Curry

I've had this huge (we're talking gigantic) butternut squash sitting around my kitchen for the past month or so. I bought it at the end of a soup for lunch kick and just never got around to cooking it. But since my theme for this week was using up the various vegetables I had lying around I decide to crack it open and try making some soup. I spent an hour peeling, slicing, and removing seeds. (Next time we're roasting it.) My knife needs sharpening, and my wrist got pretty sore by the time I'd finished.

Well I tossed that mountain of squash in my dutch oven along with a container of browned ground turkey from the freezer and a couple cups of chicken stock (also from the freezer). I added some water and went to check my e-mail. Once the squash was soft I mashed it up quickly with my little potato masher and tossed in a couple cups of chopped celery, three carrots halved and sliced, a diced onion, one cup brown rice, and half a cup wild rice. For seasoning I added salt, pepper, a tsp of coriander, 1/2 tsp cardamon, 1T curry powder, garlic powder, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. It turned out quite well -rather savory with balance of sweet and spicy flavors and easy to adjust once dished out by sprinkling on more red pepper or curry powder. It's very colorful as well. You should give me a try and let me know how it comes out. I love soup variations.

and she said Allen wouldn't camp

So many times I don't understand the world in which I live. For instance, I remember my mom getting very upset that I was contemplating marriage to a man who didn't camp. She was upset that I could see giving up something that I'd enjoyed for so long. Then she turned on me and accused me of never really enjoying it, of lying and pretending to enjoy something that had been part of our family culture and figured so largely in some of my most precious family memories. In the end I think she was accusing me of not being a member of the family. Now that I'm in the middle of planning trips and looking up backpacking meal ideas I recall how upset she was that night in the car where we sat talking while waiting for the younger kids to come out of church. She never came back and said she was mistaken about Allen. She condemned him for not being a certain kind of man, but when he surpassed everyone's expectations by sleeping on the ground and strapping on snowshoes she never apologized. She never said that perhaps she was mistaken about this aspect of his character or interests or his capacity to willingly do a thing because he loves me. That didn't change her. I wonder. What was that argument really about. When I was trying to defend my interest in man who'd said he'd like to go see Colorado National Monument with me, what was that really about? I don't think it was about camping. I don't know if was even really about me. It was probably about her, but I really don't even think that matters much. Listening to that argument one would think she feared breaking the family culture -that I would go off and be a person whom I had not been before and live a life different from hers. When Allen and I married we taught each other new interests. We carry on the cultures of both families and don't belong wholly to either. I wish that could be enough. Why it isn't I don't know.

remembering Yosemite

Amid all the hustling with maps and guidebooks, trying to figure out vacation time in the most efficient way possible, I feel like I've lost something. Thinking back to the first time Allen and I visited Yosemite I recall how Allen and I didn't have everything figured out. We took a few wrong turns (bad signage in part) and got the campground so late that wouldn't even let us come in and set up. We ended up sleeping in the car with our necks cricked awkwardly and fleece blankets tucked in the windows in an attempt to block the blaring light of the parking lot. As one might guess we arose early with the energy of sore limbs prodding us to be anywhere but there. Pulling out of our would be campground we rolled east through early morning mists that banded about the stands of pine trees on either side, eager to forget our aching necks in the wonder of this fabled valley. As we drove through the mountains we joined up with the Merced river flowing out from Yosemite's moist valleys. The road swept us up into a cleft in the mountain range as we followed the river ever inward. Finally, the mountains opened, and the whole force of the Yosemite Valley broke upon us. With the sun still drifting gently upwards from the rim of the valley, I recall how everything seemed shrouded in golden wraps -El Capitan and Half Dome thrusting their heads through misty draperies that pooled on the valley floor. Against the other wall the silken scarf of Bridalveil Falls waved and danced in greeting. It seemed a lost corner of Eden sent to refresh the souls of men. That is how I first saw Yosemite.

Remembering my first awestruck enjoyment of the peaks and valleys now become so much more family I wonder if perhaps I lose something with my everlasting counting of miles and researching of trailheads. I will never see all there is to see, and there are little to no bad directions. Should I perhaps, in trips planning as well as life, learn to let things go a little? I will never see all there is to behold, and the work I can find for my hands will never be done. Sometimes I think the hardest part of being human is learning to be incomplete and unfinished. Even the majestic Yosemite is thing always changing and never complete. And God has had many more lifetimes to mold that granite than to shape my stubborn heart.

the snooty foodie test

Do you know the taco bell song? If yes, you're definitely not a snooty foodie. If no, ask yourself if you know the greasy pizza song. If still no, you just might be a foodie. If so get thee to the best greasy pizza joint in town and order it with extra sausage.

Dang.

Now I'm hungry.



P.S. I'm posting this because sometimes I think I'm a snooty foodie myself, and it's such a relief to know I'm not always a snooty foodie. Even when I'm buying organic white sugar.*







*I don't really do that.

Cousins! Yosemite! Backpacking!

Yes, I'm in that sort of mood :D On a whim I reserved an extra spot when I made our trail head reservation out of Tuolumne Meadows because a friend of ours had mentioned coming out over the summer. Well, he can't make it, but I think Allen's cousin can. I am super excited. This guy is a lot of fun. Don't let the puppy dog exterior fool you -this kid is a fiddle playing, ballroom dancing, sword fighting, eagle scout. That's got to be some girl's dream of romance right there ;) He hasn't said for sure he can come out, but I'm really hoping he does so I can learn some of his super-awesome eagle scout tricks :D

Hmmm, that makes most of Allen's family that we'll have persuaded to come adventuring in California with us this summer since Mamaw is coming out in June to see her mountains. This is going to be the best summer ever!

in retrospect

The ladies over on Femina posted saying they were going to have a blog party and invited everyone to post links to their blogs so folks could roam around visiting. Got me to thinking about some of my older posts. Consider this a warning or maybe a plea for clemency. I've mellowed out some on the last couple years. Some things matter more. Some things matter less. Either way I'm less strident. I don't have to defend myself so much. So if you're reading back through the archives just remember -older is wiser :D

a softer landscape

Even as once I might have dreamed of trips out into the great granite peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains, now I dream of gentle hills rolling away into a dew washed distance. I miss the softer outlines of my southeastern home, and I should very much like to wonder through their gentler outlines again.

Allen, blisters, and rainy trail days

While Allen was out with his buddies at a conference in Atlanta I went on my first backpacking trip with a friend from church. We went out to Pt. Reyes and set up our tent at Glen Camp before hiking out to Alamere Falls. It's a lovely little fall that comes out right on the beach. Beautiful! Unfortunately we underestimated the mileage and ended up hiking back in the dark on lots of steep inclines. Not fun. Fortunately we had tortellini and a platy of wine waiting for us back at our tent. Don't know that the wine did my sore muscles any good, but it sure helped my way past the end of my endurance outlook on life. Well, the pesto helped a lot there too. We had talked about making a longer, ten mile loop, out of the park in the morning, but our sixteen mile day up and down hills had us pretty whacked. So we ended up packing up our gear in a very light misty rain and hiking out through the drizzle. I'd found two large blisters on my fourth toes that morning that even moleskin couldn't help very much. By the time we got back to the car I was wet, footsore, but still oddly glad to be out hiking through the woods. The rain actually made our typically dry California scenery look very lush and mysterious seen through the drifting bands of fog that shrouded coastlines and hills. Over all I had a very good trip. This whole weekend since Allen left has gone much better than I expected. Once again I've discovered that I'm a stronger person that I think I am, and that's very encouraging. Now Allen is back home (hurrah! hurray!), and everything is very good. I even found a Granite Gear pack I can take on my next backpacking trip. Usually I'd never even think about buying one of them because they're some of the most expensive packs out there, but good old REI was selling them for $150 off through their deal of the day program. If it works I'll have found more pack than I could ever dream of getting at a price I thought couldn't be done with a satisfaction guarantee that's the best in the business. That is a good week!

This barren earth

Question: What do you do when you do believe that people (ideally Christians) do have the God-given right to have large bountiful families and simultaneously you hold that no holds barred environmental rape is a Bad Thing?

Short Answer: I think that means you're invisible. The enviro-wackos think you're a huge crock of whatsit, and the Far Right (or the religious right) will look at you in disbelief when you try to start a thoughtful conversation about mining on federally protected lands.

Seriously, I've been lurking on this backpacking thread talking about how humans as a species already take up too much space and that going around breeding like we owned the place is a threat to the very values that "we" (outdoor aficionados) hold dear. They're serious. They want to see women educated to a point where they no longer want to have large families, free contraceptives and sterilization, tax laws that punish large families, etc. All this in the name of mother earth and sharing with other species. And it's not like they think each family should get a resource budget that they can use for one kid or for ten. They think you just shouldn't be having that many kids -that even if you raise your six kids to bike commute, compost, and never use plastic bags you're still hurting then environment because you're having way more kids than you "need." It actually makes for some kind of scary reading. Misguided too. Face it, the birthers are always going to win because they're the one's having the kids that are going to outvote, outfight, and plain outnumber the kids you aren't having. These people talk about technology like it's bad because it enables the earth to support an artificially inflated number of people. "Who gave them the right to breed like this and clog the earth with our species?" Uhhh, God? Oh right. You don't believe in God. The point is that they want people to be barren so that the earth will be fruitful. But that doesn't seem to be the way God set things up. If you look at Scripture God is all about fruitfulness. Children are fruit. The works of righteousness are fruit. Fruit on a fig tree is fruit. The children of fruitfulness cultivate the garden so that it will bear even more fruit. In God's economy more seems to equal more. The more we need grace the more it abounds. The more we forgive the more we experience forgiveness. God wants and calls us to cultivate abundance. How exactly this works on environmental issues I don't quite know, but I do know that Christians are called to populate the earth and that as a reflection of God's glory we should strive to use this earth in the most beautiful and fruitful possible. Fertility should call forth fertility and abundance reap as it has sown. The arguments posed by people wishing to limit population size are in some ways compelling if you accept that people can (and do) use the earth in less appropriate ways. However, their arguments lack wisdom because they rebel against God's revelation. I've stayed quiet on this particular issue (on the forum I read) because I doubt I can contribute anything useful to the discussion. Like I said, people like me seem to be largely invisible to the wider culture. We aren't busy creating Christian versions of the latest earth fad, and we aren't on the street corners chanting "Drill! Drill!" We're those quiet people who reject most of the environmentalist's premises and yet think that Christians can and should have thoughtful discussions on cultivating this earth in a distinctly Christian fashion. And I think that discussion needs to begin and end with an attempt to understand what God views as fruitfulness.

Snowshoe therapy

Seems like my posting has become more sporadic of late. I went through a depressed spell for a while where I was struggling to get things done. Fortunately life seems to be on an upswing for the moment. Getting out into the woods really helped. This past weekend Allen and I went back up to Yosemite for some snowshoeing. Neither one of us had ever been on snowshoes before, and we ended up having a lot of fun. We got to the campground around 10:30, but setting up took a little longer than we expected. For one thing there was about 6 inches of snow on the ground. Hmmmm. Out came the snowshoes, and we got our first taste of snowshoeing tramping down a smooth place to set up the tent. Second hmmmm. There was still too much snow for the tent stakes to grab well. Since I didn't have any sort of snow anchor I ended up improvising with a pair of stakes. I pounded on in as usual and hooked a second stake to it that would lay horizontally, packed snow all around the stakes, and horizontal surface area was enough to the corners to hold. I admit I have a blast with this sort of mildly creative problem solving while out camping. Later, in our sleeping bags, Allen remarked that it's a lot of fun watching me come alive when we start setting up camp. It's true. All those times I'd tell Allen to fire up the stove while I set up the tent. He'd heat up supper while I was happily (baring the truly unrepentant rock) pounding in tent stakes.

The next morning we woke up, fixed lunch, outfitted our day packs, and headed up for Badger Pass. It had rained that night in the valley, and all the way up we saw great clumps of fresh snow ornamenting the pine trees. Once at the trail head we grabbed our snowshoes and headed out to Dewey Point -seven miles round trip. Looking at pictures of winter trails I used to wonder why no one ever went tramping off trail through all that lovely snow. Now, I know. Unless there's a healthy crust on the stuff, snowshoes or no, you'll still sink in to mid-calf, and breaking trail is hard work. The other thing I didn't realize was just how warm you can get snowshoeing. With memories of playing in the snow at Wolf Pass with my family filling the back of my mind I donned two base layers, a fleece pullover, rain/wind jacket, hat, and gloves. Within minutes I had skinned out of my jacket, and by the time we reached the Dewey Pt trail proper I was down to my base layer top and had stashed my hat and gloves in my pack. I ended up losing my hat somewhere on the trail :( It was new too. Hopefully someone will turn it in. Anyway, even having stashed most of my layers I still got warm whenever we had a pull uphill. As for pants, Allen had found some cheap rain pants that ended up working like a dream for keeping wind and wet snow from getting us cold.

We ate our midday snack in a pretty meadow maybe a third of the way in on the Dewey Point trail before pressing on towards the point. Seeing everyone coming back towards up from the point we wondered if we were just a little bit crazy going on as we were, but when we got to the point....You come out on top of the south rim of Yosemite Valley just opposite El Capitan with a perfect view of Half Dome partially shrouded with feathery clouds that gravely danced in and out of the valley. Looking west you could see the outlines of tents perched on the shoulder on a hill with what must have been unbelievable views of the sunset reflected of Half Dome and the following moonrise over the cliffs. We sat on our blue foam pads contemplating the view and eating our sandwiches. I saw someone appear on the edge of the hill as if having emerged from one of the tents. Maybe next year I could think of a trip like that. For now I had to be content with watching the sky changing colors above the fringe of evergreens that grew up along the meadows we passed through on our way back down the trail. We hit the main trail back down the mountain just before sunset and spent a few minutes appreciating the modern convenience located close to the trail head. Getting back on the trail we realized just how close we'd come to hiking the last half mile in ever deepening twilight. Here on the main trail, which was really a summer roadbed groomed for skiing we'd have no difficulty navigating downhill to the car. Out in the woods we'd have been following tracks back, and that's never my favorite way to travel a new trail at night. We got back to the car an hour after sunset with only a little aid from Allen's new headlamp. Overall a very successful trip.

The next day we drove around the valley, walked the short trail to Yosemite Falls for a third time (saw deer tracks), wrote postcards, and took lots of pictures. Then we broke camp, showered at Curry, and headed back towards home after taking a short detour to the swinging bridge in Wawona. That's where my knee started acting up. I think I must have turned my foot wrong or something when went off trail. Somehow I strained the side of my knee. At least I was persuaded we should head home instead of hiking more. Including a stop for bbq we got home around 10pm, so we really didn't need to linger any longer however much the glow of lowering sun on snow tempted me.

I can't wait to go back there again. I'm hoping to get in another couple of trips before the snow melts. Then one more trip in the spring, and afterward I'll probably be turning my attention to less popular parks until fall arrives. There are so many lovely places to go, and I'm blessed to live this close to so many of them.

Dentists....

I had one of those aha moments where I realized that I'm long over-due for a dental appointment and that I really wish I was young enough to bring my teddy bear and get a sticker for being a big girl. Erg. I got to see my uncle when I went to dentist growing up, and I would still get queasy sitting in the waiting room. You know it sort of mystifies me that I can contemplate packing my life on my back for 3-4 days and disporting myself in bear and cougar country and then when I have to make a dentist appointment...And I'm really hoping that I don't have any cavities. I think I might have one, but I'm praying to be mistaken. Of course if you really can't handle it the nice doctor will give you a pill that will make you forget all of it, but I'm not that far gone. Of course I'm the kid who would start crying on cue when I heard my mom making a doctor's appointment for us because I knew that was probably going to involve stickings of some sort. I keep trying to prove to myself in various small ways that I'm really not a wimp (hey, when I cracked my tibia I was over there fighting back tears and shock because I didn't want to act all wussy), but most times I think I'm probably a wimp. Heaven help me when I have kids.

lovely technology

I was thinking the other day about all the things I can do more easily with a computer and internet plus access to netflix and iTunes. I can read books on-line through Project Gutenberg , listen to lectures on Christian history or Old English through iTunes, watch movies on netflix, get recipes and workout videos for free all over the place. This all on top of e-mail and blogging and shopping on-line. I must admit that my recent infatuation with the internet comes from my new work out resolution. I can get resistance training routine on-line, yoga and pilates on netflix, and even more yoga video podcasts on iTunes. Don't got to go the gym. Don't got to buy a dvd and hope it's good. Don't got to go the library and then remember to take it back to the library and be stuck doing serially different routines every week. I've basically got those whole archive of fitness routines I can access at will. It's pretty awesome. Also, the lectures. Oh, my soul, the lectures. I've been listening Reformed Theological Seminary's series on the history of the Puritans, and it's been quite interesting. I've been needing to get my head and my body out of the ruts I've fallen into, and I'm just thrilled I can do both without spending any more money.

Anyway, that's my panegyric on internet access. Thank you lovely people who make it all work.

Fear and Fatherhood

I've been reading an interesting book lately. It's called Holy Curiosity: Encountering Jesus' Provocative Questions and is written by Winn Collier. I picked up off a five dollar table at one of those bookstores that tend to pop up overnight in the mall during Christmas season and consists of a dozen tables with books basically poured out on them. Anyway, I picked up this book, and it's proved rather fascinating. Basically the author looks at the questions that Jesus asked his disciples (and others) during His ministry on earth and asks "Why?" What purpose could God have in asking this question and not the dozen other questions that we would have asked? What can learn from answering these questions ourselves? Why did Jesus ask this particular question at this particular time to this particular group of people? The answers that Collier comes up with are both challenging and encouraging. One chapter in particular caught my attention. In his third chapter titled "Why are you afraid? The grace of letting go," Collier looks at Jesus' question to the disciples when caught in the storm on the Sea of Galilee. On this chapter Collier has a lot of good things to say about fear and the way it works with our lives and our faith, but I was particularly struck by two things. One, Jesus was afraid (ie in the Garden of Gethsemane and again on the cross when God turned His face away). Two, often times our more superficial fears (say of monsters under the bed) are actually manifestations of our loneliness and our fear that we really do have to face the "brutality of life" by ourselves. Collier illustrates this by looking to his own discussions of bedtime monsters with his son. Collier writes:

Wyatt fears he will be left to himself to fend off the menace his imagination conjures up for him...Wyatt wants to know that, as he says it, "If I really need something, you'll come up." So, even as I tell Wyatt that there are no monsters, I want to be quicker to tell him what he needs most to hear--that his safety is not in his own hands, that if any scary creatures are foolish enough to enter my son's room, his dad will be there, hell-on-wheels, faster than he can blink, to dish out a grade-A monster butt whoopin'

Collier goes on to explain to his son how he will be there like greased lightning to pummel any monster his son sees. The reason, he tells his son, not to be afraid of monsters is not because they don't exist but because his "daddy is stronger than any monster there is."

I know that's a fairly extended quote, but I latched on to it because just last week talking to my counselor he observed that there must be times when I feel very lonely. I realized that he's right. I've spent the better part of my life not fitting in and not measuring up, and it's been lonely. On top of that I've been scared. I never really saw how the two might fit together though until I started reading this chapter. Because if you'll look at what Collier says elsewhere in this chapter he's essentially saying that to be alone is to be afraid because that means there's no one outside up to help us face up the brutal realities of life. Loneliness says that it's all up to us--there's no one I can rely on except for myself. And I don't know about the rest of the world, but I'm pretty well aware that one very determined cat could wreck some serious havoc on my rear. That's not to mention germs, cars, muggers, earthquakes, loose gravel, stray bullets, political unrest and all the other bogeymen of my imagination. Of course at this point Collier goes on to talk about our need for God, but honestly one of the things that caught me most was his portrayal of fatherhood. Growing up I always had the impression that Dad would throw himself between any of us and an oncoming car cheerfully with no hesitation. What I also learned growing up was that Dad wasn't going to stand between me and the real monsters that scarred my life. The few times I went to him saying "Dad it hurts when Mom teases me about this, can you help me" I came away discouraged and undefended. It was up to me to take the abuse, alone. I had no champion at all until Allen came along and finally asked what the hell was going on. He was the first person who attempted to fight the monsters under my bed.

I find all this immensely interesting because the way I look at my dad is (big surprise) similar to the way I look at God. If Dad wasn't big enough/loving enough to fight for me then I don't see why God would be either. And so the monsters, not seeing anyone around with proper butt kicking gear, keep trying to multiply. I keep trying to push forward into my fears instead of running away from them. And many times I still feel alone. I need to find the God who is there because to be quite honest the God I know is the one who still hasn't figured out how to keep poor children in Africa from dying of malnutrition. Yes, He died on the Cross to save us from the wrath of God. Yes, He is the perfect Creator of the Universe. Yes, He is God as revealed by His word in the Bible. Sometimes I just wish I could find the God who sits by my bed and tells me not to worry about the monsters in the closet because Jesus has a special roundhouse kick for closet monsters and He'll be here in two snaps if any monster tries anything in my bedroom. And then maybe He could help my mom.

I wish my dad had taken the time to show me that kind of God. Maybe Dad doesn't know that kind of God exists either. I wish he could have though.

an actual resolution

Ok, so I'm thinking that the exercise/lose weight resolution might actually stick for longer than it took to write it. Since I've already got some momentum going I want to break it down a little better.

1. For January I'm exercising at least 20min a day six days a week. Might reevaluate this either the end of January or mid-February. For now I just need the tiniest non-guilt inducing amount that I can maintain while still getting some benefits.

2. More veggies for supper. Go crazy and fix steamed broccoli and Caesar salad with the spaghetti bolognese.

3. Go back to the eat when you're hungry stop when you're not principle. Stop obsessing about camping gear for 3 hours and get some breakfast! The sale will be there later.

4. Easy on the grains/carbs. This is January. That means we've just come through Thanksgiving and Christmas. Carrot sticks sort of follow logically after all that pie.

letters

Dear Family,

Can we stop pretending that love is something you earn?

Thanks,



Dear God,

I don't like you very much, but I still need a hug. Can you handle that?



Dear Dad,

I think people are forgetting that I'm your daughter. Do you still remember?



Dear Sisters,

Once, we were good friends. I wish we could be again.



Dear World,

I don't take shit from nobody anymore. You've been warned.

thoughts for the last day of Christmas

While elsewhere people are putting up Valentine's merchandise and pulling lights down from the rafters, Allen and I are looking forward to the last official hurrah of Christmas. The living room isn't perfectly clean. There aren't any whimsical centerpieces, crackling fires, or gathered friends. There are steaks marinating on the counter though and unopened presents waiting under the tree. This isn't the Epiphany I hope to be celebrating five or ten years from now, but it's the very best Epiphany our travel wearied selves can celebrate this year. And, by God's grace, it's enough. Tonight, with steak and good wine, gingerbread and sweet potato soup, we'll quietly close out what has, in some ways, been the best Christmas we've ever celebrated.

That's the thing about getting better with practice. I don't want this Christmas to be the best Christmas ever because that means I'll spend all my other Christmases looking back to one tiny high point wishing I could go back again and capture a few fleeting moments. I want this Christmas to be the best Christmas so far - not the best one ever. But with that desire comes to the temptation to rush ahead and try to plan three or four Christmases out instead of enjoying the one I have right here. I need to rest in imperfection for a while.

So my bookcase needs organizing, and I can think of a dozen things I'll likely try to do differently next year. But I think it's been the best Christmas so far. And that is enough for this year.