A few random girl things.

Just had to share a few random things that you might like. The first is my new favoritest item of clothing in the whole entire world. This black wrap.

Oh, I love it.

It's perfect.

It's comfy.

It has bell sleeves.

(hard to see in this pic, but you get the idea)

I got it in Nashville at Francesca's as a belated birthday gift from Amy! I've worn it about a hundred times since then, and it goes with everything, I tell you. It's shorter in the back, and when you untie the front, it goes down really long, past my knees. It makes me feel feminine. Oh, I love it. I also got this dress, perfect for a beach day in California. And perhaps I'll get this dress too, if it goes ridiculously on sale.

Next, I wanted to show you my office/creativity studio now that it's all organized and painted a lovely shade of Rain Washed. I'm still debating changing the curtains to a more coral-y color with a fun bohemian pattern. But for now, you can see how calming and serene it is. At this current moment, the walls are bathed with late afternoon sun. I guess it's the next best thing to working outside!

Here's a perfect place to display my preserved autumn leaves from New Jersey until I get some India and Africa photos printed...

And here's a creation that I adapted from a picture frame from IKEA. It was originally black, but I spraypainted it white. Then I removed the glass and painted the cardboard backing with chalkboard paint and...voila! A whimsical chalkboard for writing notes, reminders, and inspirational quotes.

I love being a girl.

The best is yet to be.

Back home from Nashville. Going away for a week always helps me return refreshingly to home. Reflecting on my "past life" in Nashville, I am thankful for it. But more than that, I treasure where I am today, in this life, in this home, with this man, with this community.

I do miss the hills and farms of Franklin. I miss the bustle of Hillsboro Village on a Saturday morning. I miss my home on Beechwood, where I lived with Amy and Suz, with the purple dining room and twinkling lights draped over the fireplace.

In 2005, a year after moving away, I finally said "goodnight" to Nashville. It was something I needed to do to put an end to the fits of longing and move forward, gracefully, with my new life in Texas. At that time, I was stuck. I tried to like Texas, but every new coffeeshop I discovered in Dallas was nothing compared to the humming energy of Fido or Bongo. Every new friend I met, I compared to "my girls" in Nashville. No experience here could compare to what I had experienced there, a city where I grew into "me" from age 17 to 27.

A dear friend of ours always signs letters and cards, "The best is yet to be." I don't know about you, but I find hope in this statement. There are more good years ahead, more good moments to be experienced. When I turned 30, I said to my mentor, Melissa, a woman in her late-40's, "It's going to be a good year..." Without hesitation she answered, "They're all good years!" It halted me. She was right. Would I trade even one of them? No way. I am who I am because of Madison and Houston and Nashville and Dallas and the moments that have happened there, the people who have been woven permanently into my life.

Nashville and I have become friends again. This past trip was so healthy, encouraging. Perhaps I had to let that time of my life go a little bit in order to receive it back again. I don't know how it happened, really. Maybe it was just time. It took feeling uncomfortable with change and just sitting in that for awhile. And then one day, I found a peace. Maybe it's a peace that came with finding a family here in Texas, where I least expected it. And I realized I could still love both places, for their own unique reasons.

Hello again, Nashville. Thank you for what you did to make me who I am. Every time I return to you, someone asks me, "When are you moving back?" I smile. And then I answer, "Nashville is forever on the list." Because no matter what, you are. And that's okay. There are also good years ahead, though. And I am going to embrace them now.

"Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith, 'A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God:
see all, nor be afraid!'"
~ Robert Browning

Snow, magical snow...

"The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment, then where is it to be found?"

~J.B. Priestley

My dad sent me this photo that he took standing at the back door of our home in New Jersey, looking out over the backyard. It's a fairytale land!

I miss the snow days of my childhood...bundling up like Ralphie in A Christmas Story with two layers of clothes plus snow pants...building icy igloos with my brother in this very backyard (our favorite fort location was bottom right, behind that tree)...sensing the warmth of our home as we retreated back inside to de-thaw our soaked yarn mittens on the radiator.

Here in Texas, it seems that we only get the cusp of each season - except for summer of course, which is so off the heat radar that it drives you to practically kiss the feet of October, begging for the just the slightest cool breeze to arrive.

In my book, there is just no match for the feeling of expectation that comes the night before a snow storm. What will it be like when I wake up tomorrow? I would wonder as I pulled the covers over my ears. I'd fall asleep to the newscaster's words echoing in my head - "Reports say that a big snow storm will blow in by midnight...we expect to have 24 inches covering the tri-state area by morning...."

And THEN! When morning came, I'd hear muted sounds in the kitchen downstairs...my dad hadn't gone to work! I'd pull back the curtain and open my eyes to see a white wonderland awaiting me in the backyard. YES! It happened!

By this time, all the hills in my small town of Madison had already been fluffing and primping, preparing for the deluge of children whose sleigh marks would soon cover their slopes. Only daredevils headed for the The Madison Golf Club, of course. The slopes there were so steep that with one of those cheapo plastic sleds, you could literally go airborne. My friend Jason and I...we always seemed to have a brush with death whenever we went sledding. There was the time we plowed straight into a thorn bush. Oh, and the other time we got wedged under a parked car, toppled over each other in our sled like dominos. And how could I forget the escapade when we piled into that two-seated-plastic-vehicle-of-death, went airborne towards the bottom of a slope, and flew out horizontally for several feet until gravity kicked in and landed us SPLAT into a ditch on our backs? Uhhhhhh........ That was the day I fractured my tailbone. But oh, we had fun, didn't we?

Here's the view from the front yard now, looking out over the field. Oh, I do miss it...I almost feel like I could reach in and grab a handful of that snow, throw it in the air and let it fall in cool droplets over my hair and nose.

The year of reading and writing.

"Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book."
~Author Unknown

A few days ago, we sent the DISH box away in the mail and said farewell to cable. Stacy and Clinton will miss me, but for now, it's stacks of books and a pen and paper that will occupy my weekend hours....and quiet evenings at home.

It was a decision we'd been mulling over for awhile. As sorry as it sounds, we love our weeknights watching three consecutive hours of television, wasting away the after-work hours entrenched in American Idol auditions and life with the LOSTies. But this season in our lives calls for simplicity. A few years ago, I started begging God for a simpler life...and I got it. Now what will I do with it?

Already, in the last week, we have reaped the many benefits of a life spent with friends, books that are like friends, our own thoughts, and good conversation. We spent a good two hours just sitting on the couch and talking to each other - imagine. And then another hour looking over old love letter emails we sent four-and-a-half years ago, back when "The Baileys" were just a hopeful idea.

There are things I do miss, like traveling through Europe with Samantha Brown, and my favorite cooking shows. I may not be able to 'ooh and 'ahh with saucer-like eyes at Barefoot Contessa's latest chocolate torte, but I feel pretty certain I've seen enough of her indulgent recipes to last me a good long while. At least until the trees turn colors again.

So, this year. The Year of Reading and Writing, we've named it. It's the year when I finally begin my book, with fresh inspiration from Shauna Niequist's Cold Tangerines. I have my own words to write, stories to share. They will not go unspoken.

And an infinity number of books to read. This morning, I held a steaming cup of tea in one hand while with the other I made a list in my journal of all the books I read in 2008...eleven that I could remember. Some of my favorites being Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (which turned out beautifully once I forced myself over a few difficult hurdles, and now I miss it to pieces...), When The Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd, and Sabbath by Wayne Muller.

This year I am going to at least double that. Twenty-two it is...twenty-two books in which to bury my nose, to explore other worlds and lives, and to use as excuses to stay home with some beef stew and a warm blanket (or in the backyard on the hammock).

My list so far...
In Pursuit of Peace by Joyce Meyer
Slow Is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure, and Joie de Vivre by Cecile Andrews
Irresistable Revolution by Shane Claiborne
Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright
Until He Comes by Calvin Miller
Pilgrim Souls: A Collection of Spiritual Autobiography by Elizabeth Powers and Amy Mandelker
The House on Nauset Marsh by Wyman Richardson
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
The Poet and the Pauper by George MacDonald
Truth and Beauty: A Friendship by Anne Patchett
Perpetua by Amy Rachel Peterson
...a good book about the history of Israel, any suggestions?
...and just for fun, Savannah by the Sea by Denise Hildreth (who, randomly, was my Sunday School teacher for a stint back in college)

Just now, I glanced across the dim livingroom at my contented husband who is buried nose-deep in Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. As he lifts his head every fifteen minutes or so to chuckle out loud at the stories he is encountering on those pages...I know it's going to be a good year for him, for me, for us.

Meanwhile outside, the Dallas weather has turned frigid and rainy into perfect reading/writing weather. Only two days ago on Saturday, I was wearing shorts and planting pansies in pots on the front porch. Now Monday's icy tree limbs have turned into miniature suspension bridges from Lord of the Rings, pushing me further into my desire to write, read, and write some more.

"The best kind of rain, of course, is a cozy rain. This is the kind the anonymous medieval poet makes me remember, the rain that falls on a day when you'd just as soon stay in bed a little longer, write letters or read a good book by the fire, take early tea with hot scones and jam and look out the streaked window with complacency."

~Susan Allen Toth, England For All Seasons

The Year of Reading and Writing...let's begin. At the end of this, I hope to have an expanded view of this world through other people's stories, and maybe a hundred pages to call my own.

2008: the year in pictures.

"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."
~T.S. Eliot

I saw some friends do this on their own blogs, and I thought it would be a neat way to capture 2008 - a photo for each month.

JANUARY...

...a winter walk through the neighborhood with my niece.


FEBRUARY...
...buds appearing on the Bradford Pear in preparation for spring.


MARCH...
...a perfect beach day in California with Jen.


APRIL...
...our back yard comes to life again.


MAY...
...discovery of the Cedar Ridge Preserve, a mere 20 minutes from our house...who knew?


JUNE...
...a trip back home to New Jersey - enjoying the mild weather and tall, tall trees at my parents' house.


JULY...
...celebrating 3 years with my wonderful husband.


AUGUST...
...a visit from Victoria for Labor Day.


SEPTEMBER...
..."young and fabulous" ladies' night out with Suz in Nashville.


OCTOBER...
...a trip to New Jersey to enjoy the gorgeous fall foliage.


NOVEMBER...
...one less item on the "life list" - we finally visited The Rainbow Room on the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center in NYC!


DECEMBER...
...a meaningful, handmade Christmas.

Christmasy home.

I took these today. Only a few more days to enjoy the lovely light of Christmas in our home. Until next year....

by day.

by night.

Joy.Love.Peace.

Hope your Christmas was BEAUTIFUL.

Winter breakfast.

I had the most delicious wintry breakfast this morning. I got the idea after visiting Full Quiver Farm on Saturday, where we get our eggs, cream, milk, and cheese. Debbie, the mother of the Mennonite family who runs the farm, was telling me that every morning before milking the cows, they have a big, hearty family breakfast of farm-fresh eggs and sausage and toast (from her homemade bread of course). But on special days, they have oatmeal with fried apples, honey, cinnamon, and fresh, raw cream. I begged her to tell me step-by-step how she did it.

I was salivating by the end of the conversation.

So this morning, I decided to try her oatmeal concoction, except with Pocono Cream of Buckwheat, which I love, and which is also gluten-free.

First, I boiled water in a saucepan and then added enough Cream of Buckwheat for 2 servings with a pinch of salt. I then sliced a Gala apple very thinly, leaving the skin on, and heated up about a tablespoon of butter in a cast-iron skillet. Once the butter was melted, I tossed in the apples and covered them generously with cinnamon. I placed a lid lightly over the pan and let them kinda fry/steam for about 5 minutes.

In the meantime, I retrieved some Medjool dates from the pantry that were left over from my Thanksgiving stuffing. I removed the pits and chopped them up. In the absence of honey or agave or maple syrup, these dates give just the right amount of sweetness, and I love their texture. [Sidenote: they're also a great non-sugar snack for kids!]

Back in the cast-iron skillet, my apples were happily frying/steaming away. You would not believe the aroma that swept through my kitchen when I removed the lid. It was pure heaven, I tell you.

When the buckwheat was done, I split it between two white rustic bowls, my husband peering over my shoulder like a four-year-old kid waiting for some candy. I sprinkled the chopped dates on top, slathered it with fried apples and all the buttery cinnamony sauce, and then poured some raw cream on top.

Oh.My.Goodness.

It kind of looked like this picture, but a million times better. I would have snapped a photo, but Steven and I were too busy eating it up in 3 seconds flat and then begging for more...

Nutty coconut goodness.

This is the most satisfying cookie I've had in a really long time. It has everything a cookie should possess...rich chocolate, nuts, slightly chewy yet firm texture (not crispy) and great density. In fact, I might even start referring to it as the "PMS Cookie" - it's that good, ladies (and 'gents - who will be thanking me once their women get a hold of these).

The best part? Zero sugar. Zero grains. And you'd never even know it!

Nutty Coconut Cookies
Preheat oven to 350.

Combine in bowl:
1/2 cup nut butter [Choose your favorite - peanut...almond...I like to use raw cashew butter for these cookies.]
1/2 cup agave nectar or raw honey
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup chopped raw nuts [You can use walnuts, pecans, or even a mix. Just don't use roasted nuts! You want them raw.]
Dash of sea salt
1/2 cup mashed 100% unsweetened cacao chips [Basically, these are like chocolate chips, but they're 100% cacao vs. regular baking chips which add sugar. Ghirardelli makes a great one, and you should be able to get it at a regular grocery store.]

Mix all of that together, and then mix in 1/2 cup coconut flour. [You can get this coconut flour at some Whole Foods locations, or you can get some here or here. If you can't find coconut flour, you could probably use another gluten-free flour like this brown rice flour, although I haven't tried that specifically.]

Wet your hands so the dough doesn't stick, and then form the dough into 1-inch balls. Place them on a baking sheet [I line mine with parchment paper]. Bake for 18 minutes at 350 until the tops are golden brown.

If you want them to be even more soft and moist, decrease the baking time to 15-16 minutes. MMMMMM!

You'll be the hit of the Christmas party if you bring these! And no one will fall into a sugar coma.

True Christmas.

There so many things to love about Christmas. Even as I write this, the house is dark and peaceful except for white twinkle lights, it's a chilly morning outside with a small dusting of snow, and Ray Charles is serenading me with "This Time of the Year" in the background.

But still, something feels strange. Something feels different.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, my husband peeped his head out of the attic and started sliding boxes full of Christmas decorations down the retractable attic stairs while I stood at the bottom and caught them. We then watched a new classic, Love Actually, as we filled our Dallas home with gold ribbon, garland and two trees (a big one and a mini) decked with ornaments like my Mikasa Volkswagen Beetle and another of two mice sitting in a stocking that says "Christine & Steven: A Perfect Pair" (a gift from my mom, of course). But about halfway through the evening, something didn't feel right. Suddenly, I blurted out to Steven, "I feel sad."

I almost didn't realize I had said it aloud until he asked me why. At first I couldn't quite pinpoint it. But it was definitely an unwavering sadness that had been lingering all night, more and more with each new ornament removed from its tissue paper wrapping.

One of the things I really appreciate about my husband is that he lets me live my own story, and he knows when I need to figure things out on my own. So there I was, left to process this strange thought in my own silence. I kept rearranging the mantle - shifting around the garland, picture frames, and stocking hooks until I had reached my own personal "perfection." As I placed the little porcelain nativity in the very middle of the mantle, front and center, I realized what was happening.

This year, everything is different. This year, my dad had cancer. That alone would be enough to change everything...but also this year, my husband and I helped start a new business and have less money than we've had in a long time. This year, my brother lost his job and has been unemployed for 4 months. This year, we had more dreams taken from us. This year, I learned that my problems are nothing compared to the abandoned children roaming the dirty streets of Darfur or the precious people fearing for their lives in Congo. With all of that, somehow decorating a house to make it feel whimsical or Christmasy just feels a little bit empty.

And that makes me sad, because I love that part of Christmas - the warm, cozy "it's a wonderful life" feeling. I still want that. I just want to curl up on the couch with my husband and closest friends and my dog Greta at my feet and watch Elf and All I Want For Christmas without a care in the world, totally oblivious to the struggle.

It's kind of like when I first returned from India, and then again a year-and-a-half later, when I returned from Africa. With all the joy and goodness I had experienced on both of those trips, I had also seen some shocking things, and there was this feeling of displacement when I returned to my American life. The only way I can describe it is that I knew, "Things are different now." I had seen the things I had seen. I had experienced the things I had experienced. I could no longer go back to the way things were, to that ignorant, innocent place of not knowing.

So, I guess that's the source of the sadness this year. Things have happened in life - difficult things. My family was exposed to cancer. We can no longer rely on the security of money. People all over the place are losing their jobs. To think of going crazy in a shopping mall buying a bunch of gifts or filling our lives (and the lives of our friends and family) with more stuff that we don't need just seems so pointless.

Because with all honesty, I can say that I have never truly experienced what Christmas is all about...even growing up in a church with the yearly Christmas Eve candlelight service and the children's Christmas musical and all the gifts on Christmas morning. Why do we even decorate a tree? Why do we fill our homes with white lights? What really is "advent?" all about?

In talking to my dear friend Jenni who celebrates advent every year with her husband, I'm learning more about the meaning, the glorious expectation. The celebration. It's not that Christ was born on December 25th. It's that at least once a year, we stop our ever-growing, ever-more-complicated lives and listen. We stop to remember the beauty of what's behind it all, the foundation of it all: Jesus Christ knew we needed help and that we couldn't do this thing on our own. So He did the most radical act of love possible...He came down to us. He said, "I'm going to make myself a human so I can go and live among them, to show them real love."

John 1: 14 says, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Stop and think about that for a second. To me, that is the most beautiful single line in the entire Bible. Encapsulated in that one sentence is all the sacrificial love imaginable.

I realize I'm getting started a little late for "advent" this year, but I'm going to do my best to refocus. The Advent Conspiracy website is helping me learn more about how to practically live out "the something different" that's stirring in my heart. I also love this website, a resource from Jenni's hubby.

In processing all this, I've learned that I can no longer enjoy the decorations and the music and the parties and the Christmas feasts without deeply knowing a greater purpose. I still think my livingroom looks beautiful and cozy. I still can't wait for our Christmas party. But more than that, God saved my dad. I don't need money to have joy. I don't need more stuff in order to be fulfilled. My home can reflect the peace and joy in our lives, but it's only a shell. This year, if for the first time, I want to see through all the distraction and experience true Christmas. I want to experience Christ.

I NEED AFRICA - launched today!

Remember the "I need Africa more than Africa needs me" campaign that I blogged about last week? It LAUNCHED today! If you want to get an amazingly comfortable American Apparel Tshirt that also benefits Africa (and even some for Christmas gifts...), then check this out...

I NEED AFRICA MORE THAN AFRICA NEEDS ME
When I think of Africa, the following images immediately come to mind: Starvation. AIDS. Child soldiers. Genocide. Sex slaves. Orphans. From there, my thoughts naturally turn to how I can help, how I can make a difference. “I am needed here,” I think. “They have so little, and I have so much.” It’s true, there are great tragedies playing out in Africa everyday. There is often a level of suffering here that is unimaginable until you have seen it, and even then it is difficult to believe. But what is even harder is reconciling the challenges that many Africans face with the joy I see in the people. It’s a joy that comes from somewhere I cannot fathom, not within the framework that has been my life to this day. [read more]

Also, look at this beautiful video...

I need Africa more than Africa needs me.

"It is Africa that has taught me that possessions in my hands
will never be as valuable as peace in my heart.
It’s just one of this continent’s many lessons.
I came here to serve and yet I’ve found that I have so much to learn,
and Africa, with all its need, has much to teach me."

At an orphanage in nowhere, Uganda, I fell in love with a girl named Margret Harriet. From the moment we arrived, she found a home on my lap, and there she stayed for almost 4 straight days. Her answer to pretty much any question was "Jesus". There was a current of peace (and a little bit of shyness) running through this child. During a scary thunderstorm one night, she found me in a crowd of children and took my hand with a strength you should not find in a child.

When I left the orphanage on our last day, Margret gave me this letter. Printed on the envelope, it said "To Christine. Jesus is good all the time." The letter read:

Dear Christine,

How are you? Are you fine? For me am not fine because I miss you so much because your going back. I pray for you Christine. I love you so much and I pray for you every day and every night. I love you in Jesus name. I love Africa. God is good all the time and all the time God is good.

Good bye, good bye Christine.

From,
Margret Harriet

That letter is one of my prized possessions, and I still cannot get Margret's face or sweet voice out of my mind...because it took a child at an orphanage somewhere in Uganda to remind me that God is good. Even through losing your parents and having one pair of shoes and eating the exact same meal of maize three times a day and sleeping in a concrete room. He is good. If that is the only reason I went to Africa, it would be enough.

I need Africa more than Africa needs me.

Three years ago, I decided to be a part of Mocha Club and African Leadership because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to do something outwardly significant with my 40 work hours a week. And have there been lives saved, children fed, wells dug, schools built? Yes...but beneath all my to-do lists, conference calls, and emails, a stark truth has undoubtedly risen to the surface: God does not need me to save Africa.

How self-centered, how prideful of me to think otherwise.

God will carry out His purpose for Africa, and I have the privilege of being a part of it. Once I embraced this freeing truth, something happened in my heart - and I saw that Africa was actually changing me.

My work is more joyful now, and I find myself looking fervently for the beauty and wisdom of the African people, rather than seeing them as people who deserve my pity.

When I traveled to Kenya and Uganda in the fall of 2006, the time when I met Margret Harriet, I thought I was going to serve and love the African people in a way they'd never seen. But after stepping foot on that continent's soil, the raw reality of humanity stared me in the face. I looked into its eyes, and it was oddly beautiful. I walked through places like the Kibera slums, one of the filthiest, most shocking places I had ever been in my entire life, and at the end of each day, all I wanted to do was go back. I had already forgotten the putrid smells, the human waste running down the street and the piles of burning trash....and all I could remember were the children who loved going to school and played joyfully in the schoolyard...the men and women who served their communities faithfully...the HIV-positive ladies who sold their handmade jewelry to make even the smallest amount of income.

The people I encountered in Africa experienced intense challenges, loss, and pain, yet they demonstrated even more intense courage, hope, and joy. By all logical reasons, they shouldn't have. I thought I was going to teach them, but they taught me. They are triumphant. They are heroes. I want to be like them.

So why do I need Africa?

Without Africa, I act as if I am the author of my own life. I need Africa to teach me surrender.

Without Africa, I feel I deserve certain "things" - a wonderful house, a big happy family, freedom, and enough money to buy whatever I want. I need Africa to teach me that possessions do not equal happiness, as I so often want them to.

Without Africa, it's easy for me to be selfish with my time. I need Africa to soften my stone heart - not just to those across the ocean, but to those in my own community.

Does Africa still need our efforts, our time, our money, our service? Absolutely. It is a continent in need - politically, socially, and economically. There are sickening, unfathomable things that happen there everyday. But to think that's all Africa is, is a tragedy. To think that we in America "are so much better off" is a tragedy. Africa is not just a place of despair - Africa is JOY. Africa is HOPE. Africa is Margret Harriet and Prince and Peter Diing and beautiful Portia…

"Portia" by Jeremy Cowart

You don't have to go to Africa to see it. Read the stories on our blog. Look at the photos. In these places, you will experience people who do not have much, but who have everything.

You can also start a new conversation about Africa. Share your comments, and even blog about it yourself - why do you need Africa more than Africa needs you?

And then come back here December 1st to see what's next...

Embracing 31.

It's been a memorable 31st birthday so far, and it's only 11:30am. To me, a perfect birthday includes wonderful things like a trip to the farm... a new comfy tshirt...a bouquet of coral and magenta roses...and homemade pumpkin pie for breakfast. Hmm, pumpkin pie for breakfast? Don't mind if I do!

I awoke this morning, the first of my 32nd year, wrapped like a cocoon inside my down comforter. My husband had already risen, turned on the space heater, and was clinking things around in the kitchen. That's one of my favorite feelings...waking up early and hearing activity in the kitchen, the rustling of socks on the hardwood floors. As I rolled out of bed with eyes still plastered shut, I pondered the first important question of the day, Is my flat-ironed hair from my two-day-old haircut still salvageable? I walked groggily to the bathroom mirror to examine. Cowlick-free? CHECK. Kink-free? CHECK. Still shiny, yet not greasy? CHECK. I fluffed it a little and headed for the kitchen. It's going to be a good day.


Steven had already whipped up some eggs with ground turkey and brewed us some steaming hot Enfusia in the French Press. Ahhh. You probably never thought you'd hear this from the Baileys, but we haven't brewed coffee in months. Enfusia is now our comforting drink of choice...in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening. We can't get enough of it, especially with a bit of Vanilla Creme Stevia and coconut milk. Mmmm.

Armed with travel mugs, we left the house at 7:30am to embrace the chilly morning and head out to the farm where we go every Saturday to pick up fresh eggs, cream, milk, and other goodies like lettuce so beautiful it could be a bouquet. Full Quiver Farm is about an hour outside of Dallas in the small town of Kemp, TX...which is really not much of a town unless you count the smattering of antique shacks on the side of the road, "Hotties Tanning Salon," a Pennsylvania Dutch store, and some gas stations. But I so look forward to this mini-road trip each week, because it always teaches me more about simplicity...priorities...perspective...all things I'd like to learn more about as I celebrate another year of life.

The farm is operated by a sweet Mennonite family - a mother, Debbie, a father, Mike, and their nine children. Needless to say, with having such a large family and living off whatever they can grow on their patch of Texas land, they know a little bit about the simple life.

As soon as we pull up the gravel drive, Debbie always emerges out of her little farmhouse in her long dress, hair tied back simply in a covered bun, the wooden screen door clapping behind her. She is always full of vibrancy and joy as she talks about her family and the farm. For example, I've learned that their only reason to go to the grocery store is for salt, pepper, and oatmeal. And that they tried to go on a family vacation once, but they all couldn't wait to get back home to their farm and sit together in the pasture around a warm fire. This morning, she told me about her family's upcoming Thanksgiving feast (the same exact menu every year) and that there will be 37 guests with all her children and grandchildren. I love how I always leave the farm with more of a desire to live simply and confidently. And don't get me wrong, I love her happy chickens and their happy eggs, too.

Steven and I loaded up the coolers with all the farm-fresh goodies and headed home. We drove back holding hands with my head on his shoulder, and we talked about the cookout we're having tonight with some friends that will include the first backyard bonfire of the season. It's 45 degrees and overcast in Dallas and we're taking advantage of it. As we drove, I thought about all I had already experienced this day. What more could I want? I have everything I need.

When we returned home, the morning was still young, and I talked on the phone to my dear Suz, who sent me a book of inspirational quotes called Live Good for my birthday. I've been reading many of them over and over, but this one will not leave me:

"I am not afraid...I was born to do this."
~ Joan of Arc

There is so much more I want to say about this quote, but for now, I'll just say I've been pondering it, and it's deeply challenged me. What was I born to do? Today at 31, I feel as young as I did at 21. I feel energized when I think about the future and the days ahead. And more and more, as God shows me my purpose here, I'm shedding some of that fear. I'm more willing to live simply because it's not as scary to give things up. I'm finding that as I embrace the years, the years embrace me.

Autumn path.

For anyone who ever thought New Jersey was the "armpit of America," take a look at this...

Ken Lockwood Gorge in Clinton, NJ

Autumn steps.

We just returned from a delightful trip to enjoy autumn in the northeast. I can't wait to share more about the trip! But until then, here are a few places my feet have touched...

How I feel today...

photo by Erin Fletcher Photography

You're Invited!

If you live even remotely close to Dallas, TX, then you need to come hang out with us at "The Real Food Story" Nutrition Conference at SMU, Oct. 17th & 18th. It's completely free and open to the public, and it's being presented by (my husband's company) The Movement Dallas!

D Magazine and the Dallas Morning News are already buzzing about it! I'm so proud of Steven for all he's helping make happen, and I'm excited to see how people's lives are changed and helped through this conference.

Some of the topics that will be covered...

• losing weight and getting lean
• balancing hormones
• improving digestion
• sleep recovery strategies
• gaining energy without stimulants

I don't know a single person who wouldn't be curious about at least one of those...so I hope to see you there if you can make it!