My 2010 reading list...

Two books down in 2010 - so far, so good...

Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculée Ilibagiza
What broke my heart the most about this book is that the Rwandan genocide happened in 1994 when I was a junior in high school, and I knew nothing about it at the time.  Across the world, in modern times, innocent people were being slaughtered with machetes, and half of an entire country was murdered.  It sounds like something barbaric that happened in Medieval times, not in our lifetime.  Immaculée's story will break your heart, make you smile, make you cry, and help you believe that there is redemption in even the vilest of circumstances.  This book physically made me ill at times, but I couldn't stop turning the pages.

A Mother's Heart: A Look at Values, Vision, and Character for the Christian Mother by Jean Fleming
I'm so glad I read this before I actually had any children. It has encouraged me so much in the role I'm about to step into - its importance and beauty and the inevitable struggles that await me. But Jean Fleming does SUCH a wonderful job citing Scriptures and applying them to motherhood and gives great examples from raising her own children. My favorite chapter was "Roots and Wings" when she describes lots of creative ideas you can use with your own children to inspire them at home...more I'm so glad I read this before I actually had any children. It has encouraged me greatly in my soon-to-be role as mother - its importance and beauty and the inevitable struggles that will come.  My favorite chapter was "Roots and Wings" where the author describes lots of creative ideas you can use with your own children to inspire them at home and then encourage them to go out and contribute positively to the world.

Here are more books on my 2010 reading list...

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road  by Donald Miller

The House on Nauset Marsh: A Cape Cod Memoir, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition by Wyman Richardson
I'm about halfway through this from my first attempt last year.  It's so different that any other book I've read - it's a man's account of his days living in a cabin in Cape Cod.  Very slow-moving but that's also what's great about it...

What difference do it make? - Stories of Hope and Healing by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile by Rob Bell

Grace [Eventually]: Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
You know how much I love Anne Lamott.  This book that she wrote after Traveling Mercies and Plan B has gotten some negative reviews, but I'm going into it with no expectations.  We'll see.

Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life by Donald Miller

Flies on the Butter by Denise Hildreth

Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan

Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg

These Strange Ashes by Elisabeth Elliot
There's nothing I've read by Elisabeth Elliot that hasn't challenge me to the core.

Muslims, Christians, and Jesus: Gaining Understanding and Building Relationships by Carl Medearis

Have you read any of these?  What books would you add?  Would love to hear!

My Year of Reading and Writing: 2009 recap.

In January 2009, we committed to a year of no television, canceling our DISH Network and stocking up on books, books, and more books.  My goal was to read twenty-two books from cover to cover, and, well, I only read fifteen.  I could have read more, but I'm proud to say that when I read, I soaked up every word.  As a result, some of the books I read this past year really changed my life.

One of the greatest things that has come of this is that we have no desire to hook up our TV service again.  All we watch are DVDs occasionally, and even then, it's a planned time rather than just brainlessly surfing through the channels.  I like how quiet our house is and that I have no idea what products are being promoted on the latest commercials.

I don't have as much to show for my writing, but I do still believe I worked on my writing this past year.  Becoming a better reader has been crucial to becoming a better writer.  I've learned to be more descriptive - to "show" rather than to "tell."  Something is holding me back from going full-force, though - perhaps my own fear or laziness, I don't know.  Writing is such a slow process for me.  And right now, that's just going to have to be okay.

In 2009, I learned that books are so much more than paper pages bound with glue.  My friend Lori refers to them as "books that are like friends," and I think that's a great description.  I have some books that actually give me a peaceful feeling when I pick them up in my hands.  They are portals into another's world - or even my own world - and tools that help me slow down and pursue the simple life.

Part of the experience is remembering the settings where I read each book: cozying up one afternoon in the peak of Texas summer, reading the winter chapters in See You In A Hundred Years, or sitting cross-legged and waiting for my mom on a bench at the Albuquerque airport with my nose buried in Bird By Bird, barely aware of anyone else around me.  I had an incredible book in my hands, clean mountain air in my lungs, and the anticipation of a weekend exploring in Colorado.  I took the time to swallow the words, let them to seep into my bones.

So here is my 2009 reading list along with a few selected quotes.  I hope you'll find some books to add to your list.  And please share yours as well!

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
"I'm not interested in the insurance industry.  I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate.  I don't want to hear it anymore.  I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances.  I just want God.  I want God inside me.  I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water." (p. 176)

Almost every female I know read this book in 2009, and their opinions are as varied as the three countries featured in this book. Some hated Eat Pray Love and wanted to throw it against the wall.  Some loved it and were glued to each page.   And others, like me, put it down in frustration about ten times but ended up picking it up again.  Ultimately, I'm so glad I stuck it out.  What made this book difficult for me was, honestly, that Elizabeth Gilbert's perspective on life and faith could not have been more opposite than mine.  That is also why I'm glad I read it, though.  I thought I'd had enough by the India section, when it felt like Ms. Gilbert had tipped the New Age mysticism scales.  It makes me sad that she constantly rationalizes where she can find freedom, but ultimately it's not in places, people or things.  She begins to commune with God but stops short of the true picture of grace which, I believe, is found in Christ alone.  But I forged on through and found some absolutely beautiful writings - my favorite being the brilliant pair of poems she shares at the culmination of her time at the ashram in India.

Dancing Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
Have you seen You've Got Mail?  This is one of the "Shoes" books referenced by Meg Ryan's character, Kathleen Kelly, at the end of the movie when she visits the big bad Fox Books Superstore. My dear friend Suz gave this to me for a birthday gift, and it was absolutely charming!  You'll fall in love with the all-girl English dance troupe - Mrs. Wintle's Little Wonders - and the witty characters Rachel, Hillary, and even awful Dulcie. Great, light read.  I've got to read the rest of the "Shoes" books now!

Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer
I don't agree with everything about Joyce Meyer, but one of the things I love about her is how plainly she communicates so that anyone can understand.  This book describes the war that is being waged in our minds, where negative thoughts can lead to all kinds of negative behaviors, like worrying for example.  She explains very simply and practically how to conquer those thoughts with good, pure ones that lead us down paths of hope and healing.  I know from personal experience that what she says is true.


Savannah by the Sea: Book 3 in the Savannah Series by Denise Hildreth
This is book three in a series about a girl named Savannah from Savannah, GA.  I read the first two in 2008, and this third book was mostly set in Seaside, FL, where I've visited about a million times.  But it was also full of Christian clichés.  I guess I kept coming back to these books because I love Savannah, GA, and I loved the character of Savannah's mother, Vicki.


Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together by Ron Hall and Denver Moore
I cried through the entire second half of this book, finally finishing it at about 2am with my husband sound asleep beside me.  Set in Dallas, the very city where I live, this true story was very real to me and stretched my faith and perspective on the homeless.  You will fall in love with Denver Moore, too.


Girl Meets God: A Memoir by Lauren F. Winner
A life-changer.  I borrowed it from Mary but simply must get my own copy soon.   Lauren was raised Jewish in the South, and this is her journey of learning about Christ and converting from Judaism to come to faith in Him.  She says the Incarnation of Christ is what eventually captured her.  Through this book, I learned so much more about the beauty of Judaism, and it made my faith come alive as I saw the love story painted from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
"There are pictures of the people in my family where we look like the most awkward and desperate folk you ever saw, poster children for the human condition.  But I like that, when who we are shows.  Everything is usually so masked or perfumed or disguised in the world, and it's so touching when you get to see something real and human.  I think that's why most of us stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or dull - because when people have seen you at your worst, you don't have to put on the mask as much.  And that gives us license to try on that radical hat of liberation, the hat of self-acceptance." (p. 215) - just one of the bazillion quotes I loved in this book

I laughed with Anne, I cried with Anne, I wanted to be her best friend and friends with all of her best friends.  Her candid writing makes you trust her.  You can tell her faith is real, and it has been tested and tried by difficulty: divorce, death of close people in her life, single parenthood.  She can write a one-liner that will stick with you for days.  To me, this book feels like cool sun and a warm fire - where I read it on Easter weekend by the pool and realized I definitely wanted to be a mother - not for the fantasy of it, but for the real nitty-gritty of it.  I'll always remember this book for that gift.  And I'll probably read it ten more times in my life.

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott 
I actually read this before Traveling Mercies, and it was my introduction to Anne Lamott.  A bit on the political side, but it still has Anne's captivating and hilarious stories that will make you want to read everything she ever wrote.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
"So many of us can be soothed by writing: think of how many times you have opened a book, read one line, and said, 'Yes!'  And I want to give people that feeling too, of connection, communion...
It is one of the greatest feelings known to humans, the feeling of being the host, of hosting people, of being the person to whom they come for food and drink and company.  This is what the writer has to offer." (p. 204)

This is required reading for any writer or anyone who wants to become a writer - not just for publication purposes but even just for your own private enjoyment - to write your memoir, your stories.  I was sad when I finished it, because I knew that even if I read it again, nothing would be the same as the first time.  Anne makes it sound like writing can be one of the most sacred gifts you can give someone.  And after reading this, I believe it.


Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality  by Donald Miller
"When you live on your own for a long time, however, your personality changes because you go so much into yourself you lose the ability to be social, to understand what is and isn't normal behavior. There is an entire world inside yourself, and if you let yourself, you can get so deep inside it you will forget the way to the surface. Other people keep our souls alive, just like food and water does with our body."

I was a latecomer aboard the Donald Miller train, but this book disarmed me.  It reminded me why I need people, that I'm not very good at hanging out with people who are different than me, and that I have simply got to visit the Pacific Northwest.  Soon.


The Unlikely Lavender Queen: A Memoir of Unexpected Blossoming by Jeannie Ralston
A fascinating memoir by an interesting lady who reluctantly leaves her high-profile Manhattan life to become a lavender farmer with her husband in the Texas Hill Country.  You can taste Jeannie's struggle as she deals with the feelings of leaving behind a life she loved for a new life she's not sure she'll be able to love.  It's a wonderful ending, and I hope to visit Hill Country Lavender one day to see the farm that she describes so vividly in the book. 

See You in a Hundred Years:Discover One Young Family's Search for a Simpler Life . . . Four Seasons of Living in the Year 1900 by Logan Ward
Another book about a Manhattan family who leaves the city for the simple life.  This book was fascinating - the Ward family - mom, dad, toddler - decides to live for one year in rural Virginia as if they are in the year 1900.  With no bathroom, only a horse and buggy for transportation, and a garden where they have to grow all of their food, it's a page-turner from start to finish.  I read this in the middle of the summer but felt I was right there with them in the dead cold of a rural mountain winter as they struggled to find heat and food.

Serve God, Save the Planet: A Christian Call to Action by J. Matthew Sleeth
I already shared my thoughts about this book.  Great practical advice on how to be better stewards of the planet.  As a Christian, I believe it's one of my greatest duties and privileges, to care for the creation that God cares about, that He made.

Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby's First Foods by Nina Planck
I believe that ultimately, fertility is up to God, but we are also given the tools to help build a healthy baby by feeding our bodies the best way possible in preparation for hosting a human life.  Nina is basically the poster mom for raw milk and has quite an in-your-face writing style, so be prepared.   But the book has lots of great practical advice, including clear reasoning behind her nutrition advice and explanations of why each nutrient is critically important.  I read this before I got pregnant, and I'm currently doing great in my second trimester drinking raw milk and eating real foods like grass-fed beef, pastured chicken, nuts, and fresh cheeses.  And no, contrary to the advice of many traditional dietitians, I do not have high cholesterol.


Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging by Brennan Manning
Ah, the "Imposter."  Brennan describes the poser living inside each of us and contrasts that against our true identity as God's Beloved.   Just beautiful.

Would love to hear about some of your favorite books of 2009!

Serve God, Save the Planet.

"Some people, in order to discover God, read books.  But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things.  Look above you!  Look below you!  Read it.  God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink.  Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He has made.  Can you ask for a louder voice than that?"  

~ St. Augustine

As I was just sitting outside on the sunny front steps reading this St. Augustine quote, one of the largest and loveliest butterflies I have ever seen flitted into view, practically skimming the tip of my nose.  It was yellow and black with "tails" coming off its wings - a Tiger Swallowtail, apparently.  Beautiful.  How about that, loud voice of God?

As part of my Year of Reading and Writing, I just completed the book Serve God, Save the Planet by J. Matthew Sleeth, MD.   It's prompted me to think more about my role as a believer in God and how I am responsible for taking care of creation.  While I don't agree with every single thing Sleeth said or really adore his writing style, there were a lot of useful and truthful tidbits within its pages.

Lately, it's making more and more sense to me that if I love God {which I do}, then I should love all the things God loves. He created water and sky and ground and vegetation and animals, and of course, human beings, who seem to be the most difficult to love. {I don't see anything about houseflies, though, which is good.}

While the whole "green movement" may be popular right now, it doesn't seem to be as popular among Christians, which is baffling to me.  If we believe God created all these things, shouldn't we be the first ones to step out, to protect the earth, to consume less of these precious resources?

Some say, "Why should I care about the earth?  It's all gonna burn one day."  But that statement really gets under my skin.  I don't know exactly what's going to happen in the "end times" or if we're even living in the "end times" right now.  Regardless, when God created in Genesis 1, it was a blessing.   And it was meant for the provision and enjoyment of humankind.  How can we find grounds to abuse it?

gazania in my back yard

There is the whole "dominion" issue in Genesis 1:28, which some use as an excuse to abuse God's creation, or at the very least, just not care less about it: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." {ESV}

The author explains, "'Dominion' comes from a Hebrew term meaning 'higher on the root of a plant.'  Dominion does not mean ownership or even unrestricted use.  Implied in our dominion is our dependency on everything under us.  Cut the root out from under a plant and the fruit above it will perish, despite its superior position."

We have a dependency on creation, too.  

I especially love this in Genesis 2...

"And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.  And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." (Genesis 2:8)

Others say, "Those people are treehuggers.  It's not right to worship nature."   Why, if you care about the environment, are you accused of being a worshiper of nature?  As the author Dr. Sleeth puts it, "The problem today is not one of nature worship; instead it is the worship of all things made by human beings."  I couldn't agree more.  Or be more guilty.  

That's why I'm making some changes around here.   If I really believe this, what should be my response?  Contributing and savoring and enjoying more.  Consuming less.   God is not responsible for man's destruction of the natural world.  I am responsible for my part.

So here are some things we've already changed in the Bailey household:

• Sold 1 car, so we're now a 1-car family.
• Ride my bike to my friends' houses nearby rather than drive {besides, it's a necessity when my husband has the car all day!}
• Do more outdoor, free activities with friends, such as taking a walk or going to the park.
• Turned off the "heated dry" option on the dishwasher, and only use the dishwasher when we have a ton of dishes or when things are really dirty.  Hand wash as much as possible.
• Shower less - hee hee.
• Keep the air on the highest {summer} or lowest {winter} setting possible and use fans.
• Use non-toxic cleaning supplies so I'm not putting chemicals in the ground water. {You can pretty much clean anything with baking soda, white vinegar, and orange or tea tree oil.}
• Buy as much food as possible from local farms, including produce, meat, and dairy - and only farms that use sustainable practices and no harmful chemicals, pesticides, hormones, etc.
• Unplug appliances when we're not using them {could be better about this}.
• Use candles for light at night, or only have a dim light on in the room we're using.
• Only occasionally watch TV.
• Shop more at thrift stores or on other peoples' curbs.
• Skoy!   For only $5.99, I bought 4 of these cloths made from natural cotton and wood pulp.  Just one cloth replaces 15 rolls of paper towels!!!  And you can wash them and use them over and over.  
• Recycle and compost everything possible!

Things we're working on changing/haven't been good about changing yet:

• Thinking about switching to a clothesline when it's nice outside instead of the dryer.
• Not using heat this winter?  Use electric space heaters as much as possible.
• Turn off automatic ice maker in fridge.  Did you know it pretty much runs all the time whether or not it's making ice?
• Find a viable alternative for Ziploc bags.  It's just so hard to store lettuce or marinate meats without them.  
• Lots more I'm not thinking of right now.  I'd love your ideas if you have them!  And maybe my list will inspire you too.  

"God is not identified with the world, for He made it; but God is not separated from His world, either.  For He made it."   

~ Joseph Sittler

As I type this, I look outside my office window and see that the world echoes His name. Every blade of grass is covered in the golden light of dusk.  I think about the layers of a hollyhock bud, the symmetry of daisy petals, the sky around 7:05 in the morning or 6:30 each night in the fall, the peak of a mountain in Colorado...if you can even see that high.  It's everywhere.  If we do not notice it, we are failing to know a distinct piece of God's nature, or day I say, God Himself.  I don't want to lose that, do you?

hollyhock in las mochas, new mexico

What to do with darkness?

Do you ever find yourself in a period of darkness?  Your soul feels heavy, but you cannot pinpoint the reason.  All seems to be well on the outside...

For once, I am pondering darkness when I actually don't feel like I'm in a season of darkness.  I've felt light lately.  Encouraged.  Joyful. Free.

I've really been enjoying the book Clinging: The Experience of Prayer by Emilie Griffin that Tara Leigh lent me.  And it's the chapter on "Darkness" that's been most helpful to read when I don't feel like I'm in a dark place right now.   It's one experience to reach for help when your mind is clouded and desperate.  It's quite another to read it from a place of peace, more in preparation and protection for what might come. I'm not being negative to believe that the darkness will come again.  It's a part of life.

"I remember clearly (and any day it might come again) the terrible reluctance to start praying on the chance that the first thing I would find is a wall.  And the wall, I knew, would not be a wall at which I was to stop, but one I was expected to walk through.


And when one asks the Lord in prayer about the wall, asking Him to take the wall away, the answer is simply that the wall exists in order for us to walk through it.


But the remarkable thing is that we do.  We walk into and through the wall in a way that is beyond comprehension.  This impossible thing that is quite beyond us and that we nevertheless are able to do shows us both an inevitability and an incomprehensible overturning of the systematic order of things.  It's the what-we-can't-do-under-any-circumstances that is nevertheless to be done.


Darkness comes to deepen our prayer and to strengthen us.  But God does this not all at once and not by seeming to.  This experience is different from any other, akin to pain but not like pain because it has no sharp edges.  It is the bleakness of grief without any object of grief.  No one has died, nothing is lost to us, except perhaps a vision we once had and were clinging to, instead of God himself." ~ Clinging: The Experience of Prayer, pp. 36-37


What do you think of this?

I'm puttering through this book at a snail's pace, because I keep coming across paragraphs, sentences, or phrases that halt me, like the one above.  I could think for days on a portion of a single page, such as, "the wall exists in order for us to walk through it."  Those are the best kinds of books, aren't they?   I'll keep plowing through it...

Peaceful morning.

I am learning how to pray again. Thank you to Tara Leigh for the book recommendation...

"But the best reason to pray is that God is really there. In praying, our unbelief gradually starts to melt. God moves smack into the middle of even an ordinary day. He is no longer someone we theorize about. He is someone we want to be near."

~ Clinging: The Experience of Prayer
by Emilie Griffin

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Cold Tangerines Winners!

It was so inspiring to read all of your comments to the Cold Tangerines book giveaway! Each of our worlds are so different, but we can learn so much from each other and inspire one another, as we learn to better embrace everyday life!

I used random.org to generate the 5 winners, and here they are!

#11 - Lauren
#17 - Kelly
#18 - Linda
#23 - The Morginskys
#26 - Shawna

If you know me personally, you know how to email me your mailing address. If you don't know me, just send it to dream[at]dreammore[dot]com.

Hooray!

Cold Tangerines. (book giveaway!)

"But this is what I'm finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I'm waiting for, for that adventure, that movie-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets - this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience."
~ Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist

I've returned home from glorious Colorado, but before I start gushing about the beauty of the mountains, I wanted to share some reflections on a book that has become very dear to me: Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist. I've mentioned it here before, how the book was an inspiration to finally start writing my own stories more, to be brave with my writing, and to be brave with my relationships.

Cold Tangerines is about celebrating everyday life as it occurs in individuals: individual moments, and individual people. It's about real, honest, gritty struggles that inevitably happen and how we reconcile them and deal with them in the light of courage and hope.

A review by Shane Claiborne says, "This is a book you can taste," and that is a great description, because as you read, you can taste the risotto simmering in Shauna's kitchen. You can taste her joy after being awakened from busyness by a striking red tree in Michigan's autumn. You can taste the longing she feels as she recounts summer family vacations and friends' babies being born and birthdays being celebrated.

One of the chapters that most resonated with me when I first read it last year, and even now as I type this, is the one entitled "On Waiting." Because aren't we all waiting for something? It seems that my pinball-machine-mind is always in a state of "what comes next" - What is our schedule for tomorrow? Where are the next three places I'm traveling? Five years from now, will we get to have that charming old farmhouse nestled in the trees? How much longer will my parents live?

And we all do it - we all wonder. But the crisis is when you live like you're waiting for life to happen, while life is actually happening right now.

"I believe that this way of living, this focus on the present, the daily, the tangible, this intense concentration not on the news headlines but on the flowers growing in your own garden, the children growing in your own home, this way of living has the potential to open up the heavens, to yield a glittering handful of diamonds where a second ago there was coal. This way of living and noticing and building and crafting can crack through the movie sets and soundtracks that keep us waiting for our own life stories to begin, and set us free to observe the lives we have been creating all along without even realizing it."
~ Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist

Most days, I don't get it right. The few days before I left for Colorado, I'm ashamed to say the only words that could describe me were frazzled, stressed, irritable. My poor husband had the intensely painful shingles and needed my time and care, our teething puppy was chewing everything in sight, and I was on my fiftieth load of laundry while staying on top of a demanding 8-hour work day. The phone rang again, and I almost burst into tears, and that is when I knew I needed to stop.

So I pulled my hair back to the nape of my neck and went into the backyard where I hadn’t stepped in days, unless you count the beeline to the driveway to let Greta and Heidi in and out of the dog run. While I was inside feeling sorry for myself, in the meantime this entire wondrous thing was happening out there: new life was sprouting and growing before my very eyes, and I hadn’t noticed it. Our first tiny okra had made an appearance. A pear-shaped tomato was becoming golden on the vine. Orange wildflowers had opened their buds while I was inside stressing over loads of laundry and packing and my sick husband and my schedule and my to-do list.

I knelt down, pulled up some stray shoots of grass, watered the squash. I leaned close to the basil and inhaled deeply. I tore off some leaves the size of my palm and remembered that fresh basil is one of the best scents in the entire world. And then I went back inside and apologized to my husband for not loving him well, for not being thankful that I have this house, this life right now, these people with whom I get to walk through life. And then I thought about my caring mother and how many hours she has put into planning this trip for the two of us to see the beauty of the mountains together in Colorado, and how I had been so short with her on the phone. And I got choked up a little. Because once again, I had missed it.

Yet, the undeserved gift is that life keeps pointing me in that direction, even when I stray so far away. A message on my tea bag. A bottle of wine brought by a friend and shared over dinner. A chance to hold a baby and notice that her smile is changing everyday.


So, here's to life's best moments. I don't want to breeze through them anymore. This "pedestrian life" is the best thing I've got, and I'm not going to miss it.

* * *

AND NOW FOR THE BOOK GIVEAWAY...

Shauna Niequist has kindly sent me 5 autographed copies of Cold Tangerines to give away to my blog readers! If you'd like to win a copy of the book, post a comment below, and include at least one way you celebrate everyday life. This Friday, June 26th, I'll choose 5 winners from a random drawing.

Reading and writing: 2009 so far.

A few evenings ago, I stood at the stove holding a spatula, tossing around a beef stir-fry without even looking at the pan. Why? Because in the other hand, I was holding a book about two inches from my face, reading it so intently that my lips silently formed each word.

Then, I burned the poor garlic, and that is when I knew: I have officially become a reader. Not just one who reads books from time to time, but one who devours books and views them as treasures, who won't let certain ones out of her sight, and who has allowed the love of books to infuse her entire being.

More evidence of this fact: I returned from the airport on my way home from Nashville. As I began to unpack my luggage, there was a moment of sheer panic. Where was my copy of Bird By Bird? It wasn't in my backpack, and it wasn't in the bedroom. What would I do if I couldn't find it? I didn't want to replace it. I didn't want just any copy of the book. I wanted my copy, the one I had victoriously uncovered after a scavenger hunt-like search at the used book store, with the yellowing dog-eared pages and the bug splat on page 32. And then I found it - it was there, under that stack of mail on the coffee table. Phew. These are the types of neuroses you find yourself dealing with, once you have become a bona fide reader.

Yes, I've learned a lot about myself over the past five months of this Year of Reading and Writing, ever since we said goodbye to TV and sent the DISH box away with the mailman. As the unfortunate stir-fry episode indicates, I find myself wanting to read morning, noon, and night. I wake up early, make breakfast, brew a French press of Enfusia, and read. Pull up a chair by the vegetable garden on my lunch break, and read {and get a suntan}. Read after work until dinnertime, and sometimes read before bed until sleepy eyes just won’t read anymore.

Today, it’s sublimely sunny with a perfect periwinkle sky and the quiet hum of summer coming soon. My bronzed shoulders are a testament to the many hours I have spent reading outside recently while sitting in the iron patio chair that has been dragged to the back of the yard so I can observe the vegetable beds over the edges of my book pages. This exact spot is where I made it to the last page of my 9th book of the year, Blue Like Jazz, another memoir. Although I like to think that my reading interests are eclectic, I've noticed I keep gravitating back to memoirs. I am more than inclined towards them; I am fascinated with the details of other people’s lives. And not as a means of escape, because so far, I cannot say that I would really want any of their lives as my own. But I find a little bit of myself in Anne Lamott, Donald Miller, Sue Monk Kidd. And then I discover other worlds I’ve never explored, perspectives I’ve never seen.

Book #10 is Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, the one I feared had been left on the airplane. In the intro, she says that writing teaches you to pay attention. “Writing motivates you to look closely at life, as it lurches by and tramps around.” And I would say the same about reading…because reading other people’s details makes me notice my life details more fully now, like the azure tint of the sky through my kitchen window at precisely 7:02pm every night. Or the way the spring wind rustles through grass like an invisible hairbrush – back and forth, back and forth.

As for the writing, well, it's a slow process. I do desperately want to write a book about my own life’s details, to tell my stories. But I find that there are so many stories, so many details, so many memories to revisit. Anne Lamott says that the writers she knows “all ended up just the tiniest bit resentful when we found the one fly in the ointment: that at some point we had to actually sit down and write.” At this point, all I have is a handful of incredibly disjointed "chapters" that end abruptly in the middle of a thought, such as "and I loved it" and "we were a little family." These are what Anne Lamott calls “sh*tty first drafts,” and I love her for it.

The writing has been therapeutic though, and more than anything I know I’m working on my writing by all the reading I’m doing. To be a good writer, you must first be a good reader – I firmly believe this.

Another revelation? Taking time to read and write has plunged me deeper into a life of simplicity. I say “plunged” because that’s how it felt – one Saturday afternoon I was happily curled up on the couch watching Giada At Home, and the next moment the TV was quiet and dark and useless except for viewing The West Wing episodes on DVD.

But then, a beautiful thing happened. My thoughts began to change. I started to be more content with my own life. I started to feel a pleasant naïveté with pop culture, not wanting to be bothered by the latest ads or another product that I somehow needed. Ads just annoy me now, to be honest. The more I've eliminated extra stuff, the more I just don't want them in my life anymore. Instead of watching shows about people cooking, I’m cooking more {even though I sometimes burn the garlic}. Instead of watching shows about fake relationships and dramas, I’m a part of my own, real-life relationships more. I realize how much I used TV to escape, to disengage with my own life. Reading and writing helps me to re-engage with my own life, rather than escape from it.

On Good Friday, we went to a friend's backyard pool in an opulently wealthy part of Dallas where shade trees are 100 years old, and sparkles of light are cast through their branches onto expansive bi-weekly manicured lawns. The pool was a natural deep blue, with flagstones surrounding it so it felt kind of like a natural swimming hole carved out of a mountain. I dipped my toes in the water and then reclined on a small strip of flagstone until I was nestled between the ornamental grass landscaping and the edge of the pool. The late afternoon sun shone on my face, forcing new freckles to pop out across my nose. In that spot, I finished Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies and knew that the book had changed me forever. Toward the end, Lamott reminisces about her own mother as she looks over old photographs from her imperfect childhood. And something was sparked deep in my soul at that moment, so much that I had to pause, and put the book face-down on my chest. I surprised myself when I said aloud, "I know for sure now that I want to be a mother" - right there, on Good Friday, laying on my back on the flagstone of someone else's back yard.

That is the power that books have, to stir those places that are somehow buried or unseeable. That is why I'm a reader, and that is why I will be a writer some day.

"Thank you, and keep going."

"To all the secret writers, late-night painters, would-be singers, lapsed and scared artists of every stripe, dig out your paintbrush, or your flute, or your dancing shoes. Pull out your camera or your computer or your pottery wheel. Today, tonight, after the kids are in bed or when your homework is done, or instead of one more video game or magazine, create something, anything.

Pick up a needle and thread, and stitch together something particular and honest and beautiful, because we need it. I need it.

Thank you, and keep going."

~ Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines page 230

Why I need people.

The Year of Reading and Writing is going well, {more details to come soon} and I'm currently reading my 9th book in 2009: Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. Yes, I know...I'm probably the last person in the world to read it, but I'm actually glad I didn't jump on the Donald Miller bandwagon five years ago with everyone else. If I'd read it then, it certainly would have felt more radical and revolutionary, as my thoughts and beliefs align more closely now with Don's. But now, the timing is just perfect. It's speaking exactly to where I am right now. It's giving order to some of my tangled thoughts that I've had trouble putting into words.

Blue Like Jazz is reminding me how much I need community, how much I need people. I'm so introverted {an INFJ, the rarest of the personality types...oh dear...} that I can even border on reclusive at times. I know I need a lot of alone time to refuel, but I also realize that being reclusive = not good. We were created to be with people. God shows Himself through people. We can never truly be successful...or happy...living a life of complete isolation.

So this part of chapter 14 meant a great deal to me...

"I am something of a recluse by nature. I am that cordless screwdriver that has to charge for twenty hours to earn ten minutes use. I need that much downtime. I am a terrible daydreamer. I have been since I was a boy. My mind goes walking and playing and skipping. I invent characters, write stories, pretend I'm a rock star, pretend I am a legendary poet, pretend I am an astronaut, and there is no control to my mind.

When you live on your own for a long time, however, your personality changes because you go so much into yourself you lose the ability to be social, to understand what is and isn't normal behavior. There is an entire world inside yourself, and if you let yourself, you can get so deep inside it you will forget the way to the surface. Other people keep our souls alive, just like food and water does with our body." - Blue Like Jazz page 152

"There is an entire world inside yourself..." That is exactly how I have felt for so long, yet it's a feeling that's been incommunicable to me. It's why I can become frustrated when my idealized world is not realized; it's why I can become frustrated with people who are too practical.

It feels like my soul is being stifled to harness that imaginative part of me. I say "harness" because I don't think it should ever be completely cut off, but I do hope to find more balance. Creativity and imagination are what make me an artist; they are what make my outpourings unique from others. But I must never allow these gifts to be misused as an excuse to not allow others into my world, or to not take time and emotional energy to pour into other people.

See...this is why I read. There is nothing like finding inspiration in another person's story... and then knowing that somehow, in some way, it was written just for you.