thoughts from the deep recesses

I read an interesting article this morning that has gotten me thinking about living life with others... Asia and I have always tried to be really intentional about being real with folks... putting our faults on the alter of friendship and honestly walking through life without pretending. The truth is - we're madly in love and struggle to love each other. We adore our kids and despair for them in the same breath. We have a lovely home that has piles of junk in every corner and massive dust bunnies hiding under every bed and dresser. We give money away and we spend way too much on selfish desires. I live my life in a body that's at a healthy weight but have a constant driving desire to sabotage my health with unhealthy, temporarily satisfying, non-nutritive junk because I have an addictive issue with food. You see, what you see on the surface is not always what lies beneath. And I don't ever want to pretend that what lies beneath doesn't exist. I sneak choc...

On our usual post-church Costco run last week, Asia bought Les Miserables... I didn't think we needed it - I'm typically not a fan of owning movies... I figure if I've seen something once, I'm good. However, when we watched it that evening with the kids, I was so glad we bought it. It's just SO good. Savannah is showing it to her friends one by one, so it's playing in the background an awful lot lately. I'm good with that. We had our annual Weight Watchers staff awards luncheon last week - I was awarded the Diamond Leader award for the third year in a row... Diamond Leaders are ranked in the top 20 percent of leaders in our whole district - which includes almost all the northwestern states... I'm honored to enjoy this prestigious distinction and feel so privileged to be able to do something I love so much AND be rewarded for it in this way. I never planned to have a 'career' outside of the home - who knew I'd find something I even want to c...

Monday morning is most often spent erasing the evidence of our weekend... Fingerprints get wiped off the fridge... dog slobber cleaned from the floor around her dishes... errant socks and shoes picked up and deposited in the hamper or the shoe rack... coffee cups gathered from favorite sitting spots... laundry started. As the three little people who have spent their lives here have blossomed into full size adults, this space seems to get smaller. Sometimes the introvert in me feels a little trapped by all the bodies and stuff that go along with five full-sized bodies wandering within these walls. Five phones. Five backpacks/bags/purses. Cords, earphones, chargers, ipods, tablets, computers. Paper. Oh - the paper/mail/homework/books... Sometimes it closes in on me. It's not only the physical space that gets cramped... there is this unquantifiable expansion of ideas as well... five sets of opinions... five different ideas... five sets of values and standards... where there us...

For several years, I've embraced Lent... finding ways to challenge myself to recognize God's generosity toward me by sacrificing something significant... I've let go of Facebook and chocolate... gone vegan... This year - I decided to do a Daniel Fast . No processed food, no animal products, no leavened bread, no sugar. Basically, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes. It was the hardest dietary choice I've ever made... but I've learned over the years that preparation and planning has a significant impact on how hard or easy something like this can be... so I made a lot of soups and things I could eat ahead of time... I ate enough veggie soup to feed an army over the last 40 days. And oatmeal. Oatmeal EVERY day for breakfast. With a sliced banana and two dates cut up and sprinkled on for sweetness...  The bread thing was the hardest part... I love a good hunk o' bread - especially with my soup... So - yesterday was Easter. I started off th...