idontbelieveingrammar

I sat on one of my favorite couches with one of my favorite people and looked at pictures. A new mom showing off photos of her baby. We compared noses and eyes and talked about who he favored most. And it was normal and good. Just another Tuesday with a friend. A mom showing me pictures of her newborn. Except hers was stillborn. And he wasn’t just sleeping sweetly in these photos. And somehow I looked. I nodded. I agreed. And oohed and ahhed just like you do with most baby pictures. Because you can’t help it. I compared them to his sister’s newborn photos. And it was normal and okay and good. And he did look like his sister. And have amazingly sweet blond hair. And wrinkled little feet. I wasn’t pretending or trying. I meant it. I wanted to see. But later in the car. It hit me. And I shook with grief. I had to pull over more than once and gather myself together enough to get home. To stop crying long enough to see the road. And when...

On vacations and breaks it is easy for me to read a book a day. I type hundreds of them into my computer. At parties, I’m often the spewing out the most of them. the loudest. I pay attention to song lyrics. I don’t filter the ones that come out of my mouth very well. And I’m trying to get better at saying the good ones out loud. I tell my toddler to use hers all the time, rather then just hitting her brother. I tell her brother to use less of his while the teacher is talking so we stop getting bad notes sent home. I like puns. And can tear up a crossword. I’m a little out of control with the texting. I can’t write an email that isn’t at least three paragraphs long. If someone writes me nice ones I read them over and over again at least a half dozen times. If they say them outloud I try really hard to let them sink in. To believe them. I probably use twice as many in any given day than my husband. (or more). I try to be intentional with the ones I us...

Recently my son wanted to buy something that he had saved up his money for. A lava lamp. And he had the cash for it. The only problem was that most of it was in change. So he filled his pockets with about ten pounds of coinage and we headed to the store. Now, the easiest thing would be for me to put it on my debit card. With the few other items I of course needed. But I wanted him to own every bit of the process (and learn a thing or two about sales tax). So I glared at the people behind us who were muttering as my sweet guy counted out his change. All 14.99 + tax of it. And he proudly took home his new lava lamp carrying it oh so carefully to the car. Because it was his. He had bought it with his own hard earned cash. One quarter, dime and nickel at a time. I haven’t bought anything more than a cup of coffee with change in years. But in high school and college I used to do it all the time. I’d raid my dad’s change box and buy pizza. I’d gather up all the change in my cup...

I run a lot. But when people start talking races and especially race times I suddenly go quiet. Because I do not want to have to tell my times. Because they are not particularly impressive. I run a pretty steady 10-11 minute mile. Regardless of whether I am running 1 mile or 10. And actually those first 2-3 miles are the hardest and slowest. If I can push through those I can usually run for several more. I did not run track in high school. I’ve never subscribed to Runners World. And mostly I don’t even call myself a real runner because I don’t think I am fast enough. Or serious enough. Or skinny enough. When I started all this my husband told me I was “slow twitch” and until recently the longest race I could convince him to run was a 5K, because he was “fast twitch”. He tried to explain this me once, but mostly I thought it was just his nice way of telling me that I was slow – that he did not have the patience to follow me at my slower-than-a-mall-power-walker pace for more than a ...

“I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked jazz music. Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way. I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened.” Donald Miller.   Once in college a friends parents came to town to visit. Now, some parents were really great and took not only their child, but also their child’s friends out to eat. And Olive Garden was several steps up from the dorm dining hall so I hastily accepted the invitation. While gorging myself on all the salad and breadsticks I could eat, her parents made polite conversation and went around the table asking where we were from and what our majors were. Until the next question made me almost ...

I think Mary got jipped. I mean she bore the Christ child. In a freaking stable. And I’m betting that the world’s only perfect man wasn’t the perfect toddler. Being without sin, doesn’t necessarily mean that he slept through the night or never went through the terrible twos. The bible never mentions how she rocked him to sleep, or kissed his scraped knees, read him Goodnight Moon until she had it memorized, made his favorite dinner, or got up with him a billion times a night when he had an ear infection.   As a matter of fact the only thing the bible mentions of her parenting (Or anything at all of Jesus’s life from age 1-33) is the not-so-flattering story in Luke where she literally leaves him in another town. 41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind i...

I only had to take one English class in college. I was a science major and most of my professors didn’t even speak English, so I guess they didn’t see the importance of taking it. (ok, not really, mostly I just tested out of most of several undergrad classes. I only took one math class too). My one and only English class was Techincal Writing. Which is as completely as boring as it sounds. Also, my school was trying something new and innovative at the time called a “computer based class”. And my section was the lucky winner.   So I walked into my class room that suddenly looked more like the basement of our school library where we all checked our emails and printed them out on a dot matrix printer than your normal lecture hall. All it really meant was that we turned in our papers on a floppy disc rather than printing them out. I hated this class. Not because of the computers but because of the content. I was never the big grammar fan, but I do love to read and write ...

so obviously, I took this and not one of my photographer friends. but i think it is from the scissor cutting field I am writing about below, because....I do eventually get to a point :) It is spring in Texas, which means a few things. 1) It feels like summer, and we have already broken out the white trash inflatable pool and rubbed aloe vera on our first sunburns of the season. 2) I spent a good hour of my afternoon home sick, duck and covering in my hallway yesterday while a tornado tore up the neighborhood down the street. (sadly, I had a case of food poisoning so bad, I almost willingly walked out side). 3) Allergies are rampant. Stores are all out of Kleenex and Alovert and today I even considered putting a clothespin on my nose. Apparently you have to tell them your 3rd grade teacher and show four forms of identification to buy Claratin D these days. (and I assure you I can’t bake a cake – I certainly can’t make meth. Just give me the drugs already!) 4) My 1st grader's...