idontbelieveingrammar

My news feed lately has been more political than usual. I get most of my news from Facebook or John Stewart so I rarely feel like I can jump in. But there is too much in the last week to ignore. Confederate flags coming down. Rainbow flags going up. And for the most part, people supporting those decisions. Four or five summers ago I got an email from a friend in Peru who had just had her heart broken. By a girl. And I think wanted me to make it hurt just a little bit less. Sometimes I have good words.  But this day, my words only made the wound so much worse. Her heart ached from rejection, but more than that. She thought that maybe this was god’s punishment. That she would never get to have her heart stitched back together because maybe something inside her was wrong. She asked me flat out if she would ever be able to get married. And the question was less about the law that banned it, but her faith that often made people avert their gaze when she took h...

A few weeks ago, I sat at my kitchen table with dishes piled high in the kitchen sank and we ate pizza off of paper plates and drank from mismatched wineglasses. Our kids ran in and out of yards. Drank 23 capri suns and left them laying on coffee tables and counter tops.  While the kids weren’t looking we ate ice cream straight out of the tub. Even though it wasn’t on everyone’s diet and washed it down with cheap bubbly wine. The conversation ran the gamut. From marriage to children to parents to work. To just plain silly. It was just after 5:30 on a Friday which is sacred time for me.  Time I am usually spent from my week and find myself in pjs way too early and scouring netflix. or redbox. or anything that doesn’t require thinking or pants. But this was better. Our kids found a trampoline in a nearby yard and bicycles and nerf guns. And we kept talking. Trying not to look at the clock because we all had other places we were supposed to be. We used ...

In my busiest season, we have decided to move. I have never been more stressed and my house has never been cleaner. The other day, Tess was asked what if some married couple wanted to buy our house and start a family.  I got more than a little misty and told her that was exactly who me and her dad were when we walked through those doors. When we signed our life away. It has been a weird process for me. The packing up. The moving on. The leaving things behind. I know it is time. But. Oh. My. Heart.  And let's be honest, it will just be a few miles down the road. It doesn’t help that I have been listening to Miranda Lambert’s, "The House That Built Me" on repeat for weeks now. I  know this isn't the house I grew up in, but it is in every way possible the house I have grown in. I knew things would be fast, and I honestly haven’t had much time to shop or think or do anything besides shove some winter clothes and a fondue set into the tower...

(confession - I posted this exactly three years ago and called it Losing Jesus. All of it still feels true) I think Mary got gypped. 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. "Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover.   When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to...

A friend graciously let us stay at their place in the mountains for Spring Break. My husband loves the mountains and has the facial hair and 4 wheel drive to prove it.  I love adventure.  And I like the mountains, but to be honest would pick the fruity drink in my hand and sand in between my toes. My husband is much happier when he gets to breathe in that low oxygen mountain air at least once a year.  So we headed north. The home we stayed at was literally up the mountain. Several winding, icy, muddy unpaved roads up. Not everyone’s vehicle could make it to the house. Since our car had 4 wheel drive I was often the shuttle, from their cars parked near the highway to the few miles up. Straight up.  I hardly minded, because every time I turned a corner (which was every few seconds) there was a view more majestic than the next.   I mean how could you not be impressed. The snow. The aspens. The mountains. Maybe it was the thin mountain air, but day after ...

I posted this a few year's ago on Father's Day, but today my father turns 70 and I figured it was an appropriate repost.  My father taught me many things. Some on purpose. Some on accident. How to tie a tie. How to tie a cleat hitch. How to put away a dozen raw oysters. And that you should only eat them in months that have r in them. That black dress socks pulled up to the knee with white slip on Keds is not a good look for anyone. Bellies and bald heads sun burn first. That change adds up. That nothing is free. That life is anything but fair. That Bs aren’t good enough. How to order a beer in at least a half dozen languages. The way to Eldorado. (gaily bedight this gallant knight in sunshine and in shadow.) How to pour a drink. How to throw a cowpatty. (yes, you read that correctly). How to drive a boat. How to properly taste wine, although it involves something called clucking, and I think looks ridiculous. And should never be tried with whiskey. To tip well. To never ...

A few weekends ago all four of us got bundled up, laced up our sneaks and headed to a local 5K. All of us run, well almost all of us. One of us doesn’t like to sweat. Or exert effort. Or clean her room. But the last time we left her behind she cried and said she wanted to run too, only because she hates nothing more than being left out. Race day she was nervous and took a some convincing. She started out strong and started to fade only about two minutes in. I let her take quick breaks then told her to keep running. I passed a few people we knew and felt sorry for her dramatic panting and whining and offered to let her walk with them.  I quickly declined before she grabbed on to their legs and refused to let go.  She was going to run this race wether she wanted to or not. We finished the first mile with lots of sprinting, then walking, attempts at giving up and even a short stretch with me running while she was on my back. I know that lots of people think that running is...