There's pigeons nesting on our saints.

I'm having one of those nights, or weekends to be more accurate, where I'm so full of absolutely everything.

just help me, i'm running out of things to say

If I speak the truth, it will become real and there is just so many things that don't need to be that way... just yet. I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go from here.

just tell me, will he love me anyway?

I want to love and indulge and live simply. SIMPLE.

lately i feel i'd rather not believe love's blind

Please, just love. Nothing else.

Morning, I have missed you.

It's been so long since I have had a morning to myself. I have missed my little basement apartment so much and today I feel her telling me the same. Dashboard's 'Dusk and Summer' came on my iPod and writing was just the natural thing to do from there.

All the details are promiently saturated today. The screen saver on my computer is a PostSecret saying "I have found the love that makes me forget." I collect secrets.

Sitting on my counter isn't the most comfortable place to sit but it's the only place to be right now. I woke up and came right here; made coffee with my milk and sugar and and called a sleepy Scott. This is how I wish every morning would start.

From my seat by the sink, I am eye-level to my little kitchen/hallway window. It's just perfect with the sun creeping sideways and around the snowbank that hinders most of the view - and by view I mean the white house with black-trimmed windows that doubles as "Vivian's Beauty Shop" frequented by walker-pushing grandmas.

On the window sill, yes - I have a window sill and I love it quite possibly more than anything else in my house - are teal tinted Ball canning jars filled with coffee beans, Friendship tea and packets of rasberry ice Crystal Light.

My black New York City frame reminds me of that gorgeous city by holding a picure of Tim and I by the NBC/ABC/CBS peakock. (I dont remember whos peakock it is.) The ring box that my 'Papa Jon & Etta Jean' ring came in quietly sits towards the front.

The rest of the sill contain the books I have started or want to start, just begging me this morning to browse their lovely pages. My Utmost for His Highest, A Year with C.S. Lewis, The Ragamuffin Gospel (my dad's copy), The Message, Captivating, The Case for Christianity, Shadow of the Almighty, Jesus Wants to Save the Christians, Passion and Purity, Sex God and a black notebook. Just typing these out makes me want to run away and read in a small, cold costal town for a few weeks.

After I got off the phone, I just sat here. And if I breathe, it feels all is ok. My stories for class will get written. My chemistry paper will too, someday. My family will be ok because I can pull it back together. I will make amends with my sister. Scott and I will be good. I will balance out my life again, the whirlwind will stop eventually. I'll be in Arizona with Lisa soon.

If I just sit here, I can see the world for how it is supposed to be. Simple. I can see that all these petty things really don't matter all that much. And if I just breathe, I can get through it all. (Not by myself, of course.)

I have missed my mornings alone. On my fridge beside the picture of me, my dad and Lindsay and the little 'I love you' note that Anna laid by my pillow one morning at the lake is a bundle of index cards. The top one reads;

"Listen to my voice in the Morning, Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait patiently." -Psalm 5:3

This is my home.

Although I look a little like a boy with the hair cut that I still resent my mom and dad for giving me and baby Lindsay looks somewhat like a wet cat - dad looks quite possibly the best I ever saw him. He is so proud of his girls, a smile he saved only for us.
And that is my house how I like to remember it. How that wall looked will always remind me of mom. That Rolodex. That cord on the phone that always twisted. Mom behind the camera. This picture is my home. It holds everything I've ever loved with every ounce of myself. Even that terrible hair cut.

I am blessed.

Lunch with Grandpa.

This afternoon grandpa was in town. We went out to eat at the Village Inn, our usual spot to catch lunch because its simple and familiar. Lunch went as usual - how was your day? how is school? what are you doing this weekend? We talked about my and Lisa's soon spring break trip to stay with them in Arizona and about the details that go along with such a trip.

What I love most, and what always seems to happen is this: Grandpa will tell me this long, elaborate joke with all the fine-tunings and every word put in, as to not leave out a single thing. At the end, he will laugh and laugh and laugh at his own joke, as if it was the funniest thing any person had ever uttered! As I sat and listened to him, I kept thinking, "This is what I'll always, always think about when I think of grandpa."

His own-joke-laughing spurts will be one of those things I tell my husband about him and my kids someday and my grandkids. Yeah, I've got a pretty awesome grandpa.

(The picture below is my grandpa during one of grandma's fashion shows that she usually has us put on. It captures the very essence of grandpa :)