gothic elegance

This has been my project this week--to find a chandelier, paint it, afix candles, and hang it from the pergola. It's taken me days to accomplish this little list, and I am very pleased with the way it turned out. I also painted the chairs under the pergola, and N put the bench together. Can't wait for spring...we are adding a new rose garden, so I am diligently searching for the perfect hybrid teas and English roses.

getting to know you even though i already do

Loaded Questions: game gift from Suz. When asked, "Who would you want to be seated beside you if you were in a plane knew it was about to crash?" answers included: Jesus, my mother, my best friend, David. My answer? Thanks for asking. Fidel Castro. I mean, if you know you are going to crash...

BTW, Suzannah, I cannot see Danger's puppies at all in those pics. They look like a pair of black socks in your arms. I tried to comment on your blog, but it wouldn't let me. I like your poetic thoughts.

moving on

Thoughts from Christmas day:

1. I like earrings, and many people seem to notice this about me.

2. There's something off about a warm Christmas. The lights just don't twinkle the same.

3. Most people can't sleep the night before Christmas. I couldn't sleep Christmas night--stayed up reading Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and marveling at Heather's pugs.

4. I have come to understand, again, that no matter how interconnected with other people we may be, on a purely human basis, we are really quite alone and unable to completely trust anyone.

year one: celebrated

Here's the first photo from the anniversary trip to The Grand in Fairhope. It was taken right before we went to Brad & Christie's wedding...I didn't know it, but their first date was our wedding last year. So...we'll have the same anniversary. They dated longer though. N&I only dated a good 4.5 months before getting engaged and were together only 10 months before being married. Everyone warned us the first year of marriage is ADJUSTMENT HELL, but not true for us. We are closer than ever, never experiencing a real rift between us. Perhaps it's because we've had to be strong together to face everything that's happened to us. Perhaps it's because we were a little older when we married than most of our friends and didn't have ridiculous expectations. Perhaps it's because we believe we're soulmates, meant to find each other and last. In any case, I'm glad it is not a rule the first year is full of fighting and getting used to one another.

Merry Christmas

with love from Buttercup

my brother in law

Okay...so I really have not written anything much about my brother-in-law here. A lot of my friends and even my family don't know him, so I thought I'd share some key thoughts. Usually, when I mention Nathan, I know he doesn't read my blog so I can write anything I please. Now Matt (aforementioned brother-in-law) reads my blog at times, but I still feel free to pen whatever. He's like that--able to handle whatever anyone says and knows himself pretty well.

The basics: he's the youngest (currently 26), lives in LA, likes to ski and make people laugh, is pursuing acting (the only program I've caught him in is a soap opera...I haven't seen the other film or tv work that he has done). Oh I did see a potential Match.com commercial he shot. His profile is on imdb.com, and he's good looking like the rest of his fam. Of course, there's much more to the concrete details of his life. But this is all you're getting from me.

How we match up as relatives: I probably have the most in common with him in terms of his whole family. We're both goofy and like to have fun and try not to take everything so seriously. We also share that history of competitive gymnastics. But then...there are the guns. His guns, of course. The kind that shoot sweet, innocent, beautiful deer and make them bleed.

What I really like about him: The fact that he is sooo fun and silly but can read people pretty well. He's in tune with the moments that need to be fun and alert to moments that call for serious conversation. He's actually a very good conversationalist...logical, well-rounded, and insightful. He doesn't hold fast to any belief because he was taught it; rather he's good about trying things on for size and then figuring out what he thinks about them.

What I suspect about him: I think he probably lies in bed at night and talks in funny voices or does impersonations. However, I've never slept in close proximity to him, so what do I know.

The sister-in-law pressure: Yes, I put it often on this CA bachelor. After all, my kids will be spending time with them every summer and holiday. And, I think it would be fun to have a sister-in-law who fits into the Wallace equation the same way that I do. Of course, once a wife enters the picture, we'll never again have classic Christmas moments such as the "You can do it in the microwave with your bed buddy" moment of 2005.

Matt's great, and I love him. Because I love him, I invite you to share your favorite Matt moment or memory...there have go to be some out there even better than the bed buddy...

my new cousin (Laurel's Lilliana)

Fall in the Garden

Even though it's fall and we've had some wintery days, there's still a lot blooming in our garden. Nathan plays on a men's serious, blood-drawing/ bone-breaking soccer team on Sunday afternoons (no joke, he had to have x-rays for his foot two weeks ago after he nailed a guy in the shins). Sometimes I go; sometimes I stay home. Today, I ate lunch in the backyard and took some photos of what's blooming and of Buttercup, who kept running up to the camera lens and sneezing on it. Here they are: our fall garden.

(creeping up to sneeze)


(achoo)


(lunch!)


(hibiscus)


(daisy)



(fragrant cloud)


(camilia)

(oranges and lemons)


(cabbage & lettuce: these are new to the garden)

Not long ago, I heard from my friend Marla. She and I pleasantly endured the rigors of grad school. The kind words she emailed me made me miss her and my friends and reminisce about those days...and I thought about...

How there is so VERY, VERY little to say about Tuman, yet we always talked about him

The struggle not to call our college students "kids"

The chianti, the pesto pizza from DePalmas, and the sleepovers ruled by Claire Danes and My So Called Life

Co-teachers, co-teachers, co-teachers...whose was having lesbian affair, what Heather's wore to class today, and how mine would lie about grammar and literature to a full class with no hestitation ("enjambment is a modern convention")

Our "offices" in Manly Hall, Center for Women's Studies and site of the future movie Bats, Cats, and Rats (when someone finally gets around to writing a screenplay for it)

Sentence combining worksheets...particularly the one about the people who dress up as mermaids in Florida...can't get it out of my head

The crime tape surrounding the office of the woman who illegally sold desk copies over the Internet

Kamikaze squirrels who'd throw themselves into generators once a month, cutting off the power in out loverly blue-painted classrooms overlooking the Quad

The Globe, the 15th Street Diner, Swen, and all those other places I'd frequent but can't name at the moment (although the thought of their food draws unsolicited drool)

Defense week...the nausea...the celebrating...Aristotle's "special" number

Tying bows on Heather's wedding shower invitations

The shelter and priviledge studying literature afforded, juxtaposed with the reality of the Twin Towers tragedy followed by Lisa's husband going to Iraq

Sleeping with a hammer for months after reading Red Dragon for Monster class

The photo of Marla and David and the canoe (present) at their wedding reception

Everyone exercising GRRRREAT restraint when Logan said "Irregardless" in class

The meeting with Rand where he told me that there were more painful ways to lose one's virginity than understanding that Shakespeare was a great religious poet

Well, these are some of my favorites...and as Mike Shula has so recently emphasized, it's good thing our time is limited at the U of A, else posts would be so much longer.

i love you THIS MUCH

this week

I have been a casket. I have had a dead person inside me.

I have been an inconvenience to almost everyone I know.

I have cried with vacant eyes and pale lips and without regard to who was around.

I lost a liter of blood. That seems about right for a broken heart.

I have felt anger, confusion, grief, and guilt.

I have not known how to cross the chasm between hurt and heal. But I have wanted to.

impoverished

There's a power in poverty that breaks principalities
And brings the authorities down to their knees
There's a brewing frustration, an ageless temptation
To fight for control by some manipulation

But the God of the kingdoms and the God of the Nations
The God of creation sends His revelation
Through the homeless and penniless Jesus the Son
The poor will inherit the Kingdom to come

Where will we turn when our world falls apart
And all of the treasures we've stored in our barns
Can't buy the Kingdom of God?
Who will we praise when we've praised all our lives
Men who build kingdoms and men who build fame
What will we fear when all that remains
Is God on His throne, with a child in His arms,
and love in His eyes
And the sound of His heart cries
(jason upton)

preface to braking

It's been a while since I've posted, but I've managed to get so caught up in life that I haven't taken the time to catch my thoughts on paper. Tonight, I feel like they were caught for me.

I can't sleep. I keep thinking I need to get more rest, but then I can't sleep. Over the past few weeks I have had an overwhelming desire to slow life down...I always seem to volunteer for everything, never saying no. Most of my friends have this problem as well. We live for activity and variety, energetic anti-boredom crusaders. I don't even like the word crusaders.

I want to spend more time with my husband...to really listen to him, not just to say what we need to in order to accomplish that day's tasks. I want to make a tent in my living room and hide out for a couple months. I want to be held upside down over little purple flowers until I laugh so hard I can't breathe...

just to
be
joy suspended
waiting
on
high air
breathing in
the moment
the arc
the swing
at zenith

Metallic Crunch

wow...two and a half years, and i am finally out of staples.

The Theology of Kurtis

Recently a friend of mine posted on an encounter he had with a man named Kurtis. You can find the full story here, but the gist of it is that Mike met a man who asked if he had cigarettes. Although Mike had none, he offered to buy the man some and then sat down and told him about Jesus.

Now, I imagine that had I heard this story years ago, I would have been shocked and quite offended. This past week, I decided I had been at least four very different people since I turned 16. The earliest of which was a rather religious, self-righteous girl. I grew up attending a Christian school that consistently preached the "evil sin" of smoking (and everything else). My initial self-righteous reaction to Mike's ministry (and I DO think this was ministry) would have been negative and condeming of Mike's actions. Who I am today (and I thank God He is changing me) realizes what Mike's heart and conscience and spirit and life were screaming: KNOWING JESUS is more important than discouraging smoking. If Kurtis finds God, the addiction can be kicked spiritually (which is much more effective than the patch).

I want my actions to loudly proclaim that knowing Jesus is more important than anything else. Change follows Christ, and He makes all things new. If I am not condemning or self-righteous, He can use me like He's using Mike to reach people who need Him most. He didn't come for the well but for the sick.

Don't aggrandize what I am saying. I'm not advocating a "let's buy cigarettes and pass them out with tracks printed on the packaging." I'm saying let's minister in a way that demonstrates the love of God. What happened to believing in the words of that old hymn that say "Come just as you are."

friends and promises

my girls

The best solution to summer boredom is a little trip up to Memphis, city of the only tigers I truly love, weird men in ditches, barbeque, and the Coplons! (Some of the most fabulous people I know). N and I drove up there for Apryl's wedding and to spend what Sarah counted out to be 30-something hours with my fave family-away-from-family. Some highlights:

This weekend, God said something funny to me, and we both laughed. It was cool.

To understand Plath's "terrible fish"...

a girl can see a lot in a dark computer screen
other dark things aren't so illuminating
but my computer screen is darkness highlighting darkness

blue eyes stare squarely into the black shape
gray eyes swimming above deep dark circles
stare back

i never knew they were there
the dark circles under my eyes
nor did I realize they are so asymmetrical

Dear me

pre·cious (adj.)
1. Of high cost or worth; valuable.
2. Highly esteemed; cherished.
3. Dear; beloved.
4. Affectedly dainty or overrefined.

I've been thinking this week about being precious to the Lord.

Often God communicates that to us: "You are precious to Me." Sometimes, our response is to look down at ourselves and yelp, "Yikes! I am precious! And we understand the term in its "affectedly dainty" interpretation which leads us to panic, "I could break so easily!" Fragile though humanity is, this is not the aspect of precious on which we are to concentrate, I think. Rather, because we are preciously valuable to Him, he holds us in a place of protection--as we who are created in His image, also give places of protection to those things that are valuable to us.

Ms. Wallace, Congratulations! It's a baby-girl-bunny!

I haven't posted updated photos of the garden latey. Perhaps, that is because I have become one of those obssessive pet owners who thinks their bunny actually shares their DNA. Perhaps. I'll post some broader photos later. For now, here are some rose close-ups. I am really lovin' the oranges and lemon right now.

I have a whole list of friends who...if I met today...I don't think I'd be friends with.

There's a vitality and energy to people that causes them to evolve and revolve and dissolve and reemerge (the snowflake melts and becomes the water that is the life that feeds the flower). Not all people reemerge as flowers.

In all fairness, I've definitely had moments where I lost myself. But as moments pass to years, my list seems to have such little hope.

Closing my eyes I see all these memories, meaningful conversations, real progress towards becoming truly alive and joyful, yet social security numbers are mostly all that has stayed the same about them. Once they were people I loved very much, and now there's no common ground.

One youth group girl asked me the other day if our imperfect attempt to be godly was all there was to Christianity. But I think that's all there is to humanity. The constant, hopeless struggle that never produces solid fruit. Relationship with God, however, is designed to be perfect, but as long as humanity holds onto us in the form of mortality, it will always cause some problems.

I've been pretty lonely for the kind of close friends I once had--people who really saw into me and invested their love in my life. I want to start a new list with some promising names on it. Names that won't feed the losses column.

Midsouth Love

Apryl is my bff from undergraduate.

She's getting married in Memphis in 11 days.

Her registry includes packages of toilet paper.

It is one of the reasons we will always be friends.

Cold Feet vs. Wet Feet

(the following is from Lance Lambert, June 2006)
There are two stories of storms in Matthew. In one, the Lord stopped the storm from the confines of the boat after the disciples panic and wake Him up. In the second, another storm comes up, and He walks on the water. But through the storm, the disciples observe His figure and think perhaps it is a ghost. Peter, however, thinks it might be the Lord, so he calls out, "Is it You, Jesus?" Jesus says, "Yes." And Peter says, "If it's You, tell me to come." And Jesus says to him, "Come." And the amazing thing is Peter climbed out of the boat and walked on the water. Now he'd never been to Bible school or read a book on the four steps to walking on water. But He saw the Lord, heard the Lord, obeyed the Lord, and he did the impossible.

If we are to be ready for the coming of the Lord, what is the most important experience we need to have? It is not the stopping of the storm (although that reveals the majesty of the Lord Jesus, the power of the Lord Jesus, and the soverign authority of the Lord Jesus). Wonderful it is, but it doesn't help us if we lose the boat and find ourselves in stormy seas. There are days of evil and times of darkness when the Lord doesn't step in. Then what? It is a tremendous lesson the Lord taught Peter; he did the impossible. He walked on a stormy sea. I say that's the greatest lesson anyone can learn to be ready for the coming of the Lord--when the boat is gone and the storm is rolling around, walk on water with the Lord.

sister's day of birth: celebrated

a lovely lake on which we floated

the birthday sprite

a friend of jen's...we like her...

all smiles

Electrifying Entertainment

Buttercup's new playhouse...more holes to hide in

"How can you blame me for what I do when I am this cute?!"

peeking

Call (us all) Icarus

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

Enlightenment is violent. I am jolted by the glimpse of how evil this world is and how one's moment of evil and another's moment of joy can coexist in the same fraction of a second. As I push my around what's left of my salad with this fork, someone divorces...is aborted...dies in war...loses hope, and (we) are powerless to stop it.

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

i can simply hope that evil's course departs from mine...that they bend away and don't meet again. but that is the hope of the naive. evil bends back according to its design. but thank God, no matter when evil comes, there is still good life ahead. there is always the promise of new life.

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

i have been both overlooker and the overlooked. but then again, haven't we all.

(lines in italics from W. H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts")

visual acrobatics

Pity
says mama on the late night lake stroll
Pity true
says she

People used to talk all nice-like and hope for good and now in the name of protectin' close-as-kin they talk real nice and roll their eyes right over hope

Pity, hope is
some say it ain't there no more
Pity
how they roll their eyes right over it

a portrait of my day

I love my husband.
I love my family.
I love my friends.






(Nathan gave me the bunny, Sarah painted the amazing eyes picture from my favorite movie [Series of Unfortunate Events] and all the fam gave me the new camera).

Farewell to the "6" in 26

Holding back a year-end rumination is always rather a challenge for me. I tend towards evaluation, but quickly step back into denial or ignoring those things I don't want to or can't correct yet.

Since I'm dropping the 6 and adding the 7 this year, I figured I ought to glow with anticipation. Afterall, 7 is a significant number with significantly positive connotations. So, here are my 7 hopes for this year:

1. A deeper conviction of God's desire to work in me and through me
2. To pray for people and see them healed and delivered
3. To be a better friend and to allow my friends to be more of a comfort to me
4. More exercise and energy and no more remnants of weakness from mono
5. Greater consideration of Nathan's needs
6. Tenure (in May)
7. That loose-ended things from 6 be placed on a strong foundation in 7

Wednesday Night Supper Club

I am so glad that, AFTER A WHOLE YEAR, Wednesday night dinners have returned...
It's good to be among friends again.

Wednesday Night Dinner RULES:

1. Hysterical laughter and superfluous mockery are required
2. Harrassing and/ or accidentally frightening the server is not uncommon
3. Stay far removed from Eric's sweet tea; it will probably drown someone's food before the night is over
4. Beware the sour cream
5. Girls are solidly in the group; guys can be voted out at random
6. Food variety is required, even if you eat at different Mexican places for three weeks straight but not if you opt to eat at Mama Rosas. Mama Rosas is always acceptable.
7. When blessing the food, always remember to thank God for such good friends and such good things as Wednesday nights.

on Taking the Long Way

Children lose their youth too soon
Watching war made us immune
And I've got all the world to lose
But I just want to hold on to the

Easy silence that you make for me
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me



I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round

....................................

My sister and I were talking this weekend about this new Dixie Chicks cd. We were raised in a significantly anti-war (immediate) family with strong views on human rights, political positions, and the way we are humans first and then Americans second (rather than vice versa). In our own ways, we are both activists for the causes we believe in and hopeful that God's love can solve any human problem better than any potential human solution.

I know that from a biblical standpoint, war can be justified (Eccl.) and war can be undermined. I simply (or perhaps complex-ly) feel that God gave his own life rather than let us suffer eternal death and that he said our real battle is not against men, but against demonic presences. Are there serious situations in the world that need changing? So many I can think of... Are there better ways than war? I side with Love.

Unfortunately, many people who stand passionately against the act of war are considered anti-Bush (or whoever the President may be at the time), anti-American, and anti-military. Some are; some aren't. I believe President Bush is a Christian and a praying man and am thankful for that, but I don't agree with his decisions.

Our parents' generation seemed much more passionate and full of human concern than we do. They protested. They actually had opinions. Most of my students don't even know which side of Vietnam we attacked, nor do they watch the current news and develop thoughtful, caring opinions about life and humanity. They'd rather watch SNL and Laguna Beach or hang out with friends. Youth have always been the ones with the vision, hope, and energy to call for change. I'd like to see more passion about belief in American youth.

Although Natalies crones she's "mad as hell," I guess I am left feeling "sad at hell" for all this bloodshed, worldwide.

riches

So, yeah, a cool thing happened.

Last night (Saturday), N & I went to River Nile for some soup and to hear Hannah Miller sing and play. Our server, Ryan, has just begun coming to the college prayer meetings at our house on Thursday nights. As we ate, Nathan felt impressed by the Lord to ask Ryan about his fundraising for his mission trip to Africa this summer. Ryan, a little discouraged, looked down and mentioned that he did not get all the money that he needed for the trip. When he walked away, N & I both felt that we should give him money towards his trip. I opened my purse, tore out a check, and N asked me how much I felt we should give. I gave a number I thought was really more than we could afford, but I felt like I was giving all I could (after all, I am on summer pay and Nathan has no job for the moment). And Nathan said that he felt we should give him double that. I trust Nathan, but my eyes probably grew very wide, as we wrote that check and slipped it to Ryan as we were leaving.

Miraculously, the Lord gave us great peace, and neither of us really thought about that money later that night. In fact, we didn't remember until today in church (approximately 15 hours after we gave Ryan the money) when a woman neither of us knew or had ever seen came up to us and said, "The Lord told me to give this to you."

And it was a check. For the exact amount we had given Ryan.

How awesome are His ways...so much higher than ours and how special that He would allow us to be a part of blessing Ryan. It's His goodness and extravagance...the kind that causes Him to plant beautiful flowers on the tallest, most dangerous mountain peaks, even when there is no one there to appreciate the beauty. Beauty for beauty's sake. Goodness for goodness' sake.

Wednesday we'll say goodbye. And I will miss them.

It's been a while since I have posted something thoughtful. I admit; that's bothered me considerably.

Lately (as a result) I've been thinking about thoughts and thought processes and thoughtfulness. And I've observed how postmodern society (or at least the fraction of it that surrounds me) seems to lack a general consideration for people. It is about action, immediacy, and self-advancement or appearance. Even acts done in the name of caring about other people often have a limited thought-time behind them.

Introspectively, I've come to see how often my own thoughts--even about other people--are egocentric. I place them in relationship to how a word or reaction affects me OR what I gain by influencing that person. I don't want to be that way. I want to carefully think through how each word and action affects the people around me. I have been suffering too much at the words of people spoken carelessly and thoughtlessly lately to align myself with the malignancy of thoughtlessness.

Philippians 2:3 encourages:
Don't be selfish; don't live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself.

I wonder if Summer's blogs have formed a support group for annhilated genius somewhere out there in the land of data that once was.

There's this girl named Summer.

She deletes.

Lately, I have enjoyed watching storms.

This particular storm was nifty. On the right side of these photos, you can see a funnel clous beginning to form, which later caused a rather amazing water spout. Sky meets sea.

A few days ago, Nathan and I laid in the hammock watching some serious lightning that lit the black night sky for an hour before following with a torrent of rain and hail. Somehow, it is easier to see the beauty of an actual storm than those that are metaphorical.

My vacation week starts today. I don't really have plans, but I am looking forward to it. Then, summer semester begins again. Maybe it will bring a sense of freshness with it. Like the rain tends to do.