White Winter Hymnal

I have loved being home. As I always do, but I'm anxious to reunite with my beautiful friends.

But I will miss slow mornings and an endless supply of Christmas blend coffee. I will miss the faces of my "them." My people. The ones that are the easiest and most difficult to love. I will miss my room where each shelf covered in Madeline.


But I also miss waking up to a life with my best friends beside me and our futures in front of us. I miss Spanish speaking children that yell at 9:30am and dusty blinds. I miss my photo collages and favorite mug.

Thankful God has provided two homes that are nothing alike.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

December the twenty-fourth

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace"

-Isaiah 9:6

Thankful for my Prince of Peace who proposed I follow him to receive hope, forgiveness, love, redemption, a new set of eyes, and a redeemed heart. This Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace has brought me into a life I could never have dreamed up for myself. And that's saying something. I'm a writer.

Strayed above the highway aisle (Jagged vacance, thick with ice) And I could see for miles, miles, miles

Here’s the thing.

I want to go ice-skating in Central Park. I want the breath knocked clear out my lungs just from one look at Machu Picchu.  I want to climb on Stonehenge, even if it’s not allowed.  I want to drink black coffee in a French café.  I want my Goosebumps tingling as I stand in the middle of a field in Ireland.  I want to raft down the rapids in the Grand Canyon.  I want too many pictures. I want to walk the path to Mordoor in New Zealand.  I want to taste real Chinese food.  I want to throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain.  I want to stare out the window of a train like Anna Karenina.  I want to go cliff jumping.  I want to taste the salty air of Santorini.  I want to write about it all.  I want to learn how to waltz.  I want to check the time on Big Ben.  I want to speak French in Quebec.  I want to experience Rio.  I want to yell like mad at a world cup match.  I want to meet interesting people on airplanes.  I want to walk through fields if tulips in the Netherlands.  I want to walk through the gates of Versailles and imagine Marie Antoinette.  I don’t want to be a tourist. I want to eat pasta in Italy and love myself for it.  I want to explore Scotland’s castles. I want to dig up family history in Turkey.  I want to walk amongst the pyramids in Egypt.  I want to stand in awe of the Northern Lights.  I want to walk through Jerusalem.  I don’t want to play by the rules. I want to put a love letter in the Casa de Giulietta in Verona.  I want to take a corny picture next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  I want to discover what’s in Belgium.  I want to go on adventures!

All I want to do is move. All I want to do is move and grow and change into all the people I'm supposed to be and maybe a few that I'm not. All I want to do is explore. Explore the richest coffee and where the air is the saltiest.  To add "adventurist" to my list of character traits. To dig deeper into The Great I AM and find out my passions while doing it.

Specks of gold in the river running from the deep moonlight

“Stop seeing yourself as a list of problems. I caught myself thinking - this is when I was 34 - ‘I’ll write a book when my life begins’. I caught myself thinking this and I thought ‘What do I mean when my life begins?’ Then I realised what I meant was when I was finally properly thin and very smooth and my hair was naturally brilliant and I had a walk-in wardrobe like the one Carrie Bradshaw has in Sex and the City and my house was tidy and I’d finally gotten round to having a regular manicure and pedicure regime…I don’t know, just kind of perfect. Pretty, I guess, and kind of perfect, and everything was serene and calm. And then I started…this is the argument I’m having in my head, and the cleverer me is going ‘What the fuck are you on about? That’s never going to happen. If it was going to happen it would have happened by now. You’re 34. Your life has already begun. It began in 1975 when you were born. If you’re doing to do something, get on with it now. Stop waiting.’ I think women have this feeling of waiting - when I’ve just lost that bit of weight, then things will happen, then things will be possible. Stop seeing yourself as a list of problems, stop going ‘Everything will be fine when I’ve sorted these things out’, start enjoying your life now.”

—	Caitlin Moran

Your eyes they tie me down so hard; I'll never learn to put up a guard

So keep my love, my candle bright
Learn me hard, oh learn me right

This ain't no sham
I am what I am

Though I may speak some tongue of old
Or even spit out some holy word
I have no strength from which to speak
When you sit me down, and see I'm weak

We will run and scream
You will dance with me
They'll fulfill our dreams and we'll be free

And we will be who we are
And they'll heal our scars
Sadness will be far away

So as we walked through fields of green
Was the fairest sun I'd ever seen
And I was broke, I was on my knees
And you said yes as I said please

This ain't no sham
I am what I am
I leave no time
For a cynic's mind

We will run and scream
You will dance with me
Fulfill our dreams and we'll be free

We will be who we are
And they'll heal our scars
Sadness will be far away

Do not let my fickle flesh go to waste
As it keeps my heart and soul in its place
And I will love with urgency but not with haste

There are the days I get excited

The occasional bubbles of fantasy spill over onto my blog on occasion. There are indeed those days where you can't help but google images of your imaginary life. A life that never holds the weight of relationships missed, rainy days accompanied by bad drivers, spilled coffee all over your new pea coat, homesickness at the most inconvenient times, or stomach flu's. No, this life you google looks like the artsy cover of a travel memoir. Written neatly into several thousand words, a few hundred pages. This life is picturesque. An escape route. A happy place.

I can't stay there, though.
There is more to my dream of France than the opening three minutes of Midnight in Paris. I know this, yet do I believe it? I think I'd rather keep it there sometimes, at a distance with French music in the background. Yet I can't. I itch for more. I don't itch for the moments of adversity, but I'm done dwelling in my fears and anticipating worries that may-or-may-not be rational. I did that with my sister backpacking through Europe, and I refuse to revert back. However, that's no reason not to get a little giddy.
This life will include the following:

Writing in French cafes

Patisseries (with lots of chausson aux pommes)

French Wine
















Walks down the Champs Elysees

Impromptu trips to the Eiffel Tower

Feeling artsy in the Louvre

Evening walks along the Seine

“The glorious thing about France is that it takes no time at all to become a snob about these things. Falling deeply in love with a pastry is easy.”

—	Elizabeth Bard, Lunch in Paris

Midnight in Paris Opening