I want one for a pet

I’m sure half of you have already seen this video, but it gives me the giggles every time.

Charlie!!!

This is the best thing EVER! 

happy weekend

First off, happy birthday to my “little” brother Kevo, turning the big 25 tomorrow.  (Here’s to lower insurance rates, kiddo!  Here’s to being a true adult!)

Justin is sitting next to me playing Oregon Trail on facebook.  Everyone’s getting cholera.  And someone just stole 60 bullets.

My dear friend Jules is in Europe right now (for three weeks!).  I decided on a closer adventure.  On Tuesday, Justin and I went and finally got our tattoos.  It was fun, albeit a little painful — though I was expecting worse.  I was thinking searing pain, and it was more like little bee stings.

I’ll be 28 in a few months, still, I was nervous to tell Mom.  I’m horrible at keeping secrets from her, though, so I called her on the way home to get it over with.  She said “I don’t like you anymore.  And I don’t like that husband of yours, either.  He’s not my favorite son-in-law anymore.”  And then she giggled.  For several minutes.  Justin: “Tell your mom that no matter how many tats she gets, she’ll always be my favorite mother-in-law.”

She called later on that evening: “Does it hurt?  I hope so.”

We’re thinking about getting her a gift certificate to a local parlor.

Here’s the design we got, based on something I made for Justin for his 26th birthday (our first birthdays celebrated together).  We still laugh at how sheepish he felt at getting this framed handmade gift.  He had bought me a Strongbad T-shirt. 

(This was right after the tattoo was finished, it will lighten up as it heals.  Also… could I have more freckles?).

Talking to our good friend Levi, he asked where we’d gotten them at.  Justin’s is on his shoulder, and mine is on my back.  “Oh…” he said, “where at on your back?”

I began laughing, realizing he was tactfully trying to suss out whether I’d gotten a tramp stamp, also known as a lower-back tattoo.  I set his fears at ease and let him know it was up on my shoulderblade, but had a good laugh at him all the same.

We have paper-writing to get to today, but we’re going to take it easy this morning, grab some coffee, head downtown to the Bagelry for some warm bagels (the kind with the huge granules of salt, like on a pretzel!  Yum!). 

Two more weeks… and then some sunshine in LA.  We’re coming, Chris!  (That is, unless you die of dysentery first).

In other (much funnier) news, this:

hooray for being old(er)!

Hi all.  Nothing too earthshattering in the paragraphs that follow.  Just some random happinesses.

I turned 27 yesterday!  ACK!  That sounds SO strange.  I don’t feel 27…  Justin is giving me lots of crap about being so old… so wise… and robbing the cradle, but he had better live it up since he’ll be joining me here into the old-fogie land also known as being 27+ on Friday.

I’m not too worried about being older.  I’ve loved each year more than the last; have felt more comfortable and at peace in my skin than the year before.  And people at work thought I was turning 22 or 23, so that’s something.  A testament either to the fact that I look young, or that I’m horribly immature.  I choose to take it as the former.

It was a beautiful day, a record-breaker of 80-plus sunshine.  I left work, listened to happy birthday phone messages, opened my mail (thanks for the card, Mom & Dad; thanks for the lovely necklace from Maui, Jules!), and went out to eat some good Chinese food with J.  I missed the dear friends who would have usually celebrated with us, but as they are all far away loved ones, I felt the love long-distance and looked forward to visits in the days to come.

I received a journal and the newest Anne Lamott as birthday gifts from my dear husband.  It’s no Strong-Bad T-shirt, but I loved this gift and the thought that went into it.  I had seen the journal at B & N months ago, and had loved it, but — just like many things, had forgotten all about it once it was out of sight.  Justin remembered.    And, I hadn’t planned on getting the Anne Lamott book for a while, so it was a brilliant surprise.  An online review said that her book is more an extension of past work than anything new, but said that avid fans, who would line up to buy her grocery list, would enjoy it. 

I’m one of those avid fans who would line up to buy her grocery list, so that works out well for me.

The journal — this perfect journal! – has three sections in it: Books I Want to Read, Favorite Books & Passages, and Books I’ve Lent/Books I’ve Borrowed.  I’ve already spent about two hours writing down all the books I’ve read, and all the books I own but have yet to read.  I look forward to filling it in as the years go on.  The added bonus is that I respond well to anything resembling a check-off list, and was inspired to actually finish My Name Is Asher Lev before jumping head-first into my new Lamott book.

It was a great day to celebrate and to remember how much I’ve been blessed this past year.  God has been good.

(And in a few days, we’ll get to celebrate Justin’s oldness).

we got hitched!

I’m Mrs. Lawlis!

We got married on Saturday November 11th, and it was so much fun.  We’re now up in Whistler, B.C. and enjoying the snow and our little condo for the week.  My husband is the best.

Photos and full update to come once I’m not out of minutes at the internet cafe!

Be well and blessed. 

Real. Simple.

So here I am, finally settled in the little blue house.  (If I were talking with you rather than typing, you’d hear an unmistakeable depth of affection and tenderness in my voice when I say it: little blue house.  I’m not sure it’s right to have this degree of emotional attachment to 525 square feet… but regardless — I am in love).

This is no palace: the ten-second tour of my house (er, cottage) takes literally ten seconds.  It has what I like to call “quirks,” such as slightly rusty water for the first two seconds I run water in the tub, and floors that slope a bit in places.  I’ve become quite adept at killing spiders, who lamentably love the house as much as I do (although, if I ever have a man around, my paralyzing fear will make an inexplicable reappearance and I’ll never have to squash one of the little devils ever again).  My brother has to duck in doorways; if I stand on my tip-toes all 5′6″ of me can touch the ceiling with ease.  There is a good 35-40 degree temperature range in my place at all times — somewhere around 50 when the heat’s off, somewhere around 90 when the baseboard heat is on.  (I appreciate my sheepskin slippers more than ever, especially first thing in the morning).

The little blue house’s beauty far outweighs its many “quirks,” however, and such trivialities are soon forgotten.  A collective seventy years of charm makes itself known in dark hardwood floors in the bedroom, a huge porcelain tub special-made for bubble baths, a desk nook, prismed glass doorknobs, and old-fashioned light fixtures — the kind made to look like candles on the wall.  My tiny lawn takes about fifteen minutes to mow, but to mow it makes me feel handy and self-sufficient nonetheless, and the rosebush I freed from weeds my first weekend here is now heavy with hot-pink blooms in gratitude.

There are no screaming neighbors downstairs; no thump-thump-I-have-something-to-prove car stereos out in the parking lot causing my too-thin walls to shudder.  Best of all, there is no longer a motorcycle directly outside my window coughing and sputtering in ten vain attempts to start at 5 a.m., when I typically am trying to squeeze the last few precious moments of sleep out of my night, already interrupted by the aforementioned car stereo around 2 am…  Here, the only sounds that reach my ears are the whoosh of cars driving by, the light hum of my refrigerator, and the second hand on the clock above my stove, the combination of which lull me to sleep more than anything.

The peace I feel simply in existing here extends far beyond an absence of noise, however.  The moment I walk through the front door at the end of a long day, I’m surrounded by my favorite things.  (One could argue that I’m surrounded by the things I love merely as a result of how teeny my place is, but I’ll leave them to it).  My dearly treasured, full-to-overflowing bookshelf is the first thing I see when I open the door.  Bebhinn, my guitar, sits over in the corner.  Pictures of those I love smile at me from the walls, in case it’s been five minutes since I’ve seen them (my family lives the next street over).  There are way more candles around than my landlord would probably want to know about.  Add to this my well-worn, comfortable couch and The Reading Chair, and I have to be honest, I really wouldn’t ask for more.  (Not even cable).

This morning I realized, with a start, that I actually have the life I wanted.  There’s more to be lived, for sure, but for right now, seriously — does it get any better than this?  The simplicity of friends I love, a job I like and a home I enjoy?  Perhaps I wasn’t always aware that I wanted it.  Perhaps it was obscured by feeling like I needed a ring on a certain finger of my left hand to have the life I wanted, or that it wouldn’t really begin until that point… perhaps it was hidden by thinking that my life needed to be bigger and more important somehow; that I didn’t really exist unless I existed on some grandiose scale.

All I know is, I used to keep my life so full-to-the-brim with frenetic busyness and activity and always running from here to there that I lost myself — there was no room for what makes a life (or, at least my life) satisfyingly full: time to think.  Time to breathe.  Time to create.  Time to read the beautiful story of the good news, alone and with people who seem as amazed by it as I am.  Time to have the girls over for pizza and a glass of wine after work.  Time to play piano for as long as my heart wants to sing (today).  Time to sit on the beach and try to catch that split-second glimpse of a fish jumping as the sun goes down (last night).

My life is finally simple enough to do those things I kept telling my heart would be better off pursued some other day, because I couldn’t find the time to schedule it in.  It may not always be this simple, this focused, but for now it is, and I love this near-silence, this peace.  It’s easier to hear God in it.  To search for him in it.  To see him in it. 

This is no Plan B, but rather one of the sweetest gifts I’ve ever received.

A smile plays on my lips as I think to myself that I might be setting myself up for lifelong spinsterhood in this little blue house.  Would I trade the little blue house and my ability to sleep undisturbed, sprawled out diagonally across my queen-size bed, for all the complications and hassles of a man?

Nope. 

At least not now, anyway.  Me and the little blue house are contractually bound to at least a year together. 

…And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else.  Where you are right now is God’s place for you.  Live and obey and love and believe right there. 

–from the Message, 1 Corinthians 7                     

thought for the day

You really can’t beat a blind date where you end up sitting row 1, seat 1, section 119 (behind first base) at Safeco Field.  It was RAD.

Especially given that on the way into the Safe, he said we were going to be in the nosebleed section, and I declared that I didn’t care, I was just happy to be at the game.  (Points for me). 

Happy Tuesday, everybody. 

peter can always be counted on…

oh, and THIS made me laugh today.

happy birthday, homer simpson

Homer Simpson’s birthday is today.  We Tauruses are pretty impressive.

“Bart, with $10,000, we’d be millionaires!  We could buy all kinds of useful things, like… love!”

“I’m not normally a religious man, but if you’re up there, save me, Superman!”

“Oh, everything’s too damned expensive these days. This bible cost 15 bucks! And talk about a preachy book! Everybody’s a sinner! Except this guy.”

“I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think it was called, “The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down.”

“It [YVAN EHT NIOJ] doesn’t mean anything!  It’s like ‘ramalamadingdong’ or ‘give peace a chance!’”

You’re welcome.

Coming soon: MOVIE QUOTES QUIZ: The Return.