waiting

"God's waiting and man's," wrote the nineteenth-century British minister Alexander MacLaren, in a reflection on Isaiah 30:18.  How "bold and beautiful, that He and we should be represented as sharing the same attitude."  Here, then, is something of the mystery of incarnation: God's being like us is not limited to God's taking on feet and hands and hair.  God is like us in this posture of pause and expectancy and anticipation and longing and wondering where we are.  And so Advent is not only about our waiting for God, waiting for God to get born, waiting for God to come back.  It is also a time when we enter God's waiting, God's divine waiting.  And perhaps that is where the meaning of waiting gleams the most brightly of all.

--Lauren F. Winner, in the forward for The Meaning is in the Waiting, by Paula Gooder

writing

"Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cute out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them; saw his book plain before him and it vanished; acted his people's parts as he ate; mouthed them as he walked; now cried; now laughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroic and pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then the fields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world."

-- Orlando, by Virginia Woolf

because

"I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say."

- Flannery O'Connor

(One of my sisters posted this quote here in January.)

carry a book

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.” 

― Stephen King

two motives

“There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”

― Bertrand Russell

in the bookstore

“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?” 

― Henry Ward Beecher

common, everyday blessings

via MamaDweeb

(Laura Ingalls Wilder)

dreams

via MamaDweeb

(Laura Ingalls Wilder)

found: inspiration

Sometimes, when I have a minute, I click around on the internet and search for inspiration.  Sometimes "inspiration" is a fun new recipe, sometimes it's someone's personal blog, and sometimes it's just pinterest.  Whatever the inspiration, it's nice to know there are others out there who want things similar to what I want, and who write about them. It's very encouraging.

I've been pondering life directions, recently.  I decided as my New Year's Resolution this year that 2014 was going to be the Year of Positive Life Changes.  The first Positive Life Change actually occurred in 2013: we moved from a studio apartment to a one bedroom in November.  In January, we bought a car and I started graduate school. In February, we got a puppy.

I've been dreaming.  I've been dreaming of a small-ish house with lots of outdoor space, chickens in the back yard and kids chasing them around.  I've been dreaming of flowers and tomato plants and laundry on the line and hand-ground coffee.

Some of those things won't happen right now.  At least, not that way.  We're in a one bedroom apartment just outside a major city.  I'm in grad school and working.  Husband works in the evenings. We have a puppy who is pretty high maintenance (and I'm pretty sure she knows it.)

In browsing through some blogs and other forms of "inspiration," I came across this post.  Jill writes about having some of the same longings and accomplishing some of the same things I want to do.  She has some land and some chickens and some kids and a beautiful blog.

via

Anyway, I just thought someone else out there might be looking for a small moment of inspiration.  This was mine this week. I'm happy where I'm at.  I love the people and animals around me. I love our little apartment that I took time to paint and decorate and make cozy.  I love being in school and I enjoy my job (most of the time.)  But, I also love working toward a dream.

wild books, homeless books

“Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.” 

― Virginia Woolf

puppy!

I realized this week that I hadn't shared one of the biggest pieces of news in our little family!  We got a puppy!

Her name is Scout.  Here are a few pictures of her.

The first week we got her. 

Two weeks ago. Happy about being allowed to take a stick inside.

Exploring in the snow last week. 

She's now 4 months old, and a sweetheart.  She bites everything (teething) and will definitely let you know if she wants you to pay more attention to her.  But, she's completely adorable and loves to explore.  She's even loved all the snow we've gotten in the mid-atlantic area, recently.

(Apologies for the photo quality -- taken with my phone! She moves too quickly to let me try and use a nicer camera.)

Happy Tuesday!

dining well

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” 

― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

from scratch magazine

Have you guys ever heard of From Scratch Magazine?

It's a delightful online magazine with everything about homesteading and raising chickens and doing small diy projects around the home.  This month, they have a piece on heirloom vegetables, among other things.

Check it out! I think you'll like it.

a time for home

“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” 

― Edith Sitwell

a continuation

The cold weather continues here.  But, no matter.  It's an excellent excuse to drink hot chocolate any time I like.

The picture is another view from our little patio. In the summer, our patio will be a nice place to sit and enjoy the breeze.  For now, though, the breeze is waaaayy too chilly to be just lolling about outside.  I'll loll inside, thank you very much.

Things are pretty busy for me these days.  I haven't gotten much done in the way of crafts or home projects or cooking.  Sorry for being relatively boring. I have done a few things, though.  I just haven't had a chance to photograph them or put together posts.  Soon, I promise!

Stay warm, and drink an extra hot chocolate for me!

in the face

“A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.”

-- The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

snow

View from our patio

Snow! It snowed here in the DC area on Tuesday. Lots of snow. I think our particular area outside of DC got somewhere around 3-4 inches.

Does anyone else love snow as much as I do?

The way I see it, if we're going to have super cold weather and walk around all bundled up and risk getting windburn on our faces (wind is serious here), then we might as well have something pretty to look at.  If you don't get snow, then all you have is cold weather and dead trees.  With snow, plants get a white winter suit and not everything appears dead and brown.

It's still freezing here.  Yesterday, the high was 15 degrees.  Yes, 15.  It's a little unusual for this area.  The news has been calling the weather patterns things like "Polar Vortex" and "trifecta of winter weather anomalies," whatever that means.  I heard some older people grumbling about the days when weather like this "was just called a cold snap," spoken with a distinct amount of contempt for the news weatherpeople.

Stay warm!

beowulf

"Just don't take any class where you  have to read BEOWULF."

-- Woody Allen

blessings

In November, we left our old neighborhood and headed out to the 'burbs.  This was the last picture I took of our old neighborhood, Woodley Park.  DC can be a pretty place!

As we start the new year, I'm feeling grateful for all the positive life changes happening around me; remembering beautiful places and happy times cramped in tiny apartments; hoping the new year brings even more happy changes and new life events.

Wishing joy to you out there and hoping contentment fills your inside spaces.

(Please excuse the poor quality of the photo.  Taken with my phone.)

seeing new things and people

"Putting down words on paper is a very dull substitute for seeing new things and people. [...] The real meaning of "You can write anywhere" is that you can choose a place where you're going to like to be and do your writing there after you've exhausted its other possibilities.  Your original choice is free."

-- We Took to the Woods, Louise Dickinson Rich

on love and marriage

"Because love is not something to wait for or hope for or look for -- it's something to do. Do not measure your marriage by how much love you feel today, measure it by how much love you've offered today. When you don't feel love, do love. Feelings follow doing, not the other way around. Lasting, true love is not about being swept off your feet. Sometimes love is just sweeping the kitchen and being grateful that there is a kitchen and a partner who is contractually obligated to share it with you forever."

-- Glennon Melton, in this post about "happy-ish ever after"

winter

"After I grew up, I still hated [winter], and I think that now I know the reason why.  In civilization we try to combat winter.  We try to modify it so that we can continue to live the same sort of life that we live in the summer.  We plow the sidewalks so we can wear low shoes, and the roads so we can use cars.  We heat every enclosed space and then, inadequately clad, dash quickly from one little pocket of hot air through a bitter no-man's land of cold to another.  We fool around with sun lamps, trying to convince our skins that it is really August, and we eat travel-worn spinach in an attempt to sell the same idea to our stomachs.  Naturally, it doesn't work very well.  You can neither remodel nor ignore a thing as big as winter."

-- We Took to the Woods, Louise Dickinson Rich