"are you happy?"

I stood on the slanted, uneven floor in the doorway of my stepfather's mom's house.  Grandma Gaye is in her nineties now and still lives alone, in a tiny yellow cottage in what was once a hard part of town.  She cherishes her independence, but willingly gave away her truck keys when she knew it was time to stop driving.  She raised seven children (including surprise twins as the last two) and now she cares for the many cats of East Lawrence.

She doesn't hear that well anymore, and we hadn't come for a long visit anyhow.  We were just stopping by after a day at the municipal pool and public library of my youth.  My kids were hot and tired and wanted to touch her many knick-knacks.  Vicki kept finding "treasures" and trying to convince Gaye to let her take them home (this girl has taught me the meaning of "don't ask, don't get").  I was starting to get anxious to get back onto 40 Highway - the long way to Topeka for the evening, but the way without turnpike tolls.  I just didn't feel like spending $1.40 to take the interstate.  I had stopped working for the year and knew that every penny counted.  That $1.40 could buy a bomb-pop at our corner store back in East Nashville.

My tolerance for chatting was low, and I made ready to make our exit.  In the doorway, Gaye grabbed me gently by the upper arm and looked me right in the eyes.  She is quite short, so this meant she was gazing up at me.

"Are you happy?"

The question came out just like Gaye:  straightforward and simple and unveiled.

I was a bit caught off guard by it.  I knitted my eyebrows for a moment, then said, "Sure.  I'm not having the very happiest time of my life, but it's not like I'm miserable.  I sleep like a baby, in any case."

"Okay," she answered, "just as long as you're happy.  That's the most important thing."

No follow-up questions.  No deeper thrust to the conversation. That was all she had wanted to know.  She wasn't trying to make any kind of other point about my life or her opinion of it.

We piled into the car and the kids were asleep before we got to the highway. I continued to ponder her question until we pulled up to the curb in front of Charlie and Leslie's house.  In fact, I continued to ponder it throughout the rest of our trip, and even after we came home.

At each stop along our road trip (and there were seven more homes that welcomed us after Gaye), I told the story of her question and made the same simple query.  Over late-night beers after the kids went to sleep, or Mexican food, or as we sat together on patios and porches, the things I heard amazed me.  It was a question that really cut through the fog and got to the heart of things.

"I'm happy, I guess.  But I'm stressed.  I'm trying to provide for my family, and that means I'm always thinking about the next thing that we want or need.  I don't really have time to think about whether I'm happy."

"I'm not sure that happiness is even the point.  Mom always used to say that the point of life wasn't to be happy.  It was to be useful and survive."

"I don't know when we will feel happy again."

"I'm really happy in my work.  But in the rest of my life . . . I'm not sure."

"I can't even tell you the last time someone asked me that question.  I have no idea."

"I am happy, because I have figured out how to take life on life's terms."

Most people I asked were like me - they hadn't considered the question in so long that they had to really turn it over in their minds for awhile.

I started my 200-hour yoga teacher training a few weeks ago, and on our first night of class, my teacher Liz made a statement that has ricocheted around my mind since then.  She said, "Mental health isn't just being happy all the time.  It's about having the complete depth and experience of all the feelings."  So many of us seem to be searching for happiness, but is it really something else that we're looking for, and we don't know what other name to call it?  Depth, contentment, acceptance, purpose, an end to suffering?

As for me?  I'm really happy right now.  This is a sweet season in my life.  Taking the hallway time has been a really good decision, I think.  The days seem to float by lightly, strung together with a golden strand of friends over for dinner and walking Vicki to school and picking flowers in the alleyway.  But I'm realizing that the goal isn't to make this last forever.  The goal is to learn what needs to be learned from this time, to take what lessons it has for me, and to keep moving forward.  I won't always be this happy, and that's okay.

dearly beloved

One of the sweetest privileges of the life of a clergyperson is being invited into people's lives at their critical moments.  At the birth of a child, at a deathbed, at a major surgery.  And at weddings!  Particularly being a young clergywoman, it's fun that I have been able to marry many of my friends.  I have now done weddings in Kansas, Tennessee, New York, Texas, Arkansas, and Indiana.  I have had to become familiar with how each state licenses their weddings, which is interesting.

I have so many fond memories of these weddings.  These are some of my oldest and closest friends:

Jimmy and Julie (I was lightly pregnant with Vicki)

Ryan and Michelle

Amanda and Paul (I was heavily pregnant with Todd)

Amber and Andy

Julianne and Parth

Chase and Carly (with my assistants)

And, this October, Stephanie and Sean!

Formal marriage is becoming a less-universal part of life for people of my generation.  I understand the reasons why, but I think there is something so sacred about coming together and vowing your love and dedication to one another in front of a group for support and accountability.

In my wedding homilies, I always try to emphasize the role of the gathered community.  The people who are present at this wedding are not just spectators, there to observe a pretty setting and have a great meal.  They are active participants who are vowing, with their presence and their words, to help this couple weather the storms that will come.

Marriage ain't easy.  If anyone knows that, it's me.  Sometimes it's a monumental struggle,  And sometimes it's better to call it quits.  But to make it, you need more than just each other.  You need all the people there to lean on.  Something about that just speaks to me.  And it's not lost on me that the people who supported me (and Jeff) the most through our divorce were . . . the people who were at our wedding.  They took seriously their covenant to help us dissolve our union (and care for the offspring of that union) with as much grace and love as when we made it.

happy hour

Probably most saw this on Facebook, but it cracked me up.  Vicki Jo and her friend Remy at Family Dinner last Sunday:

on friendship

A great fortune cookie told me this once:  "If you want to have a friend, be a friend."  (Not strictly a fortune, but we can get into that pet peeve on another day.  Much more of a platitude?  A truism?)

I have always sort of habitually sucked at the practice of cultivating friendship.  I totally recognize that the best way to make close friends is to be there for people - to call just to chat, to offer them gifts and advice, to live life together in the big ways and the small ways.  The best way to make a friend is to be a friend.  And I usually fail.

For this reason, I have always been attracted to communities that foster friendships through shared experience.  Working at camp, living together with roommates before I was married, going to college and joining a sorority, joining a Bradley birth class.  These provide opportunities for like-minded people to gather in one place and share life.  And even still, all my closest friends are from these different opportunities.

My sister told me that making friends gets a lot harder after college (graduate school, in my case, which was kind of a college extension).  It's really true.  Losing an age-level cohort with at least some level of mutual interest is hard.  I like my colleagues a lot, and working at a church is much more social than, say, analyzing data.

But I'm not much of a friend.  My own life seems to take over all my time and energy and there is just no time left for long phone calls and shared coffee.  If it weren't for Jeff and my job, I might go a whole week without talking to another adult!

This is why I'm so shocked that people continue to be such good friends to me.  From bringing me to New York for a bridal shower to buying me lunch to overwhelming my family with gifts at our baby shower last weekend, I am shown examples of selfless friendship from every side lately.

And this wasn't even half!

It seems to be a kind of divine reminder that, in this life, there are no relationships that are equal.  There is nothing I can do to earn the grace and love of others.  All I can do is seize these precious gifts and attempt some level of reciprocity when the time comes.  I hope and pray that I can learn these lessons of grace!

the time i surprised my best friend by showing up at her wedding shower

My best friend Amanda (who wrote a fantastic guest post awhile ago, meditating on the stresses of adult life) is getting married next month.  I get to officiate!  How fun, and what a perk it is, to get to join so many of my friends in matrimony with one another.  I also got to marry Amanda's brother and his wife almost five years ago - the first wedding I did!

Amanda still lives in New York City, where we met and forged our very strong connection at Columbia.  I love visiting her there, and still manage to make it just about every year.  Vicki Jo hasn't been yet . . . but soon!  We might have to wait until our imaginary RV shows up because I wouldn't subject an airplane to her for the next several years.  Traveling with newborns > traveling with toddlers.

So anyway, back to Amanda.  Her sister-in-law, sister, and other friends invited me to her bridal shower in New York on February 24.  It's no secret that money has been tight for our family, and I reluctantly declined the invitation, knowing that two flights to New York within a month just wasn't in the cards for our budget.  One of my great budgetary sadnesses has been the many weddings and other events that we have had to skip because we just don't have the funds to cover the trips.

But then . . . but then!  An amazing friend who shall remain nameless (okay it's Audrey!) emailed me and offered to buy me a flight up for the shower.  I could surprise Amanda, and make the shower all that much more special!  Audrey and her husband Hal have been such kind and generous friends to me and to Jeff, always offering rides and help when we come to visit in the city.

So we booked the flight, I bought some spatulas off their registry at Williams-Sonoma, and away I flew on Saturday morning.  I'm glad I'm not pregnant enough yet to have this be a big issue.  Flying up for the wedding in three more weeks is going to be another story, I'm afraid . . . but it will still be fun!

Okay, photos.  Here is the grand surprise!  Amanda was having the makeup trial for her wedding at Saks 5th Avenue . . . it was fun for us to guess which counter she might be at.

She was totally shocked.  It was great!  (And I was right:  it was MAC.)

And it was a great little solo vacation for me.  Thanks to my husband, I got a chance to run free and wild (okay hobble around the city like a woman 30 weeks pregnant) for a few days before settling down with a newborn again.  It was really refreshing.

frozen s'mores

This is an old favorite recipe that I've been making for about six or seven years now.  (I ripped if off of adapted it from Real Simple, which I used to love but have discovered is neither real nor simple.)  I had kind of forgotten about it, but it was my turn to bring dessert in the family dinner rotation, and this is a good one to make ahead!  All the work is done beforehand, and then you just freeze until you're ready to serve.  I would caution against leaving the prepared sandwiches, with the graham crackers, in the freezer for too long (like over 6 or 8 hours) - because the crackers will lose their crunch.

I didn't make my own marshmallows this time (although you certainly can).  I tried to make my own graham crackers, but they didn't turn out well for this application - too thick.  I will say that my husband loves them as a snack on their own, though.  They turned out almost more like biscotti - great with coffee.  Look for that recipe to come your way soon.

Frozen S'mores
3/4 C whole milk
24 regular-size (not mini) marshmallows
10 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used chips because they are cheaper)
1 1/2 C heavy cream
24 graham crackers (or 48 square graham cracker halves)

Graham crackers not pictured because I was in the middle of unsuccessfully trying to make them.

Line a 9x13 pan with aluminum foil that overhangs on the short edges by an inch or two to make a "handle."

In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine the milk and marshmallows.  Stir until the marshmallows are melted and it is blended thoroughly.

Remove from heat and mix in the chocolate until it is totally melted.  Place mixture in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, whip the heavy cream in a cold bowl with an electric mixer or a whisk, until it forms stiff peaks and looks like . . . well . . . whipped cream.

Fold the whipped cream into the cooled chocolate mixture, a spoonful at a time, being careful not to deflate all the cream.  Fold until it is blended and no traces of white remain.

Getting there . . . 

(By the way, if you want to stop here and just serve this for dessert, this makes a great fake-out chocolate mousse.)

Pour the mixture into the prepared 9x13 dish and freeze, covered, until ready to make sandwiches.  (Can be done the night before.)

When ready to make sandwiches, break whole graham crackers in half so you have 48 square crackers.  Remove the chocolate mixture from the pan using your "handles" and cut into 24 squares.  Place one chocolate square between two crackers, and serve!  You can freeze the prepared sandwiches for a few hours.  Be sure to eat fast - they will melt quickly!

Voila!  Excuse my husband's scary hand.

superbowl dip-off

For family dinner on Superbowl Sunday, the idea came about for a dip competition.  This is a crew that certainly enjoys a friendly (or not so friendly) competition.  So, we agreed that each person could bring one entry.  Savory dips would all be judged using Tostitos scoops.  Sweet dips would all be judged using graham crackers.  We created a rubric for judging including the following categories:  presentation, scoopability, taste explosion, creativity, and name (+ discretionary points for favorites).  We stewed over our entries for a few weeks.  And we gathered, some with hot dips, some with cold.  We served them one at a time, giving each person a chance to present and make some remarks about their dips.

There were some amazing entries!  We sampled eleven dips in all.  My favorites were: a Greek-style dip that layered hummus, tzatziki, kalamata olives, feta cheese, and diced cucumber; a buffalo-chicken style dip in a cream cheese base; and (I'm biased) my own entry.  I brought my sister's spinach-artichoke dip.  Every time we gather at my sister's house for a holiday or a party, I demand that she make her little mini Crock Pot full of this dip.  It is to die for.  It is great with chips, spread on toast, thinned and used as a pasta sauce, as a pizza topping . . . or just eaten with a spoon.  It's pretty simple and if you got crazy, you could make all your own base ingredients from scratch:  cream cheese, mayonnaise, and sour cream.  Roasting the garlic ahead of time is an essential step that gives the dip a ton of extra flavor.  Also roasting garlic is super-easy and it tastes amazing in just about anything.  Next time you have the oven running, just pop a head of garlic in there wrapped in foil and let it get nice and golden and soft.

Spinach-Artichoke Dip
8 oz cream cheese, softened at room temperature
1/2 C mayonnaise
1/2 C sour cream
1 10-oz box frozen spinach, thawed
1 head roasted garlic, cooled
1 14.5-oz can artichoke hearts (could also use 2 C frozen, thawed)
1/4 C chopped water chestnuts (about half a small can)
salt

To roast garlic:  take a head of garlic and slice it in half through the equator, so each clove is cut in half.   Place it on a small piece of tin foil.  Drizzle with about 1 teaspoon olive oil and sprinkle with salt.  Wrap up tightly in the foil.  Roast at 350 or so for about an hour, until it's very soft and golden-brown.

To make dip:  Mix together cream cheese, mayonnaise, and sour cream in a large oven-safe bowl or casserole.  Press all the excess water out of the spinach using a fine-mesh sieve, or just by taking fistfuls of it and squeezing it over the sink.  Add it to the base mixture.  Pop the garlic cloves out of their skins (they slide out very easily if you pinch the bottom), and roughly chop them.  Add them to the casserole.  Drain the artichoke hearts and chop them roughly and add to dip.  Mix in water chestnuts.  Give everything a thorough stirring.  Taste and add salt as needed (remember that the chips will be quite salty, too).

If you're making this in a little Crock Pot, just set it to low and let it warm for several hours.  If making in the oven, pop it in at 350 for about thirty minutes, stirring halfway through.  Serve warm.

I forgot to take a picture of the dip in its original glory, but here it is with some chopped roasted chicken, resurrected into a pasta dish for dinner last night:

on getting festive . . . or not

A picture of me getting festive with three great buddies nearly a decade ago! 



Of course, it is the holiday season.  As a Christian and an American (and no, I don't think the two have to go together!), I celebrate most of the "standard" holidays and special occasions:  Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, birthdays, our anniversary, Valentine's Day, Halloween, Memorial Day.  My family is not a military family (aside from my granddad), so we don't do much for Veterans Day and all that.

As a pastor, though, many of those holidays are dominated by church work.  Christmas and Easter, obviously.  Most churches have some kind of Halloween celebration or Fall Festival.  A lot of churches have a community Thanksgiving service.  Any holiday that falls on a Sunday is not much of a holiday for us. 

Now that I'm a mom and we have a young one absorbing the entire universe all around her, I'm noticing that I am severely deficient in creating a holiday atmosphere.  It's like I'm missing the gene that enjoys fall decorating and baking Christmas cookies (oh wait, if we had an oven that freaking worked).  I was emailing with a good friend in Kansas who keeps me updated (hi Tai!), and mentioned this to her as well.

I remember little things about our house growing up that clued me in to the seasons:  a spring wreath on the front door, Mom's spiced tea in a percolator (the recipe is phenomenal:  pretty much just Tang and red hots), cheesecake on our birthdays (nobody really liked cake that much - cherry cheesecake was the preference). 

When I think of creating our own family's traditions, I mostly think of food.  Here's what I envision, in a world where I can think ahead and get it all together:

Thanksgiving:  this one is already taken.  Each year we go to the Tarwater family reunion in Sevierville, TN.  This is my husband's mother's mother's family, and this year will be 114th annual Thanksgiving feast.  Jeff's mom and stepdad have built a cabin on family land up there.  The fall colors are gorgeous, there is hiking and a hot tub.  It's basically amazing.

Easter:  church!  We usually go to some kind of sunrise service, which is sort of the Methodist-lazy version of an Easter vigil.  Easter dinner would ideally be lamb and spring vegetables (asparagus, green beans, radishes, new potatoes).  We would always dye eggs, and Mom would always do the most amazing Easter egg/present hunt in our backyard.  I feel like, from a faith perspective, she did a great job of emphasizing the gift of Easter over and above the commercial culture of Christmas.

Christmas:  church and more church.  My Christmas Eve usually ends with an 11:00 or midnight candlelight service.  The next day, Christmas dinner would be the whole nine:  ham, potatoes, green vegetables, salad, rolls, pie.  Mom always made this potato casserole in which we first boiled potatoes, then cooled and grated them, mixed with sour cream, green onions, and other things, and baked.  Can't remember exactly. 

We put up a Christmas tree each year, mostly at my husband's insistence. His beloved Memaw is the biggest Christmas decorator I have ever encountered. Fully decked.  And of course, now we are homeowners and I feel some responsiblity for putting up festive lights that will jack up my electricity bill for the winter.

Birthdays:  one of my favorite traditions in my family was Mom telling our birth stories each year on our birthday.  She would talk about being pregnant, what she remembered, when she went into labor, going to the hospital, and the birth (amazing to think that this was before the days of routine induction, so I was born three weeks late!).  She always said the exact times we were born, and so I remember that I was born at 3:23 pm.  I would love to cook the birthday person's favorite foods, and to do cheesecake - but skip the HFCS canned topping, and make some delicious homemade cherry or blueberry topping.

Anniversary:  since my folks divorced when I was so young, anniversaries were not much of a thing.  My best friend Amanda's family does something I always thought was great:  the children send their parents anniversary cards!  It's like saying, Hey, thanks for being amazing parents and being married and having this family.  Since we honeymooned in England and enjoyed it so so so much, I would love to do an English-food themed supper for our anniversary each year!  Bangers and mash, or pasties, or the like.

Memorial Day:  some kind of cookout to celebrate the warming weather, as well as grave decoration (isn't is funny how Decoration Day and Memorial Day have merged in our culture?  My granddad was a stickler that Memorial Day was only to honor the war dead).

Halloween:  I'm kind of a humbug on this one.  I was ruined on it in college, when every girl used it as an excuse to dress as a sexy bumblebee or whatever.  But I do like handing out candy, and our neighborhood is teeming with children.  I suppose Vicki Jo will want to start dressing up and going about soon enough.

Phew!  That was more than I thought I had in mind for our family celebrations. 

What traditions do you have, or have you started as a new family?

family dinner

Jeff and I are so lucky.  Well, there's a certain strain of Christian thought that there is no "luck," that God predetermines everything and sets circumstances.  I struggle with that because then that means God wanted some people to suffer unbelievably.  Just can't get down with that.  But I digress.

We are lucky.  We spent many years working at a camp that attracted tons of like-minded, free-thinking, open and affirming young adults committed to living out their faith.  They are some of our oldest friends, and the group has grown as people have gotten married, as siblings come into the group, and now as we have babies!

Every Sunday night, we gather for "family" dinner.  I certainly can't take credit - this tradition was going long before we moved back to Nashville, but we were graciously invited to join the group when we reappeared. 

I've known Eric and Julie as long as I've known Jeff - over nine years.  We were on staff together in 2003.  I officiated at Julie and Jimmy's wedding in 2010.  Eric and his wife, Mackenzie, met at NYU  - I got to meet her in 2004 or 2005 while I was still in college.  Now they have a baby, Remy. 

I met Stephanie in 2004 working on staff.  Stephanie, Julie and I were roomates when I came to Divinity School in 2007.  Stephanie's sister Julianne moved to Nashville just as we moved away, and now her boyfriend Parth is part of the circle as well.

That makes a raucous crew of eleven every Sunday evening.  A few weeks ago we gathered at Parth's.  He lives in an unbelievable 7th floor apartment in a trendy area of Nashville called the Gulch.  There is a wall of windows leading onto a balcony over 12th Ave. S.  I felt terribly underdressed when I walked into the chic lobby holding my tupperware.  The doorman made me feel better, though.

Parth is Indian, and so he and Julianne fixed an Indian feast for us.  I love Indian food, and I wanted to make something cooling and refreshing to go with it.  We got cucumbers in our box last week, and we had yogurt and mint in the fridge already.  Raita!  It's the best.  For this, if you need to strain the yogurt, start that the night before.  To do that, just set a fine mesh strainer over a bowl.  Line it with paper towel or cheesecloth and put the yogurt in there.  Refrigerate and drain overnight.  Save the whey that drains off to make pickles or other lactofermented things!

Cucumber-Mint Raita
1 cucumber, grated on the large holes of a box grater
1/2 C mint, chopped
2 C Greek yogurt, or regular yogurt that has been strained overnight
1/4 t honey
1/2 t cayenne pepper
3/4 t ground cumin

Mix all ingredients and refrigerate for several hours.  Serve as a condiment with spicy food.

guest post: the pace of life

Gentle reader, please find below the thoughts and musings of my very best friend, Amanda Rose Smear.  We met in 2002, shared many misadventures, laughs, and tears, and now we are separated by 1260 miles.  I came thisclose to staying in New York with her before my life pulled me in another direction.  She is a talented and thoughtful person, so enjoy!

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Just before I sat down to type this "guest blog post" I did something that no New Yorker - or at least no stereotypical psychotically productive maniacally driven blackberry-addicted Manhattanite like me EVER does: I prepared myself for 48 hours of nothing. Calling my life "fast-paced" would be an understatement. I often describe my work schedule as frantic, frenzied, aggressive. I'm in a constant fight against the clock...appointment, conference call, meeting, site visit, deadline, emergency, site visit BOOM it's 11pm. And that's how every day goes until I catch 5-6 hours of sleep wake and do it again, sometimes pressing pause for a 6:30am yoga class. So to tell myself today at 3pm than I will literally do nothing other than kill time until Monday morning (or longer) is a little eerie.

As you may or may not know, NYC as well as the rest of the Northeast is preparing for what may be a very windy/rainy day. Some are calling it a "hurricane". I'm skeptical but nevertheless did the practical thing and stocked the fridge with bottled water, groceries, skittles, Kettle Popcorners, you know...The necessities.  I'm not being completely honest. Paul wanted to buy enough snacks to last the entire armageddon. MY mission was to find an open Starbucks, caffeinate, and possibly find the motivation to do something. To my shock and dismay, Bloomberg had frightened every shopkeep and restaurant manager from opening today and not even STARBUCKS was there for me. Normally I could get 5 Frappucino Lites on the way to work (15minute walk) without having to go out of my way. Today, at least lower Manhattan is utterly Starbuck-less. I came back to the couch without my normal fast-forward jolt of espresso and proceeded to do nothing.

Why does it take a natural disaster to force us to slow down? Take a siesta...maybe NOT work for a few hours (or even a few days!). Why does everyone have to call your cell phone if you don't immediately answer your land line? Why do we doubt someone likes us if they haven't replied to our text or email within 5 minutes of hitting send? Why do we let ourselves go go go until we physically shutdown and are incapable of normal human interaction by Friday afternoon? And by we, I mean me.

I'm most aware of how quickly life is moving when I look back at old files- for me, files that contain all the details about a past party I have planned. I remember the client, how we interacted, what random bits of drama they brought into my life and if I felt it was successful. I looked at a folder two days ago and was horrified to realize that the party had taken place SIX YEARS ago. I remembered every detail of this particular party like it was yesterday. How did so much time go by so quickly?

A few months ago Maria and I were talking about a song we had danced to at my epic 80s 25th birthday party (2.7 years ago!) and were shocked that my mom had no clue what song we were talking about. "I was really busy in the 80's" said my mom with out a hint of sarcasm. It was true! She had 4 kids between April of '76 and January of '84 and an entire decade had passed before she knew it. A flurry of diapers, packed lunches, soccer practices, play rehearsals from morning to night.

Anyone who knows my mother knows what a notorious night owl she is. Maria- a relatively new mom with a rambunctious 16 month old told me she totally understood why. As a mom, each day is like a marathon. You are constantly "on" - under a microscope. Baby baby baby all day long. When else do you have time to attend to yourself - (shower? read? eat? relax?) besides after dark? When I see my sister being pursued relentlessly by the needs of her little Ella I am actually amazed. "No day at work is ever as hard as every day with a baby" is another famous quote of Ria's. Wall St. guys and race car drivers may think they've cornered the market on "fast-paced" but can anyone even hold a candle to the mothers of small children?

Hats off to you ladies. Because while Hurricane Irene has me wine-drunk eating skittles on the couch surfing the Facebook, I'm sure my sister, similarly housebound, is working her ass off chasing a baby and swiffering up after a messy snack-time. And my darling Emily is somewhere changing a dirty diaper even on Saturday, a day of universal repose. I'm gonna enjoy this day of pure laziness because who knows how many more of these I'm going to get in my life?

my other bebe

This is a photo-memory of an amazing night with my best friend Amanda.  She is affectionately known as "Bebe" by all her friends and family.  We were at her brother and sister-in-law's wedding reception, and they gave out the white sunglasses as a favor.  It was the very first wedding I ever had the privilege of officiating!  (So far, my track record is good - 0 divorces!)  Amanda/Bebe will be doing a guest post here in the very near future . . . keep checking back and you might just find it.