SortaCrunchy

Push Pause

The moving truck is in the driveway, slowly but surely filling with boxes of stuff. 

(We have realized we have so fallen short of our vision of a simpler, less-stuff lifestyle.  Nothing like boxing it all up to get a good grasp on how much stuff you have!  Much reevaluation to do when we land in our permanent place.)

Anyway, thanks so much for your amazing feedback, thoughts, and prayers.  I hate not being able to respond individually to each of you; thank you for bearing with me.

We roll out Monday morning, and I look forward to seeing everyone around sometime later in June!

Blessings to you all!

Gratitude for this Room of Grace

The part of me that is vibrating with excitement about our move and this new chapter of life is most certainly eclipsed these days by the part of me that is heavy with mourning.  I really do miss this hill country town already.  I look harder and longer at the streets and faces and houses every day, trying to cement in my mind the images of this place I was, at first, hesitant to embrace and that I now know can never be replaced.

More than the gentle slopes of the landscape, more than the river and the queso and the music and the history . . . more than any of that, I will miss my community of friends the most.

And so what follows is a love letter to the hot mamas who have come along side me to inspire, nurture, encourage, and love me in the too-short time we were planted here:

Dear friends of the Community Prayer Coffee,

How could I ever begin to put words to what you mean to me?  There is no doubt in my mind that when we weren't able to buy that little house with the white picket fence in that town down the road, it was because God had already laid the foundation for a house of love and laughter for me right here.

That first Girls' Night Out when two of you stepped forward with an invitation to join you, I was cautious.  I had already invested so much energy into guarding myself.  We never really intended to be here for more than a season or two, and many years of uprooting and relocating had built up gnarled scar tissue in my heart.  Careful though I was, your warmth was irresistible.

The four of us gathered around the table at Melissa's house, and I discovered an openness, a distinctive authenticity among you three that I had never experienced before.  I wasn't ready to let my guard down yet, but I did begin to think that maybe someday, I could. 

Not too terribly long after that, Dacey was born and ya'll showed up to minister to me with abounding love and support.  Delivered meals and deliberate phone calls and taking time to look me in the eye and ask how I was really doing.  My heart is so full when I think back on those days.

When the new baby/new mama fog finally lifted two months later and I returned to our prayer coffee group, I was delighted and amazed by the growth.  No longer would we fit around one table at anyone's house, and God provided a pool table and an unshakable hostess who never flinched in the face of opening up her home to the masses (and grubby fingers and contagious grins of all of our children). 

It was there, in our own little upper room, that God unfolded for me a beauty that is unequal to any I've ever beheld.  It was there I learned what it is to be TrueFaced for it was there, in that room of grace, I knew I could finally take off my mask.  I learned from you what it is to be bold, to be risky, to not settle for the surface, to engage in the deep.  In the gatherings in that room, the hardest of secrets could be spoken out loud and whispers of dreams were finally given a voice.

In the spring and summer of two years ago, when the end of my parents' marriage brought me to my knees in despair, when I walked through the darkest valley of grief and loss, your tearful prayers over me were a balm to my seared and broken soul.  And when you showered our family before AJ's arrival, my spirit soared in the glow of such generosity.

You've taught me about showing up and following through, about taking it in and working it out, about boundless grace and unyielding mercy and immeasurable love.  Even now, in the midst of boxes that signal another uprooting, I wonder over the unstoppable munificence of this community who would step up to serve me even as I am in the process of being pried away.

But because of you, my sweetest friends, that old scar tissue has long since been cut away.  In its place there is a tenderness, a vulnerability, a willingness that I surely never would have known were it not for your work in my life.  This leaving is wretchedly painful, but I know you send me forth with prayers of healing and renewal.

Thank you for being the gift that you are to me, to this community, and to the Body. 

Tidying Up

From nine in the morning to nine at night, yesterday was a wonderful day of fellowship and fun with friends.  Fun!  So I didn't have a chance to mention that Part One of Two in the Karen's Nip Cancer in the Bud series is now up!  Go by and check out these helpful and informative insights in cancer prevention.

One of the few things I enjoy about packing for a move is the opportunity to sort through stuff and simplify.  I'm on a mission to "Simplify or Die" (as the bumper stickers I have seen around town so gently suggest (which are, by the way, especially effective when slapped on the back of a monstrous SUV)), and I am using the guidelines set forth by Amanda Blake Soule (also known as SouleMama) in The Creative Family (more on this later).

(I like parentheses.  What of it?)

I would also like to do some simplifying and tidying up around here, and I would like to start with the blogroll.  If you have minute, can you help me with this?

If you are on the blogroll and would like to stay, please email or leave me a comment on this post.

If you have been hanging around here a while and are not on the blogroll but would like to be, please email or leave me a comment on this post (and please don't be shy or feel awkward about it!  I sometimes just lose track of updating and I would hate to leave you out!)

If you are on the blogroll and would like to be removed (for whatever reason, you need not explain) please email or leave me a comment on this post.

I'll make the changes on or around Thursday, May 29th. 

And some of you are staying on the blogroll whether you want to be on there or not!  (muhahaha)

Wow.  I think I have just exceeded the number of times any blogger should use the word blogroll in an entire year.  But it's got me thinking - what do you think about blogrolls?  Do you actually look at the links a blogger lists?  Are they becoming trite, passe', a thing of the past?

Shift

Today I want to share with you The Really Big Thing.  Let's just get it out of the way that, no, I am not pregnant.  I realize in reading back that maybe the way I've talked about this thing, it would be easy to read that into this.

The Really Big Thing is that our family is on the cusp of a paradigm shift that is at once entirely surprising and yet completely expected: we've decided that the time has come for us to leave coaching.

This conclusion began processing last January, and we've spent so much time since then walking back and forth with our thoughts.  Projecting trajectories.  Envisioning outcomes.  Skipping ahead to the last page.

I love this perspective on paradigm shift from taketheleap.org that states

It's a revolution, a transformation, a sort of metamorphosis.  It just does not happen, but rather it is driven by agents of change.

Our agents of change?  Observe exhibits A and D:

(gosh, they have changed so much since the end of last December!) 

We are hoping someday God will invite us to once again co-create with Him, and that we'll get to add a little exhibit B ("B" is for blue, right?) and maybe even an exhibit C to the mix.  And the thing about the coaching business (and, oh, it is a business to be sure) is that it is just relentless in its demands for time. 

But we've had fun - so much fun! - in our years in coaching.  From 0-10 seasons (yes, more than one) to weeks soaring through the Division I Top 25, we've experienced it all.  Conference cellar-dwellers and conference champs.  I hold close to my heart my memories of a bowl game in Memphis that allowed me to experience Graceland and Beale Street and the waddling ducks of the Peabody Hotel.  If it weren't for traveling with The Coach and the team, I am sure I would have never seen the Chicago skyline gleaming in mid-September sun, nor would I have gotten to saunter through the French Quarter, nibbling a beignet and breathing in New Orleans in all its pre-Katrina glory.

But my husband, The Coach, sees the mind-boggling rate at which our girls are growing and changing, and he just can't sign on for missing anymore of these precious and brief years we get to have them here at home.  We are leaving coaching so that he can begin a career as a financial analyst with a well-known and much-respected nationwide investment firm, and he embarks into this new career in just under three weeks.

In the explanation of paradigm shift above, it mentions metamorphosis.  That's what this feels like to us.  It reminds me of a favorite selection of mine from Trina Paulus's Hope for the Flowers: 

"How does one become a butterfly?" she asked pensively.
"You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."

In my mind's eye, I see our little family starting out ten years ago when we got married.  Everything about us was little bitty, just like the caterpillar who springs forth on the leaf.  As we partook of all that life offered to us, we swelled with growth.  Three years ago, we expanded from two to three, and we grew again when this sweet baby arrived last September.

And now feels like a good time to wrap ourselves in a cocoon of transformation.  Gone will be the notoriety and notability, the fame and infamy, that has marked so much of our identity for the past decade as we look towards a path that is both more stable and yet infinitely more scary than the path from which we thought we would never stray.

In addition to this change in career, we are also leaving behind this community in this state that we have grown to love so much.  We are being shepherded home, back to Oklahoma, the state where neither of us were born but both of us were raised.  Back to parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and high school friends and college friends and peaches and lakes and Indian tacos and grassy plains that stretch on for miles.

The cocoon that invites us to this change will be, in the beginning, a quite literal one as we will be living with Kyle's parents for the rest of the summer while my husband studies and trains.  The same home where he knelt and proposed to me is the same home that will house us until we are ready to launch forth, unfurl our wings, and live life in an altogether different incarnation than we ever thought we'd be.

Bittersweet?  Absolutely.  My heart aches for the life we are leaving behind.  I miss it already. 

In the meantime, just know that life in this house is chaotic beyond words.  Piles and stacks and lists and boxes abound.  My time online in the coming days, weeks, and months will be sketchy, at best.  I do so love engaging in conversation through emailed replies to comments, but that is probably not going to be happening for a little while.  A measure of grace is my small request.

Thanks for letting me pour out my heart.  There's more, but for now, I feel better having said this.

That's The Really Big Thing.

Forward with Gratitude

Ever-inspired by the gratitude for all gifts - great and small - that flows freely at Holy Experience, I must add more to my list:

8. late morning picnic in the shade of our front porch, pink and white striped beach towel spread across the cool concrete, juice and pretzels and raisins for the feasting while butterflies pursue one another amidst the late spring blooms

9. stepping out the front door, garbage bag in hand, stopped in my tracks on the way to the dumpster by a deer stopped in her tracks in the front yard.  simple, quiet, sleek elegance, and in a flash she is gone

10.  Patty Griffin's "Mary"

11.  the emergence of Daddy's Girl.  All day long, it's I can't wait to tell Daddy about . . . and the moment he walks through the door, she all but forgets the one who grew her to fruition.  After three years of intense attachment, I could not be more grateful, or more delighted.

12. opening a package that bursts with music, hand-picked and thoughtfully selected just for me by a dear friend who has known me long enough to know me, and loves me anyway.  also in the package - a book which speaks to my heart and affirms this gratitude journey.  thank you again, sweet friend.

13. Ma-ma.

14.  Camera and lens repair shops. 

15. this promise:  If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.  (James 1:5, NIV)  Oh thank You, thank You, thank You, Lord God, for your abundant, generous, vast, perfect wisdom.

More to come.

Week in Review, mid-May

So many things to share . . . where to start?

You know how if you live in a smallish town or a smallish community within a big town, you find yourself running into the same person over and over again in various scenarios?  Like, you saw her and her kids one morning during Open Gym at the gymnastics gym, and then you noticed her at the library the next week?  And then you see her and her kiddos at the toddler park and then you see them the next day at the grocery store?  And then it gets kind of awkward because you kind of smile and are cordial but you've never introduced yourselves?

That's how I've felt about Kelly at Love Well for a while now.  She and I run around in the same bloggy circles, as I know I've seen her at Missy's place, and for sure at Elle's, and other places, too (Coulda' Been Worse, perhaps?).  Anyway, finally, I went on over to her place and sorta introduced myself, and I am so glad I did. Kelly is just so neat!  And she is way cooler than I am in that she let her husband hijack her blog last week to write this timely and important post on The Art and Heart of Giving.  Make sure you take a minute or two to read this insightful guidance from someone who is definitely in the know.

You may have noticed the new button on my sidebar directing you to Karen's Simply . . . Amusing Blog.  Karen is doing a special and important series titled "Nip Cancer in the Bud with Early Detection."  If you have questions about cancer and cancer screenings, please go by and find out how you can get those questions answered by some Texas oncologists who have committed some time and energy to further spreading the word on the importance of early detection!

Completely switching gears, my friend Laura has set me up for a world of hurt by introducing me to Velvet Lava.  My entryway into this devilishly delightful homage to all things baked (complete with just lovely photography) was this utterly ridiculous Red Velvet Cake post.  Truly, there should be law against such things as this.  I was going to try it out this weekend, but tragically, I have run out of time.  I'll get you, my pretty, someday . . .

Let's see, what else?

Oh yes!  I was delighted to see that Simple Mom has chosen Rachel's Small Notebook as the first ever recipient of her Shoe of Simplicity spotlight.  I've been convinced Small Notebook is the Best Blog You're Not Reading, and I am just thrilled to see her get this attention! 

Speaking of Simple Mom - oy!  I just love her.  She posts the BEST stuff.  I emailed her last week to ask how she went about finding all those fabuloso Flickr images for her posts, and she kindly and promptly emailed me with the link to this article: A Complete Guide To Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images.  Yahtzee!  Had to pass that along.

There's more, but now I've run out of time and D is about to go out of her mind begging me and Daddy to play a little game of freeze tag, so off I go.

Stay tuned this week as I share something really big happening in the lives of our little family.

Warm Biscuit Bedding Winner!

Thanks to all who entered the Warm Biscuit Bedding Company gift certificate giveaway.  The lucky winner is Farrah of Baby Love Slings!  Congrats, mama! 

And a HUGE thank you to Warm Biscuit Bedding for sponsoring such a generous giveaway for my amazing friends and readers.  I hope you all found some really cute things there that you just can't live without! 

Sizzlin' Summer Recipe: Best. Burgers. Ever.

Alright, ya'll.  My gorgeously named sweet friend Megan of Fried Okra opened up her recipe files and commenced with revving up our taste buds with her top ten sizzlin' spring and summer recipes.  (That creamy linguine with zucchini?  Yum-O!)  She has invited us to share our best o' the best, and I am only happy to oblige.

(First, apologies to Veggiemommy, Reesh, and my other vegetarian friends and readers.  You may not find today's offering quite so sizzlin' . . .)

Spring and summer offers us the perfect time to fire up that backyard grill, and that is a double blessing for this mama in that 1) grilling keeps the heat outside where it belongs and 2) my man is all-too-happy to work his grilling wonders on that shiny monument to manly cooking.  He really is quite the grill master, and his repertoire ranges from perfectly cooked steaks to deliciously grilled bananas and all manner of fare in between.

One of his specialties that we eat pretty much year 'round are hamburgers.  Of course, this is a staple in backyard cuisine, but we were unsatisfied with just your average ground beef patty seasoned with a little salt and pepper.  Rather than inventing new and unique ways to dress the grilled burger, my husband went a'hunting for a new and unique way to create the perfect patty. 

A little digging led him to two schools of thought: be creative in the meats used in the patty or be creative in the seasonings you add in.  It's no surprise that, as Texans, we take a more-is-more approach to dining, so we decided to combine the two schools of thought.  The result - best burger ever!

Here's what we do:

1) Start with a pound of ground beef.  Now, pick another kind of meat to add to the mix.  We originally were going to add a pound of ground veal to ours, but our small town grocer doesn't keep ground veal in stock (go figure), so the butcher suggested we might try ground brisket.  The result was pure burger perfection for us, but you might play around a little to find the taste, texture, and flavor combination you like best.  Ground bison, perhaps?

2) So work your two pounds of meat together and prepare to add your seasonings.  Sure, you could go with basic salt and pepper, but why stop there?  I'll tell you our favorite way to season - add equal parts barbecue sauce and brown mustard.  Add just a bit at a time, you don't want to overwhelm the meat and end up with raw hamburger mush.  We've also used equal parts soy sauce and lime juice with great success.  We've been known to add grape jelly in after we salt and pepper (you won't believe how smashing the result is), and once we even added in some leftover bean and bacon soup.  Now, if you do find your meat mixture is getting too moist, you'll want to crumble a piece of bread (plain old white bread works fine) to sop up some of the juiciness.  You want moist burgers, but too much moisture and those burgers will fall apart on our grill. 

Pop those beauties on the grill, and you've got yourself some sizzlin' summer perfection!

You may find with such flavorful burger patties, you can dress them as minimally as you like so you can really appreciate the taste of the meat.  We usually just have potato salad or chips on the side.  Can't go wrong with a big pitcher of Texas sweet tea, but if you use our recipe, keep your toothbrush handy for efficient cavity prevention.

Make sure you head back to Megan's place to drool over all her recipes and see what everyone else has to offer up today!

(burger photo by (nutmeg) )

 

WFMW: Take the Pledge!

That's right, gentle readers! I did it. After months and months of knowing I should want to stop the plastic bottled water madness in the SortaCrunchy hacienda but not really wanting to, I've finally come to my senses and surrendered to a life less plastic-y.  And I've taken the pledge. 

And can I tell you this?  It's so liberating.  I cannot tell you how irritated I would get with the plastic bottle congregations that somehow colonized around the house.  The nightstands in our room were particularly popular breeding grounds.  A few weeks ago, we decided it was enough, that it was time.  It has definitely been one of those things I didn't realize I was so deeply in bondage to until the plastic shackles were removed.

So we've been just keeping pitchers of water in the fridge to meet our cold water needs - pouring it into glass tumblers (gasp) the old-fashioned way!  I still need to figure out our out-of-the-house solutions.  I'm leaning towards Kleen Kanteens but haven't yet pulled the trigger on those; I'm seriously considering the Foogo cups for the girls, or do I want to go with Born Free, which I can buy locally?

In the meantime, Debra of Days of Grace shared a great glass water bottle solution last week - reuse and re-purpose glass juice bottles!  I grabbed some at the grocery deli this week and they are working wonderfully for our transition phase.  Even The Coach is on board with this change and he is really digging the Nantucket Nectar bottles (thanks again for that, Debra!).

The Think Outside the Bottle site has some good information on why you might find it works for you to step away from the bottled water; additionally, check out The Green Guide's "Tapped Out: The True Cost of Bottled Water" and the Nutrition Issues in Gastroenterology article "Bottled Water Myths: Separating Fact from Fiction."

Make sure you stop by Shannon's place for more Works For Me Wednesday goodness!

You Tell Me: Vitamins and Supplements

Wow, you guys!  I am so thrilled with all the amazing musical feedback you shared with me last week.  I have had so much fun working through your recommendations.

That post had more comments that any non-giveaway post I've done (I think).  Score! 

(That reminds me . . . I've been wanting to follow-up on the post commenting on comments by saying I totally understand that very few of us can comment everywhere we like to read.  I am the Queen of Reading Via Feeds!  It was definitely not my intention to send anyone on a guilt trip for not commenting here all the time.  I just want to make it clear that I am always happy to hear from you - whether you are a long-time friend/new reader, long-time reader/new friend, or if you landed here haphazardly by Googling something important like delaying vaccines or making Texas sweet tea.  Or greasy hair.  I'll try to shut up about that for now, although it's hard for me because the dynamics of the blogging community is endlessly fascinating to me.)

Anyway.  MypointandIdohaveone:

It was so great to hear from ya'll on the music issue, and it was a great reminder to me of how outrageously blessed I am to have such a diverse, intelligent, gorgeous, insightful group of friends to run around with.  What else can you tell me to make my life better?  I think I shall start a new series: You Tell Me.  You know all that unsolicited advice you have just rocking and rolling around in your head?  I'm soliciting.

First question in the series: What's the scoop on vitamins and supplements?

I'm pretty sure that at least D and I should be taking them.  She is just about as preschool-picky as they come, and her diet consists chiefly of buttered (whole wheat) pasta, broccoli, milk, 100% juice, breads, lunch meat, rice, PB&J, and Carnation Instant Breakfast.  And "chick'n nuggets" (both the McDonalds variety and the far healthier but equally acceptable Morningstar veggie variety). 

I am about as un-picky as they come (check my waistline for visual validation), but I think as a nursing mom I should be taking something beyond my prenatals to make sure AJ is getting all she needs.  Right?  Some kind of DHA thing?  See how little I know?

So - you tell me.  My eyes totally glaze over when I browse the supplement aisle.  What do we need?  What do you take and why?  Be specific and tell me what brands you think are good, 'cause that's also confusing to me.