I Want A Tractor for Christmas

We went to a tractor parade, also known as The Cotton Gin Festival, a few weekends ago. I watched approximately one hundred and twenty-four shiny tractors roll down the middle of Main Street with happy farmers at the wheel, their families tucked in wooden wagons/trailers being pulled behind. We ate barbecue and funnel cakes and perused crafts made out of old Mason jars and heard gospel music and saw people playing banjos like their lives depended on it. It was quintessential Americana and I can't deny that I loved it a little bit.

I had Sam on my hip while the parade went by and I watched him as he watched those tractors with an "all my dreams are coming true" look on his face. Well, maybe that's overstating it, but he was kind of entranced. I'm pretty sure I witnessed his mind being blown by that motorcade of tractors puttering by for a half an hour. Seemingly, every farmer within fifty miles showed up to proudly ride his vintage tractor through town. They probably also came for the boiled peanuts and the handknit afghans.

Now, I kind of want a tractor. A big red one with a comfy seat and an umbrella cover to keep the sun off my delicate (read: pale), southern complexion.

I also want a lifetime supply of funnel cakes. Covered in powdered sugar, if you please.

And that was our uber southern Saturday.

Here's to tractor parades, buckets of sweet tea, Mason jar crafts, funnel cakes, and boiled peanuts.

Beat Back Suffering: Send a Shoebox

During my high-drama single days, I lived in Nashville, which was a landing spot for lots of young, single, newly graduated folks like myself. I spent four years there becoming an adult whilst wearing lots of denim and going to lots of concerts and flirting with lots of boys. But, I digress.

My Nashville years also included a church that met in an old middle school gym. Like most churches in Nashville, the music was insanely good and it wasn't unusual to have professional musicians and people who had record deals leading worship. My church also had a pastor named Carter who charismatically preached with passion and wisdom and whose sermons impacted my sometimes frivolous life during those rather formative early-adult years.

One sermon in particular still comes to mind every so often and lately I've been thinking about it again. Despite almost ten years having passed since I heard it, I can vividly remember one Sunday, during the sermon, when Carter dramatically swung an imaginary bat (or maybe it was an imaginary stick) and ardently charged us to "beat back suffering." I can't remember the sermon title or even the exact context for what he said, but I remember that something in my heart responded to that very literal image of beating back suffering.

I suppose the next question is obvious. How do I do that? Atleast, that's the question I'm asking myself right now.

Yesterday, I was reading the news online and made the mistake of clicking on an article about three children who had been incredibly neglected and abused somewhere in the Northeast. That story kept me up last night and I woke up this morning with a heavy heart thinking about those children who are all close in age to Sam. It makes me so mad I could spit thinking about the injustice done to little ones like those. It also makes me want to kick down doors, punch some people in the face and then rescue some babies.

Sometimes the weight of the suffering that I see happening around me or experience in my own life threatens to do me in. After the two miscarriages we had in the last year and half, there have been some moments when I've come close to folding under the heaviness of it all.

Today, I went to Kmart and bought a Sesame Street toothbrush, a Lightning McQueen tube of toothpaste, a box of Skittles, crayons and a coloring book and a few other random things that I'm really hoping a toddler will like when he opens it up on Christmas morning. I realized yesterday that the deadline for "Operation Shoebox" is coming up and so I'm planning on dropping my box off at a local church in hopes that it will find it's way into the hands of a child who I will never meet in a country I will probably never visit. It's not much, but for one child, it's something.

I realized this morning that I spend a whole lot of time thinking about myself and my family and what we need and what we want. Something about reading that story yesterday about those precious neglected children jolted me into remembering that I've been charged to "beat back suffering." I keep asking God why He isn't swooping in to rescue children like that or dropping supernatural boxes of food and toilet paper and clean socks on those people up in New Jersey who are homeless after Hurricane Sandy. But, I'm starting to wonder if, in fact, He's not doing those things because we're supposed to be. (Not that He can't do it without us, because He sure as heck can.) But, I think that my sitting around moaning about why God isn't fixing all the things that aren't right with the world isn't the answer.

I promise I'm not trying to put a guilt trip on you or anything or make you feel like suddenly I'm a social justice nut who's using my blog to judge you. I just had this epiphany that maybe it's time I picked up my proverbial stick and started beating back some suffering. I'm not sure what that might look like yet. Maybe it's just a shoebox filled with a few toys, a toothbrush and a coloring book. But, maybe it's volunteering at the local crisis pregnancy center and/or delivering food to a foodbank and/or adopting a child who needs a home (!!) Maybe it's time to be a radical when it comes to meeting needs and easing suffering and offering mercy.

I have no idea what it might look like. I just know that I'm tired of thinking about myself and I want to do something instead of just getting mad and wishing things were different.

On my way to pick Sam up today at school I passed a church with a sign in their front yard that said,
"Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly." Hello, Micah 6:8.

It's time to pick up that stick and get serious.

Small Town Update

I just thought I'd relieve your fears and enable you to sleep peacefully again by letting you know that I am, in fact, still planning on posting here on this blog. I know, I know. You've been staring at your computer for the last 2.5 weeks waiting earnestly, tapping your fingernails on the table, checking your Google reader obsessively in hopes that I'll write a quick post telling you about all the ways that moving back home has me rethinking my entire identity and how I'm now writing a soon-to-be published book about the life-altering experience of returning to one's hometown.

Well, despite the fact that you are most likely not doing any of the above, I figured I'd still dash off a short post and let the world know that this will not be another abandoned blog, despite the lack of recent posting or of having interesting things to say of late. In case you were unaware, moving to another place and living with your family until you find another house of your own can be very time-consuming and requires heightened levels of emotional energy. There's also a lot of stress-eating and that takes up more time than you'd expect.

So, all this to say, I'll be posting interesting things here shortly. (i.e. recipes for possum stew and how to skin a squirrel in two minutes flat). So, prepare yourselves for true tales of life in my hometown where sweet tea and fried food rule and where "gizzards and livers" are proudly offered at local gas stations. It'll be a good time.

                                                    Here's me chatting with a neighbor who dropped by for a chat.

                                                   Just me and the girls on a Saturday afternoon shopping trip.

P.S. Don't feel too sorry for me. There are two Starbucks within twenty minutes, which means I'll probably survive.

Be Here Now

The boy is at school and I'm sitting by the window watching the morning sun stream through the trees over the carpet of grass that is my father's life's work and possibly his first love (I kid. But, it's basically a small golf course back there). The steam rises from my mug of black tea and the sound of a newly discovered band plays in the background. (Of Monsters and Men, if you're curious. And yes, I realize I'm a little late to the party on that one.) The new normal continues to unfold here and I am trying really hard to embrace it.

It's cold this morning and I have on a cardigan, perhaps the best article of clothing ever invented. And just for the record, 51 degrees in Georgia is cold, people. Don't judge, Canadians. Cardigans make me happy in a way that doesn't make sense for 99.8 percent of you out there. And I'm okay with that. Something about needing to throw on a sweater reminds me that it's not a million degrees in the Deep South and that a good hair day may, indeed, be achievable. Good hair on any given day during a southern summer is about as rare as a unicorn. If you have a good hair day here in Georgia between May and September, you marvel and take pictures and tell your grandchildren about it, for it is the stuff of dreams. But, I digress.

Today I'm thinking about something my friend Molly said on her blog recently regarding having just moved with her little family to a new place. She explained that she had decided to be intentional about finding good in the season she's in instead of focusing on the difficult, the unfamiliar, the uncomfortable parts of a new context. I'm going to take that word of wisdom and run with it.

So, here I am, purposing to stop moaning about what I've left behind with this move and determining to start dwelling on the good and the beautiful things that are here now. I'm tired of waiting for joy. I keep thinking it'll happen when we find our dream house, or if and when we have another little one, or when the creators of Gilmore Girls finally call me back so that I can persuade them to make an eighth season and let me play Lorelai's other daughter (I realize I need to let this dream die).

I think one of the keys to finding joy in our circumstances has to be this: learning how to actually be where you are. One of my favorite quotes is by the missionary, Jim Elliot, who said "Wherever you are, be all there." In the age of television, laptops, iPhones and iPads, this feels like an impossible charge. But, I'm discovering that lamenting the past or pining for the future leaves me unable to appreciate the now. I want to be more present and to find joy in the little things, the things right in front of me, the things that matter.

And then, there's this:

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. ~Psalm 16:11

According to Psalms, the definitive answer to finding joy is being in God's presence. I'm terrible at that. I'm too busy doing laundry, picking up after my family, cooking dinner, watching HGTV, organizing my sock drawer, reading articles about what Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick ate for dinner. I'm really good at finding things to do to keep myself busy. And, in the midst of all that, I miss it: the being present, the being still. I miss God and the joy He's offering me here and now.

It sounds simple. And maybe it is for some people (i.e. Billy Graham and a few really godly mommy bloggers who don't waste time watching tv and reading celebrity magazines). But, I have a feeling that being present, being still, and finding joy might prove to be a little more difficult than it sounds.

But, I think it just might be worth it. I'd like to trade in all my discontent and my busyness and my impatience for real, no preservatives added, actual joy.

I'm ready to be here now.

Weird Is the New Normal

I'm not good at change. It makes me itch. It makes me snack late at night. It keeps me up when I should be sleeping. It drives me to bake cookies, buy celebrity magazines at the grocery store, eat spoonfuls of Nutella at random, mindlessly watch back to back to back episodes of HGTV's Property Virgins, and indiscriminately shop online. Change is not a good color on me. It makes me less normal. Much less normal.

So far, I've survived the mind-numbing pack-a-thon, the stuffing of all our worldy goods into a POD and our two cars, the awkwardly sad goodbyes, the drive to our new piece of geography, and the attempt at making a temporary home with my parents'. I feel a bit shell-shocked and may need to be held at any moment. So, if you and I bump into each other at the grocery store or a gas station any time soon, prepare yourself, I may try to hug you.

The hardest part of all this transition is something I'm not sure I would have expected before the wheel of change started turning. I didn't expect coming back to my hometown to be so, well, weird.

It reminds me of the title of Thomas Wolfe's book You Can't Go Home Again. Maybe you read the cliffs notes for this in high school. I'm pretty sure I never read it or the cliffs notes. But, I keep thinking about that title and feeling like Thomas and I should have a coffee date. Having spent almost as many years away from home as I spent living here, I'm realizing that as familiar as this place is, it's not familiar at all anymore. I mean, since I left, they built a massive Wal-Mart and closed the drugstore where I worked my first job and they built two more Waffle Houses (with a mile between them) and there's a shiny new Walgreens' where the Ford dealership used to be. Oh, and Hardee's reopened for the third time (But will it be the last grand re-opening? Who can say.)

I know. I know. These are not even close to being significant changes. Obviously, two new Waffle Houses have no bearing on my life in any kind of real way. But, still, things feel different. And, probably most of all, I feel different. I'm not who I was when I left here sixteen years ago. I'm a completely revised version of myself since that day I drove out of town to college and never officially came back.

I realize this probably doesn't relate to where you are or what you're experiencing right now and hopefully you can cut me some slack here and let me openly journal on this public blog that should be about relatable stuff like holiday crafts and crockpot recipes. But, maybe, just maybe, there's somebody out there who's done this before: moved home after having been gone for years and years and found out that it feels incredibly weird and awkward to be back. If this is you, maybe you've got some pointers for me? I could use a ten-step plan and maybe a couple of counseling sessions if you're up for it.

So, here I am, trying to sort out the unsortable. I hope you'll forgive me if I sound distracted when you call or if when I send you an email, I mention what I had for dinner, or if that Facebook message I wrote on your wall is a tad bit needy. I need a little time to figure out what the new normal is.

Sigh. I have no final words of wisdom to leave you with here. And so, in an effort to end this post in a less brooding way, I'll leave you with a picture of Ryan Gosling (because I haven't taken a picture of anybody important in about a month and because this makes me laugh).

I've been to Target a few times lately. And I came out with some unexpected items. Maybe you can relate to me and Ryan about that?

The end.

Move it

I should be packing. But, instead, I'm watching KLG and Hoda, checking my Facebook, and drinking a decaf latte I just picked up at Starbucks. Obviously, I'm in serious denial. Also, Sam is at preschool in case you were concerned that I'm being a negligent parent.

So, since I've got all this "free time," I thought I'd give you a quick update on the packing situation. I assumed you were probably checking your Google reader every few minutes in hopes that I'd post something. Wait, you weren't? Well, here's an update anyway.

I'm currently staring at my kitchen which looks like the delivery ramp at Wal-Mart. It's a sea of boxes and I'm tired of looking at it. It makes me sad. This whole week has been like one long, really slow band-aid removal. I want to rip it off already!

If you know me at all, you know that I have a tendency to get anxious when things are a little out of control. Moving is one of the contexts in which things are majorly out of my control and I start to daydream about running away to join the circus or a motorcycle gang. I've had heartburn all week, I've had a twitchy eyelid, I can't sleep, and I wake up before a sane person should even think about waking up. I'm falling apart, people.

And then, there's the ever-present POD looming in the driveway, daring us to fit all our stuff inside. I realize this is a first-world problem if there ever was one. But, I dreamed a dream that this portable storage unit would be the answer to all our moving prayers. And yet, it's unexpected smallish-ness is increasing my stress level, and this may or may not cause me to break out in a rash. This was supposed to be simple: get the POD, squeeze ALL our stuff in, send it off, reunite with it in a month or so. But, instead, the POD is mocking me with its promises to fit "three-four rooms, no problem" when in fact, it's probably only going to fit Sam's train collection and a chair. I exaggerate, but still, I'm concerned.

So, once I finish recounting my moving woes to you here, I'll get off this couch and start trolling the house again to figure out what needs to be mashed into a box with a bunch of other random stuff that I'm not sure why we haven't gotten rid of yet. Anybody need a bread machine?

Sigh.

And, yet, despite all this, in three days we'll be on our way. A new adventure. A new part of our story. A new everything. There's good in this, even in the midst of moving mania. There has to be.

Gotta go. KLG and Hoda are doing surprise makeovers.

Away We Go

I heard once that moving was number three on the list of "Terrible Things That Can Happen to You," right after (1.) a very large boulder falling on your head and (2.) being kidnapped by Somali pirates. Did you know this? Maybe I'm exaggerating a teensy bit, but according to people who know stuff, moving from one place to another is one of the most stressful life events. It's a bit hard to believe that taking stuff from one house and putting it in another one is capable of creating epic weeping and gnashing of teeth, but if you've done it, you know it's true.

Obviously, it's so much more than just the moving around of inanimate objects. It's the moving on from friends and community and favorite places and pediatricians that you like and that one bank teller that always gives your kid a sucker. It's the leaving behind of people and places and things that have become familiar and comforting and part of your story.

Matt and I have moved four times since we've been married, and that doesn't even count the summer we packed ourselves up and moved to Florida to live with college students for seven weeks (Do not be alarmed. We did not join a weird, short term commune, but were staffing a summer mission project at the beach). We're pros at packing up our junk, renting an over-sized truck that pounds gasoline, and rolling down the highway to our next stop. It's almost like a hobby. In fact, when I list things I do in my spare time, I like to say that I read, have friends over for dinner, blog, troll for deals at TJ Maxx, and occasionally pack all my stuff up in a million, zillion liquor boxes and drive it somewhere else. 

But, this move feels a little different. Matt's accepted a job that I think he'll be really happy in; we'll be living near family, which is kind of amazing (i.e. free babysitting); and we've got a little guy who needs a yard and a puppy and pretty soon, a school. So, I'm thinking this move has the potential to be a permanent one. Maybe.

And yet, while there are all kinds of good things about this life upheaval, it's very bittersweet.

Despite it's being less than a thousand square feet, we've loved our little house and have sweet memories of Sam morphing from a crawling baby to a little boy while we've been here. I'm already jealous of the people who are going to moving in to "our" house after we leave. We love our barn church with it's un-air-conditioned sanctuary full of college students and crying babies and occasional dogs and cats wandering through during communion (shout out to Church Lady). We'll miss our community group who we've come to love and feel safe with. We'll miss all the little kiddos who have been Sam's friends and have been the topic of his conversations at night before we go to bed. ('lijah, Jack, Big Sam, Yella, Kade and Quinn, Hah-wee (Harley), Hay-wee (Hailey), Ada and a few others I'm sure he would not appreciate my leaving out.)

We will miss this mountain and all the people who have been part of our little world here.

Six days from now, we'll be making our way to the heart of Georgia, where we'll do this whole thing over again.

Here we go. 

     A little shot of our cozy mountain house back in the winter of 

      2010 when we had eight inches of snow.