DAD ACCORDING TO THOSE WHO KNOW HIM WELL...

My dad is 8 years old.

My dad is really strong, he could lift a table.

My dad's favorite color is orange.

My dad's favorite food is hot dogs.

My dad always says "I love you."

My dad is the best at dancing very fast.

My dad laughs when I do silly things.

If my dad had time, he would love to

come home when it was not time for him to.

My dad and I like to play dollhouse.

My dad really loves Mommy.

I LOVE my dad because he always bees nice to me and silly.

(by Adelaide, age 4.5)

My dad is 3 years old.

My dad is really strong, he could lift his keys.

My dad's favorite color is blue.

My dad's favorite food is tacos.

My dad always says "get tacos for me."

My dad is the best at pictures.

My dad laughs when he sees hyenas.

If my dad had time, he would love to pick up orange things.

My dad and I like to play with Thomas friends.

My dad really loves my favorite toys.

I LOVE my dad because all the things make him laugh

and he always loves me.

(by Graham, age 2.5)

COLD TANGERINES...

i enjoy a variety of books for different reasons,

but shauna niequist's books are in their own category because as i read them it seems

as though she somehow crawled in my head and put much of the jumbled mess into words.

 each chapter is only a few pages and can stand on its own, to sink in over time.

but each is so good i find myself wanting to read on then reread my favorites again.

i read bittersweet last year, as i was coming out of the fog of the first year of having two kids.

i opened it in a season of many changes of motherhood and it spoke volumes to the stage of life i was in.

filled with good reminders and life lessons in a non-preachy way. 

and just recently i finished cold tangerines.

here are a few of my favorite slices from it:

when we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily life. we get to remind one another about the bigger, more beautiful picture that we can't always see from where we are. -pg 49

true friendship is a sacred, important thing, and it happens when we drop down into that deeper level of who we are, when we cross over into the broken, fragile parts of ourselves. we have to give something up in order to get friendship like that. we have to give up our need to be perceived as perfect. -pg 50

maybe some of what we're doing here is representing the goodness and love of God in tangible ways. -pg 52

i saw the long list of meetings and projects and the long list of phone calls to return... but i wasn't seeing the people of the celebrations. i wasn't seeing anything beyond the chaos of my life and my home and my calendar... waiting under the things to do was a story to be told. -pg 88

i have a condition my husband and i call "crazy brain." it's like being hyperactive in your brain instead of your body. -pg 134

i have been surprised to find that i am given more life, more hope, more moments of buoyancy and redemption, the more i give up. the more i let go, do without, reduce, the more i feel rich. the more i let people be who they are, instead of cramming them into what i need from them, the more surprised i am by their beauty and depth. -pg 159

all my life i've been multitasking. i'm good at it. i don't want to be braggy, but i'm kind of a champion multitasked, really. and all of a sudden, what's valuable is not the multitasking but the single task- being with my son, doing nothing else. -pg 194

as we talked about it, i commented that this season must feel like an interim season. and she stopped for a second and said, "everything is interim. every season that i thought was stable and would be just how it was for a long time ended up being a preparation or a path to the next thing. when you decide to be on this journey with God, everything is interim." -pg 206

i want to arrive. i want to get to wherever i'm going and stay there. that's why i was such a ferocious planner of my life. but i'm learning to just keep moving, keep walking, keep taking teeny tiny steps. and it's in those that i become, actually, who i am. we won't arrive. but we can become. and that's the most hopeful thing i can think of. -pg 208


i want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. and i don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. i want to eat cold tangerines and sing loud in the car and sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift, who will use it up and wring it out and drag it around like a favorite sweater. -pg 234-235

(all quotes from cold tangerines by shauna niequist)

"THERE SHALL BE ETERNAL SUMMER IN THE GRATEFUL HEART." -celia thaxter

only 5 days 'til the summer season starts around here...

"a perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken."
-james dent

rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.
-john lubbock

"the summer night is like a perfection of thought."
-wallace stevens

"in summer, the song sings itself."
-william carlos williams

deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.
-sam keen

a life without love is like a year without summer.
-swedish proverb

summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the english language.
-henry james