happy birthday...

At our house, Bailey has a toy with a clown face on it that spins. One day the husband started spinning it and singing, to the tune of Happy Birthday, "Happy clown face to you...happy clown face to you...". It is stuck for months and makes her smile from ear to ear.

Today is someone's big 30 birthday and so in honor of this most wonderful man, Bailey and I say, "Happy clown face to you". Happy birthday to the love of my life! I can't wait to see what the next 30 bring us!

so proud...

My husband is a contributing author to this book: Out of the Ooze: Unlikely Love Letters to the Church from Beyond the Pew by Spencer Burke (Compiler). I couldn't be any more proud of him and love him dearly.

How can any day be sad when this is waiting for you when you come home from work?

just checking in...

Well, I have finally done it, I have joined the world of myspace. As someone who prides herself in being a communication person (or at least having a degree in such) it was only a matter of time before jumping into the world that connects us all. If you want to check me out there, I am at http://www.myspace.com//holleyscorner. I will, however, keep blogging because I rather like it.

We are heading out on vacation tomorrow, it seems strange this year because it is always something that we build up to but I have already been on a vacation of sorts for the last month and a half. It should prove interesting with a new baby but I believe that it will be a great time of family and relaxation and am looking very much forward to it.

For now, I am going to spend the rest of the day with my little family in our little dark house, it is very dark and stormy outside and perfect weather to be indoors with those you love!

friday frustration...

Wendell Berry did not live in Emden or else he would not have written about country life with the passion that he has. I remember when we moved here, we would take walks in the evening and talk about how living here was going to be a great “stop” on our journey, how we knew we would only be here for a year or so. We would talk about how we could never live somewhere like this for a long time, how we would just wait out a job opportunity somewhere else.

That, my friends, was 3 ½ years ago and we are still here, in this small rural town of 500. I have been awakened to this town since I have been on maternity leave – being that I would normally leave for work at 7am and return at 5pm, I don’t experience much of the goings on here. I have had people who I meet at the post office ask me who I am. I had one woman who I ran into for two straight days, and whose name I can only imagine is Marla since her license plate said so, ignore my hellos. Then the other evening, while out for a family walk, she passes us on her bike and the husband says hi and she returns the sentiment. He is a small fixture in this town while I am an alien – although we are and forever will be foreigners together, never truly being accepted because we don’t have at least two generations of family buried here.

It all kind of came to a head on Sunday, there was a poor, poor turn out for church and we are hosting a dinner for about 75 men on Monday. I have only had two other people offer to help, one being an 85 year old who can only do things that allow her to sit down (she will be my official cake cutter). This, and numerous other things, have stirred much conversation about why people seem to be so apathetic here. And it is not just our church, all of the churches in the surrounding areas have difficulty and a couple are looking at ways to shut their doors gracefully. The only church that sustains is the Lutheran church. It just seems that people have no passion for the church, big c, and I am not sure that it isn’t systemic of living somewhere like this all your life. How can you talk about the church universal when there are people who I know that live here that have never left the state, that have never lived anywhere but here, that have married their high school sweethearts and moved to the family farm? I am not being degrading, nor do I feel like I am a better person, but I think that there is such a lack of experiencing life and the bigger world in a place like this. I know that many of these people are content and happy and I would be ignorant to say that I think that they would all like to do or be somewhere else. But it is just frustrating – these are frustrating days on the prairie. I think that we may not be the right people to minister here.

The husband has been in class all week, his first official doctoral class. I know that being where we are affords him the opportunity to do this program and also to teach and right now, that is the most important part. He told me last night that since we have been here, he has been a part of 10 different search processes for either church or college jobs. I guess we do sound desperate to get out – and I know that eventually He will hear our cry and move us on. For now, learning contentment is hard, trying to spark and evoke passion is even harder. But, we have each other to lean on and know that this is all part of a much grander plan than our own.

sunny saturday...

It is a sunny, quiet morning on the prairie. I sit listening to a little Gillian Welch and the click-clack of the baby’s swing. We have family visiting from Pittsburgh and I am waiting for them to arrive this morning to spend the day with them at our home, we spent the day yesterday with them in Springfield. We went to a favorite place for lunch, the Feed Store, that specializes in soup (yes, soup so good you will still eat it even when it is 80 degrees outside) and then we went to a used book sale at the library and with our pockets $30 lighter and our bags much heavier we headed to Recycled Records (a little music store somewhat straight out of High Fidelity). It was a good day.

I have been reading a wonderful book that my husband gifted to me for my birthday – the last couple of months I hadn’t been much for reading so I just now picked it up and really, the timing couldn’t be better. The book, “Momma Zen – Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood” is not only reaching me as a new mother but as a person who still has so much growing and maturing to do. Here are a couple of pieces that really spoke to me and have caused me to think about who I am and why I am the way I am and how much more peaceful I could make life for myself if I just let some things go.

“Practice acceptance on yourself so you can be kinder with your child. Practice nonjudgmental awareness of your life so you can save your loved from the cruelty of your own impossible standards and your hard-hearted disappointment. Practice greater faith and lesser blame. Take this blink of time when you are still stumbling at the gate, still awkward at the tasks, to turn down the sound and tumble freely in a state of grace.”

“Your life is your practice. Your spiritual practice does not occur someplace other than in your life right now, and your life is nowhere other than where you are. Live the life in front of you, be the life you are, and see what you find out for yourself.”

In other news, the garden continues to grow and our copy of the “Simply in Season” cookbook arrived this morning after finding it for a steal used, off the internet. I am hoping that the zucchini recipes are good, we will have more than we could ever use…and living where we do, every other yard has a garden in bloom so there are no neighbors who need to be shared with as they will most definitely be in the same plight that we will be in in a couple of weeks. I did plant some cilantro to go with the peppers and tomatoes in some homemade salsa, I am looking forward to that. The husband had hoped that maybe just 1/3 of what he planted might work out, I don’t think either of us anticipated the monstrosity that the garden has become – but it makes us both very happy!

follow up post...

Blogger wouldn't let me post pictures on my previous post and I wanted to include pictures of my two most favorite people - the other two members of my little family.

return from silence...

As I sipped my mug of hot coffee (oh yes, how I have missed my coffee…my unborn baby had not been a fan of coffee and so I had been on a nine month break from it’s goodness), listened to the birds greet the morning, watched the morning sun begin to rise higher into the sky and the children walk past my front door to school, I realized that I had not posted on my blog in so very long. And so, a return from a too long hiatus but a return feeling like “me” again…the last couple months of pregnancy really took a toll on me, I felt like I was in some sort of suspended animation, watching life as it happened but not being able to mentally, emotionally or physically engage in it. Thankfully I have an incredibly supportive husband who has been more than understanding and patient with me. I had a sort of epiphany in golf aisle of Wal-Mart the other night – I turned to him and said you know, I feel really good, I feel like me again, I feel like I have come home. The next couple of months at home will be very, very good for the husband and I to reconnect. I have missed him and feel like I have missed out on so much lately.

My days are busy and full now with Ms. Bailey and all the wonder that a three week old brings – she is incredible and I am humbled by the fact that her father and I were able to create such life.She amazes me every day and every day my love for her grows. I am over the initial frustrations of having my otherwise structured life suspended – it is hard to go from being at work every day to being at home with no set schedule, but I am really enjoying it and already fear that the time will go too fast and I will be returning to work before I even realize it. We are all (yes, even the cat who seems to understand that she needs to resign herself to the fact that this crying child is not leaving) falling into a routine of sorts and it feels good and right.

The husband has been incredibly busy with Ms. Bailey, me, the church, getting schoolwork finished for his upcoming doctoral class next month and most importantly, with his beloved garden. I am so proud of him and his garden, it is amazing! We make a trip down every night to check the progress and every day there is something new to look at. The size and speed by which the plants continue to grow is astonishing and we are both anxious for the first “harvest”. I got kicked off the internet earlier this morning and so now, I have finally regained a connection. Since then the sun has faded and, as I finish posting this a hard, dark rain has begun to fall and nourish the nature outside, it is wonderful to watch it fall from the kitchen window, such a peace and a calm over the prairie this day.

Listening - rain and the hum of the washing machine fighting with Ellis Paul for audible attention
Reading - nothing right now...gasp!!