I'm going to Oxford, England next week.  It was a spur of the moment decision. I know, trips to England aren't exactly spur-of-the-moment sort of decisions though are they? At least not for me. Sometimes though, I think a wild hair strikes and it seems as if the stars align.  You have what feels like a pipe-dream sort of idea one day and then you do something nutso and … [Read more...]

The first time I met Melanie three years ago, she answered a silly call that I put out to a crowd full of women to figure out how to fold a program that none of us could seem to figure out.  I said whoever folded it the best would win a prize.  Melanie made it into some origami genius. Clearly she won the prize. Then when I saw her later the next day, I mistook her for some … [Read more...]

This time last year I was stuck in Atlanta hoping with all hope that I'd be joining the team I was traveling with to Uganda on a storytelling trip with Sole Hope.  Remember that?  I had passport issues and ended up watching the team leave me there all by myself in the Hartsfield International Airport.  And the 24 hours that followed had us all (myself included) on the edge of … [Read more...]

I had to make a spot to sit on the sofa in my living room this morning.  Even sitting here cross-legged, computer on my lap, my knee is crammed into a tupperware bin of boy clothes that no longer fit one kid and are still too big for the other.  Boxes are piled half the distance to the ceiling all around me, and I keep wishing that I had rolled up the living room rug before … [Read more...]

They’re knocking at my door.  Standing on the doorstep, rapping and tapping at first from outside…in the world around me. Lately they come banging with wadded fist on the entry to my own house. “Little pig, little pig, let me in” I stand on the other side of the division separating me from the huffing and puffing…standing and wondering which house I’m living in. The culture … [Read more...]

So much has happened in the past month.  It has been enough to make my head spin.  It has spun and whirled and the Christmas season has come and gone, and to be honest, I felt flown right through the month of December. And some parts of the season stuck firm and deep in my bones, and some parts of the life around me have felt like a cutting of flesh...painful and hard. … [Read more...]

Sitting at my sister's kitchen table in New Jersey, I stare the French bulldog perched on the edge of the sofa straight in the face. "One, two, three, four..... seventeen, nineteen, thirty-seven, TWENTY" Sounds emanate from the adjoining room as a wild game of hide-and-go-seek fills my ears, and I find myself  both distracted from writing and simultaneously filled to the brim … [Read more...]

Allume is 2 weeks from today.  The official day it begins anyhow.  For the team and me, this one weekend has been over a year in the making.  I imagine that for God, it's been in the making longer than that.  And that fact alone makes me super excited. We stole away this past weekend.  I had too much work to really leave, but I left anyhow because I knew it was the last chance … [Read more...]

Life has been very full this summer. The picture above was taken from inside my house far away, but it's what I want to most remember.  Just how there is simple bliss found in creating space for life to happen. I have been working hard on Allume, and when I'm not, I'm working hard at maintaining margin for my family. We are investing time and making memories.  I know that I'm … [Read more...]