on hold...

who doesn't love anthropologie? the store. not the subject in school.

i love anthropologie. the store. the clothes. the various and sundry stuff inside the store. the smell. the vibe. the original windows. 

i do not love the prices. but all that other stuff that makes up anthropologie... i love all that. love. it. all.

and so does my eldest daughter. who had the chance to visit the anthropologie store in nashville when she and her dad were there exploring belmont university last weekend.

and whilst she was in that lovely anthropologie... as she is wont to do... she tried on some items. some sale items. and she convinced her dad to put those items on hold. so that she might come back and procure those items in the very near future. after she had checked out some other stores and made sure that the anthro items were the best of the best. which really they always are... sigh.

and they were. but they didn't have time to go back to the store. and the next day they didn't go back to that area at all. and they came home with nary an anthropologie bag in sight. and she despaired. 

and you think this is a sad story. but it isn't...

because on valentine's morning her father brought out a familiar bag. an anthropologie bag containing two sale items that he had gone back and purchased unbeknownst to her.

so this story is about a daughter who didn't trust her father. but really it is a story about me. and what i learned from that anthropologie bag in my husband's hand.

i know that God has promised me a lot of things. a lot of things that i know He has put on hold for me. a lot of things that in reality He already purchased for me on a cross. all of His promises are answered "YES" in Christ. but i haven't seen them all answered yet. 

but i picture Him holding a bag. one that is even more beautiful than an anthropologie bag (I KNOW... HARD TO IMAGINE!!!!) He is waiting until the time is fulfilled. until all the pieces are in place. until the day that He has planned from the beginning of time. and His promises are already wrapped up ready to be handed over to me. His beloved daughter. let me trust His Word. His faithfulness. His love. His heart. His grace. His plans.

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. hebrews 10:23

"Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill His promises to her!" luke 1:45

punching 2013 in the throat...

i am a SUCKER for good marketing. and customer service. give me a company that does that well and i am theirs. heart, soul, and wallet.

so i saw this nueyear calendar advertised on tim challies' website and i clicked on it. i think it is the FIRST time i have EVER clicked on an advertisement on a website. but it looked so fresh and visually appealing. and it said it was awesome. who could resist? not this equally awesome gal...

their website did not disappoint. it was hilarious. fresh. to the point and yet fun. it reminded me of despair.com. another company with marketing chops and good customer service. or photojojo. or knock knock. all companies who do the internet and email marketing well. so well that i don't delete their emails right when i see them. 

so i ordered a calendar. because they convinced me that my life wasn't complete without one. and i really want to punch 2013 in the throat... who doesn't?

then i immediately received this super fun email from jesse of neuyear (which my spell check keeps wanting to change to "neuter" ha.)...

HUZZAAAAH!!!

You. Are. a Genius.

You have just taken an essential step to planning your goals and punching 2013 in the THROAT! Next December you're going to sit around the fire with your friends, remembering what an awesome year it's been and how you achieved your dreams by planning goals and taking action. Good for you.

But don't be selfish by keeping all this 2013 domination-ness to yourself. You know better. Tell your friends how they can dominate 2013 too. Quick . . . tweet right now . . . don't you like your friends?

Seriously, thank you so much for ordering this calendar. If you have a minute, please hit me back and let me know how you heard about NeuYear! And, if you have any ideas/questions/problems, totally email me.

You Rock,

- Jesse Phillips

jesse told me that i am a genius and that i rock. it is like he has known me all of his life. so i sent this email back to jesse. because we are totally like bff's now...

i saw your calendar on challies.com and you had me at "punch 2013 in the throat." i am a good ical user and that is usually enough for me to keep up with everybody. but your website and marketing were so hilarious that i was totally convinced that this was the one thing lacking in my life...

we are a BUSY family of five. three teenagers (pray for us to live the year) with a gazillion activities. and my husband usually has NO CLUE what events are coming up until 5 minutes before the event when i text him, "WHERE THE $&^%$^&^ ARE YOU?!?!?!? THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN (insert name of teenager here)'S LIFE!!!!!" so i am hoping this helps us all get on one page. one awesomely huge and graphically pleasing page. and shows the rest of my family how incredibly wonderful i am to have all of these plates spinning at the same time. and maybe convince one or more of the self focused teenagers that maybe there are other people in this family and the world doesn't revolve around them...

i know... it is a lot to ask of one calendar. but you promised domination-ness...

thanks and can't wait to start punching... 

lea marshall

i ordered the dry erase 2013 calendar. though the school one is nice also since my life has kind of always been on a school calendar. i like how it has both the horizontal and vertical calendars in one. and that they thought about the size to fit on a door. or above a desk.

i liked their about page. their video is fun. i would totally invite these guys to dinner. and i would add the words "AWESOME DINNER NIGHT" onto the calendar on the correct date. 

their idea reminds me of this book that i just bought for myself to read and then maxx took it to read first. i didn't put up too much of a fight. he is enjoying the book and the ideas. 

the description for the book reads... 

In Seth Godin’s most inspiring book, he challenges readers to find the courage to treat their work as a form of art...

Everyone knows that Icarus’s father made him wings and told him not to fly too close to the sun; he ignored the warning and plunged to his doom. The lesson: Play it safe. Listen to the experts. It was the perfect propaganda for the industrial economy. What boss wouldn’t want employees to believe that obedience and conformity are the keys to success?

But we tend to forget that Icarus was also warned not to fly too low, because seawater would ruin the lift in his wings. Flying too low is even more dangerous than flying too high, because it feels deceptively safe.

The safety zone has moved. Conformity no longer leads to comfort. But the good news is that creativity is scarce and more valuable than ever. So is choosing to do something unpredictable and brave: Make art. Being an artist isn’t a genetic disposition or a specific talent. It’s an attitude we can all adopt. It’s a hunger to seize new ground, make connections, and work without a map. If you do those things you’re an artist, no matter what it says on your business card.

Godin shows us how it’s possible and convinces us why it’s essential.

i feel like the guys at neucal understand the concept of art as product... and i wanted to support them. and i wanted to punch 2013 in the throat. win/win.

"fun"ctional friday...

this morning as i was unloading the dishwasher i noticed that some of my kitchen items get washed almost EVERY day. ergo... i use them EVERY single day. also was thinking that i didn’t want to do any really heaving thinking today and i bet that you don’t either...

so this blog post was born. 

10 things that i use a lot in my kitchen.

1. the collection of wooden spoons from pampered chef. i have about 6 of them and sometimes every one of them is in the dishwasher. 
2. the weird mixing thing that my sister gave me from king arthur flour. it is great for mixing muffin and cake mixes. 
3. the wooden tongs from pampered chef. because i used to use metal forks to get things out of the toaster but i had a friend who FREAKED OUT when she saw me do that as she was afreared for my life. so i started using these. and i use them to serve bacon, sausage, and other little things. they are great. and they are saving my life.
4. oil mister. this one is broken and i need a new one. but i keep using this one because it still kind of works. you pump it up and then the oil sprays out. since this one is broken i pump it about 20 times and get one second of spray. then pump it again 20 times. it is like a little arm workout. yipee.
5. garlic press. i love fresh garlic in things. somebody once told me that freshly pressed garlic is amazingly healthy for you. hope it still maintains its amazing health properties when mixed with all the butter i cook with. sigh.
6. the microplane grater. is great. i never buy shredded cheese. never. i will break 9.5 commandments today. but i will not buy shredded cheese.
7. pampered chef’s OLDIE but goodie chopper. i want a new one. but i want a lot of things. this one still works fine. and works all the time. it is the hardest working man in show business.

8. this soup post from le crueset. i bought it at their outlet in yemassee, sc. hometown of my college roomie, robyn. and i use it for EVERYthing. it is a great size and shape and stays out on that burner because i don’t have cabinet space for it. plus it looks nice all orangie in my kitchen. but mostly because i use it almost every day.

​9. the utili-tea kettlefrom adagio teas. i heat up the water to the correct temperature and then add tea leaves. harney and sons hot cinnamon spice is my favorite tea. then it seeps for about five minutes. i pour a cup for millie (the “follow jesus” cup. subliminal, yes please) and a cup for myself (the larger “to-go” cup).

10. my milk frother. which is broken but still usable (do you sense a theme amoungst my supplies? broken and usable. hmmm, that speaks to me.) a part broke off and so everyday i have to tighten up the frother part on the bottom and the part on the top. but i do that because i LOVE LOVE LOVE frothy milk in my tea. i use a combo of half and half and skim milk. froth it up by pumping it up and down about a million times (another upper body workout) and add it on top of my hot tea. even with skim milk it makes it thick and whipped creamy like. i also do this for the top of the kids’ hot chocolates or whenever i make chai tea. really, it is exquisite. and fancy. and delicious. and did i mention fancy?

and that is my TOP TEN list of items that are always in my dishwasher. thus always being used. hence most of them are broken and yet still usable. still thinking about that and how it describes so many things in my life... mostly me.

whoops. i wasn’t supposed to think any deep thoughts today...

the sweet nectar of summer...

the BEST part about our kids going to camp in north carolina is the opportunity for purchasing cheerwine on our sojourn to the mountains. we buy a case for each kid (and one for mom) and then try to ration our cheerwine consumption over the next year. 

so this year, all on his own, maxx came up with a cheerwine chart. with little cheerwines to take off and add under your name whenever you indulge.

they may never go to harvard. they may never keep their rooms neat. they may grow up to be the kind of people who don’t make their bed everyday. they may never write a pulitzer prize winning anything. they may grow up to be even GREATER failures than their mother. they may move as far away as possible and talk once a week to an expensive therapist about their mother and all that she did to totally RUIN their lives (and they will have plenty of stuff to talk about). and they may not even become functional members of society....

but my children can make a cool chart. 

sigh. sometimes a mother can be proud of those little accomplishments. sometimes it is all she has to go on that she has influenced these children in ANY way at all other than for their detriment.

to celebrate the last night before school began (and by “celebrate” i mean “i cried a little bit”) we made cheerwine floats. they were SUPER yummy and reminded us of all the GREAT tastes of summer. 

and then we put our cheerwines on the cheerwine chart. legalistic little chart checkers that we all are.... yes, the therapist might need to cover that one day...

booking it...

now this is what summer looks like at my house. PILES of books. everywhere.

summer is for reading.

and now summer is for reviews of some of my best reading so far. books i would recommend to all of you.

and melissa gilbert’s prairie tale is not on of those. but it was a fun read for a “little house” fan. well, the first chapter about her life as half-pint. the rest of her teenage years of mania... were just plain sad. 

1st recommendation... Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired

a walk through history and a recounting of so many of the blood that was shed (and bodies that endured the flames) so that i might one day look up verses on biblegateway. if you love history and you love the Bible and you want to be so grateful and inspired and humbled... it is a winner.

2nd... The Dangerous World of Butterflies: The Startling Subculture of Criminals, Collectors, and Conservationists

this guy wrote articles and books about war and horrible things... so he decided to write about butterflies. and found that even that world of beauty can be fraught with danger and subcultures and factions that are at war with other factions... over butterflies. i learned a lot more than anyone should know about butterflies and freezing them right from get go for collecting. too bad our freezer is full up on frozen pizza and ice cream. no room for illegally traded butterflies. nope. none in there. so don’t look. okay...

3rd... The Hunger Games

this book was on millie’s school list to choose to read this summer. and maxx had read it and LOVED it a year or so ago.  when robyn was here, she read the back of this book and deemed it TOTALLY TOO VIOLENT of a concept and depressing to read. and then she read the first couple of pages. and then we never saw her again. she stayed up all night reading the first one. then went on to the second one in the series, catching fire. and she may have snuck into the scholastic warehouse to get an advanced copy of the third one, mockingjay (coming out the END of august). then millie read it and LOVED it. maxx, millie, and robyn kept talking in this secret code about rationing their food and forming items in our house into weapons and they made have made an alliance and threatened to kill me while i slept so that they could “win the hunger game”. but i am sure they didn’t mean anything by it....

and so finally i read it. RIVETING story.  could NOT SET IT DOWN. and then i read the second one and now i cannot wait until the third one. 

here is a little more info on the author’s influences and a bit more about the story and the world it takes place in....

and they are making a movie based on the first one. should be great. and i am especially looking forward to seeing the clothes. there are some exciting outfits described in that book. no wonder robyn was so into the books.