December 28, 2006

Feels like home to me...

Well, other than my brother getting engaged last Saturday, this week has pretty much held the usual holiday fare. Of course, our family's "usual holiday fare" looks a bit different than that of other families. The week starts off with the bajillion mile sojourn across the Atlantic, braving long holiday lines at the airport, 3 crowded, uncomfortable flights, and more. This year's traveling highlights included sitting next to THE most talkative math professor who is also a Jewish convert who just finally got custody of his children in the last few years because family courts usually favour the mother and the story goes a little something like this... three hours into it, after dinner, I turned to him and said something along the lines of, "I'm sorry, I have to go to church and be awake and such in the morning. I'm going to sleep," and turned to face the window. When I arrived in Brussels, I mistakenly walked onto the set of "A Very Merry Concentration Camp Christmas" and was somehow verbally abused by the female security guard whose two English phrases were "Get your luggage!" and "You stand there!" I seriously ran to the bathroom and cried afterward. It was horrible. To complete the tour, my dad was misinformed about where I was flying from and we both spent a good half hour or more waiting for one another in separate terminals at the Prague airport.

However, things were, as they usually are, uphill after the trip. After arriving on Christmas eve afternoon, I took a nap and then the whole fam piled into a rental car (yay for Europe! no need to actually own one) to go to what turned out to be an incredibly saccharine Christmas Eve service. I mean, for crying out loud, right before we read the Scriptural Christmas story, we got a story read to us by Pearl S. Buck. And the sermon... well, I've heard meatier words from "Delilah" on KEZK. And who cares about a cheesy sermon when there are good friends to greet you after the service and beer and homemade pizza to greet you when you get home?

The rest of Christmas flowed as usual - presents, stockings, a Christmas party, picking on Aimee (my sixteen year old sister), and rousing the dogs to a good barkfest. And now, a few days later, I've been able to pack the time with trouncing around Prague, losing horribly at pool in the same cafe where Kafka and others used to sit and talk and think and write (Cafe Louvre), staring up at the castle from my delicious Videnska Kava (viennese coffee) at Kavarna Slavia (Cafe Slavia) along the river, catching up with old friends, shopping the hip Euro stores with Aimee, staring down at Vaclavske Namesti (Wenceslas Square) from my seat in the posh McDonald's in the middle of the square while snow coats everyone and everything... elbowing between passersby to make the metro, squashing my way up to a corner kiosk in the Christmas kiosk, between kids hankering for parek v rohliku (hot dogs) and old men grouching about who knows what so that I might get svarak, or mulled wine. Yum!

Well, I was going to continue telling about my week but I got plum tuckered out of writing after barely covering the first 72 hours, so I quit. But here it is, everyone - a post!

| By Heather | 02:25 PM | Comments (4)

August 14, 2006

Slow Runner

It's taken me awhile to get around to fulfilling my taggedness from Neil, but here goes:

Continue reading "Slow Runner"

| By Heather | 11:44 AM | Comments (2)

August 11, 2006

Somehow, I just knew

...that this is what the answer would be.

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

| By Heather | 02:25 PM | Comments (4)

August 03, 2006

Stuck in Traffic

I got stuck in traffic this evening. I had gone out to my old apartment to take care of a few things, and on the way back I got really, really stuck in what I can only assume was Cardinals traffic. It was great.

God and I had the most wonderful conversation. If you're ever gonna get stuck in traffic, He's a good one to get stuck with. He was sweet, gentle, forgiving, passionate. And yet He was strong enough for me to fall apart and to cry (I recommend wearing sunglasses as big as your face so you're less inhibited by the neighbouring cars) and to just be with me while I was feeling hurt and angry and scared. He didn't require me to feel a certain way when I started or ended, or think certain things, or even verbalize what I was feeling to Him. He was just kind of there, letting me know He loved me and that nothing about that had changed or will change, no matter what else has, does, or will.

There are parts of me that are still hurt, angry, and scared, of course. But I'm not hurt, angry, scared, and alone. I'm safe, and loved by the only one who's big enough and coordinated enough to not only hold my hand but to actually carry me in one arm while dealing with all the crap with his other. He's quite a lover and quite a God.

| By Heather | 10:47 PM | Comments (4)

July 31, 2006

Little Miss Reformed and more

Well, I've been wanting to highlight my amazing friend Heather and her blog for some time, but just haven't gotten around to it. However, now that she has "tagged" me about book titles, quoted me, and posted pictures of one of my list of former hometowns (Grand Haven, MI), all in the last 48 hours or so, I feel it's an appropriate time.

First, let me tell you about this little spitfire of a woman. She's a whole five feet and two inches of God-lovin', honest, extroverted, funny, ridiculous beauty and she's one of my favourite BFFs. AND she knows how to appropriately, gracefully, strongly be a woman, which is trickier and trickier in a world of passive men and hardened, controlling woMEN. (You know, the ones that might eat you for breakfast if you even suggest that they're anything but vastly superior to men.) Anyway. She's fantastic, she has my same name, and I love her blog.

Now, to fulfill the taggage. I think that means I'm supposed to answer the following questions:

1. One book that changed your life:
Fresh-Brewed Life by Nicole Johnson. (Again, it helps that we have practically the same name.)

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. About 800 times, or maybe just 5 or 6.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
Ooh, what about a choose your own adventure?!? That could at least while away some hours.

4. One book that made you laugh:
Just Checking: Scenes from the Life of an Obsessive-Compulsive by Emily Colas.

5. One book that made you cry:
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. And Shiloh. And "Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin" by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. And King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild. And a number of others, I'm sure on it. (Ok, when required reading for college history classes sets me off, it's time to just get a grip. And yes, Heather, Bridge to Terabithia kills me, too. Just thinking about it gets me kind of upset.)

6. One book that you wish had been written:
How To Die To Self Without Your Self Dying.

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. (Don't get me started!)

8. One book you’re currently reading:
The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs.

10. Now tag five people:

This part kind of cheeses me off a bit, too, but whatever, let's all play along! Now I'm curious about just about everyone out there, but these are the ones I'm gonna go ahead and tag just because.
Tuggy
Laura W.
Neil
Claire
Barbara H. (a.k.a. surrogate Mama)

| By Heather | 12:36 AM | Comments (4)

July 17, 2006

Old writing, exhumed

On Friday as I was cleaning out my computer files at my old job I found a little piece of writing I'd spat out last summer one day while bored. It's a little on the darker side because that's where I was at the time, particularly at work where I was sitting by myself in a cubicle with nothing to do for 8 hours every day. So I started writing and this is what came out...

Continue reading "Old writing, exhumed"

| By Heather | 10:51 PM | Comments (2)