day one, and bad kitchens

So here we are on the cation. So far the weather is perfect, and our cabin is quite nice. The boys are buying fishing bait with Dad, Mom is out for a run, Cami's eating a muffin, and I'm sitting on the couch (one of three actually) with a mug of coffee, a stack of books, and a laptop with no internet. What a life.

Apart from Keegan's dog inconsiderately breaking her leg shortly before we were supposed to leave (I'd like to say that's the last time she'll try to climb a six-foot fence, but that may be giving her intelligence more credit than it deserves), and a couple of friendly neighbors dropping by to chat and, incidentally, bump our intended departure time back by an hour or two (we love our neighbors, don't get me wrong) - anyway, apart from those things, yesterday went surprisingly according to plan. By early evening we were all here; we unpacked most of our vast supply of . . . supplies; we ate supper at Perkins (so much for all that food we brought); some of us watched a tennis match until midnight (miracle of the day: thanks to Dad, I think I actually understand the scoring system!); we slept like logs.

There's a stack of magazines on top of the fake fireplace here, that Cami and I were looking at while we waited to leave for supper last night. Most of them seem to be resources for the modern woman, anything from Oprah, to Country Living (ha ha, right?), to Home Decorating. Home decorating for millionaires, that is.

I found myself staring at a large photo of a beautiful designer kitchen at one point, trying to figure out why I hated it so much. It wasn't that I didn't like how it looked. It looked great. Excellent taste, excellent design. Quite lovely.

Then it struck me (I call myself Captain Obvious) that it was because that kitchen was not meant to be used. The framed photos at the back of the countertop, the bowl of fruit in the center of the island, the absolutely clean aura of the place - was not to be disturbed.

Frying hamburgers? Canning tomato juice? Kids running around? Nuh-uh. No touchy-touchy.

I flipped a few pages over to a similar spread, displaying a perfect living room. Same sensation. Perfect. Untouchable.

The very function and life purpose of a house is to be a home - to be used - to be lived in.

The kitchen was invented for cooking. The living room was invented for fellowship. The bedroom was invented for rest. The bathroom was invented for . . . well, you know what bathrooms are for.

To me, I guess the foundational problem is that these designer homes defy their created purpose. At the core, they're just not true.

Kind of like us, huh? Created for God's glory, living so often for our own? Small wonder that we can't find peace, can't rest, can't live. But praise be to God for seeing fit to gradually redesign us, to return us to the truth.

Ouch, when He breaks in pieces that expensive designer couch that kept me from inviting real people to come in and sit awhile. But - oh, hey! This is kind of nice . . . this is right . . . this is what I'm here for.

What a weird thing to write about the first day of vacation. Oh well.

the cation

Family vacation: an American tradition, right? Maybe even somewhat of a Planet Earth tradition. But for one reason and another, our family hasn't gone on one since probably 1998 (I'm bad with dates), when all the aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents on my dad's side of the family gathered for a week at a camp near Lake Okoboji. Back in those days, I was a freakishly skinny string bean whose sense of fashion and decorum (judging from old photos, anyway) was even more prehistoric than it is now; my sister Cami was the sweetest, cutest thing you ever saw, and never said a word (some things never change, huh?) (just kidding - love you, Cami!); and my brother Keegan (now fourteen) was a chubby toddler, infamous for his absolute refusal to part with his beloved cowboy boots, and too small to understand that "vacation" was all one word - hence the invention of "the cation." Keegan made up a lot of words when he was small.

Anyway, the point is, we're going on a family vacation this year! We just decided to do it a few weeks ago, and we're going to the same lake as before - which, since we moved, is a grand total of thirty minutes from home.

But a vacation is a vacation, right? It'll be just our family, and none of us will have to go to work. We can swim, if by some weird chance it's hot out. We can sit in the sun and read, if the sun shines and books are handy. We can fish almost no matter what. We can play games and sing and read together if it rains (which it might). We can eat and take walks and photographs, shop a little and borrow our neighbors' canoes and kayaks. We can talk and be quiet, and just enjoy each other's company for awhile.

Who cares if it's September, and we're only half an hour from our house? I'm excited.

And now, since we're leaving in four hours, I should go pack.

home

Mmmmmm...
Up before the sun, cold morning.
Sweatshirt and slicks, hair pinned up.
(Why? Home day! Why not?)
Snuggle up recliner,
giggling four year old lap warmer.
Reading Spurgeon...
Sam doesn't get it.
Explain in small words:
Song of Solomon,
Jesus died for us,
He loved us first,
now we love Him.
Maybe Sam gets it now.

Breakfast-
no milk, two eggs, no bread.
Oatmeal!
Cinnamon, apples, raisins, honey.
Warm bowl, warm hands;
shivering shell of a body,
cinnamony-warm from the inside.

Kitchen table observatory.
Gentle sun kisses cold air,
reaching across low from the horizon.
Green grass, green leaves-
but not for long.
Sky is piercing blue, clear into forever.
All the world breathes deep.

Welcome back, September.
I missed you.

John 16:33

Possibly my new favorite verse (if one should have favorite verses, which one probably should not). Anyway, I love it.

"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

Yes.

for those times when I don't do so well...

I don't know - maybe it's a firstborn thing. Maybe it's a girl thing. Maybe it's just a sin thing - but I've discovered in myself a strong (yet shockingly inconsistent) compulsion to always do everything "right." Or at least to feel unreasonably guilty when I don't. People-pleasing, I think they call it.

It really bothers me when I get to the end of the day, and all I can say to myself is, "Tierney, you just ain't done so good today." (Why bother with good grammar when everything else has already gone to pot?)

Sadly, this feeling gets to me most acutely over simple mistakes and blatant, visible sins - instead of the thousand times each hour that my heart was behind closed doors, kneeling before its own throne. To my shame, I'm often more perturbed by my mask falling off from time to time, than by the fact that I'm even wearing a mask in the first place.

Except when I stop to think about it . . . then they both bother me.

Today was kind of one of those days, at least in terms of "oops" moments.

I was blessed last month to start working for the most wonderful woman at her most wonderful little coffee shop, and I just love it. The harsh reality, however, is that this sensation of filial affection has so far done very little to abate my periodic episodes of startling ineptitude. I'm a newcomer to this gourmet scene. And I'm just kind of a spacey, distractable individual, prone to forget things that matter when they matter most.

I left home this morning just barely on time, only to get stuck behind an elderly driver in an elderly Grand Marquis, waiting in a no-passing zone for an approaching vehicle half a mile away to get past before making his left turn (I love elderly people to death - they just scare me a little on the road); and then again behind a semi-truck that took almost two miles to get up to speed (my love for semi-trucks, however, was slain in its infancy, if it ever existed at all).

Nobody is ever at the coffee shop right away when it opens; but I was still five minutes late, and as the sole employee of the day, that was just not Step One as it was intended to be taken. Lesson learned: just leave early.

I got what I'm pretty sure was my first-ever customer complaint today, which made me 1) panic; and 2) realize that I take life way too personally.

Later on, I made not one, but two trips to the grocery store because I forgot the first time that I was out of not one, but two ingredients for the frosting I was supposed to be making. Good thing I was working just a block or two from the store.

I think I accidentally charged at least one lady tax on an item that didn't need it. . .

And I came home to a letter in the mailbox, putting one of my other jobs in potential jeopardy due to past disorganization on my part, of a more technically serious nature than I had heretofore been aware. . .

And I didn't have supper ready until almost 7:45 (waffles might not have been the best of all possible choices). . .

And now my left knee hurts, probably because I've hardly worn anything (on my feet, silly) but flip-flops all summer.

But you know, it could have been worse. I think. And anyway, God will use it all for some kind of unimaginable purpose. And it's good for me to fall down, to fail sometimes. The confidence that comes from satisfactory performance is mostly fake, and in any case has its foundations set in play-doh.

So here I am at the end of the day, and all I can say to myself is, "Tierney, you ain't done too good today - but your God sure is good, and He's forgiven you, and tomorrow's a new day."

That's alright. I can live with that.

progress report

This one's for the record books:

So far I'm liking this "type" of blogging a lot better than my former approach. Of course, one hopes that I will periodically comment on subjects of a depth slightly greater than what is inherent in furniture and cement bricks; but we'll get there, hopefully.

In the meantime, I find it strangely liberating to let go of what (I can now see) was becoming an idol to me, with regards to my writing. Both the writing itself, and the feedback of other people. I am so needy - practically every time I would post something on my old blog, I would check obsessively for comments, and lose a significant portion of my self-worth when none were forthcoming.

"All that work, the best I could do - and still, nobody likes it? Oh, woe is me, the scum of the earth!"

Yeah, it was time to let go.

My challenge to myself with this blog is to look for the joy in the ordinary things of life, and to just write every day about something.

At present, three of the four posts I've posted have exactly (0) comments on them - and I could hardly care less. Quite possibly this is at least partly because I haven't poured hours of work and most of my heart's blood into their creation.

I've also discovered that I write, perhaps not best, but at least most easily, under two particular conditions:
1. in the morning;
and
2. when I've been reading good writing.

Good endings are so difficult. So important.

This post just isn't going to have one.

caffeine, furniture, joy

First things first: in spite of my dismal prediction, I did survive all day yesterday without a drop of any form of caffeine. After writing that I surely could never do such a thing, I became very miffed with myself for unnecessarily creating a situation from which I could not emerge alive without the aid of artificial stimulants, and decided to give myself a lesson in Not Being Stupid.

I also thought, hey – maybe if I let myself suffer the full, un-medicated consequences of my rather foolhardy behavior, I’ll finally decide it’s just not a worthwhile habit to keep up.

Smart, huh? Only took me nearly 21 years to figure it out. Einstein would be so impressed.

I’ll be coffee-shopping tomorrow, though (by which I mean, working at a coffee shop – not shopping for coffee beans), so I probably won’t escape un-caffeinated. Some things just aren’t worth trying to resist.

Funny the things a person will come up with to dream about. I have big, impossible dreams coming out of my ears, but the thing that's really been gently tugging at my heartstrings lately is. . .

. . .a desk.

Yep, a desk, to sit at and write, to put books and maybe a picture frame on, and to keep things in the drawers.

I like to think that I'm not fussy, but I guess I kind of am. It has to be a simple desk (not a roll-top), but not super plain, and definitely not ugly. Inexpensive, and not too big (but not super extremely small, either) Maybe a slightly beat-up one, with some ornament and character to it, that I could refinish or paint, and make my own.

And it absolutely must set under, or at least very near to, a window - preferably one with a decent view. A stunning view would be even better, but you can't have everything.

Realistically, would I use a desk enough to make it worthwhile? I thrive on variety, so chances are in favor of my using it a lot at first, during its brief stint as a novelty, then abandoning it for large chunks of time while I root around for new crannies to sit in.

But right now, it sounds perfectly lovely, and I want one. It would be a fun project, anyway.

In fact, the place where my dresser is would make a nearly perfect writing spot: cheery yellow walls and a south-facing window, plus it's in my bedroom, so it wouldn't invade anyone else's space. Maybe I should throw out most of my clothes, junk the dresser, and buy a desk to put there instead.

I was at a thrift store this afternoon, and found this wonderfully amazing solid oak dining table – with six chairs, even – for (drum roll, please) only $150. It is, admittedly, in need of a certain amount of TLC. But it’s so beautiful, and I’d love to learn to refinish furniture – I am so tempted to buy it, I’m almost positive I’ll have to choose between doing it, and hating myself forever for not doing it.

And what, I suppose you’re wondering now, would I ever do with a huge dining room table and six chairs? For now . . . I haven’t got the foggiest idea.

But that’s not the point, now, is it?