Wake Up Right: Leaving Margin

"So wake up, wake up, wake up all you sleepers, stand up, stand up, stand up all you dreamers, hands up, hands up, hands up all believers take up your cross, carry it on."

"Wake Up" All Sons & Daughters

On the relatively calm sea-shore that is my little group of lifestyle-blogging friends, the topic of Breakfasts has been frontward in our minds. Jenny of Adonis Ephemeral  spoke on the importance of starting your day off with a proper roundhouse kick of protein and fresh produce. On Instagram, Carmel , Jenny, several other friends and I have a sort of on-going breakfast contest. Who can eat the best and brightest breakfast and post a photo of it before the others. Actually, we inspire each other to new heights of healthy breakfasts and I'm such a foodie that I honestly look eagerly for Jenny's latest wacky creation. This whole conversation has got me thinking about my morning routine and why I get up two hours before leaving for work.

To someone who is not a morning person, the idea of setting one's alarm (and responding to it) at 6:30 when one doesn't have to leave the house until 8:30 is pure madness. I know. I had this conversation on Thursday night with my sister who, God bless her, manages to wake up twenty minutes before go-time and still look fabulous walking out the door. Believe me, I tried. I tried waking up at 7:30, doing a ten-minute workout, putting myself together, eating breakfast, and leaving. I even got to work on time most mornings but I was harried in spirit. I didn't feel relaxed. I felt late. I felt like there was absolutely eight-five-million things I had forgotten to do or take or remember before leaving the house. I couldn't very well meddle with work times so I began to fiddle about with my wake-up call. The magic number revealed itself: two hours.

At first it felt like an extravagance. Two hours. Who needs two hours to get ready in the morning? But I began to realize something about myself: these two hours were a strategic move. With two hours, I have leisure time. I can wake up, check the notifications on my phone, get out of bed, and get ready without stabbing my eye with the mascara wand in my haste. I have time to take a shower or if dry shampoo is all that's called for, I can spend extra time on my eyeliner. I can choose my outfit slowly (because I always forget to pick it out the night before) and read my Bible. I head downstairs at 7:30, wide awake and feeling fresh. If the weather is amenable (and I can stand many varieties of weather), I take the dog and get out for a walk. At this time of year the briskness of the dawn hour drives me to walk even faster. In half an hour I can manage at mile and a half, which is really nothing to sneeze at. I get home with half-an-hour to spare and am able to fix myself a thoughtful breakfast and a cup of tea. Favorite breakfasts include:

cranberry-almond quinoa

hummus spread on sprouted grain toast & fruit

avocado & olive oil on sprouted grain toast

plain greek yogurt with all-fruit jelly & granola

one easy-over egg on sprouted grain toast & a kiwi

halved avocado filled with greek yogurt & bacon crumbles

something brilliant leftover from last night's dinner

sliced tomato, sliced cheese, & a handful of raw nuts

"omelette eggs": scrambled eggs with mushrooms, onion, & peppers

Meat is an awesome thing to have at breakfast, but when you live in a large family, there is usually very little of it leftover outside of pre-existing meal plans. If there is leftover chicken breast or salmon or roast, I will add that to my breakfast because I like to get protein outside of dairy sources and at work, dairy sources are the main protein option.

While I eat breakfast, I will usually finalize lesson plans or get in some reading time. By the time 8:30 rolls around, I am fully awake, in a bright mental state, and feeling ready to attack whatever the day brings me. Even if it's Monday. 

The Secret Life of Optimists

Okay, show of hands: how many people here have seen The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)? I have several friends who hate it, several who adore it, and several who look at me with confused but polite expressions on their faces when I ask if they've seen it.

On a basic level, Walter Mitty is a film about a hard-core day-dreamer in love with a girl at work he's never spoken to, who finds himself saddled with discovering the baffling whereabouts of a vital photograph ("Quintessence") missing from his workplace. We all like to pull for the underdog, especially one with a heart and imagination as endearing as Walter's. But at its core, the film is a celebration of imagination, optimism, friendship, art, adventure...all the things that make up the delightful parts of life.Walter Mitty works at Life Magazine and the company's motto will always inspire me:

"To see the world,
Things dangerous to come to,
To see behind walls,
Draw closer,
To find each other,
And to feel.
That is the purpose of life."

 I suppose the reason I love The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (apart from the stunning and artistic way the film was shot) is because it is a story about a person like me. A person with an imagination that colors his world brighter than usual. A person who has more than once spaced out in a conversation, totally enveloped in What Could Happen. A person who sees possibility everywhere, in everyone. A person who has within his mind, a million outcomes of a million situations and is poised just so, waiting to see which will really come to pass and where it might take him.

This first week of 2015 has been amazing. I am not exactly sure why except that I have lived every day with this glorious sensation of Just Around the River Bend practically sparking out of me. 2015 is, so far, an open year. I don't have many plans. Those I do have are just sketches, waiting to be filled with color by the adventures God lets me stumble across. Exciting things are lurking in the corners. I just know it. I don't have a reason for knowing it, but somehow I do. Seriously, put away your raised eyebrows. There are no secrets here. Just a flush on my cheeks and my heart beating a little smidgen faster than usual because something is coming. The unknown is all around me and there's something in the wind that makes me so terribly excited for this year. And yet, I feel a little like Jane and Michael Banks after Bert has done his rigmarole of: "You think...you...wink, you do a double-blink, you close your eyes and...."

Jane cocks her head, looks at Bert and says:

 "Is something s'posed to happen?"

That's how I feel right now. Is something s'posed to happen? Will it? I have my eye on several situations in friends' lives that could bloom into straight-up, real time fairy-tales or epic-saga adventures. I'm waiting for the next part of the story, conscious that any moment could catapult them (and me, vicariously) into a crazy, practically unheard-of new world. In my own life, things move along as usual. I spend my days doing life in technicolor. The people at the grocery-store are not just people. I mean, they are just people but not just people. I believe in the rich old truth that my life is a story and each component is part of that tale. Therefore, the man behind me in line at the grocery store could turn out to be important. The lady who cuts in front of me in traffic. The bank teller I saw twice in one day. The man in the window of the National Press Club Building. The woman whose package I rescued off the metro who I finally got back in contact with. My brain goes wild with the possibilities. When those people don't give me something memorable, I remedy the situation by doing something creative for them to remember. If I can't meet That Person, I'll be That Person. Call it what you will (fate, destiny, a horse), there's never a dull moment in this brain. I know bad stuff happens in life, but I know good stuff happens too, and it's the good stuff, the grace-moments in life that I wait for. They're there. They're everywhere. Some people just don't look for them or notice.

But living this secret life of brilliant hues has a flip-side: when life does turn out to be normal and the threads running across it seem to be weaving an average graham-colored bit of the tapestry, the heart-racing, flush-cheeked, eyes-sparkling existence begins to feel like a pacing tiger in a cage. I'm ready for the adventure. Where is it? I'm keeping a weather eye out for the next interesting person, the next impossibly beautiful moonrise, the next rose-red leaf silvered with frost, the next place to send an anonymous letter, the next way to secretly give a quiet blessing. It's an odd sort of discontentment, waiting for the peacock blues and currant reds and new-wheat greens in the tapestry of life to cover the graham-colors. When they don't come on their own, I make them myself, content in mixing dyes from the bits of everyday magic around me. I'm content with waiting, with letting wild hopes fly through my fingers each day, for there are always more hopes to be spent tomorrow. It's a luxury that optimists like myself can easily spare. But I will admit that our outlook can be exhausting,  for we spend hope at an extravagant rate and if it's a harsh master who would call it wasteful, our output is certainly tiring. I discussed this topic briefly with a friend this evening:

"Did you know it is slightly exhausting being an imaginative optimist? I mean, what's more tiring and frustrating: waiting for nothing to happen or waiting for anything to happen? In the first case you at least are fairly ready to stay where you are all your life. In the latter, you have the most delicious sense of 'any day now.'"

...or "any person now," or "any moment now," or "any page now," or "any conversation now," or "any query now." I don't believe the hope is poorly spent. I would always far rather be the optimist waiting with shining eyes and a laugh caught in her throat because anything could happen, than the pessimist who pulls on his tan trench-coat and trudges to work through snow whose beauty he can't even see because he can think of nothing but what a mess it'll make of the roads. I would always rather be That Person than a thousand Anyone Elses. I would always rather be a half-short, past-plump girl who makes generous messes in the kitchen than the tall, slender model who can't allow herself a slice of sourdough toast. I would always rather be the girl sleepy-eyed and smiling from an overdose of well-marked books than the frowning, tired-eyed girl who gave up reading because her schedule didn't allow it. I'd always rather wake up believing with my whole heart that impossible things can happen than going to bed each night satisfied that nothing did.

So let the tiger pace; it's striped and tawny and beautiful. Let people pass me by; they'll remember I smiled their direction. Let real photographers buy cameras; I just ask a small, friendly moment to capture the fragile beauties with my (now contentedly outdated) iPhone. Let real artists paint masterpieces; I just want my little, dusty watercolors and a brush not losing too many bristles.

Welcome to The Secret Life of Optimists, in Technicolor, 2015.

{Snow} Scattered Beauty

It is snowing.

Not big fat flakes.

Not small shapeless flakes.

Flakes that are both tiny and perfect. Focus hard enough and you can see that each flake is like an impeccable, flawless spur, built of crystals and magic and perfect beauty. One flake is enough to make us marvel. One flake. One tiny little flake. And then, maybe, you realize that your eye is adjusting like a computerized miracle to be able to focus on that tiny flake, and then you let your eyes readjust and you see that the entire world is flurrying with millions of these self-same flakes; there are too many to inspect each one. Some of the beauty is going to be unnoticed by human eyes forever.

But it's still beauty.

It's fluffing down on us and blanketing the world in white. Large and broad and all-encompassing to show the purity of our God and how He views us through Christ's sacrifice. The snow is also tiny and small and not-a-one-is-identical to show that God cares enough to imagine each design and then create it. Does it matter to God that we won't see the flawless creation that is every single snowflake? Not really. The small ones pile on top of one another in a glorious display of perfection, salvation, mercy. Snowflakes are glory-screamers.

I wish we would take the time to realize that magic is real; that is, the magic of the fact that snow falls, or rain drops, or winds blow. They don't have to do that, you know. From a young age I always had a sneaking sense of living in a fairy-world when it came to creation. There was something about "the fragile beauties" that was extremely...thoughtful. Someone was conjuring these things out of pure pleasure. Someone was spreading beauty and it wasn't just because "that's what snow does." Then I read the essay on "fairyland" by Chesterton and understood:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” 

-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Exulting in monotony. Who is patient and wise enough for that? But maybe the thing is, monotony--like snow--becomes more beautiful the stiller you are. That everyday grind you do? Have you tried adjusting your lens and seeing the fragile beauty of the day-to-day? To the casual observer, a world covered in snow might seem perfectly ordinary. (I hope not, but it could be) But to the person who knows we live in Fairyland with a Magician who breathes out every flake of snow to a form peculiarly His own fancy...that snow isn't a natural disaster that makes them late for work. That snow is a miracle and an allegory and a love-letter written from the heart of the Divine to His glory-displayers who are fuddy-dudding around like they weren't created for an incredible destiny.

Take a minute to look at the snow.

Remember the mercy.

Praise the One who imagines Beauty and scatters it over the land.

This lovely little life

We are home from Operation Shock & Awe which was round and round a success. If you want to hear (or see, rather) about it, head on over to Part One on Two's Company!

I have been thinking about lots of things lately. ( Of course. I always am, aren't I? ) and among them are what I ought to be doing to make money and how God wants me to balance all the pieces of this life. There is so much good stuff going on, but it is coming to the point where I need to buckle down and throw my full energy into a certain set of things instead of dashing like a mad woman from one to the other and trying to get all of them done at once. These things include:

Writing (3 different books at once?)

Blogging

Research for Secret Projects

Teaching

Working With Dad

Family Life

Quiet Time

Ministry

Money-Making

Any Other Creative Efforts

I'm only one gal. I've only got 24 hours. But I can see that those 24 hours need to be carefully spent and right now I blink at the list and go back to twiddling at all of them and I'm less effective than I could be. So if y'all could please pray for me about that, I would love it.

Sometimes I think my imagination is such a brilliant place. I mean seriously. I make up the best-case scenarios for myself. Today I was out with Mama at the store which never happens. It was great to spend some one-on-one time with her and get Starbucks after. ^.^ The entire time it was raining. Actually, it has been raining ever since I got home from Operation Shock & Awe. I love rain. You'll know how much I love rain when you realize that on my bucket list there is at least one item that has to do directly with rain. Like: "Meet someone unexpectedly in the rain. Someone who is very glad to see me." I'm serious here. That is on my list. Sarah told me that the word for a person who loves rain as much as I is "pluviophile". Huh. Funny word, but it means me and I mean IT! *Tigger Laugh & Bounce* At any rate, Mama and I waited out a deluge and then I climbed out of our van, umbrella-less and said, "This is where my imagination outranks real life: in Rachel's World you would never take an umbrella because there would always be someone right behind you to run up and jut their umbrella over your head."
She agreed that was a very pleasant thing.
But you know what? So is walking in the rain, bareheaded, with your Mama and making up stories about the WWII veteran with the tattoos on all his knuckles...

Thanking God for my idiosyncratic, lovely, helter-skelter, jam-packed little life. Love you guys. <3

There's none of it at all!

"The funniest thing about it is the way it likes to grow:

Not at all like proper children which is always very slow.

For it sometimes shoots up straighter like an India-rubber ball

And it sometimes gets so little that there's none of it at all."

-Robert Louis Stevenson

Though Robert Louis Stevenson was, of course, referencing his shadow, I think this quatrain fits well with the current state of my life. (and probably the lives of many of you gals who are graduated.) It seems like we're either sitting with so much free-time we're about crazy, or the schedule merits none at all. I'm about to enter a none-at-all stage, and I'm looking forward to it.

Since we're a "political family" (i.e. don't sit around with our heads in the sand), autumn is not so much pumpkin-spice lattes as it is campaigning. And in Virginia this year we have a really vital race. The spot for governor is up for grabs and the nation's (collective) eye is on the race; whoever becomes governor will swing Virginia one way or the other which will effect national elections in the next few years. You'll likely remember me speaking of the SAT's last year (student action teams) with Generation Joshua; they have called for two early SAT's in addition to the normal ones over election-week, and are trying to gather 200 students for each round! I have volunteered as a leader for those two (as well as the normal one). That means that from the 19-24 I will be in Northern VA, and from October 3-8 I will be in Southern VA. In addition to this, we have our beloved County Fair this weekend, a family camping trip planned for the week after the second early SAT in October, and the girls go to camp mid-October. (I am not taking that full week out of my time for obvious reasons. :D) Of course after October comes election-week with the normal SAT. I'm really hoping and praying that we can get Ken Cuccinelli elected as our next governor; he's a Catholic, homeschooling father with excellent values who stands for everything I am concerned about as a young, intelligent, and voting single woman. Please be praying with me that the fondly-termed "Operation Shock & Awe" will change the course of Virginia history--most candidates whose races our SAT's helped push through election day credit GenJ kids with tipping the final scale. I know it has worked before and I pray these kids' efforts will help push Ken Cuccinelli through. I am SO excited! If you've never done something like this you can't understand the energy and thrill of working so closely with the stuff that changes American history. Seriously now. Get involved with politics; if the country has lame leaders, it's really our fault.

Off the political topic, I am also teaching English Literature to Leah and creative-writing lessons to Leah, Anna, and our cousin Emily. (This will have to be slipped here and there through cracks.)

Also in the background is my online shop, The Warren, which hasn't exactly taken off with a bang because of the fact that I've had no  time to publicize it. So if any of you felt like helping me out with that...(blog buttons, mentioning on your blog, following The Warren on Facebook... :) The business is finally beginning to boom (after three years of nil), praise GOD, and we are having to work Saturdays to keep up. I am still doing billing and occasional office-related things in addition to going out on the work-crew now and then. (the other girls and Benj still carry the brunt of that.) This month I got to do it all at Starbucks. (hence the picture above. Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate is divine.) Oh yes. And I'm writing a Cinderella-novella (25,000 words) which I have to finish, get critiqued, edit, and send into author Anne Elisabeth Stengl's contest by December. The reason I'm pushing to do this is that the best five stories will be published by Rooglewood Press in an anthology dubbed: Five Glass Slippers. Of course A.E. Stengl will get all the money from it, but the winners have have glory, honor, and free publicity in connection with a very successful author in the Christian-fiction circles. So I'm writing my best and shoving it in the ring and we'll see what outcome the Lord has for all that! It would be a lovely break into the realm of publicity for my writing which is currently-unpublished-but-seeking-to-remedy-that.

So yes. I'm bonkers. This fall is bonkers. And I'm loving every minute of it. ^.^

My Crazy-Single-Writer's-Life Includes...

Editing.

Playing with Paper when I'm not Writing On It

Sending Belated Birthday Gifts:

Turning Utter Chaos into Chic Order:

I have a Writer's Lair now!

Making Shrinkage-Worthy Pies:

And filling blue-glass vases with flowers:

What about you?

:)

"Yeah, you gotta go deep//Way on back//Cross a few creeks//And a couple little shacks//You gotta get lost//Way on out//Crickets and frogs//Yeah you're getting close now//then you kick it into 4-wheel drive//till you run outta road//then you go//and you go and you go and you go//till you hear a banjo//

-"Banjo" by Rascal Flatts

Since Coming Home...

I've been cooking. Kind of a lot.

I've given haircuts...

 

And received one!

I have seen Les Miserables live on stage and then prepared Abigail and Daniel to go off on their little date the next day for the same. Isn't she gorgeous?

Aw <3

I've played around with makeup-techniques a little bit, and planted our garden, and procrastinated with my writing. Oh! I've watched a little Larkrise to Candleford (it half annoys me and have pleases me so I continue to watch it until Thomas gets on my nerves one too many times), and I've listened to Cabin Pressure. Which, by the by, you simply must get your ears upon ASAP. It's a BBC radio-comedy starring Benedict Cumberbatch and John Finnemore among others, and it's a corking good show. I love it and never fail to laugh. I am especially indebted to Daniel Tate for this pleasure, btw. 

Ahhhh. Amazing radio-show. :)

Since coming home, I've also phone-banked with Americans for Prosperity, getting folks to register to vote this year, and I've watched Iron Man 3. 

So yes! All in all I've been rather busy since coming home. How about you? What have you been doing these past several weeks? :)

Life is...

Life is....

Cuddles from a baby when you're barely awake...

Coffee in the mornin'....

Trying new recipes for new situations with new people...

Spontaneous bursting-in-to-Broadway with the girls when we're supposed to be cleaning, and lending out my lipstick to Anna and Emily so they can play "Eponine and Cossette." 

Drawing elephants on my hand just because hand-elephants are cute...

Stepping out on the porch in the middle of fixing dinner just to watch the sunset.

Dabbling in paints and paper and brushes...

Wearing lace in my hair...

And putting it up soft and gentle.

Crazy cousins...

And new leather travel journals....

and forgetting which way to hold the tablet when taking a selfie...

Life is beautiful. <3

Best Foot Forward: Day Six

Well! Today is a Saturday, in case you didn't know that already. The events for today include finishing the house cleaning, going to a birthday party, and trying to squeeze in some reading of Fly Away Home.  <-- I intend to finish that before Monday, hopefully. :)

Hair purposely messy and thrown-back. I like it this way. Bwahahaha.

Old reliable denim skirt (because comfort is key on a sunny Saturday). This top-combo is one I love, but don't indulge in wearing too often because it's a little short-waisted and must be kept a strict eye on. 

I used my browns again because I thought using blue would be overkill. :D Rimmel mascara, a tidgy tidge of blush (hardly any at all) and then my new Rimmel "Non-Stop Glamour" Stayglossy lipgloss. I absolutely love it. It's a sheer, pinkish-nude color which pretty much matches my lips exactly. Thus I can go natural and fancy both. ^.^