Well, here we are...

...another unintentional vacation from the blog. Not that I meant to take one... it just kind of happens. Without so much as a "going on blogger hiatus, brb!"

I make no apologies because a couple weeks of coming home from work, not turning the computer on, and simply reading and writing on paper have been good for me. (Oh and uh... NCIS reruns. Word nerds watch TV too sometimes. :P)

I've pretty much spent the last week or so working on a brilliant return to the blogsosphere, but... nothing. I get little ideas that turn over in my head while I do the more mundane tasks at work or while I drive and listen to music, only to have them evaporate before I can get my laptop out of the bag.

But! I will be on vacation from my real job next week, which should mean time relax and think and maybe blog those things out a bit more. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it... an open week is always a bit intimidating before it starts.

And I am writing... more than ever, actually. Just not here. Here are a few writing things going on as I continue to make excuses for myself:

1) I have a couple new reviews on JFH since last posting... Audrey Assad's lovely new record The House You're Building and The Museum's debut Let Love Win. One is pensive, poetic singer-songwriterliness. The other is... well, a worship band.

2) Still transcribing my interview with Audrey Assad. Or.... being busy and just now really getting to it. Or maybe forgetting to transcribe it. What with writing reviews and sleeping and working and... NCIS reruns. oops.

3) Mayyyyyy have another writing gig forthcoming. Just scrapping together some loose ends. I won't say much and jinx it, but that sort of thing excites me. :)

4) Actually getting back into fictioning... slowly. I have more to say in that regard, but it warrants its own post.

There you have it! Excuses, excuses. And now we return to our quasi-regularly scheduled blog.

Enough of that. What have you been up to? Feel free to plug your blog, writings, achievements, or whatever means most to you at the moment. :)

Sunday happy list part deux

If I'm going to make this a weekly event, I need a name for this thing. Something witty and wonderful. With alliteration maybe. Or at least a cool logo.

Maybe next week.

A Sunday Good List for the past week! (though technically it's Monday, because I'm up at 12:30... but whatever. It's still Sunday night in my head. =))

1) Accidental free coffee at Target Starbucks on Wednesday! I showed up early. The register wasn't working yet. Ashley gave me free coffee. Can't beat that.
2) Birthdays! I love them. I don't care if getting older goes with it.
3) Because birthdays = free stuff. Starbucks, Jeremiah's, Qdoba, First Watch... (note the food theme)
4) Relearning cursive because I couldn't remember how to make a capital I.
5) Interviewing Audrey Assad yesterday. Such a kind and deep person. Had a wonderful time talking with her and can't wait for you to read it... when I get it transcribed, that is.
6) Jeff Cruz, Kat Davis, and Shannon Steele for making it happen, and Courtney Hyder for sending me helpful info to help my "question block."
7) My "scribbles before sleep" notebook. I've made a goal to handwrite 1 or 2 pages of anything (and embellish it with doodles) before bed, and it makes me feel wildly creative.
8) Two new books from The Rabbit Room arriving last week. The Fiddler's Gun and The Book of the Dun Cow. American Revolution and farm animals! Can't wait to read them.
9) The re-opening of Tijuana Flats in Leesburg. The Rose Family Sunday Afternoon Ritual is back!
10) That some smart person figured out how to make baked potatoes in 10 microwave minutes instead of over an hour in the oven. So good.

a new favorite poet

Last month, I was introduced to Jeanne Murray Walker, a poet I'd never heard of, and a beautiful piece that put words to faith and doubt in a way that dug into my soul and wouldn't let go. I owe it to this post from Micha Boyett Horhorst's blog Mama:Monk, because otherwise, I still might have never read this.

Micha challenges her readers to memorize a poem a month. As May came to a close, I told myself I'd memorize her next one for sure... and what a great place to start. Upon reading, making a noise of recognition, and reading it again, I scribbled it on the front and back of two large sticky notes and kept in on my desk all month until I had it committed to memory. (I don't think I've intentionally memorized a poem since I had to in high school... God bless high school English.)

Such true and beautiful words. If you ever wondered what it was like to keep the faith through doubt, to hope when it doesn't make sense... let me have the pleasure of introducing you to Ms. Walker's profound words...

STAYING POWER
In appreciation of Maxim Gorky at the International
Convention of Atheists. 1929

Like Gorky, I sometimes follow my doubts
outside and question the metal sky,
longing to have the fight settled, thinking
I can’t go on like this, and finally I say

all right, it is improbable, all right, there
is no God. And then as if I’m focusing
a magnifying glass on dry leaves, God blazes up.
It’s the attention, maybe, to what isn’t

there that makes the notion flare like
a forest fire until I have to spend the afternoon
dragging the hose to put it out. Even
on an ordinary day when a friend calls,

tells me they’ve found melanoma,
complains that the hospital is cold, I say God.
God, I say as my heart turns inside out.
Pick up any language by the scruff of its neck,

wipe its face, set it down on the lawn,
and I bet it will toddle right into the godfire
again, which--though they say it doesn’t
exist—can send you straight to the burn unit.

Oh, we have only so many words to think with.
Say God’s not fire, say anything, say God’s
a phone, maybe. You know you didn’t order a phone,
but there it is. It rings. You don’t know who it could be.

You don’t want to talk, so you pull out
the plug. It rings. You smash it with a hammer
till it bleeds springs and coils and clobbered up
metal bits. It rings again. You pick it up

and a voice you love whispers hello.

There are more poems on her website, and they are also wonderful. Here's another one that makes me smile:

GIFT

For a hundred miles

the fields have worn

beards of ugly stubble

and night is falling

and you can’t find

a lover, not on AM or FM,

and the hand at the toll booth

wears a glove

so as not to touch you.

You pay for yourself,

then for the car behind you,

so someone pushing headlights

through the heavy dark

will feel luck

go off like a Roman candle,

so she’ll give a car length

to the maniac who cuts her off,

and you, there in your lonely bubble,

can think of each tail light,

each anonymous fender

as a friend.

Thanks for this, Mama Monk. Please visit her blog. It's not your average mom blog, I promise.

And for more of Jeanne Murray Walker, visit her website as well.

***

Lots on the mind tonight. Good conversations. Editing a new album review. Attempting to handwrite something every night before sleeping.

(last night, I discovered I couldn't remember how to make a cursive I, by the way. So a chunk of that writing time was re-teaching myself stuff I learned in... like... 4th grade. Pointless random Jenfact share of the night. :))

And reading. A lot.

Summer was made for this sort of thing.

gratitude.

It's Independence Day. There are fireworks popping down the street, and I just made pancakes. A lot to be grateful for.

And it seems like now is just as good a time as any to make my first Good List. I've been wanting to do it since Jenipher at Cherry Runway introduced me to them through her own blog, and it's only fitting for a Sunday night while I'm in need of something new here and procrastinating on a couple of other writing projects. :) Sooo... starting the week with 10 things that make me happy...

1) My home, the USA. Yes, it's probably obvious and cliche with this being the 4th of July and all, but hey. I'm thankful.
2) Allrecipes.com for teaching me how to make pancakes at 10pm when I had a craving and no pancake mix in the house. (Bisquik = overrated)
3) Catching up on sleep this weekend.
4) Rain. Even if it did make a cloudy 4th of July, it's nice for keeping Florida green and the summer heat tolerable.
5) Finishing Evolving in Monkey Town this weekend. A great read. Review forthcoming.
6) Finding a notebook this weekend that had some of my first poems in it. (I was 15!) Wow, they suck, but it's always fun to see where you've come from.
7) The sound of fireworks down the street.
8) My family. They're great.
9) My job and my friends there. I have to work tomorrow, and I don't mind at all.
10) That Jenipher introduced me to the Good List Daily concept and blesses the blogosphere with lovely art.

What are YOU grateful for?