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These are the classy ladies that I've come to believe are an extension of the best version of myself.  They make me laugh more than anyone else.  Whether Hil is embracing her Russian roots with my favorite accent, Kylea is regaling the latest details on the soap opera this is her life in Bako, Kathy is getting down to Slow Motion, Kougs is being the Kougar and bringing out the best in everyone and flaunting those famous moves, or Shannon is - well - groping each and every one of us...these ladies are hilarious.

Not only that, though.  They're supportive and they're honest.  We've walked through the fire together, had our share of tifts and growing pains as girls who live together in college do, and have come out stronger for it.  We listen to each other and get updated over endless cups of coffee, each of us wishing that our busy adult lives and the miles between us weren't so capable of making these "reunion" weekends so few and far between.  But we manage to preserve these friendships because they matter.  While we now come together for bachelorette parties and weddings instead of lazy Saturdays that revolve around pizza and Felicity, not a whole lot has changed.  We've been through endless crushes, heartbreaks and boyfriends; and are now beginning to celebrate engagements and weddings together.  We've supported each other through illnesses, deaths, and family struggles of all kinds.  Being with these girls is like coming home.  But with more whipped cream and inside jokes.

I looked around at Elyse's wedding last weekend thought about how long we've known eachother and how much has changed; how much I love these girls and how proud I am of the women that they have become.  In some ways it made me feel sad - a nostalgic kind of sad for the fact that we no longer live in the same city and get to meet up for happy hour to discuss the boring details of our lives that good friends really do care about.  But being with them also makes me feel so blessed.  Each time we get together it's so comforting to find myself surrounded by friendships that have withstood the test of time, by women who know the best and worst parts of me and love me anyway.  And how lucky am I that these same friends happen to match my passion for both living a Christ-centered life and singing along to every word of R.Kelly's Remix to Ignition - a rare but essential combination if you and I are going to become close friends.

Thankfully, since graduation, one person each year has taken one for the team and had a wedding to give us an excuse to get together.  Elyse's wedding was a beautiful day.  I can't think of anyone who deserves our dear Elyse more than Jesse.  She is so undescribably beautiful inside and out; the picture of both strength and humility, grace, devotion, selfless faith and perseverance.  And Jesse is an incredible man who loves her so well.  These two fit together in a way that makes getting hitched look like the easiest and most natural thing in the world. Celebrating their marriage was one of the happiest moments I've experienced in a long time, and I have no doubt that their life together will be abundantly blessed by Him who brought them together.

So here's to good friends, spiked lemonade, old and new memories, Boise 2010 and more weddings to come - sooner rather than later ;)

Little Rupert

Jenny and I have really only been friends for a little over a year, I think, but I feel like I have known her for a long time.  It's like we were meant to be friends with each other.  She is sweet and thoughtful and just plain hilarious - I don't know what I ever did without her around. When she moved here last year we were told by many people that we "had" to be friends, and thankfully these people were all correct.  Jenny also happens to have an equally fabulous husband, Chris.  These two are a match made in heaven, two of the most fun, most genuine people I know.  Despite the fact that these two had some crazy ideas about parenting (my personal favorite being a type of baby carrier that you can just hang on the wall) there has never been a doubt in my mind that they wouldn't make incredible parents, and that any child lucky enough to grow up in that household would not only turn out just fine but would likely become the coolest, most fun, and most adorable kid in any room.

Thankfully, Jenny managed to get herself knocked up so I could prove my theory.  The pregnancy was a little but tough, but Jenny was a trooper.  She is a strong woman and despite some tough days that I am confident I would have handled with infintely less grace, Jenny delivered a perfect little baby boy yesterday.  I've been calling this little man Rupert for about as long as he has been in existence.  Okay, about since the time they found out he'd be a boy.  But these two (understandably) have had one hell of a time coming up with a name for this guy.  At one point, Rupert was actually a viable option.  I didn't even to pretend to mask my horror at this name choice.  Not surprisingly to anyone who knows me, however, it stuck.  I've been calling him that ever since.  No doubt I'll at least sometimes be calling the kid Rupert for the rest of his life.

Poor little Rupert was unnamed for the first few hours of his life.  But they did in fact name him.  Asher.  I love it.  Not only is it better than Rupert, but looking at his perfect little face and his feet that are just so simultaneously tiny and huge on this little peanut, it fits him.  Asher, which means "happy," or "blessed," is the perfect name for him as he will undoubtedly be both of those things.  He's got some of the most incredible parents in the world who are going to love him so hard for the rest of his life.

We all know that the whole childbirth thing is pretty much a miracle.  Even those who don't subscribe to any particular faith or higher power are moved by it.  But seeing him wrinkle his little tiny nose and mouth - already a perfect little tiny replica of his mama's - and watching Chris hold him and just giggle, the joy that filled that room was overwhelming.  I feel so blessed to have been there, sharing in it. 

Welcome to the world, little Rupert-Asher.  We're so excited to have you, and can not wait to see all of the wonderful things you will do and become.  You are already so unbelievably loved.  

I've been cohort-ed

Two days into my "plan" to write every day and I just spent a half an hour watching House Hunters instead.  I almost abandoned ship on this endeavor right when the episode ended in favor of an early bedtime.  Look at me making productive choices!

I made the all too familiar drive down to Pasadena today in what will be the first of many, many trips this school year.  Classes officially start for me on Tuesday, but there was a dinner for my cohort being hosted at my one of my favorite professor's homes tonight.  Free mediterranean food?  Sold.  I decided to head down, get a couple books I needed from the bookstore and participate in at least one of the many events being held during Orientation Week.

Due to the fact that I am a commuter student who has floated between two different masters programs at the same school, I've never quite been an integral member of the community that makes up Fuller's School of Psychology.  When I started, I wasn't able to make any of the orientation events and after that, it just felt silly to go to orientation being that I had already been a student for a while.  I've learned the ropes by observation and anything I wasn't able to figure out I simply bugged my adviser with.  Over the course of each quarter I've gotten to know some of the other students in my classes and met some great people, but for the most part when I am on campus I am a little machine of productivity.  I likely come across as some hyper-studious wallflower (which is funny to me) when really I am just excited to learn and willing to spend hours in the library cranking out homework so that when those SB weekends roll around I can hit the beach with my friends.  I'm not usually around for some of the other stuff - dinners, meetings, activities - that happens after classes are out, and it's never made much of a difference to me. 

I don't mind this, I've chosen to do graduate school this way.  But in the six quarters that I've been a student here my actual place in the school was in fact to be somewhat of a drifter.  I started in an odd quarter, with no cohort (a big deal here, apparently, so I've learned) and only a couple other people in the Family Studies program at all.  While I've been a student taking all the right classes for over a year, I am just now becoming a "legit" member of the MFT program and with that comes my placement in a cohort.  I will travel through the next two years with these people.  We'll learn a lot about each other and ourselves, practice doing therapy together, and grow into therapists alongside one another.

So tonight we shared a delicious meal at a beautiful home and I got to meet some of my fellow travelers on this journey.  Most of the students will be brand new to Fuller this fall, but there are others who are like me; seasoned Fuller students who are a little bit all over the place in how they got here but have arrived in this particular MFT cohort nonethless.  They, like me, have done things unconventionally but loved every minute of it.  Our professors took some time and shared their wisdom with us, prayed with us, made us play a couple of silly icebreakers, and let us get to know one another a little bit.  There were a few people with whom I hit it off immediately, and I am looking forward to getting to know them this year and having a little bit more fun on the days I spend down in Pasadena.

Man, I just love the beginning of a new school year.  New backpacks (or in my case a new leather tote) to fill with new books.  A new schedule and new classes filled with new faces and new things to learn.  Everyone is fresh and eager and optimistic.  I was sitting at the table this evening as our professors took turns offering us one piece each of wisdom for the beginning of this process.  I looked around at my new friends who will so quickly become familiar faces and listened to the kind and encouraging words of my mentors and was so filled with joy and contentment.  I feel like I am doing exactly what I was made to do.  I'm so thankful for the opportunity to study something I love and to be taught by people I respect.  I'm terrified and excited by the prospect of really truly beginning this year to actually become a therapist.  It was nice to kick off the school year with an intentional gathering, orienting us as a group to where we are headed together.  I officially became a member of this graduating class, and it felt significant.  I was cohort-ed, and I liked it.

Let the new classes begin!

At First Sight

For your reading pleasure: a true story of a woman at my office, one that made my day a little happier.

I'd like to say that I believe in love at first sight. I think that I do. Of course, I haven't experienced it with anything more significant than a pair of shoes or a really great dress, but hopeless romantic that I am - the notion appeals to me.  I don't think it happens for everyone, and I don't think that love at first sight is any more or less real than the kind that is later blooming or fought for, nurtured and cultivated over time.  But every once in a while you hear a real-life story that makes a sentimental heart like mine skip a beat with celebration.  Goosebumps appear on my arms, a wayward tear may even form in the corner of my eye even making it's way down my cheek, and somewhere in the depths a little part of me celebrates the notion that the stuff of movies sometimes does happen in real life. 

A little while ago I was sitting in the kitchen at work eating my lunch and an attorney who is relatively new to the firm came in and sat with me. She's a great lady who I find to be really interesting and incredibly funny so it was easy to chat like girlfriends around the table. She asked me about graduate school, where I'm going and why and all of the details surrounding that subject.  As we were going back and forth it of course came out that I went to Westmont.  Casually, but with an adorable giggle for a forty-something-year-old woman, she dropped a really great story on me.  "You know that stop sign on the way down the hill from campus?" she asked.  Of course I knew the exact stop sign she was referring to - I've stopped at it often.  "I met my husband there."

Now, if you know me you know that a statement like that really gets me going.  I am all ears.  I love stories, any story will do.  But an out-of-the-box, once-in-a-blue-moon, we-met-totally-randomly-and-still-feel-lucky-that-it-worked-out-so-well-after-all-these-years story is only the best kind!  Wide-eyed and excited I dropped whatever I was eating and demanded she tell me the whole story. 

This stop sign she's talking about is not on a busy road.  It's a regular four way stop and the roads going in both directions are just your average neighborhood type streets - one lane going each way, nothing special at all.  Granted, it's an obscenely wealthy area so the streets are lined with (no, not gold) multimillion dollar estates situated comfortably out of reach behind gates and walls.  There is little to no pedestrian traffic here, just the occasional Westmont student running down the hill with a plan to catch the shuttle back up, but it's not really a stroll around and meet people kind of neighborhood.  Needless to say, I was intrigued by how this whole thing could have possibly gone down.

It's a simple story really, "with a good message," Deb added.  She lived at the top of the hill and every single day on her way down to work she would stop at this stop sign.  Every once in a while she would notice a cute guy who seemed to be working at the estate on the corner.  She'd admittedly look for him while she made sure to stop for the full three seconds at the stop sign and then be on her merry way.  Well apparently he noticed her too.  Days and weeks went by and they developed a bit of a strangers-in-the-movies type of relationship.  He became the cute guy at the estate and she always made sure to smile at him in case he was noticing her too.  He was, and he always smiled back.  Days and weeks passed and the harmless smile flirting from her car as he opened the gate to the estate each morning continued.

Then.  One morning.  He went for it.  He grabbed the bull by the horns and stood at that stop sign with flowers and waited determinedly for her to come down the hill.  When she did, he walked right up to her car window, handed her the flowers and asked her out.  She surprised even herself by actually saying yes (I may be a hopeless romantic, but I also have a seriously heightened sense of stranger danger and am not sure I wouldn't freak out at that moment) and he didn't turn out to be a creep.  He turned out to be a totally normal and seriously wonderful guy who she is still happily married to some twenty odd years later.

She lit up as she told me the story.  She laughed at herself and at him for being so naive, so carefree, so "brazen."  But even now, as they are settled into their married life, there was a spark in her eye as she spoke and thought about that moment.  It was a great story and she knew it.

So Deborah, I'm sure, believes at least a little bit in love at first sight.  No doubt they have put blood sweat and tears into making their marriage last, hard work is part of any healthy marriage.  But I love the boldness, the magic and the passion of young love in that story.  I don't generally find myself with an abundance of any of those things in my life at the moment, but I believe in their power to change us for the better.  Noting that I was single she laughed and told me not to underestimate what could come of any split second exchanges with cute guys I see around town.  You never know what might happen.  Noted.  Thanks, Deb.

But, really.  Isn't that a sweet story?

wild and precious

Maybe it might appear to be a cop out to post someone else's writing on the first day of my own attempt to spend a little bit of time writing every day but I assure you it is not. For one thing, Mary Oliver is brilliant and inspired and you should read her poetry anyway. But the other thing is that I stare at this poem every day. It's written on a trail of post-its next to my computer at work, and copied on a tattered notecard that sits on my dresser at home. At some point in college I copied the last line onto a post-it and it has gone with me from place to place since, recopied every once in a while. As jobs and friends and homes have transitioned, and seasons of life have ebbed and flowed, Mary Oliver has been there looking me in the eye and challenging me with those words. Sometimes the challenge is to slow down, stop and smell the roses, ponder the eternal and lay in the grass for a few minutes. Other times it seems that her words are prodding me to seize the moment, take a risk, or rebuking me for my lack of patience. Each time I read these words my restless heart is soothed. I think of what it is like to live in grace each day, to appreciate the beauty of the small things that knit together our daily lives and our very existence that often are taken for granted. Those words have encouraged me to listen more carefully, prioritize my time and energy, push myself to new heights, and love the people in my life stronger, deeper, more openly and intentionally. They are simple words, but they are beautiful, honest words. So today, for my half hour of quality time spent with the English language, I am choosing to breathe and live in these familiar words of Mary Oliver.

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down

-who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed,

how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

hiatus

I am back from a relatively unintentional blogging hiatus. It seems that once I get out of a routine of any sort it takes me more time than one should reasonably expect in order for me to get back into it. This is the case for exercise, shaving my legs, reading my Bible, waking up early, tweezing my eyebrows, and just about everything in between. Sometimes it does work in my favor though, too. Once I stop going into Anthropologie on my lunch break, eating ice cream before bed, or gossiping at work, it's easy for me to slip into a new, better routine. Those bad things, just like the good things, slip out of my day-to-day living once the cycle of repetition is broken.

I'm finding however, that while I've been ready for a few weeks to get back into a rhythm of writing I have been battling some serious writer's block. I sit down and my fingers don't work for writing. No matter if it's typing or trying the old fashioned way and writing in a journal, they haven't been connecting with the words in my brain and I frankly just have not summoned up the discipline required to make them do something they don't want to.

So in honor of a new school year (next week) I'm getting a head start on the discipline that I'm going to need this year by committing to writing for a half hour every day - whether I feel like it or not. I will ultimately be required to memorize the DSM-IV for class this quarter. You know, to develop the skills and knowledge base necessary in order to be able to make an educated diagnosis and all that... I am excited about this, don't get me wrong. But do I love weekly quizzes? No. Does the buzz surrounding the difficulty of this class freak me out? You better believe it. But I do love feeling like I am taking one giant step closer to becoming a real live therapist. I'm a little bit terrified, but seriously looking forward to knowing this stuff. Alas, discipline will be the name of the game this quarter; and to be honest with you, I'm relieved.

I've been living untethered for the last few weeks and it's been less than ideal. I haven't been able to get myself motivated to do much in so many of the nooks and crannies of my life. My heart, soul, mind, and body are paying serious consequences too. So I'm ushering in a new season by extending an official challenge to myself to organize my time better. There are other things I'm doing to make this happen (fodder for future writing, perhaps), not the least of which will be getting back into the rigorous routine of a graduate student. But the decision to carve out a half hour of time for something that I know to be good for me, for something I know I love, will be good for my heart. I can't promise that all of these half hours of writing will be spent equally well. Some may be inspired, some may be a little less so. Hopefully you'll read them anyway.