Where I've Been | Picnic Edition



I love the park and beach in Rogers Park. I love knowing my neighbors. And when my passion for this neighborhood was ramping up, I realized I know a lot of stellar people in Rogers Park. They just need to meet each other. Because the more you know your neighbors, the safer and nicer your neighborhood is. Right? So I started this little shindig to get people together, hopefully a couple times each month this summer. What's better than food, friends and the great outdoors (even when you're exhausted from the previously reported trip to Iowa)? Nuffin.










Especially when things look this good.

"Hi, this is Taylor, and you have thirty seconds after the beep."

That's all you'd probably get from me on the phone these days.
Within May and June I'll have been to Michigan three times,
Wisconsin twice, Iowa once, a retreat for work, going to Jake's shows,
and for some wild reason planning a neighborhood picnic on my one night home.

I'll only be home for one solid week in May and June.
I'm starting to miss my rich, intricate, hermit life.
This season is pushing me beyond my comforts.
I'm riding the wave and keeping my eyes open.

I really didn't want to write about the failed rapture.
But one day I found myself driving 6 hours from northern Michigan straight to the airport in Chicago, from where I flew to Iowa for a 24 hour visit. It was 6 pm. And when we hit some weather in the air, I did honestly think "This could be it." This plane could be Jesus's first stop in the atmosphere on his way down to earth! 


Alas, we all know how that story ended.
But for a moment there ...

Where I've Been | The 80 ft. Swing in Northern Michigan Edition





Sometimes life is incredibly exciting.

Jake and I have been talking a lot about dreams lately.
Dreams which involve music and hard work.
Is it childish to pursue the life of a rock star? I don't think so.
But the world does.
We are talking about how music is a fickle lady,
maybe one whom can't be trusted much.
But that doesn't make her naive.
It just makes success (or survival) a bit harder.

We had a really great show recently.







Aren't those photos gorgeous? I think they look like paintings of a starry night.
All photo credits to Summers.

This is the dreamy view from where I work and write.



I keep my dreams up in the clouds, where they can bloom and close like flowers on their own time. They do not depend on earthly roots or realizations, but live on always above. And I can visit them anytime. I've been visiting them a lot lately.

And listening to this:

Going along with Mother's day ... my blog is becoming a mommy blog!





Haha, did I make you think I was pregnant?
I'm not at all.
For real, though, I was a mommy blogger last week when Ashley and Elspeth came over the make the famous chocolate cake and they said, "We feel like your kids." So I took their portrait and the obligatory toddler-hand-reaching-for-food photo. I liked my stint as a mommy blogger, but something tells me it was much easier working with 20 somethings than it would with 2 somethings.

PS: Elspeth's engagement shoot by Roya Jade photo is darling!

Momma,

You received a very special gift yesterday when your 3 girls got together for the first time in a year and a half!


And we told you this:
"You taught me that life is always a journey; at times you were pushing through hardship, and at other times you were enjoying an arrival, but you never stopped going on."
"You push us to do things that are new and good for us, but hard things to do."
"You support me all the time, even when I make silly decisions."
"You welcomed me as your son right away, even when I was just dating Taylor."

But I think we're the ones who got the best part of the deal, you gave us sisters and you gave us yourself, completely.


The weekend prior we visited my family in Michigan.
One thing I love about my family is how playful we are:











It was heaven, and I had expected no less.

simple food.

Money is everywhere right now.
In my job,
I raise financial support and teach students to be generous in tithing.
In my personal life,
a lunch meeting with our banker.
In my imaginary life,
I galavant with the heroine of my book as she recklessly spends money
and faces the tragic consequences.

I'm currently reading "The House of Mirth" by Edith Wharton.
(Thank you Paige.)
It's exactly what I need.
Rumination on wealth, a blatant disregard for reality, and release into gluttony.
Also, the constant reminder of consequences.

All of this money in my life is increasing my greed.
And at once making me fearful of greed's hold on my heart.

Although I'm pouting about it to myself, I'm so glad for the vow I took to only buy clothing second-hand through this year. It comes down to two things for me:

1. Reverence for those who made my clothes. Their cheap labor is what convinces us it's perfectly reasonable for a shirt to cost 5 dollars. Crazy. Why have I come to expect the entitlement to such cheap clothing? Because I can. At all costs, even that of life, I can expect cheap clothing. Cheap is one thing, but reverence for the cost is another.

2. Wasted resources. I'm amazed at the thought of all the resources my closet taxes the earth, when I buy all new things.

I believe in these things, I do.
But I need to keep repeating them to myself under my breath ... reverence and resources, reverence and resources.

*Update: isn't is bizarre that we own so much stuff that we have to keep a record of it with some insurance broker, in order to keep all of our material things protected? Something just feels weird about paying someone to protect my purchases.