So where have I been that last week? No where really, just working and playing with the kids. We spent some time at the local lake, went to a movie at the new fancy theater and swam at the only outdoor public pool for this whole 100k people town (ridiculous really). Can you tell the weather has finally turned summer?

After attending a very loud performance at the battle of the bands that won Jim’s band a spot in the next round, I think I’ve been experiencing a bit of vertigo. Something about the sharp pain in my ear that night (that also stuck me outside for the rest of the night) has really messed up my equilibrium. I’m sporting bruises up and down my arms from bumping into things as evidence. As if I needed another factor to add to my clumsiness.

I finished my eyelet cardi, it’s a little big. I’ll overcome my laziness soon and post a pic. It’s wearable, but I like things to have a little less ease. It’s my fault for not looking at the finished measurements. I get frustrated with knitting that doesn’t fit, especially when I could have used common sense and knit the right size. BLAH…

I think I’m going to go have my third, 10 calorie popsicle for the day…

I just finished cutting Honor’s hair. It’s been long overdue, but I’ve been putting it off because it’s always such a traumatic experience. I tried a new technique today though. Bribery. I told him that if he didn’t throw a fit during his hair cut, that we’d go buy a transformer. Everything was going great when the clippers stopped working. I had Jim come take a look at them, he got them working and I proceeded to shave a huge spot out of the side of Honor’s head. OOOPS, I forgot to put the attachment back on the clippers.

Of course that couldn’t have felt good, so Honor started crying, I kept saying, “OH, NO!” (bad idea) and that was the end of the peaceful haircut. And now, the poor kid is sporting a very short cut. I feel like such a ding-dong.

Awhile back, American Greetings sent me a sample pack of their spring line of greeting cards to review. I was given a variety of Mothers Day cards, Birthday cards and just because cards.

Overall, I liked the cards, although I found a few of them to be a little too sappy for me. The graphics were modern and clean and there were also cards of varying sizes. (I always go for the odd sized cards.) My favorite card was one that says “You get me” on the front and in the inside it says, “…and it’s good to be gotten.”

I will/have used most of the cards. But my biggest complaint with these and all card companies is that during mothers/fathers days it’s difficult to find cards for parents who, say, aren’t your very best friends. There are a few people in our lives that we’d like to honor on their respective days, but don’t want to lie and say, “You’re the GREATEST parent ever!!!”. Something with a simple, “Happy Mothers/Fathers Day” would be great.

• Since the arrival of Blue Sky Alpacas at Tangle, I’ve been furiously knitting the eyelet cardigan. I’m sooo close to finishing it up, just some seaming and button bands to go! (Of course I chose chocolate brown for the color.)

• We started recycling last month. Our city’s recycling program (just $1.25/month) provides these ginormous reusable bags for sorting out the different items. After filling up one of those bags in less than a month with plastics, I started re-thinking our bottled water addiction. (Smart Water, how I’ll miss you!) Reading this article (via No Impact Man) set me over the top. But after taking one sip of our tap water, I knew I couldn’t go back. So, I tracked down the affordable delivery service that Jim uses at the office, set up a cooler rental and am now happy to announce that my plastic consumption is going to go WAY down, I’ll be saving money and I won’t be contributing to the ill effects of transporting water because it’s filtered here locally. Now I just think I need this fancy, metal water bottle to drink out of. hmmm….

• A few weeks ago, Jim competed in the local battle of the bands competition. His band won that night and also took the #1 ranking out of the 16 bands competing. Thursday night he goes onto round two, where, we’re thinking he (they) will win. I haven’t liked that all the practices have taken him away from us, but I do really love to watch him play. It reminds me of the first time my 15 year old self watched him play and vowed that I was going to marry him. (AWWWWW)

• I’ve been trying really hard to force myself to go to the gym three times a week. So far, pretty good – Fridays are the hardest times to go. But! I just bought some much needed shoes that have been helping to motivate me, literally. My very first check from my google ads arrived a few weeks ago (only took me 2 years to earn!) and I treated myself to some very cool Nike ipod shoes. I always swore that I would NEVER wear Nikes, but when they work with my ipod, keeping track of my pace, calories burned, distance and time, I couldn’t resist. Plus, these babies will ONLY be worn to workout. What can I say? I’m a sucker for anything apple, it came with the husband.

So lately I’ve been making this drink. It’s a tasty, fruity drink that goes down just a little too easily and it’s really caught on with my friends. After a silly case of misunderstanding, the drink was named “the girlfriend.” And lately I’ve been doling out a lot of girlfriends.

Here’s how to make one:

Take a glass, fill it with ice. Pour in a healthy shot of your favorite vodka. Add as many marachino cherries as you like with a tiny bit of the juice, squeeze in 1/4 lime, toss the lime in the glass. Pour over 7-up (or diet 7-up) to your liking, stir and enjoy your girlfriend!

(my new hair)

So I finished reading Blue Like Jazz last week. I realized when I wrote it that I was naive to expect Answers from a mere book, but I think maybe I was so desperate that I found some anyway. And I’m not sure that the answers I got were in the writing as much as in the realizations I saw in myself.

First thing I realize: I don’t know God. I keep trying to leave Him and I can’t. There is something in my heart that is connected to him and there is no denying that no matter how much I try. So I know that he is real, but WHO is he?

There was a time in my judgemental youth that I was sure I knew God. I knew that he wanted me to be radical for him and tell other people that they were wrong for not living (the way I thought they should) for him. That they were wrong for cussing and partying and smoking and sleeping around. I was pious and judgmental and had every appearance of being Very Good. Out of everything I’ve done wrong thus far, that is the one time in my life I regret the most.

I cannot say how much.

I think it was some time around November that I realized that I don’t know God. I was expecting him to do something for me. Actually not for me, but for someone I love. I was certain that he was going to come through, certain that I saw the way he wanted things. I was wrong. Or human mistakes messed up what God wanted, but things did not turn out the way I expected. And after 20 years of being a “Christian”, I found myself further away from knowing him than ever. And it wasn’t that he wasn’t there, it was that I deluded myself into thinking that all the “good” and “righteous” things I’ve done in my life were a replacement for knowing who he is.

Although it was then that I realized that I don’t know God, it wasn’t until reading this book that I realized that knowing God is what I’m missing, what I need. The author points to something real in his own life, something undeniable and very raw. Something that as a “Christian,” I’ve never truly experienced in my life.

I realized that if there was something there between me and God other than me expecting things out of him and being hurt when they don’t happen, I would not be so hurt by the bad experiences I’ve had with “his people.” I would not have looked to my pastors and my time at church to fill what I am missing from not knowing him. Of course knowing that does not negate the fact that I’ve gone through some crap regarding church, but it points out to me why it hurt so much.

How do I know God? Well, I’m not so sure about that part yet, but it doesn’t scare me like I thought it would. I think, if I stop looking at him as a slot machine, that would be a good start.

Second: I realize that I really do want to go to church. (Don’t fall out of your chair.) It may not be church as we know it, but I know I’m desperately lacking a community. I wrote awhile back about being lonely, but this book pointed out to me how detrimental being lonely is. Wow, do I see it in my life. I’ve spent the last 5 years being stuck in my house with two small children. Two small children that I love, but two small children that I have not had enough patience to train to behave the way I expect them to in public. I’ve been a prisoner in my own life.

That is going to change immediately.

Knowing that the kind of church I want exists in Portland, gives me hope in that it does exist somewhere. I’m not so sure I’m going to find it here, but I know now that I need to keep looking. I know that I want to belong to a community of like minded, beer drinking, swearing, cigar smoking followers of the Jesus whose first miracle was to make more booze for a party. Actually… scratch that, I want to be around people who are themselves, not people who are trying to fit into a cookie cutter mold of what a Christian should be (or what I wish a Christian would be). If they drink beer great, if they don’t great, just as long as they’re not viewing themselves as superior for abstaining. I want to give all I can give, and receive all I can receive. I’ve never been a part of something truly healthy.

So, overall, was I disappointed? Not at all. I think I was inspired. I needed to see someone who views God differently than I’ve been raised to view him. I needed to be reminded that he is more than what I can get out of him. I needed to be encouraged that things in the religious world CAN change and that we are not so far gone that we can’t love people without a hidden agenda. That being a “Christian” doesn’t have to be about politics, hating gay people and being Very Good. There is hope. There is hope for me and there is hope for church. And having that hope is a very good thing.

A couple Saturdays ago Jim and I were laying in bed. Eden came into jump on us and Jim let out a big, loud fart. And in true Jim fashion, he blamed it on me.
“I don’t fart like that.” I told Eden.
To which she replied, “Sometimes Sarah does.”

Yep, you can always count on kids to point out your flaws. And when mine aren’t doing it for me, they keep busy doing it for everyone else.

I realize I haven’t had too much of substance to say lately. Life has been really busy and even though things are slowing down for the season at the yarn store (although that doesn’t mean things aren’t happening, a big shipment of Blue Sky Alpacas just arrived!!!) I’m still really busy. I’m trying to remind myself to enjoy my time with the kids as our whole dynamic will be changing when Eden starts Kindergarden in August.

Aside from being busy, I guess I just haven’t had much to say. I seem to continue to come full circle with my thoughts on church and my place in the “Christian” world. To that end, I’ve started cautiously reading the book, “Blue Like Jazz.” I think I like it, but I’m not yet sure. It seems to be journal entries from the life of a guy who has been really jaded by Christianity, but can’t let go of his connection to God. Sound familiar? One thing that he talked about was the progression of his relationship with God. That, at first, he saw God as a slot machine – you pull the lever and hope to get out of God what you want. Again, sound familiar?

The thing that makes me so unsure about this book is that I’m not sure that it’s going to give me the Answers I’m looking for, the Answers that I so desperately need. As if finding Answers can be so simple. How do you utterly reject Christianity and still love God? How can you co-exsist? How can you make a difference with your life and not do it in the name of something that you’re ashamed to associate with? I just want to find my place.

I know that I’m not the only one out there feeling like this. And while it’s of minimal comfort to know that, it’s still so hard. I don’t have many friends that I haven’t had this conversation with. Often times I get emails from readers wondering if I’ve figured anything out in my quest to come to terms with The Way Things Are Supposed To Be. So many of my generation (and Jim’s) are looking for something real. They go to church and listen to canned messages that their local church bought from some massive box church in Texas, or better yet, just the same one over and over. We’re looking for someone to speak from the heart with passion, to show us that they’ve found something real and true in God and they give us programmed responses. Never in my life have I felt so lost, so without a place where I belong.

I keep finding myself trying to reject God and I just can’t. It’s not Him I have a problem with. In fact the more I think open mindedly about Jesus, the more convinced I become that he was freakin cool. Jim pointed out the other day that after Jesus got kicked out of church, he never went back. It’s just what bothers me are the people who act on His behalf or worse, do nothing at all in His name. Maybe that’s what makes it even harder for me, I’m stuck here in limbo, unable to wash my hands of God but unable to stomach those who bear his name.

It’s been a little over a year since my last post on the subject, and I find myself in the same place. It makes me sad that in an entire year, I have found not one shred of resolution. But one thing I know, I AM going to keep searching and I am NOT going to give up and I AM going to keep talking about it. Because of anything in my life, this is the most important thing I need to come to terms with.

“Would you have married me if I didn’t like Macs?”

“Um, no.”

“What would you do if I suddenly decided that PC’s were the greatest thing in the world?”

“I’d leave you and sue for joint custody.”

“You’d let your KIDS be exposed to PC’s???”