au·then·ti·cateVerb/ôˈTHentiˌkāt/

1. Prove or show (something, esp. a claim or an artistic work) to be true or genuine

I really, really enjoy my blog.  It's a wonderful place to share photos and ideas, but I have this real desire to have a place to be real, to have more of a real, journalistic style blog.  Just a day to day normal no-fluff blog.  Not that any part of me is fluffy, hopefully.

Matter of fact I've been running again.  For two whole days.  Ralph leaves for work just after six o'clock so I've been getting up earlier.  I don't need an alarm, I just wake up in the dark.  

Then I have this little conversation with myself about how good I'll feel all day if I just go out and do it.  How I really should run because one day maybe I won't be able to.  How I should go because it's beautiful out there to watch the sun think about coming up, and the hour is mine, all mine to whisper to God and think and just push my body.  

And twice this week I did it.  My coach pushes me hard, I run out of lungs but he doesn't.  He runs harder and I try to race him.  Then he really takes off and I laugh.  I could never race that doggy.

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This is my fifth year of beginning the school year.  I've been overcome with gratitude, first that  I can even homeschool, next that I get so much good support from Ralph and friends @ Classical Conversations.  

It occurs to me more and more that I really only do have today.  I know loss.  I know huge change.  I know getting the carpet pulled out from beneath my feet.  Mystically, God allows  and wills change and gradually I'm beginning to say yes to all of it.  

So I'm feeling so thankful for all that I just DO have today, another day to teach my boys, hold them and their little hearts.  It won't be forever.  So thankful for a husband who loves & laughs with me, a friend inside my own home.  

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Feeling inspired I'm planning to head to Goodwill soon to do some shopping for myself.  I doubt I'll get too far from my plain old self but I kind of have a new little desire to change things up and get a new look.  We'll see if I can get so brave.  

So now I'm off to hang out with my photos, get some editing in.  

We only have today, enjoy yours!

~Amanda

not broken

I am not broken.

The book on my hearth gets picked up every morning while I sit with my coffee and that warm blue and white blanket that my grandmother-in-law made so, so long ago. They both warm me and I read. The words make me wonder

Then I tromp off, more awake to my shower. AFterward, I stand in front of the mirror, eyeliner in hand. I like to accentuate the eyes, mine are light and I want someone to see my eyes when they see my face. My eyes, they are not broken. They don't need fixing. But I paint them to add the art and the color, creating what I like to see, what I want you to see.


I brush my hair and I think on my soul and how though it's been pressed and hurt, burdened and smooshed it is not broken. My heart, my mind and my flesh, they are not broken.

That God is not a mechanic who comes to replace the broken parts.

God is an artist. My heart, my soul, my mind are His creation and with brushstrokes He adds to me.

I was always beautiful to Him. And I cannot possibly wrap my brain around this. In the mirror I just see a girl in grown up clothes fumbling around trying to figure the best way. Figure who I am supposed to be.

And I cannot wrap my brain around the beauty that God sees in me now. Well, I can maybe. Because I can see the beauty in my own back yard and the teeny bulb sprouts that push their way up through the winter-dead grass and I can see what it will be, and what it is today.

Those little green rockets that shoot through the sod are promises of life, spring, new and color and I love them, right in the dead winter. And God must look at me and see all those little rockets of promise shooting out all over and just love me for the new, the color, HIM right inside of me.

Because Art is never ugly or unwanted. Lacking, maybe, but never broken. God will not discard us, or fix us. He just grows in us new beauty, quiet and small, painting HIS GRACE all over the canvas of me, and you. Beautiful you.

Swimming today

It's just in the quiet of this good days that I stop.

I am still, and altogether overwhelmed with how much is going on around me and how God is knitting together my life even now.

His work is simpler as I yield to Him. This is not such an easy task. I go all day. I wake up with my feet on the floor somedays and fall into bed at night whispering to Him about the goodness of the day, and how I just know He has all things in His hands.

Evening is ebbing it's way in now, the hard work of the day is done and I am grateful for hard work, I am grateful for smiling people that have wrapped grace around me and loved me in spite of who I am. I am grateful for a dream that I have that hangs out in my mind in moments like these.

All things usual. Work, people, dreaming, busy, pots and pans and wiping that table down again, another load of laundry in and "did anyone feed the dog?" And I love every.morsel of normal and life. It is rich.

God whispered to me a secret this New Year. I will share it with you, I believe it's meant to be shared.

I can swim in His love.

I can not worry.

I can rest in Him, all of the time, every moment of the day.

Do you hear it? He says "don't be anxious"....He means, you don't have to be anxious, you can rest in Him .

I know that takes a kind of faith I don't yet have, but I'm beginning to have glimpses of this.

I can not worry.

I can swim in His love, rest.