Welcome to the world

This is what my brother-in-law wrote this evening:


Cecilia was born at 6:45 p.m. MT. Cecilia is exactly 8 lbs, and
20" long. Happy Birthday Cecilia! Praise the Lord!

Grant

Welcome to the world Cecilia Grace. May you live a life that fulfills your precious little name, full of grace, and may the Lord be gracious to you.

Your Mom's blog

My mom has a blog now. I made it for her on Christmas Eve. She hasn't really blogged about anything, but my plot is to get her to start writing- she really is a good writer- by asking random people, like you who are reading right now (yes, you...I'm talking to you) to go to her site and comment and tell her to start writing.

In the meantime, a baby is going to come out of my sister tomorrow. I still think the whole thing is really a little freaky- slightly reminiscent of aliens. The whole idea that life grows inside of other life, completely dependent, like a parasite, just weirds me out a little. But I get a beautiful niece from it all, and I don't have to be there for the blood and mucus and gross stuff, so I think I totally get the better end of the deal. Say a little prayer for health. I think that Becca's a little freaked out right now.

Holy protector, wrap the mother and child in your loving arms and keep them both near. Whisper peace over the worried mother and father. Now and forever. May it be so.

The results are in...

I got my LSAT scores on Friday night. Let's just say that I won't be going to law school next year, after all. So now you all know, and you don't have to ask anymore. Merry Christmas to me. I have no idea what I will be doing next year, but that's pretty much in line with the way that I have run the past four years, so why should instability be anything new for me?

More to come about Christmas (and my new Nano... I'm trying not to love it toooo much).. to come.

Goodnight for now

weird

I'm sitting in our little closet of an office, and I "KNOW" (cognitively) that there is no one else here, and that the door is locked. But I swear, I keep hearing other people moving around. I have been here before on a Sunday when I know that no one else was here, and I heard things. I think this place is haunted.

Uncomfortable

I was talking to a friend the other day about a concert we had been to, when he said, "This might sound weird, but I realized that I'm really uncomfortable in large crowds of Christians."

I know this might sound weird, but I totally agree.

Have you seen the movie "Saved"?

My favorite line was when three of the girls kidnap the one who has "gone astray" and try to "pray her back to salvation" while she is bound and gagged in the back of a van. When she gets free and is walking away, one of the girls throws a Bible at her, hitting it with her. The girl turns around and says, "this is not meant to be a weapon."

I thought the movie, while a little crass an inappropriate at times, was also biting in it's honesty about Christian sub-culture.

building houses of sugar

I'm so excited! Next week I am going to build a house of sugar with one of my favorite families not related to me by blood. This will be our third annual gingerbread house-making. This is a picture of the house that we constructed last year-- a wonderland of blissful calories, I know. It was girls against boys, and we SOOO kicked some boy butt.

And that is Joy Commander, high on sugar. Sometimes during the construction of the house the building materials get eaten. Suprising, I know, I know. By the end of the night we are all a lot of fun, though :).

What is the cost of freedom

Someone once said, "I do not agree with your opinions, but I would fight to the death so that you can have them." If I wasn't so lazy I would look up who it was.

The University of Alabama (War Eagle) has gotten itself into quite a pickle recently. It seems that one of the staff writers (a female, nonetheless) for the campus newspaper the Crimson and White has begun a sex column. I went online and read some of the back issues and it's pretty raw at times speaking about condoms, masturbation, etc. It has caused quite an uproar on campus. Some students have spoken for and against, Parents have spoken out, and some alumni have even written in, threatening to pull scholarships.

It's almost funny to me. As if parents are realizing for the first time that their sons and daughters might be having sex in college. Oh, no, surely not here in the south, where the magnolia trees bloom and the pearl necklaces shine and everyone is pretty. Things like that do not happen.

Even if they do, we do not talk about it.

So maybe that is the difference. Universities around the nation have had sex columns for years-- people admitting that it happens on a campus where the hormones of 20,000 men and women are pulsating as they roam the pathways.

I'm not saying that I'm for the column. Well maybe I am. But I'm not for it for the reason that most people may be for it. I don't agree with a lot of what the writer talks about. I think that she cheapens sex and cheapens herself in the way that she talks about it. I think that by making it so blasee she also can make others think that it is ok to sleep around without any emotional or spiritual repercussions-- and I don't believe that this is true. However, I don't believe that we should pretend sex is not happening at the University of Alabama. Jeeze people, it's happening with my 14 year-olds at Ramsay High school. Let's be real.

I also believe in freedom of speech. There are some crass republicans out there that want to give huge tax cuts to rich people and cut programs to low-income families to pay for the deficit. I strongly disagree with it, in fact, it makes me want to hurt them and I shout at the radio, but I do not believe that my personal views are reason enough to pull them from their post at the paper. If I truly believe in the freedom of thought and speech, then I have to fight for the thought and the speech that enrages me. The one that I disagree with so much that it makes my blood boil. It is only then that I can say that I believe in the freedom of speech.

Do you agree?

What would you do for love?

A woman was sentenced to three years in prision for abuses in Abu Ghraib. She said she was trying to please her boyfriend.

The other night I was reminded of Susan Smith, the woman who dressed her two children for the day, strapped them into their seatbelts, talked to them about the day- peanut butter sandwiches and Dora, drove to a boat ramp, released the emergency break, and for a week told the world that they had been kidnapped by a black man. She was trying to please her secret boyfriend.

But these are extremes, right? These are the things that made the news. These are the crazy people.

Today I was talking with someone and she is really struggling with life right now. She met a guy, promises were made, and now-- three years later-- the promises have been broken. She moved to a new city for him, ate every meal with him. His friends were her friends. She is having to re-learn life. How do you re-learn life? Re-learn to shop for one, cook for one? Wake up to one. She's not crazy, but right now she feels like she is.

I heard a guy talking about the orientation that we have in our love toward God, and he spoke of how all of the realtionships that we are in are broken. We underestimate God, because we can only think of his love in human terms.

We can't imagine a relationship with no brokeness. How can we imagine love personified when all we know is being hurt. Sure there is some good, but it is always mixed up, sown among the wrongs we have chosen to forget, or at least move past.

lsat, lshmat

It was fine. I won't know my score until Jan 3, officially. I hear that last year they sent out the scores on Christmas Eve. Seriously, the LSAC people are not nice. We're talking evil, evil.

On the other hand, one of my kids was frustrated with me today for telling her to be quiet and pay attention, and she said, "You need Jesus Ms. Kara."

All I could stumble out was, "Well...that may be true, but what I want you to do right now is read your article."

Thanksgiving

I have been in a funk lately. There are a lot of reasons for it, and I won't get into all that, but just know that if there is a state of existence that is funk- I am in it. Going home for Thanksgiving, I was vacillating between being happy about the vacation and not wanting to make the trip. I actually had the thought, "What do I have to be thankful for?" (refer back to the earlier funk-like mood). So here I am to declare publicly a few things that I'm thankful for.

Thank you Mom and Dad for encouraging me, but letting me be scared, even when I'm not supposed to be. Sorry I'm not always honest with you about it. Thanks for the flowers. They really are very pretty. They are on the stand by my door, so I see them every time I walk in or walk out (or anytime I'm anywhere in my apartment, since I can literally see my door from anywhere in my apartment).

Thanks Susan for sending me a LSAT book. I'm not sure if I like the book or the note inside the book more. We'll see how it all ends up.

Thanks Ken for the prayer that you prayed Sunday. You articulated so many of the things that my heart has been longing for, but I am too stubborn or too tongue-tied to express. I truly do pray that God uses this season to give us a fresh vision and renewed taste of his spirit, and that he teaches us to tell time. It was perfect.

Thanks Jimmie Anne for hugs and kind words every time I see you. Even when I seemingly shrug them off, they are always salve for my soul.

Thanks Band for not giving up on me even 100 miles away.

Thanks Steph for listening to the things that I don't want to tell you.