well I turned 23 yesterday.

no big thing. everyone around here knows that I celebrate birthdays, milestones, tuesdays, and anything else with lists. 

there are a lot of songs that talk about being 23

maintain consciousness- relient K
23- jimmy eat world
pardon me- incubus
what's my age again?- blink 182
ganstah's paradise- coolio
twenty three- yellow card
dancing nancies- dave matthews band

(please go listen to all of these and find the age appropriate references. please.)


So there's that....
23 still feels young to me (TG because I'm not ready to grow up yet.) but I think somewhere in the not so distant past I really thought 23 might have been the beginnings of adulthood (or my pro basketball career- Michael Jordan #23 anyone?) Obviously I was wrong.

enjoy. 23 things I thought about being 23. Some right, some wrong. whatever

1. I thought by now I would be done listening to pop punk of any kind (i'm looking at you Fallout Boy, New Found Glory, The Starting Line, Brand New, etc.) Trust me, I'm still reliving the glory days while I'm stuck in traffic.
2. I thought I'd be dating someone seriously. (in the spirit of honesty I had very specific thoughts about my precieved relationship status at this age. I thought I was going to meet someone in college. I thought I'd be picking out a wedding dress soon. Can I just get an amen?! because you thought it too. ) If I'm honest though,  I'm really glad to be living life on my own. I needed to do this with just me for a minute.
3. I thought I'd have a job with a salary. but now I work as an indentured servant   volunteer for AmeriCorps.
4. I thought I would have figured out how to type the spanish accents in Microsoft word without changing the language.drats.
5. I thought i'd be driving a car other than Queen Esther the Escort. see #3
6. I thought I would have officially quit smoking. I'm seriously getting there, so get off my back.
7. I thought I'd have my own apartment- check!
8. I thought I'd be sleeping in a double bed every night. my room is roughly the size of a double bed.  struggle bus.
9. I thought I'd still be playing the clarinet. which is just comical.
10. I thought I'd graduate from college- yep!
11. I thought (hoped a lot) that I would still have friends. Amazingly I do. Blah blah blah, I'm always yabbering on about how much I'm obsessed with my social circle. Deal with it.
12. I thought either I would totally renounce my faith or dig my heels in and start to make my faith my own more and more. I would say I chose the later, I believe in the triune God who is making all things new and I'm loving life as a result.
13. I thought I'd wear high heels more. that was just stupid. why did i think that?
14. I thought I would have tattoos- ugh, sad but true, but only two.
15. I thought I would have developed a better taste in movies.apparently 'National Treasure' isn't everyone's idea of cinematic gold.
16. I thought my freckles would go away.
17. I thought the relationship I have with my high school friends would have imploded- I think the relationships I have with those girls are a testament to growing up, learning patience and recognizing the times when you need to tell someone to shut up.
18. I thought I would have visited Europe again by now. white girl problems.
19. I thought I'd have things to call "mine", like brands or types of things that I really liked. I thought iId be a regular for some things- a brand of jeans that fit like a glove, a type of oatmeal that always hits the spot, weird stuff white people like things. Currently, this is partly true. I know what kind of cheap beer I like best and I have a particular brand of Greek Yogurt that I'm loyal to. There's also a dish soap that is pretty close to my heart. So win for me I guess. ... on second thought, there is no go-to brand of jeans for me. So tie for me I guess.
20. I thought I'd have an interesting relationship wit my parents. Definitely  Two of the most important things in my life are Tom and Kath.
21. I thought by 23 I would be called "Elizabeth"- that's just laughable (remember when I tried to get everyone to call me Betsy?).
22. I thought I would have read the entire Bible. I really need to get on that.
23. I thought I would feel like an adult.

adding joy.

tomorrow is Ash Wednesday.
tomorrow we begin to wait for the resurrection of Christ.
tomorrow is Lent.

tomorrow some of us are going to be freaking crabby as we give things up.
[really. have you met people who just quit smoking/consuming caffeine/booze/sugar/reality TV? crab apples. myself included -- which one do  you think i am!?]

you may remember last year... (read all about that here) I reflected on the meaning of the Lenten season and I gave up swear words. It was nuts. Sometimes not in a good way.

There's this wacky thing people have been doing a while, I guess. Instead of giving something up, they add something new to their lives during Lent.

yeah yeah. I love new things. I love intentional things. Let's roll.

This year for Lent I will add Joy.

Google "joy". Apparently, Joy is all about jumping. or it being Christmas.

[let me clarify. I try my best to be a positive person. Mostly, I try not to be a Debbie Downer, Negative Nancy or a Ruby Doom and Gloom. Naturally, I'm more inclined to be those women than Positive Polly. It's effort most days to put my rally cap on for positivity but I try my best, much to the chagrin of those around me. An ever present refrain in my world is- "there is always something to be positive about."]

This isn't about 'looking on the bright side' and pasting a smile on my face. This is Joy. The deep feeling in the bottom of your being that it's going to come out alright. That at the end of the day, all is well and that you are so very loved that today's troubles and trials will be done away with. Joy is choosing to acknowledge that, although things are shitty, there is hope of a better way.

I want to add more of that to my life. 

Joy is making the choice to not keep score in my relationships
Joy is not berating myself for what I've done wrong, but celebrating my ability to do. 
Joy is knowing that Jesus saves, redeems and renews.
I'm a smaller part of bigger plan, so no, I won't be saving the world today. 
Joy is Jesus. 

this is what I said last year (and there isn't a better way to say it this year...)
 I hope this little tiny thing [joy] will make me feel a little more connected to that big thing [death and Resurrection] by a change of consciousness, not because there's no room for negativity in the kingdom of God (He can handle it). 





what's on your dance card for this years Lenten season? 

My life needs some direction, or at least some more punctuation.

So I guess this is normal on the brink of 23.
I need a little direction here.

What am I doing with my life?
I read a lot of books, listen to a lot of public radio, cook quasi fancy foods and spend way too much time on the internet.
My days are characterized by what I hope is good work.
My nights are spent with friends, more often than not we are laughing, sometimes singing. Almost always we are drinking. (but not in a weird way. I realize that sentence might have made it seem like it was in a weird way...)

but the moments that make up my days sometimes don't feel like they add up to me.
I know who I am and what I stand for, but sometimes I veer off course...

...but, full disclosure here, I am actually watching 'Last Call with Carson Daley' right now. So I am not a decider of anyone's life meaning. Did anyone else know that Pat from the Disney Channel Original Movie Smarthouse is also the mom on Sons of Anarchy... yeah C Daley is interviewing her right now!

so when I need guidance (and maybe a mental hug) where do I go?
I go to books, naturally.
Chief Modern Poets of England and America, Fourth Edition to be exact.
(If you were going to guess the Bible that was a really great guess.)

Langston Hughes knows me better than I know me.
Carl Sandburg knows me better than I know me.
William Bulter Yeats knows me better than I know me.

So, if you will, a feast for the journey....

From Langston Hughes' Theme for English B

"...It's not easy to know what is true for you or me at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you: hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page. (I hear New York too.) Me---who? Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life. I like a pipe for a Christmas present, or records---Bessie, bop, or Bach. "

From Carl Sanburg's Caboose Thoughts

"...IT'S going to come out all right—do you know?

The sun, the birds, the grass—they know.

They get along—and we'll get along.

Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting

And the letter you wait for won't come,

And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray

And the letter I wait for won't come.

There will be accidents.

I know ac-ci-dents are coming.

Smash-ups, signals wrong, washouts, trestles rotten,

Red and yellow ac-ci-dents.

But somehow and somewhere the end of the run

The train gets put together again

And the caboose and the green tail lights

Fade down the right of way like a new white hope:..."

William Butler Yeats' When You Are Old


"... WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep,
    And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
    And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
    Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
    How many loved your moments of glad grace,
    And loved your beauty with love false or true,
    But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
    And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
    And bending down beside the glowing bars,
    Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
    And paced upon the mountains overhead
    And hid his face among a crowd of stars...."

... then you need to go read The Catholic Bells by William Carlos Williams. 


We're all traveling home and we have a life time to get there. I find other people's words are pleasant company.

I resolve to not be mean in two thousand thirteen.

Seriously, what rhymes with thirteen?
mean
spleen
Codine
keen
seen
dean
clean
magazine

clearly, my new years rhyme is much better than the aforementioned garbage; but anyway...

I love lists (not a secret) I love things that are organized, and I really love memories. I think I've created the best way to create an organized list of memories from each year!

Firstly, please don't tell me that you say this on pinterest first, because I'm sure that's true, but I didn't. I had to wait until my own gray matter could come up with this one until it was implemented.

I give you my .... (as yet untitled way to keep track of memories)

In this vase I write myself little notes from what happened each day, pretty much like a tweet but less pressure to be witty and more factual. Its like a no pressure journal.
Sometimes I write down really mundane things, other days I write down really amazing things- I mean that's life, right?
 Here's my 12 favorite from 2012 

• Made an $800 payment on my credit card
• Lost my voice. #sucked 
• Sasha came over for dinner
• my favorite grandmotherly student from work said, "you so pretty, girl."
• Saw my next door neighbor washing the dishes in her underwear
• Work conference, fantastic conversation with coworkers about faith
• I'm so damn lucky to have my life.
• Walked from Centro Romero to HACC and back!
• Saw a man smoking weed on Wellington, toddler in tow. 
• A stranger on the bus asked me what I was reading, Harry Potter #1, oddly satisfying
• Looked at Sierra and Matt's wedding pictures. I suppose I don't completely hate myself. 
• Changed my own windshield wipers
• Walked home from a work meeting with Annie, ran into Kendra. I love when Chicago feels like a small town.

Ok, that was 13. Deal with it. 

Is it weird that I just laid this puppies down
on whatever happened to be close by?
That's an ESL grammar textbook, FYI.

No Shame November has come and gone again

Somehow. I missed November. Between 50 hour work weeks, Friendsgiving, Thanksgiving and a road trip. I just didn't get around to this post. Also, it's been sitting in my drafts folder since November 10th. I really am ashamed of the following, which is why I think I held back on it for so long...
_____________________________________________________________
No Shame November is Back! Last year, in it's inauguration,  I embarked on an adventure that brought me back to blogging and made life seem a little better.(you can check out the original No Shame November here. All the credit in the world to the amazingly talented Kathleen Leahy for developing this project last year.)

For starters, we'll talk about a new no-shame characteristic I've developed: being clean and organized.

So this November finds me in a totally different stage of life than my first try at NSN... I'm living in an apartment on Chicago's northwest side with two of my girlfriends instead of the dorms. Of course it's awesome, but it has dragged out of me a compulsive clean streak.

Seriously. I'm verging on Danny Tanner here (but really just in the Full House way, never in the weird Bob Saget stand up way.) I suddenly find my mood is better when things are cleaned and organized, and I just can't deal with mess and clutter like I used to. I know it doesn't sound like a problem, but when you live with two relatively 'normal' people, expecting things to be spic-n-span 24/7 just isn't going to happen.

My Friday night consisted of cleaning the kitchen for over an hour (it needed it...) and doing laundry. The fact that I admitted that here is shameful in and of it's self, but I digress. When I was done I couldn't help but feel better in every way. I felt accomplished, I felt downright happy.

I've taken to organizing almost every aspect of my life. Everything (seriously EVERYTHING) in my life has a designated place now. It's amazing. I feel like I'm in control of the details of my life and can have an insta-mood boost when I walk into my room with a made bed and a well organized desk. Things get done in my life.

WHO AM I? 

I remember telling my mom "the floor is one big shelf!" in high school. That mantra is unwelcome here... i don't want anything on the floor that isn't furniture.

But if i'm being honest about why this is shameful, then things get real. Monica from friends or, people like me, are always are kind of always pains in the asses. They're bossy and particular, not to mention controlling, in the all the wrong ways.

...and there before the grace of God goes I. Bossy and controlling, a kind of ugly proud monster rises and falls in me when I try to keep things perfectly in order. It gives too much room to judge others, to claim a 'right way' of being (that is not an assent to universalism ... most succinctly,  my foray into the world of tidiness has made me more of a jerk then ever.

so for NSN... I am ashamed and how sorry I am.
For how judgmental I am.
For how bossy I am.
For how much dust has already accumulated on the tops of the kitchen shelves.

books are a better way of being

** This has nothing to do with the what's or how's or why's of my life, but sometimes you just finna blog and have some feelings and hope that someone feels something too.**

"The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution. However, I shall answer your questions unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you'll forgive me. I shall not, of course, lie."
Rowling, J.K.(1997). Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Scholastic: New York. p.298


"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." 
Rowling, J.K.(1999). Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Scholastic: New York. p.333
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I admire Albus Dumbledore very much, fictitious or factual I think it's safe to say he played a large and formative role in my childhood. I'm aware that says something about me... For the record, I've never read Lord of the Rings and I finished the Chronicles of Narnia as an adult; so don't get any ideas.

I started re-reading the Harry Potter series a few days ago, as a fun undertaking to occupy my seemingly endless time spent on public transit. Did I forget how much I loved these books? Did I not remember how wise Dumbledore is? I must have, because I've been consumed. I just finished book one in two days (which isn't saying much. it's a pithy little pamphlet in comparison to the other six) and already I'm sucked back in. These books are so many good things in one.

They are memories. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was first read to me the summer of 1999 as a fourth grader spending a week at her family's lake house in Wisconsin's northwoods.  I remember the gripping fear of finishing the book late at night in my bedroom, and thinking Voldemort's shriveled, white face would be behind the book as soon as I put it down.

They are life lessons. The idea that Love is more powerful than evil, and that Love is incomprehensible to those who do evil? I'm sure I thought it sounded good when I was 10, but as an adult I'm struck by what it means. When Harry asks Dumbledore why Quirrell couldn't stand to touch his skin, Dumbledore says, "...to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, so full of hatred, greed and ambition... could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good." (p.299)

I know that people are able to touch my skin burn free (which is too bad, as I I love personal space), but there is some incredibly beautiful imagery here. That I am loved so deeply that I am marked by it, even if  the bestower of that love is gone, is fantastic. Obviously we all have an indelible mark of love on us because of Christ's love for us, but think of the amazing mark of love many of us carry from other places? My mom, for example, was so deeply loved by my Grandparents that I know she carries that with her, in her, she is positive and joyful and courageous because she was loved fiercely by these people. Some long dead, she still carries a mark in her deepest being that displays how amazing she is.

They are inspirational. Let's get real here (as real as we're going to get in talking about a children's fantasy series...) Harry, Ron and Hermione are 11 freaking years old when they're battling old Voldy. I wore overalls when I was 11 and got in really intense fights with my girl friends. These kids are good battling evil. For shame, 11 y.o. LB, for shame.

"So light a fire!" Harry choked. "Yes- of course- but there's no wood!" Hermione cried, wringing her hands. "HAVE YOU GONE MAD?" Ron bellowed. "ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?"
Love it.
Call your friends on who they really are. 
Dream big. 
Burn that Devil's Snare.

This has been sufficiently nerdy.
I think books are fantastic. Every child should read things that entertain them and scare them and challenge them and make them laugh. Every adult should also read things that entertain them and scare them and challenge them and make them laugh. Both groups should learn from these books.


over and out. Currently soliciting advice about what to do when I inevitably get to book four and I can no longer fit my leisure reading in my backpack.

saying 'peace' to the people you meet and getting hot shit off your hands

Alright. So this summer I've barely blogged (that's right. I haven't at all.)
I've been coordinating day camp for preschoolers at the YMCA. When I thought that it wouldn't be stressful, I must have been a few beers in. I couldn't be any happier this summer is over.

Don't get me wrong. Life is good at Y, kids are fun (and often funny) and I work with people that for the most part, aren't so bad. It just gets old after ten weeks (heck, it got old after about three weeks.) I've been waiting for week 10 (this week) since about the fourth of July and I couldn't be happier that it's finally here.

But. Leaving the Y means moving onto something different. (and hopefully out of abject poverty). I'm movin' right on into (abject poverty) a year of service as an AmeriCorps volunteer. I'll be doing some ESL tutor advising and actual ESL instruction (!!!) as well as working with native English speakers preparing for their GED test or working on their basic literacy skills. Freaking yes. Working with adults. Working with adults that might not speak English. Working with adults that already do speak English. Did I mention that I'LL BE WORKING WITH ADULTS?

That means...
not one soul will call me 'miss liz' repeatedly until I'm certain that my ear drums will bleed.
not one soul will ask me to open their pretentious organic 'fruit masher' (fancy pants apple sauce).
not one soul will look at me, panic in their eyes, and tell me, "I have to go potty."
not one soul will have to be told to remove their hand from their pants in my presence (at least I hope not)
most importantly, 
not one soul will produce hot shit directly into my hand. ever again. (This happened after swimming one day when I discovered our youngest three year old had an accident. Apparently, I was thinking in the wrong tense. As I pulled down his trunks the accident continued right into my hand.) ...and you thought things at work were getting crappy! (come on, poop joke!)...

cue the hallelujah chorus.

Of course, there is also an entirely separate part of my life that is not comprised of anything YMCA related. Since my last post, I've moved into a beautiful apartment, cooked risotto for the first time, celebrated a few weddings , and generally just settled in to life in the 60618 since then.
It's beautiful, but let's be honest, my life doesn't look anything like I thought it would. Thank God for that. I have this interesting little patchwork life, with people and places sewn together in a way that's a little tacky, certainly crafty and decidedly & distinctively handmade. My life doesn't make sense to me. I live less than a mile in either direction from four of my best buds from college (one of them lives in the room next door- I counted her.) I still live less than an hour from my parents and a big chunk of my extended family. I drive, I take the bus, I walk a lot. I found a church that I think is fantastic (and Kayla will walk to with me). Things are strangely perfect in a way that I never even knew I wanted. 

But my life isn't all sunshine filled walks to friend's houses. I'm still depressed by pinterest (get real 'rock hard abs' pins alongside 'dark chocolate mocha brownies'.. who are you, singular person with six pack  abs, and why is your picture all over? LET ME PERUSE DESSERT RECIPES IN PEACE.) I still get completely unhinged over the most trivial things, and I still obsess about cleaning.

Suffice it all to say. I'm back, blogsosphere. That is, if you'll have me.