New Website

I'm in the process of moving this blog over to my new site Soggy Weeds and Bee Spit: discovering the sweeter side of life. If you will be patient while I'm building, you may feel free to join me there. I still have lots to say but the building process takes a little while. Any of my geeky friends who want to offer their invaluable services will have my undying gratitude.

Hobbit Hole

This clubhouse is made of AWESOME. The kids have been asking for a playhouse anyway. Three guesses what I'm building next summer. You think I'm joking but I'm not. When the kids get tired of it I can use it for mushrooms. Or rabbits. Or maybe I'll just install a storm shelter and then build a hobbit hole over it. Yeah, that's it. Either way, I know I can find an excuse to build it before next summer. 

Help me find a reason to build this. 

Give me a reason my husband will buy.

PLEASE.

right or wrong, I'll take Jesus

We need to stop looking at Christianity as dualistic sets of ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ - for a Christian, there can only be one ‘right’ and that is the good news of Jesus! For a Christian, there is only one ‘wrong’ and that is to know Jesus but not allow him to transform us. What would happen if we, as individuals and as a people, began to re-examine the things we believe are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ under the  magnifying glass of Jesus? 

-Zonoma

living with ghosts

Memory loss is a strange thing to live with. It doesn’t bother me most of the time because, frankly, I don’t remember what I’m missing. Sometimes it makes me sad and sometimes I dream about people I think I should know but it’s not all that bad. Sometimes, it’s even fun. Today I got to meet an old friend for the very first time.  

-Zonoma

Accidental Genius

I didn't understand why Trooper was so determined to learn how to sew until this morning. He's been asking me to fix that poor wolf for two years now. 

If I say I did that on purpose then it isn't a parenting fail, right? In fact, it would be a great way to motivate pursuit of sewing and many other skills I could think of. That's it. I've got mad genius mommy  skills.  

Accidentally. 

Just don't ask me why Captain Awesome is so interested in learning how to cook.

How to Build Stacking Box Shelves

I've wanted more shelving in my little studio that I carved out of the attic in our Cape Cod home for a while but I could never figure out exactly what kind I wanted. Then I had a brilliant idea. Well, to be fair, all of my ideas are brilliant but this was one of my personal favorites. Instead of building shelves, I built boxes! My fear of commitment and my long history of moving that makes me love the versatility of these Stacking Shelves. The idea that I can add on to them at any time doesn't hurt, either.  Now, if I could just commit to filling those embarrassingly empty picture frames...


You will need:
Untreated Lumber (2x8x?)
Wood Screws
Pencil
Drill
Saw
Speed Square
Sander
Primer, Paint, and Brush

1.  Measure.  Decide what you want to store on your shelves and the length of wall you have to work with. I chose 2x10 lumber because I store many larger cookbooks, binders, sketchbooks, and storage boxes. You might want 2x6 or 2x8 if you have mass market paperbacks. Also be certain that you have at least two boxes the same size for a base.

2. Sketch. Draw out your ideas! Don't worry, you don't have to be an artist and no one is grading you. I find that, as a visual person, it really helps the creative process. I recommend graph paper and a ruler.

3. Cut. Make sure your cuts are even and straight. You can use the Speed Square to help you.

4. Assemble. Using the Speed Square to ensure a 90 degree angle each time, screw the cut pieces together in a box.

5. Sand. Unless you don't care about splinters, sand down any rough edges.

6. Prime and Paint. Take your time! Allow each coat to dry completely before rotating it. Honestly, I found this was the most time consuming part of the entire process.

7. Throw a Party. Invite all your friends over to see what you built.

8. Send a picture to Soggy Weeds and Bee Spit.

Happy Building!

-Zonoma

Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie and Clyde

Looking through the pictures from  a lifetime ago has been difficult   but inspirational. I'm now able to see the fingerprints of God in a whole new way.

Allow me to introduce Bonnie and Clyde, the nesting pair of geese that lived on 'our' lake in our old Mississippi home. I loved watching those geese and would sit for hours by the window as they grazed on acorns along the shore.

Then GOD

I’m supposed to be dead (or at least drooling).

In recovery 6/2003

Nearly ten years ago, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor that should have left me a drooling, limping parody of myself, assuming I lived. Instead, God healed me and when they opened me up they found only a desiccated and calcified mass where there had been a viable, entrenched tumor only the day before. That isn’t the story I want to tell today but it is important that you know I experienced a very real physical healing. 

I have been healed. I understand the power of a good and gracious God and of accepting whatever it is that God allows to come your way. I understand how to give thanks in bad circumstances. Then, as so many of us do, I forgot.

Sometimes, that’s what happens after the miracle.

I had a lot to live for.

The fourteen hour surgery in which they used a chisel to pick away at the now-dead tumor had some pretty severe consequences. I left the hospital with a new diagnosis: epilepsy. I had terrible seizures. They left me breathless, panting and paralyzed on the entire right side of my body for hours and hours at a time. I would only start to regain some tiny fraction of movement in my fingers and toes before the next seizure would hit. I was devastated. This new fear was more than I could handle – not knowing when or where the next one would strike was horrible. It was days before they found the right cocktail of drugs to control these attacks and, when they did, the medicines were awful in their own right and caused me to gain weight, lose my hair, and – eventually- fall into a deep depression.

Enough background. More story.

Trauma opens doors to things that Jesus came to free us from and Christians fall prey to things like depression and fear, too. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. While everyone who knew my story up to that point was still singing praises to God for the miracle, my life was absolutely ruled by fear. I never knew when the next seizure would strike and I lived for two years as a shut in- afraid to drive, afraid to boil water unless another adult was home for fear my toddler would try and ‘help’ if I had a seizure and burn himself or his brother. My nightmares were endless. Instead of being thankful for the miracle, I began to resent God for the seizures. I was okay with dying, but that wasn’t good enough for God! And, instead of becoming a drooling, limping parody of myself, I became an embittered and hateful perversion of myself.

Then God.

Then God  (and now you know the story gets good because now it is His) had mercy on me: this bitter, tangled and scribbled-on creation of His. He found me standing over a pile of dirty underwear, with a fist full of dryer lint and whispered, “This is not who I intended you to be.”  He told me to get over my fear and remember what I was called to: the hope, the courage, the joy, the sheer glory that was Him. When I worried my husband would leave me (because isn’t that the curse of women and the great lie of the enemy?) God told me that He would take care of my children and I because we belonged to Him and He didn’t need a husband to do it. Then, I can’t describe it in any other way, except that He breathed courage into me.

I began to obey. I started training my children as if every day were my last, I started praying again, I started studying the Word, remembering.  I started living thankfully again. Do you know what happened after I began to obey and give thanks? God healed me of the epilepsy, too. But that isn’t the biggest miracle. Let me show you something- When I was preparing this entry, I found an old journal and this excerpt from August of 2003, struck me as somewhat prophetic:

“Everybody looks into the mirror but nobody notices the mirror itself. They are naturally drawn to the image reflected in the surface. So through this [difficult season], my 'look-at-me' personality must be sure to say instead 'look-at-God'. All it takes is a little tilt. God is, perhaps, trying to shift my axis."                                                                 

I firmly believe that the biggest miracle I have seen in my life is this heart-change, this shift of my axis, this turn to thankfulness and obedience, this God-life that now thrives where my broken life used to flail its tiny, closed fists against the world. This God-Life is a restored and healthy marriage, it is children who love and are loved, it is a broken dream re-made, it is a renewed call to ministry, it is a second chance to reflect what is important instead of what is broken. It is the ability to find what God is doing in the middle of this messy world and get on board.

So, if we are mirrors- and we are!- what do we reflect? Do we reflect the troubles, strife, and ugly ingratitude of this world? Or do we reflect God and all that comes with Him? Justice and mercy, unbridled joy and soul-rending sorrow, humble obedience and fearless pursuit of the Father’s Will? Is it possible to change our axis? I believe so because I’ve lived it. It took years, but I was finally able digest the enormity of what happened to me and the lessons learned from that season are so far-reaching that they still show up in my own desert places, fresh manna for today. And I am so very thankful for it. 

Why is this so important to me? First and foremost, this idea of giving thanks was important to Jesus.

Eucharisteo – It is found throughout the New Testament 39 times. To offer a little perspective, the word euangelion which is most often translated with phrases like, “Good News” and “gospel” only appears 76 times in the New Testament and that's the theme of the New Testament!.  Jesus gave thanks often and publicly, as well as often and privately, to God. It’s enough to make someone wonder why.

I think it stems from the Garden where ingratitude and distrust became the foundation from which Satan launched his assault on this world. When we remember to thank God – for the small, specific things as well as the bigger, broader strokes – it loosens Satan’s hold on us. For that matter, if we give thanks we are no longer reflecting what is wrong in our lives but what is Good and what is God. We reflect God’s goodness into this dark world! We loosen Satan’s hold on the world and thankfulness becomes a vessel of the Kingdom of God – putting God’s rule and reign front and center in our lives for any who care to see.

When we can find something to be thankful for, it opens our eyes to another and another and another. It is in these seemingly barren landscapes that our souls are nourished. It is when this broken and messed up world tries to starve our spirits that God sends manna from Heaven and we can choose to eat it and be nourished or to close our hands and hearts to what He brings and waste away. It is in these difficult times we learn that God is good, all the time, no matter what is happening around us and even to us. 


You are invited to the table. Come and eat. The meals here in the Kingdom are never the served the same way twice.

mirror, mirror

"Everybody looks into the mirror but nobody notices the mirror itself. They are naturally drawn to the image reflected in the surface. So through this [difficult season], my 'look-at-me' personality must be sure to say instead 'look-at-God'. All it takes is a little tilt. God is, perhaps, trying to shift my axis."

-Zonoma

8/17/2003

LEGO Fail

LEGO club
Jan-Feb 2013 issue

Dear LEGO,

When you market a series to geeks, especially one as dear to us as Lord of the Rings, then you'd better get it right. You should not, for instance, mislabel the names of Thorin Oakenshield's company. It will be noticed and acclaimed a FAIL. If you need a geek to copy-edit your geek series, I know a 12 year old and his mother who will work for Legos. Just sayin.

-Zonoma

Can you find the mislabeled dwarves?

There are five. Sound off!

authenticity

We can give one another access to our successes and our failures. Successes are always more fun but the failures can mean the most to a struggling friend. Be authentic.

-Zonoma

2013 Resolutions

Write more, eat less. 

-Zonoma

Happy New Year!

Christmas time of 2011, I ran across these glass pears while shopping and God used them to nudge me. 2012 will be a Year of Fruitfulness for you, I felt him say. So I bought them and spent most of 2012 thinking that either I was crazy or God was because it felt anything but ‘fruitful’. Rather, it felt like a year of stretching for my heart. My head had lots of knowledge but my heart had not yet been given chances to apply it.  I guess that is the essence of ‘fruitfulness’, spiritually speaking because it’s easy to do the right thing when there’s no resistance. As soon as those waves start rolling in from the shore, though, watch out! Now you get to sink, swim, or walk on water.  So, without further ado, these are the lessons I learned from  2012:

Gentleness. Gentleness should never be under-rated either as a virtue or as a tool. It is the ultimate forgotten virtue in our culture but the ministry of Jesus cannot move forward without this healing balm permeating our actions, words, and thoughts. It has the power to turn conflict into community. 

Confidence. I learned to be more confident when I hear God’s voice because I was right, even when I thought I might be wrong.

Humility. I learned to be humble because even when I got it right, I was wrong. Hearing God's voice and having the wisdom and experience to do something with it are two very different things. Oh have great care, my friends! We see though a veil, not face to face.

I am with God, God is not with me.  Before you preach at me, let me explain! When my boys were young they would tug at my arms in the store to get to the aisle they wanted faster and I would stop until they stopped pulling and tell them, "You are here with me. I am not with you."  This year, I felt God telling me much the same thing and I’ve been especially careful to Stop! Collaborate and Listen (yeah, I went there) before moving forward. If God isn’t leading me there, I don’t want to go.

Friendship. I learned that God prepares a place for me now just as he did when I was younger and just as he will when this world passes into the next.  I learned that part of that preparation is people. Beautiful, messy, and treasured people.

Mostly, though, I learned a deep appreciation for my own two feet. I have learned that no one can do things like I do them. I learned that I am strong. I woke from my long sleep and remembered who I am and that I love power tools, chickens, philosophy, bad sci-fi, puppies, poetry, and music- everything from Gershwin and The Doors to  LeCrae with his no holds barred poetry and compelling melodies. I don't really care for cooking and canning but a well maintained garden makes my heart sing and, if you want to make me happy, then buy me a pack of new markers and a sketchbook. In short, I have finally found my Voice and I can’t wait to use it in the coming year to invite people in from the cold. Welcome to the new year.

-Zonoma