March marks one year since I made the momentous move from my wee North Carolina town to Queens, NYC. On March 8, 2019, I was saying my soggy farewells to everyone who was gathered at the annual youth conference, then packing my damp self into the rental car with Abby and wending our way toward Virginia where we spent the night at a friend’s house before trekking the rest of the way to Queens the next day. Precisely one year…
Since so many of you are just dying to know what it’s like to sing in my lovely li’l choir (and by “so many of you”, I mean precisely one little cousin), I thought I might give you a bit of a rundown of what it’s like behind the scenes at the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. I like to think of myself as the Amish representation in this extremely diverse choir. Sometimes I think of my Amish grandmother, and how agog…
When my girls and I planned our little dashing trip to London last fall, I thought with secret longing of how close we would be to Oxford, but I didn’t mention it much because our trip was already very short and surely there was no way we could pack a second location in. But upon arrival, we discovered that most of us had the same Oxford itch, and really, it wasn’t very far by train, and frankly, how could we…
After nearly a year of living in New York, I thought it might be time to maybe do some adult things like changing my driver’s license to my NY address. Armed with determination and not much else, I made the initial foray into the DMV wilderness, only to promptly return home when I saw the lines were longer than the lines on pretzel day, and that I needed not one, but two, proofs of address, which I definitely did not…
I learned that if you want an eternal tube of toothpaste, just buy the worst charcoal toothpaste you can find. It will hardly foam, it will leave your sink and your toothbrush black and weirdly greasy, it won’t freshen your breath by much, and no matter how many months and months you use it, it will never ever run out. Ever. Money saving hack, so you’re welcome for that. I learned I’m not a huge fan of being thought pregnant….
My decade began and ended with a miracle. Around the start of the decade I was living in Honduras, terribly burned out and sad from years of too much loneliness and a few too many griefs. I decided to ask God for the impossible, and asked Him to move us back home in the spring, and not only back to North Carolina, but back to our old house we had left there. This was ridiculous for a variety of reasons….
I am surrounded by friends and sisters with the most gorgeous, luscious curls that spring from their heads in little ringlets. And then there’s me. Wavy hair at best, and frizzy a good deal more of the time. Part of this is my own fault, because I cannot stand a routine that requires me to spend many dollars and hours in the bathroom coaxing my hair to do exactly what I want. I call it low-maintenance because it sound better,…
I didn’t grow up really celebrating Christmas- Thanksgiving was more our thing- so I don’t have a lot of nostalgic traditions around this holiday. However, we had one little tradition which I loved. Nearly every year we would find a free performance of Handel’s “Messiah” and pack ourselves into the balcony. We’d sit there with binoculars, (the homeschooler version of opera glasses, I guess) and pass them about, taking turns watching the faces in the choir and the orchestra with…
I know Thanksgiving has come and gone, and Christmas is now making its presence known with blaring music and lights everywhere I look, and even the prettiest snowfall, drifting down on this city of mine and creating a hush in the mania. But for those of us trying to fill our lives with gratitude, every day is Thanksgiving day, right? So without further ado… Dear Tough Decisions, I hate making you, and I love when you are made, much…
I won the lottery. I imagine almost everybody has, at one point or another, fantasized about what they would do if they won the lottery. I certainly have done so, building grand castles in the air of traveling with part of it and investing the rest and living on interest and being able to spend my life doing all the things I actually want to do that don’t make a living. Surely you’ve made plans for the day you’ll win…
Good evening, ya fine folks. I am perched on my bed as I type this, gingerly leaning against the wall and hoping against hope that my somewhat broken bed does not come crashing down off its wobbly pedestal. It has been known to do that, you know. I had my fine friend the Little Kumquat come visit me and first thing, as soon as she sat on the bed and leaned against the wall, SMASH, the whole operation came crashing…
New York City is one of the fashion capitals of the world, I hear, alongside Paris and other such progressive places. It certainly is a place where you can expect to see just about anything and everything walking down a sidewalk, and even though there’s enough weirdness here that I should be used to it by now, sometimes I still find someone so interesting I can’t help sneaking a picture from the hip. Wanna see? Sometimes what you see is…