moving time

Hi there!

Guess what?  I finally lit on the right name for this blog, and to celebrate its fit-ness, I not only renamed, but re-designed my life: in short.

Hop over to the new site with me?  All the content from my life: in short will be there, and I hope you'll join me for the move.  I am so grateful for all of you who - by reading what I wrote, by commenting, by coming up to me in church to tell me that you liked a post - have walked with me through the past few years.

The new name is based on that time when someone very kind told me that my writing "makes the ordinary holy."  Suddenly a long-forgotten piece of a poem sprang from the depths of my memory, perfectly encapsulating what I want to do with my writing:  point you to the fire of God in the everyday.

I read to know I'm not alone.  I write in hopes of showing others - you, sometimes? - that they're not alone, either.

If you've enjoyed following my life: in short, you can join the new site to continue receiving content.

See you over there!

[update on the blue "join this site" button at the new address, which is temporarily out of order - if you click the tiny red boxes to the right of the blue button, a window will pop up.  Click the "follow" button to the top right of that window and you'll be able to sign up!  Thanks!!]

the couch

We are home.

After nearly a week of sighing longingly over its photo on craigslist, we have viewed the couch in person.  We have sat on the couch.  We have asked probing questions about the couch.  We have smelled the couch and checked its hidden seams for evidence of infestation.

We have purchased the couch.  We have loaded it into a borrowed truck and muscled it into our living room (necessitating the removal of certain door hardware to do so).

And now we are staying up WAY past our bedtimes, trying to get used to the couch.

It is mammoth.

We like it, I hasten to add - although the cushions do seem to tilt forward in a most unwelcoming fashion.  We are hoping to break them in (and we know we're good at that, since our thorough success is the primary reason we're getting rid of our old couch) and help them form new habits.

But ... it's mammoth.

And it's not alone.  It came ("oh, joy!" we thought) with a matching mammoth chair and ottoman, both of which completely redefine the word "overstuffed."

It didn't look big in its old house.  (Of course, there was nothing else in the room to lend a sense of scale, whereas here it has plenty of normal-sized furniture to dwarf.)

I was eager for a new couch.  I just ... didn't realize that it would look like it was trespassing.  How long will this last?  Can I get used to it faster by going in and out of the room several times - say, oh, four dozen?  Or will it take days ... ?  Months?

And yet, I like it.

I just feel sorry for the recliner.  It used to dominate the room.  Now it cowers in the corner, reduced in size like a great-grandmother, shrunken with age.



[pictures, added for Queenie:]

BEFORE:

AFTER:

(note the recliner, reduced in the background, and the mammoth matching chair,

together with its ottoman taking up three times the floor space of its predecessor)

(note also the primary use of the ottoman as a Lego table)