You would have recognized me in my "blog attire".

Sorry to have missed you all . . . so here goes . . . arghhhh!

Starting with the easy one (smile).

Five things I love about my husband:

1. His words have arms and legs and oh those eyes
2. He still chases me
3. His brave hearted tireless devotion to our great big beautiful messy family
4. His vulnerable trust in God
5. He still chases me

Five things I love to do:

1. Preparing tables and places for people to gather
2. Listening to the stories of friends and strangers
3. Celebrating a life . . . really well
4. Wasting a day with girlfriends in His presence
5. Long date nights

Five things I hope to do before I die:

1. Live out a quilt of memories for each of my grand-children
2. Share the communion table with each of our children ~ complete reconciliation
3. Get a glimpse of the plans He had for me before I stepped into my own (reclaiming the landscape of my life . . . living in circles . . . see Jan's blog)
4. Have time to live outside of my small story . . . entering into some really grand scheme of His (smile)
5. Live my story fully (which probably negates #4 . . . or does it)

Five things I cannot do:

1. Read between the lines (this took years of practice)
2. Hold tensions that aren't mine
3. Be myself without silence
4. Live without joy
5a. Create a life alone (like Lalimama . . . I get by with more than a little help from my friends)
5b. Live without dark chocolate (smile)

Celebrity and other crushes:

1. Michael Buble . . . don't talk . . . just sing
2. Chris Botti . . . just play
3. This is harder than I thought . . . my life has a pretty interesting cast of characters
4. Bono . . . just talk . . . or sing (Jeff thanks for the reminder . . . guess I'm still tired)
5. I'm a sucker for any really good listener with a sense of humor . . . or is it . . . I love listening to a LIFE story shared with a good sense of humor . . . it's one of those anyway