Category Archives: let’s get real

I fell flat out… twice last week… true story!

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1. Ice skating at Somerset House. I was mid triple-sow-cow when I was suddenly flat on my face. It was funny and my sweet hubs was right there beside me to help me up and laugh about it over hot coco later. {pics to come!}

2. Wet steps in the rain. True. It was pretty spectacular, actually. I had just gotten a coffee… so when I slipped, fell backwards, then continued down several steps, my backside was wet and dirty from the steps, my front was wet and dirty from coffee–in the hair… down the coat… on my knee… into my boots. Spectacular is the only word for it.

Word to the wise: be careful around me in cold and or wet settings. {nothing was even remotely hurt… except my pride.}

5 Minute Friday: Tired

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Well this week certainly got away from me. It’s already time for another 5 Minute Friday Linkup with The Gypsy Mama! You know the drill.


For only five short, bold, beautiful minutes. Unscripted and unedited. We just write without worrying if it’s just right or not.

    1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
    2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
    3. Most importantly: leave a comment for the person who linked up before you – encouraging them in their writing!




TIRED
I’m so tired. A really great Beatles song starts with this line…. Let’s not got there. I really am tired. Yesterday was my last day of class for the semester. It feels like I’ve poured out all my brain on papers and group work and I have very little left with which to think and write and converse.
I wonder when there will be a day when I’m not tired. We stay up late, enjoy each other and the city of London, we sleep in (sometimes, depending on classes), we rinse and repeat. When are the days of 12 hour nights plus naps? Was that only for a brief moment, sophomore year in college? I long for days when I don’t feel tired. Or braindead. Or frustrated. Or short-tempered. 
I need some perspective. Someone once told my Mama right before she had me that hopefully she had cherished a good night’s sleep because she wouldn’t have another one for 18 years…! If these are the good days of restful nights free of care and worry and limited responsibility, I need to feel less tired!
I guess the tiredness affects my attitude and sleep deprivation doesn’t help, so I will try to, a) get more sleep and, b) adjust my perspective. It’s Christmastime and in the words of Kevin McAllister’s mother, “The season of perpetual hope.” Amen.

City University London

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There are a few things you should know about City.

People call “college”/ “university”/ “school” “Uni” over here. So when I’m on campus, I might text a classmate saying, “I’m at uni. Where are you?” {I’m still getting used to this}

We have a student Union, like Tate at Georgia or the Ferg at Alabama, only this one is a replica of Saved By The Bell’s the Max. Let’s compare:

The Max
City Uni
Neon lights? Check.
Gaming tables? Check. 
Bright colors? Check.
80s/ 90s music? Check.
Totally cool kids hangout? Like, totally.
But there are some really cool aspects to campus life. We have a square (like a quad) and it’s beautiful in the fall. 

Northampton Square
{that little shack in the bottom right corner serves the best coffee}
View from the Library
It can be quite picturesque. And that’s what you need to know about City University. That, and there are so many undergrads, a trip to the library is more often an educational experience in overhearing awkward pick-up lines and teen angst than anything else. That part of school translates globally.

Speck and Plank

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My own blindness astounds me.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from the other person’s eye.” {Matthew 7:3-5}

It’s amazing the things that seem so clear in me someone else’s life but I’m blind to that very thing in my own life. I recently said:

“How does she not know that faith is grown life, not in bible studies?!”

Wisdom, knowledge, discernment, identifying and drawing near to the Character of God, the Person of Christ, the Miracle of the Holy Spirit all happens in bible study–and bible studies are great! But faith is something that is grown in the everyday–the good and the bad, but especially the bad…

How did I miss God growing my faith (even especially in my doubt and anger) by all this in my life?? How??

So I’ve made up with God and we’re on speaking terms again; things are good and I’m now open to instruction (whereas before I had serious bouts of throwing my toys on the floor and stamping my feet around like a toddler). We all have our moments. And thankfully, in God’s grace, we can have them unedited–He can take it.

But when we are ready to grow up a bit–and I am ready–we can learn from the pulling and stretching, the pruning and circumcising, when we are ready to accept both the new wine and the new wineskins, our covenant (like a reconciled marriage) is a beautiful and intimate one.

That’s where I find myself most of the time these days. The difficult, graceful, new, frustrating, reassuring place of faith-growing life here in London.