Rain

The house is still dark and I can see an incredible thunderstorm brewing beyond the balcony. We are moving next month, and man am I going to miss this view. It may be what I miss the most. With the Tiny Bar music, the night lights, the hill country in the distance, and of course the skies, who needs TV? Ada digs it too. She'll probably miss watching all of the trains come and go the most of all. But the storms, they are incredible! Since we've been in a drought for so long, we didn't know what we were missing. One night Ada had a high fever, so we just sat on the balcony for some cool air. We witnessed at least 12 lightning bolts beyond the city. SO amazing. Is this why God calls us to keep our sense of wonder as children do? Our faith might not be such a struggle if we weren't so easily bored with what nature had to reveal to us day in and day out. Just until maybe a month ago, when Ada felt the rain falling on her head she would stare up like "What in the world is happening her? Am I the only one bright enough to notice this?" The fact that rain ever falls is a miracle in itself, no? If we study the physics of it and explain away all of the "magic", I think I'm left even more in awe. I say all this to say even if we aren't 20 stories above our ground-floor view of the world, we can still learn a lot from the rain, among all of those other things little people talk about. Tune into what they're watching. With time, maybe you could even stop paying for cable. :)

Seein' the Sights

Alrighty!  This post is more just to share a few shots of life as of late.  One of my dear and loyal friends, Erin Franklin, flew up to visit for about a week.  She had always dreamed of going to San Antonio and strolling on the Riverwalk; we hit up the Alamo along the way.  It was over too soon! Enjoy. . .  

OH, and did I mention it was "Fiesta" when we arrived.  We weren't exactly in the streets partying, but we DID get to hear C&C Music Factory and Cypress Hill from our balcony!!  I pity the fool that paid the 12 bucks to see the show.  We jammed out in our pajamas.  Erin, you are missed here in big Tex.

I'm on FIYAH

I don't know what it feels like on the east coast right now, but here the pavement has already made dedos refritos of our little toes.  OH it's coming, but are we ready for it?

I will be brief because what takes my energy and brainpower these days has nothing to do with blogger.com.  What does take much of my attention is a two letter word I call "the enemy" right now:  the word NO.  His right-hand-man, señor Mine has also tried to bring trouble around these parts.  Darned playground kids, or whoever it was (we unfortunately hear kiddos yelling these two words at each other a lot lately!) decided to let Ada in on the secret of how to drive her folks mad with little effort.  So the past two weeks have been spent doing research via old-fashioned texts (the kind that you actually have to turn the pages to read) to see how we can encourage Ada past this phase.  Any comments or suggestions on the topic, please give a shout out!  

Before I go, know that aside from the unpleasant utterings, Ada has made many friends.  One of my favorites is little Agastya below.  They are the same age give or take 2 weeks, and they would both spend their days as little water prunes if they made their own life decisions:

 

whip it, into shape! shape it up!

driving home on Congress

Ada and Sydney at the Iron Cactus

How does one stay concise but remain thorough when filling in inquiring minds on 3 months or so of life?  I will make an attempt here.  

My life has been a paper trail of stick-it notes the past few months.  Life isn't bad by any means, just, how do you say... discombobulated?  We have been to NC and back to visit and care for friends and family that we oh-so-love; we have seen dog parades and new babes, sampled delicious kashmiri cuisine, started fight clubs and posed for pictures in finely-made dresses; we have enjoyed the company of several out-of-town guests, watched bats swarm the sky by the thousands, and eaten our weight in dark chocolate; we are trying to grow our green thumbs in this crazy high-rise (or are you born with it?  rice-scott empire, any thoughts?  mama?) and to master the ways of OOMA.  Ada is now waving at strangers, learning to protest with words and win Bapa's heart.   She has discovered peanut butter ("bubber") and goes to the fridge to get it herself!  She is obsessed with shoes and dancing to every beat that catches her ear.  She had her first taste of SXSW, and didn't even mind giving up nap time here and there.  Life has been so rich, so full, and yet so challenging.  In the past couple of months, I have felt loved at time and totally abandoned at others.  God has filled my inner parts with extraordinary joy as a mother, and in the weeks following that truth, I have found myself waving a white flag of surrender.

  

so many shoes, so little time.

Jesse and I celebrated 3 years of marriage in March at the Driskill Grill.  He is even better to me today than he was the day he said "I do."  He was amazing then!  Speaking of amazing husbandness, I now get to play Bunko once a month while Dada and Ada have their own date night.  It's so fun, and I'm currently working on my secret dice toss. (Look out girls!)  Speaking of girls, my friend Rashmi "accidently" colored my hair red yesterday afternoon during a henna scalp treatment.  Speaking of red hair... just kidding!  So many things, but we have to leave something untold for occasional phone conversations and visits. . .

We will try to keep the rain showers here and send the sunshine your way for now.  Happy Friday everyone!

  

You Can Walk If You Wannu

Guess who's walking?!  How do these crazy little people figure this stuff out?  Even though many have gone before them, it's amazingly unexpected every time, no?  Next thing you know, we'll be watching Baby on Wire.  Apologies that my shots of her aren't the best, but have you ever tried to make a babe stay still?  It's more fun just to watch, and eventually get better with shutter speeds I reckon.   

 

Pass the Tissues Please

It's been a while, I'm aware.  That whole business about being "over" whatever sniffles were going around in 2008. . . yeah, well, psyche.  The jokes on us, very nice.  Supposedly, the cedar is really bad here in January. I'm not totally sure what that means.  In fact, allergies are a mystery to me in general.  Just this month, if I had a nickel for every time someone told me "oh, I don't get allergies", I would quit Jesse's job for him.  How the bells do we know?  What percentage of the U.S. population goes into a medical facility and gets tested?  (If you happen to know, do tell!)  I guess I thought I wasn't allergic to anything, but maybe I'm allergic to cedar, to Austin, to Texas, to waking up at night 10x to nurse, to bad jokes. . . who can really know for sure?!  My point is, days have been filled with bulbing my poor toddler (OH yes, more on that) to death, spraying her down with saline solution, dancing for entertainment so she'll forget that no oxygen is actually flowing up her nostrils, and other such nonsense that may appear on YouTube.  We are still mending, and now the big guy has been hit too.  So really?  Allergies?  I bet at least one person from an entirely different state will tell me that they are experiencing something quite similar. There goes my head spinning about again.  At least we enjoyed a Hot Toddy this evening to keep ourselves grounded, and breathing.  

The photo above was taken on top of Whole Foods.  The building in the background is our apartment building.  Ahem, excuse me.  I meant to say our "high-rise residence" or something with more pizzazz.  You know, the people working here won't even call our home an apartment.  It now and forever shall be a "unit."  Who are we kidding?  I suppose the poor lads and lasses that are probably paying quite a bit more than us to live here. . .  Is one allowed to go on tangents via blog?  It seems wrong since I'm thinking this through, and have a delete key standing by waiting to take orders.  It's just more fun to keep going.  This is about as wild as my week is gonna get!  So, Whole Foods brilliantly constructed their rooftop space into a playground.  That's right, genius.  We frequent there, and Ada loves it.  I can't wait for the day when she loves the slide as much as she loves eating the wood chips on the ground.  (sigh) 

The use of roof space is absolutely brilliant, and I'm surprised we don't try to make this a reality more often in our own lives.  I would love to try my hand at hydroponic gardening atop our next abode given the opportunity.  Somehow I doubt that will happen, but I know it's happening somewhere, and that warms my heart.  Just think if office spaces used their rooftops, or schools, grocery stores (in the sense that they could sell produce in an open-air market), etc.  These things might already be a reality, but they are unknown to me.  If you have a good example, please pass it on.

    

for auld lang syne

Welcome to 2009!  We hope it has been a smooth ride thus far for you all.  If "bumpy" is more fitting for what you remember over the past 5 days, hopefully it's more of an off-road, adventurous bumpy.  If not, well. . . ask for wisdom to endure it.  There is beauty in it.  So far, it's been a good year for the Lovelaces.  A fine year indeed;  the runny noses have stopped running, the suitcases are empty (well, practically. . .), traveling has ceased for a while (bittersweet subject), and we're ready to keep on keepin on in this town.  There is SO much to do here though.  In fact, part of the reason I think I fail to get out more is because there is too much to choose from.  There is beauty in simplicity, you know.  While we are on the subject of "doing", what do you know about the music festival South by Southwest, coming up in March?  Have any friends performing?  Ever been before?  I'm interested in going for sure, but prices I've seen are outrageous!  Let me pick your brain on this please.

As of December 23rd, Ada is 1 year of age!  Between slinging spaghetti noodles to and fro, and burrowing her chubby hands through birthday cake, I think she had a great first.  Honestly, if there had been no gifts, she wouldn't have been any less stoked.  (She doesn't get the idea of unwrapping gifts yet anyway; she kept getting sidetracked by the Christmas tree.  Home girl loves some ornaments.)  You should've seen the look on her face when the family sang "Happy Birthday" to her.  She couldn't believe we were all singing to her.  She was truly astonished, and so excited that she clapped along with us when the song ended.  I'm so honored to be this little lady's mama.  I can't wait to walk through every year of her life with her, God-willing.

2009 looks promising.  Ada and I are starting to connect with other moms and munchkins, and we went for our first play-date today at a new friend's house.  We're planning to read books together, talk philosophy/life, etc.   This may not sound like much, but it's big news for this madre!  I've also heard of a super neat movie and dinner spot, The Alamo, that plays Tuesday matinees for mamas and babes - woot!  

We have a community that loves Christ that we now call our own, and we meet here in downtown as well.  These people want to do truly good things to see this city thrive in a healthy way.  I'm excited to see what the year has in store for everyone here, and I want to see God's people love the city the way he intended.  So far, so good. . . Let's stop here for the day.  We love you guys and think of you often.  Cheers from the Lonestar State.