[***I did finish and the best was yet to come - I wrote this review too early to explain the full depth of it. Brad's ideas were even better once they'd "steeped" and reached the last few chapters.]

My husband might be the best on earth when it comes to analogy.

But, probably one of the best analogies for the Kingdom of God I’ve ever come across is in the book Finding Home: A Parable of Kingdom Life by Brad Huebert. He takes the complex, and sometimes abstract ideas of the Kingdom and creates a thought-provoking allegory for the common reader. It is smart and unique and I am loving reading it. (I’m not done yet, Brad!!)

When I was in high school, I got a pen pal.

She was French and cool and somehow her aunt knew someone in my church so I was given her name along with the address that looked so foreign to me. We began to write and I think the initial intent was for us to become friends, and then to do some kind of summer exchange. Maybe I would stay with her family for awhile and she would stay with mine.

That never happened.

If I’m honest with myself, I was just scared. Scared to leave my family for so long, scared to be in a different culture, scared to not know the language.

We continued to write, in bursts, 6 months here and there, and she eventually made it to the U.S. when she was in grad school. She did an American Literature program in Rhode Island one semester and I thought about getting out to visit her, to finally meet her. I never made it.

She sent me an invitation to her wedding. Again, I couldn’t make the trip.

In 2001 I went to France. My husband and I took a trip before we had our babies. It was a lifetime tour. We spent 2 1/2 weeks in Paris, Lyon, Avignon, Carcassonne, Bordeaux, and everywhere in between. Along the way, I managed to reach by phone my old friend.

She was on a holiday with her husband and new baby in a coastal town in the north called Etretat. They were staying with her in-laws and she agreed to meet us if we could make it up to the beach. We did.

We boarded a train in Paris and travelled north. The day we spent with her and her family I remember in glimpses of the coast from a hike on a hill, the inside of a quaint seaside vacation cottage, and a French lunch complete with homemade Calvados and amazing cheese. A day I won’t forget and I cannot return to, nor can I recreate it, even when I go back to France someday.

She and I finally met face to face. And she looked exactly like her photos, beautiful and fresh.

I’ve always regretted the fear that kept me glued to my California home instead of making the adventurous trek to Europe like I should have when I was younger.

But I think the exchange that was intended a decade ago happened there on the beach on the north coast of France when I was 25. Instead of an exchange of students and families, it was an exchange of ideas and of laughter. We exchanged culture and understanding, in little bits and pieces. We made the exchange that grown-up friends, not children, make.

I don’t think my mother’s-mind ever really sleeps.

When I got so sick with the flu on Sunday, I listened to my husband feed our daughters dinner, bathe them, play with them and then get them ready for bed. All from laying half-in and half-out of the quilt on my bed, indecisive because of fever. I tried to sleep in between urges to run to the bathroom, but I only drifted.

I remember thinking in my head things I should tell Chad about the girls’ pajamas, where to find the chicken in the freezer, remembering things I needed to insert into Hope’s backpack before school in the morning, and about the fact that she needed to work on her book report. Even as sick as I was I couldn’t turn off the mothering part of my mind.

And then after a confusing Monday of my husband dropping off for first grade then picking up my littlest one to take her to my mother’s, I finally got to really sleep by myself in the house (against the backdrop of an ancient Perry Mason episode).

The phone call from Hope’s school woke me up in the middle of the afternoon. My first instinct was that Chad had forgotten to rearrange his schedule again and had left her standing there waiting to be picked up. Even when I was able to fall asleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the little things I do as a mother that no one else knows about.

Chad managed just fine. In fact, he was a superstar. He hadn’t forgotten her, but she had gotten sick at school and needed to be picked up (in my delirium I’d read the clock wrong). He collected her for me and brought her home.

I don’t think the mothering part of my mind is meant to be turned off. It is now such a part of me and the way I think that I don’t know if I’ll ever have a release from it. And that’s a good thing.

Because someone has to know when the library books are due (even if they are scattered throughout the house).

The funniest thing is that I made this about 45 minutes before I got sick on Sunday.

Thank God for good husbands who wash dishes, put fussy kids in the bathtub and take first graders to school.

Still not feeling right.

November 17th from Sarah Markley on Vimeo.

I have contracted the “Two Year Old Flu”.

In fact I am dictating this to my husband. (Hi everyone – Chad). I am not even watching what he is typing. So, he had better not type anything weird!

I will post my “weight loss” video tomorrow, Tuesday. Maybe I will be able to stand up then.

1. Perfect way to reduce amount of clothes in your TO FOLD pile: have your toddler vomit on them. Then they have to go back in the washing machine.
2. Try to schedule her illness on a night your husband is home, but if he isn’t and has to drive 30 miles away for a previous engagment, make the best of it.
3. Send her sister to the movies with her grandparents. The “Ewwws” and “That’s gross” remarks will be greatly reduced.
4. Ditch the nightgown you dressed your toddler in; she’s only going to get sick on it anyway.
5. Thank God that your toddler isn’t finished potty training yet and still in a diaper at night. No, really, thank God. I’m going to leave it at that.
6. Use Motrin to keep the fever down, but only AFTER she’s done expelling the contents of her stomach.
7. Don’t let her cuddle with you on your dry-clean-only, impossible to wash quilt.
8. BUT…let her snuggle with you on the floor, next to to the bucket, until you both fall asleep from exhaustion.

William Zinsser says that shorter is always better than longer when it comes to writing.

My husband says he will rarely read a blog post that he has to scroll down to read (like it better not take up more than one length of a computer screen or he will move on).

Me, I like to skim.

But the Bible is lengthy. And most novels are between 80 thousand and 100 thousand words.

Although Zinsser is known for his economy of the written word and began his career as a journalist, he’s written a few full length writers’ guides as well.

[On Writing Well has been sitting on my desk shelf unread since April (which I promptly bought upon returning from my writing conference). But Linda just handed me Writing About Your Life today]

There is a reason why poetry resonnates inside us: because it is soulful meaning using few but rich words.

In the same vein, I am beginning to think that shorter is better in more things than just writing:
1. giving advice
2. correcting my husband
3. prayer

So much of my life is just words without meaning. I blah blah blah too much. I want to be more intentional (in my speech), briefer (in length) and richer (in meaning).

I think that what I do say, then, might mean more.

So yeah, I’ve been trying to answer a nagging question lately.

I know bloggers have done whole months on blogging missions and I guess I missed that boat. I’ve seen people write their blog purpose in their sidebars. I’ve watched bloggers take ministry trips to other countries and I’ve seen some raise money for worthy causes through their blogs. I’ve seen the readership of certain blogs go from the equivalent of a mommy working out of her home to a Costco sized production. I’ve seen bloggers write week after week without a single comment and I’ve seen bloggers reduce their online-zine to “private” after they got one ugly comment. Some people just blog to allow their world-spread family to see pictures of their kids.

So why do I blog?

And I’ve written several posts about this in the past, but I am wondering if my purpose is changing. Especially as I’ve seen the readership of many blogs (not just mine) wane a little and refocus elsewhere (other blogs, facebook, twitter).

I didn’t intend to meet amazing women, but I did.

I didn’t set out to get challenged and sharpened by reading others’ stories, but I have.

I didn’t purpose to dive into the discipline of daily writing, but it happened.

I never meant to fall in love with friends across the nation and wish they were family, but I did.

I don’t sell anything from my blog and I don’t put up ads. There is nothing wrong with that at all, but its just something that doesn’t seem to fit inside my (up until now) undefined purpose.

My purpose is not to gain comments. It is not to gather “hits” or “page loads”. My purpose is not to be read, but to WRITE.

And hopefully, along the way, I will be read by some of you. And maybe we will all realize we are not alone in this – this figuring out how to be mothers, how to fit into our jeans, how to really love each other and whether or not “Mayflower” is an appropriate first grade spelling word.

Why do you blog?

I’ve been trying to conserve.

Money has been tighter. I’ve been more concerned about our financial footprint.

So I’ve been doing what I can with my limited scope. I’ve been planning meals around what we have. I’ve been reusing bath towels and pajamas — I’ve been trying to make things stretch longer.

Including the dozens of sample sized bottles of toiletries that live underneath my bathroom counter. They just collect in small bins and bags and leftover pouches from airplane trips. But for the most part, they go unused.

I figure, the longer I can go without buying more shampoo or body wash, the better. Its just saving money, however small. But it seems like I have buckets of soaps and conditioners, travel sized bottles of makeup remover and eye cream. So for the past several weeks, the inside of my shower and my bathroom counter look like they belong in the local Holiday Inn Express: I’ve gathered my baby shampoos around and informed my husband we would be using these for awhile.

In addition, with the California weather not able to choose a lane, my skin is dreadfully confused. Hot, cold, regardless, my skin is thumbing its nose at the southwest by just drying up. I’ve been parched and in desperate need of lotion. Sample sized now, of course.

So as I get out of the shower, I’ve been picking from the one of 4 little bottles littering my counter to try to moisturize my skin. Lotion application, now a winter sport, every morning. All over: ankles to hips and wrists to shoulders. For the past five days or so, I have seen an improvement in my skin. And, I’m reducing my financial footprint too.

Yesterday, I hopped out of the shower and unloaded half of a tiny coconut -lime scented bottle of lotion onto my palm: ankles to hips, wrists to shoulders. However, the viscosity seemed a little strange. Ahh, it must have been a weird hotel with a weird lotion. It wasn’t rubbing in. Again, ankles to hips, wrists to shoulders. It was as green as when I had begun to apply.

It just wasn’t soaking into my pale winter skin.

In my effort to reduce, reuse and recycle, I had inadvertently rubbed hair conditioner all over my body. Its just not the same as lotion.

And, being that I had already shaved my legs, the hair conditioner was doing nothing for me, except make me the color of a lime (as well as thwart all my attempts at me trying to conserve).

Maybe tomorrow I’ll accidentally replace my toothpaste with A&D Ointment and my hair product with night cream. So much for conservation!