Because so many keep askin!
These are from the ad, but I am also showing the sideview from google maps because the straight on street view makes it look teeny. It’s small, but not THAT small

Hmmm… we’ll have to discuss the nickname for our new place…the “Ort-Hol Community House”, but that just sounds, I dunno, a bit like a dirty reference! LOL

OKAY! I wrote earlier that we were hard at work finding a place. Well, place found! We saw it yesterday, (three times to be exact), and turned in apps and they were approved today and we are signing leases and getting keys for March 1st. WOAH! When things work out, boy do they work out! Sheesh.

I really like this little place. It’s a small, 3-level home in N. Portland 5 blocks from the Lombard/Interstate MAX stop. Built in 1924, it’s got a bit of character but also lots of upgrades for energy efficiency and so on. Two levels have 2 beds/1 bath each, with a 3rd level that is like a long loft/ family room/ guest room. Fun stuff. Oh, and the landlord is a firefighter who lives nearby and is the most easy going guy I’ve ever met, its almost laughable. We get to keep the chickens and the kitty, without even needing a deposit. It’s fairly miraculous how it is all working out so far!

Bing, bang, boom – folks. We start relocating in 2 weeks. So you may not hear from me much due to working and packing and so forth, but I’ll do my best to keep ya posted.

Please continue to pray for us and for the other family as we take this step…

Upon announcing our decision to co-house, or literally share a home with another family, the feedback has been expectantly mixed. Some commented about the state of our economy and the impending need for people to be open to living this way. Some said it was awesome, to let us know how they could help. Some said we were “brave”. Some said it was not a good idea, period.

Fortunately, the decision was made in our hearts with momentous solidarity before we got outside opinions on the matter. There was a certainty that not only were we “up for it”, but that come what may, this was going to be an enriching experience that brings us closer to Jesus, each other, and community.

While it is easier to explain in terms of financial benefits, there’s so much more to talk about. While we were “tested” with questions ranging from lease terms to whether or not we know who will be decorating, we kinda chuckled at how, I don’t know, that’s just not how we wish to approach this. The concept of sharing your home and lives with another family is totally foreign to most of us, and the thought of “giving up” our comforts of individuality and privacy, of exposing another family to our daily struggles, fights, tears, and hang-ups, is not in the least bit appealing. And I understand that — I really, really do. Especially in a culture where we are told that our dreams must be something like that of Wisteria Lane housewives – that the ultimate possession is a better job and a single family home in the burbs, far removed from the “sketchy” neighborhoods and failing schools. We look out for number one, and beyond that a small circle of close friends and family MIGHT be worth our personal sacrifice. With so much on our plates already, we are strapped – we don’t have the money or time to devote to anything other than maintaining our own “world”.

And yet, if I only spoke about the financial or cultural aspects of our decision, I would still be failing to explain the truest reason we desire to share a home. This decision is first and foremost about living out a desire to check out what other sides of God’s heart we haven’t even begun to explore. It’s reading the sermon on the mount and saying – wait, maybe this isn’t just a nice sunday school verse; maybe this is literally telling us how to live, in THIS culture, in THIS time, and for ever. It’s about treating others as equals, as humans who bear the spark of the divine, not competition or annoyances or celebrities or enemies. It’s about sharing what really never belonged to us anyway – our money, our time, our couch – in exchange for seeing Christ at work in the lives of those around you in a deep and personal way.

It’s breaking bread with others, washing their feet and allowing (however difficult it will be!) to let others wash yours. Not from the confines of church walls, or the distance of a charitable donation, but starting under the roof you sleep under (which is also not “yours”).

Leviticus 25:23 — “The land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.”

Matthew 7:11 — “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Ecclesiastes 5:10-15 — “Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless. As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owner except to feast his eyes on them? The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep. I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner, or wealth lost through some misfortune, so that when he has a son there is nothing left for him. Naked a man comes from his mother’s womb, and as he comes, so he departs. He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand.”

1 Timothy 6:6-7, 17-19 — “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. … Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.”

Acts 20:35b — “[T]he Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

Acts 4:32, 34-35 — “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.”

This past Sunday night was so awesome. We had church at night, and I didn’t even hear the message or anything, and still I was impacted and filled with gratitude. I love our community we have found in Evergreen so much. Hubby and I helped in the kids room together, something that our church does so differently than any church I have been to. The commitment is so practical and so NOT all-consuming, as you are encouraged to only serve in an area of the church for one sunday each month for 4 months, that you find yourself going “That’s it?!” – without resentment, with room to breathe, with freedom to dabble in other things and explore the ways in which you can pitch in. By the time I returned home, the community had been incredibly generous to us: we had a ride there and back, one person went through her extra knitting supplies and gave me a big bag of needles, another person had brought a large bag of their used baby girl clothes and shoes for Verity, and a few more swapped books with me that were on my “to read” list. There were many loving moments in between that touched me with simple hugs, hello’s, and thank you’s. (I work with some one who is also like this- the most generous, loving, intentional gal I know. She works so, so hard, and is truly sacrificial about her resources. She is amazing!) This is radical to me. It is love, it is family. And it makes me want to give back, to redistribute my skills, possessions, or simply my time, in order to care for the people I am growing to love and appreciate so much. I am so grateful that we moved to Portland and discovered the existence of community, a community that I can honestly say God used to shift our lives so greatly, so much so that I have a loving, healthy husband right now, and a child on the way that I have the privilege of mothering along with Lil’ E.

Life is messy and difficult sometimes. People have issues and areas and lots of growing and loving to do to get passed it. No one is immune. No one is in a better boat than any one else, because we were created to have needs, and to depend on each other for those needs to be met in family and community. The more we get out of our isolation, the more HUMAN we feel. With a little compassion and support for one another, I have hope that we humans are capable of seeing passed our self-centeredness and self-sufficiency, and into a world where pursuing a “LIVING” doesn’t mean a paycheck, it means a life of rich blessings you can’t buy with the world’s best gold.

For me, sharing a home is a place I can start to explore this vision, not only within our two families but also in combining our hospitality and resources to offer it as a small gathering place for community to happen. I do desire and plan to get more involved in service opportunities to the poor in Portland — once I get through these super pregnant/infancy stages.

So this is not a defense, not a “you should too”, and not even an explanation. It is simply a conversation about my life and the ways we are changing as a family from the inside out. I hope to continue this conversation eventually on a separate blog dedicated to the happenings of the new home, one that incorporates the writings of the other adults (and maybe children too!) that will be sharing space. We hope to move next month and are hard at work to find the right place, so if you’re the prayin’ kind, throw one up:)

“And I think that’s what our world is desperately in need of – lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about.”

“We try and make the world safe, knowing that the world will never be safe as long as millions live in poverty so a few can live as they wish.”
— Shane Claiborne (The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical)

Below are some more resources we are exploring now and as time allows in the months ahead. If anyone knows of more, please let me know!!! :

Books:
Eberhard Arnold, Why We Live in Community.
Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community
Creating a life together : practical tools to grow ecovillages and intentional communities
The cohousing handbook : building a place for community
Reinventing community : stories from the walkways of cohousing
Intimacy and Mission: Intentional Community as Crucible for Radical Discipleship by Luther E., Jr. Smith
The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

Blogs/Websites:
The Canby House
The Simple Way
Relational Tithe
Reba Place

Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”:

MENDING WALL
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

If you are patient, you can wait until you are done reading this post to get to the bottom and see the publishing information and time stamp. Or you can get really interested and go check it out now.

Go on, I’ll wait …

Yep, my brain was up this morning by about 1:30am. I peed, laid back down, tossed and turned, and all I could feel was a general sense of fatigue that was not enough to get back to sleep and stay that way. After an hour laying in bed, I got up. Making use of my time? I did some research and gathered some interesting suggestions for pregnancy safe, natural sleep aids.

Here they are:

• Avena sativa 12C or Passiflora 12C before bed and if you wake up in the night
• Arnica 30C if:
  • You have been overdoing it and feel tired sore and achy, but maybe you cannot sleep
  • Your baby is bouncing around actively and wearing you out
  • Your bed feels hard, you cannot get comfortable
• Calcium-rich drink like a warm milk (gotta get some more to make a nighttime steamer!)
• A blend of oils such as lavender, chamomile, orange, clary sage in your oil burner/humidifier/what-have-you. Make a spray bottle of it and spray down your bed, or dilute in something like almond oil and rub on pressure points (using high quality, pure essential oils only) Also, rubbing lavender infused oil on feet helps to drain energy from head so you can sleep better.
• Calcium/magnesium citrate before bed (I knew of this for leg cramps/restless legs – I didn’t know it works wonders for helping you sleep in general!)
• Take a warm bath before bed if you get up frequently to pee, which will help to empty the liquid from the body. And remember to put those essential oils in the bath!
• And for general exhaustion during pregnancy, an invigorating blend of: Lavender, Grapefruit, and Coriander oils, no more than: 6 drops in bath, 5 drops in 2 tsp. of cold pressed vegetable oil (like grapeseed) for a massage, or 4-5 drops in a bowl of hot water for a foot bath.

Perhaps the most interesting sleep aid suggestion I found was coffee, or its derivative “coffea”, for an overstimulated, excited sleepless night:

Homeopathy is based on the Law of Similars, which means, briefly, that any substance that can create symptoms in a person can also cure those same symptoms, if given in the correct dosage. Coffee, is a good example of this. Coffee stimulates the nervous system and can cause sleeplessness if taken late at night. Coffea, derived from coffea, taken in tiny quantities does exactly the opposite – it soothes the nerves and helps to promote sleep.

Since this is like my 4th night of insomnia, I’m going to get a few things later today to try some of these out for tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes! (OR, perhaps we’ll let the lack of posts during hours that should be reserved for sleep do the talking!)

For some reason I can picture my dad saying this. It must have been some memorable statement I heard him say once that made me think my dad was blessed with wisdom and common sense. (And, well, that’s probably true.)

With all this talk about simplicity, I tend to forget that even in THIS minute, THIS day, I can embrace the call to live for something Higher. Thanks to Glad for the reminder, all the way from Sudan.

Ah, now THIS is familiar. Tossing and turning at night; gotta pee, gotta eat, gotta move. Only 4am? I went to bed just FOUR HOURS AGO?! Okay, I’ll lay here another few hours. Only 4:30? 5:00? 5:30? Must.Get.Up.

I’ve answered my email, flipped through a birthing book, too tired and foggy to work this early, but its dark outside still (almost 7, currently) and no one is up yet – except Paz, who is trying to suckle on the hip of my pj pants. (He’s a bit of a, well, baby.)

I have a feeling that with this kind of start, the rest of this post is gonna be a tad jumbled and odd. Bare with me.

Hubby and I recently made the decision to start looking for a new place. We have very few expenses compared to a lot of people, (no cable, no home phone, no CARS, sharing the smallest minutes on our cell plan, so on) but still we live “at” our means each month with unforeseen bills due, a large debt payment that comes close to what we pay in rent each month, and now this upcoming birth and baby prep. We hold the value that financial solutions don’t always come in “work more, harder, longer” packages, yet we have been stuck with ways we could spend less, cut back, save more, so on. We also really want a simple life, not the American dream, just our dream – to be together as a healthy, peaceful, thriving family, with ample time to love and serve each other and those outside our family too. We spent about 4 years of our marriage being too busy to deal with our relationship, and discontent with every new material or achievement, with this vague restlessness like standing in front of the open fridge but not sure what to eat (which Sarah, who was the speaking elder at church last week, said she knew some one who said that we need God in those times… or am I remembering that correctly? Oh well, that’s what I got out of it!) . There has been so much change this year that we can hardly believe this is how things once were. And since there is no guarantee of tomorrow, I am grateful for today.

Moving on. Or back — to our impending move. We’ve got a relatively short amount of time to boogie on outta here, (so play that funky music, white boy.) I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we are planning on sharing a community house with a family from church, something I am uber excited about, (so excited, mind you, that the word “uber” popped out) … (I did mention I barely slept last night, right? It makes you say crazy things, and have songs stuck in your head about a rock-n-roll singer embracing the disco movement.)

Today we hope to hear good news from a place that so far looks really appealing. Oh shoot, I’ll just say it, I WOULD FALL OVER AND HAVE MY BABY RIGHT NOW if we got this place. Well, that’s ultimately up to the baby, I suppose, so I don’t want to commit her to anything, (at least not for another 6 weeks, since I’m only 31 weeks right now.) But let’s just say that SOMETHING would come out my Ladyness if we get this place. (early, folks. really, really early.)

Oh, thank GAWD. My 3 year old best friend is up now to keep me company Adios!

At long last: The last month highlights – in pictures!

And my ode to soup:
One of this winter’s many gifts to me was discovering just how much I love soups and stews. And here’s why:

• For one thing, I can usually make a delicious, hearty soup with a few random, cheap produce items and a bean or legume, some spices and water and wa la.
• But it’s more than how cheap, nutritional, and filling it is. I love how Portland is cooler in the winter than Florida was all my life (an understatement?) because I never before felt this drive to eat something warm and nutritious like soup after a long day. How you can actually feel soup warm your bones and satisfy your tummy is such an amazing comfort.
• In a picture above, there is a stew I made earlier this week that was surprisingly more delicious than we anticipated, (I can’t share the recipe because its copyrighted). What I was really *tickled* about was how much like beef stew it was- (I really love a good beef stew!). This one used spices like ginger, curry, cinnamon, all spice, and cumin, and the main ingredients I used (some called for, some just had on hand) were sprouted french lentils and red russian kale, along with potatoes, carrots, onions, and celery.
  I think the main reason I needed this soup was because of my anemia. Lentils, kale and potatoes (with skin on) are a great source of iron. A friend was just telling me how she craved liver early on in her pregnancy and only later discovered it as the highest source for many of the vitamins needed during that time. Our bodies truly do know how to feed themselves, if we’ll only listen!
• I’ve gone directly to soup recipes for months now, for all the reasons mentioned above and more. (For more reasons: I love one-pot dishes and soup is just that – easy prep and clean up. I also love to effortlessly double recipes and give half to Hubby for his lunches all week, which soup lends itself so well to.) While I seriously can’t wait for warmer weather (mainly for the greenery and gorgeous spring flowers!), I also see why I don’t mind winter at all. It’s my hibernating-soup lovin’-shorter days-warm blankets time!

Some great quotes I found 7 months ago, in the first few weeks of my very painful marital experience, resurfaced recently, and were a tremendous blessing for me to remember them:

“KNOWLEDGE + PRACTICE + SUPPORT + SHARING = CHANGE.”

Lewis Smedes, Forgive and Forget:
“They [the offender] cannot give you truthfulness in words alone… their honesty must be born in listening. The price of their ticket into your life is an open ear; an open mouth gets them only half way. They must listen to you until they hear your claims and your complaints and your cries.”
“Remember, you cannot erase the past, you can only heal the pain it left behind. When you are wronged, that wrong becomes an indestructible reality. But you don’t change the facts. And you do not undo all of their consequences. The dead stay dead; the wounded are often crippled still. The reality of evil and its damage to human beings is not magically undone and it can still make us very mad.”

“forgiveness does not mean returning to business as usual but crafting a new relationship with a level of intimacy appropriate to our level of trust…” – David Augsburger

Ephesians 4:25 (The Message)
“What it adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.”

This morning, when I began journaling about my anger over the past, and I ended up crying in prayer on my bed, admitting that I doubt my ability to ever forgive. Telling God that He will have to take over and work a miracle in me, because the level of mercy and grace I am capable of on my own is not nearly adequate for the transgression. (I also told Him that I think it’s all well and good that He paid for the sins of the thief on the cross, but what does He offer those the thief stole from? Comfort?! BLEH!… I can be honest with God – He gets it.)

Note to self: I don’t want to rush forgiveness. I don’t want a Hello Kitty band-aid for a leg that needs to be, frankly, amputated. If this thing is gonna get healthy, its gonna take time, and far be it from me to rush my own heart. (I can’t explain it. I can’t offer a good reason for why it might appear that I delight in licking my own wounds. I just know it’s not compulsive, and it’s not just about surviving. It’s just the journey, and I didn’t write the guide book so I’m not the one to ask.)

Are anger and forgiveness, in my case, mutually exclusive? This question has been haunting me lately. Does the fact that I am not “over it” [my anger and hurt] mean that I am not ready to forgive? Does the fact that I am not ready to forgive mean I am not “over it”?

To be honest, I have mostly come to see my current feelings and outlook on this whole experience as something to rejoice in. Why? Because whatever I did in the past to sort through my emotions, my boundaries, my rights, my choices, my faults — it wasn’t right. It was off; some twisted mix of self-sacrifice/martyrdom and self-preservation. I would have never dreamed that I would still be processing a hurt so many months later, because in the end, every one wants to feel better, as quickly as possible (hence, the existence of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Retail Therapy, and Rebound Relationships!). So stuff it down and deny it I did. Two days after a betrayal, everything was “back to normal” without any real change. The cycle was so, so… counterproductive and maddening!

So as puzzling or difficult as it is for me to continue to move through this murky swamp of recovery, at least its recovery (can I get an “amen?!” ). At least it’s something completely new, which means, yes, the cycle is not at work here today. Being angry, and unsure about if I can ever forgive, might just be exactly what I need to get there. [insert deep breath here].

I’ve been posting for some time about my desire to live life more fully, but more simply. Hubby and I have a shared vision of voluntary simplicity regarding cars and other “things” and are trying to learn more about the ways in which we can regain the joys of life, reduce stress, and reduce our dependence on “more”; to have health and vitality to give our lives back to others (instead of always being on the receiving end!)
A term I came across recently was “affluenza” and it really characterizes what I am hoping to reduce in my life. Wiki defines it as:

affluenza, n. a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more. (de Graaf [1])

affluenza, n. 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by the pursuit of the American Dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth. (PBS [1])

Another quote from Wiki regarding british psychologist Oliver James:

James also believes that higher rates of mental disorders are the consequence of excessive wealth-seeking in consumerist nations. He cites World Health Organization data that English-speaking nations have twice as much mental illness as mainland Europe… James defines affluenza as ‘placing a high value on money, possessions, appearances (physical and social) and fame,’ and this becomes the rationale behind the increasing mental illness in English-speaking societies. He explains the greater incidence of affluenza as the result of ‘Selfish Capitalism,’ the Market Liberal political governance found in English-speaking nations as compared to the less selfish capitalism pursued in mainland Europe. James asserts that societies can remove the negative consumerist effects by pursuing real needs over perceived wants, and by defining themselves as having value independent of their material possessions.

Anyway, as I said, its an interesting term and one that is floating around in my brain with other terms like “intentional community”, “voluntary simplicity”, “cohousing”, “car-free”, so on and so forth.

An interesting observation we made this weekend when reading this blog post about thriving on one income, (in which the family has chosen to live in a one bedroom), was that we never use our bedroom except to sleep. We pay however much more money each month for a room that we literally sleep in for (maybe) 8 hours and that’s it, lol!

Well, if this post had any point, you would have found it by now. Rather, it’s one of those – this is on my mind, I should blog about it posts. There’s a lot more musings in my head about the overall topic of this post, but I’m saving it for an introspective rainy day when a few of our major upcoming decisions have been worked out a bit more Intrigued? Stay tuned…

I also owe you some recent pictures, including the few little things I’ve knitted so far AND my new batch of kefir I just made and kombucha that is brewing (so exciting!) – but alas, I can’t get my card reader… drive… thingy to read my digital card, so it’s a slightly more intricate process that I am too tired for at the moment.

My copy of “Feeding the Whole Family” just came in from the library so I’m going to spend some time earmarking recipes now

“If I am sleepless at night,
I spend the hours in grateful reflection.
Because you have always stood up for me
I’m free to run and play.
You hold me steady as a post.”
-Psalm 32 (Message)

“But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position;
and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation , because like the grass he will pass away.

For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and it’s flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed,
so too the RICH MAN IN THE MIDST OF HIS PURSUITS WILL FADE AWAY.”
-James 1:9-11