my apologies.

Sorry for the absence. This is neither the first time nor the last for me, as you know, but hopefully by now you've come to accept (or did a long long time ago) this among my many flaws, and have already forgiven me. How convenient for me!

The last three weeks have been just nuts-o-rama, without a spare second to breathe, although who am I kidding, I would take a spare second to sleep over breathing. But that's just me. I attempted to cram in some extra hours at work to earn just enough vacation time to leave this past weekend, even though we had been out of town the two weekends before. Nothing like dumping your suitcase out at 10pm Sunday night, washing everything, and putting it back in on Friday morning. I felt like I only came home to sleep for about ten minutes every night. But anyway.

This past weekend was the Festival of Faith and Writing at my good old alma mater, and it was just delicious. Every time I go, I realize just how much I miss the learning, literary community I lived in college. I have a refreshed reading list, communed with friends, and learned more than a few new things. It felt like church.

So, here are some of my favorite bits and pieces from the weekend.

"I don't expect to see them again, but as is the case with God, I am open to surprises." - Matt Ruff (speaking of his dead parents)

"God's idea of healing--restoring wholeness to our community--might not look like ours. Healing is not curing." - Sara Miles,

"Writing is a way of paying attention. Writing is an act of prayer." - Eugene Peterson

"I think it's creepy when people call their books their babies. You don't sell your babies." - Joshilyn Jackson

"At some point, something's gonna go wrong, so you ought to have a good pair of boots on." - Michael Perry

"I'm just a schmo with a gig." - Michael Perry

"We live in a beloved, created world, and we are guests here. We are caretakers too, but in the sense that we care but also honor, and keep, with a deep sense of responsibility that it may continue." - Kathleen Dean Moore & Scott Russell Sanders

memories warm and bright

We took a very quick and unplanned trip home for Easter, because Good Friday happens to be a statutory holiday in Canada(marvelous Canada!). Never mind that it was the first of three trips across the border I'll make within a 17-day-window, and that the border guards will eventually ask us what, exactly, we are smuggling every weekend besides dog food and knitting needles and beer.

Tangent: this Easter weekend was the warmest I can recall, midwestern or Coloradan. We got to wander around in the sunshine with a hodgepodge assortment of family members for a bit, both human and canine.
Charlotte is as old as Moses, and that breeze could have whisked her away at any given moment, but she was loving it. She's known for bolting at every opportunity, and she still has that rogue look in her eye, but she can't hustle the way she used to, so we intercepted and herded her back to the group every few minutes.

Who doesn't love springtime? It makes the creakiest of us a little lighter on our feet. And don't worry; Toby enjoyed the outing too. And he also has lost some of his hustle. But I think the longer hours and warmer days will work their magic on his energy levels.

For reasons that still remain a mystery, we enjoyed a spontaneous blackout on Friday night. It was well-timed because we were already finished eating dinner and had candles lit in a few rooms. Plus, the fam happens to have a generator ready to go which coughed to life about ten seconds later, but we may have pretended it wasn't there, anyways.

Many of the men in my family have this obnoxious gift of musicality, particularly when it comes to improvisation. This is just a snippet from an hour's worth of Coldplay, Iron & Wine, Bright Eyes, and The National, courtesy of one brother and one husband.

Blackout from Anna Dyer on Vimeo.

It makes me think of this scene from the movie Once, the kind of dinner party I would love to attend. (Disclaimer: youtube doesn't have the clip, and even though I have no idea what the advertisement before the clip says, it's ridiculous. It just is.)

And just at the end of the trip, literally as we were climbing in cars to pull away in opposite directions, the Wool Fairy gave me these:
MMMMMMMMMMM. Undecided as to whether I'll felt them or unravel and re-knit them. I'm not sure what's the better treasure, the sweaters themselves or knowing my Wool Fairy knew I would like them and set them aside for me.

It was too short, as trips of this nature often are, but we made the most of it, including trash talk all throughout the Final Four and an Easter Sunday service at one of the places that most feels like home to me.

Now it's time to hunker down until the next ramble across the border...