Beautiful Mess

The old year is passing on.  The new is just beginning.
The spaces and places we call home are still filling.
With laughter, love and anger, with hopefulness, the rearranger
of everything we have brought together here.

I can't call it perfect, this life we built together.
The crooked path to happiness went through a lot of valleys of darkness
The mountains of perfect days, the deep pools of quiet dreams.


But I catch your eye across the room, the room we filled with little children
And you smile with that twinkle in those blue eyes and I fall more in love
with this beautiful mess and you.

Beckon Lovely 12/12/12 - a reply from Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Way, way on back (months last forever around here), I sent a letter out to the internet-o-sphere, (and through the actual post) to Amy Krouse Rosenthal about the film she released on 11/11/11 (and then promptly retracted 5 days later).  A silly thing, a sincere thing, a sorta fangirl thing, a request.  To bring the film back! Pop on over and read it.  I'll wait.

Did you read it?  Well not too many days later I got this!!  A letter from Amy KR! 

Included was a transcript of a TEDx talk she was going to deliver on 12/11/12 entitled 'Beckon Lovely and Save the World'.  Imagine my giddiness!  And yet, I had to keep it on the D.L. so as not to spoil her surprise.

So go on over and give her TEDxTalk a listen.  It's OK.  I'll wait.  I'm patient like that.

And now, it's time.  To make lovely.  To call it into your life, into your relationships, into your heart, into your words.  And what better time than now, in the Advent season, when lovely is all around us?   As we anticipate the coming of the light and the celebration of the coming of the Light of the world, Jesus.

Amy's call to action is to "Make the most of your time here" and I couldn't agree more.  Plant your post-its with me and let's bring on the loveliness!

Here's the lovely that Cora and I made together today, as gifts to bring loveliness to others.

What's your lovely?

On colored lights...

One can learn a lot about oneself just by decorating a Christmas tree.  This year, all but a couple of strings of lights gave up the ghost and I asked the family if we should get white or multi-colored lights.  They unanimously voted for colored lights so off to the store I went.

I wrestled the 600 feet of lighted strands onto the tree and stood back to admire my handiwork (and to check for gaps) and realized I really, really don't like multi-colored lights.  And then I realized why.

When I was growing up, my family was, shall we say, economically challenged.  OK, we were poor.  I didn't really have an understanding of that, but as I grew up, I began to see the differences between my house and other kid's houses, my clothes and their clothes, my one Sunday dress and their endless array of Sunday dresses.  Kids can be cruel.  Teenagers, especially, can be extra vicious.  I did my best to avoid and ignore comments, but some of them bit deep.  And so began the personal quest to be good enough.

Around Christmas time, I noticed that the nicest houses had all white Christmas lights, whereas the trailers, such as mine, had colored lights and somewhere in my head, I began to associate multi-colored lights with being poor and all white lights with class and wealth.  It's weird, I know.  And here it is still, hovering around my 36th Christmas, the same old aversion to appearing different, or less than others, merely by something as simple as Christmas lights. 

So there they sit, my multi-colored lights.  (On a timer so I don't have to scramble under the tree every morning to turn them on.)  The kids flipped out when they saw them, of course.  Judah said, "WOW!  I yike it!" while hopping around.  Cora just sat at the foot of the tree and smiled up at it with shining eyes. And I smiled and did my best to prevent the youngest from pulling the 7 foot monster down on top of himself in his exuberance..  Their joy adds to my joy and I can let go of this association.  Multi-colored lights are beautiful and I am good enough, lovely even.  My tree and house are good enough, lovely even.  It's a process.  

3 am life questions with my little girl

It's 3 am.  I feel the air pressure in the room change as a little one sneaks in.  My eyes are still closed as our oldest girl, just 4, appears on my side of the bed, but I feel the brush of her small hand on my arm.
"Did you have a bad dream?" I say, the usual cause of her appearance in my room at this hour.
"No. I just need your help."
"Help with what?"
"I need to you to help me pray to ask Jesus in my heart."
Confused, I ask her what she said again.
She repeats, "I need you to help me pray to have Jesus in my heart.  I want to go to heaven to be with God."

My mind races, fully awake now, trying to scramble around and process what I've just heard.  This is my 4 year old.  It's 3 am.  The ramifications of this question are deep and life-changing.  I hold her close in my arms and tell her, "I will help you.  Let's talk about it when the sun comes up."
I want to be fully present for this moment.  I wonder silently if this is the right choice, but I can't talk to her rationally at 3am about the choice she wants to make and I really want to be able to.

This is my girl of deep questions.  In the last month I've gotten the following, usually at 6:30am when she first wakes up:

"Mama, how do I know what is truth?"
"Mama, can two girls get married?"
"Mama, how does a baby get inside of you?" (She actually asked this one at age 3, but now she wants more details.)

The list goes on and on.  She desperately wants to grasp the world around her.  Not HOW things work, but why.  Mostly interpersonal relationships.  She recently held a fellow mom friend of mine captive with her questions for more than thirty minutes.  The questions were all about my friend's parents and grandparents, divorce, death and on and on.  This girl cuts from, "My favorite colors are pink and purple," straight to, "my baby sister died.  Is your mama dead?"  It's kind of rattling.  It keeps me on my toes.  I am grateful for the job of helping to shepherd this little deep well of a heart.  I pray for the knowledge and understanding to do so.

We give Thanks (a recap of November thankfulness)

For first bike rides.

For tea time with Gramma Net.

For fancy hats.

For family Rock Band.

For biker hubby and his mini biker gang.

For terrible family photos.

For three generations of these crazy men (and men to be).

For my girl and her girly self, which allows me to be more of my girly self.

For fancy hairdoos.

For snuggly little boys.

For little boys who still sleep like babies (bum in the air!)

For grubby little feet.

For night hikes

 

and for PIE!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thoughts on 36

The fall frost has finally come to our maple trees and they gave up the last of their gold speckled leaves this week.  The Christmas music is already playing because, why not.  Especially when the biggest girl requests Ella Fitzgerald Christmas music.  How can I resist her excellent taste?  Through some herculean effort on the part of myself and the children yesterday the house is, dare I say, clean.  At least the downstairs part.  No movement from the youngest yet.  I'm just 16 weeks along yesterday.  It should be soon now.  Being still enough to feel it rarely happens.  In fact, most days I forget until someone asks me how this pregnancy is going.  I am consumed with 4 year old imagination and nearly 2 year old darling chubby curiosity.  They are contentedly cutting up paper at the table and I'm not going to protest if they accidentally move on to the vinyl tablecloth.  Quiet moments of reflection are too precious to sweat that stuff.

Thirty-six sounds old to me.  Edging closer to 40 which is some mental 'over the hill' lie I've swallowed over the years.  I'm sure I'll look back at 80 and laugh at my youthful folly, knowing I had more than half of my life left to enjoy.  It doesn't feel old though.  Even though the midwives handle me with care and do extra tests now that I am of 'advanced maternal age.'  (Isn't that a lovely term?)  In some ways, looking back over the years, I've been waiting for something big to happen.  To 'become' something.  A famous singer?  A widely read mommy blogger?  I'm not sure what it is I am waiting for.  Recently I was reading about Moses and was struck by the fact that God didn't choose him when he was in his prime, adopted son and royalty to Egypt.  Nope.  He chose him when he was 80 years old.  A fugitive, hiding in the desert and a shepherd.  The strong days long past.  Just like Abraham and Sarah.  90 years old and pregnant!! Talk about advanced maternal age!

Somewhere in my lifetime I absorbed the message that only the young have anything to offer the world.  They are the innovators, the imaginative, the world changers.  But God has wildly different ideas about when people have the best to offer.  He doesn't look at their age, their youth, their beauty.  He looks at their hearts.  And mine has been, to say the least, being molded and changed through pain and fire and loss for some time now. 

I see glimpses of progress in my heart.  I am (mostly) no longer discontent with my life.  I love my husband through his imperfections (most days).  God's love is finally breaking through to my selfish heart.  I still have days when I resent being home with these lovelies, even though I chose this life with them and wouldn't trade it.  It can be lonely, thankless, and filled with far too many bodily fluids, but here I am.  I have an amazing community of friends and loved ones to help me through those days.  And I am realizing that this isn't the be all end all, just because I didn't 'become' in my youth.  I did 'become', even though it isn't flashy.  And I will be whatever it is I am called to, maybe at 36, maybe at 40, maybe at 90.  For today I am really enjoying the journey.  Happy birthday to me.

Quiet

Our family has been resting and recuperating from various illnesses, and for the papa, surgery.  I managed to avoid all of it until the very end when everyone else was finally on the mend.  I guess all that extra caring for babies and hubbies can wear a gal out.  Thankfully, my children love to quietly entertain themselves occasionally and give mama a break.  I love how much these two are book readers.  If I can't find them and begin to wonder at a patch of silence, this is often what I find them doing.  I love it.  Not that they don't get up to their share of mischief!  But here is a quiet moment from us, to you.  I'll be back tomorrow with pictures of the cutest pirate and princess ever. 

4

Zero

My dearest little girl,

You turn 4 today.  I can't think how that happened.  The days have run swiftly by and that tiny girl we brought home is so big.  Four going on fourteen or forty-five, depending on the day and the color of your attitude.  My old soul.  You ponder the deep questions as we snuggle in the big recliner in the half hour before the boys wake up.  Life, death, God, a hope for a sister, how things work, and what is your place in the world.  Those big blue soulful eyes peer up at me and you offers your endless stream of why and where and how, your silly jokes (How does a pig sneeze?  "Oink-choo!"), your fierce independence, your gentle heart.

 One

I love to watch who you are, even if I see too much of myself in you and it scares me.  No mama wants their girl to hurt, but I cannot save you from everything that will come your way.  You want to do so much and be so big, but the scary shadows move on your walls and still you come to our bed to seek comfort.  You are, at once, so big and still so small.  I forget that and expect you to be bigger than you are, and your reminds me, sometimes loudly, that you still needs your mama.

Two

A seeker of accompanied solitude (I'm in the room, but we work on our own things), a doer of small things, a lover of the lovely, you live to make and dream and play and pretend.  I watched you play with your new paper dolls for 2 hours the other day and you never broke concentration, never asked for help, never decided that this wasn't interesting enough for you.  I see you grow in kindness and friendship with your brother, even though some days you boss the life out of him.  I hear your heart's yearning for a sister, although I can tell you from experience, she won't let you boss her around either.

Three

You run and play and dance your heart out and then are quiet and still.  The beauty of your heart shines through you and my love for you gets bigger every day.   We have our struggles and we may butt heads often, but you will always be the most amazing little girl I have ever known. 

Four

Thank you for just being you.  Happy Birthday, my girl.

Love,
 Your mama

An open letter to Amy Krouse Rosenthal - concerning the Beckoning of Lovely

Introduction:

  I wrote this letter to Amy Krouse Rosenthal recently and although I mailed it to her, I wanted to put it out there on the internet in case others feel like I do.  Read on, fellow lovers of Lovely.

10/11/12

Dear Amy,

On 11/11/11, I arrived at an old bungalow home on Douglas Avenue in East Nashville.  In the yard stood a nearly naked maple tree that had recently let go of its beautiful, leafy coat of gold, the remains of which covered the ground.  I, along with nearly thirty other women, sat in the small living room of a woman named Alice Smith.  You may not know her at all, but around here, she is a connector of lives, a gatherer of information, and a finder of beautiful.  Not necessarily in things.  Mostly in people.  It’s her gift.  She saw it in you from afar.  She introduced me and many others in East Nashville to your books, youtube videos, and finally, the “Beckoning of Lovely” movement.  On that night we watched your film.  I left my friend's home, literally inspired and lifted.  I left full to bursting with my own ideas that had been touched off by the things I had seen.  I almost didn’t want to speak for fear they would be lost in the noise of my own voice. 

I have often felt like the lovely has been dragged out of me forcefully by the grind of daily life with small children.  If it does appear, it is often focused on them and must be finished and packed away by the end of naptime.  I used to be a song writer, back before babies and the “baby brain” that comes with it.  I used to make beautiful things for more people.  I know I will again and that this is just a season, but when I’m in the weeds, it’s hard to remember that. 

I shared your movie link with everyone and talked about the beautiful thing you had made.  I read your book – Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life and laughed at the small things and the magical things.  I read how you liked to write to authors and so, this is my letter to you. I just have this one thing to say.

I’m not sure what happened to the film, but I wish I could watch it again.  You said you took it down to make it more polished, but for me, the point was made.   You came together with others and made a beautiful thing.  It was, in truth, lovely.  It was lovely, as is.  It didn’t need more.  It needed to spread like wildfire and grow beautiful things in others as it did in me.  It had impact. 

If you need further proof, take this letter as that.  Here I am, nearly a year later, thinking of it and wishing I could see it again.

In the (nearly) last year I have begun painting.  I have begun writing (in earnest).  I found my voice again and have begun playing music again and have begun singing more than bedtime songs.  I am taking up the fiddle and enjoying my photography as an art rather than merely a documentation of my small ones’ march from birthday to birthday.  Your film was an impetus. 

I don’t know the reasons you took it down, but I wanted to encourage you to put it back out there.  Yes, the magic day is passed and there will never be another 11/11/11, but the beauty is still there to be shared.  Please send it back out into the Universe.

Sincerely,

Ariana Evans – mother, musician, maker of lovely.

p.s.  Thank you.

p.p.s.  Forgive the scratchiness of my writing.  I've begun to write with a pen and ink nib to help me stay in the moment.

AE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you don't know who Amy Krouse Rosenthal is, here is a primer.

(from her bio on www.whoisamy.com)

"Amy Krouse Rosenthal is a person who likes to make things.

Some things she likes to make: Children's books. Grown-up books. Short films. Salads. Connections with the universe. Something out of nothing. Wishes."

Hop on over to her website and be amazed.  Go on...hop!

You and Me plus three - A love letter

 

For better or worse
For richer or poorer
In sickness and in health

We said those words together on that chilly spring day, bare feet on a brick path, and little did we know what we were in store for.  It's not our anniversary, it's not your birthday, or my birthday or any other special day today, but this is a day that I tell you how much I love you.

We've had our ups and downs, sorrows and joys, have been broke, living in a one bedroom upstairs apartment where the winter winds whistled in through the cracks.  We've been together.  We've been apart.  We have been crazy about each other and have driven each other crazy.  We have been wildly in love and wanting to spend every moment together and we have come as close to hatred of each other as two people who are married should ever come.  Maybe a bit too close.

We reached an equilibrium after a whole lot of work and had a good life, you and me.  It wasn't peaches and roses all the time, but we were together and it was pretty great.  Then the life we knew and the plans we made got turned upside down.  Babies, losing babies, crappy cars, crappy jobs and layoffs, and a leaky old house that drives you crazy and drives me to daydreaming.  It has been a wild last 4 years!  Sometimes it's seems as if we are just holding on with eyes tight shut until the wind stops blowing and the waves stop pounding us, praying we make it through the storm.  But this storm isn't a storm, really.  It's life.  And without you in it, I would have been swept out to sea a long time ago.

I don't say enough how great you are.  How thankful I am that you have put aside your dreams to take care of our family, even though the way you have had to go about it is soul crushing work.  How I wish it was different for you.  How happy it makes my heart to see you run and play and love on our children because I know how much you love them.  And how hard that is for you and hard earned, since you didn't have a dad around to show you how to love them.  How content I am to just hold your hand as we sit across from each other at our favorite coffee shop, enjoying a stolen moment alone, feet entangled under the table and you open your heart to me just a bit more and I marvel at the things you show me.  You have a deep love for me and our family and for others that I sometimes forget but sometimes get a glimpse of and it wows me.  It shocks me.  It surrounds me.  You love with a fierce love.

When I lay there pale in the hospital bed and you were brave for both of us.  Both times, brave for both of us as I came unraveled.  You were a rock for me.  And then when I got my breath back, you cried for our lost babies.  I love you so much for that.  

We are so different and sometimes it frustrates me, more from a lack of understanding (and a big dose of fear) of how two people who are so polar opposite in occupation and hobbies could come together and stay together.  Perhaps it is the sameness in substance that binds us.  Your joy, even if sometimes it's covered up in the weight of family life.  Your tender heart, even if you hide it, I know it's there.  Your Faith in our Father.  Your loyalty.  Your depth of character.  All those grey hairs you have earned in the last 8 years, caring about things.  Your generosity to not just your friends and family, but to strangers.  Your kindness to find good in me and others when we can't find it ourselves. 

So life may send the 'sickness', the 'poverty', and the 'worse', but I'll take it as long as you are in it with me.  I'll stand by you always.  I'm so grateful you carried my guitar all those years ago and let me ramble on about degreasing my engine.  You pursued my heart and wrapped it up with yours, healing wounds I didn't know I had.  Who you are is a blessing.  Thank you.

All my Love,
Tiny

Beautiful and Precious

There is something beautiful and precious about life.  It's so fragile yet so unstoppable.  Against all odds, the seeds of spring survive, buried deep in what seems like a kind of death.  But the sun warms.  The rains fall.  And the idea of what could be, comes alive in a small, hard cocoon of forgotten possibility.

And so it is with the lives of my precious children.  In some ways I feel unworthy of the life they have awoken in my being.  Like I was never meant to feel this deeply or this wildly.  It's a strange and wonderfully scary place to be.  The seed of forgotten possibility suddenly wants to put down deep roots and send tentative tendrils up, reaching for the sun.

We went this last week to have an ultrasound to see what to expect with this baby.  My faithless heart and I went wearing black, just in case I would begin mourning in that moment.  My expectant heart and I dressed up a bit, hoping that moment would be a celebration.  And God knew which one it would be before that baby's form ever flashed on the screen, while I yelled, "I see it!"  and my tender-hearted husband cried beside me, and a weight lifted off of us.

I am tempted to write that God is faithful.  He is.  But for every mourning heart of a parent out there, those words sting.  Why was He not faithful to heal the lost children?  The hurting ones?  The children of this world who haven't made it to their 2 month birthdays, like sweet Pearl has?  I don't know the answer.  He is faithful, but it all is beyond my understanding.   Why do I get these three children when dear friends try again and again for a second baby?  A first baby.  It's not fair.  My joy seems gaudy in the face of their sorrow.

And yet it grows.  God has a plan.  In time I won't be able to hide that He is working in my body and this baby's body.  It is the unstoppable force of dust that has had breath breathed into it by the Creator.  His plan for this little one may be big or small, but it is part of God's story.  I can't even write my own chapter.  If I could, I would have skipped all of the sad parts.

I don't know why my friends can't have children right now, but I know that God binds up the wounds of the broken hearted.  He did mine.  He will yours.  The wildly and deeply will come.  And though the seeds may have not awakened yet, they lie sleeping in your heart and He knows.  And He holds the pieces of you in His hands to keep you from falling apart when everything threatens to break.  And here's what I want you to know; it is you who are beautiful and precious. 

For MQ, JD, KC, and BN.   And for every other mother out there who has lost their baby. 

Little knits for little girls

 Nearly four years in the world entitles this girl to some opinions.  Namely what she wears and what she likes.  So when I asked her if I could knit something for her, she told me what, picked out the yarn and monitored my knitting progress every day.  Unfortunately she also decided to use my scissors on them so these exact arm warmers, after some repairs, were given away as a birthday gift to Cora's BFF, as a consequence for messing with mama's knitting stuff (her choice of consequence, by the way).  Little does she know I made her another pair just like them for her birthday in a month.  Shhhh!  Keep it on the down low.

As for the pattern, it's a simple tube knitted in a rib pattern and when I got within 3/4 of an inch of the end, I knitted 8 stitches onto some scrap yarn, re-knitted the stitches with the real yarn and carried on until the end.  Then I came back and pulled those scrap yarn stitches, picking up the 8 stitches on each side plus 2 more on the ends and knitted a tube for the thumb.  Make 2 of these, then bind off and weave in ends and watch your little fashionista light up!

Messy Monday - laundry mountain

My family likes to have a big breakfast.  They pick at lunch, they graze at dinner, but at breakfast they feast!  I'll give you three guesses as to how eggs and a newly pregnant mama mix in the mornings. 

Actually most mornings are like this lately, not just eggy mornings.  Mornings used to be my most productive time, but not so much right now.  So in honor of Messy Monday, here is a view of my heap of laundry waiting to be folded.  It happens to be clean, and for that I am grateful.  I will get there, but not right now.

Here is the window seat and book corner, post Kid-Apocalypse.  They are fans of dumping baskets and boxes of things out.

I feel like I could take a picture like this in every room right now.  But before I depress myself about the state of my uncared for home, I will say this:

I may not have a clean house, but the kids and I baked an apple pie together today.  (read, they ate peels, ate pie dough, ate apple slices, and ran around squealing and wearing aprons while I chopped apples, but we were together and had fun!)

I may not have a clean house, but on Friday we went apple picking and I made an entire farm full of roosters crow with my rooster impression, inspiring awe in my kids.  We also slid down a giant pipe slide together.  All three of us.  Lots.

I may not have a clean house, but my daughter whispers in my ear, "Guess how much I love you?"  

I may not have a clean house, but I have a good and loving husband who just this morning promised to make breakfast until the morning sickness passes.  What a fella! 

I may not have a clean house, but I am a fun mama.  And that is enough.  I'll have a clean house when they leave for college.

Happy Rainy/Messy Monday!

Messy Mondays was inspired by Flo Paris Oaks when she wrote this blog post/article and subsequently started this blog.

Letters to Pearl: We shall see God

Dear friend,

  This post is part of a collective of letters to Pearl Joy Brown.  I've written about her before in this space, but since then her life has touched so many people.  This is a bit about how she has touched mine.

Dear Pearl,

   Your mama and I found out we were pregnant with our little girls around the same time.  My baby did not live longer than a few weeks in my belly, but every day you grew, I rejoiced.  When your papa sent word of what experts thought was your fatal illness, my heart failed me. I lost faith.  I could not grieve my own baby and you at the same time, so I retreated back into myself.  With every letter your papa sent out, I rode the roller coaster from afar of hope and fear for what your life could be.  I remember reading these paragraphs and just crying.

"We truly feel privileged to have been given the opportunity to care for Pearl. People all over the world get the same type of devastating news every day, so it’s not as if we are unique or special. The amazing part is that God chose two of the most normal, unimpressive people that we know of and has given us the privilege of partnering with him in unfolding a story about a baby girl with only half of a brain and no nose, and a God who numbers days, makes people out of dirt, and rides in to town on a donkey, unlike any other king has ever done. He has used us to display himself. He has pulled us in close, because he knows that if he doesn’t, we will rebel and fall off the deep end. We have peace that passes all understanding, even while in the midst of something that should otherwise crush us. It’s not as if we’ve already gone through the fire and are able to look back at how he sustained us. We are in it, and he is good."

and this:

"Pearl bears the image of the same God that Brennan and Abbey do. We do not need to hide image bearers from other image bearers. God knit Pearl together in Ruth’s womb exactly as he saw fit. He didn’t make a mistake. Things didn’t go wrong. He brought her form into being with the same intentionality that he has created everyone. " 

This was faith beyond measure in your family and I wondered where mine was.  When your mama asked for scriptures for your blanket, even my choice of God's word reflected my faithless heart.  I embroidered, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" Matthew 5:8.  My fear was that you and your innocent heart would make a brief appearance here and then you would be in the presence of our Father and I dared not choose a verse that was about hope, for I had none for myself.

And then you were born.  And then you lived!  People said the word, "Miracle" and my faithless heart turned away.  I still feared.  It took me a long time to come visit you.  I held your sweet, tiny body and then I prayed for you.  For your family, for your very breath.  And the word "miracle" went past my head where the fears and doubts lived and hit my heart.  You are a miracle.  I said that word as I breathed thanks to the God who created you.  Who knew you.  Who knew exactly what your story would be.

Nearly 6 weeks later and you are still here.  Not just alive, but thriving, growing, and changing the world.  And here I am, nearly 6 weeks pregnant.  God did a work in your body, in your family, and through your story, the world.  He is also doing a work in my body and in my family.  I don't know the answers.  I don't know if my baby will live.  I don't know the outcomes for any of us, but I know that right here and right now, God is good.  

He has a plan and He is working all things together for Good.  I still find fear in my heart when I think about your future and my baby's future, but more and more, I find faith, hope, and peace.  And though I chose that scripture from a place of no faith, it has come true.  Through your precious, tiny, and pure heart, we have seen God.  Thank you Pearl, for the gift that is your very life and breath.

You can read more about Pearl's story on her blog.  http://pearljoybrown.wordpress.com/

If Pearl has touched your life, you can write her a letter too.  Here's how:

There are three ways to share your Letter to Pearl:

1. Publish your letter on your blog or web site. Link your post to Life.Edited via the “Click here to enter” link at the bottom. *Please link directly to the post with your letter in it (not to your blog’s homepage). The link-up will remain open until Friday, Sept 14, at 11:59PM.

2. Publish your letter as a note on Facebook. Post the note on your own Wall/Timeline, then copy/paste the note as a Wall post on the Letters to Pearl event page HERE.

3. Mail your letter to Pearl. Send your handwritten letter or a copy of your published letter to:
Letters to Pearl
c/o Eric or Ruth Brown
PO Box 160083
Nashville, TN 37216
Thank you for sharing your part of Pearl’s story.
Click here to enter your link and view the Letters to Pearl link-up list…

If you would like to support the Browns in a tangible way, I have something for you too.  They need a van!   Here's how to help make that happen.

The Adventures of...

Super Sister and Potty Training Boy!!! (aka Super Brother!)

So Cora emerged from her rest time as this:  

SUPER SISTER!! (she dubbed herself - see her ring of power, see her super tights (with matching pink undies, shirt and cape? The girl has style!)  

With the Power to Fly! (off of the furniture) And not to be outdone by his sister, and at her insisting that Judah also be Super...

  

Potty Training Boy was born! (She calls him Super Brother, but I think my name is more appropriate) 

 

 

And so the daring duo lept from furniture, shared, and in general got along for an hour! Hurrah! Triumph! Humanity was saved by kindness! (and underwear worn over tights!)