today i:
found this intriguing book: Other People’s Love Letters
saw this alarming film: Maxed Out
danced in the kitchen with Josh to this favorite new song!:Cherry Bomb
enjoying winter break.
stairwell accompaniment:Radiohead
driving the ’85 Mercedes diesel is an art
aged to perfection with comical audacity
ambush
November 19, 2007
stairwell accompaniment:Over the Rhine
My dear, sweet, kind-spirited friend Kristi–a similar-soul with whom I lived for nearly two years in a creaky house with 3 girls, 2 dogs and one very peculiar cat named Jedi. She now officially holds the honored title of The One Who Pushed Amber to Question-and-Answer Posts. I have been faithfully applauding myself for resisting for two, three, no…four years now. I take myself too seriously. I’m encouraged that Kristi does not.
Alas, I am tagged.
What I was doing 10 years ago:
A blurry first year of high school. Freshman-ness. Freshman-ity. Learning to drive with every bit of grace that 15 years of life can bring forth. My first job–a tiny local coffee shop that I loved. Navigating the world of dating and school dances and acne and TPing and…moving on…
What I was doing 5 years ago:
2002. I lived alone in this amazingly awful apartment known by all who experienced Her Majesty as “The Hotel California” in acknowledgement of an eerie similarity to the Eagles album cover. The floors were uneven, the heat didn’t work, I had no doorbell on the second floor. I enjoyed it immensely. I was nearing the end of massage school and working on the Air Force Base being paid much too much to do much too little. Experimenting with solitude and independence. Getting my toes wet with adventure. Finding God. Seeking community. Redefining myself.
One year ago:
Josh and I were ready to celebrate our first year of marriage. Not heating our apartment to save money for traveling. Spending time at bookstores and coffee shops alone, with friends, doing homework, buried in books. Talking about politics, global poverty, our goals in life. I was finishing one of the most difficult quarters of nursing school. I spent my first Thanksgiving away from home with Josh’s family in Alabama. I was quite possibly the only middle class American to lose weight over the holiday in no small part due to an ulcer produced by said nursing quarter. The most sick I’ve been in my life.
Yesterday:
I slept in. Which happens more readily when my husband is gone. (He is currently in Alabama, south of the invisible line that dictates when it is and is not appropriate to wear hunting-camo dress shirts.) It’s the general rule in our marriage that If I’m Not Enjoying Sleep, You Are Not Either. We’re mutually annoying. It works. So I reveled in the glorious sleeping in. The kind you can only appreciate after 8 quarters of morning hospital clinicals. I ran 3 miles. I did some light grocery shopping. I cleaned the apartment. Did laundry. I did some preliminary planning for the massage class I’m teaching in December. Made several desserts. I had a few good friends over for fattening food, sangria and home-pedicures. We passed around and doted on Amy’s new baby, Megan. We shared our lives. Communed. Painted our nails.
5 snacks I enjoy:raw almonds, golden delicious apples, Endangered Species dark chocolate squares, baby carrots, pomegranate Kefir
5 things I would do if I had $100 million:
(morally)feed hungry children, medical care to Africa, microfinancing,(selfishly) travel, invest
5 places I would run away to:
Ireland (Dingle Peninsula, Inch Beach, Killarney), The Maldives, New Zealand, Oregon/Washington, Nepal
5 TV shows I like:
We watch The Office online(!!), on unstable weeks I sometimes watch Greys Anatomy online
5 things I hate doing:
The American Dream, TALKING ON THE PHONE, going without sleep, being late, confrontation
5 biggest joys in the moment:
Josh, the winter break in 3 days, Turkey Trot in 4 days, pumpkin muffins, making travel plans…in addition to kitty.
stairwell accompaniment:Glen Hansard, Damien Rice, Ray Lamontagne, Snow Patrol, Eddie Vedder with some Patty Griffin!
A new look! A fresh! exciting! look for the onset of grey days in Ohio. My beloved autumn has nearly come to an end.
We’ve been busy around here lately. I’m finishing my pediatric rotation, Josh is finishing his grad school class. We’re praying and planning an extended trip to Central/South America for spring. Surveying our possessions and deciding what’s worth carrying across the country. I’m running. Faster and slowing down in between. With warm drinks and good books, soft blankets and soulful music. We’re helping to start a house church here in our neighborhood! Making new friends and missing far-off ones.
I’m celebrating tradition and nostalgia and smiling moments with a list of enjoyables:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
josh’s german accent
costa rica and peru!
matcha green tea
the last days of outside running
this american life!
into the wild soundtrack
truth and grace and truth
lists
zebra t-shirt
imperfection
bears beats battlestar galactica!
my husband of inventions
white lilies
trying to journal. imperfectly.
Recent photography has been bleak: Us. And the last leaves of fall from our windows(for me more than you).
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which in infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings;and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeking
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
–e.e. cummings
onthestairs 
