Quick, before I get Sidetrack'd

Today is Easter. For many people today is simply about bunnies, baskets, and egg hunts. For many, today is simply about going to church (many from a sense of obligation) then gathering with family and friends to enjoy good food. For me, as a Christian, today is about the glory of God being revealed, about victory over death and triumph over a fallen world, about the hope I have of one day singing with the angels gathered around the throne of God. Today is the celebration of Christ’s rising from the grave, the miracle of all miracles, the reason we can celebrate throught the year and enjoy the other activities we engage in today.

I hope this morning finds you reflecting on the empty tomb and filled with joy that He is risen. He is risen indeed!

Last night on NBC’s The Office (my favorite show by the way):

“It was a crime of passion, Jan, not a disgruntled employee. Everyone here is extremely gruntled.” ~~ Michael Scott (played by Steve Carrell)

I laughed everytime I saw the promo this week.

Two weeks and two books deep in the Spring Reading Thing I thought I would write a couple of book reviews. I will keep them short because I have a tendency to tell the story if I try to get too deep with a review. Knowing this, you now know that it might not be in your best interest to ask me what a book is about; especially if you plan to read it.

Anyway, the books I’ve completed are Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella and The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian.

Confessions of a Shopaholic ~ Sophie Kinsella crafted a cute, kind of quirky, and entertaining book. I enjoyed the first person narrative and really got a sense of being “in” the character’s head. As a spender, there were many parts where I thought, “I know that feeling,” or “I can relate to that;” though, fortunately, without the debt looming over my head. I would definitely recommend this book as a fun and funny read; good beach or poolside reading material for the summer. I plan to read the other books in this series as well.

The Double Bind: A Novel ~ I finished this book over a week ago, and I’m still thinking about it. In fact, I might go back and read it again at some point now that I know how it ends. The main character is a social worker with the homeless who was victim of a vicious attack in college; both of these shape her character and are intrinsic to the story. The story is very intertwined with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby which is a book I’ve read several times and a story I enjoy. Being a fan of Gatsby, and not a fan of the new trend of “completing” the stories of classics, I spent most of the book thinking about how much I didn’t like how Bohjalian was using the Gatsby characters, but by the end, I felt that his use of the Gatsby story had been redeemed as all the pieces fell together. Bohjalian is a very good writer who develops his characters and stories well. I’ve enjoyed each of his books I’ve read and am glad I read this one, too.

Well, I’m off to read some more!

I’ve mentioned before that Little has a lot of clothes because I can’t stop buying she outgrows them so quickly at this age. Add to the clothes all of the other miscellaneous items required for being 8 months old and you have all the elements for an organizational nightmare. I tend to be a fairly well organized person and clutter usually drives me to the brink of insanity, but I just haven’t been able to get my arms around Little’s closet yet.

In an effort to be motivated and inspired toward getting this area under control, I’m going to join up with the 30 Day Organizational Challenge at I’m an Organizing Junkie. Thanks, Laura, for getting me up and going for a good Spring cleaning.

I will be focusing on the closet, but the organization will, by necessity, include other areas of her room. You can tell by the pictures below that clothes have kind of taken over the place and now must be contained.

There are a few issues in dealing with her space: her room is quite small (meaning no room for an additional piece of furniture), her closet is quite small, there is an existing “closet system” in place that I need to work around, I would like for the system I choose to grow with her to some extent.

There are also many things that must be organized into her closet and room. This includes: storage for dirty clothes, outgrown clothes, and not-yet-grown-into clothes; neat and accessible storage for the clothes, shoes, socks, etc that she is currently wearing; a place to contain clothes that will go to charity, consignment, or on eBay; items we are storing until we can give them back to the rightful owners (on loan hand-me-downs); a place for sheets, burpies, bibs, blankets, etc.; a place for bath stuff, safety stuff, medicine, and other items that need to be accessible but out of Little’s reach.

So, without further ado I present pictures of Little’s space (and no, her walls are not the gross color they appear to be in most of the pictures; they are actually a very pretty green):

If you have any comments or suggestions, please leave them below. I would love to hear some other ideas for the space. For more information on the challenge and to see what others are setting out to conquer in 30 days, click on the picture below.

Matt’s parents came to visit this weekend. With a 10-hour trip from their house to ours we don’t get to see them as often as we would like. We didn’t really do anything very exciting, but it was nice just to get to spend time together relaxing, talking, enjoying Little. Little lapped up all of the attention and had fun playing with and performing for people other than Mommy and Daddy. It rained most of the day Saturday, but we were able to get out Sunday afternoon to take a walk and enjoy the beautiful Spring weather. I have truly been blessed with wonderful in-laws.

Other than the first few months after our marriage, Matt and I have not lived closer to our family than a 3-hour drive; this is both good and bad. Early on, it was good for the two of us to have to rely on each other and God. We had to figure out the whole marriage/finances (Matt was in grad school and I was working full-time)/church/friends thing on our own. Through that we built a strong relationship, really enjoyed time together, and learned a lot about God and ourselves. I don’t know how our marriage would be different if we had been in the same city with family, but I’m sure it would be.

Now that Little has come along, it would be nice to live closer to family in some ways. Growing up, I lived within a few miles of both sets of my grandparents and most of my extended family. I spent lots of time with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins; I would love for Little to have the opportunity to have a day-to-day relationship with her extended family as well. It would also be nice to have the close-by babysitting that comes with living near relatives.

For now, we are called to live and work where we are which means being separated from family by many miles. When we have the opportunity to visit with family – either at our house or theirs – we enjoy it while we can; we talk, we laugh, we drink coffee, we linger over meals, we overstimulate Little and she won’t nap (but that’s okay). The physical distance between us makes our gatherings that much sweeter.