Childhood Books

God is America's King, She thought: Americans won't obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their conscience. No king bosses Pa , he has to boss himself. Why (she thought) when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn't anyone ele who has the right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good.

Her whole mind seemed to be lit up by that thought. This is what it means to be free: It means you have to be good. "Our father's God, author of liberty-" The laws of Nature and of Nature's God endow you with a right to life and libterty. Then you have the right to be free."

-Laura Ingals Wilder, Little Town on the Prarie (My most beloved and treasured books of all time)

Lauging with Lauren

I just got off the phone with Lauren, a friend from Tallahassee that I have not spoken to in quite sometime. I do not have a beautiful, flattering photograph of this beautiful, flattering young woman, but I must say we had some beautiful, flattering times together back in the hick, redneck bible-belt and sorority girl filled land of Tallahassee, Florida. (I mean no offense by any of these terms by the way)

We had a deep and meaningful discussion together about the atrocities of facebook. I asked her if she prayed for hours by candle light for my feelings on facebook. She responded with an "Oh, Jo Anna I miss you. I don't even know what to respond to that but I miss you."

These conversations are what makes Laughing with Lauren so great. I miss that too:(

What NOT to do

Well, maybe I was (am) a bit dramatic.........

Other things that Isaiah and I do in Hillsboro:

1. Look at youtube videos
2. Go to church
3. Go Blackberry picking
4. Go to the hot tub
5. Talk about writing letters to people
6. Talk about how we should read our bibles.
7. Cook meals
8. Watch the "little Rascals" Series. (Black and White)
9. Watch old episodes of Little House on the Prairie and make fun of them.
10. Get Isaiah to go home instead of watching youtube videos with Andrew all afternoon.
11. Talk to our landlady.

See, It's not so incredibly horrible. Maybe my spirits are lifted because the "Fall feeling' Is in the air, which is one of my very favorite feelings. (Probably the same sort of feeling normal people who didn't grow up in heat-infested Florida get in the spring time when they are excited about summer coming)

But then again, the start of fall means the start of a long procession of exciting national and world-wide holidays, starting with my birthday.

Oh, life is good!

What to do?

Things Isaiah used to do together when we lived in Eugene, Oregon:

1. Walk to Barry's bakery and get a sandwich
2. Go to Jaimeson's
3. Cook lots of good food and have people over for dinner.
4. Have other people make us even better food and have ourselves over for dinner.
5. Walk around our neighborhood and contemplate about wacky hippy people.
6. Go to Gutenberg and look for people to play with.
7. Steal leftovers from the Gutenberg kitchen.
8. Go walk along the river
9. Go to pawn shops and get dollar VHS movies and watch them.
10. Go hiking up the butte.
11. Go to reformation fellowship and then discuss Gutenberg theology.
12. Go to the first Friday art walk.
13. Saturday Market
14. Go to Mindy's house and eat Mexican Food, or try to go sledding in the rain.
15. Eat Sushi with Dan Arkin.
16. Go to "Sunrise" and get weird Asian drinks.
17. Go to Capella's natural hippy fairy market and get treats.
18. Go to McMinamins and get greasy tator tots.
19. Go to the hills and shoot guns.
20. Go to the hotsprings.

Things Isaiah and I do in Hillsboro:

1. Go to the public library

A typical conversation with my spouse

Isaiah and I had been driving already for a number of hours. I was being lulled to sleep by the droning of our car on the pavement and the faint sound of the radio, when the song: "Raindrops keep falling on my head" began to play. I smiled, because logically, that particular song makes me smile. I sort of rolled over, just enough to hear Isaiah casually say "The man who wrote this song tried to kill my father." I looked at him with my eyes half shut. "oh" I said, then I turned and went to sleep. He kept on driving, and that was the end of our conversation.

(This photograph was taken on a rainy day in Glacier National Park, Montana, on top of a trash can.)

Let the fun begin

Isaiah and I have had an interesting and exciting past month or so. It all began with this:



I made this cheeseburger for Isaiah and Benjamin James, who came gladly to my rescue after I was exhausted from photographing Luke and Lori Hamilton's wedding on July something or other 2008. They had a pot-luck Barb-q and I was oh so hungry but oh so busy to eat.

But, in all, boys are usually hungrier than girls and they seem to forget to eat if girls don't tell them too or if they aren't having food made for them. So, I gladly made them these cheeseburgers and they both devoured it, and I took a couple of meager bites.

Photographing weddings can be fun but it also leads to potential exhaustion and hunger, and sincere and incredible business after the event is over.

None the less, this event (the wedding) marked for Isaiah and I the beginning of a month long wild adventure. Most of which involved no sleeping, high volumes of interactions with other people, 104 degree heat and lots of fun and good times.

I can't wait to share more about this adventure, but I must wait for now. I have saved that project for a later period in time.

Hungry.

Isaiah and his Baby Brother Benjamin are bringing me a pizza. I truly and unconditionally hungry at the moment, but amazingly enough, I am so tired that I don't believe that I can get out of this chair and get up to eat the pizza when they come. Maybe I will sit here all night and continue to ramble on about ridiculous thoughts for the sake of me having to not get up out of this chair. So here I will sit, hungry and sleepy, and never get up.

And anyone who reads this will either be bored, delighted, or confused. Or all three.

This is the first time I have really been truly and unconditionally hungry since June 15, 2008. On that dreadful day, the temperature exceeded 103 degrees.

On that dreadful day, and also the dreadful day after that, I stayed outside in the wretched heat the entire dreadful day (minus my exedus to the REI for air conditioning) and supported Isaiah and Andrew at their show.

Sitting here, on Sunday afternoon, the temprature is below 85 degrees, and I could never ever be more happy, sleepy, tired, hungry( in the most fufilling kind of way), and thankful for the people that love me in this life. God has his ways of showing his his goodness that are beyond our comprehension, beyond our understanding and not the way we always want him to show us his goodness. For this, I am thankful.

I am sorry if this doesn't make a whole bunch of sense. But maybe I will write something more sensical tomorow.

Good night!