Amy Writes

You know how, in cartoons, the characters are running full speed ahead when they see something interesting and try to stop? You hear screeching and see dust billowing and watch as they hop-hop-hop on one foot while the upper torso tries to head in the other direction? Well, it was kind of like that. I was moving quickly (running would be inaccurate, here) past an auditorium toward the lobby bathroom when something caught my attention. Wafting out of the auditorium were the familiar strains of a tune I know well. My peripheral vision picked up a sleek black shape on stage and two men studying it - one seated, one standing. Involuntarily, my body shifted directions and I froze in front of the open door, mesmerized. For a second, until I remembered where I was running. Or not running. I returned to the lobby to hear pages 5...6...7... still being pretty flawlessly performed on a beautiful piano to an audience of none. And I thought: 'I can do that.' I can play Rhapsody in Blue. Al...

I fear very little. At least, I think I fear very little. Flying. I fear that. My children making self-destructive decisions. I fear that. Spiders. Showering at home alone. But the normal stuff - the stuff that all the "no fear" sermons are about - no sweat here. The future? Nope. Change? Bring it on. Public speaking? Not a bit. (okay, maybe the sermons don't address public speaking, but it's always at the top of all the lists). Failure? (ahem) Failure? ... (...crickets chirping...) Well, er, uh, that's the thing I am trying to figure out. Do I fear failure, or do I fear success? As I've mentioned before, I am full of ideas . Full of them. And every last one of them is brilliant. I'm sure of it. As I've also mentioned before, I would like to write a book. I even have an idea for one. It's brilliant. And it is brilliantly lodged in my head. Recently, the prospect of attending a writers' conference has entered my thoughts. Just a fun weekend wher...

Just doing my part, in case you're reading this, Mr. President.

When Eden was born, I felt like the only person on the planet. Though I wasn't the only one I knew with a newborn, I was the only one with MY newborn. The only one on MY hours. We were already low on friends in our demographic, and with the birth of a baby - and a sick one, at that -my abilities to connect with other humans were significantly decreased for awhile. We stumbled out of infancy and into Mommy & Me age, where opportunities to connect with other adults abound. The babies are easy to transport, they stay in one place when you put them down, and they don't make noise unless they need something - allowing plenty of chances to finish a sentence, and sometimes even a story. Along came Chloe and it started over - I crawled back into my hole and used the new-baby card to explain away my lack of intimacy with anyone nearby. Again, we worked through it, made some steps forward, and during this stage we finally built some relationships. Really good ones. With people we now...

Curled up on the bed together, we were having our last Book Time before school. There were a lot of "lasts" that week. Last Pool Day Before School. Last Chuck E. Cheese Outing Before School. Last Lunch with Nana Before School. This was the last Last. Because Hurricane Fay delayed us for two days, we'd had to stay home from a friend's goodbye party to ensure a quiet night with a routine, on-time bedtime before the Big Show. I'd been teary for a couple of weeks...all these Lasts were starting to get to me. The stack of books that night was larger than usual, me trying to delay the inevitable: that I was going to have to put my preschooler to bed and in the morning, she would wake up a Kindergartener. My list of reservations was long. How long before she would come home a card-carrying member of Kids for Weapons in Schools (KWIS) or the Jesus Who? club? I pulled out a book about a snowman that, curiously, had an inscription in the front that said something like ...

God and I have this little game that we play. I think He calls it: Go Ahead, Make a Decision and Then See What Happens When I Change the Circumstances at The Last Minute. I am a notorious mind-changer. Mind-changing differs from wishy-washiness in that I say, affirmatively, what I am going to do. And then, usually at The Last Minute, I say that I am going to do the other thing. For example: I will stare at a restaurant menu and declare I am having the Grilled Chicken Salad. And then I will hear myself say to the server: "Bleu Cheese Burger and fries, please." It happened with my college choice. "I am definitely going out of state." And then..."Two bits, Four bits....all for the Gators..." It happened with getting married. "I am starting my career, somewhere exotic." Followed 4 months later by..."I do." It's happened with having kids and with nearly every vacation I've ever planned. I make a plan. God changes the circumstances. ...

Where I live, "People Like Us" don't send their children to public school. It was "never really an option for us." If I had a dollar for every time I'd actually thought or said "public school is not an option for us," we wouldn't think twice about writing the check for one of those private schools in which we'd planned to enroll our kids. In our "circles," the following unspoken rules are followed: 1. Private Christian school kids breed Private Christian school kids . It's the natural order of things. 2. Private Christian school kids who choose not to take out a second mortgage to pay for Private Christian school breed Homeschooled kids. It's the backup order of things. 3. Under no circumstances do Private school kids breed Public School kids . This phenomenon has no place in the order of things. I've never been clear about the reasons why Public School Is Not An Option, but I'm pretty sure the reasons include met...

A few weeks back, my friend HipMama boldly posted her family's awesome dream, which involves horses and farming and beds and breakfasts and so much cool stuff that you must go read about it and wait, like us, with bated breath for it to become a reality so you can go enjoy it. It's a daring move to share one's dream. As HipMama points out, what if you don't want the same thing next week? What if, for some reason, it never becomes a reality and you're either just the sad dreamer or the failure? What if no one else on the planet is at all inspired by your dream? In late elementary and early middle school, I wanted to be an astronaut. I reeeeeally wanted to be an astronaut. And I didn't just talk about it, I planned on it. I covered my bedroom walls with pictures of shuttles and planets and spacewalkers. I went to SpaceCamp. Twice. Not the kind of SpaceCamp that you go to with your 4th grade class. I went to the kind in the movie. Sleepaway, intensive, SpaceCamp ...

I have a five year old. That is, WE have a five year old. For five years now, my life has more or less been about keeping this small person (and the subsequent small person) alive. And healthy. And happy. For 25 years, life was about us. Then March 7 came. We had celebrated our 3rd anniversary on Wednesday with a dinner at Carrabba's. I had another 3 weeks to go, we thought. At my weekly appointment on Thursday, the doctor had different news. Better news. "You're SURE you're not feeling any contractions or anything? Because you're between 3 and 4 centimeters...Go home, start timing, and I'll see you soon." We checked in at 4:30 the next morning and our first daughter was born by 11. I don't know if you've had the experience of being the main player of an attraction who is treated as if she isn't in the room, but it's pretty weird. I wasn't with it enough to ask a lot of questions but I heard things like "prolapse" and ...

Say what you will about our Commander in Chief - the human who has the most difficult job on the planet, the man who is forced to make decisions that affect, yes, quite literally, the entire world . I am in no position to defend him nor can I suppose that I would do the job any better. (And: newsflash! you're probably not either, sorry that you had to hear it here.) But I always believe in giving credit where it's due, and I can do that by pointing you to this brilliant article by Bob Geldof about the President's accomplishments in and heart for Africa. (HT: Mark Lee )

I wanted to call your attention to something that is going on this week. Compassion International has taken 15 popular bloggers to Uganda to blog about their experiences visiting abject poverty. Two of them are heroes on my blogroll over there - Shaun Groves and David Kuo. Please go visit their blogs this week and be moved. Here's a list of all of the bloggers involved. Thanks!

Dear Mr. Morning Radio Host, How dare you, Mr. Morning Radio Host , while thinking out loud on air, suggest that we all turn around and give our tax refund checks to Compassion International? It's an economic stimulus package! Didn't you think of that? How will sending our money to poor people out of the country stimulate the US economy? Huh? That's just an un-American suggestion! You are proposing that we send our economy into further tumult, just to satisfy your whim of feeding orphans! If we don't use our money to consume more stuff, or go on little vacations or invest wisely, then, well, the package will be all for naught, and we will all be guilty of treason, or something. What are you trying to do? Save the world or something? Start a movement? You are a danger to this economy, sir. Sincerely, Amy Wright, who is thinking that there may be something to this, and will soon be investigating ways to encourage people to do it, provided the Senate approves the plan.