abby bell is nine years old today! it seems like i just met her and her lovely family, back when she was three and nora was just almost born. wow. anyway, happy birthday, abby! this girl, my niece, is amazing. she's smart and gifted beyond her years. she can write poetry like nobody's business. she's also a very resilient kid, and manages to find good friends wherever she goes. i can't wait to have birthday cake with her at church tomorrow night! we booked our honeymoon yesterday. jamaica, here we come!

daniel and i went to see "farenheit 9/11" last night. regardless of your political leanings, go see it! although michael moore's bias against the war is clear, he does a pretty good job of looking at a lot of the complex sides of the issue, and i left with the feeling that moore really does love america. i also left more ready than ever to move to another country... i've so ready to go overseas lately. it's like an annoying cough that won't go away! i found out this week that england has such a shortage of social workers that they are recuriting internationally, and with my experience, i could make about $20,000 more a year in london than i do here. but that would mean putting off grad school, which would mean putting off going to a country that we really want to live in, like india or south africa...so. we will keep dreaming, we will get married, and we will get a base for our lives here in columbus for awhile. in the meantime, daniel and i are going to goshen this weekend so that he can see where i grew up and meet my circle of friends who all have roots there - it's one of the few times that we'll all be in town from l.a., chicago, indianapolis, columbus, elkhart and michigan. blaze is staying with daniel's mom. his little sister, megan, is so excited to take care of blaze, and i think blaze will like the attention and fenced in yard and companionship of their dog. meanwhile, we get to exchange ideas with some of my oldest friends - these are people who love to think, and who i learned to think with, to some degree...plus, daniel gets to see amish country! i must shower now.

i've been in the social work field long enough to not be phased or too emotionally affected by the trauma that i observe every day. but every once in awhile, a certain kid will get under my skin and into my heart. today one of those kids got sent to the department of youth services, or jail for kids, and i've been finding myself near tears all afternoon. aargh! i haven't even been working with this kid for very long, but he's really intelligent and talented and has a father who loves him and is committed to him. but he makes really bad choices, and has no impulse control. he's been locked up in detention for about a week after running away, and today when he walked into the court room with his buckwheat-crazy hair (he's starting to form dreads in the back) and his squinty eyes (he needs glasses, but they haven't come in yet), i just ached because i knew that even though the the treatment center he had been in wanted him back, and his probation officer wanted him to go there, the magistrate was going to lock him up. don't get me wrong - it's been made very clear to him that it was his responsibility to stay out of jail, and the magistrate was very fair and consistent. but i still ache. it's been a season of aching recently. funny, it's when i'm the most balanced and healthy that i'm also most acutely aware of the needs and hurt around me... but tonight i get to hang out with abby and nora, and we're going to see "ella enchanted" at the $1.50 theatre with daniel. hurrah for fairy tales!

i'm back. so is daniel, and his new template is pretty. but i miss the picture of us in the header of the old one. i've had it with the lice lady! for the past two weeks, i've been trying to help one of my clients get rid of lice so that she can visit with her children again. three times i've gone out to her house to treat her and three times there has been an excuse for why she can't do it. she tries to do it herself, but that hasn't been very effective. aargh! i really think her intentions are good, but so many of my clients minimize so many things. she's used up my last offer to treat her myself, though. it may sound harsh, but part of my job is empowering parents to take responsibility for their own lives... columbus is growing on me a little more each day. i don't miss cincinnati as much, although i do miss my friends. but there are good people here. i realized last night at house church that i really LIKE the people here - i look forward to seeing them and i want to hang out with them because they're fun and think about challenging things and i just like them! somehow, this week feels like a time of renewal. my own energy level is up, and it isn't quite so hard to force myself out of my cozy bed in the mornings. i see myself and people around me growing. after a time of some darkness in general, hope is springing up pretty clearly. or maybe a better word for the theme of the week is reconciliation...that is what the hope is for. i've been making an effort to reconcile and reconnect with people i lost connection with in the past couple of years. daniel and i have been learning the skill of reconciliation when we butt heads. we long for reconciliation in the lives of people we love. we long like crazy for it. we are learning what it means to be reconciled as the church...

happy thursday, dear ones! this has been one of those insane, chaotic weeks at work that are kind of hard, but remind me why i love this job. today i'm trying to find out if i've been exposed to tb by one of my kids, who has already driven me crazy this week because he keeps running away. the hardest thing is that he's really a smart kid with a parent who loves him a lot- he just has no impulse control. aargh. lack of impulse control is really common with crack babies, which he is. it's so maddening - anyone who gets pregnant in the u.s. should know by now that using drugs during pregnancy can seriously screw up your child's life. anyway. last night nathalie and rod made a 6-hour round trip just to have dinner with daniel and i. that is love in action! nathalie is one of my oldest friends, and is about to go to ecuador for two months as part of a medical school rotation. sometimes i'm so proud of my friends. somehow, i've been lucky enough to be surrounded by so many creative and gifted people... two of those people, kenny and marissa, had a baby girl last night. i'm not sure what her name is yet, but they're going to be amazing parents. and break.

i tried posting earlier, but blogger was being temperamental... tonight the landing place is having a rilke reading party. ranier maria rilke was the first writer that made poetry a joy for me to read. find his work and soak it up! another thing to soak up is julie strasser's new blog. julie and her husband david hosted the first house church i was a part of in cincinnati. those monday nights were one of the best things about my first year in ohio, and david and julie modeled a kind of household that i would love to have...one that is open and creative and embraces everyone who comes in... i'm out of time for now. enjoy your sunday!

back from a relaxed, happy long weekend. daniel and i went to muncie - the only small town in indiana that i would consider living in again. spent good time with fred and molly, who served as a good sounding board regarding issues of giving up independence to join your life with someone else. (i seem to keep butting heads with that one.) we came back to a lovely little underground seminary cookout, and then i had a nice conversation with my brother who, as it turns out, is a pretty good writer. gotta work!