Single Ladies

For those of you who don't know, my life group has been one of the most wonderful anchoring forces in my life during the past 2 years. It's been one of the most incredible, authentic expressions of what it means to experience the loving Body of Christ within community I've ever known. These are a bunch of hilarious chicks who I love dearly.
Together we've survived the business of grad school, endured tragedies, commiserated over being trundled (definition of trundled: when an older sibling has to share a bedroom with niece or nephew, sleeping on a trundle bed, while the younger sibling shares a bedroom with his or her spouse), and now the joys of seeing our friend get married!
This year we had the privilege of seeing Dan Kramer come into Julie Way's life and sweep her off her feet. At a time when many of us had started to lose hope, this reminded us of what could be around the corner. So, as a life group, we knew we had to send Julie off in a special way... :)

Epic Starts Here

"Epic starts here." - This is the newly discovered slogan of the Puma Lounge, which is the name of my house. Taylor Lautner definitely pulls Nikki, Susan, and myself into cougar territory but we haven't fully embraced the lifestyle of buying playstations for college boys yet. Yet.
Anyway, epic starts here. Ever since Susan and Nikki moved into this house, and Joey came on the scene, every weekend has been remarkably epic. But not just epic in the sense of events that merit facebook photo albums, even though those do happen regularly. A few weeks ago I went to bed at 8:00pm on a Friday night. The next morning I woke up, and was so pumped to tell my roommates about my epic night of sleep. Joey and I have donated blood twice this year - epic. We eat shells n cheese with crushed red pepper on top regularly - epic. Nikki and I have been getting up at 5:30am for morning devotions during Lent - epic.
A few weeks ago, the roomies and I walked to downtown Sierra Madre to get breakfast at a really lovely and quaint outdoor cafe. There was perfect music playing, nice clouds in the sky, hoodies on, sparklingly witty conversation, and we were feelin' it. At one point, Susan pointed out "I love that we savor things." This is a true statement, we really do savor things. In fact, as I laughingly pointed out to Susan at that point, apparently, we savor that we savor things.
I heard once that "Joy is enjoying another person enjoying you enjoying that other person." This is where I think the true epicness of the season enters in. There is this truly amazing combination in my life right now of people enjoying each other, and it really just builds on itself.
Of course, there are things worthy of enjoying right now. Joey finally came on the scene. He is quite possibly the best, most generous, funniest, all around greatest person I've ever met. More on that, but I don't want to overwhelm this "interweb" thing with too much sap. But let it suffice to say, he is sap worthy.
My roommates, Susan and Nikki, hit on all cylinders of awesomeness. I live in a house of good food, space to process the hard and real stuff (like that time I almost had a nervous breakdown after a horoscope reading), funny dogs, excellent boy talk, rock band, laughter (lots of it), raucous parties and morning devotions together.
My folks actually did get that house in Sierra Madre! After years of praying prayers that felt unanswered, God comes through in a way none of us could have dared to actually hope for. Isn't that just like Him... Epic.
Okay, I do not mean to overwhelm all 6 of my readers with talking about all the good stuff in my life. But this is my point - epic starts here. It's an internal thing. It's a choice to savor little things, like going to bed at 8pm on a Friday night. It's a choosing to invite others into your life for the hard and real and funny stuff.
Paradise is realizing what you have when you have it - Epic.

Okay okay, I'm back. For real this time.

Apparently I'm awesome at writing one post on a blog, and then abandoning it for a year. But then I'm also awesome at coming back. So here I am.

It's been quite a year. We're coming up on the year anniversary of my dad's heart attack, which was sort of the moment in time where things shifted. Thankfully he survived it just fine, but it still felt like a loss of innocence. It left me with the same feeling I had when we lost my grandpa to pancreatic cancer in 2006, like the rules changed on us without anyone letting us know this was going to happen. For a pretty complete chronicling of that journey, visit http://www.tomhardeman.blogspot.com/. Anyway, now here I stand on the other side of it, with a new worldview in which joy and sorrow are two sides of the same coin. Each influences the other; without each we we wouldn't have the other.

These are happy days I live in now though. Still praying for things to get easier on my folks, hoping that they can find a new version of their dream house and move out to Sierra Madre. But my life is filled with lots of laughter, and joy, beautiful friendships and love. Things I'd given up on, showed up at my door, with flowers, delicious snacks, and my favorite video game.

I'm still not sure about this blog business, or if I'll be able to come up with interesting things to write, or if anyone will ever read it, but I feel like I have stories, and I want to tell them. So, wide world of the interweb (and probably mostly my parents and the occasional friend), hello.