Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Family Night, Origami Style

I am pleased to report that, if anyone is in need of colorful origami animals, ranging from Tigers to Elephants to Dinosaurs, we have them in ample supply.
Our benefactors on this occaision were Cora's parents, whose creative genius in giving Christmas gifts resulted in a bona fide Origami Night, complete with a background soundtrack of Classic Disney. Oh heck yes.
Pictures will be forthcoming, if I'm not much mistaken.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Under Construction...

we're under construction-

dry wall
insulation
primer
painting
and still more to be done....

slowly.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

resolution

i know, i know...the picture is fuzzy.
well, good resolution isn't always easy to come by.
so, just in case you cannot tell, this picture is our chore chart and cooking schedule.
kenzie and i decorated it beautifully so we will all know what components are included in cleaning the bathroom, for example.
while the practical strategies for living together are necessary and helpful- what we are learning these days is a much deeper labor of love: how to carry each other's burdens, to be honest and real, how to be vulnerable and wait on god to be our strength.
please pray.
resolution and clarity don't always come easily.

the evidence...


Friday, September 19, 2008

Prelude...

How do you move a large, solid wood, upright piano?
Hire professional piano movers.
That's what you are supposed to do... but our story is much more interesting.

A couple weeks ago Cora and I (Liv) decided to go for a walk. We walked all the way down our street toward the train yard in an attempt to find a coffee shop that a friend had tried to direct us to. We didn't ever find the coffee shop but instead discovered a huge, beautiful, old upright piano sitting in some random guy's front yard. Surprisingly, it was in pretty good condition for not being tuned in the last few years. He told us it was free; he was trying to get rid of it and if we could move it- we could have it.
We quickly recruited some piano moving forces. Our dear, ever-willing friend Jas came over, Laz arrived via bus directly after work, and the four of us tried to wiggle the beast onto a tiny pathetic piano dolly. It felt like trying to squeeze an egg crate under the belly of a giant sea lion. Imagine the awkward struggle for hand-holds and the difficulty dealing with such enormous dead weight. In the middle of our mammoth sea lion training stunt a woman walked down the street with her dog and providential timing. She asked if we needed help (and of course we did!) and showed us how to get the piano squarely on the dolly.
Then she asked us if we needed help getting it our home (which was about 8 blocks away) and if by chance we might need some big strong men (and of course we did! big strong men are the next best thing to professional piano movers!). So our new friend came back a few moments later with some extra hands and together the 8 of us pushed our new piano up the bike lane all the way to our front steps. Laz played the piano as we navigated it up the street and one of our new friends directed traffic as we crossed major intersections.
Neighbors came outside, stood in their front lawns and cheered, cars honked, and people asked if we were taking requests. It was a neighborhood parade of sorts- all that was missing was face paint, and balloon animals.
We got it to our front yard and thanked our new friends (who we discovered were adventure seekers road-tripping their way from Florida to Alaska) for all their help. We had no idea how we were going to get the piano inside our house but figured they had more or less served their tour of duty and we could figure it out on our own...or maybe it would be an outside piano...
But they insisted on helping so we shoved a 2x4 under the legs of the piano to distribute the weight, and muscled the thing up 7 very large steps to our porch and into the house. We offered to buy our piano movers dinner but they declined and went their happy way with some photos and a story in their pocket.
I think we all still have moments of awe when we look at our piano. How did we manage get this in here?? How did this happen again?
Our piano has already brought many happy moments to our household. Laz and our friend Tey have enjoyed playing it, and we got the privilege last week of hearing a new piece of music that Laz's mom, Meme, just finished composing.
This is our prelude to living together...somewhat miraculous, completely hilarious, and all together a beautiful gift from God.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Welcome to the Atrium

This will be our home for the next 9 months at least. Welcome to our community and our journey.