Posted 2 days ago
Why am I compelled to write? Because the writing saves me from this complacency I fear. Because I have no choice. Because I must keep the spirit of my revolt and myself alive. Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appease my appetites and hunger. I write to record what others erase when I speak, to rewrite the stories others have miswritten about me, about you. To become more intimate with myself and you. To discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself, to achieve autonomy. To dispel the myths that I am a mad prophet or a poor suffering soul. To convince myself that I am worthy and that what I have to say is not a pile of shit. To show that I can and that I will write, never mind their admonitions to the contrary. And I will write about the unmentionables, never mind the outraged gasp of the censor and the audience. Finally, I write because I’m more scared of not writing.

Gloria Anzaldua in her essay “Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers” in This Bridge Called My Back

*Note: If you’re a white female writer (like myself) and thinking about reblogging this, please also get the book and read this essay in it’s entirety. Immediately.*(via ashleighfhill)

***ALSO NOTE****

In honor of attending the very first “WRITE NOW” event tomorrow night at Gardenhood, I share this, from an inspiring writer-friend’s blog….. (let me know if you’re interested in attending “WRITE NOW! There’s still time to RSVP!!) 

Posted 2 weeks ago

Transitions & AWESOME!

Hello! I know it’s been a while and roughly 2 months ago we were mid-porch project and I promised to share a final product picture.  Welll…. there is a semi-final product porch on the front of our house that we’ll update on soon, very soon!  We still have some minor details to attend to but the overall outcome is AWESOME! Soooo AWESOME!  

BUT the bigger news  (and reason why you haven’t heard from us lately) is that Mike got a new job!!! Yes!! And it’s AWESOME!!  I won’t go through the whole story with you because I would really like to see Mike get on here and tell it for himself….but the short version, through a friend of a friend, Mike was hired to manage a car wash.  This is not just any old car wash, this car wash has bucked the trend and decided that with all the water they use for their business, they want to give back.  So, they AWESOMEly decided to use a portion of their profits each year to build wells for clean water.  Yes!  How AWESOME?!?  There’s a lot more too it, but that’s the basics. I’m sure we’ll share more at some point.  But in the meantime, check out the WASH ME FAST website to learn more.

So things are moving along.  WIth the new job their has been a lot of transition for us at home.  It was really nice for a few months having Mike home.  I was spoiled really.  Hanging out with my best friend, taking care of an AWESOME baby, going for walks in the woods most days.  It was the life.  So now that he’s back to it, out the door by 6:30am and arriving home around 5pm or later most days, I’m back to full-time mommy PLUS my part-time job with Matchstic.  I really love taking care of Will but without the extra help from Mike, it’s a little harder to get the mail sorted, laundry-folded, meals cooked, toys-picked up, dog walked……ok I just started to sound WAYYY too domestic there.  Anyways, I’m just saying it’s been a transition finding a healthy rhythm. And that of course means less time for writing blogs.  BUT I WILL NOT GIVE UP!! I’m still on a mission to continue to write more so don’t count our blog out!! Keep checking us out, comment, let us know if you have questions, or just that you care! :)

But really, keep an eye out, more to come soon.  I have a post about the AWESOME effects of gardening in the front yard in the works.

Posted 1 month ago

Weapons of Mass Creation Fest

This looks awesome!! Because
a) I’m all about geekin’ out at conferences
b) it’s a celebration of the Arts and
c) it’s a grassroots effort happenin in the Midwest (I’d like to believe that the words grassroots effort and Midwest are synonymous but I think that’s my heritage talking…).

No but really, it’s been compared to SXSW so definitely worth a looksy!

Posted 1 month ago

Will kept fussing last night so I thought maybe he was teething but turns out he was just working on a new fashion trend. Got him out of the crib like this, sporting his version of a “mad hot”. Mike said kids did something like this in his neighborhood in Chicago when it was mad hot in the summertime. ( sorry for the blurry pic, Will couldn’t hold still, just wanted to keep struttin’ his mad hot…)

Posted 1 month ago

Makoto Fujimura | The Four Holy Gospels Project

I know I’m not an artist, but for the creative side in me, this is incredibly moving, inspiring and exciting.  LOVE how Fujimura is bringing art, culture and The Word together for all of us to experience in a new way.

Posted 1 month ago

Just discovered this phenomenal bluegrass artist here who, instead of becoming a lawyer, uses her music to build Chinese and American relations.  Thank your Abigail Washburn! So timely since I just met a new friend at our church last week, a young mom from China who is willing to do a language exchange for our kids!

Treat your ears right. Listen to this album.

Posted 1 month ago

LOVE how the mural is coming along in the Lakewood Heights commercial district…now to get more cool shops…. (Taken with Instagram at The Sweet Potato Eatery)

Posted 1 month ago

Morning chores :) (Taken with Instagram at In The Heights)

Posted 1 month ago

This is what my Wednesdays consist of…notice my hand awkwardly gripping to some invisible form of sanity…haha :) I really do love it tho! (Taken with instagram)

Posted 1 month ago

Taken with Instagram at Lake Jovita

Posted 1 month ago

Taken with Instagram at Lake Jovita

Posted 2 months ago

A Green Haze

If you live anywhere east of the Mississippi, you’re probably experiencing the green haze, better known as the green blanket of allergy death.  Springtime in the South and Midwest brings a 2-4 week period of intense release of grass, tree and weed pollen which results in a veil of lime green dust on every surface imaginable.  Most noticeably, it covers cars and sidewalks, but it also finds it way into homes along book shelves, picture frames and somehow even inside our kitchen cabinets!  Apparently with the warm winter this year, some allergists say this spring has brought the highest pollen count ever recorded.

Thankfully the Nienaber house took the attack in stride, with only a week or so of a stuffed up nose for Mike while Will and I have stayed pretty allergy-symptom free.  But this constant green haze has got me thinking about a different kind of green haze- the “green” trend towards natural and organics.  

Ever since Mike and I watched the documentary film Food, Inc. a couple years ago, we’ve been exploring the world of organics vs. processed food and other items, and where to draw the line as a family. In our own experience, trying to be a more conscientious consumer has been both confusing and frustrating. It’s overwhelming sometimes when we go to grocery store, every other product seems to boast “natural”, “environmentally-friendly” and “organic” but who knows what it all means.  Mike’s brother who is in the marketing world told us this is called “greenwashing”- a term coined in the 80’s describing how the corporate world exploited the marketability of being green by tailoring advertising to market to those of us looking to be healthier and keep the planet healthy too.  

I’ve done a little bit of research and found some great organizations that are trying to debunk the funk of greenwashing, including TerraChoice (with The Sins of Greenwashing) and Greenpeace who states “green is the new black”.

But along with that, I’d like to share some folks that I think are really taking this green (and SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS!) thing to the next level, in the BEST possible way.  Check them out here:

PodPonics - This Atlanta-based start-up boasts themselves as the “future of farming”.  Even with Wendell Berry whispering cautiously in my conscious, I still can’t get these guys and their sheer genius shipping container farms out of my mind.

New Vision Renewable Energy - An innovative group leading a grassroots movement to re-power their small West Virginia community with renewable energy, one home at a time.  After hearing their story at CCDA, Mike and I are hoping to visit them with our neighbor Tina for a free training weekend to learn the basics of building a solar panel system.

Southern Green Industries - For all the biodiesel fans out there (or for those of you wondering about the rumbling Volkswagen we zip around in…).  This company is tackling the larger issue of energy conservation by recycling used cooking oil.  Check out the About Us and BioDiesel sections for to-the-point descriptions on both the issues and how their work is addressing them.

Obsidianwindchimes.com - (This one’s for fun!) A married couple based out of Portland who put their artistic skills to work creating beautiful wind chimes comprised completely from found, natural objects.  The wind chimes are centered around shards of obsidian volcanic rock that have a delightful musical quality.

We love hearing about like-minded folks who are really walking the talk, so if you know of any companies or organizations we should check out, please let us know!

Posted 2 months ago

A Message from one mom to another

In response to the tragic death of Trayvon Martin, not just for moms. Please read this you guys.

Posted 2 months ago

Right after I took this picture, Will said “Hey Girl” to a girl walking by. I am not even kidding. (Taken with instagram)

Posted 2 months ago

Lessons from the Porch (or stoop)

It’s springtime in the South and we have some things moving and shaking, shaking off the winter over here. Most exciting, we are finally building a front porch! It’s funny, when we first moved to Atlanta and Mike set out to find us a place to call home, I gave him my one requirement…just one. I didn’t care if it was a newer home with two levels, if it had carpet or hardwood, I didn’t even care if it had AC (and that says a LOT in Hotlanta). All I wanted was a front porch. I mean, we were moving to the South. How was I supposed to figure out this whole Southern-Belle-grace-charm-and-hospitality thing without a front porch to practice on? That was my one and only request.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, after Mike looked at over one hundred houses in a matter of a couple months, the house that God seemed to hand to us a week before our wedding had NO FRONT PORCH! Not only did it not have a porch, it had a green, cock-eyed front stoop. Now, having lived in Chicago, I love a good stoop. But this one was precariously placed off-centered and to the left of the front door which resulted in a foot and a half of open space under the door. So, if you miss-stepped (meaning you stepped straight out of the door), you would fall boobee-trap style three feet down into our bushes. So much for Southern hospitality.

In all honesty, I am so thankful that I am married to a man who follows the Lord and is obedient to His leading because, although I did not get my dream front porch, I do believe God lead us here intentionally. We quickly fell in love with our home and the Lakewood Heights community, and now have a hard time imagining ourselves in any other neighborhood in Atlanta.

When we stood in our front yard last Wednesday morning and watched sledgehammers tear away at our little cock-eyed stoop, we both got a bit emotional. For the last two years, that stoop has been a special place for us, sacred ground almost. It’s been a place for dreaming about the future, saying hello to neighbors, getting a breath of air when the baby was crying, long talks with friends, and a quiet place under the stars.

Not only that but, the stoop has also been a symbol to our neighborhood that we are not perfect and never will be, not even our house. As ‘transplants’ to the community, I believe this message was one we needed to make clear, in every way possible. We do believe God has called us to live in areas that are often overlooked by our society - not because we have it all together or are ready to ‘fix’ anything, but to better recognize our own brokenness. Surprisingly, we have learned that as we identify our own personal “off-centered stoops” in our hearts and receive the Grace to accept our imperfections, the more open our hearts become to others. Just as our little stoop has allowed our neighbors to see us a little more for who we are.

Which leads us to the real thing now, the big-ol’ 8’ x 20’ porch being built in front of our house as we speak. Now that we’ve had a couple years of building relationships on that sweet little stoop, we’ve decided it’s time to have a place to sit and gather round a table in the light of the setting sun, for meals and games and talks with kids, family and friends. So with this new addition, I thought I’d jump back on the wagon of blog-writing and get our little cyber-porch back in full gear with what’s going on in our lives and where our hearts are finding most joy and fulfillment these days. Stay tuned, I’ve got more thoughts to share and maybe even a picture or two of the porch when it’s finally done!