Here are some of my favorite lines from Tuesdays Unwrapped this week. It is hard to read every post, so I wanted to highlight a few incase you missed them. Maybe you’ll find a new blog favorite among them – I know I have.

“Life, the being aliveness that is each of us, isn’t a little thing, but it’s the sort of thing we tend to forget about until we stumble into it in the middle of the night and try to remember what exactly this large thing is we left lying in the middle of the floor. Oh, yes . . . I am alive.”

- from Blessings Like Winged Horses

. . . because the way she talks about living is the way I think it in my head, and I like to find people who talk how I think because it makes me feel normal and connected.

“I was going to leave the meeting and finish out the day at the coffee shop, but halfway there I took a hard right and drove home to my boys instead. I rattled into the driveway and there they were – all five of them: three littles, light sabers drawn and ready for battle; one big, sipping a hoppy ale and smiling at my early return; and one hairy, lazily raising his head to check me out before resuming his afternoon snooze.”

- from Boy Crazy

. . . because she’s all girl in a house full of boys and she knows what it means to come home.

“I spent all year last year trying to be someplace else. I wanted big open skies, I wanted silence, I wanted to see the stars, I wanted a chance to start all over again, to create a different life. And then I got a job two blocks from my church, and an apartment a mile from both, and I realized, I am called to be here right now. I am called to be in the city with its light pollution and its noise pollution and its lack of green space and because I am where I believe God has called me to be…”

- from Simply Life

. . . because her choice to embrace the now rather than wish for the later is the perfect reminder to be where you are with all the gifts, however small, that right now has to offer.

“I sit, open my small journal, the one for LIFE and not so much DREAMING, cautiously I peek inside. It holds to do lists. I hate to do lists. I try to start a new page, one with “Direction” as the title. Hoping to find mine. I doodle a poinsettia along the edge instead. I write down “up”. And close the book.”

- from To Think is to Create

. . . because her life is spelled surrender, and she knows the gifts that come from living it upside down.

Here is the song that inspired, not only the name of this blog, but also the heart and intent behind Tuesdays Unwrapped. It is fitting that it is simply entitled Tuesday. Listen while you unwrap today?

So today is our Tuesday. But I hope that the Tuesday heart is rubbing off on your Wednesdays and Saturdays and Fridays, too. It is the day we gather to pause and unwrap the gifts to be found in the daily minute. We take a moment to stop, to notice, and maybe even chat at the sky.

If you would like to join in, welcome! If you have questions, check out the information on my Tuesdays Unwrapped page. If you are reading in a reader, you may have to click over to see the links and I really hope you read at least a few. So happy here on my favorite day of the week. Join us?

September used to be my least favorite month. Nothing happens in September. It’s not really summer, it’s too early for fall. The pool is closed, there are no trips planned, and it always felt like a long month of waiting for October.

And then he chose September to propose. Now, it’s heavy with the memory of a dozen orange roses, a diamond ring, and young dreams of forever love. The evening air is just cool enough that you can breathe in deep without swallowing mosquitoes, and as I do, I consider how I am living my dream with this man and these kids and this house we have made. I am compelled to receive the gift and push away the complaint and the grumble and the creeping, sneaking apathy.

But thinking of September 10 years ago does something else. It makes me think of 10 years from now. Because maybe my house will be turned upside down or maybe we’ll visit Pinky in Bangledesh or maybe all this stuff we’ve accumulated will catch fire and burn to nothing. We just don’t know. And so, I want to receive the gifts of now while knowing they may not be forever. Also, I want to consider new dreams that may include less stuff and more heart. Less fear, more love.

Tuesdays are the day we gather here to pause and unwrap the gifts to be found in the daily minute. If you would like to join in, welcome! If you have questions, check out the information on my Tuesdays Unwrapped page. If you are reading in a reader, you may have to click over to see the links and I really hope you read at least a few. So happy here on my favorite day of the week. Join us?

Emily’s internet has disintegrated so the Sister is here while on the phone with her, trying to find a photo of something other than furniture to post.   She’s at home with a sick boy, no internet, no cable no home phone, enjoying a Tuesday 1800′s style.