I'm sure there is already a resemblance.

Good news, folks. The family line won't die out. My brother and sister-in-law announced that they are pregnant and due in April. Yeah! It will be fun to have a new little nephew or niece around the family gatherings. And he/she is guaranteed to be the cutest little kid you will ever see.

Here's the first baby portrait:

Step with that rolling beat.

It has been a great weekend so far.

On Friday, Dan and I marked six months since we started dating. Dan surprised me with a lovely dinner at the Multnomah Falls Lodge, The wait staff gave us complimentary huckleberry cheesecake to polish off the meal.

........

On Saturday, I sat in the sun at my parents' house while they held a garage sale, and I marveled at the lack of customers. I think they made three dollars.

After packing up everything we had put out to sell, we went downtown to a fundraiser for the ESL nonprofit that my parents volunteer with. The organization hosted an evening of Latin American dancing in a carpet padding warehouse under the Fremont Bridge.

Peel back a layer.

Grey skies, a chill to the air. The mist sticks to us outside, and my pants are wet at the cuff. I built a fire tonight.

........

A winding thought in the mind of Erin: The path to redemption is intimacy.

I once heard a definition of intimacy as “mutual self exposure.” I suppose it could be physical, emotional, or spiritual. Intimacy is agreeing to trust another with our vulnerabilities even when it intensifies the risk of pain. And it is how we bond with others. We tell secrets. We undress. We show our needs.

And redemption, in a personal or philosophical sense, it also relies that type of giving relationship. Redemption means paid for, purchased. Regardless of inequity, the redeemer and the redeemed create a relationship of exchange. The spiritual parallels pop into my head quickly, but I like using these terms to think about relationships between two human beings, the people that I care about. We gain the strength of another through our intimacy. We tender ourselves in that self exposure, and we are redeemed.

........

There was a barista in Seattle who worked at one of the coffee shops where I’d go to do homework. He also worked at the gelato place near campus. We only chatted two or three times, but I saw him every few weeks at one place or another.

Today he was working at the coffee shop near my workplace in Portland. It’s been a good three years since I have seen him. He was across the room, but I’m pretty sure he recognized me. He kept looking up with a “Where do I know that girl from?” look without being impolite.

I was at the coffee shop for a work meeting, so I ended up leaving without saying anything to him. To be honest, I’m not really sure how to broach the conversation without sounding like a stalker. For now, I am just glad to resume our casual barista to coffee-patron relationship in a new city in this small world.

Sawdust and squeeky wheels.

I wish that I had more space in my life- time for rest and reading, whole days to spend with friends that challenge me a to be a better person, the luxuries of completing projects and doing art. I wonder if my priorities are wrong, but I don’t know how to adjust them. A girl’s gotta pay her bills after all, and long days at work mean little gets done in my personal life except on the weekend.

There is a psychological concept that I can’t properly credit, but it describes Quality World vs. Reality World. One’s Quality World is the basis for decisions- we all seek to meet the priorities of our idealized way of living. The Reality World is the way things really are. For instance, in my Quality World, I might believe that getting an “A” on a paper is the only acceptable grade for me; whereas in the Reality World, an “A” is just one tier of acceptable grades. Our emotions confirm the weight of our Quality World values.

I look at my current schedule, and I wonder what it says about my Quality World. I really believe that the things I am spending time on are worthwhile, but I also feel that I am not doing enough of the things I value.

But actions are clear. My priorities show up in the choices I make each day. I value spending time with my boyfriend or my family more than reading my copy of the New Yorker. I value being busy over being rested. I value my close friends over my yard work. Some are good choices, but they are not absolutes.

If I’m ever going to find that elusive time to meet my other lifestyle goals, I am going to have to have a true change in my Quality World values. Until then, I guess I need to remember that I am living out every bit of my priorities- but I might need to more honest about what those values really are.

Less labor, more day.

I spent the long weekend with my family up in Orcas Island in the San Juan islands off the coast of northern Washington. It is a picturesque little community that bustles with farmers markets and art galleries during the summer months.

It couldn't have been a nicer weekend. The weather was plenty warm without being too hot. We had good conversations, and we drank tea by the fire.

I am blessed to have family that I truly enjoy as friends. It is wonderful to be able to spend a weekend together and come home feeling rested. Bring on the week!