Da Big News!!!

Well as some of you might already know: Michael and I are pregnant!! We feel so blessed and really can't hardly believe it. It all started when I was supposed to get more radiology tests done on my back and figured I would take a pregnancy test just to be on the safe side. Well after I couldn't understand what the crazy lines were telling me on the first test, I went out and bought three others that spelled it out pretty clearly "pregnant."

I couldn't believe it...I think after the radiation and my doctors always telling me that that I was going to have a hard time getting pregnant, I definitely didn't think we were going to get pregnant and certainly not while I was still recovering from my back injury. Below is a hilarious conversation that I had with the nurse who did the initial tests as she watched me struggle to get on the exam table:

Nurse: Oh Honey, you're husband took advantage of you
Me: Well the doctor told me to try and be 'more active' and well I guess we took it literally (haha)
Nurse: (Smiling) Honey I think he probably meant walking

Whatever the circumstance we find ourselves in, Michael and I are trusting God's timing for our little baby gruden.

In The Mood For...

As some of you might know, one of my all time favorite movies is the Wong Kar-Wai film,“In the Mood For Love.” The story stripped is basically about two characters in 1960s Hong Kong that end up falling in love with each other despite their conviction to not end up like their adulterous spouses. Amid the incredible artistry and highly stylized sensuality of the colors and textures of Kar-Wai’s sets, the two characters move past each others’ lonely lives, painfully committed to their sense of morality. In one of the scenes the man tells his work colleagues during dinner of how:

“Before in the old days when people had secrets they didn’t want to share…They’d climb a mountain and find a tree… Carve a hole in the tree and whisper the secret into the tree… and cover the hole with mud…that way no one would ever discover the secret.”

This is important, as I’m sure I annoyingly mentioned repeatedly to Michael while clutching his forearm, wondering in anticipation if he would feel the weight of emotion I do every time I see the final scene of the film in which years have passed and we see the main character making his way alone down a corridor to a hole in the wall of the ruins of an old Cambodian temple. There he is seen by us and a solitary monk seated above, while he whispers with his sad eyes closed and then finally leaves, alone. As many times as I’ve seen this film, I am haunted by unseen emotions and feelings that have only been allowed to subsist in the wistful adagios that haunt each scene in this beautiful film.

I don’t know why this film has come to mind lately except that one of the lines in the film keeps coming back to me as I’ve gone up the proverbial mountain and have whispered and poured out my owns prayers to God. I’ve laid them before him.

“That era has passed…Nothing that belongs to it exists anymore.” (In the Mood For Love)

la Phare

Some birthdays are sentimental. Some are 'special,' as in, I'm going to take my nieces to Chucky Cheese, it's going to be so 'special." And finally some birthdays are just like an explosion; of emotions, of life, and of memories. This birthday was of the later kind.

I could tell you about the thoughtful and extravagantly undeserving gifts I received (a handmade easel from Papa Gruden!!), but the best gift this birthday was just being next to the soul that is as inextricably part of myself as I am. We ate cassoulet toulouse-style, we walked against the city wind, and we reveled in the amber glows of candlelight and memories. I wept for things I could not understand during this season, and I heard the whispers of holy scripture. I laughed at who I used to be and still am. We got lost and found the way all the while repeatedly making sure the auto lock was working on the car doors. I secretly stared at my favorite pair of blue eyes that have been my beacon and reminder of God's love.

I thanked God for these moments that I do not deserve and for His faithfulness despite my faithlessness.

No Charlie Brown Tree fo' THIS Family!!!

Mr. Gruden here ... so my family has always had amazing artificial Christmas trees. There is something comforting in knowing that your little tree is resting nearby (in the basement) to resurrect another year to share Christmas memories.

Personally, I've enjoyed having the same faux tree year after year. Mrs. Gruden on the other hand has always had real trees, so in attempt to bless my wife and "branch out" if you will (lame joke I know, but it's still funny to me) we decided to get a live Christmas tree this year.

Our dear neighbors/landlords/close friends, the Sylvesters recommended that we go to a Christmas tree farm a couple miles up from our home. I think they forgot to mention that the Christmas tree man was on medication ... thanks for the memories Sylvester fam!!
Here are some pics with us picking our first Christmas tree and patronizing our "special" salesman!

Feliz Navidad! More Christmas tree pictures to come...

My love has a birthday

My love recently had a birthday! I'm not sure why, but I know that since we've been married I've been intensely impressed how every moment with Michael are rare gifts that I want to cherish.

This past birthday as Michael and I shared a surprise Birthday getaway to Virginia's hunt country it was no different in one sense of being yet another enchanted memory with my incredible husband and yet it was so different because it was a chance to honor and express how much I daily grow in my respect for my husband whose thirst and desire to be more Christ-like betrays his young age. Of course, his magnetic charm and smooth moves don't hurt him any :-).

When I think of my love and how he swept into my world, at times with the surprising force of a hurricane and at times with the patience of a zephyr; I am still amazed at the precious moments God has gifted me to be by your side. Happy Birthday darling Michael!

Pictures: top, our first night at this wonderful Inn in the Virginia Hunt Country and bottom, Michael enjoying this amazing four course birthday breakfast prepared by this super five-star chef!

Grace...C'est Si Bon

I've been remiss in updating this blog, but what can I say....





Grace interrupted my life. Grace, as I've come to understand it these past five years since becoming a Christian is Christ's unmerited favor and forgiveness of my sins despite my rebellion and rejection of God's commands. Now, as a Michael's wife, each day I'm seized anew with not just how sinful and selfish I can be BUT God's love through Michael's love and gracious care of me.

I read this quote recently by Bono, the U2 front man recently and I thought how interesting that he captured how God interrupts and reminds me of love that I know I do not deserve. Soli Deo Gloria.

"Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.mercy and kindness to me through the graces "

Lost ......

Lost in the forest...

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.

Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.

Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind

as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood---
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.

Pablo Neruda

celebrity skin

At night, I stare through the creamy gossamer canopy that creates a spurious shelter around my bed. I can't sleep. I've been listening to Lindsay Lohan's "Confessions of a Broken Heart" song. Its' words, like piles of broken shells are strewn in my consciousness.

I remember a summer long ago when I stood in the ocean and let it's fearful and strange wetness inundate my skin, my face, my hair. I squander my time thinking about how similar and fearful it feels sometimes to letting oneself be known by another person. How like it is to having a guarded yet crafted celebrity skin that becomes transparent in one camera flash...

Then I open God's word and instead of the fear, I slowly feel the gracious freedom of being known by God, by the one God who is always faithful and will never fail me. How like Him to gather me up with all the taters of my desperate faith and in His great mercy place me again in the shelter of His arms. How like this sinner to try and build my own shelter with proverbial popsicle sticks when I have a Father who protects and provides. How like Him to patiently teach me to swim in the overwhelming ocean of His love and grace in Christ Jesus!

"I said, 'oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest-I would fly away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the storm and tempest.'" psalm 55

So Real

In the month of June, heat that lain beaten on the pavement (heat that had been trampled by wayward smokers moving like aimless irrisdent slaves) climbed slowly to my window and whispered:

"Everybody's wearing a disguise
To hide what they've got left behind their eyes.
But me, I can't cover what I am
Wherever the children go I'll follow them." BD