Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 184

Today's Daily 5:

1. Errands with my baby brother, before going back to working on their house
2. chatting with my middle brother, when he joined us for an afternoon of work
3. Painting my first ever ceiling (a tiny closet one, but still, I felt accomplished!)
4. Coming home and taking a long hot bath and washing out my hair after a dusty, dirty day of work
5. angel food cake with vanilla ice cream, fresh blueberries, and fresh strawberries

Reading Break Monday

It's the Monday of reading break.  A holiday Monday here in Alberta - Family Day.

I'm spending it much as I've spent the majority of the last two days - doing demolition, clean-up, prep work and painting at the house my brother and sister-in-law bought.  There's a bunch of work to be done there before they can move in in about six weeks, and so today, while a bunch of family and friends are available, we're tackling as much as we can get underway.  Mostly that's going to look like painting and cleaning, and maybe starting to lay just a bit of laminate flooring.

The rest of this reading break is shaping up in similar ways.  Working at their house.  Doing homework.  Spending time with friends that I don't get to see as much as I would like.  Working ahead on some school projects.  Resting.

I have some awesome posts planned for the next week or so.  Some stuff I've been sitting with for a while now, and want to share here.  But they'll have to wait for a day when I'm not painting walls.  It's a different kind of creativity, this physical work - this chance to help some people I love.  But it's a good kind.  And so that's what I'm doing on Family Day, Reading Break Monday.

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 183

Today's Daily 5:

1. a long and restful morning in bed
2. the aching of muscles that declare I worked hard yesterday
3. an afternoon of chatting with my sister-in-law, and listening to music as we worked on stripping wallpaper together
4. settling in to watch a funny movie with mom and dad
5. angel food cake, fresh berries, and just a bit of vanilla ice cream

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 182

Today's Daily 5:

1. Sleeping in
2. Catching up on Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice
3. My sister-in-law's triumphant "Ya we did" exclamation punctuating the various, not usually done by girls tasks we tackled together today, while the guys did the really heavy lifting.
4. microwave popcorn
5. a long hot bubble bath

Some Thoughts on Grief, and a Project You Can Support

I haven't talked about it a lot here, because none of the stories are mine to tell, but I've been an observer of grief quite a lot over the last year.  Several friends lost parents to cancer, others have children who have been terminally ill, or who face lives that won't play out in an "american dream" kind of way.  On a personal level, I've walked through the process of grieving changes in living circumstances, relationships, and many other things.  These days it seems like every week brings news of a new death, or someone else who is battling for life, or facing dramatic changes in circumstance that must be grieved.  At times the onslaught of news has been overwhelming and left me struggling to process and understand the pain I was experiencing and that people I care deeply for are walking out.

All of these experiences combined made my heart leap when my friend Karla Adolphe sent out an email indicating that the next album she was planning to record was aiming to be a resource for those walking through the process of grief.  More than that, her desire is to have this album be a free resource - not an album for sale, but one that she can give away to those who are grieving.

I was with Karla at a worship gathering where she led recently, and was reminded all over again of the power of her voice, and the way Jesus uses it.  I'm so excited to see the way God will work through this new album, not only because of the topic, but because of Karla's unique ability to invite the hearts of her audience to connect with Jesus.

This is a clip of one of the songs that will be on the album, played publicly for the first time recently, at a concert in Colorado:



The exciting part about this project for me is the chance that we have to support it. Maybe you remember a year or so ago, when the Blue Like Jazz movie went viral with it's Kickstarter fundraising campaign? Well, Karla is doing something similar to raise funds for this album. You can go to THIS site to participate. I've borrowed the following, explaining just a bit more about the heart of the album, from the fundraising site:

About a year ago Karla was privileged to be at the hospital when a dear family said goodbye to their daughter. In the midst of that beautiful and heart-wrenching day Karla witnessed music play an important role in the early stages of grief.


The goal is to create a resource to help people through the process of grief, and because of this Karla will not recoup any of her $9800 budget with cd sales. The goal is to raise at least $7500 by April 1, 2012 to cover the costs of recording, producing, mixing and mastering and marketing the album.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic of grief, and I'd love to hear if you were able to support Karla in this project.  As always, leave me a comment!

CHECK OUT THE FUNDRAISING SITE HERE!