julie evans, party of one

julie being julie. 'nuff said.

we share dna, too

beloved family members at my great-aunt helen's 80th birthday. she is truly still a knock-out.

they share my dna

good grief.

belated slideshow from ian's birthday

at scioto trails...

"the art of being happy..."

"...lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things." - henry ward beecher

marigolds remind me of my beautiful and loving grandmother, vonberta. spending sundays at her home is one of my sweetest childhood memories.

my adorable goofballs

on the first day of school...

reds game

$1 hot dogs and a 1st inning brawl for ian's 10th birthday! it doesn't get any better than that!!!

apologies

to my friends and family out there who've been feeling neglected...

my dear husband, my sister julie, and my doc will testify to the fact that i've been in quite a funk for the past few weeks. yes, your phone calls and emails have gone unreturned. and no, i'm not proud of that. there have been times recently when i haven't had the energy to dial the phone, let alone engage in conversation.  and here's the deal, i would have engaged in phony, happy conversation with you, and you would have never known that i've felt more hopeless lately than i have since my initial diagnosis in 1997.  it's the pretending that gets me...

pretending is so exhausting. 

pretending that i'm okay.  right now, i'm not okay.  but maybe, i'm getting better.

i finally saw my wonderful doc yesterday, who is so patient and understanding and reassuring with me.  no, i'm not f ' ed up.  yes, i have a brain disease.  no, i'm not going crazy.  yes, it feels like it.  when you're in the fog, you only see the fog.  you don't realize there's a bright sun and beautiful blue sky out there.  you try to take people on faith, that everything will work out...but when everything around you is clouded and skewed, you begin to doubt yourself...your sanity...and the fear becomes all-consuming.

if i could only describe that fear for you...

i prayed for my doctor all day yesterday before my appointment, asking God to give him wisdom and the right words to say.  we have changed my medication, effective immediately.  i had been on lexapro since 2002.  doc said maybe it was time to shake things up a bit, just in case the lexapro had pooped out.  i agreed. (if you could all throw up a little prayer for me and my new drug regimen, i would appreciate it.)

the fear that comes with this disease causes me to doubt my worthiness of god's love and mercy.  in times like these, i find that, like the tax collector in Luke 18:13, i am unable to look to heaven, but instead continually pray, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

and i cry in comforted thanksgiving at this piece from brennan manning that i posted a few months ago...

why i love peggy

god is so ridiculously amazing...

peggy doesn't realize this, but her calls to me always come at the right time, which, as it turns out, is actually all about HIS timing.

i was just sharing with her that i may have to change my meds...that things have been "off" for three weeks. her response:

"okay, this is fixable. we can fix this. no problem."

and i told her i love her for that.

'cause i do.

holden beach 2010

this never gets old

ian playing ball yesterday.

is there anything better than watching your child enjoy himself so completely?

"home is not where you live, but where they understand you." - christian morganstern

i love these people.

they are indeed my home away from home.

happy national doughnut day, y'all!

i don't know...

maybe hope isn't such a good thing after all.

the best thing about spring

(thanks, danielle, for the photos!)

may is national mental health month

the following is a great clip from the documentary "no kidding, me too", with dr. chris stewart describing the ridiculous relationship between insurance companies and those seeking to help individuals with brain disease.

too much fun

8th grade dance last night. 

rockin' music + beautiful kids + wonderful friends = a ridiculously fantastic time

an open letter to joe pantoliano

dear joey,

thank you for your documentary. 

love,
jodi

p.s.  wanna grab a coffee sometime and chat?

in his father's footsteps

"We can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek - as we do - nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness."  - Robert F. Kennedy, 1966

robert kennedy fought for the poor and disenfranchised, the dispossessed and powerless.  his son, robert f. kennedy, jr. continues the fight.  the younger kennedy's words near the end of the speech below (at the premiere of the "no kidding, me too!" documentary) are eerily reminscent of his father's:

"america is a place where we're supposed to build communities. we’re not going to be judged so much based upon the wealth of our citizens or the size of our armies or the throw-weight of our weapons or the power of our industries, but how we care for the least fortunate members in our society, how strongly and robustly we fight to include all the members of our community, no matter what their disability, and how strongly we avoid the seduction of the notion that we can advance ourselves as a people by leaving our poor brothers and sisters behind. we have to go forward as a community and we have to include the people who are the most vulnerable, the most alienated, in the most pain and agony. our response to that in the past has just been to add on cruelty. and joey’s [pantoliano] up there saying we can’t live that way anymore. that it’s bad not only for the people who suffer this disease but it’s bad for all of us to live in a society that condones that."

how beautifully put.



(mr. kennedy's reference to "joey" is joe pantoliano, mental health advocate and founder of "no kiddding, me too." also, mr. kennedy suffers from the neurological disorder spasmodic dysphonia, which makes speech difficult.)

dum ego anhelo, spero (latin proverb)

no kidding, me too

love, love, love this new public service announcement from joe pantoliano's organization, "no kidding, me too!".  hopefully, joey's documentary on mental illness will air in may on pbs.  until then, click here to watch some terrific video excerpts from the documentary and from NKM2 events. 

they make every day happy!

my kids threw me a surprise birthday party on april 1.  you can see why i'm the luckiest girl in the world.

me and my shadow

meet the wonderfully adorable molly.  not technically one of "my kids", i claim her anyways.  she is sweet and hard-working and has the most sincere desire to do the right thing.  i hope kate and ian grow up to be just like her. 

molly stands just under five feet tall ~ she laughs all the time about her feet not touching the floor when she sits in the student desks.  (honestly, they dangle!) when i first saw molly's elmo and cookie monster shirts, i asked her if she would mind if i bought matching ones.  she was totally up for it.  so now, we periodically sync our wardrobes and are twins for the day. 

molly typifies why i love my job.  there are soooo many terrific kids out there flying under the radar!  they are indeed a daily blessing.

the birth of bleeding hearts

"give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where i can walk undisturbed.” - walt whitman

photo no. 382

kate's favorite thing in life is taking pictures of herself.  you have no idea how many hundreds of digital shots i have deleted that look exactly like the one below.

my students at school are the same way.  (what amazes me is just how talented these kids are at holding the camera at arm's length and actually snapping a photo with their face in the frame.)

my ornery daughter has been chastised repeatedly for taking so many photos of herself, but lo and behold, she keeps inventing new facial expressions that need to be pixelated.  oh, and here's the kicker with kate ~ if i told her tomorrow that we were going to have portraits taken, she'd throw the biggest fit.  "mom! (whiny voice). do i have to?!  (more whining)."  i can't win. 

but on the flip side, she is pretty darn cute.

in response to a dream

last friday night, i had an incredibly vivid dream about fr. mychal judge:  i was in new york city, visiting a pub that father judge frequented.  i remember seeing nuns sitting in booths at the pub.  then, i found myself walking down a crowded city block to fr. judge's home.  many other visitors were there, looking at his personal items, reading, talking, and hugging.  i started sobbing.  and then i was awake.

i have absolutely no idea why i was dreaming about fr. judge.  many of you know how much i admire his compassion, especially towards those he saw as disenfranchised.  (by the way, if you have not seen the documentary on judge's life, "saint of 9/11", please feel free to borrow it from me.)  at any rate, when i woke up saturday morning, i felt compelled to google fr. judge's church, st. francis of assisi in manhattan.  while researching their programs, i found the breadline for the poor, a ministry of the franciscan friars there since 1929. 

i'm not sure if this was the reason for my dream, but...in the right-hand column of my blog, i have posted a photo of st. francis of assisi church with a link to the breadline, if you are interested in making a donation. for more information, please click on any of the links i've provided. 

more one-hit wonders

according to feedjit, people from various places around the world have arrived at my blog by typing the following into search engines:

• bathroom swinger (Mexico)
• snow and fun swinger (Sweden)
• swingers daddy blogspot video (Poland)
• my parents took me to a swingers party (United Kingdom)
• 100 ways you know you’re a swinger (Connecticut)

okay.  so swinging is pretty popular, i'm guessing.  one of my darling co-workers, who shall remain nameless, didn't know what a "swinger" was...or what couples who "swing" actually do.  we explained it to her at lunch.

oh.

of course, "swinger of birches" comes from robert frost's beautiful poem birches.  which i love.  little did robert or i realize that utilizing the term "swinger" in writing would elict illicit searches.  (elicit illicit...impressive, eh? hee, hee, hee.)

here are a few more hits that i thought were rather interesting:

• team name panties (Arizona)
• how to judge corn (South Dakota)
• football player bathroom (Thailand)

not sure what the individual from arizona is searching for or how my blog could be of any assistance with that one. 

jules, i thought you and the folks down at the extension office would appreciate the hit from south dakota.

and phyllis, that my parents took me to a swingers party has a children's services referral written all over it, wouldn't you say?  :)

abby

yesterday, dan and laura sweetly invited us to abby's first birthday party. abby's my girl. there. i said it. she's mine. i will only share her with her parents. that's it. the rest of y'all are just out of luck.

dan and laura are wondefully kind and generous and fun. i'm so honored they asked us to share in abby's special day.

look at her. she's just so ridiculously adorable...

big rog's birthday

nothin' says lovin' like the cincinnati reds, baby.

muy delicioso

a big thank-you to my sister jill for emailing me this clip. taye diggs, john krasinski, and patrick dempsey...oh my. next time, jimmy needs to have chairs available for hugh jackman and george clooney.

enjoy.

why i love joey

"i wanna love people"

i just wrapped up a six-week unit in my reading class on the civil rights movement.  my students analyzed primary sources and informational texts, and then completed an in-depth analysis of martin luther king, jr.'s "i have a dream" speech. my dear coworker, suzanne, and i have been amazed at the children's responses to our discussions on discrimination and brutality, segregation and justice, nonviolence and perseverence.  we kept having those teaching moments where we looked at each other, our eyes wide, thinking, "oh my gosh. they get it.  they MORE than get it."

i concluded our unit with this video (which many of you probably saw last year when the event occurred).  in it, john lewis, now a congressman from georgia and a former leader of the sncc, has an emotional reunion with elwin wilson, a former kkk member. the discussion it gave birth to in our classroom was beautiful.  i hope you find the video beautiful as well.

there's one in every family

you know what i mean...the wild one.  the spontaneous one.  the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-throw-caution-to-the-wind-and-go-nuts one.  this is my aunt kim, my dad's youngest sister.  she is crazy ~ in a good way. how in the world she and my father came from the same parents is a complete mystery.  my dad is uptight in a very structured, OCD, and worrisome way.  kim is none of those things.  absolutely none of them. julie, jill, and i inherited our infectious giggling from her.  the same giggling that sends my father into a tizzy.  kim also took julie and me to our first college party at OU.  of course, we were eleven at the time.  and kim had to explain that the funny smell we noticed was something called "pot".  and that excessive drinking was probably the reason why there was vomit in the elevator.

so yesterday, kim and my cousin jenna came down from columbus to visit, and we went sledding because you know, it's just what we do here in southern ohio now because it snows every stinkin' day, and what the heck, there's another winter storm warning out now that's calling for 50 feet of snow and i'll be remembering y'all in july while i'm still teaching and you are enjoying your vacations at the beach...arghhh!!!!

but i digress...

i took some funny videos of kim yesterday as she was...just being kim.  for some reason, she could only sled down the hill with her legs sticking straight out in front of her.  it was the darndest thing.  you can click here to see more.



and here she is with my beautiful boy, ian.

you all should also know that kim has been a neo-natal icu nurse for 25 years at columbus children's hospital, loving babies and their families as they face disability and uncertainty and often-times, death. so perhaps, kim's personality is actually rather balanced out. perhaps it is her choice to grab life by the horns and enjoy every moment that allows her to be the voice of compassion and calm in dire circumstances. perhaps...she's not that crazy after all.

for my uncle jake

...who is more fun than a barrel of monkeys.  just ask his adoring nephews...

for my aunt vickie

fiddle - farting around

this post title refers to one of my dad's favorite expressions when we were growing up. he would tell us to quit fiddle-farting around when we were goofing off, stalling to get out of work, or simply not doing what he wanted us to do. using it now as an adult, and thinking about it...it really is a WEIRD thing to say, eh?

but alas, i am indeed fiddle-farting. i should be working on an IEP, but instead, i am posting stuff on my blog. so, here we go...

okay, these pics are just WRONG in so many ways, but they are also HILARIOUS. (and in case you can't tell, those are ian's little chicken legs poking out from underneath juj and taylor.)

here is a photo of my little miss thang (kate). and yes, the title "little miss thang" is wildly appropriate for her.

kate took these dizzying photos of ian shooting nerf basketball in our living room.

and lastly, i took this picture this morning by cranking open my bathroom window and leaning outside...

"did they turn the oxygen off in here?"

actual question posed by a student to my dear co-workers (suzanne and melinda) during a reading class last thursday. apparently, he was feeling a bit drowsy...

music picks from the past few weeks

lots of great performances at the grammy's last night. my favorite was this one by the dave matthews band. simple. not a flashy production number. no ridiculously costumed dancers. just dave. and musicians. and back-up singers. it made me happy. (i love the lyrics too.)



jules texted me when this performance by mary j. blige was taking place at the "hope for haiti" telethon. she was blown away and insisted i listen to it. i'm just now getting around to it. and yep. mary's got THE pipes.



i love, love, love jennifer hudson. her performance at the haiti telethon was exquisite.



okay, and now for some fun...here is will ferrell singing lead on lynard skynard's "freebird". with conan o'brien on the ax, ben harper, beck, and billy gibbons from zz top. this closed out conan's last episode.


Conan's 'Freebird' Farewell - These bloopers are hilarious

ian in 85 years

ian had eggs and turkey bacon tonight for dinner. i think i've mentioned this before...but the kid LOVES turkey bacon.  as in, there is NO other alternative for breakfast (or the occasional brinner).  so anyways, him begging for eggs and turkey bacon this evening reminded me of this terrifically funny video clip from "grumpier old men."  this is ian, 85 years from now...still eating his bacon, but hopefully NOT drinking his dinner.

(this video always makes me laugh out loud.  i hope it makes you giggle, too.)

one - hit wonder

i love looking at the feedjit link to see how people arrive at my blog. alot of europeans find me while looking for "swingers".  (uh. no. that's a totally different website.)

at any rate, a texan found me on saturday after googling "birching panties".

hmmm. birching panties.  birching panties.

i can't even venture a guess...

brennan manning

i read brennan manning's the ragamuffin gospel several years ago. in fact, the title of my blog was initially "just a ragamuffin", because i so deeply identify myself as such. but it wasn't until last week that it ever occurred to me to look for manning on youtube...

there are a limited number of video clips with brennan manning, but i've posted one below that spoke to me... specifically at the 2:39 mark with the following...

[jesus] lovingly comes to your seat, and says, "I have a word for you. I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty and degraded love that has darkened your past. Right now, I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship, and my word is this:  I dare you to trust that I love you just as you are, and not as you should be, because you're never gonna be as you should be."

i recognize that manning's thoughts on faith result in polarization:  people are either comforted by his words of Christ's mercy, grace, and love, or they believe that he (manning) simply "makes it too easy".  as a perfectionist who tends to beat herself up for the simplest of missteps, i find myself an enthusiastic member of the first group.

so thanks, brennan.

i choose kindness. . . i will be kind to the poor, for they are alone. kind to the rich, for they are afraid. and kind to the unkind, for such is how God has treated me. - max lucado

i was reminded this weekend, from more than one person, that no kind action ever stops with itself.

stuck

my poor nephew, ben! the little fella had the toughest time walking back up the hill today after sledding down. i think everyone had to take turns dragging him back to the top...

Ben gets stuck... from Jodi Gillen on Vimeo.

twice in one week

i took kate, ian, ben, and chloe sledding again today at my aunt vickie and uncle jake's house.  vickie and jake are such troopers for letting us invade their home for the afternoon!  the kids had a blast, of course. 

(and yes, jake, they will alway remember coming to your house as children and spending this wonderful time with you and vickie.  thank you for loving us the way that you both do.)

the science of snow days

my most recent mathematical theorem:

"the number of inches of snow is directly proportional to my desire to eat for no reason which is then multiplied to the nth degree by the fact that I am dieting and should absolutely not be eating for recreational purposes."

mathematically, it looks like this:

s = d^n

in latin, it looks like this:

"numerus of inches of snow est directus congruens ut meus votum essum pro haud causa quod est tunc multiplicatus ut nth inhonestus per quod EGO sum dieting quod should absolutely non exsisto eating pro recreational voluntas."

or simply put:

"i just want to make homemade brownie batter and eat it right out of the bowl.”

first snow day of the decade

one day back at school.  then a snow day.  arggghhhhh! 

the girls and i at work were rejoicing yesterday at being back in our classrooms.  no kidding!  we were all happy to resume a routine.  and, we all admitted, we understood the lyrics of a certain christmas carol which states, " and mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again."  our own children were driving us crazy!  sounds weird, eh?  but man, when i saw my junior high boogers yesterday, I hugged them and told them how much i missed them.  of course, they'll drive me a little bonkers eventually, but that's okay.  i just love my job so stinkin' much.

so anyways...snow day.  jill and i attempted to take the kids sledding this afternoon at vickie and jake's.  there wasn't a ton of snow, but it was still slick.  the wind chill was horrible, however!  i don't think we lasted thirty minutes.  of course the kids didn't mind the cold temperatures at all.

below is a video of my nephew ben (who looks like a masked auburn bandit) tangled up in the ropes of his sled while his giggly mother attempts to free him.  if you would like to see more snow-day/sledding videos, click here.

stay warm, y'all.


Ben and Jill from Jodi Gillen on Vimeo.

starting the new year with a smile

okay, i'm sure that many of you have seen these before, but while browsing the web yesterday, i came across these very well-intentioned gospel album covers...and proceeded to chuckle out loud. the album designers/promoters certainly had a penchant for utilizing individuals with disabilities. which i'm sure, was meant to be inspiring. but gee whiz. blind women? folks missing hands? little people? hmmm...

oh, and i have no idea if "joyce" is a gospel singer. her album cover just "spoke" to me, so i included it anyways. you go, joyce.

(p.s., no matter how many times i've played with the html, i can't get this crazy slide show to center on the page.  perhaps god is punishing me for my sarcasm!!!)