How to Pack Your Hanging Clothes

Our dear friend, Anne Jackson, moved out yesterday. She’s been staying with us for a couple of months while looking for a place to live in Nashville. While lugging one load after the other to her car, I mentioned to her that I knew of a great way to transfer hanging clothes—especially if they’re going to be packed in a car.

We all know that hauling and transporting piles of hanging clothes is a royal pain. The piles slide every which way and become one big, tangled mess to pick up and sort through. Anne’s plan was to take them all off the hangers, fold them carefully, squeeze them into Space Bags, haul them to the car, into the new house, up the stairs, free them from the bags, unfold them, place them all back on hangers and hang them in the closet. Also a royal pain.

I said, “Stop! I’ve got the solution.” “Fold them in a sheet.”

“A sheet?” she queried.

“Yes, a sheet.”

I explained to her how.

“BRILLIANT! Absolutely BRILLIANT!” she exclaimed once the bundle was secured. “How have I moved 37 times [or however many times it's been] and never discovered this? You’re a GENIUS!”

Well, I don’t know about that, but here’s how we did it. Six easy steps. Maybe it will make your next move a little easier.

How Many Books Are You Reading?

Last night, as Mike and I were going to bed, I read to him from a book I had just started. It was a book on marriage. It was debunking traditional advice given to people who desire to have a better marriage. Then this morning I read to him something I had read about Nihilism. It interested me because it applied to a problem a friend of ours was struggling with.

He said to me, “I thought you were reading the book about marriage.”

“I am,” I responded, “but I’m also reading about Nihilism.”

Then he thought for a minute. “And weren’t you just talking to me about something you read from A Wrinkle in Time?”

“Yep. I’m reading that too.”

I counted them up and admitted that I was actually reading six books at the moment.

He laughed, because he had five books of his own going at that time.

Do the Climb?—You’ve got to be kidding!

Sometimes we face enormous challenges. The climb is steep. The obstacles immense. We think we can’t continue. But that’s just when it begins to get interesting.

For example, last Sunday, I talked about Doing the WaIk. And that’s just what Mike and I have done almost every day since we’ve been in Colorado. But … I think we may have gotten a little over-confident.

We’ve loved hiking while here in the Rockies. So Tuesday we decided to do a climb. Not a climb as in rock-climbing, but a climb as in climbing up and over miles of rocks.

We had heard of two beautiful lakes on top of our mountain. The hike was only supposed to take an hour and half one way. We were up for it.

We started out on our beautiful forest trail.

We crossed over one bridge. (This is usually where our daily hikes have stopped—about 30 minutes up.) The little foot bridge would take us to places we’d never been before.

Do The Walk

(All photos for this post were taken on my iPhone.)

Let’s admit it. When it comes to doing things that you know are good for you, you can act like a little child. There are those times when you just don’t want to. Inwardly you feel like a rebellious little brat who just refuses. “You can’t make me.” “You’re not the boss of me.”

Or you’re like a whiney, pouty little kid. “I don’t feel like it.” “I can’t.” “Just leave me alone.”

Or there are those times when you are too cool and too smart to do it. “That’s okay. You go ahead.” “I’m fine.” “I’ve already tried that.”

There’s a little kid inside of each of us. Keeping us from getting what we truly want.

Invasion of the Cicadas 2011

(Pictures for this post were taken on my iPhone)

Now I’m starting to really get freaked out. It has started. The invasion of the Cicadas is here and there’s no stopping them!

For a small moment, I thought our yard would would escape the invasion. When we purchased our home six years ago, we literally stripped all the old grass and topsoil and replaced them with several inches of fresh dirt and sod. Almost all the landscaping is new. So, I naively assumed that whatever little thirteen-year-old creatures existed below the surface had been dug up and carried away. Not so.

The Bishop of London’s Address at the 2011 Royal Wedding

The wedding was glorious, understated, elegant, and honorable.

(You can access the official program HERE. All things related to the wedding, videos, photographs, etc., can all be found HERE.)

The two highlights for me were:

Pilgrimage to a Monastery

A few weeks ago, I traveled with seven women from my church to Safford, Arizona, 165 miles southeast of Phoenix. There we visited St. Paisius Serbian Orthodox Monastery (a women’s monastery).

I had never been to a monastery, and was so nervous about going.