Nate's working so I'm thinking (and cleaning.)

This two-bedroom apartment has been our home for 2 years and 10 months. Tonight while I'm cleaning for our birthday week celebrations I've been thinking over everything that has occurred within these stark white walls.

The first day we moved in there were soccer games all day long at the park behind us. On such a warm day we flung open the windows and peals of laughter floated on the autumn breeze and filled the cluttered living room. Tonight the lights are off at the baseball diamond and the only sounds are the dishwasher, washing machine and James Taylor singing on Pandora.

I love this little place. Unlike our first apartment it has truly been home. In one of my favorite books from growing up: "Anne's House of Dreams" (Of the Anne of Green Gables series) there is a quote that has stuck with me since I was 10 years old. "I heard an old minister say that a house was not a real home until it had been consecrated by a birth, a wedding and a death." In the almost three years we have lived in this home we have enjoyed wonderful babies of friends crawling and toddling around our living room (not to mention our adorable niece.) We have witnessed good friends go from dating to engaged to married. This apartment has soaked up the sweet laughter of friends over many a table of food, savoring the conversation. It also has silently listened to our tears and observed death occurring within its walls, twice. Two expectant summers have come and gone in this apartment and tonight it is still just the two of us who rest our heads here.

Tomorrow I turn 26 years old and on Sunday, Nate will follow. We are now officially in our "late twenties." By this time in my life, I expected to be a mother, but God obviously has different plans for the timing of such a gift. I could easily fall into self-pity over yet another summer coming and going without a baby to see and hold, but when I look around out living room I am so overwhelmed with joy there is barely any room for sadness.

I see our "new to us" dining table that every other Monday anywhere from 4-12 of our friends come in that front door laden with food and drink to spend time around. I am sitting on a couch that has welcomed several people as overnight guests. Our cork collection is overflowing its glass bowl and with each cork there has to be a story of the night that wine was consumed. I see the flickering remains of the sunset to the west and I thank God for allowing us to live in such a wonderful location. Beautiful flowers from my mum's garden adorn the coffee table and I am astonished yet again that Mum and Dad live just a ferry ride away.

Some days I hate these walls for being stark white, but I just need to stop and remember how marvelous white can be. They have been a bare canvas for a very full, challenging and glorious few years in this home.

Maybe I should blog more.

Sometimes when I am in "a mood" as I say, Nate doesn't exactly know what to do with me. I blaze through the apartment a ball of nervous energy unable to express precisely what is going on inside my head. After such a night earlier this week I tried to blame the grey skies, a difficult day at work and even the fact that we are not having a baby next month like we expected. Nice try, but that doesn't cut it. None of those excuse the lack of self-control I exhibited. Proverbs 25:24 says "It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife." I fear my poor husband was looking out at the balcony, considering whether he could make his bed out there for the night. By allowing my emotions to take control over my actions and my words I basically spit in Nate's face. I didn't stop to consider how sharp my words and actions were.

Self-control is not one of my strong traits, in fact I may conjecture that lack of self-control is one of my most prominent attributes. As a child, teenager and even young adult I would say what I thought when I thought it and often very loudly. I was never patient to wait for anything. When I was eleven I couldn't wait to be a teenager like my siblings, once I was a teenager I couldn't wait to be an adult and "independent." Once Nate and I started dating I was counting down the days to be his wife and now that we are eager to become parents I get extremely frustrated that I once again have to wait. My heart selfishly demands instant gratification.

Not to downplay the difficulty of this season of life, but these situations are no excuse to allow myself to go "bat-shit insane" as my wonderfully tactful husband puts it. Talking with my more mellow sister (ok, maybe not more mellow in general, we do share the same genes you know, but at least she was calmer and wiser than I on Monday.) I realized that I should be and can be thankful for all the wonderful blessings I have. I have a job that allows us to pay down bills and save money, we have a cute little apartment in the best neighborhood in Seattle (in my humble opinion), and I truly have the most patient and loving man as my husband.

One of the attributes I know I need to prayerfully consider and strive for is this foreign concept of self-control, patience or whatever you may choose to call it. We may not be having a child next week or even for another year or so for that matter, my job may be draining and the sun may never shine again in Seattle, but Jesus is in control. As a wife my prayer is to never again make my husband wish for a comfortable bed on the roof.

"For this very reason, (v.3 "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness") make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control and steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection, and brother affection with love." 2 Peter 1:5-7

My Father: "Dad-oo"

Now I seriously do not know how we came to call my father by the monicker "Dad-oo" but somehow when we were teenagers it stuck and has been a term of endearment since.

The end of June is a busy time for my dad, Mr. J.E. Jolley Jr.. He has his birthday on the 17th, Father's Day somewhere around that week, and then he married my mum on June 23rd, 36 years ago!

I just wanted to say that my Dad is a quirky fellow, but I love him very much! His conspiracy theories never cease to amaze and the depth of his theological knowledge is something to learn from. We weren't that, erm, compatible, when I was a child (I think it was the stubborn/rebellious streak on my part) but now as a grown woman I can truly appreciate the depth of his love, the scope of his wisdom and his faithful heart for following Jesus.

My favorite memory is the bedtime stories he told. No tales of trolls, goblins and fairy princesses for us, my dad would lull us to sleep by explaining in great detail how tools and large machinery worked, or how an electrical system was installed in a house. I can still remember drifting off to sleep hearing "and then the studs are raised up and nailed together which make the walls of the house..."

Anyways, Happy Father's Day Dad-oo! Thanks for being my father and with your life and faith, pointing all three of us children to our Heavenly Father.

I love you!

Profiling...Coffee Shop Style

Maybe someday soon I will learn the discipline needed to post more than once every few months. But for now dear, few readers that there are, you can be content with my random coffee shop musings from the past month.

Being employed solely as a domestic engineer (aka housewife) over the past 9 weeks, I have had a lot of time to sit in coffee shops reading and writing and people watching. It has been a wonderful perk of an otherwise somewhat lonely few weeks.

When I install myself in a corner of any given shop with my black coffee steaming quietly in front of me it is guaranteed that at the very least four separate and distinct types of coffee-shop regulars will appear in front of me.

#1 - The Baby-Mama

This woman is almost always in her mid 20's to mid 30's with her young infant strapped to her body as some form of human accessory. Meeting other women with or without children her double-tall, decaf, nonfat latte resides in a to-go cup ready at any instant to bolt for the door if the child makes any sign of distress, but nearly every time the infant behaves itself until the coffee grows cold over long conversations about household designs or who else is joining the mommy-club. When leaving, quick hugs and promises to call one-another and baby-mama strolls out the door, her adult interaction complete for the day.

#2 - The VERY Important Entrepreneurial Businessman

This fellow in his designer jeans and button-front shirt is plugged into his laptop and iPhone with books titled "The Fast-Forward Way of Project Management" and "Getting Things Done" piled on top of his yellow legal pad. The baristas all know this fellow by name as he has adopted this shop as his temporary office and his double-short latte or tall mocha (it varies by the day) is almost always prepared before he can finish the jovial conversation across the counter. As long as I stay in any given coffee shop, this fellow stays even longer, making phone calls, emailing and otherwise ensuring his business survives until the following week.

#3 - The Retiree

Seattle PI in one hand, mug of drip coffee in the other, this wonderfully grey-haired man instills himself at a table by a window and whiles away the hours reading each and every article before him. Pausing only when a cross-word clue escapes him, his intensity towards the work before him makes me wonder why or how he gave up normal 9-5 employment. Sharp as a tack and with a wit that is a bit too arcane for the young scamps of baristas that serve him, he stays until his self-appointed task is complete, pausing on the way out to receive a "warm-up" on his coffee.

#4 - The Coffee-Breaker

Stilettos peeking out from pressed black slacks, perfectly coifed hair bouncing around her shoulders and a purse that could quite possibly contain a small child, this woman struts into the shop ordering her americano with a no-nonsense tone. It is "to-go" but after sneaking a look around her for an empty chair, she slips into it setting her purse before her and for just an instant her shoulders sink, she sighs and pulls a magazine out of the black hole of a purse. Only allowing herself 5 minutes maximum she flips through the pages, occasionally checking her cell phone for the time. In one fluid motion she scoops the magazine back into the purse, swings it onto her shoulder, grabs her coffee cup and is back to the real world.

And then there is me...laptop or book in front of me, headphones plugged into the sides of my head, voyeuristically and surreptitiously watching everyone else, profiling them. Somehow knowing that each of these people has a back-story, a life outside the coffee shop makes watching them even more interesting. Here caffeine is the drug of choice and we all are addicts in one way or another. Some like baby-mama and retiree are addicted to the human interaction, while businessman and coffee-breaker just need the feeling of coffee coursing through their veins.

That's my story and I'm sticking too it.

Happy Cotton Day! (or 2nd Anniversary)

Two years ago right now I was slipping into my wedding dress anxiously waiting for the moment I could walk down the aisle at MH Wedgwood and finally become the wife of my best friend. I sometimes wake up and think that this just happened last week, but then I look at all of the pictures filling our apartment as well as the wonderful man next to me and know that 24 months have indeed passed by.

Jesus has been so good to us even through some of the rough times we've encountered and we trust that His grace will continue to cover us through the next 58 years (we're going for 60 anniversaries at least!)

"Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is as strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. It's flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord."
(S.O.S. 8:6)

Sunset in Ballard

"Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts."
Romans 5:2-5

Washed in the rosy glow of the winter's sunset Ballard rooftops silently watch the city end its work day. I watch the rooftops and the playground filled with latch-key kids racing about in the quickly waning light. Once again I am amazed, and slightly befuddled as to the grace of God in our life. Our simple life here in Ballard, overlooking the playground and suburbia in the heart of the city, is more than I could have ever hoped for in my wild days. Three years ago I shudder to think of the place I put myself into. Now day after day, through the last 2 1/2 years God has softened my heart, lifted me from the "depths of despair" I so willingly sank myself into time and time again, reached out his eternal grace and brought me a wonderful husband who loves me, shepherds me, and leads our little family with a Christ-centered heart.

The sun is rapidly disappearing and the deep blue of winter night comes early. Street lamps are illuminating one at a time. Our apartment is still dark as I wait for my love to come home. Today has been one of those days where like the streetlamps I fight to keep the darkness at bay. Memories wash over me with never-ending images and names and I cling to the grace made abundantly clear in my life.

Orange glow of lamps against the indigo sky. I love this city. I love our life!

This is what our late nights are like...

"...so then the angel by the periscope radios in to Central Command and Jesus gives the order..."
"Wait- Jesus is omnipresent, so wouldn't he know what was being seen by the periscope...whoop whoop whoop theological alarm whoop whoop"
"Your theological u-boat has just fired a torpedo into my imagination and now it is lying in three pieces on the bottom of the English Channel"

Nostalgic Night

Even though I miss Nate terribly while he is away from home (he is working at the Mars Hill Men's Advance this weekend) there is something marvelous about having the entire apartment to myself and whilst flipping channels coming across Barbra Streisand in her most fantastic role ever.....

HELLO DOLLY!

I do believe that this is the 15th or 16th time I have enjoyed this jewel of American cinema, and since Nate is gone I am able to dance around the living room to my hearts content without getting those looks that he gives me: Half "I love you so much." Half "wow my wife is a loon." Half "I hope she won't make me dance with her."

So I suppose the apartment is lonely, but Walter Matthau, Barbra Streisand and I are enjoying a lovely evening together!

N: April Snow?

If April showers mean May flowers, what the heck does this mean?

Lame Duck and Greenlake

Seattle is a society of groundhogs. Seattlites hide away in their homes, coffee shops and bars during the winter only to emerge blinking into the sun come April. Sunlight is an optional luxury here, yet amidst the love of rain, wind and Northface gear there emerges a desperate need after 5 months of dreary weather to lace up some running shoes, drink a cup of coffee and spend an afternoon on the 2.8 mile pathway around Greenlake.


Nate and I gave in to such an urge this morning and decided to grab some coffee and scones then stroll around the lake drinking in the sun, the flowers, the crazy people and the ducks! Since walking and eating is a challenge for some of us, (mainly me) We decided to sit on a bench and watch the world go by...and then from the reeds along the side of the lake Wobbles appeared!

Wobbles' wife swam with him to the shore and nudged him up onto the path (one could almost hear her whisper "those two with the coffee look gullible...pull the invalid card") and returned to the water. Wobbles took a great long look at the daunting path filled with strollers and feet and began his journey...on one leg! He limped slowly towards our bench quacking quietly to himself. Once safely across the concrete he nibbled plaintively at a small dandelion and sat at our feet. Occasionally he would raise himself up limp in a circle, quack at us and settle back down eying our coffee cups all the while.

Not wanting to gather all the ducks of Greenlake to our feet we refused to feed him and yet he continued to sit and quack, quack and sit until we couldn't bear it any longer. Rising from our bench, confident that we could out-run the lame duck, we continued on our way but not without a twinge of guilt leaving poor Wobbles alone along the side of the lake.

If you are ever in the neighborhood and happen to see a duck swimming constantly in circles...say hi to Wobbles and ask after his wife for us.

N: Shaving for summer

My cheeks are feeling the air for the first time since October.  I hope the air gets warmer.

Opening Shift

I absolutely love our city in the dark before the sunrise! The rain-soaked pavement that glistens under orange streetlights early in the morning. The wind swirling around trees as another car whooshes through a puddle standing in middle of the street. Silent bus-stops with just a few strangers huddled against the chill and the counters of the early morning caffeine peddlers coming to life as baristas stock the shelves and pull the shots that make this city run. Before most of the city has dragged itself out of bed and injected another dose of caffeine to begin another hustle and bustle day I get to walk about half a mile to the shop where I work.

Why? Why Not?

I finally decided to jump on the bandwagon, follow the flock, imitate the masses and begin a blog. Hopefully this will be able to document Nate's and my crazy life here at our love nest in Ballard.

And now for your enjoyment...a typical Ellis self-portrait...

Bonsoir!