When I was 5 years old, my grandpa built me a dollhouse. Even as a little girl, I remember being amazed at the intricate bricks that formed the two-story-high walls and the individual shingles that topped the roof. The front side had a tiny front door which, if you pulled on the tiny handle, opened on tiny hinges. A staircase with a delicate railing connected the two floors, and each of the 5 rooms was painted a different color. I arranged the house with little furniture handmade by my grandpa, and filled it with anthropomorphic animal figurines called Sylvanian Families.

It’s impossible to count how many hours I spent playing with this dollhouse. It’s one of the main icons of my childhood.

But as the years went on, I became less and less interested in make believe. As is the case with many little girls, my focus turned first to horses, and then to boys – and before I knew it, I was off to college. I always hoped that one day, I would give the dollhouse to my own kids – but until then it sat untouched, usually under a sheet in one basement or another.

In the 13 years since I graduated high school, I’ve moved 18 times. This Saturday, I will move a 19th – this time to a place with very limited storage. This has made me reevaluate just about everything I own, and it’s led to the realization that it doesn’t make sense for me to hold onto the dollhouse. I can’t keep moving it from place to place and finding a spot to keep it, only to let it gather dust – so tonight, I decided to give it to some dear friends who have daughters.

Despite my hope to give it to children of my own one day, it was time to let it go – because it’s okay if there’s a gap between the life you thought you’d be living and the life that you actually have.

And when you find the courage to release your grip on the thing you thought was so important, you might just find that the bitter is overpowered by the sweet.

I’ve been in Kansas City with my family all week. Everyone is here: parents, siblings, nephews, future brother-in-law, 3 dogs, and all of the cookies in the world. Tomorrow, I load into a Subaru Forester with Becca and Michael, Gabe and Toad, Becca’s wedding dress, their wedding decorations, and all of our Christmas loot, and drive west back across Kansas for 9 hours to Denver. Heaven help us.

This is my favorite Christmas present I received:

That, my friends, is the Gregory Sage 55. If you wake up one day and I’m gone, you’ll know it’s because I loaded it with everything I need to keep myself alive and just… walked away. Because someday, that is what I fully intend on using it for.

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And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Thank you to all who entered the Stuck giveaway! It’s an amazing study, and if you’re looking for a soul-filling challenge, Jennie Allen has good stuff. I’m excited to check out Chase and Anything, as well.

There could only be one winner, so I used my trusty pal RANDOM.ORG to pull a number. Multiple comments from the same person counted as one entry.

And the winner is:

8! Leah Van Hoozer!

Leah, I’ll send you an email to get your mailing address. Congratulations!

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Maybe I’ll write a 2012 recap before 2013 – my Google Reader tells me that recap posts are all the rage this time of year. If I don’t, though, suffice it to say that 2012 stretched me in ways I didn’t know I needed to be stretched (and, to be honest, I still don’t WANT to be stretched). I have worked really, really hard in all sorts of ways. Someone recently asked me if I was happy, and I said no.

But you know me – I’d be miserable if I was happy. SMILEY FACE.

What I do know is that I love the people in my world, and while faith does not come easily for me, I’m hanging on for dear life. I hope that 2012 has seen you hanging in there, too.

When I was in high school, a traveling magician came to perform at my church.  I can’t remember if he had some evangelical message that tied in with his magic show, or if he was simply a man trying to make a living turning tricks in front of anyone who would watch – but regardless, there he was, right between the American flag and the Christian flag, onstage at First Presbyterian in Montrose, Colorado.

At one point, he requested a volunteer to come up onstage for one of his acts.  Thinking that I might have the chance to get sawed in half, I quickly shot up my hand.  And since I was the pastor’s daughter, yes, OF COURSE I was the chosen one.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to have the chance to pick a card any card, or be the recipient of the dove that he pulled out of a top hat.  The magician presented a mousetrap, locked and loaded, and then demonstrated how its spring-rigged action could snap a pencil in half.  And then he told me to stick my fingers in it.

What.

So there I was, in front of God’s holy people, being admonished to trust a crazy traveling magic man with my extremities.  But I couldn’t back out.  So I stuck my fingers in the trap.  And with a wave of his wand or his scarf or whatever it is that he did, with a resounding thwack, the mousetrap came snapping shut.

I still have no idea how – but it didn’t touch my fingers.  I was standing there, right beside him, terrified that I was going to wind up with nubbin digits – and I still cannot explain how that mousetrap was able to clack shut without catching me.  But in any case, I screamed a scream that if you listen closely, you can still hear echoing from the year 1998.

Suffice it to say that I have been terrified of mousetraps ever since.

Fast forward to last night.  I was at the gym when I got Becca’s text saying that there was a mouse in our laundry room, and would I pick up some traps on my way home?

Sure I would.  And I’d get some black widow spray, too – because you guys, it’s the END TIMES at our house.  We are being overrun by demons.

At home in the kitchen, I carefully read the instructions and baited a mousetrap with peanut butter.  Visions of severed fingers dancing through my mind, I nervously pulled back the spring-loaded wire.  It locked into place.  I smiled, proud that I didn’t need a man or a parent or a magician to do it for me.  Holding my crowning glory of a baited trap, I walked toward the laundry room.

And right there in my hand, it SNAPPED SHUT, just grazing the side of my finger and catapulting the blob of peanut butter onto the kitchen wall.  Once again, I screamed like the end was nigh.

Judging by the current state of pests at our house, it just might be.

I still cannot believe it.

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Yesterday, my dad called the Honda “the Grey Goose.”  Then, Becca called it “Hans.”  Both of these things strike me as hilarious since the Honda never really had a name.

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Remember when the Honda was hit by the Biggest Loser tour bus?

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Remember when it was stolen three times, and recovered each time on the side of the road in some Seattle neighborhood?

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I told Joey that trading my car to the salvage yard for $300 makes me feel like Judas Iscariot.

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Overheard at my brother’s house:

“Dad, what is this called?”

“It’s called ‘clenching your butt cheeks.’”

Not related to the Honda at all, but come on.  That’s so good.

I am always making lists.  I cannot operate with out lists.  They make me feel productive and safe.

Why “safe”?  Don’t ask me these questions.  It’s how I FEEL.  I don’t need to have a REASON.  GAWL.

[When I was a teenager, "gawl" was my biggest expression of disgust.  I said it ALL THE TIME.  My siblings will still occasionally bring it up, throwing the word at me, faces all repulsed and contorted and dramatic.  Apparently, that is how they remember me at age 14.

I couldn't help it, though - it wasn't easy being SUPERIOR to EVERYONE.  In the UNIVERSE.  FOREVER.  INFINITY.  GAWL.]

Anyway, I just made a list of “actors I do not trust.”  I wrote it on a Post-It note.  It says:
Tom Cruise
Nicolas Cage
Charlie Sheen

And I felt like telling you.

Now, I feel it necessary to acknowledge that I might be wasting your time these days… but then again, you’re HERE, aren’t you?  Lurking in the shadows?  Creepily reading my thoughts?  Distractedly entertained for roughly 45 seconds every day this week?

Heeeyyy-ooooooh, it’s been awhile since I’ve gotten 5 in a row!  I should take myself out for a nice steak dinner.  Congrats, self.

I’m taking my ping-ponging thoughts elsewhere before someone loses an eye.  I’ll see you on Monday.

Don’t pretend like you won’t be back.  I love you.

One time, when I was 5, we lived next door to a girl my age.  Her grandparents gave her a Popple.  I wanted it so badly that I asserted my Alpha Girl status, and she gave it to me.

A few days later when her grandparents found out she gave it away, they sent her to our house to reclaim it.  As she was carrying it home, I ran down the hallway and, with a flying leap, tackled her to the ground.

My family brings up this story frequently.

When I was a little girl riding my bike over the adobe hills on the outskirts of Montrose, Colorado, and throwing dry ice bombs into the canal behind the house across the street, and trespassing into various fields in the name of bedlam, my Uncle Chester was busy being a ROCKET SCIENTIST at NASA.  No matter what stupidity you read here, let it be known that there is actual intelligence in the Parsons genes.

We lived thousands of miles apart, and saw each other every couple of years before he died in 1991.  I only have a few memories of him from real life, from real interaction – but one thing is for sure: Uncle Chester wore The Glasses.

You know the ones.

The ones that the scientists wore in “Apollo 13.”

The ones that Squints wore in “The Sandlot.”

And… the ones that the cool kids are apparently wearing now?

Every time I see some hipster in The Glasses, I have to chuckle, and then kind of cringe.  Because if by being related to Uncle Chester I claim that I have a fighting chance at brilliance, then I have to admit that one day, I, too, might look like Buddy Holly.

Never rule anything out.

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Mom’s surgery went really well last night – thank you for all of your well wishes and prayers.

I’ve mentioned Zach before – my crazy friend who recently moved from Seattle to Nashville, who lived on the JAM House floor for awhile, who now has his own place in East Nashville but we still like to see him, etc.  Zach is one of a kind – like a snowflake.  Or a fingerprint.  Or a tracking device in a stray dog’s neck.

Last night at church, he caught my eye across the room.  In a sea of people, his face was a little bit higher than the rest, stretching his neck to catch my attention.  It reminded me of Goldbug.

The thought of Zach as Goldbug gave me the giggles.

I couldn’t wait to tell him.  But after church when I got the chance, it turned out that Zach had never heard of Goldbug.  I went on to explain anthropomorphic animals and “Cars and Trucks and Things That Go” and the worm that drove the apple car – and Zach got excited and we high-fived.

You know that old spiritual, “Ain’t Got Time to Die”?  Right now, I’m hearing it in my head – but changing it to “Ain’t Got Time to Blog.”  Also, a choir of white people is singing it, which adds to the weirdness.

In a way – a way I cannot pinpoint aside from the subject of “counterfeit” – this reminds me of a horribly unauthentic Irish pub in Overland Park, Kansas, called Paddy O’Quigley’s.

One time, just out of curiosity, Jeremy and Ashley and I went.  It was pretty much as bad as we thought it would be – in a strip mall, fake brick walls, neon signs for Michelob Ultra.

But it was all worth it when we found out that Becca thought it was called Patio Quigley’s.

That just makes me happy to remember.

Lately, I’ve been missing this girl:

The one who smiled genuine smiles, no matter how crooked.

The one who went adventuring, even when it was scary.

The one who believed good things.

The girl who walked 10 miles at a time in the name of exploration.  The girl whose heartbreak inspired action.  The girl who wrote letters and songs and silly poems and messages in the dirt on car back-windshields.  The girl who aimed for “story” instead of “security.”

But last weekend, I found her again for a little while in Boston.

It was nice to see her again.