I'm grateful for my traveling partner

I am grateful for my traveling partner.  What a blessing it is to have someone to travel through life with.  I have now been married longer than I have been single, and I am more “Us” than solitary “Me.”  Life is not easy, and marriage itself is one of life’s challenges, but I can’t imagine going through this life without my wife at my side.  Debra has endured the early years of my becoming an architect, the financial challenges, the lay-off in our first year of marriage, the many career moves, the legal battles, my vocational confusion, my intense mood swings….all the ups and downs of my becoming an adult.  Now we find ourselves traveling into the adventure at 303 Navasota.  We have journeyed through another house renovation and are about to start a new building project.  We are continuing to build two sons into men, and today we celebrate Jude’s twenty-first birthday.  We are meeting new friends and building new relationships with those who live around us.  Through it all I’m grateful to have a friend to travel with these thirty years.

Grateful for artists

I am grateful for artists.  Today Lazarus House hosted artist Glenn Gauthier, his lovely wife Stacy, and our mutual friends Ben & Emily Padula. They were in town for the annual East Austin Studio Tour —a.k.a. EAST.  We wanted to gauge Glenn’s interest in taking some of the scraps of wallpaper we uncovered as we renovated Lazarus House.  We hope he’s interested because he seems like the perfect artist to capture the history and beauty from the previous life of our home.  Whether he accepts the commission or not, it was wonderful to hang out with Glenn.  On one hand it was good to speak with another fellow human who struggles to make the world a better place.  On the other hand it was a privilege to speak with and honor one of the world’s artists.  How ugly and dull would our world be without artists.  Thank God for people like Glenn who discipline their time to produce their art.  It’s not easy.  It’s not lucrative.  But they do it anyways.  Day in and day out they cut, draw, paint, sing, weld, polish, engaging in all sorts of skills to bring their gift to the world.