good stuff

"i discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it, even such a limited and limiting life can open up into extraordinary vistas. taking your children to school and kissing your wife good-bye. eating lunch with a friend. trying to do a decent day's work. hearing the rain patter against the window. there is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that. all the more compellingly and hauntingly... if i were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything i was trying to say... it would be something like this: listen to your life. see it for the fathomless mystery that it is. in the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." -listening to your life, frederick buechner

i'm too dead dog tired to write anything else, so you'll just have to wait for my riveting entry about the hidden dangers of aspartame and why i'm giving it up in 2010. but i couldn't not post that quote. man, i'm not good at listening. funny thing is that it's really not that difficult of a task. i have a feeling we're staring a year for the record books in the face, so here's to listening and loving and not taking our moments for granted.

and also here's to humidifiers. please work your magic tonight by taking away my hacking cough so i can stop popping ricola cough suppresants like candy because i just saw they have aspartame in them and therefore i've already broken my resolution.