It appears my car is leaking antifreeze.  We may be in the market for an new vehicle, probably a small SUV. Any ideas?

Oh, and here’s how we spent our day instead of at the wedding:

Last week, I went to a lovely bridal shower and was asked more than once, “What’s Audrey wearing to the wedding?”

My original plan– green polka dot dress, lavender headband and purse.

This is what she actually wore today:

The green dress is hiding in there somewhere. It’s cold today.

As you can guess, we didn’t quite make it. After loading up my car to go to church, an evil light flashed and my car virtually screamed STOP at me. Something’s up with the cooling system and we won’t be driving to San Juan this morning. I’m so thankful it decided to die on me in front of the house and not on the freeway. Jake had alreay left for Orthros and serves back at the altar so no chance for a carpool buddy…

May God grant James and Sarah many years! I’m sure the wedding will be beautiful.

For all of you who have recently found this blog due to my mom ramblings, this post is going to take us back to the original idea behind my spending naptime in front of a laptop. Yes, I don’t want to clean or do laundry, but I also wanted to write about some of the things I’m wrestling with but without the time it takes me to put together a full essay. So, today will be hopefully less snarky. No promises though.

One of the reasons I named the blog after Mircea Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane, is because I find myself constantly in a state of flux between the two. I would like my life to be more filled with the sacred but I also love Cheetos. And How I Met your Mother. What’s a girl to do?

The biggest way our family encounters the sacred is through specific actions (you can call them rituals) associated with the ancient practice of the Eastern Orthodox church. We light incense and candles, we listen to Byzantine chant, we bow and prostrate ourselves before icons–all of these things serve to transform what could be an everyday activity into something outside our selves. By engaging our senses in the act, it propels our entire bodies into a more sacred frame of mind. I love how these things help me get out of my own head and engage our daughter in the prayers and life of the church.

See exhibit A–incense is fun:

It’s been pretty easy to integrate these sorts of things into our life. I can’t imagine trying to explain the concept of God or church or prayer to a young child without these tangible helps provided by the Church.

But. There’s another one out there. Just for us ladies.

The head covering.

If you’re interested in the most turned to article about this in American Orthodoxy go here. If you think I’m crazy and spitting in the face of feminists everywhere, please feel free to leave a comment and I’ll post your opinion. That’s fair.

I still don’t know where I stand on this one so I’m open to both sides but the topic seems to keep coming up.

I read this article in Slate a couple of nights ago about how some Muslim women decide to put on and take off their head coverings, called hijabs. I know we’re not Muslim, but it was an interesting perspective because part of my hesitation has always been that once I start covering my head during the liturgy or prayers–it’s for good. And I’m young and impetuous.

So that’s one part of it. But on the other hand, I’m all about acknowledging that church isn’t just something to do on Sunday mornings to build business contacts and make sure our daughter learns morals. I believe we are worshiping a holy God and that we engage in something radically different than the secular world outside the church doors. If wearing a scarf over my head helps to enhance that differentiation for me (and someday my little girl) then perhaps I just need to get over myself.

Being Orthodox in America is an interesting experience. That may be about as generic of a statement as it gets, but yeah.

All is well with the world.

Today marks day 7 of the teething chronicles at our house. Audrey is working on all of her molars at once and her gums are bright red with little white tooth polka dots brewing beneath the surface. Oh how I hate teeth! She can chew just fine, who needs molars?

This latest round of teething knocks out all of the other unpleasant tooth emergent weeks, including the first one we spent at the Lodge in Colorado and thought we were dying from dehydration. My poor bunny! She is so miserable and the only good thing I can think of is that she’s learned where her teeth are. Ask Audrey, “Let me see your teeth.” and she’ll shove her finger so deep in her mouth you have to back up in fear that she’s going to gag up her last round of green onion (numbs the gums) and banana (stops the drool.)

Last night was the culmination of a week without large chunks of sleep. She started to cry during the last few minutes of our recording the latest Man in Black podcast. This was 9 pm. While our friends were circling to leave, I went upstairs and got her back to sleep. That lasted 15 minutes. I warmed up a bottle (a special treat since she’s a sippy cup girl now) and Jake took a turn. Twenty or so minutes later, he had her quiet for a minute and a half and then we decided to let her cry for a while.

Blissful quiet. For 20 minutes. This was long enough for Jake to fall asleep and me to recharge. She would cry for 5 minutes then be quiet for 5… I eventually went in and found her and the sheet soaking wet. That bottle had leaked and she was whimpering. I win the bad mom moment award.

Fresh jammies, nice blankey covering the sheets and I nurse her back to sleep. More crying when she hits the mattress. I go back to bed and think she just needs 5 minutes. I give her 15. At this point, it’s 11:30 and I’ve given up on sleeping in my bed. I’ve taken plenty of red-eye flights and the rocker is more comfortable. The only problem is, I’m willing to sleep in the chair but she’s not. Audrey wants to play on the floor and point “oooh, ooh, ooh” at the light stripes the street lamp is casting on the floor through the blinds.

I take my pillow and blanket and lay on the floor and she plays around me. Who knew she had so many toys that made noise? Eventually, she points at the bottle that now only has 1 ounce of milk and I give the rocker another go. She finishes her bottle and lets me rock her to sleep for the first time in her 14 months of life. I wait until she’s snoring, place a folded blanket in the corner of the crib and angle her head on the raised blanket and her body next to the bumper. Quiet.

I go back to bed and watch the clock hit 12:01. I fall asleep praying the Jesus prayer:

“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me a sinner.”

But by mercy, I mainly mean sleep.

I challenge you to find a better hostess gift:

Notice, the wine bottles are empty.  I didn’t feel it appropriate to show you what a well appreciated diaper looks like.

I know I’m pretty late when it comes to blogging about the celebration of the resurrection, but Holy Week wore us out. Here’s some pictures (edit: I could not get the pictobrowser to work for the life of me!) of Audrey’s involvement in the many, many hours of services. I’m not being snarky–I wouldn’t have traded a minute of watching the 30 people join the Orthodox church on Saturday or the pageantry of the Pascha service that night. But I am thankful that I won’t be wrangling a 1 year old through it again anytime soon.

The top two photos are from Holy Saturday but did you see my sleepy baby at the bottom? The jammie shot was taken around, oh, midnight and she stayed awake through the entire service and feasting that followed. 10:30 pm until 2:30 and then woke up bright and shining at 6:30 am.

The next day (or the same day if you’re a stickler for time):

She loved her Easter basket full of empty eggs and the sunny time with Mommy and Daddy at a local fountain.

Christ is Risen!

Truly He is Risen!

You might notice Sacred and the Profane looks a little different. I’d like to think our new layout looks less full of itself and will be updated more regularly. While my initial goal for this site was to talk about religion in the news my biweekly (if that) posting made it pretty clear that I wasn’t really reading the news anymore. My time has been pretty occupied with the dichotomy between sacred and profane in my own life so there wasn’t the attention span required to analyze anyone else’s.

The new format also makes it much easier to post via my blackberry. Technology snob? Washington intern? No, I’m just a busy mom and freelance writer and my laptop time is pretty focused on working or reading the adventures of Secret Agent Josephine. If you’ve received an email from me in the last few months odds are high the blackberry was the composition object. There seems to be more time foremails and hopefully blogging when I’m letting Audrey finish a nap in the car or while I’m waiting for a meeting to start.

So I hope you like the new format and hook me up with those comments I love so much.I’ll be tweaking things here and there so if there’s anything you’d like to see, please let me know!