a birth story that made me laugh

My baby, Emry at 3 days old, October 2010

I love birth stories, birth junkie that I am, but it's not often that one makes me laugh.

You should read this (by one of my sister's friends). Even if you're not a birth junkie, it's great.

beginner's mind

Shadow, Japanese maple, June 2012

Oh, hello.

I've missed you.

More on that later.

I've posted before about YogaToday, but I wanted to direct you to this week's free class (if you missed the free week for this class, you can buy any YogaToday class for a few dollars - you download it and it's yours to do whenever and however many times you want).

If you're a yoga novice, haven't practiced in a while, or are just in need of a centering/grounding activity, I recommend spending 50 minutes virtually transported to Sedona, Arizona. A lot of the classes on YogaToday are fairly strenuous and not appropriate for beginners, but this is a good class for beginners or experienced yoginis looking for a low-key class, say if you're under the weather or having a low-energy evening.

Or someone who feels in need of experiencing beginner's mind for a while.

That would be me, today. Maybe every day.

a book a month

Journal, March 2012

I don't make a lot of New Year's Resolutions. I like to look back, set intentions for the future, create possibilities. But I don't "resolve" to do many things for an entire year. This year, however, I resolved to read more. Specifically, these awesome things called books. Even more specifically, these even more awesome things called novels.

They say You are what you eat. For writers, they say You are what you read. I read a lot online, and while it's fun and interesting, and it can make me feel connected and keep me up-to-date on news both small and large, it's not Reading. Reading like falling into a new world. Being transported. Sinking into someone else's luxury or poverty so completely that, for moments, you forget your own everyday reality.

Yet reading for pleasure, reading to feed myself as a person and as a writer, is often crowded off my to-do list by other items, either more urgent or more in-the-moment. So this year I set myself the quite enjoyable resolution to read a book a month.

In January, I read The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin. In February, I read Save Me The Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald. My interest in Zelda Fitzgerald was sparked by watching Midnight in Paris, the Woody Allen movie. (If I ever had a daughter, I might name her Zelda. Of course, Zelda Fitzgerald had schizophrenia and died in a fire in a mental hospital at age 48. But I do still love the name.) This month, I read The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, a wonderful Gothic mystery, a literary page-turner totally worth a spot on your bedside table.

It feels so good to read novels again! Any suggestions for April?

it's not spring until there's ranunculus

Awkward name, favorite flower.

early valentine's daffodils

I just realized it is already mid-February. How did that happen?

I keep writing a post in my head about Elan's 1-month post-tonsillectomy update.

But somehow, writing it in my head doesn't mean you get to read it. Funny how that goes.

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that Elan loves Instagram. He loves playing around with the filters and choosing one his very own self. Like this:

I love my new iPhone. It's my first smartphone (after years of using hand-me-down cell phones from Mikhail and even my parents).

While driving Elan to preschool, I asked Siri what the weather would be today. When she responded, Elan exclaimed, "Mama, your phone is smart!" Perhaps that's the origin of the term smartphone: a 5-year-old.

It's pretty. It's white. It takes great photos and video. It talks. Now if only it could fold the laundry.

"Siri, fold the laundry!"

I've tried it. It doesn't work.

completion

Driftwood burl, Washington, August 2011

My friend Andrea posted a cool free downloadable worksheet that's about completing 2011 and looking forward to 2012. I think it will be a perfect way to ease into what Mikhail and I have done around new year's these last few years: picking our word (or two, or three) for the year to come.

Looking back and looking forward, that's so much what this last week of the year is for me.

on a cold and foggy morning...

Someone came and frosted the spiderwebs.

Or should I say they dewed the spiderwebs.

Except it doesn't sound as good.

Now these someones, the ones who go around frosting or dewing the spiderwebs, whichever you want to call it, depending on whether you're in a literary or literal type of mood...

Are they the same someones who put flyers on my car windshield in the middle of the night?

I don't think so. Two separate job descriptions, those.

On another note, today would have been my Popa Al's 102nd birthday.

In honor of my Popa, who was always kind, I suggest doing something kind today.

Plus, it's the holidays, and people seem to be getting just a tad bit frazzled out there.

Kindness is in order.

I suppose it always is.

Back to the spiderwebs, and the maple tree, their webby home.

When we lived in Berkeley years ago, in life B.C. (Before Children), I would walk the idyllic streets of our neighborhood and think If I ever buy a house in Berkeley, I would want it to have a Japanese maple tree.

Amazingly, when we found our little condo, it came with the most beautiful 40-year-old Japanese maple tree in the patio. We have a tiny bit of outdoor space, and this tree dominates it, which is just fine with me. It is visible from every room of the house except one, and that's just great with me. I love it at every time of year, but right now, the tree is in its full glory.

The leaves at the top, where it gets more sun, are so red it hurts my eyes.

Lower down, the leaves are yellow, and at the back, against our neighbor's house, still green. I don't have a picture to show what I mean, but I love the variation in it. The red of the tree contrasts beautifully with the green-yellow of the bamboo and dark glossy green of the camellia.

I could look at this tree all day, and in fact, I do. I catch flashes of it in the bathroom mirror as I wash my face, from my closet as I put away laundry, from the kitchen as I steam the windows up cooking pasta, from the living room as I play tickle monster with the kids on the floor.

And so this morning, when I saw the decorated spiderwebs, I grabbed my camera, stepped away from the hustle-bustle of getting ready for preschool, walked onto the wet deck in my slippers, breathed in the fog-muffled quiet. I got lost in the branches and those red, red leaves. For a few minutes, the kids did whatever they were doing without me.

We were late for preschool.

It was worth it.

yosemite, anytime

Rocks & stream, outside Yosemite, July 2008

It has been too long since Mikhail and I went to Yosemite. We've been discussing this a lot lately. We keep trying to find a little time to make a pilgrimage, but we haven't yet. In the meantime, I came across these time-lapse videos of Yosemite. Each one takes only a minute to watch. Watch the weather move in, or the snow melt, or the moon rise over Half Dome. A little vicarious nature enjoyment, and a little perspective, without leaving your laptop.

a new couch

We bought a new couch. It was rather an impulse purchase. Now that Mikhail has A New Job, we are celebrating the ability to make purchases again, impulse or not. We knew we needed a new couch sometime soon, though the first month of The New Job, after 18 months of semi-employment, wasn't the ideal time for non-essential purchases. But then I looked on Craigslist "to see what's out there," and found a really great leather couch and a lot of not-great leather couches, the kind with all the slouchy folds that make one think of a beached whale deteriorating in the sun. Or, in white, bear an unfortunate resemblance to a very fat, pale, naked person. So we decided to go for it and bargain for the great couch, and - presto! - it was ours.

new couch, June 2011

As for the old couch, which was maroon and faded and dirty and filled with two year's worth of disintegrating Cheerios (Mikhail joked we should bill it as a disaster preparedness item based on the number of calories that could be found under the cushions), we moved it into the patio where it sat, cushionless, stacked on top of itself and half-covered with a tarp. That night, after the children were in bed, Mikhail and I sat on the new couch, and I felt like the old couch was staring back at its old home through the big plate glass window, alone in the dark patio, the boy who loved to perch on it asleep in his bed. It made me sad.

I have so many memories that involve this old maroon couch. When Mikhail and I moved into our first apartment together, also in Berkeley but without (unfortunately) matching maroon carpet, we bought this couch very gently used on Craigslist with money given to us as an engagement gift from my Popa Al. I remember going with Mikhail and my dad to pick the couch up from the immaculate apartment of a stylish gay couple, and maneuvering its light frame down the stairs, into the U-Haul, and up the stairs to our apartment. I loved that apartment, which was on the second story, overlooking our landlord's lovely gardens, on a peaceful 1-block street overarched by trees.

When we moved to Peru and then San Diego, the maroon couch sat in a storage facility for 3 years. And then we moved back to Berkeley, and that couch became Elan's domain. He liked to sit in the short part of the "L" and watch TV while eating dry cereal with his fingers. Recently he had started making forts in the narrow space between the couch and the TV cabinet. The couch was sagging from the persistence of being jumped on. The cushions ended up daily in a big pile on the floor, and when I replaced them on the couch, I'd have to turn them strategically so that the rips on the seams and the dried juice stains and snail trails left by a long-ago toddler cold wouldn't show.

Elan's perch, the old couch

Mikhail cleaned the old couch up. I listed it on Craigslist for free and tried to talk myself out of the mixture of sadness and guilt I felt. Elan wasn't allowed to jump on the new couch, and he wasn't allowed to sit on the top of the cushions or stand on the top of the frame. I bought a few floor pillows and made him a "nest" just to the side of the couch where he could eat dry cereal while he watched his TV shows. But I felt bad about all the new rules in our tiny living room. Maybe an old dirty couch is the only kind you're supposed to have when you have young children. Never mind that I chose leather in part because it's durable, and chewing gum comes right off it. The new couch came about just as we were diving into a new transition, with Mikhail in a new job, traveling for work more frequently than we were used to, and a new babysitter watching the kids a few times a week to give me time to work and a little time for sanity. The old couch seemed to represent our old life, messy and never with enough money, but cozy, familiar, together. The new couch looked more grown-up than most of our furniture. It looked like a couch that belonged to someone else's life, a life I liked the look of but certainly did not feel comfortable in.

Emry at 8 months, June 2011

It's scary to make changes. And sometimes it's inside the little things that we discover the big emotions. I went to my writing class, and I wrote about the couch. When I read it out loud, I teared up, the first and (so far) only time I've teared up in this class. OVER A COUCH, I said. "It's all about the couch," my writing teacher said. "The couch is everything; your whole life's in there."

Sometimes I wish I didn't get so attached - to things, to people, to moments, to stages in life. How much easier my life would be, not to mention how much less cluttered my house would be, if I weren't so Goddamn nostalgic! If I could just be one of those people who threw stuff out, routinely and without suffering a train of thought that goes the baby is getting so big, I'm probably never going to have another one this little again, life is short and moves too fast, am I appreciating it enough? Ay yay yay.

But then a very nice young woman called me. Did we still have the couch? she asked. She had a new apartment, and the only furniture in it was a bed, and she liked the pictures of the old maroon couch. She was the fourth person to call; there were others before her in line, but I liked the sound of her voice. I told her it was hers. She came that afternoon with her father and her nephew. She and her father, weighing less than 200 pounds combined, carried the couch out of the yard and down the long driveway and loaded it into their big truck. I followed them, Emry on my back in the Ergo, my arms full of cushions. The next day she texted me: The couch looks great. Thank you so much!!! I felt better; I was able to let go. The couch was in its new home, where it would be jumped on less and appreciated more. It had moved on to an easier life in its retirement.

I am getting more at home with the new couch. I like its warm caramel color and the fact that the cushions don't come off so I never have to pick them up off the floor. Our living room looks bigger, and there is more floor space for the boys to spread out and play. We will find another spot that's good for fort-making. We're all getting used to this new life, breaking it in slowly, making it our own, little by little.

a little close to home

From my absolute favorite parenting-related magazine: Brain, Child. In the last issue they asked parents to write in with the funniest tact-free things your child has said. This one had me cracking up:

"We were eating dinner one evening and the subject of hair color came up. My seven-year-old son Caleb asked, "Why do people call my hair 'strawberry blonde'?"

"Well, I said, "I think it means that people think your hair is a little blonde and a little red, like a strawberry." He thought for a moment, looked at me and my mousy, neglected, brownish-blondish hair, and said very matter-of-factly, "I think your hair looks like a decayed apple." I made a salon appointment that day.

-Kim Bartlett

Bound Brook, NJ

superhero photos

Boy plus elephant, April 2011, San Diego Zoo

I've got my new camera that I'm still learning, and a rediscovered passion for photography to go along with it. As a result, I'm bucking that second-kid trend: I take more photos of both my children now than I took of Elan was he was a baby.

Given that, I'm very excited about my friend Andrea's new Superhero Photo online class. She's an amazing photographer and an amazing person. Lots to learn from her. I'm going to take it.

(And yes, the elephant is a statue.)

this mama's little helper

A glass of wine is my secret weapon for how to keep my patience and have fun with my kids at the end of the day, when everyone's tired and hungry and my nerves tend to get a little frazzled.

Either that, or a babysitter and Zumba class...

the mother's prayer for its daughter, by tina fey

It has not been over 2 weeks since I last posted on here, has it?

Oh. It has. Oops.

I have many posts brewing - posts saved at "draft" along with the ones that have only been written in my mind. But I do find it useful to sometimes just post one thing, you know how that is, even if you don't blog, right? Just open a few bills off the top of that stack you've been avoiding. Just go to the gym once after you've been making excuses for too long. Just write one thank you card from the long list. Just get started, and sometimes momentum takes over. Then you stay up too late and write all the thank you cards, pay all the bills, and sort all the mail. But at least you feel victorious in the morning, along with tired.

So here's my just one post. Maybe you've already seen it, but maybe not, in which case you should. It's a poem by Tina Fey, which I totally got and loved, even though I don't have a daughter, which still strikes me as odd cause I always thought I would. (From Tina Fey's book Bossypants, via the blog of Melanie, my friend Kristina's sister-in-law - the Internet is a small world.)

The Mother's Prayer for Its Daughter, by Tina Fey

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered,

May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half

And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her

When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the nearby subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock N’ Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance.

Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes

And not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.

Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long,

For Childhood is short — a Tiger Flower blooming

Magenta for one day –

And Adulthood is long and Dry-Humping in Cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever,

That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers

And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister,

Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends,

For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord,

That I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 a.m., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck.

“My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental note to call me. And she will forget.

But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.

my new favorite kitchen accessory & quick peanut sauce for dinner

We just got an electric kettle, and I'm smitten.

Suddenly, I'm drinking herbal tea regularly, instead of just thinking that I should (sweetened herbal tea helps to satiate my 4 p.m. sweet/caffeine craving, without ODing on sugar or staying up all night cause I drank coffee after noon). And I no longer have that annoying situation where I turn the kettle on and by the time it's whistling its heart out on the stove, I'm upstairs elbow-deep in a poopy diaper. Or ensconced in my rocking chair, nursing the baby. Or wrangling Elan, who's throwing a fit, while trying not to wake Emry, who's napping.

This way, after the water's boiled, the kettle just turns itself off. I need more things in my life that turn themselves off automatically. Like the Internet, nightly at 9 p.m. How much sleep I would get if my Internet went off at 9 p.m. Does anyone know how to make it do that (except for special situations like working at night, or writing important blog posts about kitchen gadgets)?

The kettle produces warm water nearly instantly, much faster than running the water in the sink, and without feeling guilty cause you're wasting water (nearly-native Californian that I am). Faster than heating water in the microwave, which always just strikes me as wrong. Mikhail's been using it to help him warm a bottle for Emry in the middle of the night, as we're tapering the baby off his midnight to 3 a.m. feed. Tonight he'll get a half-ounce of breastmilk with an ounce or so of water, out of a bottle. Is it really worth waking up for that, kid, when if you sleep past 3 a.m. you get a nice full meal out of a nice warm, decently well-rested Mama?

I notice that it's past 9 p.m. and I'm getting a little punchy, a signal I should be getting ready for bed and not on my computer. Internet-auto-shutter-offer, where are you?

Anyway, I used the kettle tonight to warm water for my favorite quick peanut sauce. I don't put a lot of recipes on this site - after all, there is the whole food blogosphere out there, with beautifully styled food photos and inspiring true recipe tales. But lately I've been enjoying cooking so much more again, and besides, who doesn't need another idea for an easy dinner?

Quick Peanut Sauce - my go-to sauce to serve with fried tofu, rice or soba noodles, and stir-fried veggies.

3 T unsweetened peanut butter

2 T rice wine vinegar

1 T chopped cilantro (I never put this in, cilantro non-lover that I am)

1 plump garlic clove, minced or put through a press

2 t soy sauce or to taste

1 t brown sugar

1/2 t chile oil

salt (if needed)

Combine all the ingredients except the salt, adding 2-4 T warm water (from an electric kettle!) to make it the consistency you wish. Add additional soy sauce or salt as needed.

Recipe from Deborah Madison's excellent Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

sanity saver

Shortly after Emry was born and our various familial helpers went home, I became afraid of the amount of television Elan was likely to consume now that we had a baby in the mix. Since Elan is such an early riser and Mikhail and I are barely functional before 7 a.m., morning TV and videos have long been a survival tactic for us. When he started dropping his nap around age 3, I was determined not to resort to videos to help him have a little recharge time. I thought it would be quite reasonable for him to have quiet time in his room for an hour or so. I imagined him laying out elaborate train tracks, building block cities, and then rampaging his stuffed animals through them.

Or I guess I imagined some kid doing that.

Some kid who was not my kid.

My kid thought "quiet time" actually meant "stand in your doorway screaming for Mama" time.

It was his will against my will.

And we are some strong-willed folks.

It was not relaxing in the slightest bit.

Eventually I decided I had created a lose-lose situation and retreated away from my edict that he had to stay in his room for an official quiet time. I had friends whose kids did this, but trying to force it on my social, super-interactive guy just made us both miserable.

So I let him hang out on the couch after nursery school. We read stories, but that didn't give either of us the break from interaction that we both needed. Often I would let him watch TV and zone out for a while. But then he started saying "I wanna see what's on TV" it seemed like every time we walked in the door. I'm okay with an hour of TV a day (and, admittedly, sometimes more), but I didn't want watching TV to be an automatic part of being home.

And then I had a flash: story tapes! I went on iTunes that very day and found a treasure trove of children's stories. Frog and Toad stories are big hits, with Frog and Toad All Year as Elan's current favorite. I have been told that you can download audio stories for free online from the public library, but I haven't figured that out yet. Instead, I just insist on doing the cheap stories on iTunes. $1.95 makes for a pretty cheap thrill. Listening to the stories seems to be very soothing for Elan, and if we're traveling or I'm not in the mood to listen to Frog and Toad for the 100th time, he can listen with earphones.

It's a sanity saver, I tell you.

transformation

After Mikhail lost his job over a year ago and started working from home, he took over our home office and a corner of our bedroom became my office. It was a plain little space, my beautiful vintage table that I used as a desk perpetually piled with projects in progress.

Truthfully it was not a very inspiring place to work, but I don't usually do my creative writing at a desk anyway. I use a desk for paying bills and doing household and organization work. The work that needs more intense focus I usually do at cafes, away from the chatter of little voices. Or when the house is quiet, I often migrate onto the couch, laptop on - well - lap.

When I was pregnant and couldn't sleep, I often found myself rearranging furniture in my head. I think it was part of my obsessive need to make the baby a real entity, a tiny person who would need a changing table, storage for diapers and ridiculously small clothes. It was like if I could just figure out how to arrange the furniture to make it all work in our small house, I could guarantee that the baby I so longed for would become a reality.

But when it came to implementation, I hesitated. When was the right time to take the plunge - to buy a changing table, to wash the baby clothes, to buy the diapers, to move the contents of my desk into cabinets in the living room? And I struggled with what it meant to no longer have a desk, that symbol of working life. Would it mean that I was no longer a writer? Would it mean that motherhood would have overtaken my life completely, leaving me no opportunity for my creative life? Would it mean that I had no chance for paid work?

The funny thing is that it totally works for me to have my office downstairs. Most of my papers are contained behind cabinet doors, there when I need them but not where I have to look at them. My laptop is perpetually within reach and regularly carted up and down the stairs. I've pulled out a pewter bowl that was a wedding gift to hold my stack of unopened mail, which before would just stack up on the counter. Ironically, I'm generally better organized than when I had my own desk, and I've done more paid work since Emry was born than I had in the previous four years. Of course someday, I'd like to have a desk again. Mostly because that would mean that my gorgeous & super-smart husband had a full-time job again.

In the meantime, I love how the nook in my bedroom has been transformed. It's cozy and bright and warm. Perfect for cuddling up in the rocking chair and having a nice snack of milk. It's the baby's space, and it's magical to me.

Art by Kelly Rae Roberts,

mobile with removable cloth insects/finger puppets by Furnis Spielwelt

we californians are so spoiled

All the leaves fell off the trees, and then they started budding again. A few days later. That's how we do early spring winter in this part of the world.

We had a string of 70+ degree days. I don't remember how many. Enough to lose count.

Enough to coax the daffodils out of the ground.

And the cherry trees to bloom.

This is as close as we get to snow around here.

I walked the streets of my neighborhood one late afternoon with my camera.

My new camera, which I love so very much.

But don't worry, it's not that perfect here - today the weather remembered that it is still winter. The wind blew; the rain fell; the temperature dropped to at least 50 degrees.

Happy Valentine's Day!

drooling...

Baby's first fever collides with massive work project.

After many hours of holding and soothing, and many more hours of typing and staring at my computer screen, I simply must show you a few little things. If money grew on trees, I'd get these for my poor feverish baby. They wouldn't make him feel better (only infant tylenol does that), but they sure would look cute.

Organic owls by Dwell. I'm such a fan of the one-piece playsuit.

New Zealand lambswool booties by KINA, in Spice - I saw these on a baby in yoga class & loved them. So super soft!

Rainbow Padraig booties. Knitted outside, sheepskin inside. My friend Kristina likes them in the cool, neutral colors.

Soft Star Suede Roos are what I have from when Elan was little. I need to dig them out from some storage box or another. (psst - their big annual sale is coming up soon)

And if I lived somewhere very cold (and money grew on trees), a Soft Star North Star boot might be in order.

Is it just me, or does baby stuff keep getting cuter?

this is why i don't read

Because I get hooked, lose all self-control, and - boom! - just like that! - the precious morning Elan-in-preschool hours are gone, and I've got nothing done.

Nothing except lose myself completely in a love story. It's nice to see a woman who, after 4 children, still has the hots for her husband so much that she posts a picture of his Wrangler-clad assets in the sidebar of her website.

I have the hots for my husband, too. But I'll hold off on the picture, at least for now.

In the middle of the night, as our children were tag-teaming us in the wake-up department, I had an idea to turn this woman's story into a screenplay. But then my writing partner informed me that Sony & Reese Witherspoon had already beat me to it. Aw, shucks. I was *this* close.

welcome 2011!

It's raining in San Diego, but it's still the beach, and it's beautiful. Tonight Elan & I had a little steam in the jacuzzi at 5:30 p.m. which he thought was quite novel because it was dark. The pool and jacuzzi were lit up and it was so remarkably civilized to sit in the hot water and talk with my son about his day. He went to the science center with my parents and sister and nephew while Mikhail and I took Emry around on errands and *talked.* We've got some big talks going on this week as we envision what 2011 might hold for us. More on that later, when I've got my thoughts together & a faster Internet connection at my disposal.

For now, have you seen this incredible video that there's so much buzz about? It's good visual fodder for when you're feeling reflective, joyful, full-up of beauty (or want to feel that way).

Hope your first days of 2011 are lovely & full of grace.