you know how it feels like the status quo enthusiasts are just waiting for you to fall? or maybe they have convinced you that you will fall so you have yet to start the climb? status quo enthusiasts may have the best of intentions and sincerely wish for your safety, but theirs is the voice of fear. we think you were made to climb mountains. hell, you were made to MOVE mountains! when you know this deep in your soul, it is blasphemy to follow the masses.
we have been climbing for a long time now. sometimes we fall down. we try to tell you about it when we do ’cause it sucks to feel alone in this. well, last weekend we fell big and in front of people. people who we have chosen to be in close community with. people we invite into our home and into our life even when we are tired and don’t feel peopley. people we eat meals with and sit around the fire pit with. we went looking for these people and when we found them we made them our own. we deliberately filled our lives with status quo antagonists. when we fell down they picked us back up again. with a kiss on the forehead and a whole lot of love, they sent us back up the mountain. relationships with these people didn’t just happen. they took turning off the tv, getting off the damn sofa, and inviting them into our home and life.
don’t wait for your house to be perfect.
it never will be.
don’t wait for the perfect people to come along.
they don’t exist.
don’t wait to be invited.
it just doesn’t work that way.
don’t wait till you learn to cook well.
a shared candlelit meal is more about the sharing than the meal.
don’t wait for people who think just like you.
that would be boring.
don’t wait for a saturday night.
wednesday night will do just fine.
don’t wait till you feel comfortable.
if we never do what is uncomfortable, we will never have people to pick us up when we fall.
and we are gonna fall. that’s just part of being human, but i will not listen to the voice of fear. and as much as i love bono, i will not follow, although i WILL forever sing…
it’s not a hill, it’s a mountain
as you start out the climb.
do you believe me or are you doubting?
we’re gonna make it all the way to the light…
every generation gets a chance to change the world.
pity the nation that won’t listen to your boys and girls.
’cause the sweetest melody is the one we haven’t heard.
is it true that perfect love drives out all fear?
the right to be ridiculous is something i hold dear
but a change of heart comes slow.
it’s not a hill, it’s a mountain
as you start out the climb.
listen for me, i’ll be shouting.
we’re gonna make it all the way to the light.
but i know i’ll go crazy if i don’t go crazy tonight
baby, baby, baby
i know i’m not alone.
people tell me “you make it look so easy”.
please forgive me for ever creating that illusion.
it is not so easy.
not so easy at all.
last night i dreamed that tim and i were at the beach. we were staying in a pretty beach house. we had this one day to ourselves. people were coming the next day or something. tim was psyched to go ride this dune buggy thing to some desolate part of the island with me. he couldn’t wait. i was packing a picnic for the day and getting the house ready for the people who were coming. he kept pleading with me to come. i kept pleading with him to help me so that i could come. every time he tried to get me out the door i berated him for being the reason that i could not go yet.
tim: c’mon baby, let’s just go.
me: i’d LOVE to go, don’t you think i’d LOVE to go?
tim: just come then.
me: i CAN’T just come. there is still so much to do.
tim: what else needs to be done? what can i do?
me: why do i have to be in charge? look around, you can see perfectly well. i am not your mother.
tim: let me finish making lunch and you can go do whatever else needs to be done.
me: yeah ’cause i’d much rather be cleaning the toilets. thanks.
tim: baby, the toilets are clean. the cleaning person was here yesterday. everything is clean.
me: EVERYTHING IS NOT CLEAN! how can you even SAY THAT?
tim: baby, it’s 3:00 in the afternoon.
me: i know. i really can’t believe you let this whole day get away. we could be on the beach right now.
then i woke up. i remember the words because they echo real conversations from not so very long ago. i recognize how ugly dream me is. i didn’t used to. i would defend her to the death. tim’s death. but sometimes, i am still this person. i don’t want to be, but i am. tim told me so last night. in real life. with real friends. who were our therapists and loved us through some difficult stuff. we are ridiculously grateful for their love, compassion, patience, wisdom, questions, guidance, and help. choosing to live in community with people who love each other this way is one of the smartest things we have ever done.
a few days ago i wrote that we almost never argue about things like dishes. ever feel your own words come back and bite you? last night we argued about counter tops. same difference. of course we were not really arguing about counter tops. we were really arguing about my perfectionism. i thought i had it under control. i was wrong. i thought i recognized it for the darkness that it is and had mastered keeping it from hurting the ones i love. i was wrong. it’s still hurting the ones i love. my perfectionism makes tim feel not good enough. ever.
so i’m reading these words again.
and these words.
and i’m singing this song again.
and this song.
while everyone was still asleep this morning, i made breakfast. cooking is therapy for me and food is love in our family. so i made the coffee and started the bacon. while i cookloved, i prayed pathetic prayers. self righteous “please show tim the error of his ways” prayers. i so wanted it to be his fault. it was not so easy for tim to tell me these things. it was not so easy for me to hear them. it was not so easy for our friends to spend a friday night counseling us. it was not so easy for me to see my ugliness. but i remembered my dream and these words came to me, so i stopped to write them down. they felt important. then i made french toast and prayed more. praying and thinking to myself are sorta the same thing to me. my internal dialogue gets directed to what i call “God”. maybe you think that’s crazy. maybe that is crazy. whatever.
so as the french toast made the house smell heavenly (see what i did there?)
i praythought more.
this time it was all gratitude…
thank you for tim who knows me and loves me anyway.
thank you for cole and camden who are perfect in their imperfection.
thank you for real friends who sit with us in our darkness and hope with us for the light.
thank you for my mom and dad and sisters who know what it means to be a gromko girl.
thank you for people who no matter what, love regardless.
amen.
dear people who believe we were meant to live for so much more,
ohmygoodness, it’s that time of year again. when we won the BOB AWARD last year thanks entirely to YOU nobody was more surprised than me. i am the least designerly designer that ever there was. i don’t even know how to play that game so i don’t even try. i am not welcome in the very exclusive designer club. i do not speak the language. i prove that it doesn’t have to cost a lot to live beautifully. that doesn’t go over so well. but that’s the way, uh huh uh huh, i like it.
but then YOU came along and shook the fancy designer world by voting for US! makes me cry all over again. what a bunch of status quo antagonists you are. so let’s win again. not because winning is important or defines us or makes us anything that we are not already. it doesn’t. but because the more we win the more people will pay attention to the idea that you can live well and spend less. the more people will stop buying crap. the more people will have moolah to spend a weekend away with the ones that they love. let’s win again to make the world a better place, one home at a time.
the big party is at BUTTER again. you MUST come. it is SOOO much fun. and if somebody else happens to win this time, the big party is at OUR HOME. you MUST come. it will be SOOO much fun. wine and whoopie pies all over again. either way, we can’t wait to thank you again in real life. because let’s not fool anybody. YOU are the people who tell everyone and make it possible for us to do what we do. this is why we love you so. so come.
oh, here is the ballot. you have to fill in at least 12 categories for your ballot to be valid. our category is “designer, home interiors”. please vote this way, “christina britt lewis, the redesign company”. if what you do is one of the categories on the ballot, please tell us in the comments below so that we can vote for you right back. feel free to provide a link to your website. feel free to pass this on. feel free to recommend others you believe in. what goes around, comes around. share the love.
here is who we love…
health club – crossfit davidson, jane elizabeth huff is the BOB
yoga studio – kadifit, katie farmer dixon is the BOB
framer – frame warehouse in huntersville
handyman service - hands4hire, chris woodhouse is the BOB
architect – willie fruga jr. is the BOB
event planner - slick events, coral riley is the BOB
personal trainer - joanne morse is the BOB
auto repair – al’s auto in cornelius, al makes our ’00 accord and a ’04 pilot feel all shiny and new.
wedding photographer - love shutter and lunahzon and whitney gray are ALL the BOB. you decide.
boat rental – boat club of lake norman
family outing – ice skating at the pineville ice house is our favorite
budget outing – hiking crowder’s mountain and to see our pretty little city from way up high
kid friendly restaurant - the cowfish, marcus hall is the BOB and the pb&j sushi roll is total perfection.
place to go on a rainy day - 24-7 prayer room, have you been? you gotta go.
place to take the kids for an all day adventure - the whitewater center, SOOO much fun for everyone.
xoxox…
tim and christina lewis
before and after photos are hard for me to post. the photos NEVER do the room justice. it is a problem that a better camera would not fix. a better camera would not capture the happiness the family feels when they see the things that they have collected and gathered and made over the years artfully arranged. a camera would not capture the surprise the family feels when they see new life breathed into things they thought were not good enough. a camera would not capture the laughter the family shares in redesigned spaces that are now conducive to conversation, game playing, and fun.
what a camera does capture is matchy matchy furniture and windows waiting for new blinds. but none of that matters at all. that goes away in real life. in real life there is nothing but happiness. i wish i could figure out how to capture what it feels like to love coming home. until then, imagine.
my favorite old thing in the room is the art on the mantel and bookshelf. it’s quirky and fabulous, but would look too small alone. the mirror gives the grouping the scale that it needs and reflects my favorite new thing in the room, the 4 artist’s figurines. this family has four children and i love that each can pose their figurine in whatever way suits them. oh and while you are imagining, imagine the baskets in the fireplace filled with birch logs sticking up vertically. doesn’t that look great?
we moved the secretary into the family room where there is plenty of space and hung a gallery wall with family photos where it once was. a home without a gallery wall of family photos to be added to over time is no home at all, if you ask me. the art to the left of the doorway was originally on the mantel. i like the splash of color it gives here better. cubes are fun when you have lots of kids and lots of guests. great for extra seating and pulling up to the coffee table for puzzling or whatever.
are you still imagining the birch logs? good. poang chairs from ikea are fun, funky, wicked comfortable and crazy affordable.
yeah, yeah, yeah, i know the furniture all matches. they love it and it’s uber comfortable. so shut it. there are no rules. new pillows keep us from drowning in a sea of leather and the fun rug ties all of the colors in the home together. almost feels like the rug came first. and how fabulous is that coffee table? i have coffee table envy.
so many new books about marriage and family harken back to the dark ages when equality was a dirty word and hierarchical patriarchy reigned. happy couples know that patriarchies or matriarchies do not a happy marriage make. how can “two become one” if one is more powerful than the other? wouldn’t that be more like “one and a half become one”?
then there was this wall street journal article about nagging being a marriage killer. which seemed rather…ahem…obvious. but much to our horror people defended nagging as the only solution to their problem. really? nagging? would you want to be with you?
so we wonder as we wander, how did our marriage go from a miserable nagging matriarchy to fun, peaceful, sexy, and egalitarian? because if we can do it, you can do it. we make decisions together. we work together. we both feel loved and respected and taken care of by the other. we disagree about big things sometimes. big things like religion. sometimes we argue because tim moves in slow, planned, well thought out motion and i move in fast, last minute, decide as i go motion. but we almost never argue about things like dishes and laundry and sex and money and in-laws…the things that divide couples and make them feel like nagging is a solution. so why is that?
MAYBE because we have come to consider ourselves equal to each other.
we have come to believe that ALL are created in the image of God. every. single. one. of. us.
the planners and the procrastinators.
the congregation and the clergy.
the fan and the rock star.
the republicans and the democrats.
the methodists and the muslims.
the student and the teacher.
the 1% and the 99%.
the children with a mommy and daddy and the children with a daddy and daddy.
the people who agree with us and the people who disagree with us.
every. single. one. of. us. brothers and sisters. united in our diversity. equal.
the only one more sad than the one who believes the lie that she is less than others,
is the who believes the lie that he is greater than others.
MAYBE because we all do what we are best at in our home.
i cook because i love to.
i grocery shop because it makes sense for the cook to buy the food.
i keep the first floor immaculate because i can’t work, think, or be peaceful unless it is just so.
i vacuum most of the time because i am the only one who sees this as important.
he does the laundry because i forget about it and the clothes sit in the washer and get smelly.
he deep cleans the upstairs bathrooms once in a while because he likes to squeegee.
he mows our postage stamp of a lawn which we chose because we both hate yard work.
he pays the bills because i would forget and we would have no electricity.
we all do the dishes.
we all clean up after ourselves at the kitchen counter.
we all pick up our own shoes and water glasses and what not.
we all take out the garbage and recycling when it’s full.
we all light the candles at night.
we all just keep things clean so we have never needed assigned chores or cleaning days.
we all practice the ways of grandma, “always leave things better than you found them”.
we all never make our beds unless company is coming.
MAYBE because we ignore the voice of man and listen for the the voice of God.
because c’mon…YOU KNOW when you are light and you know when you are darkness.
you don’t need a book or an article to enlighten you. you already know.
you are your own problem and you are your own solution.
you know that if you can’t say something nice, it’s best to say nothing at all.
you may not call that light, that voice, that knowledge, that instinct, that gut feeling, “God”
but whatever you call it, you know.
OR MAYBE you can’t hear it anymore or you never learned to.
maybe that’s why books get bought and articles get read.
because you want to live in the light, but you need help finding your way out of the darkness.
if so, here is a flashlight…
the seven principles for making marriage work by john m. gottman
…i imagine the title was chosen for marketing purposes…AHEM! but the content is stellar.
liberated parents, liberated children; your guide to a happier family by adele faber and elaine mazlish
…we read all of their books when the boys were babies. they are the wisest of them all.
i feel like deleting all of this and just writing “be nice to each other”. same difference.
A man sat in a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin. It was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.
A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip. A woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.
A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
The one who paid the most attention was a three year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only six people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the top musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.
Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.
This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station. It was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were, in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?
Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be, if we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?
- Originally written by Vahdet Yilmaz, I think. Slightly edited by Christina Britt Lewis.
the thing that gets me all hot and bothered about resolutions is that we focus on our weakness. reminds me of shaquille o’neal. he sort of sucks at free throws, i guess. so he practiced and practiced and practiced and never got a whole lot better. but then a good coach came along, phil jackson. he taught shaquille to play to his strengths. the rest is history.
we all suck at stuff. so? who cares? it’s ok to suck at stuff. forget that. what are you already great at? what are your strengths? what do you love? what makes you come alive?
it’s february. the time of year when we beat ourselves up for letting ourselves down. again. STOP! stop making resolutions. stop practicing free throws. play to your strengths and you will play well.
we are thrilled to announce that our little company has grown. thanks to you. seriously, thank you. we are helping people love coming home in a bigger way now. our latest blurb…
redesign your work.
redesign your space.
redesign your health.
redesign your relationships.
love coming home.
the redesign company is a connection of status quo antagonists who help people redesign their lives. after more than 23 years together, timothy dean lewis and christina britt lewis have mastered the convoluted art of loving and living well. tim is a therapist who helps people love well. christina is an interior designer who helps people live well and spend less. they worked separately for a while, but soon came to see that when people choose to live more beautifully in one way, it has a ripple effect. learning that a beautiful life is a choice empowers people to redesign everything. so the two became one, again. the redesign company was born in 2003. home can be your sanctuary. home can be where you find respite after doing work that makes you come alive. home can be healthy, fun, and sexy. home can be filled with peace that passes understanding and unconditional love.
blah blah blah…
anyway, we’ve brought on a few experts to help us help you. we figured if we are going to encourage you to redesign your health, we should do so ourselves. so we know from personal experience that joanne morse knows of what she speaks. she’s got certifications and degrees and all of that, but you know that doesn’t mean a flying fig to us. here is what we do know. she lives healthy. she is so passionate and excited and gifted at helping people be more healthy that you get all excited just being around her. she helps you believe in yourself. and she does that by playing to your strengths. all we can think about is what we get to eat, not what we don’t get to eat. her focus is on abundance, not deprivation. she makes us feel strong and capable and powerful.
so for the love of pete, stop beating yourself up. stop trying to fix yourself. you are not broken. everything you need, you already have. joanne will help you redesign your health. joanne will help you make home healthy, fun, and sexy. joanne will help you kick your shoes off, get barefoot, eat well, and love coming home.
why do you have to be invited to join pinterest? feels elitist. but join, i did. for a day. long enough to figure it out. long enough to drool over gooey homemade snickers, wicked cool head to toe outfits with scarves and bracelets even, empty wine bottles upcycled (just learned that word) as candle holders down the center of a dining room table. some seriously great ideas.
it’s fun to have a place where great ideas and clever solutions and delicious yumminess can all come together. no more cutting pages out of magazines. it’s so easy to organize what you love if you are building a house or want new light fixtures or whatever. and like anything, pinterest can be used for great good. no doubt. if you love it and it inspires you to go do and be greatness. awesome. pin away, you world changer you.
but the thing is, do you feel inspired to go do and be greatness?
do you? or…
do you feel like you are not so great?
do you feel like you are not even good enough?
do you feel like you are too fat for wicked cool outfits?
do you feel like you do not have awesome light fixtures?
do you feel like you don’t make enough money?
do you feel like you don’t cook well?
do you feel like you don’t have a happy marriage like the couple in the artsy photo?
do you feel like you will never actually make homemade snickers?
do you feel like you don’t have a nice enough home to invite people over?
do you feel like you will never actually light candles?
do you feel like you are not talented enough to do what you love for a living?
do you feel like you need to learn more before you start?
do you feel like you would probably never succeed anyway?
do you feel like you are not as smart as others?
do you feel like you are not as beautiful as others?
do you feel like you are not beautiful at all?
i do. i feel most of those things. i light candles and i can cook like there is no tomorrow, but most everything else? yeah, that’s me i’m talking about. am i alone in this? maybe i am. but if i am not. if there are others. the worst thing you can do is put yourself in a situation where all you can see is what you don’t think you have. that’s what pinterest is for me. i look and i see where i am not so great. and when i’m looking at what i don’t have, i cannot see what i do have.
the reason i do not pinterest, have hgtv, get catalogs, or even read design blogs is not because i am strong and pious and above such things. i choose to be blind to all of that because i am weak and insecure and have a head full of doubt. nobody was more flabbergasted when we won the BOB award than me. i live and work for an audience of One. i call that God, you might call that something else. same difference. i believe that everything we need we already have. i believe that inspiration comes from deep inside of us. it is already there. in all of us. we just know. maybe for some pinterest channels that, but it doesn’t for me. it just makes me feel like i suck.
i don’t suck. neither do you. you know that, right? hear me. you don’t suck. go do and be greatness.
first time i moved a christmas tree out of a room. a real christmas tree. in a bucket of water. yup.
living room before i moved the tree…
living room after…
my favorite thing in the room is the sofa. which they already had. but thought they hated.
until they saw it like this.
oh and i LOVE the game table. which they already had. but now they can sit there.
’cause i pilfered two chairs from the kitchen.
good for homework too. or a lap top. or coffee and the sunday paper. do people still read the real paper?
dining room before…
dining room after…
how fabulous is that table? i am in love with this dining room.
it’s sexy even with grandma’s china cabinet.
matching tables and chairs are so *yawn* boring.
love how the redesignmobile looks like it’s deliberately posing.
every man must decide
whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism
or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
martin luther king
many of you wrote and wondered why this bothered me so…
i used to be that women.
i used to walk in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
i used to whine about what i deserved.
you know how we all have our thing?
call it a weakness, call it a defense mechanism, call it a thorn in the flesh, whatever.
you can overcome your thing and rise above it, but it’s always there, lurking.
tim’s thing is anger. he gets pissed and mean and says awful things.
my thing is pride. i get calm and calculating and say condescending things.
tim’s thing is loud and obvious and my thing is quiet and subtle.
it’s not a fair fight.
as soon as he gets mad the original conflict fades.
and it becomes all about how he is mad and mean and saying awful things.
but he got mad because i was calm and calculating and said condescending things first.
i almost always started it by saying something critical.
i believed with my whole heartless heart that i was right and he was wrong.
i believed things were black and white, good and evil, right and wrong.
i feared being wrong. if i was wrong about this, what else might i be wrong about?
i cried myself to sleep. a lot. alone. making lists in my head about what i deserved.
we are our own problem | we are our own solution
there are times when the only way you can safely love a person is from a distance.
love your enemies, don’t sleep with them and have dinner together every night.
you know if that is you. if it is and you need help, call us. now. 704.728.1235
but for most of us,
the life we say we want is right in front of us.
but we are so blind by our fear of being wrong or whatever that we can’t see the forest for the trees.
open your eyes.
stop whining, put on your big girl panties, and DO SOMETHING about it.
face your fear, take responsibility for your part, admit your destructive selfishness out loud,
sing with me…i really fucked it up this time.
louder. and stomp while you sing…I REALLY FUCKED IT UP THIS TIME.
go tell him. be wicked sorry. maybe stomp a little and sing out loud.
decide to walk in the light of creative altruism.
slowly you will find, you get what you give. not always. but most of the time.
be your own solution.
as it turns out, i was wrong about a whole hell of a lot of things that i blindly believed.
discovering this has been the very best thing that ever happened to me.
i have changed my ways and become a lover of the light.
and if i can do it, anybody can.
i was SUCH a bitch.
you have no idea…
