Three months later...

Oops. Sorry. Customizing a blog is not my forte, clearly. I tried for months to figure it out and then Shawn just does it for me in like ten minutes. Lesson learned: ask Shawn to do any and everything remotely internet related. Except blog headers. Blog headers like this one are done by my friend Shelly Moore.

So let's just all agree to forgive me for my tardiness and I'll explain the blog title and then throw in some Pearce birthday party pictures just to smooth everything over. I'm pretty sure no one can be mad at me anymore after you see him.

Ok, blog title:

Outside of titling a blog your own name, it's kind of hard to come up with one. You have to ask yourself all these questions about what you want to write about, what the point is, how will you put a piece of yourself in the title? "On the Purple Couch" actually goes all the way back to college (all the way back to college IS actually a fairly long time ago now people. I'm like a month away from 28, which is practically 30 which means freshman year of college was NINE years ago.) At App State there was a particular coffee shop that had a giant, comfy purple couch. I think in Charlotte coffee shops in general started getting really popular sometime at the end of high school (which really qualifies as a long time ago now). But App was ahead of the game on the coffee shop front because they are so mountainy and granola-and I mean that as a compliment. So this coffee shop was perfectly equipped with couches and big arm chairs, not just tables like some coffee shops, which is the biggest failure and oversight in the solar system if you ask me. Anyway, I found that purple couch on like the first day of college and kind of set up shop there for the entirety of my four years. Studying, reading, conversation, writing. Some of my most important conversations and insights from the Lord happened on that couch in that coffee shop. One of my best friends, Tess (who I met in college and have more to say about than this blog post has room for) and I spent so much time on that couch talking, crying, laughing, passing our journals back and forth that we thought we would write a book one day called "On the Purple Couch." And maybe we will when that life story feels like it has some form of a resolution. You are so curious about Tess right now you can't stand it can you? :) Maybe I'll have her write a post in here one day. She's the best writer I know. Hands down.

Anyway, I think that couch is where more depth was added to me both in relationship and in thought. Obviously it's just symbolic, but still I have such an affection for it that when I moved back to Charlotte I was a little sad to not have a place like that anymore. And then Starbucks came to the rescue. One block from my house the best Starbucks in all of the land had a purple couch. So more conversation with old friends and new friends, more writing, more conversations with the Lord, and more studying continued. Now, five years later Starbucks decided to renovate the best Starbucks in all of the land eliminating the purple couch as well as the signature hot chocolate-don't get me started on that please.

There isn't a purple couch anymore, but let's be honest-now that I'm a mom unless there was a purple couch at my house I'd rarely get to sit on it and do any sort of reading and writing and conversing. And I don't have a purple couch... I have a lime green couch (it's very cool). But the symbolism of the purple couch is still true and I still do all of my reading and writing on the couch, in my house. And it's where most of my insights, conversations with the Lord and people, and blogging will be happening from. Just the color has changed. Ooooh, that was poetic wasn't it? "The color has changed" I could write a whole blog series on how the color of my life has changed. I better stop myself right now before this blog turns into 1,000 pages.

So there you have it. The Purple Couch. I might take a moment and acknowledge the obvious therapeutic connotation of this title. I was a bit hesitant to use it because I'm a counselor and I thought it was a bit much... but come on, blogging is therapeutic so just go with it.


And now for Pearce's birthday party pics. I should probably dedicated a post to this party because it was so awesome. A curious Pearce party. Because he is so curious, and also is obsessed with bananas. It is one of his four words. And it sounds more like baaaa then banana.