Happy day after Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans! November strikes me as an especially patriotic month, starting with the election and ending with a table full of family and/or friends gathered around a turkey. I'll take it.

Read and Reading

I applaud Doughty's exploration of death and the funeral industry in Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: And Other Lessons From the Crematory. Too few people recognize the value in these topics. When we ignore the reality of death, it hampers our ability to truly live and this plays out in myriad ways, from our healthcare system to Botox. Doughty has some unconventional thoughts about the post-mortem but I appreciated how she came to her conclusions and especially how she makes room for a difference of opinion over what should happen after we die. More than that, she makes room for honest conversation. Though I worked in hospice for several years and have attended funerals my whole life, I still learned a lot in these pages. If you're not familiar with the "death industry," you might not be prepared for the wacky sense of humor or what death looks like. And really, that makes the case for this book that much more. I wish everyone would read it.

I couldn't stop laughing, relating, and nodding in solidarity while I read Never Have I Ever: My Life (So Far) Without A Date (Heaney). Recommended for my fellow single ladies, no matter how much dating experience you have. 

I enjoyed First Impressions even more than Lovett's first novel- and that was a hard one to beat! Any book nerd will enjoy this look at Jane Austen's life intertwined with a present-day librarian trying to prove Austen didn't plagiarize Pride & Prejudice. I loved how the mystery unfolded and I especially loved learning more about the world of books and the many ways in which we love to read.

A friend gave me Truth & Beauty (Patchett) a while back and I have such complicated feelings about it. Beautiful and mesmerizing portrait of the author's friendship with Lucy Grealy. The writing swept me away but the content is haunting due to codependency, substance abuse, and ultimately loss. Their relationship was not a healthy one and yet it seems to be a gift they gave to each other.

You can see all the books I've read at Goodreads. 

Currently reading: We Make the Road By Walking (McLaren), Amazing Grace (Norris), New and Selected Poems: Volume 1 (Oliver), The Great Santini (Conroy),  As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride (Elwes)

(I read 11 books this month.)

TV:

Must-see TV: Madam Secretary, Jane the Virgin, Top Chef, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, Once Upon a Time, Project Runway All Stars

Watching all the Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies, of course.

Music:

New discoveries: Bill Deasy, St. Paul and the Broken Bones (these guys have been on my radar for the last year but I didn't pay much attention before Call Me), Birdy, Jon McLaughlin

Normally I don't listen to any Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving but Over the Rhine released the much anticipated Blood Oranges in the Snow. An exception had to be made.

Listen to the What I'm Into 2014 playlist.

Podcasts:

When Slate Culture Gabfest discussed Serial, they mentioned another serial podcast that started around the same time: Start Up. I am fascinated by how a start up company comes together, especially when the person starting the company has no business experience. Each week we learn how or whether Alex Blumberg's company is coming together. It's meta and yet it's real life.

On Being with Krista Tippett featured an interview with Joanna Macy, one of the translaters of Rilke's Book of Hours. (There are other translations, of course, but this is considered by many to be the best.) It's one of my favorite volumes of poetry and it was such a treat to hear how Macy interacted with the poems, as well as learn more of her story and her relationship with Buddhism.

Just for fun: Charts for People Obsessed With Serial

Things I Love:

• Picking up my last CSA share of the season. 2014 was the season of potatoes and sweet potatoes. I'll be eating them for all of eternity.

• I hang out at my best friend's house a lot but lately my niece-in-love has taken to running toward me and exuberantly hugging me upon my arrival. I appreciate whatever inspires this great welcome.

• Let the record show my nephew-in-love is, in fact, the cutest baby ever. He loves snuggling his auntie and has a most delightful smile and laugh.

Amena doing her thing

• I was gifted a ticket to a conference, which took place in Franklin. It was fun seeing friends of the local and in-town-for-the-conference variety. My friend Amena Brown was amazing. If you can ever see her perform in person, you must do it. I told her I wanted to listen to For Margaret every night before I went to sleep. The other highlights were Annie Downs and Julie Rodgers.

• I got to take care of the girl I nannied a few times this month and we both felt like all was right with the world again. We had a princess party one night (this made her happy) and met Santa another night (this made her sad.) She's doing really well but it's good to know I've been missed.

• A friend introduced me to Slow & Low BBQ and life may never be the same again. I'm not much of a barbecue person but I have definitely been on a brisket kick this past year. This place is close to my neighborhood (no idea how I missed it before!), which is excellent and dangerous.

• Catching up with Robin Dance. Not nearly enough time together but it was so good to see her face again.

The Wave, choreographed by Travis Wall, my favorite dance of the season

• My friend Kelley and I went to see the SYTYCD season 11 dancers perform at the Ryman and it was AMAZING. I screamed like the girl I am. They performed all my favorite routines and added some awesome new ones into the mix. This was truly the best season yet and I'm so glad Kelley and I got to further our obsession.

• I took a break from social media for a little over a week and it was just what I needed. When I'm under a lot of stress, my struggle with envy/comparison knows no bounds and I have fewer defenses against it. Day 1 I felt so much lighter and more focused. It made me wish I'd started it weeks earlier! I'm back on Facebook and Twitter now but leaving both apps off my phone (FB is usually off my phone unless I'm traveling anyway) and only checking in once a day so I can stay on track. It's amazing how much work I can get done this way!

• I've picked up a couple more jobs this month. I'm working as a virtual assistant (VA) for a couple of fine folks and I'm also helping out at the She Reads Truth office. Every day is very different!

• I spent Thanksgiving with my best friend Tracy and her family. They are my second home, in more ways than one.

• Harney & Sons Holiday Tea. Trust me.

• I made Dinner: A Love Story's Pork Shoulder Ragu and it will henceforth be my go to company's coming, take people a meal, I need comfort food meal. Basically I'm looking for excuses to make it again.

Favorite Instagram:

I really need to make one of these. Teacup chandeliers are the BEST. (This was taken at Thistle Stop Cafe, one of my favorite places, for obvious reasons.)

(If you want to follow me on Instagram, my user name is leighkramer.)

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A year ago I had just finished the 10 day reintroduction phase of Whole 30. Whole 30 is a nutritional reset, an elimination diet. For 30 days, you cut out sugar, grains, gluten, dairy, legumes, and alcohol. You focus on balanced meals and healthy fats. You make sure to eat breakfast, you check lots of labels for hidden ingredients, and you don't snack. Meals consist of meat, veggies, and a healthy fat.

It is not for the weak. But if you have any sort of medical condition, it can be extremely helpful in determining whether or how your diet plays a role.

That is precisely why I spent the latter half of October and first couple of weeks of November completing it. I've had eczema since I was a baby and intermittent insomnia since junior high. Last fall I'd reached a breaking point with my eczema and figured I had nothing left to lose.

Because my diet was pared down, it was easier to identify culprits during Whole 30. This is how I determined nuts (one of the approved healthy fats) actually caused my eczema. It made unfortunate sense. In the year or two prior, I'd tried to eat healthier snacks, like almonds. It was no wonder my eczema had become worse, instead of better.

After the 30 days, I then reintroduced dairy and then gluten, followed by grains and then legumes and paid attention to what my body said.

My body immediately pointed a condemning finger at dairy. It was my worst fear come true. You cannot understand the enormous depths of my love for all things dairy. Ice cream is an obvious love but really, my heart has always belonged to cheese. My mom used to tell me she thought there was a correlation between dairy and eczema and I'd plug my fingers in my ears because I didn't want to hear it.

I would easily give up anything other than dairy. At least that's what I thought pre-Whole 30.

I felt so good during the last 2 weeks of the challenge. I slept through the night, yes, but best of all: I wasn't scratching the hell out of my legs. It makes sense that I'd sleep better if my eczema was under control. That was my normal for years! Horrifying.

After experiencing the good life, I couldn't go back and I've lived the 99% dairy-free life ever since.

I say 99% because I don't have any dairy products at home but I'm not as strict when I eat out. Dairy is in everything at restaurants, whether it's delicious butter slathered on a hamburger bun or feta studding a salad. Because it doesn't cause me intestinal difficulty and because I love dairy in all its forms, I often eat whatever I want and deal with the consequences.

I also try to counteract the consequences. When eating dairy, I use a digestive essential oil as soon after the meal as possible. I also take melatonin before going to bed. These two actions make a huge difference. Still, it's best for dairy to only be an occasional indulgence. Goat and sheep milks seem OK but I haven't experimented enough to eat or cook with it regularly. There are no exceptions to the nut rules. (Thankfully peanuts are a legume, not a nut, and are totally fine.) It turns out red wine is also problematic so I stick to white wine or cocktails when I drink.

As you can imagine, quite a few of my staple recipes have undergone changes or been eliminated altogether. I never thought I'd be able to live in a dairy-free world but there are so many great alternatives, it's not as great of a loss as I thought. I swear by Trader Joe's Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream, for example.

For the holidays, I'll be indulging in all my favorite foods, dairy and all. It will be a true feast and I'll enjoy every second of it. But I'm also going to use Earth Balance baking sticks (not an endorsement or perk) when I make Christmas cookies. The dairy-free life is an adjustment but it's worth it. I only wish I hadn't waited so long to figure it out.

Photo source

We sat in the hotel hallway the last night of the conference. She sat across from me and wiped tears away as she told part of her story. She was in the midst of many changes but her tears boiled down to this: she was single again and feared she had nothing to offer anyone. She had missed her chance, she said, though she'd spent 15 minutes discussing the red flags she'd ignored and how she knew she'd made the right decision in breaking off her engagement. She was almost 25 and told me she didn't know what life should look like if she wasn't married. She never planned on singleness.

The whole weekend she'd looked around at the mostly married and mothering conference attendees and wondered if she fit in. She questioned how she could minister to others and had trouble identifying what she had to offer. All because she wasn't yet married.

I listened to her and heard echoes of my former 25 year old self. The angst and frustration of a life not following the assumed path. I remembered feeling like there was something wrong with me. There had to be some reason I was still single. This was a recurring theme in my early and mid-20s for me and most of my not-yet-married friends. In fact, while we could look at one another and say “there's nothing wrong with you,” we had difficulty applying the same logic to ourselves. We kept working and traveling and enjoying life but there was a sense we were missing out, that somewhere along the way we'd screwed up and now Mr. Right would be forever a mirage.

I looked at the young woman across from me and told her what I wish someone would have told my friends and me those years ago. “Life doesn't start when you marry,” I said.

I told her there was nothing wrong with being single. I affirmed the tough decisions she'd had to make and the adventure underway. I pointed out the ways she ministered to people already. One failed relationship did not mean she would never have a relationship. Most of all, I commiserated with her.

I affirmed who she was. I told her there likely wasn't a “reason” she was single. No, she wasn't perfect, nor am I. We're all works in progress but this rarely precludes us from relationships. We can all point to people who are married who are absolute disasters. While it's understandable to wonder why them and not us, we would not want to live those people's stories. Instead, we're living the life put before us and it happens to include singleness.

This conversation happened a couple of years ago but it regularly comes to mind. So many churches focus on marriage and parenting from the pulpit and even much of society is geared toward couples. It's no wonder singles struggle to figure out their place in this world and yet no one should doubt their worth or impact because of their marital status. Especially not at a Christian conference, in this case, or at church.

When we treat marriage as a foregone conclusion, we lose sight of the sacrament and the people on the outskirts. What happens when a person doesn't get married? What does it mean for the person whose marriage ends? How does elevating marriage to such pristine heights benefit those who are married?

There is much discussion and many resources on how to do marriage well but very little out there devoted to singleness. This is a shame. Singles are valid and valued members of society. It would behoove the church to equip us to maximize this time in our lives, especially since we do not have a spouse or partner to help balance the load. It's time for a better message about singleness.

As more of us speak up, I sense the tides shifting. But there's still much work to be done. I've sat across from too many singles questioning their lot in life because of their singleness. I wasted too many tears and hours of worry over my own single state in my early and mid-20s. I won't pass that down to the next generation. I refuse.

Singles are valuable, loved, seen. We need them in our lives. There is room at the table. I will keep proclaiming this until no more ears need to hear because it's no longer a new revelation, it's normal. May that day come soon.

When I went home last Christmas, my mom gave me a bag full of old letters, drawings, and various school assignments. I shared some of the more nostalgic finds on Instagram but the piece de resistance is a short story I wrote in the early 90s. I was likely in 4th or 5th grade and clearly read a lot of Nancy Drew mysteries.

For your enjoyment and so you may appreciate my original artwork, I present to you in unedited form:

TREASURE CAN BE FOUND IN WALLS

By Leigh Kramer

My friend Samantha and I, Karen, were going to search my Aunt Nancy's house for what my great, great, great grandma had hidden in this very old house that she had lived in herself. I brought my duffle bag along with a few hammers and some pliers and anything else we might need. Ding dong. "I'll get it. It's probably Samantha." I yelled to my mom who was upstairs doing something. As I had predicted it was Samantha. We walked down to my Aunt Nancy's house. I rang the doorbell and waited for my Aunt to answer it. After a while we were upstairs tapping and poking around trying not to knock anything down.

Tap, tap, tap THUD. "Hey Sam" I said to Samantha. "Can you bring the hammer to me. I think I just found the treasure but I'm not sure..." my voice trailed off. "Sure thing, Karen!" Samantha answered.

"I sure hope you found it!" she added.

"So do I, so do I, Samantha" I answered.

Carefully I opened the panel from the wall. There was a very old antique jewelry box. It was studded with emeralds and ruby's, and other kinds of beautiful gems. "WOW! That must be my great, great, great grandmothers! We had better show this to Aunt Nancy." "Look what we found, Aunt Nany! Isn't it pretty?" "Yes, it is PRETTY! As a reward you can keep it, Karen and for Samantha...didn't you say, Sam, that you liked biographies on people?" my aunt inquired. "Oh yes I do I collect biographies!" Samantha answered.

"Then you may pick three biographies from my collection to keep so you can add them to your collection." "Thank you very much" Samantha and I answered in unison.

"But don't you want you're great, great grandmother's jewelry Aunt Nancy?" I asked her. "No, that's part of your reward, KAREN! You can split it up with Samantha, O.K.?" my Aunt Nancy told us.

"O.K.!" we answered together.

Then Samantha went to choose her or the soon to be hers' biographies.

While I was sorting through the very old jewelry Everything was still and silent followed by an occasional squeak or scream from Samantha.

I was murmuring to myself about how beautiful all the jewelry was when I saw a note it said,

Whoever receives my things do not sell nor give it away

keep it and cherish it and remember me.

Sincerely yours,

Karen

I gasped  that was my name! Then I noticed a locket I opened it up and saw Karen's face. With tears in my eyes I showed it to my aunt. And that just proces that treasure can be found in walls.

THE END

The joys of writing with a typewriter, amiright?!

A star and a rave review from my teacher: "Good work, Leigh- This shows your interest in books!"

Thus, a writer was born.