Mandy Houk

Books I wish I’d assigned when I was teaching:

Jane Eyre
My Name is Asher Lev
East of Eden
Fahrenheit 451
Elie Wiesel’s trilogy - Night, Dawn, Day

… and so many more …

The peaceful sleep of not knowing who Trump is.

I love him.

Picture of a page from the Bible with the words: “The Lord protects resident aliens and helps the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.”

Psalm 146

“Christianity is not an ethical code. It is a love affair — a spirit-filled way of living aimed at making us professional lovers of God and people.”

- Brennan Manning

Awful.

I wish I were surprised.

Have they moved toward ending child labor laws yet? (I’m not even asking this as a joke.)

My mom (with whom I recently drew new boundaries) has stopped saying “I love you” to me, even when I say it first.

I’m struggling to sort out my feelings….

Anything and everything muppet-related is undefeated.

It’s the law.

When you learn that you have no voice in one place…

Use it somewhere else.

Hi, my name is Mandy and I compulsively speak out of turn.

Something I’ve noticed now that I’ve set boundaries with some family:

Families that never talk about hard things openly will NEVER stop talking about them passively and sideways. Never.

Yeah it’d be great if you thought about how pissed you are and *then* imagine you’re one of the forty+ million of us who rallied and spoke up and voted our asses off and here we are anyway.

I don’t want to hear any blanket “American” blame. It’s salt in a seeping wound.

My self-care app deserves absolute honesty.

Also a notable role model we’re encouraged to emulate.

I don’t know if you can tell but he’s holding my fingers with his claws. It’s too sweet to mind the pain. 😆

Sunday school reminder:

Protestant/evangelical Christians are the Gentiles.

You know — the unclean, the strangers, the outsiders, the grafted-in vines.

Quick Sunday school reminder:

The sheep are the ones that feed, clothe, and welcome the needy.

It’s the goats that won’t.

“Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict — alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence.” — Dorothy Thompson

I’m thrilled you’re here. 💙

They may be descendants of the Monty Python bunny!

Freshly baked brioche buns

Yes, I am bragging.
I am also eating.

But isn’t splooting about the back legs?

Does no one care about my cat pose terminology?

I would love for T’s presidency to experience a rapid unscheduled disassembly.

Carrie Underwood is singing at the inauguration.

This is your reminder that freedom of expression includes your freedom to choose the musicians you listen to.

I would get fired for showing up to work drunk. We should probably find out which of our Senators are drunk on the job and fire them too.