Scribbles and Scripts of a Reverent Bohemian

2012-01-31T19:24:00.001-08:00

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Book of Mine ~ Moments of Clarity

2010-10-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

I meet with a warm group of parents once a month who've had a tough education, both formally and informally, in the realm of addiction. Occasionally a speaker comes and soon Christopher Kennedy Lawford will speak at our meeting about his book Moments of Clarity. So I ran out and bought it and the one he wrote before it, Symptoms of Withdrawal. The latter, which I've only just started, is his memoir about growing up in the world of Kennedys and fame and fortune. I was certainly curious about his experience with addiction as well as the Kennedys, plus I remembered back to this summer when I found myself at a wedding with a famous writer and couldn't say a word to her because I'd never read one of her books! Lawford's Moments of Clarity came as a response to his memoirs. Everyone kept asking him how on that certain day of that certain year did everything change for him; how was he able to get sober and into recovery that day? Instead of the hundreds before it. He addresses this question personally and then asks 43 other recoverers - famous actors, artists, athletes and politicians as well as your average joe. What was their moment of clarity, what happened, what changed? How did things turn around? Turns out recovery can turn the average addict's life, even ones on the very brink of destruction, into a life beyond his or her wildest dreams.

Jamie Lee Curtis admits to being so sick that she befriended injured people to get their Vicodin. Her moment of clarity came when she realized that she was going to die and hurt her family, the thing she loved most. She surrendered and made a phone call and now she sees recovery as the most important thing she's done in her life.

Tom Arnold was changed by a tender moment. A drug-induced crazed low point where Roseanne met him with love and understanding rather than the disgust he was expecting and felt he deserved.

Martin Sheen's story is so painfully honest, he hurt his family with his rage. His moment of clarity came after pushing his son Charlie to the ground in a fit. Naked, he chased him outside to plead for his forgiveness in front of his son's friends.

When Richard Lewis finally sobered up he went back to his old haunt and ordered seven or eight Diet Cokes and lined them up on the bar in front of him. He had something to prove and he did it in his own comedic style.

One of my favorite stories in the book was from a friend of Lawford's, the chief operating officer of a certain amazing treatment center, a jewel nestled within white fences overlooking the hills and valleys of Pennsylvania. I heard him tell his amazing story in person once and reading it again brought the same hope, joy and peace. I love his story. It starts out with an eighteen year old Mike buying a brand-new Mustang and totaling it two weeks later driving drunk at 5pm, 115 miles an hour on a 25mph curve. He and his friend ended up in the hospital where a police officer told him that he was pretty sure he'd learned his lesson so he wouldn't be charged with drunk driving, minor in possession, etc. This future chief operating officer of a certain amazing drug and alcohol treatment center told the officer that he'd never do it again. Two weeks later, he says, he woke up drunk in his mother's car, "sliding sideways down the hill on the wrong side of the road." He had a moment of clarity too, eventually.

Alec Baldwin, Kelly McGillis, Richard Dreyfuss, Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson, Katey Sagal, Lou Gossett Jr., Senator Max Cleland, Rudy Tomjanovich, She's Just Not That Into You Greg Behrendt, conservative economist Larry Kudlow, news anchor Jim Vance, Judy Collins...every one of their generous accounts taught me something about being a loving, surrendered, honest human being for the benefit of others and my own well-being. And to watch for the moment of clarity that can be the beginning of change in any life.

I'm a quote-girl. I always like including things I underline in my books.

Jim Vance - How do I deal with people in my life who need help? Carefully, quietly, respectfully, and deliberatively. My experience teaches me that you can't gorilla -- that's the word we use in the hood -- you can't gorilla an addict into doing what you think the addict ought to do.

Aimee Liu - There's a phrase that I think is very useful: trying to live inside out instead of outside in. ...pay attention to your own standards, your own needs, not everyone else's...

Max Cleland - [quoting Hemingway, who was quoted by Arthur Schlesinger in A Thousand Days, about Kennedy's presidency] "If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave impartially." Hemingway was right. The world breaks us all. If you haven't been broken by life, just wait a while. All of us get broken one way or another, at some time or another. And many people do grow strong at the broken places, but many do not, and that's the mystery.

Happy Happy Summer

2010-06-24T07:08:00.000-07:00

School's finally out.

Father's Day at Stone Harbor

2010-06-21T05:54:00.000-07:00

We have these sweet friends who are always doing fun things. They drove down from New Hampshire for a weekend at the Jersey shore (they're originally from here) for their daughter's graduation gift and we went down and met them and another sweet family we haven't seen for a while.
These four people used to be little toddling cuties together and now they're big romping cuties. I am still trying to figure out how this phenomenon happens.
Sweet.

Kind of like how those two used to be five years apart and now they're twins. That's a mystery.
Then on the way home everyone was starving and we didn't want to wait in line at a restaurant on Father's Day so we got KFC and drove to the nearest lake.
I sat on a large piece of broken concrete and ate the best tasting meal I've had in a long time. And photographed it for you, of course, just to show how good fast food can be.

Not really so sweet....
see him holding his head?

Sweet.

End of the Year Party

2010-06-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

I attended Sean's end of 2nd grade party yesterday in a neighbor's back yard.
It was perfect for kids.
He had a great time. His friend pushed him on the rope swing.
Then he pushed him on the hammock.
Then others pushed him on the hammock with another buddy.
Then he got on the hammock with yet another buddy...
who then trampled him, as boys do.
Then he stuffed marshmellows into his mouth and tried to speak.
Then he made a visor, with his wonderful teacher looking on.
Then he swung...or swinged...or swang, depending on how you look at things in the world of grammar.
Then the two classes played this game.....
and hid beneath the parachute....
while he hid in the log cabin.

2nd grade was good. Thank you Mrs. Forst.

And happy retirement to you!

Here Comes the Sun

2010-06-09T18:38:00.000-07:00

2010-06-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

Sean (2nd grade) has been wanting to take part in the school variety show that Mr. Z lets the kids do every year, but it was always the fourth and fifth graders. This year Mr. Z opened the floodgates and let the little 'uns sing too and there were tons of little ones up there showing their stuff. Sean, as far as I saw, was the only one who brought along his own live accompaniment.

A few things. One, Mr. Z - he was the high school band teacher when I was in school! Great guy. Two, every time Seth makes a mistake on the guitar, Sean looks at him. Cracks me up. He didn't have much room to play, the capo was on the 9th fret to accomodate Sean's high voice. Seth would want you to know that. Three, I wigged out and turned the thing off at the end because I thought it was off when I saw a red light. I was nervous for them and was so upset for about 20 minutes afterward, thinking I didn't get it at all. I think I'm still upset about it! Four, Luke, resident artist, made the signs.

It was a sweet way to end the year.

Humility: The Beauty of Holiness by Andrew Murray

2010-06-07T06:47:00.000-07:00

"Most gladly will I glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may
rest upon me; wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses." The humble man has
learnt the secret of abiding gladness. The weaker he feels, the lower he
sinks; the greater his humiliations appear, the more power and the presence of
Christ are his portion, until, as he says, "I am nothing," the word of his Lord
brings ever deeper joy: "My grace is sufficient for thee."

I was searching for a book that might address the idea of spiritual gifts. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness are qualities we Christians are supposed to pour forth. But like an empty pitcher, we cannot pour unless we are filled. Going out and doing something "good" is one thing, "filthy rags;" being filled with the Holy Spirit who pours goodness through me is quite another. How to be filled so that we can pour, not merely do something here, here and here, but pour out something much greater than ourselves all the time, everywhere?

Pride has to go. "And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil." I can't have a belief in our Creator and be proud of anything! I can't do anything good, I didn't create my children, I didn't create my talents and gifts. How can I be proud of winning a foot race when it is God who constructed my legs? If I'm filled with myself, I cannot be filled with God; it has to be one or the other. How to step aside, or more to the point - become nothing - and be filled with the Holy Spirit?

Jesus is our ultimate example of humility. He made himself a mere human and allowed his own life to be taken, brutally. He made himself small so that we could be made right with God. How could I aspire to anything that feeds my own pride when God Himself came and sacrificed all that my filthiness could be washed clean...so that I could be reconciled to Him? My aspirations should be only to bow to the one who saved me and allow Him to fill me with His spirit so my life becomes about Him only.

I cannot sum up this book or barely even comment on it. Andrew Murray's writing is so rich and full that I'm left to drop quotes and question myself on how it is that I can still go about trying to raise my chin every day instead of falling to the floor and becoming nothing but a vessel for the Almighty to overcome. So humility is the answer to my search for the gifts of the Spirit, the answer to allowing the Spirit to dwell within and bring along with it love, joy, peace and all the rest. Those things do not dwell in me naturally and so without humility and without the Spirit, I cannot exhibit and share them.

"Brother, have we not been making a mistake in taking so much trouble to
believe, while all the time there was the old self in its pride seeking to
possess itself of God's blessing and riches? No wonder we could not
believe. Let us change our course. Let us seek first of all to
humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God: He will exalt us. The
cross, and the death, and the grave, into which Jesus humbled Himself, were His
path to the glory of God. And they are our path. Let our one desire
and our fervent prayer be, to be humbled with Him and like Him; let us accept
gladly whatever can humble us before God or men; - this alone is the path to the
glory of God."

Tattoos

2010-06-05T15:07:00.000-07:00

Isn't it weird that there are books with pictures of tattoos in a tattoo shop? When a person is compelled to imprint something on their skin permanently, you would think they'd already know what exactly that was before they showed up at the shop. Perhaps there are two different reasons for getting tattoos. (At least.) One is - I want to have ink permanently injected into my skin. I think I'll do that in the form of a picture or words....any ideas? The other is - I love Elvis and I'm gonna have his picture on my arm forever.

I have considered a tattoo only once and not very seriously. I nursed all of my boys and often, when I'd lift their little head off my arm, there would be a cute little pink imprint of their ear on my forearm. And I would cherish the little thing until it faded away. The only way I'd be able to have that little ear on my arm forever was with a tattoo. But then I'd have to spend the rest of my life telling that story to everyone who asked, "Why do you have an ear on your forearm?"

So I just keep the little ear print in my memory and smile when I think of it.

Sick as a Dog?

2010-06-04T15:06:00.000-07:00

You know you love your dog when you're so excited that she had diarrhea on the hardwood floors instead of the wool rug 8 inches away. That was last night. Then this morning there was a repeat. And again, I couldn't have been happier to get out my paper towels, spray bottle and mop! (Of course, considering my German Shepard had diarrhea all over my electric car track when I was little....tiny grooves, electrical connections, etc - that was a fun cleanup...a simple flat hard surface clean up in comparison is a joy to behold.)

The problem remained, however; why was the girl so sick to her tummy and lethargic lately? Was it the large tick Seth found on her the other day? She's been spending a lot of time in the woods with him lately, could she have Lyme or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever like my friend's doggie?

We called the vet and took her in. She had to be muzzled during the exam because she does not liked to be touched in the, well, I'll just say it - hiner forty-niner. The vet didn't think she had any sickness, her best guess was that she ate a dead animal in the back yard and it made her feel lousy...as eating dead rotting animals often does, in fact. So she gave Ruby some medicine, gave Stan a menu plan for her and $96 later she was home wagging and panting and happy, looking very refreshed and pleased.

She just finished the dinner of boiled ground beef and white rice I prepared for her. Happy as a lark. Who me? Sick? Huh uh. Good thing you have lotsa $96 lying around, guys! What with Sean's allergy appointment, Luke's hand appointment and Seth's everlasting appointments I thought you might like a change of pace at the vet!

There Was a Spring Dance in Town

2010-05-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

This is my niece Nina Jane.

She said she could wear that dress every day.

Son #2, 13.25 years, 5 ft 9.5in.
His hips come up to my rib cage.
These are some of the peeps with whom he is educated. The girls (and there were lots of 'em) were on the other side of the property, until I mentioned that I'd like to get a picture of Luke and his "date." She happily popped right over and desegregated.
This is the fine young lady who told two friends who told two friends who told two friends that she would like to be accompanied by Luke to the spring dance. And he said, "Alrighty!" (Or some junior high equivalent.) Though he would not act like it when mother was organizing the picture.
Only when her big sister did. I would wear that dress every day ...if I were her.
With Da.
Calling Zack.

"Hey, we're getting outnumbered here at Julia's! Need more guys! Come quick!"

News break - Luke and his older brother
are out right now at a park and I just received this text:
We found a cat.
I wish
we lived closer to Idaho at
the moment. I know a fine shelter
there.
Getting back to my Nina Jane. So the word was there were a lot of crying girls at the dance. My sister asked Nina, "Just the sixth graders?" "Yeah, the ones in my class," she sighed, "and I think it's going to get worse before it gets better." Truer words.....

2010-05-12T11:59:00.000-07:00

I must get out into my yard. Way back when life was simple fresh and new I used to love my yard. Love in the verb sense of the word. I spent time rolling in the grass with my active boy and young Great Dane; I fiddled around in the tiny screened-in gardening shed pulling down cobwebs and arranging dusty clay pots; I spent weeks on my knees ripping ivy out by the roots so I could replace the pond-shaped patch with the garden growing in my mind. I planted herbs, columbine, Solomon seal, tomatoes, whatever I wanted to nurture and behold.

My yard today has many different and distinct sections. A mossy, cool front corner, a secluded fenced expanse in the back, a small herb garden between the drive and the basement door, wide open play spaces, a long mulched area hugging the house on the south side. Sometimes I don't know where to begin with my limited gardening time. I end up raking out a messy corner or mowing, endlessly. I trim up the honeysuckle on the weedy fenceline or rip the grass growing in the driveway seams while playing a halfhearted game of basketball with my sons. There is so much to do and so little time and energy to plan, prepare, design and execute. So I bend over and grab a dandelion.

There are dead limbs in my dogwood. The neighbor wanted the maple saplings on the border, so now years later there isn't enough sun for my annual favorite - and trademark to my garden -Mexican sunflowers. The vinca has overrun the bed along the garage office path. The azaleas I planted out front don't seem to like their home. The hydrangea near the hose has been beaten down to a stub. Thin limbs of the skypencils are hanging low from the snowy winter. I don't know what to plant in front of the porch after pulling up the old leggy bushes that grew there years ago.

My yard is still beautiful to me, springing alive with possibility today. It's calling me, dancing in place, igniting my inspiration:

More herbs!
Sculpted bushes!
Bulbs for next spring here!
These yuccas must go!
Rake these holly leaves!
I'm a perfect empty corner for something fantastic!
Notice how the bright green and purple spiderwort found itself growing in the cracks at the entrance to your back steps....you couldn't have planned that if you tried.

2010-05-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

I went to the funeral of a mom today. My friend's mom. She lived down the road behind that barn with a bull painted on it in Newport by the bay as my Grammy used to say. She used to play Password with us. She was likely the most humble, Jesus-loving soul I have ever met. Someone at her funeral said she was humble and there is no better word. Lately I've been thinking a lot about humility and I realized today that am blessed with the memory of her humility in life. She was buried right here in a small cemetery with her ancestors.

There is a little wooden bridge over there beyond the cattails where my mother used to keep her row boat. She would ride her bike down the road, untie her boat and row out toward the Delaware Bay by herself. Later my father would take us crabbing, putting in our rowboat at the same bridge. What a final resting place!

She saved my grandfather's life some years ago when she checked on him. Every day since she called my grandfather, her next door neighbor, to check on him. She would say, "Hello, Good Neighbor!" And he would answer, "Hello, Good Neighbor!"

Good bye good Alynda, I will see you again someday.

Bionicle Woman

2010-05-09T06:09:00.000-07:00

This is an appropriate post for Mother's Day.

Once in a while, maybe once a year, I feel the overwhelming urge to organize every thing in my house. I just reorganized basement closets, shelves and cubby holes. The attic closet has a whole new outlook on life. And stuff? I have yard sale stuff, give away stuff, donate stuff.

These Bionicles gave me agita. For a while there, every birthday party came with boys bearing Bionicles, every Christmas saw a few under the tree. Fun for a while, but now I have a box full of empty containers. (That sentence is ridiculous, no?) And another box full of parts, so I asked Luke if he might like to put together thousands of pieces so we could store them properly for my grandchildren. He said, "No. Not really."

So I dumped them out, put on a movie and then I strategically asked little one if he would go ask Luke some pressing Bionicle question. Soon Luke appeared and began building.
Meanwhile, I sorted, but it is hard for me to sort if I don't have corresponding names to go along with the piles. Masks, faces?

Weapons? Ski thingys for feet? And there were wheely things that help arms move and shin area type pieces and shoulder...um....plates? Feet/boots. And bodylike area parts. I tried my best.

He finished a few and then he wandered off mumbling something like, "I don't want to do this anymore."

So it was me, Megan Ryan, Kevin Kline and a table full of Bionicle parts.

I threw it all into one box and am saving it for the next time I feel like doing a puzzle.

Or punishing Luke.

Quadruplets

2010-05-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

Hello Life!

2010-05-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

Ninety-Six!

2010-04-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

Pop Pop is 96 today!

Still likes presents.

Sean got him a fedora to replace the one Pop Pop gave him.

Auntie Joyce loved her day with Sean and vice versa.

Sean decided to try and break his garden lap record.

My cuz John Tuz cheered him on. He remembers fun in the garden too.

My kids have more freedom in the garden than we did since...

Pop Pop quit gardening a few years back due to the fact that ...

he'd been doing it for 85 years by then.

Ever done anything for 85 years straight?

He plowed with a horse when he was about 8, his dad was a career farmer.

Then Sean challenged John to a race to the house ...

"and back," he added after John had agreed.

Nothing like running in Pop Pop's garden.

Or climbing that tree over and over.

More birthday wishes for Pop Pop from his sister.

"You comin' down?"

"No, I'm not coming down, I'm calling you!"

I mean, how many birthdays is she responsible to celebrate with this guy?

Their dad lived to 101.

The Incredible Shrinking Everything

2010-04-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed that boxes and packages of everything are shrinking? I've been buying megapacks of tissues at Sam's for the last decade or so and I know what a tissue box feels like. A few weeks ago while unpacking them into my closet in the basement my hand sensors starting beeping: smaller! - smaller! - smaller! And sure enough they were smaller boxes than the ones I had from before.

Also cereal boxes. I remember gigantor boxes of cereal from my youth that towered above my little head at the breakfast table. Perhaps that was wasteful, I am not the one to judge whether buying one big box of cereal or two smaller boxes is more environmentally sound. All I know is, seriously, I poured some Honey Bunches of Oats out of a box so narrow my hand experienced confusion holding it AND THEN the box, which had become a little wapper-jawed after one single use, couldn't stand alone on my counter! I had to lean it up against a thawing turkey breast! I guess they're trying to make cardboard thinner, use fewer trees. I get it. Maybe we need to redesign the box so that it will stand on its own though.

Another thing I find fascinating: Tuna cans!? Have you noticed that they are just a hint of what they used to be? A can of tuna used to make just over two sandwiches, to my memory. I ate a lot of tuna in my day as did my first child - he ate it by the handful at his highchair. My third child really likes tuna for his lunch as well, so we go through many cans and they are NOT - I repeat - NOT the same number of ounces as they used to be. The cans can be used as tiddly winks! The current can of tuna (which by the way I purchase at Trader Joe's because their tuna has no soy additives in it...why does tuna need soy additives, I ask?) makes one Seany sandwich and a little leftover for a Seany snack eaten straight from the bowl sometime around dinner time when his rail thin body can't take it another minute. And that's it! One sandwich plus a small remainder of lonely tuna and mayo covered by some plastic wrap in the corner of the fridge.

Milk gallon lids? Have you noticed that? My milk lids are a plastic top, not a screw on but a little snap on lid with a narrow lip around the top that allows you to get a grip to pop it off and pour it all over your cereal as you precariously try to upright the box which is lamely falling over onto your thawing turkey. This lid lip used to work like a charm but nowadays in 2010 the lip has become flimsy and it just BENDS UP when you try to push it! What good is that, yo? And oh my gosh, have you tried to screw off the cap of certain water bottles?! (I know, it's a sin to use them and I'm sorry but occasionally I do.) The caps are so narrow now it's like a party trick just to get them off and now the plastic of the bottle itself is so thin, when you grab it to remove the lid, the bottle collapses! Which is good, I suppose because of the ridiculous waste of it all. Speaking of party tricks, have I ever told you that I can remove a twist off beer bottle cap (or root beer bottle cap, it doesn't have to be beer, as a matter of fact I don't even like beer especially none that would have a twist off cap) using only the skin on my forearm? Anyway, if Sean takes one of those bottles to school for lunch I have to open it first at home before he leaves, otherwise he can't manage it. Crazy. Times are a changin'.

Why back in my day a body could get a cap off a bottle.

On the other hand, have you noticed how easy it is to get into a package of Oreo cookies? There's a resealable flap on top, you don't even have to exert one modicum of pressure. You just lift, grab two, restick. Lift, grab three, restick. Lift, grab two - er three, restick. Lift, just one more, restick. Lift, I hate myself, restick. Lift, how did I get back in the kitchen?, restick. Lift......

2010-04-22T05:28:00.000-07:00

2010-04-20T00:05:00.000-07:00

A deer ran by my house the other day. Down the street before my eyes, a wild, unexpected streak of life loped through suburbia. I saw her from my kitchen window and screamed, "A deer! In the street!" My 13 year old spun around and leaped to the window. My oldest son ran up the driveway from the backyard after only having heard me scream "...STREET!" assuming someone had been hurt. The deer turned left at the corner, bounced into my neighbor's yard and disappeared from view.

For quite a long while afterward police cars were meandering through the streets, people ran down the street craning their necks over fences, two girls rode up on bikes asking Luke, who by then had perched himself on the front porch, to come along with them to search for it. I texted. My friend in South Carolina was alerted to the splash of activity in her hometown. My sister replied to my text from work in Philadelphia, "Aw! How fast was it going?!" A friend stopped by and I met him on the front porch, pointing over his shoulder, "You just missed a deer running down the street!"

I don't know why, the thing gave me hope. It surely wasn't the strangest or most unlikely thing to happen in our town, but it was colorful, out of the blue, rare, unforeseen. I guess when life becomes routine, or worse, and things just seem to roll on like flipping the same old page of the same old bedtime story...or when you are waiting for something to happen that seems impossible or at least unlikely and it seems there will never be a change, something like a deer running down the street in a town where you only see birds, squirrels and stink bugs can make anything seem possible for a moment.

That's what I was left with, the feeling that God is just above and we mustn't forget that absolutely anything is possible with Him. And sometimes He does the impossible before our eyes, not to solve our problems or entertain, but maybe to remind us that He Is The One. And we aren't - I mean, sometimes I tend to think everything rests on my shoulders and I have to be this or that or do this or that and that will magically be the key to prompting God to answer me (in the way that I'd prefer) or move in a situation (in a way that I'd prefer). But it brings such peace to know that, without the Holy Spirit prompting me in the direction I should go, no amount of finagling on my part is worth a nickel. God knows and I don't. It may be that He moves when I am stymied or perhaps He doesn't move when I am wrestling. I don't know why.

One thing that has stuck in my memory is the old man sitting on the gym floor after Katrina. He had a cross and one or two other possessions. The reporter asked him what he was going to do and he said something like, "God doesn't always come when you ask Him, but He's always right on time." The memory of a deer running down my avenue one afternoon will likely be deposited in the same file: "...and you just might be surprised."

Seth Found a Birdie on the Back Steps

2010-04-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

Mom, what are we gonna do with this bird? I don't wanna leave it alone out there in the cold.
Well, where is it now?
On the front porch...in a pillow fort.

"Doc" (morning dove...MD...) is now in a shoe box cruising the town in an suv with four teenage boys.

What Is On Your Kitchen Table?

2010-04-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

I just looked at mine and was momentarily transfixed.

1 pineapple

2 avocadoes

3 beets + greens

a Chuck E Cheese "Extreme member card"

Anne Rice's Called Out of Darkness

Large glass jar of dog treats

stackable melamine bowls (these)

handmade name tag

2 report cards (all very good except one little box marked with a "minus" for talking too much. See photo of the Extreme member card above.)

birthday card, signed, never sent

a black rubber bracelet

Clean Cotton" Yankee candle room spray

pottery chip and dip bowl

chicken roaster

a group of red paper shapes (triangles, squares and that one shape that looks like a rectangle that somebody sat on)

a folded up piece paper with Bible verses about addiction

a vegetarian cookbook (this one)

blue tortilla chips

a cycling catalog (no one here cycles)

Anything interesting on yours?
Please don't reply something like a clean white pressed tablecloth and a crystal vase of tulips. Oh heck, go ahead, but do leave a picture so I can enjoy it!

More PA Pictures Just Because

2010-04-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

Don't you always need to know who's living in holes? I do.
There's always at least one who's about to fall off a cliff.

Sean needed to check the wording here. Stan had read it: ...Attempts to dominate nature and its processes are misdirected. Mankind stands to gain much more from an effort to understand nature and change their underwear daily.
This house. This house. A message to the owners:
You've lived here long enough. It's my turn now.

I see hearts everywhere.

This will wash off! I'm hopin'.

One of my children was up in there somewhere, naturally.

That one.

The end.

2 Experiences in Dunkin' Donuts

2010-04-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

We walked into Dunkin' Donuts the other day. A man spoke to us before we could reach the counter. He had a head-set on. The place was rather slow but by the bustling of the employees you'd think there was a line 20 hungry people long. He said everything, questions included, like firm statements and somehow still came off as friendly and lighthearted. Yes. Can I help you. I'd like a half dozen donuts A half dozen. Yes. Which. Yes. 5 more. 4 more. 3 more. 2 more. You have 1 more. He put the box on the counter. Something else. a coffee Something else. an iced latte Something else. a hot chocolate

Meanwhile he was glancing at other co-workers, talking on his head-set. Breaker breaker, I imagined. Another man was leaning and flicking a large iced latte cup toward us as if asking a question with it that I did not understand. Head-sets, everyone was wearing a head-set. I was trying to remember if we were really in a donut place because I was beginning to think we were on the tarmac of a very important airport. I imagined them all picking up those long reflective wands and suddenly landing planes behind the counter. I began to duck instinctively. We're talking about putting donuts in boxes here I thought. Coffee into cups. Money into registers. Is life getting very very difficult for no particular reason or am I becoming more and more simple-minded, something I thought entirely impossible.

I stood back a little and waited for my stuff. Another customer came up and the non-question-mark-using man lifted his chin at him. Yes. The customer pointed to me and said he thought I was next. The man behind the counter glanced a humorous glance at me and flicked a hand in my direction that meant, Eh. I don't care about her. Again, in a friendly way. The customer sort of smiled at me and I shrugged and said, "He doesn't care about me," and we all smiled and they carried on with the intense donut ordering process.

It was a serious Dunkin' Donuts experience. Compared to donut shopping as a child 35 years ago, say, it felt like one of those bomb drills we did in the basement of our elementary school.

Just yesterday, my son and I went into a different Dunkin' Donuts in a different state. We had a half hour to kill so we sat down to eat our breakfast sandwich and bagel. There was a young lady mopping the floor. She mopped from the front door foyer, down one length of tables and then started on our side and mopped up to our feet on one side, walked around us and mopped from our feet on the other and down that row of tables as well. When we finished eating, we walked out very carefully. And Seth was thoroughly confused. "Mom, just what was that lady doing with that long handled device and all that water?"

No, he didn't really say that. But that's what I was thinking.

We Love Pennsylvania

2010-04-11T15:30:00.001-07:00

Falls and a gorge...I held Sean because...
his brothers were calling him...
It wasn't long before I lost sight of Luke & Seth

which I'm glad for, because it got steeper and

more irresistible to them as we climbed.

Entering old train tunnel

where I crunched my ankle in the dead center.It be dark in there.
I don't know what this was but...
everyone had to look in...
through the window.
Luke discovered his falls.
Sean discovered his love.

Seth discovered that he needs to travel alone if
he wants to climb without his mother yelling at him.

5 years apart. Look who's gonna be taller
Racing the van...bloody nose issue

Look who else has to race the van

How fast did I go!?!?!?
Boulder Field
Some geological ice age issue...
I figured with all the tourists...
if everyone took one rock home with them...
they'd have that mess cleaned up in no time.
Maybe I'll use the above picture for our Christmas cards:

Things have been rocky...

Views from our cabin

Hawk mountain hike

Not a real bird

What a view

the valley's nice too. :)

Mom, why don't we come here every weekend???

2010-04-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:31

Joyce Meyer was preaching on this verse this morning and she described storms in life from an eagle's point of view. Most birds run for cover when they see a storm coming, but eagles, she says, stare into the storm, spread their wings and let it lift them up higher than they could usually get on their own.

They will soar on wings like eagles, those that hope in the Lord.
What a promise, to be higher and closer to God as we go through life's storms.
Tears sprung into my eyes and I smiled because I've already been shown this to be true.
And because the next time I see a storm coming I will stare into it and spread my wings.

A Page from Crazy Love by Francis Chan

2010-04-04T07:24:00.000-07:00

This spoke to me so much, I just wanted to share today. Happy Easter.

So many of us think and live like the movie of life is all about us.
Now consider the movie of life....
God creates the world. (Were you alive then? Was God talking to you when He proclaimed "It is good" about all He had just made?)
Then people rebel against God (who, if you haven't realized it yet, is the main character in this movie), and God floods the earth to rid it of the mess people made of it.
Several generations later, God singles out a ninety-nine-year-old man called Abram and makes him the father of a nation (did you have anything to do with this?).
Later, along come Joseph and Moses and many other ordinary and inadequate people that the movie is also not about. God is the one who picks them and directs them and works miracles through them.
In the next scene, God sends judges and prophets to His nation because the people can't seem to give Him the one thing He asks of them (obedience).
And then, the climax: The Son of God is born among the people whom God still somehow loves. While in this world, the Son teaches His followers what true love looks like. Then the Son of God dies and is resurrected and goes back up to be with God.
And even though the movie isn't quite finished yet, we know what the lat scene holds. It's the scene I already described in chapter1: the throne room of God. Here every being worships God who sits on the throne, for He alone is worthy to be praised.

From start to finish, this movie is obviously about God. He is the main character. How is it possible that we live as though it is about us?

My Dad's Birthday

2010-04-02T07:33:00.000-07:00

We lived in North Wildwood, NJ near the beach.

My dad was a music teacher at Wildwood High School.
At Grammy's.
I think this was at the Philadelphia Zoo.
My Uncle John, they called him "Tuz," behind us.
My dad took me to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia often
to listen to the orchestra.

I think he's the best dad any two girls could have.

My Sister's Birthday

2010-03-31T17:13:00.000-07:00

My friend (maybe that should be in quotation marks) gave me elephant poop paper for my birthday. It's actual paper that is made from actual elephant poop. I've only used it twice. The first time, I wrote my son who was away for a month. I told him what it was, included a tag of paper from the box so he'd know it was true and he said he showed it to all the guys and a few ate a corner of my letter just to say they'd eaten elephant poop. Naturally. We're talking about teenage boys, they're not going to admire my penmanship - they're going to eat elephant poop if they get the chance!

Today, on my sister's birthday, I didn't have a card. I actually looked and saw none that fit the situation perfectly. Heh, funny, I never thought of it that way...I couldn't find a card that said all the right things, so uh, here's some elephant poop.

Here's what I wrote:

There once was a sister of mine,

Who grew to be age 39.

Right words on a card

Were, to find, rather hard -

And a present alone isn't fine!

So I pondered a while during Lent,

And came up with a nice sentiment.

A pen I then found and wrote it all down

Right on this elephant excrement!

Oh and Happy Birthday.

In the Blossoms of My Sin

2010-03-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand

Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched:

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd,

No reckoning made, but sent to my account

With all my imperfections on my head:

O horrible! O horrible! most horrible!

Have I been living like King Hamlet's ghost? I'm afraid I have. It's not like I didn't know better, I just didn't know better. Here King Hamlet's ghost is complaining that Claudius killed him while he was asleep in the garden and didn't even give him a chance to confess his sins and reckon himself with his Maker.

So K. H. had been livin' life. He had a Maker. He had sin. He had to drag the sin up to the Maker every once in a while, say, "Here," pant, pant, "this was a real dilly. Please, uh, take it away...clean it up...sorry 'bout that...and uh, thank ye once again. See You next week or thereabouts." Hope I don't die halfway through with half a weeks sins on my head.

Back to what I knew but didn't know. My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of "know" in the Bible. There's the "know" like when someone tells you something and so you retain knowledge of that fact and could say you "know" it. And there's the "knowing" that occurs when you actually experience something, walk through it, come out the other side and really know firsthand. That's the kind of knowing you don't forget and can from there on actually live out because it is engrained in you.

I think I finally know that Christ died for my sins - once. and. for. all. time. - and I don't have to spend my life gathering up my failings and dragging them to His feet so He can forgive me again and again and again and again. I don't have to do a special jig or kneel or say something just the right way to be cleansed. I mean, I can if I want but I am already cleansed for everything by Christ's blood. If His sacrifice of His perfect, sinless life isn't enough, is there really something I'm going to do to change things? No, that's why He came.

There is rest in Christ. He maketh me lie down in green pastures. I could not have rest if I were, for example, constantly trying to keep my nose clean and confess every last thought and deed worrying I can't take a nap with the Claudiuses of the world milling about pouring poison in people's ears. It's done. It is done.

And not only that, now God looks at me cloaked in Christ's righteousness. Why would I take that off to show him how dirty I still am? When someone gives me a gift, I wear it in front of them so they may know how much I appreciate it. I don't tell them that it wasn't enough. "Oh thanks for the down coat but I'm still really cold, by the way." "Oh thanks for the dishwasher, but I'm going to do them by hand and ignore it. Oh, and my hands are so chapped they hurt." "Thanks for the Lexus and free gas, but I'll walk." No, I may feel cold for a second but then remember with glee - I HAVE A WARM COAT! THANK YOU! I need to have awareness and sometimes Holy help when sin invades my life, but it doesn't change the fact that God sees me as righteous...not because I am, but because He is.

We sang this on Sunday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Akz6J8Rw0&feature=related

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

I like that period there right where it is.

It doesn't say, "unless Claudius sneaks up on him."

20 Years Today!

2010-03-24T06:08:00.000-07:00

Where a Kid Can Be a Kid

2010-03-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

There was a school fund raiser at Chuck E Cheese's yesterday and there is not a text option big enough to express how much I didn't want to go. And that is what big brothers who have their license (and the desire to be a kid again for an hour or two) are for. These two had a lot of fun and pizza and got a lot of tickets to exchange for cool toys.

And I stayed home!

These Are The Pictures We Pull Out At Family Gatherings

2010-03-22T10:57:00.000-07:00

...and laugh until we cry.
(That is, when Sean isn't in the room.)

This was the day that Sean, swollen and purple and slightly strange-looking was born and these pictures show the very first time his brothers took a glimpse of this new strange, swollen and purple family member.

His hospital picture was worse.

He grew out of his purple stage.

To Grandmother's House to Get Photographed Strangely

2010-03-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

All of these were taken at my grandmothers' houses.
This was my Grammy's house. Mom and Uncle Joe behind me. Same refrigerator exists today in the same place. I cleaned it last spring. My uncle has died, my mom looks almost the same and I feel a lot like this usually.

Grammy always put these curler things in our hair. I don't know why I was patting a turkey. Or why there were kitchen towels over all the chairs. Or why I have a little baby fork in the other hand. Maybe it was frozen and I was trying to chisel my hand off of it.

My mom made this nightie. Look at my toes.

Nothing's changed here. I'm still a hearty eater...around the crib yo...

They tell me I loved Grammy's "gook". So she photographed me with it a lot, there's a whole little book of Jennie & goose pictures. On the back of this one, Grammy wrote: Oct 1966 Gook kissing Jennifer

Now, this is a shame. That's my dad holding me like a Thanksgiving turkey and my Nana in the background admiring my rolls.

Believe me, people do not find this after dinner routine as cute as they used to. I stopped it some time ago.

Well, He Does...

2010-03-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

I am on a picture sifting, filing and organizing mission.

Prepare for impact.

Scrambled Eggs

2010-03-19T12:42:00.001-07:00

Lately, due to life, my brain has been like scrambled eggs. Over-cooked. In browned butter.
I can't finish sentences, I run up and down the stairs forgetting what I was looking for, I, I, I...

Sat down at my desk and found a scrap of paper. This was written on it:

Gert
Pol
Corn
Hora
Marc

I stared and stared. I stared some more. It was my handwriting. I was completely blank. This really began to scare me. Had I gone mad? Do I live a parallel life that I'm unaware of?

I finally figured out what I was writing about.
Any guesses?

Here's a hint. The answer is something everyone has read, whether they wanted to or not.

Sean & Lukey's Lonely Hearts Club Band

2010-03-15T19:22:00.000-07:00

Beatles are big around here, I don't know about your part of the world. These kids (and the other one) got Beatles Rock Band for Christmas and it was not a gift that gathers dust. Unlike my basement, which is also known as "The Holding Cell." I was so excited years ago when we fixed it up so ~~I could banish them to it~~ they could go down there and mess it up. And look, my dream came true! There's no telling how long that bowl of cereal has been there, or those other dishes and cups on the bar! Isn't it freeing?!
Back to the Beatles though. This 8 year old has come to know the lyrics of many Beatles tunes and this 13 year old's iPod is full of Beatles tunes, not to mention his closest full of Beatles t-shirts.

There may be a reader or two here that does not have Beatles Rock Band. I've only used it once when I felt guilty about having next to zero interest in it, though I walk by this scene on my way to the laundry room often. There is a video on the screen which has lyrics and also shows the guitar player or drummer where to play along with the music and the players try their best to sing on tune and drum on the beat, etc. If you don't keep up, the music starts to drag.
And it helps to wear sunglasses. The thing I like best about this game is that all three of my boys, 8, 13 and 18, can play together. It's cool. It always makes me happy to see them together. Wait. As I post this I'm looking at what's supposed to be a window to the right of that clock and notice that I am seeing a blue blanket jammed in the window well instead of a green cafe curtain that's usually there - but guess what!? That doesn't matter in the Holding Cell! All bets are off. Hanging pictures are off...the time on that clock is off...the chip clip for that bag of potato chips on the table is off, laying on the floor behind Sean... And that's okay, it hardly even bothers me, as you can tell. And speaking of bothering.

Tonight I was asking Luke after dinner if his braces were bothering him. He recently got rubber bands to adjust his jaw. He said no. Shrugged. Cool Hand Luke. This child had one bout of crying his entire childhood, and that includes toddler years. One. And that was because his Daddy and older brother left to go somewhere and he was left standing at the door...and he was around 3...and I just stood and watched because I'd never seen that before. So I asked him tonight, "Does anything bother you Luke?" Shrug. Now I'm getting annoyed. I leaned in, challenged him, "Name three things that bug you. Go!" He was slouched in the kitchen chair. "Mosquitoes..........................................Sean.........."
He shrugged.
Couldn't even think of three.

Fort My Kids

2010-03-10T09:40:00.000-08:00

I caught a glimpse of this backyard construction my kids have been building lately and something in my brain banged and yelled urgently, waking me up from my March funk: What is wrong with this picture? I approached cautiously.
I'm reminded of one of those seek 'n find drawings.

I see a broken tailbone with a good knot on the back of the skull thrown in.

Do you have any idea how many times I've been to the hospital in the last few years?

I don't either but I've come to know a recipe for disaster when I see one.

This tree fell over in the heavy snow we had this winter. Now it's a makeshift climbing course/fort-holder-upper.

Sean, with excitement: I climb all the way out here and then bang through the branches until I hit the ground! Upon closer inspection....

I find boards with nails flung around the main floor of the fort.
Intentional obstacle course or wrecklessness?
I order Oldest to promptly find his brain, take it out into the backyard and quickly apply it to the matter at hand before the children come home from school. And also this foot-puncturing mother of all beds of upright rusty nails as well, please.
Don't even enlarge this photo, it'll make your toes curl.
~sigh~

Why.

What the.

This is the little house oldest boy built as an assignment for homeschooling many years ago.

I tried, people.

update: Right after I drew up a waiver for all the neighborhood parents to sign I noticed that Dad is out back fixing the contraption, muttering to himself about such things as the importance of nonhalfassedness. No need to call the authorities, a little public exposure and my reporting skills saved the children.

Things I Prolly Won't Do

2010-03-03T04:54:00.000-08:00

Whenever I say "I would never _____," I do that thing within two or three months.
"I would never _____" is my life's classroom.
There are some things though that I must go ahead and risk it and pronounce that I would never do.

I would never be a woman sportscaster. I think I'm safe with this one though. It just isn't gonna happen. I do hesitate to say this because it probably sounds so anti-something or other, which I am not, but I just cannot get into women sportscasters! Maybe it's because I don't think I could ever like sports enough to stand there with a microphone and bark terms like, um, see I don't even know any terms. Touchdown, say, or RBI. Or maybe it's because of the one I saw the other day wearing a men's suit two sizes too big for her and bad flat hair that made her look like she was trying to look like a man. Or maybe it's the opposite, the ones who look all sexy and pretty and I gotta wonder if men watching and listening to them are watching or listening to them. I don't know, I just have disharmony with the whole women sportscaster thing and then I have shame and disharmony for feeling that way.

Along this same vein, it'll be a cold day - combined with a really bad laundry week - combined with a mental breakdown of some sort (and that's not entirely out of the question) before I'll be wearing a professional sports team jersey. Especially on the day of the "big game." What is the matter with me? Contrariness? Rebellion? Major disinterest? We know it's not fashion sense.

Now that I've insulted tried and true sports fans, men and women alike, I shall get humble and admit that I will never be a person who cleans my floors in a responsible regular fashion. I heard someone say once, "I vacuum once a month whether it needs it or not," and, yeah. I hear ya sister, I feel your pain. I don't have many rugs, I have 100 year old hardwood floors. I fool myself into thinking that they hide a multitude of sins. But washing them and seeing them shiny spic and span topples that illusion every time, so...in the interest in illusionment...

I probably won't be a person who dyes her hair. I know, I'm 45 and treading on very thin ice right now, graying at the temples. It may not be a few months, but perhaps several years when I eat those words waving a silver flag, but today I'll say no to hair dye. To me, there's nothing worse than 1) spending hundreds of dollars on hair. Ugh, I don't even get it cut! And 2) using the wrong hair color, either too dark or too light, for your skin tone. I'd be afraid of not getting it right. 3) Spending any time whatsoever in a salon. I do not find salons comforting or interesting, but usually a place where I feel like I want to jump out from under my hair and run out screaming.

I probably won't wear a bikini ever again. Don't bother passing the tissues. If you ever see me in a bikini it will be a person who looks a lot like me but isn't. Or it will be me after going through an amazing transformation and, unable to contain my new abs a minute longer, I ran around some foreign island frolicking in a bikini. In which case, it wouldn't look like me at all. And no, it'll be someone else.

I will never overdecorate my house for a holiday. To my children's' chagrin. There won't be headstones on the lawn, Santas on the rooftops, shamrocks in the windows, giant eggs hanging from trees, hugging heart bears on the porch or big paper turkeys on my dining room table. I do not even own an American flag or a flag pole or holder to put it on. Who am I and what do I stand for?

I will probably not ever stop buying disinfecting wipes unless the economy crashes and I am shamed and shocked into realizing how cost ineffective, wasteful and unhealthy they are. But as long as we have an income and I own this Bernese mountain dog with long black hair who likes to lay at the door of my bathroom with the white vinyl flooring and white porcelain toilet...growl...I am using disinfecting wipes and I'm using them to my heart's delight.

I won't be the guy eating that gigantic steak in that "restaurant" where people gather to watch and cheer for someone eating a gigantic amount of food in an hour's time. I do that in the privacy of my own home, thank you.

I will not sail around the world alone or with someone else. I will not sail around a harbor either. I find it skeery.

Mechanical stuff. I won't build a motorcycle from scratch or try and fix my toaster. I remember sixth grade and building a thing with batteries that was supposed to do something or other. I remember the pile of wires, batteries...um, wires and stuff on my light beige desk and Mr. Matthews walking around barking some instructions and yeah, no. No satisfaction or even mild interest in mechanical, electronic, wire stuff.

Parade organizer. Oh, that's funny to imagine. Any parade I designed would be devoid of girls (or boys) waving from convertibles. I mean, I don't even understand that phenomenon. Nine fire trucks in a row or scattered throughout. And then ones from other towns? Again, I have no idea. Clowns. Why the stumbling, painted faces, flowers pulled from guns? Somersaults. For some reason I find it hard to believe that even clowns are having fun being clowns. Bands passing by on flatbed trucks, another funny thing. Here's 3/4s of a song on wheels - enjoy! Then there are the people walking excitedly handing pens and papers to those watching along the sides. This pen works really well, I'll go to this place on this pen! I don't know. ;)

Any parade I'm designing would have to have....well it would have to be....it would be.....I'm not designing no parade.

A Wretch Like Me

2010-02-28T16:34:00.000-08:00

Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.
~Thomas Merton

Recently we had reason to spend a few Sundays in "chapel" at Caron Treatment Center, a drug and alcohol rehab. Our son was singing and playing his music there as part of the service during his month long stay so we drove up early Sunday mornings to join in. The day we went to pick him up and take him home I grabbed a book off my shelf to page through on the way. The quote I cited above was the last thing I'd underlined after I'd stopped reading on page 17 of No Man Is an Island, who knows when. Our son had "found God again" during his work and recovery at Caron (an amazing place, I must add) and I felt this quote so appropriate for our experience at chapel in the weeks prior.

Our first visit to chapel was the first day we'd returned to the place since dropping him off two weeks earlier. There were no seats available so we were directed to the front, to the seats literally in the sunken stage area of the auditorium. So Stan and I and a few others sat in front of hundreds of men, women and adolescents, recovering addicts, counselors and family. We had absolutely no idea what to expect, we were just along for the ride.

The pastor spoke, people shared their music, others lined up on the sides of the auditorium waiting for a chance to speak, to tell their story or celebrate their friend's recovery or mourn for their friend's death. No matter what the subject or purpose of each message, a resounding and unmistakable theme began to rise like sweet fragrance from the stage and from those congregated in that room. Brokenness. Humility. Weakness and strength. Strength in weakness. Beautiful, rare, precious, vital.

At the end of the two hour service, everyone wrapped an arm around the people next to them and we swayed to the music, the song that everyone sang about security and love and community. At this point in my story you might be saying, okay, enough, that's hokey, but at this point in my first morning at "chapel" on that hill overlooking a beautiful valley I was hearing myself say over and over in my mind, I love addicts. I walked out of that service feeling, "I love addicts", I said it to Stan as we walked to the car, "I love addicts." A couple of weeks later I'd realize, after an excellent and intense family education program for four straight days, that perhaps I meant I love recovering addicts, but whatever term, that service changed me.

A wretch like me. The other thing I was thinking as I left that service was these people are lucky. Another weird thought, believe me, I know. Addiction is not a fun thing to experience personally or experience with someone else. No. Terrorizing and horrible. But there aren't many things in life that hit you like a ton of bricks, wrestle you to the ground, push your face in the dirt, hold your arm behind your back and will not give up until you cry mercy. There aren't many things in life that so perfectly convince us of our wretchedness. And until we're convinced of our wretchedness - all of us - we may never know God's mercy and grace. Why ask for - beg, cry and ache and groan for - God's mercy if you do not find yourself a wretch, like me?

I suppose some might sit in that chapel and be glad they never sunk so low. I don't think sinking low is the point, but realizing our lowness and God's greatness is and how neither of those things change no matter what we do. Thank you Jesus. These people knew or were starting their journey to knowing their brokenness, they were humble and discovering their need for God, their Higher Power and for those who love them and would help to hold them up. They simply could not go on without those things. It was beautiful, because none of us can. The young kid in tight jeans hanging off his butt, the lovely middle aged woman in fine clothes and carefully applied make-up, the frumpy man with the scraggly beard, the overweight mom, her barefeet slipping in and out of flimsy shoes as she stood nervously speaking. All equally beautiful. Frankly, I've never been in another place like it. I'd rather be in that auditorium full of recovery than in any other for most any other reason, I thought more than once. It has become a home to us, a community of people for us, forever. Recovery doesn't end and neither does our need for God's grace. I felt blessed to be sitting there among these brave, weakened (and so, strengthened) people. It made me understand that it's only when we know our weakness do we begin to know our deep strength in God's tremendous greatness and also the greatness that is another person reaching out their hand to love and support us.

Perhaps there is a special moment, a precious point in time when God moves in and true light is shone onto our souls through our vulnerabilities. Like that saying about cracks allowing the light to come in. How is that to happen on those days when I feel so very okay, skipping along in my daily this and that with my new green eye shadow, feeling good enough? I don't know, but I saw it happen there - I felt that soft aire of mercy penetrating the hearts of my humbled sisters and brothers around me and I've felt that mercy upon me throughout these trials day in and day out, and it feels good to a wretch like me.

Where Am I?

2010-02-10T08:38:00.000-08:00

This is today, outside my window.
This was last week, on my back porch?

and in my front yard?

and on my front walk? I do recognize the shoveler.

This is today.

It's coming down again. And maybe just as much.

And where, pray tell, are we supposed to put it this time?

And why didn't this happen 35 years ago when I could have really enjoyed it?!

Young Sailors

2010-01-25T09:25:00.000-08:00

Did you hear about those young girls (17) who have set out to sail around the world by themselves? One is due to complete her trip in April or May and when she does, she will set the record as the youngest girl to sail around the world. But the other girl, is set to finish in June and if she does, she will claim that title because she is 4 months younger than the first girl! Exciting stuff, but sheesh, talk about taking the wind out of her sails.....

Why Do I Dread The Post Office?

2010-01-21T15:38:00.000-08:00

On my list of things to do today (grab a cup of tea, this is going to be captivating) I had:

mailing boots to Jeanne
mailing book to Amy
mailing letter to Betty
calling to make doctor appointment
calling to check to see if a lab slip is still valid to use
find that lab slip
(sift through hundreds of pieces of paper in three locations including the attic to find that lab slip)
calling Stephanie about that thing I was supposed to help her with two months ago
mailing school pictures to mother in law, long overdue

So I went to the gym.
I didn't want to do that either but lifting weights and 20 minutes of level 2 hills on the eliptical seemed less formidable.

I have to believe that other people have things on their list they dread doing and I'm not talking about chopping wood, carrying water, digging wells, walking nine miles to the market and home again with large baskets on their heads. I'm talking about writing a short note to a lovely lady who wrote me a lovely note months ago. And why does going to mail something at the post office fill me with so much dread that I refuse to even think about it until I literally have to march myself there with a gun at my temple? (I did. I had my son's Nerf gun, marching down the street.) And a letter is bad enough but mailing something that requires a box? Downright vapor-locking.

Today I was throwing some old children's boots into a box for my great nephew - a new post office box that we already had available in our home! - and it's something I've been avoiding it for weeks. It's as if there were a black mamba in the basement guarding the boots, a brown recluse in the mailing box waiting to bite me, a terrorist at the post office threatening to - well, no it's not quite that bad but it is ridiculous. Then I skip into the post office and back out again and think what is my prob-lem??? Then I'm filled with so much pride that I actually accomplished that mission that I want to drive around the block and get myself a latte to celebrate. I didn't do that today, but I admit, I did send this text to Amy afterward in my van: Mission accomplished.

Shew. It's a good thing the world has me, doin' all these brave deeds, holdin' it up.

And calling to make a doctor's appointment, I mean, what in the world is the big deal - it took me three minutes! The lady on the other end was quite pleasant and she gave me an appointment without requiring any strange unavailable information that might send me searching in file cabinets, like the name of the doctor who removed my plantar warts in second grade or the number of times I went to the student health center in college. A few numbers read off my insurance card, a birthdate or two and voila, I'm going to the doctor's in February, it's that easy folks.

I must admit here that I have not yet called Stephanie about that thing, nor have I called about the lab slip but these are things I will tackle tomorrow when I get my strength back.

Now, please do tell. You dread anything?

Climb Every Mountain, la la la la

2010-01-16T18:11:00.000-08:00

Two things bother me about The Sound of Music. It's not the matching play outfits made out of curtains. It's not really the fact that the outside of the house has huge stately windows all around the front door and the inside has none. It's not even when the nuns disable the cars of the Nazi guys chasing Maria and her new family. I mean, what would you do?

I like The Sound of Music, who doesn't? The running, singing, carrying the guitar case...the good night song - cuc-koooo....the brown paper packages....the learning to sing scales running through the streets of Salzburg...and c'mon, how cute was it when Gretl's finger got caught in Friedrich's teeth? But I have two problems.

One is the whole "Climb Every Mountain" scene. Is Maria a nun or what, first of all? I can't seem to figure it out, maybe she's just a practice nun, but certainly if she is a nun I can't imagine the mother superior providing her with such counsel as she does. Nuns are married to Jesus, right? I'm not Catholic, so I really have no idea what I'm talking about, but assuming they've vowed themselves to being a nun, what would possess the mother superior to immediately break into song about trying out everything in life until you find your dream the second one of them got strangely warmed by a dude in uniform? Can you imagine going to your preacher to discuss the confusion of falling for someone else when you're already married and having the guy go to the window and start wistfully and powerfully singing, "Climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow till you find your dream!" I always think that scene is so weird!

So then she goes to her Captain and he loves her and she loves him and she's all, wow, how can this be happening? So she breaks into song and again sorry, but this bugs me. She says she must have done something good since this is happening to her. Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could so somewhere in my youth or childhood, la la la la la. Yes Maria, you flibbertyjibbet, nothing comes from nothing! Everything good comes from God, remember? You've only just left the abbey hours ago and already you've forgotten.

Sigh. How do you solve a problem like Maria and that wacky mother superior?

Don't Give VISA Gift Cards

2010-01-03T15:05:00.001-08:00

It's just a friendly neighborhood public service announcement. Warning. Plea.
Last Christmas we were given 2 $100 cards. Didn't use them, we were saving them. Then we found out that there's a monthly charge and our cards were diminishing in worth while sitting safely in our wallets. By the time we found this out we'd lost most of the money on the cards. We called VISA and they sent us, as a courtesy I guess, a $100 card and a $50 card. We spent $35 of the $50 card on clothes for Sean. Then I tried to use both cards for gifts at my favorite Bloomington shop. Neither card would work. Come to find out, you have to spent exactly or under the amount on the card or it won't work. I can't put that $16.00 on a $90.00 bill, for example. Why? Because.

But why didn't the $100 card work? Today Stan called VISA...well, seemingly a lady in India, but you know what I mean. She talked in circles for 20 minutes. Finally Stan figured out that VISA had reissued a card to "us" and deactivated our $100 card for some reason and guess where the reissued card went? To Syracuse, "Terraceview Rd". When it was firmly established that our address isn't in Syracuse at all, the lady deferred to her supervisor...who never picked up the phone which Stan put on speaker and let sit on the kitchen table so he could go about his business. Then Stan's cell went dead.

So much easier than sticking $100 in a card, isn't it?

p.s. He talked to a supervisor. She said, "Tough. These cards are not secure (even when they are sent to you straight from the company). They are like cash." Except much much harder to use and cash doesn't diminish in value while tucked into your wallet. Well.....you know what I mean.... So somehow a lady in Syracuse "Lynn Gilbert" has the money from our card. Does this make sense to anyone out there besides companies of ill-repute and computer hackers?

Happy New Year, Friends!

2009-12-31T14:42:00.000-08:00

Hodge Podge at the Christmas Lodge

2009-12-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

I went away for Christmas and spent a large part of it blowing my nose and groaning. And I am still blowing my nose and groaning. I'm also blowing my nose. My forehead is splitting horizontally. I'm watching an old Benecio Del Toro movie so I would like to share various Christmas pictures with minimal thinking required. I hope you're Christmas was a good one!

There's Luke receiving French candy brought back by Blaise, my nephew, who's been living in France with his grandparents, working in his uncle's vineyard and learning to be an equestrian. And all we got was this lousy bag of candy. Actually I stole a few and they were delicious!! (And he also got an iTunes card too, cause that's what every 12 year old on the earth received this Christmas.)

This is Marie, my sister in law. We imported her from France and we

like her even and much more than the French candy.

She does not always have a giant blue pitcher attached to her chest.

Christmas Eve at Mama's. We didn't know it, but it is tradition there that

Cheyanne and Marguerite sit on the piano bench.

Here are Chey and Marg in the rocking chair.

This is Jeanne, another favorite sister in law. Stan's sister. Goat farmer.

Me in Marg's hat for some reason. Sean in giant pipe cleaners, for obvious reasons.

Charles, one of Marie's sons and also attached to a giant blue pitcher.

Out at Jeanne's farm with little Leo, new great grandchild.

Up at Jeanne's barn waiting for a goat to become a mommy,

which she didn't do for us before we left.

Jeanne's goats have minds of their own

and will not be rushed into kidbirth for a few nosy boys.

Oh, there's Sean and Mama putting stuff out for Santa and reindeer, she doesn't have a chimney.
Leo likes the ABC thing we got him.

The kids always sit in the "pit group" at Mama's. It looks like Marie is wearing a Santa hat, but that's hanging on the coat tree behind her. Tee hee.
And Stan always falls asleep there no matter what.

And there's me in the mirror ~~unknowingly~~so cleverly including myself in the picture.

Jeanne and her grandchild Leo.

Josh received and enjoyed a box.
Blaise got lower chaps for Christmas Eve and wore them for two days. We thought he kinda looked more German than French there for a minute. I love Blaise, he's such a great kid.

Thomas got an Indiana shirt! There's always one in the bunch.

Mama's traditional required Christmas tree photo.

Sean likes Mama's. There's a constant flow of lemonade and hugs.

This Calls For Pictures

2009-12-20T10:31:00.000-08:00

We don't get snow like this and in December, "not in a hundred years." Everybody is outside shoveling or playing 'cept me. I'm inside, warm. I did go to church today before we were dug out. I got picked up at the curb by my father who brought the snow blower for our obscenely long driveway...yes, we have thought of parking near the street before snowstorms but it's usually after the storm that we remember how good an idea that really is. I walked out in my church clothes donning two trash bags over my legs and made it to the waiting car with nary a flake! Well, except for the fact that I looked like one.

There's Sean sledding with friends on our neighbor's "hill". Stan snowblew (new word) his walks today as a thank you for letting our kids sled their yard for the last 12 years. And letting our kids cut through their yard and for calling us every time Stan leaves the lights on in his truck AND whenever he leaves our garage side door open AND a couple times when he's left his truck door open and went inside to eat or sleep... What is wrong with my husband, I do not know but having Cliff nearby does help. Hmmm. I wonder if Cliff owns binoculars...

This is what things look like inside.

Boys jumping off porches...

Ruby's friend Bernie came over to play. Two snow dogs, playing in the snow.

I Thought I Was a New Jersey Mountain Dog

2009-12-19T08:54:00.000-08:00

My little one has forgotten from whence she came. I found her curled up at the back door pleading with her eyes. Please let me in.

My New Jersey boys have no trouble freezing their tushies in the snow for hours, but our Bernese (that's Bern, Switzerland, I was told) Mountain Dog is cold. The problem is that she has lost so much of her fur IN MY HOUSE that she is now vulnerable to the harsh New Jersey winter.

I've snuggled her onto her bed in front of the fire, the poor little one.

Things Said Around Our Table Of Late

2009-12-16T06:24:00.001-08:00

It's universal, everyone has their own sometimes wacky, sometimes boring, sometimes disjointed, sometimes meaningful dinner conversations. It's dinner, it's human, it's what happens when people sit in a circle.

When I was little, a few boys down the street (so we were told) were not allowed to speak during dinner. The table was supposed to be quiet. The mom was tidy, the dad serious, the boys quiet? It was almost unbelievable to me that their table was proper. Ours wasn't.

We sat around an old round wooden table, the four of us. My sister gnawed on bones (she did, at least as a baby) and my mom got up and down serving, getting, fixing, adding butter and my dad pulled a high stool up to his knees and balanced a tiny television on top of it so he could watch Star Trek while he ate. Kirk, Bones, Vulcans, Tribbles. That is the stuff of dinnertime memories for me.

There are seasons in the year when dinner for five is tough to coordinate. This fall I was on a new recipe kick so we ate together a lot. People seemed to be able to make it home to see what I was preparing. I felt powerful and needed, me and my mushroom cream sauce over chicken and linguine. Stan noticed that dinnertime during this period seemed to be actually healing and nurturing. All three boys talked, shared their days, ate heartily, smiled and sometimes felt inspired to carry their happy plates to the sink after they'd finished.

The other night we had baked potatoes and london broil, also raw cauliflower and a ranch dipping sauce a la Hidden Valley farms, as well as a sad bowl of boiled broccoli. It was the night after I took Seth to a bookstore and made him wait 4 hours with me to get a signing. [Sidenote - Seth, not a booklover or a sitting-still tolerater, has never cracked a book that wasn't assigned and rarely read the ones that were.]

Seth: I was looking at a book yesterday -

The table in its entirety hushed and eyes widened.

I leaned in: You were?

I was excited at the thought of the wisdom-gaining that may have taken place, not to mention whatever inspiration that may have caused it!

Seth: Yes, remember? I was stuck in a bookstore for 4 hours.

Me, deflated a tad: Oh. Yeah. That. Go on. What were you reading?

Seth, casually, like it was the New York Times or Field and Stream: It was a book on Native African clothing styles and.....

We all slumped. Even stuck in a bookstore for four hours, no words would pass his eyeball range, instead he described nakedness topped off with fanciful (or meaningful, I don't know) feathered tufts popping up from heads, things like that. I can only imagine what punishment would have ensued had those boys down the street peppered their dinner quietude with talk of naked feathered fashion sense.

But it wasn't that part of the dinner that made me write a post, really. It was this part. This bouncey, good-natured but out of left field discourse.

Seth, with pride: Luke. Your nose is getting more like Dad's and mine every day.

Luke: What's that? Big?

Me: It's weird, you three all have very different noses.

Sean, who does have a little trouble keeping his glasses up: Luke says my nose doesn't go with my face. He says that I have a black guy's nose.

Me: Well, you need to give it back to him!

Sean, misunderstanding my command gets up and walks over to Luke's side of the table: Hey Luke! You have a pimple on your nose big enough for a baby to sit on!

Stan: Nobody puts Baby on a nose!

I beamed with pride that my husband knows lines from chick flicks....that my eldest son looked at a book...that my youngest son has a sharp wit...that my Luke is turning into a man...that I'd served two cruciferous vegetables.

Sunday's Brush With Fame

2009-12-13T19:29:00.000-08:00

Pioneer Woman herself - on our east coast!

Today was the last official day on her cookbook tour and Seth and I went on over to West Chester, PA in the pouring rain and had the pleasure of meeting her. I bought her cookbook for a friend of mine who loves to cook great things for her family's meals. It was fun to see Ree in person, she was just like she is on her blog, very sweet and personable. I think she said something sweet and personable to each and every person who came to her table. She even sang some Ethel Merman for us. I guess I fell asleep there for a second in the photo...it was a long wait - she has scads of fans! Her blog link is over in my blogroll, case you've never wandered on over to her pasture. Or into her kitchen. Or seen her photography. You could spend all day there, it's a great blog.

I was 206 in line for signing (out of around 230, I'd say) so we had plenty of time for lunch and browsing. Seth and I had a good lunch in the bookstore cafe, caesar salad and cream of onion soup and some good coffee. Tomorrow she'll be back in Oklahoma and that's good. As much as we liked her here visiting, we look forward to some more stories about Marlboro Man, Charlie, the punks and sunsets over the ranch. Nice to meet you PW!

I'm Sick. What's On T.V.?

2009-12-06T04:20:00.000-08:00

A couple adopt a robotic boy to replace their son while he is in cryo-stasis due to an incurable disease, but when medical advances cure their real son, the android journeys to become a real boy and regain his "mother's" love.

A psychotic bomber rigs a Los Angeles city bus with explosives that will detonate if the bus slows to less than 50 miles per hour and a member of the LAPD bomb squad has to find a way to rescue the passengers before the bus runs out of fuel.

A psychiatrist tries to save mankind from an extraterrestrial epidemic.

When terrorists attempt to kill the Vice President, a Detroit detective violates orders to protect him, and for his insubordination, he is transferred to the worst precinct in the city, where he discovers police officers selling drugs to dealers.

A former CIA assassin suffering from amnesia returns to the United States to track down the people responsible for making him what he is and to shut down the secret department that refuses to step sending agents to eliminate him.

In the future of an American torn apart by a second Civil War, the owner of a popular night club who moonlights as a bounty hunter becomes involved in a political cover up after she is asked to smuggle a fugitive scientist out of the country.

A brilliant military scientist fears he is the last human on Earth when a strange new plague is unleashed on mankind, and as the only one who is immune to the deadly virus, he must find a cure while there is stil time to act.

An FBI agent with a mission and a rogue DIA agent set on revenge put aside their differences to work together to stop a mutual adversary, who has acquired a deadly weapon that can be injected into a victim's body and triggered to kill at any time.

Really, what in the world is going on?

This Just In

2009-12-01T11:50:00.000-08:00

In sifting through Sean's stacks of school papers, I came across a paper titled Then and Now. There's a vertical pencil line down the center and six little colored scenes glued on one side or the other.

On one side there is a father and son hunting in knickers. On the other, a father and son in a grocery store. Below these there is a candle on the bedside table in one and an electric lamp in the other picture. A lady bends over a fire with a kettle, a lady bends over an oven.

Sean's handwriting is on the bottom of the page:

Long ago they did not have MP3 players now we have MP3 players.
And they had deer skin clothes now we have lether.

You heard it hear first.

Some People

2009-11-30T05:18:00.000-08:00

My dad borrowed my husband's truck this morning to drive to Philadelphia and pick up two seats from the old Spectrum (where I saw Journey/Greg Kihn?, Queen/Billy Squire, Rush, David Bowie, Yes, Van Morrison...hockey games...I don't know what else...) for his friend, a Flyers fan, who lives in Arizona now but wanted THE seats he sat in at those games many years ago. Well, that couldn't be arranged - I mean, ya know? - so he bought (for $426) whatever seats he could get.

I actually think that these are the seats I sat in for David Bowie. They just remind me of them. Anyway, these seats from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania are now in South Jersey waiting in my dad's garage (I told him to put them in the living room and see what mom did) for his friend to somehow get them to Arizona someday
....and...do...what? Sit. I guess.

Then after I photographed my David Bowie seats for posterity (or you might say posteriorarity) I photographed Luke eating breakfast.
I think that's him anyway...

Last Night I Baked and Mixed

2009-11-26T05:44:00.000-08:00

First, I made a broccoli and cheese souffle for dinner because that's all I had available. All our meat was frozen solid in our new handy freezer chest. Plus, it's what I had a taste for. So I quickly chopped and whipped and folded, grated, buttered and baked. Then sniffing children wandered in and all insisted that they had no memory of my making this (I have a blog post picture to prove it somewhere) and were not at all sure it would do for their dinner.

They ate it, but Sean mostly ate lettuce with French dressing. Which explains why he's been 52 lbs. for three years.

Then I cleaned the kitchen and started again, somewhat begrudgingly. I was not in the mood for the high stress job of pie making but luckily my dad came in with Thanksgiving cards with money for the boys (when did they start that?) and I took this opportunity to look pitiful and weak and ask, "Can I just use the Trader Joe's crust in my freezer chest for the pies? I don't want to make pie crust." I slumped my shoulders, threw back my head and leaned heavily on the island. My dad, who fancies himself both a pie crust connoisseur and an expert pie crust maker, gave the official word: Yes.

The crusts didn't fit the pie plates, so I rolled them a bit and stretched them. They shrunk ridiculously in the oven so it looks like I made pumpkin custard with slightly crusty edges. They are two of the ugliest pumpkin pies you've ever seen. Luke had some concern on the outset of this project that I was not making enough pies. He requested three. I told him that was impossible, it's two or four - the can makes two at a time. Furthermore I only have one pie plate and one piece of pottery that acts (poorly) as a pie plate. But upon awakening this morning I'm thinking someone needs to go to the Acme and buy two more pie plates and I'll start over today. Luke, Mr. I Need More Pumpkin Pie Than The Usual Person, with have to be happy with the ugly two. And I, Mrs. I Can't Take the Stress of Making My Own Crusts This Year, will make my own crusts...under a time limit this time.

After I made the pies, I dug around the basement closets and shelves and got my ice cream maker to start on the ice cream. I made chocolate chocolate chip ice cream in my Cuisinart ice cream maker to bring to dinner. The ice cream maker is really loud, so Stan turned up his movie in the living room and Sean turned up the computer and tv in the kitchen while the machine roared on for a half hour. I cleaned up again.

Meanwhile, my mother in law called from Indiana and said, "I'm making the stuffing and I can't stop thinking about you because making the stuffing is your job!" In Indiana they put oysters in their stuffing...now my ancestors were oysterman and I had never heard of such until I moved to the midwest...where, to my knowledge, they have no oysters. For that matter, I'd never seen a canned oyster until I moved to the midwest and the idea of a canned oyster to me is, shew...I don't know. It is my Bloomington holiday job and I'll say no more.

Then I started on the cream of the taco dip for appetizer, today I'll chop the vegetables for the top. Cream cheese, sour cream, taco sauce, onion powder, paprika, tabasco sauce, garlic powder...uh, no garlic powder. Plopped the cream base in a bowl, into the fridge and I'll get some at mom's today before I set it out with the Tostitoes.

By this time Stan was reading to Sean about Bathsheeba from his children's Bible book. The two older boys had sacked out in the basement after watching some scary movie. And I was hungry, cause truth to tell, broccoli cheese souffle isn't very filling. I fingered the avocados I bought at Sams the other day and found a ripe one. I wasn't in the mood for food preparation so I hastily sliced through it and dropped the two pieces in a cereal bowl. Turned around and grabbed a piece of garlic. The small grater was in the washer so I simply held the clove in my fingers and chopped away on it, dropping big chunks over the avocado. I'd seen a lemon somewhere....oh, there it is, on my china closet in a narrow wooden plate and wrapped in one of those rubber bracelets, like Lance Armstrong's Live Strong one, but this was orange and yellow tie-dye and I have no idea what it said or why it was snugly hugging a lemon in my kitchen. I freed the lemon from the political or idealistic statement by which it was bound and sliced it in half and squeezed it over the avocado and garlic, picking out the seeds and flinging them into the trash. Reaching around, I grabbed the sea salt grinder and the giant jar of chili pepper my mother gave me years ago and I will never ever run out of. Then I took a steak knife and a fork and began cutting away in the bowl, somewhat furiously. I cut and cut until the pieces were small enough to fit on one of those scoop-sized Tostitoes and then I grabbed the bag (one of two that were supposed to have been saved for today) and the bowl of guacamole and put myself down in the living room in front of the tv and ate the whole bowl. Stan actually came down at the very end and tried to pretend it was a common bowl for any who might walk by, but I hugged it closer and quickly finished the last pieces of avocado and garlic on my scoop.

I'm off to make two pies, buy a bag of Tostitoes and some powdered garlic and chop some vegetables.

Hope yours is happy!

Thankful

2009-11-23T07:55:00.000-08:00

I might be the most thankful right now in my life than ever before. It's been a long horrible, hiney-cringing (to borrow from an applicable Pioneer Woman saying), unimaginable and glorious year. More about my excruciating spiritual growth some other day.

Today I'm thankful that I have a husband who would send me to Aruba with friends knowing that I really needed to remove about 150 layers of horrible, hiney-cringing, unimaginable sludge, in simple words: GET AWAY.

I was even more thankful when I returned home, after missing my newly 8 year old's birthday as I sunned myself near the equator, and found that husband had even stepped in and made a special birthday cake for the kid.

Yes, that is my Salad Spinner on top.

It doesn't get much better than that...and I mean that, well, both ways.

Shleprocks, Meet the Shleprocks

2009-11-21T07:05:00.000-08:00

I wrote a post a while back, a thankful post about not having to return to the oculoplast's office because my boy's eye was healed! It was healed, as far as we could see. Then the family got a bout of sickness, strep throat, sinus infections, and I encouraged him to use my Neti pot. You know, the thing that washes salt water up into your sinuses and back out your nostril so to clean out the area of mucus and disease.

Or.

It flushes mucus and disease up into a fractured eye area, thus bringing germs into the eye socket, causing a full blown raging infection in the ocular cone risking blindness and in some rare cases, death. The surgeon's "fellow" met us in that tall (dark and closed) building one Saturday night and prescribed a strong antibiotic which worked well and we had the second of two follow up appointments this week, during which I admitted my stupidity in encouraging (forcing?) my reluctant kid to pour salt water into his head. Look! See? It's great! Isn't it?...Yeah, Mom, great. Thanks.

Uh, let's see. What else has been goin' on 'round here...Oh! Last night we spent an hour and a half (10:50 until 12:20AM) at the dentist! No, not my kid. My nephew was sleeping over for the first time in months and my youngest banchee shoved a light saber in his direction thus breaking a lower adult tooth in his mouth. Clean in half. It's glued on for now, after three tries and a very agitated, perfectionist dentist who wasn't exactly delighted with the slightly imperfect way it finally cemented together. The untrained eye can't really tell, but...I stand in awe and appreciation once again. I am gaining a whole new respect for the medical profession, through leaps and bounds.

Speaking of leaps and bounds, they're outside playing now.
"Play carefully!!" I yelled after them as they ran out.
Mine answered, giggling down the stairs, "We won't!...Just kidding!"

Help me.

Sunset Over The Northeast

2009-11-19T08:57:00.000-08:00

But before I quit, here are a few other pictures of the trip. It's good to be home.

These two were taking from my chair early one morning, while I drank my DD coffee and read Gift from the Sea.

Goobers. And Our Bal.

2009-11-18T11:01:00.000-08:00

I was seen daily in a foreign country with these goobers in their matching muumuus.
They had no shame.

Also, I'd like to share my balcony with you....please, come out, have a seat.
Wait. How wide are your hips? If you've had children, you may have to stand sideways.

Coleen and I liked to go out and listen to the lounge singers below. They even sang my wedding song, "Have I Told You Lately?" by Van Morrison. I texted Stan I WISH YOU WERE HERE! But, anyway, here's our balcony. We called it "bal," for short.

It did make an ideal place to dry my beach treasures.

El Dia Dos

2009-11-17T05:40:00.000-08:00

Friday morning we had a nice breakfast, best waffles I've ever had, papaya which I don't really like but I ate it pretending that it grew wild on the island. (I don't think much of anything does except for lizards and tumble weeds.) Fresh squeezed orange juice, cheese frittata. I liked watching the birds eat the leftovers. There was a lot of animal action at the resort. Stray dogs on the beach, cats on the ledges, iguanas jumping into the pool and crawling under my lounger, parrots in cages, rude men at the bar. Kidding about that one. Once, while lounging, a tiny colorful bird flew millimeters past my big toe, up my body and zoomed millimeters past my ear.
This was one of my favorite sites on the beach - this little girl who sat quietly playing for what seemed like hours.

After that cuteness, we photographed each other. Not so cute, but it had to be done.

The fourth member of our party was there for a veterinarian convention, so she was late to the beach. She was learning about diabetes and ketosis and other diseases while we had our bloody marys.
Then I laid on my tummy and read but couldn't stop looking at this cutie pie. I think she was from South America, don't know why, just a hunch. I couldn't stop looking at her prancing around in her little scarf.

It was hot. Someone needed to get her a chair.
I took along Gift from the Sea to read and it was so good. Can't believe I haven't read it till now. And it was a perfect read for this vacation of rejuvenation and perspective. I also accomplished my goal.
Observe.
A drink, a "Miami Vice" delivered to moi...lounging...white beach...blue ocean.
Check.
Mission accomplished.
Must make new goal.

Then we went to Oranjestad for shopping. We traveled, packed like sardines on a steaming hot bus that blew our hair like a tornado and we liked it, darnit.

While in a t-shirt shop in Oranjestad, the clerk ringing up my purchase looked at me, cocked her head and asked, "Spanish?" I shook my head and said, "No?" She asked, "English?" I told her yes and then she told me the amount I owed in English. She caught me offguard because everyone spoke English to us, so I never even thought about a language barrier the whole time, but this island native thought I spoke Spanish. Coleen elbowed me and smiled because just the night before I had told my friends how people often think I'm from a different country. Romania, Libya!, Japan, Greece...I've had them all at one time or another. So, now I can add South or Central America to my list.

Dear Pop Pop, why didn't you tell anyone your story before you died...how you became an orphan...from what country your parents originated...I'd really like to know sometimes to end that mystery. Or maybe I'll just continue to fancy being from Venezuela, Libya, Romania, Japan, Greece and America before the Pilgrims...and wonder which country I'll be from next.

First Day in Aruba

2009-11-17T05:26:00.000-08:00

Awesome reception area. Cool and breezy, lots of great sitting areas.
Bunch of views from our balcony.

Then we wandered down to the beach.
At sunset....

"Snow angels" on the beach...

We were photographin' fools.

Island Girl

2009-11-16T11:25:00.000-08:00

I have never seen an island from the air before, a tropical island in the Caribbean especially.
I was so tickled to see these popping up in our window on our flight to Aruba.
And they made me more and more excited to get to our destination.
I think these here were Dominican Republic or Haiti.

(It's the DR, I just compared it to a satellite map - how fun!

I love Google.)

I don't know but it was sure neat-o.
Here's a cruise ship chugging through the Caribbean Sea.
And then when we got close to Aruba and dropped altitude a bit,

I was sure I could see sea turtles surfacing waving their paddley flippers at me to say Welcome!
So blue.

2009-11-15T18:05:00.001-08:00

Next Time You See These Piggies They'll Be On A White Beach

2009-11-11T12:05:00.000-08:00

It took me 11 monthes to use this gift certificate for my first pedicure,

but it was perfect timing!

And the color is "Can You Tapas This?" by Opi.

Leaving Home

2009-11-10T08:18:00.000-08:00

I'm traveling with some friends soon and ~sniffle~ I have to leave home. And my hubby and my kids who played baseball on the driveway last night past dark. You know you're a mom when you'd rather be home than lounging on a tropical island.
It's been quite a struggle, I think I'm certifiably neurotic.
I'm working through it, though. :)

Oh, but then I had to rummage through old pictures to submit Seth's baby picture to the yearbook committee....

and it started over again.

My First Order!

2009-11-04T08:15:00.001-08:00

A new batch of leaves have just fallen! My cousin heard about my leaves from my aunt who saw my mom's leaf from last year and she needs a wedding gift for this weekend...for a couple who have a cool decorative pond in their yard.
So Joanna just placed an order for one!
This time I set up my kitchen counter to paint them.
That worked out well.

The colors, flat and solid just bored me this time, so I decided to add some gold.

Anyway, I thought gold might make a nice wedding gifty flavor.

And voila!
I'm absolutely loving these and want to make more ASAP. But I'm running out of leaves.
My elephant ear plants weren't very big or lush.
Must plant more next year.

This red one is my favorite. I don't know if I'm going to be able to give it away.

And I was newly inspired while I was painting them upside down. I have a fantastic idea for next Halloween that I'm going to work on next. I can't wait, it makes me laugh already!

True Love?

2009-11-02T19:21:00.000-08:00

2009 World Series.
7th Inning.
Phillies are winning - it's now or never!
17 year old boy sitting on couch alone,
watching television and
texting his girlfriend.
I walk in.
He points to the tv
and says,
"This is her favorite show,
I'm watching it with her."
A baker carefully lays
a multicolored fondant
over a cake.
He's watching Cake Boss
during the World Series
because his girlfriend
is watching it at home
with him.

True Love Or
-Gasp-
Yankees Fan!?

Boo.

2009-10-31T20:32:00.000-07:00

The Barber Shop

2009-10-29T04:33:00.000-07:00

Sean has more hair than my hardwood floors. He has two basic cowlicks, thick hair and the hair that lays on the very top of his head goes in two directions, like the ocean and an undertow. We go to the barber shop quite frequently, even though it probably doesn't show. He is enjoying having his hair longer lately, like his brothers have in years past, so it always looks like he needs a trip to the barber.

Jackie is our barber and she does a great job and in a very warm, friendly manner as well. This is a lady who gives my kids a trim and then goes home and prays for them. What more could you ask of a barber? Recently Sean was getting a haircut and one of Jackie's faithful customers came in with his mom. Mom went next door for her cut and the boy, probably in his early teens, sat down next to me. The boy exchanged some good-natured banter with Jackie and I realized that he was mentally disabled in some way. Soon he was talking to me, telling me entertaining stories of his favorite diner, how he likes to vacuum (I immediately invited him over), that his home had 294 stories and that he vacuums them all, etc. I couldn't help but encourage his stories. We laughed a lot, all four of us.

"Steve" was especially bothered by dirt and on his trips to his favorite diner where he ordered his favorite dinner from his favorite waitress, he would often go into the kitchen and clean the filters of the stove exhaust fans. They are filthy, according to Steve, and he cleans them thousands of times each visit. Someone needs to! Again, I invited him to my home.

All of his restaurant stories reminded me of my years waitressing at Adelphia during summers home from college. The stories I could tell. Of the flying prime rib in the kitchen. Of the pans and pans of baklava I ate with my fingers. Of the time I poured au jus on a lady's head. (That's not one of my personal favorites.) But the story I most wanted to tell Steve was the time Paul, the cook, was leaning over talking to me from behind the serving counter and a piece of bubblegum fell out of his mouth into the bubbling pan of spaghetti sauce. We searched and searched, Paul dipping the ladle in over and over, but we never caught a glimpse of it and could only assume it melted on impact.

I said to Steve, "Do you want to hear a story from when I was a waitress?"
Steve said, "No. I tell my own stories."

Is that not the most beautiful thing you've ever heard? I threw my head back and laughed so hard, along with Jackie who was standing there cutting Sean's hair, listening to us go on. Doesn't everyone want to say that when someone tries to add their own "better than that" story? So, hey, I shut up and listened to Steve.

"...blurry...clear...blurry...clear..."

2009-10-27T05:54:00.000-07:00

In keeping with the warts and cyst, which his mother also received in 2nd grade, Pie got glasses yesterday. On my first day of seeing clearly, Scott Palesheski called out "Four Eyes!" when I entered Mrs. Hutton's 2nd grade class. He was also wearing glasses, big thick plasic square ones. I hope Sean's reception is a little kinder and gentler today. Ellie, Kaitlyn and Erin all wear glasses too and I don't think they'll be so callous. (Scott also used to kick me in the shins regularly, so I think there was something else going on there.)

It was a precious moment I may not forget, when we walked outside of Dr. Floyd's office to the car. This is what I heard, over and over: Oh my gosh! I think these glasses are really going to help me! Wow! Everything is really clear. Then he'd slip them off his nose and say, blurry...then he'd slip them back onto his nose and say, clear...Mom, these things are really going to help me! How does glass do that? Help me see clearer? How does just glass help you see better? Wow, these are going to help me.

Plum Tuckered Out

2009-10-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

It's late Sunday. I am posting from bed, while channel-surfing. A perfect time to create a punny brain teaser! Ironically, this has nothing to do with my two prior posts, just a silly thought I had while driving home from a far-away soccer game today. You may play along if you enjoy word games or simply leave the comment Jennie, go to sleep.

There's a convention and each different group representing a career, hobby or special interest wore a different colored t-shirt. Can you guess what color each group wore? Some are punny, some are just dredged from the deep crevices of my creative cortex and probably make little to no sense at all. (At least that's what Stan is saying as I try them out on him.)

Example:
The squad of sergeants wore army green. The citrus farmers wore lemon yellow.

1 The herb growers wore - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

2 The glassmiths wore - _ _ _ _

3 The book club wore - _ _ _

4 The soccer team and the personal development group wore - _ _ _ _

5 The leather workers wore - _ _ _

6 The autobody and ironworkers wore - _ _ _ _

7 The chorus wore -_ _ _ _ _

8 The cabinet makers and Diana Ross fans wore - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

9 The dairy farmers wore - _ _ _ _ _

10 The masons wore - _ _ _ _ _/ _ _ _

11 The parachuters wore - _ _ _ / _ _ _ _

12 The cast from Gilligan's Island wore - _ _ _ _ _ _

13 The depressed anemics wore - _ _ _ _/ _ _ _ _

14 The mattress salesmen wore - _ _ _ _ _ _/ _ _ _ _ _

15 The obstetricians wore - _ _ _ _ /_ _ _ _

16 The florists wore - _ _ _ _

17 The policemen wore - _ _ _ _ _ _

18 The toastmasters wore - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

19 The pianists wore - _ _ _ _ _

20 The martini drinkers wore - _ _ _ _ _

21 The dowsers wore - _ _ _ _

22 The weightlifters wore - _ _ _ _

23 The fishermen wore - _ _ _ _ _ _

24 The soup lovers wore - _ _ _ _ _ _

25 The poultry farmers wore - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Answers!

More Colored Birdbaths, More Colored T-Shirts

2009-10-24T09:11:00.001-07:00

Remember last year when I showed off our birdbaths here and here?
We made some more yesterday. I meant to photograph the whole process just for the fun of it, but got busy and forgot. Basically, you get a small pile of sand and form it so that an upside-down elephant ear fits it nicely. Then you cover that sand with plastic, turn the leaf upside-down on top of it and cover the leaf smoothly with vinyl patch concrete. Then you wait for them to dry.

These were done on my front porch. Our first two were too watery, but eventually we got the vinyl patch to a good "puffed pastry" consistency. Then we'll paint them with acrylic colors and seal the concrete. I'll post more pictures when we do. Such fun. I didn't keep one of last year's batch, but gave them all away as gifts, so I hope to get one this year for my garden.

This morning I talked to my pal Jane over the phone while watching my littlest's soccer game, during which, incidently - you know, while I'm here I might as well tell ya he scored the only goal of the game in the last couple minutes but it had started to rain heavily and I went to the car and missed it ... anybadmother...

So I was chatting with Janey, who's a psychology professor, and we were telling each other about our weeks. I often discuss psychological stuff with her because she likes the research end of it and I have many psychological ~~issues~~ interests so it comes in handy. heh heh. I told her about the class color thing and how I just wasn't so sure that schools have any idea what kind of environment "they" are facilitating sometimes or the kind of lessons "they" are teaching sometimes and she sort of chuckled and agreed. "You know," she offered immediately, "there are psychological studies about ingroup bias and outgroup derogation [creating situations that cause people to be biased toward their own group and derogatory toward another] where they simply take totally random people and slap one color shirt on them and then a bunch of other people, totally randomly, and slap another color shirt on them and watch them immediately form ingroup bias and outgroup derogation pretty consistently. It's well-known in the psychological community that all you have to do is tell some people they are different from others and they will perceive a "them vs us" thing where there simply isn't one." [Not her exact words] Makes me wonder. So, I guess if this is the environment of schools to create a I Belong, Therefore I Exist atmostphere, those who go along with the experiment are probably perceived as successful for, they belong. And those who don't quite understand it, who say, "Huh? What? Why am I being asked to align myself with some and separate myself from others?" must either put on the assigned shirt and go along or just stand aside and watch all the pretty colors.

Class Color

2009-10-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

What do these words, together or apart, bring to your mind? Do you think about division, differences, elitism, segregation, pride or competition? Do you think about high school? This morning I contemplated these things, the history and significance of the words "class" and "color" in our society, and homeschooling too. I think it all started in a pep rally but I began to wonder, So what are we cheering for again?

Stan drove Seth to school, stopping at the local convenience store on the way. Seth went in and Stan observed in the parking lot students from our local high school all dressed, painted and decked out in green. When Seth got back into the car, Stan asked him what was going on, why members of his senior class were wearing green, considering green is not one of the school's colors and it's not March 19th. Seth said it was "Class Colors Day" and the senior class color is green. Not even knowing what that meant, Stan looked down at Seth's blue shirt and before he could consider the absurdity of this question, the words had already left his mouth: Do you want to go home and change? He could have evoked the same response with: Hey, would you like to spend the day at the local waste water treatment plant?

If we had a "Class Colors Day" in school back in 1983, I don't remember it nor am I sure how I'd have felt about it. I probably would have had no idea why such a day would be created...why we'd need a class color...who decided which color...how it could matter what color my shirt was or whether I painted my face purple or dyed my hair the same...what was it all for...what are we accomplishing and do I want whatever that may be anyway? Yeah, I guess I'd think myself into a tither rather than slap on a color, run into the gym and scream like a banchee, which would probably be easier. In other words I'd maybe have been more interested in what was going on at the local waste water treatment plant.

Classes, levels of schooling - these ideas lost meaning to this family while we explored the world of homeschooling for 8 or 9 years. One of the most amazing things I observed is that children naturally do not orient themselves by age and class standing. Adults and institutions construct that artificially for our young. Perhaps homeschoolers are the only ones in this society who have a clear glimpse into this phenomenon. Put the children of 15 homeschooling families into a gymnasium to play and you will not only see teenagers playing basketball, young children pushing around big balls, babies toddling on mats, girls playing with hoola hoops and boys slamming tennis balls against concrete walls, but you will also see teenagers carrying 6 year olds on their hips, lifting them up to make a basket. You will see 8 year olds rolling balls to babies. You will see a 14 year old off to the side chatting with a parent about a book. You will see 17 year olds organizing a game of wiffle ball with 14 year olds, splitting up the teams. You will see a 13 year old teaching an 8, 12 and 16 year old how to play flag football.

Do the same with the children of 15 families schooled in institutions and you will see division, discomfort, decisions. Should I go jump rope with those 2nd graders from my neighborhood or will the other 4th graders think I'm a loser. I'm generalizing here but in my experience most homeschooled kids weren't interested or influenced by what "grade" their peers might be in. They didn't seem to consider how old a playmate was. Imagine not playing with a friend who's 9 months younger than you because he's in 6th and you're in 7th. In homeschooling communities, that distinction doesn't even exist. That 6th grader may be far beyond the 7th grader academically or vice versa, but what really matters is that they want to skateboard together, not which math book they study or what reading class they're in or how old they are or what color they're wearing. Wanna play? Wanna be friends? This is the pertinent information. Could there be anything more unnatural than you - a grownup - only hanging out with people your own age? Only working in an office full of 47 year olds? It seems ludicrous outside of the institution, doesn't it? But poll any group of kids walking home from school and I'll betcha they're all born within 12 months of one another and perhaps even lobbing teases to the group behind them who all happened to be in the math club. Those of us who were schooled entirely within the walls of a class/level-oriented institution may not even be able to see the significance of that scenario. Homeschoolers might.

It's funny. My oldest, who homeschooled through 7th grade (which the exception of 5th) used to call his friends every day after 3:00. He called kids from his soccer team, kids from the neighborhood, kids he knew since he was a toddler, kids he knew from church - all kids who went to public school. The summer before he went into school I happened to count how many different kids he brought home to play - 22. He loved kids, he loved to play, he reached out. Then in eighth grade he joined all those kids in school and suddenly rarely hung out with any of them. His number of friends fell to around 3. Why? I don't know, but I can tell you what I think. I believe he went into school and saw divisions and classifications. Before he went to school, he just saw kids and friends. In school, he saw the cool kids, the smart kids, the popular kids, the dweebs, the band members, this lunch table, that clique, the athletic kids, those in the top math class, those in the lowest, the big 8th graders, the lowly 6th graders. So he made a couple of friendships that worked and, in some ways, narrowed his outlook on life. And every day he went to school, he was reminded of all the levels, divisions, classifications, groups and other ways to label and define people. Why not add colors to the list?

Isn't that what the high school is doing when they ask everyone in the different classes to wear a certain color? Providing for these kids an identity? Something they can cling to? I'm green. And I'm a senior. And darnit, today I'm proud to be a green senior. I see you're a yellow sophomore. Huh.

I can't help but extrapolate here. I'm staring at the irony in this and entertaining writing a letter to Whom It May Concern. Hey, aren't we all supposed to be holding hands now, you know globally and all, joining together as one, embracing one another as same, blurring lines of differences, coming together as one people and all that? Shouldn't our public schools, the very place our government ~~indoctrinates~~ teaches our children how to think about the world and their place in it, be accountable too and sensitive to this goal? So, why do they themselves (the schools) tout their greatness above the school in the town next door? How exactly does that unite our country in a common purpose or even that big idea - tolerance? Why do they frame and display articles that show their ranking in the state? Why are our public schools competing with each another? And why do they use our children's own performances and accomplishments to do that? Why are our cheerleaders saying we're great and you're not? Why is there "Panther Pride", "Cougar Country", "Emu Egotists"? How come we rally up "our kids" and boo down "their kids" who wear a different colored jersey? We even do this in youth sports, encourage competition and even negativity between teams of kids from the same town when they're in Little League and then ask them to unite devotedly on the same high school team. Separate them in school by color and rank, join them together after school in identical uniforms. Mixed messages? Pointless positioning? Boredom? And what about the ones who didn't wear their color because the washing machine broke or happen to wear the color of another class that day? Or couldn't get their parents to go out the night before and purchase a green shirt or green hair paint? Do they fall into yet another class? Do they get labeled the less discriminatory class? And is that good or bad?

So why the class divisions? Why all the labeling and sorting? Why the "junior pride"? Why the "freshman friskiness"? Why the "senior snobs?" I wonder who would be able to give the reason or even venture a guess. And what about those class colors?

I asked Seth what it was all about when he got home this afternoon. He shrugged and said, "I have absolutely no idea. Never have, never will. Can I have the car keys?"

Yeah. Aruba.

2009-10-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

You'd think I'd be happy. I am in a small way, but I'm mostly kind of disturbed that I'm going to Aruba. Here's how it started. My friend Coleen and I have a mutual friend who's a vet. (ernarian) She had plans to go to Aruba for business. Coleen said, "Hey! I want to leave the state of New Jersey!" And our other friend (whose 70th we just celebrated) is always up for travel, so she said she was in. Then I got a phone call, "Hey, Jen, we're going to Aruba. Wanna go with?" I breathed a deep sigh and told her through clenched teeth that I'd get back to her.

Then I probably slumped up to Stan with the situation, sighing.

Then I probably walked over to the huge world map in the computer room and cringed.

Then I thought about blue water and white sands and how I'll never see that in Atlantic City.

Pro and Con thoughts swam dizzyingly around my head for days...

pro - one of my goals in life is to sit on a white beach before a blue water and receive an umbrella-ed drink from a waiter.

con - I do not like flying.

pro - I could use a couple days off the continent.

con - But maybe not so high above it.

pro - I could use a few nights of slumber-partying with fun ladies.

con - I do not believe that it takes only 4 1/2 hours to fly to Aruba from my home. No matter what Shirley says.

pro - I got my passport! I have a passport!

con - I sorta look like a drug trafficker in my picture

pro - My friend Coleen assures me that we will have much fun in the sun.

con - I can't get that Funniest Home Videos episode out of my mind where the speed boat drags the heavy lady across the beach on her stomach before her parasail lifts her gracefully into the air.

pro - I need a vacation...to relax...

con - Me + turbulence = cartoon cat hanging by claws from ceiling.

pro - Think of all the pretty sunny blue and white pictures I'll be able to post when I get back home!

con - Think of the mess my entire life could be in when I come home to four males and a dog!

con - I'm a homebody, people!

pro - I should leave the house, state, country once in a while.

pro - Though I had weird fears of Aruba's close proximity to :/ Venezuela and its president Hugo Chavez, I could reassure myself by remembering that it is, in fact, a Dutch colony and Venezuela isn't going to invade the island any time soon....

con - Until Stan told me yesterday that the Venezuelan government took over the Hilton on Margarita Island. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the island of Aruba other than they're both off the coast of Venezuela.

Which is enough for me.

Anyway Coleen slapped me across the face and told me I was going.

So, yeah. Aruba. I'm going.

I'll be sure and send you a post~~card~~post.

Funny?

2009-10-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

[The following story needs a disclaimer. I was not with my child when he bought this t-shirt, he was vacationing at the shore with the president of the home and school association at the time. I don't like him to wear it to school, which I've said many times, but I confess I don't always notice what he wears to school. And this is what happens when my kids leave for school before I've had my coffee.]

Luke got picked as one of the students of the month this week, so he told me to look out for his picture in the paper. It was a proud moment when I found it. There he was standing among the other students of the month in a t-shirt that read: It's funny until someone gets hurt. Then it's hilarious.

Well then, your parents thank you, Luke. I suppose we've reached hilarity now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I only hear good things from my oldest's teachers. Every report card comes with "pleasure to have in class" in the comment sections. So when I hear things like the following, I'm a little surprised. Last night he and his girlfriend were in the kitchen making milkshakes and laughing about a story he'd just told her. She had been complaining about science, how it's so boring, all they do is make gumdrop models of atoms every day. He agreed, having had that class two years ago. Then he revealed how they kept themselves entertained: When we were dissecting, we'd chop teeny pieces of pig heart and fling them.

Teachers beware: Boredom in teenagers can be extremely disheartening.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sean, sitting in the basement playing a video game: Hey mom, where's Luke?

Me, walking into the laundry room: He's at Zac's.

Sean: When will he be back?

Me, reaching into the dryer: I don't know exactly.

Me again, entertained by my keen wit: Get it?! At Zac-ly?! 'I don't know at-zacly???'

Sean, continuing to stare at his video game: Mom? Was that you trying to be funny?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ah well. Everyone has his or her own personal style of humor I suppose. Heh, heh. Ahem.

I Think It Was a Hoax

2009-10-16T06:08:00.000-07:00

I know a little about kids disappearing from under your nose. My second child is quiet and never makes a wave. If he were a see-saw, he'd be a see-saw that stays perfectly balanced in the middle. No slamming down onto the ground jarring the rider, no zipping up into the sky, making one grip the handle holding on for dear life. No, he's quiet, steady, even and when he was a toddler I was still getting used to that element in my life. My first child was a thrilling lightning bolt from the start and one could hear him in the back yard screaming banchee hollers for three blocks. I always sorta knew what he was doing, by sight, by ear, by telepathy, by gut, by the neighbors calling, something.

We moved to this house when Luke was almost two. He was a little blond-headed angel who, when he wanted to say something, would lift his little pointer finger into the air above his head, raise his widdle chin and loft his words into the air like pretty colored balloons. In our new house he had a hiding place, but it too was easy. Everybody knew where it was - in the bathroom, in the little cubby behind the shower. There he'd stand and grin until his brother or one of us would peek around to find him.

But sometimes he'd quietly slip out from the house and I never knew it. I might be doing laundry or the dishes, thinking he was just around the corner and get a knock at the back door. Three times in the early months of our living here, my next-door neighbor miraculously and unexplainedly appeared at my door holding the very child that I knew certainly to be playing 15 ft away from me in the living room. Once he was in the yard yanking at his blankie on the clothesline. And frankly, I don't know what he was doing the other times because I was inside imagining him happily toddling around me within arms reach. I began to think maybe he was capable of time travel or telekinesis or disappearing into thin air. Or maybe I was just not paying enough attention? Good thing my neighbor was.

So...I don't know about the kid in the balloon/attic/father's alternate reality. Something doesn't sit right with me and that whole story. The father said he didn't think it'd go that far. What wouldn't go that far, mister?

The whole thing reminded us last night of the time we lost Josie. Our 185 lb Great dane. She had an invisible fence collar, but we never used it because she never wanted to go anywhere. In fact in the early days, I'd literally had to pull her off the property and down to the corner to get her to go on a walk. She was a homebody, she loved home and hearth. So the afternoon that we couldn't find her, we were shocked and instantly frantic. I mean, seeing as she was the size of my husband and splotched with big spots of brown and white, she was kinda hard to miss. We all took off running around the yard, behind the garage, Stan jumped in the truck and drove around town, we flew in and out the back door and through the house calling JOSIE! JOSIE! We told our neighbors. Seth ran around the block. We tramped through everyone's back yard around us calling and searching. How does one lose a giant spotted animal that stops cars on the street just walking along and minding her own business? Then Seth went back inside and found a sleepy dog laying in our fireplace cove, quietly looking up wondering what the heck our problem was.

Last night's UFO story (that's Undoubtedly Flakey Outcome) probably reminded lots of parents of the day they lost their kid. And now I will not retell the story of leaving Luke at the ball park.

Life's Weird

2009-10-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

Right outside that big floor to ceiling window at my son's oculoplast's office, I can gaze down upon the jeweler where we got my engagement ring.

See me down there, my little starry-eyed 24 year old self? Slipping little diamond rings onto my finger? Smiling. Blissfully unaware of the fact that 20 years later across the street in that large building looming above me I'd experience some of the worst H E double baguettes of my life? Aw, engagement. It leads to marriage and children and oculoplastic surgery.

Well, there's good news. The oculoplast was a bit shocked and amazed at his own handy work today. All's well inside that eye socket we've been so worried about. No more appointments in the looming eye building...no more forgetting to get my parking ticket validated before we leave...no more traveling in elevators alongside people, from 8 months to 80, with eye patches...no more justifying a quick trip to the corner Starbucks by telling myself it'll be too late when I get home (usually by 9) to make a pot of coffee...no more flying across the Ben Franklin bridge trying to make it back before third period. All's well. And my ring is still pretty. And I'm thankful for answered prayers all around.

A Few Things About My Blogs and One Thing About My Laptop

2009-10-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

#1 When I look at my blog on my laptop, the words are tiny so I make them large. Then I go on our home computer and have to sit across the room to read it. And my title doesn't fit in my decorative box up top. How do you see my blog? I often wonder.

#2 I am so thankful for you who read this blog. I really enjoy writing about things that inspire my creativity or move me to speak and experiment with writing, but it'd be like a bicycle with one wheel without audience. It makes it so much more pleasurable and purposeful to write knowing that I have one. I especially love the individuals in my audience, you each have an important voice in my life. I think of you when I write and I believe that helps me write better. And when an occasional person wanders over because of an odd comment I've left on someone else's blog, I love that too and I hope they feel welcome to make themselves comfortable and chime in. It's so much more fun to have surprise visitors come to my blog, than say, my house. My blog is always clean and tidy, except for a comma or letter out of place here and there, and I never have to worry about my dog jumping all over the visitors.

#3 I want to create a new picture for my icon thing, but after the year I've had I can't take a picture as young and cute as that one any more. Perhaps I'll wait till I get to Aruba in November, I should look happy and rested there, right? Didn't I mention I'm going to Aruba in November? That's probably because I am worried about flying there, which also isn't helping my facial lines and bloating any. Yes, maybe I'll get an Aruba icon picture. I can be like those people who represent themselves as parachuting, diving, rock climbers when they're trying to get a date. It's Jennie, the world-travelling island hopper!

#4 I was asked in the last post if my sister reads this blog. As far as I know, she doesn't know it exists. Perhaps she does, she is quite clever and quiet, so I'd never know - JULIE? ARE YOU READING THIS BLOG? Now we'll sit and wait for an answer. It'll be a while.... Meanwhile, I actually haven't told many people in my 3-D life about my blog. My husband, my friend Jane...my kids...can't think of anyone else. Lately I've thought about linking it on my Facebook. In the beginning, I just wanted the freedom to write and slap down some stories and essays without thinking about who was reading them. I just needed to find my proverbial voice, what I wanted to say and how without thinking about someone else thinking, "I didn't know Jennie said/did/thought/was like that! Gosh, she's stranger than she lets on!" Now y'all know me almost as well as my 3-D folks do so I might as well spill the beans to them too, huh? I'll just have to go through my archives to make sure I didn't call anyone I know a tenacious clam or anything before I do. Oops.

#5 I haven't written much on my other blogs lately, the foreign films one or the memoir one. I do most of my film watching when I begin to hibernate in the winter, so that should pick up soon. I also plan to finish Natalie Goldberg's memoir guide book, that's been fun and a good way to record memories and use that voice.

{Guess What? My laptop takes pictures! I found that out one day when in my documents file I discovered a bunch of really super cute pictures of my oldest kid goofily hamming it up with his girlfriend, Sunny. I wish I could share them with you because they're adorable, but he forbid me to post them on my blog even though he put them on his MySpace. I don't think that's fair, do you? But...maybe I could talk him into just one. Sunny, by the way, has been, well, a ray of sunshine in his life...another blessing.}

So...what do you think about your blog?

5 Words from Paul

2009-10-05T07:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a fun exercise from Paul who got it from one of his readers. If you want five words from me, just let me know!

staunch
Staunch is a word that I need more of. I need to be staunch about lots of things: my exercise, my health, making family dinners, homework, my relationship with Christ, my beliefs, the laundry, cleaning bathrooms. Dust. Getting my hair trimmed. I had to look up the word staunch because my childlike idea of 'staunch' is an unyielding, dried up school teacher with a mean face, a gray bun high on her head and a wooden pointer poking at a flip chart and scaring young children. But staunch is just to be firm, steadfast and true. Having a substantial constitution. And there's nothing wrong with that.

knees
A word in the story of my life. I was a runner once, the fastest girl - and through middle school, kid - in town. I had mini-successes in my young life until adolescence hit and my hips widened, increasing the angle between them and my knees. My knock-knees, a condition known to make it worse. This was my first disappointment in life, my hurting aching throbbing knees. At the University of Pennsylvania's sports medicine I was told that I have loose patellas, knee-caps. They jiggle around when I run, I guess, causing pain and swelling. They likened it to tennis elbow - runner's knee. (Duh, my 16 year old self said.) My track coach called that night to ask what the doctor said. He sputtered, "Huh?" at my answer: "They say I have a loose placenta." "PATELLA!" Mom yelled from the other room.

daylight
Lately when I wake up I feel like moss on a rotting log. I'm so sleepy in the morning no matter how much sleep I get. My room doesn't get daylight in the morning, I have dark curtains. I bought them when I was pregnant with Sean because as soon as I got pregnant with Sean, my neighbor had a street lamp installed next to her driveway which shone into my room like a beacon that joined my tummy in screaming: DON'T SLEEP. Though my curtains prevent it, I do like awakening to daylight. It's like the perfect gentle nudge of inspiration.

slide
I was wearing my new black mules. They were quite sleek and I looked pret-ty darn good in them. Especially 'cause I was also wearing my favorite pair of jeans, the ones that complimented my butt and legs just right. You know the pair...you have one in your closet too, just admit it. I headed out to my errands. Feeling good, lookin' good, the day was good. The sun was probably shining perfectly on my hair too. I stopped at Ron's vacuum shop for some double R bags and strode out the front door smiling, confident. The thing about those mules though was that they looked so good, you forgot that the soles were a bit slippery and the thing about the walk in front of Ron's store is that it's a bit sloped. My foot slid out from under me, the guy walking toward me made one of those considerate but not too effective reaches for me as my knee crunched to the gravelly gray pavement. My jeans ripped. My knee hurt. My ego laughed at itself.

family
I like the way that people create family in their lives. Not the one you were born with, specifically, but the people with whom you find yourself living life. I come from a small town and many people have been here for generations. But I've noticed that it's the ones who moved into town and don't have relatives and longtime friends nearby that reach out and create close friends and family with their neighbors and other people in town. I admire that quality in people who can forge good friendships and open up a bit to make room for creating new special people in their lives. There's something good to be said about extending my idea of family to include people who may not have been born into mine.

"...Put 'er in a Pumpkin Shell..."

2009-10-03T06:09:00.000-07:00

I always take my kids to the pumpkin patch for pumpkins and pictures. Luke wanted to go a little early this year, so we got 'er done last week. The next morning he couldn't find his phone anywhere in the house. Or car. He went off to school and I ran errands all day. I passed the pumpkin patch twice and wondered if he could have lost it there, but Goldie didn't turn in so I might ask the girl at the register. I wondered if he'd lost it there because of this:

I think I see it there in his right hand pocket!

That evening I called the place to see if perhaps someone had found it.

Hello, do you guys have a Lost 'n Found?

Silence on the other end.

My son was there yesterday playing on the hay bales and he seems to have lost his cell phone. We were wondering if he might have dropped it there.

The lady on the other end, I could quickly see, believed me to be one of those criminals who try to acquire cell phones by pilfering pumpkin patches. She responded with a tone of resistance and a little bit of teasing thrown in for good measure. Well, why don't you give me your name and number. ~wink~wink. You know you didn't "lose a phone" here, let's just stop this ruse right now, honey.

Okay, I began, Jennie -

No, she chuckled (she wasn't fallin' for nothing) your son's name.

Okay, Luke....

If it was out there last night it would have been ruined in the rain anyway.

Wha? What did I take this woman from? Her lunch? A foot rub? IF YOU FIND A PHONE, IT MIGHT BE OURS. KAY? WE'D LIKE TO KNOW. EVEN IF IT'S COVERED IN PUMPKIN GUTS. I didn't say that, but...wha?

Can you describe the phone? What kind of phone is it?

This is where I was starting to believe I just might be that pilferer of pumpkin patches, as I realized that I didn't know much at all about his phone. It's black...um, it has that keyboard thing when you open it longways, er, sideways I guess it is...I know nothing about cars, electronics, I'm not exactly sure the year and make of my van.

What's the phone's number. That way we can verify it's his if we find it.

There, that makes sense. Why didn't I think of that?

Okaay, she said satisfied that she'd foiled another potential lost cell phone heist, We'll let you know if it's found. Then she swaggered over to Margaret in the mum department shaking her head and rolling her eyes, Some people, ya know? What, do they think we were born yesterday?

Who knows, maybe with the number I provided she can believe that I'm not part of some farm market cell phone racket. How many cell phones a day do they find at this joint, anyway? Maybe there IS a niche there somewhere for criminals like me. I began to imagine paying the entry fee for their corn maze and spending the hours my kids are in school wandering through it, collecting all manner of phones and other electronics that may be lost there in the dirt.

I hung up with the gatekeeper at the farm market and Luke found the phone in his clothes basket.

Answers

2009-10-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

1 The herb growers wore lavender

2 The glassmiths wore blue.

3 The book club wore red.

4 The soccer team and the personal development group wore gold.

5 The leather workers wore tan.

6 The autobody and ironworkers wore rust.

7 The chorus wore coral.

8 The cabinet makers and Diana Ross fans wore mahogany.

9 The dairy farmers wore cream.

10 The masons wore brick red.

11 The parachuters wore sky blue.

12 The cast from Gilligan's Island wore maroon.

13 The depressed anemics wore pale blue.

14 The mattress salesmen wore spring green.

15 The obstetricians wore baby blue.

16 The florists wore rose.

17 The policemen wore copper.

18 The toastmasters wore champagne.

19 The pianists wore ivory.

20 The martini drinkers wore olive.

21 The dowsers wore aqua.

22 The weightlifters wore buff.

23 The fishermen wore salmon.

24 The soup lovers wore bisque.

25 The poultry farmers wore eggshell.

The Story of Dr. Judy Road

2009-09-30T06:46:00.000-07:00

With all the excitement in the last couple months, I've forgotten to share one of my favorite, perhaps the favorite story of my summer.

When we drive to and from Indiana we often stay in West Virginia since it's halfway. We know the area well, we've travelled the road so many times. But this time we had our GPS and when Stan located a nice hotel off our usual route a tad, we decided we should try it out. He knew exactly how to get there, as he is the map-man but we said, "Eh, it's late, we're punchy, what the heck, we'll just follow the GPS instructions."

The "lady" on our dashboard immediately took us off the interstate once we'd chosen our hotel as the new destination. This slightly annoyed Stan who could very clearly see a main highway route straight to the place, but we were driving parallel to our usual road and could even see it for a while, so we just followed along. What could it hurt? Soon we were entering a dark, empty town. Then we were on a two lane highway. Stan was getting a tad anxious in the passenger seat. I drove on. The lady told us to turn onto another road, one that was more desolate and seemed confusing to Stan's innermapsense. I put up my hand.

"Oh, let's just take this, 'she' knows where she's going. She says we're going to be there in 5 minutes. How bad can it be?" I turned onto a country road on the side of a steep hill. On our left there were small homes and farms nestled down deep into the green coziness. Close on our right the road hugged a steep forested hill, black and thick. As we drove along, she kept saying that we'd soon be taking a right onto "Dr. Doody Road," or at least that's what it sounded like. Dr. What? we laughed nervously. Stan's dis-ease was growing. I was sort of feeling adventurous.

There was no good place to turn around at this point. The road was narrowing, trees on our right and the slope down into the small farms on our left. The road turned and twisted. Stan read the gps, "Dr. Judy Road?" He was fidgeting. We were driving around a tight curve when the gps lady announced assuredly, "Turn right onto Dr. Judy Road."

The steep dirt Dr. Judy road appeared out of nowhere on our right and I jerked the wheel to make the turn. Let me stop time here. One sleeping child in back. Two children craning their necks, with wide, curious eyes peering out into the darkness. One husband actually on the edge of his seat. Did I mention that it was around 11pm? Goldie has two tires on the bottom of a dirt road, two tires behind on the pavement of a narrow paved road which would go on to bend severely to the left. Through our windshield we see thirty feet of gravel ascending into the trees before us and cutting sharply to the right, disappearing into the abyss of a black forest. And somewhere deep in our souls, we would swear we heard banjos.

Stan popped. "NO! STOP! We are NOT going there! STOP THE VAN!" I slammed on the brakes, coming to a sliding halt all over Dr. Judy. "We are not going down this road. Turn around." At this point, sleeping child awoke. Well, we all were very much more awake than we'd been for a while. I whined. "How? - But!" The road behind us was black and there were close curves on either end. I moved quickly, however, before Stan could force me to relinquish control of the wheel and make me change seats with him, thereby making us both actually open the doors and get out on this forsaken Dr. Judy Road nightmare. I held my breath and swung backwards onto the road using a nearby driveway, and turned the van around hightailing it outta there.

"She" mocked us, "Re-calculating." Stan fumbled for the phone and called the hotel to ask for directions because at this point in the West Virginia wilderness we had no idea. Plus, we were sleep-deprivedly and freakingly hysterical. Well, inside we were, actually the van was quite silent. He got a hotel employee on the phone and explained our situation. Her reply was a strangely knowing one: "Why would it take you to 'Dr. Judy Road?'

That remains a mystery that will not be answered. The next morning in the sunshine, the kids begged, looking out over the rolling mountainous countryside around us, "Let's go to Dr. Judy Road! Let's go see! C'mon!"

Stan said, "No."
That's our story of Dr. Judy Road, but only those that dwell on that dark mountain know The Legend.

To Remember What It Feels Like to be 7 and 318/365ths Years Old

2009-09-29T02:17:00.000-07:00

Recently, Sean was in the paper after he was one of two kids in an assembly about bullying who figured out a solution to a problem given by the presenter. Here's a small clipping of the article:

"It's all about the majority," said [presenter]. "If we can get those bystanders to stand up together against bullying, it will be most effective."

To illustrate this concept, [presenter] led second graders in a game that split them into teams and required them to get all the beanbags from the middle of the room inside their hula hoop. The game began as a mad dash to fill the individual team hoops until a couple of the students figured out the winning strategy each team working together to stack their hoops around the central pile of bags thereby making everyone a winner.

"We're always so concerned about 'me,' but if you care more about other people than yourself think how much you could change," said [presenter]. "Then we can all be winners. This game is about going out of your way for other people. Think about what good things you could achieve if you could apply that to real life."

The kids seemed to get the point by the end of the game, happy to share the win.

"You have to work together for everybody to win," said Sean [my boy!], 7. "That way nobody has to be sad if they lose."

"If you share then everyone wins and nobody cries," added Bryce [Sean's friend], 7. "It really works."

Cape May Point State Park 2

2009-09-28T04:53:00.000-07:00

I like this fence. It reminds me of that fence in SC a couple years ago.
Can a boy resist? Poor little sand crab.
Seth thought this looked like Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
I photographed this perfect hole in the beach, but it wasn't until I saw the picture on my computer screen that I noticed something glistening in there looking out at me. Enlarge the photo and be prepared to be grossed out.
I love this picture of Luke. He spent much of the time on the beach writing in the sand with a dried reed. I always said he was born with a pencil in his hand.

I have a whole montage of Sean on the beach which will be my next post.

He cracked me up. I think maybe he was born with the ocean in his heart.

Or maybe he's just 7.

I can't believe how big Luke is getting. I knew the day would come, we've always assumed he'll be our tallest, but when I see my 12 year old looking like my 6 ft tall 17 year old, gee. I don't know which end is up any more.

Have I mentioned these boots? I love all-leather footwear, as do my feet. My feet are not stiletto feet and they are not Croc feet. They are bare feet or leather feet, basically. I must go to Italy. I should live in Italy. I should live in Italy whether they have leather shoes there or not. As long as Italy still has food and remains a peninsula, I should live there. Which brings me back to boots. I like 'em. I can't wait till they're 10 years old. Oh wait, then I'll be 54. I can wait.
I think this could be the cover of Seth's first album. It could be called something like What's the Point? Get it? Cape May Point?
Below is a big thing left over from some war. It's kind of interesting, this giant concrete thing lodged there on the beach with "Do Not-" signs all over it. When I was little, you could climb on it, look out over the ocean and pretend you were on this big thing during some war.
[My parents just told me it was a ship. A concrete ship.]
I do love taking pictures of my kids in front of concrete. The color of yellowy-pink life in front of cold, gray rock.

Seth hates me taking his picture, but my thumb loves it, so it evens out. Don't his eye look purdy? (Believe me. His eye looks pretty.) One of his friends said: A small blemish ain't nothing to a giant. (Well, I don't know if he said 'blemish' but I can't remember what he told him, exactly.) It made him toss his cookies, it made him have double vision, stitches and surgery, it made him have to reevaluate some things, and lose ability to drive and play soccer...but he remains that sensitive, deeply caring boy. And someday when he leaves his teens, he may smile again for a picture.
There are little clear pebbles called "Cape May diamonds" on the beaches of Cape May. I used to be able to find them as a child, but haven't seen one for years.
Then we climbed the lighthouse. On the ground looking up, Sean said: No. Way. On the top looking out, Sean was delighted. However, Stan found his body saying: No. Way. and he had to stand inside and talk to the cute, young attendant. At least that's what he told me.
Can you find our van, Goldie? She stayed behind. Ever since the Tetons, she's been terribly afraid of heights. I was born somewhere in the upper left horizon.

Upper Left Horizon sounds like a song on the album What's the Point?
This is where we took our hike through the fields and woods, posted yesterday. They're replacing all the wooden boardwalks with recycled plastic ones. I get the reason, but I am going to miss the old weathered boards.
This park is a huge bird-watching spot. Supposedly one of the absolute best to see certain birdies (hawks, esp) on their flights around the globe. We just go for the sea air.

Cape May Point State Park

2009-09-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

It is Stanley's birthday today, so we decided to take a little walk. This is a little park where bird watchers go, people stroll through marshes and beaches, and climb the lighthouse.

I love marshes. My family is from marsh country, my mom's family, that is. They were also oyster men and farmers. I feel like reeds and brackish waters are some of the things that are "me," you know?
This is when I realized I'd forgotten Sean's epipen for his bee allergy.

This photo makes me think of the Beatles.

We all thought this looked like a giant bonsai tree.
Cattails are another one of those things that are a part of my makeup, I think.

Another thing that's me is irreverent things like scratched signitures on a "Do Not -" sign. I do my best to be reverent, I like reverence, but I also like irony and funny. Once in a public bathroom there was an automatic hand dryer, the blower type and a few instructions on the front. It read something like: Push 'On' button, hold hands under hot air. And someone scratched below that: Wipe hands on pants. I liked that.
However, I'm not quite irreverent enough (at least I'm not feeling it right now) to post the next picture in this sequence where I photographed Sean from behind as he watered the plants by the side of the boardwalk path. He's quite the naturalist.

I like my boots. It's the second time I've gotten to wear them this season. I think they make a statement, but I am not at all sure what it is.

The picture below I snapped right after some gigantic airplane of a bird flew across our path and landed in the water. You may not even be able to see it out there over the water. It almost looked like a swan. Do swans fly?

Next we went out onto the beach for the final leg of our walk. Next post.

Human Hands

2009-09-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

I'm in awe of human hands. In just this photo alone there are so many examples of the things they can do. Build a city. Drive a vehicle. Care for another's health. Create a sculpture. Dramatically act onstage. Take a picture. I'm standing on the 9th floor of 840 Walnut St here, about to go in to my son's surgeon's office. I stopped to check up on my two little ones who were home alone getting ready for school, so I stood here at this window - floor to ceiling - to make the call.

My Luke's hands are amazing. He draws very well, but he also helps and nurtures his little brother with them. Often before school he sprays and combs Sean's hair, just because. He saw Sean off to school while Stan was in the field cleaning up groundwater, testing wells with his hands, and Seth and I were in Philadelphia for an early appointment. I knew Sean was in Luke's good hands.

In the office a few minutes later, I was reminded once again of what good hands Seth was in with Dr. Penne. His double vision has improved by over half in just the two weeks following the surgery. That's good. There is more swelling inside to go, so hopefully it'll improve more in the coming weeks. As the doctor described the implant to me I simply couldn't have had more appreciation for the wonderful things people do with their hands. I mean, yesterday I weeded, worked in the kitchen, made a Rachael Ray recipe, drove, shopped...but this man went into my son's broken eye socket and fixed it! He studied and worked for years so he could help people like Seth keep the use of their eyes! Kinda makes me want to go out and save a small country or something.

On the way home I was waxing poetic over the man and his surgical prowess. Seth sat quietly and I noticed he wasn't wearing his seat belt. One slam of the brakes and all of Dr. Penne's work could be ruined. I can only hope (and lecture) that this experience might teach him about respecting himself, caring for his body, the life God has given him....the hands he gave him that have created wonderful music for most of his life. He is 17 though, not 44 - heck I'm still learning the same lessons. "Dr. Penne's work is good, amazing even," I scolded, "but it's not God's work! God made you perfectly and no one else can replicate that. There is no replacement for God's work. So respect the things you've been given!"

To think of all the things we've done with our hands. I raised three babies. Seth pulled a drowning young boy out of a pool. Stan helped to pull a drowning man out of a river on a rafting trip, both people were at their last moments. My dad drove a bus for years, carrying people from here to there. Yesterday as I shook the doctor's hand, I had a whole new respect for those who make a career of using their God-given hands to help others, doctors, nurses, soldiers, law enforcement. The list is endless, some heroic, some beautifying, some loving, some producing.

All of it God's hands in ours.

O Dad.

2009-09-13T17:05:00.000-07:00

If you had to provide a caption for this photo, whattaya think? Think it might be two 12 year old boys watching their fathers dance with a belly dancer? Well, you're right. It is two 12 year old boys watching their fathers dance with a belly dancer at a friend's 50th birthday barbecue. Captured by my phone camera which I never use, but I simply had to pull it out for this moment. I imagine that as we speak, these two boys are rummaging through their rooms, packing their favorite trinkets and checking the bus schedule west. Who could face 7th grade tomorrow after that display of shame?

Our friend Anthony is a famous puppeteer. You may even know the show he was on Between the Lions, along with tons of other stuff. Snuffaleupagus was there at the party! Not the animal thingy, the guy who is the animal. Anyway, now our friend owns a great restaurant. And our son used to wash dishes there...and my hubby coaches his son in soccer. So we went to this party today to celebrate his 50th and what does his wife ask me to do? She puts their video camera in my hand and tells me to film the hour long Stand-and-tell-about-the-first-time-you-met-Anthony session in the yard. About 10 minutes into it, as I wound around the crowd trying to get the best possible shots while people sang, performed, roasted and showed him the love, I realized that I was in charge of filming a guy who's made a living being on camera...or, a...being the voice and hand up the character thing who makes a living on camera, well, you know what I mean. What will they say about me when they watch their family movies? They'll slap their heads and say, why didn't we ask a real cameraman? Well, it was fun. I hope they're happy with it, I tried my best. And could barely focus my eyes correctly for a long time thereafter, if that makes a difference.

Here's an unprofessional and rather distasteful shot of the brave men who were yanked out of the crowd to dance before the birthday boy. Frightening sight. Enough to make Big Bird fly south and dirtier than Oscar's can. At one point, Anthony was feigning stabbing his eyes out, but despite all that, the party remained quite G-rated and best of all I was so so so glad when I realized the dancer was only taking the men out of the crowd.

So glad.

I was glad.

Today's Devotion from Martin Luther's Faith Alone

2009-09-11T05:40:00.000-07:00

I liked September 11's page from this devotional book a friend recently passed on to me:

PRAYER CHANGES US
Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Matthew 6:8

You might wonder, "Why does God insist that we pray to him and tell him our problems? Why doesn't he take care of us without our having to ask? He already knows what we need better than we do." God continually showers his gifts on the good harvests, money, healthy bodies, and so on. But no one asks God for these gifts or thanks him for them. If God already knows that we can't live without light or food for any length of time, then why does he want us to ask for these necessities?

Obviously, he doesn't command us to pray in order to inform him about our needs. God gives us his gifts freely and abundantly He wants us to recognize that he is willing and able to give us even more. When we pray, we're not telling God anything he doesn't already know. Rather, we are the ones gaining knowledge and insight. Asking God to supply our needs keeps us from becoming like the unbelieving skeptics, who don't acknowledge God and don't thank him for his many gifts.

All of this teaches us to acknowledge God's generosity even more. Because we continue to search for him and keep on knocking at his door, he showers us with more and more blessings. Everything we have is a gift from God. When we pray, we should express our gratitude by saying, "Lord, I know that I can't create a single slice of my daily bread. You are the only one who can supply all of my needs. I have no way to protect myself from disasters. You know what I need ahead of time, so I'm convinced that you will take care of me."

Watching Paint Dry...Waiting for Water to Boil...Watching an Eye Heal...

2009-09-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I might as well write a follow-up to our exciting life. There was a nickel sized hole beneath his eye in the orbit. His eye was sinking into it. The doctor put a plate or mesh of some sort where the bone used to be - once that paper thin bone breaks, I guess it's gone. He removed the bone fragments, adjusted the problem of the muscle being impinged by bone. You can't even tell from the outside that he had surgery, but his eye is still not straight. He does have complete double vision that may resolve itself when the swelling goes away. If not, it's another surgery.

School starts here tomorrow. He is going. We were on the verge of pulling him out and letting him get his GED and starting county college classes second semester while working with his dad, but then out of nowhere his dad and my dad decided he's absolutely going to school, so...here goes! We are rearranging his schedule so he'll have early work dismissal and work with Stan in the field in the afternoons, which I think is good.

It has been painful and wonderful. All I can think is how wonderful it is to see God work and I have! In my Job study I was recently reminded of the story of Jesus and Lazarus and how He was told that Lazarus was so sick and to go to him and of course, Jesus loved Lazarus but he did not go when they asked. He waited until Lazarus had died. He waited so that He could show God's glory...John 11

The Death of Lazarus

1Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

2This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.

3So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

4When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."

5Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

6Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

7Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."

8"But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?"

9Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world's light. 10It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light."

11After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up."

12His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." 13Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

14So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, 15and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

And then he raises Lazarus from the dead. Jesus' words for God's glory and so that you may believe, what could be more important? Talk about having one's priorities in order.

Though it hurts and I flail, I am so comforted to know that God takes traumas and dramas and negatives and makes them Good. When life gets loud, I hear God get louder.

...And Waiting on God!

2009-08-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

Dear son Seth sustained a serious injury 9 days ago. We are spending our days attending appts with specialists at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia and he may be having facial surgery Thursday. He has a broken eye socket, his left eye is now misaligned, double vision. His left eye looks off to the left, avoiding or pushed off by the swelling from the breaks below his eye and along his nose. Not to mention an incidental busted open eye brow which is long since treated with 6 stitches and healed over. No promises or answers about the possibility of full recovery of sight from the man who literally wrote the book on oculoplastics.

Faith steps in.

A Fabulous Day in Atlantic City with the Thunderbirds

2009-08-18T14:34:00.000-07:00

It isn't every day we get to sit on the beach, stare out over the ocean and the blue sky and feel our ears and insides being ripped out by an atmosphere-blasting jet over and over and over again for hours on end.
But that's what we experienced today in Atlantic City, New Jersey

somewhere around Florida Avenue, which is not a property on the Monopoly board.
Tomorrow is the really big shew and today these pilots were out "practicing,"

blazing by us for hours in the blazing sun showing us their stuff

and they've got stuff! They've got synchronized stuff.
They've got upside-down stuff.

I turned around here and told my sons for the umpteenth time of the day:

If I catch you doing this stunt, Mister,

you're in BIG trouble!

They've got drawing in the sky stuff.

They've got good rescue stuff.
We were here....

They were there,

here,

and literally everywhere.

Once when I was walking toward the ocean

a jet came up behind me and flew over my head

(and landed in France three seconds later)

and I...well, I am probably giving someone a good laugh on their home videos right now

because the sound, the noise, the...there's no word for it...

It was loud.

See?
Then people started getting filthy.

Then some shmuck photographed me in my bathing suit!

So we split.
Love,
Jennie

2009-08-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

Hope your summer is going as easy as his.

He just found out minutes ago that he and his best friend have the same second grade teacher, he has accomplished his goals (swimming bands), he's lived in boxers or old handmedown light cotton sweats the entire summer, his head is resting on the fleece blanket from his baby crib, his shoulders wrapped in "colored blankie" made by a loving friend and accompanied him from birth, he's playing his favorite game on his DS, on the front porch in the cool morning air. ... On a chair his father trashpicked... Does a 7 year old's life get any better? Yeah. Yesterday he went kayaking with Mom in the morning and to a drive-in with Dad and brother in the evening...coming home to freshly made chocolate chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer.

Like I said...I do hope your summer is going as well as his.

Cysts and Warts and Puppy Dog Tails

2009-08-11T13:57:00.000-07:00

On our trip to the midwest this summer we went to our usual for lunch, The Trojan Horse where Stan and I had our first date. As I sat there waiting for my gyro with extra tsatziki sauce, I glanced down at Sean's right hand and was jolted back to my childhood, my second grade year to be exact.

In second grade I had a small cyst on the back of my right hand that zipped up and down when I clenched and unclenched my fist. I found it very impressive and even showed it to Jimmy Tsuji on the playground in the hopes that he would find me amazing too. I don't remember that technique working too well with the boys, but anyway, one day my little cyst friend was gone.

There in the dark booth surrounded by the dreamy aroma of seasoned lamb my cyst reappeared on Sean's hand - the exact spot, the exact size, the exact zipping up and down! I guess my expression was ghastly because poor Sean tightened up and grabbed his hand, "What!? Is that bad?!" His eyes widened.

The poor thing. Just a few weeks before we'd discovered that he has little warts between his toes and guess what? Me again. I had to have them cut off as a young child his age. When we found them I reassured him that I would try some simply methods to get them to go away ~~unlike Mommy's experience of having them cut off with scissors, blood pouring out all over the place, and the doctor wildly impressed by my composure.~~ So when I saw him fearing the little cyst, I quickly assured him, "Oh no! It's perfectly fine! Mommy had one of those when she was your age and I loved it! I used to show everyone on the playground my cool cyst." So the rest of the vacation he showed each and every relative his really cool cyst and it's pretty much his imaginary friend now.

Today Seth and I took Sean to get an ice cream and they know us well there at the store. The lady said to me, "Man, he's just a little version of your husband, isn't he?" I said yes, that I wasn't sure how my husband created that little one without a speck of me in there. Seth drove home. Sean sat in the back seat licking away on his ice cream cone and the little Mommy's boy said thoughtfully, "Mom, I'm a lot like you actually...the warts....the cysts..."

Oh, I don't know which was more hilarious, that comment or the look on the 17 year old's face when he snapped his head around for my reaction.