Sunday, December 2, 2012
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Summer is gone!
Well, Summer is ALMOST gone. It's been stressful, full of change and uncertainty, and painful because of the gradual cutting of the ties that bind with our 20 year old daughter. She's grown up, and as she always has been, she's champing at the bit to get out and away on her own.
Learning things that I didn't know were going on in her life has left me sad and wondering where I was during that time, wondering if she needed me and I wasn't paying attention. Things here on the property are dry and withering, and nothing grows here that would brighten autumn days except witch hazel and trees.
Carrie was given a hard shell camper and that will soon be here in the woods, waiting for her to turn her imagination to thinking how she will use it. I can't wait for that!
This blog post is almost newsless, because I've been in such a fog all summer that I haven't done or noticed much about which to write.
Learning things that I didn't know were going on in her life has left me sad and wondering where I was during that time, wondering if she needed me and I wasn't paying attention. Things here on the property are dry and withering, and nothing grows here that would brighten autumn days except witch hazel and trees.
Carrie was given a hard shell camper and that will soon be here in the woods, waiting for her to turn her imagination to thinking how she will use it. I can't wait for that!
This blog post is almost newsless, because I've been in such a fog all summer that I haven't done or noticed much about which to write.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Last Days
Can you believe today is the last day of February? Things go by so fast. Months, seasons, seasons in our lives........ and of course years.
My daughters got the "Bucket List" email forward this week, and both of them filled it out - so I did too. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/note.php?note_id=54371713397
It took me back a few years. I achieved more of my goals than I expected to during my single years. But what I remember most was standing in the empty classroom near the back of the building, near the forest that encroached on the playground. It was raining and foggy. The wall length plate glass windows were a barrier between me and the mossy green-smelling air, and the damp cold of the ground hugging fog. But what I felt inside couldn't be blocked by any barrier. I wanted, desperately, to be home. I wanted to just "be" in my little duplex, and spend the whole day following the sun from the east side where Crooked lake lapped at my deck, to the west side, where the landlord's tulips and daffodils bloomed like an applique quilt between the driveways.
I loved teaching, but it wasn't my heart's desire. I wanted a family, babies, a husband who would do the out in public things like employment and taxes that were so hard for me. I had in my imagination the perfect life planned....me home full time with my babies, teaching them at home, writing and keeping the family memories alive, keeping home. I didn't get the perfect life all the time after we married. We had to grow together. It was painful and I wasn't always sure we'd make it, but we were both determined. We lost our first child. The next year Carrie was born two weeks early, and I was told the toxemia was just a fluke and never happened twice. Larry chose to make the sacrifice for me to be a stay at home mom. Carrie and I began to grow together. It was painful and sometimes overwhelming, because I still had a lot to learn. But, oh, we made great memories! For some reason, out of all the precious memories, the one that pops out first is of Carrie sitting on the couch watching Wizard of Oz as the "woman" rode past with the dog in her basket. Over and over, in a quiet little voice Carrie crooned to herself, "Goggy OK! Goggy OK!"
Now, more than 20 years later, there have been times when she's held me and said, "Mom, you'll be ok! You'll be ok!"
When Carrie was 4 1/2, I got pregnant again. We were so thrilled! When I was about 2 months along, the back spasms started. I spent the next 2 months on the floor. Larry would work all night and sleep all day, but still be there if the spasms started and I started yelling for him. He was, figuratively at least, there to take care of Carrie. However it was during that time that she completely greased the cat in vaseline and nearly strangled the poor grease cat with a piece of yarn, because she wanted to lead her around like a dog. Larry went to church that night and gave them an update on the prayer requests. He told them how they could be praying for me, but someone suggested they really needed to be praying for the cat!
By the time the spasms stopped the high blood pressure started. They nursed me along until end of the 5th month and then near the end of the 6th month they put me in the hospital. June was spent monitoring my bp and my baby's growth. They were pushing us to the last minute, but finally around the weekend of June 20th they set the date for Monday. My Dr went away for the weekend, and the evening of June 23 (Sunday) the stand in Dr decided he couldn't wait any longer. He called in the family and, privately, told Larry not to expect much. She was born 2 months early, 2 pound 11 ounces. She spent the night under an o2 hood. I spent the night under morphine, and had the wildest dreams! I skied down the hall using my IV pole, and spent some time sitting like a gnome up high on a shelf next to the ceiling., watching the nurse take blood pressure readings on that lady down there in the bed. We were there for several weeks. She was to weak to be brought up to me and I was too sick to be moved down to see her. So I only saw pictures for a while. Then we spent a month, after I went home, driving back and forth to see her, and finally to actually hold her. Each day they would move the iv's from place to place on her tiny body - from the top of the head to the neck to the arm, hand foot leg back......
Just before she was 2 months old they made us take infant CPR because SHE WAS COMING HOME!
There was some teasing, because as supervisor at work, Larry had taken CPR and was expected to be able to use it in an emergency. But adult and infant CPR are different. So we wondered, if the emergency ever came, would Larry grab the employee by the toe and yell, "BABY BABY ARE YOU OK???"
Those are all vivid memories, but when Crystal was finally talking a little, the memory that pops out first is Halloween. Carrie had just left on that very warm evening, to trick or treat with daddy and Crystal was waiting at home with me. She stood at the screen door and watched the kids go by, calling out over and over, "Someone PLEASE take the baby!"
Now nearly 20 years later, I see that same drive and energy in her, now a firefighter. The take the baby wish has grown up into, "Someone PLEASE call in a fire!"
So. Here I am. Right where I really always wanted to be.
My girls are "on their own" but still living at home.
They contribute in so many ways to keeping up our home. They do most of the driving now, and I ride along. When there is heavy work to do here, they do the heavy stuff. They are my best friends. I never knew it would be this good.
My house - my home - has windows facing east and west. I spend lots of time watching the sun move from the kitchen windows to the livingroom window. Like an old cat, I slink from sunny spot to sunny spot. If I happen to wake Larry up when I go to bed late, we hug and sometimes talk in sleepy voices like I used to hear my parents talk quietly when we had been tucked in for the night. In the very early morning he wakes me with a kiss. On our engagement anniversary he asks me to marry him again. Scattered through all this sticky sweetness, there are bitter moments and miserable times. We weather them. The good times, like now, are like the 7 good years when Joseph stocked the graineries until they were full to the top. I am full to the top with good moments right now. They will nourish me during the "7 years" of drought when or if they come, and they will be as signposts to me in the dark so that I don't get lost there, but can find my way back to solid ground.
My daughters got the "Bucket List" email forward this week, and both of them filled it out - so I did too. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/note.php?note_id=54371713397
It took me back a few years. I achieved more of my goals than I expected to during my single years. But what I remember most was standing in the empty classroom near the back of the building, near the forest that encroached on the playground. It was raining and foggy. The wall length plate glass windows were a barrier between me and the mossy green-smelling air, and the damp cold of the ground hugging fog. But what I felt inside couldn't be blocked by any barrier. I wanted, desperately, to be home. I wanted to just "be" in my little duplex, and spend the whole day following the sun from the east side where Crooked lake lapped at my deck, to the west side, where the landlord's tulips and daffodils bloomed like an applique quilt between the driveways.
I loved teaching, but it wasn't my heart's desire. I wanted a family, babies, a husband who would do the out in public things like employment and taxes that were so hard for me. I had in my imagination the perfect life planned....me home full time with my babies, teaching them at home, writing and keeping the family memories alive, keeping home. I didn't get the perfect life all the time after we married. We had to grow together. It was painful and I wasn't always sure we'd make it, but we were both determined. We lost our first child. The next year Carrie was born two weeks early, and I was told the toxemia was just a fluke and never happened twice. Larry chose to make the sacrifice for me to be a stay at home mom. Carrie and I began to grow together. It was painful and sometimes overwhelming, because I still had a lot to learn. But, oh, we made great memories! For some reason, out of all the precious memories, the one that pops out first is of Carrie sitting on the couch watching Wizard of Oz as the "woman" rode past with the dog in her basket. Over and over, in a quiet little voice Carrie crooned to herself, "Goggy OK! Goggy OK!"
Now, more than 20 years later, there have been times when she's held me and said, "Mom, you'll be ok! You'll be ok!"
When Carrie was 4 1/2, I got pregnant again. We were so thrilled! When I was about 2 months along, the back spasms started. I spent the next 2 months on the floor. Larry would work all night and sleep all day, but still be there if the spasms started and I started yelling for him. He was, figuratively at least, there to take care of Carrie. However it was during that time that she completely greased the cat in vaseline and nearly strangled the poor grease cat with a piece of yarn, because she wanted to lead her around like a dog. Larry went to church that night and gave them an update on the prayer requests. He told them how they could be praying for me, but someone suggested they really needed to be praying for the cat!
By the time the spasms stopped the high blood pressure started. They nursed me along until end of the 5th month and then near the end of the 6th month they put me in the hospital. June was spent monitoring my bp and my baby's growth. They were pushing us to the last minute, but finally around the weekend of June 20th they set the date for Monday. My Dr went away for the weekend, and the evening of June 23 (Sunday) the stand in Dr decided he couldn't wait any longer. He called in the family and, privately, told Larry not to expect much. She was born 2 months early, 2 pound 11 ounces. She spent the night under an o2 hood. I spent the night under morphine, and had the wildest dreams! I skied down the hall using my IV pole, and spent some time sitting like a gnome up high on a shelf next to the ceiling., watching the nurse take blood pressure readings on that lady down there in the bed. We were there for several weeks. She was to weak to be brought up to me and I was too sick to be moved down to see her. So I only saw pictures for a while. Then we spent a month, after I went home, driving back and forth to see her, and finally to actually hold her. Each day they would move the iv's from place to place on her tiny body - from the top of the head to the neck to the arm, hand foot leg back......
Just before she was 2 months old they made us take infant CPR because SHE WAS COMING HOME!
There was some teasing, because as supervisor at work, Larry had taken CPR and was expected to be able to use it in an emergency. But adult and infant CPR are different. So we wondered, if the emergency ever came, would Larry grab the employee by the toe and yell, "BABY BABY ARE YOU OK???"
Those are all vivid memories, but when Crystal was finally talking a little, the memory that pops out first is Halloween. Carrie had just left on that very warm evening, to trick or treat with daddy and Crystal was waiting at home with me. She stood at the screen door and watched the kids go by, calling out over and over, "Someone PLEASE take the baby!"
Now nearly 20 years later, I see that same drive and energy in her, now a firefighter. The take the baby wish has grown up into, "Someone PLEASE call in a fire!"
So. Here I am. Right where I really always wanted to be.
My girls are "on their own" but still living at home.
They contribute in so many ways to keeping up our home. They do most of the driving now, and I ride along. When there is heavy work to do here, they do the heavy stuff. They are my best friends. I never knew it would be this good.
My house - my home - has windows facing east and west. I spend lots of time watching the sun move from the kitchen windows to the livingroom window. Like an old cat, I slink from sunny spot to sunny spot. If I happen to wake Larry up when I go to bed late, we hug and sometimes talk in sleepy voices like I used to hear my parents talk quietly when we had been tucked in for the night. In the very early morning he wakes me with a kiss. On our engagement anniversary he asks me to marry him again. Scattered through all this sticky sweetness, there are bitter moments and miserable times. We weather them. The good times, like now, are like the 7 good years when Joseph stocked the graineries until they were full to the top. I am full to the top with good moments right now. They will nourish me during the "7 years" of drought when or if they come, and they will be as signposts to me in the dark so that I don't get lost there, but can find my way back to solid ground.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
February 5
A friend sent me an update from her "southern" vacation.
"I saw two plovers, each running on only one foot. I thought it highly unusual that 2 of them were handicapped in the same way, until I saw one scratch his little head. I looked closely and he was scratching with the other foot, which was tucked up in his feathers. "
That quote is a gem; a starting point for a rabbit trail I can chase! LOL!
We so often miss the "actual" when we base assumptions on the visual impression. We see someone with a "handicap" and focus on that "disadvantage", so that we MISS the fact that they are "running " just fine, even on one foot! So, we miss seeing the strength and the capabilities, unless we are still looking when they scratch! LOL!
"I saw two plovers, each running on only one foot. I thought it highly unusual that 2 of them were handicapped in the same way, until I saw one scratch his little head. I looked closely and he was scratching with the other foot, which was tucked up in his feathers. "
That quote is a gem; a starting point for a rabbit trail I can chase! LOL!
We so often miss the "actual" when we base assumptions on the visual impression. We see someone with a "handicap" and focus on that "disadvantage", so that we MISS the fact that they are "running " just fine, even on one foot! So, we miss seeing the strength and the capabilities, unless we are still looking when they scratch! LOL!
Friday, January 30, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
30 days late (January is gone) and more than a dollar short (we bought a new refrigerator today), I finally begin a 2009 journal. I will use today's post to try to summarize January. Let's see, cold, cold, snow, more snow, much more snow, colder..............
This month
This month I am trying to undo the damage I did to my body in November and December. I had lost 35 pounds and was fitter than I've been in years, with cholesterol, bp, and blood sugars finally in the normal range. Then at Thanksgiving I plunged into the pit that I had so recently crawled out of, gaining back 15 pounds and feeling the same bad health signs that had plagued me before the weight loss. Now, near the end of January I have lost the 15 pounds again and am feeling healthy again. However I struggle with evening snacking because I started the habit again.
I also fell off the daily routine of home keeping and now I am not keeping pace with the laundry, the messes, the dishes.........
I choose to focus on the accomplishments and possibilities!
- The Christmas stuff IS all packed away neatly!
- The routines that helped me keep up are at least still memorised, so .......
- I CAN choose to follow them.
- Baby steps are all I need to take, and I CAN do that!
- This February 2nd (Ground Hog's Day) Larry goes back to work. He's been home most of January. It was WONDERFUL but I lost my routine. I'll miss him lots but his going to work MAY trigger MY going to work at my own business....home keeping.
- Sometime next week I'll have a new refrigerator, NOT rusted, NOT undependable, NOT with impossible crevasses and corners that I can't clean!
- Since most of the food we had refrigerated was ruined or quickly consumed to keep it from BEING ruined, I can start AFTER N.F.D. (new fridge day! LOL!) with all new fresh food, and can buy with a menu plan.
Also this month -
- Crystal was fired from her ambulance job. We are glad. It was terribly stressful for her because she wasn't being properly trained and yet had to do her best to work as if she WAS trained. Plus, the drive was very long, in very bad weather, very late in the evening. Since she's been free from that she's lost so much weight (stress eating?) that she needed new clothes.
- She still works as a firefighter, but needs a full time job. None being available at this point, she plans to enlist in the Navy (fire fighting division). She can choose when to go to boot camp, so she plans to go in the fall and try to work through the summer to build her finances and fulfill the commitment to the fire company to work for them for at least a year after the training she received. We are supportive of this decision though not all the people in her life are. Funny. I really DO believe that women should not go to war. So how can I support this? I don't know. I don't know. But I support HER I guess, not the fighting. Also, she should be (if accepted) stationed mostly on the ocean rather than in the midst of battle. Above all, the thing I can do is pray - and I am.
This month
- Carrie and I started the Master Gardener training program and I love it! My brain is suddenly immersed in real study, real training again. And I am suddenly immersed in people who are excited about the same things I am, people who challenge me and stretch my mind. Envigorating!
This month
- I've begun reading F. Lagard Smith this month. I started with his Narrated Bible, which was recommended by Marita Littauer for people with my personality type (Sanguine). It really does work well for me, though I also love getting deeper into the Word using Zodiates' Key Word Study Bible, which I have had for years. (That one was recommended for Melancholic Personalities, which I am not. But I think it would be excellent for Phlegmatics who love to "ponder" Scripture. I am about half phlegmatic.)
Back to my topic - (Umm....sanguines tend to get lost down rabbit trails rather than staying on topic. But we DO generally came back to where we started. LOL!)
F. LaGard Smith edited the Narrated Bible. When I was searching for the Bible on Amazon (using the author/editor's name) I found other books he had written. As is my habit, I decided to do what I call a "core study", similar to the core borings taken when a soil sampling is needed. Rather than studying "all around" the subject (Narrated Bibles) I am studying the author/editor deeply by reading all I can find that he has written. I LOVE to do this! Later I will be journaling about more casual reading done in this same way, using the cozy mystery authors that I enjoy most in that genre.
But right now, I am immersed in a book by Smith titled "What Most Women; Want What Few Women Find". It is a second edition, the earlier being titled "Men of Strength For Women of God". The second title is better in my opinion, but the text is mostly the same.
Smith presents the Biblical position on women in church leadership, and I DO agree with him. Even if I don't always like the idea, it's there in black and white. However, throughout the reading, my spoiled brat alter ego pops her head up (she resembles certain female politicians that I find particulary unnatractive and abrasive), and I end up spending too much much time playing "Chuck E Cheese Bopem on the head" with her! Even about the time I come up with legitimate "But what about when..." thoughts about what seem to be exceptions to male spiritual leadership - headship - Smith refutes my questions with accurate Scriptural answers. God is using His servant, this author (who by the way stresses that male spiritual leadership is exampled by Christ's leadership - as serving) to grow me while at the same time setting limits around me so that I don't sprint off (ok, I don't sprint - how about giddily bounce off) in wrong directions, or get ahead of His leading.
I am nearly finished with the book (4 more chapters) and I think I will be buying it.
This month
- I also read The Shack, and then listened to sermons online and read texts online that warned why I should NOT read The Shack! At least I saw for myself how deceptively "good" a very misleading book can seem. I think it WILL mislead a lot of people and I am praying that God will open their eyes to the real truth.
And now Crystal wants the computer so I guess today's journal entry is finished.
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