Important things (by Becky)

There's nothing like a scary experience to give one a renewed perspective on life. I of course don't know all the whys and hows of what God allows in our lives. I do know that there is purpose in each one. Sometimes I glimpse that purpose, and sometimes I trust that it is a high, holy purpose that only my God understands. (You see, His ability to grasp things far beyond my understanding is a vital part of His God-ness to me. If He were nothing more than what I can grasp, then why would I need Him?) So, why pulmonary embolisms for me? I don't know all of that, but I can tell you a little of what I'm learning...

For one thing, I've been pushing too hard. I was born yelling, with a driven... (ok, bossy) personality. Large and in charge, that's me. I thrive on accomplishment, and I see life, even the crises of life I suppose, as a challenge. Never one to avoid a challenge, I take it on with all my might. However, I must admit that even Miss Large and in Charge gets tired. Even looking back over the blogs of the last few months, I've let myself get way too worked up and stressed out.

In talking this out with my Sweet Love, I came to a conclusion. If January 7th had been my last day, having a seminary degree, a best-selling book, or a powerful speaking career would not have mattered so much. Especially because in driving myself toward all those things, I was losing my capacity to enjoy anything. What would have mattered? Savoring and nourishing the hard-won depth of love in my marriage, soaking in every smile, every moment with the two incredible children I have, doing what I'm passionate about, which is loving, teaching, and helping women embrace Christ-following and the amazing life that comes with it. That's how I want to spend my days.

The seminary degree will be done eventually, hopefully people will want to read my books, and maybe I'll get lots of chances to inspire people to check out life on the edge. These things are still on my list. I'm just going to stop pushing myself so hard that I skip right past what's important.

Hold me to it, ok?

GRRRRRRR!

Do you ever find yourself overcome by the feeling that you need to rip something to shreds, jump through the window and just run, screaming, down the street? This happens to me sometimes. More often than I'd like anybody to know about, really.
It happened to me in the car this morning on the way to the kids' school. The sky was so beautiful and I just wanted to go to the park....but instead, I have to be responsible and take my kids to school, take my dog to my mom's (she has a nervous condition and doesn't do well when we're gone...but that's a topic for some other day), and drive all the back roads to work because I can't find change for the nice toll road.
I think I'm just feeling the squeeze of taking on a lifestyle that I don't really want. If you have known me for a long time, you will know that all I have ever wanted out of life is to just be a mom, and preferably a stay-at-home one. So, every time I have to get a job to pay some bills, it takes me away from my dream and my purpose. That's always rough on me. I know that everybody has to do it sometimes, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
So I end up feeling trapped and all of my instincts rise up to fight against it. I am Scottish after all. We're the original Barbarians.
Anyway, it's not as bad as it all sounds....I just had that moment this morning. Overall, it's been a pretty flat transition so far. No extreme emotions, just doing what I have to do. I think that moments like those, maybe I should call them Incredible Hulk moments, just remind me that I'm still me inside and that my inner, responsible mother hasn't squashed my inner wild child.

DAILY BLISS: Driving fast with really loud music. Good for whatever ails you.

<3 Christy

Recovery (by Becky)

I'm still enjoying being home. LOVE sleeping in my own bed, and nobody is waking me at night to evaluate any type of bodily fluid output. I'm tiring much more easily than I expected, and finding it difficult to give myself the freedom to take the extra rest I need. Why is that? Thankfully my sweet husband and wonderful friends and family are lavishing on the grace, AND a little force here and there, to make sure I rest and recuperate.

My parents had flown up to help with the children while I was in the hospital. They left last night, and so I'm flying solo today, back to doing the mom thing, picking up, dropping off, making lunches, etc. I'm learning the ropes on managing my "old lady medicine," (coumadin) and getting a good laugh out of that. My Granny was on coumadin, and lots of other grannies I know, so I can't help feeling I should be purchasing some orthopedic shoes, or depends, or at least denture cream along with all this blood testing and pill taking. HA HA! Hopefully I'll only spend six months or so on the coumadin and then be done with that. Till then, I can't help but snicker at myself over it.

More thoughts later... for now, just glad to be home.

Today, I....

Well, today, I started my new job. Sigh.

DAILY BLISS: I made Chinese food for dinner. Emma came to the table with some random maroon sash wrapped around her head and announced that she was feeling like she was Chinese. Then she asked me if she and Andrew could watch television. She asked me in Spanish. So, I questioned her multicultural approach, and she calmly explained that actually she was a Chinese girl who spoke English and was learning Spanish in school. Aha.

<3 Christy

Reliving Childhood

My brother made me ride a bike today. This is more significant than you might think. I wrecked my bike when I was about eight years old. I went down a steep hill, fast enough that I was out of control, and at the bottom of the hill, there was a wooden bridge. Let's just say that my little eight-year-old self turned that bridge into a ramp. I know I was airborne. And I know I hit gravel. I haven't been on a bike since.
I know this sounds pretty ridiculous, but hear me out. When I was still a kid, I was scared to get back on a bike. By the time a fear of a crash was irrelevant, I had my own car.
We have never lived in a good place for my kids to ride bikes, so they never really have. Thinking foolishly that this is an essential childhood skill, we bought bikes for the kids this year for Christmas. They have done really well with the whole two-wheel deal.
My brother and his wife ride bikes a lot. They came over and asked if the kids could go on a ride with them. Of course, we said yes! Then my brother casually said that they had four adult bikes and that Chris and I should ride along. "Woah, woah, woah," I said. "I haven't been on a bike since that time I crashed when I was eight!" And that was pretty much all he had to hear. No matter how much I didn't want to, I was going to be taking a bike ride.
I have to say that I did alright. You really don't forget how to ride a bike. I should mention that I was never very good at it as a kid, so I am still not very good at it. But I enjoyed it and maybe I'll even get my own bike soon. My daughter, however, rides like I used to as a kid. She has training wheels, so she can go as slowly as she wants. We really were a sight! Four adults and two kids riding at the speed of a stroll. The more adept cyclers in our group handled the slow pace pretty well. I, on the other hand, did not. It's much harder to ride a bike slowly, and I felt compelled to ride behind my little one so that I could shout direction at her if she was veering into traffic or something. I nearly ran into her so many times, and I had to come to a complete stop so many times that I lost count! I think that the ride itself may not have been too taxing, but all that starting up and getting off the bike - ouch! I guess the proper fit for an adult bike means that only your toes touch the ground. So, the places of me that hurt from such activities....(groan).....it just isn't nice.
About halfway through the ride, I realized that I was suffering from the Parental Curse - you know, the one that says your children will grow up to be just like you? I cruised along, yelling at my daughter to "just pedal a little faster!!" and "hurry up! you're in the middle of the street!!" And I suddenly remembered my mother yelling the exact same things at me. Oh dear. I AM turning into my mother (not that that's a BAD thing, ma...). She used to tell me that I was able to stay upright on two wheels at the slowest speed she had ever seen.
I just want to take this opportunity to offer my apologies to my parents. No wonder you didn't keep bicycling as a hobby.

DAILY BLISS: Pretty much the whole riding-a-bike-again thing. Who knew? You really don't ever forget!

<3 Christy

Dang!

I was reading a little book while sitting at a chess meet and ran across an excerpt from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity that I absolutely loved!!
Speaking of Christians, he said, " Some, as I have admitted, are still hardly recognizable: but others can be recognized. Every now and then one meets them. Their very voices and faces are different from ours; stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. They are, I say, recognizable; but you must know what to look for. They will not be very like the idea of 'religious people' which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less...They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from. When you have recognized one of them, you will recognize the next one much more easily. And I strongly suspect (but how should I know?) that they recognize one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of colour, sex, class, age, even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at the very lowest, it must be great fun."
Dang! I wanna be like that! But, I must admit that in my attempts toward such an end, I am having "great fun!"

DAILY BLISS: Oatmeal butterscotch cookies coming out of my oven! Yay!

<3 Christy

I'm home and GO Saints!

I'm HOME!!! Wooo HOOOO!!! Never been so happy to put on a pair of jeans and a bra!!! No more tummy shots, no more mystery meat. I'm home with my favorite people in the world, kickin back in my living room.
Ooo... gotta go, Saints are marchin in!!!!

Rollin' it over

Still blogging from room 8083. REALLY hoping to go home today. It’s been a long week of shots, pills, hospital food, and wondering what to think. I’m not sure I’ve done much thinking, really. Bad use of hospital time, I suppose, but I think I kind of just wadded up this experience and, as Father Tim would say, “rolled it over onto the Lord” for a while. I just set it in His lap and left it with Him. I’m not sure what else to do. As the stream of health professionals comes to my room, often telling me how lucky I am, how most people never have this chance, I’m tempted to get it back from Him and try to untangle the wad of stuff.

Surely there are all kinds of gems in there, all kinds of dark scary stuff too. I suppose He will dole it out to me piece by piece as I am ready to take it in. For this moment, I’m trying to laugh at the crazy and find joy in the little things. It seems the random and absurd even follows me here. Like at 4am when the guy comes to my room, flips on the light, and asks how much I peed that night. (WHAT??? Where am I??) Or like when the hospital kitchen nuked the wrong side of my tray, cooking my cake and milk instead of the mystery meat and mashed potatoes. (yummy!)

Maybe more profundity later. For now, just hoping to go home!!

Hospital thoughts...

Not much to say today. I’m still trying to soak in the idea that I came so close to dying. I’m so thankful for the support of friends and family. My church family has been so good to us, and even far away friends are calling and sending flowers. I’m thankful to be loved. I’m thankful that even if my days ended now, I have without a doubt made a connection with our Creator. He loves me. He told me while I watched the sunset from my hospital window. (I’m serious, the view is amazing!) He and I are off on one adventure after another together. This is just another incredible journey we are on. I say I wanna live on the edge, and He takes me up on it!!

Trusting Scared (by Becky)

OK… so I’m blogging from a unique place. The hospital. I came to the ER with some pretty severe pain when breathing, and was diagnosed with pulmonary embolisms, or blood clots in my lungs. Pretty scary. Good news is, docs found it quickly and I’ll be in here all week while they treat to make sure they get this under control. For right now it hurts. Bad. So if what I type doesn’t make sense, it’s because it’s tinged with lovely pain meds.

I’m frightened, or maybe that’s not the word. I know no matter what happens, I’m going to be ok. I know what will happen after my last breath. But the idea of leaving my babies, my husband, my family, my church, my life…. I’m just not done living yet!! Don’t suppose I ever will be!

Here’s the verse that came to mind when I was in ER. The doc came in and told us that unfortunately, he was correct and I did have clots. He gave some more instructions and left the room. Into my head came a verse I memorized as a child. “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.” Ps. 56:3. So here I am, scared but trusting.

When my kids were still rocking chair age, I used to sing them an old hymn.

Simply trusting every day
Trusting through the stormy way
Even when my faith is small
Trusting Jesus, that is all.

Trusting as the moments fly
Trusting as the days go by
Trusting Him what e’er befall
Trusting Jesus, that is all.

(Sorry, but I don’t know the author or origin of the hymn. It just was planted in the recesses of my brain as a kid. Not sure who or where…)

Don’t know what else there is to do. I spend a lot of time running around, planning, working, striving, achieving. Now, in this moment, Trusting Jesus is all that’s left. So it’s all I’ll do.

Daily bliss: A good view from my hospital room!! OH! And wireless internet in the hospital! Who knew??

Sighing by the Lake

I am enjoying my last couple days of freedom before I start my new job. Did I mention that already? I'm going to be a church secretary - I've done it before, so the learning curve should be short. So, I got some coffee this morning with my mom and grandma - how funny we must have been, all three generations sitting in Starbucks! - and headed off by myself to the local lake-and-gardens to just sit. One of my friends suggested that it's always good to decompress and I started thinking...well....I'm not all that compressed to begin with. Maybe it's just preemptive decompression.
People look at you, though, when you're sitting by yourself in public. I've taken myself out to dinner before, and I got a lot of compassionate attention from the staff. Some of my friends even said that I was brave for doing that! But I like to be alone. I like to be able to think whatever I want to think and hide behind my sunglasses and my iPod and have people wonder if I'm okay. As long as I don't notice the people wondering about me.
I guess I just wanted to share what a beautiful day it was and how refreshing to just have an hour outside, all by myself, at our beautiful lake. The birds all chattered about me when I sat on their bench. There were a few fish that jumped. I guess they were excited about the rain that was coming. And the breeze was just delicious.
I'm a little sad to be going back to work, and I guess I hoped that the breeze would blow it all away, but it didn't. It's hard to step back into a world you never wanted to be part of. I like being home and being a mom. Even the dreamiest of dreamers sometimes has to let reality settle in, though. I just don't want to. How three-years-old does that sound? Ha!

DAILY BLISS: Wrestling on the floor with the kids!

<3 Christy

The Joy of a Frizzy Ponytail

I was running those annoying little evening errands when I suddenly took notice of my daughter. Really - she was a wreck. She had changed into this pair of khaki shorts after school and all four pocket flaps were turned up and the pockets were inside out. She was wearing high-heeled dressy mary janes and had some sort of orange stain on one side of her mouth. And her hair - oh.....oh, her hair. I had put it in a nice, neat, high ponytail this morning. At this point, there were clumps of it that were pulled halfway out like majestic, rolling hills. Her hair is also curly, so it was kind of tufted and frizzy all over.
Then I looked at my son. He was still in uniform, sort of. His shirt was way untucked, except for one spot to the left in the back. His shirt was pretty stained, though. It was nearly gray in all of the expected places and had mysterious brown marks all over the front. Probably some chocolate type of lunch box exchange. His hair had been neatly spiked up in just the front this morning. It was now matted down and spiked out mainly over his ears.
Just as I was about to slink off into a corner and give them both a spit bath and a hair adjustment, it occurred to me that those are all the marks of fun. They have both been playing really hard and working hard too. Neither one of them gave a thought to the fact that the evidence of such important work should be shameful. How nice! I decided to leave them be and proudly parade my two little rugrats through Blockbuster, regardless of who I might run into that I haven't seen in years (that happens to me a lot, since I grew up in this town).
Then I looked down at myself. I was wearing my mom shoes - sensible fabric flats with little flowers on them. My jeans were kind of sagging by this time in the day and gave me a noticeable muffin-top around the waist band. And my shirt had a big tomato stain in a socially unacceptable place somewhere around the top/left/front. And my hair - oh.........oh, my hair. My ponytail looked a lot like Emma's. I decided that this, too, was evidence of the fun I'd had today. I had lunch with my mom and bumped right into my BLT while I was laughing at some silly song she made up at the table and sang without thought to who might listen. My mom really can't sing either. My ponytail was in bad shape because I had been shopping for work clothes and tried on at least two dozen shirts. I have a new job that I'm excited about and nothing to wear. My jeans.....well, I have no real excuse for them, other than the fact that they're comfy.
So, I proudly paraded myself through the grocery store, knowing that most of the other moms there looked just as bad. And you know what? They probably had lots of fun and worked really hard too. And all of you girls out there that still go to the grocery store looking good.....take it easy on us. Your turn is coming.

DAILY BLISS: Shopping with my mom! She'll always tell me if I really do need to buy the next size up, and somehow manage to still make me feel like I'm beautiful.

<3 Christy

Christmas Tea

When I was still little, my daddy started a tradition with me. We called it having a cup of Christmas tea - I think there was a book about that if I recall correctly. Every year, at the end of the Christmas season, on the last night before we took down the tree, we would sit down and turn on the tree lights, turn off the house lights, have some coffee (because tea can be kinda sissy) and cry a little bit. He knew that I needed a little mourning period for the passing of my favorite time of year. He knew that I was pretty sentimental. Mostly because he was too, but don't tell him I wrote that down here.
So, I can never let the year pass without my cup of Christmas tea, and I indulged myself last night. I sat there and cried just a little bit out of happiness for the blessings in my life - my incredible family, my beautiful kids, a house that I adore....the list goes on and on. I guess that's kinda sissy, but then I also drink tea now. I cried a little bit thinking of the awesome Gift of God made into a man. I cried a lot when I thought about all the work that my brothers and my husband and my dad put into making this Christmas the best one ever and I smiled, knowing that I would cry remembering this Christmas when the next one rolls around. And then I sobbed for the vanishing childhoods in my house. I try not to think about that too much. It really isn't nice to have your children taken from you in such a stealthy way.
But when it's done, I'm always ready to move on - ready to get up and start a new year. I guess that's a good thing.

DAILY BLISS: Iced soy chai lattes on my porch with my heart's refuge - my Becky!

<3 Christy

Things... (by Becky)

Ok, here’s the thing. I can’t stand dogs. Cats either. Sure, in the past I’ve had delusions of wanting a cuddly little creature to care for. We even owned a bassett hound once. But since then, I’ve changed. I just can’t seem to see the value. Dogs poop and pee, ON YOUR STUFF. They are indiscriminate about what they eat and sniff, and then they LICK YOUR FACE. They leave hair on places and don’t even get me started on the smells.

Here’s the funny thing. In the last two days I’ve driven three dogs back and forth from a kennel. None of them my own, of course. (Here’s that good ole absurdity again!) Today I finally lost it in the grocery store when I paid $4.59 for a bag of Kibbles and Bits that wouldn’t have made it through one breakfast for my kids if it had been cereal. To the dismay of an innocent woman on the same aisle, I ranted to the air, “WHY would ANYONE spend this kind of money on a disgusting DOG? This is crazy!” She grabbed her bag of dog food and went the opposite direction from me.

And another thing… Have you ever tried to steer one of those race car grocery carts? The kind designed to entertain your kids by letting them ride in a car-like thing with a grocery cart pasted on the front of it. The result is a vehicle with the steering capacity of an aircraft carrier. It needs a foghorn to signal it’s arrival on the next grocery aisle. Now I know what it means to careen!!

So today as I careened around the grocery store with the race car cart buying water, extra toothbrushes, and Kibbles and Bits for a dog that’s not mine, snarling about it the whole time, I wondered why people were backing away from me slowly. It’s kinda funny now to wonder what they thought. Some probably just thought “PMS…,” some thought “Those poor kids. Somebody oughta do something about that.” Some thought a few choice names for me, I’m sure. Heck, I thought a few choice names for me!!

Reality is, none of them had been with me for the last three days. None of them were witnesses to the stress and strain of my life. If they had been, they would have without a doubt understood my snarl. They would have offered sympathetic looks, gentle advice, and free coffee.

So here’s the serious thing… THAT’s the value of friends in my life. While other people look on in judgement at my less than ideal behavior, my friends know all the stuff behind my snarl. Instead of being off-put, they wrap arms around me, make phone calls to me, and help me laugh about the hurts in my life. If that grocery store had been full of my friends, I would have left with a mouthful of chocolate, and a heart full of peace, knowing that somebody understood my plight. This leads me to another thought. EVERYBODY has something behind their snarl. What if we all understood that? What if we, as strangers, could extend a friendly hand and heart of understanding to those who are snarling around us? What if I were brave enough to wrap my arms around a snarling individual, instead of obeying the urge to slowly back away. (I hardly ever get this urge, but for some reason I see people do it all the time! I wonder...)

Here’s the real thing… There is One who never backs away, no matter how vicious my growl. He never leaves, no matter how ridiculous my ranting. He loved me first, and continues to love me, on days when I have capacity to return that love, AND on days when I don’t. It’s that One, Jesus, whose hands I’ll extend instead of judgement. It’s His heart I’ll show in sympathy to another struggling soul. That’s where it’s at. Not in the absence of bad days at the grocery store, not in pretending I NEVER snarl. But in knowing what it’s like to be accepted, even when I snarl, and extending that acceptance to another person out of love for the One who extended it to me.

THAT’s the thing…

Weird (by Becky)

I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to notice how my life constantly teeters on the edge of the ridiculous. Does that ever happen to you? I try my hardest to be a civilized, respectable, cordial woman; but the absurd is ever-present, always lurking just below the surface, reminding me that high class is just out of my reach. As a young girl, even as a newlywed I had wonderful visions of a clean, civilized life where I would have well behaved children, a well-kept home, a well-maintained figure, and a well-known career. Of course, I would have an attractive husband, I would be well-spoken and well-read. I would engage in intelligent conversation, be witty and charming, and go around doing grown up civilized things like having meetings, going to lunch with friends, shopping, cooking wonderful dinners, and driving a clean smelling car. And you know, that is actually how I picture myself most of the time. I ignore the laundry piles, pizza boxes, crumbs, and elastic waistbands; and picture myself just one step away from achieving my dream. I would be happy in my deluded concept of reality, except the most random things pop up to keep me aware that though I have some aspects of my dream in the bag, other parts of my life would make great displays in Ripley’s Believe it or Not museums.

Case in point: Friday, my sister and I were sitting at a restaurant. We had taken my brother to the airport and were enjoying a nice civilized lunch, savoring time together while I’m in my hometown for a visit. We were looking forward to seeing a movie together later in the evening. We were laughing, joking, and engaging in grown-up conversation. For a few moments, we had it! We WERE the dream. Two intelligent, attractive, classy women lunching together like civilized adults. My sleek, civilized cellular phone rang, and I answered. My husband was on the other end ready to lower the boom of the absurd. “I have some news you need to know,” he said. He proceeded to inform me that my daughter had spent the day before we left town with a friend who now has head lice. Immediately, I shifted from high-class adult to red-neck, white trash queen of the ridiculous, ready to fight off the constant barrage of random craziness my life continues to throw at me. Our intelligent conversation shifted from the politically correct use of the word “thin” referring to Mary in a sermon, (how did he know she was thin anyway?) to how many packs of lice treatment kits we would need to treat all the people at mom and dad’s house. (We figured two packs would do it.) Then we lost all couth as we hooted about how our movie plans were now “Nixed.” (As all the moms out there will know, Nix is a brand of lice treatment shampoo.) We were getting punchy and people were starting to stare. I don’t know, I just somehow never imagine myself at lunch with another intelligent adult, strategizing about the fastest, most preventative way to treat ten people for head lice, then laughing my head off about it. Sure, I might pass up movie plans for a better offer, but certainly, it never occurred to me that I’d sacrifice my movie plans to form a head lice treatment assembly line. Sorry, but head lice eradication was never a part of the dream.

There I was as my dream self, having a perfectly normal lunch, and it quickly descended into the ridiculous. The evening only got more absurd. We drove home, making a pit stop at the drug store for the lice shampoo, and began the treatment. It was starting to seem normal. No one had any sign of the bugs, but we weren’t taking chances. We got into a good groove shampooing one kid while the next kid was rinsing and the next combing out. We were spraying furniture and stripping beds. Again, the phone rings. This time my sister picked it up and got the news that my nephew had gone to the back of our property on his four wheeler and was stuck. We had just discovered him missing when it came his turn for the shampoo. We continued carrying out the lice treatment while now trying to calm our parents down and find a kid who just buried his four wheeler. Somebody showed up to pull out the four wheeler, (around our neighborhood there are plenty of good ole boys with 4x4’s just waiting for a chance like that) we stripped the muddy kid and put him in the shower as last to be treated for lice. By that time, we had lost all vision of the dream. We allowed life to spiral all the way down to utterly absurd. We loaded up everybody and went down to Jerry’s Restaurant (which isn’t actually called Jerry’s, but the guy who owns it is Jerry) for the Friday night fish fry. We took up a whole room in the place and gave at least one waitress a night to remember. We yelled out stuff no one ever plans to say, like “Get your mouth off the back of that chair,” and “Siddown! This room ain’t a race track!”

So much for high class living. Isn’t it funny how we have a concept of the way life should be? Like my life should look like an episode of Masterpiece Theatre, when in reality it’s more like a marathon of Roseanne. For some reason I keep holding to the dream. Maybe it pacifies me to pretend I can have a civilized life. Maybe it just keeps me sane to have a glimpse of high class adulthood once in a while. I don’t know. I considered it tonight in deep thought as I drove home listening to my kids sing their own original composition “Worms are Weird.” Rest assured, kids, it’s not just the worms that are weird!!

Truth is, that though I never dreamed of preventing lice, saving an ATV, and shutting down a local greasy spoon all in one night, the ridiculous things in my life bring the most laughter and fun. If not for the completely random junk like that, I might never throw back my head and laugh embarrassingly loud. I might never come close to wetting my pants or throwing up because I’ve laughed so hard. I might not have memories of some crazy but special times shared with my family and friends. Maybe it’s time to alter my dream. Maybe it’s time to embrace the stupidity of my life and cherish it for the smile-inducing wonder that it is. Or maybe I’m just weird.

Happy New Year

DAILY BLISS: A fresh, new year! What fun!

<3 Christy

Christmas

Here's a photo of our Christmas Loot. Before you start thinking that my kids are super-spoiled, let me just say that both of my brothers, their wives, my parents, and my grandparents all squeeze into my living room on Christmas. That totals 12 people, and there are no giving restrictions, so everyone has gifts for everyone else. It's a lot. That really big box on the left? It's a drill press for my dad. He was about as excited as dads get - which is not very - but secretly, I know he was jumping up and down, clapping his hands and squealing. But - imagine being a kid and waking up to that! Wow! As you can see, we gave the kids new bikes. But the BIG deal was that we built them a new playground in our backyard.
We managed to mostly keep this a secret as the guys built this during the two days before Christmas. Then we led them on a treasure hunt on Christmas morning, and wound up in the back yard where all the grown-ups were waiting ON the playground (up in the forts, on the swings, etc...) It was really cool. This was their Jesus' Birthday present - that's something we do every year. It's always something hand-made, and usually something really big and cheap. This year's was big anyway. One year, we made a puppet theater out of PVC pipe, one year I made a chalkboard out of a huge slab of plywood....you get the picture.
The Christmas season is a month-long ritual in our family. There are traditions that happen throughout the season. We watch White Christmas (Sigh - Bing makes me swoon), we give Jesus a birthday present (usually something like buying toys for needy kids), the girls buy Christmas jammies, the boys buy new tools and put up lights, we have a whole day dedicated to baking cookies.....it's so much fun! But the truth is, every year as I put up the tree, I struggle with reconciling the celebration to the meaning of the holiday. I mean, we all know that Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, and for some reason, that always bothers me. Doesn't it bother you, too? I'm not going to go crazy and stop celebrating or anything, but I think it's a stretch to say the tree symbolizes never-ending life (btw, mine's a fake tree, which makes it seem even less important somehow), the gifts we give to each other represent the gift of Christ to us, the candles represent the light of Christ - really, the list is long. Sometimes I feel like I could find a way to assign spiritual meaning to anything I wanted to include. So, every year I feel divided - like there are two separate celebrations going on. I am celebrating the birth of my Savior along with the Western tradition of Christmas.
On the other hand, though, maybe it's kind of like having a theme party. I like to do theme parties for my kids' birthdays. Having a pirate party or a tea party is a wonderful way to celebrate, but it has close to no meaning when it comes to celebrating the birth of my children. Maybe my mind will rest if, instead of trying to assign meaning to Santa and Shiny Brite ornaments, I just think of it as the party, and the entertainment is a big, fat guy in a red suit. Maybe, as long as I don't forget to take the time every year to sit down and reflect on what really happened, as long as I don't forget the big picture - the story of a life lived for all humanity, as long as I remind my children of the Reason we are celebrating, I can feel reassured that I haven't forgotten the Important Thing. Maybe this is what my parents have meant all along in their celebration, too. Maybe I'm just now getting it. Hm. Sometimes I'm a little slow.

DAILY BLISS: my husband took vacation time this week - it's so nice to have him around!!!

<3 Christy

Happy Winter Solstice!

If you haven't figured it out by now, or if you didn't already know, my family celebrates the start of each new season. I think it's a great way for my kids to be aware of their environment, to give praise to the Creator, and to learn the stories He tells us through the seasonal cycles. So, today is the Winter Solstice - the first day of winter. This one usually gets lost in the shuffle of Christmas, to be honest. We have so many special things that we do for the other seasons, but I have struggled with this one. I have managed a traditional breakfast, though, as pictured above. Just in case they are too crude to decipher, they are donut snowmen. My black icing was a little drippy this year, and their heads all fell off before I took this picture (on my dirty countertop - see earlier post about holiday house cleaning), smearing the black gel everywhere. But, they are still snowmen - stacked up proudly on their white plates. The kids are currently devouring them at a very messy table. When I am busy, Emma helps herself to the art supplies and leaves paper mess everywhere, but mostly at the kitchen table. She is even messier than I am. We'll make snowflakes later - sometime between the last-minute errands and supposed house-cleaning. Ha! That always gets moved to tomorrow's list.
Anyway, we have been ravaged by influenza this week. The kids have both had it, and I seem to be fighting it off (sore throat and fatigue, but it hasn't gotten serious....). Andrew has been VERY sick - 103 fever and higher. We thought he was better yesterday, as his fever left for nearly 24 hours, then he spiked back up again last night, causing much maternal concern. He seems fine this morning, but we're going to take it easy. This will make it a little easier to fit paper snowflake cutting into our day. Some years, that gets set aside and the donut snowmen are the only thing that marks the change of season! Poor kids (insert sarcastic smirk).

DAILY BLISS: eating cheap powdered sugar donuts and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for breakfast.

<3 Christy

And now... back to LIFE! (by Becky)

I am SO pleased to say that grades are in and I am officially DONE with this semester of seminary. Also pleased to say that my most challenging class surrendered an A. Ironically, I had some less challenging classes that weren't so kind, but that's probably because mommies who go to school full time let things slip... and this mom let a lot of things slip, especially in those "no-brain" classes. But a passing grade is a passing grade and I have learned to be happy with that. My inner geek is pacified with getting an A where it counts. Rationalization, maybe, but hey.... it helps me somehow!!

I have yet to register for next semester. I'm eyeing one class: Survey of Feminist Theology, but that'll probably be all I tackle this spring. I just about put myself out of my mind this semester, and I'm determined to learn my lesson and take it down a notch or two. Otherwise, I'll be blogging from a hospital somewhere if they'll untie my straight jacket.

I'm actually enjoying getting back to my life. As my load lightens mentally, I'm actually finding I forgot how I enjoy normal stuff like making cookies and Christmas candy, and making my bed. This Christmas will be our first spent just us four. I'm making my final trip to Wal-mart today to get all the groceries I need to make my Granny's dressing and all the other traditional eats my family has always had. I may not be able to see their faces, but thank God I learned how to duplicate what they will be tasting!! Goes to show what a comfort food can be... my hips are also evidence of that fact. I may be a city girl now, but there's an iron skillet on my stovetop, seasoned nice and black, and I KNOW how to use it. Haven't forgotten where I came from.

I have vivid memories of watching my mom and my Granny make food as a kid. Granny used to mix up the dressing with her hands. She made biscuits that way too. Guess it's the time of year, or all these food memories, but I miss her more than usual. Mackenzie was just a toddler when she went to heaven. I can't help wondering what she would say about how Mackenzie has grown, about the crazy turns my life has taken. I hope most of all I've handled life like she did... with the grace and beauty of a delicate flower and the strength of steel. She was a lady through and through, but she "knew when to hold 'em" so to speak. (are you thinkin' of the song? me too!! ha!) Isn't that what Jesus would call "as shrewd as a snake and as innocent as a dove?" Of course He would, and that's just where she got that perfect mix of softness and steel. Right from Him. Guess that's where I'll get it too, and maybe if I can show Mackenzie how to fall in love with Him, He'll produce it in her as well.

.... sigh... I've just rambled, but it's nice to pour out some pent up thought... even if it's completely random.

In case I don't write again, Merry Christmas to you, friends! May you remember that the birth of Jesus was indeed the beginning of the most wonderful occurrence in the history of man. Zechariah (John the Baptist's dad) called Jesus' birth the "Dawn from on High." Indeed it was. That baby Jesus was the Sunrise signaling the end of a very long, dark night for humanity. I love that thought, and I love living in His new day. May you treasure Him this Christmas.

Those Super-Cool Shepherds

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, and the third candle is the Shepherd candle, sometimes called the Joy candle. We read over the shepherds' story in Luke chapter 2 (I think it's verses 12-20, but I'm not positive....), and I discovered this year that I really like those guys! Having recently read The Barbarian Way, I feel I can say that the shepherds were barbarians. They were the social outcasts. Not only were they just low-class and un-cool, they weren't even able to follow the prescribed rituals of righteousness. So, they were unclean - physically and spiritually. It's safe to say that the shepherds didn't fit in. But the truth is, I've heard that sermon before. Lots of times. I've heard about how they were outsiders and how the angelic announcement to their pastoral assembly is symbolic of the fact that God's message is for the everyman. Don't get me wrong - I really like this sermon. I've just heard it before.
But a few new things struck me this time around. They ran straightaway to find Jesus. They didn't stop and pick up a baby gift at the Bethlehem Wal-Mart (I'm sure they wouldn't have shopped at Macy's). They didn't think about grabbing food for their trip, or whether they would be welcome by a new mother who had never met them before. They were outcasts, so they were not concerned with social protocol. They just ran for it! I love that! I hope that I would run with abandon and without thought at the promise of meeting my Savior too!
And that's another thing - I know the angels told them and all, but they went running toward a promise - to a hope. Verse 20 says, "The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they'd been told!" It seems like it wasn't until they came back that they fully realized it was all true - almost like there could have been some doubt - and then they partied. They weren't even really sure what would be waiting for them in Bethlehem. They probably couldn't comprehend it - but they ran to find it anyway! Oh, they saw the angels and heard what they said, but a Savior? A baby? In a stable? Come on. Then, after it dawned on them that it was all so wonderfully true, they partied - they rejoiced!
I think the shepherds were my kind of people....

DAILY BLISS: watching White Christmas - it's a tradition....I could listen to Bing Crosby sing all day long

<3 Christy

Breakfast With Santa

This morning, we had breakfast with Santa. Apparently, he has a thing for Chick-fil-a.
We got a call from my brother (who works for Chick-fil-a) asking if we were going to be bringing the kids to the breakfast with Santa this year. I said I hadn't paid any attention and didn't know when it was. He told me it was tomorrow morning (he called last night at 10 PM, so he didn't say it was this morning at the time). Well, this is a ticketed event, and we were utterly unprepared, but he is well connected. He was in management at this store for a while, so he decided to meet us there for breakfast and get the kids in.
I must say that Emma was way more excited than Drew. Drew is getting to be much too big for this sort of thing - not that he believed in Santa to begin with, but the pretending is beginning to wear on him. We didn't tell them, though, until we were there and Santa and Mrs. Claus walked in. Since we were early, the Clauses came right over to our table and started talking to the kids. Mrs. Claus told Emma she loved her pretty hair (a sure-fire way to win Emma's affection), and loved her outfit. Drew played along and was nice. Welllll, he was nice, anyway. So, here are a couple of photos:

















DAILY BLISS: I got invited to a Christmas party! We had a good time, too - made some new friends.
<3 Christy

A Special Evening

At a time when I seem to be unable to say nothing right or even very nice to anybody, I spent the evening conversing with my precious daughter. The world always seems to be good again when you look into her eyes. I didn't have to step on eggshells and wonder whether what I said or almost said was offensive, irritable, rude, or ugly. It's impossible to be any of those things to her. She's the sunshine, the blooming flowers. I heard the whole scoop on the day in kindergarten, from who was absent to the fact that they didn't get to have recess because the weather was "nasty." I know how many worksheets she did in the morning and that she saw her brother for a second when they stepped outside to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I haven't figured out exactly why they step outside for this. I suppose it's because the flag is out there.
The boys have a tradition during Christmas that they call "tool day." They started this because the girls did an annual Christmas jammie day (when we all get to buy new Christmas jammies) and they all felt a little left out. So, on the day that they put up the lights on all four family homes in town, they also go to the big boy toy store (where the people wear orange aprons) and pick out a new tool. Then they go out to eat meat. Usually barbecue.
Anyhoo, the boys were going out, and their day didn't coincide with jammie day this year, so Emma and I went out to dinner ourselves. It was delightful, even if the wait for a table was much longer than any Wednesday should call for. What a lift for me. Lovely company and delightful conversation.
We came home and turned off the lights, plugged in the Christmas tree and just looked at it. She was telling me which ornaments held the most joy. The winner was the Bethlehem one because it told about Jesus. Second place went to the "pure" ones - white ones, I guess - because baby Jesus was pure. Honestly - she made this up on her own! I just love it.

DAILY BLISS: singing Christmas songs in the car with my kids

<3 Christy

YIPPEEEEE!!

Pour yourself a glass of... something, and celebrate!!! Took my last final exam yesterday, and this horrid semester of seminary is history. THANKYA JESUS! The relief was greater with every paper I turned in, and though I have one or two loose ends to tie up this week, classes and tests are officially OVER.

Feels so good to be out from underneath that weight. I can already feel the rest of my life crowding in for attention. Somehow, I gotta find a way to revel in this! My neuroses tend to keep me wound up tight looking for the next achievement. But, know what? WHO is asking me to run around like a crazy woman trying to be super special?? NOBODY BUT ME, that's who!!! Time to step back and take an inventory. I've become so overloaded, mentally, emotionally, and physically, that I don't even know which way's up anymore. Time to dump out the basket that is me and figure out what I'm carrying around that doesn't really need to be in there, what is it I WANT to be carrying, and how do I lighten the load?

The last couple of months have been hellish inside for me. But hey, let's lift our celebratory glass of whatever and toast the fact that I no doubt surface from the yuckiness with a different perspective. So maybe the next time you see a ridiculously happy woman skip by with a basket of perfect weight loaded up only with what she loves, that'll be me! This is starting to unravel, and I'm not sure it makes sense anymore.

so.... CHEERS!!!!!

Becky

Nothing Too Exciting

Well, I've got nothing too exciting to say, as you already know if you read the title.

DAILY BLISS: Buying new jeans in a size smaller than usual. It's not that I'm a size smaller or anything. They must just run big.

<3 Christy

A Complaint

I hate the endless erranding and mindless purchasing this time of year. Why can't it just be quiet and magic and stillness and beauty for four weeks straight? You know - as soon as you're done eating Thanksgiving dinner, a hush settles over the room and quite suddenly, the magic of Christmas appears and lingers over one's head for the entire holiday season. I guess I find myself frustrated at my year-after-year inability to achieve that perfection. But I also find that I have to write things like that to remind myself of just how unrealistic that is. Seeing it in concrete form makes it seem even more ludicrous.
Though this is the Christmas season, there are still birthday parties to go to, porches to paint and groceries to buy. I guess it just stinks to be a grown-up this time of year. Nobody hands you glue, glitter and scissors and asks you to make pretty snowflakes. Instead, you have to make sure Junior and Little Miss have hand-made gifts to pass out to classmates, friends and family, along with the incredible, "easy," hand-made gifts from the kitchen that you are also supposed to hand out from yourself to all the people I just mentioned.
The truth is, though, I don't know anybody that really expects that. We all think that everybody does, but "everybody" is such a vague acquaintance. Who are those people? Some people think that's who I am. I think I've decided to destroy their foolish illusions this year. Nobody's gettin' ANYTHING homemade from me this Christmas. Unless you happen to stop by my house on the 23rd. That's when I'll be baking Christmas cookies. I always like company in the kitchen, and you are welcome to pull up a chair, have a warm cookie and some hot tea or coffee and visit while I have fun. But don't expect that it's going to be clean yet. I'll clean on Christmas Eve. It hasn't happened since before Thanksgiving, and I don't expect it to happen anytime soon.
How do you like that, "everybody?"

DAILY BLISS: Being almost done with my shopping and being really excited about what I decided to give my brother. It makes me giggle every time I think of it!

<3 Christy

Copeland Show

Well, I took my kids to their first show at a bar last night. But wait!! Don't judge me! My brother is in this band, Copeland, and they mostly play in places that you just can't bring the kids. Well, due to that, Chris and I don't get to see them play very often. They had a show scheduled for the House of Blues in Orlando (which is really nicer than just a bar) and we really wanted to go, but couldn't find a sitter for something that late, and then inspiration struck. My brother got us an opera box, so it was very safe for the kids to be there and see their Uncle Jon play his drums (btw, he's really awesome....), plus mommy and daddy got to take in a great show. See? It's a win-win deal. The kids felt very important with their backstage passes and they even got sodas out of the band's fridge. Big stuff. They enjoyed the show and staying up VERY late, and Uncle Jon even scored them a t-shirt on the way out. Anyway, here are some photos of the kids in their Copeland t-shirts this morning.




DAILY BLISS: dressing up for a night out

<3 Christy

How My Day Was Made

This was an exhausting day of errand-running, purchasing and returning. I haven't had a chance to do much holiday preparation since we are in the middle of remodeling and I keep a baby during the day. Not that I overdo it or anything, but we also have several birthday parties coming up for kids that go to school with my kids. I don't know why so many people had to have babies close to Christmas.
Anyway, by the time 8:30 AM rolled around, I was already in full-shopping mode. This is surprising to any of you who have actually seen me at 8:30 in the morning. I don't mind if everyone knows that I tend to be a bit frowsty until somewhere around, say, 10:00. I had tossed together my best cover-up-the-sins-of-Thanksgiving-and-leave-room-for-Christmas-cookie-debauchery clothes, managed to find shoes that sorta matched. I was headed up the sidewalk to the bookstore, hoping to make this one stop function as three or four by purchasing gifts for birthdays AND Christmas and classroom gift exchanges. I was minding my own business.
THEN
A construction worker stepped out in front of me and told me he liked my top. I mean, that is a quote. He said, "I really like that top!" with a grin and a pointed finger. And not in any way that could be construed as gay. He was flirting with me! It really doesn't matter that he was 10 years older than I am and he was kinda scruffy (I'm much more comfortable with scruffy people, anyway). It's just nice to be noticed - frowsty face and comfy clothes and all. Plus, guys just don't hit on 30-something mothers-of-two who drive aging green Cadillacs. I can't figure out why.
So, that's how my day was made. I did have concern that when one's day is made at 8:30 AM, it's bound to go downhill from there. It didn't, though.

DAILY BLISS: Lunch out with my hubby, who was working in town. He pretty much never does that.

<3 Christy

Christmas House

I already emailed this to anybody who would probably read my blog, but I still feel an inexplicable urge to post a picture of my Christmas lights here. You know-just in case. Do your best to ignore the blue paint tarp and ladder in the photo, and also ignore the fact that only one of the windows has been painted. Actually, as of today, that one window and the door frame have both been painted, and I hope that before the day's end, the other window will join them in the happy land of the freshly painted. So, here's my Christmas house:

DAILY BLISS: peppermint ribbon candy and a high of 70 degrees!

<3 Christy

Isaiah 11:1

The Message translation reads:
"A green shoot will sprout from Jesse's stump, from his roots a budding Branch. "

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. I love this season in the church! We always try to celebrate Advent creatively in our community, and I wanted to share our celebration with you. The first candle in the Advent wreath symbolizes prophecy or hope (there are many different traditions and themes, but these are the most common). We took the concept from the above-mentioned scripture in Isaiah, along with others, and made a Jesse tree in church today. For those of you who celbrate Advent already, this is a familiar idea, but for the sake of those who don't, I'll fill you in a little bit. I found a stump (on the side of the road!!!) that we used to represent the family of Jesse, the lineage of Jesus, and we used a twig to be the "green shoot," representing Jesus. We lit the candles and spent some time meditating over the prophetic names of Jesus mentioned in Isaiah 9:6 and in other scriptures, and each of us selected a name that held personal meaning , wrote it down on a leaf and attached it to our twig.
In some households, this even takes the place of a Christmas tree, and the children create ornaments each night to add decoration to it based on the scripture reading for that night. Generally, the study goes through the lineage of Christ and ends with the Nativity story as you near Christmas Day.

Anyway, I don't suppose I have anything too poetic to say about it. I'm much too exhausted for that! We are taking a painting break tonight, though, to wrap Christmas presents. Yay! It really is the most wonderful time of the year!

DAILY BLISS: Watching my dad, brother, husband and son put up our Christmas lights. I'll post some photos tomorrow, maybe.....

- Christy

Ever Feel Like You Just Don't Fit In?

So, do you ever suddenly catch yourself in a moment that you really hope nobody else noticed? That happens to me a lot, but today's moment was particularly amusing in a completely third-person sense. Let me give you a little background information first.
I have been working hard on my house. Really hard. Not just that, but we traveled for Thanksgiving and now have Christmas preparations underway. So, my schedule is something like: up really early, make kids' lunches, get kids dressed/hair fixed, receive daytime baby from his mommy, schlep everybody off to school, run one errand that I can do before baby's nap, put baby to bed, change into painting clothes, climb the ladder and paint for an hour, wake up baby, feed baby, run one more errand before baby's next nap, put baby to bed, change into painting clothes, climb up the ladder and paint for an hour, wake baby up to pick kids up from school....well, you get the idea. once I get my own kids to bed, I hoist myself up on the ladder one more time to paint for another hour or two and sometimes make it to bed before midnight. I forgot to mention that I must clean up at least some and change into real person clothes every time I come off the ladder. Anyway, I'm really exhausted. My whole body is just aching, and I am really sleep-deprived. It would take three pots of coffee to wake me up, but I just can't do that to myself. At some point this week, I just gave up on the cleaning-myself-up part. I'm just running around town in a paint-splattered ponytail and with paint-splattered skin. I even found a warpaint-like stripe on my face today as I glanced in the rearview mirror of my car.
Anyway, on to that moment. It came time to pick up my kids from school today. We have to wait in the car line, and all of you who are moms out there know what I mean. You have to get there at least twenty minutes before school gets out, or you have a really bad place in line, which means you're going to be idling in your car for 30 minutes or so. What is a mommy to do? I usually listen to the radio. I listen to all the bad stuff that I don't let my kids listen to yet. Today's choice was Led Zeppelin. I always stop channel-surfing for Led Zeppelin. This is a little-known fact. Then, once I stop, I turn up the radio really loud. I know it's pretty dirtball, but I kinda am a dirtball.
All of a sudden, I was lifted out of my bleary-eyed haze to see myself, covered in paint, wearing a dirty, paint-y ponytail, sitting in my really old Cadillac (all of the other moms drive expensive SUV's - this is also a game I play in car line called "count the SUV's" in which I count how many there are before the row is broken by a sedan. The sedan is usually a Mercedes. The SUVs are often Cadillacs, but my Cadillac is non-SUV and it's as old as my marriage. At least. And it's green.)....anyway sitting in my old car, while Robert Plant tells me how much love he has. I guess it's a whole lotta. I was singing along. It occurred to me at that moment that I really didn't fit in. Not even in car line.
Awesome!

DAILY BLISS: Being paint-y and not really caring what anybody else thinks.

<3 Christy

Impossible gifts

Haven’t posted in a while. Honestly, I haven’t had much to say worth putting in print. It’s been one of those empty times, and I’ve been under the kind of stress where you simply try to make it from one day to the next. Not much deep thought or profound inspiration, just mostly trying to put one foot in front of the other.

Today I experienced something wonderfully profound and got the jump start of inspiration I needed. I had coffee with a friend. Not just any friend. This friend and I have suffered an irreparably broken relationship. Irreparable by most people’s standards, anyway. God has brought an incredible healing to our relationship. I’m not sure either of us can understand it. We kind of just giggle and throw up our hands, not sure we can believe something this wonderful is possible.

We talked for a couple of hours, laughed and truly enjoyed ourselves. I left and on the drive home I couldn’t stop thinking about Jesus and the cross. I realized that His cross has taken on yet another dimension of meaning in my life. I realized that the healing I have experienced was personally bought by Christ as He bore my pain and mistakes on the cross. It was handed to me as a gift, a gift so extravagant and priceless that I’m left with no way to even comprehend it. Because of His suffering, I have been given grace. His grace has made it possible for my friend and I to look into one another’s eyes after deep pain and hurt, and extend true friendship with no shame, no regrets, and no hesitation. The road to this healing hasn't been easy for either of us. We've had to learn to set aside painful feelings, to sacrificially forgive, and to let go of any right to revenge. We didn't have to mend this friendship. It took a lot of painful work to get here.

But know what? In my opinion, for us to do any less than embrace the forgiveness and healing that God has brought to us would be a sad disrespect to His suffering and sacrifice for us. My Jesus died a messy, ugly, painful, embarrassing, agonizing death so that I could have this kind of restoration. How dare I do anything but embrace it, bask in it, and enjoy it like the humbly grateful daughter I want to be. I always knew God was big. He’s blown my mind by showing me just how incredible He is. He’s made the impossible possible for me.

I’m really doing a terrible job of communicating the awesomeness of what God has done. Maybe someday the whole story will be for the telling. For now, maybe you’ll be inspired to explore and embrace the impossible restoration and forgiveness God wants to bring about for you. Or maybe you’ll just think I’m nuts!! Either way is ok.with me. I was just too excited not to write something. about how God amazed me today.

Echo

I've gotta echo Christy's statements about the business and craziness of life that sometimes prevents regular posting. Life has kind of taken me over as of late. No one's fault but my own...

I've emerged from Thanksgiving indeed thankful for the supportive and loving family and friends I have. I could never survive without them. Now... to make it two more weeks through final exams and I'm FREE!!!!!

Coming soon! New Woman on the Edge site. CAN'T WAIT!!!

B

With Apologies

With sincere apologies to both of my readers (that includes you, Mom), this is my I-can't-believe-I-haven't-blogged-since-Halloween blog. And it isn't going to be much. I scrambled really hard to finish some projects around the house between Halloween and our vacation. I was up until 1:00, more like 2:00 and the night before vacation, nearly 3:00 in the morning for days on end painting and stuff. Man! I was pretty exhausted. And I didn't finish the projects. We vacationed in the mountains of northern Georgia and didn't have cell phone service or internet. Very relaxing, but not exactly a good environment for blogging. We had a wonderful vacation though, and when I have a spare minute, I'll post something about it, I suppose. But I already sent the e-mail to my mom.

DAILY BLISS: My own bed. Sigh.

<3 Christy

My friend Ez... (by Becky)

Ok... since I know God's reading my blogs (actually He had the pre-release version before I even thought it up... hmmm...) I gotta tell you what He did to remind me. Today I sat around a table discussing Ezra chapters 9 and 10 with some guys from my Old Testament Interpretation class. We were given a sheet of discussion questions and sent off to forage for truth on our own. Now you might think there's nothing in Ezra 9 and 10 worth discussing. Not so, my friends! Today I was reminded in that moment of blissful consideration of scripture that one of the reasons why I do this is because the scriptures are LIFE. They are full of real, true, radical examples, explanations, and challenges. I love to dig deep, think hard, and look long at what God has to say about life, and about me. More than that, I love when I can't understand but then His Spirit begins to shed a light over a concept. It slowly dawns in my mind, so softly I can't speak it at first and then more vividly so I can write it down fast before I forget it!! Then I can chew on it, taste it, and make it part of me. THIS is why I'm here. I interacted with God today. Not that He isn't always interacting with me on a level I can't even express, but today He fed me something He knew I needed.
Maybe some specific conclusions from the chapters later. For now, suffice it to say that a deep discussion of Ezra was a definite stepping stone toward getting out of the pit of frustration I've been in. Good ole Ez!!

Only Treats Please

We had a lot of fun this Halloween. I'm just going to post a few pictures here. They are self-explanatory. But....I can never resist a little explanation.....so:
We have Andrew as Clark Kent/Superman. He was very particular about his hairdo. We have Emma as a heavenly angel. She always picks out something with wings. And then we have me and my sister-in-law Mindy. We wanted to dress up too, so we put on some eyelashes and black stuff to pass out candy. We sat on my porch and ate the good parts out of my trick-or-treat bowl and sipped apple cider while Chris took the kids to the good neighborhood for candy :) Ha!













<3 Christy

Egypt?.... Nah...

I have this interesting thing going on here in my pit. I have these rose-colored pictures of my "egypt" in my mind. I'm asking myself, how the hell did I get here? Why again did I leave a nice job and a nice house and my hometown and come up here for this? What was I thinking, I could change the world or something? What was wrong with my average job, my cookie cutter house (with the jacuzzi tub) and my regular life? It's HARD to follow passion. It HURTS to force myself out of the comfort zone. It's such a struggle to keep focus on why I'm doing what I'm doing. I forget (or maybe sometimes regret) that I didn't want to settle for average, that when I had all those things, my soul burned inside me for something more. I know the truth is even if I could go back to that life, I would not be fulfilled, it's not all I remember it as being, and I'd be giving up my life's dream. I know I've already gone too far to turn back. I also know that I want God to have more out of me than this. I want to be strong and fight valiantly and never whine about where He's brought me. And here I am... whining and panting and wanting to give up. I feel like a failure.

All the time I'm thinking these thoughts of longing for what once was, I know in my mind I don't really want that. This sensation makes me feel like I might go nuts. This reminds me of something. When I was having Levi, I went to "the zone." I see women go there all the time on A Baby Story! It's when the physical pain is such that you just exit yourself for a while. You go out of your mind. You are reduced to nothing but instinct or natural physical reaction to what you are experiencing. You are no longer making coherent thought, you just try to survive the pain. At one point, I needed to stop pushing because the umbilical cord was around Levi's neck. The midwife couldn't really make me understand what I needed to do. I remember my mother getting close to my face and telling me I had to stop pushing for a minute. She held onto my hand and talked right to my face. For a few seconds that actually felt like years I was totally helpless and simply followed her every direction because I was helpless to do anything else.

It occurs to me that this mental pain feels like the zone. And I feel like God is doing just what my mom did that day. He's holding my hand and giving instruction for the next few seconds. It's this intense, searing desperation for Him that I know is brought about by pain. I also know this produces, as my past pain has, an intense and deep bond with Him that is so intimate, so personal, it almost defies words. It does defy words. Even this minute I wish I were able to explain how it feels...

So what does all this mean? My pastor tells me all the time that Christ wants to live through me. Christ wants to do life FOR me. So maybe a stubborn girl like me needs to visit the zone every once in a while. A place where I have no CHOICE but to let Him do it for me because I am a helpless heap of humanity that is literally unable to function without Him. I know He's my only hope. He's the only thing Good about me. I desperately love Him, and I don't know what else to do but hang onto Him.

Feels strange to have bared my soul in this way. But I hope to let someone see that real Christ-following isn't just Sunday school lessons and casserole dishes. It's real, messy, passionate, intense LIFE that sometimes feels as though it might tear you in two and sometimes feels as though you will explode because of your inability to contain the joy, and ALWAYS brings an unspeakable awareness that you have encountered and are not merely encountering but entering into intimacy with the God of All. Bottom line: It's worth it. He's worth it. To hold inside me the incredible mystery of my spirit wrapped up with the Spirit of God is WORTH IT.

Pumpkin Party Results

Here are all of our fabulous pumpkins! We had a lot of fun carving them. We started the morning out in the back yard, but the sun was just too hot, so we moved the whole thing to the porch, which I'm shocked I didn't think of in the first place!!

Here's me laughing about my pumpkin - I'm wearing my favorite apron.

Here's my son being a typical boy.

And here's an action shot of all the festivities!!

<3>

Pumpkin Bread and Other Delights

I wasn't really going to blog about anything today. It's been a non-eventful day. Nothing thought-provoking or emotion-inducing happened to me at all. But I just put two happy loaves of pumpkin bread (with walnuts) in the oven and took off my apron, stepped outside and breathed the cooled-down air. When I walked back in, the pumpkin bread smelled so good that I just had to tell somebody about it.
I am making this pumpkin bread for tomorrow's church breakfast. We have our church in our living room for those of you (ha! like I have readers!) that don't already know. On Sunday mornings we have breakfast together and worship together around my piano. We sit in the living room and discuss scripture. It's different, I guess, than what most Christians do on Sunday morning, but it suits us just fine!
I am particularly looking forward to tomorrow morning. We are going to put tables in our back yard, eat an alfresco breakfast, worship in the cool morning air, and then we are all going to carve pumpkins!! I have two lovely pumpkin specimens in my living room awaiting the painstaking removal of their innards and strategic portions of exterior flesh. They look a little bit like Bert and Ernie. One is tall and lean, the other short and squatty.
Y'all know I love any excuse for a theme party. So, our little church will be partying tomorrow morning, enjoying the gorgeous weather and the works of our Creator. All while dining on the flesh of the poor victims of our carving knives.
I'm really glad I'm not a pumpkin, although I admittedly resemble the Ernie pumpkin just a little bit.....

DAILY BLISS: Progress on the living room built-in that was begun nearly two years ago. It may take forever, but it will be a bastion of stability to be sure. I could camp out in the top cabinet and it would not even wobble.

<3 Christy

Date Night

So.....tonight was the first date night Chris and I have had since somewhere between Valentine's Day and the Fourth of July, I think. I realize this is a wide range of possibility, but I know we didn't go out on Valentine's Day or anything, and I really can't remember when the last time was, but surely it wasn't before Valentine's Day!
Anyway, both of the kids went to a friend's house for a sleepover and we went out for the loveliest steak dinner - such a gorgeous filet and it was practically fork-tender, served with scallopes too!Yummy! The company wasn't half-bad either (wink). I got all gussied up too. I felt like I was such a hottie that I asked Chris to take a picture of me. It didn't go well. The camera batteries died upon initialization. I'll post a photo if I find that there is one there when I check it out and/or recharge the batteries.
Anyway, once we had spent half our week's grocery budget on one restaurant meal (yikes!), we moved on to what all 12-years-married couples do on a night when the children are gone. Chris went to Home Depot with my dad and I came home to work on a Halloween project for the kids' school. Really.
I'm not complaining or anything. It's super nice to go about one's business in the evening without interruptions for after-lights-out bathroom trips and extra glasses of water (methinks the two could be related)! Mostly, I just think it's really funny that this does not bother me. Dinner was special - and enough. We don't HAVE to do more to feel like we had a special night. I catch myself in this very moment with a huge grin on my face. Does this mean that we are content or that we are complacent? Maybe that's a choice we have to make. I'm going with content.

DAILY BLISS: Steak and beer and not cooking (My apologies to my Baptist and Assemblies of God friends - I come from a German Lutheran family. We drink beer.)!! Woohoo!

<3 Christy

Keepin' it Real (by Becky)

Lest you get the impression that my life is one long series of wonderful moments like my previous post, I'm gonna take the risk of posting today and let you in on the truth. Today I feel like hell. I can't stand anyone or anything, and I wish I could crawl back in bed and stay for an extended period of time if not forever. It's this dark, suffocating sensation that medical professionals like to call depression, I guess... or maybe just my life is suffocating me right now with it's chaotic pace and overloaded condition. I don't know, and I'm not sure I care. Today, I'm face down on the bare concrete of the bottom of my soul's foundation. I'm crumpled up in a heap, and I can feel the dirt on my face. Here's my hope: When I get to glimpse this bare foundation at the bottom, I see something. God's still there. He is all inside that bare concrete, all mixed up in my very foundation. I can't get lower than where He is. As the tears slip down my cheeks, I wish I could express to you the comfort of knowing that though I don't understand why God has chosen to keep me so well acquainted with the depths of despair, He doesn't spare Himself the experience by allowing me to do this alone.

Psalm 139:7 "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me."

Sunrise

Today I got a special glimpse of the heart of my little girl. Around 7:00 this morning, she came into our room to say good morning. This isn't anything out of the ordinary. But today, she said "MOM! You've gotta look out the window at the sunrise!" So I opened the blinds to view a gorgeous sunrise, pink at the top cascading down to vibrant orange. We admired for a few minutes as my son came to join in. All four of us stood there staring and saying how it's neat that God made us a pink sunrise today. Since Mackenzie's favorite color is pink, I like to make sure she knows that God makes some just for her. Then my girl said "You gotta see it from my bed. It looks different from my bed." Since we downsized our way to New Orleans, our kids share a room and Mackenzie has the top bunk. So we walked over to her room and opened the blinds there. A little different view, she was right. Then she told me, "I open the blinds a little every morning to look at the sunrise when I wake up." This glimpse into her beautiful feminine heart thrilled me! She's a quiet, passive kid who's very likely being failed by her mouthy mom. This morning I had proof that somehow, in spite of my shortcomings as a parent, God has managed to keep intact a treasure chest of rare jewels inside my daughter. When she first rested on my chest, I feared I'd never be able to be good enough for this little gift God had given me. I was right. I'm not good enough. But He is... and she knows He is. She knows enough to wake every morning and spend a moment enjoying the sunrise He's made. I'm often too rushed and too driven to stop and revel in such things. I can hardly imagine she got that idea from me. I fall so short as a mother, and often worry what damage I'm doing to my kids. Today I was told in no uncertain terms that it isn't up to just me. Almighty God is investing in my children in silent, secret, unseen ways that are far beyond my imagination. He's whispering to their souls things only He knows they need. I so often fear my children will turn out like patchwork pieces because of my mistakes. How dare I forget that Someone much more capable is molding them into who He wants them to be. How dare I leave out the fact that He is capable of making them into much more than I could ever hope to make them on my own.

Sick Day

I took a sick day today. I caught some kind of yuck from my mom, called the mom of the baby I watch and warned her that she may not want to put her household at risk by placing her young one in my germy grasp today, downed some Zicam and schlepped my kids off to school in my purple polka-dotted pajamas. I did manage to get some shoes on instead of slippers, though. This is a photo of me being sick. I didn't realize my roots had grown out quite so badly. I will have to address my hair color issue ASAP.
All that to say, though, that it was pretty nice. I sat on my porch with a pitiful bowl of oatmeal and listened to my windchimes singing a blustery sort of song as the first cold front of the season blew in. I pulled my winter clothes down from the top shelf of my wardrobe (note: winter clothes in Florida means long-sleeved tee shirts), snugged up in some wooly slippers, made my bed and then took a nap on it, surrounded by all of my fluffy, shabby chic pillows. I discovered that my sheer cotton curtains do indeed billow in the breeze when the windows are open, as I suspected they would. This is really quite beautiful. I even ate M&Ms for lunch. Comfort food, indeed! Looking forward to my sister-in-law's visit. She felt sorry for me, as I hope you do, and offered to bring by some hot apple cider and some company of the not-sitting-too-close kind. Can you see my pouty lip from all the way over there?
I'm quite sure it will be much better tomorrow. But before that happens, I'm hoping to work in a plea for take-out dinner tonight. You know - I wouldn't want to prepare food for my children and possibly pass this on to them in the process (wink, wink)!

DAILY BLISS: Silence. No music, no little voices, no tv, just open windows and silence.

<3 Christy

I Was Right!!

Okay - remember how I said I hoped adding a porch would bring about a lifestyle change? Well, so far, so good! I have this huge lantana bush in my front yard. I never even knew that it smells in the evening - I have discovered this since my porch happened. It smells almost like orange blossoms or jasmine - that sweet kind of smell.
Lo and behold, that sweet smell attracts little tiny hummingbirds!!! I had no idea that they lived in Florida. Now, I am spending every dawn and dusk outside stalking the hummingbirds.
This is definitely a change in lifestyle. Normally, dawn is spent guzzling coffee (not that I don't do so on the porch), and dusk is spent collapsed on the couch. So, at least I'm outside.
I am completely captivated by their tiny bodies and their thrumming wings. They almost look like big bugs and I would have mistaken them for such were it not for my observant brother, who pointed them out to me last week. He bought a feeder for them on the same night, but so far, they prefer the flowers. I guess I can't blame them too much.
That could suffice for my daily bliss today, but.....

DAILY BLISS: Parent/teacher conferences and straight A's all around (well, straight S's for my kindergartener, but....same difference!)

<3 Christy

Enjoying the Questions

I must say that, as of late, my duties and responsibilities have so consumed my time, that my heart's voice has been somewhat muffled. Does this ever happen to you? You're just going about your business and something deep and profound just bubbles up out of you, unprovoked, at completely the wrong time. That happens to me a lot. I try to balance my inner life and my outer life - my temporal and my eternal. By balance, I mean that you could take the extremes that I wobble between and come up with a sane and normal average. So, I guess my roles have just elbowed their way to the front of the line and have kind of taken over. I've been kinda missing myself. I hope I can say that without sounding too schizo.
So, I just want to say thanks to a couple of friends who gave me a pause which helped me to remember to think today. I had a great time chatting with Becky today. We talked some about taking responsibility for mapping out one's own life. We talked some about listening to the voice of our Heavenly Father and not evaluating our reality by comparing it to someone else's reality. Also thanks to a high school friend, Tim, whose blog I faithfully read (http://bridges4christ.blogspot.com/). He posted, I guess, yesterday about grace. This has been something that I've been chewing on in my own life for a little while. I've talked a little bit here before about accepting the gift that God offers to us in the form of grace. I think that we perfectionists, we goody-two-shoes, try really hard to make it on our own. We punish ourselves severely for our mistakes (well, I know I do anyway), and try so hard to make all the right choices. But I think that this behavior actually rejects what God has offered to us. Imagine that! Rejecting a gift from God! Well, I have long since decided that I'd rather open the box and enjoy the present, if that's not carrying the metaphor too far!
So anyway, my brain has been trying really hard to reconcile those two moments of thought today. How do you take responsibility for your life without punishing yourself for the inevitable mistakes? Sheesh! I think they're connected somehow, these two conversations (well, I guess I didn't really converse with Tim, I just read his blog and subsequently posted an utterly mediocre comment). At any rate, this is not a desperate quest for answers, just a "hey - here's what I'm thinking about today" kind of a post.
I feel like I'm trying to push a stalled car here. The first push is always the hardest, but once you get it rolling, it gains momentum. My trains of thought are kinda stalled out right now. This is taking a lot of effort.
So, my friends, thanks for reminding me to think today!! I am enjoying it immensely. BTW, I promise I'm not as dense as I sound in this post.

DAILY BLISS: The discovery that I am not above Shrek Ogre Essence bubble bath. It sorta smelled like green apples, I guess. Desperate times, you know.

<3 Christy

On My Porch Today

I had just sat down to my lunch when I heard a rumble of thunder. It has been a while since I have heard any thunder, and during this intermission, I have attained an entirely new front porch – the perfect venue to take in God’s beautiful way of watering His garden! So, I grabbed my bag of apple slices, headed out the front door, and snagged a front row seat. By the time I sat down, sheets of gray had already begun to roll in from the north, telling me that the sun shining through the slats in the railing would be soon departing.
Then, my wind chimes quietly informed me that they would be narrating this particular performance, standing as interpreters between Mother Nature and myself. They conferred with each other in hushed tones as the sky rumbled and forewarned. Then they began to sing to me. It was a Gentle and Sweet sort of a song and the trees bowed in agreement with their interpretation of the scene.
This went on for quite some time, and I deeply appreciated the romantic sensibilities of the song. But, after much discussion among themselves, the copper tubes decided it was necessary to change their song. It became a Gusty and Excited sort of a song and the trees agreed even more strongly.
They were soon joined by the percussive thumps of fat raindrops on the wide, green leaves of the hibiscus to my left. This began slowly and loudly, but as they were joined by more and more drops of rain. In their excitement, they began to take over the song.
The wind chimes conceded, fading into the background, agreeing with each other that this Thunderstorm sort of song was even more magic than theirs.
My nose was forced to accept the sting of wet dirt and grass, and the chimes sang only when they felt they had something important to say. Soon, though, the performance became so exuberant that my jeans were quite damp, from the ankles to the knees, and I knew it was time to come back inside so that the rain could feel comfortable doing whatever it wanted to do, without fear of offending me by soaking my new porch.

<3 Christy

Vashti... my Heroine!!

Ok. Everybody knows the story of Esther, right? I've known it since I was a kid, but I've never thought about Esther's predecessor much until the last couple of days. Vashti was queen before Esther. She got stripped of her royal title and banished from the kings presence as punishment for her refusal to appear before him so that he could show her off during a drunken party. I've never noticed before how her stand caused such great fear among the men. They were afraid her refusal would inspire other women to do the same.

Esther is often praised for her courageous act of approaching the king to intercede for her people, but no one mentions Vashti and the courage it must have taken for her to refuse the kings command in the way she did. She had to have known there could be severe consequences for her actions. Yet, she still stood against the king's lewd command. Her stance was a threat to the men. They were frightened by her assertion of control, fearing that she would remove control from them.

Vashti lost her royal title as a consequence for refusal to obey the king. I wonder if she felt alone, afraid, or even regretted her unpopular stance. It's not easy to live an inspiring, passionate life, unapologetic about your beliefs. Sometimes, owning your passion and going for your calling can be a lonely thing to do. So, hey Vashti, thanks for going for it!!!

So just for fun, here's a pic of my latest accessory! Another ear piercing! With my short hair, I'm havin' fun bedazzling my ears!

Magic Happens

Today is a big day for me.

Today is a day that I celebrate life.

This the anniversary of magical and miraculous happenings.

Six years ago, on this date, I nearly lost my own life bringing a tiny new life into this world.

My baby daughter was born six years ago today. Birth is such a safe event anymore that we tend to treat it mundanely. But this particular birth was an entrance befitting the daring and dramatic soul of my little one! She comes from a long line of dramatic women, so I should not have expected less. We have come to refer to this day as "The Day That Emma Happened." People that don't know any better call her an old soul. She's just that kind of person.

So, we had a pixies and ponies party in our back yard with real ponies and three tiny little girl pixies running about with flowered wings and crystal crowns. It was a lovely evening, made even more splendid because it coincided with a beautiful harvest moon glowing in a cloudless sky. Breathtaking.

So, I'm happy to be alive today. I'm rejoicing in life today. I'm tearfully grateful for my incredible daughter. Breathtaking.

Those of you who know my heart, and those of you whose hearts are like mine will understand when I simply say that real magic can only happen because of real work. But it's ALWAYS worth it!

DAILY BLISS: Real ponies in my back yard!!! Hee hee!!

- Christy

Ohboyohboyohboyohboy!

This is me playing with paint colors for my house:



You can see that I'm very excited about all of this. That's a light green on the left, and the beige for trim on the right. The middle green will be kind of like the house's eyeliner. It will just go around the window sashes. I tried out the paint scheme tonight. Being the smart consumer, I purchased quart-sized samples of my top candidates and painted a big splotch on the front of my house. I'm sure that my neighbors will really love this, because, if previous do-it-yourself projects are any indication, it will be at least seven years before the house actually gets painted. Ah well.....I can revel in the knowledge of fresh paint anyway.
I really like to paint things. It feels so fresh and clean every time! You know, even if you can't seem to scrub all the dirt out of that one corner above the baseboards in the bathroom, you can always seal it in with a fresh coat of paint. That's my kind of housework!

DAILY BLISS:
DH on the floor doing math homework with the boy and the little curls that fall out of my little girl's braids.

<3 Christy

That's A Good Question

I made a late-night coffee run last night. I actually ended up with apple cider, which was a good thing, since I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is. I love reading the little quotes on the Starbucks cups - you know, "The Way I See It #(insert random number)?" Anyway, I'm driving, it's dark, and I glance at my cup. I've gotten this one before. It's a question about why my opinions are less and less strong as I grow older. (BTW, I threw away the cup and can't find the quote on their website. If I find it, I'll post it.) I stop and think - this is a profound question. It's true for me - I am certainly less dogmatic than I was at eighteen or so. And I wonder why that is? The author of the quote offered a multiple choice answer. All of the answers could have been my own. I pondered this as I hit the red light next to my street. Then, the real question hit me: Why are coffee cups the deepest, most thought-provoking thing I'm reading lately? Could it be that:
A) I've gotten too lazy to look for good reading material
B) I'm only reading at 10:00 in the evening
C) Starbucks philosophy is just that good!

DAILY BLISS:
Picking out a novel in the bookstore for my son's book report. It's really great to pass on my love of books - oh wait! Maybe I just answered my own question. I'm spending too much time in the children's book section!

<3 Christy