Prayers

I'm not great about praying. I'm lazy. I forget. I get busy or tired or distracted. Mostly distracted. But I do still manage to pray  at least once a day. And I do lots of little, spur of the moment, situational prayers.

One thing that I pray on a consistent basis is that somewhere out there God is watching over three young women who will be as perfect for my sons as Evan is for my daughter.

Happy anniversary to my daughter and her wonderful husband.

Playing with pickling

I'm still trying to get over my cold, but I couldn't take sitting still today. I decided that being outside and getting my vitamin D would be a good idea. I did some more work in my garden and ended up with a lot of little green cherry tomatoes that had fallen on the ground or were growing in spots where they ended up sitting in the dirt.

Yesterday I found a recipe for basic brine and I pinned it so that I would be able to find it when I needed it. I decided that I needed it today. I like something zippy with most of my meals, so we go through a lot of pickles. I'm determined to fill as much of that need from my own garden as possible, so it seemed like a good time to get started.

I didn't have the time, inclination or energy to can today, so I just played a little with some refrigerator pickles. The big jar of the green tomatoes is just brined. The smaller jar has brine and red pepper flakes. I discovered that I had twelve pounds of carrots and part of them were needing to be used, pronto. So I sliced up a pound of them and combined them with some sliced onion, garlic pepper, and red pepper flakes. The cukes are just in brine and garlic pepper. I did them mainly to see how they would turn out.

Tomorrow, if time permits, I am going to do some bread and butter pickles and a couple of small jars of squash pickles and beets.

I love taking the goodies that are coming from the garden now and doing tasty things with them to keep them for the winter.

I don't sit still

Come over here close. I need to tell you a secret.

You know the wriggly nine-year-boy whose teacher can't wait to put him on Ritalin? That's me. Except I'm a 40-something mother and grandma--I just haven't met my grandchild yet--and I haven't driven a teacher crazy for years.

But I don't sit still well. I manage in church, because I love it. I manage, barely, for other events like movies and concerts. I move around during Bible Class. And if I do have to sit, I doodle. And squirm.

Sometimes one of my sweet friends will let me borrow a child to watch during church, or Bible Class, or a Bach Collegium concert. And it looks like the child is the only wriggly one.

But he's not.

We had our family retreat at church this week. There were people who were concerned that I "never sat down" or that I didn't get to "enjoy the retreat." Believe me, I enjoyed the retreat plenty. I got to talk to friends, work in the kitchen, and talk about homeschooling, Lutheranism, and raising our kids. I got to sing some good hymns, plus the Te Deum and the Venite. I got to hear some incredible music. I got to see teens and adults and little kids dancing and laughing together.

It was good. And I enjoyed every minute of it.

But please don't make me sit still.

One bad barista can really ruin your day

The boys and I ran an errand to Sweetwater Sound for the church this afternoon. We were thinking of stopping at Zesto, but the desire for soft-serve was trumped by the need for more caffeine.

We stopped at the Starbucks out at the Village of Coventry, in our old part of town, for the first time in months. We went to the register, ordered, and happily paid the price for two iced double tall one-pump caramel macchiatos and a grande mocha coconut frappucino and stepped to the end to wait for our drinks.

I noticed that the young barista who was making drinks was really surly as she slid a venti shaken no-sweetener passion tea across the counter. And, as she plunked a venti shaken five-pump raspberry passion tea down, I thought that maybe she just didn't like passion teas. But she made our first drink--which I told Jonathan to take--slamming down a pitcher that she bumped as she moved toward the counter.

I watched her make my drink, seeing--from frequent experience--that she hadn't allowed for the double shot in my drink. Before she put the lid on I asked, "Could you please give me a dome lid so that that doesn't leak out?" She looked at me with a look that said, "You are stupid and annoying," and said, "It won't leak," as she put the lid on, causing it to leak out the hole in the top and down the side. I just looked at her, and she said, "It's only leaking a little bit," with another sneer. I told her that it was too messy for me in a white cotton shirt and she threw a fit, throwing my lid into the sink putting new caramel on--because it all stuck to the discarded lid--and handing the sticky cup back to me with a scowl.

Then we waited. And waited. And waited. We waited 12 minutes for Andrew's frappucino while almost everyone who came in after us was served. I finished most of my drink. Several times she looked at us and ignored us. Finally the guy who came in five minutes behind us realized she wasn't paying attention to the waiting frappucino orders and asked her about it. She told him they were working as fast as they could. (They weren't very busy.) Then she made his frappucino.

Finally, she made Andrew's. As she handed it across I couldn't help letting the snarkiness out. I'm sorry. I said, "Only 12 minutes for a frappucino and service with a smile." She started yelling at us. As we left, her coworkers were still trying to get her under control.

I have nearly endless patience with bad service. I've done too much time in food service and retail to be impatient. I'm fine with slowness, ineptitude, being in the weeds, less than on-the-ball people, etc. What I can't stand is bad attitude. I was perfectly nice when I asked for a dome lid. I smiled. It wasn't an unreasonable request. Half the time, if the barista can see that they've filled the cup too full, they'll just do it. If they don't notice and I do they are more than happy to give me a dome lid. More than once I've had them offer to remake my drink when it leaked out. I always say no and wipe it off.

But standing there with my sons, either of whom would love her job, and knowing how many great teens we know who can't find one, her nasty attitude really got to me. And the boys. Afterward the subject just wasn't going away. They couldn't figure out how someone who had a job that they can't even get an interview for could have such a lack of concern about customer service. It really bothered them.

Jonathan mentioned that part of what you pay for when you go to Starbucks is the experience. The atmosphere. The friendly baristas.

So, no. Our day wasn't really ruined, but it did cast a shadow. Since I always have a goal when I leave the house of making someone that I don't know smile, the whole thing left me feeling rather bummed. I knew that I shouldn't have let her get to me, but there was something about the petulant, snotty attitude that really pushed my buttons.

So we'll stick to our usual Starbucks from now on.

Walking through other peoples' houses

Today was the homes tour for one of the neighborhoods near ours. This is the first home tour that I have been on since we bought this house and walking through several of those houses was very encouraging for me. First, there was the fact that a couple of them needed almost as much work as ours did when they were purchased. They are just a few years ahead of us. It was interesting to see what people had done.

I also enjoyed seeing the colors people had chosen and the places they chose to retain the old--or to update--and how each decision worked.  It reaffirmed some of what I am hoping to do and, I think, helped bolster my confidence in the colors that I am choosing. I love color, but tend to be afraid that I'll overdo it.

One house in particular was fabulously decorated. But not "decorated." Rather it was populated with a lifetime's collection of books and art of various kinds. His taste was incredibly eclectic and ranged from paintings to textiles to pottery to glass to photography to furniture pieces that were art in their own rights. Each piece was beautiful in its way, and the totality was breathtaking.

It was good for me to see that home, because I worry sometimes that my "I know what I like" style might not hang together. But, after today, I am fairly certain that as long as I keep choosing, carefully, those pieces that I find beautiful, it will be okay. My paintings of various styles can hang out just fine with my batiks, glass pieces, pottery, icons, etc., and it can all be beautiful together.

How do you read so much?

I get this question frequently and it came up at book group last night. I explained that I always have a book with me, read while I do mundane activities like blow drying my hair, etc.

But I forgot the biggest thing. I don't watch TV. I have watched less than 20 hours of TV this year, and that includes several nights of Gilmore Girls episodes while Bethany was here visiting. I stream Downton Abbey and Project Runway, usually while I'm fixing dinner.

I don't play computer games any more. I don't watch movies, except on very rare occasions as a family activity.

I used to watch a lot of TV. I used to play a lot of computer games. I didn't make a conscious decision to stop, but we got rid of our satellite a year ago and have not missed it. I didn't decide to stop playing computer games; I just don't really enjoy them any more.

I used to lose a lot of time to Facebook and websurfing, but I gave up on trying to keep up with every bit of news from everyone that I know. Now I check in briefly several times a day. I don't just go looking to see if I can find something to read. I check specific sites and then get off.

If I want to relax, I read a book. And I do read quickly. That's how I read so many books.

Internet friends

I often hear people decry time spent online as taking away from "real" relationships. I was reminded of that again this morning as our house and church basement are full of young people who we almost certainly would not have known without the internet.

These are my daughter's best friends. She met them ten and more years ago. They live in Wisconsin, Texas, Indiana, and Ohio. When she first started getting to know them we lived in Illinois. I originally met all of their parents online through a homeschool email list or two.  During their high school years they kept in touch via email and chat, seeing each other a couple of times a year. She has been lucky enough to live in the same town as one or two of them for a year here and there, but if they hadn't already known each other, their paths wouldn't likely have crossed. Due to the cliquish nature of the homeschool community we found when we moved to Fort Wayne, the hours she spent chatting and emailing kept her from being a very lonely girl.

Earlier this week my friend Jenny was here from central Illinois with her husband and daughter. I met Jenny on an email list a few years ago, and, when she came with a group of other moms for a visit, she met Bethany and decided that her brother needed to, too. So she brought him for a visit. Bethany and Evan kept in touch while he was in Iraq. Now they are looking toward their first anniversary in August and their first child in September. He graduated from college in Minnesota and was in the army. She graduated from college in Indiana and was working as a paralegal. But for the internet, their paths weren't likely to cross.

Email and message board friends saved us in the early years of homeschooling when I had no in-person homeschooling contacts. Most of my closest friendships have come about because of the internet. And old friendships have been renewed through Facebook. And even local friendships are enriched by sharing pictures, activities, and the little ups and downs online.

I have lots of in-person friends and "real-life" activities, but the value of the time that I've spent online--from the early social network of AOL, to later message boards and email lists, to Facebook and Twitter now--has paid me richly in relationships and quality added to our lives.

Books and reading

I am having a lot of fun with my various reading challenges this year and have started doing a few book reviews again. I also have some mini-reviews in my monthly progress report posts. Now that I'm writing again, my genealogy blog may be next to rise from its moribund state.

Can we talk about bicyclists?

Drivers are constantly being told that we need to be aware of bikes. And this is true. But I would like to see an emphasis on bicyclists knowing and following rules and safety tips to go along with the chiding of drivers and the spending of tax money to give them bike lanes, racks, etc.

I like to ride my bike, too, but, in my awareness of bikes, in just one day yesterday, driving very little--just between the south side of Fort Wayne to downtown and back thrice--and mainly on busy roads, this is what I saw.
--An adult male cutting catty-corner across a busy street causing one car to have to brake quickly.
--A teen in the bike lane--bike lanes that caused a busy four lane road to be narrowed to two lanes with a suicide lane in the middle--popping wheelies and leaving the bike lane repeatedly.
--A cyclist going the wrong way in the same bike lane talking on his cell phone. (For my purposes, cyclist denotes someone in biking attire.)
--A cyclist running a red light.
--A cyclist riding in the suicide lane to go around a stopped school bus.
--A woman riding her bike down the sidewalk, on that street with the bike lanes, almost taking out a group of kids who were walking home from school.
--A woman riding her bike, pulling one of those baby carriers, at 9:15 p.m., in the dark, on the street, in dark clothes with no reflectors. ANYWHERE.
--A man in dark clothes about 20 minutes later, when I was on my way home from downtown riding hands-free down a busy street. Again, no reflectors at all.

All of this is just a little taste of the bike antics I see everyday. So yes, we watch out for them. but don't they have some responsibility, too? A lot of the riders I see are riding on either the wrong side--against traffic--or cutting in and out, using suicide lanes, etc. Saturday night the hubby and I were treated to the sight of about a dozen inebriated riders leaving a bar and climbing onto their bikes. That sure looked safe. Ummm. Maybe not.

So yes, ride bikes.  But do it safely.

Pack it in

The next three weeks is going to be crazy. Cuh-ray-zee.

Wednesday and Thursday I'll be off on a road trip rescuing my daughter from behind the cheddar curtain. Friday I'll be busily preparing for the baby shower that a couple of friends and I are hosting on Saturday for another friend who is pregnant 12 years after her last one. We have ballgame tickets for Saturday night.

Sunday is an out-of-town trip for a shower for Bethany. Next week we will have out-of-town-company Monday through Thursday as we prepare for more out of town company Friday through Sunday. And another ballgame Saturday night.

Then there will be three days respite during which I will work frantically to get my at-work work done and my house somewhat sane before I leave for four or five days to take my Precious back to Wisconsin and help her and Evan make their first of two moves this summer.

In the midst of this I need to keep working on my pool, continue reclaiming my house from the great storage expulsion,feed people, and work on some web/social networking/marketing stuff for a friend's new business. And do my job that they pay me for.

When I come back it will be June. It will be four days until Jonathan's graduation party and five days before we begin demolition on our main bathroom.

...and it was still hot

Patrick posted about the death of Maurice Sendak. I am not surprised. In Patrick's childhood, which was in many ways an exercise in self-limiting of stimuli, the Wild Things cut through. They were admitted to his inner space like few things were. So I loved them, too.Reading him that book was a way that I could reach this child of mine who was so closed off.

R.I.P. Mr. Sendak.

Book club

It has been several years since I've been part of a book club and I have really missed it. I've been lucky to have an informal book group in my house--my kids and I have read and discussed many books over the years--but with Bethany gone even that is dying off. I read voraciously, but it is usually a solitary pursuit, and I'm not exactly the solitary type.

So you can imagine my excitement at having a book group again.

We met for our first discussion tonight. It was good: thoughtful, respectful, insightful. A couple of us liked the book better than the others, which is always going to be the case. That generally makes for more interesting discussion. I think we have a good mix of people. Everyone is well-educated, but in different areas. We range in age from mid/late 20s to late-ish 40s. We are all moms, but our kids range from 3-25. Most of us know each other, but there are a few people who aren't part of our usual group, and that adds something, too.

I think this is the start of something good. I like it.

The need to write

I've been scribbling on scraps of paper, doing scrapbook journaling--sans pictures--and working on a couple of posts for someone else's blog. Sometimes lately I feel that I am about to explode with pent up words. So I return to my neglected blog. I don't know if this will be for a day or a season, but for now I will write.

The new year's news

My exciting new year's news is that I am going to be a grandma.

All else pales in comparison.

What a year!

This time last year:

• We knew a transfer for Colin would be coming, but not the timing.
• Evan and Bethany had been dating for almost two months. He had spent Christmas at our house and she was in Wisconsin meeting his family. Colin and I drove up to Wisconsin to bring her back. We met Evan's parents over lunch at Buca di Beppo on New Year's Day.
• We lived in the same house we'd been in for almost nine years and knew that we had a lot of work to do to get it ready to sell.
• We had our eye on a house close to church that had been on and off the market for years.

 Now:

• Colin has been working in the 'burbs for seven months, staying in an apartment during the week, and coming home on the weekends.
• Evan and Bethany have been married for 4 1/2 months. (That means we got an engagement, wedding planning, and an out-of-state move for her all into one year!)
• We prepped our former house, vacated for tons of showings, and ended up living there for a couple of months longer than we had planned. This fall we turned it over to a relo company and heard yesterday that it is finally sold.
• We bought our "less-expensive" house down the street from church and spent our summer finding out all of the problems it had and spending all of our money to fix them. It is on its way to being exactly the home we wanted and the location is great.

It was all rather frantic and stressful while we were living it. But, with the exception of Colin being gone four nights a week, it's all turning out well. And that has an end down the road, which makes it bearable.

Five Cheese Egg Casserole

I've had several requests for this recipe. I first had this at a B&B I went to this fall for a scrapbooking retreat. I loved it and was glad to be able to purchase the recipe. I have made it twice this month, once for a ladies brunch at church and once for our family Christmas morning.

7 eggs

1 cup milk

4 ounces monterey jack cheese, shredded*

4 ounces colby cheese, shredded *

8 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded

4 ounces cream cheese, cubed

16 ounces small curd cottage cheese  (Michigan brand is perfect, if you can get it.)

4 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder 

1/2 t. salt

Fresh herbs to taste

Preheat oven to 350. Whisk eggs and milk together. Stir in the cheeses and melted butter. Stir in the flour, salt, and baking powder. Immediately pour into a buttered 13x9 pan. Bake 45-50 minutes.

*When I made it the first time I gave up my colby to another cook and used double the monterey jack. I liked it a bit better that way, so my suggestion is to leave out the colby and use twice the mj. It seems to let the flavor of the cheddar really stand out.

Early New Year's Resolutions

I've spent some time this evening lining up my reading challenges for 2012.

It's made me start thinking about my plans for 2012 and I've got a few resolutions.

In 2012 I will:

--Swim in my pool.
--Read more books.
--Plant a garden and enjoy the harvest.
--Go on a vacation.
--Not tear out any walls.
--Enjoy the occasional Saturday with the hubby.

I also have no intention of moving or planning a wedding. I plan no drywalling or mold clean-up. When I have my friends over I hope to entertain them, not put them to work.

The best thing since. . .

Well, I don't know what. But something for sure.

Pinterest. Just the name makes me want to go paint something. Or buy something cute. Or at least find a picture of something cute.

So if you're playing there, come find me.

It worked with my kids

Right now I'm really struggling to like some people that I love. And I'm disappointed with some people that I like. This isn't anything new. It happens with jarring regularity.

I am so tired of grown adults behaving like children. Or even worse, like junior high students.

I'm so tired of snide comments and pot-stirring. Of extreme comments begetting more extreme responses. Of plain-old, flat-out meanness.

I'm sick of bickering.

I'd like to grab several different sets of people by the scruff of their necks and stand them in the middle of my living room. I'd make them stand forehead to forehead with each other until there was laughter and forgiveness.

As my children have taught me, some people are stupid-stubborn, and this can take a while, but I've never seen it fail.

I want a cookie

I've been doing really well avoiding sweets and refined carbs most of the time for the past year. I did it for my health, but it's had the happy side effect of a 20 pound weight loss. I'll take it!

Most of the time I'm satisfied with the way I eat, but all it takes is one weekend in a bed and breakfast--with cookies and orange-almond french toast--to turn me into a cookie-craving, m&m devouring basket case.

I've probably eaten 30 m&ms tonight. I feel like crud from the sugar. But I still really want a cookie.
Tomorrow I need to be strong and do the lean protein and yummy veggies thing, and put the thoughts of cookies out of my head.

Costs of disorganization

I keep finding myself paying the price, financial and otherwise, for being chaotically disorganized.
I've had to pay late fees on bills frequently during the past six months.
I just paid $26 extra dollars to sign my son up for the SAT.
Yesterday it was $32 in library fines.
I lose hours each week just searching for things.
We aren't eating as well as we could be.

The problem is that I need some time to get organized, but there is always something more urgent. The overwhelmingness of this move has taken me by surprise. I've made state-to-state moves with small children that didn't leave me in this kind of chaos. Maybe that was easier because moving was, in itself, a break. I didn't move and continue to work and do my regular activities. And I guess I didn't do all of that and plan a wedding and have to work on rehabbing a house at the same time, either. So, I guess I can see how I got here.

But looking ahead, I don't see a break coming. I don't see a chance to catch up. There is Thanksgiving. There are cookies to be baked the week after (about 30 dozen.) There is Christmas shopping, house guests, and--oh yeah--this is one of the busy times at church/work.

Somehow, I have to figure it out, because I can't continue in the disorganized state that I'm in.

You just have to laugh

I discovered something this weekend while I was scrapbooking. There is something very therapeutic about making a nice layout with beautiful paper for pictures of stressful events.

Very few people knew how hard this summer was for me. There were all kinds of stresses, but chief among them were the constant negative surprises with our new house. Each new discovery added to the financial, time, and health-related strains. For a variety of reasons I felt the need to keep a calm facade and not to let on how close I was feeling to the edge of what I could handle.

This past weekend I had planned to scrapbook wedding pictures, but various circumstances led to me scrapping other photos from this summer, and especially those of the house problems and the resulting demolition and work. I wasn't really looking forward to working with those pictures. First off, they are mostly of ugliness: mold, demolition, lathe, weeds, green board, and, did I mention, mold. And further, they depicted a really low point for me. But as I sorted through the stack and got ready to work with them I was cheered, partially by the fact that they were in the past, and partially by the reminder of all of the people who worked so hard on our house.

Our sons ( 2, 3) were amazing. They worked hard for months. I have tons of pictures of Bethany, hair tied up, sweaty and dirty or covered with paint. I have pictures of Evan working in almost every room of the house, doing anything that needed to be done. We have pictures of the best neighbors in the world working both inside and outside of the house, and of other friends helping out, too.

So I pulled out some of my favorites of the new paper I bought, and a few old favorites, too. And I made some of my favorite layouts in a long time with those pictures. At one point I was actually wiggling in my chair with glee over one of the layouts because it was such fun. And looking back through the pictures with the boys today I feel like I left a lot of that stress on those pages.

Sometimes stuff happens

Things get lost.

I didn't manage to blog Thursday night because I couldn't find the tote with most of my scrapbooking tools and I lost a couple of hours of my packing time looking for them. My 18-year-old son found them, but only after I had already searched frantically.

There's no internet access.

Friday and Saturday I was at the retreat. There was supposed to be internet access at the camp, but it was slower than dial-up and wouldn't even load my email, let alone allow me to do anything on the internet.

People die.

I spent last night not doing much more than feeling sad. One of my dad's sisters died on Friday, and although I'd been thinking about her all weekend, it didn't seem quite real. Talking to another of my aunts last night really got me thinking about the loss to her husband and young adult kids and how much all of us will miss her.

The countdown

In less than 40 hours I'm leaving for my first of two fall scrapbooking retreats. I've been sorting through things and getting organized, but I still have a lot to do. My packing is complicated by the fact that I'm packing for two. All of Bethany's scrapping supplies are still here, and she will be going directly from Wisconsin to the camp. So I'm bringing tools, albums, paper, bedding, etc., for two.

Oh, yeah. Snacks, too. Guess I need to squeeze in a Target run tomorrow.

It's going to be a great weekend. I get to spend it with my daughter and a couple of my dearest friends. I get to get back to one of my favorite hobbies, which I have not indulged in since the retreat last fall. And I get to scrap again next weekend.

Why Janie can't read

I am, and have always been, a reader. But this year has been rough. I am way off pace. My concentration has been horrible. I have to really be in the perfect mood for a particular book to be able to read it. I keep trying to figure out why this is. It would seem that my favorite relaxing pastime would be just the ticket when things have been a bit crazy, but that doesn't seem to be the case right now.

Very few books that I've read this year have really grabbed my attention. Those that have, have. If you want to see my reading lists, challenges, etc., I have a book blog.

I'm hoping that life getting back to normal helps. We'll see.

This counts

I'm begging off posting anything substantive tonight because I had a kitchen accident and a trip to the ER. I'll fill you in tomorrow after my eye is un-dilated.

Okay, so I didn't make it back yesterday

It's been a busy weekend. Sauerkraut, out-of-town guests, church, birthday party.

Tonight I ordered another 600+ photos from Snapfish, so between this order and the last I have almost 1300 photos to scrapbook from the last year. Of course, almost half of those are wedding.

I think it's a good thing that I have two scrapbooking retreats coming up. I can't wait. I hope my pictures make it in time for the first one!

Can we call it even?

I didn't blog last night, but I did blog twice two days ago. And I promise I'll blog again today.

Last night was our sauerkraut supper at church. In spite of the fact that I thought we should do something different and I wasn't in charge of it--because I *did* say no, as I am so often encouraged to do--I still spent 12 hours at church yesterday working on it.  So when I got home at 9:00 last night I was complete mental and physical toast.

Today's agenda: getting ready for a sixteenth birthday party for my baby and his friend tomorrow night.

Groceries, baking, cooking, and some visiting with out of town guests. And--oh yeah--I have to work today.

Better keep moving.

Erasing posts

 I've blogged twice tonight.

And promptly erased each entry.

It wasn't the quality. The writing was good.

It was the subject matter and tone. They were cranky. And I refuse to be a cranky person.

And now I'm tired, and seemingly incapable of a complex sentence.

I could sit in this chair and waste the rest of the night on Facebook or Pinterest, but I think I'll go organize scrapbooking stuff.

I love

. . .my youngest son's giggle when he sees something funny. Especially if it involves cats, squirrels, or bunnies.

Stumped already

I am starting my month stumped about what to write. If I had written earlier in the day, it probably would have gone smoothly, but I was busy with work and errands, so I put it off.

When I sat down to blog I had a couple of ideas rolling around in my head, but I decided to check Facebook first, just to see what my friends are up to. Well, that was a bad idea, because--as is too often the case lately--someone is behaving badly. I want desperately to ignore it. (Actually, I want desperately to tell someone off.  But it wouldn't be nice and they wouldn't accept what I was saying anyway.) So I want to ignore it.

But I can't. Because it's bothering me. And I can't write when I'm bothered unless I'm addressing the source of the irritation.


So tonight's post is pretty much of a waste. Maybe I'll come up with something else later.

Blogging for blogging's sake

Something about the theme-less theme for NaBloPoMo this month really appealed to me.

I need to write more. I think that I'm at a point in my life for the first time in many months that will allow for some daily blog time. It doesn't really matter if anyone reads what I'm writing, although it's more fun that way.

My brain has felt really sluggish lately. Reading has been slow. I haven't been researching anything. I've just been trudging through, living in my too-full, too-demanding house, trying to keep up with everything everyone wants me to do. It's time to get the sludge out and start thinking again.

To help me remember

I had planned to do better documenting the house transition, but it has happened in the midst of so  much busy-ness that it has fallen by the wayside. In addition, I don't currently have a decent camera. I have been trying to use Bethany's old one, but the battery life is so short as to render it useless.

But I do want to make a couple of notes while I remember.

While I was washing dishes at my lovely, shiny, white sink I thought about what an improvement it is over the old one. It is deeper, it looks better, the faucet is more functional and shiny. It feels good to wash dishes in it. Which is a good thing, because the dishwasher is a non-functioning, moldy, soon-to-be-garbage space filler. (I want to pull out the island where it is housed, but not until spring, and I don't want a gaping hole.) I also have a new, properly functioning disposal. It feels so luxurious!

I am enjoying my new stove. And my new refrigerator. And the copious amounts of REALLY hot water put out by my new water heater. I can do laundry just off my kitchen, and not have to brave the basement, thanks to the new plumbing and electrical work that we had done. Okay, so we can no longer walk out the back door--probably a good thing since we pulled out the rotting, termite-infested steps--but we'll deal with that in the spring.

In the not-glamorous, but comforting category, there's a new sump pump to replace the old one that didn't work. And in the made-my-life-so-much-better category is the new tub and shower in the main bath, even though the rest of the bathroom still needs to be ripped out--except for the toilet, which was also repaired after we moved in--so that I can breathe when I'm in there.

We should have ripped out the rest of this bathroom while we were in destruction mode.

We have two rooms on the main floor that are painted and happy. We have three bedrooms that are painted, and one that is primed. We still have some celings that need to come down and the aforementioned bathroom work to do, plus a shower to rip out and replace on the first floor. And the kitchen. And curtains. But at least now we're starting to get to the stuff that I had planned to do when we bought the house.

Someday I might even get to think about making it homey.

Living room bay window. Progress.

31 Reviewing

There are SO many bloggers doing the 31 days. Hundreds. It makes it a bit overwhelming to try to find gold nuggets in the pile of rocks. However, I do have one strong recommendation. If you only read one extra blog this month make it Life in Grace.

I'm sure many of you already do. I know many of us shed tears with Edie when she lost her beautiful home. This month she is doing 31 Days to Rebuilding Your House and Heart as they move into their new home. She's already had me crying, but she also has me thinking about what I want our house to be like when we get past make-it-a-place-we-can-live-and-not-get-sick and get on to making it home.

I'll keep looking for some other nuggets, but this is a good place to start.

31 What?

There's a 31-day blog thing going on. And I am not joining in, unless it's for 31 days of blog reading, because some of these topics sound pretty interesting.

Maybe I'll do 31 Days of telling you about the interesting things I find on these other blogs.

RSVPin'

I'm sure that none of you reading this need this reminder, but when you're invited to a function and an RSVP is asked for, do it.


I know it's easy to set things aside and forget. Things get lost. We think we'll do it later. I do it all the time.

Just do it.

I just did the budget review of our daughter's wedding. Not having an accurate count, even a week before the wedding, cost us right at $900. I am not complaining. The party was worth every penny, and then some. But I think we tend to forget that there's a good reason hosts need to know if we are coming.

RSVP. It's just good manners.And you never know when you might be the host.

Cooking

I'm a pretty decent cook. I enjoy cooking and I like to try new things. I keep a well-stocked pantry and have gotten pretty good at just pulling things together into a meal, based on my mood and what sounds good.

My daughter is a newlywed who found herself in the position of needing to fix dinner a few nights ago without planning and using only the ingredients on hand. She didn't think she should need a recipe. She should just be able to pull it out of her head. She couldn't. So she had, in her own words, a minor meltdown.

She had two things working against her. Well, maybe three:
She is a perfectionist.
She has an unrealistic view of how most people cook.
Her husband is an excellent, intuitive cook.

As a result, to comfort her, I find it necessary to blog about what dinners were like in the early years of our marriage. I was not a complete novice. I cooked dinner many weeknights my last couple of years in high school, but my mom did the planning. I only had to cook. And she had taught me many of the basics.

When I got married I cooked the same things that I had eaten as a kid. I had a rotation of about seven meals. I think all but one involved a white sauce or Campbell's soup. We had tuna noodle casserole nearly weekly. Creamed tuna or creamed dried beef on toast was a frequent meal. Some version of hambuger browned and cooked with soup and noodles--and maybe cheese--was a frequent dish. Salmon cakes and spinach. Hamburger gravy. Spaghetti made with Ragu.

That was pretty much it. Add a canned or frozen veggie and some canned fruit. I had recipes that I made sometimes. My grandma's beef stew. A couple of chicken casseroles. Once in a while I might make a roast with potatoes and carrots for a Sunday dinner. But I never veered far from the foods that I grew up with. And my husband started our marriage as a 19-year-old college student. He would eat anything.

I'm not sure when I started to cook differently. I remember a chicken enchilada casserole that a friend made when Patrick was small that may have been a starting point. Being a Weight Watchers member and then leader changed my cooking somewhat, but made me more recipe dependent when I strayed from the baked chicken breast or piece of fish and broccoli.


 I like having a lot of ingredients available and having many choices. I have a generous grocery budget. I'm kind of spoiled. But it has taken me years and lots of experience to be able to cook this way. And sometimes it fails me. I stand and stare at my pantry and the ingredients don't seem to amount to anything. Those are the nights that my family usually gets spaghetti, tacos, or chicken breasts.

My advice to the person who is newly responsible for cooking meals for a household is to have a couple of meals that you always have ingredients for and that you can cook easily, whether with or without a recipe. These should be things that will almost always sound good to the members of the household. (Around here spaghetti is the big fall back, although in recent years lentils have moved up the list.) It will save lots of stress, and avert meltdowns.

Making risotto. With a recipe.

Perspective

Sometimes I have to remind myself to look at things from the proper angle.

I had a cruddy morning. We realized just as I was leaving for work that the circuit that controls the poorly-wired disposal--the circuit that has been off since Saturday evening--also controls our deep freeze. I'm not even going to address the bizarreness of the wiring. Suffice to say it makes no sense.

But I admit that I had a bit of a sobbing meltdown when I looked and saw pounds of thawed meat.

I went ahead and went in and did what I needed to at work, and came home a couple of hours later to sort out what was still usable and what was destined for the garbage. I quickly found myself grateful that I had not had time to order meat from the farm this year. And that I hadn't spent hours picking blueberries in the hot sun, because the few that were in the freezer were ruined. I was grateful for the three bags of frozen sauerkraut; for some reason they stayed frozen and helped keep the meat around them cold.

In the end we lost a lot of food. But we also were able to salvage a lot. Since I needed to go ahead and cook it I have the beginnings of several meals for next week and a big pot of chili for the weekend.

I've been wanting to get my freezer and pantry organized and to simplify things a bit. I've wanted to get some meals or meal starters in the freezer. Done and done.


I'm thankful that this happened after I have my new stove.
I'm thankful that this happened on a cool day, when having the oven on all afternoon just makes the house smell good.
I'm thankful that, although this is an annoyance and an inconvenience, losing this food in no way effects my ability to feed my family well.
I'm thankful that, if the frozen wedding cake was going to thaw, it happened when the newlyweds are coming for the weekend.

Crash

I'd been waiting for it. I kind of expected it before this. But the timing makes sense, when I think about it.

For seven months my life has been completely focused on three things: selling our old house, getting our new house ready, and Bethany's wedding. We've been living in the new house for almost two months. Bethany has been married for a month. And Monday we turned over the keys of the old house to the relocation company.

That was the last big deadline. After seven months of nearly constant time stress and nearly overwhelming financial decisions, we're done. Of course, we're not. The house is FAR from done.  But there are no drop-dead, gotta-happens looming.

And Tuesday I could hardly pull myself out of bed. I have absolutely zero energy. I'm making myself do what needs to be done--kind of--but there's so much more that needs to happen. And I have no desire to see to any of it. Oh, I've grocery shopped, and run my stupid car to two different garages in search of someone who can fix it, and gone to work, and driven kids places, and washed a few dishes. But I am living in the midst of chaos. I have piles of boxes, some semi-unpacked. My bedroom looks like a bomb went off. The bathrooms need cleaning. I have bills to pay and a couple of emails deserving responses.

And I don't care. Or I do, but not enough to do any of it. I want to eat chocolate, play Sims, and cut and paste pieces of pretty paper. Or curl up in a ball in the corner.

I know this will pass.  The crash was almost inevitable. And I know what I *need* to do.  I ate too many carbs yesterday--which tasted good, but left me feeling sloggy--so I made myself have a huge salad and tea for lunch today. I walked to work in the sunshine, and should probably go back out in it again for a while. I may let myself curl up in a ball at some point. After I go pick up my car and take Jonathan to his voice and piano lessons and fix supper.Or maybe after the weekend, since Bethany and Evan are coming and I really want to so some more cleaning. Or maybe I'll just keep going.

But if you are wanting something from me: a phone call, email, letter, recipe, package, anything church-related, food, event, etc., have patience. Jane is currently out-of-order.

Pictures!

If you would like to see the wedding pictures on the photographer's website go here.

Adjusting

"My oldest is married. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Her husband is working on his MBA at UW."

It's funny how often this group of words has come out of my mouth during the past week. I've run into a couple of old acquaintances. My investment guy stopped by the new house to say hi. I've done an intro on a homeschooling list. I've met a new neighbor.

Somehow, I think that repeating this litany over and over is helping to make it seem real to me; it's aiding in my adjustment.

The message of clothes

I had the opportunity to do a lot of thinking about clothes today. I have lost some weight in the past year--to the point that my clothes are quite baggy--so I decided to go do some shopping, hoping to hit some clearance sales. Clothes were on my mind.

Since my shopping buddy got married and moved away last weekend, I was shopping alone, so I had lots of time to think. My first thought on the message of clothes came when I was wandering through Banana Republic, ungreeted and completely unbothered by the people working in the store--none of whom were familiar faces--while they assiduously greeted everyone else who came in and told them about the sale. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and completely understood why I was ignored. I looked schlumpy. My two-year-old, too-big shirt and too-big cropped pants made me look more like I belonged on the "People of Walmart" site than at BR.  I wandered around the store for about five minutes, unaccosted,  and then left without seeing anything that even tempted me to try it on.

Next stop was the Land's End store at Sears. Again, ungreeted. Same was true at every store that I went into except J.C. Penney, where every employee you pass must greet you on pain of death. At Aldo I thought I was truly invisible. I even held a shoe for about a minute while the two people working conversed with each other a couple of feet away, until I left, at which point one said, "Thanks for coming in!" Whaat?!

So all of this was fresh in my mind when I saw, first, the woman in the skintight translucent white jeggings, low-cut shirt & platform shoes dragging the toddler through the mall. (Her outfit didn't say "MOM.") Then I saw the two women in scrubs complaining about the styles at Macys being boring and having no-style. (Unlike their scrubs? Sorry, when you wear scrubs in public I think you're either lazy or germy.) Then, as I was driving to my next stop I saw the kids leaving one of our local high schools on the first day of school, and remembered how carefully my friends and I chose our clothes for the first day. You knew that you were making that first impression for the school year. I was somewhat depressed by the array of long, baggy athletic shorts with sports sandals and flip-flops on guys, tight low-cut tops and the infernal jeggings on girls, and a general air of unkempt, I-don't-give-a-rip emanating from the students. Most of what they were wearing wouldn't have been allowed by the dress code at my public school--which didn't allow the much-in-vogue preppy, knee-length, corduroy walking shorts with matching tights when I was in high school--but, aside from that, it was lounge and recreation wear, not clothing for any activity of importance.

My last stop was my favorite clothing store. I haven't been there often in the last eight months because my life has been crazy. But I knew that I  would find something there to complete my thus-far-frustrated retail therapy. I used to know everyone who worked there, but last fall the entire staff turned over and there were no familiar faces today. So, schlumpy me walked in in one of my few non-Chico's outfits. I was soundly ignored. Completely. It wasn't until I walked up to one of the women with my arms full of clothes to try on that anyone paid the slightest bit of attention to me. And she turned me over to the other person who was working. Oh, honey, your numbers for the day wish that you hadn't done that.

It really was interesting. Usually I dress for shopping. Today I didn't. I wore my comfy, too-big clothes and my Birkenstocks. (Which any observant salesperson would have noticed were new. And adorable. Seriously.) I know clothes send a message. But I really wonder, when I'm out and about, how many people understand or even think about what their clothes are saying. My clothes today said that I either didn't care to, didn't know how to, or couldn't afford to dress in a flattering manner. I recognized that. I kind of knew it when I left home, but it was also part of the reason I needed to shop.

So what's the conclusion? I don't know. I just had to write it all down.

Harry Potter, homeschooling, and the end of an era

This summer feels like a turning point in my life for so many reasons. It's amazing how a three-month span of time can encapsulate so much change.

In June my husband began working in another state, where he taken has an apartment. Monday-Thursday we live apart. After 25 years of marriage, that's a big change. As part of that process we are selling the house that we have lived in for nine years--almost twice as long as I have lived in a house, ever--and are moving to a supposedly less-expensive house. The move is one I've wanted to make for years. We will be closer to friends and church. But it has also been problematic, adding a layer of "What the heck were we thinking?" to the change.

In 30 days our only daughter is getting married. It's all good. He's awesome. They're moving away, but not horribly far. They'll be close enough that visiting can be the matter of a weekend. Like  I said, it's good. But it's also an ending. For almost 25 years I've been the mother of four, at home, living under my roof, and soon I won't be.

My homeschooling days feel like they are almost done. After almost 16 years this is also a big change. My 18 year old needs only a burnishing of math skills, and will be in a college class or two this year. My 15 year old is ready to spread his wings. He wants to go to a residential charter school--at a university out of town--for his junior and senior years. It's a good plan. It would be a challenge for me to provide a challenge for him if he stayed. I have one more year with him, but I really don't do anything for him anymore except buy books and shuttle him places.

My almost 21-year-old, who was the catalyst for our homeschooling, and therefore so much of what has been wonderful about the past 15-plus years, has gone from being that kind of weird, unhappy five-year-old who didn't GET letters and hated school to a college honor student and suit-salesman extraordinaire. And Harry Potter was a part of that. Back when I was trying hard not to despair of him ever learning to read, he went from zero to Harry Potter in three days. Yep. Although he had never read a book before, he read The Sorcerer's Stone in three days. It was a major turning point.

And over the past eleven years Harry Potter has been a part of our lives. Almost every summer has been marked by a new book or movie release. We've been to book release parties and midnight movies. We've  bought multiple copies and still had two people lying on the floor with a book open at two different spots, reading. We've debated the good or evil of Snape and of the books themselves. We've drawn all kinds of comparisons between the books and movies and other books and movies. We've gone to HP sectionals at Higher Things and listened to HP discussions on Issues, Etc.

And tomorrow night the last movie comes out. My three oldest are going to the midnight movie with my youngest and oldest sons' best friends. (My youngest is away for the week and can't believe he planned so badly!) I made it to all of the midnight showings until the last, but I fear age and responsibility have caught up with me.

So bear with me if I'm feeling a bit nostalgic. This is yet another chapter closing in a bittersweet summer.

Difficulty conforming

I am having a problem. My nonconformist tendencies, which have gotten ever stronger over the past few years, are having a lot of trouble with having my house at the peak of on-the-market readiness.

The house is spotlessly clean. There is no clutter. (If you know me you recognize this as a miracle.) It is freshly painted. Much of the woodwork is freshly stained. The carpets are cleaned. We have filled a 15x20 storage unit with furniture, books, pictures, etc. My scrapbooking stuff is hiding in a Sunday School room at church.

BUT...

We have too many books. I've cleared out dozens of boxes, and we still have "too many." My master bedroom is too plain and undecorated. We have too many cars. (I suppose it would be okay if they all were shiny, expensive late-models, but there it is.)

Our TV is too large. We should have a flat screen.

Of course, I know--as a former Realtor--that there cannot be any sign that six people actually live in this house.

Why? Why do people need to pretend that they don't live in their homes when they are for sale? I never had a single buyer who was so stupid that they didn't realize that the house would be different when THEY moved in. I totally get sparkling clean and decluttered, but my house feels sterile to me at this point. It isn't model home decorated, but without the batiks, books, family pictures, etc., it has no soul. And I'm not going out to buy generic dreck to reanimate my house.

Thank goodness my Genie and my pottery are home-sale friendly.

I long to be past this and back into books all over, color, life, cooking, and fun. If my house doesn't sell quickly I may go crazy.

What we've been up to

We've been busy with preparations to move into our new house and with wedding preparations, but most of all right now we've been getting our current house ready to sell. Why do we always finally do the things we've wanted to do to the house just in time to sell?

Jonathan and Andrew stripping the border in the master bath...

and Bethany painting it.

Bethany and Evan working on the hall bathroom.

The big news

So, last time I blogged about why I've been too busy to blog. Well, I'm going to be busier.

Bethany is engaged to be married in August. We are in a frenzy of celebration and planning. It's going to be a big wedding, in part because they both have good-sized families, and in part because we have such a wonderful church family and as-close-as-blood friends among the Lutheran homeschool crowd.

So, a few major details need to be nailed down, and then back to house preparation and getting ready to move.

The disappearning blogger

I really had planned to blog every day in January. I even had a couple of people who said they were glad I was blogging again. But, as has happened so often over the past few years, life got in the way.

This time it was life in the form of an envelope from my husband's company outlining the details of a relocation offer. His job is moving to the Chicago suburbs, and he will be going with it. The envelope contained all of the terms under which that will happen, including provision for selling our house.

Under these terms, we really need to get the house on the market soon to get the best benefit. The house needs a LOT of work, so suddenly we are in a frenzy of packing and preparing.

This would be enough to have kept me from blogging, but throw in symposium at the seminary and the attendant socializing, and big anniversary celebration for Pastor Petersen, and a few other, smaller events  and, there you go. Disappearing blogger.

Furry friend

I CAN CHAT WIF EVAN?

Life-long friends

I was fortunate to grow up reading. Our house didn't have the books-in-every-room decor that my husband suffers, but we owned books and my mother read to me. She introduced me to the library when I was a small child and it and the book mobile became two of my favorite places. I wasn't a particularly popular child, so I spent a lot of time alone, most of it with my face buried in a book. I was reading early enough that there was a run-in with my first grade teacher when she insisted--in front of the class--that I could not possibly have read Charlotte's Web the previous summer.  But I had. And quite a few more, too.

I devoured the Little House books for the first time that year, among others. Over the next few years I fell in love with Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess, the already-yellowing volumes of  The Bobbsey Twins series that had been my mother's, and my grandmother's contribution, Jean Stratton Porter's Limberlost. I met Katie John, Luvvy and the Girls,Trixie,Pollyanna, Rebecca, the Peppers, and the Melendys. I worked my way through the Nancy Drew mysteries that had belonged to my mom and her sisters, and then moved on to Agatha Christie. After I exhausted Dame Agatha I discovered Dorothy Sayers. About this same time--when I was about 12--I found Taylor Caldwell, Anya Seton, and Victoria Holt. I quickly ran through their writings.

In the school library I found less salutary companions. Judy Blume, Paul Zindel, Go Ask Alice and more gems were the contributions of the library of my Illinois middle school, where I spent a great deal of time during my two study halls every day. Fortunately, they didn't keep me from finding better literature at the public library and, occasionally at the bookstore. And, to encourage the moms whose daughters are currently devouring garbage, they didn't do permanent damage.

I still go back to my childhood favorites from time to time. I just re-read the Little House books for at least the 25th time. A Little Princess is revisited every couple of years. It hasn't been all that long since I spent time with Luvvy and the Melendys. Anya Seton's Katharine is an almost annual read, as is the big hit of my senior year, ...And Ladies of the Club. I introduced all of these friends to my daughter, and we share a satisfying love of many of them. In return, she gave me Anne of Green Gables and all things Austen.

Fine companions, indeed.

No more new friends

Okay. Maybe no more is an overstatement. But I realized today that I approach email lists differently now than I used to.

Once upon a time, I joined email lists looking for connections and support. I found both. Years ago. And have long-since made the transition to face-to-face friendships with many fellow list members. In fact, most of the dearest friends I have were former email acquaintances.

Now I stay on the lists mainly with an eye to the infinitesimally small number of times that I can add something of value to help or support others.  Those times seem to grow fewer. I've become impatient with discussions that I've been through each winter for ten or more years. I frequently think about quitting all of my lists, even the one that I started and manage. I don't enjoy them any more.

And I think that today I figured out part of the reason why: I don't particularly care to make any new friends. I don't want to learn the new folks kids' names, what their husbands do, how they homeschool, or anything else. I feel no compulsion to be fake-nice and not stir up trouble. I just want them not to be annoying.

I think I'm getting old.

Friends at Christmas

I really like this picture. It's not that it's great photography, it's the people and the place. This is in our church basement on the afternoon of Christmas Day. It's a combination of  family, old friends, and newer friends. It really feels to me like it captured a moment. Something important.

Christmas/Epiphany letter

A blessed Epiphany to you!
(Since I’m writing this on the 11th Day of Christmas, I am assuming that most of you will see it after Epiphany.)

This has been another year for us to count our many blessings and to enjoy the wonderful life we have here in Fort Wayne. It seems to have gone very quickly, but on the other hand, last February seems like a long time ago. As a family we enjoyed our church, our garden, our fire pit, and going to a few TinCaps games.

Colin’s year was shaped by the changes going on at work. Many of you know that the company has decided to move its Fort Wayne operations to Chicagoland. As part of that process, and because of his promotion this summer to Chief Engineer, Hybrid Powertrain, he has been spending increasing amounts of time in the Chicago area. Between that and his other travels, we’ve spent a fair amount of time missing him. He has continued to serve as the Chairman of our congregation and to sing in the church choir. He also sang with the Bach Collegium through the fall, but has had to give that up for now because of his traveling. Don’t ask us how this Chicago-based job thing is going to work. We don’t know. We just know that after almost nine years Fort Wayne is home and we aren’t leaving. He likes his job. The most likely solution is a long commute every weekend for a few years.

Bethany has had a somewhat eventful year, joining the ranks of the uncounted unemployed in August. Her paralegal job had its interesting and challenging-in-a-good-way moments, but she also had a challenging-in-a-bad-way boss, who was causing her so much stress that her health was in danger. We told her to quit or we were kicking her out of the house.
(Not really.)
(Well, almost.)
Now she’s babysitting on a regular basis for the one and three year-old sons of some friends. (I, personally, would choose a psycho-tyrant boss over small children, but Bethany is of a gentler disposition than I am.)  Increasingly frequent visits from our friend Evan Meyer have turned into the two of them being “In a Relationship” on Facebook, Evan visiting for Christmas and her going to Wisconsin to visit his family the week after. She is still singing with the Bach Collegium and the church choir, and reluctantly teaching Sunday School. She continues to be the same adorable Bethany, but if I say anything too good about her, she won’t let me send this, so I’ll stop with that.

Some of you may be old enough to remember the commercials: “BankAmericard has become VISA.”
Patrick Casey has become BOW TIE GUY.  In August he added a much-needed job at JC Penney to his schedule. He works in the men's clothing department, and between his sartorial individuality and his charming personality, he has become a bit famous. His sister, attending a movie with him, was accosted by a group of girls who approached her when he made a concessions run, wanting to know how she was lucky enough to know BOW TIE GUY and to be in his presence. When he isn’t hanging out at the mall, he is a sophomore at IPFW majoring in German, minoring in History & Political Science, and making his parents very happy with his stellar grades. He still acolytes when needed, and enjoys helping to train (read intimidate) the new members of the corps.

Jonathan found a new love this year and in the process we threw our normal life out the window. In January he auditioned for two musicals. His plan was to be in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Fort Wayne Civic Theatre if he got a part. But since he didn’t really expect a part on his first attempt, he also auditioned for a part in the New Haven High School production of The Sound of Music. He didn’t get the Joseph part, so he took the role of Rolf in TSOM. A week a later the Civic called. They had lost their Benjamin and wanted Jonathan for the part. Performances and rehearsals didn’t overlap. It could be done. It would mean much craziness. Rehearsals from 3-5:30 in New Haven and from 6-10 downtown. Twenty performances in four weeks in March. Since New Haven High School is between 18 & 25 miles, and 30 & 45 minutes from our house, depending on the route, this was not a small time commitment for me. I spent most afternoons in January, February, & March sitting in my car reading, or hanging out at the New Haven library and my evenings running around town. But just seeing him on stage in Joseph--singing and dancing--made it all worth it. He had a blast.

He followed up the spring shows with Sweeney Todd in a summer theater production at North Side High School, and then was back at the Civic for White Christmas this fall. More shows on tap for this spring and summer. He continues to sing with the Bach Collegium and the church choir, and still loves to acolyte. He also sang the national anthem at a TinCaps game again this year. His siblings want me to tell you that he routinely sleeps 12-14 hours a day. As far as homeschooling, he is somewhere in his junior year. The heavy musical schedule pushed academics to the back burner for a while, and he will graduate either next December or the spring afterward.

Andrew never leaves the house without his overloaded backpack. Never. It is packed with Greek, Latin, Biology, Algebra, and some sort of music, plus whatever book he is currently reading. Academically he’s a sophomore, but if he ends up deciding to go to Indiana Academy his junior year, we’re calling this his freshman year to give me more time to adjust to the idea of him leaving. He has also taken to carrying Jonathan’s guitar around with him.

When he isn’t carrying his backpack and guitar around, he likes to play on the xbox, pick out songs on the piano, and chat with his friends on gmail. He got glasses this year and enjoyed the attention that brought. He has continued to love acolyting and loved helping to train some new acolytes. (Of course, we know that’s mostly because he got to talk and they had to listen.) His siblings think that he is the coolest member of the family.

Andrew asks, “What about BenCat & Callie?” To steal a line from my Pastor, “They’re cats.”

My year was good. I got to garden, cook, scrapbook, read, and hang out with my kids. I continue in my seemingly endless, pointless quest to save time and money by moving out of this house and closer to church.

Once again we were blessed with an abundance of visitors and lots of time with good friends, although it never seems like enough! I made it to Higher Things in Nashville and got to see some old friends, and to put faces and smiles with some names. The next month I had the pleasure of seeing many of our friends who came to Redeemer for our second annual family retreat. We also had a great day at the lake with my aunts and uncles and cousins, who I rarely get to see. (We are blessed to see most of our family often enough that it is not an event, although the fall visit of Sean & Anne from Australia definitely qualifies!)

I have what is arguably the best job in the world, being secretary at Redeemer Lutheran Church. My hours are flexible. I get to spend lots of time putting together bulletins, looking at hymns, etc. I am getting to know the members our congregation better. I can decide that I am just not counting an hour that I spent at my desk because I decided to check Facebook “real quick.”  My sons can go with me and either do something productive or just hang out. My boss is not a psycho-tyrant and I don’t have to play with three year-olds, fold the same sweater for the 34th time, or drive to Chicago. Every once in a while I get ambitious and think about revving my Melaleuca business up again,and am quickly slapped down by the realities of my schedule, but the desire is still there.

 This has been a challenging year for some of the people we love. There have been some hard losses due to deaths or economic realities, and sometimes both. You are in our prayers as we go into the New Year.

We enter 2011 thanking God for all of you.

Love, The Caseys

O Morning Star, how fair and bright!
You shine with God's own truth and light,
     Aglow with grace and mercy!
Of Jacob's race, King David's son,
Our Lord and master, You have won
     Our hearts to serve You only!
          Lowly, holy!
     Great and glorious,
     All victorious,
          Rich in blessing!
Rule and might o'er all possessing!

Come, heav'nly bridegroom, light divine,
And deep within our hearts now shine;
     There light a flame undying!
In Your one body let us be
As living branches of a tree,
     Your life our lives supplying.
          Now, though daily
     Earth's deep sadness
     May perplex us
          And distress us,
Yet with heav'nly joy You bless us.

Lord, when You look on us in love,
At once there falls from God above
     A ray of purest pleasure.
Your Word and Spirit, flesh and blood
Refresh our souls with heav'nly food.
     You are our dearest treasure!
          Let Your mercy
     Warm and cheer us!
     O draw near us!
          For You teach us
God's own love through You has reached us.

Almighty Father, in Your Son
You loved us when not yet begun
     Was this old earth's foundation!
Your Son has ransomed us in love
To live in Him here and above:
     This is Your great salvation.
          Alleluia!
     Christ the living,
     To us giving
          Life forever,
Keeps us Yours and fails us never!

O let the harps break forth in sound!
Our joy be all with music crowned,
     Our voices gladly blending!
For Christ goes with us all the way--
Today, tomorrow, ev'ry day!
     His love is never ending!
          Sing out!  Ring out!
     Jubilation!
     Exaltation!
          Tell the story!
Great is He, the King of glory!

What joy to know, when life is past,
The Lord we love is first and last,
     The end and the beginning!
He will one day, oh, glorious grace,
Transport us to that happy place
     Beyond all tears and sinning!
          Amen!  Amen!
     Come, Lord Jesus!
     Crown of gladness!
          We are yearning
For the day of Your returning!

(Lutheran Service Book, 395  by Philipp Nicolai)


It's that time again

No, not New Year's Resolution time. Not time to get organized. Or diet. Or exercise.

It's time for me to give myself the lecture about protecting my time and being able to say no. This doesn't mean that I don't want to see or hear from my friends. Or do things with or for them. What it does mean is that suddenly I find my plate full of tasks that people are expecting me to do, in a certain time frame, but I am waiting on information, etc., from others to be able to do them. So I am getting behind and stressed. These are the kind of things I should say no to. I do not enjoy having responsibility for things that I am not in charge of.

So friends, if you notice I'm seeming rushed and stressed, it isn't you. And I'm not too busy; I'm just the wrong kind of busy.

Wisconsin

The hubby and I took a little road trip to Wisconsin this weekend. We spent the afternoon and evening of New Year's Day with our good friends, our former pastor and his wife. What a treat!

We then spent Sunday morning--yes, you read that right, Sunday morning--driving around the Milwaukee area. We drove along the Lake and up through the campus of UW--Milwaukee, a trip I made daily when we lived there. I loved that drive, and it is every bit as relaxing and beautiful as I remembered.

After our drive, we met up with Bethany and Evan and his parents for lunch at Buca di Beppo. Bethany went to  Wisconsin with Evan on Christmas evening, and spent the week with his family, and part of the reason for our trip was to bring her home. We had a good lunch, and enjoyed meeting Evan's parents.

I didn't realize how badly I needed a break until I got away for a couple of days.

January blogging

I decided that I'm going to try to blog every day in January. The NaBloPoMo topic for January is "Friends" and I'm going to try to use that as inspiration.

I've spent a lot of time over the past few weeks thinking about what I want to read this year, and I wanted to start the new year with a strong choice. I picked a book that Carol, a friend from college who I've reconnected with via Facebook, recommended. Carol is fun, smart, and interesting, so I was sure it would be a good place to start. To see what I think when I finish, you can check my book blog.

Baking

My assistant Bethany and I are baking. Lots of baking. We are making desserts for a benefit concert and dessert buffet and for a dessert auction. We are discovering some new things we like and some new things we don't.

We like piping the frosting onto the cupcakes.

 

We like these pumpkin bars. We may even need to make another pan.

Bethany doesn't like red velvet cupcakes. I can take them or leave them. But we both love the cream cheese frosting. We also love these cupcake cups.

We also love the way these apples look with the dish towel. It's the little things....

My grandparents

I was loading some photos that Patrick scanned from my grandma's slides a couple of years ago, after she died. I came across several of my grandparents that reminded me why they always were--and always will be--who I think of when I think of a happy marriage.

They were married for a little over 70 years, and there was a look that I remember Grandpa giving Grandma when I was five, that I was still seeing him give her when I was 40.

The numbers, they hurt me

I have an issue with numbers. They have always seemed like a foreign language to me. If I work hard and concentrate--a challenge in itself-- I can make them behave, but I don't enjoy it and it wears me out. In college, after struggling through calculus at my first school, I was delighted to discover that UW would let me use symbolic logic to fulfill a math requirement. I got to do math with words and pictures! (Yes, I was the weird kid who loved proofs in geometry class.)

 I also don't like to deal with financial things. I like to spend money, and I'm happy to earn it, but I don't really like to think about it too much.


So, of course, I'm our church treasurer. And I do a good job. As long as everything goes along as expected, it's only moderately painful. A former church secretary with an accounting background set up our system, and it works very well unless something changes, but it is complicated. Because of some changes, I have run up against a convoluted accounting issue that has had me pulling out my hair. I thought that I had a solution, provided by someone else with more knowledge than I have, but that solution only twisted things up more.

Yesterday I figured out why. And in that moment was grateful for my one semester of accounting and the fact that I understood--kind of--how different accounts work and why things were messed up. But knowing--intellectually--what the issue is and knowing how to fix it are two different things.

Last night I talked the issue through--out loud--with my mom and then with Bethany and made some headway. One idea that I came up with while I was talking to my mom is to draw some pictures, so that's today's plan. I'm going to draw a "map" of what the stupid numbers mean and I'm going to hope that it gets me to my destination.

Multi-tasking gone wild

So, while waiting in the green room I heard one mom talking about a guy she saw driving down the road talking on one cell phone and texting on another. This morning on my way to work I saw something that beat that.

I saw a guy talking with a blue tooth, texting, and SHAVING. Yes, shaving.

Revisiting

So, redecorating the blog has lead to some revisiting of links. I'm working on getting my blog roll updated. And I checked out my To-Do List.

Sigh.

I did manage to eliminate a couple of items, but only because I don't want to do them any more. According to this list, the last couple of years have been a total bust. But for some reason it just doesn't bother me much.

Wait! You want me to work?

I mentioned last week that I spent a couple of evenings sitting in the green room waiting for Jonathan, being apparently invisible, overhearing lots of conversations. I was trying to read my book, but there was one woman in particular who seemed to want to be sure that every single person in that very large room was listening to her. And I was about five feet away.

Her first topic was the job that her daughter had recently quit at a moderately high end accessory store because she felt like they were making unreasonable demands. My attention was caught because I am well-acquainted with the store and the employees. It has extremely low turnover; there are several people working there who have been there for six or seven years.

This daughter, who is 20 and "had a little trouble" and is "taking some time off" from college, quit what can only be described as a pretty cushy gig--as retail goes--because she was expected, on the nights she closed, to clean the bathroom. One toilet, one sink, one mirror. And her mother agreed with her that that was an unreasonable expectation. The mother went on to complain that many nights her daughter ended up spending half of the evening "dusting and straightening." And she didn't "raise her to grow up to be a cleaning lady." Plus, "she just wasn't having fun."

 Oh, where to start? How 'bout with the attitude that certain work is "beneath" a person? I have heard this quite a bit in the last year, mostly from young people or their parents, but also--more than once--from Boomers. I find it unfathomable and more than a little annoying. Unfathomable, at least in part, because it was ingrained in me that, if you need money, you work. And that all work, done well, has value. Work is good; not evil.

I probably react somewhat on a personal level, too, because I have done the jobs that so many spoiled teens and self-important Boomers seem to find distasteful. I've worked fast food (and cleaned the bathroom.) I've worked in large and small retail establishments (and cleaned the bathrooms.) I worked in the college food service, much of that time in the dishroom. I've worked in a movie theater (and cleaned the bathrooms.)  I bartended and waitressed and cleaned LOTS of things worse than a bathroom. I've cleaned houses.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot: I was a real estate agent for three years, and in our smallish office we all took turns cleaning the bathroom.

Most of those jobs weren't fun. Sure, I had fun while I was doing them, because that's who I am. But they weren't fun jobs.I worked hard and went home exhausted. But I did them because I needed money. When I was in high school I wanted to put gas in my car and buy clothes and pizza. When I was in college I wanted spending money, clothes, books, and gas for my car. After I was married there were bills to pay and later a family to help support while my husband earned a master's degree. And then there were piano lessons and soccer teams and books and....

Right now, I'm fortunate. I have a part time job as our church secretary that is mostly fun. I'd rather not have to work, but it is paying most of our oldest son's college tuition, so it's worth it. But, if our circumstances changed, I would do what I needed to do, including clean toilets.

I don't believe that there is never a good reason to quit a job. I quit a pretty cushy one once because my boss wanted me to lie to customers. I encouraged my daughter to quit one because she had an abusive boss and it was affecting her health. But bringing kids up to think that they are too good to do certain work isn't doing them any favors.


More from the green room next post.