Tag Archives: mylife

Simple Pleasures in July

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Sunrise from my front yard looking east


At the same moment, the moon was setting in the west


Celebrating the patriarch’s birthday…72 years
Barbequed Chicken
Corn on the Cob
Potato Salad
Cold Watermelon
Black Bean Salad
Rustic Bread
Rhubarb Cobbler
Homemade Ice Cream


A fun and frugal place setting.
Mix and match dishes: hand me downs from my daughter-in-law
Cloth napkins: 25¢ at Burlington Coat Factory

~   Mutual appreciation of our video choices. 
How often is the whole family eager to watch the same thing?
We work heartily on our after-dinner chores
so we can watch an hour of DVD or video.
Kenneth Branagh’s World War 1 in Color
PBS Home Video The Great War
and
Foyle’s War.


~ Wildflowers by the edge of road

~  After two weeks of working full time crunching numbers for the pharmacy,
I have all day today to be home.
Happy, happy sigh.

Agenda:
Bake bread for the freezer
Make poppyseed cakes to freeze for husband’s lunches.
Organizing my pantry
Ironing, while listening to Mark Helprin, my new intriguing author.
Answering a few emails
Singing
Working on 100 Species Challenge
Call a brother or sister or several

I love days at home.  Alone or not. 

Not everybody does.  I have a girlfriend who goes crazy if she has to stay home.  She loves to be out: out walking, out shopping, out driving, out anywhere.  Her home is lovely.  She just has to move.  I read a biography of Laura Bush and laughed aloud when the extended Bush family had a hard time understanding how she could sit in one spot for hours reading. 

What about you?  Home or out?

A Throat Lumpish Day

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Geese on the lawn by the Columbia River

Early in the morning, we heard of the death of Tony Snow.  We really liked Tony Snow.  And he’s very, very close to our age.  Like us, he had three kids.  We will miss you, Tony.

The mail delivered a Jackson Browne CD.  We plopped it in the player and a blue funk sort of followed us around the house.  There is no one who sings sad songs better than Jackson Browne.  It fit our mournful mood.

A young friend of ours was married this afternoon.  It was an expurgated wedding ceremony: any mention of God, Lord, ceremony, or sacrifice was removed.  The Officiant was a twenty-something man who received a license to perform a marriage ceremony over the internet. The word “covenant” and “husband” and “wife” had one mention a piece, but it was mostly partner, love, listen, laugh, love, partner.  The couple was thoroughly consistent with their beliefs, but the overall effect was disheartening. 

The Anniversary Dance (where all married couples dance, and start sitting down if they’ve been married 1 year, 5 years, etc.) was the only time Curt and I danced, singing to each other, “Can I have this dance for the rest of my life?”  The last two couples standing were the bride’s two sets of grandparents.  We all applauded them with abandon. 

One Grandma was hunched over at the waist, her husband tenderly holding her.  They have been married 65 years. 

The other grandparents barely moved, just swayed and smiled.  That Grandpa, battling cancer-with that toxic look of a chemo patient- used all his reserves to dance one last dance with his wife of 52 years.  His sun is setting, and he appears to have months or even weeks left.  A very throat-lumpish day.

Tonight’s sunset

The Diminished Art of Letter Writing

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Technology always offers trade-offs.  It is wondrous, still awesomely amazing that we can hear daily from loved ones on the other side of the globe.  Long-distance grand-parenting is palatable with a telephone and an online connection.  Mamas of soldiers are relieved each time the inbox holds a letter from their child. 

But!

We miss the archives, those bundles of letters wrapped in a ribbon, letters which have been read and re-read,  kissed and kept.  I have a dozen books of collections of letters on my shelf.  More precious yet, thanks to my brother Jim (the doctor, artist, travel expert, gentleman farmer, and the dear one who taught me how to tie my shoelaces-Happy Birthday, btw) who made copies of every letter, I have the correspondence of my mom to my dad during the three years they were separated by work circumstances. 

Now that I have just signed up for the 100-Species-Challenge, after I have been re-juiced about Fine Art Friday, am gaining some regularity in walking, in addition to adding a 40 hour work schedule for the next two weeks, and remembering my vow to finish my ironing pile, a most wonderful blogging idea has struck me brain:

Re-read my mom’s letters and quote excerpts on the blog.

I will fall in love all over again with the most marvelous woman I ever knew.

A mother of seven, functioning as a single mom, scraping the bottom of the barrel with a laugh on her lips, while her husband teaches at a college two hours away.  Some stuff simply amazes me:  I believe they owned about five junker cars with never more than two working at one time.  The letters report which car my dad would need to repair on his next trip home.  She was articulate and full of grace, and the anecdotes about the kids’ shenanigans are always related with wry humor.

Will it translate to today?  Will her words build up?  Will it make me cry?  Will it inspire me–to trust God more, to work harder, to laugh louder?  Will it be a gift to my grandchildren?  Will it make me thankful?

A thousand times yes…

 

 

The Moment That Changed Our Marriage

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At twenty, I was a young bride.  Granted, early loss and later family friction forced me to grow up in certain ways.  I had been financially independent for three years.  Nevertheless, one of the tacit agreements in our relationship was that my first-born husband would take care of me and I, the youngest in my family, would be taken care of.  Curt was only nine months older than me, but I was younger in many, many ways.  Thus ends the setting of my story.

One Sunday morning [isn’t it always Sunday morning?], three months into our marriage, we had an argument.  Who knows the whys or the wherefores.  We disagreed on some decision, and I was adamant in wanting my own way.  As our little white Toyota pickup drove down Olehanson Road I burst into tears.  Not tears of grief, but tears of thwarted desire.   By the time we turned onto Old Highway 101, Curt had relented, capitulated, backed-off, reversed.

I had hardly finished wiping my face and blowing my nose when I took a few slow, deep breaths. An incipient smile began shaping itself on my face.  Something between a giggle and a chuckle came out of my mouth. What made me say the next words?  Where was the governor of my mouth that moment? 

“I can make you do anything I want.”

The words hung, suspended in the cab of the truck, for an eternity.  We were both shocked. 

It was a silent, sober and subdued young couple that arrived at church that morning.

I didn’t see myself as a manipulative wench.  I thought I was a loving wife.  But the words said something entirely different.  Curt didn’t recognize the pattern that had been developing until it smacked him in his eardrums.  

It was God’s mercy, Kyrie Eleison, that turned the filter off, and let those words tumble out the instant they came into my head.  From that moment, we both knew that things would be different.  I apologized, crying tears of grief this time–grief at my selfish pigheadedness. 

In the thirty years of our marriage, we have probably had half a dozen decisions where we strongly disagreed.  We have hashed out our arguments, talked through the issues, supported our positions.  But we have always agreed that the last word was Curt’s, that he, as my husband, was the head.  Several key decisions in our marriage that were initially very painful for me have turned out to be “hallelujahs” in my life, occasions to be thankful for the wisdom of a godly husband.  He didn’t turn out to be a tyrant.  But, thank God, he is not a pansy.

Happy Anniversary, Babe.  You are The Best!
     


Infant Voices

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The day we arrived home from our trip to Scotland and England we got a phone call.  Carson and Taryn are expecting their first baby!

The next day, before we sat down to eat dinner with Chris and Jessie, they told us that they were expecting another child.  Big brother Gavin, my favorite three year old, is overjoyed.

Two new hearts are beating!  One is due December 25th and one is due December 26th! 

Blessings are abounding.  Prayers are being answered.  Really answered.  In real time. 

This great news energizes me to continue praying, to keep asking.  You know who you are…I’m praying for you, too!

 (from Jesus Shall Reign, a favorite hymn).

People and realms of every tongue
dwell on his love with sweetest song;
and infant voices shall proclaim
their early blessings on his name.

I’m only going over home

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In the sweetness of life, there is still a yearning… 

a longing…

I’m a poor wayfaring stranger
While traveling thru this world of woe
Yet there’s no sickness, toil, or danger
In that bright world to which I go
I’m going there to see my Father
I’m going there no more to roam
I’m only going over Jordan
I’m only going over home

…I’m going there to see my Father

…I’m going there to see my Mother

…I’m going there to see my Savior

Eva Cassidy’s memorable rendition (the whole thing!)

Full, Full, Full

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…full of thanksgiving for answers to prayer: baby girl born, Myanmar orphanage saved, prisoner safe, new family with four adorable girls moved here
…full of magnificent teaching on the furniture of the tabernacle
…full of resounding singing, robust words, glorious music
…full of a sermon on the apostles and Judas–the leaks in his life
…full of communion, a nourishing meal
…full of Apostles’ Creed, Thanks Be to God, Doxology
…full of a scrumptious feast shared by the entire congregation
…full of multi-layered, multi-textured conversations throughout the day
…full of the ride home with 100 Cupboards

Now let my soul arise
And tread the tempter down;
My Captain leads me forth
To conquest and a crown:
A feeble saint shall win the day,
Tho death and hell obstruct the way.

Je suis content.

May 7, 1968

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…from the archives…

The lunch bell rang at 11:30. My fifth-grade teacher dismissed the class. I put my sweater on, picked up my cello and navigated my way through the crowded hallway. As I crossed from the dark interior to the bright sunshine my mind swept through the corners of the morning looking for a scrap of a story to tell my mom. Since Danny had moved up to Jr. High, I had Mom all to myself during my lunch break.

I bumped awkwardly down the sidewalk, stopping every ten paces to change the clumsy cello to the other arm.  A tune passed through my head and came out with a hum. Turning left at Elizabeth Street, I looked up and saw—my dad!—– a block ahead at the edge of the school property.  He stood still as a sentinel, shoulders slumped.

“Dad!”

I hitched the cello closer to my body and broke into an exuberant trot. Never before had I seen my dad! in the middle of the school day. One by one he had collected my six older siblings out of their classes, had broken the news to them and had brought them home. For this final breaking, he waited for me to come to him. Out of breath, I set the cello down and gave him a hug.

“How’s Mom?  Did you bring her home from the hospital?”

His face was tired granite.

“Honey, I have some bad news.”

It wasn’t his solemnity that struck me; it was the absence of any movement. I looked up with questioning eyes.

“Carol, Mommy is in heaven with Jesus.”

I stared at him, staggered — completely stunned. It was only supposed to be a “Very Minor Surgery.”

“She died very early this morning.”

He picked up the cello and we trudged the two-block trek home. We had passed two houses on the left when, looking up at him, I protested.

“Wait, Daddy. You said it was bad news. But if she’s in heaven with Jesus, that’s good news, isn’t it?”

For the first time the muscles in his face moved. He smiled down at me wordlessly. While I couldn’t comprehend that my Mom was dead, I could see the grief that had already moved into his eyes; I could sense him pulling into himself. Flitting back to my own concerns, I saw my First Problem.

“But I wanted to tell  Mom that I got an A on my spelling test.”

I didn’t ask for details. Clearly, what he said was true. I just didn’t quite know what it had to do with me.

My next impulse was to lighten his load.

“Daddy, let me carry the cello. Please, Daddy. Please…let me carry the cello for you.”

He shook his head as we continued to walk.  In silence we turned right onto Greenfield Avenue.  Our heads bowed in surrender to the heavy weight as we forced our feet forward.  Even with a dozen people inside, the house was as quiet and still as my father had been.

As we approached the porch, I bounded up the steps, remembering my good news.

“Mom!  I got an A………………”

My voice broke off as the news dangled in midair.

~     ~     ~

That night after dinner my father took up Daily Bread, a devotional book, to read that day’s entry:

Trust in Him at all times, O people;
Pour out your heart before Him.

~ Psalm 62:8

Commencement

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Hurrah!  Carson graduated with a degree in
Management Information Systems in
the School of Business.

We had a weekend together celebrating Carson’s completion.
Taryn put on a scrumptious feast for 15 – her first fancy family dinner.


The happiest of all are these two!
Carson starts working for Boeing in a few weeks.