I met my husband 28 years ago this week!

We shared a coke and a calzone and an hour at the courts in honor of our life journey together. We didn't talk about it this year, we just knew that we are a celebration in progress. 402 months of marriage and 28 years of friendship are nothing to sneeze at.

Familiarity does, sometimes breed contempt. Still, we change in physical ways and emotional ways so often, that it is hard to believe that we are the same people who met eachother on the subway 28 years ago. So our problem is more often confusion than being overfamiliar.
Still Crazy, after all these years.


Thank God for interesting things in life, like child-bearing and menopause, because they do make life interesting, probably not as much for me as for the man that God has called to

live with me according to Knowledge.

It must be very confusing to him sometimes. He doesn't let on that it is.

MY EXPECTATION OF ME
To be your sheath means to hold important what you hold dear.
To protect and shield the values that you do.
To give and hold and hide and love and cover faults and grow with you not away from you.
To envelop the needs that you expose with kindness.

Late day...

The twins ran Ethan to the other busstop today. We are regressing to the old days of lateness and missing the bus. Ethan had that problem all year last year. Not this year. He was the first boy on the bus on the first day of school and here we are 4 days later and there were tears and running and a late alarm. Will we ever get in the zone?

Seventh Graders, ROCK!

My baby girl is becoming a woman. 7th grade is challenging and exciting, so says the expert (Evelyn is an expert:)). Eva is my baby and attitudes are prevalent. Attitudes are a curiosity and as we studied for the Science test yesterday we swept some of the numerous cobwebs off the brain that were there from summer sloth.
Wake up! Lets get into the academics. Its okay to think now!

first kiss!

From infancy to the first day of school is a journey of highs and lows. Ezra was a premie and we both almost died at the birth and here he is; a monument of grace and the help of God. "When we were without strength..." No strength to deliver ourselves into grace, no strength to improve ourselves from sin..."Christ died for us!" Only by the grace of God, can we come to a day like this day.
I kissed him the first time in my hospital room, almost an entire day after delivery, because of the complications of the birthing process on him and on me. I kissed him today bye. He doesn't even know it is an emotional moment for us. The birth of a scholar, or a class clown(and I really don't care which) He is a miracle.

There is always a catch...

You can focus on the wickedness or you can focus on the good. Choose to focus on the good in your sister and your brother and you just might find it. We are always getting in each others' way. Even in a big house with alot of room. We are always getting in each others' way. The only alternative is not to belong to and with each other. Love is learning what to do about when you get in your brother or your sisters way. We tend to focus on ourselves being offended and not on the offence which we, inevitably are. Forgiveness and repentance are daily portions in the large family. Cleaning up after one another is a regular portion of life in the big family. That is why it is difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God and impossible, because he thinks he cleans up his own messes. If you are not sick, you don't need a physician. We are always making one another sick. Either you die of the sickness or you seek God for healing.
How can you love God who you don't see and hate your brother who you do see?
I can't imagine because, even the people who I love with my heart make me sick sometimes. God Help!

If life is a highway...

meditations on jogging the long haul through life with a good conscience. We are trying to protect our minds and eyes from hard thoughts about the men in our lives. Brothers and Fathers have enough on their minds than having to protect themselves from us thinking that they are all about taking advantage of us.
We want to ride the highway of loving positive expectations of the brothers whom God has given to us.
Protecting their reputations, in our eyes, by expecting the best from them; means not provoking brother to anger, by popping him one behind the back. He looks out for me and I have to look out for him too. That is real love!
Let's make lemonade!

Evalinda's Eyes

Yesterday, we watched something absolutely inappropriate. Guarding our eyes from evil, is what we should have done. I didn't know that the movie that we were watching was going to go in that direction.
Sometimes men can handle such thoughts about wickedness, but a gentle girl must do all in her power to resist those hardening influences that can cast our hearts and souls in a "hellish direction".

But this is today. What do we do after the damage has been done? How do we purify our souls and minds and how do we use our experience for good? This is today's quest!

I am grateful for a beautiful testimony service, where a woman of God who had the night before gone through something that she described as similar to what was in the movie that we saw last night; (in real life!!!)spoke of the power of God to resist the enemy of her soul and her body. She rose on that Lord's day and showed us that God is stronger than the strong man and our protector, even when we have not the strength to defend ourselves.
Thank God for a good and gracious Daddy and let us find, how God would have us use this experience of misused mental and emotional effort, for his glory today.
Let us, beware of having hard thoughts of God and men and putting wicked motives upon everyone's actions. This is hard to do.
God, please, forgive us and cleanse us and use this experience of calloused indifference in watching that movie to shake us from our "mortal ease!"

Up and Adam!

It is early morning and they are still asleep on the last Monday in the summer. How will we ever get ready for the week to come. Somehow, everything always comes together for us. Somehow, they start the school year with a bang, in spite of the slothful summer we endured. Limits in resources, don't limit what we can do but it does put a damper on things. Thank God we like eachother, or cabin fever would be intolerable.

Saturday, I got the e-mail

"Aunt Jackie is coming at 5" Yea! My sister came to visit me. So without pomp or circumstance, both of which we wanted to include in her visit; she came sneaking into the house while I was at work. Gifts in tow, Auntly observances about growth and interactions between the siblings. We were very happy to see Auntie and Uncle. We were awed that we had missed them so much.
I dreamed, in my mind about taking my sister up to my room and talking about 3 years of stuff and talk that we'd missed. We did that and walked around the house and reminisced and interrupted eachother, several times we said 5 or 6 sentences all at the same time. What do you want for missing eachother?
Jack is not kissy, kissy and never has been, I don't even remember if I hugged her hello, I know I hugged her goodbye. We talked and caught up with the stuff that makes us us. Not much else to say about it.
For once, the husbands weren't eavesdropping or interrupting. Don't ask me why, I guess they are comfortable with the fact that we love eachother. And after over 20 years, they don't think we're planning our escapes from them or something, who knows. Anyway, they occupied themselves with eachother and left us to our sisterly and maternal and wifely comraderies.
The children had their time. I had my time.
When she left, I felt like I was going into labor again. Not good! I got over it soon enough. Crying and sadness must mean you love somebody. I hope its not this long before I see her again.

Signs and balloons put aside

for a day off. She didn't make it to us yet! We enjoyed a wonderful cake and celebration, even without the GRADUATE.

ANTICIPATION!

Is making me wait... Its keeping me waiting...
My sister and her husband and her eldest son are coming from NY to visit me in our new house and we are all excited about it. It seems like forever since I have seen her. 2 whole years of NC living. I love NC, but it is very lonely here without my sisters to brother and gab with.
She's coming over, but we won't get to gab or anything.
DOGONE RIGHT!

Dance contest?

rejoicing and exercise are often brought together in our house. We each have a dancing partner in house so it is easy to dance together these days. Right now the challenge is the size difference in the partners. We had a delightful time on Friday night after devotions. Jumping and catapaulting ourselves into full fledged silliness. We had fun though. I didn't know feet could move that fast and looking at them boogy helped me to understand why they think faster than I do. If I move my feet faster maybe I can try to stay one step ahead of them.
The goal of the day.

Lactical Errors?

I took my storehouse of Oats out to make sure that they weren't spoiling in the cabinet. I have a huge store of oatmeal and the children aren't eating much hot cereal in the summertime. This time it reminded me of the provision of God and how much we take it for granted. Like the milk that I gave my children when we first met. The greedy lot of them guzzled and guzzled and very often I was feeding them when I should have been burping them or changing them. They shut up for a minute, when they are being nursed. Now that I don't have a plug to shut them up in tow, it is alot harder to interact with them. And I find myself making the same lactical error as I did the very first minute I became a mother. Too much nursing for too long, too soon. Food is not always the only worry, although it seems to be.

Midnight Blues?

It is so precious to injest the final and hopeful sighs of the next generation as they launch into new spheres of effectiveness. It is not without its own groanings and growing pains.
Our car becomes a thinktank, our bedroom becomes a crying bench or laughing room or praying site. Everything is a drama between 18 and full flight feathers.
"Why is "he" looking at me?" "Why isn't "he" looking at me?" Que Sera...Que Sera days, I call them.
Not at all like the questions of yesteryear, "Why is the sky blue?". Things have become very myopic and still very beautiful as I fight to stay involved in their lives.
They are growing away. I am growing old. No longer attached at the hip and still every once in a while my hip feels empty. Then every once in a while back they come to my hip and I say, "What is this extra weight stuck to my hip?" Its me mother, "Will I be...?" Que Sera...
That is very often just enough.

Nothing Could Be Finer...

Than to be in Carolina... in the morning.
Saturday's beautiful weather found us out at our favorite family picnic spot. This time we got there well before noon, all eight of us, minus Emma (the dog). We couldn't fit her and the bikes at the same time.
We grilled eggs and bagels and sausage on the beautiful, waterfront decks and watched the sun and the wildlife from the deck and rode bikes and walked. The only downer was that no one wanted to take me on in tennis. I went with Emily and that was after much cajoling. Woe is me. 1/2 an hour and she was whipped, not before coming up with a new backward backhand grip that took the ball up into the air so far that it was like she was playing on the court upside down. It was fun to laugh at the foibles and funny things on Saturday.
Ethan took her place when she gave up and he is starting to get the hang of things on the court and really making contact. We will see...
We grilled hot dogs for lunch and ate to our hearts content. It was very hot out there, but I wouldn't let them see me sweat...much.