It's a Bun!

How's this for a clever way to announce your pregnancy?

Yeah for Amy and Aaron! We are so excited for you. Catch up on your sleep now...

Mission Accomplished!

Woo hoo!

Can you spell "Overwhelmed"?

So this is what happens when the laundry is ignored for two weeks...

We spent last week in Chicago with my parents, and this week my sister and her family were here visiting. I haven't set foot in the laundry room since Saturday, March 15. And the main reason I'm in there now is that I ran out of undies this morning...

Holy cow, I have a lot of clothes to wash. And this daunting chore has led me to praise God for his abundant provision of clothing. Not quite as splendid as the lilies of the field, but we get by.

I might as well be doing laundry; it snowed three inches last night and I sure as heck don't want to be outside.

Twins

My twin sister just left. We had lunch at a sub shop, exchanged hugs, and she was off. I have been crying since I watched her drive south while I drove north back to our house.

She and her husband and two children were here for the past four days. They came up Easter afternoon and we had three days and three nights together. All five kids got along well and even managed to sleep for several hours each night. The adults didn’t get on quite as well. Actually, it was just the girls.

Seems Heather and I cannot have an uneventful visit. A childcare issue divides us, or a theological debate arises, or we argue over the use and definition of a word, which is what happened yesterday.

It was stupid. I was stupid. But I also thought I was right, so I wouldn’t let it go. I’m pretty sure a verse about pride and falling goes here… (It’s Proverbs 16:18 in case you want to look it up.)

The one person I want to have the best relationship possible with is the one I seem to hurt early and often. It is never intentional; before I know what’s happening a careless word or awkward glance or slight rise in my voice changes the mood and I realize I’ve done it again. I have somehow implied that her opinion isn’t valid, or worse yet, just plain wrong.

Often we do disagree. I am more of a black-and-white kind of girl. I’m very conservative; heck, I’m downright libertarian. I’m reformed and not embarrassed to say so. I like using paper towels and don’t think the world needs to get rid of SUVs and drive SmartCars. Heather lives in a greyer world. She’s comfortable with environmentalists and liberal thinkers. She doesn’t mind when people don’t agree. She offers more freedom to those around her to come to different conclusions. I think we could both use a healthy dose of the other’s worlds, but my black-and-white life simply doesn’t understand her more free style of thinking. (It's amazing we both came from the same womb at the same time and grew up in the same home and experienced the same events and turned out so different.)

I cannot stand the fact that we don’t agree. I want our thoughts to line up, to laugh at the same inside jokes and be on the same page politically. But I can’t change what I think because I think I’m right. Which is what got me into the mess last night. That’s what always gets me in to messes with her.

Why can I keep my mouth shut with others but not my sister?

Writing this has made me realize I don’t come out smelling like a rose. As a matter of fact, I look downright uncaring. Which is not who I really am, I hope! I love her and care for her and want the best for her. And I suppose what I need to figure out is if I want that more than I want to convince her that my way is best.

If I have a big tent policy for my friends, why not my sister? That is something I’ll have to consider for a good long while. And while I'm trying to figure that out I'll pray for traveling mercies as Heather and her family drive home and put hundreds of miles between us.

A good time was had by all

My reunion with Randy went so well! I loved meeting his wife, Sandy (I know, can you believe it? The crazy thing is Randy’s twin sister’s name is, you guessed it, Sandy.) and his adorable children. And a bonus was another teammate, Scott, was able to come as well. He has a great wife and family, too, and I was grateful to meet them. Between the three of us we have 11 children… we have certainly taken Genesis 9:7 to heart.

What a reunion – each of us has changed quite a bit. As I told Randy and Scott, my heart feels 16 but pictures don’t lie; I’m definitely headed toward 40.

Maybe my high school reunion won’t be so bad after all.

Time marches on!

Get Over It!

I am so over myself. So. Over.

After writing my last post I haven’t been able to stop thinking that the person who wrote that is not the person I want to be. How often to I preach to my kids, “What’s inside matters most!”? I really believe that for them. Yesterday made me realize I don’t believe it for me. So today I am resolved to mean it for me, too.

Am I where I want to be? Nope. Am I doing something about it? Yep. Is it happening at light speed like I wish? Double nope. Will it happen eventually? If I keep doing what I’m doing, I certainly hope so.

And if not?

I’m not sure how to answer that. But it doesn’t matter today, because today I’m doing what I can. Tomorrow? Who knows. I’m not opposed to making plans but “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” as Burns put it.

Perhaps a better quote is this: Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

It's only been 192,720 hours...

It’s been 22 years since I saw my friend Randy. Twenty-two years is a long time. The older I get the shorter time seems, but no matter; 22 years is a darn long time.

This Sunday we’re going to see each other again. I am very excited to have him meet my family, and I can’t wait to meet his wife and kids. It will be great to catch up on what we’ve been doing for the past 20 years (between us we have seven kids so I know at least one thing we’ve been doing) and I know it will be fun to reminisce about the summer we spent together with 25 other teenagers building an auditorium in Sintra, Portugal.

The summer of 1986 found me and Randy on the same Teen Missions team. We spent two weeks training in Florida, and then flew to Portugal where we did construction work for four weeks. After that we bussed from Portugal, though Spain, France, Germany and Poland as we made our way to Moscow. (It was only a few months after Chernobyl; my grandmother was appalled that my parents let me go.) We smuggled in Bibles and other Christian literature and were able to distribute them to leaders of secret home churches in Moscow, Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), and Estonia. It was well before the fall of the Berlin Wall and we thought we were so cool and brave and daring. It was an excellent opportunity for a bunch of teenagers to watch things happen that could only have occurred as a result of God’s direct involvement. What else explains how so many of us got through the very intense border guards’ questioning while wearing shirts declaring we were going to, “Get Dirty for God”?

So I’m going to see Randy after 22 years. March, 2008 finds me looking nothing like I did in August, 1986. In the past 22 years I have had three children and gained and lost and gained a gazillion pounds and I do not look like what Randy remembers. If Randy is anything like Sean then he will look nearly the same with a few gray hairs. I am distressed at the thought that he won’t recognize me. I have been fighting the urge to schedule emergency plastic surgery to remove half myself so I will half-way resemble my teenaged self. If we had ten grand lying around I just might have done it…

I’ve also tried to embrace the concept of, “But all those lines and wrinkles and stretch marks are a tribute to a well-lived and God-blessed life.” True. But that truth gets drowned out by the voice in my head I hear when I look in a mirror.

Since I fancy myself a bit of an optimist I’ll look on the positive side: at least I’m not so vain that I cancelled the trip.

These feelings are just scratching the surface of the fear and dread I sense at my upcoming 20th high school reunion…

Me and Randy in 1986 at Boot Camp in Merritt Island, Florida

New Design

As you can see (I hope!) my blog has a new design, thanks to Nikki from Blogs for a Cause. She helped me pick a background and a new picture and she put the whole thing together. I was hoping I could figure out how to update it myself but Nikki said the knowledge of Photoshop and Photobucket is needed, so you’re going to be looking at this design for a while…

I found out about Nikki’s design service by looking at a blog from a childhood friend who is chronicling her attempt to adopt a baby from Guatemala. I have a friend here who returned a week ago from Guatemala with the second son she’s adopted from the Central American country. Guatemala is not an adoption-friendly country; both these friends have had great difficulty in getting their adoptions processed. The court system is painstakingly slow and is only prodded along by a few greenbacks. Everyone seems to have lost sight of the babies who are languishing away… Any time I hear people complain about our country I want to scream, “Then go to Guatemala!”

Anyway… pray for my friend Kim and her Guatemalan boys who are now here, and please pray for Megan, who is still desperately trying to bring her baby girl home. And as I pray, it will serve me well to remember this verse: "If it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single day." Habakkuk 2:3

But I Need that Hour!

Tonight begins Daylight Savings Time... don't forget to set your clocks ahead one hour. I know, I know, one hour less of sleep. Yuck.

What's Wrong with This Picture?!

We stayed at the All-Star Music Resort at Disney. It’s one of the moderately-priced (read: swamped by families trying desperately to save a buck) on-property resorts, and I must say, I was impressed. It was clean and all five of the beds were very comfy. Yes, you read that correctly: five beds. Seems if you have the gall to have three children and two parents you reach the magic number of five and Disney makes you book either two rooms or a family suite. Goodness knows no guest of Mickey Mouse can sleep on an air mattress crammed between two double beds…

Anyway, the family suite option turned out to be less expensive than booking two rooms, so that’s what we got. And I was pleased. It had two full bathrooms which was very helpful as we got ready in the morning and at night. Sean and I had a bedroom that was adjacent to the family room that had a sofa, chair and ottoman and each pulled so each child had his/her own bed. I must admit I was glad no one had to sleep with Rebecca. That girl can kick the snot out of you in the middle of the night.

The resort is decorated with music in mind. The pool is shaped like a guitar and there were huge murals of famous singers all over the walls of the restaurant. There were also pictures of famous singers lining the wall from the front desk to the pool. At the moment I cannot remember any of the people pictured because I am still so bothered by one of the pictures. Okay, not the picture as much as the caption. See if you can figure out why my knickers were in a bunch:


Yep, that’s a picture of Amy Grant and Vince Gill and who did the resort identify? Only Vince Gill. Hello! He’s in the background! Didn’t anyone think about who the lady in front of him might be? For crying out loud, she’s won scads of awards, had a few #1’s on the pop charts, and that doesn’t even begin to describe the groundbreaking work she did for Christian music.

We had to walk by that picture several times a day and it drove me crazy each and every time. The kids were not helpful in the least. “Hey, Mom, there’s Vince Gill and ol’ what’s her name!” Ha ha ha. Very funny.

Hotel management has been contacted.

Vacation!

(Who’s singing the Go-Go’s song?!)

It’s been a long, long time since we had a family vacation. We’ve visited other family members, and, although we love those visits, they do not exactly constitute a vacation. After my sister married, she and David moved to North Carolina and they never lived in our home city again. When they would visit she would often say, “This is not a vacation. It’s hard work to visit family.” I thought she was crazy. How hard could it be? You stay at Mom’s, she cooks for you, you go visit the in-laws, go back to Mom’s… then we’d pop over for a quick chat, then head back home to our own beds. I could not figure out what was so hard about those visits. After three years of “visiting” home, I now know. It’s hard to figure out just the right balance between parents and in-laws and friends and kids’ friends. I love going home; I just didn’t realize it would be so hard.

That’s why I was so excited about our vacation. We’ve been saving for it for about a year and by the time last week rolled around we were ready for a break from school and shoveling the white stuff. So on Tuesday of last week we took off for the happy land of Walt Disney World where we planned to visit three parks and stay on the property for the first time ever. We had packed short-sleeve shirts in the hopes of feeling the sun on our skin for the first time in months; unfortunately the weather had different plans and we wore our coats at Epcot and the Magic Kingdom. But by Friday we were able to shed our protective outer layer and feel warmth on our arms; that was a good, good feeling.

We started out with a Princess Breakfast at Epcot. I think I was more excited than anyone because we saw several of the princesses that are harder to find: Aurora from Sleeping Beauty (who needed a better wig, IMHO) and Mulan. The breakfast was hosted by Belle from Beauty and the Beast and she paid some special attention to Michael which he liked and hated at the same time.

After the Princess Breakfast, Sean’s Aunt Carol and Uncle Bill joined us for the day. They have a condo about two hours away and drove over just to see us. They were super sports, wandering along with us as we attempted to fit in all the rides and countries we wanted to see. Bill carried my backpack all day and that was a huge blessing – I didn’t think it would be as heavy as it was since all I had in it was my wallet and video camera but as the day wore on and one thing after another was added to it, it felt like lead was in the straps.

Long story short, we visited Epcot, the Magic Kingdom and Disney's Hollywood Studios. It was fun. It was exhausting. It was a great family trip. And that is why I haven’t posted in over a week. To my six readers, I apologize and will be posting more in the coming days. Thanks for missing me!

And now, assorted pictures from the week:

The towels on our beds were arranged like Mouse ears, which Amy liked.

We saw Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore at the Magic Kingdom.

Jasmine from Aladdin held up her hand and asked us what part of Michigan we were from - she said she learned that trick from Genie who has friends in Grand Rapids. Rebecca was quite impressed.

Our family plus Bill and Carol outside the GM Test Track ride at Epcot. Rebecca loved the ride and we rode it four times.

Sean's favorite movie star was at Disney's Hollywood Studio - Herbie the Love Bug!

Woody and Buzz were very important to Michael about seven years ago. It was still a thrill to see them.