Smellin' Coffee

What a day...

2011-12-12T00:02:00.000-05:00

Today was a big, big day. We watched some new and dear friends get baptized. We were commissioned as covenant members at our new church, we had lunch and then dinner (broken up by an afternoon of car repairs) with our small group. We celebrated salvation and resurrection and community. It was awesome!

Moving to a new church was a huge deal for us. It came after approximately five years of prayer that started with "There's got to be something more," wandered through "Wait," and ended up with "Now's the time to go." We absolutely love the people at our old church, and we are thankful that the body of Christ is one. Otherwise, we never could have gone.

So why did we leave? Vision. Our new church has a decidedly "missional" view of ministry. The gospel is central. Jesus is THE most important thing of all. The Great Commission defines our role in the world in theory and practice. It's pretty simple.

We are part of a small group that meets on Sundays around 11:30. We have lunch together, kids play all over the place, the adults and sometime some of the teens sit around the table after lunch, eating dessert and sharing thoughts on the sermon. Then we pray for each other. It's discipleship in the most real, relational form I've ever experienced. It's full of love. It's family.

Then during the rest of the week we walk in the world where the Lord has planted us, we go to Bible study together, we text, we talk on the phone, we have coffee, we go to dinner, and we serve in community missions together. We pray for lost friends and family, and when they visit our group, we love on them huge. Our two newest small group members visited the second week we were in the group. Within a month, both prayed to receive Christ. They were the ones baptized today. Amazing.

So at the end of this day, I sit here, simply grateful. God is so good.

On a lighter note...

2011-12-01T23:20:00.001-05:00

You know you're from the South when one of the first things your brother has to do to get your dad's farmhouse ready for post-funeral visitors is to get rid of the machine gun parts (non-working, don't worry) and moonshine (unfortunately we fear that may have been working just fine) sitting on the kitchen counter.

I love my family. And I love my l'il bro for handling the details.

I Peter

2011-11-30T21:05:00.001-05:00

I suppose this has been quite the season for suffering in our house. It started last spring with some issues with one of our kids. Then it went into summer with some wrestling about our church. Then work was...different. And my mom fell. And my daddy passed away. It's been a long haul.

Everyone goes through seasons of suffering. As much as I wanted to avoid the pain, I have learned in all this to ask the Lord, if there must be suffering, that I will suffer well.

Last summer, the Sunday school class we worked with studied I Peter, so I began to read I Peter in my quiet time. This fall, the women's Bible study I go to is studying I Peter. And in October, our pastor began preaching a sermon series on I Peter: "I Am An Alien." I'm beginning to think the Lord has something for me to learn in I Peter. And I think that I've found at least one of the bigger lessons.

The passage speaking the loudest to me right now is this one:

Since Jesus went through everything you're going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you'll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.
I Peter 4:1-2 (The Message)

I am learning that what I go through is lovingly designed to make me more in the image of my Savior. Do I want to stay in the fire of suffering? Absolutely not. But am I resting in Him through the trial. Absolutely.

So, in case you have 45:00-ish minutes to spare and want to check out what we've been learning at church, below is the last sermon our lead pastor preached in the series. Skip on over to the 9:20 mark for the sermon. The first few minutes are "family business" announcements and prayer. If you do get to see it, I hope it blesses you big.

The Mysterious Witness of Submission and Suffering from The Summit Church Sermons on Vimeo.

I'll talk to you later, Daddy. I love you...

2011-11-13T11:40:00.022-05:00

On Wednesday morning, November 9th, I was walking through the halls, stalking my principal so that I could talk to her about an article one of our students had written for journalism. I had gone all over the school and was walking down the hall in front of the Fine Arts Center when my friend Karen came jogging towards me, waving her hand in the air. I could see a post-it note stuck to her finger.

"You have to call your uncle right now. It's urgent," she said. I looked at the paper and saw my Uncle Wayne's name. His cell number. And the word URGENT.

I didn't know what had happened, but if Uncle Wayne was calling me at school, I knew it wasn't good. He's one of those guys who is relaxed about everything.

I hurried to the elevator and pushed 2. I walked quickly to my room, unlocked the door, grabbed my cell phone, and walked to the outside landing at the end of my hall. Hands shaking, I dialed Uncle Wayne's number.

"Hello."
"Uncle Wayne! What's up? This is Norma."
"Hey. Uh. I'm here at the farm. Uh. Your dad had some problems this morning. Uh. And I'm sorry, Norma, but he didn't make it."

So many thoughts all at once. The top two were: 1) He was so stubborn. Why didn't he listen to the doctors? Why was he trying to treat his own heart failure? And 2) I never called him back.

I realized Karen was coming out the door behind me. My uncle said the paramedic needed to talk to me. I saw my principal come out the door behind Karen. A million thoughts clogged my brain. More than anything I wanted to be practical.

"Had anyone called Robbie?" I asked Uncle Wayne when he got back on the phone.
"No, I don't think so."
"I will call him."
"OK. Norma, the paramedics need to know where to take your dad."
"What do you mean?"
"They need to call someone at a funeral home. Where do you want to take him?"
"I don't know. I don't know what to do. I am so lost. Who did Grandma's funeral? Take him there."
"OK. I'll make some calls and find out. I'll call you back."

I looked at Karen and Mary and told them Daddy died. He was in congestive heart failure. He had been to the doctor several times, but he wasn't getting better. He didn't like the medicines they gave him. He'd decided to treat himself using information he learned on the internet. "He was SO stubborn!" I said.

It was an odd thing to say. But it was the only thing I could muster that summed up the health saga that began over five years ago and ended that morning.

And then I said, "He called Saturday, but I was late for a meeting, so I talked to him only 10 minutes or so. I told him I'd call him back, but he said, 'No need. I'm fine," and I meant to call him back, but between the stuff I was doing for my Mom and trying to catch up with our house and trying to get all my lesson plans done and papers graded and kids to events and other stuff done, I didn't call him back."

Karen and Mary both said I couldn't think about that. My dad knew I loved him. It was fine that I was taking care of the things I had to take care of. That's what Dad would have wanted me to do.

I could have wallowed in guilt, but at that moment, I decided not to. Both Karen and Mary have lost their dads since I've known them. I trusted their counsel.

In the days that followed, I remembered several conversations I'd had with my dad over the past month or so. My mom had fallen, and I was left having to make lots of decisions and handle lots of things that totally overwhelmed me. I called Dad, my go-to guy for when I had to make lots of tough practical decisions. He always helped me figure things out. He and I talked more in those weeks than we had in the past three or so months. I'm still peeling back the layers of all those conversations, but they are treasures now because we talked about many things that in hindsight are a huge comfort to me right now.

I still think about that last time I talked to him, though. He called to tell me that he had found information on the internet about CoQ10 being a treatment for heart failure. He said the doctors were treating the symptoms, but he'd found something to repair his heart. He heard a gunshot in the woods and said he knew Benie had just gotten him a deer and there'd be fresh venison coming. He asked about the kids and our week. I asked about how he was feeling. He insisted that he was just fine. Great, even. He was thrilled to have found the recommended dosage of CoQ10 to heal failing hearts. I told him I was late for a meeting, but I'd call him back. That's when he said there was no need. He just wanted to call to tell me his good news. He was positively giddy. Happier than I'd heard him in months.

He said, "I love you, and tell the everybody there I love them too."

And I said, "OK, Daddy. I'll talk to you later. I love you. Bye."

One thing...

2011-11-03T19:49:00.000-04:00

Open Hands...

2011-09-18T15:33:00.002-04:00

It is finished...

2011-09-18T15:30:00.002-04:00

Labor Day...

2011-09-03T19:06:00.000-04:00

Thank You, Lord, for Labor Day in the US. I have no idea how I would survive the fall without Labor Day. It's psychological, I know.

School is off to a blazing start. Micro is the word of the year. I can't comment beyond that.

KLC got several pieces of great news, back to back to back. She's locked in the tower researching colleges and writing essays this afternoon. Discovered that Dook offers a special education major. No. That is all. No.

Zn is at the lake with his best bud from the old school. End of summer ski-fest. I'm sure he'll be fried to a crisp when he gets home. He's had two games on JV at the new school. It's really a great program and really a great school. He was struggling to get some PT, until this week's game, when he got a pretty nice chunk a defensive tackle. ALMOST got a sack, but some rude little opponent cheated and grabbed him by the back of the jersey just as he shot through the gap.

Zk is busy melting down at the moment, mad that he's not able to throw a ball over his shoulder and catch it. Jimmy's trying to school him in the ways of the quarterback. My baby will be ten in just a short while. Wow. Wow. Wow. And now, he's doing some fingertip drill Jimmy taught him today. He did it 103 times in a row. I guess that's good. I am not privy to the ways of the quarterback tribe.

Jimmy cleaned the pool and put the final supports under the deck rebuild from this summer. He also stepped in and finished the wallpaper-stripping I was doing earlier this morning. A good man IS hard to find.

I feel like ... well, I'm not allowed to use that euphemism anymore due to new rules at work. I don't feel well. My head if full to the brim of goo. I have my annual September throat and head muck that comes from swimming in the viral cesspool of school. hack - sniff - achoo - squeak - cough

The condo made it through Hurricane Irene with flying colors. Didn't even lose power. There are a couple of water spots on the ceiling again, and the HOA is taking care of those. We are grateful, grateful, grateful.

I am starting CJ Mahaney's Humility. I figure if I'm going to survive this year of schwork, I'm going to be a slightly more willing participant in the battle against pride.

That's us in a nutshell. Gotta go now... Kelsey found an old helium balloon, and hilarity is occurring in the other room.

The eight o'clock rule...

2011-08-14T22:32:00.000-04:00

School starts tomorrow.

In an effort to set sail from a peaceful harbor on Monday mornings, we are instituting the 8:00 rule, which requires all five of our little family members to be in this house by 8:00pm on Sunday evenings. We are claiming it as our family connect time.

As our church is launching a new way of doing things (the word program makes me downright twitchy), we are being deliberate in many endeavors, and devotional time is one of them.

It's also the last year we will have all our babies under one roof on a regular basis. KLC is a senior. A SENIOR! I am so excited for her. I really am. What an adventure awaits.

I have a feeling, this is going to be the most treasured time of my week.

Blown away...

2011-08-07T00:51:00.000-04:00

Tonight we went to a Sunday school social function for our oldest son. We appreciated the invitation for families to come, as well as kids. We were celebrating the end of the year, the class in general, and our friends' move to an awesome farm that has a pool and a pond and poultry and livestock. It's a great place.

To be honest, I didn't really think much about the pool being central to the event. I assumed that it being a church event, girls would dress modestly. I took for granted that the rules would be the same as they are in summer camp... one-pieces in the water, cover-ups when walking around. Somehow, it wasn't like that at all.

What I saw was girls who my son has gone to church with since he was three, dressed in skimpy bikinis, wandering around the property. They jumped in and out of the pool. They surrounded guys in the water and chatted with guys lying next to the pool. They played with chickens, jumped off the rope swing into the pond, and even stood talking to the host dad, a pastor, all the while scantily clad in string bikinis.

I can't remember a time when I've seen that many girls in that little fabric, including our recent family vacation at the beach. At the beach, girls donned shorts or shirts for the most part when they weren't in the water or lying in the sun. Yet tonight, I was totally, completely blown away. Of the approximately 20 girls there, four had on one-pieces/tankinis that sufficiently covered their chests and behinds. Wow. Just wow.

We are at a critical point in teaching our oldest son to respect women and to stay morally pure. Yet this event thrust him in the middle of an absolute nightmare. I am so sad at the fallenness of it all.

I was scared to say anything to anyone, and then another mom broached the subject with me. Then a wife of a ministry intern approached us about us, and another pastor's wife chimed in too. We all had sons or husbands who were standing out in the middle of all that... stuff. As a volleyball game started, we decided someone needed to tell the girls to put on shirts or cover-ups if they were going to play. Amazingly, the hostess had to find several shirts and loan them to girls because they hadn't brought anything to put on over their bikinis. By the end of the evening, there seemed to be two groups of people: the parents who were mortified at the blatant disrespect the girls were showing for males in general, and the parents who were standing there talking to other parents while their daughters pranced around in skimpy swimwear.

My husband wanted to leave early, but because we were giving other students a ride home, we felt like we couldn't go. So we stood there talking and silently praying for the boys. Before the designated time was up, the boys' parents started calling them out of the water. We just couldn't watch anymore. I'm ashamed I didn't take my son home earlier, to be honest, but I was somewhat in a state of shock at the whole situation. I am still in a state of shock.

My oldest child is a girl. I have always felt a little guilty for making her choose modest over trendy, but tonight I looked at her and said, "You know that if this had been your class and you were swimming, you would have had on a one-piece or tankini, right?"

To which she replied, "Absolutely."

Her dad said, "Now do you see why we have been so strict about what you wear?"

And she said, "I've always done it. I've not always liked it, but I've always obeyed. And tonight I realized just how bad it does look to walk around with nothing on."

We are most assuredly not perfect and don't get the whole modesty thing right 100% of the time. One of my greatest regrets in life goes back to the bad choices I made in that area during high school and college. But we have to fight to be holy; we just have to.

We had a great family discussion... very open, very frank... all of us... 17-year-old girl, 15-year-old boy, 9-year-old boy, and mom and dad. And then we had a time of prayer. I'm grateful the Lord shone light in what could have easily been a dark place. I am overwhelmingly thankful for my husband's godly leadership, calling light, light and darkness, darkness and taking time to instruct our sons in the battle they will face all their lives.

I just had no idea they would have to fight it so fiercely in the church. My prayer is that the Lord will contend for the men in my life and be a help against their adversary. My prayer is also that my daughter and I will choose light and always lay down our right to wear whatever we want in order to protect our brothers in the Lord.

SBS 2011...

2011-07-21T23:59:00.001-04:00

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God.

My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!

This is how we know we're living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He's given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we've seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God's Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we've embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.
God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ's. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.

If anyone boasts, "I love God," and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won't love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can't see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You've got to love both.

I John 4:7-21 (The Message)

Last night...

2011-07-16T10:00:00.000-04:00

... I completed what I thought was a triple play of dining, but now I realize it was not.

It was a grand slam.

Beverage stations...

2011-07-15T10:00:00.005-04:00

The second thing that made SBS-hostessing a breeze was setting up regular beverage stations.

For the high school SBS, we narrowed beverage choices to two: water and lemonade. What freed up the yellow tub in the first place was the fact that instead of putting ice in individual cups, we filled two beverage dispensers halfway each with ice. Then we filled them the rest of the way with the beverage. In a creative moment, I took some adhesive-backed foam letters and stuck them to dispensers. I wasn't sure if the letters would come off when we washed them (we hand-wash them), but after six weeks, they're still stuck tight.

Ladies' SBS means COFFEE!!! I love me some good coffee-drinking women! We had the same water and lemonade pitchers, although a couple of times I did put out mango peach tea in the third dispenser. But the highlight of social time at a ladies' SBS is drinking coffee with friends.

Coffee featured labels. Caff was more popular, so it stayed in the pot, since most nights I ended up making more. Decaff went in a carafe

We went to disposable cups after washing 12 coffee cups the first night. :) Four kinds of sweetener. Five kinds of creamer that rotated.

There's nothing in this picture that isn't in the others. Coffee corners just make me happy.

Bible study in a tub...

2011-07-14T10:00:00.001-04:00

Twenty years ago that would have meant I was sitting in my bathtub with a board stretched from edge to edge, reading and writing. I have three kids now. I can't remember the last time I actually sat down in a tub.

This Bible study in a tub is about a really cool hostessing discovery I stumbled on this summer.

My sweet, amazing, supportive family agreed to re-arrange life as we know it (read: not trash the house on a routine basis) for a couple of months this summer so that we could host two Bible studies in our home. The high school summer Bible study meets on Monday evenings, and the ladies' SBS meets on Wednesday nights. I thought it would be a little chaotic, but in all honesty it is a ton of fun AND the house has stayed relatively clean all week (because the degree to which we trash it Thursday - Sunday directly correlates with the amount of work we do in the big Monday cleaning).

One thing that made set-up a breeze was the Bible study tub. Before the first meeting I was shopping at Walmart and picked up a bright yellow ice tub. I was going to use it for ice, but the plan changed. It was packed with paper products and coffee supplies, and I didn't have time to find a place for everything, so I just let them there. You have to admit that some of our better ideas are "accidental" discoveries.

At 6 p.m. before the guests arrived, I'd grab the tub and put out the supplies. The tub stayed on the corner of the counter so that if anyone needed additional cups/napkins/spoons/plates/Truvia, it was right there. When everyone left, I'd repack the tub, and it'd stay in storage until 6 p.m. on the next SBS night.

Here's a quick run-down of the Bible study in a tub:

The Tub - fully loaded with...

sweeteners (because so many people like so many different things),

forks, spoons, plates, cups, napkins,

name tags,

and beverage labels.

The other thing that made set-up a breeze was the beverage stations. More on those tomorrow...

A little warm outside...

2011-07-13T12:01:00.000-04:00

So long, TOMS...

2011-07-11T17:31:00.000-04:00

And now I can't buy my beloved TOMS anymore. I really, truly hate that. Really. Truly.

You know, big Blake could have just said, "Many in our company and many of our supporters have views that differ with those of Focus on the Family, but here at TOMS, we are not about politics; we about helping people. No matter what your view on the issues, we hope you will do what you can to help end poverty and disease in the world."

I don't expect Blake Mycoskie to drop shoes and share the gospel. But I didn't expect him to slam my beliefs either. Well, wait a minute, maybe I did. We are not of this world, after all. But I just sort of thought Mycoskie was a little beyond the politics of it all, you know.

Now I feel like I can not only not buy TOMS anymore, I feel like I can't even wear the TOMS I have.

It's made me rethink a lot about charitable donations. TOMS is NOT a charity. Not at all. I pay twice as much for the shoes than I should so that they will send a pair to someone in a Third World country. TOMS is still making a lovely little profit. Actually, as I think about it, I'm kind of embarrassed I bought such expensive shoes in the first place.

On the other hand, Samaritan's Purse takes hope to the hopeless. They meet needs, make repairs, comfort in crisis, bring healing, and most importantly, share the gospel. Of their budget, 6% goes to fundraising, 5% goes to general/administrative costs, and 89% goes to ministry. You can take a look at their financial report here.

I'm resolving to be more modest in my purchases. I don't have to buy from a Christian company, although that's always nice. I do need to be more careful what I support though, because each spending choice I make limits where my dollars can go, and there are a whole lot of people in the world who need food and clothes and medical care and families and love and most of all... Jesus.

So... so long, TOMS... you were amazingly comfortable, but now I realize it's not always about my comfort.

Loving well x 3...

2011-07-08T10:45:00.000-04:00

Before all our kids hit the teen years and got busy beyond belief, I did Summer Bible study with the most amazing group of women ever. Life-changing studies; life-changing relationships. I'm pretty confident that in heaven, we'll hang out the front porch of the mansion and talk about what the Father did in our lives during that season. It was huge.

As I've gone through the struggle of missing Bible study after returning to work, I've realized just how essential my women's Bible study relationships were to keeping me in God's Word, off the street, and out of trouble.

I was floundering as summer approached. We had a family crisis rearrange our lives in a major way. My heart was wounded, not only by the immediate crisis, but by some incidents that had happened several years ago. I had no idea how deeply those far-off events had cut into my heart or that instead of letting the Lord heal me, I'd taken my own spiritual duct tape and bound my own wounds... Out of sight? Wounds gone! Only not.

No, really they were festering untreated beneath the layers and layers and layers of figurative duct tape. The pain of this spring let me know that my heart had never healed.

In May, I decided... on what I thought was a whim... to ask in a couple of places online if anyone wanted to do SBS again. Several answered that they did. I did what all super-spiritual Bible study women do to find the study: I googled, and I found a four-session DVD study by Beth Moore called Loving Well. The picture I had in my mind was of people in my workplace I needed to love well. God's picture was a LOT bigger and more colorful than the one I'd imagined. I simply adore the way He shows His sovereignty. Life-changing on a daily basis.

We have one more session to go--one set of homework and a wrap-up dinner. It's been fun and it's been painful. Have YOU ever had duct tape wound tightly around your heart, only to have the Lord take it off? The is most definitely pain, but there is also healing.

I sat watching the last video, which I had no idea featured Beth telling the hairbrush story that I posted earlier this summer, and it all came together for me.

Loving well... doing a good job of loving others
Loving well... the spiritual source of love -- God Himself; all love pours from Him, the Loving Well
Loving well... loving others from a heart that God has healed

The English teacher in me is giddy about the way the Lord spoke three different definitions of well through Beth. I think He did that just for me... loving well x 3.

You would not believe your eyes, if 10 million fireflies...

2011-07-07T10:00:00.009-04:00

Lanterns are pretty. My porch is lit up with lanterns and candles in the summertime; it's one of the summer things that make me love the season.

Now my courtyard is lit up with lanterns too.

The recent Ikea pilgrimage netted five new silver lanterns. I put them in the courtyard peach tree. At night it looks like fireflies are dancing around.

The Ikea stool...

2011-07-06T10:00:00.002-04:00

Remember the bag-o-Ikea goodies? Well, to the left of that bag was a box--the only piece of Ikea furniture I brought home this trip.

That box was a step stool for my kitchen. I am short -- very, very short compared to the height of my cabinets. I can reach things on the first shelf and the front of the second shelf. Higher up or further in and I'm in trouble.

Online they showed the stool in two finishes --natural birch and brown-black stain. When we got to Ikea, there were no brown-black stained step stools. So sad. My friend Suzanne and I decide that the natural birch one looked pretty unfinished, so I bought it.

I took ebony stain I had left over from a failed attempt to convert a white-washed frame into an ebony-stained frame, and I stained...

... myself AND the stool.

I'm sure this will take my cooking to new heights. Bahahahahaha! *smh* I did not just say that...

Hypothetically speaking...

2011-07-05T10:00:00.006-04:00

... what could happen if you are watching a sermon online and decide to take the laptop upstairs to finish watching because everyone else is already in bed. Suppose you hypothetically put your ear buds on the keyboard and close the laptop. What do you think might could happen?

If you guessed that your laptop screen might look like this when you open up the computer, you're a winner!

No, it's not a modern art print. It's a cracked LCD screen. *sigh*

4th of July weekend...

2011-07-04T23:00:00.001-04:00

The pool is back on track...

Zack had a sleepover with his best bud...

Zane got home from Impact...

Kelsey got back from a sailing weekend with Hayes' family...

We had a delightful cookout with Hayes' family. They pretty much rock. Then we had a lovely cookout with my mom. She, of course, rocks. And then we watched the DC fireworks on PBS because ours were rained out. I don't have a picture of any of those three things, but I do have a shot of my new favorite home decor sign (from Carol's kitchen)...

Happy 4th of July! I hope you had a sweet time with friends and family too!

Copernican revolution...

2011-07-02T10:00:00.004-04:00

As much as I love Ikea and get alternately amused and frustrated by my family and pool and job and life in general, this is really what it's all about. It's the One Thing.

Untitled from Alvin Reid on Vimeo.

The land of the in-laws...

2011-07-01T10:00:00.000-04:00

Jimmy's grandmother was born in Sweden. Her maiden name was Andersen. Therefore, we feel a kindred spirit with Ikea, which could go a long way in explaining my over-the-top affection for the retailer.

Yesterday we made our first summer of 2011 visit to Ikea. I went with a printed list from the Ikea website. Dave Ramsey haunts me wherever I go, so I have to have a list to avoid budget-busting purchases. Dave would be proud because I spent 30% less than I had budgeted. It was because of the rug. The rug I loved on the website was boo-ugly in real life.

I'll get around to posting what I'm doing with everything, but here's a shot of most of what came home with us. Little stuff, but hopefully it will have a lovely impact on the home place.

While I was there, I found my dream kitchen. I'm processing how it will translate here...Do I take ideas from it and apply them to what I've got? Do I postpone all immediate plans to tweak the kitchen and budget to buy the Ikea version because we've got to do something with cabinet doors that are cracking and falling off their hinges? Do I apply some ideas now, while budgeting for future changes? Oh, the quandry.

In the meantime, here are pictures of dreamland...

And here is proof that I can out-plan, out-shop and out-last my kids at Ikea:

Pool Chemistry 101...

2011-06-29T10:20:00.000-04:00

At my high school there were two chemistry teachers --the one everyone loved, who taught for 6,000 years and was legend for making his students want to become doctors and pharmacists, and the crazy one who was working on her PhD but couldn't explain the chemical structure of carbon dioxide vs. carbon monoxide to students, yet she was allegedly brilliant in a research environment. Allegedly.

I had the crazy one.

So when pool chemistry goes awry, as it is wont to do the latter part of June every single year, I am clueless. And impatient.

In the middle of June, our pool looked like this:

And today it looks like this:

Wait... it's hard to see just how bad it is from a distance. Let's try that again. Here it is two-ish weeks ago:

And here it is today:

Hmmm... notice a change? Yes, it is a different color. Copper-colored, to be exact.

As I understand it, what had happened was this: the chlorine and pH levels dropped. A lot. We added a ton of chlorine (and repaired the automatic chlorinator, leaving it set on MAX-10).

Then we filled the pool with about 8" of water because between the lack of rain and the prevalence of diving championships, the water level had fallen significantly. The unbalanced chlorine and pH helped leach copper out of the pipes in the pool heater. Mind you, if the heater were a little newer, it would have been plumbed so that when it's off the water flows around the copper pipes and not through the copper pipes. But no, it's old, so water flows through the copper pipes of the pool heater whether it's on or not. Over the course of a week, the pool went from pristine blue to pond-muck green-brown. Lovely.

Only here's the thing... now the water chemistry is near-perfect. It's the pool liner that's stained. I feel like I need to call Bill Murray and invite him for a swim.

Other pool-or-pond, pond-would-be-good-for-you visitors we have include insects...

(OK, you have to be a little impressed at the sparkles under the cricket's feet. Downright Disney, don't ya think?)

...and amphibians...

We are waiting on someone who majored in science and understands chemistry (i.e. won't kill every living thing in the neighborhood) to get off work one evening while it is still light and finish the de-staining treatment.

In the meantime, I'm headed poolside to chat with the enchanted creatures who have taken residence in our backyard ~~pond~~ pool.

Belle...

2011-06-28T10:00:00.001-04:00

What I did on Saturday (and Sunday)...

2011-06-27T14:31:00.000-04:00

Bright and early Saturday noon, I decided to tackle the deck furniture and get it spiffed up for Summer 2011. Saturday was primer day. And Sunday was top coat day.

Thankfully, I was able to resurrect the dining set for yet another year, which is good because replacing the decking boards is on our pro-jik list for July (and probably August and maybe even September, if things go the way they usually go when I tackle DIY pro-jiks).

Last year I left the cushions out all the time. They faded, mildewed and even grew some lovely algae which very rudely wouldn't come off completely in the washing machine. I believe that's the outdoor fabric triumvirate of ick. I ended up scraping and scrubbing them by hand before they went into the attic. When I took them out of storage this year, they were faded AND stained. Ew.

So I did what every cost-conscious DIYer would do. I flipped them over. :)

I blame last year's cushion debacle on my own laziness. It seemed like too much trouble to untie each cushion and take it inside when we weren't using the table. This year, instead of tying the cushions to the chairs, I made bows out of the ties and laid them in the chairs.

And it looked so very lovely. Seventeen minutes later, the loud thunder clap signaled the beginning of "Operation Save the Cushions."

Less than a minute after that, all six cushions were safely tucked into the stairwell of the bonus room, conveniently located next to the back door that leads to the deck. I'm guessing it's fewer than ten steps from dinette to stairwell. I think it'll work, because let's face it, if it takes a lot of effort, it's probably not happening in the summer. Except for the decking thing. I hope.

Mighty little man...

2011-06-26T10:00:00.001-04:00

Still my favorite song by Steve Burns (including the planet song from Blue's Clues, and that's saying something).

Confession...

2011-06-22T09:04:00.001-04:00

All those things I always say I'm going to do during the school year but never actually have time to do... that's what I'm doing this summer.

And it is fun...

Old Navy rocks the 80's...

2011-06-21T08:46:00.000-04:00

It's official. The 80's are back. Old Navy has pleated jeans.

Old Navy pleated capris in dark blue - click here.

Old navy pleated capris, light blue version - click here.

Oh, 1980's, I always knew you'd come back. And now... enjoy this lovely photo of the 1986-ish me, making a college spring break stop at South of the Border on the way to Disney.

English major armadillo #2...

2011-06-19T21:32:00.000-04:00

Kitchen issues...

2011-06-17T22:47:00.000-04:00

Why, oh why, do I feel like I have to redo every inch of my house to "make it my own"? It must be some sort of psychological disorder.

We actually bought this house because I fell in love with the combo kitchen/eating area/family room. I suppose the addition of the columns to keep our master bedroom from falling into the family room disrupted my psychological flow as well as the space-to-space flow of the entire area.

So now of course -- because it makes no sense at all financially or time-wise -- I just have to redo the kitchen.

My favorite kitchen is the one here. But that isn't going to happen. Why? Counter tops. I have freaky Go Wake Forest/Go Georgia Tech gold-black granite counter tops. So I am now in decorating therapy for my kitchen redo issues.

I know I'm going to do something, but I don't know when. And I don't exactly know how. And, of course, I don't know what. But here are the leading inspiration ideas, all from Coastal Living...

English major armadillo...

2011-06-16T11:44:00.000-04:00

I love this kitchen...

2011-06-16T11:39:00.000-04:00

Other things the kiddies liked about HCW...

2011-06-11T10:00:00.009-04:00

Wide variety of behind-the-scenes writing, huh? We had a lot of fun.

Remember those course evaluations on the last day of class? The overall favorite thing about the class was the "fun" atmosphere. I thought: those kids are nuts. The class started at 7:00 IN THE MORNING. We were a crowd of decidedly night people sitting in a zero-hour class that met before anyone else even thought about getting in the car to drive to school. In the winter, it was DARK OUTSIDE when the tardy bell rang.

But it was. Fun.

After the "fun" atmosphere, they said their favorite special exercise was playing with beach balls. That was just on the last day. They were told to deflate them and not take them out again during school hours. They were supposed to take them home, write angsty quotes on them and slap them around their rooms in moments of stress. There are no pictures of said beach balls in this post, owing to the fact that one Mr. A.H. of APUSH fame is on a quest to find out who gave students beach balls the last day of school. Oops. [Just kidding: I confessed to being the beach ball supplier. He confessed to lowering expectations for student behavior on the last day.]

It's hard to say good-bye to the first group of anything you teach. There's something special about those intrepid students -- I will miss them each and every one.

But I am grateful NOT to drive down the highway racing the sunrise for a couple of months.

about a girl

2011-06-10T10:00:00.000-04:00

So I had this dream…

that there was a war in america.

and a battle was fought at my school.

and all the guy teachers fought it in.

and after it was over, i was going around making sure everyone was okay.

beaver was. and ridlehoover was.

which was a big relief.

and then i saw this old car car.

and there was someone in it.

and so i went to see if they needed help.

and i opened the door.

and it was mr. hahn.

shot through the head.

and missing his lower half.

so i freaked out and ran away.

but then later, while i was still freaking out.

he just showed up.

not dead…?

and in one piece.

and so i freaked out again, but in a happy way.

and then i went and did homework with kelsey.

and nathan…

and….hayes?

why was hayes there?

but he was.

and then kelsey’s mom showed up.

and was mad at me.

because i hadn't finished an assignment or something yet....which is not that far fetched.

i have REALLY weird dreams....
 Copyright - about a girl 

Love, love, love...

2011-06-09T10:00:00.004-04:00

I was perfect once...

2011-06-08T10:00:00.001-04:00

some place

meet me some place
far from here
take me to a place of beauty
life here is too boring and droll
i need energy
i need color
everything here is black and white
flowers die
and breezes are no more
take me to a place of peace
a place of harmny
some where
where the flowers blossom even in winter
warm breezes warm my heart on a pretty day
a place to laugh
a place to grow
a place to be me
take me to that place
that place where nothing can harm us
and all is friendly
i want to go to that place
in your warm embrace
take me there

Copyright - I was perfect once

mSmith Creative Writing...

2011-06-07T10:00:00.001-04:00

Into School

As my car makes its way into the familiar parking lot, I look upon that same building that I see every morning at an hour in the morning when no one should have to think for themself, let alone take an honors class. I slowly trudge my way from the car to the path way that leads to the entrance of this building. As I make my journey through the hallways, I see other students and teachers, all of whom have the exact same facial expression. It’s the same as mine as well.

I approach my assigned locker that is all the way down the virtually vacant hallway and I think to myself how amazing that in only an hour, these hallways that I can hear footsteps from the other side of the building in, will soon be filled with loud children and teens. There will be no more dead silence. After pondering this, I hurl my oversized bag off of my shoulders and down to the hard floors so that I can begin to enter the locker combination. I am late to my class and therefore decide to somewhat speed up my actions in order to make up for time lost. Of course, my locker somehow knows this and refuses to open. I bang the frame of the locker with my knee repeatedly, hoping somehow the door will open. But no. I must re-enter the digits and hurry towards the stairs, another inconvenience. The “brilliant people” that are behind this decision no doubt put absolutely no thought into this idiotic plan. The staircase that is the most out of the way for every student is the only available method of getting to the 2nd floor. Brilliant.

I am now at this point at the fastest pace I can go without making a fool out of myself. I quickly shoot a glance at the television to see the time. The bell should be ringing any second now. I approach the hallway to my class and grab the handle to the door. As I pull open the door, the bell rings. I got lucky this time. As I sit in my chair, I think to myself that I won’t cut it that close again, but of course, this idea has disappeared by tomorrow morning when I smack the snooze button on the alarm and go back to sleep. Maybe next time.

Copyright - mSmith Creative Writing

sensible nonsense...

2011-06-06T10:00:00.000-04:00

where do we go from here?

I’m going to take a brief moment to be blatantly honest. My last day of high school ever is tomorrow. Sure my dad doesn’t believe it because I have two days with one hour long exams, but dad hate to break it to you, I’m done with school tomorrow. I’ve have spent most of my time wishing away my senior year. I wished that I would hear from colleges, make it to prom, make it to field day, make it to all these big senior moments but in the time I have wished away so much time. Now looking back with only one day left, I feel like I have missed out on so many moments. There have been so many times that I picked one thing over another, and now there’s no way to ever get that back. The one thing we will never have any more of, is time, and now that is all I need. I know that this is crucial to my life, I have to move on at some point, but now that it is here I don’t know if I’m ready for it. Its been fun having something to look forward to but moving out, and college, and growing up is a whole lot scarier once it gets here. So, my honest confession would be that I am terrified out of my mind right now. This is a huge step that I just haven’t mentally prepared myself for yet. People expect so much from us now, we’re going to college, we are starting our futures but now that it is here, all I want is for people to be telling me what to do again. I’ve never had a life beside school, I don’t even know where you go from here. I know that it is all God’s plan, he has it worked out for me, but trying to see it from here is terrifying. It can only go up from here though, and the next chapter of my life is only just beginning.

this is a blog...

2011-06-05T10:00:00.000-04:00

It's sad that you can't hear me.
It's sad that you won't hear me at this very moment.
Because this is the time I'll speak the truth.
This is the moment I'll reveal the things I know,
Illuminating my story.
Sometimes I wonder if anyone will ever listen,
if we're all too selfish to truly listen to anyone but ourselves.
Maybe I'll never know of someone like that;
Just.
Pure.
Listening.
Because the longer we live with ourselves,
The farther and farther we get from the truth.
The constant sameness;
It blinds us from everything.
Everything but want.
Today, I understand Peter Pan more than ever before.
I don't want to grow up.
I just want to be heard.

Copyright - this is a blog

creativity vs. logic...

2011-06-04T10:00:00.004-04:00

you are vertical assortment of concrete and bricks - get over yourself

“GOD IS NOT REAL GET OVER YOURSELVES” – a post on youtube.
But, thats exactly the point, because there IS a God, we have to get over ourselves. We are not the greatest beings anymore, once we accept that there is a God, and have to get over our mortal carcasses made of dust and focus on Him.

For people that believe in no greater being, after getting over themselves, there is nothing left – their universe becomes void, or they return to being obsessed with themselves. They are searching for a purpose – and after seeing past themselves – there is nothing left – an empty void with flitting shadows of enjoyment and good deeds. Either they try and sate this void with living a fun and/or good life, or they return to being obsessed with themselves.

Which is why, as Christians, we must all get over ourselves – or we too shall become Godless people.
I think the Christian community needs a new slogan – not God bless you!, not God is watching!, not you are loved!,

but…

Get over yourself! It aint about you! You’re in the way!

We must be empty vessels, jars of clay, perfect conductors of His electrifying presence…
and THEN they will know that we are His disciples – by our love…or more accurately, by His love flowing through us.

So get out your bulldozer and raze the vertical assortment of concrete and bricks – raze the part of you that is in the way. [not all of you - only that which prevents the Holy Spirit from freely and continuously interacting with your life]

and once more, the words of someone not knowing how much he would help God-believers by his impulsive remark:
“…GET OVER YOURSELF”

Copyright - creativity vs. logic

Sights Unseen, Sounds Unheard...

2011-06-03T10:00:00.002-04:00

The King’s March

Winter winds brush through the town

Howling above and roaring below.

Cold rain drips down from the clouds

And gives to the air a humid glow.

The crowds did cry and shout aloud

“All Hail the King! He has returned!”

In such a case would one be proud

But much more still was to be learned.

His features would to no man prove

The thoughts which raged within his mind.

For such a time as this demands

Resilience of the utmost kind.

The King marched on without a glance

His war-torn face refused all praise.

His silence gave them not a chance

To hear of his heroic days.

The masses rose in earnest plea

To know the tale of their great king.

He stood up high for all to see

And at last spoke willingly:

“In nations, countries, provinces far

Have I fought and risen the victor.

All other forces from sea to star

Collapse into my strengthened hand.

And so my pain is not due from

My superficial world success.

But rather from my lover’s heart

Which, hours ago, was laid to rest.”

The King then stepped down from his throne

As his resolve fought like a war.

Even so, he let nothing show

As he marched onwards ever more.

Copyright - Sights Unseen, Sounds Unheard

blahblahblog...

2011-06-02T10:00:00.002-04:00

shower spider

over the summer i spent two weeks on a mission trip to Brazil. we stayed in a house that had three showers for over twenty of us, in one of these showers lived shower spider. shower spider was very sneaky. only two people actually saw it but seven of us were bitten, every one of us bitten on the back of our right leg. no one knows why he choose wanted to bit us, all we were doing was trying to be clean. maybe shower spider didn't want us to be clean, he was not a nice spider like you may have read about in Charlotte's Web. he was pure evil. a kind of evil that hates clean people the most if there is such a thing. anyway we left and i thought shower spider was gone forever but after a few months of being back home i was taking a shower in my bathroom which is not very clean and the drain was stopped up so as water filled the floor a spider about the size of a nickle ran out from behind a bottle lying on the floor and began to attempt to swim. spiders are not very good at that. so as he moved his arms and legs frantically but wasnt moving i picked up a bottle of tilex and began to spray him until he stopped. when i turned the shower off the water slowly left and my American shower spider lay there motionless in the floor. then i sprayed it a few more times because i felt like it and left to go about my day. it stayed there stuck to the floor for two more weeks until the cleaning ladies scraped him off the cold tile because i didnt want to touch it. even though this spider was an immeasurable amount dumber than Brazilian shower spider i still feel like i won...

copyright - blahblahblog

My Heart In Print...

2011-06-01T10:00:00.001-04:00

when i was little,

books were an adventure. first i was learning to read, finding meaning in those black lines with curves and angles, discovering the difference between letters.

soon, books were mainly an escape. away from loud siblings or a gray winter, i could experience life. i couldn’t drive yet, so the only way to taste the real world was through a character. i lived vicariously.

i forgot them for a while, actually. i began to have my own adventures: stargazing, 3 a.m. runs to cookout, spontaneous trips to the lake. i didn’t need someone else to live through - i had my own life.

luckily, that only lasted about a month or so. you see, real people always let you down. it’s a fact of life, and i can say it because i’ve even let my best friends down, unintentionally. people disappoint.

but characters? they always wait for you. they’ll stop in mid sentence if you need to grab a sip of coffee or answer the phone. they’ve had months to think over their words and contemplate the meaning of a sentence. they’re ideal.

i’m not a hermit and i’m an extrovert to the max, and i adore my friends. but i find that when i need quiet… books are one of the best places to go.

copyright - My Heart In Print

Southernbelle Ginger...

2011-05-31T10:00:00.006-04:00

Remind Me

Remind me that I like the rain, even though it makes my hair frizzy.
Remind me that You're there, even when I'm in a tizzy.
Remind me of Your faithfulness.
Help me to laugh,
And not cry through math.
Remind me of Your love.
Help me to smile at the little things,
Help me to soar on Your perfect wings.
Remind me of your presence.
Show me the value of just being me,
Show me how I can be.
Remind me of who I am.
Whisper to me day and night,
Whisper who You are.
Help me to see.

Copyright Southernbelle Ginger

That Writer Girl...

2011-05-30T10:00:00.009-04:00

Animal Magnetism

After seventeen years consisting of two dogs, four cats, five hamsters, and multiple aquarium fish, I have come to the conclusion that I do not like animals. We just don't mix. My sister is great with animals--in fact, she's been compared to an angst-ridden Snow White. In my opinion, however, I have some irreparable complaints against the animal kingdom. Some are as follows:

1) They don't speak the human tongue. We just had a discussion in my English/Closet Philosophy class about how language is the key to communication and identity. It goes without saying, then, that there is a disjunction in communication between myself and the animal population, and therefore I cannot possibly identify with them and their personal problems. I don't care how much you sit whining and staring at me with your puppy dog eyes, if you can't tell me exactly what's wrong, I'm not going to help you.

2) They don't clean up after themselves. I don't want to shovel poop out of the sand for you, kitty. If you want to poop in a sandbox so badly, I suggest cleaning it yourself, or finding a bigger one in one of the neighbor's yards.Hamsters and fish, this goes for you as well.

3) They need feeding on a regular basis. I've survived about a fourth of my life without my mother feeding me, I think pets should be able to do the same. I'm a busy person; I don't have time to run around placing bread crumbs in your path. If you're hungry, forage, or hunt, or do whatever your species was actually bred to do.

4) They smell and they shed. What more do I need to say?

5) They leave you unwanted favors. No, no, I don't want the mole you caught, or the bird, or the rabbit, or the woodchuck, or the deer, or the Sasquatch, or anything you hunted down. I don't want it dead and bleeding on my carpet, and I don't want it alive and running around my house. I don't want it, period. Do whatever you like with it (hey, eat it!), as long as I don't see it. Dogs? Dogs are worse, they bring you slobbery toys or poop.

Those are just a few of the reasons I do not care for any species of the animal kingdom. All of the above could just as easily be applied to human babies, and I don't like them either. It's all in the personality, I guess, and mine is definitely short on "animal magnetism."

Copyright - That Writer Girl

Because my students are awesome...

2011-05-29T19:39:00.000-04:00

I had the privilege of developing an Honors Creative Writing class this year. Whenever you write curriculum for a new class, you guess a lot about what will work and what won't work.

The one piece of the creative writing puzzle I knew had to be in place was a journal. This being the year 2011 (well, it WAS 2010 and then it turned into 2011 in the middle of the academic year), I gave students the option of having a blog instead of a paper journal. 13/14 opted for the blog during first semester. By second semester 14/14 were blogging.

When I asked them to write course evaluations on the last day of class, blogs were hands-down the favorite routine writing exercise.

A writer's blog is a place where a student can plant ideas that may or may not germinate into publishable works. Some posts are angsty. Some are sweet. Some made my brain hurt. Some made me laugh until tears ran down my cheeks. Some broke my heart.They were great because, for the most part, they were honest. If you ever want to peek into the window of a teenager's heart, check out his/her blog.

(Hint: Blogger is for old people--high school graduates and older, and WordPress is for professional pursuits. Teens are on tumblr. tumblr is a hipster place. True hipsters never mention the venue on other websites like Facebook or Twitter. Oh, and more kids are abandoning Facebook for Twitter since FB took the status off the top of the profile page.)

I want to share some of the posts that made me smile, so over the next few days, I'll be posting one a day. All rights are reserved by the owner of each blog.

Smellin' Coffee and DANCING!

2011-05-24T17:19:00.000-04:00

Yeah Boy! I don't know where this is, but I want to go there and do this. The short version says it's clogging. The long version says it tap dancing. It looks like a combination of tap dancing, clogging, AND line dancing. I have a quest.

Nobody's perfik...

2011-05-23T22:40:00.000-04:00

I have Hannah Montana in my head now.

My momma says I struggle because I'm a perfectionist. I'm not a perfectionist -- 99.4% is OK too. See how it did that? If I'd said 99.5%, it would round up to 100%. I'm good with .6% less than absolute perfection. So, there. I'm not a perfectionist.

;-)

SBS?

2011-05-22T18:56:00.000-04:00

Any SBS chiquitas out there interested in having SBS this summer? Bible study? Book club? Craft club? Yogurt Mountain fan club? Something that encompasses all of the above?

Inbox me on FB or DM me on Twitter if you are. I'm fixin' to make some summertime plans...

Love y'all!

I get by with a little help from my friends...

2011-05-21T13:35:00.000-04:00

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

It has been an odd and difficult time, but the sun is shining in my heart again, and I am full of praise for first of all the Lord. Can't even breathe without Him. And then for my friends who have reached out. Some have said and done little things that have had a huge impact. Some have climbed into the trenches with me and launched a few grenades at the enemy. I love you ALL--very, very much.

Frah-jee-lay...

2011-05-05T23:28:00.000-04:00

For the past month or so, life has been hard around here. We have hit a patch of trials and tribulations. Make no mistake that I still know that I know that I know that God is good. There is no doubt. I also know that He gives beauty for ashes, heals the wounded, raises the dead, works all things together for good and gives grace beyond measure.

That said... right now, my heart is a bit broken. I'm having a tough time. Poynter says that in times of tragedy, understatement is best, so I'm leaving it at that.

I am stepping away for a little while to seek healing that only the Lord can give. He makes all things new, which is my hope right now. I appreciate your prayers.

Homage to Vonage...

2011-05-03T18:22:00.000-04:00

What Vonage sent as the text version:

"Hi Ms. William, it's Tim Schumer. In our city track field. Just wanna remind you about the beacon apple or if he might be at home. Really could use over the store like you over there doing out here. Really appreciate what you done force on that. Also, the cops and they is Friday and Saturday the 13th 14th and my we have got one rice or 200 on Friday evening. I would usually the airport good and also I don't a bus running events or most of the day on Saturday. I could usually there to know you're busy man but you think it helps appreciate it. There's a problem or any questions you give me a call ***-****. If you can't make the event please let me know if I don't hear from you I'll know you'll be there. Okay man. Appreciate it. I saw you up you're"

The message that was actually on our voice mail:

"Hey Mr. W******. It's Tim S*******, **** track and field. Just want to remind you about the meet coming up on Thursday, May 5th, at home. Really could use your help as a starter like you've normally been doing all year. We really appreciate what you've done for us on that. Also, the conference meet is Friday and Saturday, the 13th and 14th of May. We have got one race, the 3200, on Friday evening. We could use you there, if we could. And also, I think most of the running events are most of the day on Saturday. We could use you there too. I know you're a busy man, but anything you could do to help us we'd appreciate it. If there's a problem or any questions, give me a call ***-****. If you can't make the event, please let me know. If I don't hear from you, I'll know you'll be there. OK, man. Appreciate it, and thanks for all your help this year."

Spring break reading...

2011-04-28T23:49:00.000-04:00

Last year at one of my lovely annual check-ups, I sat in the office of my WHNP during the debriefing segment of the appointment. You know you have a great WHNP when you spend 1.5 minutes talking about the exam and 23.5 minutes talking about the gospel. She rocks.

She had just read a book by David Platt and was telling me that it had pretty much turned her world upside down. Mind you, she didn't really follow tradition to begin with, so seeing her get more radical was truly radical indeed.

I put Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream on my reading list and figured I'd get around to it within a year or so. Believe it or not, teaching English isn't too conducive to keeping up with my personal reading list. I have to be all literary and stuff.

Spring break rolled around, and I had, in unprecedented fashion, finished all my lesson plans and grading before the end of the last day before break. I decided to go ahead and start Radical. It is very good. Very solid. I think more than anything, I appreciate the humility in which Platt writes. Second to that, I appreciate his putting a proverbial finger on the reason why I've been so discontent in my own mundane walk with the Lord, as well as in my engagement (or lack thereof) in church for the past few years. I won't give away everything here -- it is well worth finding a copy online and ordering it yourself.

I do want to share a couple of paragraphs that I found especially meaningful, though. They had to be meaningful; I underlined the whole page.

... In our Christian version of the American dream, our plan ends up disinfecting Christians from the world more than discipling Christians in the world. Let me explain the difference.

Disinfecting Christians from the world involved isolating followers of Christ in a spiritual safe-deposit box called the church building and teaching them to be good. In this strategy, success in the church is defined by how big a building you have to house all the Christians, and the goal is to gather as many people as possible for a couple of hours each week in that place where we are isolated and insulated from the realities of the world aound us. When someone asks, "Where is your church?" we point them to a building or give them an address, and everything centers around what happens at that location.

When we gather at the building, we learn to be good. Being good is defined by what we avoid in the world. We are holy because of what we don't participate in (and at this point we may be the only organization in the world defining success by what we don't do.) We live decent lives in decent homes with decent jobs and decent families as decent citizens. We are decent church members with little more impact on the world than we had before we were saved. Though thousands may join us, ultimately we have turned a deaf ear to billions who haven't even heard his name.

Discipling is much different.

Whereas disinfecting Christians involved isolating them and teaching them to be good, discipling Christians involves propelling Christians into the world to risk their lives for the sake of others. Now the world is our focus, and we gauge success in the church not on the hundreds or thousands whom we can get into our buildings but on the hundreds or thousands who are leaving our building to take on the world with the disciples they are making. In this case, we would never think that the disciple-making plan of Jesus would take place in one service a week at one location led by one or two teachers. Disciple making takes place multiple times every week in multiple locations by an army of men and women sharing, showing, and teaching the Word of Christ and together serving a world in need of Christ. (Chapter 5: The Multiplying Community, 104-105)

Our family recently hit a rough patch that necessitated our stepping out from our disinfected world. Although from the outside it seemed like a decidedly fallen-world situation, we have seen the Lord already working out a plan that is far greater than we could have imagined. He has disciplined us, chastened us, stretched us, challenged us, undergirded us, gone before us, and blessed us. Only God could work all that into one situation.

As a result, we find our focus shifting a little from our disinfected culture to the world where we can actually share Jesus with others. It's a baby-step radical, but I think it's the beginning of something pretty special.

And they all lived happily ever after...

2011-04-15T23:17:00.004-04:00

Table Prama...

2011-04-11T17:00:00.001-04:00

Shhh... pretend that this actually posted on the date it says it posted. 'Kay? Thanks!

Do you remember middle school/junior high school? Yes, I am old; we had junior high school instead of middle school. We also had sixth-grade centers because evidently sixth-graders are academically and socially on a whole 'nother level from the rest of the age spectrum.

But I digress... and use cliche not-so-masterfully also...

I hated lunch in junior high. It wasn't the food. Actually, I rarely ate the food. My dad owned his own business, and we were coming out of a recession, so in a brilliant plan to acquire more Izod [by] Lacoste shirts, I took the dollar my dad gave me for lunch each day, bought a ten-cent ice cream sandwich and a ten-cent milk for lunch, and I saved the rest. The Monday dollar went for food. Tuesday-Friday dollars went into the clothing fund. I made $4.00 each week not eating what I was supposed to eat for lunch, mostly in eighth and ninth grades.

But the junior high cafeteria was brutal. It wasn't until I took sociology at UNC that I realized why it was so brutal. The junior high cafeteria is a microcosm of social stratification. It's the social version of the food chain, with the popular girls at the top. I was shy, I didn't have the coolest clothes, and instead of being a brilliant athlete, I was a mediocre arts student. Junior high was a little rough, largely because of the cafeteria.

The popular table, which had six seats actually, hosted twelve girls who sat tightly packed around their designer lunch boxes, talking about their latest clothing purchases or boy quests. At my table we spent most of lunch figuring out how we could make a move closer to the popular table.

Fast forward... a lotta years... and in the prama season, it's time to select a set of eight people to sit at a table together for the prom. Immediately the tables are labeled: popular girls and dates; jocks and dates; theatre people; band kids with dates; band kids without dates; student leaders; rebels; and....*shudder* (yes, I did actually hear someone call it this out loud) losers.

Our school officially has a Junior/Senior banquet. Dancing's not included, as there is way too much disagreement amongst us Christian-types about what sorts of dancing and music are acceptable in a social setting, if any at all. I get it. I'm fine with it. It is not an issue with our family one way or another. But the banquet is the big thing at our school. I could even capitalize it and say it's the Banquet.

For weeks there were closed-door negotiations about who was sitting with whom for the Banquet. It was big stuff. After more than a month of positioning and planning, the sign-up sheets went up. And there was PRAMA. People literally raced to the bulletin board. They marked out names and added other names. It looked like a mini ink battle had broken out on the wall.

There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth as names went under invisible labels in groups of eight.

When the ink well finally ran dry, after a few days of the sign-up sheets hanging for the whole world to see, the signs came down. The coordinator had to call students to the office to decipher the cryptic markings on the sheets. I'm not sure anyone escaped table prama unscathed. There was a lot of fallen-worldness.

My solution for this problem was simple: assigned seats. We could use something highly creative like alphabetical order. Or we could get sophisticated, using a special algorithm that determines the best mixture of students based on transcript, extracurricular activities, and number of boxes of World's Finest chocolate sold.

But God had a bigger plan. The lesson in all this table prama for the kids who had ears to hear was that love covers a multitude of ink. In the end, students realigned their hearts and their tables. It was [almost] all good.

Do you ever have one of those days...

2011-04-03T13:22:00.000-04:00

when you really want to blog about it, but you know you can't because you don't really need to go airing the dirty laundry for the neighbors to see?

That's pretty much how our Sunday morning went.

So, forgive the cryptic post, but it would be totally cool to see how all this is going to fit together someday. Right now, it's just painful to watch.

Confession...

2011-03-30T23:36:00.000-04:00

I can't think of any more of a sad, depressing play to read with tenth-graders than Our Town. Not sure I'm looking forward to it. When I was younger, I thought it was great. Now it seems to be a little too tragic and too true.

At least it's not On the Beach!

Nothing could be finer...

2011-03-27T11:57:00.001-04:00

At the outrageous hour of 7:00 a.m. on SATURDAY, of all days, we arrived on Stadium Drive in Chapel Hill. It occurred to me that in the six years of being a full-time undergrad and then grad student (and additional three semesters of education classes for my graduate-level teaching certificate), I never saw the sun come up over the Bell Tower. Given the clouds on Saturday, I still haven't. But at least we saw the shift from night to day through the dawn's early light.

Parking was not a problem, which is along the lines of a miracle in Chapel Hill. We rolled out of the car, snapped the shot of KLC and the Bell Tower, and headed to Carolina 101 overflow in Murphey Hall, home of the Classics Department. It was freezing. Not literally, but if felt freezing as we walked past the Pit and up the walkway next to Davis. We cut behind Lenior and hurried to Murphey, excited to see lights on inside. Peeking in the front door, we saw signs of life. We opened the door and were greeted by Dr. Dave M. who said, "You here for 101?"

"Yes, can we come in?"
"We're not quite ready for the program yet."
"We won't get in your way, I promise. It's freezing out there, and we don't want to die."
"Well, we can't have that. Frostbite is nasty. Freezing to death is worse. Why don't you guys have a seat in one of the classrooms down the hall. We'll let you know when we're ready."

And so began the adventure of Carolina 101.

I was glad to see that my alma mater had hired a fun guy in the admissions department. He later teased me about getting coffee or hot chocolate to help me recover. I told him that to make the program a complete success, he needs to hand out Snuggies. He could also move the registration table a few feet to the right or left. Where they had it on Saturday was smack in the middle of the front entry to the Classics building. Where they had replicas of Greek statues. KLC picked up her registration packet off the table under the watchful eyes of a naked Greek dude sporting a stylish fig leaf.

( "This is NOT what you should expect in college, KLC -- naked Greek guys with strategically-placed fig leaves. But if you do happen to see one walking across campus, go the other direction." Teachable moments, you know.)

We had a great day on campus. We learned about the Carolina 101 program, went on a walking tour of campus, got a chance to talk to professors and students, and heard about admissions process and financial aid/scholarships. It was great! We had no idea how KLC got on the short-list of people they invited to come to the program, but Dr. Dave shared their thinking, and we were simply grateful for God's provision.

The temptation after SUCH a great day is to grasp hold of one vision for college, but we've learned that when the Lord blesses you with something special, you have to hold it with an open hand. I will admit one thing though, after visiting, my attitude about KLC going there has changed.

For a long time, I saw UNC through my experience there, and knowing what an adolescent mess I was the first years, I cringed at the thought of KLC going through the same thing. But yesterday reminded me that we are two very different people. And the Lord has His unique plan for her life. For the first time in the whole college dialogue, I could see letting go of her to follow hard after the plans the Lord has for her as a good thing. I really don't have to micro-manage His work in her life. As a matter of fact, I might be creating unnecessary challenges for her in doing so (naked Greek statues notwithstanding).

The road to college is long and short at this point. I'm sure that in August of 2012, I'll swear it was the shortest road anywhere, ever. Yet there's a lot of ground to cover from now until then, and we really don't know where that road will take us or what we'll go through to get there. So we are left on our knees, praying and trusting. To be honest, if we do it right, we may even get to enjoy the ride.

The Embers - Beach Music Medley

2011-03-25T20:26:00.000-04:00

Carolina Beach

2011-03-25T18:59:00.000-04:00

Prom Toms...

2011-03-23T19:33:00.000-04:00

Pink, Silver or White???

Pink Glitters

Silver Glitters

White Glitters

Beach reads roll inland...

2011-03-21T21:51:00.001-04:00

One of the fun things about teaching English is getting to dissect new novels every now and then. A couple of weeks ago we finished Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, which is near abouts the most depressing book I've ever read.

Yes, it's OK for an English teacher not to love the book. Sometimes you just have a suck it up and read it. It's a little like taking icky medicine... tastes like hooey, but it's good for you.

To cleanse the literary palate before delving into the next masterpiece of World Lit, we're reading the novel equivalent of sherbert.

It's a fun, quick read. I read it one afternoon at the beach last summer. The pages still smell like sunscreen, which makes teaching it all the more fun.

So if you're looking for something light and fun and quick to read... give this one a try:

Things I can't figure out...

2011-03-21T00:28:00.000-04:00

I can't figure out...

how to stay on the right week of a curriculum guide when each year has different weeks being a different number of days. One year Week #27 has five days of school. Another year Week #27 has two days.
how to stay on a diet.
how to find "balance" in a job that consumes every minute of time that I will let it, but one that I love dearly and is infinitely easier than dealing with auxiliary dramas.
how to get to bed before midnight.
how to work exercise into the mix when I can't show up at work sweaty and late, and I'm trying to get to bed before midnight.
how to coach my daughter into womanhood without making her angry or hurting her feelings.
how to encourage my kids to do their best without making them feel like I don't think they are good enough.
how to finish "work" in all forms in order to have time to "play" with my youngest.
how to be more thinking and less feeling.
how not to take it personally when I hear NO over and over... or worse... nothing at all.

Note to self: Don't neglect the One Thing.

Ninth grade novel meets world news headlines...

2011-03-20T13:17:00.001-04:00

When I was in ninth grade, we read the novel On the Beach by Nevil Shute. It's a post-apocalyptic story of what happens on Earth after a nuclear holocaust. All life in the northern hemisphere dies because of the massive impact (both instant impact and nuclear-fallout impact) of the bombs, and the only people left are in the extreme southern hemisphere. Yet even they aren't safe. The air currents are carrying the toxic radiation slowly southward, and the survivors are simply waiting die from radiation exposure. The novel centers on how individuals handle the finite time they have remaining before the fallout arrives and what they do when it does finally descend on their part of the world.

Who on earth makes ninth-grade kids read this stuff? I lived for weeks with the undercurrent of mortality running through everything I did. It was scary and very, very weird. I mentioned that I was 14 years old, right? Yeah.

Then last week I was talking to a good friend about Japan. It was a timely and relevant conversation not only because of the crisis that island nation is experiencing, but also because my friend's husband is a nuclear engineer. He specializes in nuclear fuel, and he works for our local power company. And he's really, really smart.

He's been on the professional blogs, reading about events at the Fukushima nuclear facility. I asked her what he thought about the situation, and I knew it wasn't good by the way she stopped everything she was doing, got a deadly serious look on her face and took a deep breath. "He says it's bad. He says it's really, really bad." Understatement. That's never good from someone with the inside scoop on a crisis.

The bottom line (because I am not a nuclear scientist and don't understand the ins and outs of the whole thing) is that they have the most brilliant nuclear experts in the world over there working on the problem, and no one knows how to stabilize the situation. For the most part, the radiation is contained for now, but they if they continue to release pressure from the reactors, more radiation will escape into the air. Each release sends out radioactive particles that have to land somewhere.

"So what does he think will happen?" I asked.
"Japan is gone," she said.
"So it's as bad as Chernobyl?"
"Worse. Chernobyl had one reactor meltdown. There are six reactors in danger in Japan. Six. They should never put more than two or three reactors at a site. This one has SIX."

Now I admit I am one to go from A to Z in a hurry, so I took that to mean the whole nation, not just a few kilometers surrounding the facility. The irony is that the nuclear facility was built to withstand a 10.0 earthquake and 25' tsunami. It did well through the 9.0 quake, but the tsunami was 30'. The 30' tsunami ... less than my height more than the safety measures accounted for ... caused the nuclear crisis.

I read Thursday that Americans were advised to leave Japan. I read yesterday that the Japanese government has warned that they detected unsafe radiation levels in spinach and cow's milk from that region, so the food supply is already tainted. I read this morning that they are going to have to release more gases from reactor #3 today. They're trying to run it through suppression pools first, to lower radiation levels before it hits open air, but it that doesn't work and they have to release it directly into the open air, it'll increase the radioactive iodine level in the air 100 fold. It doesn't take nuclear brilliance to conclude that increasing radiation in the air is bad. It's not like the air goes into a container; it floats around the world, dropping radioactive particles in the lakes and streams and oceans and soil along the way.

As the events of On the Beach come to mind in pondering the magnitude of this disaster, I realize two things: 1) The events of Revelation 6 (or Matthew 24, for that matter) are quite fathomable; and 2) God is big enough to handle this crisis. It's an odd thing to witness something potentially apocalyptic. On the one hand, there's "Even so, Lord Jesus, come." On the other hand, there's the knowledge that the end is The End, and there are no more chances for those who don't know Him.

So what's left to do? Pray and keep going. And that's where I've found myself this week... praying and going. Praying for wisdom for those in authority, for divine revelation of solutions to the nuclear crisis that our subduing-the-Earth efforts haven't discovered yet. Going with the tasks Jesus gave us before He left... go and make disciples, love one another as He has loved us, forgive as we have been forgiven, feed the hungry, heal the sick, be holy, etc. I've been way too distracted from the game plan for way too long. You?

When the high school prom turns into middle school meanness--or not...

2011-03-19T11:27:00.001-04:00

A senior girl has risen as the class leader this year at our school. She is a dynamo, coordinating everything from senior girls prayer groups to silly games of assassin to unofficial (but fun and harmless) class pranks that appeared during powderpuff. She even began a tradition called the Academy Awards. Held in the fall, this non-school-sponsored event brought all the senior girls together at a ceremony where every single young lady in the class received an award for the thing that makes her shine. Where the school isn't the sponsor, she has coordinated events through her church.

She is a young woman of prayer, and you can tell from her Facebook and Twitter that she steeps herself in God's Word. She is fearless. I, personally, stand in awe of her. She's done more in a year of leading her senior class than I've seen grown women do in years of leading women's ministry.

As I watched in amazement and tried to figure out why and how she's changed a group of petty, gossipy girls into a band of sisters who are serious about their faith, I realized it falls on two things: heartbreak and heartache. Heartbreak that the girls were shallow in faith and love. Heartache that longs for something better. And did I mention that she is fearless?

In the Prama season, this girl started a Facebook group for girls at our school wanting to avoid drama surrounding their dresses. It is a closed group, but any girl from our school can join by requesting an invitation. It is not at all meant to be exclusive, and it has already filtered out MUCH potential conflict.

And the really super-cool thing is that it's not a place where people are snide and snippy about who looks better in what. It's been a forum of encouragement. Comments are like:

"Beautiful"
"You are so gorgeous!"
"You look like a princess!"
"Oh my word! Wait until [your date] sees you in that! He is going to be speechless!"
"Stunning!"
"So classy and elegant!"
"Wow! You are magnificent!"

This young lady, through prayer and reliance on God's Word, has led the young ladies of her class into a metamorphosis of sorts. And like all metamorphosis processes in nature, this one has to have been designed by the Creator. Nothing can change hearts so radically and completely as His Spirit. She is living proof that transformation in a group starts with one willing heart full of passion for her Lord. (I mean, let's get real: if she had attempted this on her own agenda and in her own strength, she would have been eaten alive. She was burdened, and she was obedient.)

So, here's to you, friend... you are quite the warrior princess in your Father's Kingdom. Thanks for being fearless.

Because it's...

2011-03-18T00:15:00.005-04:00

Happy Songs Playlist right along with Drake Bell and Big Time Rush. That's all I'm sayin'.

You so funny!...

2011-03-17T07:46:00.008-04:00

It is hilarious how people are trying to find the Perfect Princess Prom Dress. When you google "Mango Tango," this is the dress that comes up most frequently.

It is princessy. It is prommy. It is NOT Kelsey's dress. Not even close.

The variety of things you can do with tulle is kind of amazing, though.

Quest for the dress - Post Script: The M/D Code...

2011-03-16T10:53:00.001-04:00

Now that we've looked at Kelsey's final four-ish prom dresses, let's take a look at some that I really liked that Kelsey pretty much hated. We are contractually obligated not to love exactly the same dresses unless it turns out to be THE dress. It's part of the M/D Code.

Number 3

Why I like it: How can you ever go wrong with classic black?

Add sparklies and a whimsical fabric for the skirt,

and you have a dress that screams sophisticated fun.

Why Kelsey doesn't like it: Black is boring.

Number 2

Why I like it: What looks more like a ballerina princess than a

beautiful pink satin dress with a sweetheart neckline and jeweled accents?

Why Kelsey doesn't like it: It's a pink ballerina princess dress. Ew.

Number 1

Gorgeous flowing ballgown in the turquoise/aqua family that

Kelsey loves so much. Sweetheart/halter neckline with jeweled accents and jeweled waistband.

Why Kelsey doesn't like it: Isn't that Jasmine's dress? A Disney princess? Really?

Quest for the dress - Part 3: The Final Four...

2011-03-15T21:36:00.002-04:00

I suppose this is a chickie version of March Madness. :)

Third runner-up

Since Kelsey liked it enough to put it on the final list, I'm just going to keep my comments brief: not my favorite. The Mother/Daughter Code calls for a certain amount of disagreement regarding dress styles. Otherwise we lose our M/D Code membership cards. It had a great price, though!

Second runner-up

It's hard to see in the picture, but the skirt has a iridescent shimmer to it. The bodice is covered in jewels, not sequins. And it doesn't hurt that the model's hair is very close to Kelsey's hairstyle. Kelsey doesn't have quite that much auburn in her hair, though.

First runner-up...

also known as

"The Perfect Princess Prom Dress that took 12 weeks for delivery"

Yes, the Perfect Princess Prom Dress. Kelsey absolutely fell in love with this dress. We ordered it immediately. Within two days we discovered it would take our order 12 weeks for delivery. I called another formal wear website. Same story. I called another and another and another. I emailed even more. After a few days, I realized no one had ever carried it in stock. It was special order everywhere, and special order meant around 12 weeks to make and deliver.

Talk about prama. I had to tell my baby girl that the Perfect Princess Prom Dress she had posted on the Facebook group wall, the one everyone had told her would be the greatest dress ever for her, wasn't going to happen this year. Even her chemistry teacher pulled her aside to console her. We were all heartbroken.

But we hit the internet again. The second and third runners-up were ones Kelsey said would be fine instead of the Perfect Princess Prom Dress. And then she headed out the door to Wednesday night youth group.

I continued the quest and shortly discovered the "In-Stock" and "Ready-to-Ship" categories of prom dresses. As I scrolled through literally hundreds of dresses (truly, it was probably well over a thousand), trying to find something similar to the Perfect Princess Prom Dress, I found something that I LOVED, but I wasn't so sure Kelsey would love it quite as much as I did. For one thing, it wasn't remotely the solid color she'd set as a must-have. It looked almost as if it were tie-dyed. And it had appliques with beads and sequins. It was very different from anything she'd put on "the list" so far.

When she got home from church, I said, "OK, here's one that's not really like anything you've liked so far, but it's different and really pretty. It's not aqua/turquiose/light teal/powder blue, but I really like it."

"Oh my! That is gorgeous! It's perfect! It's a Perfect Princess Prom Dress! I love it! Can I get it?" was the response. *HUGE SMILE FROM MOM*

They had ONE dress left in that style. ONE. And it was Kelsey's size. And it was on sale... for a lot less that anywhere else on the internet. (YES!)

You know, there are times when I think that the Lord is so big that He really doesn't need to be bothered by anything as silly as a high school girl's prom dress, yet in the midst of the prama, my prayer was that the Lord would lead us to the perfect dress He had for Kelsey. The same God Who created all the beauty of this world, Who is Himself altogether lovely and more beautiful that we can fathom, cares about a princess dress for the Junior/Senior. And in a way characteristic of His ways, He totally blew me away -- beyond all I (or Kelsey) hoped or dreamed, asked or imagined.

Wow. Just... wow.

We ordered it on Wednesday, and it arrived on Monday.

So...

The new and improved Perfect Princess Prom Dress is...

...waiting for Prom Day - April 15th.

Quest for the Dress - Part 2: Shop-at-home

2011-03-14T20:25:00.001-04:00

When I mentioned to folks that we ordered a prom dress online, categorically the response was: "WITHOUT TRYING IT ON?!"

Yep. We're risk-takers that way.

We came home and spent a few hours on the internet, tracking down the perfect dress. At one point Kelsey and I had dueling inboxes going on Facebook, which totally worked because we left a trail of dresses, should we ever need to backtrack.

I'd hate for those long hours of prama to go to waste, so I think I'll share some of the little treasures we accrued in the quest.

Top 20 lessons learned stalking prom dresses on the interwebs:

20. Not all modest dresses are labeled "modest dresses," and the ones that are labeled as "modest dresses" tend to err on the side of boo-ugly.

19. Multi-colored patterned fabric is a HUGE trend this prom season.

18. Kelsey hates multi-colored patterned fabrics.

17. A-line "princess" dresses are making a comeback this prom season, especially ones with tulle skirts.

16. Kelsey loves A-line "princess" dresses, especially ones with tulle skirts.

15. Online dresses are around 50% off dresses that are hanging in the prom dress store at the mall.

14. Nearly every manufacturer has a different size chart based on measurements. What is a size 6 with one designer is a size 12 with another. True story.

13. Directions for measuring vary from designer to designer. Some have pictures; some have words; some have videos. Following directions makes a difference. We got 1"-1 1/2" differences in measurements, depending on which directions we followed.

12. It is considerably easier to click a mouse than to park a full-sized SUV. [SANITY-SAVER ALERT!]

11. Searching under the general heading of "prom dresses" will net every dress a website could conceivably procure, not that those styles are currently available.

10. Every formal wear website that carries a special order dress that you, say, find to be the most perfect dress ever created orders those extra special gowns directly from the manufacturer. If it takes 12 weeks to get the dress through one website, it takes 12 weeks to get it from them all.

9. If you want a special order prom dress that takes 12 weeks to get, order it at least 12 weeks before the wear date. Four weeks before the wear date is not the same as 12 weeks. 12 > 4. 4 < 12. No matter how you try, you aren't going to be able to get it in fewer than 12 weeks. :(

8. Online formal wear stores have to check inventory and let you know whether the dress is available. They will sometimes email you with the information. Other times they will call.

7. Some people you talk to on the phone from online formal wear stores have Asian accents and speak Spanish to people in the background.

6. Many of the people you talk to on the phone from online formal wear stores have Brooklyn accents underlying every other accent.

5. Prom dress suppliers do not process the credit card information until the dress actually ships.

4. Once a sufficient number of prom dress websites have told you they can't get your perfect princess dream dress by the wear date, try searching their "In-Stock" or "Ready-to-Ship" inventory. [Bonus tip 4A: A high percentage of "In-Stock" or "Ready-to-Ship" dresses are available at a significant discount off their already-50%-off-the-mall-prices online price.]

3. It would have been extremely helpful to know #4 at the beginning of the prom dress search.

2. Most dress companies offer free shipping, but it can take up to three weeks for the dress to arrive. Overnight delivery is somewhere in the neighborhood of $75.

1. You can look at 439,591 aqua/turquoise/light teal/powder blue dresses in every style imaginable, and you will end up ordering a dress that's "Mango Tango."

Next time: The Final Four.

Quest for the dress -- Part 1: Mall Mania...

2011-03-13T00:13:00.003-05:00

Once the date (as in boy, not calendar) was confirmed, we had to get to work on the dress.

Note to self: purchase next year's prom dress in January.

Things I've learned from the local prom dress search:

Definitions of modest vary widely.
Mall parking spaces are not designed for full-sized SUV's, driven by spacial relations-challenged women.
The prom dress shop at the mall is WAY OVERPRICED... as in need-a-second-mortgage-on-the-house overpriced.
Department stores carry some seriously ugly (or seriously skanky) prom dresses.
The amount of fabric in the dress seems to have no direct correlation with the price of the dress.
I am pretty sure I had a ballet tutu in second grade that looked just like one of the prom dresses in the mall prom shop.
Store dresses are not at all clean or snag-free.

I found some pictures of dresses that represent the selection at the mall.

Hello, tutu!

Why, yes. That is camo print.

Between top slit and bottom slit, not a lot of fabric holds in stuff.

Yes, well...

Stabby sequins and out of dress code.

Prom dress shopping at the mall was a pretty big salt-and-light test for me. People were rude, grabby, profane, snide, snippy, and immodest. The prices were OH. MY. WORD. expensive. I kept thinking about Dave Ramsey and Samaritan's Purse. Dave Ramsey: don't let it be a budget-buster. Samaritan's Purse: have any idea how many people you could feed/ provide fresh water for/ share the gospel with for that much money?!

I found myself wrestling between wanting to give my princess the most beautiful, perfect prom dress in the history of all promdressdom and wanting not to miss the opportunity to focus on God's beauty as He shines through us. Store-bought beauty vs. heaven-sent beauty.

Sooo... between price, style, nondresscodeness, and the vast quantities of snagged fabric and makeup inside the dresses, we decided to go home and shop the interwebs.

PROM?...

2011-03-12T01:47:00.009-05:00

Asking someone to the prom has become a big, public deal.

(Gratuitous old person voice...) Back in my day, the boy walked up to the girl and said, "Will you go to prom with me?" and the girl said, "Yes." And that was that.

I don't know when it happened, but nowadays the young folks have to ask in writing. I suppose that by putting it in writing, the requester becomes contractually obligated to follow through with the rest of the event, should the requestee accept the invitation. Having numerous witnesses certainly makes breach-of-contract easier to prove.

My front-row seat to the Prama started two years ago. By then "Will you go to the prom with me?" had shortened to "Prom w/ me?" Now it's all the way down to "Prom?" I hope it doesn't go down further --- "P?" --- that just wouldn't be right on any level.

The more public the invitation, the better. The chain link fence on the 540 walking bridge near Falls is a popular location. Styrofoam cups are the medium spelling out Prom there.

So far this year, promvites have included...

-P.R.O.M.? taped to a locker in balloons
-P.R.O.M.?--> on t-shirts with the boy standing on the other side of the -->
-P.R.O.M.? spelled out on the fence around the tennis courts
-P.R.O.M.? written vertically on a 30' banner rolled out of a third-floor window
-P.R.O.M.? written on a card, attached to a vase of flowers (that matched the boy's shirt)
-P.R.O.M.? written on a caption, taped to a picture of a Hurricanes hockey player

As much thought goes into asking someone to the prom as goes into thinking of a creative way to propose. Too much, too soon? I think so, but then again I'm old.

We had a battle around here about the promvitation. Kelsey wanted her boyfriend to ask her creatively. I explained that her boyfriend doesn't go to her school. It isn't his prom. He couldn't invite her to her prom any more than he could invite her to a nice dinner at her house. He could ask her to his prom, but he doesn't have one this year. What?

After a little thought (and verification by numerous third parties), she decided she couldn't logically expect him to ask her to her prom. So, she promvited him in her own hipster style.

Trollface Meme

Confession...

2011-03-10T21:32:00.002-05:00

If I were ever going to work for a big corporation, I would want to work for TOMS.

Slight interruption...

2011-03-10T13:04:00.001-05:00

This series of mildly amusing and slightly insightful observations from the Parent Zone regarding high school proms is experiencing a slight interruption. Once a certain nine year old can keep solid food down, or at least takes a nap, postings will resume. (HOW ON EARTH CAN THIS KID NOT BE SLEEPY WHEN HE THREW UP EVERY 20-30 MINUTES FOR SEVEN HOURS LAST NIGHT?! I am WIPED OUT from having ridden shotgun on the adventure. Even the dog is zonked now.)

In the meantime, here are a few pictures of lovely prom dress contenders that didn't make it to the finals.

For some reason, Kelsey loved the color, but didn't care much for the fabric. A bit pricey, too, at $598. (GASP!) I liked the fact that probably no one else would have the same dress, so it'd eliminate dress drama...at a price.

Very pretty, yes? I thought so. Alas, a friend has already staked claim to this dress on the school's prom dress Facebook group, created by students hoping to mitigate prom dress duplication.

Jimmy's favorite. I liked it a lot too. Kelsey said, "Aw," and moved on to the next one. So, it didn't make the cut.

So... stay tuned for the finalists. I can't say the winner because we still don't know. Apparently, prom season is a little manic throughout the land.

Prama...

2011-03-08T18:47:00.002-05:00

Prom + Drama = Prama

Coming soon: Norma's ideas for how to make prom less stressful

I've decided to document our first prom adventure. Well, not our first prom ever. It's just our first prom from the Parent Zone. I mean, Jimmy and I each went to our proms, as well as a few assorted Pledge Formals (which I believe are illegal in the US nowadays. I'm sure they call them Spring Formals now because pledge in both noun and verb forms has been removed from the AGVL -- Approved Greek Vocabulary List.)

Yeah, so stay tuned. I'm off to have coffee with my girl's prom date's momma.

Sand...

2011-03-02T08:16:00.001-05:00

I have no idea why it had that texture. Our best guess would be the 25 mph sustained winds and 45 mph wind gusts at CB on Monday. Pretty cool, though, huh? Except you should try walking a couple of miles on wet, weird-textured sand. Ouch!

The white streaks running perpendicular to the water are streaks of blowing sand.

Apparently the seagulls recently had a huge party. Cracked clam shells lined the stretch between our condo and the end of the island.


Winter seems to make it easier to find lots more cool marine treasures.

I love the beach in winter. I love the beach in summer. I love the beach in spring. I love the beach in fall. I pretty much just love the beach.

What on earth?

2011-03-01T16:18:00.000-05:00

Confession...

2011-03-01T16:16:00.000-05:00

I figured out why people go away for vacations. It's because no matter how hard you try, you can't keep from working on something while you're home. Totally.

Southernness...

2011-02-22T10:15:00.002-05:00

I used to joke that the Lord could send me anywhere in the world and I'd be happy, as long as anywhere didn't include the North. I've always loved being from the South.

Southern. It's not just a regional adjective; it's a family name. My mom's maiden name is Southern. As in railroad, only not. If we were Southern Railroad people, I'm betting there'd be money in the family. In our family there isn't any money; we do have an abundance of antique beds, though. I don't know why.

I've decided that even if I didn't get my Granny's gift for tatting, I did get her affinity for painting furniture. Wood, meet Paint. Paint, meet Wood. Sandpaper? We don't need no stinkin' sandpaper. I have an impatient artisan heritage.

Aside from our throw-away-nothing-because-we-might-be-able-to-use-it-for-something-else family philosophy that lies somewhere between the mountain of collectability and the island of hoarders, I also inherited a nice set of family stories. One of my favorites will get me in trouble with PETA. It involves tick removal from a cat, kerosene, flames and a house fire. That actually wasn't the Southern side of the family. Oh, I mean it IS the southern side, just not the Southern side. I can't remember which cousin was trying to do the cat a service, but he inadvertently caused kitty's demise and burned the house down. I don't think he could do it today, what with the fact that folks usually build solid foundation walls instead of leaving the crawl space open.

There's the story of Granny and the watermelon patch and another one about the time she got bit by a copperhead... or was it a moccasin...? At any rate, she had a scar on the top of her foot where her daddy cut an x and sucked out the poison. In a recent First Aid re-certification course, I learned you're not supposed to do that to a snake bite. Oh well. She was fine, and it made a good story to keep kids from running barefoot through fields or even through a grassy yard in summer twilight.

Why I love the South...

2011-02-21T10:10:00.001-05:00

Readers and writers and books...

2011-02-20T21:26:00.001-05:00

I took a break from ~~stalking~~ watching owls online long enough to have dinner with two of my teacher peeps and attend a book-signing Friday night. Our basketball team was playing for the conference championship at the same time as the reading. Ninth-grade English teacher SC had one of her students ask if she was going to the game, and she said no, she was going to a poetry reading. She said he laughed off and on for the rest of class. After all, who goes to those things?!

Well, we do. The author is the dad of one of Zane's buds. It is his first book. It is about the underlying theme of lynching in Langston Hughes' poetry. My area of concentration in lit for my MA was African American literature. Wrote my thesis on Toni Morrison. LKF, there.

It was awesome. We were blessed to get an outdoor table at a little Italian restaurant. I kept looking for Billy Joel to show up. We chatted about anything and everything. Food was delightful. Tenth-grade English teacher BV could possibly be the funniest, most insightful person I've ever met. I think anyone who knows her would agree.

The book-signing attracted a fairly large and diverse group of people. Dr. Miller had a delightful reading, but knocked it out of the park with his Q & A. BV cracked up the entire crowd with her assertion that modern poetry makes no sense; Langston Hughes is brilliantly accessible to all. Universality. We had a lovely discussion following the reading about how literature is universal, and if the majority of people don't "get it," then it probs isn't literature at all.

It made me realize how much I have starved my intellect over the past 16ish years since I gave birth. I see more reading and readings in the future. And definitely more lunches and dinners with friends.

Oh! The picture above. If you've ever been to Quail Ridge Books, you'll recognize the wall. It's in the bathroom. Actually, every wall in the bathroom is lined with autographed photos of authors who have done book-signings there. I could get only one shot because there was a pretty long line and the reading was about to start. I was trying to use my best Southern manners and get in and out as quickly as possible. Next time, I'll try to get the rest.

I am off to read a little. I did buy a copy of Dr. Miller's book, but I didn't get him to sign it; the line was long. I figure that since track starts next week, I'll just ask him to sign it at one of the meets, since our kids run together. That's not odd, is it? I'll get to his book soon, but first... I treated myself to another Clyde Edgerton novel. He's my favorite local author. I always end up laughing until my sides hurt when I read his work; he is spot-on in capturing especially older Southern women. If I didn't know better, I'd swear he'd ~~stalked~~ watched my family online while researching his books.

Hoot...

2011-02-16T19:12:00.000-05:00

Our Science Department chair shared a link to an owl cam today. The cameras are located inside and outside a barn owl box in Oceanside, CA. The momma owl has six eggs, which are due to hatch between today and the end of the month.

Today I've watched her sleep, roll the eggs around, eat a mouse (while I was cooking dinner... sweet timing, there), and sleep some more.

You want to watch too?

Click here.

Alas, poor red faux...

2011-02-15T21:56:00.000-05:00

It took everything I had not to write "Alas, poor Yorick..."

I've heard reports that the red fauxes are out and about this time of year. Unfortunately, this one didn't make it.

He is now 50% off at Target.

Confession...

2011-02-13T22:13:00.000-05:00

Now would be a good time for me to move away from society for a few ~~days~~ ~~weeks~~ ~~months~~ years.

Confession...

2011-02-11T19:36:00.002-05:00

Having cold feet makes me grumpy. Literal cold feet. Not figurative cold feet.

Pedro came to my house to live...

2011-02-07T19:06:00.001-05:00

I found some rugs on sale online at Crate & Barrel. They were cute. I ordered them. They came. I put them on the floor. The floor looked like it was wearing Pedro's serape... a little like this:

Hey, look at that. It's me in college, stopping to gas up at South of the Border on the way home from Sping Break in Florida. Nice tan.

I do love some color. Truly. So, I'm embracing my Pedro-serape floor coverings. Why I ordered a total of five of these rugs in various sizes is story in itself. What's relevant here is that one landed under the dining room table, replacing an oriental-style rug. Of course that meant I needed new window treatments, and double-of-course I waited until 24-hours before 30 or so people descended on my house for a Super Bowl party.

In panic mode, I hit every store in town, looking for the perfect curtains. The last store left was Kohl's. The Kohl's collection of window treatments pretty much stinks. My Marine instincts kicked in, and I shifted into adapt-improvise-and-overcome mode. I wisked through the sheets. Nothing. I flew through towels. Nope. I sped through the shower curtains. Nada. Then I screeched to a halt in front of the placemats.

Multi-colored bamboo matchstick placemats. I bought five. Turns out I needed only four.

Kohl's placemat. $3.99 each + 50% off = $1.99 each.

Grocery shopping happened at the SuperWalMart, which conveniently stocked clear monofilament.


SuperWalMart. $1.00

I lined up the matchstick placemats two-by-two and tied them together with clear monofilament. Each set took about 10 minutes to secure.

10 minutes of tying knots. Right-over-left. Left-over-right.

I ripped down the old window treatments and clipped in the new ones.


$4.50 per window. 30 minutes.

It's fun and festive--that's for certain. Arriba!

Confession...

2011-02-05T10:43:00.000-05:00

I think my house is cluttered because I don't have enough lace-up shoes. Hooray for TOMS and Uggs. Boo for clutter.

Tricky little S'mart...

2011-01-31T06:36:00.004-05:00

One of my two favorite clothing stores sent me a coupon over the interwebs. I'm pretty sure they sent the coupon to a few other people too.

It was a "Take-an-additional-40%-off-all-Red-Dot-Clearance" coupon. The Chickie Shopper Code requires that I go to such events or risk losing my certified Chickie Shopper status.

What did I find (besides that adorable tunic-length cap-sleeve gray sweater vest with faux fur trim)? I found trickiness. You see, there are TWO kinds of sale items at the S'mart. One kind is "Red-Dot Clearance," and the other is just plain old "Sale" (how prosaic). And the signs look SOOOO similar. I think that's tricky.

They ought to make the signs for non "Take-an-additional-40%-off-all-Red-Dot-Clearance" coupon items a distinct color, like... say... blaze orange. You know, the color hunters wear so that they don't get shot in the woods when stalking down their prey. The Red-Dot signs can remain their lovely red, black and white. Think about it; it would totally work. After all, if we're going to risk life and limb out there bargain hunting, we ought to have an official system to ensure budget safety.

Red-Dot-Clearance sign

NOT Red-Dot-Clearance sign

Oh so faux...

2011-01-29T00:11:00.001-05:00

Fake boot tops made of fake fur

A new way to wear Tribbles

Faux fur awareness campaign grows...

2011-01-27T19:52:00.002-05:00

One of my sweet colleague-friends copied and pasted on my fb wall a status that one of her other friends had posted. She thought I might enjoy it. I think you might too:

"dear old navy customers, i regret to inform you that we do not and never have sold fox fur lined hoodies...we do, however, sell FAUX fur lined hoodies...it's easy to see the confusion."

Faux fur confusion plagues our culture.

Save the fauxes...

2011-01-22T17:09:00.002-05:00

Friday I wore a lovely new tunic-length cap-sleeve gray sweater vest with faux fur trim. The fur looked a lot like my gray and black striped kitty I had growing up. As a public service to the faint of heart, I assured them that the fur was faux... completely synthetic and not in any way akin to real kitties.

"You say faux 'fOH'? I thought it was 'fOHx' or 'fAWx.'"
"No, 'fOH.' You know the French word for false... fake."
"You mean faux fur is fake fur?"
"Yep. What did you think it was?"
"I thought is was a little fox-like animal."

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLs...

We had a great laugh. And so began the "Save the fauxes" campaign.

Oh, the irony...

2011-01-12T20:55:00.000-05:00

Ice, ice baby...

2011-01-11T10:19:00.000-05:00

Let's review. I was born in this town. I went to college ~30 miles away. I got married, got a job, and bought a house in a town four miles away from where I went to college and 25ish miles away from the house I lived in growing up. All these places are in the South. OK, picky people -- Southeast.

We have one or two winter events a year. On average there's a fun snow (4-6 inches) and another something. Sometimes that's snow and sometimes it sleet or ice. To date this season, we have had six (6) winter events since December 1: dustings of snow, nicely measurable snow, and now sneetice. I'm not complaining; I'm just sayin'.

So as I sit home for the third wintry weather unplanned vacation-from-schwork day, I'm working up motivation to peel more wallpaper ("Mom, when are you going to finish our bathroom? It's hard not having anywhere to hang towels.") or run on the treadmill (Couch to 5k still under consideration). I am going to get on those things... right after I watch a weather-related Robert Van Winkle video on YouTube.

The Demise of Facebook...

2011-01-08T11:58:00.000-05:00

With the most recent profile update, Facebook has gotten... boring. I used to love updating my status daily. It was after my name at the top, so I felt a little compelled to keep it current. If I wanted to know what was up with a friend because I hadn't stalked my news feed all day, I'd click on her profile, read her statues, and voila... reconnected with what's going on.

Now statuses (stati?) disappear on the wall and get lost in the shuffle, so... meh... who cares. I don't have time or inclination to hardcore creep anytime I want to know what someone's doing.

Instead, I've headed over to Twitter more and more. I like it over there. I follow lots of people/organizations that are helpful to my daily existence. SamaritansPurse gives me ways to pray for folks outside my little world; esvdaily sends me Scripture to ponder; CSLewisDaily reminds me to think deeply and well; APStylebook enlightens me about writing standards; local news and weather and traffic keep me on top of stuff where I live.

And then there's the celebrities. Hands-down the funniest is...wait for it... patsajak (Pat Sajak). Absolutely hilarious. I recently started following him on a tip from donttrythis (Adam Savage of Mythbusters).

So Mark Z... you're about to "improve" your little empire to death. Just chill, dude. There's something to that old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

New Shoos...

2011-01-03T22:55:00.000-05:00

Today we went back to school, and I wore my new shoes. I got TOMS for Christmas. They were super cute on the website, but oh-my-goodness! I had no idea how comfortable they are. TOMS are officially my favorite shoe.

I wear my Skechers Shape-Ups when my plantar fasciitis acts up, but I have a feeling that if TOMS feel as good after they wear a bit as they do at first, I might not have many bouts with the dreaded p.f.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SMT verse: I Corinthians 6:20 - For you were bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. (From memory! Booyah! Already whipped it out and used it in battle. Felt great!)

I'm off to get good rest. 'Nite y'all.

<3

Confession...

2011-01-01T12:17:00.000-05:00

I love, love, love collard greens and black-eyes peas for New Year's dinner, but I have actually cooked them only once. I burned the collard greens so badly we had to throw away the pot. And you think collard greens smell funky cooking; you ought to smell them when they're burning.

I love my mom for making New Year's dinner each year!

MMX --> MMXI...

2010-12-31T21:55:00.000-05:00

Seven things from the end of 2010...

1. I found the most amazing ceramic travel mugs ever.

2. When you ask God about leaving somewhere and going somewhere else and the Scripture in your devotional reading that immediately follows the prayer is Jeremiah 42, you stay put.

3. For the first time ever, the baby girl is ringing in the new year without Mom and Dad in the same room. Sigh... She is an amazing young lady, and we are so proud of her.

4. Our boys, for all their playing and silliness, are noble young men.

5. Twenty-three years go by fast, and it's hard to remember life before.

6. Extended family is a huge blessing.

7. Bloggy, Facebook, and Twitter friends make life so much fun!

Have a great 2011! Much love and many blessings to all!

Christmas Letter 2010...

2010-12-31T00:01:00.008-05:00

~~Merry Christmas!~~ Happy New Year! We are excited to share with you the happenings of our little family in our annual ~~Christmas letter~~ New Year's letter. In case you haven't been following this blog all year, here's a wrap up...

The Kiddos:

Kelsey finished her sophomore year in stellar form. Can't begin to tell you how proud of her we are. She worked her brain into a frazzle and walked away from the 2009-2010 school year with straight A's. Even in math. And especially in AP Biology. Over the summer she went on her first out-of-the-area mission trip, to Islamorada, FL, where she worked with kids at VBS. She had a blast. She returned to school this fall for the infamous junior year and decided she needed more activities for her college resume. Those new activities included: varsity volleyball, student leadership team, yearbook copy editor, morning devotional leader, junior prayer group leader, powderpuff football team, FCA leadership, and volunteering as a Sunday school teacher in the children's ministry at church. She was selected to attend the ACSI leadership conference, which was a big deal or there is no way we would have let her miss three days of APUSH and AP English. There were probably more things she did than those, but we are still a little traumatized from the fall activity overload. This spring she takes the SAT and two AP exams. Oh my! We still start the official college visits too. She has her favorite (probably as a result of her dad's brainwashing... "Hark the Sound" was his lullaby of choice for the kids), but we are encouraging her to keep an open mind as she seeks the Lord's will for her life. Oh yeah, she got her driver's license, too.

Zane also finished the 2009-2010 school year with straight A's. Goodness, it's a good thing Jimmy's their dad. They get all their smarts from him. :) During the spring, Zane discovered his track event: hurdles. It took a little convincing, but the coaches finally let him run hurdles in a meet, and he blew up the competition. We were all a little amazed; Zane may have been the most amazed. He spent the summer...um...relaxing. This fall Zane started high school, which has brought about a number of changes, not the least of which was the fact that he had [a lot of] real homework every night. Football season brought a new JV head coach, a starting position for Zane on offense, and a lot of playing time on defense too. The team did great, finishing 8-2, and the coach did an "excellent" job teaching the guys about excellence in all areas of life. Zane, also, is on the student leadership team at school. After football season, Zane took the classroom portion of Driver's Ed, and we are waiting for the call from the driving school about when he will do his road work. This summer Zane had his first job, mowing Gramma's lawn. He's learned a ton about working hard and saving money. Zane's most interested in anything to do the the military, whether it be video games, History Channel documentaries, or books. He especially loves learning about World War II.

Zack is in third grade this year, and he has a super-fun teacher. We knew it would be a great fit when we walked in during open house and the room was decked out in a beach theme. She does a great job of motivating the kids. Zack has done very well this year, and much to his mom's delight, is writing essays. He's always been a storyteller, but now he's branching into writing. He's found a couple of book series that he likes, and he's read us out of house and home. Zack opted out of sports this past year, and we didn't push it as it was all we can do to get his older brother and sister everywhere they had to be. But this spring is his time to shine. He is trying to decide between running in a youth track and field program or playing flag football in a local league. Like most nine year olds, Zack LOVES building with Legos. For Christmas this year he got three large sets, and by Tuesday he had put together all three by himself (well, he had a little help from Zane on the last one, which doesn't work quite the way it was advertised... imagine that). Zack is our little daredevil, learning how to skimboard this summer and sledding like a champ this winter. He loves riding his bike and is definitely our outdoor kid. He was all about being in the pool this summer, until a bee landed on him in the water. That pretty much ended the pool season for him. The ocean, on the other hand, is his favorite. He would be in the water from sunrise to sunset if we would let him... and if sunrise and sunset weren't feeding time for sharks. He can tell you all about sharks and pirates and privateers and knights and aliens and dinosaurs.

The Parentos:

Norma survived teaching mainly middle schoolers last year and moved up to teaching mainly high schoolers this year. Of course a move up in age level also meant a move to half-time from full-time. It was a little bit of a surprise at first, but it has turned out to be a huge blessing. The Lord's provision has been incredible, and we are grateful. Teaching mainly writing classes (Honors Creative Writing, Journalism, and Middle School Creative Writing) and one English class (tenth grade College Prep) has made life busy with four preps and lots of writing to grade, but it's also been a ton of fun. Five of her middle school students were selected for publication as part of a national competition. Three of her students (one middle school and two high school) were winners in NaNoWriMo. We hosted the church's high school summer Bible study this year, and it was a blasty blast. For the first time, it was co-ed and we fed the kids before the study. It was sort of like hosting a night of Meta once a week.

Jimmy continues to work for Medtronic and loves helping people. He has some great folks on his team who have become good friends. He's also been blessed to build friendships with some of the doctors in his territory. His favorite part, though, is helping the patients and their families understand the devices they receive. Well, that and the selling part. He really likes sales too. We are so blessed in the place where the Lord has called Jimmy to work. Jimmy was able to help coach Zane's football team again this year, which was a lot of fun (understatement) for him. The new head JV coach is the guy who was Zane's first football coach when Zane played city league in third grade. Jimmy and Coach C have a shared football history and can talk for hours about lineups and plays and such (trust me on this one). With an increase in job responsibilities and ministry as a volunteer football coach, Jimmy has taken a leave of absence from being a deacon. We are still serving in student ministry by being support for the junior Sunday school class teaching team. Jimmy is praying about additional opportunities to serve, but at this stage in life and in our family, we need great wisdom to know where to direct our time and resources.

Speaking of time and resources... yes, we still have the condo at the beach. It was a particularly needy real estate investment this year, as several major systems saw the end of their lifespan. :-/ But as always, the Lord provided. Boy are we grateful for the emergency fund Dave Ramsey made us save!

That's a few high spots for 2010. We hope the year has been a huge blessing to you and that you enter 2011 full of love and joy and peace and hope.

May the Lord bless you bigger than you can ask or imagine!

Love,

Jimmy, Norma, Kelsey, Zane, and Zack (and Pepper too!)

Happy birthday, Zany Brainy!

2010-12-30T01:19:00.000-05:00

You are an amazing young man, and we are so proud of you! From the start you have been a knight in shining armor... it's just who you are. We love you, Zane!