Into the Blue

Peachy Mornings

2011-04-13T10:59:00.002-07:00

I used to be on time for things. I left early, I was rarely in a hurry, and I was never late. I couldn't understand why some people had such a hard time with punctuality. Seemed pretty simple to me. And then I had children.

I can't remember the last time that I've heard Matthew strike the first chord of the opening song at a Sunday morning church service. It's not that I don't care. I want to be there. I want to be there on time. But inevitably and invariably, the events that unfold around getting 4 small children who wake up at 7:00am out the door by 7:55am foil my best efforts. And yet, with the optimism (or stupidity) of a bird flying into a plate-glass window, I try again every week.

Last Sunday had promise. My son bounded up the stairs at 7:00 sharp, like he always does, a pajama-clad ray of sunshine. Harper shuffled up behind him, half asleep and blanket in tow. A few minutes later Bethany came into the kitchen fully dressed, though with hair that could have resulted from climbing an electric fence. Judah would be waking up soon, and there seemed to be more than enough time for everything to get accomplished. So I'm not sure how it happened, but at 7:58 one child hadn't brushed her hair, another couldn't find her shoes, one had fingernails from the crypt, and the baby was still in the highchair stuffing cheerios into his mouth. Despite my constant prodding, I'd seen icebergs move faster.

At this point tensions were elevated and I morphed into drill sergeant Mommy, barking orders and angrily herding the ranks into the minivan. By the time we were on the road we were clearly going to be late and I was no longer in the mood to go to church at all. I was angry at the kids and angry at myself for being angry at the kids. I considered just turning around and going home. What was the point? I knew I wouldn't be able to smile at people with sincerity. I knew I wouldn't be able to focus and truly sing to Jesus. Why bother going to church after the morning we'd had, and with all that anger inside. And yet I didn't want to let it go. I didn’t want to make it right. I just wanted to be mad.

So I prayed. I prayed and I preached to myself all the way there, and though it wasn't until we were just a few blocks away, my stony heart was finally melted. Before we got out of the van, I turned around and told the kids I needed to ask for their forgiveness because I had made being on time an idol and as a result, had gotten angry at them. As always they were quick to forgive and I got a humbling hug from each one as they piled out into the parking lot. On the walk to Children's Ministries we had a good discussion about idolatry and how it is the root of all our problems and sin. And by the time I got to church, well after it had started, I was able to sincerely smile and sincerely sing.

When it was time to take communion God explained to me what I was supposed to learn that morning. It was OK to come to church a total mess. It was good. It was better, even. What better way to approach the Repairer of all things then in brokenness? What better place to come as a broken person, then into the courts of the Restorer? God's abundant grace was extraordinarily real to me that morning because I walked in knowing that I needed it. Would I have experienced it as richly if I had been on time? If everything had been peachy that morning and there had been no pressure that would squeeze the ugliness inside of me out where it could be seen?

I'm all for peachy mornings. I wouldn't mind more of them. But every now and then it's good to have a rotten one, so you can taste the sweetness of grace.

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Luke 18:9-14

Arrival

2010-10-17T00:06:00.003-07:00

*This is a transmission from Songwriter Nerd Camp, intended for fellow songwriter nerds. If you are not one of us, kindly ignore this post and carry on.*

We often refer to Write About Jesus as a family and that is truly what it is. And in the family of WAJ, we all enter at different stages of songwriting life. Many hear of WAJ very early on in their writing careers and are just babies when they first don the orange lanyard, others are seasoned veterans who have cut their teeth elsewhere and show up at WAJ as fully developed, functional family members. I, however, along with many of my favorite people at WAJ, came in somewhere around the 7th grade with braces and pimples, awkward and insecure. That was six years ago, and for some reason this year I looked around and realized that we truly have grown up at WAJ, like the title of the panel that I missed. Like a senior class in cap and gown, I look at the people I have walked alongside in this journey and I see the growth and maturity that only time can bring, yet still knowing that we have so much more to learn.

On the way to the airport for departure, Sean and I talked about what it means to “arrive” in songwriting. I am so glad we had that conversation, because one of the biggest things I took home this year was the understanding that, unless I redefine for myself the concept of arrival, it will always remain just out of reach. So perhaps there are multiple arrivals along the way. Perhaps I have arrived in many ways even this year. Maybe I have “arrived” when....

….I can relate to people for who they are and not what they can do for me.

When I can write not to impress a particular person but to excel in my craft for my joy and God's glory.

When I can sit in a 2 hour writing session and not get beyond a first verse, but leave neither irritated nor discouraged because I have built a relationship with another like-minded brother or sister in Christ.

When I am on the spot and I am able to stop my heart from pounding out of my chest in that moment by saying to myself “my worth is in Christ..... my worth is in Christ...” because I truly believe it.

When I can step back and look at my life and realize that I am in fact living my dream. The moments of discontent come because, for some sick reason, I continually push my dream out of reach rather than enjoy where I am and thank the Lord for His blessing. I'm all for challenging myself and pressing onward, but I have found that if my motivation for pushing harder is void of joy, or has any root in bitterness or jealously or an arrogant sense of entitlement, then songwriting has become an idol that I must hasten to pull down.

It's funny as I look at that list and see that none of them have anything to do with the craft itself. And isn't that what they've been trying to tell us all along? It's about relationships. I guess they know that they're talking about. They who have guided us so patiently through our fumbling adolescent years of slow discovery. They are more than mentors, because WAJ is more than a conference. It is like a family, and they are like parents, giving generously at their own expense, reaching down to pull us up, and hopefully experiencing the joy and fulfillment that comes from seeing the fruit of their sacrifice. To them, I want to say thank you for your rich investment in us. Because very few people arrive anywhere without someone first showing them the way.

The Braselton Family Update Quiz

2010-03-03T06:59:00.005-07:00

This is a post that I've had on my list to write for months now, but just haven't gotten around to it. When we starting telling people that we were pregnant, Matthew said I'd better update the blog and fill folks in on what our adoption plans are and all that good stuff. I agreed, but thought it would make for a pretty dry post both to write and to read, so I have been putting it off until now. But in the 30 seconds or so of typing this opening paragraph, I have decided not to resign this post to such a fate. Instead of a “press release” I'm going to make this a short quiz that anyone who is interested can participate in. You'll still get the low-down, but I won't drop off to sleep while editing my own post. I'll also mail a free “Wondrous Things” CD to the first person (other than Luke Simmons) to get 100% correct. Good luck!

The Braselton Family Update Quiz

1. Matthew and Kristie's latest addition to the family is due on:

a) St. Patrick's Day
b) Memorial Day
c) Independence Day
d) Labor Day

2. The decision to have another biological child came about when:

a) Matthew and Kristie found out they were pregnant
b) Kristie got the baby bug and wore Matthew down
c) Matthew got the baby bug and wore Kristie down
d) Bethany and Harper begged for a baby

3. When Matthew and Kristie told their caseworker that they were pregnant, she informed them that:

a) She was very excited for us
b) Agency policy states that a pregnant couple cannot adopt until one year after their baby is born.
c) She will put our home study on hold and all of the paperwork that we've done will still be good to go with a few updates
d) All of the above

4. When Matthew and Kristie heard what she had to say, they:

a) Flew into a fit of rage
b) Were disappointed, but knew that God was in control of their family.
c) Decided to switch agencies and pursue international adoption
d) Booked a Caribbean cruise with the money in their adoption savings account

5. The plan for the Braselton family's adoption is now:

a) Have the new baby and see where our family is at a year from then
b) Switch tracks to international adoption where there are no waiting policies
c) Put the new baby up for adoption so we can adopt sooner
d) Adopt a highway instead

6. The Braseltons were planning on adopting a sibling group of 2 or 3, but now:

a) They want to adopt a sibling group of no less than 4 in hopes of replacing Jon and Kate on cable television.
b) They plan to adopt only one child
c) Their plans have not changed
d) They are in a "wait and see" stage for the next few years

Eight Cents

2010-01-13T14:25:00.002-07:00

Last night we told the kids about the earthquake and prayed for Haiti before we went to bed. Bethany had a special connection with Haiti because she had collected a jar of spare change for them last year after learning they were the poorest country in the world. Today at lunch we prayed for them again, and I told the girls that Mommy and Daddy were going to give some money to help Haiti and that they were welcome to give some of their money too if that was something they felt like they wanted to do.

Both girls said right away that they did want to help, and made a dash for their piggy banks. They both came down with hands full of change. Harper handed me a handful of coins she had fished out from her impressive stash (she's quite the saver), and Bethany came down with several coins, all the money she had left (she's quite the spender). Harper gave me her contribution and Bethany pulled out 4 quarters and put them in my hand. “I want to give them a dollar,” she explained, and nodding to the nickel and three pennies that remained in her hand, “I'm going to keep this much.”

“Thank you,” I told her. “It's very generous of you.” Then she asked if we could take a trip to Haiti so we could see what was happening over there. I told her we couldn't, but that I could show her pictures on the computer. She wanted very much to see them, so we sat down on the couch and watched a news clip from NBC. The girls stared silently at the images of collapsed buildings, women crying, and streets full of injured people. “That's so sad...” Harper commented when it was over. “We need to give them the money NOW!”

“We can!” I said, signing onto the Food for the Hungry website. When I got to the space to type in the dollar amount, I started to add up the girls' donations and the grown-up donation.

“Wait.” Bethany said. Then she opened her hand and carefully set the other eight cents onto the laptop. “I want to give the rest.”

I smiled silently, drew her in for a hug and kissed her on the head, then adjusted the total to reflect the additional eight cents. Together, the girls pressed the “checkout now” button and the coins still warm from their hot little hands crossed the ocean and landed in the streets of Haiti. And my heart welled up with the hope that my little girls might learn from me the joy of giving sacrificially, and that I might learn the same from them.

More Thoughts on Mommyhood

2009-09-24T06:43:00.005-07:00

Studying 1 Corinthians 13 this morning, applying it to mommyhood. Here's a few paragraphs off my page that I want to keep in mind today.

(this is excerpted from the KBNIV)

If I have obedient, well-behaved children and everyone tells us what good parents we are, but we have not love, it is emptiness and means nothing.

If I get everywhere on time and no children bother me while I'm checking my email, and if I have a clean house and serve great meals and get lots and lots done in a day, but I do not love my kids, then none of it matters, and I am nothing.

If I have a vast ministry that impacts many and I accomplish great things in my lifetime, but I did not love my children, then I missed my first importance and I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not wish its kids were like someone else's when they are embarrassing or take credit for how wonderful they are when they are charming and sweet. It is not condescending and it is courteous, even to small children who won't call you out on it. It does not hold the schedule or the to do list above the people they were meant to serve. It does not walk around like a grumpy martyr for all the things it has to give up for these people. It does not discipline in anger or feel a sense of retribution for itself, but rejoices when the truth is expounded to its children and God is honored and revered. Love holds up under the constant pestering, it gives its children the benefit of the doubt, it hopes great things for them and works to that end, and it withstands every offense. In every moment choose to love, and it will never let you down.

Quick Update

2009-08-31T14:08:00.002-07:00

Well, we finished our PS MAPPS classes! We are officially deemed worthy to raise children by the state of Arizona. Now, we just wait for a call!

We are currently camping out in the basement of a wonderful couple from our church until our house in completed, so probably a month or two.

The kids are loving preschool and pre-K so far and just keep growing up so fast! Bethany turns 5 on Saturday, so we are preparing for the Big Barbie Birthday Bash. Working on this year's piñata... it's turning out really neat! I'll have to post pictures of it before Saturday. Sigh... born for destruction.

No time for much creative writing here on the ol' blog. I'm trying to channel any time and energy that I have for that sort if thing into songwriting. Besides, does anyone even read blogs anymore? Seems to me like they're on their way out. But I just saw "Julie and Julia" which was really fun and reminded me that "Oh, right! I have a blog!"

Have you ever been playing hide and seek with your kids and you're hiding and they're just not finding you? And you stay there, hardly breathing, legs cramping up, thinking what a great hiding place you've found only to eventually discover that they've long since moved on to another activity and forgotten all about you?

Fun times.

Stayin' Alive

2009-07-20T21:08:00.002-07:00

Alright, I admit it. I'm just posting to keep a pulse, however faint, in this blog. Not a whole lot going on in the adoption realm, just working our way through the last classes we need to be totally certified. We're still very excited but it seems like the more we learn, the scarier the outlook. It's good though- kind of tests your calling.

I was reading in Philippians one this morning and came away with a cool new perspective on my family. Paul is talking to the church and he says(paraphrase) "I thank my God for you because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now... for you are all partakers with me in grace." I asked several questions as I studied the passage, one of which was "How can I apply this passage to my family?"

The Spirit totally applied it to remind me that I am not only raising my children, I am raising my future partners in the gospel. What a huge and awesome responsibility! How I raise them, treat them, talk to them, and train them should reflect that. It's so easy to settle for raising happy, healthy, safe, smart, polite children. But we've been given so much a greater a task than that. What kind of people would I want my future partners in ministry to be? What would I want them to know? What kind of example would I have wanted for them to have?

Also, everyone in my home is a fellow partaker of grace. We are all needy, weak, and messed up people who live each moment on the grace of God. I need to live with them in light of that, as one who is given copious amounts of grace each day.

The thunder is rolling outside. I love that sound when I'm snug indoors. The kids and I are off to Flagstaff tomorrow with some friends to escape the triple digits. And that's all she wrote.

Starting Our Classes and Benjamin Turning 45

2009-06-21T06:31:00.005-07:00

We started our PSMAPPS foster care and adoption certification classes a couple of weeks ago! It feels good to finally be doing something toward the goal again. So every Thursday night a beloved friend comes over at 5:45pm and watches the kids until we return sometime around 10:00. I think the classes will be really good, and I'm looking forward to learning more about how to deal with some of the issues that our kids will be dealing with. It's funny- the point of the class is to equip you for what you will face, but from what I've heard, by the end of it you feel much less confident in your ability to handle what it coming your way. I suppose that's a good thing, though, to realize that on your own you are unable. Makes you run to Jesus all the more.

One of the things that I have found most helpful in the first couple of classes is talking about different children and different cases. The names are changed, but the situations and issues are real. It's been good to kind of put some flesh on who these kids are, what they've been through, and what they will need when they come into our home. It's crazy- kids who were physically abused, sexually abused and neglected, kids who start fires or run away, kids who were encouraged to use drugs by their parents, kids who were abandoned by their parents at supermarkets, girls who come in with children of their own- and to think: There's 10,000 of them. In Arizona alone. The need is so overwhelming. But it is encouraging to know that God fights for and loves the orphan, and there are way more then 10,000 families in his Church.

Days like yesterday, celebrating Benjamin's 2nd birthday, make us want to do this all the more. To provide a loving, functional, gospel-centered family to kids who may have never seen one. Matthew took Benjamin shopping for "boy toys" yesterday morning(since we still have an overwhelmingly pink-and-princess play room at this point) and as he was walking out of Wal-Mart with his little boy he was struck with emotion over how blessed he is and how blessed Benji is to be able to experience little things like that.

In the afternoon we had a great little birthday party for Benjamin at Peter Piper Pizza where he got everything he needs to literally become his hero- Bob the Builder. And for some reason, every time you ask him how old he is, he says "45". We have no idea why, but we think it's hilarious. I posted a video of his day here.

The Secrets of Songwriting Revealed! (not really)

2009-05-30T16:30:00.005-07:00

It's been over a week since I returned from my trip to a Songwriting Retreat in Indiana, but I am just now getting around to blogging about it. It was my 3rd year there and I would say my best year. It was non-stop writing as usual, but this year I had just an extra measure of energy to make it through some late nights, some unexpected co-writes, and literally running up and down the halls to meet up with people on time. Counting songs that I finished up from last year, I came home with 6 new ones, and was apparently dubbed “The Little Writing Giant”. I wonder if I'll get my own infommerical. Anyway, it was such a good time and I wrote some really good songs and hung out with some really good people. The food was great as usual, and this year's t-shirts were great: “More ballads in a weekend then a whole season of Idol”. Yes, t-shirts. As my friend Allie puts it, it's basically songwriter nerd camp.

Nerdy as it is, a lot of people ask me about this mysterious process of writing a song. The most common question I get is “Do you write the melody first or the lyric?” I tell people it happens all different ways, but when you throw another writer or two into the mix, things get even more interesting.

The basic process, at least as I have experienced it, is you sit down in the writer's room with the other person or people and spend some time just shooting the breeze or getting to know each other if you don't already. Then you start throwing out ideas of what to write about. Both writers are ideally prepared with a few good ideas, some even partially developed, and after a little while both people can generally settle on one idea that strikes them each with enough passion and vision for the song to go ahead and “chase it”, as we say.

Every song is built around what is called the hook. The hook is usually that one line, often times the title, that just gets you when you hear it or sticks with you when the song is over. Ideally you would start with the hook and build a chorus around it, then come up with a couple of verses to explain and set up the chorus. If the song needs a bridge it's typically added after the rest has been written, and inevitably there will be some tweaking along the way. Depending on who you're writing with, the melody could be written right along with the lyric or you could end up with a completed lyric to hand over to a melody writer. Regardless of how it happens, the goal of that 3 hours or so is to birth a new song into the world.

Mysterious is a good way to describe it. It is never cut and dry. What I described was a sort of normal, standard, baseline for the process. But really, anything can happen. Sometimes it's miserable. Sometimes you laugh until your sides ache. Sometimes the Spirit is so present in the room you feel you could reach out and touch Him. I write solo most of the time, so I'm still relatively new to co-writing. But I'm so thankful that once a year for four days, I get to indulge in that mysterious melding of minds and muse.

PS- A note on those pictures... Each night we performed the songs that we'd written that day for the rest of the group, and that's what those pictures are from. So just to clarify, we do not write with microphones.

Scrapbooking and Pseudo Death

2009-05-15T15:40:00.009-07:00

It's hard to blog after you've begun to get sparser and sparser with posts. You feel like you need to have something significant to say before you're eligible to write again. Kind of like when you haven't prayed in a while and you feel like you'd better have something good to say to God before coming before Him. But both notions are quite silly so I will post with or without significant thought.

We made the announcement last Sunday that we are going to join Luke at Second Mile Church, a plant of East Valley. Matthew will be coming on as the Associate Pastor and will also lead the music there. We are so excited! A part of our hearts have been there since the church began, so it feels really good to finally get to be a real part of it. I will continue with my single mom's group and with Women's Ministries at East Valley, but other then that I plan to fight my propensity to jump into much else with adoption on the horizon. I am guessing I will need everything I have here at home, at least for a while. Or perhaps for the next 18 years.

I just finished up a little scrapbook for our adoption. It tells the story of our family to help the state make a good match. I had so much fun doing it. I also committed not to spend much money on it, and I was able to use a lot of my leftover stuff from my previous 2 books. I love what little scrapbooking I've done, but was so difficult to try to capture our family (and our extended family) in ten 6" by 6" pages and to decide which pictures to use. I'm very happy with how it turned out, though. I hope I get it back!

So it has been an odd, at times surreal couple of months with the switch to Second Mile. We have been joking since Sunday's announcement that you'd think Matthew had died or something. Everyone has been coming up to him and saying all of the nice things that people think but don't usually say until your funeral. He's been extra careful to keep the valve on his head open lest it fill and get too big. It has been cool, though, to hear some of the fruit of your work and ministry in the lives of the people you shepherd and care about. In case I don't, I should take pictures of it. Maybe I will post them!

Tonight we are off to see "Star Trek", which Matthew consistently calls "Star Wars" which drives me crazy. Right now he's sleeping off a morning at the zoo, but in an hour and a half I will get him all to myself for the rest of the day. :)

Here's the book:

Nashville in a Nutshell. (A Really Long Nutshell)

2009-04-20T16:33:00.012-07:00

Okay, so Matthew says I have to post about my trip to Nashville even though I think it will be Dullsville to everyone except songwriters. So, as my writer-friend Allie says on her blog: Warning- Songwriter nerd talk ahead! Anyone not interested feel free to check out now.

I flew into Nashville Thursday afternoon. It was only my second trip, so I still got a kick out of the stages set up with live music throughout the airport. Nothing like a little Willie Nelson cover tune while you wait for your baggage. The Avis people informed me that the coupon I had booked the reservation with required that I also rent a GPS unit. This is exactly the kind of thing that I would end up throwing out the window on the freeway but I took it anyway so that I could use my coupon. The woman said I could choose between a 4 door sedan or a PT Cruiser. Obvious choice for someone who normally drives a minivan.

I called my first co-writer Kevin and told him I was on my way. I punched in the address on the GPS and followed the prompts. Once I was sure I was in the wrong place I called Kevin back. "You're where?!?" he asked incredulously. Strike one on the GPS. He talked me through as I backtracked 20 minutes of freeway miles and finally arrived at my publisher Randy's studio. Kevin, Randy and I worked on a song that we had already started, so work was quick and successful. We finished up a Christmas invitational song to fill the slot at the end of a musical. It turned out very nice and I'm looking forward to hearing the finished product.

I grabbed some good southern grub and headed to my friend Ericka's house where I was staying. Her neighborhood was so beautiful- rolling green hills, brick and stone houses, and dogwoods blooming everywhere. I found her house just fine without the GPS, using my preprinted mapqwest directions. I met her family and her 7 year old daughter that I had displaced from her room for 3 nights, who showed me no animosity in spite of it. We hung out in the living room and watched Nanny 911 until we felt really good about ourselves as parents and I retired to my room.

Friday morning I headed to a co-write that had been set up by a friend with Caleb, a writer I'd never met. He was a very talented piano player and melody writer and we wrote well together while his cat, called Mouse, sat indifferently on the window sill. Two and a half hours later we had a song that we both really liked about trusting the sovereignty of God and not always needing to understand what He is doing in times of trial in our lives. Yet another song about suffering from someone who has yet to know it firsthand. But it is coming, I'm sure.

Straight from there I went to my friend Dennis' studio and gave him a country lyric that he put a melody to. We had a good time and came away with a completed work tape which is always a wonderful thing. Then it was off to Randy's studio again for a Writer's Night which is basically where we eat dinner together and then go around and each play a song. I love those things. I had some great food and heard some great songs and came away feeling creatively energized. Stayed up way too late that night forgetting that I was two hours later then Arizona, but once I did go to bed I slept great.

This is getting sooooo long, but I don't want to have two posts on this so I'll just push on through for whoever is still awake. Saturday was a writers workshop at Randy's studio where we had breakfast and several very talented and insightful men imparted creative wisdom to us. Then we ate lunch, then some more wisdom, then on to one more co-write before the end of the day. I met up with my friend Phil and we chased a Mary song forever but really didn't end up getting anywhere. But I had a great time talking with him and it was good to stretch the creative muscles for a while. I tried the GPS again to find my way home. I was on Commerce between 7th ave and 9th ave. It told me to turn on 8th ave. So I turned on 9th. "Re-cal-cu-la-ting...." I cruise past Church Street waiting for my next instructions and it pipes up. "Turn left on Church street". Needless to say, the unit spent the remainder of the trip in the glove box.

Sunday morning I woke up to rain tapping on the window pane and tried chasing Mary again. This time I think I caught her. At 11:00am I met my publisher and his wife at their church which is the oldest church in Franklin. It is a super old-school Episcopal church that was used during the civil war as a hospital and a horse stable. You could see the marks on the walls where the horse troughs were hammered in. It was a beautiful church and, as I expected, the service was quite different from what I'm accustomed to at home. All the clergy wore robes and people carried stuff on golden poles down the aisle and we sang from a hymnal and read from a liturgy and there was a secret code that I never figured out when at random times everyone but me would cross themselves simultaneously. I felt rather out of place, but it was cool to see a church that worships differently, especially seeing all that they do to reach out to their surrounding world.

After church they took me out as promised for my authentic southern fried chicken. It was great. Even the corn was battered and fried. We finished up with plenty of time for me to get to the airport. I said goodbye to them and went back to Ericka's house to send a few more emails and stuff everything into my backpack. At the airport I grabbed a sandwich for the flight (no onions out of consideration for my fellow passengers) and a stuffed screaming monkey wearing a Nashville t-shirt for the kids. I spent the majority of the flight working on a song based off of a series a pastor friend of mine is preaching and made quite a bit of progress. We landed 10 minutes early and my dad drove me back to home sweet home.

Trip Totals
Days in Nashville: 3 1/2
Co-writes: 4
Songs Completed: 4 1/2
Pounds Gained: Yet to be Determined

Inside Out

2009-04-08T14:58:00.003-07:00

This morning I went to get the diaper bag ready to go when I realized that it smelled funny, so I emptied out the contents and threw it in the washing machine before heading to church. When I got home I began to transfer the wet load into the dryer and I checked out the bag. I was disappointed to find that it still smelled, and now it had some kind of mush flecked on the outside. I followed the trail to a forgotten compartment deep inside the bag and found what I have pretty confidently identified as the remains of a Nutrgrain bar.

Before I re-washed the entire load, I knew I had to get the stuff out of the diaper bag. At first I tried to just dump it out into the trash can without actually having to look at or touch the substance, but I found wet Nutragrain bar to be quite tenacious. Next I got a paper towel, reached inside with crinkled nose, and gingerly tried to extract it, much like I remove chicken giblets. This method was successful in getting much of the mush, but there were still colonies of it clinging to crevices and hiding in folds of fabric. Finally I sucked it up and did what I should have done in the beginning. I opened up the bag and turned it inside out, totally exposing the liquefied cereal bar and enabling me to see and reach it every disgusting particle.

The last week has been crazy around here. It has been a whirlwind of self-examination and evaluation for Matthew and me and in the midst of it we have definitely found some mush. The thing is, no matter how disgusting it is and how unpleasant to look at, you can't deal with sin by just peering in and poking at it with a paper towel. You have to take your heart, often with the help of others, and turn it completely inside out so that nothing is hidden and nothing is justified. I don't like coming face to face with sin. I don't think anyone really does. But thankfully we will never find anything in the deep recesses of our hearts that isn't covered by the blood of Christ.

So here's to the freedom that comes from the Gospel, the practice of self-examination, and a thorough check of all compartments before washing a diaper bag.

Get This Potty Started

2009-03-24T14:41:00.005-07:00

Every now and then I catch a hint of a little joke that husbands have about what their wives do all day. The little comment here or there that alludes to us spending our days watching soap operas or going out to chatty lunches with our girlfriends. Matthew never jokes about this because he, unlike many fathers, has been on Daddy Duty for days at a time and is thus one of the enlightened. My friend Danielle's husband does not joke about it either, because he works from home. Recently he has relocated to working out of the RV in their backyard. He too is enlightened.

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Yesterday, Danielle and I decide to pack a lunch and meet at the library for Story Time, then go to the park. I grab stuff for lunch, have the girls go potty before we leave, and load everyone in the minivan. We sit down for storytime at the library at 11:00am. We are listening to stories about ducks. Danielle arrives around 11:10 with her two daughters, Camryn and baby Kate, and her neighbor's son, Tyler, in tow. Before Danielle can even sit down, Tyler needs to go to the bathroom. She leaves her girls with me and hurries Tyler to the restroom. When she returns, we are singing “The Wheels on the Bus”. Camryn tells Danielle that now she needs to go potty. Danielle takes both girls and Tyler back to the restrooms. In the middle of another duck story, they return. Storytime ends with a rousing chorus of “If You're Happy and You Know It”, and we all walk over to the park and sit down to eat our picnic lunch. As we're setting out our food, Harper needs to go to the bathroom. I leave my other two with Danielle and carry her down the sidewalk to the park restrooms and take her to go potty. She says the park potty smells funny. When we return, we are ready to eat. Five minutes into lunch, Bethany announces she needs to go potty too. Why didn't you tell me when I took Harper 5 minutes ago? Because I didn't know I had to go then. Danielle says she can take Bethany because she has to go herself anyway. As they get ready to go Bethany says never mind, she doesn't have to go after all. Are you sure? Yes, it just came for a second but now it's gone. So Danielle walks down to the restrooms and Camryn goes along too. As soon as they get back, Bethany realizes that yes, she indeed does need to go to the bathroom. Sigh. I take her by the hand and begin walking to the bathrooms. Benjamin is finished eating and decides he would like to come too, so he is running after us. We let him catch up and the three of us go down to the bathrooms. Bethany uses the potty while I hold Benjamin up so he can drink out of the drinking fountain. When we get back to our picnic, we are all finished with lunch and we play for a little while. The kids climb up and down large concrete structures and miraculously no one gets hurt. As we are starting to pack up, after innumerable trips to the bathroom, Camryn pees her pants. We make the necessary adjustments, make our way to our minivans, and return to our houses just in time to kick back with some Bon-Bons and catch Days of Our Lives.

After reading this, you probably have to pee now too.

Dear Mr. President

2009-03-17T16:57:00.009-07:00

I love frozen yogurt. I looooooove frozen yogurt. And whenever I go to pick some up, it's apparent to me that pretty much everybody loves frozen yogurt. If you want to see cultural diversity, just go get some fro yo. If you roll up to the local Golden Spoon there will be a group of black-clad Gothic high school kids pounding down some German Chocolate with hot fudge topping. Climbing out of their Buick will be an elderly couple ready to sink their dentures into a dish of vanilla with fresh berries. Inside the place will be full of soccer moms, business men, hippies, and divas, all gathered together over one common bond: The joy of a frozen, frosty, fat-free treat.

Dear Mr. President,

I realize that as you work to fulfill the office to which you have been elected, your views and strategies on foreign policy have been at times both praised and criticized. Admittedly, I don't know very much about the ins and outs of international warfare, and while I'm sure you are not currently looking for more advice on the subject, I thought I would submit my idea to you anyway.

My proposed strategy for achieving peace in the Middle East is to tap into the diplomatic power of frozen yogurt. What better way to bring cultures together than with a bowlful of just that: live and active cultures? I will leave it up to you as to exactly how you would implement this strategy, but my suggestion would be to begin by building Golden Spoon Frozen Yogurt stores all along the Gaza strip, and to follow up by pitching franchising opportunities to Al Quaeda and other terrorist cell groups. A redemptive micro-enterprising program could then be put into place through which weapons of mass destruction could be traded in for soft-serve machines, sneeze guards, and various tasty toppings.

It is my sincere opinion that this is a bullet proof strategy (no pun intended) for the United States to create peaceful relationships between nations while simultaniously improving our global image. Should you wish to explore the idea further I would be happy to come to the White House and discuss details with you over a bowl of white chocolate mousse with Oreo topping.

Thank you for your time and consideration, and may God Bless America.

Sincerely,

Kristie Braselton

Scenic Route

2009-03-10T10:25:00.008-07:00

About this time last year Matthew and I attended a Foster Care/Adoption orientation meeting and left with the certainty that we were ready to pursue adoption. We had been deeply moved by what we learned in that two hour session and we began the process to adopt through the state. I've already shared the whole story of how and why we leap-frogged from state to infant to international in earlier posts, so I won't go into it again. I'll just say that we finally have landed. Right back where we started a year ago.

We've halted the process toward Uganda and have taken a hard right toward adopting through the State of Arizona, which just announced that there are now over 10,000 children in our foster care system, the highest it has ever been. Budget cuts are anticipated to put an even greater strain on the system, and I'm going to a meeting tonight to learn about exactly what those cuts are and how they will effect the kids and families involved. We're signed up for the 10 week certification class this summer, and after a few minor hoops to jump through, we should be good to go!

It can be either frustrating or breathtaking to end up on the scenic route. I guess if just depends on if you're in a hurry, running on your own schedule and pushing your own agenda, or if your agenda is simply to be carried along and follow the winding path where it goes, content to know that you are headed in the right direction.

Blessed Yet Again

2009-03-01T16:52:00.003-07:00

Our friends the O'Briens handed us an envelope at church this morning. Inside were the proceeds from a garage sale they held on Saturday to raise funding for our adoption! We are continually amazed at God's provision and the generosity of the people through which He provides. Thank you, O'Briens, and everyone who donated items for the sale!

The O'Briens are a wonderful family of 11 (plus whoever else happens to be living with them at the time) that we have gotten to know through the adoption organization Project 6:8. It is not an adoption agency, but more of a network of people with a heart for adoption and foster care started by a couple of gals from our church. Check them out on the web or this Thursday night for the monthly meeting at the Commons at East Valley Bible Church.

Patience, Wisdom, & Courage

2009-02-24T15:42:00.006-07:00

Apparently there is a proverbial pendulum in state adoption, swinging between birth parent's interests and children's interests. At one point the state will be very determined to keep children with their parents, thus giving birth parents fourth and fifth and seventeenth chances to get their lives in order before severing their parental rights. Then after a few years of fallout from unstable home situations, the pendulum will swing over to the other side, which has strict requirements for birth parents to meet (ie- get off substances, get a job, etc) and if they are not met in a timely manner, the children are made available for adoption so they don't end up floating around foster care during the formative first few years of their life.

We started this process on the domestic infant adoption route, mainly because there weren't really any children in the state foster care program who were younger than 4 years old (we decided at the beginning that Bethany should remain the oldest child in the family) because by the time the state was done giving the parents chances to turn over a new leaf, the children were school-aged. The few young children in the system were most often adopted by family members or their foster family. So the next logical path was to take in an infant who might be more difficult to find a home for because of its race or substance exposure. Then we heard about the pilot program in Uganda and thought that perhaps there was a greater need there for families to adopt little ones. And that's where we've been heading for the past 6 months, though we have yet to financially commit to one path which leaves the door open to any opportunity.

All that said, we have heard that the pendulum is swinging back toward the child's best interests, which translates to more young children from the state needing a family. Our caseworker has also mentioned not to rule out an infant coming along that would match our family. While we've been filling out paperwork for a Ugandan adoption, we've been keeping an eye on the pilot program and have come upon a few concerns so far. Nothing that would cause us to just drop the idea entirely, but enough to make us very cautious as we move forward.

What a boring, vague, and hapless post this has been. I suppose its purpose has simply been to communicate that we have no idea what God has in store for us or where our children will come from. All we know is we are here and ready and available to kids who need a home. And that's a pretty cool place to be. So pray for us, if you will, for patience, wisdom and courage.

And for reading this boring blog, I reward you with a link to a very un-boring video of Harper from our snow day last weekend.

Nothing Else But Him

2009-02-15T16:33:00.003-07:00

Benjamin was just miserable yesterday. I took him in and turns out he has a double ear infection on top of the cough and cold. He's been pretty needy all week, but yesterday in particular he wouldn't let me put him down. And in a way, it was kind of nice. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty awful when the kids get sick, but whenever they are it is almost inevitable that I will have some sweet, quiet moment with them that I would not have had otherwise.

When Bethany was in the worst of it last week, she came into our room around 1:00am unable to sleep and insisting through whimpers that a bath would make her sore throat feel better. Half asleep, I tried my best to talk her out of it, but, as often comes of attempts to reason with a 4-year-old, I gave up. We ended up sitting together in the bathtub in the middle of the night, whispering and laughing while everyone else was asleep, until she felt well enough to crawl back up into her bed. It was one of those moments when you can feel your mind taking a picture and filing it away, to be pulled out on the day you hand over the car keys or watch her walk down the aisle. I'm not sure if she will remember that night, but I will never forget.

Yesterday Benjamin wasn't interested in his books or his toys or even movies. He didn't want to play and he didn't want to eat. The only thing he wanted was me. He would say “upease” and I would pick him up, and then he would say “wock”. So we would go over to the rocking chair and I would lay him against my chest as he wrapped his little arms around me as far as they could go. And there I would sit with him, feeling his chest rise and fall, stroking his hair and his face, both of us perfectly content to stay just as we were forever and ever.

In the midst of their suffering, I cherish those sweet times. And in the midst of their suffering, they are learning. They are learning that I am there, and that I will care for them. They are learning to come to me when they are hurting or when they are scared. And, through these beautiful little moments that spring up like flowers from the cracks in my stoneish heart, I am learning a little something too. A little something more about my Father and His unshakable love for me, and why, perhaps, He allows for difficulty in our lives. That we would come to Him with outstretched arms, that we would rest our head upon His chest, and that we would find ourselves wanting nothing else but Him.

Braselton Rx

2009-02-13T17:04:00.004-07:00

There are currently seven bottles of medicine on my kitchen counter. I'm not intentionally displaying them, I guess they just kind of accumulated there with three sick kids and one sick parent. This is one of those times when everybody is sick. People at church are sick. People at school are sick. Everyone is sick. Except Matthew. Except Matthew and his superfood-antioxidant-laden-green-sludge juices. I finally broke down and drank some the other day, in hopes of sharing in his super powers. I decided I would rather be sick then finish the glass.

The worst part about being sick is the sleep deprivation. Last night I was going on two nights back-to-back of sub-four hours of sleep. All I wanted more than anything was a good night's rest. After I put the kids down, I made a Walgreens run to find something to help me sleep. I found the cold medicine aisle and there I stood, sick and afflicted and sleep-deprived, staring at row after row of little colorful boxes, for a good 15 minutes. I read the drug facts, the touted benefits, the dosages and warnings. I found one that stated expressly right on the package not to use it to sedate children. Seeing nothing restricting me from using it to sedate an adult, I thought I'd give it a try.

I brought it home, choked it down, and tried to go to sleep. But to no avail. The coughing would not allow it, nor was it deterred by the medication. So, at 11:30, I had nothing else to do but go back to Walgreens and try again. This time I selected Robitussin DM, which is the one advertised in the commercial with little animated globs of mucous wearing suspenders. I hate those commercials, but I figured it was worth a shot. I took it to the register and the cashier scanned the box.

“Oh, Robitussin DM,” he observed. “You've got those little green guys going on, huh?”

I looked at him bleary-eyed, wondering if he was really asking me this question and if he regularly strikes up conversations with customers regarding their purchases. I paid and left, thankful that I hadn't come in for something like tampons or Preparation H.

Once at home I realized that the dosage chart on the first medication required me to wait one more hour before taking a dose of the new stuff. I contemplated staying up until 12:30 in order to follow the directions but exhaustion won over and I tossed back two teaspoons of the new stuff, wondering what might become of me. Perhaps I would start twitching or hallucinating, or maybe my heart would just stop beating altogether. I thought about writing a note for Matthew. Something like, “Good morning Babe. If you find me dead on the couch, this is what I took and when” just to simplify the autopsy process. Yes, things get a little foggy in the middle of a sleepless night. But after a bowl of Raman noodles and a little Conan O'Brien, I finally drifted off to sleep.

I'm hopeful for tonight. Feeling a little better, and I certainly have enough medications to choose from. If you're one of the everyone who is sick, skip Walgreens and come on over to my house. I'm sure I've got what you need.

Could It Be the Stairs?

2009-02-08T15:32:00.003-07:00

Friday I went out on the mountain after being sick all week and ended up riding a personal best time.

Then last night I got carded for a ticket to "Slumdog Millionaire".

So I've got to wonder.

In any event, it's been a good weekend.

And the Winner Is....

2009-02-03T21:32:00.008-07:00

Christina and Brent! You guys must have made a similar discovery in your own pantry at some point in time. Yes, the object in our mystery photo in yesterday's post is none other than a petrified, sprouted potato. I have no idea how long that had been in there, but it was prety close to fossilization. Nice job on all the guesses! So Christina, next time I see you I will give you your oh-so-coveted prize. :)

Here are some pictures of the kids and the move as promised.

Little Helpers

Fun with Styrofoam. Mmmmm... styrofoam.

Yuck... styrofoam

Post-Move Exhaustion

Take a Guess

2009-02-03T08:00:00.006-07:00

Day four in the new house. Internet connection finally reinstated. The great majority of the boxes have been unpacked and hauled off and the house is slowly becoming home.

The move went marvelously, so thank you to all who schlepped boxes or couches or lent us trucks and trailers! I will post some more photos of the kids and the move another day.

Our little contest for today is to identify the object found in the packing process shown in the picture above. I'm giving away a free cd to the first commenter who correctly identifies what it is. Good Luck!

Packing Up and Moving Out

2009-01-22T06:19:00.008-07:00

Three boxes Mommy packed, and the three boxes Bethany packed.

We found the house! It is uh-mazing. Given our price range, we'd been looking at foreclosures for weeks. We'd seen houses with cracks in the walls and foundations, a couple with randomly inserted walls, several with no flooring whatsoever, and even one with a full-blown beehive in the garage. (I was the one who made that discovery. Pretty exciting stuff). We'd calculated costs of repairs, considered sweat equity, and tried to discern cosmetic issues from structural. Then two weeks ago our realtors sent us this house that just popped up.

Brand new model home. $80,000 in upgrades. Never been lived in. Beautiful little cluster community centered around a park. Two miles away. Just knocked $100,000 off the price.

We went and saw it first thing the next day and put in an offer and got it. We're still pinching ourselves on this one, and so is Bethany who got her stairs and her community pool. God's provision through it all has been incredible. Each step He has given us more than what we were even hoping for. We're praying that God would fill this house with grace and love and ministry and kids and that it would be used as a great tool for the gospel. So we're packing and cleaning and moving next weekend! Praise God! Oh, and seeing as we're moving it's a great time to do another garage sale, so if anyone has any more stuff to unload let me know!

Priority number one in the new house: Get the TV working by Sunday at 4:oo pm.

Yard Sale Stats

2009-01-10T21:45:00.004-07:00

Yard Sale Start Time: 7:00am
First Lull ("Lull" being defined as less than 10 people in the driveway): 10:30am
Weirdest thing donated: 50 Sombreros
Biggest Ticket Item Sold: Couch and Loveseat Set $120
Surprise Hit: "Hot Wheels" Cars
Most Disturbing Moment: Racially-charged shouting match between two customers
Most Disturbing Customer: The older man who looked like he'd just been attacked by a pack of angry cats and acted as if everything was normal
Sale End Time: 12:00pm
Grand Total Raised: $1,550.00

Two Words: Woo. Hoo.

We will definitely be doing this again. THANK YOU to all the helpers and to everyone who donated items and watched our kids and most of all to my amazing Mom who pretty much did all the hard work. You guys rock.

Yard Sale, New Houses, and Waiting for the King

2009-01-06T09:55:00.005-07:00

Only 6 days into the New Year, and there is so much going on at our house! Saturday is the big garage sale, and I mean BIG. We have recieved so many donations from so many different people and we have SO MUCH stuff! It's wonderful! We're having the sale at my parents' house in Ahwatukee because they have a huge driveway that will hold it all. So this week I am running around picking stuff up and making drop offs at my mom's and writing out a bunch of signs. Nothing like a Sharpie buzz to keep you going strong.

On top of that, a few weeks ago Matthew woke up with the crazy idea of taking advantage of the current housing market by buying a new house and renting out this one. We talked and thought and prayed about it and we're moving forward! Thankfully we've had quite a bit of interest in renting our house, and our fantastic realtors Matt and Danielle Long have shown us lots of great houses, so now we're just waiting for the right one. The kids love going out looking, especially since pretty much everything we're looking at is bank-owned and vacant. They get into these big empty greatrooms and just spin around until they fall on the floor laughing. It's hilarious.

We go to the mailbox every day to see "if the King in America says we can adopt our kids", as Bethany explains it. What we're actually waiting for is a letter from the Maricopa County court Judge to give us approval and certification to adopt. Once we have that, we can seek approval from the Ugandan governemnt. But the King in America is taking his sweet time, so it seems. And so we wait, knowing everything will happen in God's time.

If you want to come by and see us at the sale, the address is 3543 E Modoc Ct, Phoenix, 85044. I'll post a total raised after this weekend!

Bunk Beds and Mixed Nuts

2008-12-27T10:37:00.005-07:00

You gotta love Christmas. We had so much fun. We got the girls bunk beds this year. On Christmas Eve after we had put the kids down for the night we assembled the beds in the living room (a 3 hour process) and wrapped them up like a huge gift. They had a blast opening them and playing on them all day.

After we had our little Christmas morning at home we went to my mom's house where the entire family gathers. It's always fun to see what happens when everyone gets together, including:

- My Uncle Mike, the bus enthusiast. He collects all kinds of bus memorabilia and even attends bus conventions. While he's here he likes to walk to the bus stop and just ride around town.

- My Aunt Karen, who is the quintessential crazy cat lady that we all know and love. I'm not sure what the current count is, but at one point I think it was upwards of 15.

- My Uncle Mark, who lives in an elderly woman's basement and eats oatmeal out of a casserole dish each morning.

- My Grandma, who consistently calls our girls Melanie and Parker.

But what's Christmas without a few mixed nuts, right? :)

We had a generous gift toward our adoption from some dear friends, and we are planning a fundraiser garage sale in early January. If anyone has any stuff they'd like to unload and donate, let me know and I'd love to take it off your hands!

Merry Christmas

2008-12-22T22:03:00.002-07:00

It's getting pretty quiet in the blogosphere, and I've been no exception. Just busy with all the stuff that comes along with Christmas! I've seen enough construction paper and Elmer's glue in the past few days to last me through the Spring. Even with the kids' paper chains counting down the days, somehow I still feel like it snuck up on me a little bit.

Still waiting to hear from the courts for an Adoption Certification number. Once we have that we can begin applying for grants and moving forward with our international agency. I sold a couple more cds to some people and a lot more through the bookstore at church. Also sold a couple of things on craigslist, my new best friend. So, still slowly chipping away at the huge mountain in front of us.

Trying to really savor this year, and extract joy from all the rest of the stuff that goes with the season. Wanting to enjoy my family, be thankful for how richly God has blessed us, and to draw near to Him. Hoping you all have a wonderful Christmas and resolute New Year!

Who Needs New Barbie Clothes When You Have Old Socks?

2008-12-15T14:14:00.003-07:00

Personally, I think they look ravishing.

An Unexpected Twist

2008-12-12T23:22:00.005-07:00

It's been a little while. Quite a week at our house. As far as the adoption process goes, not a lot happening right now. Our homestudy has been submitted to the court and we're just waiting for approval from them to be officially certified. I guess things move a little more slowly in the municipalities around the holidays, but we're still hoping to be approved by the end of the year.

An unexpected twist this weekend was that Benjamin had to be admitted to the hospital because he was having trouble breathing. A cold had stirred up his asthma symptoms and we couldn't get him back to normal at home so we took him in to an Urgent Care. They treated him as best they could but said he needed to go to the ER and they had to send him in an ambulance for liability reasons. It was the saddest thing to see my little baby boy strapped to a gurney, I'm just thankful it wasn't a real emergency situation. I hope and pray that that is the last time I ever have to follow an ambulance with one of my kids in it.

At the ER they worked with him for a few hours before admitting him and we ended up staying for two days. Needless to say, it was a stretch to keep the world turning at home with me away unexpectedly for so long, but we have wonderful family and friends who helped us through it. Matthew was able to take a day off from work and then of course the grandmas couldn't help but help. We had so many calls from concerned folks and offers for meals or childcare. I told Benji that he was very blessed to have so many people who love and care for him! He is doing much better now and we have a new medication that will hopefully prevent any more episodes like this one through the rest of the winter.

I got home about an hour ago from playing at a little outdoor Christmas in the Park concert with some other local artists. It was a fun night, and a new first for me. During the opening song of my set it actually started raining on us. I couldn't help but laugh as I sang "like rain on thirsty land came the Savior of the world". It stopped soon after it started, but it made the evening a little more interesting. Plus, I sold a few cds and made another $40 toward our kiddos. Every little bit counts!

Q-Tips

2008-12-02T16:13:00.002-07:00

Seriously Benjamin. This is the 3rd time today.

Happy Birthday Harper and Home Visit

2008-11-22T21:19:00.005-07:00

Today is Harper's 3rd birthday! We had a cute little party at the park and it was a beautiful day. Happy birthday to our precious little girl!

Our home visit was on Friday, and it went great! Our caseworker came in and Bethany took her by the hand and gave her a tour of the house. We spent most of the time being interviewed by her about our family backgrounds and current familial relationships. She called them "genograms", kind of like a basic family tree, but she took a ton of notes and asked a lot of questions.

I thought it was really fun! I can see why come people like going to counselors. It's nice to sit there for an hour and have someone ask you questions about your life and you basically just get to talk about yourself to someone who really wants to know! Really though, your past is sort of this thing that you carry around with you and while it totally informs the present, you don't necessarily talk about it that much or get to share with people other than your spouse or very close friends. Not that I have anything dramatic or haunting in my past, but I feel like it's such a part of who a person is. So I enjoyed that.

After the genograms, she asked Bethany and Harper to draw a picture of our family so she could ask them questions about it and assess the pictures. Harper traced her hand and drew H's all over so I'm not sure how helpful her picture was, but Bethany did a really good job. She drew herself, then Harper, then Daddy, and then Benjamin, but she ran out of room for me! "Why don't you draw Mommy on the back?" we suggested. And so she did. I, however, was the only family member with an associated prop. What does my 4-year-old associate most with me? The stove. She drew me cooking at the stove. We all thought that was hilarious, and pretty accurate. So while the rest of my family is hanging out on the front of the paper, there I am on the back, cooking. But seeing as cooking for people is one of the primary ways I show love and affection, I'm alright with that association. :)

What Can You Get for Two Quarters These Days?

2008-11-18T21:34:00.003-07:00

I like to spread the word about good deals, so FYI a vending machine in the Basha's on Pecos and McQueen is selling Hope and Inspiration for 50 cents! Grab that one up while it lasts.

Home visit was switched to this coming Friday, so that's why I haven't posted about it yet. More on that later!

Off To A Great Start

2008-11-13T14:11:00.003-07:00

The final numbers are in! On Friday the 7th the cd sales totaled $1,773.00! We have sold a few here and a few there since the release party, and have something in the works with the bookstore at our church, but we are so excited to be off to such a great start just from Friday night. Thanks to everyone who was there!

A friend suggested adding a way to purchase cds to this blog, so just to the right is an "add to cart" button that links to our paypal account (too bad we can't just adopt through eBay). It took me forever to figure out how to get that little button there, and I must say I'm quite proud of myself.

Tomorrow is our home visit! Thanks to all of you who have filled out reference forms and written letters and prayed for us. I'll let you know how tomorrow goes.

Catching Up

2008-11-10T08:51:00.005-07:00

Over the weekend we saw a beautiful display of candied apples. They were $5 a piece, so I told the girls we would make our own when we got home. Here is a picture of the finished product! I made them eat the apples standing in the bathtub which turned out to be a very good decision.

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I missed a couple of weeks and it seems like a lot has happened! We had the "I'm Telling" meeting with our caseworker and it seemed like it went really well. We basically answered questions about ourselves and our marriage and family for an hour each. There were several "on a scale of one to 10, rate your...." questions and it was encouraging to honestly rate everything pretty high. God is so good to us, and answering all those questions was a nice reminder of that. We compared answers on the ride home and I think we matched up pretty well too. This week we both have our physicals and lab work which I'm not looking forward to, but it will be good to have out of the way. Then Friday is a big day because it is our (hopefully) final homestudy meeting which will be the actual home visit. I don't want to go nuts on cleaning or anything. I'll be interested to see if I stick to that.

Last Friday night was the CD Release party! It was so much fun and a great night. I'm not sure how many people came out, but it looked to be around 300 or so. We had just about the right amount of food (which to me means some leftovers) and we sold 120 cds in one night! Luke was running the cd table and he said a lot of people said "keep the change", so that was a real blessing. None of the money that came in on credit cards has been counted yet, so I don't have a total amount to announce, but we're off to a good start. The cds are for sale in the Commons Bookstore at our church if anyone missed the event but still wants one. They turned out great.

I have to say, I am pretty exhausted. After the release I was up with a sick Benjamin two nights in a row and we had a pretty full weekend. Thankfully my wonderful mom took the girls to church with her on Sunday morning so I was able to get a nap and a shower. It's going to be another full week, so we're gearing up! In a couple of hours I am looking forward to meeting a family in our area that recently adopted two from Uganda. We are meeting at the park for a picnic lunch and playground time.

As for where we are at emotionally, we are still planning on Uganda but are very much open to a state adoption should the right opportunity come along. We will also have to look at how much we are able to raise. Once our homestudy is complete, I can begin applying for grants from different organizations so we will hope for the best from that.

Well, I must go pack lunches and put away laundry! I hope to check back in once we have a total from the release party.

Rescheduling

2008-10-24T09:51:00.002-07:00

First it was Pink Eye, now Strep Throat! I'm beginning to think we're hazardous to our caseworker's health. Rescheduling on Monday...

I'm Telling!

2008-10-23T15:31:00.006-07:00

Does anyone else remember the game show from the 80's "I'm Telling!"? They would take teams of 2 siblings and they would ask one of them questions while the other sat in the "Freeze Zone" where they could not hear their sibling's answers. Then the two would switch places and answer the same questions and see which team could match the most answers to make it to the Prize Arcade.

We have the second of our three Homestudy meetings tomorrow, and it sounds to me a lot like "I'm Telling". Of course, it won't be my sister with me (though we would have cleaned up on that show) it will be my husband. The Freeze Zone will be the Pei Wei across the street and the grand prize will be checking off one more stepping stone on the way to our child/children!

Oh, about the backslash necessitated there, please keep praying about the one child, two children decision. As we've been crunching numbers we are now questioning not whether we could afford the adoption for two, but could we afford to raise two additional children. Pray that we would find a balance between wisdom and faith and that we would not make any decisions out of fear.

Hey, Are You Free on November 7th?

2008-10-19T16:20:00.002-07:00

I took back the backyard today. All summer long it has been disintegrating into a wasteland of sun-eaten plastic toys nestled in overgrown crab grass and patio that makes the kids' tetanus shots worthwhile. As the weather has turned, we've been “playing” out there a little bit. “Playing” being the kids running around completely oblivious to the hazards at every turn and me chasing after them saying things like “Watch out!” and “Don't touch that!” and “There might be something living in there!” Friday morning one child was clotheslined by the barbecue grill and an enormous spider skittered out of a box of sidewalk chalk and sent us all fleeing for our very lives. For their safety and my sanity I made it my goal for the weekend to make our yard livable again. A little weed whacking, a little trimming, a lot of sweeping, and one large garbage bag full of junk later, it's back to a habitable environment.

Our calendar has already hit that Holiday season spiral where every weekend until the end of the year is marked up. It's all great stuff, so we're looking forward to everything though we'll have to be sure to schedule in enough rest and downtime. Matthew officiated a wedding yesterday and we have another one this weekend, then it's the seven:ten Fall Retreat, and then the next weekend we come to the November 7th square which reads “CD Release Party”. This is part of the answer to last week's question of how in the world we are going to pay for this adoption.

The musical side of my life goes in roughly 2 year cycles of writing songs, recording songs, and putting out a CD. This will be my forth one and I am more excited about it then any of the others before. First of all just because I'm so passionate about the songs and everything sounds incredible (thanks Ryan), but also because this year two of my passions in life will converge on this one night. We've done a release party for every album, but this year we will be highlighting adoption throughout the night and will use all of the proceeds generated by CD sales to help fund our own adoption. We're not expecting to raise all of the money that night, but we hope to raise a good chunk out of what we need, as well as hopefully a good measure of awareness.

So, please be praying for that night- Friday November the 7th, 7:00pm at East Valley Bible Church. Pray that the CDs would come in on time, that people would show up, that hearts would be stirred for the fatherless, and that we would sell a boatload of CDs. Oh, and one other thing: Come! Bring your families! Bring your friends! Bring your enemies! We'd love to see you there and your support means so much to us. We'll be announcing the date at church as well as by email, but if you still have an open slot on your calendar for 11/7/08, we'd love to fill it up.

Two Are Better Than One

2008-10-11T10:45:00.006-07:00

It's amazing... the day I mention "Uganda", two families pop out of the online woodwork who have adopted from Uganda. That is two more families then we knew of before! Uganda is a very new program so it has been incredibly helpful to email back and forth with them.

Still working on paperwork. We have all of our home study meetings scheduled as well as our physicals for the international agency. I try to do one adoption-related task per day, otherwise it just gets too overwhelming. Yesterday I took pictures of our house and head shots of Matthew and myself for the dossier. The day before that I worked on getting bank letters with our account balances. Today I hope to get some time to work on the autobiography they require. So many little things, just one step at a time!

As far as decision making, we are obviously still on course for Uganda, but open to divine detours. When I last posted we were considering whether to adopt one or two children and that seems to be coming into focus as well. We had a common sense theory that adopting two children would be better for the adopted children. Because they would be coming into a strange new country and the will always look different then the rest of their family, having a sibling who can relate to and understand them as well as simply look like them, seemed like a good idea to us. Besides, we talked about adopting again down the road, so why not just adopt two together?

We came in contact with two different organizations that place Ugandan children and both of them will not place children one at a time, only two at a time. The agency we are looking at right now does place single children, but just the fact that these other organizations have that policy confirmed for us that adopting two children is the right path for us at this point. So, thanks be to God for directions and guidance, and thank you for your prayers for those things!

Some of you may be wondering, isn't adopting expensive, especially for two? How are they planning on paying for this??? Ah, a very good question with an exciting answer that I will discuss in my next post.

Treading the Atlantic

2008-10-02T15:48:00.004-07:00

We met with our caseworker Wednesday night, the first of several meetings in the home study process. She seems like a great caseworker and we really enjoyed talking with her and as far as we could tell everything went pretty well! We're both emotionally stable (just barely in a few areas) and we feel like we have a little more direction than we did a few days ago.

It feels very odd having so many choices about who your next child will be. With the past three, there's really only been one decision to make (wink, wink) and then the rest has all been decided for us. We trusted God through the pregnancies knowing that whatever child was born to us would be the perfect child for our family. With this process of adoption, it feels like we are more in the driver's seat, which is a very scary place to be. Again, it feels like it, but of course in reality we are no more in control than we have been with our three biological kids. So the past few months have really been a constant plea for God to guide us, direct us, and make a path clear to us. We know that, as with our pregnancies, whatever child we bring home will be the perfect child for our family.

As of now, we have narrowed our focus to two paths. One is a domestic trans racial infant adoption. That is basically where a birth mother from Arizona who wants to place her child for adoption decides that she wants us to be her baby's parents. We would also then have the opportunity to continue that relationship with the baby's birth mom, which is an exciting prospect. The other path is an international adoption from Uganda. This is definitely the scarier more intimidating option, thinking of dealing with a third-world government and with there being so many unknowns, not to mention sorting through the 437 pages of information I received from the international agency. But Uganda seems to be the direction we are heading at this point, although we are keeping our eyes and ears out for domestic opportunities that may come up. Obviously there is a point financially where we would have to commit to Uganda, but until then we are keeping as many avenues open as possible.

Those of you praying for us, thank you! We have felt your prayers as God has narrowed our focus. Please pray now for continued direction as we tread the Atlantic, and even as we think through the possibility of adopting siblings.

Also, might want to throw one up there for us this weekend. Matthew and I are tent camping for pretty much the first time ever while we ride in the Tour of the White Mountains bike race. Judging from the fiasco of killing a mosquito in our kitchen last night, we need all the help we can get!

Just a Quick Update...

2008-09-28T11:10:00.003-07:00

Our caseworker was sick last week so we've rescheduled for Wednesday. I did ask her when we were on the phone if this meeting was standard or if there was a problem and she said it's standard for starting the homestudy process. So, I'll post again after Wednesday! Thanks everyone for asking how it went. :)

Meeting Tonight

2008-09-22T09:10:00.003-07:00

We have a meeting with our caseworker tonight. I guess the agency looked over all of our paperwork and wanted to talk about some stuff. I'm not sure if this is standard procedure or if they're concerned about something, so I'm a little nervously curious about what she'll say! We had to take a pretty extensive personality test and we were totally honest even when it exposed our ugly places, so I hope we didn't score as psycologically unstable or something. We do have our moments... :)

The great thing about trusting God and His sovreignty is knowing that we don't have to worry about what happens because He has the best for us no matter what. But hopefully we're not nuts.

How it All Began

2008-09-12T14:41:00.003-07:00

At 17 I didn't want to date. I didn't want to get married. I didn't want to have kids. I thought that getting married and having kids was an automatic disqualification from any adventure and all intense forms of ministry, not to mention a death-sentence on personal freedom. It was from this frame of mind that I was operating when Matthew decided to pursue a relationship with me. Needless to say, it didn't go so well at first.

He tried the typical tactics... told some friends that he was interested and let it trickle down the grapevine. I made it clear that I was not interested and sent that right back up the grapevine. He got the message, but was not deterred. He showed up wherever I was, always sat next to me, and just basically hung around until we had built a really strong friendship. How we got from friends to boyfriend and girlfriend is kind of complicated. I would say it started with a Diamondbacks game that he thought was a date and I didn't. It lasted 7 awkward innings and ended with a very long conversation in the driveway of my parents' house. I can't remember everything we talked about, but it involved dating, labels, marriage, individuality, and freedom for ministry. I don't know how long we sat out there, but I do remember whatever CD we were listening to repeated itself several times before I went inside. There were several crossroads like that in our relationship, and eventually I came to trust Matthew that he would not let us become what I feared: self-focused, cautious people with small dreams and fading identities.

We married in 2001, at which point I still wasn't sure I'd ever want kids. I did know, however, that if we did have kids I wanted to adopt. I'd even have been happy to only adopt and not have biological kids at all. Somewhere along the line that changed, but the desire to adopt did not. God placed the passion for the outcast inside me years earlier and it only grew stronger as I saw our marriage growing. I was frustrated that Matthew didn't share that passion and for a time it was a source of dissension for us. But God, who uses broken things, turned it into one of the biggest milestones in my journey as a wife as He taught me to let go, trust Him, and trust Matthew's leadership. I also started praying about it. My prayer was that God would change one of our hearts. Either He would give Matthew the desire to adopt or take mine away. To my delight, He chose the former.

As our family has grown, our passion for adoption has grown with it. For Matthew it has been a gradual process of being drawn in to the heart of God for the needy, the broken, the defenseless and the fatherless. For me it has been watching our family unfold and wanting to share that incredible blessing with a child who is without it. We have been waiting, waiting, waiting for the right time and we feel like this is it. We're seven years down this road now and I am so thankful that I was wrong about marriage, wrong about kids, and wrong about what it really means to be free.

Something New

2008-09-11T16:13:00.001-07:00

Obviously, blogging has not been a very high priority for me lately. I've been considering just taking it down and being okay with saying “I had a blog once” and looking off fondly into the distance. An idea from our friend Luke, however, has brought new life and purpose to this neglected page.

Something that has been a high priority for me lately is navigating through the process of adoption. We're in the very beginning stages, so much of what we are navigating is our own hearts, our thoughts, our fears, and our desires. We have come to the point where we know with as much certainty as possible that we will adopt, and we will adopt relatively soon. Everything else is totally up in the air. There is a lot to be thought through and a lot of decisions to make and we'll surely need some help. That's where this will come in.

Our friend Luke is living his dream and planting a church here in Arizona, Second Mile Church. He also is doing some major navigating, thinking, praying, and decision making. He has a blog for the church, email updates, and most importantly, a prayer team. He suggested to Matthew today that we do the same thing for this adoption. So, this is effectively becoming my blog about the adoption. Suddenly I have plenty to write about.

Now what we need is a prayer team. Anyone who reads this can just pray for us as you keep up with what's going on, but if you'd like to formally “sign up” and really commit to pray us through this, you can leave a comment or just email me and we'd love it.

Much more to come....

Just Checking In

2008-07-15T15:49:00.003-07:00

Okay, so it’s been a really, really long time since I’ve written anything here. I think I've actually been pretending that I don't even have a blog. I guess I’ve been busy with other things. Good things. We’re working on the next CD which I hope will be released this Fall. I love how it’s turning out so far. We’re working with a really talented engineer this time and it’s fun just to watch him work. So that’s been a bit time consuming, but well worth it of course. I get people who will come up to me and tell me they listen to my cd like every day and I just think to myself, “man, I’ve got to get something else out there for these poor people to listen to!” So hang in there, all you who are ready to jump off a bridge if your kid asks to hear the intro to “Daughter of the Lord” one more time. Something new is coming.

We start classes tonight at Christian Family Care Agency to take the next step as we look into adoption. I’m excited to get more information and hopefully come to the point where we can really make a wise, educated decision about if and when and who and where.

We’re still fighting with Benjamin’s eczema, and Bethany was pretty sick last week. Between the two of them I think I was at a medical establishment 4 times in 3 days. That was a rough week. I can’t imagine being a parent of a child who is really sick, like sick all the time. Be thankful for healthy kids, and pray for those that aren’t.

I hardly recognize my front yard! The Tru-Vine crew just finished up an all-day project revamping the landscaping. Our drip system and our sprinkler system were totally dysfunctional so instead of repairing both we just repaired the drip and ripped out the lawn. Well, we didn’t rip out the lawn, they ripped out the lawn. The kids and I sat at the breakfast table and watched one guy with a shovel go at it for 5 hours. They said it was his first day on the job. By about 11:30 he looked to me like he was already considering a career move. Bethany said she wants to do that when she grows up, but she wants to be a girl landscaper, not a boy one. They did a great job and Bret is a great guy so here is his number if you live in my area and need residential landscaping: 480-330-5711.

The outlook for the rest of the summer is fun! We have a bunch of trips scheduled, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves earlier this month when the two of us got away to northern Arizona for a little biking and hanging out. I’m into making videos out of the photos now because it’s more fun to look back at, so here’s a link to the one I made for that trip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgV1W8QlU8g. I’m not savvy enough to actually post it here. So then next month we head back up north with the whole crew to support Daddy as he rides his bike from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon. Then a few weeks later, we head west to Del Mar for a few days. Then, in September, we’re doing the big one: Disneyland! Top 3 reasons for going in September: 1. Low Attendance 2. Lower temperatures 3. Harper is still two and gets in for free.

So, now when you check in down the line and see that Kristie STILL hasn’t blogged, at least you’ll know what I’m doing instead. :)

Priorities

2008-06-02T16:57:00.004-07:00

My 3-year-old was on the potty doing her business the other day and it was taking her a little while.

"You know Bethany, you could always flip through a magazine while you're sitting there," I suggested.

"Well Mommy," She explained, "I can't hold a magazine because if I let go of the toilet seat I'll fall in."

Good call, kiddo.

I Have a Dream

2008-05-18T16:05:00.002-07:00

“Writing has been difficult lately as time has been scarce, but I love it so much. It's only been the past year or so that I have been seriously pursuing professional songwriting although it's always been a dream of mine. I guess I just kept it to myself for a long time because I felt like a little kid who dreams of being an astronaut, and I didn't want to look foolish when it became clear that I didn't stand a chance. (Typical writer's self-deprecating thought patterns.) But now I've decided that true failure would be never trying at all, so here I am. I wouldn't necessarily say that God has flung open any doors, but He has left a few ajar. And it's been just enough to keep me going, keep me plugging away, hoping that one day I just may make it to the moon.”
-Posted by yours truly on a songwriter’s discussion board two years ago

Well, this is a big week for me. After signing my name on a dotted line I will officially become an astronaut. I’ve been working with a great guy from a small publishing company just outside of Nashville for a while now, doing single-song agreements and a few assignments here and there. It has been such a great outlet for my songs and a wonderful relationship and I have felt the providence of God through it all, as cliché as that sounds. A few weeks ago he called and offered to bring me on as their first staff writer, and, after much thought and prayer, I accepted! So here I sit, awaiting the paperwork, marveling at the goodness of God in my life.

It’s not that this is going to make me famous. And as my writer friends would attest to, it certainly isn’t going to make me rich. To the majority of the population, it’s probably not even something to aspire to above any other occupation. But for me it was a dream and even though not a whole lot will change because of this piece of paper, it’s a big deal in my book. A lot of that is probably because “Songwriter” is not exactly the kind of position that you get by answering a classified ad. There’s this great chasm that exists between unpublished writer and published writer that, try as one may, a writer simply can’t bridge on their own apart from some sort of spark from elsewhere in the universe. That’s what makes it feel a little like trying to become an astronaut or an athlete or a rock star. Those are my back-ups, by the way.

Like I mentioned in the excerpt above, I kept most of my grand ideas to myself lest I shared them and they be squashed shortly there after. It was a defense mechanism. Don’t try to hard and for goodness sakes, don’t let anyone know what you’re trying to do. That way if you fail, it won’t hurt so much. I wrote my first song at 14, then a few more after that, all of which were heard by a sum of probably 6 people. I began writing a lot more in high school, started some garage bands, and then put out some recordings for my local church and anyone else that liked the songs enough to shell out 10 bucks. I remember in high school my junior year they made us all take a computerized test that is supposed to tell you what job is the right fit for you so you can select a college and a major. I had already decided I wasn’t going to go to college, but I took it seriously just out of curiosity. After nearly an hour and over 100 questions, my occupation of choice popped up on the screen: Composer. Even though the title “Composer” meant more like Bach and Mozart to me, I still felt somewhat validated by the little computer program. After all, I did have a dream, I just wasn't ready to go making any speeches about it.

I’m realizing that at this rate, this already lengthy blog will become obscenely long, so let’s fast forward. Actually, I guess that’s a little old fashioned. Let’s Tivo and skip the commercials. Graduated in 2000, went right to corporate work and kept writing/recording on the side. Got married in 2001, kept working, kept writing/recording on the side. In 2003 I attended a little local songwriting event and was pleasantly surprised to discover the existence of a vast, underground Christian songwriting sub-culture, with t-shirts and everything. A little like Trekkies, but with a significantly lower weirdness factor. In the years that followed I slowly ventured deeper and deeper into this network of people that shared my passion and found not only a songwriting family, but also the courage and confidence to admit to myself and my world that I indeed had a dream to write songs on a professional level.

In 2004 I was offered a management deal from some random little firm that wanted to develop me as an artist-writer. That was a big fork in the road for me because it forced me to decide what exactly I wanted, and what sacrifices I was willing and not willing to make. With a new baby in my arms, I turned it down telling them thank you, but that I didn’t want to be an artist, I wanted to be a writer. It was a little scary to make that decision because I found myself asking “Was that it? Did I just pass up my only shot?” But while I probably could have squeezed my dream into that opportunity, it was clearly a square peg and a round hole. So, I waited. Then, a few years later, the spark came. Through a listening panel at a songwriting event, someone gave one of my songs to someone else who gave it to someone else and, three years later, presto! I’m a "professional songwriter".

I have no idea where God will take this from here. I may just keep writing music for church services and for print, I may get a big artist cut someday. Honestly, at this point I would be perfectly happy if things just continued as they are. I am a wife, I am a mom, I am deeply imbedded in ministry, and, I am a songwriter. God has been so gracious to our family, and for as long as He decides to let me have my cake and eat it too, I am going to enjoy every morsel.

One More Beautiful Reminder

2008-03-24T16:20:00.004-07:00

Yesterday after church we all gathered at my mother-in-law’s beautiful home to celebrate Easter with our family. It was a sweet time, similar to last year, with good food and an egg hunt for the girls. I took this picture during the egg hunt moments before Bethany, as she so often does, provided me with yet another allegorical insight into my relationship with God.

My mother-in-law had filled each plastic egg with some sort of tiny treasure. Some held stickers, others plastic rings or fuzzy toy chicks. Bethany and Harper wandered around the yard picking up eggs, opening each one and peering expectantly inside. Several eggs into it, Bethany had come upon a purple plastic necklace. “A necklace!” She declared with delight. She couldn’t put it on fast enough and she smiled as she gazed at it hanging around her neck. Soon after she found another egg containing another necklace, this time with blue plastic beads. With equal excitement she adorned herself with it and continued picking up eggs.

After a few more eggs, she opened one egg and stopped, staring inside. Without saying anything, she rose to her feet and slowly lifted its contents into the light. It was a “real” necklace, made with a metal chain and a glass heart pendant. She stared at it for a moment as it glittered in the sun. “I don’t like these necklaces anymore,” she stated matter-of-factly, and she yanked the two plastic necklaces from her neck. She tossed them on the ground behind her, all the while never taking her eyes off the shining new necklace. She ran over to Daddy for help putting it on, and from that point forward all other plastic necklaces she found were promptly relegated to Harper.

Thomas Chalmers preached a famous sermon titled “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”. Yesterday I saw that expulsive power at work in my three-year-old. Chalmers’ premise is that it takes more to quell a love for worldly things then simply to say “Bad, bad worldly things!” It takes a new and greater affection to replace the lesser one. And of course, that one great affection that expels all else is Jesus Christ.

When I take the time to truly behold Jesus, I want to respond as my daughter did. I want to be so dazzled by His glory that I find myself tearing from my neck the plastic imitations and refusing all lesser treasures in order that I might have the One great thing, the “real” thing, and so to be ruined for this world.

Thank you Bethany, for one more beautiful reminder.

No Photo for This One, Folks

2008-02-25T15:06:00.003-07:00

(This is not a tale for the weak of stomach, nor for anyone who happens to be eating at the present time).

Everything happens to my side of the bed. Sippy cups left lying on their sides to drip a slow and steady wet spot into the mattress. Diapers seem to leak only when the child is playing on my side. Then there was the time Bethany shuffled into our room in the middle of the night complaining that her tongue hurt. I turned on the lamp and told her to open her mouth so I could examine her tongue. She opened wide and promptly threw up all over me and, yes, my side of the bed. So it really came as no surprise to me when the events of last night revolved around my half of the mattress.

The girls were playing together in the living room and Matthew and I were in our room talking and setting our alarm clocks. They has been playing out there for a while and we knew from past experience that eventually one of them would realize they hadn’t seen their parents in a while and come looking for us. So when we heard Harper call “Mommy?!” and the sound of little footsteps coming our direction, we thought we’d be funny and hide. We jumped into the bed and under the comforter and waited. We heard her come into the bathroom. “Where are you?” she asked, not seeing us at our sinks. We snickered loudly under the covers so she would be able to find us, and sure enough, she did. She laughed as she found our feet and patted down the comforter to find the rest of us. Still under the covers, we then learned the reason for her pursuit of us. “Mommy and Daddy, I went poo poo in my panties.”

We shot up like a couple of rockets to see our bare-butted two year old holding her panties in the air. “Harper,” I asked slowly. “Is the poo poo in there?”, pointing to the unfortunate pair of Curious George underwear. “Ya,” she replied. “I went poo poo in my panties.” I took the panties from her, handling them as I would an armed nuclear missile, and peered inside. There was evidence that poo poo had indeed been in these panties, but was there no longer. The situation had escalated.

We quickly moved into the living room, stepping lightly, and scanned the area. No poo poo. We didn’t know how long she had been walking around like that, or how much ground she had covered. All we knew was that somewhere in our home was an MIA piece of poop. While Matthew put Harper in the tub I continued to search the rooms but still found nothing. I rejoined Matthew in the master bathroom where Harper was playing happily in the tub.

“Did you find it?” Matthew asked, cringing hopefully.

“No!” I replied, throwing my hands up in disbelief. “Where could it be?” As possible answers to my own question flashed through my mind, I knew that we just had to find this poop. Remembering Harper had been at our bedside I grabbed the comforter and flipped it back. Intending to look under the covers, I was not expecting to see something launch off the comforter into the air and hit the floor with a thud.

Eureka. We’d found it.

And once again, on my side of the bed.

When Matthew leaves for work tomorrow, I’m rotating the mattress.

One... Two... Three...

2008-01-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

There have been numerous times over the course of my life when I have tried the popularized method of counting sheep to get to sleep. I would close my eyes and picture a wooden fence with a bit of grass growing at the base of it, and one by one sheep would come into the picture, jump over the fence, and exit stage left. But it never got me to sleep.

Recently, however, I tried a new way of counting sheep. Instead of the sheep jumping over the fence, I pictured a whole herd of sheep standing close together and tried to count them as they moved around and smooshed into each other. I guess it was so difficult and frustrating that rather than continue such a tedious, pointless task, I just went to sleep.

Maybe you too have been fruitlessly counting your sheep jumping over a fence. Try the herd. It just might work for you too.

And maybe, just maybe, the rest of you have always counted the herd and I've just been somewhere out in left field with sheep jumping over fences. If that's the case, forget I ever mentioned it.

A Night Out On the Town

2008-01-11T00:03:00.000-07:00

Matthew had to work late tonight so I told the girls that we would go out on the town, which basically means perusing our favorite outdoor shopping center. First we browsed through Tea and Trinkets, a princess store aimed directly at little girls like my Bethany who’s pulse quickens in the presence of anything pink or sparkly. Benjamin clearly felt a bit uncomfortable, but politely kept it to himself. After saying “no, honey” five or six hundred times we walked over to Pei Wei for some dinner. The waiter looked doubtful as he set our order down on the table- one plate of Mongolian beef with rice and a big bowl of chicken lo mein. I got the feeling he thought we had bitten off a little more than we could chew, but by the end we proved him wrong with 3 clean plates (save for the pile of carefully extracted vegetables on Bethany’s) and fortune cookies to boot. I always feel a little sorry for the unfortunate bus boy that comes to clean up the floor when Harper has just had her way with a plate full of noodles. But the way I figure it, if she means anything to him it’s job security.

As we left Pei Wei we stopped by one of the big fountains and the girls put it their two cents… and their hands… and then their forearms. When feet had clearly become the next objective I decided it was time to move on. We walked the 50 or so yards to Barnes and Noble, stopping along the way to take pictures and point out important things like ants and “pokey tactuses”. As we passed A.J.’s Fine Foods Harper asked to see the cakes, so we stopped by their bakery for a minute or two. With both of them poking and touching everything within reach, a few minutes was all I dared stay for fear of having to pay for a dropped box of twenty-five-dollar imported ruby-crusted muffins. Fortunately we made it out without incident.

Finally we reached Barnes and Noble and went straight to the children’s area, where we played the game where they take every book off the shelves and discard them on the floor and I follow behind them, desperately trying to put each book back even remotely near its original location. We looked at lots of books and I read them a few stories in a big comfy chair. After purchasing a new book of Bible Stories it was off to our final and most highly anticipated destination, Paradise Bakery to get a cookie. (In case there is any debate, fortune cookies do not count as cookies any more than Fig Newtons count as cake). Harper ate her cookie the way she eats lots of flat food items- by taking bites straight down the middle and disregarding the growing sides until she is literally smashing the food against her face to get to the bottom. She left with chocolate from ear to ear.

We piled back into the van, fat and happy, and headed for home. Nothing like a night out on the town.

Four Things

2008-01-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

There is a "4 Things" survey email ricocheting through cyberspace and it hit my inbox last week. Everyone in my blogosphere is posting their answers and I'm having such a good time reading them that I think I'll post mine too.

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Journalist
2. Administrative Assistant for A.C. Green
3. Sound Technician
4. Florist

Four movies I would watch over and over.
1. Tommy Boy
2. Rudy
3. A League of Their Own
4. Any of the "Oceans"

Four places I have lived:
1. Mesa, Arizona (2 times)
2. Phoenix, Arizona (2 times)
3. Tempe, Arizona
4. Gilbert, Arizona
And I'm not planning on leaving. So there.

Four TV Shows that I Watch
1. The Office
2. Dora the Explorer
3. Sports Center
4. Re-runs of Cosby, Friends, and Raymond

Four places I have been:
1. Hong Kong
2. Mexico
3. Canada
4. Inside a dryer

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Anything deep fried dipped in ranch dressing
2. Great Sandwiches. Not just sandwiches. Great Sandwiches.
3. The spinach dip at Charlestons
4. Noodles in any way, shape, or form

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Nashville (Those in want out, those out want in!)
2. The beach
3. On a horse
4. Disneyland (and in 2 weeks, I will be!)

My New Favorite Christmas Ornament

2008-01-02T16:30:00.000-07:00

So, it’s the New Year and everyone is posting fantastic New Year’s entries on their blogs and I feel like a lump for not following suit. So here it is: my fantastic New Year’s post. I used to write in my journal without fail every first of the year, but that tradition comes to an end this year. I hardly journal at all anymore, especially with this blog for my creative writing outlet. I’m thinking for the blog this year I might start adding pictures. When I began I wanted to have a strictly textual blog, but as I read other blogs I realize that I really enjoy the pictures. It’s also a great way to post without actually having to say much. So look forward to a little more visual stimuli around here, and hopefully a little more frequency.

In fact, why not start off 2008 with a photo? That way I can get away without saying anything of real significance. Friends, I give you my new favorite Christmas ornament, created by my friend Kacey McGinty.

(To see her incredible work or book her as a photographer, go to http://www.kaceyluvi.com/.) Hey, why not plug a friend? It's the least I can do.

Happy 2008!

FYI

2007-12-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

There is no such word as "nother".

The word "another" is broken down as "an-other". Should you wish to emphasize your point by inserting the word "whole" into "another", the correct format would be "an-whole-other". Because "whole" does not begin with the vowel sound, the "n" in "an" is rendered unecessary, and thus should be removed. Therefore, the correct phrase is "a whole other".

Thank you.

What is That Smell?

2007-12-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

I love Christmastime, and the weeks leading up to it. In the footsteps of my mother, I spend much of the advent season plastering the outside of my house with Christmas lights. This year, in spite of adding several new elements to the display, I finished a full day early just before the rain came. The lights fared surprisingly well in the deluge, each connection carefully protected in Saran wrap, so I thought that my lights had withstood the test and would now shine uninhibited for the rest of the Holiday season. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.

Each night I have gone to turn them on, something has gone wrong. Some nights I plug them in and nothing happens. Other times they come on but only momentarily, as if playing some cruel joke, and then go off again. Still other nights parts of the yard are aglow with luminous splendor while select trees and shrubbery remain stubbornly in darkness. Matthew and I spent about a week of this fiasco running extension cords to different outlets, hitting the reset buttons, and flipping breaker switches to no avail. But Saturday night was a turning point.

All of the outlets on the exterior of our house are what is called “GCI Protected”, which basically means if something goes wrong it automatically shuts off to prevent you from burning your house down. They are also connected to all the bathroom outlets, so whenever the Christmas lights go out, Matthew’s electric toothbrush doesn’t charge either. This, I believe, has been the added motivation needed to secure his assistance through it all.

Thinking that perhaps the rain had gotten into the exterior outlets, we tried running everything into indoor outlets without the GCI sticker on them. We plugged them in and viola! They worked! We had finally solved the mystery. It would be a hassle to have to unplug the washing machine every time we wanted to turn on the light display, but at that point I was just thrilled that they were on. Satisfied, I made a run to Wal-Mart and Matthew did some work at home. I returned about an hour later and regrouped with Matthew. As we chatted in the kitchen, we both stopped and looked around. “What is that smell?” Matthew asked, sniffing the air. We went to the outlet where one of the extension cords lay coiled around its plastic spool. The spool was melting. It wasn’t turning into a puddle of orange plastic, but it was warm and squishy to the touch. This was not good.

Needless to say, we have shut down the light display until further notice. Maybe it’s a faulty strand, or maybe it’s a bad connection. Maybe it’s electricity’s way of saying “Hey, crazy lady- scale it back a little!” In any event, we have a little more troubleshooting to do to solve this problem. Until then my house sits in Scroogely darkness, and the city of Phoenix power grid rejoices.

A True American Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T16:14:00.000-07:00

The Pilgrims set anchor at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620. The Mayflower was overbooked and the Midnight Buffet had been a bit of a disappointment, so everyone was a little edgy when they arrived. They hadn’t pre-purchased any land excursions and the shopping looked pretty slim, so they got right to work setting up the colony. Their first winter was extremely difficult, especially because their electric blankets were not compatible with American power outlets. It was a long and cold season, and only about half survived.

But the harvest of 1621 was a bountiful one. And the surviving colonists decided to celebrate with a feast-including 91 Indians who had helped the Pilgrims to survive their first year. The Pilgrims had barely made it through the winter because they had great difficulty working the land and growing adequate food in the cold weather. The Indians, on the other hand, had lived through many winters and assisted the Pilgrims with their agricultural knowledge, survival skills, and abundant gaming revenue.

The feast lasted three days and was quite extravagant. The menu included wild fowl, boiled pumpkin, fried corn fritters, fish, berries, watercress, lobster, dried fruit, clams, venison, and plums, all of which were also available in a low-carb wrap. They spent days in preparation, and took many precautions to ensure the survival of the remaining colonists. Everything was prepared with zero grams of trans fat and the turkey deep-fryer was placed outside so as not to burn down the already tenuous settlement.

The meal was a wonderful time of enjoyment and community for both the Pilgrims and the Indians. To keep the atmosphere festive, they were careful to avoid potentially awkward topics of conversation like religion, politics, and Christopher Columbus. After the meal, everyone was stuffed. The men headed back inside to catch the big match-up between the Redskins and the Patriots, and the women, delighted that Starbucks was open on Thanksgiving, went out for Gingerbread Lattes.

The first Thanksgiving was a wonderful time had by all, and a tradition we all do well to keep.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Write About Jesus 2007

2007-10-22T15:30:00.000-07:00

A Couple Cool Moments from Write About Jesus

It was Saturday morning and we were having a praise and worship time after breakfast. We were all singing our guts out to “Here I Am to Worship”, which is a song I’ve sung a hundred times, but this time the Spirit applied it in a new way. As I was singing I was able to say to God “Here I am, in St. Louis, at Write About Jesus, to worship. To worship by using my talents, by writing songs, by building relationships, by serving others.” We always talk about how worship isn’t just singing, but it’s a lifestyle. So it was really cool to connect the singing and the living in that moment, as God reminded me why I was ultimately there: to worship.

I had a moment this weekend that was potentially head-swelling, and I realized that as soon as it began. I sensed that it was a moment that would reveal to me a lot about where I was with the Lord and songwriting, so I was very attentive to how I would respond- not in action, but in my heart before God. So while this moment was happening, I began to pray that I would be faithful and have a heart-response that was glorifying to God. I thought I’d try to turn this blessing back to Him, so I started to thank Him for allowing me to write songs and for giving me this particular song. He promptly interrupted and spoke as audibly as he ever has to me (which isn’t audibly at all, it's just in my head). He said “It’s not about you. It’s not about the song, or even that I gave you the song. It’s about what that song says about Me. It’s about the truth, and it’s about My glory.” Instantly my prayer expanded, like a camera lens focused on a single blade of grass pulling out to reveal a sprawling countryside. My thoughts shifted from what God had done for me or in me or through me and I just starting praising Him for who He was and for the truth about Him in the song that was playing on the CD player.

A Few Things I Love about Write About Jesus

I love how nobody there dresses to impress. We’re all in tee-shirts and jeans and whatever we feel like. I love it that I can wear the same pair of jeans all weekend and not feel judged for it!

I also love how you never know a songwriter by the looks of them. I’m continually surprised! We had a winner that was in high school and a winner that could have been my grandmother. That is way cool.

I love being around people who really get me. I forgot how much I enjoy the company of several of the people there.

I love being able to feel things again. Seems like at home with the way life is, I just go and do and try to keep my head above water. It wasn’t until maybe Friday afternoon, but I remembered what it’s like to feel and to drink it all in. I plan to change that about regular life if at all possible.

I love writing songs, and if I want to keep loving writing songs, I need to make sure I only write songs because I love to write songs. If that makes sense to you, than you are SUCH a songwriter. :)

Amazing and Wonderful Matthew

2007-10-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

Feeling very restless today. I get on a plane Thursday morning and head out to St. Louis for Write About Jesus, a songwriting workshop that I’ve attended for a couple years now (for more on that, check the archives. I think I wrote about it last summer). I don’t know if it’s having three kids this time around, or if it’s not having gone to Estes in August, but this year the thought of three and a half days away seems even more refreshing than in years past. I’m anticipating a great weekend of freedom and creativity and spending time with like-minded friends. Best of luck to the babysitting team that will be here at home, handling the three-ring circus while I’m gone.

I was talking to my friend Hayley on the phone a few minutes ago about the trip. She commented on how wonderful of a husband I have that he would enable me and encourage me to do things like this. I must say, she is quite right. Matthew is wonderful indeed.

A lot of folks have heard our crazy story of how we met and began dating, about how I ran and ran and ran and Matthew just pursued and pursued and pursued. It was pretty simple from my end. I didn’t want a boyfriend because I didn’t want a husband. From where I was standing at the time, seventeen years old and full of angst, getting married meant giving up your freedom, limiting your ministry, compromising your dreams, and possibly even losing your identity. Not interested, thanks.

A lot of that pursuing that Matthew had to do was actually convincing and proving. Convincing me that my view of marriage was perhaps a bit skewed, and proving his love for me was a love that would never want any of those things for my life. I was scared of losing myself, but he reassured me over and over again that he wouldn’t let that happen. He would protect me. He committed to support and even cultivate my passions and dreams, and he has more than lived up to that commitment ever since. Of course I gave up some freedom with marriage, and especially with having kids. But I know I’m more to this world than a dishwasher and diaper changer, and Matthew makes sure of it.

This weekend while I’m out basking in creative fellowship, he will be here, knee-deep in diapers, eating out of the freezer, and driven mad by toddler talk. He’ll have some help from the grandparents, but the majority of the burden will fall on him. So if you see him at church on Sunday and he looks a little frazzled, it’s because he is an amazing man and a wonderful husband who is fulfilling his promise to his bride. Feel free to tell him he is amazing and wonderful, and I will be sure to do the same.

If This Were the Mob, They'd All Be Goners

2007-10-04T16:22:00.000-07:00

In a couple of hours we’ll be heading out to game 2 of the National League Division Series to cheer on the Diamondbacks. It’s been a wild ride on the MLB train thus far, and we expect nothing less from the post season. Should be a great game.

The problem with baseball was in my first sentence. I had originally typed “our” Diamondbacks, but quickly changed it to “the”. I wish I could say they were my Diamondbacks, but honestly, it’s tough to get to that level in our relationship anymore. I have trouble attaching, trouble bonding, to my home team because every year they are an entirely different group of guys. Just when you spent all season getting to know every player on the roster and his strengths, weaknesses, and quirks, they pull the rug out from under you and trade those guys like they all have “Upper Deck” embossed on their foreheads.

I think this is particularly a problem for female fans as we tend to get more interested and involved as we get to know the players and their lives. Once we get to know them, we grow pretty fond of them, and soon, we want what every woman wants: commitment. I want to know that when I turn on a game, it’s going to be relatively the same bunch of players that I know and love. I want to know that they’ll be there, year after year, ready to make another run at a championship. But at the start of every season, I have to deal with a flood of betrayal when I turn on the TV and see my favorite players wearing other team’s uniforms. It cuts like a slider down and in, I tell ya.

I don’t want to root for a name or a logo or a mascot. I want to root for people. It used to be an identity, what team you were on. You were a Cub or you were a Brave. But it seems now that the only thing that makes you a team anymore is wearing the same color. So I find myself adapting, trying to get behind the team without getting too attached. I end up rooting for players on all kinds of teams because they were Diamondbacks once. So I guess it’s okay. Not ideal, but what can you do? Buy your ticket, eat your peanuts, and hope the jersey you just shelled out $75 bucks for will still be good next season.

Go D-Backs!

A Little Laugh from Grandpa Lewis

2007-09-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I spent some time on the Reader’s Digest website. I love Reader’s Digest, though I’m beginning to wonder if anyone else in their twenties subscribes to it. I just have a feeling that I’m not the target market for a magazine filled with ads for hemorrhoid creams and Medicaid. If you’ve spent any significant amount of time in a waiting room or sitting on your grandmother’s couch, you’ve probably at least picked up a copy of Reader’s Digest and maybe come across the monthly section they have dedicated to jokes submitted by readers. I went on the site today to submit some jokes for the section.

They weren’t my jokes. I’m terrible at jokes. They were jokes that Matthew’s late grandfather, Lewis, used to tell. Grandpa Lew died a little over a year ago back in Illinois. I didn’t get to know him very well because of the distance, but he was such a sweet, funny man. He had thick-rimmed black plastic glasses, bushy eyebrows, and one of those perma-grins that kind of says “I’m up to something”. I have to smile every time I see him in our wedding pictures, hunched over in his suit and tie and Sea World baseball cap. He was the kind of man that was always full of stories and music and of course, a timely joke.

I know Reader’s Digest is inundated with submissions so his jokes may or not be selected, but I think it would be so cool if his stuff were to be published. I’ll just have to wait to hear back from them, but in the meantime, here are a few clean selections from Grandpa Lew’s original jokes for your enjoyment.

-What kind of car would a missionary drive?
A convertible.

-Where do Tailors live?
On the outskirts of town.
Where should podiatrists live?
In the foothills.

- The wind was blowing so hard the other day that a hen laid the same egg 13 times.

-What expression must you never say when out hunting?
“I’m game.”

-This man worked for the circus and was shot out of a cannon. He went to the circus manager and said “I quit!” The manager replied, “You can’t quit. Where am I going to get someone of your caliber?”

-What do you call popcorn that has a lot of left over kernels?
Confederate popcorn

-What sound does a grape make when an elephant steps on it?
It whines.

-My wife was on a diet of coconut milk and bananas. She didn’t lose any weight but boy can she climb a tree!

Herman and the Second Life

2007-09-10T16:14:00.000-07:00

By now, most of you have probably heard of Second Life. For those of you who haven’t, it’s basically a website where you create a character and build it a life; a second life, if you will, complete with income, housing, friends, and yes, even church. It’s unbelievable how into this thing some people are and the amount of money they pour into a fake life, but I’m not going to go into it. I do have strong feelings about the site and its users and what I feel are the philosophical, sociological, and spiritual issues surrounding it, but I’m not a rant-blogger. I’m not a rant-blogger because I don’t like to read rant-bloggers because they make me feel angry inside. I’m plenty angry as it is, so if you need something to get angry about, go to the website, check it out, and write your own rant about it. http://www.secondlife.com/.

All that to say that Second Life got me thinking the other day about what I would do if I had a second life. Not an online life on a ridiculous website, but another real life to try anything or go an entirely different direction then the one I’m living now. Kind of like when I was a kid playing Jeopardy! on my computer (yeah, nerdy, I know). I would tell the computer that there were two people playing, when really it was only me. I would set up my player “Kristie” and I would buzz in on all the questions I was sure I knew the answer to, and then I’d set up another player “Herman” or something and use him for all those questions that I wasn’t sure about. Herman was my second life. I could roll the dice with Herman and not put my real self at risk. If Herman got a question wrong, it was no big deal. It wasn’t really me, after all. It was just Herman.

It’s one of my favorite questions to ask people: what would you do if you had another life? But you can’t take it too seriously or else it’s no fun. I ask some people and they think about it so carefully you’d think I could actually grant them one. My list is long and seemingly random, and probably impossible to do it one additional life. I would like to try being a missionary, especially aboard Mercy Ships or something of the like. I would like to get a degree and become a high school English teacher or maybe go into advertising and marketing. I could move to Nashville and try to make it in the music business. I’ve always wanted to open a sandwich shop, and maybe serve breakfast too. Maybe I’d get one of those crazy spiky haircuts that look so good on some girls. The possibilities are endless.

It’s crazy when you start playing Marty McFly on your life and asking “what if”? What if I never did this or did that, how it would completely alter the course or your life. My biggest one is what if I didn’t decide to learn to play the guitar? I wouldn’t have found a niche in the youth group by joining the worship band. I wouldn’t have been drawn out and given confidence by the band’s leader. I wouldn’t have started writing songs. And most significantly, I probably wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to get to know Matthew very well, and go on to marry him. Where would I be without my guitar? Perhaps an unmarried English teacher with a spiky haircut.

All that said, no second life could ever compare to my first life. I am incredibly blessed. Matthew and I always say that if we ever won the lottery (which would be astonishing since we never play), we wouldn’t change a thing. Well, we would probably get a hot tub, but other than that, life is perfect. After all, you only get one. So here’s to living without regrets.

If you don’t mind putting yourself out there on the world wide web, I’d love to hear what you would do with your second life.

I Should Be Sleeping...

2007-08-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

...but I just can't bring myself to spend the precious naptime hours asleep, no matter how tired I am. Not nearly as tired as last month before Benjamin started sleeping through the night. Wow, am I glad that part's over. Those first few weeks are killer, but soon the smiles come and the laughing and pretty soon you're just falling in love. There's that initial love that's present the moment he's born, holding him for the first time and looking into his eyes. But somewhere along the line, about a month into it I'd guess, it grows into a love that is fierce and overwhelming to the point that you can start crying just thinking about how much you love him. I hit that point a few weeks ago, and I'm just having such a great time with my little Benji-man.

Other than cuddling with the baby, just trying to keep up with the other two. Harper is on a ridiculous reading kick where she basically follows you around the house with a book in her hands chanting "Read, read, read". Bethany started preschool two days a week. Very strange feeling to drop my little girl off at her classroom and get in my car and drive away. But she has a blast, and I love the drive home when I get to hear all about her day. Apparently, Thursday was Peter's birthday. Happy Birthday, Peter. I've also been going to the gym most mornings, trying to get back into shape and my favorite old jeans. I actually can get into them, but it isn't pretty. So I guess my goal is not only to get them on, but to wear them in public again.

Been spending a little more time in prayer lately. It seems like God has been giving me a lot of things to deal with that are beyond my control so that I'll actually come to Him once in a while. Of course control is an illusion in the first place, but when we feel particularly helpless we tend to hit our knees. Just learning to make prayer a first resort rather than a last resort, I guess. I was also convicted at the gym a few weeks ago as I powered through my second set of crunches. I was feeling pretty good about myself and my ability to push myself even though it was hard and it hurt and that's when the Spirit whispered "Why aren't you this disciplined when it comes to being patient with your kids?" It's true. I give in so easily to sin. Just a little pressure and I cave, while at the gym I take pride in driving myself to my limit and then some. All of those athlete analogies in the Bible have been coming alive to me since then. If only I could channel that energy into my relationship with Christ. If only I could care as much about being holy as I do about being skinny.

Well, I've got to feed Benjamin now, otherwise the whole delicate schedule of our day will collapse. Hope to be back sooner then later.

Vacating Arizona

2007-08-01T14:55:00.000-07:00

Monday evening we returned from our family vacation, or "holiday" for my one reader in Great Britain. We had a ton of fun. Thursday morning we loaded up the minivan with four duffle bags, three kids, two strollers, one grandparent, and a partridge in a pear tree and headed for the coast. Our goal was to make it to Yuma before Benjamin woke up and realized he hadn’t eaten in 4 hours, and by the grace of God and a pacifier we rolled into the Carl’s Jr. parking lot just before meltdown. The girls played on the playground and ate their lunch with dad and gram while I fed Benjamin, and we were off again without a hitch.

The next three hours were occupied by Mark Driscoll, Disney Princess Sing-Alongs, and a stop at a Subway located inside a gas station. We were a little hesitant about buying sandwiches and petroleum from the same establishment, but the people making the subs were wearing official Subway green polos, so we ordered some to go and headed out for the last leg of our journey. As we came through the mountains the trees became greener, the air grew heavier, and the surrounding cars got more expensive. We had made it to California.

Our hotel room was great. It was on the second floor and every time we came and went Bethany got to push the buttons on the elevator, which she got quite a kick out of. That afternoon we took naps and got settled in, then went swimming and had BBQ by the pool. (Author’s note: Wherever the concept of “naps” is mentioned, please note that it is always in reference to children and/or a combination of accompanying adults, but, unfortunately, never to the author herself). Friday morning two more grandparents flew in and met up with us at Sea World. We all had a blast touching bat rays, checking out the animals, and sitting in the second row of the “soak zone” at the dolphin show. We retreated to the hotel for naps in the afternoon, then returned in the evening to make sure we got our 50 bucks worth. We left after the Shamu show around 10:00 pm, exhausted but beaming from our marine adventures.

Saturday we headed for the beach, joined by still more family flying in; our sisters and their husbands. Matthew dropped us all off, along with about 200 pounds of beach gear, and we set up camp on the first available patch of sand. While Matthew circled the globe looking for a parking spot, I fed Benjamin and watched with great amusement as the three grandparents attempted to assemble a beach cabana that looked more like an oversized kite. It was only after Matthew arrived and took over that it began to resemble the picture on the box. Once base camp was set up, we spent the day throwing the football, frolicking in the waves, and trying to minimize the amount of sand that our children ingested. Once again, we returned to the hotel exhausted.

We spent Sunday at a park on the beach, having a picnic and playing games until the kids and the parking meter expired. After dinner, we hung out in the room and fell into bed for some much needed rest. The next morning, with a sense of victory, we packed everything up and took off for home. Our family vacation had been a success.

It’s tricky traveling with small children, but we were ready for it. Expectations were set low and patience was stored up for those inevitable difficult moments. We set out to have a chaotic, exhausting, fun-filled family adventure, and that’s exactly what we did. It wasn’t relaxing by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s just something about packing up your little populace and taking them to a new, exciting place and watching their world get a little bit bigger. Something well worth the trip.

The day after we got home, I asked Bethany what her favorite part of the vacation was. I wasn’t sure if she’d enjoyed Sea World more than the beach, or perhaps going out to dinner with family or playing at the sea-side park. She paused thoughtfully for a few moments before giving her definitive reply: Riding the elevator.

Next year, we're going all out: Downtown Phoenix Chase building. Thirty-eight floors ought to do the trick.

Welcome to the World

2007-06-20T15:59:00.000-07:00

Benjamin James Braselton
Born Monday, June 18th at 1:30 pm
8 lbs, 2 ounces 21.5 inches long

"Behold, children are a blessing from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who's quiver is full of them!" -Psalm 127:3-5

Waiting for Baby

2007-06-07T10:03:00.000-07:00

So I figure I should blog now since it’s been well over a month. I don’t have anything profound or entertaining to expound on, but I can always just ramble on about my life. After all, isn’t that what blogs are for?

I spent Memorial Day weekend at a songwriting retreat in Indiana. It was an amazingly wonderful time, though constantly in the back of my mind was the thought that my son could be born thousands of miles from home. Happily, he hung in there and I made it home as pregnant as ever. Since I went through the whole “nesting” phase before I left, I’m now simply in the waiting period. Only 2 weeks left according to my doctor’s little date calculator thingy, but in light of its uncanny resemblance to a cereal box decoder ring, I don’t give it that much credence. I’m ready anytime, although Matthew is really pulling for me to make it past Sunday seeing as I’m scheduled to run sound for him for three services and there’s no one to fill in if I’m out of commission. I told him I’d do my best, but no promises.

Nesting was interesting this time around. It was mostly organizing things, like going through all the girls’ clothes and pulling out anything epicene (I subscribe to “Word of the Day”, and that was today’s. I’m so excited I get to use it). Then his cradle had to be cleaned out. Over the past year and a half it had somehow morphed into the gift-wrap storage center, so all of that had to be relocated, along with about an 1/8th of an inch of cat hair accumulation. Gross. Of course there was the cleaning. I had the carpet and the couches shampooed so they’d be ready for a fresh batch of spit-up. Double gross.

All the while my belly is just getting bigger and bigger. Either that or my clothes are getting smaller and smaller. It’s a minor inconvenience, but inconvenient none the less. I can no longer park next to a car that’s on the line, nor can I successfully look out the peephole in our front door (which is always a challenge for me anyway). I have to take extra care when spitting out my toothpaste and be sure to get a sufficient trajectory that will clear the protuberance, otherwise I end up changing my shirt before I even make it out of the bathroom. One of the particularly endearing things that Harper, our 18-month old, makes a habit of is following you around with her arms in the air imploring you to pick her up. It’s gotten to the point that if she gets too close to me, I lose sight of her completely in the shadow of the bulge and the only thing that notifies me of her presence is the sweet little voice incessantly chanting “Ahp! Ahp!” I find that pretty amusing.

Wow, this has been some captivating material. Positively riveting. Sorry to have to cut it off, but Dora the Explorer is over now so I should really get back to being a parent. We’re off to the park to soak up this rare day of double-digit temperatures. But take heart- odds are my next post will be very exciting indeed. Maybe it will even include my first photo post! I know you all wait with baited breath. Until then, I’ll be here like always… being mommy, waiting for baby, and trying not to spit on myself.

Free Melody

2007-04-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

Due to the number of recent inquiries about Melody the Suicidal Beta Fish, I thought I'd better post an update on the situation. Melody has been set free.

Clutching a blue Tupperware dish and escorted by her father, Bethany carefully made her way to the banks of the lake marking the entrance to the Phoenix Zoo. There had been a family discussion the night before regarding Melody's current state of depression and loneliness, and we came to the conclusion that little Melody would be much happier where she could swim freely in open water with other aquatic friends.

Bethany stood at the edge of the water while her Daddy pointed out all of the wonderful features the lake had to offer Melody: Sun, room to roam, other fish to play with, and of course all the turtles.

"Do you want to put Melody in her new home now?" He asked.

"Yup!" replied Bethany eagerly, and with one fluid motion she pulled the top off the Tupperware and dumped out its contents, only missing the lake by a few feet. But Melody, the ever-resourceful and resilient fish, flopped her way down the remainder of the bank and plopped into the algae-covered water. We took this as confirmation that she too was on board with the decision to relocate. We all waved to Melody calling out our farewells, and proceeded to enjoy our day at the zoo. And on the way back to the parking lot as we crossed over the lake, Bethany stopped, looked through the railing, and called out "Bye bye, Melody! We'll see you next time!"

Best of luck to you, Melody. We'll see you next time.

Fish, Interrupted

2007-03-21T13:22:00.000-07:00

Wow. A couple more days and it would have been two months since my last post. That's pretty pathetic blogging if you ask me. Two months since my trip to Bath and Body Works and the pet store. Actually, just to the right of me on the counter sits a reminder of the pet store that I left out of my blog story. Not only did we come home with the birthday gift, but also a little blue Beta fish that Bethany picked out and named Melody. She's a nice little pet, but I must admit I thought she'd be dead by now. In all honesty I bought her as more of a novelty then the long-term commitment she has become. I'm getting kind of tired of changing her water and remembering to feed her, especially since the kids have long since lost interest (something I'll have to remember in 5 years when they're begging us for a dog).

I think my mistake was in passing up my original idea of buying the 12 cent feeder fish, who would certainly have been flushed by now, and going all-out on the two dollar Beta. After bringing her home and doing a cursory Google on Betas, I learned that they are bred to be lab fish so they are a particularly hearty species. This would explain her remarkable tenacity, even in the wake of two suicide attempts. The first was the most traumatic. Matthew walked in the door and saw an empty fish bowl and little Melody laying motionless on the kitchen counter. We had no idea how long she'd been out of the water, but we guessed at least 25 minutes. She was dry as a bone and we were sure she was a goner. Nevertheless, we plopped her back into the water and gave her a couple light finger flicks in lieu of a fishy defibrillator and hoped for the best. While she clung to life in her glass ICU we again consulted Google. Had we failed as fish parents? Was her bowl just too confining? Had we been ignoring tell-tale signs of emotional trauma? What if all of those trips to the surface when she would mouth incessantly at the face of the water were not signs of hunger at all but actually silent cries for help? But before the guilt could really set in, we soon discovered as we read a little more in depth that Betas are notorious jumpers, and we were not alone. There are actual fish chat rooms where owners tell their tales of woe and offer suggestions on how to keep your Beta in the bowl. At least we could sleep at night knowing she was predisposed to this kind of behavior and we would just have to do our best under the circumstances.

After resting at the bottom of the bowl for 24 hours, losing part of her back fin, and changing several different colors, Melody did go on to make a full recovery. She once again attempted to take her own life just a few weeks ago, but was only out of the water for a few minutes. We've since moved her to a slightly larger bowl with a lower water level and given her a live plant to swim around and eat off of. She seems to be pretty content at this point, but I still check the bowl every time I walk by to make sure there's still a fish in there. This is definitely a bit more than I signed up for that January afternoon, but I think it's safe to say that Melody the Beta fish is here to stay.

Dollars and Scents

2007-01-23T11:56:00.000-07:00

As a proud consumer of Pert Plus, I’ve always considered myself a pretty simple person when it comes to beauty products. You can be sure I’ve got something special going on that day when I break out the separate shampoo and conditioner. I use my Dove bar soap in the shower, and my lotion is purchased at the pet store, designed for the hooves of horses. Needless to say, it is on the rarest of occasions that I set foot in a store like Bath and Body Works. One such occasion was last week.

My sister Kelly’s birthday was on Wednesday, and traditionally we simply go back to the items leftover from her Christmas list to find gift ideas. I chose this strategy and acquired a list of supplies from Bath and Body Works that hadn't turned up under the tree. There’s a Bath and Body Works location close to my house and since I didn’t have much to spend, I figured I could zip in there, pick up something small, and be on my way. So with a list of desirable items, a ten dollar bill, and the kiddos in tow, I headed out the door.

It took all I had to actually enter the store that I typically don’t walk past without holding my breath, but as I lingered by the open door my body began to acclimate and the sensation of passing out subsided. Upon entering, I was pleasantly surprised that a sale appeared to be going on. I had my doubts when I began reading price tags, but the enthusiastic signage assured me that this was indeed a “sale”. Had it not been for this bit of provident fortune, I would have headed home to gift-wrap a tube of lip balm.

I started at the top of my list under the heading “Shower Gels”. Looking up from the paper, I found myself standing before three bins of sale-priced shower gels. This would be easier than I thought! I dug through the bottles looking for either Peony, Tropical Passion Fruit, or Magnolia Blossom, but to no avail. Apparently Kelly had popular taste. I moved on to the next sub-heading: “Wallflowers”. What was a wallflower? Did it come in a bottle? Did you spray it, smear it, or lather it? Facing far too many unknowns, I decided against questing after this option.

I then saw that there was one item on the list that stood alone, no scent listing, no sub-category: “Aquatanic Spa Vitalizing Marine Body Tonic”. Intimidated though I was by its formidable title, I had already made visual contact with the “Spa” section of the store and began moving in that direction. As I stared up at row after row of Aqutanic Spa product, the last item on Kelly’s list became more and more enticing: “Gift Card”. But determined to get her a 3-dimentional birthday present, I pressed on.

As I began to wonder if I would ever breath fresh air again, the sales clerk must have taken note of my split-ends and unscented aura and quickly recognized my plight. “Can I help you find something?” she asked sympathetically. At first I read items off the list to her, but soon she had taken the list and was zipping around the store in search of a match. I did my best to keep up with my stroller and mesmerized two-year-old but soon realized that much like chasing a butterfly, it was best to wait for her to land on something before attempting to approach her. I watched from a distance as she scanned labels on a shelf and when she turned around she had two bottles in her hand. “Black Raspberry Vanilla Shampoo and Conditioner.” She stated with a satisfied nod.

“How much are they?” I asked, fearing her response.

“They’re on sale!” she gushed, “Two for ten dollars.”

“Perfect!” I exclaimed. “I’ll take them”.

Remembering her sales training, she held up a small metal can. “Would you also like the matching Body Butter?”

As tempting as it was, I only had ten dollars. Kelly would have to churn her own. We headed to the checkout desk, made the purchase, and stepped back into the real world. It didn’t smell like Gardenia, Coconut Lime Verbana, or Sensual Amber. It smelled like a combination of exhaust, French fries, and the adjacent Petmart store. We headed toward the latter establishment so the girls could look at the fish. “While I’m there,” I thought to myself, “I may as well pick up some lotion for myself, too.”

My Shortest Post Ever

2007-01-11T19:35:00.000-07:00

It's a BOY!!!

More Than Okay

2007-01-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

Here I am! I’m okay! I’m not dead or anything. Just slacking off. But I appreciate everyone who emailed to check for signs of life throughout my silence. I’ve simply been in a creative drought for the last few months, as I’ve mentioned in several of my “recent” posts. It’s just been really difficult lately to think beyond the here and now, much less write about it in a cognitive way. On top of that, I’ve been unusually tired and my brain hasn’t been firing on all cylinders. I forget things I normally remember and am more easily confused. I know with symptoms like that, it doesn’t sound like I’m doing okay. But actually, I’m more than okay. I’m pregnant.

This is my third time around, so I’m no stranger to the “pregnancy fog”, as many women call it. I forget things at the store, forget to order things off my sandwiches, I struggle to write songs, and I don’t cook as well. It’s a very real thing, this fog, and it’s caused by an actual slight decrease in oxygen to the brain. This condition was a bit disheartening to learn about in my first pregnancy, but I know now that it’s only temporary. At least, I think it is. As far as I can tell I seem to go back to normal, but maybe I should retake the SATs after this baby is born, just to make sure.

Anyway, enough excuses for not blogging. All the women reading want to know the stats. Well, I’m 16 weeks, due on June 21st. Our ultrasound is on the 11th, and yes we’re finding out, and yes we will tell people. The name, however, will remain a secret as usual. But it’s already picked out, so while you’re welcome to throw in your suggestions, know that it will not be considered. (especially you Wajonians… I’ve seen your name suggestions beforeJ) We’re very excited about it, and Bethany talks about it all the time. She is very clear that she wants a baby girl, not a baby boy, and she wants to name her Melody, which is the Little Mermaid’s daughter’s name. She also takes her plastic stethoscope and listens to the baby’s heartbeat. It’s all very cute.

So, as Matthew says, we’re preparing to move from man-to-man defense to zone, if one can really prepare for that. I’ve gathered from other moms that the jump from 1 to 2 is somewhat difficult, from 2 to 3 is the hardest, and after that you kind of just lose count. So we’re gearing up for the challenge, feeling incredibly blessed by the wonderful kids we already have and the privilege to be given another. Hopefully I’ll blog a little more consistently, but no promises. If I do disappear for a while, I’ve probably just chosen to spend my free time doing something else, like resting, napping, or eating ice cream from the carton. Now, if I can just remember where I put that spoon…

The Life of Leftovers

2006-11-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

The only welcome leftover in my mind is pizza. Pizza is the perfect leftover because it’s never around long enough to raise any questions of its shelf life. I love leftover pizza. I could eat pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and on some occasions I have. Microwaved pizza is okay, but anyone who is blessed to own a toaster oven knows that a slice of skillfully reheated leftover pizza can be even better than it was in its original form. I actually just finished having one for lunch. Thirty seconds in the microwave to take the chill out of it, then into the toaster oven to await the crucial window between when the cheese starts bubbling and when toppings start sliding off onto the heating elements. With just the right timing you end up with a slice of hot, crispy goodness. Leftovers just don’t get any better than that.

Why is it that a fridge full of non-pizza leftovers is so depressing? It’s probably because leftovers serve as a barrier to the food you really want to eat. You can’t justify ordering Chinese or grilling up that fresh package of chicken when every time you open up the fridge there are six Tupperware containers staring you in the face. I think Tupperware itself is one of the major reasons that leftovers are so undesirable to begin with. It’s simply not an appetizing method of packaging food. Everything is all mixed together in there, squished up against the sides like a kid doing a blowfish on the school bus window. Then, dare you open it, you discover a virtual terrarium has formed inside as a shower of condensation falls from the underside of the lid, soggifying the inhabitants below. I usually try to get my leftovers from the fridge to the microwave with as little eye contact as possible. If I’m reheating them for Matthew and the substance is particularly unrecognizable, I’ll ask him to stay out of the kitchen so that he never sees the food in such a dismal state lest he lose his appetite and the burden to eat it is cast on me.

Matthew is actually pretty good about eating leftovers, provided that he enjoyed the meal the first time around and that I do the reheating. If he has no choice but to prepare leftovers himself, our overachieving microwave actually comes equipped with a “senso-reheat” button, most likely designed specifically for men. Put the plate in there, push the button, and the microwave decides when your food is ready. I can just feel myself becoming obsolete with every evenly-heated entree. Matthew is also a friend to the leftovers in that he is willing to give them a longer window of opportunity. Personally, I give them three of four days max, depending on the contents. He’ll pretty much eat anything that’s in there without raising question of how long it’s been around. This propensity of his makes it necessary for me to be diligent about cleaning out the fridge. I used to leave stuff in there for a while, mentally marking it as inedible after several days had passed, knowing I would throw it away when I got around to it. But if he’s desperate enough, Matthew will dig around in there and come up with stuff I forgot I ever made. The typical shelf life of garbage-destined leftovers in our house goes something like this:

Day One: I make a pot of Tortilla Soup, store remainder in fridge
Day Two: Have a bowl for lunch
Day Three: Feeling a little tired of tortilla soup, go with another option
Day Four: Soup is now listed as questionable, though still a possibility if necessary
Day Five: I officially write soup off the menu
Day Six: Soup remains in fridge in case the more courageous Matthew decides to partake
Day Seven: I dump the gelatinous mass into the trash can
Day Eight: “Babe, what happened to all that soup that was in here?!?”

Sigh…

Non-Stop to Nowhere

2006-10-25T20:12:00.000-07:00

So I really have nothing interesting to say, but I feel like if I don’t blog soon an angry mob will form outside my door. Maybe if I just start typing, it’ll become something interesting. In fact, what if I didn’t stop typing? What if I just kept rambling on and on without stopping to consider my words or organize them into logical thought patterns? This is a bit scary, but I guess I’ll try it seeing as thus far I have succeeded. I don’t know what to say… okay at least I don’t type as fast as others so I do get a moment to think things out. I never did learn tot type correctly. I’m what some people refer to as a “pecker”. Peck, peck, peck, using four of my 10 potential- what’s the word? Here is where I would normally pause, scan my internal files of vocabulary and find what I’m looking for, insert it seamlessly into the text and my readers are none the wiser that 23 seconds elapse between one word and the other. But no- no such break here. I must keep typing while simultaneously searching my brain for the word I’m looking for. I think it’s something like metacarpals. I wanted a fancy, sciencey sounding word for fingers. If I was pausing I would have switched those last two sentences. If I was pausing I would change “switched” to “flip-flopped”. See how this works? I’m not nearly as eloquent this way. That’s why I always prefer to write rather than speak. Like Paul. Bold in writing, timid when in person. I’ve learned a lot about insecurity. It’s really an epidemic among the world and of course the church. I’ve been understanding it in my own life and thus seeing it and doing my best to root it out as I identify it. The one frustrating thing that comes along with such growth is that then you can see the sin in other people. It’s like x-ray vision. So now I see insecurity everywhere and I just want to shake people and say “Stop It!” but I still haven’t stopped it so what do I have to say about it anyway. I used to think it was “humble” to be camera shy, for example. Oh, don’t take my picture. Oh, no. But actually, it’s none other than pride cleverly disguised as- crap, I can’t think of the word again. I almost cheated and paused anyway, but then I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. Because of how my computer is positioned, I have to type with my arms slightly elevated. I wouldn’t have guessed that it would be my biceps of all muscles that would be starting to ache at this point. That reminds me of an interesting fact about myself. I never realized until a short while ago that the majority of the population drives their cars with their heel comfortably planted on the floorboard. I’ve been driving around for eight years (wow, that’s not very long, is it?) with my toe pointed like a ballerina or an equestrian jumper and having to do calve exercises to take road trips. I can’t go back, but I would say “to prepare for roadtrips”. Anyway, that’s a funny thing. I’m just too short. My feet don’t reach the pedals very well. Well, I guess they would if I moved the seat closer to the steering wheel but then if I ran into anything going over 25 miles an hour I would be decapitated by my airbag. I’ll take the toe-point, thank you. Okay, my arms are really aching now, and this is one loooooong paragraph. Oh, that looooong just gave me an idea of how to get a break. This sure is a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong paragraph. Ah, that was nice. Now I’ve got my elbows resting on the counter although it’s much harder to peck this way. Speaking of elbows, I used to be in a kung-fu class with this Persian dude. He was the nicest guy. His name was Phar-mar. He’d say “Phar-mar. Just think: Mars is very Far away”. Anyway, he was working with me and we were talking about a particular move and he said something like “You need to bend your knee-bows.” I thought that was so funny. You know, like elbows on your legs would be knee-bows. I thought it was funny anyway. Maybe you had to be there. Well, this is getting old and I’m sure the feeling is mutual. I must say, this is the fastest I have ever put in a blog entry, hands down. (yuk yuk). I’ll spare us all and quit now, but don’t say I didn’t blog! Don’t say I didn’t throw something out there for you! And one day, when I get out of this mental cloud-funk I have been in for the past few weeks I’ll do my best to actually say something useful. Until that day, goodnight.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's.... SuperFoods!

2006-10-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

I’ve never really been one for “healthy” eating. I don’t sit around with a bag of Doritos or down whole cartons of ice cream, but I’ve never eaten a balanced diet. I don’t care for many vegetables, and my only relationship with fruit is juice and the occasional smoothie. In fact, if tomatoes hadn’t made it into the fruit category, I would never consume fruit of any kind that actually requires chewing.

Recently, however, my mom had been giving me little snippets of information from the new “SuperFoods” movement, and I think I've officially been sucked in. It’s basically a list of 14 foods, each with several “sidekicks”, that are labeled as “super” based on nutritional benefits and disease prevention. The thing about this diet is that it isn’t exclusionary, but inclusionary ( I don’t think that’s a word, but just go with it). No one is telling me to eat bunless hamburgers or that my margarine will give me cancer. Rather than reminding me what a horrible person I am for continuing to eat french fries, it tells me what’s good and what to add to my diet. A lot of them are things that I actually like and I can make a more concerted effort to include in meals, like tomatoes, blueberries, nuts, and yes- dark chocolate. Things like spinach and beans I’ll have to be more creative with. And then there’s broccoli. I’d rather eat my foot that one floret of that nastiness, so I won’t be getting any of broccoli’s superpowers any time soon.

So yesterday, with my new SuperFoods book, I ventured into Henry’s, the local healthy-hippie type store. I felt like a pagan in church. I didn’t know what I was doing or where anything was. I just wanted to slip in the back and try to blend in. As I passed other shoppers, paranoia began to set in. Was everyone staring at me? What is she doing here? It felt as though they could see right through my skin and into my clogged arteries. I grabbed a cart, tried to look as healthy as I could, and began walking each aisle. I started with crackers. I needed whole grains. I came upon a sample station for multi-grain crackers that had all these little specks and seeds on them- the kind of stuff my hamster used to eat. They looked pretty healthy to me, and they actually tasted good too, so I grabbed a box and put it in the basket. I picked up a box of cereal bars for the kids, read the ingredients, and, finding I could pronounce every one of them, added two boxes to my cart. I found some good yogurt, a box of soy milk, and a bag of snap peas. It wasn’t until the cereal aisle that I began to get suspicious of my multi-grain crackers. All of these cereals touted different grainage- whole grain, multi-grain, oat and grain- and after a minute of investigation I realized that many grains are actually only partial grains masquerading as whole grains. I checked the first ingredient on my crackers and sure enough: Enriched wheat flour. I don’t know what enriched means, I but I know that it’s a bad, bad thing, so I made my way back to the cracker aisle and exchanged them for the real deal.

Once I was sure I had exceeded my intended budget, I headed for the checkout. I wasn’t sure what to expect here either. Would they check my I.D.? My cholesterol level? The checkout lady smiled and greeted me as I approached the register. To my relief, she rang up my groceries and I was on my way without anyone taking my blood pressure or inquiring how many servings of green leafy vegetables I had eaten that day. I returned home with my groceries and a sense of triumph. I could feel the Free Radicals cringing as I emptied my bags of SuperFoods into the refrigerator. Nothing could discourage me now!

Nothing, that is, except possibly my two-year-old.

Later that night Bethany climbed on my back and wanted me to crawl around the house and give her a ride. As we lumbered down the hallway she declared with delight, “I’m riding a whale!”

I’m never eating again.

Someday My Prince Will Come

2006-09-29T16:12:00.000-07:00

My mom and I took the girls to Costco the other morning. It's always fun to go anywhere with the kiddos, but especially to places where we will inevitably come across a Disney character on a book cover or a box of diapers, because it's fun to watch Bethany's reaction. If she sees Pooh or Buzz Lightyear, she points and excitedly announces their presence. If she sees any of the Disney Princesses, her eyes get very wide and she leans out of the shopping cart, calling out each of their names. And if she sees The Little Mermaid, she practically hyperventilates.

Ariel is by far her favorite of the Disney princesses. We have multiple Ariel dolls, I am the human jukebox for Ariel songs, and I have been known to fashion a rather impressive play-dough Ariel. We think it's adorable that she's so enamored with The Little Mermaid, and has been for months now. As she gets older, however, and as we become more familiar with the Doctrines of Disney, Matthew and I have come to realize that Ariel may not be such a stellar role model for our daughter.

Ariel deals with a myriad of issues, most significantly a self-centered mindset with little concern for others and a general lack of discernment. But we have to be somewhat understanding. After all, she is living in a single-parent home (as are all Disney Princesses) with a father who has an anger problem. To add to her predisposition to selfishness, she is the youngest in a long line of markedly uglier sisters and is unquestionably her father's favorite child. From this dysfunctional family setting, several themes arise that flew right by me as a kid, but now as a mom raise some major eyebrow.

First of all, the main statement the movie makes is to follow your heart- even if it means directly disobeying your father and signing away your life to a massively overweight power-hungry octopus-woman. Second thing I never noticed: By the time the movie ends with newly-wed Ariel floating off into the sunset on her wedding ship, the average watcher who hasn't seen the film 36 times has most likely forgotten that Ariel clearly stated her age earlier on in the movie... she is a mere sixteen years old. Her daddy of course gives this marriage his blessing and in fact makes it possible by magically giving her legs, but what can we expect from a father who passes off his parental responsibilities to a crab.

If I had nothing else to do, I would probably have a lot of fun making sequels to these fairytale movies. The post-honeymoon tension is already building in my mind... Prince Eric and Ariel go out to dinner, and Eric orders the flounder.... Eric wants to watch the big game at his favorite sports bar, but they card Ariel at the door.... King Triton wants the pair home for the holidays, but Eric can't breathe underwater. Probably didn't have time to think through these kinds of details during their 3-day courtship.

Admittedly, I am going a little overboard (yuk yuk) for the sake of what I call humor. Matthew and I are not going to burn all the Little Mermaid paraphernalia and boycott Disney, but we will need to be mindful of what our daughters are taking in. In reality, we will probably end up drawing a number of lessons from the Disney princesses and will find ample teaching opportunities in them as Bethany gets older. After all, there is some truth in every lie. Like the princesses, we are all born longing for something more; something greater than ourselves. There is in fact a grand Prince to fall madly in love with. And, best of all, there most certainly is a happily ever after.

Under Where?

2006-09-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that most everyone has back-up underwear. I don't mean a spare set of underwear that is carried around on one's person in the event of a bladder malfunction. The underwear I'm referring to are those 3 or 4 pairs that you own but rarely wear. They are an unfortunate few that you didn't intentionally buy as back-ups, but over time eventually fell out of the rotation. It may be that they don't quite fit you right, or they make you feel fat, or they have a propensity towards wedgies, but for one reason or another they have slowly and surely worked their way to the back of the drawer to mingle with the Christmas socks. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I will have you know that I have spent the entire week wearing back-up underwear. As I type this, I can almost feel my readers squirming in empathetic discomfort. I appreciate the sentiment. Why, you may ask, would someone subject themselves to such a tortuous state of existence? Perhaps for one day, possibly two, when the laundry has gotten out of hand, a pair of back-ups will be worn. But an entire week? Allow me to explain.

We stepped off of the cruise ship in Vancouver last Saturday morning. Royal Carribean had an elaborate luggage system in place including color-coded tags, ours being Orange 11. We were instructed to attach the tags to our bags, place our luggage outside our stateroom doors, and Royal Caribbean would take over from there. You already know where this is going. The morning we were to depart, we were all sitting around waiting for our luggage color and number to be announced so we could proceed down the gangway. After several hours and a rainbow of other colors, Orange 11 was finally called. Matthew and I cheered audibly as onlookers smiled with a combination of amusement and envy, and we headed off to the bus that would take us to Seattle where we would catch our flight home. There were two buses, actually, both full of Seattle-bound cruisers, and as we boarded the buses we all shared the same concern. The luggage on the sidewalk by the bus was not Orange 11 luggage, but Orange 10. Not to worry, assured the cruise representatives. It's all part of the system. Your luggage will be on the other bus. So off we went on the 3 hour drive to Sea-Tac airport. The other bus had a head start on us and, upon arrival, we pulled up to see its passengers standing around with arms folder and brows furrowed, anxious to get into our luggage compartments. Understandable, we thought to ourselves. After all, we must have their luggage, and they must have ours. But neither of these statements proved to be true.

It was utter chaos for about 15 minutes. The only thing worse than a mob of angry people is a mob of angry rich people, and that is indeed what we were caught up in. Matthew and I, being neither rich nor angry, tried to be as understanding as possible with the terrified Royal Caribbean representatives. We filled out some paperwork and waited around for what we should do. After much yelling and phone calls it was announced that our luggage was still in Vancouver. To add insult to injury, due to some kind of protocol, they refused to send our luggage on a bus without passengers. The only option was to ship our luggage out to us the following Monday, giving it an ETA of 4 to 5 days. With renewed rage, the mink mob descended upon the RC reps once again, breathing out fiery threats and vows of retaliation. Matthew and I picked up our carry-ons and quietly slipped out of the fray and into the terminal, knowing that coming home to Phoenix we would not be much missing our sweat pants and overcoats.

I am, however, missing my underwear. I do the laundry every two days to keep the fragile cycle going. I suppose I could have just gone to Target and bought more, but throughout this underwear crisis my bench has really come up big. I don't think I'll be returning any of them to the starting line-up, but I have to hand it to them. They're getting the job done.

The Reluctant Early Riser

2006-09-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning when it was still dark outside because some nut was out there mowing their lawn. This is double-irritating because 1) I lost an hour’s sleep and 2) It only served as a reminder of the jungle we are currently growing in our backyard. I think it’s been literally 3 months since Matthew’s been out there mowing, although last week he did go after the front lawn with a weed-whacker and gave it a bad haircut to buy more time with the HOA. But in the backyard, the lawn is seriously out of control. I hesitate to take Bethany out back to play because if she wanders into the grasslands, we may never see her again.

So the Lawnmower Man woke me up and now I can’t go back to sleep because there are a million things swirling around in my head. All wonderful things, but things nonetheless. Most prevalent is a contract I received yesterday from a publisher that I will possibly be working with on a song-by-song basis. They sent the agreement for me to look over and sign, calling it “a standard document that simply outlines our understanding”. Let me tell you, there wasn’t much “simple” going on over here, and even less “understanding”. Here’s an excerpt:

AND WHEREAS Purchaser has agreed to purchase and Seller has agreed to sell 50% (fifty percent) of Seller’s undivided right, title and interest (whether existing, contingent, expectant or otherwise to the full extent thereof) in and to the Compositions, and copyrights thereto and by this reference made a part hereof, and the assets more particularly described below (the “Copyright(s)”) for the consideration and upon the terms and conditions hereinafter contained;

I’m working through it paragraph by paragraph, and with the help of lawyer-dad, will hopefully have it decoded by the end of the day, signed and notarized by the aforementioned lawyer, thereof. Hitherto. Forsyth.

On top of that, I’m thinking through the planning necessary to leave the kids for our 5-year anniversary trip. We disembark on Saturday. That’s right- “disembark”. We’re going on an Alaskan Cruise. Some savings, a contribution from a wonderful person, little Harper’s tax refund, and we’re on our way! We always held an Alaskan cruise out there as a 10-year or maybe 15-year anniversary, but as we thought about it we realized that we could get hit by a bus or Christ could come back or Canada could take over Alaska before we ever got to go. So we’re going now. Very logical reasoning, if you ask me. Seriously, though- you have to live life. You can’t just wait around or make grand plans for the future. Carpe Diem! Carpe Cruise! Carpe Buffet!

Other than those two big fish, the rest is just the plankton of the day floating around in my head. I have to run sound for Women’s Ministries this morning, I have to hit the post office to ship out a box of Archie Comics I sold on eBay, and there are still a bunch of loose ends to tie up before we go. So, as long as I can successfully navigate the legalese and no crocodiles emerge from the Outback out back, this should be a pretty good day.

You Might Be a Mommy

2006-09-04T08:43:00.000-07:00

1) If you've ever done a load of legos in the washing machine...

2) If you've ever enjoyed an oatmeal-facial unintentionally...

3) If you find yourself singing the theme song to "Dora the Explorer" in the shower...

4) If there is more food on the floor than in the refrigerator...

5) If you've ever looked into the cost of installing a GPS system on a sippy cup...

6) If your purse is too large to qualify as carry-on baggage...

7) If you've ever contracted a sore throat from talking like Elmo for too long...

8) If you've ever used your vacuum cleaner directly on a human being...

9) If you've ever excused yourself from a social setting by saying "I have to go to the potty..."

10) If you've ever been overwhelmed by God's goodness in the blessing of kids...

You might be a Mommy! (Or a Daddy, I suppose... except for the purse one. :)

Confessions of a Hygiene-Challenged 9-year-old

2006-08-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

Personal hygiene is like eating vegetables and room cleaning. It's an acquired taste that kids will eventually grow into, and no matter how hard you try you can never implant the appreciation for it into them. They may wash up to please a parent or to avoid punishment, but in their heads they're still thinking how pointless of a practice it is. I know because I still remember thinking those very thoughts as I ran the water in the sink and rubbed my toothbrush up and down on the grout between the tiles on the bathroom counter for that authentic teeth-brushing sound. It took a while for my parents to catch on, but they did eventually. I had a mouthful of cavities when I was a kid, but that grout was spotless.

After particularly hot days helping my dad in the garage, he would often try to persuade me to take a shower before I went to bed because "you would feel so much better"! But at nine years old, he may as well have been speaking a foreign language. The only thing I felt after a shower was wet. One night I thought I had found a short cut to the shower by simply running the water for 10 minutes and then sticking my head in to get my hair wet. My plans were thwarted, however, when I walked into the kitchen with soaked hair hanging down my back and dry, feathery bangs in front. If you ever try that trick, learn from my mistake and be sure to get your whole head in there.

These days there is nothing better then the feeling of falling into bed after a hot shower, and I often think of how my dad was right all those years. It is also impossible for me to go to sleep now without brushing my teeth, otherwise I can feel the little plaque armies crawling all over my mouth, pillaging my enamel, and I can almost hear the dentist strike up his drill. I may be cleaner than I was 15 years ago, but I still haven't quite grown into vegetables. At least not the dark green ones. I have gained an appreciation for a clean house, albeit just in time to see the possibility of such a phenomenon in my own home vanish for at least the next 10 years.

At this point I am blessed that Bethany asks to have her teeth brushed. I think this is only because she likes to eat the toothpaste, but I'll take what I can get. I don't know how she'll feel about it as she gets older, but with grout-less bathroom counters I guess she'll have to be more creative then her mother.

Down from the Mountain

2006-08-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm officially home from the mountains. At 6:00am Sunday morning I boarded the death-shuttle from Estes Park to the Denver airport with 10 other bleary-eyed passengers. I took the shuttle last year, so I knew what was coming, but my companions remained blissfully ignorant until the van came squealing into the parking lot, catching serious air on the speed bumps. After the first few mountain curves taken on two wheels the women in the front row pleaded with the driver to slow down because they had children at home who needed their mommies. He didn't seem particularly sympathetic, but I think he realized that in two hours he'd either have a van full corpses or furiously angry people, neither of which tip very well. He reluctantly obliged and slowed down to a reasonable speed. We arrived at the airport, kissed the ground, and went our separate ways.

It was a pretty uneventful flight home. Had some ginger ale, stashed the peanuts in my purse for Bethany, and spent the flight organizing my thoughts from the week. It was much better than last year it terms of what I blogged about before I left. It seemed like everyone who stood in front of us made a point to hammer in the concept that competitions don't matter, recognition is secondary to simply using your gifts, and the importance of "blooming where you're planted". These mini-sermons, combined with time in the word and prayer, served as refreshing reminders that seemed to keep us all in the right place. There were great concerts, I met some really great people, and even went horseback riding with a new friend at the end of the week. Of course, it doesn't take much to make me happy. I had a blast just being around people who could feed themselves, carry on intelligent conversation, and use the bathroom without my assistance.

I did miss my kiddos, and Matthew of course. It was pretty hard on them, actually. It wasn't easy last year when Bethany was only 10 months old and Harper was still in my tummy, but Matthew said with two kids it was craziness and Bethany was visibly bothered by my absence. Next year, they're all coming with me. Next year… used to seem so far away. These days it’s just around the corner.

Tap the Rockies

2006-07-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

About a year ago I was flying home on a plane from Denver, exhausted and still reeling from all I had just taken in. I was coming back from a conference in Colorado put on by the Gospel Music Association called “Music in the Rockies”. I had heard about it from Aaron Rice, a writer who judged at a local songwriting event, during a Q & A session. The question was something like, “What can amateurs like us do? How do we get heard?” His answer was Music in the Rockies. I resolved at that moment that my next step as an aspiring songwriter was to be at that event. As it turns out, it was not the next step, but a giant leap.

It was basically 6 days of drinking out of a fire hose. There were more classes that I wanted to attend then I had slots in the day. There were more people that I wanted to meet than I had the time or opportunity. Then there was the overwhelming feeling of sitting down in a class with “industry professionals”- people who were living my dream- and listening to them share their wisdom and experience with plebs like us. I took in volumes of information. I met scads of great people from all across the country. I even had one of my songs critiqued by the author of “Crucified With Christ”, and he liked it. It was quite literally a mountain top experience for me as a songwriter, and well worth the cost.

But there was a dark side to Music in the Rockies. It’s a kind of disease- one that spreads like gangrene among the registrants. It can be seen in the dejected faces of those who were not chosen, wallowing in self-pity. It manifests itself in people huddled together over critique sheets, angrily arguing each negative point as ridiculous and unfounded. The worst case I saw was in my roommate, who simply went home early after discovering she was not a finalist. The disease has many names and many symptoms, but pure and simple it is none other than Pride. I came unprepared for its assault on my heart and became infected on Monday evening, along with all of my roommates and the majority of other registrants. But I quickly found the cure to be the same as it is at home- spending time with Jesus. An hour or so with the Savior renewed my heart and spirit, returned to me the perspective I had lost, and reminded me Who I was serving and Who I was writing for.

I went home without winning anything, but I did come away with pages of furiously scribbled notes, a new understanding of the industry, and, most significantly, another conference to sign up for. All week we had been wearing orange lanyards with www.WriteAboutJesus.com emblazoned on them to hold our nametag and meal ticket, but nobody seemed to know what it was. It turned out that Sue Smith, one of the clinicians, ran a conference of her own out in St. Louis called Write About Jesus. I was in several sessions with Sue and got to hear a bit more about the conference and her heart with it, and before I left the Rockies I had decided to register for the October event.

Write About Jesus was even better than Music in the Rockies. Not only was it shorter and much more affordable, but it stayed true to its name. It was about Jesus. It wasn’t about winning competitions and impressing judges. No one showed up with six garment bags and a steam cleaner. It was about writing and being with other writers. The people were amazing. Some of my greatest memories from being there were not classes or competitions, but sitting around a table at Dairy Queen with like-minded people, sharing our hearts and laughing our heads off. The clinicians were much more accessible and approachable and there was simply a different atmosphere then in Colorado. I guess it all boils down to this: Music in the Rockies is something you go to. Write About Jesus is something you belong to.

In a few days I will be on a plane back to Denver to do Music in the Rockies all over again. While I am really looking forward to it, it now serves as more of the advent of “Songwriting Season” for me. Being in the Rockies means that Write About Jesus is just around the corner. It’s kind of like the appetizer, and Write About Jesus is the anticipated main course. Music in the Rockies will whet my appetite for writing and hopefully re-ignite my dreams, and Write About Jesus and the people there will satisfy my soul. I look forward with great anticipation to both events, eager to discover what great things God has planned, and what He will accomplish when my heart is all about Him.

Two Kinds of Drummers

2006-07-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting back here at the sound booth and the band is practicing for the upcoming Sunday morning. This is always a good time for blogging as I sit by a computer for an hour with only minimal interruptions to turn up someone's monitor or ask the drummer to bring it down a notch on the snare. Ah, the delicate relationship between the drummer and the sound man. Each can make or break the other. It's a love/hate thing, really.

I have a long-held theory about drummers. There are only two kinds, two categories to divide them into, and these categories are distinguished solely by which personality disorder a particular drummer is afflicted with: ADD or OCD (Attention Deficit Disorder or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Some of you other musicians are already nodding your heads in acknowledgement. Non-musicians have clicked on the "next blog" button in the upper right hand corner. For those of you still with me, I will continue. The ADD drummer drums the way he lives: Scattered, constantly moving, and loud. I've played with and run sound for many such drummers. The best thing about them is their visible passion for the music and their Spirit-led musicianship. I just wish the Spirit would tell them it isn't necessary to beat the drums within an inch of their lives to passionately worship. We have one drummer at our church who needs a Dirt Devil just to suck up all the stick fragments that litter the floor after he plays a service. This sort of ADD drummer often poses a problem for the sound man. You don't want to squash his creativity or take all the passion away, but on the flip side a worship set is much less effective when words are indistinguishable. "...CRASH! ..Indescribable, CRASH!... Uncontainable, ...SNARE! placed the CRASH! in the SNARE! and You CRASH! them by TOM FILL!..." That just doesn't fly with the over-forty crowd, and they're the ones who are always filling out those comment cards. We've resorted to encasing our ADD drummers in Plexiglas, and this has worked well for the most part. The biggest drawback to this is that now the sound of the drums reverberating around their little cubicle only serves to deafen them further, thus causing them to play even louder. At least when they're forty they won't be able to hear anything and they won't write me any comment cards.

The OCD drummer is a good drummer because he is steady, sure, and always on. He rarely overplays and sometimes even shows up armed with his metronome just to make sure. Problems don't usually arise until you need to change something. If you need to repeat a chorus or cut a verse on the fly, you can't just notify an OCD drummer of the change. You have to completely reprogram him. This can get hairy 15 minutes before doors open. But you've got to love the OCD drummer because he always shows up to practice on time, he's always prepared, and, best of all, he stops playing when the worship leader is talking. His music is in order and he's always writing stuff down. The OCD drummer is the safe drummer. They're just not as fun to watch as their counterparts. I watch some of the particularly militant ones play and I think to myself that if they're missing a stick, I have a pretty good idea where it might be.

I don't think any of my drumming friends read my blog, but I think some of their friends do. So if you are one such friend, there's no need to pass this blog along to them. Just sit smugly with your new-found insight into their psychological issues, and silently sift them into their appropriate categories.

Please Don't Deport Me

2006-06-29T20:34:00.000-07:00

MSN recently offered a sample quiz of 20 questions from the United States Naturalization test on their website. Any immigrant would be required to pass the complete version, 100 or so questions, in order to gain citizenship. The questions varied on subject matter, but all were patriotic in nature- powers of government, dates of ratification, current political figures. As I feared would be the outcome, I failed. Not miserably, but still a full 5% away from baseball, McDonald's, and my civil rights. Slightly disheartening, I must say.

Contrary to first glance, I am a natural-born American citizen. My mom was born and raised in Iowa, but my dad was born in communist China, where he later fled to freedom when he was a little boy. Genetically, my sister and I ended up inheriting many physical traits from dad- dark hair, dark eyes, and enough of a variation in eye shape to have experienced that irritating playground chant that I won't type here, complete with hand-motions. I was also amused in elementary school by the concept of "Chinese jump ropes", "Chinese cuts", and "Chinese fire drills". I wasn't sure if my classmates actually believed that everyone in China jumps out of their car at stoplights and runs around in circles. I later came to realize that "Chinese" was simply a more interesting way to say "weird". All the playground stuff never bothered me because, afrter all, they made fun of everybody. The only instance of official "racism" didn't come until the 7 th grade when Matt Hubbard called me by a racial slur, and even that didn't really get to me. I knew it was wrong, but I also knew Matt Hubbard was an idiot, so if the teacher hadn't heard it I probably would have pretended I didn't either and spared us both an awkward trip to the Principal's office. The only other time I had ever gone to see the Principal was when someone attempted to flush by backpack down the toilet, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't racially motivated.

I guess thinking about it, Junior High was when I really began to realize that I was indeed half Chinese, and to the untrained eye appeared fully Chinese. It's a strange phenomenon, realizing what you look like to other people. It's similar to the outlook of the little dog. The little dog never seems to realize that he's little. A Pomeranian will go after a Great Dane without thinking twice. It took me a while to realize that people saw me as different then themselves, even though I didn't see myself that way. I remember one day walking up behind a friend who was trying to describe me to another student who didn't know who I was. "You know," she said, "she's the little Oriental girl." I recall thinking to myself, "Who is she talking about?", only moments later realizing it was me. In my mind, "Oriental" was a flavor of Raman noodles, not the first word I would use to describe myself. My eye-opening process continued in the social realm. As you may remember, Junior High centered around the endless pairing of preadolescents in both actual and hypothetical combinations of who should, could, and is "going out". The little dog phenomenon would rear its shaggy head whenever I would have a crush on a white kid but everyone would tease me about hooking up with the Chinese guy. I think I proved my point in eighth grade by going to Promotion dance with a black kid. I was never one for racial barriers, I suppose. And now, of course, I'm married to my wonderful husband Matthew, possibly the whitest man on the planet. I love you, babe.

Growing up half-Chinese did have its perks. Every year, on what was just another random day in February to my friends, I received a red envelope full of money from my dad. And the food. Oh, the food. Dad is an amazing cook who puts P.F. Chang's to shame. More significant are the "Chinese" character traits born and built into who I am: discipline, diligence, frugality, and dogged work ethic. But there are two sides to every coin, the second coming in pressure to perform, expectations, and a culture built on guilt. A friend once asked me if I liked being Chinese. I'd never really given it much thought, and I gave him the only answer I really could. I don't really know if I like being Chinese, because I've never known any different.

Find out if you should be deported at http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/exec/natz/natztest.asp?FormMode=INITIAL

The Best Day for the Gym

2006-06-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

I belong to a gym that allows for month-to-month membership, which is one of its most endearing qualities. It only requires 30 days of discipline at a time. Anyone can be disciplined for 30 days. It’s after the novelty wears off that brings the true test of diligence. This is only my second month so far, and already my resolve is beginning to wane. It’s not that I dislike going. I really do enjoy working out and how it makes me feel. I enjoy feeling like I’ve accomplished something no matter what else happens that day, and somehow it takes the guilt out of that cheeseburger and fries at lunch. I enjoy the early morning drive to the gym, being able to roll down my windows without having my eyebrows singed off. And I enjoy getting a chuckle out of seeing drivers circling the parking lot for the space closest to the entrance, because Heaven forbid they’d have to walk an extra 17 steps to get to the treadmill.

My gym is actually a rec center, so I avoid a lot of the less appealing aspects of a traditional gym. There aren’t any of the those glistening gargantuan guys who’s necks have long ago disappeared into their pectorals, and spandex sightings are thankfully rare. There’s a lot of natural light in the place and good ventilation, which wards off the caged-hamster-on-its-wheel feeling. And there’s even a rock wall if I’m feeling particularly adventurous- which has only been once so far. (This experience provoked sentiments similar to those of my last ski trip, which can be read about in detail in a previous blog).

I generally spend my time at the gym at four stations. First, I stretch. Not because I really feel that big of a difference, but because it seems like that is what good people do, like washing your hands before you eat and covering your mouth before sneezing. I do the chicken-leg stretch and the I-dropped-a-quarter stretch, then a few that I make up as I go along. Once I’m feeling limbered up, I hop on one of the six elliptical machines. There’s usually one or two others that are already occupied, so I try to space myself out accordingly. It seems to be the unspoken etiquette that one does not take a machine directly beside another person if the next one over is available. Kind of like church. I am willing, however, to break protocol if necessary to secure machine number 6. Number six not only sits directly beneath the ceiling fan, it is also positioned in front of the television that broadcasts ESPN. There’s nothing like watching the closed-captioning try to keep up with play-by-play commentary. My numerical goal on the elliptical machine is always to go for thirty minutes and 2.5 miles, but in reality everyone knows that true success is staying on longer than the person next to you.

After my cardio is complete, I take a cool-down lap around the indoor track and head for the weight machines. I only do one weight machine, mostly because it’s the only one I know how to operate. I do a few sets on that and then I go to the sit-up bench thingy. This is my favorite station of my workout because I get to lie down. It’s basically a bench with a foot-holder that has variable degrees of incline, in case regular sit-ups aren’t difficult enough. I don’t really have that problem, but I slant it anyway so that when I’m gasping my way through my final set I can tell myself it’s because of the incline. Once I feel like I’ll never digest again, I go back to the weight machine for a few more arm reps before I call it a day and stumble down the stairs on jello legs, clinging to the banister with quivery arms. One thing’s for certain, it’s the only flight of stairs that I encounter where going up is easier than coming down.

I'll go to the gym tomorrow for sure. That's always the best day anyway.

A Servant's Heart

2006-06-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

At Lifegroup last night one of the guys brought up a really great self-test that I want to share with all of you:

If you think you have the servant thing down, how do you react when someone treats you like one?

Convicting.

Can't Sleep

2006-05-28T23:59:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you can’t sleep? I have a myriad of remedies, ranging from reading and writing to just closing my eyes and trying to envision the back of my head. Sounds weird, I know. But you should try it some time- it really works. Just like if you feel a sneeze coming on and you don’t want it to get away, you’re supposed to scratch your wrist and think of cows. Never fails. On the flip side, if you feel a sneeze coming on and it isn’t a very good time for a sneeze, the tip is to quickly locate a light source and stare at it until the sneeze goes away. I’ve used this method through many a church service, but I have come to realize that it has nothing to do with a light source or even looking at anything. The secret is simply in keeping your eyes open, because it is impossible to sneeze without closing your eyes. Some have even gone as far to claim that if you were to sneeze with your eyes open, your eyeballs would pop out. This makes for an interesting mental image, but I am doubtful that it’s true. I have two friends that have a glass eye. (To clarify, they do not share a glass eye, thankfully they each have one of their own. Nor did they lose their respective eyes by sneezing with them held open.) Is that strange to know multiple glass-eye owners, or does everybody know a couple of these folks? I guess it’d be hard to really know, unless they were like my one friend who enjoys popping it out at parties. I never go to any of his parties. I was at a goodbye party a few hours ago. A guy in our Lifegroup is moving to Texas, so we hung out with him and watched as the Suns allegorically lost one to the Mavs. I enjoy a good play-off game, but you know what I hate about the NBA? Watching grown men whine. In baseball, when they get a bad call, they never whine at the umpire. They yell at him. I much prefer yelling to whining. Hopefully there won’t be much of either in my house. This entry is going to be a short one, because it has already accomplished its purpose: to bore me to sleep, and it has likely done the same for you. Buenos noches, mis amigos.

Return to Sender

2006-05-19T08:18:00.000-07:00

I get the mail a couple times a week, at best. It's always jam-packed, but 95% of it will invariably end up in the trash can. I've gotten pretty good at picking out the junk mail and knowing which envelopes need to be opened and which can be expedited directly to the garbage. Dead give aways are the obvious computerized attempts at handwritten addresses or the ominous phrases printed on the envelope. Pretty much anything that says "Do Not Discard" or "Personal and Confidential" will never see the light of day at my house. I'm pretty sure I get more "personal and confidential" mail in a given week than the head of the CIA.

Then there is the barrage of catalogues from companies I have never purchased from, and never intend to. Some I have inherited from the previous home owner while other retailers have, through some form of surveillance, determined my demographic and send me catalogs they feel are appropriate. One that I find particularly irritating is the monthly arrival of Pottery Barn Kids, which I have learned not to open, because every time I do my house magically gets uglier. They may have enough sophisticated technology to know that we have children, but they obviously didn't go as far as to hack into any of our financial records, otherwise they would know that they are just wasting their paper on us. For the price of what it cost to furnish our entire home, Bethany could be sleeping in a beautiful pink and white "Madeline Canopy Bed", and if Matthew got a second job, she could have the matching curtains too. Maybe it costs so much because they go to the trouble of beating up the furniture for you to give it that lived-in look. "Manufacturer's Distressing" is the technical term for it. Personally, I am drawn to manufactuer's distressing not because it is considered chic, but because when the piece is eventually rammed into a wall or sideswiped by a tricycle, any damage will blend right in.

The other day I got the mail and it contained a letter that I look upon with heightened disgust, a letter from the HOA. Not an unusual happening, I must admit. It always begins by stating the "violation date" and it always has to do with our landscaping. We're the first house on the corner, so I'm sure that has something to do with it. This time it was the weeds. I thought they blended in nicely with the lawn, but apparently Kinney Management doesn't share my opinion. They really are sticklers, that HOA. Last year we were trying to do our part in the water conservation effort by not fixing our broken sprinkler system, but with complete disregard for the environment they demanded that we "revive our dying lawn". I guess not everyone sees the beauty of two-toned grass. Neither Matthew nor I had a clue how to fix the system, but before I resorted to buying a can of green spray paint my dad came over and saved the day. As a result of a well-watered lawn, however, we are now plagued by the violating weeds. You just can't make these people happy. I'm sure their yards are perfectly spotless. They probably shop at Pottery Barn.

Adventures at the Airport

2006-05-05T09:17:00.000-07:00

I returned from my sister's California wedding this past week. It was a lot of fun and everything went really well considering it was planned from 500 miles away. Bethany was the flower girl and while she didn't exactly walk down the aisle on her own, she was adorable. Actually, she pretty much ran the other direction. But like I said, adorable.

On Sunday the bride and groom took off for the Mexican Riviera while the rest of us headed back for Phoenix. That was a bit of an adventure of its own. First of all I was flying with two children under 2 years old without my husband. I am convinced that this would surely have been my end if my mom and some friends hadn't been there to stand in the gap. It took two of us and a helpful airport employee just to get us through security. Each child must first be removed from the stroller and carried through the metal detector, then the stroller itself must be made to fit through the scanny thing. This poses quite a challenge for a full-size Graco Duo-Glider, which we affectionately refer to as "The Suburban". The whole contraption eventually made it through, albeit in several pieces. It was while I was attempting to reassemble it that the real escapade was taking place.

My dad was the next in line, carrying his small duffle bag and a box of wedding gifts that the groomsmen had given him to take home with us. Everything was going swimmingly until the TSA guy stopped the conveyer belt and frowned. "Who's box is this?" He asked.

"It's mine." My dad replied, stepping through the detector.

"Do you know what's in this box?" TSA guy asked accusingly.

"No, actually I don't", my dad answered. "They’re my daughter's wedding gifts".

"Oh, you don't know what's in here, huh?" TSA guy taunted.

"No, I don't!" my dad insisted.

“Really?” He sneered. “You have no idea what’s in this box?”

Turns out that among the wedding gifts was an entire set of steak knives, complete with a butcher knife. It wasn't looking too good for dad. Not only had he inadvertently broken a federal law, but this particular TSA agent suffered from a severe case of "Mall Cop" Syndrome (MCS). In case you aren't familiar with this condition, it generally afflicts those who carry a pretext of authority but in reality have very little at all- those uniformed individuals who dream of carrying a firearm and chasing down evil-doers in squad cars but are trusted with only a maglight and a golf cart. Victims of MCS are known to consistently overreact to rebellion with fervent zealousness, eager to throw some weight around, even if it’s in the form of a beer belly. But I suppose I can empathize with the guy. After hours of watching x-rays of underwear and hairdryers go by, those knives must have been a sight for sore eyes. It was clear from his visibly repressed glee that he was secretly hoping this mild-mannered grandfather with a bum knee was really an international Ginsu-Ninja terrorist. What a notch in his belt that would be. So my parents waited with him for the Sheriff to arrive, along with one of the bridesmaids who was still carrying her flowers to give their story a little more credence. Is was up to the Sheriff to decide what my dad’s intentions truly were and if he should be fined the maximum $500 per violation.

But, as it turns out, my dad was not trying to take over the world or the airplane, and the sheriff determined that he found “no foul intent” with him. My mom was then allowed to check the box along with the other bags and both of them made it onto the plane without further incident. The TSA agent didn’t get to make the catch of his career that day, but at least it gave him a good story to tell his wife that night, and an interesting blog for me.

The Evolution of Date Night

2006-04-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

Matthew and I have always been big fans of a weekly date night. We are so blessed to have my mom, who comes over every week to watch the kids so we can get away together. Date nights have somewhat evolved over the years. When it was just the two of us, date night was a wonderful way to ring in the weekend after five days of work and school. Throughout the week leading up to the event, we’d talk about what each of us would like to do, make any necessary reservations or preparations, and anticipate our night together. Planning these days is mostly to secure babysitting. My mom will call the day before and ask what time she should come over. Most of the time I won’t really know what to tell her, but the general rule is, the earlier the better. “Where are you going this week?” she’ll ask me. A pause. “I don’t know…”, I’ll reply slowly, realizing that we’ve overlooked this minor detail. “I guess it really doesn’t matter.”

Most of our dates are still pretty typical- dinner and a movie, then maybe some ice cream. But it’s more the getting out that counts, and sometimes getting out is all we have the energy to do anyway. One Friday when Harper was just a few weeks old and still waking up throughout the night, we were particularly exhausted. We had just finished a nice dinner at Charleston’s, our favorite restaurant.

“I am sooo tired,” Matthew groaned as we got up from the table.

“Me too,” I sighed, taking his hand as we made our way to the exit. “I just want to lay down.”

Matthew nodded in agreement. “That would be wonderful,” he said dreamily.

As we stepped outside into the night air, we stopped and stared. Just 100 yards across the parking lot, lit up like a beacon of hope, was the neon sign for Sleep America.

Moments later we were staring up at the ceiling, flat on our backs on a $3,000 king size Select Comfort Sleep Number mattress. If it hadn’t been for the pesky salesman who insisted on visiting us periodically, we may have drifted off right then and there. We laid there for as long as possible without looking suspicious, feigning interest in prices and different models, calculating our individual "Sleep Numbers". It was only when someone from the church walked in and recognized Matthew that we decided it was time to go. We thanked the salesman and left our pillow-top respite, brochure and business card in hand. We both agreed, dinner-and-a-movie was highly overrated. Dinner-and-the-mattress-store was the way to go.

Then there was last week when we had dinner and went to Michael’s Arts and Crafts together. I practically had to drag Matthew out of the car. It didn’t help my case that the car in the space next to ours was occupied by a man sitting in the passenger’s seat, reading a book. Once inside, I searched for table décor as Matthew trudged along behind me, insisting that I count the number of men we encountered. I must admit, I didn’t see any other men while we were shopping, but when we got to the register, each of the three women in line ahead of us had a man standing dutifully by.

“See?” I touted on the way back to the car. “There were three guys in there.”

“Yeah,” Matthew retorted, “And they all looked like me- like they wanted to die.”

Next week we will probably go back to the standard dinner and a movie. “The Sentinel” is coming out and we’ve been waiting for that one. But on those weeks when nothing good is playing, you never know where you might find us, although Costco is a pretty safe bet.

Cease Striving and Know That He is God

2006-04-18T08:21:00.000-07:00

Laying down to sleep each night is always a bit of an ordeal for me. My mind needs time to unwind and organize itself before it can completely shut off. Unlike Matthew who says he simply “takes his brain out and sets it on the nightstand”, I have to file through the day’s events and plan out the next one, which sometimes makes falling asleep a tedious task of its own. A few nights ago this whole process was compounded by the unsettling discovery of a scorpion in our laundry basket. Unfortunately, scorpions are not rare visitors in our home. This was an unusually large scorpion, one that you might find encased in glass and sold as a paperweight to some sick individual who has undoubtedly never encountered one scuttling across their bedroom floor. After Frank (our cat) alerted me to its presence, I plucked out the gym shorts that it was clinging to, rinsed it off into the bathtub, and crushed it with a baseball bat.

Thus was the advent of scorpion season in the Braselton household. This is a season of watchfulness- eyeing the floor with every step, scanning ceilings as you walk into a room, and performing black light inspections of the nursery before laying the babies down at night. Needless to say, this made getting to sleep that night even more difficult that usual. I was laying in bed for over an hour, wide awake, thinking only of scorpions and how to protect the kids from their potentially fatal sting. Jumping every time the sheets brushed against my legs, I went over my anti-scorpion warfare tactics and wondered if maybe I should peek into the cribs just one more time. It was in this anxious restlessness that God chose to teach me something about sleep.

John Piper has an excellent article on why we sleep. I can’t remember the title (Luke, maybe you have a link or something that you can post in comments), but he speculates to answer the question of why God would create us to need to spend a third of our lives sleeping, when so much more could be done for the kingdom in that time. He says a lot of great things, but his bottom line is that our need for sleep is to show us that God is God and we are not. It is along those same lines that I have been brought to look at sleep as a nightly opportunity to trust Him.

I think that women are generally very fearful creatures, which is probably why Peter admonishes us specifically not to give in to fear. I spend roughly 12 hours a day working and worrying, and doing my best to care for and protect my family. But as surely as the sun will rise the sun will set as well, bringing with it an inevitable moment when I must relinquish all control. It is at that point that I must lay down my fearful vigilance and realize that I was never really in control in the first place. Going to sleep renders me unable to continue pretending that the burden of running my little universe rests upon my shoulders.

I must sleep. I have no choice in the matter. And so it serves as a wonderful daily exercise for me to literally cease striving, and know that He is God.

Bumble Bees and American Cheese

2006-04-12T23:45:00.000-07:00

I had a songwriting first today. I was sitting out by the lake with my guitar, working on a song and enjoying the warm, sunny morning. While jotting down some notes, I saw something coming across the water out of the corner of my eye. It was flying straight at me, and it was coming fast. It was a bee. I am aware that for some people, this would be classified as only a minor inconvenience, warranting a firmly stated “Shoo!” and possibly a wave of the hand. These people group bees in with other common nuisances, such as moths, house flies, and door-to-door salesmen. I am not one of these people. For me, a Russian submarine may as well have surfaced on the face of the water. I lost sight of the bee as it zipped in closer, and jumped up from the bench where I had been sitting. Guitar in one hand and notebook in the other, I proceeded to perform a rousing rendition of the where-is-the-bee hokey pokey dance. Turning in circles and hopping up and down, I alternately extended each of my appendages to see if the bee had landed anywhere on my person. When I had finished publicly humiliating myself, I turned around and looked behind me, expecting to see the bee buzzing off in the other direction. Surprisingly, I neither saw him nor heard him. He must have been too fast, I concluded, and returned to my perch on the bench, quite impressed at the agility of this particular insect. I continued strumming along, toiling over my second verse. After about 20 minutes or so, I stopped playing to write some lyrics in my notebook, and I froze. There was a sound coming from my guitar. It is very common for guitar strings to buzz while being played, so I had thought nothing of this buzzing until now, when my guitar rested across my lap and yet the buzzing continued. Horrified, I gently and hastily laid my guitar in its open case and quickly backed away, my eyes glued to the sound hole. I have dropped my share of picks in there, but my reflex to flip the guitar over and shake vigorously wasn’t looking like a viable option. Luckily, no action was required of me as the bee seemed as eager to escape his deafening wooden prison as I was to be rid of him. He rose up between the strings, hovered for a moment, and then was gone.

I hate bees. I hate anything with a stinger attached to it, and I always have. When I was a little girl I remember having two distinct goals in life: Never to tear a slice of American Cheese while removing it from its plastic wrapping and Never to be stung by a bee. Thus far I have succeeded in keeping both of these lofty ambitions, though not without cost. The cheese just takes a bit of patience, but the bees require dogged vigilance. When we were growing up, my sister and I had an intricate bee-avoidance system for the swimming pool. One of us would yell “bee!”, we’d both dive under water, and then we’d surface beneath an overturned raft floating at one end of the pool, specifically positioned for that purpose. And there we would stay, treading water in our bee-shelter, until one of us could muster the courage to see if the coast was clear. I even remember a day when my family was barbequing in the backyard and one of those disgustingly huge black wood bees descended in front of my face. With my eyes trained on the bee I scrambled backwards to get away and ran right into the side of the barbeque grill. I had a nice 2nd degree burn on my leg and a scar for several years, but by golly, that bee never got to me.

I wonder what came of my little winged co-writer. I got away with just a few heebie jeebies, but I’m pretty sure that little guy is going to have some permanent hearing damage. Do bees even have ears? Hm. Let’s find out. Off to google I go… Aha! Here’s what I found:

Question - Do bees have ears? If so, where are they? I seem to remember that grasshoppers have ears on their knees. Do bees too?
----------------------------------------
No. Honey bees do not have "ears" even like those of crickets and grasshoppers, and do not sense sound in any way like humans or other animals.
J. Elliott

My conscience has been assuaged.

Journal to Self- Truly Living

2006-04-03T21:57:00.000-07:00

(Whenever God teaches me something particularly remarkable I will write a journal entry to myself, knowing that one day, after having long forgotten my epiphany, I will be flipping through the pages and get to re-learn the truth all over again. I have found that the most effective format for the purpose of preaching to my future self is a question/answer, problem/solution sort of system.)

Are you struggling to stay rooted in the Word of God; to be immersed in it regularly?

Then perhaps you are simply not living a life that demands such a rooting, or such a regular time with the Lord. Perhaps your life has grown so self-centered, so safe, and so easy, that you find that you no longer need Him. We all make a beeline for the throne of God when trials come and hardship presents itself. But unless it is thrust upon us we would choose to live in quiet comfort, avoiding tension, difficulty, and uncomfortable situations at all costs.

Do you want to want the Word of God? Like Tozer, do you thirst to be made more thirsty still? Then do something hard. Take a risk. Search out your lepers and serve them. Attempt something for Christ so beyond yourself that you have no choice but to depend on Him. See if you don’t come running back to the Truth in Scripture- back to the answers, back to the wisdom, the power, and the strength.

He is the Source of life. If you find yourself feeling no difference whether near Him or not, than perhaps it is that you are not truly living.

Thoughts On Tailgating

2006-03-28T15:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I have received my first official blog request from my friend Stacy. Her topic of choice? Tailgating. Not the intoxicated-and-shirtless-man-mass-huddled-around-a- barbeque-grill-in-the-parking-lot kind of tailgating. I’ve come to believe that such a scenario either exists only in Miller Lite commercials or is simply foreign to my world, because I have yet to witness anything like it firsthand. This is probably because parking lots in Phoenix are much like crock pots, and, were Phoenicians to tailgate, burgers and bratwurst could be prepared sans grill, seared to perfection on the hood of an F-150. No, I’ve been assigned to write about the other kind of tailgating. The kind of tailgating that has elicited such bumper stickers as: “I brake for tailgaters,” “Stop tailgating me, or I’ll flick a booger on your windshield,” and “Unless you’re a hemorrhoid, get off my…” Well, you get the picture.

The experience of being tailgated almost always begins with a look into the rearview mirror. You’ll glance up at it as you do periodically, then do a double-take, wondering why the car behind you has no hood. “Am I towing somebody?” you may wonder to yourself. Perhaps so, but more likely you are the victim of a tailgater. I think the offense that we find with tailgaters is similar to that which we find with close-talkers: an invasion of personal space. The difference with a close-talker is that if you need to suddenly end the conversation, the threat of whiplash is not involved. This must be why following too closely can be punishable by law and close-talking is only a minor social annoyance. But that is a blog for another time.

I find that riding in the car with a tailgater is far more nerve-wracking than actually being tailgated. The driver will carry on casually, oblivious to the concept of a following distance and completely unaware of the nail marks that you are leaving in the armrest. You may attempt to hold up your end of the conversation with distracted “uh-huh”s and “oh, really?”s, but mentally you are occupied with visions of truck under-ride and airbags deploying as your right foot continues to involuntarily press down on the imaginary passenger-side brake pedal.

I must admit, as most of us would, that I have been on both sides of tailgating. I’m not much of an aggressive driver now that I cart around two babies in the backseat, but over the years I have learned a thing or two about the practice both firsthand and through the observation of others. One thing is for sure: while there may be a time now and then when tailgating is warranted, there are more often times to relax and back off. So I will wrap up this fragmented entry by compiling a short list of guidelines that the casual tailgater may find helpful in discerning when tailgating might not be the best idea.

When Not to Tailgate

-On the freeway.

-When testing for your driver's license.

-When you’re stuck behind a car that has had its turn signal on for 6 blocks. This is a waste of your energy. If they haven’t noticed the continuous clicking and flashing lights coming from their dashboard, they most certainly are not going to notice you either.

-When the car in front of you displays any or all of the aforementioned bumper stickers.

-When any of your passengers have a known heart condition.

- When driving without car insurance, or with a deductible that could single-handedly send you into personal bankruptcy.

- Sunday mornings, en route to church. Chances are, the driver in front of you meandering along at 10 miles below the speed limit is headed to the same place you are. Better to be a few minutes late then to rear end an elder.

-When the car in front of you indicates an affiliation with the NRA.

No More Blue Runs

2006-03-18T18:23:00.000-07:00

Matthew and I are off on a ski retreat with West Valley Bible Church this weekend, leading worship for their youth group. Our girls are in the care of a 10-person tag team babysitting extravaganza, so for the next three days we will experience both the miss and the bliss that goes along with leaving them behind. Part of the bliss is chances like this, to write uninterrupted for hours at a time, so I will take this opportunity to document our adventures thus far.

Our first day on the slopes was tenuous, at best. We’ve both been skiing before, but once we had strapped them on we realized that skiing is not quite like riding a bike. Lathered in sunscreen and layered with clothing, we shuffled over to the nearest lift up an easy hill and away we went. The majority of the conversation on the ski lift was spent in a concentrated discussion on how we were going to accomplish getting off of the lift without colliding into each other and tumbling down the mountain in a tangled mess. We reviewed the disembarking strategies and agreed on who would veer in which direction, vowing not to take the other down with us. As the top loomed, we shifted into position. Eyes wide and breathes held we pushed off the chair and executed our plan. We slid to a stop. We were still standing. My ear- to-ear grin of relief and Matthew’s hearty “Woo-hoo!” must have made our state of affairs obvious to other greenhorn skiers as they smiled and laughed in acknowledgement and kindred spirit. Unfortunately, this would not be the only laughter we would encounter from other skiers that day.

Our first couple runs down were pretty uneventful. We spent them relearning the balance, coordination, and complete disregard for personal safety necessary for successful skiing. Avoiding falls is always my highest priority, as evidenced in my painstakingly slow descent down the mountain, providing Matthew with ample opportunities to practice stopping. About the third time down we came to a fork in the slope with an easy run (green) going one direction and a more difficult run (blue) going the other. We both decided that it was time for Matthew to move on to bigger, better, and steeper things. So we wished each other well and went our separate ways. I coasted off carefully down the winding green slope, and soon I came to another fork offering a blue run. I stopped and assessed the situation. It looked harmless enough. A little steeper, but it was certainly wider than the slope I was on now. With Matthew’s line of progress resembling that of the stock market in the 1990’s and mine the 1930’s, I knew I had to try something to improve myself. This ambition, combined with an insufficient supply of oxygen to the brain, led me to leave the safety of the green run and turn off onto the blue.

I started out okay, making wide, careful turns across the hill, until I reached a crest in the slope where I stopped to survey what was beyond it. It was only then that I was able to see what qualified this run as a blue: Moguls. For those of you who have never done something this stupid, moguls are large mounds of snow built up to create a landscape of miniature mountains that a skier must navigate through. Indeed, the wide road leads to destruction. I turned and looked back up the hill, considering hiking back to the green run, but wasn’t sure I was able to do even that. So I gathered my courage and began to make my way down.

The next 15 minutes were simply pitiful. I slid around like a Labrador on ice skates, barely managing to stay on my feet. About 20 yards into the moguls, my better judgment finally kicked in. “This is ridiculous,” I thought to myself. I wobbled over to the side of the run and removed my skis, planning to hoof it down to safety. As I sat in the snow, I heard skiers coming down behind me. “I’m going to watch how this is done,” I decided, turning up the hill to see them. And watch I did, as a mother and her six-year-old daughter went swooshing down, having the time of their lives. Now completely deflated, I rose to my feet to begin the walk of shame, only to quickly realize that walking down was not even an option. The slope was too steep and too icy to keep decent footing. It was time for plan B. I sat down in the middle of the run, lifted my feet off of the snow, and let physics take over from there. I must say, butt-sledding down the remainder of the run was probably the most fun I had all day. I slid to a stop at the end where another green run awaited me. It took me a good 10 minutes to reattach my skis, so by the time I reached the bottom of the mountain I had been up there for over a half-hour. I kept picturing Matthew worrying at the lodge, maybe sending one of those rescue teams after me. I scanned the mass of people surrounding the lift, but I couldn’t spot him. I turned around and lo and behold, there he was, just coming to the bottom of the slope. My first thought was that he had gone back up to look for me and was now returning, but in fact he too had just completed his descent. “That was horrible,” he gasped, and we took turns dramatically relating our respective miseries to one another.

It turned out that the blue run where we originally separated turned into an expert run about halfway down. Knowing his limits, he too took off his skis and decided to hike across the wooded area to an easier run. It wasn’t long before he was up to his chest in snow drifts, laboring over each step. He in turn was picturing me at the bottom of the mountain, worrying that he had been gone for so long. After enduring sweat and snowdrifts and the ridicule of grade-schoolers on the lift above him, he was finally able to make it down the mountain a mere 15 seconds after I did. Upon completion of the telling of our tales, we both heartily agreed- no more blue runs.

Epilogue
Matthew and I went out after lunch and stuck to the greens for a run or two. Matthew ended up back on the blue runs before the end of the day, and had an absolute blast. I stayed on the greens that time around and again managed not to fall for the rest of the afternoon. Matthew is back out on the mountain this morning, testing his limits and rising to new challenges. And as for me, I sit here by the fireplace in our room, enjoying the snow falling outside our window, my skis in the closet where they belong.

The last time I went skiing, I noticed that my level of ability was beginning to correlate with my age. When I was 11, I was amazing, speeding fearlessly down the slopes. Then at 15, aware of my mortality, I took a few more precautions but maintained a taste for the thrill. By 19 I was all about taking it slow-and-steady, but still enjoyed myself. And now, 24 and a mom, I think that perhaps my skiing and snowboarding days are over.

Skiing is not very much fun unless you are willing to take some chances, but the thrill in taking chances has somewhat faded for me. Perhaps it is because what I am chancing is infinitely more valuable now that ever before. But whatever it is, I resist this change of heart because I know that this is how people get old. They lose their sense of adventure and spontaneity, becoming fearful, worrisome people whose chief concern is to avoid hazards and prolong their lives. Growing old is a daunting prospect ( I’ve always prayed for death before dentures). I imagine that it must happen slowly and quietly, like sinking into quicksand, until one day you wake up terrified of eating a mad cow, boarding a doomed airplane, or investing in anything but your IRA. The fact that I no longer find skiing enjoyable is probably not going to mean my total demise, but it serves as a good reminder. When those risks that truly matter present themselves, those risks for the cause of Christ, I want to be found holding my life so loosely that at a moment’s notice I would lay it down for Him.

Someone just popped their head in the door and invited me to go inner tubing down the slopes with them. This is an invitation to put on layers of waterproof clothing, leave my cozy lodge room, and go out into the cold only to careen down snowy embankments at unreasonable speeds with no way of controlling myself, much less stopping.

Well then, I guess I’d better get going.

Throw Pillows

2006-03-11T21:35:00.000-07:00

A few years ago Matthew and I were in the market for a sofa, and we had it narrowed down to two choices: A green one and a gray one. The retailer didn’t actually call the gray one “gray”, probably because “gray” makes the buyer think of depressing things like cloudy days and getting old. Instead they called it “bone”, which for me isn’t much of an improvement given that I immediately visualize the remnants of my 3-piece Original Recipe Meal sitting in the garbage can. To give the bone couch a fair shot in the decision-making process, I mentally renamed the green couch “peas, trampled underfoot”.

Both sofas were made of a very nice micro-fiber, sheik yet inviting. But the green couch had a very distinct disadvantage. It was flanked on either side by the most hideous throw pillows we had ever seen. They were leather, which is usually a positive quality when dealing with furniture, but not these pillows. These pillows were multi-colored scraps of cowhide sewn together into a mosaic of pure ugly. Just the sight of them made our faces contort, but we decided to do our best to look past them knowing that throw pillows can indeed be thrown- far, far away.

We began to bargain with the saleswoman on the green couch. It was soon established that it was impossible for us to purchase this particular sofa without involuntarily acquiring the throw pillows as well. After we had spent some time negotiating and were still several hundred dollars apart, Matthew posed an intriguing question. How much of the price, he inquired, was tied up in those pillows? The saleswoman, who had up to this point been referring to my husband as “sweetheart” and “honey”, began to get a little less affectionate. She obliged, however, and retreated to the backroom to crunch a few numbers. Several minutes later, she returned with the answer: Ninety dollars a piece. Matthew’s eyes grew very wide. It was not looking good for the green couch.

The saleswoman tried to reason with us. She even suggested buying the couch and selling the pillows to someone else. But since we didn’t know any blind people with $180 to burn on cushions, that was simply not a viable option. The bone couch was looking pretty good by now with its sensibly matching pillows, and it was indeed the bone couch that we purchased that day. I feel a little sorry for the green couch, but not nearly as sorry as for whoever purchased it. And if, by chance, you’re reading this saying “Hey, I think she’s talking about my couch”, then you should be sorry too, because you have really, really bad taste. :)

He Will Gather the Lambs In His Arms

2006-03-05T03:00:00.000-07:00

It’s shortly after midnight and there’s no way I’m getting back to sleep anytime soon. I guess I’ll just write it out until the melatonin gets the best of me and overcomes the lingering adrenaline. Bethany woke up about an hour ago crying hysterically, and when I went to her she recoiled from my touch and fought against me as I tried to lift her from her crib. Matthew came in a few moments later and was able to take her in his arms and, after several more minutes of crying, to settle her. We spent the next half hour or so trying to decipher what was so terribly wrong and tried to calm and reorient her. We were finally able to get her back to sleep, though we still had no idea what the cause was. Matthew went back to bed and I went straight to Google, a mother’s 24-hour best friend. After about 10 minutes of research I am pretty confident that Bethany had what is known as a “night terror”. It’s different from a nightmare in that your body is awake while your mind is still sleeping. Apparently it’s very common and not really anything too serious, apart from giving mom and dad a heart attack. I don’t know who actually experienced more “night terror”- Bethany or me, but given the fact that she’s in her crib sleeping peacefully and I’m sitting here writing a blog entry, I’m going to go with me.

They say that having a child is like having a little piece of your heart walking around, exposed and vulnerable to the world. I have come to find this to be one of the most accurate analogies ever presented. It’s one of those things you can never understand until you’re in the place yourself, and I have already had several occasions to understand it. I remember the way my dad would recount the “scariest moment of his life”, when my sister was careening down a hill on a sled, accelerating and out of control, completely unaware of the fast-approaching stand of trees as the bottom. “I thought I’d lost her…” he’d say. That was always just a story to me, kind of an oh-wow-that’s-interesting sort of thing. But I get it now. I know what it’s like to think you’ve lost her and I know how heavy a heart is when it plunges into your stomach. And you know what's even scarier? I’ve only been a parent for 18 months.

At times like these I ask myself, what did I sign up for here? Did I miss some of the fine print? You know, the part about loving someone so much that your heart physically aches for her and that when she hurts, you hurt worse? The part that tells you that neither your greatest dreams nor your worst nightmares will ever be about you again, but that life in all its sweetness and bitterness is bound up in these fragile little creatures? We are so beautifully helpless as parents. We can teach them, we can train them, we can give them Tylenol, but we cannot save them. We can only trust. Trust that the Shepherd who gathers the lambs in his arms will indeed gather ours to Himself, and that He who laid His Lamb upon the altar will gently lead us on.

“He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.” –Isaiah 40:11

The Age of The Smell Test

2006-03-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

Just the other morning I found myself faced with a potentially life-and-death decision. I will do my best to communicate the conflict despite the fact that, seeing as I am obviously alive to tell the tale, much of the suspense of the moment will be lost.

I had just finished up my oatmeal, prepared the only way I'll eat it: Mixed into chocolate chip cookie batter and baked in the oven, and I was craving a tall glass of ice cold milk. I opened the fridge and pulled out the carton. Judging by how little was left, I figured it had been in there for a while, so I checked the date printed on the side. There are two dates, actually: The "sell by" date and the "use by" date, both of which invariably include the year, as though such a specification were necessary to distinguish between milk that is 3 days old and milk that is 364 days old. In any event, I've always been a stickler on expiration dates, especially on dairy products, so whenever I come across milk that is even past its "sell by" date, I'll either throw out the remaining milk and open a new carton or I'll pour it into Matthew's glass because he never knows the difference anyway. But this morning was a turning point. Just six days prior I had implemented a new family budget which included significant cuts in the grocery department. Every dollar would be accounted for. Every receipt would be analyzed. Something had to give.

I read the date, looked at the calendar, and did the math. Three days. Not past sell by. Past use by. I was practically holding a carton of toxic waste. Fighting back the urge to deposit it directly into the outdoor trash can and despite the fact that there was a brand-new container, pristine and unopened, sitting in the fridge, in the interest of frugality I emptied the substance into my glass. I stared at the milk, waiting for something to happen. Bubbles, floating chunks, perhaps melting glass. Nothing. It just sat there, perfectly nonchalant about being three days expired. I was not convinced. Eyeing it suspiciously, I slowly leaned forward to perform “The Smell Test”. The Smell Test ruled in my house growing up. If something was questionable, my mom or dad would simply give it a good whiff to see if it smelled "bad". I always wondered what it would have to smell like for my parents to deem it "bad". Garbage? Feet? Dorito-breath? I don't know that there was ever a set rule since my parents still can't agree on how long eggs are safe. Mom says two weeks past the sell by. Dad seems to think that as long as no baby chickens are hatching in the refrigerator, they're good to go.

I gave my milk a cautious sniff. No garbage, no feet. I took a small sip. It tasted fine. Refreshing, even. With a sense of liberation I threw the empty carton into the trash, scoffing at its melodramatic scare tactics. They would phase me no longer. It was the end of an era. The ushering in of the Age of The Smell Test.

A Wonderful Day Indeed ("The Qwest One")

2006-02-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

A lot of people have angry blogs. Blogs that they use to criticize and ridicule and vent their frustration at the world. While mine is not one of these kind of blogs, my next entry could be classified in the "venting" category, but it is not my intention to vent so much as it is to recount a moment of triumph.

It's about 3:30 in the afternoon. I'm sitting on the couch with my 3-month old who is happily working away at her bottle. The phone rings. Rrrring! I'll just let it go. Rrrring! But I am expecting a couple of calls... Rrrring! Yeah, I'd better get that. With the poise of an Olympic gymnast and the agility of a border collie I spring from the couch, wrap my free arm around the baby while still holding the bottle to her lips, and dash over to the kitchen counter. Rrrring! I quickly shift into a Flying Crane stance that the Karate Kid himself would applaud, balancing the baby and her bottle on my raised knee without disrupting her mid-day meal, allowing me a free hand to grasp the receiver.

"Hello?" I gasp into the handset.

"Hi!" says the perky voice on the other end. "This is Andrea calling from Qwest, your telecommunications company! How are you today?"

I feel my eyes narrow.

"Fine." I reply through clenched teeth, tucking the phone under my chin and trudging dutifully back to my seat on the sofa.

"First of all," Andrea continues, "We'd just like to thank you for doing business with Qwest..." she pauses, and I can't decide if she is waiting for me to hang up or to begin thanking her for such impeccable phone service. I want to tell her that a card would have sufficed, but having been recently convicted over my conduct with telemarketers, I stick that one in my back pocket.

"Uh-huh..." I say, skillfully side-stepping her corporate manipulation tactics. Her perkiness is undaunted.

"Well, we wanted to inform you of some of our additional services that are available to you!" Andrea announces, with a level of cheerfulness that would be merited only had she just told me that Qwest had decided to pay off our mortgage.

I am incredulous. Qwest has control of our telephone service, our television service, and now, our high-speed Internet service. Unless they plan on sending out a representative to do our laundry, I'm not sure how much more involvement they can have in our lives at this point. Caller ID, I suspect, would be among her suggestions, one that I find particularly enticing at the moment. The baby is crying now, and, this being the fourth or fifth call I have received from Qwest since we switched to them a month ago, I am not amused.

"Is there any way that I can not get calls from you guys anymore?" I ask, ignoring the introduction to her gospel of call-waiting and additional phone lines. "I'm on the Do-Not-Call List."

"Oh, are you on the National Do-Not-Call List?" she probes.

"Yes..." I reply cautiously, wondering if perhaps they have evaded my only weapon of defense by stationing Andrea in Mozambique.

"Oh, well you see," she explains, "Because we have a business relationship with you, we are still allowed to call you, even though you are on the list."

And Qwest wonders why the average American regards them with contempt. Could it be because they reward their newly acquired business relationships by descending upon them with customer service evocative of a cloud of gnats? I shudder to imagine the consequences were I to initiate a personal relationship with their company. Feeling defeated, I begin to envision myself twenty years from now, fending off their attempts to sell me videophone service, when Andrea pipes up again.

"Would you like me to sign you up for the Qwest Do-Not-Call List?"

My eyebrows rise in disbelief. Was this a trick question? She wouldn't try to pull anything over on me, would she? Surely not, especially not with my call monitored for quality assurance. I take a moment to grasp the magnitude of what I am about to accomplish with one simple word.

"Yes." I say definitively. "That would be great."

She types in the necessary information and gives me one last chance to change my mind.

"You do understand that by signing up for the Qwest Do-Not-Call List we will no longer be able contact you by phone for any promotions or additional services that could be available to you?"

I can hardly contain my glee.

"Yes, I understand."

"Well thank you for choosing Qwest and you have a wonderful day,” she concludes.

Oh, I will Andrea. I will.

Feeling like a man marooned on an island that has just stumbled upon a freshwater spring, I hang up the phone in triumph. A wonderful day indeed.

Redemption

2006-02-21T06:34:00.000-07:00

I can’t sleep. I was doing okay, drifting off, until the fax machine that has called us periodically ever since we moved in decided to give us a ring. The baby is stirring anyway, so I may as well write until she realizes how hungry she is. I realized something myself yesterday. More like reminded, I suppose. I was reminded of just how dark the heart of man truly is. Just how steeped in sin, how tangled in pride, and how our hearts are riddled with the consequences. We truly are broken. I forget that sometimes. When the sun is shining and the birds are singing and life is skipping along, that happy rhythm can lull me into an acceptance of the world as it is; of life as we know it. I set aside thoughts of heaven and the difficult pursuit of true life in Christ because hey, maybe this world isn’t so bad after all. Maybe Adam just tripped and stumbled. But no. No, yesterday in my very own living room, I clearly heard the dull thud that has been reverberating in creation from generation to generation.

We are like wounded animals, as Matthew observes, crouching in our corners, lashing out at those who come near. And Christ alone is our hope. Only He can draw us out, and He does. But do you know what I find most wonderful about it? The greatest comfort to my soul? He does not merely dress our wounds and send us limping off on our way. He brings something far greater than healing alone. He brings redemption. A full exchange of what is worthless for what is most precious, of what is hideous for what is beautiful, or what is ours for what is His. He sets us free. Redemption. Speak the word aloud. Let your eyes linger over its letters. If it doesn’t set off fireworks in your heart then it will do so later, at another time, when your own reminder of our brokenness amplifies the groaning of your soul. For me this morning it brings to mind a thousand pictures and a thousand stories, all valiant attempts to capture a beauty that cannot be contained. But regardless how brilliant the colors of the butterfly and how zealous the cry of “Freedom!”, Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer. And He makes the woeful heart to sing.

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
Romans 8:19-25 ESV

Quiche and Storage Bins

2006-02-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

I don't have anything in mind to write about yet... just kind of wandering into it to see where it goes. I have the time and it's been a few days, so I figured I should come up with something. It's been a pretty nice morning so far. No major catastrophes, nothing too remarkable- except for the 6 mini quiches that Bethany put away for breakfast. In case you aren't familiar with mini quiches or the eating habits of toddlers, that's an awful lot of nosh for an 18 month-old. The kid baffles me. She holds up one of the little pastries and looks at me questioningly. "It's quiche," I say. A pause. "Quiche!" She declares and delightedly stuffs it into her mouth. We worked for months on "da da". She still can't say her own name. But French breakfast cuisine? We've got that one down.

In a few minutes here we'll be off to Toy 'R' Us. Not to buy toys, mind you, because that's the job of grandparents who have made careers out of purchasing toys. Were there a ladder of advancement in place for them they would all be vying for CEO. That being the case, we are now in the market for toy storage. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, purchasing stuff to store all the stuff that we already have. It's really more organization than storage because it's not that the toys don't have enough floor space to be strewn across (Bethany seems determined to prove that point at least once a day). But it seems that many of them need homes- somewhere to hide when company arrives and a place to go back to at night. Especially the Legos. Especially at night.

Between this paragraph and the last I have since returned from the toy store with a nice set of 3-tier stackable storage bins. Apparently we have resorted to the strategy of building upward that is implemented by the larger land-locked cities, seeing as I have just purchased what will be known among the toys as "The Projects". After 30 minutes of assembly with an infuriatingly small Alan wrench, the bins are complete. I try them out. They stack. They store. Success.

Bring it on, Grandma. Bring it on.

The Sun Sleeps In

2006-02-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

Just put my sweet little Harper back in her swing to catch a few more hours' sleep. I, on the other hand, only have about 33 minutes before my appointment with the toothbrush, and I have recently decided that unless there is more than one full hour of potential sleep time, I am officially up. Matthew somehow hit the wrong button on his alarm clock the other day and inadvertently put himself in another time zone. We think it's hilarious now, but he didn't think so when he was standing in the shower, bewildered by the clock on the bathroom counter displaying 3:30 am. That's the trouble with these winter mornings. The sun sleeps in.

It's still dark outside as I type this, but I can always tell that it's morning by the rhythm of the traffic on the arterial street just outside our door. A few beats between each car- still a little time left before night loses its battle with the sunrise. But as it slowly grows to a steady dull roar, it pulls me to my feet. Something about knowing that the rest of the world is already out there listening to the morning news, sipping coffee, and forming a plan of attack on the day's agenda makes me feel like if I'm still in my pajamas, I'm missing out on something. This morning has already begun and I need to join it now, otherwise two children will go without bath and breakfast and Travis will simply have to project.

Six Years Ago Today

2006-02-14T06:37:00.000-07:00

I guess you could say that I've been procrastinating in starting my blog, but really I was simply trying to accommodate this little desire in me to make the first post on a day with a significance of some sort. The way things have timed out, I had my choice between Valentine's Day and my grandmother's 88th birthday. So here we are.

It's a little after six o'clock in the morning as I type this. At this time six years ago I was driving home in the dark, a silly grin across my face and little butterflies in my stomach that come after you've just pulled off something great. I had it planned for weeks. This was my first Valentine's Day with a Valentine, and I was going to take full advantage. Several days prior I had scoured the yellowpages until I found the biggest stuffed teddy bear in the greater Phoenix area. He was white with red hearts on his paws and, were he able to stand, would have been nearly eye level with me. As an 18-year-old, hopelessly in love, I wasn't thinking the practical thoughts that would come to my mind today. "A 5-foot, 40 pound bear. Where exactly is he going to put him?" or "Perhaps there is a more productive way to spend this $90.00." No, I thought only of Matthew, my boyfriend of 5 months, and nothing was too wonderful for him. So I hauled teddy home, imagining how great he was going to look surrounded by the 2 dozen balloons I had ordered.

The plan was simple: Get to Matthew's house before he got up for school. Leave my homemade card and a plate of blueberry muffins (still warm) on the kitchen counter. Put Teddy in the driver's seat of Matthew's car and cram any empty airspace with pink and red balloons. I had arranged with his little sister that I would tap on her window at 6:00 am and she would let me inside. This was where the only glitch came into play. Apparently her memory doesn't kick in until a few minutes after she is awakened, so upon hearing a tapping at her window she promptly jumped out of bed, ran into her brother's room, and woke him up. Fortunately for me, Matthew is not one who parts easily with an extra 15 minutes of slumber, so Rebekah was able to keep him in bed and get me in the front door. She watched me bleary-eyed as I raced around the house, carefully and thoughtfully placing out the various symbols of my love and devotion. Not more than 5 minutes after I had arrived I slipped back outside, bidding Rebekah and Teddy farwell as I drove off into the sunrise, my cell phone lying on the seat next to me in anticipation.

And now, six years and two babies later? Well, today being a Tuesday we will spend the evening surrounded by 200 other twenty-somethings as we do each week at church. Matthew will spend the day at the office and I will return to the flower shop where I once worked to help distribute over-priced roses to the masses. We won't forsake the Day entirely as we will most likely go out and celebrate on another night later in the week. But as I'm sure others would testify, Valentine's Day and all that goes with it simply does not mean what it did to us then. And that is not something I lament, because nothing has gone that has not been replaced by something greater. The silly grins have turned to knowing smiles flashed across a crowded room. The butterflies, though I still feel them now and then, have been edged out by a quiet assurance and content security. And as for Teddy? He sits on the plant shelf in our oldest daughter's bedroom, watching silently as we wake her every morning and pray over her each night. Although he may not be the most practical use of our limited space, you will never see him sitting out in one of our garage sales or in a bin for goodwill. He will remain with us always, wherever we go, as a reminder of that precious season we spent together and how faithfully God has grown us since.