word verification

every time i comment on a blog and i'm asked to verify a word in order to post my comment, i always think, someday i'm going to write a story, and all of the words are going to be the weird nonsensical words i've had to verify in the last six months.
sadly, i've never kept a running list.
it's funny though, as i'm typing the word (a true test of my high school typing class skills where i can type a word without looking at my fingers on the keys) i find myself thinking is thwiqse a noun or a verb? or perhaps an adverb if i ad ly?
ocalka: a vegetable or a swampy campground?
and if it was a vegetable would it taste better raw or cooked?
would it be too much trouble to have the word verification be actual words? i know, i know. i need to focus.
but with words like pwecksa and woznsi i feel like i've gotten an education in russian or something.
i know. there's world hunger. there's nuclear testing going on in north korea. heck, there's diet coke on sale at the krogers.
but all i can think of is what in the world is an obzelny anyway?

a little couch time

i responded to a question posted on a group discussion this morning. the question was "what does your husband think about you blogging?" or something along those lines. it got me to thinking about why i do what i do and why i have people out there in the blogland that i consider "friends" and the whole phenomina of blogging. it made my head hurt.

so i'll share a bit of the online therapy session i had with myself:

the fact that i blog is something that my husband is pretty clueless about. in fact, most of my family is clueless about it (although my kids know, read it sometimes, and my son's GF reads more frequently than both of my own kids) even though we are over 650 miles away. oh well. i don't really talk about it much. but i do mention some of my "imaginary friends" and what i've learned from them. i pretty much keep the fact that they are my "imaginary" (online) friends on the DL, and simply refer to them as "friends." confused yet?

i blog to an audience of less than 10 regular readers. actually, if i had ten regular readers, that would be rather amazing to me!

this oftentimes begs the question:

why the heck do i blog??

herin lies the self therapy session.

i wish i really knew! is it because i think that there is something in my little life that might be interesting or insightful to someone else? is this a sign of excessive narcissistic tendencies?am i doing any kind of public service? if i say something in the middle of the woods, miles away from anyone, does it matter or does anyone care? i don't really know. most of the time i just feel like i'm talking to myself. perhaps that's therapy in itself. perhaps it my way of ironing out some kinks.

back to the husband. (did i mention i have ADD?)

i work for him in the family biz. i moved my office home after being out in our corporate office (of four people) and then into a creative co-op downtown, which i loved. being a designer, it's good to have people to bounce ideas off of. but money became tight and i moved home. into the lower level. no windows. i "affectionately" call my office the cave (much to the irritation of the hubster). i don't really mind being at home, but found that i crave interaction with people. i'm captivated by stories. i love good writing. and i have found some really neat people out there in the land-o-blog. many of the stories are heart breaking. and most of the people i follow have strong walks with the Lord, and their journeys encourage my heart. i am honored to pray for many of them.

if my husband knew how much i blogstalk or how much time i spend on my own blog (which really isn't much, but it is "work time") he'd probably stroke out. and the fact that i blog about us/family/whatever would strike him as exceedingly odd. i think he thinks the whole notion of blogging is a huge waste of time and i should be spending my time helping to make our struggling little business stronger. i think he would almost see it as a betrayal of our family business.

so i'm a closet blogger. i don't mention it to my IRL friends much. i don't advertise it overly on my facebook page (another eye-roll from the hubster). i enjoy my secret little online hobby. i get great ideas, yummy recipes, it sparks my creativity, i feel connected to the outside world from my little "cave."

but this also begs the question.

am i honoring my marriage by having this little "side compartment" that i don't necessarily keep hidden? it is out there. i just don't talk about it. 

okay. therapy session over. i really do have work.

and i better get some of it done because we're about to leave on a little vacation of sorts. we're taking bamagirl to college for her orientation, then heading right out to denver for a bit of a family reunion and an opportunity to be adult guests at Frontier Ranch, the YoungLife camp, where both of our children spent the "best week of their lives." We have invited the hubsters parents to join us for a couple of days there, too, and are praying that the Lord uses this time to His glory.

this is the job that never ends…

yes it goes on and on my friends…

parenting. that is.

i have a friend who is expecting.
there's not even really a whisper of a babybump yet. she's that tiny. (grrrr)

and i'm on the opposite end of the baby spectrum.

i'm about to become (gasp!) an empty nester.
on the one hand, i'm doing the naked empty nest dance in our dining room. on the other hand, i'm buying stock in kleenex.
and i'm also realizing that our empty nest doesn't mean that our time as parents has come to a close.
nothing could be farther from the truth.
for now, we're helping our little eaglets navigate life on their own.
to learn how to "suckitup" and live life without their mommies and daddies.
like when boy wonder tore his ACL on a soccer field about six weeks into his freshman year at college. we live 90 minutes away. he called, a slobbering, snotty mess on the phone. probably in a heap on the sidelines. he couldn't quite sit there swelling for the next two hours while we ran down to get him. i mean, it's dark at midnite!
so what's a mommy to do? she tells her baby eaglet she's sorry that he's torn his ACL for the second time in 7 months, then she tells him do limp on back to his dorm, get some ice and take some ibuprofen.what would have been helpful would have been the part where i would have packed a little triage kit for college. ziplock bags for ice. ibuprophen. ace bandages. bandaids. neosporin. bactine. tylenol.
i mean, really. he never stops moving for a minute. surely he's going to need a little glue to put humpty dumpty back together every now and then!
as they say, hindsight is 20/20. it would have been a good thing to send with him. too bad i didn't.
so while i'm feeling:
a) devastated that he's torn his ACL for the second time, same knee, in 7 months and feel for him because he knows exactly what is ahead of him (mostly the rehab and no fun for the next 9 months)
b) terrible because when a child wants their mommy, they want their MOMMY! and she' s ready to make that happen!
c) crazed at how i'm going to get ice and ibuprofen to my child who is 90 minutes away.
i found someone to do a drive-by nursing stop (and a mom, at that!). and i told him how to use his medical insurance card and how to find a good orthopaedic clinic and how to get himself there.
he handled the rest. he even got his own MRI.
he managed. he had a little growing up to do, and he made it and managed just fine, thankyouverymuch.
and so now, almost a year later, we're parenting again. the registering for summer classes and scrambling around trying to recoup the $2,000 shortfall he's going to have this fall as he lost his scholarship by .6 of a point.teaching accountability, responsibility, proactivity and what it looks like to put col 3:23-24 into practice. it's one thing to say it's your life verse. (whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.) it's another thing to have it BE your life verse.

so yeah.

parenting.

it's the job that never ends…

thank goodness. because i'd hate to think that our kids really would stop needing me. or their dad. i'm pretty glad parenting is a life-long job.
really, it's a life-long joy.

blink

enjoy this time. they grow up so fast! 

it's such a cliché, but if it wasn't so true, people wouldn't say it all the time!

i think it was just two weeks ago that i birthed this child. 

what a surprise that was! not that i wasn't aware that i was having a baby. that was rather evident in my increased waistline and the pudgy nature of my ankles. what was surprising was the fact that we had a girl, since we spent the prior twenty weeks anticipating the addition of our second son to the family. (hint: don't trust an ob/gyn's ultrasound skills)

we were glad that we elected not to tell anyone what we were having. we kept his/her identity a secret, and it's a good thing we did! the hubster even had to return the "it's a boy!" sign he had purchased for our mailbox. 

the hubster was busy taking pictures and videotaping the big event while my doula and i were busy hee-hee-heeing and doing all the work. the doctor was joking about how long the baby's hair was as "he" was in the process of crowning. "he" popped out, and the doctor exclaimed, "it's a girl!" i looked down in absolute shock, and the hub continued to shoot away. the doctor invited the hubster to cut the cord (something we missed out on the first time since our baby was born in distress and there were about 25 people in the delivery room, but that's another story). when he looked down to do his duty, he looked at the doctor and said, ohmygracious, it's a GIRL!! and the doctor looked confused. "i said it was a girl, didn't i? hubster explains, "i thought you were kidding! you know, how the baby's hair was long, etc. i thought you were just joking around!" of course the doctor had long forgotten he had predicted a boy with the ultrasound since we were in the habit of calling our baby "the baby" and not referring to it as a he or a she. 

so my husband is literally on a cloud. he went out into the hallway to high five anyone who was nearby. "we had a GIRL!! we had a GIRL!! we never have to do this again!! we have one of each!!" after a few laps around the floor as the lullaby played on the intercom system, signifying a new birth (ours!!), he remembered he had a wife and a new baby somewhere and he came back, still grinning ear to ear.

just remembering that moment brings tears to my eyes.

she was the quietest newborn i had ever encountered, as our first was a robust crier from the moment he hit the outside world. she. was. so. preciously. captivated. 

i was still speechless, still incredulous that we had been blessed with a girl.

and so completely confused about what we were going to name her.

i'd love to say that we settled on a nice family name. a classic that was passed down for generations. or something clever. but with us wanting to leave the hospital less than 24 hours after her birth, we had to name her before leaving. so in a fit of pressure, we named her the 11th most popular name for 1991. (in 2007 it ranked 373) we almost gave her my mom's name, elizabeth, as a middle name, but settled on the name we were going to name our son, because we still liked it, but still kind of thought of it as a guy's name.

but after about 7 months of hearing her name everywhere, we decided we couldn't do that to her, so we began calling her by her middle name (much to the confusion of grandparents and her brother who had just learned how to say her name after calling her "baby" for six months), which is mclean, like the city in virginia. rhymes with mcplane, not with mcspleen. the non-phoneticness of it really bothered her grandmother, but it was the guy version, and we kept it. i sorta wish we would have girled it up a bit, just so she wouldn't have to constantly spell it or correct the pronunciations. oh well.

after having the world's busiest baby (and also colicy-est), having her was like having a posable barbie. she was so easy and content it was almost like i'd forget she was there. (not really, but it wasn't uncommon for her to just fall asleep under her little playgym in the living room.)

she was always eager to do anything her older brother did. fear rarely held her back. she oftentimes would try things before her more cautious brother would. she was the first to dive into a lake, catch crawfish, or eat something new. she treasured her older brother, just 18 months older, and acted more like his twin than baby sister.

like boy wonder, she played soccer. she cried when she broke her arm during the soccer season. not because it hurt, but because she thought she wouldn't get a trophy. in fact, the day she broke her arm (not realizing that it was broken) she broke boards with her head in tae kwon do. she never let much stop her.

soccer, tae kwon do, cheerleading, swimming, and diving. she was always involved in athletics even though she was plagued with knee troubles. she rarely complained, always perservered through the pain, and always competed at a high level. we were so proud when she captained the middle school cheerleading team and then when she picked up diving as a novice her freshman year and found herself on the collegiate feeder team the next year.

she performed at a high level in the classroom, too. her academic accomplishments opened doors for her to be able to have many options when it came time to make plans for college.

just last week she began kindergarten. yesterday she was a freshman in high school!

how did i blink my eyes and she graduates with honors from high school??

blink my eyes again and she'll be off to alabama. off to the land of crimson tides. off to tackle the honors nursing program. 

i have no doubt that she'll be fearless in her pursuit of her goals. just like when she was a little girl. she's going to run out on that board and dive in. head first. 

and we'll be right there, cheering her on.

bama girl and her bama roommate

but for this UT graduate and for my very orange-blooded soul, it's going to take some teeth-gnashing and some real letting go for me to say "roll tide!" and mean it. 

two can play this game!

i was blogstalking mckmama (i know, what's new!!?) the other day and happened across her post about couscous. she's a big proponent for "woodland creature food" and i must admit, if it says kashi on the label, i'm eating it. i love their stuff.

anywhoo. . . 

lunch for me is a hard one. i'm usually working in the cave and to even venture upstairs is more than i'm really willing to do. so making something for lunch is even less likely to happen. but if i don't eat, then i snack. and that doesn't usually end well. i end up eating many more calories than i intended, and many of them empty ones.

so today, as i was foraging in the fridge, i saw the bag of beginning to wilt cilantro and thought that i would make a little juice-cous myself and whip up a quick lunch. 1/2 cup white grape peach juice (because it's what i had on hand, thinking the grapefruit juice would be not quite as tasty), 1/2 cup water, 1 cup couscous, a handful of craisins, some toasted almonds and a nice big handful of cilantro leaves.  bring the liquids to a boil, toss in the craisins and couscous. remove it from the heat, slap a lid on it, and in five minutes after fluffing with a fork and tossing in the remaining ingredients, i had a tasty little snack. and best of all, with the fuity-ness of the couscous, i wasn't the least bit tempted to grab for the seasalt grinder.next time i'm going to try some pineapple, raisins and curry. with some garbanzo beans. not because i think garbanzo beans would be a nice touch (i mean, really, who thinks these things?), but because it seems like a little inconspicuous protein would do a body good. oh, and round it out with some homemade hummus and carrots.

geezopeeze. you'd think i hadn't eaten lunch already!!

running on empty

after an incredibly busy week, i am trying to take a break and enjoy the sabbath. with just 4 hours of sleep for my last 72 hours, i am going to try to grab an hour of rest before my small group arrives at 6:08. that will be a bit of a challenge since wiffle ball season at widcrib field opened today at 3 pm. resting to the constant beat of dance/rap/party music might be fruitless, but a girl can try.

still basking in the afterglow of graduations and great family time. if i can muster up some energy, i'll do my best to be clever and post tomorrow.

undeniably indescrible and uncomprehendable

sometimes, well, honestly, most of the time, i have a hard time figuring out the "whys" of life. i could make a list a mile long.

and in my head i remember my mom saying, "ours is not to wonder why. ours is just to do or die." i think that was her way of shutting us up when we were asking why we had to weed around the house or shovel the driveway or other such banal activities we were forced to do as children.

but when it comes to things like a friend who goes through genetic gymnastics to get pregnant, and then has three beautiful children... how it is that she gets ovarian cancer when her baby is 18 months old and her oldest in kindergarten, and then dies three years later? kinda makes me scratch my head and ponder the mechanics a bit.

or a one-pound miracle baby who fights like crazy for her life for 11 months and just when you think she's on the homestretch of procedures and surgeries and is maybe, just maybe going to be able to go home... ends up mysteriously brain dead and slips away?

i'm having a hard time wrapping my arms around that one.

i'm not questioning God, or His wisdom, or His sovereignty. not for a minute. i know God's ways are not my ways, and my brain is too small to even fathom His purposes.

i know God is up to something. and i know He's used the freeman family so incredibly much throughout little kayleigh's eleven month life. but to bring her all this way only to have it end up like this?? 

i'm shaking my head. i guess i'll just have to rest in knowing that God is in control. and one of these days, when i get to heaven, i'm going to ask Him to show me all that He accomplished through this all too short life (He's already accomplished so much through her in 11 months. her impact on this world has been incredible. i don't mean to diminish His or her impact one iota). i have absolutely no doubt that God is up to something huge here, and knowing the freemans like i do (after spending many hours and days reading their blog, if that can be considered "knowing"), i have no doubt that their grieving and future journey will be nothing other than God-honoring. God will get (is getting) all the glory, but our hearts are aching, and that ever pesky question just lingers on my lips.

why, Lord?

don't take this as disrespect, Lord. i just hunger to understand.