Bitter cold

It is the last day of January, and I think about how the compassion of God must have influenced our calendar, that the passage of the first month of the year is such a marked blessing and relief.

We've been setting records for cold, apparently, although the winter of 1996 was at least this cold, when we went to Minnesota for Shawn's sister Wendy's wedding.  My memory is that it was -50, with windchills of -80 that year, and it made me almost thankful that we had moved to New York.

Five years ago, our first winter here, it was cold enough to freeze the drainpipes from our washing machine, and when my wash load went to spin out, water flooded into the laundry room, channeled down the heat vent, and pooled in a duct in our storage crawl space, where it seeped out onto the things we had stacked on the shelves, mostly in plastic bins, so the actual damage was minimal.

At any rate, I haven't been brave enough to wash any laundry for the past few days, which is unfortunate, because there is an accumulating pile of old towels, soiled because of the sad fact that our small dog does not like to go outdoors in these arctic temperatures.  Currently, he is crying in his crate, but he has proven himself untrustworthy, and I am tired.

[aside-- Here's a random question:  Why are weeks seven days long?  Our entire number system is based on fives and tens, because of the number of fingers and toes we have (presumably).  Yet our calendars and clocks are based on sevens and twelves, Biblical numbers.  I wonder about that.  It seems to lend credence to the truth of the Bible, the seven days of creation that started everything.  Not that I need convincing, but for those who do, it is a point worth pondering, I think.]

The night before last was the record setter for central Illinois.  I think it was about -25 degrees, with a roaring wind that must have lowered the felt temperature considerably further.  Throughout the night, I heard the wind howling, and the house cracking, which was more alarming than the wind.  I'm not sure what, exactly, was cracking, but there were ongoing creaks and pops and groans, punctuated with a sharp, shuddering crack every now and again.  Nonetheless, the structure still stands.  I've taken to bumping the heat up to 72 in the evenings; I guess I'm old enough for that now.

Yesterday I had a skin excision, which was more invasive than I'd expected, and that's all I will say about that.  It's nothing to worry about, except that the bills will be significant, and probably also the scar.  Heaven will be free from bills and scars, and for that I am thankful.

After the excision, I went to Walmart to stock up on bandages and petroleum jelly for wound care.  Since it was so cold, I decided to take the opportunity of being in a large store to walk a few laps (it is not weather for exercising outdoors).  After walking as much as I dared, fearing that someone would mark me as a lunatic the third time they saw me whirl my cart through Automotive, I went to check out.  As I made ready to scan my items through the self-check, I realized that I had lost one of my gloves.

So, I circled the store yet again, searching without much hope, just a vague sense of annoyance and a dread at going outside with one bare hand.  Miraculously, though, I found my glove on the floor in the wide aisle between Grocery and Women's Fashion, in front of a display of icy pink velour ladies' pajama pants.  It was a dark glove, the kind that I always lose, not one of my pink striped ones, which I ought to have worn.

All this happened before the novocaine wore off from my excision.  I picked up Jon and brought him home for dinner, which was a sausage and potato soup that I made up out of my imagination, and it was good, as things usually are when the stakes are fairly low.  After we delivered Jon to work the night shift at FedEx, I was resting on the sofa when small Duffy pranced across my belly, planting a tiny paw directly on my incision site, through layers of clothing and bandages, of course, but still.  It's been hurting pretty significantly ever since, although I slept decently last night, and did not hear the wind howl, whether or not it did.

I'm sorry that this is a worthless post, just stupid, simple things from my completely unexceptional life.  I am finally now coming to terms with the fact that I am, indeed, unexceptional, and it is okay, even good, to be unexceptional.  It is a protection to have the privacy of insignificance, a blessing.  Yet, I hope that in my ordinariness I can somehow be pleasing to the Lord, to radiate His love where He wants me to.  I am so afraid of people.  The Lord needs to teach me to love my neighbor.

Wow.  Looking back at that last paragraph, I see God's hand, because I can identify that, in letting myself go to "stream of consciousness," He has guided me to a beginning of work on my words for the year: Humility, Love and Acceptance.  You may choose to believe that I did this on purpose, but all I can say is that I didn't.

Accepting what He has created me to be and to do, and learning to love the people in my sphere of influence.  This is my job.  May God help me.

Some diary-like musings

Well, just like that June is over and here is July 1, a hot Saturday leading into the Fourth of July, and even though I knew it was coming, it caught me off guard, and I haven't any plans.  Frankly, I'm a bit spent, even though it was Shawn who went to Hawaii and Europe in June, not me.  It was a big month:  Hawaii, Europe, a visit from Shannon, Laura and Matthew, some bonfires, a photo-shoot, a milestone anniversary.  

When Shawn is in distant time zones, it seems to mess with my biorhythms.  I suppose that's part of loving somebody.

The kids arrived two days before Shawn returned from Europe, and left the day before our anniversary.  The morning after they left, the morning of the Big Day, Shawn remarked, "I think we should buy a rose and plant it."  So we did; we bought two rose bushes, in fact, and they came laden with gorgeous blooms, which I harvested at once.

Thursday was hot, 90.  It was another bright, sunny day.  I'm trying to train my upper hydrangeas to send their roots deep for water, so I avoid watering them every day.  Thursday was a day I'd decided not to water.

Jon called at about 9:30 (a.m.), from the bus, on his way to English class, saying that he didn't have his wallet.  He said he'd forgotten it at home.  Of course, being me, I feared that he'd dropped it, or that it had been stolen. He told me he’d been able to cobble up $1 in loose change from his pockets to afford the bus ride to school, but then he would be stuck there, lacking both his monthly bus pass and his money, without his wallet.  He needed a ride back home at noon, after class.  This complicated my walking schedule with my friend, but in the end, Shawn (whose office is in the area) said he would get Jon, and everything worked out beautifully.  Shawn retrieved Jon, and they went to his apartment.  Jon’s wallet was there just as he had said, and then they had a nice lunch together.  All these things, cumulatively, made me very thankful.  Meanwhile, I walked, and went to Menard's, and stopped at Aldi for staples (food staples, not the kind you fasten papers with).

Eventually, I headed home, pretty late in the afternoon.  It was still hot, and still sunny, and the grass everywhere is turning white-yellow.  Driving, I prayed for rain, for gentle, soaking rain, for nourishment for our thirsty grass.  At home, I unloaded my purchases.  I'd bought top soil and a watermelon, among other things (those were the heaviest items).  I was tired!  I put away the cold food items, and tidied the kitchen a bit, and then I reclined with a book, One Thousand Gifts, to take a rest before Shawn arrived home for supper.  

Shawn came home, and we ate.  Then we headed outside to look over the yard.  Strolling out to the back garden, I noticed for the first time that my new hydrangeas, the ones in the lower terrace, the ones with the poofy blue blossoms, were dry, withered, and brown, the blossoms crisped, utterly spent.  My heart sank.  Those plants had never withered like the fragile upper hydrangeas.  It never even crossed my mind to check on them in the heat.  But there they were, shriveled.  Immediately, I positioned the sprinkler between them, and turned it on low, a small, private shower.  Then Shawn and I walked Shubert up to the end of the road to take a look at the sky beyond the cornfield, checking for any hope of rain.  Some dramatic clouds shone spectacularly in the bright sunset, but Shawn said none of them looked like they had potential to rain on us.

However, as we headed home, we heard low rumbles of thunder, and as we entered our yard, a few drops of moisture fell on us.  We sat down on our front porch, and a gentle downpour began, working its way up to a drenching rain that lasted about ten minutes.  We watched neighbors--who had been out walking--scramble to get home, some with dogs on leashes, a family with little girls in their jammies before bed, and a boy on a bike who rode figure eights in the deluge.  It rained, silver lines piercing the lawns and bouncing up, misty, from black roads and gray driveways.  Then it slowed, and stopped.  I felt the smile of God on me, telling me that yes, He hears and answers prayers, because He loves me.  The earth smells so good right after a rain, the fresh scent of life, wet dirt, wet plants, even wet asphalt and cement, and (of course) wet sky.  We lingered on the porch as long as that aroma hung in the air.  When we decided to go in, I remembered to run around to the back and turn the sprinkler off.  The hydrangeas were still limp and bedraggled.

I went to bed thinking about my hydrangeas.  I wondered if it would help if I cut off the wilted blossoms in the morning; maybe the plants would survive if I took the strain of those lush flowers away.

In the morning, the sun woke me at 6:50, and I stretched and was joyful for how beautiful it is simply to realize that you are awake, and not be awoken by an alarm.  I felt the sun on my face, and the cotton sheet, crumpled around my shoulders, and I patted Shawn's big, warm body slumbering next to me, and I remembered the hydrangeas.  I got out of bed and headed downstairs, even before Schubert was afoot.  From the sun porch, I looked out, and there were my two new, blue hydrangeas, fully re-hydrated, blooming in their terrace.  Not only the leaves, but also the blossoms had come back!  Again, I felt God's love, so strong, so full of grace.  Jon has his wallet, Shawn got to buy him lunch, a soft rain fell, and my hydrangeas are beautiful.  God would be good even if He did not do these things, but I am so thankful for when He gives us these tangible, easy to read messages of His grace and presence in our lives.

Friday I just went ahead and watered, after the sad (albeit redeemed) situation on Thursday.  I watered in the afternoon, sprinkling and puttering, trimming and weeding, just generally bombing around among my plants.  After the water had sufficiently soaked the garden, I turned off the spigot and went inside to write an email.

Sitting at my computer, facing into two corner windows that look out over the northwest view of our treed backyard, I heard a loud crack.  Looking up from my work, out the window I saw a large mound of foliage dip, sink and fall to the ground with another shattering crash.

Right on top of my garden.

Yes, a 37-foot tree limb with an 8 or 9-inch diameter spontaneously broke off its tree and landed in my back garden.   No storm.  No wind.  Just a loud crack and the descent of hundreds of pounds of lush green foliage. I was kind of bummed, until I realized how blessed I was to have finished working in the garden and gone inside shortly before it happened. God is good, and it looks like He might have saved my life on Friday afternoon, around 3 p.m. 

In the end, Shawn left work early and bought a chainsaw on his way home.  In approximately 2.5 hours, he had the whole thing cleaned up.

Today as I look out at my crushed Jacob's Ladder plants, I can only think how grateful I am that the blow that crushed them was not dealt to my body.  I did like those plants, but I am thankful to be alive and free from injuries.

God is good.

Last night, after we got the garden cleared, the branches dragged to the roadside, and the wood chopped and stacked, we stood on the sun porch and looked out, up the street that forms the artery of our neighborhood, running west to the main road.  It was about 8 p.m., which is when the sun, dipping low, casts a magical glow that literally turns the black road into a radiant golden surface.  The evening sunbeams cascaded in shafts between our tree trunks, and a squirrel cavorted in the gleaming light, his feathery gray tail turned as mysteriously golden as the road while he paused, illuminated, and his little chest stood outlined against the dark trees by a bright line of deep yellow.  Between the shafts of sunset, fireflies began to pulse, brightening the dark spots of deepening evening with their spiraling slow ons and offs.

We just stood there--watching, breathing, absorbing--thankful for life and light and beauty.  Thankful for God.

I lived to see July!

Wishing for good stories

I'm in the mood for a story.  I wish I had a happy story to tell.

Today I ate an apple on the sunporch.  Outside the windows, maple blossoms glistened brilliant red against the blue sky under the afternoon sun.  Today a stiff wind roared, chilling the neighborhood, but in the sunporch all was quiet, and almost warm.  Schubert saw me and joined me, hopping up on the other old-fashioned, flea-market chair, a bit surprised at this bastion of sunshine opening to him after it had been closed off all winter.  The apple was mediocre, but it was an apple, prettier than tasty, and then gone.

Some purple crocuses are on the cusp of blooming.  Tomorrow, if it doesn't snow, I think they'll open up their simple faces.

Last night I heard owls outside my bedroom wall.  They hover in the edges of our neighborhood fairly often, and I hope they are keeping the mouse population down.  The low vibrating thrum of their hooting thrills me, such a gentle, sleepy, exotic sound.

Owls, crocuses, apples on sunporches, these are the pieces of my life, sounds and pictures and flavors, all underlined by the yeasty smell of Schubert who is overtaken by fungal infestations and supposed to be bathed twice a week, but usually only gets bathed every 8-10 days.  Currently he is sleeping, curled smack atop a pillow on the futon, and Shawn would have my head for this, because that yeasty smell will be imbedded in the pillow if a guest needs to use it, regardless of how fresh and clean the pillow linens might be.

Normally I keep these pillows up on top of the back of the futon, and there are a couple of "dog" pillows for Schubert, laid out along the seat, dark purple like my impending crocuses.  However, the other night a violent thunderstorm awakened us, and Schubert was traumatized, so I brought him here, into my little study, and pulled the futon down into a bed.  We huddled together while the lightening flashed and the thunder rumbled and the wind crashed in the trees outside.  I did this more for my sake than for his, and in the end we both survived without even descending to the basement.

I don't have a happy story, but I have a sad one.  This morning, after feeding, medicating and walking Schubert, I brought my coffee upstairs to sip in bed.  I set it on a stack of books on my nightstand.  I have two stacks of books on my nightstand, and additional books, notebooks and pens piled on the stair step that came with our elevated bed.  This stair step is not safe to step on, because of all the stuff on it, which has a tendency to slip around.  Thus, I must vault myself over this step and onto the bed, rather than climbing up as would be intended.  Today as I vaulted, the back of my foot caught my full coffee mug as it tottered atop the lower stack of books on my nightstand.  The result was a very sad splash of coffee across many books, including vintage copies of The Horse and His Boy and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader from my childhood.  It also soaked The Problem of Pain, also by C.S. Lewis.

I sopped it all up with hand towels from my bathroom, carefully wiping off all the books and fanning their pages out to dry.  Then I started a load of towels in the washer; this was on my list of chores for the day anyway.  Eventually I got back to bed with my coffee, which is admittedly quite the oxymoron.

This afternoon, while there was still sunlight, I spent some time reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  I wanted to hold it and love it a little, and assure myself that it was dry enough to stack back into a pile.  The volume is crumbling at the seams, the back binding almost non-existent, the pages falling out.  But, oh my, what a writer.  I am more in awe every time I go back to read C.S. Lewis.  His details, his craftsmanship, his technique, his finesse with characterization and voicing, the way he shows you what is happening instead of telling you, the way he designs a plot that works out from so many angles, the way he ends every chapter with a cliffhanger.  I am a simple woman and I love children's literature.  C.S. Lewis and my gluten-free chocolate cake recipe: there's enough pleasure and delight for a lifetime.

When I was a child, these books delighted me, but now that I am an old woman, they astound me.  The symbolism moves me to tears, but so does the familiarity: old friends acting and re-enacting my favorite stories.  To read a chronicle of Narnia is to long to write a book of my own, but also to quail in the consciousness of how good these books are, and how mine could never attain the same excellence or eloquence.   At least I can soak in his artistry.

Do you know?  When I was a young girl, at the Anoka Public Library, picking out a book to read, I automatically looked for books written by men, because they were better than books written by women.  Also, books written by the British are better than books written by Americans.  (These are obviously generalizations, but as generalizations they are quite sound.)  Books by British men are the best.  I am not sure whether I prefer American male writers or British female ones (John Grisham is better than any of the Bronte sisters, while Frances Hodgson Burnett surpasses Nathaniel Hawthorne).  At any rate, books by American women are dead last.  What am I?  An American woman.  Here again is perhaps a clue to why I do not get that novel out.  I'm already pretty sure I wouldn't want to read my own work, given my demographic.

Processing

Today I come to my computer simply to process.

Since the beginning of the year, I've been wondering why I blog.  Why do I come back, again and again, to write where so few stop in to read?  Why don't I take a blogging course and seek an audience?  Or, if not that, why don't I pull myself off the internet and write in privacy?

Why?

I have no answers.

This past weekend, I cried a lot.

The weather has been gray, for one thing.  I've thought, more than once, "This isn't even any better than Syracuse."  But it isn't just the weather.  It's a weariness in the battle for faith, gratitude, hope, joy and the salvation of souls I love more than life itself.

Weariness.  Grayness.

In the past couple of weeks, a young man, 18 years old, committed suicide.  His brother found his body.  This forces me to confront my deepest fears.  It knocks the breath from my lungs.  The gray sky looks grayer.

In the past couple of weeks, a young woman who was trying to conceive did conceive.  Then she miscarried.

Does it ever seem like people are just dying left and right?

When it's cloudy, it often feels like God has turned his face away.  I know this is not true.  It's just a feeling.  We can't trust feelings.

We are trying a new church.  It has been a conflicted process.  We loved our old church, but it was so small, so very small.  I felt lonely there, useless.  There were no children.  It was easy; no responsibility, minimal disagreements.  But oh how lonely it was.  I've lived here for over three years now.  I want some roots.  I want to feel like I belong somewhere.  I want to matter to someone.

This is all about feelings.  Am I ruled by my feelings?  I try so hard to be be good and base my actions and decisions on truth, not feelings.  And yet, feelings are here, all around me.  What am I supposed to do with them?  How do I determine which feelings are from God and which are from the enemy?  Sometimes I can tell, but often I cannot.

I have no answers.

Last Sunday, for the first time, we attended Sunday school at this new church.  The class was about Job.  Eight or nine years ago, I taught a class on Job.  It was excruciating, not something I wanted to do.  The process scared me.  The topic scared me.  Yet, by the grace of God I grappled with that book, and I learned.  By the grace of God, we all learned.  The intensity of the experience has never left me.  So, when Shawn and I appeared in this Sunday school class about Job, for the very first time, to my horror, I found myself answering question after question that the teacher asked.  I was mortified.

Dear God please help me learn to keep my mouth shut.

I have no answers.

Between the embarrassment of Sunday school, the grief of the suicide and the miscarriage, the weariness of seemingly unanswered prayers, and the grayness of the skies, I spent the remainder of Sunday sobbing on my family room sofa.

But Monday surprised me by being a very good day, filled with laughter, sunshine and precious family time.  Dear Lord Jesus, how does it all work?

Today is also sunny, bitter cold but blue-skied.  Today I finished a prayer journal.  By finished, I mean all the pages are full of writing.  This is a sadness to me, because I had hoped that the matter of prayer for which I began that journal would be resolved by now, over two years later.  It is not.  Admittedly, I had a premonition that this matter of prayer would require more than one journal.  I wondered how many journals it would take.  Two?  Twenty?  As I neared the end of this journal, I wrote less and less, hoping that I would not have to carry this matter into another volume.

But.

It reminds me of our nightmare kitchen saga.  When that began, the contractor said it would take 4-6 weeks to remodel our kitchen.  To make a long story short, it took over four months, over 16 weeks.  During that time, I measured the progress against the tablets I use to disinfect the retainer I wear at night to keep my teeth straight.  Every morning, I pop the retainer into a container with 1/2 a fizzing tablet to disinfect and clean it.  These tablets come in sheets, and you tear off the edges of the packets to get them out.  Each time I got a new sheet of dental tablets out of the linen closet, I would think, "Maybe the kitchen will be done by the time this sheet of tablets is gone."  Time after time, it did not happen.  Eventually, it did.  Oddly, I have no memory of where I was in the sheet of tablets on the day we gave the contractor his final check and he went away.

A nagging fear plagues me, that I will start notebook after notebook, and fill them up with prayers, and there will be tedious weariness and discouragement before anything happens.  I could die before anything happens.  Somebody told me that.  I think the person meant to encourage me with the thought that there is still hope, even after my life is over.  That is, surely, a point of hope.  But I want to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (Psalm 27:13).  I suppose the truly living ones are those who are raised to new life in Christ, and their land is heaven.

I want.

I want resolution, restoration, joy.

Joy does not depend on restoration.  Joy is joy, with or without restoration.  Joy is confidence that God is good.  God is in control.  God has good plans for me, and he will bring them to completion, according to his almighty power.  Joy is being full of gratitude that God is faithful and good, and I do not need to worry about outcomes, because he is on my side, for me, fighting for me, and he is invincible.  There will never be an outcome that is outside of God's control and God's purpose.

I will not give up.  I will not stop trusting.  I will not cease to give thanks to the Lord for who he is and what he has accomplished through Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection.  These are two immutable facts: the existence of God with all of his attributes, and the victory of Christ, accomplished once for all.

Dear Lord Jesus, please tell the devil that I am your baby girl, and he needs to get his dirty hands out of my life.  Dear Lord Jesus, thank you that you have already paid the price so I can be yours.  Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for today's sunshine.

I will start another notebook.

Strategies for waiting, commendable or not.

The other day I was driving up a country road.

Driving up a country road means that I was driving north.  I don't know if I've mentioned how much I love that about the Midwest.  It's a grid, a huge, flat grid of roads going north-south and east-west.  Often, you can see for miles in the distance.  Sometimes you can even sight your destination when it is barely a pin-point across an expanse of land.  The obvious benefit to all this: it's pretty hard to get lost.

That's beside the point, though.

(This is the road in, I think, Kentucky, 

which is not really indicative of the distances 

you can see in--for instance--Illinois.  

But it is the only picture of open road that I have.)

I was driving along, heading north, and I realized that I had a song running through my head: "I spied a young cowboy, all wrapped in white linen, all wrapped in white linen, as cold as the clay." Morbid song, catchy tune.  I hummed along, not really thinking about it.

And then.  Then I noticed that I was driving behind a Jeep Laredo.  Of course that was where the song came from.  The Streets of Laredo.  Apparently I had read the back of the car, but it had not registered, except to plant a tune in my mind.

Our minds are so weird.  Well, anyway, mine is.

My flowers are not growing very well.

My canna lilies are not up at all, really -- just some tiny, blackish-purple pokey looking things that you can hardly make out amongst the mulch.  They may or may not grow and bloom.

My zinnias are not thriving.  One that was not doing too badly, I stepped on.  Shucks.  I tried to tilt it back upwards, and I guess time will tell whether I cracked off the stem.

My alyssum is doing better than most of what's out there, but it looks sort of weedy.

The cleome is bizarre.  One of the plants is growing fairly well; the other two seem stunted.

The cosmos are also stunted, it seems.

The snapdragons are tiny.  They almost seem to be smaller than when I first planted them.

This is not for lack of rain or sun or heat.  We've had plenty of all those.

I can't remember what my garden looked like at this point last year.  We were in the thick of getting ready for Lulu's wedding, bless her heart.

Sometimes it's hard to have faith when you're waiting for something, especially when you're waiting for something you can't control.

Maybe it's not so bad to let your mind drift unconsciously over to a very hummable country western song now and then.  Maybe it anesthetizes the waiting process.

We can plant, water, weed and fertilize, but in the end, it is only the Lord who can make anything grow.  Flower.  Flourish.

I have a notebook I am keeping about a certain matter of prayer that is the current theme of my heart.  I used to write quite often, but now I write more reservedly because it is getting full, and I want God to solve this before I run out of pages.  He whispered to me the other day that it might take more than one notebook before we get to the end of this.  I didn't like that.  I feel like I could handle it if it spreads over two notebooks, or maybe three.  But what if it takes seven, or twenty-four?

Today is a stormy, rainy Saturday.  After two weekends of road trips, we are blessedly at home.  Perhaps it would be a perfect day to lose myself in a good book.

If God even loves birds

This morning when I woke up, the sky was white and in the bare, black branches of my maple tree a bright red cardinal perched, his feathers puffed fat against the winter cold.

It was quite a sight, quite a first morning view.  I hoped it was a love note from God, telling me that He sees.  He cares.  He has it all in His control.

I'd slept well, which was a blessing.  Also, I'd not set an alarm.  It was 7:34, and I'd slept through until the sleep just wore itself off, with no alarm.  I cannot tell you what a blessing it is to awaken to silence and a white sky punctuated with a red bird.

Things are not unraveling the way I would choose.  I can't really discuss it.

Sometimes your heart feels as though it has been ripped out and twisted, and you can't breathe very well, and tears just spill down your face and you choke on the snot from your nose.  Other times you feel pretty much okay.  You match the socks, fold the underwear, take the dogs out to wet on the ice in the bitter wind, steep another cup of tea.

I ventured down to the basement today, to try to work on the boxes that still sprawl there a year and a half after the movers unceremoniously schlepped them in.  I found a box of treasures from my childhood, things I'd painstakingly packed up long years ago when I first moved out of my natal home.  I left a lot of things at my parents' house, so I know that the things I kept were precious to me, gifts with memories, trinkets that had once brought delight to my girlish imagination.

It is a curse to have an active and vivid imagination.  When life takes twists you had never reckoned on, and you start to imagine what might happen next, it can be a real curse.  (This is an aside.)

Two of my old music boxes are broken.  I should not write that here.  I want to throw them away and never remember them again.  The sense that I'm losing my past is excruciating, the memories running out between my fingers, although they are not really memories, just feelings, strong emotions that well up in response to the sight of things long forgotten.  Broken music boxes that used to sing, before I had my children, before, even, I had met my husband, things from so long ago that nobody could share the memory, which, once forgotten by me, will be lost forever.  But now that I wrote this, it will be that much more difficult to let go and forget.  So is this sin?

Upstairs is safer.  Mostly.  It's set up and functional.  The basement is a hazard to my mental health, I think, a symbol of the wreck of memories that I was unable to keep nicely.

And life marches forward with all of its uncertainties and heartbreaks and hopefulnesses.

A cardinal is hopeful, don't you think?  Even if he is cold.

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? 

Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 
Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 

Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Luke 12:6-7 (NIV)

Kitchen again

I should be packing up my kitchen.

They are coming to tear it out either tomorrow or the next day.

Yesterday when I should have been packing it up, I found myself blissfully cleaning a toilet.  The wonderful thing about cleaning a toilet is that you just cannot, cannot feel guilty for doing it.  I swished the toilet brush around with the minty blue toilet cleaner, scrubbing every last crevice, and I felt downright saintly, even though I wasn't packing up my kitchen.

Today rather than packing my kitchen, I find myself tending my blogs.  There is a good deal more guilt in tending blogs than in cleaning toilets.

Some day we will be through this.

Lupus is so weird.  Sometimes I wonder if I really have Lupus, or if it is Celiacs, or depression.  The symptoms seem to be the same. 

The older I get, the harder it is for me to make decisions and to focus.

Somehow God got me through the move out here.  I hope He will also get me through this kitchen renovation.  I should be full of excitement and thanksgiving, but I am just paralyzed by the fear that I will lose bills and hotel reservations and my favorite utensils, and end up with a mess from which I will never recover.

I keep telling myself, "I just need to get it out of the kitchen.  I don't have to move it anywhere.  It doesn't involve any travel."  This should be a great comfort.  Should.

It's bitterly cold once again.  Apparently it's too cold for the kids to go to school.  The net result: they are playing in the neighborhood (read: in my yard) in their ski suits, and Schubert is barking out the windows like a maniac.  I guess if it's too cold to go to school you send your kids outside to play, in IL.  They didn't do that in NY.  Midwesterners are tough.  Hardy.

I will go work on packing my kitchen.  I will.  I will move a bunch of things out to the sun porch, things that are not in danger of freezing and cracking.  I will take a box of snacks and dried fruit and nuts up to Shannon's room for when we have no kitchen.

I don't have a plan for saving my kefir grains over the month I won't have a kitchen.  Nor do I have much of a plan for how I will eat gluten-free.  David told me, "Buy a bunch of apples and bananas and eat them with nut butters."  Good advice, that, but I don't know if I can subsist on apples and almond butter for a whole month.

I wish we had a sink in the basement.

I guess I'll get to work packing.

I think I'll do some laundry.

Searching for my stride

Ugh.  Blogger just changed everything.  Everything looks totally different behind the scenes.  Can I even figure this out?

I am far too old for this.

For Lent, I gave up Facebook.  I love doing that, because it really helps me blog.  Somehow, Facebook has a way of sucking up all my blogging time.  I think,  "I will just go there for a moment, check my notifications and leave, you know?"  And then I never do.  Leave, I mean.  Facebook has sucked an obscene amount of my life away.

And yet, I feel that Facebook is somehow less narcissistic than blogging.  On Facebook I can say hi to people who live far away.  I can wish people a happy birthday and maybe even encourage someone who is going through something I've gone through.  I can learn about prayer requests, pray for people, and let my friends know when I am praying for them.

On Blogger, I just write, because writing is what I love to do.  Once long ago, I was pretty good at writing.  Looking back at some of my old work makes me feel like the character in "Flowers for Algernon."  Seriously.  I used words that I don't even know anymore.

Lately, the stories I want to tell and the ideas I want to explore are just too big.  I am so tired.  I just get more tired every day.  Sometimes I pray and say, "Jesus, if I die, that's OK.  I'm OK with whatever.  If I don't see my children married and my grandchildren born, it's all OK.  I love you, Jesus."  This is not so much because I hurt or feel sick, just because my energy is seeping away and I can't imagine how long I can go on like this.  So tired.  I wonder whether I will die before I go bald, or go bald before I die.  Part of what makes me so tired is trying to clean up after all the hairs that incessantly fall off my head.

Today I scrubbed the tub and showers.  I used to do this once a week, or once every-other week, at least.  Then it fell to more like once a month (thank goodness we'd installed a water softener by then, and the scum wasn't building up much).  This last time, I think it went something like two months.  My back and neck went out in March, and I've been waiting and waiting to improve, for my left arm to stop aching.  Yesterday I looked at the condition of the bathrooms, and I decided that aching arm or not, it must be done.  So I did it.  When DJ comes home from campus and asks me what I did today, I can tell him that I scrubbed the tub and showers. 

I also did laundry and started a corned beef.  I did not, however, make it to the store, and we are out of a few things.  On the bright side, we have corned beef, and we will eat tonight.

Yesterday I bought bananas at the store and they punched the code in all wrong.  They charged me for "sno pea leaf" which (whatever it is) costs $5.99 per pound.  Bananas are 44 cents per pound.  What should have cost me $2.04 came to $27.73.  So, besides getting some things we are out of (most traumatically, puppy treats),  I need to go get my $25 back from the wrong charges.  Oh joy.

Well, this was a whiny one, eh?  Just imagine how bad it would have been had I written it in a private notebook and not in a public forum.

The lemons are wizening up in the fruit bowl.  Ice has been spitting down from on high at random intervals all day, pelting the poor little spring leaves and blossoms.  I need to send back our Netflick.  I bought a van yesterday.

Oh yes, I bought a van.  My husband is proud of me.  I am still second-guessing the whole thing.  My husband is in Baltimore for the week, which is why I had to buy the van.  I used to be so frightened when he traveled.  Funny how things change when you have two great big sons living with you.. two great, big, tall, muscular sons who love your cooking.

This is Jon, last year at the beach.  You can see his muscles here, but not how tall he is.  He is 6'4".  He has a black belt in karate.

This is DJ recovering on the floor of the dining room after a massive intake of turkey last Thanksgiving.  He is 6'1", 190 pounds, and he lifts weights nearly every day.  Although he did not dress for dinner, I love him very much.

Stream of consciousness

Today I woke up wishing for goat cheese.

This makes me sound like a fancy and sophisticated person, which I am not. In fact, I never even had goat cheese in my life until yesterday.

And the goat cheese I had, I bought at Aldi.

So give up your impression of me as a world class gourmet. I am just a cheap shopper who picked up a log of goat cheese with cranberries and cinnamon... and found that it was delicious. Delicious.

And now I have to go and put my white blazer, that I wore for Easter, into the dryer. Because I am washing it at home, even though at first glance you would think it ought to be dry-cleaned. I read the tag. It says, "Machine wash cold, gentle cycle, tumble dry low."

It will never be the same, shiny and crisp, but that's OK. Nothing ever is. And I don't know why I ever buy anything white.

I will put it into the dryer, and I will try to ride the exercise bike whilst reading The Hunger Games. I do not know how this will go.

My shoulder keeps popping. Shawn says I should go to the doctor.

Schubert is outside, howling. I suppose I'd better get him in before I embark on my next project.

I feel fat. I just ate four crackers with goat cheese and two helpings of sweet potatoes left over from Easter dinner.

post aborted

Well, I am actually sick.

After days and days of feeling tired, achy, listless, lethargic and just a general malaise (the other day I had to stop in the middle of peeling an orange and rest and take deep breaths -- even for a lazy lout like me, this is not normal), I now have real symptoms.

So I guess I feel a little less lazy, and I have hope that what I thought was depression was actually a physical thing that will pass with this illness.

I spent a lot of time in bed today, dozing, reading Revelation and running to the bathroom.

There was going to be a point to this post, but Jon is playing some sort of rousing band song on youtube on my computer downstairs, and my poor fragile thoughts are shattered by it. I totally forgot what I was going to write about.

So today will be stream of consciousness or nothing. Probably safer to go with nothing and end here.