Monday, July 24, 2006

Savoring the last moments

In my last post (which was, by the way, almost 2 weeks ago), I said something about a "let's cram everything in before summer ends" period. Well, that time is here. It's actually been here the last week or so, hence the lack of blogging. The last few weeks of my summer wasn't supposed to be busy. But somehow it got that way.

And now I have one more day at home before I leave to go see family up north. Bob, Becca and I will fly up to Philadelphia. We'll stay a bit with my brother Andy and Beth and Addison. Amelia's off at camp, so unfortunately we won't get to visit with her. We'll drive to the shore house in Strathmere, N.J. and see Bob's sister Suzanne and two of our nieces. We'll spend some time there at the beach with them and then later, on the weekend, Andy, Beth and Addison will join us in Strathmere. Bob's wrapping this vacation around work (or work around vacation, whatever), so he'll be traveling to Allentown, PA and Boston for day trips. Becca's flying back home before us to visit with Steve and Mish when they get back from Holland. Bob and I will then drive up to his folk's house in Bridgewater and bring them both back down the shore to Strathmere. We'll spend the rest of the week with them, but we will get to see Bob's brother Jim and his wife Randi before we fly back to Dallas. It's been three years since we've been up to New Jersey. It's a long overdue trip. Bob's folks have some major health issues going on, and it's pretty unlikely that they'll be traveling down to Texas in the future. We are looking forward to visiting with our family. Lots to catch up on!

Just some randomness.
Something that brought a tear to my eye this morning: Seeing Tiger Woods cry after winning the British Open. All because of a great relationship with his dad.

Something that made me laugh this morning: A bumper sticker that read "I would rather hunt with Dick Cheney than drive in a car with Ted Kennedy." I'm sorry, is that sick to laugh at that?? It was only 9:00 in the morning, so maybe I wasn't quite awake yet.

Steve and Michelle get back from Holland on July 30th. I've missed them!

We brought up a U-Haul trailer to Arkansas this weekend and moved Becca into her new apartment. She's only been home for the summer for a little over a week. I've missed her!

Pam came home for a night and then took off to Camp Esperanza where she's counseling 9 - 10 year old girls who have or have had cancer. I've missed her too! But she'll be back for a wedding in August.

School starts for me August 7th. Where did the summer go?

Smile.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Mindful chatter

I've felt very uncreative lately. I think it's that summer lull. Not a whole lot going on. Which can be good. I think it's the restful period before the "let's cram everything in before the summer's over" period. I've been getting to read alot. I actually have two books going at the same time right now. I just finished "Messy Spirituality", another book by Mike Yaconelli. We had two copies at our house. Mish took one and finished before I did. I enjoyed it very much. There's so much in the book, but here's a few thoughts that hit home for me.
- Spirituality is a relationship.
- Spirituality is NOT about competency, but about intimacy.
- Spirituality is NOT about perfection, but about connection.
- Spirituality is NOT about being fixed; it is about God's being present in the mess of our
unfixedness.
Anyway...great book.
Today I'm taking Steve and Mish to the airport. They leave, with 11 other people, for their mission trip to Holland. They are very excited and naturally a little nervous. They came over the other night with their packed suitcases. Brought them into the house and asked if we thought the bags were under 50 pounds. Now they knew we've had recent experience with this, as we had a "problem" with my suitcase being over the weight limit on our trip to the UK. They wanted to weight them on a scale. Well, we couldn't find a scale in the house. I know we've had one in the past, but since weighing ourselves isn't something we like to do, I think we may have sold it in a garage sale. So what does my engineer husband do? He disappears into the garage and comes back with two 25 lb. weights (from Steve's old weight bench) and has them tied together on a strap so we could compare the weights. Yea, not something I would have thought to do. Anyway, the consensus was that the bags were okay. Well, we'll see today. Mish asked me to wait at the airport to see if the bags were okay, just in case I needed to take something back home for them. So they're off to Holland for 17 days. I'm very excited for them. I will miss them, but will keep up with them on their Holland blog. Technology can be great.

While Steve and Mish are off to Holland, Becca comes home this Sunday. She's been off at Pine Cove Ranch Camp in Tyler since the end of May. She's been a counselor to 7th grade girls for most of the time and on work crew the last two weeks. She came home briefly last weekend to see Steve and Mish before they took off on their trip. It was great to see her and made me more anxious to have her home for a longer period of time. She's had an awesome time at Pine Cove. Made some wonderful friends. A great experience for her.

And Pam has been in and out of Flower Mound all summer. A very busy time for her. She's got her week at Camp Esperanza as a counselor to children with cancer. Her friend Amy is getting married and Pam's in the wedding. She's up here for parties, showers, and the wedding in August. So we've been able to see her and John, even though it's been for short periods of time.

I'll take any time I can get with my children. They are great people, and alot of fun to be around.

Friday, July 07, 2006

It's a wonderful life

One of my favorite movies is "It's a Wonderful Life." We watch it every Christmas. It's one of those feel-good movies. Atleast for me. Well, the other day, as I was driving home from Walmart, for whatever reason I started thinking about how long we've lived in Flower Mound. (20 years!) Then the "what if's" started to flood my mind. What if we never moved here? What if we had stayed in Richardson? What if Bob had never changed jobs? What if...? You can imagine all the thoughts that could now be unleashed. But instead of thinking, well, things could have been alot better, I began to think of all the people I would not have met. All the great people that are in my life now because we are here at this time. Now I understand that God could easily have placed people in our lives wherever we ended up. But all of a sudden, I realized God's amazing sovereignty. And there was a peace about that. It's comforting to know that when we make some life choices, God can be present in those decisions. He should be. He wants to be. But we don't always realize that at the time. Sometimes it's not until we look back do we see God's sovereign hand in our life. It can be a truly humbling experience.

In Tim's message a few weeks ago, he brought up Romans 8:28, where Paul says that "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." I've heard this verse many, many times before. But Tim commented that "all things" didn't mean all "good things" but rather good and bad. So now I'm thinking that this is great because I know I've made some bad decisions in the past. Not all my life choices have been good ones. I've messed up plenty of times. But I have a God who can take those poor choices and their consequences and turn them around for my good. As the rest of the passage reads, "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." God knew what my life would be like before I was born. I can rest assured, knowing I don't have to answer the "what if's."

Monday, July 03, 2006

It started with a wedding

Saturday morning, Bob, Pam, John and I drove up to Norman, Oklahoma for the wedding of Pam's good friend, Jess and her beau, Stew. It was a beautiful, worshipful ceremony. Jess looked radiant, and the couple, extremely happy. It was obvious that Jess and Stew had decided to make Christ the focal point in their marriage. Many Crossroads friends attended, and I felt very blessed to be invited to be part of this gathering.

After the reception at the OU Student Union (a lovely room!), the wedding and house party went up to "Bricktown" in OK City to eat at Abuelo's. Bob and I also went up there (it's like a West End in Dallas, though I thought it was nicer) and had dinner with two other couples from Crossroads, Pam and Kevin King (along with their very well-behaved children, Lauren and Brennan) and Debbie and Steve Sardone. All three couples have "yankee" roots, and we enjoyed visiting over dinner at Nonna's Restaurant. While the company was great, the service here was not so great at all. The waitress got everyone's meal mixed up, and the food should have been much better for the price we paid. But we didn't let that spoil our evening. Pam and John joined us after their meal at Abuelo's and we stayed and chatted until 10:15 pm. Some couples were headed off to Tobey Keith's for dancing. As much as we would have liked to have gone, unfortunately, we didn't intend to spend the night in OK, so we needed to get back on the road. Pam and John had been sick during the week, and we wanted to let them get a good rest before they headed back down to Austin on Sunday. Pam and I talked the entire three hours on the drive home, trying to keep Bob awake at the wheel. The last half hour was tough, but we did it.

Sleeping in was nice on Sunday morning. We don't get a chance to do it much during the rest of the year. Our day was pretty laid-back. Steve and Mish came over and we all hung out in the backyard, playing rumikub and swimming in the pool. They put Harley on a kickboard and floated him around the pool. It was a sight. Then Pam and John took off for Austin, Steve and Mish left to go to high school Sunday school, and Bob and I went to evening service. It was a wonderful way to wrap up the weekend.

Some thoughts of thankfulness:
- that my children are surrounded by friends that love Christ and focus on Him, and that my children allow themselves to be influenced by these friends
- that my children are blessed by others, and at the same time blessing others
- that I continually meet people with whom I want to start up relationships and get to know
- that God places people in our lives at just the right times
- that my children still want to spend time with Bob and I, and that we can have great, meaningful conversations (and alot of fun!)
- that despite my inadequacies as a parent, I have great children!
- that my children have found spouses that compliment their personalities, and have allowed them to be the person God created them to be
- and that I have a husband who doesn't mind driving, never complains about late nights and who will go to the store for me when I run out of cookie dough and ice cream right in the middle of making a dessert!