Sunday, July 29, 2007

Royal Butt-Kickings

God's really good at kicking my butt. He is! He tends to be pretty gentle about it mostly, but there is no mistaking the intent behind the swift kick in the behind! This has happened many times in my life, and it happened again this weekend. A few times, actuallly, but there is one in particular that I would like to share with you. Remember my neighbor? Well, not much has really changed lately. If anything, we (Shaun and I) have just gotten more and more exasperated. This afternoon I had a plan. I had my afternoon and evening scheduled out until I needed to be at the airport to pick up Shaun. Part of that plan included a few minutes to go water my garden. While out there I ran into (not literally) her. We chit-chatted for a few minutes and I was talking about some of our plan/obligations and such ... or something like that. Anyhow, I said something about church. Immediately she perked up and said "you go to church? where?" I told her and she asked if we taught the Bible and if we went every Sunday and then came home afterward. When I told her that we pretty much did just that, she asked if maybe we would be interested in bringing her with us. She went on to talk about a TV program she enjoyed watching where someone just read passages of scripture and answering mail from viewers who had questions about particular passages. But they took it off the air and since then she's been thinking about going to church, but for some reason she can't sit for church AND then manage to drive home.

wow

All this time I prayed and kept trying to be patient and be a good example to her, to keep evil thoughts from my mind. Isn't that what we should be doing? Yet I never opened my mouth to her about my faith. Not once. And all this time, finding a church has been on her heart. One silly little word said in passing was all it took. She has been seeking, and I have been shirking. Jesus, you are amazing, and I am sorry. You provide. Please help me to reach out to others in your name. Help me to be your hands reaching out to those in need, even if they are annoying and regardless of how they recieve the message.
I don't know what will come of this visit to our church, but I pray that You will work in her life and that you will continue to put me in the middle of challenges like this one. Help me to close my pride and open my mouth.

Use me, Jesus. And keep kicking my butt when I'm being lazy and selfish.

Monday, July 23, 2007

of loss and mourning

Well, this morning I said goodbye to a dear old friend.
We met through a mutual friend about 6 years ago. I can't say I was a great friend - ours was an on-gain, off-again relationship. But whenever we parted (and regardless of whose decision it was), there was always the knowledge that we would meet again. After a long parting, we met up again yesterday. Our final hours together were intense and intimate, triumphant and sorrowful. And alas, this morning we parted ways for the last time. We will always have our memories, and I'll be able to easily recall everything, as I have written documentation of every moment of our time together, but it will never be the same again. I am only slightly ashamed to admit that these last two days have been full of tears. There have been the welling eyes, the quiet spill-overs, the disjointed sobs, the quiet happy drops and the wracking, heaving bawling. It's so difficult to fathom the finality of the situation. There will be no more afternoons of peaceful heart-to-hearts, no more adventures, nothing. It's over. Finished. Done.

I will miss you, Harry Potter. I will miss the anticipation of the unknown, the adventures of you and your friends and family. I have enjoyed our journey together and am grateful to David and to Carly for introducing us. You can be assured that I will revisit our time together. Thank you for the joy and the sorrow and the escape (and vocabulary) you have provided to me throughout these past years.
Peace be with you, Harry.






**yes, I am well aware of just how pathetic I am.... but books touch me in ways I can't really explain.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

on -mania

I'm a maniac maaay-niac!
My very own copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows arrived in Portland approximately 1 hour and 59 minutes ago. It will be on my doorstep Saturday morning!!!!!!!!

Don't plan on seeing or hearing from me all weekend! Shaun leaves for DC early Saturday, so I've got my date w/Harry all set for the entire weekend.

Eerie!

So I opened my internet browser this morning with the sole intention to get some good quotes for the newsletter at work, and the MSN page had a link to this article and it served its purpose in catching my eye. I clicked to the article, read it, and was flabbergasted! I seriously wondered if perhaps I wrote and submitted the article under a false name! Yeah! Anyhow, here it is:
Skip navigation

By Carrie Friedman
Newsweek
July 23, 2007 issue - I am at a party chatting with a woman I know slightly. As her young son squirms out of her embrace, she slips her hand under my shirt. She's not getting fresh with me. She's touching my tummy with her cold hand and asking me, in a concerned voice, "Why aren't you pregnant yet?" I smile, break free from her touch, and head to the food table to fill said empty belly with her brat's birthday cake.

I love children and definitely plan on having them. Maternal instinct is oozing out of my pores: I've infantilized my dogs; I've gotten down on my hands and knees at the park with babies I barely know. My marriage is wonderful and solid, and we are both blessed with good health. I've been a nanny, a teacher, a youth-group leader. I've taken childhood-development courses solely for the purpose of someday raising happy, balanced children. I have always looked forward to becoming a mother.

So why don't I have kids or even the inkling right now? It's because of you. Yes, you: the fanatical mothers of the world. It may seem like ages ago now, but you weren't always like this. You, too, were sneering at the obnoxious parents who brought their infants to fancy, adult, nighttime restaurants or R-rated movies and let them carry on, ruining things for other patrons. You've been terrible advertising for the club that you so desperately need others to join.

If you want me to join your ranks—and you've made it clear with your cold, clammy hands on my stomach that recruiting my uterus is of paramount importance to you—I need to set some ground rules.

First, please stop asking me when I'm going to get pregnant.

For all you know, I cannot have kids. For all I know, I cannot have kids, as I have not yet tried. But imagine how painful this line of interrogation would be if I had submitted to all kinds of procedures, only to come up empty-wombed. It would be emotionally devastating. Yet ever since the day after my wedding two years ago, I have fielded this question from the eye doctor, the dental assistant, my yoga teacher, the bagger at the grocery store. All of them feel entitled to ask. Don't. It's none of your business.

Next, don't completely abandon your own life and passions. You're setting a bad example for aspiring mothers-to-be like me.

I recently expressed my happiness over an achievement I had at work to a mother-friend of mine. She said, dripping with condescension, "Well, you don't know happiness until you've had a baby."

That's very possible, but don't rain on my parade, as I've never said to you, "Remind me, when you went to that expensive college you majored in diaper-rash prevention, right?"

I happen to love my job. It fulfills me in ways no other person—even a child—could. I learned through my own mother's example that the best lesson you can teach your kids is to pursue their passions. It's not selfish to have your own life. In fact, it's selfish not to.

Now let's talk a bit about manners, as in please teach your children some. The world has rules, and kids should learn them. And being well mannered does not infringe on their individuality and freedom.

I crouched to meet the eye line of an acquaintance's 4-year-old to greet her, and in response, she punched me in the face so hard my mouth bled. What was more baffling was the mother's reaction: nothing to the child, but to me she said very sternly: "You really shouldn't talk down to kids."

I also shouldn't be punched in the face by kids whose parents don't know how to set basic boundaries. Experiences like this don't exactly encourage me to hurry up and get pregnant.

Finally, don't make your kid an extension of your own narcissism.

No one could possibly love your kids as much as you do, so stop inflicting them on others. Don't bring your kid to adult parties when you're not sure if it's kid-friendly. If they didn't invite your kid, they don't want your kid there. If you don't want to get a babysitter, stay home.

My husband thinks some people, particularly mothers, behave in these ways because it helps them validate their own choices. But he doesn't truly understand how infuriating it is, and that's because nobody badgers men with questions about procreation.

Becoming a parent was your decision, and I am thrilled for you. All I'm asking is that you let me make that choice in my own time. And keep your hands off my belly.

Monday, July 09, 2007

Weekend Wanderings (and wonderings)

Shaun and I have been doing a lot of house-sitting lately. This is mostly pretty cool. Being the proud person I am, it's a little irksome when people just assume we'll house sit for them (without pay) because it's doing us some big favor by allowing us to live in their bigger, "better" house. But all in all, it's fine, and we have been enjoying ourselves. However, Friday night we both fell into our OWN bed with much rejoicing. Apparently our bed is a lot better than we gave it credit for - after almost three weeks of slumbering in foreign beds, our own was just... just wonderful!
So I took advantage of my free time and slept in Saturday morning while Shaun had to get up and go to work for a few hours. When he got home, he got a call from his good friend David and before long we had all agreed that it was a super day for geo-caching! After a slight mix-up and then lunch at good ol' TB, we headed into the woods and spent a nice day hiking the trails and finding hidden treasure. Our final cache was never found - we found a dead possum, some porn, and a little black vole, but no cache. Hmmm...
Afterwards we treked back up to my work for a quick pit stop before heading over to D & C's house for some yummy BBQ'd burgers and A Night At The Museum. Fun times.
Unfortunately it seems I have time only to blog about my weekend wandering - perhaps later I'll get a chance to blog about my wonderings.
Ciao for now!