End of School–Finally

Bennett, Laura and Catie finished their school year on Monday. Ethan finishes on Friday. As of Friday afternoon, I will have three fifth graders and one third grader.

WHAT???

I remember starting kindergarten with Bennett and Laura. I remember how tiny they looked in comparison to the “older” (4th and 5th grade) kids. And now, somehow, we have those kids. At field day last week I looked around at the kindergartners and they were so…well….TINY. It doesn’t seem possible that that was us just a few short years ago.

I promise I’m not going to get maudlin. Really. They won’t allow me. They are still so much stinkers, not all “grown up” and mature. On the last day of school, thankyouverymuch whoever you were, someone wrote in permanent marker on the playground the ‘F word” and “s word”. Up until that day we had escaped that. They didn’t ask what the words meant, but I know that’s coming any day.

Today I survived the first of 10 times of grocery shopping with them. I’m not overly fond of grocery shopping with my kids. “Can we have this?” “I want that!” *rolls eyes* like they were three year olds. I’m always so grateful when school starts again and I get to shop in peace.

See, I’m not getting maudlin!

But they sure have grown a lot in the past four years.

Upgrading

Now, everyone knows without a doubt that I hate change. HATE IT.

So how am I doing now that my husband has upgraded my computer from Win XP to Windows 7, from Firefox 3 to Firefox 4, from MS Office 2003 to MS Office 2010?

Ugh. I can’t find ANYTHING. And my Roboform, which is an amazing Add-on that remembers passwords and personal information (name/address/etc) , isn’t working so I’m having to type everything by hand.

Want a little cheese with that whine?

I’ll survive. By June 2nd (a month), things will have smoothed out. Right? But right now I don’t even have Solitaire in my taskbar! ACK!

Seasons of Friendship

I’m meeting an old friend today for coffee. She and I were very close a long time ago; she was even a bridesmaid in my wedding 15 years ago.

10 years ago she left for the mission field. Almost 9 years ago I had a whole passel of children. The friendship, without careful tending, changed.

I’ve prayed about this time together. I don’t want it to be awkward or uncomfortable, but I’m aware that it might be. She and I never had that “pick up where you left off” kind of friendship. (Aren’t those nice?) We might fumble for things to say outside of the “tell me what you’ve been up to” layer.

I used to have many close friends.  In high school there was a group of four of us (we called ourselves the four mouseketeers, yes, we were silly). Through Facebook I keep in touch with two of them, but am only somewhat really in touch with the third. In college I had an extremely close friend. Unhealthily close. Eventually I had to stop being her friend because I couldn’t handle the drama anymore. That was hard. I had another friend after my children were born–she also had triplets and was such an encouragement to me. At some point she stopped answering my calls. I’ll never know what happened. That was hard as well.

Currently I have several good women friends, but no CLOSE friends. I just remarked to Jim yesterday that he’s my best friend. And that’s not a bad thing. But let’s be honest. There are just things you can talk to with a woman that hubby has no desire to talk about!

I do believe that there are often seasons of friendship for women. We have friends when we are single, different friends when we are married but have no children, and still other friends when we add little ones into our lives. There are sometimes very special friends that are lifelong–that transcend the seasons. My mother has been friends with someone for almost 70 years. Wow! Now that’s amazing!

You know what? If I had to pick someone other than my husband that I’m closest to, it would be my mother. I talk to her almost every single day of my life except weekends when we’re just so crazy around here. Other than when I was a teenager and we fought a lot, she and I have been fairly close since I was in college, and especially so since I’ve had children. There hasn’t been and won’t be a season to our friendship. She’s one of the reasons I wanted to have a daughter so badly–I wanted to be adult friend with her. And now I have two!

How about you? Do you have lifelong friends or do your friendships have seasons?

DVR

I hate change. Seriously HATE change. Of any kind. It makes me twitchy.

So when Jim suggested a couple of years ago that we do the DVR thing instead of the VCR thing, I rolled my eyes. It came with our DirecTV system, so it was in the house, but I kept using the VCR.

UNTIL!

At some point I caved. First it was just the ease of automatically taping every single time a show was on. Now it’s taping shows and watching them at a later, more convenient time, fast forwarding through commercials and boring parts. An average 1 hour program shrinks down to about 35 minutes.  And American Idol? Fugetaboutit! I pause the live show at the beginning, start watching about when it would be 1/2 way through, doing the same fast forward thru commercials or skipping the singers I can’t stand(!), and end up watching the ending about the same time as the rest of America.

So, if you are on the fence about the whole DVR thing, I HIGHLY recommend it!

Emtpy House

The home next to mine is empty. For almost 10 years it housed a wonderful, godly woman, her mother and her two daughters. They were my friends. They rented the house. Both of the older women were widows–one my age and widowed when her girls were very young. I loved having them as my neighbors. I depended on the wisdom of the mom and the babysitting of the girls. The mom and I could talk for hours about anything and everything. But the owner of the home let the house go into foreclosure. So, through no fault of their own, they were forced to move by a bank that didn’t care. Into a much smaller home that is about 45 minutes away.

Each day, a truck with a trailer in the back pulls up in the driveway and leaves with more of their things. The man driving it is in charge of cleaning out their house before the auction. He feels badly for my friend, but he is just doing his job. I’m sure he’s a nice man, but I cannot help but resent his presence. The items he removes are just that to him–things, stuff–not treasures that just couldn’t fit into their new life, or things they just didn’t have time to pack. I don’t know what he does with their things–if he takes them to a thrift store, or to friends or just to the dump. Yesterday I watched a life-size Frosty the Snowman get driven away. One more reminder that my friend wouldn’t be here next Christmas.

Someone nice may move in. Someone with small children that my children could befriend. Or a teenager who could babysit. Maybe even a nice woman that I could be friends with as well.

But it will never be the same.

MIL is Coming Home

We just got the news yesterday that my MIL is being discharged from the nursing facility on Thursday. She’s a little apprehensive about being at home, but also very thrilled to be going to her home again after so long away. Now it’s just building her strength so that she can hopefully go back to work.

Up until now I’ve been acting as her ride for the most part, or making calls and the like. I’m not sure (nor is she) as to what she will need now that she’s home instead of with full time care.

Good thing I’m learning to be more flexible, huh?

On Hearing God’s Call

A few months ago–maybe even six–I started getting the feeling that God wanted me to serve more in our church. I have more time, well, ok, I have more time when the kids are in school; right now not so much.

Anyway, I felt like God was pointing me in the direction of being a deacon. I heard Him and filed it away and just kept doing what I was doing–more and more for the church. I’m their unofficial secretary (title and duties, but no pay), do 1/2 of the library stuff, and am helping out more with other odds and ends. It feels good.

So last month was the annual deacon/elder nominations. If someone is nominated, the pastor informs them and it then rests on them as to whether they accept.

I got nominated. Not really surprised about it, either. God was totally preparing me for it beforehand and I honestly feel like I’m able to handle that kind of commitment at this point in my life. Am I nervous? A little. It’s always hard for me to “step out of my comfort zone”, as I’m sure it is for most people. But I’m excited that 1) I correctly interpreted what I thought God was telling me and 2) that I’m at a place where I CAN say yes and 3) I’m at a place where I WANT to say yes.

Jim was also nominated to be an elder. Now THERE’S a responsibility! We’re going to give our acceptance to the pastor tonight at worship practice.

For My Ways are Not Your Ways

Stream of thought here, so bear with me. I’m dealing with a lot of emotions and not quite sure what to do with them.

I babysat Alex yesterday. Her single mom works 3-11 at a factory. She has no car. She walks to work (it’s down the road). Alex’s dad is in and out of the picture as he feels like it and doesn’t do much to contribute either emotionally or financially. I don’t know how much she makes at this job, but it’s not enough. The dad decided to go away for awhile and mom is left with no one to care for Alex. I offered to help out yesterday because I could sleep in a little after being out so late (got home at 11:45ish). She played over our house with the kids until they went to bed and then I took her home. She was awake until her mom got home at 11:15 pm. Tired, but awake. She still takes a “baba” at bedtime. At one point I put it back in the refrigerator. I opened the door and was shocked at how little I saw.

I am very middle class. I was born into it, married into it and will most likely (barring something major) live the rest of my life in it.

Mom very clearly is poor. Milk, eggs, water, a few tomatoes, some drinkable yogurt. The freezer had some chicken nuggets, two frozen pizzas, a ham, some ice cream.

My refrigerator looks, well, well stocked. Too much stuff to list. Same with my freezer. Same with my pantry and cupboards.

I felt guilt for our plenty and her need. It’s humbling to admit, but I don’t think I’ve ever been in someone’s kitchen who wasn’t on my socio-economic level. Not consciously or deliberately, but true nevertheless.

Two or three years ago I would have been overwhelmed with my own life. My kids needed me a lot. I had not yet read Lisa Samson’s Quaker Summer or Irresistible Revolution. Now my life is different. I’m at a place where I CAN give instead of just receive–both in terms of time and financial resources. And I have the feeling that God is pushing me ever so pointedly in this mom’s direction. I thought it was it was to CYWA, but other than doing some data entry for them I have had no interaction with them.

So as of right now I’m going to start praying. For God’s clear leading. For an open heart. For a WILLING heart, because this is both scary and slightly overwhelming. Definitely not in my comfort zone.

DVR

Digital Video Recording. This, folks, is AWESOME. I fought my husband on getting it, because, well, I’m cheap. Let’s be honest. But for the first year of DirecTV, we got a great deal, so we went with it.

I LOVE IT.

No more tapes, no more forgetting to set the VCR or tape over something else…nope. It can tape every new episode of House for me, so I can watch at my leisure (and fast forward through the commercials). Bliss.

The only downfall I have come across is taping so much stuff and then never getting around to actually watching it. So I’m playing catch up this week. In between laundry loads, I’ve watched Becoming Jane (totally worth it!), Raising Waylon (Lifetime…so so), Recipe for Success (Lifetime, so so), Bella (VERY good!), and still have The Pursuit of Happyness and Fantastic Four II to watch. And five episodes of Star Trek Voyager that is on at 1am for some odd reason. But hey, since I can watch it at 2:30 in the afternoon while folding darks, who really cares?

The Great Unknown

1. I hate change
2. I like to know what is going on
3. I like plans. Plans are GOOD.

A. My life is changing
B. I have no clue what it is going to look like
C. I have no plans. Ok, I want to volunteer. That’s it for the plans.

People, I am NOT FEELING COMFORTABLE!!