Friday, July 30, 2010

Grandpa

Last October, when my Grandpa turned 90, I wrote a post about him. It only seemed right. Well, now it only seems fair to feature my other Grandpa. I plan to focus on my Grandmothers at some point as well. As a child, I thought everyone loved their grandparents. I thought everyone was close to their grandparents. And, I thought every grandparent thought their grandchildren had hung the moon. That’s how it was in my world, so I believed that was how it was in the rest of the world. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized that wasn’t true. I still find it sad.


Grandparents, for me, were four of the most important relationships I would ever have. They had a direct influence on molding me into an adult. My mother has often said she loved that they loved her kids as much as she did. She particularly said that about my Grandpa Jack, her father-in-law.

I love all of my Grandparents, but I was closest to Grandpa Jack. It was as if his sole mission was to make me laugh, and oh, did he ever do that job well. In turn, my main goal when he was around was to make him laugh. He spent hours playing with us, and making toys for us. He took an old lawn mower, and took the blades off so we could ride it. He made a playhouse and kept in his yard. He made us stilts, and toys like he would have played with as a kid. He told us stories, made funny faces, and taught us things. There was never a doubt that he loved us, and supported us, and was proud of us.

He gave us an example of how to live. We saw him read his Bible, and we prayed with him. We saw the way he loved his family, and the way he treated others. The only times I remember deliberately disobeying my parents as a child were when I wanted to see my Grandpa and nothing was going to stop me. The most trouble I ever got in was for walking to my Grandparents house (I was a little young to be walking that far, and I took my little brother along) after my mother had said, “No.”

He died when I was 17, and I was heartbroken. That was almost 10 years ago, and still remains the worst day of my life, to date. It wasn’t bad because I was worried about him. I knew in my heart I would see him again. It was bad because I couldn’t stand the thought of the rest of my life without him. I still think about him every single day. It wasn’t until after he was gone that I realized he was my best friend.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

A Look Back: The Honeymoon

Since Tuesday was my anniversary, I have still been in memory mode. My wedding/honeymoon is probably my favorite memory to look back on and remember. It was so much fun. So happy and perfect…*sigh


Anyway, 3 years ago today, I was still on my honeymoon. We scheduled a sailing excursion, but it was cancelled due to weather (twice). We went to an aquarium, which I kind of thought might be a little dull, but it was actually really interesting. We checked out all the local shops. We visited the beach pretty much every day. Why wouldn’t we? It was right across the street! And, we ate Cold Stone every day. No kidding. How did I not feel guilty about that? We didn’t eat out much. We cooked in the little kitchen in our tiny cottage. We had plenty of time to just hang out and enjoy each other’s company.

This is where we stayed… We loved it.

The Crescent

screened porch, in case we didn't want to sit in the yard

The afternoon of our wedding, we saw the family off and came directly back to this couch for a nap!

Where we ate most of our meals

I love king size beds.  I always sleep well in a king size.  (There was no TV in the room when we stayed there, just the one in the living room)

Thanks for letting me reminisce and share my memories with you! 

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Anniversary

Three years ago…
At 8:30am Eastern Time, I walked onto a beach of soft, white sand. It was slightly overcast that morning, which provided the perfect light to bring out the colors and contrasts of God’s beautiful creation. It was more beautiful that morning than any other day that week. Pictures couldn’t capture the beauty we beheld that day.

With a bouquet of white daisies and yellow roses, and a few white orchids in my hair, I made my way to the water’s edge, where the man God had made just for me was waiting. There, we stood together in the warm ocean, with a few family and friends gathered around, and listened to the preacher talk about leaving our families and cleaving to each other. It was a simple ceremony, just like we’d wanted it. We didn’t want any tradition or extravagance to take away from the focus that day: the commitment we were making to each other and to God.

I couldn’t have asked for a happier, more beautiful day. It truly was the happiest day of my life. I love to look back on that day, and the wonderful week that followed. We spent time shopping, eating, resting, learning, exploring. And, we spent a lot of time on that same beach, talking and laughing and enjoying each other.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Untitled

She filled her special cup with the company logo with ice water, and sat down at her desk. What she really wanted was a grande non-fat vanilla/hazelnut latte from starbucks. She buried herself in work, trying to ignore the fact that she’d awakened an hour and a half early that morning and hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. Being that she was seven months pregnant, lack of sleep was not something she could easily ignore. The news she’d received the day before still stuck in her head. It wasn’t something that was going to be forgotten anytime soon, or ever. It wasn’t shocking news. She’d known it was coming. It was twenty three years in the making, after all, and she was only twenty seven. It felt, at that moment, as if her whole life had led up to this. She was sad. She was always sad when she thought about this, and the fact that she couldn’t fix it. But she didn’t cry. Not even her raging pregnancy hormones made her cry. She was used to not being able to fix it. It hurt, though. A little piece of her heart longed to tell someone. The rest of her wanted to bury it. She had, on very few occasions, talked to people about this topic. It wasn’t easy for her to talk about. For some reason, she felt like she should be used to the way things were. She felt that way today, too. Today, though, it was different. It was more final, though still unknown. She felt like stone, strong and cold, but at the same time, she felt weak. She heard the rumble of thunder outside her office building, and it seemed to shake her to her core. Rain seemed appropriate at that moment. Six months. She didn’t know what to do with this information. She wanted to go back and change things. She had wanted that for as long as she could remember. She had wondered how it would end, but now that the end was nearer, she wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening. The prediction could be wrong, after all. There was a discrepancy in some of the information leading to this prediction. But, she knew in her heart, it didn’t change anything. It might change the timeline, but the timeline was just an educated guess to begin with. The fact remained. Her sweet Daddy, who let her dance on his feet as a little girl and told her how pretty and special she was, who made her smile and molded her into the woman she was today, who she had helplessly watched suffer for so long, was dying.
To be continued...

Friday, July 9, 2010

The Secular Workplace

In the business world, you often give special treatment to those who are well off. Ford Motor Company giving free vehicles to Toby Keith comes to mind. And, I’ve always thought it was backwards. I’ve seen it in my own job too. I work with business owners, and there are certain customers that I am required to “baby” more than the others. Never mind that they don’t do most of their business with us, the fact that they are a big business with lots of revenue means they could benefit us, so we want to keep them happy. I use “we” very loosely there. Although I am expected to give them special treatment, I don’t always do it, unless specifically instructed. I feel like it’s my job to provide them with good service, but that goes for all of my customers. I don’t like treating them any different than anyone else.
The expectation that I will treat them differently has bothered me more today. Maybe I’m in a bad mood. Maybe working a job I don’t particularly enjoy for over a 1 ¾ years is getting to me. Maybe it’s the longing to quit and stay home with the baby on the way. Whatever it is, when I got a call from one such customer today, and they expected special treatment, to the point of not even being friendly to me anymore, it really got to me. I immediately thought of James 2:1-4, which says “
My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in.  If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

I know, working in a secular occupation, it is sometimes hard to find a balance. For me, today, it just reinforces the thought that this is not what I’m called to do. Please pray that God will provide a way for me to stay home with the baby, and give me clear direction from there.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Ma Familia. Part 2: The Baby Brother

As I have previously talked about, I really enjoyed growing up with brothers. I always longed for a sister, but I wouldn’t trade my brothers for the world. I recently talked about my older brother. So, it’s only fair that I devote the same attention to my baby brother. Never mind that the “baby” brother is 23 ½ years old, I’ll call him what I want.


He’s younger than me, so he didn’t teach me things or take care of me. No, in many cases, it was the opposite. I took it upon myself to look out for him. We are a little bit closer in age than my older brother and me. So, we spent a lot of our childhood together. We built forts together, made tents out of bed sheets together; climbed trees together, went places together, and used our imaginations together. And now, he lives about half an hour away from me (because I convinced him to move away from all that he knew, and locate closer to me), and he works with my husband. He has been invaluable in the construction of our house. We need help. I call Asa. Help arrives. I can call him at 9pm, and he’ll be there to pull wire, despite the fact that he has to work the next morning. He does it because we’re family, and that’s the way we were raised to treat family. It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve learned that all families are not like that. I’ve seen it firsthand, but it’s still hard for me to grasp.

And as much as he is like my brother Josh, he is completely different. He isn’t mechanical. He doesn’t know how to operate every piece of equipment he’s ever come in contact with. But, he can tell you more about animals than you’ll ever learn at a zoo. He knows what snake is most poisonous, and what kinds live where. He can tell you what a serval cat is, and what they were famous for in history, and even what they are like in person. When we were kids, he had a subscription to ZooBooks magazine. He kept every issue, and read and re-read each one. And he still does. He is as much of an animal lover as I have ever seen. I can easily picture him as a park ranger at Yellowstone, or a National Geographic Photographer.