Texas Trip March

Chuck and I recently took a leap into unfamiliar waters, taking a road trip to Texas with two grandkids, sans parents. Last Friday morning, we loaded up the new Jetta with Charis and Blaise in the back seat and headed south for Arlington, Texas to visit the Texas Roaches, Keenan, Sara, Ari, Keira, and Asher. Charis and Blaise were very excited to be going to see their cousins and aunt and uncle. The trip down went very well, only stopping twice at the usual places, the OK welcome center to have lunch and the Texas welcome center to run off some wiggles and to pose for a picture.

We arrived at Keenan's house in the afternoon and relaxed outside while the kids ran and played. Saturday held big excitement of a train ride to Ft. Worth to see the beautiful Water Gardens. It was a hot day and the water was very tempting, but signs every where prohibited wading or swimming. We had to be content to water gaze and clamber around. We had fun people watching too while we cooled off in the shade.

Back home, the kids rested in front of a movie while the dads went shopping. Later, Sara fixed us a mini seder meal of matzah ball soup, matzah, and haroset. Mmmm!

Our little passengers weren't quite as happy on the trip home, and were very worn out, but it went pretty well, especially after Blaise fell asleep, finally.

A big thank you to our hosts for putting us up and all the cooking and cleaning. We had a great time!

And thanks to Kelsey for helping me with the slide show. Sara helped me with this before, but I lost the instructions.

Wings of Life

A friend asked me for the recipe for potato salad, the only potato salad I make and have been making for over 30 years. It's in a cookbook called Wings of Life that I bought when Chuck was in law school in Lawrence and I worked in the library. It was a book I was cataloging and I convinced Chuck to let me buy it as I promised to cook delicious meals for him. It was pretty clear at this point that I was not my mother, not one of those homemaker types that cooks up hot meat and potato meals every day. Some days I just didn't FEEL like cooking. And I was getting a reputation in my family when they would come to visit. Oh, you want to eat? The whole hospitality thing took years to get used to and I'm still "practicing". Chuck would complain about it back in the day, but when I did cook on a regular basis, he complained that he was putting on weight. But couples adjust to each other. As a result of my not cooking, Chuck learned that he liked being in the kitchen at times. It was either cook or go out to eat and we couldn't afford that, so he cooked. Now my spotty meal planning works well for us. Sometimes I cook, sometimes Chuck cooks, and sometimes, often times, we simply graze. At dinner time, we saunter into the kitchen and see what we can throw together. I am so blessed to have a husband that likes this system as much as I do. As for Wings of Life, I don't remember what recipes I used from that other than the potato salad, and that recipe was worth the price of the book.

Natural woman

I have to admit, I'm kind of surprised that my daughter would turn out to be a big proponent of natural birth. I was a part of the hippie generation, and going natural was rather a fad and both of my ob/gyns were reisigned to this and hospitals made an effort to accomodate women's wishes. But going natural today flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Most women have the notion that labor and delivery should be entirely devoid of pain and see no problem with asking for drugs. Doctors and hospital are thrilled about this and more than eager to comply and everywhere you turn, you hear the fear. Not fear of being cut open, or taking drugs to dull the senses and what it might do to the baby, as was my fear, but fear of the natural process of giving birth. I figured that God made me, my body, and gave me the ability to carry a child and deliver the child and then nourish it throughout it's infancy. Call me naive, but it worked out splendidly.

Kelsey, my daughter, had her firstborn in a hospital. Her wishes were to have a natural childbirth, but the professionals got in the way. As soon as we walked in the door, the staff was in control. Kelsey was made to lie down, endure a catheter, told not to eat or drink, was hooked up to every kind of monitoring machine and then when things didn't move along (surprise surprise) fast enough for them, they gave her drugs to speed them up. That caused more pain so they gave her drugs for the pain. Brent and I stood on the sidelines, not really necessary except to give Kelsey our love. It was an agonizingly long labor and so hard on my sweet girl.

In her second pregnancy, Kelsey researched natural births and gained a lot of helpful information, including hiring a doula to assist through labor and to be an advocate at the hospital. What a difference this made! Kelsey labored at home with the doula and Brent and me, arriving at the hospital with only enough time for the doctor on call to catch the baby. It was comical to see the staff running around with their forms, but with not much to do. It was over before they go started! This experiece gave Kelsey the confidence to go for a home birth with baby three.

When Kelsey went into labor for her third child at one o'clock a.m., she counted contractions by herself and tried to sleep in between until 6:00, not wanting to wake anyone unnecessarily. The midwife and her doula arrived about 9. They were wise enough to let Kelsey make the calls. Clearly, Kelsey was in charge, not a doctor, or staff. If she wanted to walk, she walked. If she was hungry or thirsty, she ate and drank. Sometimes she sat with all of us, sometimes she just wanted to be alone or with her husband. When things got tough, we were there for her to lean on and cry on and to pray for her. We all felt like an important support team for Kelsey. At 1:44 p.m., our little Iris made her appearance, surprising us all. We knew the time was close but not that close! The long dance was over at last. Kelsey cried tears of relief and joy.

Now for the real work, raising the children, and that is also painful at times. But children are a blessing from the Lord!

New Year's Eve 2011

 

Just took a quick look at our 2011 pictures in Picasa. It's like the entire year at a glance, in living color. Almost all of the photos are of my treasures, my family. My husband, my children, my grandchildren are my reason to get up in the morning and carry on. I thank my Father in Heaven for everyone of them and ask His blessings on them.

I am also very grateful and relieved that the Creator of the Universe cannot be voted out of office. He was and is and is to come! This is reassuring as political leaders come and go, so greedy for power, so full of lies. All we want is to live our lives, love and provide for our families, enjoy our friends, enjoy freedom. Sadly we share the planet with those who want to kill and steal and destroy, and many of those are in positions of power.

I don't know what is coming in the next year, who will be president, how many freedoms will be left, how prosperous we will we be, but I do know that God sits on his throne and he will not change no matter how many claim he doesn't exist. He is Lord!! He is King! Allelujah!

Come Lord Jesus and revive us again!

Toilet paper

My friend Shana has started a blog with a bang and much enthusiasm so I thought I'd blow the dust off of mine and crank it up again. It's one week until Christmas. My last blog was in the heat of summer and now it's sweater weather. Woot! Is it just me, or have the past three months just whizzed by in a blur? Seems like yesterday I was tossing out the rotting pumpkin. Someone has made the observation that life is like a roll of toilet paper. It goes slowly at the start and then, zip, you find yourself clinging with that bit of glue to the cardboard tube. Not that much paper left on my roll. Sigh.

Ok! That was a cheery bit of insight. On to happier things. One of my granddaughters has a birthday tomorrow. She will be five. Grandchildren are the sweet reward for nearing the end of the roll. I'm going to hang on as long as I can.

Hotter than a match head

The high temps made me think of the journals I wrote in 2000 and 2001. There truly is nothing new on the Earth, hot summers come and hot summers go but I will be very happy when this hot summer goes. In 2000, September 2, I wrote, "We were charmed by Cheyenne, WY, and even talked about moving there. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the magic of the day or perhaps because it wasn't 105 degrees there." Yes, it was still 105 degrees in September. I remember being very bummed about it. Packing for cool British Columbia was difficult with the heat blazing in Kansas. Later in the journal I remarked that Canadians were so relaxed and laid back because they didn't have to suffer in the heat.

In 2001, "Our trip began much as it did in 2000, except that we left the first week in August instead of September, and what a difference a month makes. Winds again blasted Wichita with over 100 degrees, drying and burning both plant and animal. There had been 20 days of this when we left, with no end in sight. We expected to drive out of it like before, but even Wyoming was hot." As I recall, it was still very hot in Kansas when we returned mid September. Sigh. I am trying to keep a better attitude this time, being grateful for the a/c and knowing it will come to an end. And maybe next summer will be better.

Life on Mars

Here is another mini series I recommend. A few months ago, Chuck and I watched the British version of Life on Mars. We saw this first because it is the original. Last night we started on the American version. It promises to be just as good. I suppose you could call this science fiction since it deals with time travel and they do try to explain how someone from 2008 suddenly finds himself in 1973. It doesn't make much sense, but that matters little. It is interesting to see what a man from the present reacts to life 35 years ealier. Sam Tyler is hunting down a killer who likely has taken Sam's girlfriend. During the hunt, Sam is hit by a car and wakes up in 1973. Conveniently, he is dressed in appropriate clothes, has a car, ID, and a job at the same police station where he had been working in 2008, only this time at a lower position. He goes a little crazy at first, understandably, but soon settles in to fighting crime while trying to figure out why he is there and how to get back. I enjoyed the British version to hear all the fun slang. In the NYC story, it is a hoot to see things come to life from a time when I was young. They show the twin towers, which gives an eerie feeling of sadness and doom to come. Sam meets the serial murderer he was chasing in 2008 but now he is a little boy. He also meets himself and his young mother. I'm ready to go watch the next episode!