This weekend while we were doing yard work, my siblings discovered a little wild bunny that had fallen into the entrance of our crawlspace and could not get out. While everyone adopted the new creature as a pet, dubbing him (or her) “Riley”, it seems that Grace’s Golden Retriever Keats has taken the bunny as his personal friend.


Keats and Riley

Highlights of my Week

Sold my car! God has been so gracious every step of the way. The transaction was very smooth.

Received the parts to put the CD player into my new car. Once that’s done, I’m hoping anything having to do with a car (except driving one) is finished for a few weeks.

Learned that filling out job applications can be akin to taking very long tests in school. 12 pages with essay questions!

Finished writing the Civil War book with Mrs. Harris in NH. Well, finished the initial writing of it. It’s the longest piece of work I’ve ever written. Over 300 pages – not double-spaced. Next up? Getting it published!

I have but one family tree left to completely piece together after working on this for hours over the past several months. Of course, it is the longest tree I have compiled. Only well over 3,000 individuals dating back to 1690.

Giving myself a rather deep cut on my thumb with my toenail…don’t ask.

Being in-between jobs is one of those times in life when I wonder daily what I ought to be doing. Teaching? Writing? Filing papers? I’m not sure, but I do know a few things I absolutely don’t want to be doing. One is going into sales.

Buying a car is a hassle. Especially if you have to sale one on top of that. This past weekend, by God’s grace and mercy, we got my new car registered. There are still a few loose ends that will have to be dealt with later on account of the way I bought it, but I can drive it like my own now without any concern. I prayed a lot that morning that things would go through. I prayed even more at the motor vehicle department when things didn’t look too good. But it’s done. Praise God!

On Saturday I took my old car “across the river” (the Wabash River) to West Lafayette to show it to an Indian student at Purdue. He liked it, but he wanted to show it to a mechanic just to make sure everything on it was good, especially since this would be his first big purchase. So, we met this afternoon at a mechanic in Lafayette. Now I am not really a paranoid person, but I can have a very vivid imagination. It gets worse when my dad keeps going over the same things so I won’t get swindled (or whatever) because I am a girl. And I think his imagination is worse than mine! So, I prayed. I prayed that my Heavenly Father would take care of me. I prayed the mechanic would say it’s a good car (for its ten years), the young man looking at it would be pleased, and we could get the sale in order. Basically, I just wanted God to take of me. After all, I am His child. And it is His car.

Well, the Indian student was accompanied by an older man and his wife, the older man helping him understand things and getting a look at the car himself. While we waited on a mechanic, we fell to talking. What a timely meeting! The older man was quite impressed that a young lady would not only drive a manual car but had also just purchased yet another manual car. He asked what I did for a living, gave some suggestions for looking for tutoring work in the Lafayette area, and then I asked him what he had done for a living. I wasn’t surprised that he had been a professor at Purdue. A veterinary school professor. And as my sister Grace was with me, I turned the conversation to dogs and her Golden Retriever Keats who has allergies. He wasn’t surprised at this, gave some suggestions for treating Keats, and offered the name of the woman who is now in charge of the veterinary school at Purdue and specializes in animal allergies.

Meanwhile, the mechanic had taken the car for a spin and raised it up to take a look at it with the student and retired professor. The mechanic told me I had a nice car for ten years. We made arrangements and I followed them across town to a bank in order to get a cashier’s check for a deposit on my old car. On Saturday, I will be paid the remainder and we will transfer everything to him.

Now I could probably be told my a hundred people that I should have done this or that during this transaction, but I think my Heavenly Father truly watched over me today. Even as a girl, I was treated with respect and asked how I wanted this or that or if this or that was okay. The Lord has given me what I asked He would for my old car. He has given me but one buyer (which is all I need). He has made every step clear and easy. I am praying He will do the same on Saturday when the final part of this transaction takes place.

And, you know what? I know He will!

Inter-library loan was invented for people like me. People who can never find every book they want to read at one library. It gets especially hard when you read one book and find out there’s a sequel, yet the library doesn’t have it. I’ve never quite figured that out…why a library has the first book but not the second. Or why it sometimes has the first and third books, but not the second. Anyhow, I had that happen to me about a month ago. So, I went to the reference desk and filled out a paper in order to get the second book.

A couple of weeks later I got a call on my cell phone, some nice recording telling me that “Sturm, Melissa M. has a book on hold at the Tippecanoe County Library.” Being in Texas when I received the phone call, I had to wait until that weekend to go get it. I expected to be handed some little paperback resembling the first of the two books I had read – really good books always being hidden by some cheap-looking cover. Instead, the librarian handed me an old burgundy colored book with gold writing I thought was going to fall apart in my hand!

Walking out the door, I very carefully opened the cover of the book and found the swirly handwriting of someone and the date “1899”. Upon further investigation, I found the copyright of the book was 1898! I held in my hand a book over 110 years old! An interlibrary loan book over 110 years old! I could hardly believe it. Who would imagine any library in the modern US having a book even fifty years old, let alone 110? And if a library did have such a book, why were they letting it out on interlibrary loan? I’m not saying this particular volume is worth any grand sum of money, but still. I have several old books in my collection, the oldest of which is probably 100 years old; but I would hesitate to lend them out to just anybody. Do you know what some people do with books? Toss them about with a shrug? Set cups on them? Take them to the beach? That’s fine for those cheap romantic paperbacks or sci-fi thrillers, but it is not okay for a book of over a hundred years old, bound in cloth and imprinted with gold lettering.

Who could have thought you could feel honored by receiving an interlibrary loan book? Well, I feel quite honored. And I have taken good care of the book as I have made my way through the adventure of Rudolph Rassendyll, the woman he loves, Fritz, Sapt, and their arch-enemy Rupert of Hentzau. I’m just going to hate returning it to the library. I wish I could keep it for my own collection!

Unofficial Holidays, Part 2 of 6

Today is…

This game came upon the market in 1948. It was invented by an out-of-work architect who studied games, our English language and the letter frequency in The New York Times to come up with the tile distribution we still use today. With the help of a game-loving entrepreneur – who helped him rename the game “Scrabble” which is a real word meaning “to grope frantically” – a “factory” was set up in Connecticut where twelve games could be made in an hour, stamping the lettered tiles one at a time.

The game was not an immediate success, and it was four years before – as legend has it – the president of Macy’s discovered it on a vacation and ordered some for his store. Within a year, everyone “had to have one” and the rest is history.

So get out those boards of tan, red and blue squares; your bag of wooden lettered tiles; and a pad of paper with a pencil and get started making words! My first draw is:

C G Y E A I T

Let’s see…

EAT
YEA
TEA
YET
GET
TAG
GATE
ATE
CAY
CAGE
CAGEY

I hope you have a better draw!

He is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Tomorrow my sister Grace and I fly down to Texas for a whirlwind visit with our grandfather and sister Sally. And to pick up my new…



I hope it’s as nice as it looks!

Whirlwinds and Tornados

I was at the bank on Tuesday wiring some money, so I had to wait a few minutes for everything to be put in order. While I waited, I watched a little bit of the news that was on television. The weather forecaster was talking about the tornado that was hitting Florida. I felt he might be talking about my life.

This week has been a ride and a half. When I woke up Monday morning, I thought I had tennis lessons. Then I needed to drop a deposit at the bank, run an errand, drop by the library and give my sister Grace her first driving lesson on a stick. An unplanned stop at a coffee ship giving out free lattes was about the only “adventure” I thought I would have that day. I intended to go home, work on my family tree, maybe write a little, send out a birthday card, and get on the internet yet again to look for a new car. Something that was quickly becoming the daily headache of my life.

Okay, for all my usual complacency I have my moments of being stubborn. One of them has been in this area of finding a new vehicle. I want a small SUV with a stick shift. No, I am not crazy. (Even though people look at me as if I am when I tell them that.) It’s what I like, okay? And six years ago when I was looking for my first car, I prayed the Lord would give me a stick shift. And He did. And as my God hasn’t changed in six years, I didn’t see why that was such a crazy request this time around. Granted, it limits your search by 75%, but that’s a bad thing. For shopping for cars is not something I particularly enjoy.

Well, I found a car. In Texas. I sent the link to my grandfather who had offered to look at cars down there for me. He went to Arlington that very day, sent me pictures, told me about the things he looked at and learned, and said it was a very nice vehicle. After talking to my dad about it that night, we agreed it looked good and was a go. So, down to Arlington my grandfather and sister Sally went on Tuesday to look over a few more things and negotiate the price. By supper time, I had me a new car sitting in my grandfather’s driveway. I fly down on Tuesday with my sister Grace to make a short visit, put a few things in order and then drive my new Hyundai Tucson back to Indiana Thursday and Friday. Isn’t God awesome?

In the midst of all this, I got a phone call. It was from one of the schools I had sent my resume to back in February. The headmaster wished to set up an interview with me for Wednesday. Words wouldn’t describe the state that put me in! I was so nervous as one o’clock approached on Wednesday. When the phone rang, I took a deep breath and answered it. The headmaster of the school was very friendly and enthusiastic. He put me right at ease, and we had a very nice interview/conversation. I would say it was a success, although I have a couple of weeks to wait and see if I move on to “step two”. Half the time I’m very happy with having gotten this far and am ready to take on 4th graders tomorrow. The other half of my time is spent wondering what in the world I have gotten myself into!

The Proverbs very wisely states “for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth”. Amen to that!