The Unexpected

Life is full of unexpected things. From going out to your car one morning to find a flat tire to some guy asking if you want to go play mini golf on Saturday which ends up turning your life upside down. We all know life is full of unexpected things.

When Ed decided to pursue the job opportunity here in Indiana, we had every expectation that it was going to work out. Certainly not every detail would fall into place when so many things were unknown, but we clearly expected his new employer to be a solid guy with a solid offer. After all, we picked up and moved nearly 400 miles, Ed leaving behind if not a great job at least a steady one. We now know that nothing is “solid” in this world, especially people.

The whole thing started unraveling before Christmas, although Ed didn’t tell me until after the holidays. To explain the whole situation is rather pointless and, in truth, I don’t think we really understand why it happened. But his last day was to be December 31. At least his former employer pointed him in the direction of a new job. But for several weeks, things were very confusing. Ed worked the new job, then went back to the old job, then worked the new job…and then nobody wanted him and as of last Wednesday, he didn’t have a job at all. 

For the most part, Ed seemed to take it all in stride, although he confessed he felt useless and not worth a lot. I felt miserable. I had made him leave his home and everything comfortable to him. I felt it was all my fault he found himself in this situation and I wanted to fix it. I told him we could go back. I was already figuring in my head how much that would cost, trying to work out how I could work fulltime (the company I work for would lovethat) while he looked for a job and even thinking our old landlord might still have our place open. Ed told me to stop feeling that way. It wasn’t my fault. Home was anywhere the kids and I were, and he hadn’t liked his job in Pittsburgh anyhow. The Lord would work it out. And while I believed the last part, I can’t say my faith was the size of a mustard seed. I was still trying to figure out the best way to fix this problem.

So the last couple of weeks have been very stressful. I dashed about the house, trying to keep life normal for the kids (something we were just falling into with the boxes finally unpacked and the holidays over), doing all the regular chores but trying to still every fifteen or more minutes I could at my laptop working – tallying up the minutes so they added up to as many hours as I could possibly squirrel away while still doing laundry, cooking meals, cleaning, helping Ed look for jobs and still get a few hours of sleep, exercise and reading just to keep me sane. 

After the first week, I think the exhaustion just set in. I was too tired to worry anymore, too tired to make more plans, too tired to fight the inevitable. All I could do was pray God would provide day by day and continue to work as many hours as possible to earn as much as I could so at least we wouldn’t have to dip too much into our savings. And beg Him for a job for Ed – maybe not the career of his dreams, but at least something that would keep us floating until a job he could really like came around.

And I can tell you today that God does hear us. Of course He does not answer us as we think we should be answered, but He knows. He tells us to pray for our daily bread. I sat down on Monday to write several of the checks due at the end of/first of the month to discover that what Ed made in January and what I will get paid when the month ends not only covers our expenses, but will get us through most of February. And today Ed got a job.

We’ll see how it goes. It’s through a temp company that provides the hourly workers for Subaru which has a huge plant here in Lafayette. For the first month, he’ll work the first shift as he trains. He’s not 100% sure what he’ll be doing. He may not know for sure until the month is out, but I pray it will be something he can enjoy. His shifts will change after that, but at least they should be steady on a week-to-week basis and maybe even month-to-month, an improvement over his job in Pittsburgh when every week’s schedule was completely different. And if he finds himself having this job for 18 months to 2 years, Subaru will probably pick him up themselves, a job that could be well worth having. 

It’s a step of faith. But isn’t everything? Because the unexpected does happen. But, thankfully, it never happens outside of God’s sovereign hand. 

Emry - My Little Girl

We are now in the months leading up to Emry’s 4^thbirthday. To her, it might as well be days. This is the season of birthdays in my family. My sister Jenny was December. My sister Grace and my Mom are January. My nephew Jay, Ethan, my sister Sally and myself are February. My brother Caleb is March. With so many birthdays, Emry keeps counting off who has already had theirs and when hers comes in the order of it all. She simply can’t wait to be four. Because after that she will be five.

Yes, Emry is 3 going on 13. Somedays I mean that quite literally. She can be a drama queen. Already if something doesn’t go her way, she dashes off to her room, shuts her door, crawls up into her bed to cry and tells me to go away if I attempt to talk to her. Only last week after one dragged out episode, Ed came into the living room where I was working and asked desperately, “I only had one brother – and a much younger one. I don’t know what is happening. Am I doing something wrong with Emry? Is this normal?” Honestly, this was a question I didn’t expect to hear for at least another six or seven years – hopefully ten. So either she’s getting it all over with now or we are in for a long haul in a decade or so.

But other days, she is simply three and learning that life is a lot bigger than three. As she learns to count beyond ten, infinity is beginning to lurk but without any concept. Recently I was trying to explain that even Grandma and Mama get a year older on their birthdays. Her basic grasp of this conversation ended with the fact that her hair will be white when she is old and Mama is old since my hair is turning white. I’m pretty sure a few strands were added to my growing collection at that very moment…

Then just a few days ago, she sat at the dining room table over breakfast and informed me what she was going to do when she grew up. It began with going to space. I’m not exactly sure how she came to this idea, but she seemed quite certain that this was the career path to take. She further informed me that she would then have enough money to become a beekeeper. If nothing else, her career choices thus far are certainly eclectic.

As the holidays are now over and everything is unpacked, we have been trying to get back into routine. This has included at least fifteen or twenty minutes of school every day. Most days we spend time in her workbooks that simply go over colors, pencil control and other things as well as a page or two of her phonics which also includes penmanship. Every day includes a reading session before she has her rest time. This moment of the day was hit-and-miss during the transition and it was easy to tell how quickly she forgot what she had learned. Fortunately, she has been able to recover within a couple of weeks and is now proceeding quite well. She is sounding out words, reading short sentences and I can ask her to sound out a word in just about any book we read now. She has also started instructing Ethan in his colors, as you can see from the picture below.

In reading, she is certainly my daughter. In her girly fashionista ways, I’m not sure where she came from. Aunt Abby (whose hair is just like Emry’s and my own) told her when we moved here that she needed to get something to smooth out all those fly-away wisps of curls. Emry completely agreed and Abby said she’d give her something, but forgot. That’s okay, though, because Emry has discovered conditioner and some of my hair stuff that does the trick rather well. I have introduced her to a curling iron, mostly to help the curls look less fly-by-night on Sunday mornings. She is enamored. She likes makeup and already informed me that her nails are in need of some paint even if it isn’t sandal season yet. Sparkly is her favorite form of attire. Most days necklaces and bracelets are a must. 

Truly, I am glad she is only three. I am dreading thirteen…

Snow Day 2!

What’s better than a snow day? Two snow days! 

Last Saturday’s snow barely melted over the past week as the temperatures remained around freezing. So when it started snowing again Saturday, we were all very excited.

This was a very different snow day. The kids did go out to play – not once, but twice. They played for nearly an hour in the backyard, doing who knows what as they tumbled about, swept snow off the furniture and then colored it red and blue with some squirt bottles of colored water. I had to call them in, coaxing them inside with the promise of hot chocolate and marshmallows. Later, after dinner, they went back out when Ed shoveled the drive and sidewalk. The promise that they could go back out the next day was the only thing that brought them back in.

Otherwise, it was one of those days that I wished I could curl up in a chair with a pile of books, blankets and warm mug of coffee while watching the snow falling past the windows. But those days are long gone. I chased kids about, did a couple of loads of laundry, made dinner, made sure everyone got fed and bathed, baked, finally finished all my Christmas letters and worked. A profitable day, yes. Not exactly the way I love to enjoy snowy days, but I did get a warm mug of coffee. 

Ethan - My Little Man

It’s hard to believe that Ethan is already nearly two years of age. It’s one of those surreal sort of feelings. Two years is a very short period of time and yet what was life like without him? Well, it was certainly less messy. And quite a bit more calm. Probably most mothers can say that about life before sons.

Ethan is my second born. Whatever that may mean for his personality, it also means I have contemplated on his life and achievements much less than I did Emry’s. Which is why I want to post more blogs not just about my little man but also about Emry. I hope these posts will remind me of the little things, make me laugh in years to come and be stories they can have when they are older. Maybe, too, my handful of readers will find them entertaining. For one things is certain: as exhausting as kids can be, they can also be quite amusing.

Ethan has turned out to be my great communicator. He has learned to talk much faster than Emry and, others have told me many times, much faster than most kids his age. You truly can hold a conversation with him. And, he’s learned to be quite literal. The other day I asked him if something he had eaten was “yummy in his tummy”.

“No,” he shook his head with a curious look on his face. “In my mouth.”

And while he’s always been thoroughly a boy, you can certainly tell he has only a sister. For a long time, Disney princesses were his main topic of fantasy conversation. Then we moved to Indiana and his older cousin Beto (10 months older than him) has had an impact on his imagination: Spiderman! (And Flash, and Batman, and Hulk, and…well, you get the idea. But mostly Spiderman.) Such an impact, in fact, that as he sat on the kitchen counter while I prepped dinner the other night I asked him if he liked his train set. He shook his head sadly and said no. His cars and car mat? Again, a shake of the head and a no.

“What do you like, Ethan?” I asked.

“Beto’s Spiderman,” he answered matter-of-factly.

And if you ask him what he wants on his 2-year birthday cake, he will promptly tell you Spiderman.

Ethan’s imagination also seems more vivid than Emry’s at his age, but that may be because he has someone to teach him to pretend. Not only does Emry dash about the house imagining monsters, or dinosaurs, or whatever but when at my parents they run up and down the hall with Beto, armed to the hilt with flashlights as monsters chase them about. So, if I come across Ethan dashing out my bedroom, he’s bound to stop, give me his best I’m-scared-but-not-really grin and declare, “Monsters!”

In the midst of all the fun, Ethan is proving to be as bright as Emry. He happily sings the ABCs with her and gets most of them spot on. He will also happily count to ten with you, only skipping the number four. He sits at the table when Emry is working on her school and repeats back the sound of whatever letter we’re working on in her phonics book. And he has picked up on the Scripture verses we’re memorizing quite handedly. I confess I am a bit surprised.

Even potty training seems to be going a bit better with him. He’s certainly not there yet. For one I haven’t given it my all for three days in a row like I attempted with Emry (which didn’t work). However, within a couple of weeks he is already coming up to me and telling me he needs to go potty after he has just gone in his diaper. In that sense, he is ahead of Emry. Which tells me I probably need to make a grand three-day attempt. But he is the second born…some things I just let fall through the cracks.

Happy Birthday to the best Mom ever!!!

Mom and Me (1980)

Snow Day!

My kids are certainly my kids…they LOVE snow days!!!! So, we were all quite happy to hear we were expecting one to three inches of snow. It was even better when it turned into more like six inches of snow! The kids wanted to go out as soon as they woke up to falling snow, but since Ed had a couple of errands to run we played, and did some chores, and had lunch, and then pulled out the big box of winter outerwear. Bundled from head to toe, we loaded up in the car and went to probably the only hill in all of Indiana you can sled on. (Well, at least in Lafayette.) 

Admittedly, it is the first time we have taken either kid sledding.  Strange when you consider we lived in Pittsburgh. Emry would have been old enough the winter Ethan was born, but by the time we had any good snow we had Ethan. Last winter would have been a brilliant one to take the kids sledding, but we just never got around to it. We weren’t going to miss it this time.

I figured Emry would love it. She simply loves being outside in snow. Actually, she didn’t seem impressed with sledding. Snow angels, snow balls and simply rolling down the snowy hill was more her style. Ethan, though…well, he screamed when we told him it was time to go home and cried all the way home. He loved it that much!

 Emry, Ethan and me getting ready for a ride.

 Ethan and Papa riding again.

Emry making a snow angel.

Happy 29^thBirthday, Gracie!

Grace – age 5

The Incorrigibles

As a teenager, I read books over, and over, and over again. The Chronicles of Narnia?I’ve read each of them at least four times, some of them seven or eight (especially The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)and I keep wondering how old Emry’s going to be before I can read them to her aloud and enjoy them all over again…and again. When I discovered Janette Oke, I can’t say how many times I read some of hers. Loves Enduring PromiseI probably read twenty times. I miss those days.

These days I simply haven’t the time to read a book over, over and over again. Not that I haven’t found a few I would love to re-read but with a growing list of nearly 300 books I want to read in this lifetime, who has time to re-read? But this past year the final installment of the The Incorrigibles by Maryrose Wood came out in May. I have loved these books so much, I pulled them off my shelf and started re-reading at number one. The number two, number three, number four…and I simply couldn’t wait. It was May. Number six was out and the copy I bought kept calling to me. So, I read it. Then, I read number five. And number six again! And now I’m wondering when Emry will be old enough to have them read to her. Although, I may re-read them again before that.

If you haven’t read the six books in The Incorrigibles series I highly encourage you to rush to your local library this moment and check the first one out. I won’t spoil anything about the feisty governess Penelope, the three children brought up by wolves, the quirky household they live in or the wonderful cast of characters who gather in the mystery surrounding them all. They are so delightful, you had better check out all six at once. 

I promise, you won’t want to put them down!

Reading Goal - 2019

 I like goals. I like giving myself something to achieve and getting it done. My number one problem with goals is I rush them in the end. Why? Because I’m already thinking about the next goal I want to accomplish.

My life makes it rather obvious that my goals are not lofty. I’ll never sit in the Oval Office, or become a CEO of some multi-million dollar company, and I never went to Ivy League college to achieve anything like that. And, lately, my number one goal is to get through the day without Ethan getting stuck on something he wasn’t supposed to be up on to start with. Or Emry doing her school without tears because the “H” she just wrote wasn’t perfect. Little goals. But even those are something very difficult to achieve.

Last year I didn’t have a precise reading goal. I wanted to read some old favorites. (Did that!) And I wanted to read a few books off my shelf I have had for years but simply never read. (Did not do that…libraries full of books to check out are such distractions!) So, this year I thought I would be more precise. I just had to figure out what that would mean.

I did think about reading the third (and final!) volume of Shelby Foote’s Civil War trilogy. I can’t remember when I read the first one. The second was my reading goal in 2017 (nailed it!). The third one is…HUGE! I have to remind myself that it includes all the footnotes, and references, and appendices…but still. I just wasn’t up for it.

Sooo…something else came to mind. I’m not sure why. Maybe I had Civil War on the mind. It’s not like I’ve seen the movie more than once and that had to be 15 or so years ago. Unlike women my grandmother’s age who think Clark Gable is the Hugh Jackman of his time, I see very little to like about the guy. And I spent most of the movie (all two VHS cassettes) wanting to through something at the television if it would just make Vivien Leigh stop whining. You might have guessed it by now. Yep. Gone with the Wind.

Back when I was in 7^thor 8^thgrade I had a friend a couple of years older than I who had read it and said it was much better than the movie. Although I knew the gist of the plot, I had not seen the movie then. Fifteen or so years ago I watched it just to say I had. Or maybe to figure out why my uncle swore he would never take my grandmother and her friends to the drive-in again, especially to watch a movie they sighed and fawned over every time Clark Cable walked on screen. My mom found the book at an old bookstore around that time, bought it, read it and said she liked it. For some reason, all that came back to mind so I have borrowed my mom’s copy and intend to get it read.

Honestly, it’s not a lofty goal. It certainly won’t take me a year to read a book a great deal shorter than War and Peacewhich took me only a summer to get through. But Ed is intimidated on my behalf. 

“Don’t you think you ought to get started on that?” he asked the night after I got it.

“I can’t,” I answered. “I got to finish this one first.” 

I showed him Jeff Shaara’s last Civil War novel The Fateful Lightningwhich I had borrowed from my sister Sally several weeks ago and was just getting into. (I like Shaara’s writing, but I have a psychological problem reading the last book in Civil War series. The fate of the South was decided well over 150 years ago, but I just hate reliving it and wishing it had been different. Besides, I also can’t stand William Tecumseh Sherman…little twirp.)

He look disconcerted on my behalf. After all, it is just as long as Gone with the Windif not a little bit longer.

But I’m not worried. It’ll get done. And I’ll let you know what I think…if I don’t end up throwing it at whiny Scarlett O’Hara, that is.