The Truck: In Conclusion

When I was born, my dad had a truck. It was a red truck. It had leather seats that were very hot to sit on after an afternoon at the pool. And I can remember camping in the back of it. Aside from that, I don’t have any clue what year it was, or what model, or how many miles it had on it. But I do know from stories it was a stick shift and did not have power steering.

I think my dad got his truck when he was eighteen. I don’t know how much he paid for it, but I do know it was less that he paid for the lawn mower he presently owns. He sold it when I was eight years old because there was no way it was going to make it all the way from Tennessee to New Hampshire. I will always remember that truck.

Last week, we officially said good-bye to Ed’s truck. He’s had his 2000 Ford Ranger for as long as I have known him. All told, he had it for twelve years and 214,000 miles. I never did drive it. (It was too special for that…namely, just getting it in gear took a special touch very few had.) But I did ride in it and so did Emry. So, we made sure we took a picture of it so Emry will know what the truck Papa had when she was born looked like.

Getting rid of it has been a long process. I can’t even remember when it started – a couple of months ago? We took it to the shop to see what it would take to get it fixed. The mechanics only managed to make it worse. So, after a long evening of going to get it, it not starting, giving up and going home…Ed decided we were done with it. Our best bet? We’d salvage it. We thought we’d get nearly $150 for that, which is better than nothing. But Ed had misplaced the title. That took a couple of weeks and $51, so we thought we’d get a $100 for it. Then a guy Ed works with said he could do better than that because it is registered through March and not in real bad shape. We actually got quite a few bites posting it on Craigslist, but we needed to get it towed back to the house. One afternoon, Ed went across town (which, in Pittsburgh is no easy feat – you might as well drive to Ohio which takes about the same amount of time) to meet the tow truck to get it back to our house where we then had one week to get rid of it before it would need to be moved for the weekly street cleaners in order to avoid a parking ticket. (When you park on the street, your cars have to be moved to the other side one day a week for a few hours so the street cleaners can – or cannot since they don’t clean every week – get by. Otherwise, you get a nice parking ticket.) But when Ed went to get it, a guy at the shop offered him $450 for it. Ed knew he might be able to do better than that, but if he took this offer he wouldn’t have to worry about tow trucks, street cleaners or parking tickets. So, he took it.

It’s taken a few weeks for the guy to get the money and all parties to get back from vacations, but this past week we officially signed over the title, dropped the insurance and collected the payment. And feel very blessed to have gotten much more from it than we expected. God is good.

Friends

Having moved about my entire life, I learned not to put a whole lot of stock in friendships. They come and go far too easily. And having good friends only to leave them hurts so much that I went through more than one cycle of simply trying not to make friends because I was only going to move away anyhow. I found books instead. Imaginations I could scribble down and take with me. Admittedly, I became a bit cynical about friendships…to the point where I thought I could just live without. Thankfully, God is above cynicism.

No matter where I lived, I made friends. God brought other girls into my life, and we couldn’t help but be friends. Most of these girls came for a season and departed when I moved away. But several have lasted through many moves. I am even one of those very blessed people that has those one or two really good friends that time doesn’t pale. We can pick right back up where we started every time we’re together.

So, despite years of cynicism I am here to state that friends are very special, and they are something God gives us to enrich our lives. How do I know that? Well, because I am at a place in life where I don’t have any friends. I mean, I don’t have any friends in the place where I live. I have women I know. I have people I work with. I even have a church family who has blessed me in many ways. But I don’t have any friends. I don’t have anywhere nearby I can sit down with for coffee and discuss just about anything. I don’t have another’s home to visit, or neighborhood to walk, or bookstore to wander about. It’s just me. And it’s very lonely.

Of course, I don’t mean I am alone by any means. I have Ed, who is my best friend. And I always have Emry. But since moving to Pittsburgh, I have realized that for the past many years my friends have been my family. In Texas. In Minnesota. God blessed me with friends both new and old who were very important pieces of not just my life but who I was. I had such rich friendships that several of these young women I am still in touch with very often and we exchange e-mails, phone calls or even texts that are full of laughter, tears, prayers, joys and sorrows. They are the relationships that continue to boost my life…only, they are hundreds of miles away.

I am learning not to take friendships for granted. The truth is, in time I may come across a friend here in Pittsburgh. I’m not taking any bets on that, but one can’t help but to hope. Meanwhile, I treasure all the more a brief day spent at Allyson’s, or an hour long phone call with Andrea, or an e-mail from Karen or Anna, or a text from Tirzah. Because friends are not a dime a dozen – they are one in a million. And I thank God for every single one of them and the time they take to be my friend.

Six Months

Today we are six months old – a whole half a year! As you can see, we have grown quite a bit since arriving in April. And yet, our little peanut remains just that. We are guessing she is somewhere around ten and a half pounds now. She still wears some newborn clothes, but is mostly around the 3-month size. Six month clothes are definitely a little large, but we wear them sometimes just because that’s what most of our fall and winter clothes are (since we are six months…). We eat “real” food now – having tried bananas, carrots, animal crackers and applesauce. We love to squeal, roll over and sit up with help. Just this week, rolling over has become a mode of transportation to get just about anywhere we wish to go! Doubtless, crawling everywhere is soon to come…

Six months old!

Starting to sit up.

Do you like my Sock Monkey?

More Firsts

Our trip to New Hampshire was a tornado of firsts for our little Emry. Some of them (like first time out of her birth state) were obviously going to occur. Others were not planned, but when your nearly-six-month-old starts waking up hungry at 4:30 in the morning and wants to eat more often than ever, well…it’s time to start real food! (Either that or spend half your day feeding her and getting less sleep than you did when she was born!) Here’s a list of some of her wonderful firsts:

• ·      First time out of Pennsylvania, her birth state. We drove through or visited the states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey. Funny enough, she has visited more states in her five months of life than some people do their entire lives – including all the New England states but Rhode Island. (Which we had planned to visit, but sadly did not.)
• ·      First time at the beach and putting her feet in the ocean. It was a little cold, but she didn’t seem to mind until a slightly large wave caught us by surprise.
• ·      First time meeting dogs up close. My sister has two: a five-year-old Labradoodle named Coda and a ten-week-old German Shepherd named Chloe. I wasn’t sure how she would respond, but she didn’t mind them coming up and licking her on the face. She would just scrunch up her face in preparation and then put out her hands to pet them afterwards.
• ·      First time playing the piano. Aunt Jenny gave her a very short lesson one morning.
• ·      First time eating bananas. They are a hit and she knew exactly what to do, although she would very much like to feed herself.
• ·      First animal crackers. We weren’t sure what to do with the first one, but we are an animal cracker eating champ now.
• ·      First nickname (besides Peanut). Cousin Jay somehow transposed Emry into “Aggie”.
• ·      First time around lots of kids. Of course, her cousin Jay kept her very occupied, wanting to build houses with “Aggie” every day. He would even pull his blanket from his bed so she could lie on his bedroom floor and “play” with him. We also visited my dearest friend Allyson and her fast-growing seven children. As well as that house full, Allyson’s sister Charity stopped by with her three kids. Let’s just say our little place is very quiet and dull…
• ·      First time apple picking. Well, she didn’t exactly pick…
• ·      First tumble – and bruise. Sitting among pumpkins can be dangerous…especially when you don’t sit up on your own very well yet. Of course, that was the first of many tumbles yet to come.
• ·      First time screaming most of a Sunday church service. Not sure this is a first I want to remember, but she worked herself up so much she couldn’t settle down. We spent half of the service walking around outside, but she’s very hard to settle because she simply doesn’t want to be held and soothed. So much for being the sweet, quiet angel everyone thought she was when meeting her before the service!
• ·      First pair of shoes. Grandma sent her her first pair of shoes and we did put them on Sunday morning. They didn’t last long…
• ·      First visit to “Boston in the fall”. My favorite city! Pittsburgh can take a back seat. And she enjoyed the cool, brisk, somewhat drizzly day all bundled up in her stroller. We got her picture with “Make Way for Ducklings” and she fell fast asleep.
• ·      First Patriots gear. Papa would rather we not mention this…  And, don’t worry, our little Pittsburgher has lots of Steelers gear.
• ·      First taste of lemon. Between Papa and Uncle Scott…funny enough, she rather enjoyed it. She did make one face when Ed took it from her and the sourness hit, but I think she enjoyed it because it felt good on her gums.

More Pictures!!!!

I thought I'd post a few more pictures from our trip just to show what a fun time we had. I'll post more lately about all the things we did and the tons of firsts we have had over the past week. Emry's little world has been expanded much, much more. And when we return to our quiet little home tomorrow, I think she's going to go into withdrawal!

At the beach in Ogunquit, Maine

 Playing with Coda and Chloe.

Our first piano lesson!

Playing with Cousin Jay.