Modes of Communication

I just got off the phone with Andrew in Ethiopia. It was a terrible connection. I could hear only about every third word he said. We were trying to talk about some Very Important Matters, so it was frustrating not to be able to converse easily. But what do I expect? It is the other side of the world! So I asked him to write to me, by email, the Very Important Details so I will be entirely clear about what is going on with him. "But I want to talk about them," says he.

This exchange was related to the rest of my family and then following conversation occured:

"Yeah, that sounds like me and X."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, given the choice between talking in person and talking on the phone, X would rather talk on the phone."
"Really? Hmm, given the choice between talking on the phone and writing an email, which would X choose?"
"Email."
"Really? Hmm, given the choice between email and not communicating at all, which would X choose?
"I get your point."

Found, parts I and II

That which was lost, has now been found. Do I get a finder's fee? No, I get to go shopping. Old Navy, here we come.

And there was a good conclusion to this lost story, too. The store manager from JCPenney's phoned the next morning saying he had found her keys. The car was still there, and my friend left for China as planned.

Hotel Rwanda

Today was kind of unusual for me, different from my usual routine. It started out the same, went to work and R. went early with me too. (She's been working during her Christmas holiday to make some spending money for next semester when she won't be allowed to have a job.) We decided yesterday to go to a movie today which is in limited release called Hotel Rwanda. The only theater it is showing at is on the north side of Dallas, but it is located just feet away from one of the light rail stations. So we drove 8 miles and parked the car at the nearest mass transit station, then paid $2.50 for an all-day pass, and rode the train to Mockingbird station. After we bought our movie tickets we ate lunch at the Noodle Kitchen. R. is not an adventuresome eater, so she had a chicken sandwich! I had something called Thai Pad Ew, or something like that, which was fried noodles with broccoli, sprouts, and chicken. It was good.

The movie was very intense, very good. Some of the movie was easy to relate to since we have lived in the third world. But we never had to live in a place where there was so much killing and tribal hatred. The most moving point of the movie was when the UN peacekeeper had to tell the story's hero, "We think you are dirt." "Pardon me, who is we?" "The west. We don't care if you kill each other off. Our governments have told us to pull out."

Tonight we carpooled to Bible study in Waxahachie, and on the way there I volunteered to tell about the movie I had just seen. The point of the movie was reinforced: the people in the car with me had never heard of the Hutus or the Tutsis, though it was only 10 years ago and a million of them were killed.

Annual Painful Pancake Test

I had mine today. They bring a mobile unit right to our work, so I was there after a five-minute walk, and it is mostly paid for by our insurance. Except for the misery of the test itself, it couldn't be easier.

That reminds me of once playing Taboo with a couple in their early 70s. Carl was trying his best to discreetly describe the word "mammogram" only to discover that he had misread the Taboo card which said "monogram." Pretty funny.

Don't Know What an Autoharp Is?

I've already had a random twenty-something admit that he didn't know what an autoharp was. Here is a random photograph
of one from the internet. And here is a random website that tells about them.

Really, they are not a beautiful sounding instrument, IMHO, but they are useful for school music teachers who can't carry a piano around with them to class.

Autoharp

Remember those fine instruments? In the midst of my somewhat bad mood and complaining about shoe shopping and losing things, my husband said, "We can be a hillbilly band--I'll play the hammered dulcimer, and you can be the autoharp."

Shoe Shopping

isn't quite as bad as shopping for bras or swimsuits, but it is painful, nonetheless. Especially when the feet that need to be shod are size adult 5.5W or children's 3.5W. Over the space of this Christmas holiday, I honestly think she tried on 50 pairs of shoes in 7-8 stores. Two pairs were actually purchased; one for $90 and one for $10.

Lost, part II

I was watching a Firefly* episode tonight when the phone rang. My friend had lost her keys. Either locked inside her car or lost inside JCPenneys. She doesn't need this hassle right now; she leaves for China day after tomorrow.

*a western set in the future, on TV for awhile, before it was cancelled

Lost

One of the shopping gift cards has gone missing. I think we've already spent $50 worth of our time looking for it.

Shopping

I hate shopping. I know, I'm not the typical woman. But my daughter loves to go shopping. She got money for Christmas gifts so she could buy "professional" clothes in anticipation of her semester of student teaching. Apparently part of her grade is how she is dressed. Anyway, we went shopping today and she got shoes and a suit.


Does she look like a kindergarten teacher?


I think all the little boys will fall in love with her :-)

Christmas Photos

I'm still experimenting with my camera and the new upload photos feature with Blogger. Here are photos of Christmas gifts.

David got a stethoscope from Rachel:



Rachel got a cell phone from Mom:



Linda got a funny book about editing from Grandpa:



Gary got a hammered dulcimer from everybody:

My New Camera

I got a new digital camera for Christmas from my little boy. He has a real job for the first time in his life, and is using his megabucks to be generous to me. Good boy. :-)

I also just discovered a new way to post photos on Blogger, without having to first post them on my own website, so this job just got a lot easier. Anyway, I'm still trying to figure my new camera out. Here are some of my current efforts: (click on the photos to enlarge them.)



"I don't need my little brother to find me a Prince Charming!"



"My, what big feet you have."




"Mom, this CD is too big."



Kenny and friends

Trading Spaces

Rachel has cable TV at college and when she isn't studying diligently for a test, she has been known to sneak a look at those home remodeling shows. She came home with lots of ideas of how to redo one of our bedrooms in view to her moving back home after graduation in May. (That idea itself may be a topic for another blog, but not today.) Anyway, we pared her pile of ideas down to something a little more doable for a couple of amateurs without a professional designer and carpenter standing by: move the furniture out, clean, repaint (in two colors, neither of which was white!), move different furniture back in.

We started the project Thursday--a trip to buy paint and masking tape during lunch hour, then in the evening we cleared out the room (thanks go to a friend who helped move stuff--I hope your back is OK).

Friday and Saturday we worked long hours to repair, tape, retexture, paint, and repaint the walls, then tape and paint the trim. It all went reasonably well until we locked ourselves in the room and couldn't get out. I had taken the door knob off both sides of the door, but failed to take out the part that actually goes into the door frame (there must be a name for that piece, but I don't know what it is). When the door got pushed shut, we discovered we couldn't get it open again. "Not to worry," thought I, "I'll just use the screwdriver to open it." But when I started poking at it with the screw driver, I couldn't get it to turn. So I kept poking and whoops! a stray piece of the mechanism fell down into the inside of the hollow door. At that point Rachel said, "I'll crawl through the window and go get dad." So we pushed the screen out of the window (Lucky for us it is a low window) and she went and got dad (who was still asleep and leaving his girls to do all this man-work). Well, he came and grumbled at us, then we tried more screw drivers, and when that didn't work he crawled back in the window and took the hinges out--that didn't help either. Then he tore apart another door knob and latch from another door to see if that would help us figure it out, but they weren't identical. This all went on for an hour and finally I managed to jimmy the latch from the inside with a flexible putty knife--and since the hinges had been removed, the door came crashing down on my head when I finally got it open.

Anyway, our project is almost complete, and now we need to put the blinds back up and move furniture back in.

After

Room remodel nearing completion

Before

It has been a lot of work, but the end is in sight. We hope to have everything back in place sometime tomorrow.

Back to Work

We got home from south Texas in less than 10 hours Sunday night. The neighbors were kind to host a party, more or less in David's honor, a couple hours after we arrived. Gary and I attended for a few minutes, but I was too fried from driving, so we didn't stay long. Besides, all those young kids make me feel old. :-)

On Monday, Rachel and Gary and I went back to work. Rachel is resuming the scanning work that she did last summer. There is probably enough work to keep her busy for her holiday break. The office is very quiet because most people aren't working this week.

David had two days to just do nothing and hang out with his friends. He played some frisbee and last night went to a Mavericks' game with a friend. We got up at 5:30 this morning to take him to DFW and he phoned to say he got back to DC safely.

Tomorrow Laura flies to Ethiopia. We will be in prayer for her and Andrew.

Unfortunately, I've caught a cold, the first one I've had in a long time. I hope it doesn't make me feel too miserable for the project we have planned for the weekend: repainting the bedroom that Rachel wants to move into after she comes home from college. This will be an experience: I keep saying it will be a lot of work and she keeps telling me about a real cool episode of Trading Spaces or While You Were Out. We've been doing some research on homedepot.com and if we make it through the buying-the-paint process, we should be able to do the rest.

Merry Christmas and Happy Anniversary

...to me! Gary gave me just what I wanted for my anniversary/Christmas: a coupon for "twenty hours of true love." Rachel read that and immediately started raising her eyebrows with innuendo, as only an embarrassed daughter can do. I quickly kicked her and said, "No, not that. He's promising to clean up his office! Yay!"

We looked out the window at midnight and what to our wondering eyes should appear? Snow and ice! It was so pretty when we woke up this morning. We had to go take photos before it melted. This is the first time in 100 years they've had a white Christmas, so they say.

Married with Children

I'm on vacation now, so my mind is not thinking about work. I'm at my mom's house, in a setting that is reminding me that sometimes I'm not the mom--sometimes I'm the child. At the same time, I have 2 out of 3 of my almost-grown children here with me. Further, my heart is sad because this is the first Christmas without my grandmother. And on top of all of that, tomorrow I will have been married for 29 years. So I'm thinking about family today.

I am so lucky (though I know believers really shouldn't use that word) to have a happy marriage. So many people of my age have married and divorced, some more than once. And if we are to believe the statistics, the chances of my three children all having happy marriages are not good.

I was 22 years old when I got married. Two of my children are already older than that.

One of my kids does have a significant other and I think is heading toward marriage in the not-too-distant future. Odd thing about that is that, although this child is the most social and socially well-adjusted of all my kids, this is his first ever real girlfriend. He did like a certain girl as a teenager, but she never really reciprocated, though they were always close friends and remain so today. She broke his heart, but he hid it well until years later he finally told me how much he had liked her and how badly he hurt when she rejected him. Sigh. There are some obstacles to overcome with his current relationship, but he is madly in love, and has a can-do attitude about life, so he will actively pursue her without doubt and without hesitation until she says either "yes" or "no."

Another one of my kids has "always" had a significant other, though at this present moment he doesn't. He has the kind of personality that girls find attractive--extremely self-confident, quiet, and capable of doing just about anything. He has had at least three different girlfriends in his short life and I liked all three of them. I know he wants to get married some day, but he is choosing a life of lots of education, so maybe it is good that he isn't dating anyone now so he can pursue his education singlemindedly for a little while.

The last of my children really wants to get married and is now at the point in her life where she could be free to marry. She has had two boyfriends and a number of other "crushes" during her life, but no current prospects. She is at that stage in life where she is nearly finished with her education and her nesting instincts are kicking in. I feel kind of sorry for her, because in our society it seems like it really isn't OK for a young woman to feel that way. Society is telling her to be strong, get a job, make money, be independent, etc. But she wants a husband and a home and kids to take care of. I myself am at a loss as to how to advise her. I certainly acknowledge her feelings as legitimate, and indeed I felt exactly the same needs at an even younger age. I try to tell her to trust God to bring the right man to her at the right time, someone who will love her without doubt and without hesitation. It isn't easy to wait, but I don't see how she has any choice. [She did ask me what I thought about going to one of those Christian match-maker sites on the internet. I told her I'm not against the idea entirely, but I think it is too early for that.]

OK, these are the thoughts that are running in my idle mind today. I think I am going to click the "No comments allowed" button on this post, because I don't want anyone telling me how stupid this post is. I guess if anyone wants to say anything to me on this topic, they will need to find my email address.

Lord, I love you. I thank you for a good husband and a long, happy marriage. I thank you for three wonderful kids. I am a blessed woman. Lord, you've heard me ask this before, but I will ask it again: please bring each of my children into happy marriages. Bring them the right person at the right time, someone they will love and someone who will love them without doubt and without hesitation.

Christamas Vacation has Begun

We arrived safely at mom's house at 5pm yesterday. We had terrible weather for the first two hours of driving down from Dallas--heavy, cold rain and, since it was still dark, it was quite miserable to drive. We stopped in Austin for a 30 minute break when David phoned one of his HS friends who goes to school in Austin and she joined us for hot chocolate at at place that called itself "Not Starbucks."

We went out to Mexican food for dinner (they know how to do Mexican here :-) and mom had a cherry pie at home for dessert. We aren't going to starve while here. .

We started the annual 1000 piece puzzle. It is of a painting, not a photograph, so it is on the easier side. Rachel seems taken with it this year.

Today we are basically doing nothing. We are reading old magazines, studying the user manuals for my camera and Rachel's phone, watching TV, listening to Elvis Christmas followed by Handel's Messiah*, eating, being lazy. Oh, and Gary is doing rocket science on his laptop when he isn't trying to put puzzle pieces in with his magnifying glass.

We are happy to be here, but sad for those who are missing this year: greatgrandma and Andrew.

*Overheard during the overture of the Messiah: "This is better than Elvis."

A Good Day

I've had a good day today. At staff meeting this morning we prayed for God's help in solving a problem. I won't bother with all the details here, but God ended up solving the problem in a way completely different than I had planned, using people I hadn't even imagined.

I was able to schedule a doctor's appointment--"How about in an hour?" instead of, "Sorry, no openings until..."

Three boxes of Christmas gifts arrived for us.

The tickets I ordered for David's Christmas arrived.

A check for nearly $4000 arrived for Andrew--his loan repayment application was approved (this covers 6 months of payments).

I put a printer in the trash. I spent too much time trying to make an old printer work with a new computer, and the software just wasn't cooperating. Somehow it was freeing to just chuck it.

The only bad thing that happened today was at dinner. My normally concilitory husband, who generally isn't a picky eater, rebelled against the idea of eating baked potatoes with broccoli and cheese sauce. He doesn't like baked potatoes to start with, and he hates "liquid cheese," as he calls it. So he decided to eat fruitcake for dinner instead. I say "Yuck!" to that. What does one do with a single lonely baked potato?

Yay for Rachel!

Yesterday was a good day for Rachel. She found out that she passed the third of three teacher certification tests for Oklahoma and is now eligible to apply for a teaching license, though she won't actually do that until she has done some student teaching next semester. We are so proud of her. Thanks to everyone who prayed for her, it has made a big difference.

She decided that she needed to have a new hairdo that would suit a teacher. No more hair falling down in her face and getting in her way. So last yesterday she got it cut. Here are the before and after photos.



And I think she finished her Christmas shopping, thanks to a friend who was willing to take her shopping.

Another thing we did today affects Rachel too--we gave away her bed. A friend of mine wanted a loft for her son, so we decided he needed it more than Rachel did. With our boys out of the house (except for the stuff they have packed up in boxes), we've got empty bedrooms galore, so Rachel will probably move to a different room with a different bed. In fact, she wants us to paint one of the empty bedrooms sometime during her Christmas break. We'll see if that happens.