My pity party

Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.   Isaiah 40:30-31 (NIV)


As I am sure many can relate to, the busiest part of the weekday is before 8:00 a.m. and after 4:00 p.m.  I know that I'm not any busier than anyone else, and we all have things we could cut out...but we don't, we just keep on keeping on...and I do realize this is going to become my normal...as my kids get older.

We've had musical practices the past few weeks running three hours every night until 9:30 or 10 or 10:30.  Thankfully, there were three of us who took turns carpooling the kids so that we could get some relief with the constant back and forth.  I know I really appreciated the late-night pick up by the ladies when Jay was working nights...that way I didn't have to keep Lane up passed his bedtime to go retrieve the kids.

The musical performance was this past weekend and I am so relieved it's over with, along with everyone else, I am sure.  It was also Spring Convocation for our denomination, which means that the high school and college age kids go to the hosting church for the weekend.  Thankfully, a local church south of Casey was the host and I didn't have to drive super far to make the drop off.

So Friday night I made the rounds picking up the musical kids and a youth to take to Convo later on.  I took them all to town, dropped off the musical kids and headed south to the hosting church for Convo.  We made it there and then Lane and I left for Robinson.  Jay was working nights this past weekend, and I had decided I really wanted to go to Robinson to the Maurices and return a shirt I bought and see if they had anything else, and ice cream was sounding really good...so off we went.  By the time I got home, I had driven about 100 miles since I left work.  Crazy.  (The Robinson thing was totally on me though:)

Saturday morning, I got up and went to Terre Haute to meet friends for breakfast.  Hurried back to meet cousins for lunch at Moonshine.  Came home for about two hours, left to take Jay to town to retrieve his truck.  Back home for a bit and back to town for the musical.  After the musical, Lane begged to stay at his grandma's in town, so we dropped him off there.  Madolyn and a friend were spending the night at another friend's house and they both needed clothes...sooo, we drove north of town to get clothes and then drove south of town to our house to get Mad's clothes and then onto the sleepover locale.

So after about 36 hours of almost constant driving, I made the last stop for the night, just about 10:00 p.m.  I was so ready to come unglued as those girls climbed out of the car.  It wasn't anything they had done or anyone in particular, I was just fried, spent, pooped, tired of driving and rushing.  I just wanted to go to bed and read on my Nook.  I just wanted to be out of the car for longer than like 2 or 3 hours.  I just wanted to quit driving here and there and needing to be somewhere at a certain time.

And that's when the father stepped outside and thanked me for hauling his child around the past couple weeks, as a few of us had been helping out in bringing this one home after practices.  He then went onto say that he has a pinched sciatic nerve and a herniated disk in his back, he's off work, without pay, and is going to be having surgery.  I was quickly humbled.

As I pulled away, I felt like a heel.  I was wanting to scream and shout and throw a tantrum because I felt like I had spent my entire day-and-a-half running for everyone else...and I was going home to crawl in a nice, warm, cozy bed, without any pain whatsoever.  I was going to sleep, most likely all night, without taking pain medicines or having discomfort.  Yes, I had been running like a mad woman, but my husband was at work, without pain, and with pay.  In an instant, God put me right back in my place.  I had only things to be thankful for...not to whine about...which I am quick to do.  I did go home, crawl in bed and read my Nook.  I am a lucky girl.  But don't even ask me about Sunday...

the Snapper

The other day I was taking my walk over my lunch hour and I passed the house of an elderly man.  He was mowing his yard (yes, it is March and we have started mowing).  I remembered this house and the little old man from last year and knew what kind of mower he had before I even saw it...he was cruising along on a Snapper just like my grandparents (paternal) had way back when.

And they didn't just have one Snapper lawnmower, oh no, they had two.  The new one and the old one.  Grandma rode the new one and Grandpa rode the old one.  It was a hoot to see them both on their little mowers going up and down the yard, passing one another, getting the job done in half the time.  The old one bucked as you let off the foot pedal, and it was hilarious.  When us grandkids were old enough, we fought over who got to ride the good Snapper, although it was really funny to buck that old one.

I didn't know anyone else who had a funny-looking lawnmower like my grandparents...although Grandpa tried to buy the best of something when he could afford it.  I suppose at one time those were the best lawnmowers.  They did seem to last a while.  I was delighted to see that older fella out on his Snapper mowing his yard the other day.  I loved the smell and the memories that trickled into my mind.  Good times...

He's so smart and precious

That's just about all you can say about Hank the Tank II, our little precious eight-month old puppy.  You might think he's just a booming beaming idiot sometimes, but he's not, he's a genius.  We've had several dogs, as you know, and it is so funny how all of them have a little bit different personality than the last.  Each of them has a unique quality.  Even Hank II is different than Hank I...and they have the exact same set of parents.



My, what big teeth you have!

 Last night when I got home from work, Lane and the precious were having fun with the water hose.  It's mid-March, it's the natural thing to do when it's 86 degrees outside...in the Midwest...oh goodness.  Lane was giggling hysterically (there is no greater sound) at Hank and his silliness.  You know that Labradors love, love, love water.  And we have a pond in our backyard, but what Hank really loves is the hose!  He was completely soaked and here's why (see photos:) 

Sucker!

He could not get enough.  Lane was blasting the heck out of him and he just kept going back for more.  Lane would even adjust the flow of the water from stream to spray.  On spray, Hank would get all confused and try to get all the separate flows of water.  He is just so stupid silly....but we love the Precious!!  (Yes, that is a power washer, and I am not sure that no one sprayed him with it because that might be cruel.)





The wall

 Another activity our little genius enjoys, which is totally beyond all comprehension, is chewing on a wall.  I don't mean the corner of a wall that sticks out, just teasing someone to gnaw on it.  I'm talking a flat, vertical wall, with no bumps and edges.  During the day when we're gone and Hank is hanging out in the garage, apparently he gets bored and decides to chew on whatever is handy...and that would be the wall of our garage.  I'm not sure I even understand how one would position their mouth to begin chewing on it...what exactly are you grabbing onto?  But see, because he is so dang smart, our Hank can do it...he can do anything.

I was trying to sleep

And just look at him, his favorite spot is on our couch...isn't that special?  I finally get new furniture a few years ago and Hank has taken it over.  I tried to keep it covered with a sheet, but he somehow gets it shoved to the side...again, because he is so smart.  (You can tell by the look on his face, he is super annoyed by the camera and the flash.  I'm disturbing him.)   I know, who is the boss in this family anyway?

Just this week, he slept outside two nights for the first time ever.  The first night was over the weekend and we were in Indy.  Mom said she could hear him barking.  I bet he was barking at the door trying to get someone to let him in.  He couldn't figure it out, where was he supposed to sleep?  There is no couch outside.  Last night he stayed outside because he was still soaking wet from the water festivities.  We heard him whimpering for a bit, and although I honestly figured I would have to cave and let him in, he shut up and stayed outside and lived through it...again.  Poor guy.

Of course, we think all our dogs are the best dogs ever (well, minus Bificus, he was an idiot).  They can do things that no other dog can do.  They are more precious than any other dog and they are, oh, so special...even when they chew a hole in the carpet, gnaw on a wall, take over the couch, chew through the computer cord, mangle a broom, eat the heel of my favorite brown pumps, crave grapes (which are poisonous to dogs), destroy my brand new bicycle seat...

Margaret

I told you about my grandpa Scottie, and now I want to share a little about Margaret, my maternal grandma.  Grandma Lynch, as we called her, was not your average grandma.  When I think about the fact that she was a P.E. teacher, I crack up.  She didn't look like a P.E. teacher to me...she was my grandma.  At times I have to laugh because I envision Coach Sue on Glee...although I know my grandma was really nothing like her...but I would've loved to have seen her in a sweatsuit.  She also taught English, which fit her style a little better, at least in my mind. 

I don't remember my Grandma Lynch being an exceptional cook, but she always had these iced oatmeal cookies in a cookie jar on her counter and I learned to love them.  I always got Cheerios (the real brand) and bananas for breakfast at her house.  And besides the oatmeal cookies and Cheerios, you could always count on there being Jello with fruit in it at supper time.  I have never seen two people eat so much Jello and fruit as my grandparents.  It's not that I don't like it, they just ate it a LOT.  Whenever mom or I would ask them what they needed from the grocery store (when they moved up here) they would say "Jello."  It would just crack us up.  There could be five boxes of Jello in their pantry, but they would always add it to their grocery list.

My grandma could knit just about anything and everything you could imagine.  I am sure I under-appreciated that when I was younger, and of course, wish I had paid a little more attention to it now.  I can knit, or at least I used to be able to, although a scarf would be about all I could handle, I'm sure, and that would be after some serious practice.  I loved messing around with her knitting needles and the skeins of yarn.  Her knitting bag went everywhere she did.

I was in my teens when my grandparents fully retired and moved to Texas.  First they would only go during the winter and then they gradually became full-fledged Texans.  I'm trying to remember, as I write this, how many times I went to Texas to see them and I can come up with three.  Seems like there was one more, but I'm not so sure.  It was a very long trip down there...23 hours in a car...so it wasn't something you could just pick up and do on short notice.  Jay and I drove it once with my cousin Mikki in tow...it was a long ride! 

Their house was in the Sunshine Country Club Estates in Harlingen, TX.  Their address was 9G Minnesota, if I'm not mistaken.  They had a golf course, swimming pool, tennis courts, shuffle board, a club house, etc.  It was everything they had wanted.  My grandma attended (and may have even led) some swimming aerobic classes there on site, she volunteered at the hospital and she taught English to Spanish-speaking children at a local school. 

My grandparents were both very active in their church and little community down in south Texas.  They took trips into Mexico and would come up to Illinois to visit their three daughters and their families.  They were healthy, active, had planned all their life (financially and otherwise) for their retirement and they were living their dream (I would guess).

One day after playing golf, my grandma walked in their house and fell to the floor.  She had a stroke right there in her living room in front of my grandpa.  Knowing how much they loved each other, I can only imagine how awful that was for my grandpa.  My grandma had suffered a stroke and thankfully had very little brain damage, she hadn't lost her ability to think, but she had lost her ability to move the right half of her body.  She was wheelchair-ridden from that point on.  It is amazing to think that one moment you can be playing golf and then next moment you are paralyzed.  I know there are worse things, but it has to be a heartbreaker, losing all you had prepared for basically in one single moment.   Unfortunately, things like that seem to happen all around us.

You know that there is always something good that comes out of the crummy stuff.  For me, my grandma having that stroke made me closer to her.  They ended up having a house built and moving to little ole Martinsville where they would be closer.  Like I said, my grandma's mind was okay, she was a little slower with some things, she had to work with her speech and she sure was quieter after that, but she was still here and still present, if you know what I mean. 

I grew much closer to both my grandparents over the few years they lived here...some of the memories weren't super great ones, but I treasure them nonetheless.  I grew to appreciate their lives more and the love they shared for one another.  After Grandma's stroke, they no longer shared a bedroom.  So each night they would depart and go to their separate bedrooms.  Every morning, they had the same routine, one would say to the other "Morning, Star." To which the other would respond, "Morning, Glory."  (I may not have that exactly right, but it was something similar.)  They no longer were afforded any privacy whatsoever, so that may have been one of their little codes, you know, other than just a simple, "I love you."

Eventually the burden of their care was just too much and both my grandparents went into the local nursing home.  They shared a room so they were still together, and they were together until the end.  My grandma passed away first and later Grandpa went on to join her.  I may not have been as close to them growing up because of geography, but I became close to them in the end and I'm so grateful, as awful as it may sound because of the circumstances, that they had to move up here....or I may not have shared those times with them. 

So be different.

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.    Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV)


A while back I had my daughter and some other girls in the car with us.  The other girls were a year or two older than Madolyn...they are in the junior high...which is a big deal to Madolyn who is still at the grade school.  They were carrying on being silly like girls are, and as I got back in the car, I heard one of them say, "Everyone in Junior High cusses and I mean everyone."  To which I said, "So be different."  And I know they probably rolled their eyes and made faces at me because I just don't understand and they just didn't want a lecture...

But I remember how it was.  I remember how cool I thought it sounded to cuss and use words I would not want my parents to hear.  It is so different now that we're old and are parents, but Jay and I will go to a movie and if there is a lot of swearing, we will comment on how it actually hurts our ears.  Literally.  I can barely stomach listening to someone with a filthy mouth...and I used to have one of my own when I was in high school.

I am not saying I do not let one slip every now and then...and there are times when I say one purposely...I can't even blame it on smashing my finger with a hammer...but to just rattle them off as part of my every-day vocabulary, uh-uh...no way.  And it is sooo hard to be around it all the time and not fall into the trap.  I think a lot of people hear it so much, it just becomes second-nature.  I can only imagine how bad it is, say, on a construction site.  Not to be picking on the construction trade, but you know that those fellas out there can be pretty raunchy!  I've asked Jay before how it is where he works...and though he's no saint either (sorry, pal) he said it is tough sometimes because you hear so much of it.

I know that my daughter will probably go through a phase where she believes it is cool to cuss just like everyone around her, but I will encourage her to be different, to be the weird one.  We often tell our youth group, be the one that chooses NOT to go along because there are probably five kids waiting to follow someone the other direction if only they are led.  Many, many people are not bold enough to make those tough choices on their own, but if they have someone to follow...now, that's better, then they're not alone. 

I can tell you I have been many places where I have made the choice to be different.  Maybe not all the time, but a lot of the time.  Maybe good different, some bad different.  I knew others were making comments and judgments about me, but that's okay.  Who wants to be like everyone else anyway, right?  I know I'm weird.  I am okay with being different.  Different is what sets you apart...and why not choose the narrow path...we know where it's going.

Here's Frankie...

Nightly routine

Thought I would share a few pictures of our latest addition, Frankie the Hamster.  Of course, I know that after publishing the post, she will either die or be MIA. 

Frankie's nightly routine consists of chewing on these metal bars.  She is a persistent thing, and I suppose that in about five years, she may actually chew through these metal bars...of course, a hamster's average life span is two years, and we're not sure how old she is, factor in she lives at our house...you do the math.

I have, of course, given her a nickname, which is, drum roll please, Andy Dufresne.  Who is Andy Dufresne (pronounced Dew-frain) you ask?  He was the main character in the great movie, The Shawshank Redemption.  He had caught his wife with another man and killed the man, was then sent to prison.  He ends up using these tiny rock tools to slowly and deliberately dig through his cell wall and escape to freedom. 

One night as I passed Frankie gnawing away at her prison bars, I thought of Andy Dufresne and told Jay that was her new nickname.  She is sooo persistent and diligent about her nightly gnawing.  The real kicker is that the lid to her cage is loosely fastened.  So loose that just this past week, she somehow got the right position and used her feet to pop the bottom off.  Fortunately, we saw and heard it and caught her before she too escaped into freedom like Andy.

the hood to my jacket

You know a couple of weeks ago I mentioned the hood of my favorite spring jacket and how Frankie had chewed the hood up.  (See photo at right.)  What a stinker.  I did successfully remove the hood from the jacket and can wear it without it being obvious that it once had a hood.  Look closely at the far right corner at the top, she even chewed the tip of the hood off.  What a little rat...literally.  The pattern shows that maybe she was trying to cut out some of the fabric...maybe she just wanted some extra padding for her little cave.  She could've just asked, I would've given her something.

Frankie goes to church

I have this cute sparkly church that came from Accents (awesome store in downtown Martinsville).  I like to sit it out during Christmas and the winter months.  The kids thought Frankie would like some religion, so she got to explore church for a while.  I have several pictures of her trying to climb out the windows, the doors and even the steeple area.  Church makes some folks uncomfortable...apparently it makes hamsters and rodents uncomfortable too.  Even the little snowman is surrendering.  Everytime I pass her cage and see her little eyes bugging out, all I can think of is, "My, what big eyes you have!"




Frankie meets Hankie

 There have been a few encounters between Frankie and Hankie, the precious, and so far they are both still living.  Hankie doesn't seem too bothered by Frankie...unless one of us is paying more attention to Frankie than Hankie.  I have stressed to the kids the fact that Hankie could gobble up Frankie in a matter of seconds without us even knowing it, so it is VERY important that Frankie and Hankie not be out and about at the same time.  Fortunately, Hankie cannot get Frankie's exercise ball in his mouth...not that he hasn't tried.  I would guess it almost gives little Frankie a heart attack.

Frankie has been a lot of fun for the kids and myself.  There's nothing we won't try with the little gal.  Lane had her riding around on his 4x4 and all she wanted to do was escape.  This little truck has a horse trailer with it and she wouldn't stay in it either.  Again, the reoccurring theme: freedom.  We're starting to get a complex.

That's gonna leave a mark...

It's probably been about 18 months ago that we were really starting to get into the horse thing.  We started spending a lot of time at our fairgrounds which is where we keep our race horse(s).  Seems like every waking hour was spent up there.  If I wanted to see my kids or my husband, that is where I went after work.  They were always busy cleaning stalls or working the horses or whatever. 

Lane was totally ate up with all of this right from the start.  I have some of the cutest pictures of him on my phone (which I have no idea how to get off of there) where he is taking a break after cleaning stalls in the hot summer heat and his little face is bright red.  At times he was all serious about it, other times he just wanted to play hide and seek with the other kids.

One day when boredom struck, our little horseman got a horse reign with the leather strap on it and rubbed it continuously over his forehead, back and forth, back and forth like a mad man, real fast he told me (sometimes I have to wonder about him, it must be his father).  By the time I saw him, he had a very irritated red circle on his forehead, which quickly turned into a large nasty scab. 

When asked why he had decided to do this, he said, "I just wanted to see if it would leave a mark."  Allrighty then, it was an experiment...another life lesson...Do not rub a horse reign across your forehead continuously, it will leave a mark.  Good to know.