The blur that is my life

How did this happen?  I haven't posted in over a week, Christmas is 4 days away and I am not ready!  Actually I have purchased a grand total of 1 gift thus far.  Isabelle is going to be greatly disappointed if I don't get to the mall tomorrow especially since that one gift is not for her.

Last week was crazy.  Short story: Lots of snow over weekend, transmission out in plow truck on Monday, cost to fix same as cost of purchase, Tuesday morning Jake had a late start to school and took the opportunity to lecture us on an issue he felt he wasn't being heard on, spent Wednesday shopping for new plow truck, spent lots of money on new truck, snow Thursday, continued to disagree with Jake about his conclusion to the issue of the week (his girlfriend got in on the act that day via email), wrestling meets Friday night and all day Saturday which we left early to go to the Wolfe family Christmas party, Sunday all day at a friends, Monday another huge snow storm.  And here we are Tuesday evening with my hubby tucked into bed trying to catch up way too much lost sleep.

UPDATE:  I was going to spend all day tomorrow Christmas shopping but it seems my newest niece is making a pre-Christmas appearance this Thursday instead of post-Christmas.  Due to appointments and bed rest until then I will be on watch duty for other children tomorrow afternoon making it a 1/2 day to power shop for all my Christmas gifts.  Luckily I have negotiated with most of my family to not exchange gifts and therefore only need to purchase a few things.  Can't wait to hold this new baby!

And if I may spend a moment complaining:  I have put together most of my traditional Christmas brochure 3 times so far but can't find a computer in the house powerful enough to actually complete it.  And it turns out I apparently don't have enough memory in my 10 year old jump drive to save the completed file and go elsewhere so now I don't know how to get what work I do have off John's computer and go somewhere with a better one.  That took up an entire morning last week and most of the afternoon today.  Not fun.

Through all the craziness God continues to show up.  Providing us with the answer to financing the new truck.  Continued safety and quite a few new plow clients.  And the first truck did not break down until AFTER John plowed out 20 inches of snow.  Jake is doing wonderful in Wrestling and we are enjoying watching him become an athlete.  After a week of neglect I have reclaimed my house and am enjoying a peaceful environment.  We had a wonderful time of communication with Jake in which we concluded the issue of the week and feel like we all understand each other better.  Christmas break is here and I don't start my new job until January.

And since you can't make some stories up:  As John is getting ready to head out and start plowing his accounts he realizes he has no gas and heads up to his favorite gas station, Superamerica, to fill up.  He runs in to use the bathroom and the people working there ask if it is his plow truck in the parking lot.  Did I mention he is practically on a first name basis with the entire staff and goes out of his way to hit this place?  Anyway, turns out their plow guy had just quit as 6-8 inches of snow was falling from the sky.  They asked him to plow the whole parking lot, paid him cash on the spot, and now he has a shot at getting the contract for the rest of the season.  So amazing.

So that is the blur of last week and a preview of the blur between now and after Christmas.  I am mulling a few thoughts on the topic of Control as a teaser but no promises that I will complete those thoughts before Christmas.

Hope you are enjoying a little more rest and waiting than I am during this advent season and have a wonderful Christmas celebration.

Snowy Thanks

We are certainly "walkin in a winter wonderland" here in MN.  What a year to start a plow business.  John got 2 new plow clients just doing his regular route this weekend.  Nobody wants to stand outside shoveling 20 inches of snow.

While my man was busy taking the top off the first half of the snow Saturday I made cookies with the kiddos in my warm safe home.

Monday morning the city still hasn't plowed our front sidewalks (yes we are lucky to live in a city that does that part for us.)  And after doing everyone elses home sidewalks early Sunday morning, Jake wasn't really up to doing ours so wear boots if you come to visit today.  John did shovel a tunnel through the front yard so Isabelle could make it to the bus.

You know what doesn't photograph well, white on white.  I am sure there is a way to set my camera to improve but even after 2 classes on using it I still really don't know how the thing works.  Can you appreciate that Isabelle is walking through a tunnel in our front yard that is about half her height?

This is standing on our sidewalk.

Our mailbox.

Our neighbor trying to clear off the end of her driveway so she can leave.  I told her John would come and clean that up for her later.

Here comes the bus.

All this snow may seem like a bit of a hassle.  And certainly it is.  John had an appointment with a homeowner in Minneapolis today and after trying to get around her neighborhood for 30 minutes called to re-schedule.  They still aren't plowed out there.  But Saturday I thought about how blessed we are to experience a big snowfall at this time in history.  I am safe and warm, my home is relatively full of food and I knew that I would be able to get out of my driveway and resume normal life the next day.  Unlike the people who settled this land, people I constantly question the sanity of, who lived in little log houses heated by the fireplace, the only food was what they had left from the last hunt and the potty was out the door and down the path.  They may have been isolated for days or weeks after a storm like this.

Although there is plenty I don't like about snow and the cold that follows there is always plenty to be thankful for as well.  And so I continue my list:

• New plow accounts
• hard working husband and son
• Time to make 3 kinds of cookies this year, I normally grudgingly make 1 kind and get on with my life.
• A warm house to enjoy watching the snow fall from.
• Watching my children roll out cookie dough
• Snow angels
• hot tea and hot coco
• Christmas movies
• Christmas music
• singing the twelve days of Christmas with the family.
• the internet on the phone so you can figure out the 11th day of Christmas while driving to a wrestling meet.
• Another pin in wrestling for Jake
• the anticipation of Christ at advent
• the JOY of a relationship with Christ (Sunday was the lighting of the joy candle)

Never

My Aunt and Uncle used to have a cat affectionately known as "Never".  As in, "We will NEVER have a cat." 

Never say never. 

I have a friend who said that everything she said she would never do when she was younger she has done as an adult.  She never says never anymore.

Lately I have been thinking about all the things we can never do.  While you should probably never say never when it comes to something like getting a cat or moving to another state there are a few nevers in life:

You will NEVER be done with the laundry.
Your will NEVER be done cleaning your house.
You will NEVER be thin enough to stop watching what you eat.
You will NEVER be in good enough shape to quit a regular workout routine.
Your marriage will NEVER be strong enough to ignore
You will NEVER be done being a parent.
You will NEVER have enough time to do it all.

More clothes will be dirty tonight when you go to bed, dust and dirt will start settling on your furniture the moment you walk out of the room, that double fudge and caramel brownie with a scoop of chocolate chocolate chip ice cream will always pay you back, your muscles are daring you to give them an excuse to turn to fat, your spouse will always be just as needy as you are, even as adults your children will give you something to do (even if it is as wonderful as play with grandchildren), there will always only be 24 hours in the day and someone is always coming up with a new activity to fill that time.

So what is my point?

I think my point is that we need to relax.  We (and by we I mean ME, you can insert yourself as you see fit) need to stop trying to get out of the tasks of life we deem too insignificant or just plain monotonous and try to learn to have joy in the daily.  And rather than trying to put a temporary bandage over our weight and health issues or marriage problems we need to develop new daily habits that continue not for a while but forever.  We don't stop dieting when we loose weight or stop exercising when the race is over and we can't ignore our marriage just because it seems to be running along fine or stopping engaging in our children's lives when they turn 18.  So we need to work to develop healthy habits that we continue each day.  Habits that become part of our lives.  So that when changes in our life come, stress, routine changes or temptations stand before us we just keep doing what we have always done and are able to safely navigate those inevitable bumps of life.  Habits that keep good food in our fridge, habits that have us sweating a few times a week, habits that tell our spouse we love them every day, habits that assure our children we are there for them and we are listening.

There is another NEVER that comes to mind.  I will never deserve the love of Christ.  I will never be as good as Him.  I can never repay Him for his gift to me.  Luckily He isn't asking me to.  He simply asks me to accept His gift, to accept Him.

Rom 5:8
"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

And a few encouraging NEVERs:

Romans 4:8

"Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will NEVER count against them."
2 Thes 3:13
"And as for you, brothers and sisters, NEVER tire of doing what is good."

Romans 8:39
"neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,(in other words it will NEVER happen) will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Triple Duty

If you are looking for a new gift giving tradition in your family you have come to the right place.  I don't have a huge family but we are a close family.  While most people have long since stopped sharing Christmas with their first cousins by the time they turn 40 we continue to gather every year with my aunt, uncle, first cousins and their kids (would they be second cousins? and what are they to my children?)  While we love each other and our traditions very much the expense of gift giving even just to the children can be a burden.  For me it is only an additional 3 children but for my cousins it becomes an additional, soon to be, 7 children between my brother and me. (we stopped including my sister who lives out of town in the gift giving side of this gathering years ago)

The adults each bring one generic gift which we play a game to distribute each year.  It has been a fun tradition but we needed a new approach for the kids.  They are too young for the game plus someone still dresses up as Santa every year and we needed him to be able to pass out the gifts.

Then last year my cousin came up with an idea I thought was ridiculous.  However, nobody else had a better one so we decided to try it.  Forever we will be bowing to her genius and our lack of vision as we loved how it played out so much.

We decided to buy each child 1 $25 gift rather than them getting several cheap gifts.  We each contributed $30ish to the pot including the grandparents and then the cousins went out on a shopping day where we each chose gifts we knew our children would love, followed by dinner and a gift wrapping extravaganza.  A girls day out and shopping for an entire Christmas event finished.  Santa passed out the gifts, the kids loved them, peace and harmony reined across the land.

This year we decided to step it up a notch by including the grandma's in the mix.  While we were out shopping they were getting a tea party ready for us.  After our successful shopping spree we headed over to my Aunt Cari's for a lovely luncheon tea, shared the gifts and then got to work wrapping them all up.  We sent them home with this years Christmas hostess who will have them ready for Santa on Dec 18th.  A good time was had by all.

We let under 1 year old come to our ladies events.

All wrapped up and ready to go.

OH and just as we come to what we THINK is the last child born to this generation (that is what we thought about the last last child) we have started a tied quilt tradition.  The hands of each woman in the family are part of tying this quilt just as we will all be part of this child's life.  So while Julia didnt' think the 5th child needed a baby shower per se we snuck that task into our Christmas shopping/tea day anyway.

Do you not percieve it?

There is just something about girlfriends.  Especially the ones that have known you through thick and thin.  The ones you have known in your youth and grown old with.  I have a little group of women that I started a bible study with many years ago.  We met weekly in my home to go through the study of Esther by Chuck Swindoll.   When it was done we kept meeting, kept doing studies, kept praying together.  I believe we all had one child when we started but our broods have all grown and we have loved up each new baby that came to visit us.  But our group isn't about our children, it is about us.  About loving and encouraging one another, listening to each other, sharing our hearts.

We haven't met weekly for several years now, our lives caught up to us and our calendars filled up with kids sports schedules, church meetings and family activities.  We tried daytime as our kids got older but we keep having new babies and combined with part time work schedules and daytime church activities that hasn't been much more successful.  Yet, we still find time occasionally.  We negotiate though the business of our lives and find a date to come together and share our lives.

These are the women in my life that I know will be standing at my side no matter what path my life takes.  They will cheer for me when I succeed and they will weep with me when there is loss.  No matter where life takes each of us we are sisters in Christ, united as one.  They are my ya-ya sisters.

In the past week 2 of these women both learned that their husbands will be unemployed in the new year.  In this economy it is a scary place to be.  God immediately opened a date on all our calendars for us to sit together, share and pray.

I thought of a scripture I had been sitting in lately and shared it with them.

Isaiah 43:18-19 "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."

No need to dwell on the past, on what has been lost.  God is doing a new thing.  Don't you love how there is an exclamation point at the end of that.  New thing!  So exciting!  Do you not perceive it?  Like God is confused.  "what you don't see that?  look around!"  God is already doing the new thing.  He is already preparing them for the next job; preparing the next job for them.  And the reminder that God works in any circumstances.  He makes a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland and he will make a way through whatever circumstances you are in today.

Our family has been weathering a difficult financial year yet I am continually amazed to see God working things out providing for us exactly what we need.  A couple days after having to pay for a large repair to the plow truck I signed 2 new contracts which paid for those repairs. That wasn't coincidence, that was God working.  From the "Experiencing God" bible study it says, "God is working all around you."  The study encourages you to look around, see what God is doing and go join Him in His work. 

As I have stopped focusing inward on my needs and started looking around I am amazed at how often I see God working.  I am also amazed by the other thing I see, other people in need.  People with more need than me.  I am not alone.  And just as I see God taking care of me I know God will take care of all His children in need.

So rather than worry about my girlfriends, wringing my hands, or comparing my trials with theirs, I am expectantly looking to see what God will do in their lives and how He will "make a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."

He is working right now.  Do you not perceive it?

Wrestling

The next 2 posts could be alternately titled, "Why I love my SLR camera and will carry the big thing around more often even if it is heavy and doesn't fit neatly in my purse."  Just saying.

My son is now a wrestler.

I realize that by the time a child is 16 years old they typically have been involved in sports for years and years, have lots of experience in sports teams and have pretty much chosen a sport and are busy honing the skill but that is not us.

We figured out at an early age that Jake was not a team sport kind of kid.  And since the options for younger kids was pretty much soccer, baseball, basketball or hockey we probably weren't going to become a sports family.  We did stay in baseball until 3rd or 4th grade but finally we agreed Jake's interests lay elsewhere and moved on.

Then I became an adult onset athlete and started wishing I had some background in exercise from my youth and started revisiting our decision to just go merrily along without sports in Jake's life.  Jake started doing some running with me and as you may recall I talked him into going out for track last spring.  He wasn't great at it but he seemed to be enjoying it and the important thing was that he was moving his body.  I mostly start and finish races toward the back of the pack and every time I finish I don't think of all the people who finished in front of me but of all the people sitting at home on their couches who would never even try to run.  I am a winner.  Jake was a winner every time he stepped on the track.

Still, it is fun to do well and win.

This fall a friend of Jake's in his weight lifting class started talking to him about winter wrestling.  He taught Jake a few moves and invited Jake to some captains practices before the season started.  I have to say I was pretty excited to see Jake on the wrestling team.  He had hoped to be part of the winter plays and I was disappointed for him when he didn't get a part but I was just so excited to see him on wrestling it was hard for me to be too upset.

Saturday was the first wrestling tournament of the season.  It would be Jake's first chance to wrestle outside of practice.  They had just started official practices 2 weeks before so I didn't know what to expect but I knew Jake was really enjoying being on the team.

Jake is in black

He did awesome.  Although I only caught one of his 3 matches because of a church meeting that day (the tournament was from 9-4) I was so impressed with him.  These pictures are of the first match which he lost 3-4.  I was told but other people who know better what is going on and how things are scored that he did really good and low scores are good.  The second match wasn't as good, he was pinned almost immediately but on the third match he pinned his opponent.  Hurray for him.  Overall a great first time out.

Here is a little peak at my boy in action in his first ever official wrestling match:

Grr I can't get it to load.  Will try again later.  Sorry.  My computer isn't very powerful and really does not like videos.

I must confess I briefly dated a wrestler in high school and remember that I really liked wrestling. I worried that maybe it was just because I liked the wrestler not because I liked the wrestling.  However, the moment Jake started wrestling I discovered that I really did like wrestling.  It was fun to watch him.  I can't explain it but I just love the intensity of the sport.  I am looking forward to the rest of the season.

Identifing gratitude

I didn't do my list on Monday of things I am thankful for but today I would like to say I am grateful that the circumstances of my life do not define me.  My identity is not wrapped up in the ability to pay bills, buy fancy Christmas gifts, wear fashionable clothing, make everyone happy, always do the right thing and know all the answers.  Because, if it did I would be a big fat failure at every turn.

I must confess I hate admitting failure.  I live in fear of failure and fear of the humiliation I think would come with failure.   And when I think I have failed I am depressed.  It is hard for me to get past it.

Yesterday I had a particularly frustrating encounter with someone who made me feel very small and very overwhelmed by our current financial struggles.  I wanted to crawl in bed but I knew I needed to go on and could not let this person ruin my day.  While for a brief moment I let this person define me, I quickly reminded myself where my true identity comes from.

My identity is in Christ.  My identity lies in knowing that I am loved.  Knowing that when I mess up there is forgiveness and restoration.  There is no judgment.  Knowing God will help me when I am down and not try to take advantage of me.  He believes in me and sees beyond the circumstances of my life and into my heart.  And when I define myself that is where I also must look.

So I did a few jumping jacks (exercise relaxes me) and repeated over and over the truth.  I am a child of God.  My identity is in Christ.

That afternoon I added to my gratitude list, I am thankful my identity is in Christ.

And when John came home that evening we added one more thing to be thankful for.  Dated bathrooms.  He has another job lead.  We may be waiting between jobs right now but this is not looking to be a very boring winter.  Praise the Lord.