Getting There

In the World, God in Us...Update #2

2012-01-21T23:37:00.000-06:00

Soon after I wrote about my goal for the year I got an email from a friend with this quote:

Every time I say no to the birthing anddying that is set before me at the table of daily life, I seem tohear the echo of Jesus' words to the woman at the well, “If you butknew the gift of God.....” Whether God weeps at the beauty andpotential of our lives at birth or the lost potential of gracedmoments along the way, I hear that voice urging us to claim oursplendor and our glory.” If you but knew the gift of God...”
The gift of God is the Divine Indwelling. It comes quietly intoyour frailty at baptism. You become a tabernacle of the Source ofLife. When you come to understand this old yet forgotten truth, youwill know what is meant by the words heaven on earth. This is it! You are beginning to live heaven on earth in the Divine Indwelling. You, frail earth-creature, having given your frailty over to God,have created a place of splendor within the depth of your being, aholy and eternal space where you meet God face to face. Cherish thistruth. It is costly grace.

--A Tree Full of Angels by MacrinaWiederkehr

The question I've chosen to ask each day starts with me. "What am I doing..."

God's Kingdom (heaven) comes to earth because of God in us, and part of the answer to the question includes nurturing that mystery in me. The question has to include this reality somehow.

Today I was reading Sojourners magazine, the February 2011 issue. An article by Marie Dennis, called "Toward the Fullness of Life" speaks pretty directly to this. Two quotes from the article placed next to each other illustrate this.

One of the most powerful and disturbing experiences of my life was realizing that I could neither see nor hear the word of God as long as our family's life was isolated from the broken reality that shaped the experience of the majority of people in the world.

and

In one way or another, we who are trying to catch the rhythm of God's voice and allow it to set the direction of our lives need to create spaces to be present and attentive. The stirrings of the Spirit are often drowned out by our daily routines that are packed with even very good activities. Unless we are still enough to see (really see)) what is going on in our broken world and to our broken earth, we will never have the will or courage to accept a vocation that participates in healing (which is, of course, where vocation---if it is of God---will lead us).

So it is both of these things:

Get immersed in the brokenness of the world in order to hear God's voice most clearly
Pull back from the busyness of the world in order to hear God's voice most clearly

It is God in us who spreads the kingdom in the world like yeast, like a mustard seed...

For this to happen we need both God (in us), and we need to be invested in the brokenness of the world. I would add that we need a third thing closely related to the first. We also need God (in others). So much of what I have learned and done is a result of interactions like this with my friend and with this writer...my thoughts and their improvements/their thoughts, and my interpretations of how those ring true in my life. It's too easy to get off course alone.

* * * * * * *

I know for myself that as I have invested myself in the brokenness of the world, humility has been my biggest lesson. It has also been the lesson most necessary in order to allow God to work.

I started out full of confidence, pretty close to arrogance in my certainty that I knew what was needed and it took some pretty hard knocks to free me from that arrogance. I wish I could have given it up more easily, not for myself, but for those who were hurt by my arrogance. Learning to know that I don't have the answers has been the most important lesson of my life. Learning to be comfortable with the questions has been somewhat of a relief.

Being comfortable with the questions has allowed some measure of healing to begin where I thought none was likely. It is a mystery unfolding with plenty of steps forward and back. At any rate, healing is part of the kingdom of God.

Here on earth (update #1)

2012-01-15T19:38:00.000-06:00

My life lately has been focused on receiving. It is interesting that God gives me a time of receiving immediately after I set a goal about what I will be doing differently. Each day ask the question

What am I doing to work toward God's kingdom coming and God's will being done on earth today?

And then answer is "receive".

I had a hysterectomy ten days ago. Today was my first day back to church, and this afternoon I was able to walk over 1 3/4 miles with the dogs and still feel good when I was done.

In the meantime my life has revolved a lot around gratitude.

Before my surgery I had several calls and messages to let me know I was loved, that I was prayed for, that there would be food, etc. I was a bit awed by it. I was taking the surgery pretty lightly, I think, and having people call to say they loved me felt like such a huge gift.
I had wonderful care at the hospital, especially from Chuck. It reminded me of when our babies came...he was so attentive to anything I might need, so gentle, so ready to set his needs aside to take care of mine.
Becca arrived home the day after surgery to take care of me and to celebrate our family Christmas. Her being here now has been such a gift. Having the family gather here for a whole day including two meals seemed like no big deal thanks to Becca, to Chuck, and to Ben, Andrea, Laura, and Greg for all helping to make it happen around me.
Meals were provided by family and Sunday School class members for a week, with leftovers enough to feed us for several more days...and flowers also came, along with hugs and phone calls and other expressions of love and support.
I had a da vinci robotic surgery, which means recovery time is very short.
I am finished with all the health issues that I tolerated! Every morning I wake up and remember that never again will I have to deal with that. I didn't realize how much I resented it until it was over...I'm assuming that the huge sense of gratitude equals in some measure how frustrating it was before.
Wes loaned us his brand new xbox 360 for my recuperation time. I have NOT played games on it, but I have enjoyed netflix a lot. It will be going back to Wes sometime in the next day or so.
My parents have called repeatedly and come by several times with offers for help. They fed us all day yesterday, and Mom is coming over tomorrow to help me take down Christmas stuff.
We got to skype twice with Tim since the surgery and I am so looking forward to seeing him in person soon.

There is more, but I want to move on to progress on the original goal.

I found in the last week that it is hard to remember each day to ask the question. It is also hard, upon asking it, to have much of an idea of the answer. It would be so easy to go back over the day and look through my activities to either justify or condemn them, but that isn't how I want to live.

Today I realized that I'm going to have to ask the question on more of a minute by minute basis. What do I do right now?

As for computer games---I have not played any electronic game by myself since making this goal. I did play a game with Luke for a little while, and I feel good about that. It was a simple game that he wanted to teach me. He taught me so sweetly, and then gave me turn after turn. Each time I told him it was his turn he would push it back to me and say, "You do it again." I think the time was well spent letting a three year old take care of his Gammy for a bit.

I've had several people write or talk to me about the goals and make suggestions or ask questions or offer perspectives. Each of those has been helpful and I will include them in future posts. Those comments really get me thinking so if there are any comments you would like to add, please put them here or give me a call or email. It refines my thinking and I so appreciate that.

New Year's Goal

2012-01-01T17:01:00.000-06:00

This is the traditional time to take stock and make goals. Our small group used to take most of January and maybe longer for each of us to have an evening to review the past year and make goals for the coming year. It was part of our desire to be held accountable.

But it is part of my make up as well. Most years I read over my journal entries from the last year, and review where God and life has taken me. But I did an extensive life review last September, so I don't really need to now.

However, some ideas keeping coming to mind.

Chuck and I have been doing a lot of talking about the afterlife this year. It comes up at least weekly. We read "Love Wins" by Rob Bell. Chuck read, "What Does the Bible Really Say About Hell?" by Randy Klaassen. There aren't easy answers to the questions we have, but there are new things to think about, and new questions to ask.

What I come up with is this.

The more we try to put God into a box so that everyone can know who is 'safe' and who is not 'safe', the more we become Pharisees. That is what they did...made tons of rules so that everyone could know exactly what to do and not do so anyone could see who was in and who was out.

When Jesus was born the angels came to shepherds, who, according to my Sunday School exposition, were such a scurvy bunch that they were not allowed to be witnesses in court because they were known to be so untrustworthy.

The star appeared to astronomers from far away who were not Jewish and who did not worship the God of Israel.

God doesn't fit into religious expectations. God didn't then. God doesn't now.

Heaven is the Kingdom of God. But Jesus told us to be making that kingdom happen here and now, as well as to be waiting for its fullness later. The more I am part of spreading that Kingdom here on earth---on being honest about my faith, on being honest about my faults, on being part of justice and mercy and humility and love and forgiveness and so many other things---the more I will be ready for heaven when that day arrives for me.

In that spirit, my goal for this year is to daily be asking a question.

What am I doing to work toward God's kingdom coming and God's will being done on earth today?

These things seem important:

1. Live my life in such a way that I am part of "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven".

2. Continue to get to know God personally, and act on what I learn.

3. Be deeply involved with the church, for encouragement, for accountability, for my own nurture as well participating in nurturing the faith of others, for corporate worship.

Actually, I think numbers 2 and 3 are just more of number 1.

So anyway,

The first concrete and specific answer I've recognized is to give up computer games (namely solitaire) for this year. I hesitated to write that in this blog. I didn't want to share that such a silly thing is a problem for me. But it is easier to follow through on this when I've made it public.

Other answers will be smaller, or bigger. They won't always be about giving things up. Sometimes they will be about doing less, and being more intentional. Sometimes they will be about doing more.

I'd like to write about at least some of them here...maybe weekly or biweekly. I need to test that a bit and see if it fits. But it seems like a good way to be accountable for continuing to ask the question daily.

Thanksgiving...a little late: I have a name

2011-12-02T20:16:00.001-06:00

On Thanksgiving morning I slipped into the church about 10 minutes late, thinking, "It's a good thing I did not offer to read scripture this morning!" Not exactly a thankful thought, but I was glad to be there.

It was a small group, as is usual for a holiday service. Katrina was at the piano and accompanied all the hymns, and had a very nice piece during the offertory. When did she grow up?

On November 14 we welcomed our grandson, Charlie John, into the world. I sat and watched Katrina play the piano and remembered the look on Chuck's face as Ben told us the baby's name. Thankfulness was certainly in my heart.

Katrina's mother and sister were seated in front of me. I remembered Katrina as a little girl sharing her music in church, as many children do. I watched her mother as I thought about Ben and Andrea choosing little Charlie's name. I remembered choosing the names of each of our birth children. I thought of the parents of our adopted children, and how they must have pondered names as they waited for those precious babies to be born. I thought of Katrina's mother choosing her name, my parents choosing my name, my grandparents choosing the names of their children.

The choosing of a name seems to be so important when you are looking forward to the miracle of a birth. It is the first gift you give the child, and you want it to be right. You want a strong name, a name that the child will carry proudly, a name that will not cause ridicule, but will hopefully give the child an idea of how amazing and miraculous she/he is.

I wanted that. My adoptive children's parents wanted that. My parents wanted that. My grandparents wanted that.

I looked around the group assembled there and it seemed like such a simple thing, yet so profound. We have each been given a name full of hope and promise. We have each been watched with curiosity to see whom we will become.

I watched Katrina's mom as she watched Katrina. I saw her joy in the talents of her daughter and I thought of the hopes and the joy I have with all of my children. I thought of how each of them has developed, is developing. I thought of the joy I have in them as they express their talents, overcome adversities, learn new things, continue to become who they are.

And I thought of God, who did not choose our name but who watched us grow inside of our mothers, who has numbered the hairs of our heads, and who knows our sitting down and our rising up and our thoughts from afar. Maybe God also watches with joy, with curiosity as to whom we will yet become, and with hope that we will become our best selves, the miracles God has created us to be.

Just a great day

2011-11-07T00:27:00.000-06:00

This has been such a pleasant day that I just had to be grateful publicly.

I was wakened early this morning when Chuck slipped into bed after having been awake during the night for a while. He said he'd been lying awake thinking about what an amazing woman I am. Then he listed some things he was grateful for. This isn't my usual way of waking up, but it was definitely a nice way of waking up.

Daylight savings time is over!!!

The weather was so perfect today---bright, perfect temperature, very little wind.

This morning my adult class invited my 5th-6th grade class for breakfast. This happened because my adult class is praying for my 5th-6th grade class and wanted to get to know them better. My youthful class members came in very rambunctious this morning. It looked to be a challenging day. I gave them some instructions about expected behaviors at breakfast. Then I gave them again, and again. Finally everyone had been quiet long enough to hear the directions. We went to breakfast, where each child teamed up with at least one adult for conversation.

While they ate and conversed a peacefulness spread over the room and I looked around to see everyone engaged and enjoying themselves appropriately. When we went back to class, I gave them scrap paper for doodling while I told the story of the Ten Commandments. Doodling seems to be a necessity for this very active class. If their hands are busy they are more able to listen, and they did listen well. It was a good class time, with appropriate discussion and thoughtful questions and comments from the kids.

Worship was great. Ben, Dwayne and Jesse made a fine worship band and Anita had a good sermon.

I got a nice afternoon nap after having Mennonite Weekly Review for lunch. Then I began a baby blanket while Chuck chored and rode bike.

We had a great dinner at Applebees with Dad and Mom to celebrate their 58th anniversary. We stayed at the table long after we were done because the conversation was relaxing and interesting.

Then on to a friend's home to sit around a fire outdoors and reminisce about Cookie with Dave and others who loved her.

It was altogether an exceptional day.

Take us with you

2011-11-03T03:12:00.001-05:00

Yesterday afternoon we stopped by the funeral home during visitation for our friend, Cookie, who passed away on Monday. Cookie's sister was just beginning to set up memorabilia from Cookie's life. She had stacks of photos, albums, art, etc., and she enlisted our help. It was such fun doing that, because we've known Cookie for so much of her life that I was familiar with a lot of the memories in a personal way.

One book caught my attention more than the others. It was a scrapbook our small group had made for Dave and Cookie and Abra before they left for Chad. We had filled our pages with photos, memories, and blessings for them as they left. And I had written a letter.

Part of that letter was a plea that they take us with them along to Chad. I wrote that this new adventure would change them, would cause them to ask questions and search for answers, would give them new perspectives, would help them define better ways to live. I wanted to not be left behind. I wanted to grow alongside them, asking the questions, struggling for the answers, gaining the new perspectives and wisdom.

Now in the middle of the night before the funeral, I lie awake realizing that all along, even before I wrote that plea, they have taken us along. It has been part of who Cookie is to be open, vulnerable, and not afraid to speak the questions or share the answers, not afraid to take risks, make mistakes, or make things right after those mistakes.

We were able to get as close to knowing something as anyone could without actually living it. Cookie and Dave walked us through the loss of a child who died a month after her birth. Bethany wasn't quietly laid to rest as someone who barely existed. Because her entire life was lived in a hospital, her funeral was for all the rest of us, both a meeting and a good-bye. This was in the days when infant deaths were mostly minimized...but not Bethany's death. Through pictures and their words we got to know Bethany and her fighting spirit, how her tiny hands that could not move much could still move enough to fight the tubes hooked up to her body. We grieved together, thanks to their decision to not hide their grief, and we learned alongside them.

They took us to Chad, to the confusion of figuring out a very different culture. We heard about trying to practice Ramadan with their village, about trying to understand the very different attitudes toward possessions, and about living through real and immediate threat during a political uprising. We learned how these things impacted their faith, and what they discovered about God in the process.

They took us to India twice and we learned about trekking, and the joy of getting to know students deeply through hospitality and personal investment in young lives. We learned about how the clothes dry so slowly during monsoon that mold can be a problem.

And in the last year and a half we have learned about living with cancer and how to die well.

During the days when Cookie was still doing a lot of walking, but after the first hopeful chemo had lost its effectiveness, we took a long walk. We spent the first half of the walk talking about cancer and facing death and what Cookie's body was currently doing or not doing, and what emotions she went through in the process. We spent the second half of the walk talking about some deeply painful things happening in my life. In that discussion, Cookie could see clearly some things I was missing. She counseled me, based on similar things she had faced herself. Her advice was clear and concise. I was to do what I could to keep relationships clear. I was to be honest about where I needed to change. And I was not to take responsibility for things that went wrong that were not my fault. It was OK if people didn't like me or agree with me. After I had done what I could do, and listened as well as I could, then I had to let go of it. My own sense of worth was not to be dependent on another person's judgment of me.

I asked her how she got to that point herself, and she lined it out for me from her own experiences. She told me what she had learned, while protecting identities and being respectful of those who had disagreed with or judged her, and without giving away details of the story that were not hers to share. She took me with her into something she had learned through her own difficult experiences. For me that day was a turning point, and I'm grateful.

Since then she has continued through her blog, through her sharing in Sunday School, and through our talks, to take us with her. She has, with Dave's help, taken us right to the doors of death. I so wish I could know the reason for that smile as she crossed over.

In fact, I realized yesterday that I still sort of was expecting her to continue to take us with her.

Over the years in most cases, I'm slow to feel my grief. Loss becomes real to me on a much slower time line than I observe in other friends. I used to beat myself up about it, but it seems to work better to just accept it.

Anyway, I caught myself thinking the same thoughts I recognize from grieving the deaths of others...."if we can just get through the funeral, everything will be OK." So these days have been preparation for a celebration of Cookie's life. And then everything would be OK, which in some small place in my brain, means Cookie will be back.

I wanted her to be healed. We all did. But at the end, none of us wished for her life to be prolonged. Death was a release. She is healed now. That is real to me.

But it is real in an odd kind of way. Yesterday I was thinking I could hardly wait for Cookie's next blog post. I wondered what kind of pictures she would include. Of course the thought was fleeting and I immediately recognized the silliness of it. But I'm used to her taking us with her. I will miss that a lot.

Good-bye Cookie

2011-10-31T09:59:00.001-05:00

There is really not much more to say than what Cookie said herself in her post, "I Might Not Have To Die."

She is gone now, as of this morning, and accomplished most of what was on her list and much more in terms of being the kind of person we all wish we were. She will be missed.

Vacation #12: More changed plans

2011-10-16T20:16:00.001-05:00

We got to Penn station on time taking thesecond cab who stopped. The first driver was a bit disdainful thatwe didn’t want to carry all those bags close to a mile. Thesecond driver was quite helpful. We got to the station just a bitearlier than we had planned.

At Penn Station there was a long linefor the ticket counter. Everyone looked a bit tired and somewhat in a state of worry/panic. We joined the line. It was hard to keep in mind that we had to just go with the flow. What if the line took too long and we missed our train? What if we had inaccurate information and there really were not seats for us on this train? Thoughts can get a little dicey with lack of sleep and unexpected circumstances. I could hear two women talking about whether they could get a wedding dress safely into the baggage compartment. Wow. What would it be like to be trying to get to your own wedding?

Our ticket agent was veryhelpful, and even spent quite a bit of time trying to get us a refundfor the additional fees assessed on the changed tickets. I kept wondering what the people behind us in line were thinking as we waited at that desk for her to research options. Was our delay costing them seats? But then she returned. No luck. Butwe did have tickets.

Then we waited again. We joined the crowd sitting on the floor surrounded by their bags. There was a seating area, but it seemed to be an area where tickets had already been checked. We did not fit that category.

Occasionally a train number would be called and we would jump and check our tickets, and then realize it wasn't ours. Finally it was ours and we joined yet another line for thetrain.

The first leg of the journey we were lucky enough to find seats together for thefour of us. We changed trains at New Haven, Connecticut, and satnear (but not with) each other until the train became more empty.

While we rode, Chuck began talking to me about our plans. He was ready to reconsider the plan for staying in Vermont, so that we could try to get Tim toorientation more closley to on time. The new plan depended upon twothings. We needed to be able to get an affordable rental car thatwould be easy to return in Chicago. It would be nice to be able toget a train from Chicago to Newton leaving Chicago at 2:45 pm onSunday.

As soon as we pulled into the station at Springfield, Mass. Chuck started looking for a place to check into rental cars while I went to the ticket desk to try to change our Chicago-Newton tickets back to Sunday. Hertz was $250 for one day. Nope. The ticket agent could get us on the Sunday train, but we couldn't book until we had a car, so the ticket agent quickly found us the phone number for Enterprise. $25 for one day. Could that be right? Would they take us from the car rental site to the train station for that price? Yes? Take it!

Becca was waiting on us to get all this figured out and noticed a young couple with British accents trying to find a way to get to Burlington, Vermont. As soon as she realized that we would not be filling their car back to Vermont, she offered this couple a ride as far as White River Junction.

Then Becca and Joseph took us to Enterprise.

We got a Ford Fusion from Enterpriseand we added a gps to make Chicago easier. We were promised that wewould be able to drop the car off at another Enterprise and be givena ride to the train station. The price was amazingly cheap, even with the upgrades, in viewof the fact that we were going to be putting 900 miles into the next24 hours.

We said good-bye to Becca and Joseph,and then had lunch at McDonalds so we could look at the route online. Then we set off. I slept for a while in the back while Chuck droveand Tim got the gps set up. We’d only had tiny amounts of sleepsince the day before so we traded drivers as often as we needed toand took turns sleeping. The gps always showed the miles to the nextturn and the direction of the turn. You could know well ahead oftime where to place yourself among the lanes and when you could relaxand just drive without worrying about missing a turn.

We had supper at a Taco Bell andcontinued to drive until around 12:30am. We used the gps to getphone numbers for motels and made a reservation at a Motel 6.

After sleeping four hours, we quicklygot back on the road. I drove until we were nearly to Chicago andthen Chuck took over. Again the gps was pretty helpful nearly all ofthe time. We called Enterprise to find out the location closest tothe train station. At first we were told that there were no openlocations and that we would have to drop off the car at a closedlocation and find our own ride back to the station. That caused a fair amount of consternation, since we were counting on that ride to the station.

Chuck was driving during that phone call and I was on the phone. So he would give me a question to ask and I would continue to try to find a way to make this all work with the main office for Enterprise. Finally we did find a location that would openearly enough to help us, and was within a mile of Union Station. Wewere to call after 9am to make the arrangements with that place.

When we called we could never get aperson, so we decided to just show up. That was complicated. The gps could not find anaddress matching the one we had been given. We tried other methods of looking through the streets of Chicago to try to find an intersection close to the rental car site. Then we tried to drive there. At that point we had to rely on our wits more than on the gpsbecause the tall buildings were blocking the information flow to thegps. We found the location, got breakfast at the Einstein Bagelrestaurant next door, and then were taken back to Union Station.

The Enterprise employee was kind of a cocky rich privileged college grad (was that judgemental?) who seemed to not be too interested in making things simple for us. He made us wait quite a while before giving us a ride, even though he was free to go. Then he dropped us off at Union Station as far as you could possibly get from the entrance we needed. But it was a ride. That was what we had been promised---a ride, not necessarily a great ride.

We called Darrel Gascho, the leader of Radical Journey, and left amessage. Then we settled ourselves outdoors along the river next tothe station. Tim was expecting to be picked up by 11:30am. Ourtrain would leave at 2:00pm.

Later we found out that Tim’s rideswould not be so early because the hurricane had changed otherpeople’s travel arrangements as well. We expected that he wouldbe picked up shortly before we left on our train. We settled intothe food court and found an outlet to charge Tim’s phone. Chuckand I took turns adding notes to Tim’s book.

Then it got close to our boarding timeso we called again. They were still delayed and would be at leastanother hour. We had to leave Tim sitting alone in a corner of the food court with his laptop and phone and suitcase. We said good-bye to Tim and headed to the train. Thatwas a long lonely walk.

Boarding the train was an adventure. There were several families on our train, and one mom with threedaughters had a huge quantity of luggage. Chuck leaped forward tohelp them while I pushed our bags along through the line by myself.

After boarding, the conductor madeseveral announcements asking passengers to bring their small luggageto the overhead racks so that there would be enough room for thelarger bags. Only a few people followed this suggestion, and the conductor began bringing bagsupstairs herself. Then she moved quite a few to to the overheadstorage in the lower level seating area. Finally she made anotherannouncement, letting people know that since they did not come tomove their own smaller bags, she had done it for them. If they couldnot find their bags later, they should not panic, but just keeplooking. They would be around somewhere.

She made her announcements about thistrain and then came down the aisle to check on people. There weretwo older women near us who spoke only Spanish. The conductor knewonly a little Spanish and Chuck offered her his dictionary. Then hetried to help with some of his own Spanish and the ladies enjoyedhim. By this time the conductor loved Chuck. He had been so helpful with the luggage and was now rescuing her with the Spanish.

I got out my new skein of sock yarn andset up for winding it to a ball. The Spanish speaking women got veryexcited, because they were crocheting. We spent a lot of time trying to explain to each other what kind of things we were making, andthey taught me the method they were using to crochet the tabs ofaluminum pop cans into quite interesting purses.

In the observation car I met four womensitting together knitting so I began a conversation with them. Theyhad been at a Stitches conference near Chicago and were on their wayhome to Laurence, KS. We talked knitting until it was their time togo to the dining car for supper. Chuck joined me in the observationcar until our time for dinner. We were seated with a couple fromEngland. She was a public health nurse. He was a retired navy officer. Wereally enjoyed visiting with them while we ate. Chuck ordered a southwestchicken scampi, which he traded with me when he realized how spicy itwas. I ordered a pasta with marinara and eggplant, which was delicious.

We went back to the observation car andtalked until it was dark. Then we found our seats again. I worked onthis journal and slept.

In the morning, early morning, we arrived in Newton and in our broken Spanish, said good-bye to the women we met on the train.

Of course, as many people already know, plans don't quit changing.

The hurricane moved into Vermont, where we would have been staying, had we not changed plans. We would have arrived in Chicago much later than we hoped because of the floods. Trains took a while to get back to regular service. We were glad for Chuck's determination to look for a rental car.

Also, it was good to be in car with Tim on that last day of travel. Being alone in a car provided a lot more options for conversation, and that was good for me.

Two days before Tim was to leave the United States for Bolivia, Radical Journey decided not to send the team to Bolivia. The Bolivian government had not been honoring visas for MCC, and the team had used MCC to get their visas. The Argentinian church in Buenos Aires welcomed them for a week and a half while they obtained Paraguayan visas. The Paraguayan Mennonite church scrambled to find jobs and host homes, and welcomed the five young people with open arms.

Tim's blog is on the side bar: Bolivia Blog 2.0 (Paraguay version).

There. The vacation story is told and I can get back to current life posts---if I can find the time!

Vacation #11: Plans Can Change---Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Mets Game

2011-10-08T17:24:00.000-05:00

By Friday morning we had begun hearing little bits about Hurricane Irene approaching land. There was one tabloid type newspaper in the corner market that had something fantastic about how NYC was being evacuated. I didn't believe it because our hotel staff had not mentioned anything like that to us.

This was our final day in the city and we had a full day planned. We had originally not planned to see the Empire State Building because it was pricey. However, we walked past it several times because our hotel was so close to it. It began to look more and more appealing. And its story had been in that New York City documentary, so we knew a little bit about it already, which made it even more appealing. We decided to go.

First we stopped at a restaurant nearby for breakfast. Chuck and I had gone for an early morning walk and found this place. It was part grocery, part health food restaurant. It didn't seem that large but you could get anything there. There was a buffet with a huge bowl of yogurt surrounded with smaller bowls of many different kinds of fruit and granola, and other things that go with yogurt. There was a hot cereal area. There was a grill where you could get any kind of omelet, breakfast sandwich, pancake or waffle you could think to ask for. There was a coffee bar. There were not always prices, but the prices of the breakfast sandwiches were very reasonable, so we brought the kids there.

The other prices were not so reasonable, because the yogurt with fruit, etc. was charged by the ounce. But it was so so good. There was an eating area upstairs and we tried to get internet there unsuccessfully. Unsuccessful internet was kind of the routine for the trip.

We dropped the laptops back off at the room and headed for the Empire State building. They have a pretty good plan for the way they sell their tickets. There is a room with a maze of that kind of tape stuff that you go through when you are in line. It had lots of people in it, but it was moving fast and it didn't look too daunting. When you got to the door....there was another room with tape going back and forth full of people waiting in line. I think there was a third room as well. Finally you get to the room with a back-and-forth tape line that has actual tickets for sale in it. Chuck and Tim had gone ahead of us to buy the tickets, so Becca and I could skip that last long tape line. While we did that, we noticed a man carrying a large purse with a dog in it.

Beyond the ticket line was the security line. This was more serious than airport security. They x-rayed our bags, and we walked through scanners. Chuck had a pocket knife that he had to give up. Tim's bag was checked twice. Then the security person said that she could see something large and round in his bag. "Yes," he responded. "That is my frisbee."

"You can't take that," she stated very firmly and another guard came to help her. Tim removed the frisbee and they give him a strip of plastic with a number that they tore off the top of a bag. They shoved the frisbee into this bag and told Tim he could claim it later.

While we were going through this process, the man with the purse/dog came up to the the body scanner. We heard a guard say, "You can't bring that up here!" The man just as loudly proclaimed in impolite terms that the guard did not know what he was talking about. He COULD bring the dog because he had purchased his ticket in front of the building from a man who charged him an extra fee for the dog and assured him that the dog WOULD be allowed. The guard repeated, "You can't bring that up here!" And the man increased his impoliteness. We didn't wait to see that one end.

Now it was time to stand in a long back and forth line for the elevators. On the way we could look at exhibits telling about the building of the Empire State Building. That was pretty interesting! But the line after the exhibits was still pretty long.

And then an offer was made to use the stairs to go up the last 6 flights in order to avoid that line. We went.

As you would expect, the view from the top is pretty impressive and we have the photos to prove it.

the top of the Empire State Building from the top of the Empire State Building

looking down on the Chrysler Building

In the lobby in front of the wall facing the front door of the Empire State Building

After we got back down and took these pics, Chuck and Tim went to reclaim their items and then back to our hotel to pick up our umbrellas while Becca and I went back to the shoe store for some Tom's shoes for me. Tom's shoes are pretty popular. They were out of the black in my size so I opted for a darker shade of brown, and they are quite comfortable. We got done in time to meet Chuck and Tim at the subway station.

Ellis Island is where the immigrants came through before entering the United States. There documents were processed, health checks given, and people either allowed in, kept for a while for health to improve, or turned away. I wanted to be able to look up family members who had immigrated in the 1870's and the 1920's, so we had made some calls to get names and dates of immigration.

Battery Park is at the southern tip of Manhattan. Close to the water is Castle Clinton, which is an unimpressive old building with not many windows or beautiful architecture to draw anyone's attention. Tickets for the ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty are sold inside of Castle Clinton. The line wound quite a distance around the outside of the building, so we found our way to the end of the line. As soon as we arrived at the end of the line a loudspeaker announcement was made that no more tickets would be sold for going inside the
Statue of Liberty that day. People could visit the island it was on, but they could not go up inside the statue. A group of people left the line at that point so we were moving.

Castle Clinton

We ate crackers and cheese and dried fruits while we waited. It really wasn't a bad wait, and then we were inside the Castle Clinton and found there were many lines available for buying tickets, so that went fast too.

Security for the ferry was again more strict than airline security. Even the clasp of my barrette set off the metal detector.

The ferry ride was nice. I was worried a bit at first about seasickness, but it wasn't a problem. As we got farther from shore the skyline of NYC became so much easier to see. The absence of the World Trade Center towers was conspicuous from this view.

In this picture there is a building being built that is about half as tall as one of the World Trade Center towers. It is in the plaza where the WTC used to stand. That building will eventually be taller than the WTC. Also in that plaza are the lower buildings with greenish tops. Somewhere in between all of them is the memorial with the giant waterfalls in each of the basement areas of the two towers that fell.

The farther we got from shore, the closer we got to the Statue of Liberty, which is as beautiful as you can imagine in the bright sunlight.

Becca and Tim on the benches of the upper deck of the ferry

Ellis Island

While we rode the ferry, and heard the conversations of those around us, we kept hearing more about Hurricane Irene. One impressive fact being discussed was that the subways were going to close at noon the next day. At this point we were still unaware that except for 9/11, the subways had never been shut down. But the predictions for the storm hitting land were that it would arrive after our Amtrak trains were safely out of the city.

As we neared Ellis Island, an announcement was made that Ellis Island would be closing a bit early in order to prepare for the hurricane.

We entered the building and a priority for me was to find out where I could look up our ancestors. Unfortunately, for that day, they were not allowing anyone to make any more searches because of the early closing. However, they assured us that this was better for us anyway. We could have access to all the same documents online for free at home, whereas at Ellis Island there was a fee for doing a search.

Chuck was beginning to wonder whether the closing of the subways meant that trains would also not run. Becca's train was scheduled to leave in the morning but the rest of us were not leaving till mid afternoon. Becca called Amtrak. They assured her that our trains were still running and that we had nothing to worry about.

We continued to tour the building but there was an undercurrent of worry about how things would play out with the storm. Also, it seemed that Ellis Island did not open until after most of our ancestors had already arrived in the United States. The stories of the building were compelling, but I wondered how I would be able to find out more about our stories.

Finally I asked some staff about where people went through immigration before Ellis Island was open. Castle Clinton was the place. That dark, windowless building that we came through without paying much attention to our surroundings was where our ancestors set foot in this country. It seemed more like a prison than a welcome.

The ferry

As we left Ellis Island

Becca and Tim enjoying the ride back to NYC

The guy with the sagging pants who was kind enough to match his shirt to his boxers!

After Ellis Island we were scheduled to go to the Mets game in Queens. Chuck really wanted to go back to our room to pick up our train tickets, but the rest of us wanted to get going to the game so we could have a chance at seeing the opening pitch. Chuck acquiesced.

Mets stadium is on the far side of Queens, so it was one of the longer subway rides. The subway stops right in the parking lot of the stadium, so that makes it easy to go to a game. We had a bit of confusion about whether to buy tickets before or after security, but finally we were seated in the nosebleed section and watching the game already in progress.

Citi Field, where the Mets play

The stadium was really not very full at all

Chuck in the empty stands

There were some things that needed taking care of back in Kansas, so I left the game to make some phone calls, and ended up missing the whole first half of the game. Chuck came to check on me just as I was finishing up and we bought supper for the others. We haven't attended many major league games so I was unprepared for the cost of food inside the stadium. But it was a very very good hot dog!

As soon as Chuck finished eating he called Amtrak again. He didn't come back for the rest of the game, and finally I went to check on him. Our train was cancelled. If he would have had our tickets with him it would have been much easier for the ticket agent on the phone, but Chuck was persistent, and the ticket agent was sympathetic. After much time spend searching through using our names instead of ticket numbers, and then checking status of other trains still running, Chuck managed to get us all on a train leaving NYC at about 7am. We would get to Massachusetts near noon, but then no other trains would be running east that day at all. Monday was the first day we might be able to get a train to Chicago, which meant Tim would arrive at orientation 2 days late. We would have to spend a couple of days in Vermont with Becca waiting for the trains to run again. But at least we had tickets out of New York.

After the game we needed to book motels and figure out our plans. This is when the non-existent internet access became very frustrating. We took our laptop to the tiny lobby of the motel and could not get a signal there either. We asked at the desk. They seemed incredulous that we would try to get a signal on first floor. The signal was good from second floor to the top of the building. We explained that is was not good in our room on 6th floor. They reiterated that the signal was very good on the 6th floor. We could see that it was stupid to argue this one out and we went upstairs to second floor where we parked ourselves in the hallway next to an outlet.

We had a signal. We booked the Super 8 in White River Junction, and also looked at other options. Taking a bus from there to Chicago for the three of us was too expensive. Renting a car was not appealing because we were so tired and it was a very long drive. But it was hard to decided that Tim would miss the first 2 days of orientation. We went to bed tense and did not sleep well.

Vacation #10: Rain

2011-10-06T20:27:00.000-05:00

We had been told by several people that it was wise to go early to buy tickets for a play in New York. We never thought to ask what time would be considered early. So Chuck and I got up around 7am, puttered around a bit, and eventually made our way to Times Square. So far, so good.

It wasn't raining. We could see the building where the tickets were sold. There was no line. No line at all.

When we reached the ticket building we found that ticket sales began at 3pm.

On our way back to the subway we passed a cart with giant muffins and bagels, rolls, juice, and coffee. We bought a few things to share and went back to our room for breakfast. While we ate breakfast it began to rain.

We did not bring umbrellas because with the wind in Kansas, we just don't use them much. We checked at the desk and umbrellas could be bought at the corner store a half block away. Chuck was the hero who ran to buy umbrellas.

Then we set out for Grand Central Station. It is a big place, with many things to buy or eat and lots of people to watch, but we didn't really want to spend the day shopping and eating. Tim was interested in the planetarium at the Natural History Museum, so we figured out how to get there on the subway, and set off.

The Planetarium. The large sphere in the window is where the planetarium shows are presented.

We saw a presentation on the origins of the universe, narrarated by Whoopi Goldberg, and saw several exhibits before going back to Times Square to buy those tickets.

There was a line. It was raining. We stood in line in the rain for over an hour and debated which show we wanted to see. Two of us had already seen Wicked. Some of the more popular shows, like Spiderman, and Book of Mormon, were sold out. We kind of narrowed it down to Billy Elliot and Anything Goes. There was a bigger discount for Anything Goes. The music is by Cole Porter, which I thought Tim might enjoy, and it premiered on Broadway in 1934 with Ethel Merman in the lead role. I hoped that a play that old would not have much that was offensive in it.

When we had our tickets, we hopped back on the subway and back to the Museum to get a little more exhibit viewing out of our ticket price. When the museum closed, we walked around in the area to choose a restaurant for supper and settled on a sandwich place nearby.

Then back to Times Square for the play!

tickets and playbill

This time we were the right kind of early and managed to be near the front of the line for the play. The doors had not opened yet, and it was still light outside, but it felt exciting.

waiting in line by the poster

Chuck in line

and the lovely Becca

It wasn't long before we could go in and take our seats. Having nothing to compare with, I was impressed with the theatre and our seats. We weren't at the very front, but we had good seats about half way up and a little to one side. Tim did not sit down until he had gone to check out the orchestra pit. Much nicer than the pit at NHS! Musicians were already warming up.

While we waited, we read the playbill and discovered a young actor from Wichita, KS was in the production. That was fun to find out. Joel Grey was also in the play, whom some may remember from the play and movie, Cabaret.

Soon the overture began and Tim recognized a piece they had played at Bethel Music Camp.

The play was such fun. Of course we should have expected this, but we didn't---there were no so-so actors or singers!

The play had one unplanned good laugh. At one point the set malfunctioned and the actors began to laugh. They managed to do quite well at getting through the scene, but it gave us a kind of personal look into the workings of a play.

After the play we headed back to the subway. Earlier in the day there had been a conspicuous police presense at this particular subway station. There were some officers with full body armor and massive guns, and a supervising officer with them. They seemed to be pretty calm, but watchful. By the time the play was over, there was not the same kind of security.

The subway between Times Square and Grand Central Station has no stops in between those two locations. Grand Central Station was fairly near our hotel, so we had been on this train several times. This was the one train where more than once someone used the unbroken ride to promote a cause.

A woman talked about homelessness and asked for donations. A mother preached the gospel. A young man sang a simple song about Jesus and asked for donations. A couple of guys had a sort of comedy musical act and asked for money if we thought they were entertaining.

But after the play, the entertainment that caught our eye was in the station. We could hear a hammer dulcimer playing duets with an electric guitar. Back when Ben still played dulcimer he sometimes talked about what it might be like to busk in a subway station in NYC. We had to take pictures.

We heard a lot of music in different subway stations throughout our days in NYC. There was classical, reggae, folk, and more. I really enjoyed this side of the city.

Tim waiting for the subway

Chuck and I waiting for our train

When we got back to the hotel the tv went on and the movie, Saving Private Ryan was in progress. Tim needed a haircut yet before he began Radical Journey. We spread out a couple of my sarongs on the floor to catch the hair and I cut his hair while the others watched the movie.

Vacation #9: Brooklyn Bridge, WTC site, Veselka Restaurant, Times Square

2011-10-05T19:35:00.000-05:00

The second place that we wanted good weather for was the Brooklyn Bridge. We wanted to be able to walk across that historic structure. When Tim was being homeschooled during his grade school years, PBS had a seven part series directed by Ric Burns on New York City. If you can get it at your library, it is worth watching. I was fascinated by nearly any history program, but this one was special. Tim loved it too.

Soon after that, Ken Burns did a documentary on the Brooklyn Bridge, which we also watched. Tim, with the help of some of his siblings, constructed a lego version of the bridge, complete with actual suspension holding up the deck of the bridge.

That year for Christmas, the person who drew Tim's name gave him a poster of New York City. I think that was just a year before the 9/11 attack and the World Trade Center dominates the sky line.

So our plans for the rest of the day included walking the Bridge, seeing the WTC site, and then eating Ukranian. More about that later.

Tim in front of the support closest to Manhattan. Chuck and Becca in the background.

Becca taking pics of Manhattan skyline.

Manhattan skyline

The bridge has lanes for walkers and bikers and there were a lot of people on the bridge.

We only walked across from Manhattan to Brooklyn and then took the subway which goes under the river back to Manhattan. On both sides of the bridge there is an area around the massive suspension supports that has information about the bridge. As you move around the support structure there are signs that tell the history of the bridge, the way it was constructed, and interesting trivia.

The bridge was designed by John Roebling, who was injured in an accident while surveying the site in preparation for building the bridge. He died ten days later of tetanus. His son, Washington Roebling, took over the task of building the bridge.

In order to have a firm foundation for the bridge, sand and sediment needed to be removed from the bottom of the river in order to reach the rock layer below. Large boxes, big enough for several men to work inside of, were lowered with the open side down, into the river. Air was pumped into those boxes in order to displace the water and then the boxes were sunk to the bottom of the river. The pressure of the air inside the boxes had to be high in order to keep the water out so that the men could steadily dig out the sediment. In those days they did not know how slowly to bring the men out of that pressurized environment in order to avoid getting air bubbles in their blood stream from coming back to normal air pressure to quickly. The result was a disease called Cassions disease, or the bends.

Washington Roebling was a hands-on builder and he contracted this disease early in the building of the bridge. He became home bound. He and his wife, Emily lived in an apartment that overlooked the bridge site, and Emily took over the day to day operations of the construction while Washington watched from his window.

On the support that is closest to Brooklyn, there is a large bronze plaque in memory of Emily's contribution to the building of the bridge.

When we returned to Manhattan we decided to walk over to the site of the World Trade Center. The area was completely fenced with no visual access because they did not want people to see the memorial before its opening a couple of weeks later. We did go to a memorial store front that had exhibits with the story of 9/11 and drawings of the new memorial. People were very quiet in there, surprised by the strength of emotion that returns so readily even after ten years.

Becca's friend Katelyn had told her of a Ukranian Restaurant, Veselka, near that area. They sold pierogi, or vereniki, but different than the vereniki that we are accustomed to. They had seven different fillings available. You could order a plate of them in any assortment of fillings you chose, so Becca and I both ordered all seven.

There were potato, sweet potato, sauerkraut and mushroom, arugula and goat cheese, spinach with cheese, cheese, and meat pierogi, served not with ham gravy, but with grilled onions, applesauce, and sour cream.

Becca's plate

Chuck also ordered pierogi, but skipped the arugula/goat cheese flavor, and Tim had beef stroganoff.

Following our meal we began to think about the next day. There was rain in the forecast, so we thought we would do some indoor activites culminating with a play. We'd been told that cheaper tickets are sold on the day of the performance in Times Square.

I wanted to see Times Square at night when it was not raining, so we went there after supper to scout out where those cheaper tickets would be sold the next day. Times Square is like nothing I've ever seen before.

whole buildings lit up with moving advertisements and messages

There was one place we walked where everyone was staring at the same building and taking pictures. I was hoping that it wasn't something awful that they wanted to capture. It wasn't. There was a camera somewhere that was doing a live feed of the crowd on to the lit side of the building. They were taking pictures of themselves projected on a building in Times Square!

Tim getting some pics.

Vacation #8: Walking in NYC---Central Park

2011-09-22T23:37:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the delay in posting. Our internet was out for several days and I have been watching Luke and Aaron while Laura begins a new job, and I'm obsessively knitting a sweater for Luke in any spare minutes.

* * * * *

In the months leading up to our big trip we had thought quite a bit about what we wanted to squeeze into the three days in New York. Now we were looking at weather to see how to organize our time. Wednesday looked like a beautiful day, while there was rain in the forecast for Thursday. We decided to try to get in most of the outdoor, walking activities on Wednesday.

Our breakfast was mostly some foods we had brought with us, along with orange juice from the corner market. We did not get an early start. This is vacation, after all, and we had stayed up late watching movies.

We needed to plot out our subway routes.

Our map and 7-day passes went with us everywhere.

First on the list was Central Park. But before that was a trip to a nearby shoe store. Becca was in the market for some Tom's shoes, had done her homework and found a store within a few blocks of our hotel that sold them.

Central Park is 2.5 miles by .5 miles, so even though we walked around in Central Park for 4-5 hours, we did not see everything. It was great, though.

One thing we did not understand about Central park is that it is surrounded by a big stone fence and has limited entrances. We came out of the subway, walked a few blocks to the park and came to an unbroken wall. Apparently we turned the wrong direction, because we walked quite a distance before we found a gate and entered the park.

It was fascinating right from the start. We crossed a wide, street size paved bike/roller blade/running path, then crossed a strip of grass and then a street size cinder walking/running path. There were many people using these paths. There were bike tour groups, people with dogs, numerous nannies. How did we know they were nannies? Because of nationality differences and obvious dissimilarity to the children in their care.

We saw the reservoir first, which also had a running path around it. We also saw the sheep meadow where we could have returned to watch a movie in the park after dark. There was an Egyptian obelisk, given to Central Park, with hieroglyphics on all four sides.

It was a big obelisk.

We had our lunch near the turtle pond where we also enjoyed watching a heron fishing.

At the turtle pond


texting at the turtle pond

pointing out the heron

the heron

There was a family at the turtle pond with a very active son who dropped his camera more than once. They were patient, though, and no one got upset, even when it fell into the water.

Central Park is a location for many scenes from movies, and one of the most popular locations is the bow bridge.

Bow Bridge, with a wedding group and a photographer surrounded by other visitors to the park.

Chuck and I at Bow Bridge

Tim at Bow Bridge

We went through Belvedere Castle.


the view of Turtle Pond from Belvedere Castle

We saw the great lawn, the tennis courts, the baseball diamonds, and the lake with its many rowboats. We treated ourselves to Ben and Jerry's ice cream bars from a vendor.

A highlight was Strawberry Fields, an area dedicated to the memory of John Lennon. Near the 'Imagine' mosaic was an old hippie who took it upon himself to tell everyone how to behave at the memorial. Chief among his instructions was that if you are getting your picture taken with the mosaic, you are required to make the peace sign.

He harassed quite a few people who were getting their pictures taken. Sometimes they acquiesced and held up the required peace sign. Sometimes they held it up until he walked away and then quit. Some ignored him completely.

We also walked through the mall before leaving Central Park.

That's more than enough for tonight. You need to know that more than half of the pics in this post were taken by Becca and borrowed/stolen from her facebook photo album (with permission). Thanks, Bec!

Vacation #7: On to NYC...and and update on current life

2011-09-17T22:20:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday morning we packed up and left the Super 8. Somewhere between there and the apartment, Tim realized he did not have his laptop. We rushed back to the motel, wondering whether they would let us back into our room, whether the staff had already cleaned it, and if they had, whether we would ever see the laptop again. But all the worrying was for nothing. They sent us directly to the room where the laptop was exactly where Tim remembered leaving it.

We met at Joseph and Becca's apartment for breakfast. We had waffles with white sauce and blueberries, leftover blueberry pie, leftover apple tart, and various other wonderful breakfast and non-breakfast items. Chuck ate his leftover ice cream.

Then Joseph took us to the train station. Here was another minor change in plans. We knew about this one before we left Newton, but it didn't affect much for us. A bridge between White River Junction and New York City was being repaired so the train no longer went the full route. We rode on a very nice bus with a quite friendly train conductor supervising our ride. We were even given free snacks, which we would have paid too much for, had we purchased them on the train itself. The bus took us to Springfield, Massachusettes. Chuck and Tim took a quick walk to get Tim some lunch because he was a lot more hungry than the rest of us. Becca, Chuck, and I munched on bagels, cheese, and dried fruit while we waited for the train to arrive.

Our one train photo, Tim and Becca. Notice that there were outlets at every seat, an improvement over our 2009 train trip to Portland.

We had discussed our hotel location several times. Part of the rationale for choosing Hotel 31 was its proximity to the train station---only four blocks away according to the hotel web site. The other reasons were that we knew someone who had enjoyed that hotel a couple of years ago, and that it was the most reasonably priced hotel we could find that was also close to the train station. We thought it would be challenging to get our luggage on the bus or subway, and I had not remembered that a taxi was an option.

Chuck looked up the hotel and the train station on google maps and the map directions stated that the hotel was nearly a mile away from the train station. How could that be?

Both bits of information were correct, however. As many people are already aware, the blocks are very long and narrow in NYC. We were four blocks away and we were walking in the long block direction, so it was nearly a mile. Fortunately, this was our very first time in NYC. As we walked those four blocks, we crossed 5th Avenue, Park Avenue, and Madison Avenue. As we crossed one of those avenues, we looked down the street and saw the lit tower of the Chrysler Building directly north of us. It was hard to think about how far we were walking when we were seeing things we'd only heard about all our lives.

Yes, that IS the Chrysler Building behind Becca!

We found our hotel, checked in and ordered a roll-away bed for Tim, and then did some walking around the neighborhood. We found the closest subway station where we purchased 7-day passes---a great deal for sightseeing in NYC. The picture above was taken sometime during our walk.

The hotel web site had boasted 15 restaurants within a one block radius of the hotel, so we also wanted to find a place for supper. Just a couple of doors down from the hotel was Vezzo's Thin Crust Pizza. We looked no farther. I did not take pictures there, but here is a link to their photo page so you can see for yourself. Scroll over the photos and they will enlarge for you. Tim had a small meat lovers pizza. Chuck and Becca and I shared a large pizza with roasted baby eggplant, portabello mushrooms, and marinated pork. The pizza was delicious.

We went back to our room to get out our computers and use the free wifi to plan our next day's activities. And...it was time to adjust our plans again. Apparently the wifi was not very good in our room. So we made our plans using tourist fliers and booklets we had picked up in the lobby of the hotel. Most of the fliers had maps that included subway routes, so we managed to formulate a plan that we were looking forward to by the time we were ready for sleep. While we looked through fliers and planned, the tv was on, and Becca and Tim watched the end of Scott Pilgrim. Then we all watched most of Avatar. Well, I didn't. I hate the battle scenes so I mostly read through guide books during the second half of Avatar.

An update on current life---
The weather has finally cooled off and sweater weather has begun. Toward that end, I quickly finished the sweater I worked on last winter.

This is the best I can do at getting the whole sweater in a photo I take myself. For those of you who use Ravelry, I used the Shalom cardigan, recalculated the instructions to match my guage, added long sleeves and cables, and made the buttons go all the way down to the bottom of the sweater, instead of just at the top.

This is just a close up of the ribbing, a twisted rib stitch that really makes the ribbing pop out more distinctly than a normal rib stitch.

Close up of the cables.

In other knitting news, I've begun a sweater for Luke, top down and knit in one piece. He was over today and we tried on the yoke and I think it's going to be great. He's very excited about it.

Also, Andrea and I went to Wichita to choose yarn for their baby blanket. That was fun and I can't wait to start on that as well.

This is the weekend we usually spend at the bluegrass festival. We had decided not to go at all, but during the night on Thursday we both couldn't sleep. We were thinking about going to Winfield. We decided to go for the afternoon and evening on Friday. We took Luke with us. It was cold and misty most of the day and we left the festival at about 8:30pm instead of staying until 10:30, as we had planned. Luke was a trooper, never complained, enjoyed meeting new kids, snuggled when he got chilly, and was generally just great to be around.

Luke is laughing because he wants to have his eyes shut in all my pics.

but I won by pretending to put my camera away

Mint oreo cookies and juice packs were the favorite snacks of the day.

Yes, after a record breaking number of days over 100 degrees I needed three shirts, a sweater, a wool cowl around my neck, and a woolen hat to stay warm at Stage I in the evening. I also had Luke on my lap and a light blanket doubled up over us.

And finally, a spoiler. The final and biggest plan that changed, as most of you know, was that Tim did not end up in Bolivia for Radical Journey. He is heading for Paraguay, after having spent over a week in Buenos Aires. His blog is BoliviaBlog 2.0 and you can read more about it there.

Vacation #6: Site-seeing and Meet the Parents

2011-09-10T23:39:00.000-05:00

After Becca and I finished work and cleaned up, it was time to show Tim a few things in the area...namely Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. Chuck and I had been there a couple of years ago with Becca and Joseph in winter. This was different. There were a lot of people everywhere. They were standing in line, or shopping, or taking pictures, or eating, or on tours. We were just a bit overwhelmed.

Chuck and Becca went to get us our tour tickets. King Arthur Flour and Ben and Jerry's have a reciprocal agreement that would give Becca either free admission or a discount. The girl at the ticket counter extended that to all four of us, so the tour was free, but we needed to wait a while.

We perused the gift shop for a while, and then walked outside a bit as well. There were lots of picnic tables outside and people were seated at those picnic tables enjoying the ice cream they had waited in line to order. We saw one family that seemed especially exuberant. They had this large bucket of ice cream and all six of them had spoons and were laughing and chattering and digging in. On the bucket was the word "Vermonster". They looked like they were having a lot of fun.

The tour was OK. We got a better tour a couple of years ago when there were not so many people there. This one had interesting info, but not as much trivia. At the end, of course, you get to taste ice cream. The flavor of the day was Late Night Snack, "vanilla bean ice cream with a salty caramel swirl and fudge covered potato chip clusters" and it is based on what people probably snack on while watching late night TV. It was surprisingly good.

After the tour we headed back outside to find the family with the bucket still at the picnic table, but not nearly so enthusiastic. In fact one of the children was loudly saying, "This was a BAD idea!" The Vermonster consists of 20 scoops of ice cream, 3 dippers of hot fudge, 4 bananas, 3 brownies, and cookies. It must be more than a family of six can eat in one meal.

After Ben and Jerry's we headed for Cabot Cheese. This is not a tour, but a store. In the store is a long oval table with plates of tiny cubes of cheese set around the entire oval. There are toothpick holders everywhere, as well as little used toothpick receptacles, and signs asking that you get a fresh toothpick for every taste you take. We began to taste cheese. Cabot cheese is pretty good cheese. Tim's favorite was Muenster. Mine was the sharpest cheddar they make. We bought some of each to take along with us to NYC.

Then we went to the store next door which had chocolate, and free tastes. It was excellent too, but even the reject bins of heart shaped chocolates proved a little to expensive for us.

On to the apple cider place. When Chuck and I had been here a couple of years ago we could watch the cider being pressed in a giant press, and we could buy cider, as well as any of thousands of other things in their big souvenir store. But this trip was right before apple harvest season. They were sold out of cider and they had no apples to press, so that was a pretty short stop.

In the evening, Joseph and Becca had arranged a dinner at one of their favorite restaurants, Jewel of India, near the Dartmouth campus. Four of their good friends (Pat and Kaitlin, Alex and Amanda Ann) joined us and it was such a fun evening, full of good conversation and delicious food. We were so full after the meal, and not yet ready to stop getting to know each other, so we went for a walk around the green at Dartmouth. It was a great way to spend our last evening in White River Junction.

Joseph, Becca and Mosley in their apartment

***I forgot to write about Newt's. We went to Newt's right before closing on the day we swam in the Connecticut River. Newt's is a walk up ice cream store that is only open in summer. They have 28 flavors of soft serve ice cream. They also have many flavors of scoop ice cream---amazing flavors. It is so hard to choose what to order there that they have an option just for people who have a hard time deciding. It is a mystery cone. You get two dips of scoop ice cream and they choose the flavors (but you can rule out a couple that you know you won't enjoy).

Then you sit outside and enjoy your ice cream, or if the weather isn't so nice, you sit in your car to enjoy your ice cream. We sat outside and enjoyed the night air.

Tim was pretty hungry so he got a soft serve (something with coffee flavor in it) and a mystery cone. I wish I could remember the names of the flavors I got because they were so amazing. In fact, Chuck, who also got a soft serve, decided to get a single dip of one of my flavors after a little taste. But the ice cream store is generous with their single dips. Chuck took most of it back to Becca's house to put in the freezer for another day.

Vacation #5: Take your mother to work

2011-09-08T21:07:00.000-05:00

My day began at 2:45am when I got up to get ready to go to work with Becca. Becca provided me with a uniform so I was dressed like a professional.

This was a day I won't soon forget. After we donned our hairnets and aprons with hand towels tucked into our waist ties, we started what is for Becca a normal workday.

We began with the cookie bake. Becca handed me some pans of scones to brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. The scones had been put on pans the day before. While I did that, she began working with the cookies that had been scooped the day before. We mixed up blueberry muffins and peach muffins and scooped them into tins. While I finished up the muffins Becca continued to put in and take out cookies and other items from the oven large enough to walk in and out of. Of course they don't walk in and out when it is hot because their shoes would melt, but the carts of pans ready for baking are taller than I am and they roll right into that oven. (edit 9-10-2011: Becca told me yesterday that they DO walk into the hot ovens to get the carts in and out, but they don't stand around in there!)

As soon as the cookie bake was finished (an hour after we arrived), we moved to the bread end where Sharon was mixing and shaping breads. It is hard to describe the day that followed. The breads I remember working on were French loaves, baguettes, ciabatta in three sizes, pizza, and some whole grain loaves that I don't remember the names of. I know there was more than that, but the day was a whirlwind.

Sharon's job for the day was primarily to mix and shape loaves. Becca's job was primarily to bake, and to help Sharon with any and all extra time she had around keeping the ovens full.

There are two mixers that stand on the floor with mixing bowls that come up almost to just my waistline. This picture is from a trip a couple of years ago because I didn't have time to take pictures while we worked.

To the far left is a digital scale and Becca's hand is on the mixer. On the shelves behind Becca are balance scales.

All ingredients are weighed to the gram. It is a science as well as an art. Water temperature for the dough is dependent on room temperature, because dough needs to rise predictably so that ovens can be kept full. The baker needs to know the math. It is definitely a science as well as an art.

Many of the doughs are started the night before. A pre-ferment is mixed, which is some water, some flour, and a tiny bit of yeast. Becca could tell you exactly what this does. My sense is that the gluten develops differently with this overnight rising process. Then in the morning the rest of the ingredients are added and the dough goes into a warm place (temperature controlled room) to rise again. If dough is rising too fast, the temperature in the special room can be set cooler than the bakery to slow it down.

All loaves of the same kind of bread must be pretty much exactly the same. Toward that end, large amounts of dough are carefully weighed before being set to rise. Then after that first rising, there is this nifty machine that you can program to cut the dough into exactly equal sized pieces. It can cut into very small pieces, as for the three sizes of ciabatta. It can cut into quite large pieces, as for the French market loaves.

Any bread that isn't divided in that machine is weighed out so that every loaf is exactly the same weight and size. There are balance scales on a shelf for that purpose and I did some of that weighing out with some dough that wasn't going to go through the cutting machine.

After the dough is cut it is set aside to rise again. Ciabattas go directly on to pans from the cutter. All the others are rounded and set aside to rest before shaping. Each type of loaf has a desired shape and Becca was careful to teach me exactly how to push, fold, pinch, and roll the dough into the different shapes. Then it would be set aside to rise again.

After that last rise, it was time to bake. There is a long oven loader positioned just to the side of the oven. I didn't take a picture this year but here is one of Becca in front of the ovens a few years ago.

Becca in front of the breads oven. Note the six oven doors. Behind Becca is the white loader. Behind that is the door to the temperature controlled room where bread is set to rise.

The above oven is divided into six sections. Each section can hold 18 baguettes or an equivalent amount of other breads or rolls or foccacia, etc. Becca can fill all six ovens, rush over to help Sharon with shaping loaves, teach me gently the art of shaping each of the different loaves, and, without using a timer, get each type of bread out of the oven without under or over baking. I can't do that at home with one oven that only has two loaves at a time in it.

If you look closely at that oven, right at the divide between the copper area and the brick is a little tool stuck with a magnet to the oven. That little tool is a double edged razor on a tiny stick. With that razor, and with a similar one that is bent into a curve, all the artistic cuts are made in the tops of French loaves and baguettes. It was a steep learning curve to get those cuts exactly right so that they would open artistically as the bread baked. Becca is a great teacher, though, and I don't think they had to throw out any loaves because of my poor cutting skills.

As fast as Becca pulled breads out of the oven and placed them on the giant cooling racks, they disappeared, as the delivery drivers assembled the orders and took them away. At one point in the morning I saw a large clean laundry basket full of baguettes in a giant bouquet being carried out to the delivery vehicle. That particular day the three of us rolled a total of 180 baguettes.

At this bakery, there is not a break time. We were on our feet working as quickly as we could from 3:30am until our lunch time at 9am. Lunch was outdoors at a picnic table due to the mild weather. At lunch we got to sample some empanadas that may be offered at the bakery store in the future. There were four flavors and they were quite amazing.

After lunch was finishing the baking and cleaning the bakery. This included scraping the bits of dough off all the work surfaces, including all the dozens of wooden boards where loaves were set to rise throughout the morning. We swept and wiped down and carried pans and dishes to the dish-washing station. When we were finished we checked in with the pastry chef to see if they needed any help finishing up.

They were layering the butter into the croissant dough when we got there, which was one process I'd wanted to see. Dough that had been weighed and let rise was now ready to roll out. We rolled it into a large square and placed a square slab of butter on it turned so that the corners of the slab of butter were between the corners of the dough like a diamond on a square. Then the corners of the dough were pulled up over the butter to completely hide the butter slab. It was a giant square pillow. Then we would take a rolling pin and beat that square pillow down until it was flat enough to roll into a long rectangle. That would be folded in half or in thirds and taken to the machine that finished the job.

In front of me is dough ready to be rolled into a square to receive a slab of butter. In front of Becca is dough that has been folded around a slab of butter and then rolled into a rectangle. Directly behind Becca to the right are folded rectangles ready for the rolling machine. To the left is the rolling machine with dough on the tray.

The rolling machine (that is not what it is called but I can't remember the name) can be set to different thicknesses. The dough goes through multiple times, getting thinner, getting folded, getting thinner, getting folded again, to achieve the flaky texture of croissants.

After cleaning the wooden table from the croissant dough, our work for the day was done and Becca went to the computer to make notes for the bakers for the next day, and to log out.

This is enough for one post, so I'll tell you about the rest of the day tomorrow, or whenever I get to it.

Vacation #4: Vermont Sunday

2011-09-07T23:00:00.000-05:00

We had a relaxing start to our day, meeting Becca after 10am to go berry picking at a local family farm. They were just starting their season so they were only open on the weekend, but soon would be open every day for raspberries, blueberries, apples, flowers and more.

We took a few pictures of the farm so that we would remember the diversity and beauty of it.

Applying sunscreen. It was actually quite hot that morning!

Pumpkins/squash in foreground, sweet corn behind.

the road to the berries and orchards

woodpile and crates of newly picked apples

Becca and Tim ready to go picking.

Chuck picking raspberries.

We passed these flowers on the way to the blueberries.

some of the apple orchards

Looking back from the blueberry bushes toward the farmstead.

Our pickings for the day.

Photos by the apple trees.

We were pretty warm from picking berries in the sun, so we decided to pick up some groceries on our way back to the apartment, grab our swimsuits and some lunch, and go back to the Connecticut River for another swim. When we arrived at the grocery store we got sidetracked by the Borders next door and their 'going out of business' sale. We did some shopping. Chuck found another Spanish-English dictionary. :-)

Then the groceries, and when we got done with those, it was obviously going to rain. We skipped the swimsuits and went to Becca and Joseph's apartments to have some lunch. We spent the afternoon relaxing. Tim and I made our Invisible Shoes/Barefoot Sandals.

Then Becca made a blueberry pie and an apple tart, and we made roasted vegetables with chicken for a late supper. MMMMmmmmm.

Vacation #3: Saturday in Vermont

2011-09-06T22:05:00.000-05:00

On our first day in Vermont we met Becca for lunch at her job so that we could meet some of the people she works with. When your work day begins at 3:30am, lunch is earlier than noon. We met them at 9:00am, brunch for us.

It was a feast with artisan pizza (many flavors), brioche (Tim's favorite?), hazelnut bread, Napoleons, and fresh peach pie. But better than the food was getting to meet the people Becca works with.

Becca still had a few more hours to work so we got advice from her coworkers about nearby nature trails and set off.

Bears?

A few wildflowers

After Becca got done at work, we picked her up and went to her apartment. She is a farm girl and manages to use every available bit of dirt for growing food and beauty. I didn't photograph the food, except for the nasturtiums.

Nasturium - the flowers taste kind of like radishes

Inside we met Joseph and Mosley and hung out for a while.

Tim chillin' on the couch

Mosley

We grabbed some hot dogs, buns, and fixings, as well as swimsuits and towels and headed to the Connecticut River, Becca's favorite spot for a swim. It's beautiful, and the water is so much more clear than any spot in Kansas.

We swam off this dock.

Chuck and Tim warmed themselves after swimming with some Frisbee.

Bec was watching the game.

What a beautiful place to picnic and swim.

We had stopped at the store to buy charcoal but couldn't find any small bags, so we settled for a bag of kindling wood. Here is our roaring fire, started with the last people's leftover hot coals from their picnic.

the chef

We lingered for a while at the park after supper, and then went home, tired after a long day.

Vacation #2: Getting there

2011-09-01T17:01:00.000-05:00

an intenet photo of the train that runs through Springfield, Massachusettes

On the night before we left, the kids and grandparents came over for pizza and farewells. Youth sponsors also showed up to pray for Tim. People left around 10pm.

As usual, my day had not gone quite as planned. The house was ready, the laundry was ready, but I was not packed. However, our 2:45am train was late, so I got to sleep 2 hours instead of just 1.

At the train station we waited until 4:30am before boarding. That was when we were told we could not take the Bolivia box. Chuck hurriedly carried the box into the station and made arrangements with the ticket master to keep it safe until someone could pick it up. Then we woke Ben and Andrea to ask one of them to get it before 8am, when the station closed for the day.

After we had slept for a while, I checked out the luggage compartment more closely. It was packed full of small bags that could easily fit in overhead storage on the seating section of the train. When I went bag up to the seating section, I was frustrated to find that the overhead storage was nearly empty. The box could have easily gone with us to Chicago.

But since that was no longer an option, we needed to readjust. We canceled the arrangements we had made for an acquaintance in Chicago to pick up the box, and found an acquaintance in Newton who would be going to Chicago who would be willing to transport the box. This took a multiple phone calls but thank God for cell phones. I don't know what we would have done if we had not had those available.

Incidentally, this conductor seemed a bit grouchy about other things that day. We were on a train full of boy scouts on their way home from a summer of backpacking. In the observation car Chuck overheard the conductor talk with one of them about how clean the observation car was before the boy scouts got on, and how dirty it was after just a few hours.

An hour later, he got onto the train announcement system and welcomed the boy scouts to the train. Then he proceeded to let everyone on the train know how clean the observation car was before the boy scouts got on, and how dirty it was just a few hours later.

We arrived in Chicago at around 6pm instead of 3pm, but that was OK. We weren't planning to meet Hannah for supper until around 7. We left a message on her phone and then enjoyed sitting outside at Union Station in Chicago. One side of the station faces a river and beyond the river, the Hancock building. There were tour boats going up and down the river. On the corner a saxophonist was playing familiar songs. The weather was great.

Hannah met us on the street side of Union Station and we took our bags with us about 8 blocks to the Greek part of Chicago. There we found a Greek fast food restaurant with gyros---very large gyros. We had a great visit with Hannah talking as fast as we possibly could and made it back to the train station by about 8-8:30pm to board our train east.

There we met the conductor from hell. OK, maybe not that bad, but she reminded me of descriptions of torture where the torturer pretends to be your friend and then screams at you and then pretends to be your friend again. That was this woman.

She did not show you where to sit. She yelled at you as though you should have known before she told you. Then she would come by and strike up a friendly conversation. Then she would look down and see the strap of your backpack two inched into the aisle. "GET THAT STRAP OUT OF THE AISLE!!!" It was unnerving. This continued throughout the entire ride.

When we stopped for a stretch break I asked if I could walk a bit to stretch my legs. "No!" she exclaimed in an offended tone. A minute later she came to me and told me I could walk between the door of our car and a nearby stairwell. I paused. "Well, start walking!" She yelled. I laughed and scooted out of there.

When we were near our destination she warned those of us getting off that we needed to collect our bags. Tim stood up to put on his sweatshirt. She hollered, "Sit down! We aren't even across the river yet!" "What river?", we wondered. Were we supposed to know that there was a river before we came to our stop?

We were glad to say goodbye to her and hello to Becca!

On this train, Tim was seated next to a young woman who was wearing a Smith sweatshirt. She introduced herself as Elora. I asked if it was like the movie. She seemed happy to find someone who knew about Elora Dannon from the movie "Willow". She was named for that baby. Her last name wasn't Dannon, but it was very similar. She and Tim got to talking about music and I think she gave him 8G of music from her mp3 player.

Because our train was several hours late, Becca was already late for her bedtime (she gets to work at 3:30am). We grabbed McD's to go and headed for White River Junction, making our plans for the next day's activities on the way.

Vacation #1 Theme: Plans Can Change

2011-08-30T20:54:00.002-05:00

We didn't know it but our vacation began months before we left home when we first purchased our train tickets. We know that Amtrak has much better prices when you plan well in advance, so we did. We worked out a schedule that we and Becca could live with, and that would bring Tim to Chicago on the exact day he needed to begin his orientation with Radical Journey.

Then we got an email from Mennonite Mission Network. Because of changes in staffing, the dates would also change. Tim was to begin two weeks later.

Thus began our vacation theme: Plans Can Change.

We were able to change our train tickets without additional charges, and Becca was able to change her vacation days, so everything was good. But that was only the first change of many small and large adjustments.

Included in the changes we experienced before the trip:

After we arrived at the Sedgwick County Health Department we found out that that Yellow Fever Shots are given at their new location, and not on the day we were there. (Yes, I did call for information before we left home!)
On the second trip for a Yellow Fever vaccination, it happened to be the week before school started. The line was very long with children who needed vaccinations for school, and we waited an hour and changed our plans for the rest of the morning errands.
French horns

Do not fit into carry on measurements
Aren't tough enough to withstand being checked without protection.
Can be fit into a very strong box built to just within the measurement requirements for checked luggage, and can be padded with clothing. So we bought a very strong box from a packing company, filled it with horn and clothes, weighed it multiple times carefully to make sure it was under 50 lb, taped it shut, and sewed straps to fasten to the box to make it easier to carry. The box was also very close to the guidelines for Amtrak luggage---1 1/2 inches bigger than their smallest measurement, 1 inch smaller than each of the two larger measurements, and within their weight limit.
At 4:30am, the conductor refused the box without measuring it or weighing it, just because his luggage compartment was already full and there really wasn't anything we could do about it except leave the box in the train station and board the train. It was time to come up with a new plan.

Tim's Bolivia visa was refused by the Bolivian consulate because the money order that was sent with the application apparently did not arrive with the application. (A new application with another money order was sent straight away and the visa was approved on time, but as of today, we still have not received Tim's passport back from the consulate. But it will come. It will come in time for his departure for Bolivia in just over a week. Either that or we will have to adjust to new plans yet again.)

Although plans did continue to change during the trip, we had a good trip with many new experiences. I'll add more tomorrow.

An old post that needed to prove itself

2011-07-17T18:47:00.001-05:00

Navel gazing is the name of the game these days. I'm in the midst of difficult emotions between me and another person, and even though interactions don't happen often and don't last long... Well, I'm spending way more time on it in my head than I am in real life.

Questions I ponder:

Do I have to think about this so much because there is something I did for which I need to apologize? Am I too defensive to see my own part in this?

Do I need to think about this so much because I'm afraid to confront the other person about ways they have hurt me?

Do I lean toward apology as an avoidance tactic?

In other words, if it was my fault, then the process is for me to understand that and make it right.

But if the dischord in the relationship is because I have allowed someone else to cross healthy boundaries, then my responsibility is to speak up and to reset those boundaries. That is so hard for me.

Setting boundaries makes people angry. I want to avoid that. So maybe I try to find something I did wrong that I can improve and then I don't have to do anything that make someone else angry with me.

It makes me dizzy just thinking about it. I guess I just have to keep being open to the truth and sooner or later it will come out.

At the same time, there seems to be a healthy place where you say to someone: "this far and no farther", and then don't keep re-evaluating that. Setting that boundary is healthy and continuing to vacillate only makes things worse for the relationship and for me.

* * * * * * *

And now those of you who know me well are wondering who the difficult relationship is with. That is the good thing about not publishing a blog post right when it gets written. I don't remember who it was about. I could guess, but I don't know.

Mockingbird

2011-06-27T00:04:00.000-05:00

We have a mockingbird that lives somewhere in our yard. I hear it sing during the day when I'm outside, but during the day it is easy to miss. There are so many other birds.

The cardinal with its clear sweet voice is a favorite. The red wing black birds have three clear notes and then a trill and begin singing early in the morning. There is a dove, and the dick sissel. Meadowlarks are pretty amazing, but I hear them more when I walk and not so much at the house. Then there are the chattering birds that create this background buzz that all but drowns out the songbirds. These all compete with the sounds of the day...cars, trucks, tractors, radios, dishwashers, washing machines, etc.

But at night, everything stops except the mockingbird. We sleep with the windows open in summer. No matter what time I wake up, the mockingbird sings. It is worth being warm. I don't even mind being awake. The song is ever changing and so peaceful. It feels like a gift.

* * * * *

Speaking of meadowlarks, I wish someone could explain to me the physics behind hearing bird songs while driving. The meadowlark has one of the longer melodies. It amazes me that when I pass one while driving, I always hear the entire song. No part of it is quieter or fading into the distance. It is the entire song sung clearly, and then nothing. Why can I hear the song before and after I pass the meadowlark? Maybe that is another gift.

Baccalaureate and Graduation

2011-05-29T17:20:00.000-05:00

Baccalaureate and Graduation were already over a week ago, but we have had internet problems on top of a busy schedule. The pics are going up late.

The first group is from Baccalaureate, a worship service held at the high school gymnasium which is planned by the local ministerial alliance. It was a long service. The orchestra was great in its last home performance. The Choraleers sang "For Good", which is that tear-jerker song that comes at the end of the musical, Wicked. (Yes, we did get the irony of a song from Wicked at a worship service.)

There was an invocation, message, and benediction. Joel and Kay from our church did the invocation. The message was given by another pastor from the ministerial alliance, and had some inspirational points about how small acts of kindness make a big difference. There were some other points in the message as well, about how our country is losing its stability due to fatherless families. I was sorry about the inclusion of that. The single mom families who made it to baccalaureate were not the families that needed to hear a message like that. We could save that one for a meeting of fathers who have abandoned their families. Meanwhile, the moms who are doing their best, and the families who have lost dads in tragic ways, could have been spared the doomsday statistics.

After the graduates walked out, there were a lot of confused parents wondering where the graduates all ended up. Finally we found them in the commons area, and took time for some pictures. Since it took us so long to find Tim, and I was slow in getting out my camera, we didn't get nearly all of his friends.

Bryce, Tim and Andrew - Jazz I friends

Tim and Abby


Mason and Tim

Graduation was held on May 21 at the football stadium. Because the families and friends sit in the stadium seating and can't get anywhere close to take pictures, the school provides photographers to capture the moment of receiving the diploma and the smiling 'after' shot---which you can then purchase for a fee. The following pictures are are from after the ceremony was over and we were hanging out with friends outside the football field. In all the baccalaureate and graduation pictures Tim is wearing the gold cord for completing the honors curriculum, and the medal for being one of the seven valedictorians.

Tim with my parents

and with us

and Andrea and Ben

Brothers

Abby and Tim

Cousins - Erin and Tim

with their grandparents

with Laura and baby Aaron

Christian and Tim, friends and house painters

with some fill flash to light up their bright and smiling faces

and the classic, sitting-on-the-steps-laughing cousins picture

Not Knitting, for most of one day

2011-04-24T09:24:00.005-05:00

This week I took some time to make a square for a wedding quilt for Luke and Kat. I was kind of stumped for ideas for design, but during a long walk on the bike path I had time to think. I liked using a motif that identified us with where we are in Luke's past, or that marked our family identity somehow.

Finally I realized that the colors of the available fabrics would lend themselves well to a sunflower, which is our state flower as well as my favorite flower. Therefore it identifies our place in Luke's past, and it identifies me, if not our family. But probably it identifies our home, since I usually let a few wild sunflowers grow unhindered in my flower beds each year.

This is the final product. After sewing on all the petals with a tiny hidden stitch, it just seemed that they still weren't firmly enough attached to the fabric. I decided to add the blanket stitch embroidery to add a little strength to the stitching. After doing so I realized I really like the way that embroidery changes the look of the square.

Coming Home, in a complicated kind of way

2011-04-22T22:57:00.001-05:00

Our son returned home today from a year serving with the National Guard in the horn of Africa. Home means Kansas, or maybe the United States. It is more complicated than the usual 'house where I grew up' kind of meaning. With a birth family and an adopted family and all the complications that go with that scenario, well, how do you decide where home is?

We got to be in Topeka for the ceremony welcoming the soldiers back.

It was a trip of unexpected changes. Originally the ceremony was set to begin at 10:00 am, so we arrived at 9:30. At 10:15 we asked those sitting around us if they knew anything about the starting time. It had been changed in the last day or two. It was to start at 11:00am.

Chuck, Ben, and Wes took a walk and got back just as the National Guard was ready to walk in.

The Guard marching into Kansas ExpoCenter (these pics had to be adjusted for color because of the lack of light in the auditorium)

There was a short ceremony that included an invocation, the national anthem, the presentation of the Kansas flag to the commander, remarks from Gov. Sam Brownback, remarks from a National Guard officer, and an benediction, followed by the Army song. It took about 20 minutes.

The view of the stage from where we sat, Gov. Brownback on the left. (Sorry about getting the woman in front of me into the pic)

Then the soldiers were released to find their families. There were probably 500 soldiers. My message had not gotten to James that we were coming. We couldn't find him. Ben and Wes walked through the reuniting families on the floor and still didn't find him. They went again and we followed, finally reaching him outside the ExpoCenter.

We visited for a while and talked about plans for the rest of the day. James was waiting for his sister, Holly, to pick him up. He called her and then realized that things could get pretty awkward. His birth mom and her husband were with Holly.

James said he was fine with having us meet. Chuck was fine. Ben was fine. Wes was fine. I thought I was fine. I met Wes's eyes for a minute, and realized I wasn't fine. I didn't know why, but I wanted this meeting to wait for another day.

I can think of a number of reasons now why that might make sense, but truthfully, at the moment, it was my gut feeling that made the decision. It was not some rational well-reasoned, logical conclusion made after weighing the circumstances of everyone involved. I'm satisfied that it was a good decision, and that if it was a mistake, it is one I can work through.

We visited a bit longer. James offered to come by the house soon to catch up with us. We snapped a picture and went to the car.

Wes and James

We went back to the car and started talking about where to eat as we pulled out of our parking space. Someone noticed a car near us that had a styrofoam cup on top of it as it made its way through the parking lot.

I rolled down my window and yelled to get their attention, but I was unsuccessful. It was misting and wet and I rolled the window back up...or tried to. It had come off its track and would only go a little more than half way back up.

There was a Honda dealer directly across the street. They had time to fix the window right away. There was a barbecue restaurant about a block and a half away where we could eat while we waited. While we walked to the restaurant we called my brother and sister to see if they had time to join us. My brother answered his phone and came out for a short visit.

When we got back to the Honda dealer, they still had not worked on the car. The person who was going to work on it got it onto a lift and then left for lunch. They moved it to another lift so that someone else could work on it while we waited.

After a half hour they had the window up, but not fixed. They wanted $92 for that. Chuck objected politely. The window wasn't fixed, and even if it had been, $92 was the price of a full hour of service labor. Our car only got a half hour. They agreed to change the charge to $46.

We were late arriving home, and Wes called his job to make sure his substitute had showed up for work. Nope. I ran Wes to his house, and then to work. Then I came home and started cooking the things I still needed to make for our Easter gathering.

We got there a little late, but none the worse for all the mishaps and changes we had throughout the day. It was a nice gathering, good food, good conversation, good people, and at least three great hugs from Luke!

Work

2011-04-21T15:36:00.000-05:00

Note: This post was started several days ago and is old because I didn't have time to finish the work on it. However, all the pics were there and I worked pretty hard to get the pics there due to internet malfunctions, so here is a late post.

There are days when it seems like nothing at all gets done. Some days that is pretty accurate. Some days it helps to document that at least a few things got done.

This morning was pretty much a wash, except for discussions necessary for decision making. There were also a few errands and a lot of sitting in front of the computer trying to fix it. It currently is taking an hour to start up. This has happened before. It has always been fixed by restoring the Windows operating system to an earlier point. Today I have done five system restores. It isn't working. This morning I was staying pretty close to the computer while the systems tried to restore themselves. That got old pretty fast.

I did necessary email/calendar/web work in between restores before trying just once more...always just once more. We may need to reinstall Windows, unless Ben comes up with some amazing idea tomorrow.

There were also a couple of errands to do and phone conversations to complete.

That was the morning.

Lunch was late and was again punctuated by a couple of long phone calls that also involved discussions before and after so that decisions could be made. Then something visible HAD to be done.

Garden was my area of choice, because it is supposed to rain the rest of the week---at least we hope it will rain.

I've written about letting this garden get away from me before. Slowly it is being taken back. I have had help. Elizabeth, my mentee from church, came out to help me one Saturday afternoon. My parents came quite a bit one day last week. Now more than half the garden is cleared, two and 1/2 beds are planted, and four beds are ready to plant just as soon as we get some moisture.

peas growing down the center, broccoli on both sides

Three of the cleared beds

Spinach

Potatoes

Onion forest

the area left to clear and work

Today I added compost to one bed, worked it in, and reshaped it.

I also decided to get some loose straw from the barn to add to my working compost heap. There has been so much green material added from all the weeds we've worked out of the beds, and it needs to be mixed with brown in order to really compost well. I reworked the whole pile, using my potato fork to add layers of green followed by layers of straw. When it was done I watered it well so that it will start to cook.

Newly built compost pile

The last thing I did was to pick some baby spinach for supper.

This is the first we picked this year. It needs to be thinned but that will wait for rain or a good watering. The dirt is too dry to loosen it from the roots of the plants that stay by uprooting the plants that must go.

Last weekend Chuck was gone for Men's Retreat and I chored. This is really not such a big deal, but since I had the camera outside already for the garden pics, I thought I'd take a couple of pics of the sows. There are currently 39 sows in A-houses that need to be fed and watered twice a day. I was responsible for one measly feeding, and it went well.

sows waiting to be fed on their cement patios

more sows and some pigs

Short stay

2011-04-08T14:46:00.000-05:00

We so enjoyed having a couple of days with Luke and Kat at our house. We had time to hang out and just 'be' together for a short while, and that was good. I love having the children of our friends become our friends in their own right. It is such an honor.

Second Thoughts

2011-04-01T09:26:00.000-05:00

I'm probably 75% done with my sweater. I've tried it on several times throughout the knitting, but always thought it would look better when I got it to length. Well, it is two rows from bind off, after which I would add sleeves, so I divided the stitches between two circular needles to try it on and check the length/fit. It is the right length. It fits. But it isn't really me.

So I asked Chuck to give me his opinion. He said he didn't really like it. Then he looked at me. Then he asked if I'd really wanted honesty. Poor guy.

The thing is, I can't throw away good yarn. It is good yarn, after all. It is expensive yarn---although it could be more expensive...but still. I also still need a white sweater, so why buy more white yarn when I have such a large quantity so readily available?

But Chuck is so sympathetic. He really hates to see all those hours of knitting go to waste. So he tells me he really doesn't like the sweater on me, and that he doesn't think it will grow on him, but don't unravel it yet...sleep on it at least a few nights. Maybe someone else will want it? Naaaa.

So I went to Ravelry, a site for people who knit or crochet. It's amazing. You can look up nearly any pattern, find out how to buy or download it, and see the way it looked when hundreds of other people knit it up. You can see the changes they made to it. Many of them write down detailed instructions for how they made those changes. You can see pictures they posted so you can tell how it looks on different body types.

I did this for my Rosamund cardigan, and I liked how it looked on my body type. But I guess I've just never worn a style like that before, so when I put it on, it wasn't me. I could take a leap. Or I could make something else.

There is a shalom sweater pattern on Ravelry that I've bookmarked before, thinking it would make a great future project. Now I went back to look some more. It has cap sleeves and I want long sleeves, so I went to the picture and descriptions of what other knitters did with this sweater. Wow. There are some wonderfully creative knitters on Ravelry.

shadystroll's version of the Shalom cardigan

My favorite variation includes some cable work on the front and sleeves that aren't in the original pattern. It has long fitted sleeves. And it will be easy to figure out how to put in button holes that go all the way to the bottom of the sweater. I read the comments the knitter had written. She made this sweater after she decided to unravel a poncho she never wears! She used ideas from the changes made by 2-3 other knitters, and also added her own changes to make this beautiful sweater.

I love the idea of knitting a pattern that someone else designed after unraveling something they don't wear, to make something for myself after unraveling something I won't wear.

I'll add my own ideas. I want buttons and buttonholes to go all the way down so I can wear the sweater closed at the bottom and open at the neckline. I may want the sleeves to be wrist length, or maybe not. I have time to consider that option. And I will probably use a different cable along the sides of the front because I don't own the book that has the cable pattern she used---but the library has a book with hundreds of stitch patterns. I'll find something I love.

So last night I printed up the new pattern, along with all the notes from every knitter's modifications that I thought would be helpful. Then I sat down in front of Private Practice and started frogging my sweater.

I learned from Ravelry that frogging is the term for unraveling a sweater. I learned at the knit-along at the Newton Beadery why the word 'frogging' is used. When you unravel you rippit rippit rippit.

It is now back in large balls of yarn waiting for me to knit swatches to check gauge, and then cast on the new sweater.

I'm sure there are some implications I could include about redemption and faith here. I have ripped my yarn back to its original form in order to form something new and more useful and beautiful. However, the original form, the yarn itself, is also beautiful and useful, and definitely of value, and not to be quickly or thoughtlessly discarded. Even in the act of tearing down there is still the joy of new creation and hope for something that will use the beauty of the yarn to even greater advantage. If I consider myself to be the yarn, would I find the unraveling painful? devastating? frightening? freeing? fulfilling? hopeful?

I'm glad my yarn doesn't have feelings! But I'm also glad for opportunities to reinvent myself, or for being reinvented by God for greater use of the goodness created in me.

Garden update

2011-03-26T23:24:00.000-05:00

Peas and spinach are up and NOT nibbled by rabbits! Yay for vacuum cleaner pest control!

The Baby is Here

2011-03-23T10:46:00.002-05:00

My plan for yesterday was to work on the plastering job in the dining room. Laura had asked if I wanted to go to her prenatal appointment with her, but I thought I'd get that dining room done so I'd have more time for her after the baby came. When she called, I quickly explained my thinking...and then she patiently explained that she really wasn't calling about the appointment because labor had begun. I needed to come and hang out with Luke at the birthing center while the new baby came.

I packed up books, new art supplies for Luke, and couple of kid movies, my knitting and a snack and headed out. After we left Laura and Greg's house, we decided we might need more than snacks, so we left a message for Chuck to bring stuff for sandwiches for lunch.

After Laura got checked in, she was feeling like walking, and we walked several blocks to get cinnamon rolls. She was so happy to have chosen the birthing center so that early labor could be spent doing normal fun activities.

As the day progressed it became clear that a nap would not happen at the birthing center. Chuck and I took Luke home in the late afternoon. Chuck chored and Luke and I read stories and rested. Luke slept pretty well, and we had supper waiting for him when he woke up---but he was not really interested in supper at all.

We'd just begun talking about whether there was something that Luke might be interested in eating when Greg called to say that Aaron was born. Luke definitely was no longer interested in eating supper. He wanted to see the baby! And he wanted to eat the birthday cake! It was going to be a very very big birthday cake! Let's go see the birthday cake!

Luke meeting Aaron for the first time.

When we arrived at the birth center, Luke forgot about the cake in his excitement about baby Aaron. It was such fun to watch his reactions to the baby and then his enthusiasm about taking pictures of the baby. Then he just couldn't hold his excitement in anymore and he began dancing as frantically and excitedly as he possibly could.

Luke's first chance to hold Aaron

He has blond hair.

We got turns to hold Aaron while Greg and Laura enjoyed some hamburgers and fries from the only restaurant that was still open. Ben and Andrea arrived. We had birthday cake, and then Luke and I settled in on the floor to cut and paste while the others visited.

Luke playing after we ate the birthday cake (thus the frosting on his face).

The midwife kept checking on Laura and Aaron, and gave the OK to leave, so everyone packed up and went home. What a great day.

The shiny stuff by his eye is a medicated salve they give babies, not tears.

I wish I had pictures of Greg holding Aaron, but while he was holding Aaron, I was taking pictures with their camera, and didn't think to get mine out as well.

The Garden has Been Started...

2011-03-20T17:41:00.002-05:00

When my computer is on, there is a bar at the top of the screen that gives me the date, time and current temperature. It is 82 degrees right now. If I place my cursor on the bar it has a window that pops open to show me the temperature to within the nearest tenth of a degree, the temperature with wind chill figured in, the wind direction and speed, and the times of today's sunrise and sunset.

It's a handy little feature, and one of the most used on our computer, next to checking email.

But 82 degrees.

So gardening has begun, and so has the pay off. I am being paid off for my hard work AND for my lack of hard work.

In the last two summers I've been building raised beds over most of the garden. This is the first spring when I've been able to plant potatoes during the same week as St. Patrick's Day. My garden has trees on the south side, and it doesn't get enough sun to dry out the soil for early planting. Raised beds drain more readily, and the dirt is perfect for planting. That is the pay off for hard work.

Last summer, the garden became depressing. I wrote about that. Dead tomatoes, etc. By fall, I harvested what was out there, but I did not do the fall clean up. The tomato cages are still in place with their tomato skeletons rattling in the wind. Remnants of corn stalks are stark in contrast to the verdant deep green of lush henbit covering the ground below.

There were two beds that weren't covered by henbit---the last one I'd constructed, which hadn't had time before frost to get a lot of weeds started, and the one that had the sweet potatoes and the last live squash. Those late plants had kept the bed pretty weed free until frost.

The squash bed currently has a tall cattle panel down the center with snap peas planted along both sides. Next to the snap peas, filling the area of the bed on either side, are two rows of plastic milk jugs covering tiny broccoli plants. It looks like I'm trying to raise milk jugs. :-)

At the south end beyond the cattle panel is the area where spinach is seeded. Around the entire bed is fluffy gray fuzzy stuff held down in the wind by a sprinkling of dirt---the contents of my vacuum cleaner bag. I'm hoping this combination of pet fur, human hair (mostly mine) and other people smells will keep the rabbits at bay.

The new bed has a small area of onion plants. The rest of the bed is divided between red and yukon gold potatoes.

I bought too many potatoes for seed, though. I had to clear another bed. Not to worry. I need the exercise. Here is the pay off for lack of hard work. First I use the field hoe to scrape off the henbit with as little dirt as possible. I carry that to the wheelbarrow for compost. Then I hoe the soil that is left as deeply as that field hoe will go. Lastly, I pull up the soil along both sides of the bed and rake it smooth, reforming it. Very hard work. But the dirt is so lovely, that it is also very rewarding work.

I got half of one cleared and planted the white potatoes.

I'll be clearing the rest of the beds slowly while listening to knitting podcasts on my mp3 player.

With the daylight savings time change and the warmer weather, gardening is cutting into knitting time, which is strictly kept to evenings and weekends. If I allow myself to knit during the day (except when waiting at appts, etc.) it will be too easy to lose control of how much time it gets.

The white sweater is coming along. I had to rip out some of the shaping because the sweater's hips were floating a couple of inches above mine. I've fixed that. I'm noticing that the back seems slightly short so I'm experimenting with adding some short rows to the back. I just got a book (Knitting Workshop) that is mostly about common sense in knitting by Elizabeth Zimmerman. The book includes directions for making up your own patterns, and points out that when you knit sweaters all in one piece, you have to allow somehow for the fact that you need the back to be a bit bigger than the front---thus short rows. Fortunately she explains how to do them, so I did my first short rows this morning. (Yes, it was morning, not evening. It was also Sunday, and I was watching Brene Brown on PBS before going to church.)

I need a new small project that requires little thought to take with me to meetings, etc. The sweater is at the place where lots of decisions must be made about bottom edging, sleeve shaping, etc. It is also pretty large and imposing by now. After I finish writing this post, I'll look through some of the patterns I've bookmarked and see if there is something I can start from yarn I have collected.

Brene Brown...shame is evidenced in perfectionism. If I can just be perfect, I will always be loved and never be ashamed.

Our sermon this morning was about Nicodemus, the Pharisee leader, who spent his life being perfect and was thrown off his game by Jesus. The way to the kingdom of heaven was through being born again---not through perfect compliance to the law. God loved us so much, valued us so much, that he gave his only son---before we were perfect.

God is the truth. If God values us this much, we are indeed valuable/worth loving.

Perfectionism will not get us into the kingdom. It will make us judgemental and ashamed and ready to measure ourselves against those around us to see whether we are closer to or father from the kingdom than they are. It will make us set up rules to make us feel safe: doing these things will get me in; doing these things will keep me out; I do the right things and there is nothing to worry about.

Getting into the kingdom is about accepting God's assessment of us, about being honest about who we are, and about trying as much as we can to be like Jesus.
Honest

about being worthy of love
about being imperfect
about making things right with those we hurt
about that those around us are just as worthy, and no more/no less imperfect than we are

Like Jesus

seeing the worth of those around us and investing in it
compassionate
truthful
willing to not be safe in our love for other people (that one may be a bit controversial)
willing to set boundaries

no you can't sell in the temple
right now I need to be alone to pray instead of being with more people
you don't get to ask to be first in the kingdom
etc.

It is interesting to me that although Brene doesn't say it explicitly, as she tells her story of learning about shame, authenticity, and whole-hearted living, the change in her life has included going back to church. She keeps her writing accessible to a wider audience, but especially in "The Gifts of Imperfection" she notes that certain traits of wholehearted living have a distinctly spiritual component.

I especially enjoy when science verifies the truths of faith, and illustrates them in new words. It goes back, I think, to God's and our enjoyment of new things. We love to hear the old truth through new ears with new words and new understanding. The same yesterday, today, and forever, and new every morning.

Making all things new

2011-03-08T22:53:00.000-06:00

I've been knitting a lot this winter. Besides the projects shown below, I also made a pair of fingerless gloves for a Christmas present. Except for the hat I made for Tim, I have changed every pattern in some way. Sometimes I've knit one thing and then unraveled it to make something else I liked better.

This feather and fan lace scarf was designed to be narrower than I liked, so I added another repeat of the pattern. Now I'm wondering if that was too ambitious and whether I'll run out of yarn before the scarf is long enough.


Feather and Fan scarf made from sock wool

The first fingerless glove was knit spur of the moment to hold a bandage to the palm of my hand. After the wound healed, I realized I wanted the glove to fit tighter and feel smoother, so I undid it, reknit it, and made a twin. I looked at a pattern for some suggestions, but changed nearly everything just a bit to fit my own ideas.

fingerless glove, second attempt

Tim wanted a hat, and chose the colors of yarn. Now that it is finished, I love the way it looks on him (Luke is modeling it here.). But it is made from cotton, and if I made another, it would be wool...definitely wool.

Tim's Turn-a-square hat, modeled by Luke

I had some red tweedy cotton I bought on sale last summer, and needed something to work on. I decided to make a hat and scarf. I started the hat using a pattern but ended up experimenting with how to shape the top of the hat. Truthfully, I had some trouble understanding the pattern and decided to wing it. The moebius scarf was originally a feather and fan scarf. I didn't have enough yarn to finish it and couldn't buy more, so I unraveled it and reknit the moebius pattern. Again, both would have been better in wool, although I like them well enough to wear them.


Moebius scarf and spiral hat

I am knitting the Rosamund sweater as part of a group knit-along at the local yarn store. I've already knitted it nearly to the point where you see it in the picture, decided it wasn't quite right, unraveled it, and knit the one in the picture in the next larger size. Last weekend I realized I was doing one of the primary stitches wrong, and brought it to the group for advice. Their wisdom was to enjoy the unusual look of the knitting rather than unravel it and reknit it to look like everyone else's. I'm fine with that!

Rosamund Sweater, reversible with cabled accents

I've been thinking about why the knitting is so energizing for me. Even the unraveling and starting over has not been discouraging. It seems to me that it is the process of creating something new that is a large part of what I enjoy. I also like working with my hands on something while I watch tv or wait for someone or sit through a meeting.

I remember that being created in God's image means that we are born with a desire to create as well. The Bible has so many references to new things---new wineskins; sing a new song; behold, I am doing a new thing; the mercies of God are new every morning, old things have passed away and new things have come, the new covenant.... When I start to look at it, I wonder if 'retail therapy' is fed by that need to create, to be part of making things new.

I'm currently reading the book, Living More With Less: 30th Anniversary Edition, by Doris Janzen Longacre. In the chapter on Recreation and Schedules, Longacre writes that in some ways "newness is what we need." The word, recreation, itself is informative. We love new things and that love is God given. Think of the first flowers of spring, the shoots pushing through the earth in the garden, the arrival of the swallows, a newborn cry. All of these things are ancient as the earth itself, and yet they resonate inside us as new and fresh.

I submit that part of our enjoyment of life is in participating in that creating of new things. I also think it is probable that our sense of fulfillment in our daily lives is somewhat correlated to the sense that we are participating in creative activities in our work and play.

Housework is often only housework for me, but on those occasions when I see the work as a chance to create a peaceful and beautiful space in which to live, it changes. Likewise, when I anticipate working in the garden, I often dread the drudgery. Yet getting my hands in the soil, planning the arrangement of the plants, figuring out how to enrich the soil, clearing and mulching...all these things end up feeling creative, and even holy.

The meal I cooked tonight was spaghetti sauce from a jar with frozen meatballs added, peas, and coleslaw. The coleslaw was mildly creative, but otherwise the meal was not much fun to put on the table. Sometimes it is necessary to cook this way. I have several quick and easy unimaginative meals on hand all the time for when there isn't much time for creativity.

Luke enjoying homemade yogurt, with homemade muesli and apricots from the freezer

But a bowl of yogurt made fresh yesterday, mixed with homemade muesli and apricots I froze last summer is worth the smile on Luke's face.

Brene Brown on local public television

2011-03-04T17:26:00.000-06:00

Just a note to let people know that Brene Brown will be featured on PBS this month. Check your local listings to see if your station is playing the 90 minute presentation. For those of you who live near me, here is the local schedule of showings:

Saturday, March 5 — 10:30am

8 - KPTS