Mustang

The mister drove a Mustang just this color in high school. That tidbit made a sale a pretty sure bet for the car salesman once he overheard it. He has a thing for Mustangs, but they're not really family vehicles. The lovies and I have been plotting, planning, and dreaming about surprising the mister with his wished-for Mustang in time for his 40th birthday. We are a smidge early, but he seems okay with the timing.
What might be a little less brilliant is the addition of this fun-to-drive woo-woo car to the driveway (and our insurance) just in time for Middle Child to start driving. In fact, her first driver's education class fell on Monday. The additional hours of required driving practice outside of the class fall to her daddy because her mama is not emotionally equipped for teaching young people to operate motor vehicles while retaining any level of sanity. The mister is going to make those driving session much cooler than if Middle Child had to learn in a mom-mobile. He's looking forward to sharing the rite of passage with our girl, and he's entirely welcome to it.

Deja Vu

The final week of March, 2000 was memorable. My feisty Mammy passed away on that last Sunday on the mister's and my sixth wedding anniversary. The very next day, we discovered a termite infestation in Old House. On the heels of the termite news, we loaded up our littlies and hit the road headed to West Texas for Mammy's memorial ahead of strong storms causing tornadoes to touch down around the metro area. That particularly disastrous week ended with an allergic reaction that landed me in the E.R. Seriously.
Then again, that E.R. visit resulted in a batch of labs based on symptoms that seemed unrelated to the allergic reaction, but might have been a result of the stress of the preceding days. The results led to our family doctor opting to make a phone call on Saturday, April 1st that was no joke rather than waiting for Moday to let his nurse report the findings. All of the tumult ended with the (Surprise!) news that we were expecting Skater Girl.
This week we have Middle Child's BFF#1 staying with us after a death in her family over the weekend had her parents leaving the state for the service. Yesterday, I noticed a weird thing on the wall next to the fridge. Today, I whacked at the thing with the mister looking on in case I needed to run screaming. Sure enough, the whacking revealed (Crud. Crud. Crud.) termites hiding in the wall of New House. I scheduled the termite guy to come visit Thursday since I'll be stuck home for my infusion anyway. (The same infusion that I have an allergic reaction to every time. Awesome.) We're currently monitoring tornadoes touching down in the metro area.
Who knows... the way things are going, I'm developing a certain level of concern that I could make medical history winning myself and my doctor a place in the medical journals by turning up pregnant despite a hysterectomy.

Continued

• The belt/blanket is coming along. I'd post a photo, but, really, it's still just a fat string developing into a scarf.
• Skater Girl and I are headed to the rink tomorrow before church to observe a testing session. After mastering the Basic Skills, a skater may choose to enter the USFS test structure. The tests at this point require months of  practice and coaching before registering for sessions where a panel of judges determine whether one passes or fails. With Skater Girl's first Moves in the Field test expected in May, it will likely be a plus to see how the sessions run without the pressure of performing.
• The Boy was premature in his conviction that his homecoming would occur this week. The Powers That Be suggest a time frame rather than a specific date. Either way, the family reunion should happen sometime in the next six weeks.
• Middle Child had her second pair of ear piercings done today. (I had my second set of earrings added at the same age, so it would have been hypocritical to have her wait longer just to be really sure.) She was a little nervous about the potential for pain. Perfect went along to offer additional encouragement, and they both seemed pretty pleased with the results.

Unexpected



Unexpected * July 13, 2008

  Sometimes things crop up unexpectedly. This sunflower blooming in a field of brick and stone caught my eye years ago as the mister and I explored an area being built to replicate a European village. The first shops were open and few homes inhabited, but much remained unfinished. In the years since the photo was taken, the Village has become a popular site for photographers shooting portrait sessions.

Tomorrow night, Perfect and Middle Child, dressed in their formal finery, will be photographed by their beaming parents in the Village. In preparation, tonight will find us snapping test shots at the site. Perfect and Middle Child may be hoping this effort will yield a shorter session of parental photography before they head off to enjoy their much-anticipated evening.

The Chapel at the Village near sunset

In the midst of planning the final details for this weekend's Winter Formal, a phone call came that was no more expected than the sunflower sprouting from that jumble of stone in the Village. The Boy was calling to say he returns home in two weeks. The unlooked-for news comes as a shock. Having just made it through our third Christmas without him, we are unprepared for his nearly unheralded restoration.

Even while executing this weekend's plans, the family must prepare for the return of our prodigal son... again. The sense of anticipation that characterized his previous homecoming and our family's short-lived reunion is tempered by trepidation over his abrupt secondary departure a year ago. One can only hope that this time will be different, and that he will choose to bloom and grow here among us rather than uprooting himself and leaving us broken.

Development

There is a tendency for a crush on some unattainable adult to be the first experiment in the development of interest in the opposite sex. Personally, I was going to marry John Taylor who played bass guitar for the band Duran Duran when I was in third grade. Way Pre-Perfect, Middle Child was all about teen heartthrob Jesse McCarthy. In a similar vein, one of Skater Girl's best friends intends to one day marry Taylor Lautner of Twilight and Shark Boy and Lava Girl fame. (With the exception of Katie Holmes, this sort of thing rarely works out.)  In solidarity, the girls have formed the Taylor Lautner Club. (This news nearly caused Middle Child and I to suffer convulsions laughing after finally losing the battle to keep a straight face following the revelation of the new club.) The mooning over Mr. Lautner will allow the girls an opportunity to try out their feelings about boys and romance without actually having to deal with a boyfriend- and all that entails. It also means our living room is now the site of repeated screenings of his generally crummy movies and lots of pre-teen swooning.

Ovation

Ovation has been running their annual Battle of the Nutcrackers. My holiday heart goes pitter-pat for Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite". There have been three opportunities to see live performances over the years, but anytime there's a televised version I'm either glued to the screen or at least letting the music play in the background. If we skipped the tree, cookies, and all the other hoo-ha, the one secular tradition that would be sorely missed is the opportunity to see the ballet performed and be immersed in the score.

A dirty, little secret: I do not like classical music. (That's a generalization. There are some specific pieces that do have appeal.) So, when there is a little something that I like, it's a surprise. Perhaps the Nutcracker's appeal is linked to the memory of dressing up in a so-unlike-me Laura Ashley fancy party dress in teal cotton that looked a lot like this: Not being a girly girl, it was a rare thing to wear such a garment. The feeling of twirling in that dress is forever linked in emotional memory to the Nutcracker. Even now, with gimpy knees, there's an irresistable urge to give in to the occasional twirl around the living room in response to the Waltz of the Sugar Plum Fairy. So, thank you Ovation for providing a near endless supply of Christmas Cheer and to my mother for splurging on That Dress and those tickets for that very first performance.

Building

Green Girl wrote about how girls like Legos the other day. (Later, I saw a Lego Rep at Local Discount Store who was female, and there was temptation to suggest she Google GG and perhaps forward that post to the Powers That Be.) I, too, liked to build stuff as a kid, and found happy thoughts of not only my brother's Legos, but also their counterparts Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys pleasantly populating memories of playtime. These thoughts have been companions for days now as I see grown-up places where that same enjoyment is found. Because I still like to build. I'm a mom building up my kids. A wife building a marriage. A homemaker building a place far from Stepford. And a friend building on shared likes, dislikes, and history. A follower of Christ building on faith. Building is exactly what I do.

Is that desire to build a Mom Thing or a Chick Thing? (Funny question since this thread was teased out of the topic of Building Toys for Boys.) Maybe it is ultimately a Creative Thing? For example: I love to cook, but am generally not fond of recipe adherence because that sucks the creative element out of the kitchen. With much the same attitude, as a child I was mystified when my Boy Cousin lined his bedroom shelves with displayed Lego Creations built oh-so-precisely to the specs in each set. (I think his mother used to dust them.) That's just plain wrong. There are so many possibilities in a box of Legos waiting to be explored that it simply makes no sense to trap all that inherent opportunity.

Opportunity may just be the key to the appeal of building. And to creating. The adjustability, flexibility, and possibility of those Building Toys, of relationships, of crafting, cooking, decorating, designing, writing, gardening, and just plain old Making... taking what is and pursuing what might be.

Tidbits: Birthday Girl

• Today is Skater Girl's actual birthday. Her daddy made the prediction that she would arrive by November 15th despite a December due date. Erin was obligingly born at a quarter to midnight.
• She is already tall, but her pediatrician projected that she will potentially reach somewhere between 5'9" and 6'1" before she attains her full adult height.
• She's witty, wry, funny, a talented writer with an eye toward social commentary and an artist specializing in cats, "...because she cannot draw people."
• As a toddler she could not run three steps without falling on her face, but she could stand on one foot for five minutes--- only quitting because she grew bored. As a tween, she's discovered that figure skating is her thing. Skater Girl loves jumps, and only bothers to learn spins because they are required to compete at levels with more complex jumps.
• Erin finds four-letter-words offensive. (This is not a given in her grade where many of her peers have mistaken Potty Mouth for Maturity.) She utilizes, "Cabbages!" in lieu of curse words and certain less socially acceptable exclamations.
• People are sometimes confused as to what her name is due to an array of nicknames. The most common of these include: Skater Girl, Libs, Libby, Livvie, Liv, Elizabeth, Lizabeth, Lizzy, Lizzer, Lou, Lulu, Little Bit, and (courtesy of her elder siblings) Lizard Beth and Lizard Breath. She generally answers to all but the last two.

Robes



Little Bit and Middle Child 2007

My mother-in-law saved the Mister's and his sister's robes, honor cords, and the caps worn for their high school graduations in the 90's. In 2007, my father-in-law earned his Master's degree after retiring from his lifelong career as an engineer. We loaded up the offspring and drove across Texas to attend Papa's graduation. The girls were impressed with Papa's robes, so Gram broke out their Daddy and Aunt's high school graduation gear for a little dress-up fun.
Little Bit dancing around her solemnly posed sister was pretty standard as our youngest gladly filled the clown role in her pre-K days. She planted the secondary cap upside down on Katie's head and proceeded to twirl and prance around and around her big sister. That big sister is currently looking for a dress to wear to cross a stage indicating the passage from middle school into her own high school days. It will likely be all too soon that the offspring will be receiving their own robes and posing for just these sorts of pictures again. I wonder if Little Bit will grace those future photos with her Happy Dance?

Authorized

In 5th Grade, Susan Cooper definitely scored the Favorite Author title. Neither of my eldest children have been particularly taken with Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence despite maternal insistence on the sheer excellence of the series. Then again, the youngest is likely the only potential Anglophile among them, and she is just now of age for a potential introduction. She writes fan fiction when a story really grabs her, so there's even greater appeal to introduce her to the series.
5th Grade being many, many moons into the distant past, I've moved on from fantasy tales spinning out in Wales to the no less intriguing histories of England and Scotland. (Wales garners little more of my attention than Normandy, and that typically because of relationship rather than individual merit.) Precious Youngest cracked the spine of my current read, Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley as we sat waiting in the pediatrician's office (separate post on that to follow this one...) this week. She read a single line, "To the south of the city lay a quadrangle of collegiate buildings attached to the adjacent ruined Kirk of St. Mary in the Fields."* She closed the book silently, and her wide blue eyes cut to the side before meeting my amused gaze.
"I don't even know what that says!" was her comment as she handed the book back. Looking to see what she had read, I laughed because the whole sentence is essentially Geometry. Telling her so, I was greeted with a stony stare. I laughed and informed her that when she is studying math and someone foolishly says that they will never use fill-in-the-blank in the real world, she will know otherwise. Then I showed her an image of the spot described in the mystifying sentence from the book. She was marginally less unimpressed by Mom's choice of reading material once the math words were translated. Which is just as well since much of the life of Mary, Queen of Scots and those around her would make highly inappropriate reading for a 10 year old.
Still, having discovered that she is not quite ready to read Alison Weir, who is Mom's favorite author, perhaps Little Bit will consider giving Susan Cooper a trial read. I suspect The Dark is Rising will suit her penchant for fantasy and mystery well. Besides, a series has the benefit of telling more of the story as the author intends it to play out than a single novel can possibly cover. That should give Miss Erin plenty of fodder for her own elaboration and story lines to continue the tales as yet untold of Will Stanton.

*Weir, Alison: Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley (Random House, 2003), p.1

Stuff Moms Say: Friendship

Last week, the words, "Absolutely! I'm always in if you want to celebrate!" were said in response to a phone call about a joint birthday celebration. Yes, please do call when there's a new baby to welcome, a wedding to attend, or simply the chance to sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee. These are not the only calls that come, though.
Mother used to refer to what she called, "fair-weather friends," and she used the term like a curse word. Not knowing what they meant, but wanting to not be whatever it was, I eventually asked her to define this Very Bad Thing. She explained that there will be people who be happy to walk alongside one as long as everything in life is good, but who will either run screaming or quietly disappear when Trouble comes knocking.
Trouble is a fairly consistent party crasher, too. As much pleasure as there is in celebrating with people, my hope is not simply to be invited to all the best parties, but to also be the friend who gets the call, text, e-mail, Facebook message, blog comment, or opens the front door to find the friend who is being tossed about a little by one of life's storms. Because that's when one truly needs a friend. So, not to be a permanent addition to the Guest List, but to be on the call list when Life Hands You Lemons is the sort of friend I want to be, but also the sort of friendships I hope to build.
This reminder is not born solely out of thoughts of the friend slated for a hospital visit today, or the friends who will be waiting in the reception line at the funeral home tonight, or the one who will text about her husband's chemo tolerance. Neither am I necessarily thinking of the one whose daughter will be baptized Sunday, or even the one driving her child to an early college interview this morning. None of them are far from my heart and prayers, but today I'm feeling a smidge selfish. All these thoughts on friendship are crystal clear because of the ones who don't bat an eyelash when I call them up last minute and ask for a ride to and from a medical appointment that precludes driving myself and turns their schedules topsy-turvy. My mother's mother used to have a saying or two about friends as well. The one that comes to mind today is, "To have a friend, first be one!"

Attending

It was going okay until she said, "This morning, Ralph said..." Because she won't be able to say that ever again. Tammy was referring to her husband. I stood on the screened porch staring at nothing while Tammy, those family members who live in town, Tammy and Ralph's pastor, several ladies (who are more sisters than friends to the newly bereaved), and two little children playing on the floor waited for the Medical Examiner to conduct the necessary business inside the house.  The memorial service will wait for January 18th at 2:00 p.m. It will no doubt be well attended because there is much to celebrate when considering the life of Ralph Adler.
Gentle Readers may recall that the Spring of 2008 was spent in preparation for a prayer team to travel to Poland, and that the team faced an unexpected challenge. Missionary to Poland Shelley (ShelleyinPoland) and short-term team member Lisa's father became gravely ill that March. There were huge prayer chains formed via e-mail across the globe to pray for Ralph, and for his family. Months later, when he returned home, I took a scrapbook documenting the months of his illness and recovery with the prayers of individuals pasted into a book along with the faithful updates sent out by Tammy. That book was a testimony to the power of prayer, but it was a small thing compared to the impact of the man who mentored countless men including my mister. Steve Lucas put it well today saying, "The world has become poorer, and Heaven richer."

Having been part of a team praying for Ralph, a team including two of his daughters praying for Poland, and a smaller team praying for Ralph's daughter Lisa to be blessed with a child, I contemplate an image of Ralph holding the hand of that daughter shortly before the birth of his granddaughter. It is an image that speaks of faith and the power of prayer, and of the legacy of a man who loved God and others.

May, 2010

Awaiting

In four days, the girls and I will climb on board a plane that will take us south on the first leg of our journey to Puerto Lempira, Honduras. I shift memories from Spring Break forward to imagine a familiar trip across the same miles. The flight will land in San Salvador where we will kill off an hour and a half layover before our connection to San Pedro Sula. The route retraces our journey in March precisely, but this time we will take the shuttle from the airport to the gated, guarded compound of the hotel and remain there until a private driver arrives Sunday to ferry us over land to La Ceiba. The remainder of Sunday will be spent on errands, snatching the last hot showers and familiar meals for a few days before crawling into bed early. Monday morning will find a sleepy team gathered in the hotel lobby before 4:00 a.m.


Runway in La Ceiba 6:00 a.m. 3/15/2010



Puerto Lempira Runway

The final flight will be aboard a small plane with Cyrillic characters on the interior signage indicating its origins. We will walk directly out onto the runway surrounded by mountain views to board the small plane and be seated in the cabin with constant visual contact with the two-person crew at around 6:00. The flight will be low enough for the pilot to have the small triangular windows popped open on either side of the plane, and for those aboard to stare out at the terrain below. There will be no question when we arrive because we will clearly see that red dirt (or perhaps mud in this rainy season?) runway coming up to guide us to our destination.



Once we disembark, all we have to do is wait to present our papers to the authorities before achieving the desired reunion with our friends. All the planning, travel arrangements, and preparations will become small things as those faces fill our eyes and friends fill our arms. I do not dare to imagine too clearly the faces of the children we will see again. That is a moment that will simply have to be savored in reality unimagined. Until then, it is enough to keep putting one foot in front of the other and knowing that time is plodding onward toward the anticipated moments.

Vanity

I flipped through the images once more for good measure before shutting down the screen. The day before saw the same activity. This time it led to action without any sense of certainty. (Again with the tendency to stand on the edge of a cliff mesmerized by the view for an indeterminate time--- only to haul off and leap without warning.) Spinning the chair to launch across the study and through the doors to speed up the stairs only to stop and stand staring in the large mirror over the bathroom vanity. The cats cruised in to investigate, but the lack of motion as I considered the top of my face and head failed to hold their feline interest beyond a questioning meow from Bad Bella.

As the felines wandered away, all of my hair was pulled into a twisted rope that stretched toward the ceiling with one hand. The other hand dipped in clipping away an inch to refresh the usual choppy layers. Thus freed from the uncertainty over the next step, the renewed layers were quickly secured in an elastic loop. Well, almost all of the layers. A deep patch of hair at the very front that refused to hang forward after a decade of being swept back remained. Wetting the uncooperative strands, the patch was sorted into hair to protect from the scissor's predations with the pony tail, and hair flopping forward well below my chin. Finally giving up on the single-handed achievement of a straight part at the top, reinforcements were called in to help.

Middle Child was a bit incredulous. To prove my intent (after she straightened the desired part in the hair), the scissors flashed bringing the floppy front hair to lip level five inches of hair sheared away in an unspoken commitment to the course set. Wetting the hair over my face, I twisted the hair into sections again and clipped. Middle Child stared. The remaining hair was held between two fingers and the edge cut straight across. Erin joined her sister. They both stared at me. I stared at the reflection.

It is definitely a change, but Middle Child pointed out that I look very much like the old pictures she has seen that predate her. The girls also think there is something familiar, but they cannot figure out who it is that Mom looks like with this new hairdo. (Maybe... ah... Mom? Only with bangs.) It's possible that I look like the screen images of people with facial shapes and features similar enough to my own to convince me to take the leap to experiment a little despite the usual resistance to such change. Then again, probably not since I ended up with blunt bangs rather than the less-defined, longer fringe intended.

Access

I do remember staring wistfully, and (truth-telling time) sometimes resentfully at those vehicles sitting tantalizingly near the front doors as I waddled past during all our pregnancies, and, even more so, when wrestling one of those unwieldy infant carriers from the car. Now that all of our babies can enter and exit buildings largely unassisted, I am pleased to find that there are additional spaces unavailable for my use. Someone finally thought to set aside spaces for expectant and new mothers at the market, pharmacy, and hospital. Being fairly vocal in my approval, all three lovies know that Mom thinks those spaces are a great idea.
Last night, as we left Super Store, Erin gave a sound that clearly indicated disgust. When asked what was the matter, she indicated a man sitting in his car in the designated handicapped space as we passed. I saw that his car had a handicapped plate. Unsure exactly what this guy was doing to raise the ire of Little Bit, I asked. She filled me in saying, "That guy is just sitting there taking up the pregnant ladies' space!"

*Oops. Not meaning to vilify "the guy". He had a handicapped license plate, and was appropriately sitting in a handicapped space. Erin mistook the handicapped space for one of those designated for mommies. Her outrage was misplaced, but it struck me because I had wished for just such a spot back in the day.

Right

Years ago, someone made a comment about something seemingly innocuous, but it was deeply hurtful. This comment was made in the church that the mister and I were newly attending. It was a place where we were seeking God; yet, this individual and the words spoken sent me running from that place. Soon after, I was driving by a country church with one of those billboards out front that tend to have little pithy sayings. This one asked what was coming between me and God. The sign and my hurt feelings inspired a little conversation with God as I drove.
Me: Lord, I want to know you. I'm trying. That person was awful to say something like that to me.
God: [silence]
Me: That person hurt my feelings. That person didn't care about my circumstances, and You are not limiting me according to what she said.
God: [probably pointed silence]
Me: You are not limiting me. Really, that person isn't limiting me. My reponse is limiting my access to You because I am more concerned with that person being wrong than I am with being right with You. Uh-oh.
God: [in infinite patience is still silent]
Me: Well. I'll just keep right on coming to that church, and I will just keep right on seeking after You! In fact, I'm going to be so nice to that person that they won't know what hit 'em.

I thought of this exchange that happened many years ago this morning. The exchange that could have driven me from church, and become something I held up as a shield of bitterness between myself and God is now one I treasure. The person who I would have let push me away, is someone who I hold intensely dear. (We have never discussed that offhand conversation, and the speaker of those fateful words probably does not remember them. I remember it, not out of hurt, but because it reminds me that my perspective is not the only one.) It is also an illustration of an idea that fits in with Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Whatever might come between the vertical relationship with God and His follower, needs to be flattened into a horizontal position that nothing would impede that most important relationship. If I am right with my Lord, then I believe all else will follow.

New Day

This year's First Day of School is a little different from previous years. In the past, we've made much of the offspring sending them off with special breakfasts, taking scads of pictures despite the protests of the subjects, and generally drawing out the morning before relinquishing the kids to another year of public education. Not so much the plan today.
Rolling out of bed at 4:30, and the mister was already up, covered in mosquito repellant, and headed out to walk the dogs. Middle Child had to be pried from her covers just after 5:00 (per her request last night) to hit the shower. Today the Boy gets to sleep in sinnce schedules won't be handed out until 6:45 at the high school, but every other morning will require him to arrive at 6:00 a.m. ready for Cross Country practice. Little Bit will have to be roused somewhere in the six o'clock hour as well. By 7:15 we'll drop off Middle Child for Cross Country, and Little Bit can arrive at the elementary any time between 7:15 and 7:40.
We are not taking First Day of School photos in the dark. The only thing special about today's breakfast is that the mister and I are going out for ours' as soon as our precious youngest child steps onto the pavement during our rolling stop through the carpool lane. Not that we love them any less than we did on those first days of school when we devoted an extended morning ritual to celebrating this annual rite of passage. We are coming to accept that the teens are less comforted by those rituals and more embarrassed by them these days. The tween informs us of those ceremonies which she considers important to mark, and this is not one. She didn't really want us hanging about on her first day of kindergarten. And told us so.
Maybe I'll just go put out the cereal stuff and some fruit... kind of a nod to days past that doesn't trample all this early-morning hormone-driven independence. One or two pictures might even be okay... because sometimes the habits are still important. As long as the Embarrassing Mom behaviors that can be observed by others is kept to a bare minimum a compromise might just work out since the whole herd of offspring will only be half awake anyway.

Age Before Beauty

Oh, I do love purple. It reminds me of my Mammy. She drove my mother to distraction, and sometimes irritated me, too. Her idiosyncracies were endlessly entertaining, and with every passing year I grew more glad to receive her little nuggets of wisdom. In 2000, she passed away, and this day is not an anniversary of that passing. Today is not her birthday. Or her anniversary of the day she wed my Papa who turned 90 last Spring. It is just a day when I saw the purple swirls in a graphic design that reminded me of how she embodied the poem, When I am an Old Woman that still leaves a smile on my face. A face that has begun to show etchings of that smile even when it is not present. In noticing the signs of age, there are still more memories tied to this titan of my childhood who so often uttered the words, "Pretty is as pretty does!"
Her attitude toward aging was delightful, and I hope to echo that celebration of life in the acceptance of age so foreign in our culture. The full head of gray hair was refreshing in an atmosphere born of the Boomers' anti-age sentiment that has since spawned a host of women struggling to live up to advertisers' claims that products can make one, "You... only better." She was more of a, "Good enough!" sort of a gal; although, there were beauty products cluttering her bathroom. They were more about taking care of herself than halting the clock marking time on her face. I know this because we gave each other the loveliest facials with all sorts of delightful stuff from those fascinating jars and bottles while she debunked the claims on the packages. The scents of Tone soap and Palmer's cocoa butter products were hers more than any cologne ever spritzed on for a special occasion. Slathering on moisturizer dispensed from a pretty, purple bottle and looking for hints that my own grays are going to take over one of these days, I miss her.

Opportunity

Raised in a household that held the often-expressed opinion that organized religion was all about snatching away one's hard-earned cash, I admit to being a bit squeamish about raising support for mission trips. While there is not the slightest hesitation to assume that others want to pray for us, it is more difficult to ask for money; yet, I was put out to discover that people do send out letters to ask others to contribute to the expenses associated with missional travel. Not put out by the requests, but because the people who we had known over the years that went on mission trips had often not sent us such requests.
The first letter I recall was from a former mentor sharing her excitement about heading to Africa. In fact, her letter was the inspiration for my own letter months later, but she was far from the first person we knew who was making a short-term or extended mission trip. The feeling of having missed out on the opportunities to be part of sending others out to places where we were not likely to go was akin to an emptiness in the pit of one's stomach. The realization that our known lack of ready cash had possibly been reason for others to withhold the opportunity to be part of their sending teams left a decidedly unpleasant hollowness. It also led to an added excitement in 2008 as support letters for Operation Prayer Surge in Poland were written and sent out. God provided every penny of the expenses related to that trip, and many people prayed from home as the in-country team moved throughout several cities and landmarks praying for Poles and those ministering to them.

In Common

Sitting at a table over coffee this evening with friends, and J. mentioned her Dad serving in the U.S. Border Patrol. I mentioned that my Mammy's best friend's husband was also in the Border Patrol, and that the couple eventually ended up in the town of Marfa, Texas like J.'s parents. Apparently, this was not the only similarity of address. I mentioned the first names of the couple, and she looked at me for a moment. Then, she asked if the Jean and Charles to whom I referred were Jean and Charles H_______?
Eh? Why, yes. This friend who I met in 2007 through our church once lived across the street from Jean and Charles in another Texas town. She had heard of my hilarious, capable, colorful Mammy as "Wallene" over the years and was familiar with some of the arts and crafts that are so tied to memories of the grandmother who passed away in 2000. (J. had not heard of Mammy's propensity for writing trashy romance novels which were submitted in brown paper envelopes with requests that I edit the works.) Not only did she know Jean and Charles, but their daughter, Paula. Paula was the person who first invited J. to church. Such a small world, and that invitation likely seemed a small thing to Paula, but it turned out to mean new life for J.