Living Out the Gospel: A Question on My Heart

Currently Watching Kramer vs. Kramer By Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Jane Alexander, Justin Henry, Howard Duff see related

Childhood

I love hearing what people were like as children.  It's really cool to see how their little personalities at 6 years old translate into their adult ones.

When I was a kid, I loved playing with Barbies with my friend Tabitha.  The only thing was that I had to have the entire "house" set-up first, the characters chosen, and the basic storyline determined before we could even begin playing.  Tabitha was a very patient friend.

A little later, Tabitha would come over on Sunday afternoons and we would make our own radio program.  I had a tape recorder, and she had a keyboard.  We would come up with a basic script and record our radio programs and music.  We felt especially cool when we added the jazz beat to the songs we had created on the keyboard.

In late junior high/early high school I had fun planning a baby shower for our youth leader's wife.  We worked on a quilt secretly on Sunday afternoons and the little group of girls planned a menu for the shower.  I was in charge of cheese and crackers.  I learned that putting the cheese on the crackers ahead of time causes the crackers to become soggy.  Oops!

In high school I wanted to plan a Mexican lunch for our Spanish class, and my teacher was nice enough to let me.  I remember getting annoyed at my friend who said she could bring fried icecream and later said it wouldn't work out.  What did I care that she didn't have a deep frier--that dessert was going to be the perfectly authentic touch to the lunch.

This past weekend we had a graduation party for my mom.  She went to night school the last six months to become a nail technician.  It was a huge step for her and I am very proud.  I am also excited about the free pedicures.  Anyway, planning things somehow stimulates me.  Even though it can be really busy, I thrive on it.  Every year I feel really stressed out while directing the play, but really, it's what I love to do.  And I could look back and see how it's what Iiked doing even as a little girl.

I would love to hear how my friends' childhood quirks reflect their adult abilities.

Nelly Furtado

A Creepy Night

   I think my generation is messed up, or maybe it's just me.  Not from post-modern philosophy, amoral entertainment, or a permissive culture.  I think we are messed up from growing up on the show Rescue 911. The victims on the show always said, "I never thought it could happen to me."  I never wanted to be able to say that, so now I believe everything could happen to me from experiencing a home invasion to getting a limb stuck on a roller coaster track to having cargo on a semi come crashing down on my windshield.  And they say video games are too violent.

Last night I had another one of those moments.  In the day time with full consiousness it seems so silly.  Tim is out of town, and I thought I was doing better with being calm and peaceful while he was away.  I was having restless dreams about being back in St. Augustine with Kelsey and trying to avoid alligators everywhere. I woke up and everything was pitch black.  I tried to see what time it was, and that is when I realized the power was out.  I picked up my cellphone to use as a flashlight and peered out of the bedroom door.  I didn't see anyone so I closed and locked the bedroom door.  I knew locking the door wouldn't keep someone out, but it would help me hear them if they tried to get in.  I also knew someone purposely blew out our electricity so they could get into the house more easily.  What other explanation was there?  It wasn't storming outside.  I think I watch too many movies.

When I got back into the bedroom, I placed the 357 magnum in one hand and my "flashlight" in the other.  I laid (lied/layed?) there for awhile until I realized the instruments were in the wrong hand.  The gun should be in my right hand so I could shoot it and the cellphone in the left since I only had to illuminate with it.  An hour later the dogs started barking.  I would have gone outside and yelled at them, except you understand how vulnerable I would have been at that moment.  So I let them bark.

Now it's daylight and my foolishness is magnified.  At least I am still alive, right?

Rare

My in-laws are some kind of crazy wonderful.  We just spent the whole day working outside on home improvement projects.  The funny thing is that they are leaving tomorrow and this is how they WANTED to spend the last day of their week-long vacation.

Tim and his dad built a work bench under the carport so Tim can organize his stuff better (Hallelujah!) and is now wiring the carport and shed for electricity.  He's installing lights and outlets and other stuff I have yet to learn about.  Tim's mom and I braved the heat to paint the shed and the workbench.  The shed was gray-blue and is now a rusty barn red to match the trim on the house.  I also carried a large pile of wood to the back of the shed.  This may not sound like a huge deal, but if you had seen the spiders and beetles and centipedes and slugs and earwigs like I did, you would be impressed.

So, I have two observations from today.

The first one is that Tim and I don't do well working on projects together.  There is no one in the world I would rather spend every waking minute with, but for some reason we just don't work well together.  I think we both have such different styles that we drive eachother crazy.  And whereas with other people we might feel the same way but be more polite, with eachother we are just more honest.  Are we okay?

The second is that I am blessed to have such great in-laws.  Now before some of you start feeling jealous, I'm sure if we sat down and compared lives, you might have some things that I don't, so don't begrudge me this blessing. 

Before I even met Tim's parents, they had decided that if Tim loved me, they would would love me too without hesitation.  That meant a lot to me.  They even stick up for me.  Tim's mom talked Tim into letting me paint the shed the color I wanted even though he had already bought different paint for it. :)

They are very generous people and just want to serve us while they are here.  Even though they took care of Tim his whole life, they are not tired of it.  Every time they come, they want to work on a project for us.  They replaced the counter and papered the kitchen in our first apartment.  They refinished our dining room table and bedroom furniture.  They painted an old, yucky porch swing for us, and countless other projects I can't remember. 

They just have a lot of strengths that I don't, so I always feel very challenged to have them here.