Happy Birthday, Grindy!

My Dad celebrated his birthday today, and as usual, worked his head off all day and then finally got a chance to relax and celebrate sometime tonight.

My Dad is an interesting guy. He grew up in poverty, and he has the stories and memories to prove it. He scraped and scrapped his way through college, working in the Bean at ACU, selling Bibles every summer, and many other odd jobs to make it through. Unlike his middle daughter, no one paid his way through anything.

In his lifetime, he has pursued, or sometimes fallen into, a number of careers:
He has been a biology teacher, he has been chief fundraiser and houseparent at a Christian children's home (located, truly, in the middle of a wheat field in Nebraska), he has been a math teacher, he has owned and operated a miniature golf course, he single-handedly opened, and has successfully operated, his own art & custom framing business, he has hunted/collected/and then displayed/sold antiques in several booths in several different antique & craft malls;he has renovated and supervised rental properties, and he completely restored, and now operates, a beautiful bed-and-breakfast in a historic home in Vernon, as well as works for my sister's restaurant & gift store. This is not a complete list, by any means. And several of these jobs he did concurrently, often working into the wee hours of the morning.

My Dad and Mom have taught Bible Class since they were first married. In fact, for the last almost 50 years, they have taught the 4 year olds-4th grade on Wednesday nights. All year round. They don't know about the "quarter" system. They LOVE children, and it has been their life mission to teach them about Jesus, who also didn't know anything about the quarter system, or time-off for good behavior.

My Dad is good at just about everything, except taking a compliment. He is an exceptional teacher; he can fix anything (except a car, I think); he has an eye for beauty, and can turn the worst looking anything into a thing of beauty. He can cook, he is an excellent gardener, and has designed & maintained a beautiful yard over the years. The list goes on; I'm not really sure what he can't do.

My Dad is not afraid to try new things, he's not afraid of hard work, and he is not at all aware of how talented he is. I have never seen him exhibit pride for any of his areas of expertise. If anything, he undervalues his gifts and abilities.

My Dad has given me many, many things in my life. My gift for him today is this: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am very proud of the kind of person you are. I am very proud of the way you have lived your life and of the way you live today. I am grateful for the millions of ways you have sacrificed your time and energy in the pusuit of my own good life. I hope you have satisfaction in knowing that you have made a difference in many lives, not the least my own. Thank you for loving Mom all these years, and for making your marriage a priority and a privilege. Thank you for loving my children, who think that a day with Grindy ranks right up there with Joyland (and you know what they think about Joyland!) Thank you for believing in the good news of Jesus and passing that on to the next generation, giving us the only thing in life that we have truly needed.

I love you, Dad/Granddad/Grindy.
Happy Birthday!

Jana

One pizza restaurant & two birthdays

Clearly, you people haven't a quotation on you. Keep looking; I know you've got one somewhere. :-)

Two things for tonight:

1. Another interesting restaurant experience. Luke won a gift certificate to a pizza place last summer for some work he did for a local paper. It expires on Monday, so we thought we better take advantage of it tonight. When we walked in, the hostess asked us if we needed a high chair. Yes. However, when we were being seated at a very small table in a very busy spot in the restaurant, I changed my mind and asked if we could be moved to a booth. The waitress gave me a withering look and said in a you're-a-really-stupid-person-but-I'm-going-to-do-my-best-to-be-patient-with-you voice, "Ma'am, we can't put a highchair in a booth." Duh. Did she REALLY think that I WANTED a high chair IN a booth? Did she think that I thought that you could actually somehow slide and cram a highchair into that kind of spot?

2. I have now officially missed the birthdays of two friends in Tyler, so I am sending belated best wishes to them both. These two women are very, very good friends with each other, and when I moved to Tyler, they were gracious enough to include me in their circle.

Happy Birthday, Kathy B. I think you are hilariously funny, and you have always inspired me with your transparency and authenticity. I'll never forget the night you sat at our kitchen table and gave Rob and I lessons on how to diaper a baby, etc. . .trying to simulate for us those pre-natal classes that moms & dads take when they are awaiting the births of their children. I am thankful for your tender heart and humility before God. As an LCU-ex, I'm hoping you'll get talked into coming to SOMETHING around here! Please come!

Happy Birthday, Diana. I met you the first Sunday we went to church in Tyler, and I've loved you ever since. You took me to my first Bunko night, just so I could make a few new friends outside of church. You introduced me to my hair stylist, Kim, who became like one of the family. You trusted me to babysit your boys on the afternoons during the days of the week that you had to work. And you trusted us with your family's adoption story, paving a path for us that we have never regretted. We love the whole family!

I hope you two got to do something fun these past few weeks in honor of your birthdays--you are definitely worth celebrating! And come on out to West Texas one of these days--I'll even take you to Odessa to see the Wall's! :-)

It's Friday, and I couldn't be happier about it. I hope the remainder of yours is great!

Jana

Two new favorite quotes

The first:

"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." --Charles Du Bos

The second:
"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I don't know one iota about Charles or Antoine, but I like the vision they cast for me.

Do you have any favorites quotations? Why are they meaningful to you?

Jana

Spiked apple juice

Tonight, Grace put on quite a show at On the Border, the Tex-Mex restaurant where we were trying to eat with Rob's parents, who are visiting us for a few days.

As I have thought on many other occasions, "I hope no one is watching this on a hidden camera somewhere."

Whew.

What would have made the hidden camera guy/gal laugh?

Maybe it was when Grace attempted to crush, with a fork, every tortilla chip in the basket.

Maybe it was when she threw a piece of food she didn't like across the table, where it landed somewhere on the back of the seat between Rob and his Mom.

Maybe it was when she hurled herself onto her brother's back, hugging the breath out of him, not once, but four times, each time taking him by surprise. (For the sake of clarity, we were sitting in a semi-circle booth, not in chairs. No one was injured during this stunt).

Maybe it was when she took a bite off the food of several other plates, but none from her own.

Maybe it was when she whacked me in the face (accidentally) with a spoon full of ice cream.

Maybe it was when she kick-stepped her way out of the restaurant, literally marching to the beat of her own drummer.

All of the above led Luke to whisper in my ear on the way out, "They filled her apple juice cup over there at the bar. I think they stuck beer in it."

I don't know what he specifically knows about beer, but I think he might have been right.

Whew.

Jana

Me-Ma's Doll

My precious doll is holding a doll that my paternal grandmother, Me-Ma, made many, many years ago.

A woman born into poverty, my grandmother, Winnie Wall, learned at a young age to be thrifty and clever and resourceful. In her adult life, she had very little by way of money. She worked and saved and made do, or she simply did without.

I don't ever have single memory of her complaining. What a tribute to this warm, congenial, very small woman with a very big heart.

Had she had the opportunity, she could have gone to college and pursued a career. She probably would have been an architect or designer; instead, she farmed, she worked in a children's home in Oklahoma, she took care of her large extended family, and she sewed clothes for friends and neighbors. She found daily, practical outlets for her creativity--well-prepared food, seasonal roses, and a host of other garden-variety interests. She made the best coconut-cream pie I've ever tasted, and she always kept a pull-out drawer in her kitchen filled with a package of chocolate covered grahams wrapped in a rubber band to be set free by her granddaughters when they visited. She could also play a mean game of spoons and dominoes and cards--she's probably the only one who could actually beat my dad at any of those games! :-)

She collected green stamps, liked to watch Lawrence Welke on Saturdays, enjoyed the company of her husband, and seemed content to enjoy the blessings of her life. I don't know what she worried or wondered about, or how she filled all the hours of her day, but I do know that when her maroon screen door opened into the world, and we were there in it, she always greeted us with pure joy. To be loved, and to know it, is a treasured gift.

That's what I am going to think about when I see this doll. My parents brought it to me on their recent visit; there were 3 of these dolls, and each sister is getting one. My grandmother made the body of the doll from an Ivory soap bottle filled with rocks; she then designed and made the dress, which has a fancier hemline and cuffs than one from a store. Instead of buttons, she used straight pins with colored heads for the buttons on the bodice and for the doll's earrings.

Grace loves the doll. We call it "Me-Ma's doll", and Grace likes to carry it around and pat it's head, saying, "pwetty hair."

I wish I had really known my grandmother, adult-to-adult. I wish she had known Rob. I wish she had known my children; she would adore them, because that's just the kind of grandmother she was. She would just be so delighted by everything about them, and she would have enjoyed just being in their company.

So all these years later, the work of my grandmother's hands sits securely in another precious pair of hands. May my daughter continue to live out the heritage of love and faithfulness, and like my grandmother, may her hands cause things to bloom.

Jana

An Old Mama

I don't always like being the oldest mom in either of my children's circle of friends.

I don't like trying to squeeze my ample behind into 1st grade chairs during an after school meeting, trying to look as graceful as the 27 year old mother sitting next to me.

I don't always like the feeling that I don't have anyone "my age" to talk to--these other moms are talking about yoga & pilates and trips and funny stories about in-laws. I'm thinking about grey hair and new wrinkles and how hard it is to resume a standing position after I've been sitting on the floor for awhile.

I don't like not having as much energy as I remember having; I feel that I am somehow shortchanging my children.

But here is what I do like:
I like that I'm old enough to know that my time with my children is delicate and fragile. I know that I will not "pass this way again" in my hours and days with them.

I like that I'm not worried too much about what other people think, nor am I as interested in myself as I used to be. This frees me to be a more authentic person and mama.

I like that being an older mom has made me more grateful for little things that I might not have noticed in my faster, self-absorbed, younger days.

I like that I have a bigger bag of experiences to draw from, that maybe I have a little more wisdom to share with my little ones.

More than anything else, being an older mama has allowed me to plant my feet firmly in two worlds: the world that is now, and the world that is to come.

I no longer think that I will live forever or have the endless luxury of time. But I also know the uninhibited, pure joy of youth. I get to see it every day in the faces of my precious children, who are not bound by time, but who live happily and resolutely in the present moment.

So thank you, God, for letting me be this old mama. You have given me far, far more than I have ever deserved. And I'll try my best to remember that when I'm using a piece of furniture to pull myself up off the floor.

Jana

Yesterday after school,Luke and I were talking about musical instruments; we had just seen a video clip of elementary-aged kids playing the violin and the saxophone.

I asked him which kind of instrument he thought he might like to play someday.

He said, "I think I'll play the microphone."

Jana

It's all the same thing . . .

One of my favorite lines from the short one-act play, "Trifles," is spoken by Mrs. Hale, the rural wife who has lived long enough to be wise. She says, "We all go through the same things. It's just a different kind of the same thing."

Isn't that true?

No matter our age, or experience, or nationality, or even waist size, we're living this life with lots of mistakes, with educated guesses, and hopefully, with humor and grace. Whenever I get really critical of myself for not being super-Mom or for not being as smart, or as efficient, or as effective, or as good as I think I should be, I remember that even the best and smartest among us have obstacles and challenges and troubles--we're all going through the same things, just a different version of the same things.

Do you agree?

On a different note, my kids have been doing some nutty things lately. Grace is in the middle of trying to potty train herself (I lost interest weeks ago :-)), but is afraid to poo-poo in the potty. When this dramatic event does occur, she jumps off the potty in alarm and, well, let's just say that this story always ends with me on the floor with wet paper towels. Yuck. Additionally, she decided this week that she did NOT want to leave the house in the morning (hey, I agree with her!), so she has been climbing up into the stroller (which I have parked in the entryway), and refusing to get out. When I walk in her direction, she yells, "Go to park! Go to park!" The mornings have been really fun as I have struggled to pull her loose from the stroller. I hope we're not on a hidden camera somewhere. (Actually, I have that thought many times throughout every day).

Luke has been having fun trying to decide to do with his very loose tooth. Instead of coming out, like it needs to, the tooth has shifted to the side, leaving a gap. So, he has been plotting how he can trick the tooth fairy into leaving money for him, because it LOOKS like he has lost a tooth. Also, he is now obsessed with the game of Monopoly. He wants to play a round whenever there is a moment of free time--the problem, of course, is that Monopoly is not one of those fast board games. You have to round the board, you have to buy property, you have to buy houses, you have to buy hotels, and then you have to deal with the "Chance" cards and "Community Chest" cards and income tax and going to jail, etc. Except for the jail part, this game is a little too much like real life to be spectacularly fun. :-) But we've been playing and playing and playing . . . I am now paying rent and passing "Go" in my sleep.

Speaking of fun things, I received a wonderfully fun package in the mail this week from Trisha. She always sends the best surprises, and I loved every item! She always makes my heart glad. Thank you, Trisha, for each wonderfully fun gift--you know my heart so well!

And bless her heart, she sent me a cookbook and very cute spring mother/daughter aprons. If she is nothing else, this is a girl who never gives up hope. She has done everything within her power to bring me more fully into the joys of homemaking and cooking, but I'm just a hopeless case. I love her for trying, though! Actually, this was a really neat cookbook--easy recipes, and, she scattered personal notes throughout the cookbook, which I thought was such a fun and creative idea! I promise to use the cookbook--really. :-) I'm not kidding. I will. Really.

She also directed me to "Antique Mommy['s]" blog; great blog, great writer, great Mom. In the most recent post, she and her son observed people schlepping into Wal-Mart in their pajama bottoms and slippers. She reminded her son that "although we are in the Wal-Mart, we are not of the Wal-Mart." Classic, classic line!

Well, all for now. Thanks to all of you who check in on us through this blog, and special thanks to all you who leave a comment. We love hearing from each of you. I wish I remembered to reply to every comment--but I do read every word.

(In a future post, I'll tell you about the phrase "donkey girl scout." It has its origins in the 1980's, and believe me, I am one.)

Ta ta for now.
Jana