Tip of the Day

When you prepare a meal and put it in to the crockpot, remember to turn on the crockpot and plug it in!

This past Saturday I had the chance to go do a day with Elizabeth George at Merrimack Valley Baptist Church. (She wrote, "A Woman After God's Own Heart" plus many other books). Before going, I carefully put a beef stew in the crockpot, feeling smug that dinner for the family would be all prepared when I arrived home in the afternoon. After leaving I suddenly wondered if I'd remembered to turn on the crockpot so I backtracked from half way to the lake and sure enough, I'd forgotten to turn it on so I did!

At one point it crossed my mind to wonder if I'd ever plugged the blessed thing in but I thought that of course I must have! When I walked in the door that afternoon, dear N wanted to know if I'd meant to plug in the crockpot? I was so mad at myself! There sat the lovely crockpot all turned on and not plugged in!! Talk about stupidity! Bet you can't top that! So we had beef stew on Sunday and chicken teriaki on Saturday and all's well that ends well, except that I still have the same brain. . . . Ugh.

Same Song Second Verse

Some time during the last year I got a call on my cell phone from one of my sons whose name starts with C! Only when I answered, no son was there, only a strange wailing sound which threw me into a panic as I pictured said son laid out on the side of the road in a near death situation. I kept hollering, C---, C----, C----! are you there? are you all right? Just wahhhh, wahhhh, wahhh, on and on. Finally I just had to give up and hang up. Later, I found out that that son was singing at the top of his lungs a song from "The Importance of Being Ernest", namely, "Lady, come down, lady come doooooown!~" only it came through as ghostly wailing. Really funny, huh?

Now comes the second verse. The other night I was staying up at Fairview to cover things and at 1:30 am my cell phone rang! I jumped out of bed from a sound sleep and checked the ID #. Same son's name--again! I answered and said, "C----, C-----, C---- are you there?" Nothing except extreme static. Oh my word. Only thing is I just couldn't climb back in bed and go to sleep because C had been out late that night and had called me before I went up to Fairview to say he wouldn't be home until later. So Mom-like I had to go out and walk home at that hour to make sure the right car was in the yard etc. And in the process on went the light in C's room and he peeked down the stairway and announced that he was just making sure I wasn't a burglar! "Did you know your cell phone just called me?" I queried. When I received a sheepish "no," tired and disgusted I just turned around and made my way back up to bed. He's actually thinking about getting another cell phone so this won't continue to happen. Good idea I think, don't you?

Anniversary!!

And it's not a wedding anniversary either--yet! Twenty three years ago on the 18th of September, we arrived at Fairwood, kit and kaboodle. Kendra was 8, Chad 5 and Craig 2. I thought I'd jumped off a cliff and landed into the middle of the hugest fish bowl imaginable--Fairwood! Yuk. I was not particularly happy. I loved Florida and everything about it and the only thing that made the whole move at all palatable was that God had convinced me Himself that He wanted us to move to Fairwood.

For 2 years I floundered with my roots dangling and my heart torn by the upheaval. So many things were so different. . .Within a day or so Chad jumped off his uncle's shoulders and ended up with a mouthful of loose or broken teeth and we ended up in the office of the local pediatric dentist because all oral surgeons had gone out of town for the weekend. Chad threw up on the dentist's couch, I cried and was miserable, but we stayed with that dentist for 20 years for all our kids. He was a true God-send to us--cheap enough so we could afford to have their teeth cleaned twice a year!

After a couple of years, our roots started to grow downward again and the pain of uprooting became less raw. I gradually adjusted to the fish bowl, to running to keep up with the demands of all the women's work at Fairwood--canning, cleaning, meetings, plus care for our family etc. etc. I learned how to put the children to bed all by myself and be all by myself with them night after night after night as Neil ran around Fairwood implementing all the bright ideas that popped out of his head left and right for the Bible School to try. He did sports in the gym, mentoring, evening classes, morning classes, held occasional meetings, decathlons, and on and on and on and on and on. It's been quite the ride! but because God has been with us and directed us, our family has flourished and not lanquished. Would I do it all over again? Absolutely!

I must also hasten to add that in retrospect all these many years later, Fairwood has been the most ideal place in all the world for us to raise our children. When we began home educating 17 years ago, our children had built in role models right in front of them in the Bible School students, or at least in some of the students! They had friends in the other families who lived at Fairwood, they had endless space in which to run and explore and have fun, and as they got older and older they were able to join in with Bible School sports and activities and broaden their horizons in many different ways as they interacted with the students in their activities from time to time. One time when Kendra was a junior in high school we considered making a move away and she begged us to please, please, please just hang on until she got into the Bible School and then we could move and she could stay at Fairwood forever! Instead, she left and we stayed!

Soooo, when we lead where He follows and respond to what He calls us to do we never quite know where we might go or where we'll end up. But His grace is sufficient and He knows what is best and it is good!

PS We have returned to FL numerous times since moving to NH and I have been sooo thankful that we did not have to raise our family there. See? God gets things right. Surprise, surprise!

Still Alive, But Barely!

The title is a bit dramatic but is depictive of my feelings this evening. I just came off a weekend of duty at Fairview. Mr. P and Mrs. Pr were a delight--no problem at all, but Mama's dementia was in fine form, especially this morning. I usually don't take her to church because it is so much work for me to lift the wheelchair in and out of the car, she can't hear very well, doesn't really know who's preaching, wonders why she went when she gets home, has to go to the bathroom while there, which is a process in and of itself, etc. etc. etc. You get the picture. On top of that, most of the time when I ask her if she wants to go, she says she doesn't feel like it.

Sooooo, this morning I didn't even ask her. I decided that it just wasn't worth the hassle for me to make the effort to take her. In fact, I even decided that I'd probably never do it again because of all I just said and more besides. Besides, most of the time she doesn't even know it's Sunday. But today she did and she wondered when we were going to church. When I told her we weren't and explained a little of the reason why, oh my. . .oh my. . . oh my. . .she had really been looking forward to hearing that black man preach! She'd never heard him before, and on and on and on and on. I finally decided that I just was not able to sit and listen to her crying, berating me, etc. so I went in to the piano to minister to myself and maybe to her by playing for a good while. She came in and told me it wasn't doing any good for me to play and she was still crying. (This after 20 minutes or so). At this point what would you do? Nothing I could say satisfied her in any way, shape, manner or form, and she just kept on crying and fussing. I felt like I kind of lost my composure at this point, but then told her I thought we needed to pray together and she agreed. Thank you God for hearing those prayers. She did seem to quiet down more after that and I made it through the rest of the day one way or another. Tight shoulders and emotional exhaustion are the main after effects this evening.

I didn't even want to talk about it when I saw Neil, but I did tell him that I can understand why people might be tempted to turn to drink for an escape! Sorry if that seems awful, but I am not planning to try it so don't worry. . .