A Man of His Word

Josiah discovered this Labyrinth game in our closet today; and when I told him that Grandpa used to play it a lot, Josiah got really excited about showing it to Grandpa and playing it with him. When my parents came up for dinner this evening, Josiah brought up the subject of playing it together; but after dinner, my parents had to go to a farm for milk (we drink raw milk straight from the farm--it's delicious--my favorite drink in the world!) and so Grandpa couldn't play with Josiah then. After they returned from getting milk, it was cold, dark, and snowing; and I felt sure that Grandpa was anxious to get back to his house; but he said, "After I drive the truck down to our house, I'll walk back up and play Labyrinth with Josiah." I told him he didn't need to worry about it; I could explain to Josiah that Grandpa needed to go and would play with him another time. But my faithful-to-his-promises dad said, "No, I told him I would play with him, so I'm going to do it." And then he came back up to our house through the cold and snow, just to keep his word to a four year-old boy. I admire that so much. Thanks, Dad!

Information Overload

Today as I was reading Finding Your Purpose as a Mom, I read this: "A related contributor to our cultural time crunch is the deluge of information that pours down on all of us every day. It is said that an educated man in seventeenth-century Europe could know everything then known to Western culture. Today, the total quantity of available information doubles every 18 months. No one can know all or even a substantial portion of it."

Isn't that amazing? I often wish I had more time so that I could just LEARN more stuff...I feel so uninformed in so many ways. Maybe when someone invents time travel, I'll zoom back to the seventeenth century to catch up!

Uncherished Moments

I think one of the challenges that every mother--in fact, every person--I know faces is to appreciate the here and now of life. It's easy to long for what's coming; we can paint the future in rosy tones. But to embrace our lives now and to have eyes that are open to the wonder of it all seems to be a constant issue.

This morning I was reading a mommy journal that I follow regularly, and I read this:

Every now and then, I look at my family and realize, with heart-stopping
clarity, "This is beyond phenomenal." And then I get caught up in something
distracting — the fact that Anna's shoes are too small, or that the dishwasher
isn't actually getting things clean anymore. Life churns on, uncherished moments
fluttering behind us like confetti.

Just then, I heard Josiah screaming--literally, at the top of his lungs. I don't know if I've ever heard him scream like that so loud for so long. I ran up the steps to check on him, heart pounding, adrenaline pumping, wondering what on earth was wrong. I knew it must be something absolutely dreadful. Was there a snake in the house? Had Josiah had an aneurysm? Had someone with a gun broken into our house? I could not imagine what it was.

I found Josiah in the bathroom, standing on the stool in front of the toilet, with the back of his shirt wet, still shrieking away. I assumed that he had tried to get to the bathroom in time but had not succeeded so had wet his pants. I wasn't sure why the back of his shirt was so wet, but I didn't have time to figure it all out. I tried to calm him and take his clothes off while he was yelling over and over, "I don't LIKE being wet!"

It took a while to decipher the sequence of events, but apparently the seat of the toilet had been up, so when Josiah tried to sit down...he fell in! As I write this, I cannot stop laughing; but it was anything but funny at the moment. He was in such a panic; and although I can't get inside his head, I wonder what he was thinking as he slipped down into the water. My poor Josiah! Anyway, the wetness of the back of his shirt was not from him not making it to the bathroom in time, just from the wrong placement of a toilet seat.

By the way, if anyone is reading this, please NEVER mention this to Josiah!!! I have not talked with him further about it today. He hasn't brought it up, so I've let it drop. So please, please do not embarrass him with this! :)

After I got Josiah cleaned up and in dry clothes, I came back to the computer and finished reading about uncherished moments--and thought, "Yep, one of these days I'm not going to have a little boy falling in the toilet anymore, so I'd better be grateful for it while it lasts!" :)

To Help Us Appreciate Winter

These pictures are from that hot July afternoon I referred to in my last post. It's true--July will come again, probably with very high temperatures; and when it does, we'll all be wishing for a little cold. So to help my own perspective on this very frigid night to be thankful, I'm remembering hot July!

Tis the Season

Tis the season--for turtlenecks! I've been working on laundry today; and I've washed, dried, folded, and put away the following clothing items of mine: a white turtleneck, another white turtleneck, a chocolate brown turtleneck, a navy blue turtleneck, a dark green turtleneck, and a black turtleneck. I think the only turtleneck I didn't wear this week was my light green one; I'll probably wear it soon. Oh, and guess what I'm wearing as I write this? A turtleneck!

It was 7 degrees this morning here at our house--and that's 7 degrees Fahrenheit (-13.9 degrees for you Celsius folks). Tonight it is once again 7 degrees, and I'm sure it will get lower than that during the night. I can hardly wait to fly to California next week--not just for the weather, of course--but I am looking forward to higher temps!!!

It never ceases to amaze me how our bodies adapt to our climate, wherever we may be. Whatever is cold for our particular climate seems cold to us, and the same thing is true with heat...but when we go to a different climate, it all changes. I remember when I was a senior in college and I flew to San Diego to visit Jeff (to whom I was engaged at the time). It was December 1996. I was enjoying wearing summer dresses and going barefoot as I sat in the porch swing on Jeff's sister's patio, but all the California folks thought I was crazy. I had come from the cold and snow of my college in Pennsylvania though so the weather seemed really warm to me!

It also amazes me that the weather can change so much so that during part of the year, we are so hot that we wear as few clothes as possible and still sweat like crazy, but during another part of the year--the same year in the same place--we are so cold that we bundle up as much as we can and still feel cold. I was looking at pictures today from a HOT July Sunday afternoon volleyball game and thinking, "I can't believe we were really that hot; I remember feeling on that day like I would simply melt like a pat of butter in a hot skillet!" And now here I huddle in my turtlenecks, shoving as much wood into our woodstove as will possibly fit in an effort to stay warm. What a contrast!

This doesn't just happen in Virginia. When we lived in Tel Aviv which has a more temperate climate than here, the same thing was true. I have vivid memories of dressing Josiah in a onesie, than a sleeper, than a sleeping sack before putting him to bed in the winter--and I still worried that he might be cold, and sometimes even put blankets on top of him (after he was old enough to be safe with blankets). But during the summer, he would wear just a diaper to bed and would still be hot!

Well, enough reflections on the weather. This cold snap certainly makes me grateful for our warm home. I can see how people could easily die in this weather.

Craziness

A favorite game of the Fisher boys, invented by our very own Josiah! I'm not sure why he picked the name "Craziness" for it, but it certainly has stuck--and it seems highly appropriate!

Chef Jeff's Chili

This was Jeff's entry into the chili competition last night. Isn't it lovely? Speaking completely free from bias, I must say that the taste is excellent, but you really have to appreciate highly spicy foods to truly enjoy this chili to its highest potential. I would say it definitely deserved higher than the 7th place ranking it received. Like I said, I'm not biased at all in that...just speaking the truth in love!

For dinner tonight, we ate some of the leftover chili; and if I diluted my bowl of chili with roughly half sour cream/half chili, I could eat it with only a manageable amount of tongue-burning.

Suppertime

This is how us folks eat our supper out here in the country. But if you're from the city and you come 'round here looking for this kind of tomfoolery, ain't nobody gonna show it to you...not 'afore you done lived here for generations. We generally try to keep up appearances 'round them city folk.

Turtles

Tonight we are going to a friend's house for a Super Bowl party; the Camerons will once again host a chili cook-off with a spectacular prize for first place. Rumor has it that the prize awarded the winner last year actually broke the very first time it was used, but I'm certain the quality of prizes has improved drastically since then!

In any case, I decided not to enter chili this year--I'm still recovering from my dismal finish last year. After all those burning tongues of fire, I figured we're gonna need something sweet--and sweet, I can do. So this afternoon found me making a mess in my kitchen, whipping up brownies, congo squares, and turtles. As I was making the turtles, the sight of the pecans standing in rows like soldiers, awaiting their baptism of boiling butter and brown sugar and chocolate chips, caught my eye, so I decided to snap a picture of them. Sometimes we miss the beauty of ordinary things--ordinary moments--and although I'm not saying this picture is particularly beautiful, there is something pleasing about it to my eye.

Wake-up Call

Every once in a while, God gives me a wake-up call; sometimes, it's more like a slap in the face. It's as if God knows that every so often, I get complacent and unappreciative of the rich blessings of my life, so He gives me a glimpse of how life could be for me, but for His grace. This time, the wake-up call came in the form of a blog (http://weloveyoujoel.blogspot.com) that I found through another blog, and now I can't even remember exactly how I did find it! But it's a heart-breaking--and heart-warming--story of a little boy named Joel who had cancer and died. Joel had a twin brother named Josiah; and any story about a Josiah grabs my attention immediately. In this case, I found tears coming to my eyes numerous times as I read; and I could so easily imagine cancer striking our family and one of our boys being struck down. I can't even come close to imagining the pain that would cause; and as I tuck my boys in bed these days, I give them extra hugs, kisses, and squeezes, not even wanting to let go and say a final good night, knowing that but for the grace of God, these lives that are so precious to me could slip away so quickly.

My New Favorite Quote about Heaven

I just read this today and immediately attached myself to it; it's a profound thought on which to meditate.

We are not citizens of this world trying to make our way to heaven; we are citizens of heaven trying to make our way through this world...we live as those who are on a journey home; a home we know will have the lights on, and the door open, and our Father waiting for us when we arrive. That means in all adversity our worship of God is joyful, our life is hopeful, our future is secure. There is nothing we can lose on earth that can rob us of the treasures God has given us and will give us.

~ The Landisfarne, via The Anglican Digest, as quoted in Finding Your Purpose as a Mom

Mommy's Family Night

Tonight was family night in honor of--me! I took the opportunity to get some acts of service for myself, one of my love languages. :) Actually, Jeff is great about acts of service--always willing to give the boys a bath, build a bookshelf, help me with the computer, or even help our "northern neighbors" with various projects! :)

Fairly recently, Jeff painted our old church pew and moved it into the kitchen, then the black bookshelves were added, and tonight it was time to do something to the wall. So Jeff moved a painting that was in the living room into the kitchen; and on either side, hung plates that had belonged to my great-grandmother, Grace Ellen McKee. She was the only great-grandparent that I ever knew, and I am named after her (my middle name is Grace). I love these old plates and thought they were much too special to simply sit in a cupboard. On another blog recently, I saw a picture of a woman's house with special, old plates hung to decorate the walls...and I thought, "Hey, I could do that!" Usually when I see things like that--whether it be on other blogs or in home magazines--I feel like it's too difficult, expensive, or doesn't fit my character. But this idea was a good one for me to grab, and I'm very happy with the results!

Other highlights of this day for me:

~ Josiah exclaiming as I was brushing his teeth, "I'm so happy you're my mother!"

~ Jeff sending me this quote today...

I love you not only for what you are

but for what I am when I am with you.

I love you not only for what you have

made of yourself but for what you are

making of me. I love you for the part

of me that you bring out.- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

~ having the following conversation with Josiah:

Josiah: I just wish we could all go to heaven NOW.

me: Yeah? What would you like to do when you get to heaven?

Josiah: Give God a great big bear hug!

~ sitting on the couch this evening reading to the boys by our cozy wood stove, while Jeff hung a different painting in the living room (since we took the one from the living room to put in the kitchen)

~ being silly with Josiah as I was putting him to bed--which involved pretending to fall asleep while I was singing his lullaby and him having to waken me, "rapping" a prayer to God (when I finished and got up to leave, Josiah said, "You forgot to pray!" I said, "I DID pray!" :) Then he wanted to do it, too. It's good to expand his concept of what prayer can be!), and also intentionally mixing up a little ritual we have...it goes like this...

When Josiah was going through the "no" toddler stage, we would turn the tables on him when he started saying "no" and would ask him, "Do you know how much I love you?" He would then say, "no," and we would get to say, "I love you THIS MUCH!" and stretch our arms as far to the sides as we could. Then we would say again, "I love you THIS MUCH!" and reach as high in the sky as we could. Once more we would say, "I love you THIS MUCH!" and wrap our arms around him and give him as big a hug as we could.

So tonight as I was leaving his room, I did that ritual with him; but when it was time to hug him, I hugged the wall, then said, "Oh, no, that doesn't feel like Josiah!" Then hugged the door and said the same thing, then the bedpost, then his teddy bear, acting more and more confused all the time. By the time I actually got around to hugging him, he was literally doubled over laughing. It's such fun to crack him up!