25 Apr | 2006

Are You Ready For That Airstream?

DH and I went on the church campout this weekend. We really do enjoy camping though we’ve always argued about our “definition” of camping. You see we grew up camping- but in two different camping worlds. For me, it was always camping in a 5 man dome tent. For him, it was a pop-up and then a full travel trailer. Each of us joke that the other is not really camping. But, alas we can’t afford a pop-up much less a travel trailer, so this weekend we tented it along with the screened shelter. (I finally got my way on that one but that’s another story)

Now, about a month ago, I saw an RV show on television and instantly fell in love with the interiors of the Airstream trailors. (The one I saw was a special edition 16′ trailor)They seem so much more light, airy, and homey then other trailors. (Most don’t come with the slide-outs that DH and I wouldn’t want. They’ve got a great build to them also- but also a great big price) (I like this floor plan/design but with either this or that decor)

This weekend, as we went camping, the Airstream became the running joke. (Thank heavens for us it’s a pipe dream)

Packing up all the stuff from all over the house to go

Are you ready for the airstream?

Setting up camp in the dark

Are you ready for the airstream?

Walking to the bathroom

Are you ready for the airstream?

Tenting in the rain and thunderstorm

Are you ready for the airstream?

Adding Air to the Air Mattress in the middle of the night

Are you ready for the airstream?

Showering in a mildewing shower stall

Are you ready for the airstream?

Spending the day in the shelter due to rain

Are you ready for the airstream?

Living out of coolers and boxes

Are you ready for the airstream?

Dealing with wet tent, wet blankets, wet floor

Are you ready for the airstream?

Packing it all back into the truck

Are you ready for the airstream?

Unpacking it all at the house

Are you ready for the airstream?

In short, I think that after all this time fighting with him to sleep in a tent, he’s convinced me that, when we can afford one, I want to camp in a trailor. To make the financial wait easier, I guess I’ll keep dreaming of my airstream.

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20 Apr | 2006

White Space

A White Space begs for color. . . A white space begs me to scrapbook in vibrant colors and try so many of the inspirations I get from others who aren’t afraid to include some white space in their layouts.

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20 Apr | 2006

Macro And Super Macro- Enjoying Flowers A New Way

Journaling Reads:
These shots were taken Easter Day with my Macro and Super Macro features. They came out looking so very artsy and have given me confidence to try more new things with my camera. The details captured in the flowers amaze me. And the beautiful blurred backgrounds that the feature created are like watercolor paintings. Now, I wonder what else I can take macro shots of. . .

April 16, 2006
Konica-Minolta Z6
With and Without Flash
Using Macro and Super Macro Feature

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10 Apr | 2006

Palm Sunday Visions

DH and I have spent a good bit of time wondering about the future. How many children will we have? Will we have boys, girls, a mix? What ages will they be? What will their interests be? Most days, we’re really impatient with God and we want to know now. We’ve waited so long to adopt and to have a family.

Sunday was Palm Sunday and what a glorious day it was. As the children processed around the church with their palm branches, I noticed that it was a light group- only five children. Two of the other children were acolyting and our congregations children are getting older. I noted to DH that we could almost double the procession for next year.

It was then that God answered a prayer. I could, for a moment, see the future. I could see next year. I would be in the same place (or perhaps sitting further back) standing there watching my children process around us with mixed feelings of joy and wondering how they would behave as they circled the sanctuary. I could see DH by my side watching the same thing. While I couldn’t see what our children looked like, I could see them walking around the church waving palm branches. I began to realize that there are things we do know about the future. Our children will be a part of our church’s activities- Palm Sunday processions, Easter Egg Hunts, VBS, Christmas Caroling, etc. And we’ll be there with them to savor every moment.

It was such a profound moment and I was moved to tears thinking about it as we sang the hymn.

Hosanna, Loud Hosanna
By: Jeanette Threlfall
Hosanna, Loud hosanna,
The little children sang,
Through pillared court and temple
The lovely anthem rang.
To Jesus, who had blessed them,
Close folded to his breast,
The children sang their praises,
The simplest and the best.

From Olivet they followed
Mid an exultant crowd,
The victor palm branch waving
And chanting clear and loud.
The Lord of men and angels
Rode on in lowly state
Nor scorned that little children
Should on his bidding wait.

“Hosanna in the highest!”
That ancient song we sing,
For Christ is our Redeemer,
The Lord of heaven our King.
Oh, may we ever praise him
With heart and life and voice
And in his blissful presence
Eternally rejoice!

I made a quick comment to DH. Then, as the choir sang All Glory, Laud, and Honor, I closed my eyes to enjoy the vision more. I wanted DH to enjoy the moment too! I wrote him a note there in church during the sermon telling him to take a moment to see it. God had answered our desire to know about the future. It’s right there for us to see.

As the service progressed, our thoughts wandered to what our kids were doing right now. I’ve no idea whether they were in church, enjoying palm sunday, or not. DH noted that a friend of ours and his son had the Easter Bunny coming after church and he could see his son finding easter eggs and then he began to think of our kids. We were both fighting back tears through most of the service.

Perhaps it is these thoughts, the wondering about what our kids are doing, if they are ok, if they are happy or sad or safe, that will allow us to understand a little of what their birth parents and foster parents will go through once our children come home to us.

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6 Apr | 2006

Music To Lift One’s Spirits

Tonight, DH and I will be going to see Aaron Watson in concert. We both love his music- twangy classic country sound with witty writing- most songs are swings, polkas, or waltzes. Whenever he comes to town, I want to go to the concert. Since the first concert we saw, I’m 2 for 3.

Great music can truly lift ones spirits or take you to another time or place. It’s quite the conincidene that as I headed over here to talk about one of the things this concert means to me, I read this post by Michelle and her musings on the power of music.

Since I absolutely love the music that Aaron Watson plays, his concerts are just such a great time. I enjoy watching the fiddle and steel guitar. I love to watch the music that I listen to so much come to life in our quaint little setting.

I remember the first time we went to his concert and sitting there thinking about how through all the struggles of my infertility, it was the first time I’d truly had let go and let myself truly have fun in ages. I remember how good it felt. So tonight, now that I’ve turned the corner with all of that, I’m truly once again looking forward to a great time.

The second time we saw him in concert, as I remembered the feelings I had during the previous concert, it was the words of this song that gave me the absolute chills as I thought about how much my spirits were lifted:

The Honky-Tonk Kid

He’s wrinkled and gray, but he’s still got the fire
And He sings on the stage like a bird on a wire
Oh he’ll pack ‘em in just like he always did.
Oh everybody loves the Honky-Tonk Kid

He got his first guitar when was sixteen
thristing for knowledge, hungry and green
strumming that six string just like lefty did
everybody loves the Honky-Tonk Kid

Well, the honky tonk kid loves a honky tonk crowd
he picks them up when this world gets them down
All the smoke and the neon will keep his pain hid
Oh nobody knows the Honky-Tonk Kid

10 million fans and a handful of friends
he’ll go home alone when each night ends
he’ll think about her and then twist off a lid
Nobody loves the Honky-Tonk Kid

Well, the honky tonk kid loves a honky tonk crowd
he picks them up when this world gets them down
All the smoke and the neon will keep his pain hid
Oh nobody knows the Honky-Tonk Kid

It won’t be long the Lord will take him away
he’ll have sung his last song, they’ll place a wreath on his grave
oh and he’ll draw a crowd just like he always did
oh one last goodbye for the Honky-Tonk Kid

Filed Under: Music 1 Comment
5 Apr | 2006

Truly Expressing Emotions

“Do I like smiles? Yes, but only if they are real and filled with life. And I also like tears. You see, truth is beautiful, no matter what the expression.” ~ Randy Bacon
(Porch Blog Challenge)

I tend to smile through almost anything. In fact, when I was in the worst pain of my life to date, when my gall bladder wound up being removed, the doctor said there was no way I was adequately describing my pain because I was still smiling. What did he want me to do? Cuss him out- believe me by the end of the night in the emergency room, I really wanted to. Though I honestly an not very practiced in ti.

Our friends often say that they appreciate the smiles. Often times, it’s because I can be pretty optimistic- probably annoyingly optimistic. Or because I’m can be very easy going. What they don’t know is that sometimes I just smile to avoid expressing the truth. I learned to do that from a very early age in life. And often times, it means I’m left alone with my thoughts. While sometimes that can be a good thing- it allows me not to say hurtful or foolish things. But, often times, it has a very negative affect on the relationships in my life as others don’t truly know me. I often wish I could find the way to truthfully express how I feel through my both my non-verbal expressions and even my words.

This quote makes me think about how much better life would be if I would just let the emotions speak for themselves rather than holding them back all the time. As long as they were kept tactful, why shouldn’t I show the way that I feel?

Filed Under: Me, Myself, and I Leave a Comment
5 Apr | 2006

There Goes My Life (or So I Hope)

It’s been a while since I updated my blog. I’ve been so focused on things that need to be done around our house and here on the porch before we adopt that I’ve not been around here.

An update on our adoption- I did finally get the application completed. The day we mailed it, I had to get several pictures of us and the house processed for inclusion in what DH refers to as the first hurdle. It was after they were processed that caused us some great pause and anxiety. I had several processed so we could pick them out. What do we want to portray in these pictures? What’s the purpose of these pictures? Who will see them? What would someone looking at them without knowing us think about them? We spent some time at lunch picking them out and finally made some decisions.

Then, it was time to mail our application. DH was closest to the mail slot at the post office and I made sure he took a moment to relish the moment. As I put it, “there goes my life” thinking that I hope my life as I know it changes in the near future. . I’m so ready for this next chapter.

So we mailed our application on March 15, 2006. We know the application was received but have not heard anything further to date. I pray that God will grant me patience as I wait to hear whether we’ve passed the first hurdle.

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5 Apr | 2006

A Church is A Family

I was just reading this blog post by Mush Mo [/url] and starting thinking about how I feel about church disputes.

You see, I’m a big believer that a church congregation is a family. They have all the same elements as a family- the disputes, struggles, history, wayward ones- you name it, you’ll find it in a congregation. Well, at least in my congregations.

Around here, there’s 1 Catholic Church and 1 Lutheran Church. Both of course, have reverand’s sent from an upper chain of command. But you see, it’s not that way for other church’s around here. Often, there’s no formal training for their pastors. In fact, I was talking to someone who had visited our church a few month’s back with her husband who told me her husband is now a pastor. How equipped is that man to hand pastoral duties? And it’s not uncommon for pastor’s around here to have no training and it often seems they literally just rise up out of the wood work.

That lack of training and foundation is possibly what leads to the most common thing we see around here as new churches form. They don’t form out of love or a sense of family- they form because they disagree about something- often minor things. I used to marvel as one of my co-workers would talk about “that other church” that broke off from hers- the dispute had something to do with the organist. And rather than praising God for their success, she met the whole idea of them growing with quite a bit of disdain.

I just can’t imagine if our church did that- well there’d be like 100 itty bitty churches. LOL- that’s how church politics go. Everyone has an agenda, a mindset for where they’d like to see the church- even when they say they don’t have an agenda or talk of others agendas. But we learn to deal with conflict (though most often we don’t resolve it) and we handle things as a family.

Filed Under: Faith Leave a Comment