The End of Summer has arrived for us. Oh, I know it doesn't "officially" end until September, but for all practical purposes, summer is over for us. The last of the summer activities end this week, co-op begins on Wednesday, and other school-year activities begin within the month. It's been a good summer.
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We had a family reunion in Tennessee on Saturday and I had a nice time talking with siblings and cousins I hadn't seen in a couple of years (my family is complicated, so a couple of years is really a good track record for us!) I met my youngest brother Will's wife and baby for the first time too. Will has always been one of those people who... well, marches to the beat of a totally different drummer. It was a joy to meet his wife and find that she is very nice, very friendly- and perfectly normal! They have a cute-as-a-button 18-month-old red-headed baby named Jackson.

My parents, my brother Matt, Will and his wife and baby, and another niece and nephew all came to stay with us this weekend- it was a houseful of people! This sort of come-one-come-all approach to family visits is a standard thing in my family... everyone is welcome as long as you can find a space to crash. It took my Yankee husband a while to get used to this style of southern hospitality, but I think he enjoys it now (at least for short visits!) It's always interesting and you never really know just who is going to show up. But groups of them began leaving last night and by noon today, everyone was gone.

After the kids and I got a nap, it was time. The First Day of School. It was a good start- no pressure. It's sort of fun to work in brand new books, so I didn't receive complaints from any one, except Nathanael who is last on the list to work into the new school schedule.

Another good thing is our new piano teacher, whom the kids really like. I was only planning on having the four older kids take lessons, but Nathanael just couldn't stand it- he was desperate to play the piano too. He gets left out of so many of the older kids' activities already, and he was so disappointed when I told him, "Maybe next year..." that I asked the teacher about some shorter lessons for him. She agreed to give him a trial run with some 15 minute lessons, so we'll see how it goes.

And another very good thing... the red van got the $100 repair instead of the $1200 repair! ($131.00, to be exact!) And the Nissan is running again, although the starter still has to be replaced. We are excited to have vehicles that move again, for however long it lasts.

It was a good way to end the summer.

Car Talk

We are down to one vehicle. One might think this is odd, considering that we currently own three vehicles, but unfortunately, this is becoming a common, albeit unwelcome, occurrence at our home.

We own a 1995 Nissan Quest; a 1995 tan Ford 12-passenger van; and a 1995 red conversion van. They have all decided to have problems at the same time. (For a while, we even had four vehicles, the fourth being the 1987 Mazda 626 which John traded this past spring for a tow home for the tan van.) All of our vehicles are over 10 years old, and they act like it!

Last week my brother and I were on a road trip together in the tan van. In the middle of nowhere, something locked up and the main belt that runs the whole van fell off, bringing our trip to a screeching halt (literally). We sat on the side of a construction zone with no shoulder for about an hour and a half on the hottest day of the year trying to call to get a tow truck.

On the bright side, we were close to a small bit of shade (otherwise we would have been cooked!); most businesses were still open so eventually we did manage to get a tow truck; my brother was with me and was driving when the van broke (I had originally planned on making the trip alone); and John thought he could fix the problem. This was a very good thing- and he was right. We got a tow back to a service area where, after a few new parts and about an hour of sweating over the van, John got it fixed. Whew! This van still has issues, but maybe it will hang in there a while longer, since it is currently the only van running.

While I was away with this van, John had to drive the red van. It pooped out on him the very next day after the tan van fiasco. He was forced to try to fix the Nissan, which had been broken down in the driveway for a few months with unidentified Serious Problems. He had thought we lost the transmission on the Nissan, but fortunately found that it was something fix-able. SO... we have both been driving along happily in the tan van and the Nissan for one week.

And today the Nissan broke. Won't start. And so we are down to one vehicle. We got the red van to the transmission shop this afternoon and the transmission guy said it is possible that the problem is a $100 problem instead of the $1200 transmission replacement that we fear it is. This would be a very good thing! And we are hoping that the problem with the Nissan is only the starter, which John has become exceptionally good at replacing.

Click and Clack would have a field day with us.

Back Again

July is winding down in a frenzy of activity. I hope this is not portentous of the rest of the school year! I have spent a great deal of time the past couple of weeks with a family project that really isn't bloggable right now. Maybe later. In the meantime, I got behind on everything else around here and am desperately trying to catch up again. The older kids also have assignments due on the first day of co-op next week, so we've been reluctantly moving back into a "school groove". We have a family reunion this weekend and probably company here as well, so the house has to get cleaned too.

For several days we had had internet connection problems, so finally the comcast guy came out and removed a filter- Presto! Problem fixed! The big bonus is that until they come out and replace the filter, we have been upgraded from the Limited Basic cable, which is basically nothing, to... everything! John has been in TV heaven and is hoping that they will forget about us, at least until football season is over. I rarely sit down to watch TV, but John and I did enjoy Sci-Fi Friday nights during the brief period a couple of years ago in which we had the special Digital promo package. We grieved the loss of "Stargate" and "Battlestar Galactica" when we had to demote ourselves back to the nothingness of Limited Basic. So, for however long it lasts, Sci-Fi Friday is back!

The kids' new piano teacher is coming over today to meet them and hear them play for the first time. This is one thing I hope will make my life a lot easier this year- she is coming to us, so I don't have to drive the kids across town a couple of times a week to accommodate a class schedule, as we had been doing the past few years.

Becca and Philip got back from CoC camp this weekend, which is about 45 minutes away. John had to go pick them up since I was on my family mission. Each year I grow more and more dissatisfied with this camp, but the younger kids look forward to camp so much that I haven't had the heart to tell them "no" yet (the older ones get to go to Palmetto in South Carolina once they get to Middle School). But "no" may be coming next year. Each year, John and I have to prepare for "de-programming" our kids. This year, Becca got fussed at for clapping, and the kids were told that "Days of Elijah" was not a suitable song choice. Becca had won "Outstanding Bible Student" for the past two years, but not this year- I'm sure that clapping would probably disqualify one from such an award. Philip reported that one of his missionary-to-be counselors called him "Dumb-o" for several days, until the other counselor told him to stop. Both kids report that there is a lot of pressure among the kids to "pair up"; they call it "Dating". So name-calling, "dating", and other questionable behaviors are tolerated, but this camp is holding the line against clapping! I think that's called "majoring in the minors". In spite of all this, the kids say they had a good time, and I haven't discovered missing clothing or towels or swimsuits... yet.

John Mark goes to Soul Lift at Six Flags St. Louis with the Youth Group on Sunday and Monday morning, school starts. I can barely contain my enthusiasm.

Maybe I'm just cranky today... I have all this house and school work to do, and one of my most favorite activities of the whole year got cancelled: working the Friends of the Library Book Sale. It's Bibliophile heaven, and workers get first dibs at the books and half off their already cheap prices (.50 instead of 1.00 for hardbacks!) Our 4-H club was supposed to go and work this morning and have a pizza party afterwards, but the book lady called and said they had so many volunteers yesterday that no one needed to come today. Sigh. So today I am cranky. But, as Scarlett would say, "After all... tomorrow is another day!"

Which One of These Things Is Not Like the Other?

For weeks we puzzled over the mystery of why the middle cucumber plant wasn't growing. The two on each side of it were very happy growing up the sides of their cages. But this one... we figured it was going to die. It didn't shrivel and turn brown the way the dying tomato plant did, but it didn't grow up its cage either. Disappointed, we left it alone. And then came the Big Rain. This made the plant very happy, and the next day, we came out to the garden to discover... a watermelon. Right in the middle of the cucumbers. The kids are delighted, since they had been begging for watermelon all along. I'm sure there is some great spiritual analogy here, like how sometimes we try to force people to be cucumbers when they're actually watermelons... but it's not coming together for me right now. I'm just thinking I'm glad God is in charge of the spiritual fruit, because you can see how well I'm doing.
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Over the weekend, we traveled to Lexington so John Mark could compete in the State Communications Day at UK with his PowerPoint presentation on "Bridges: Spanning the Globe". We were not expecting great things this time, since he had spent the prior week in Indiana and he hadn't had time to add additional material, or do much at all to prepare it again. But he presented as well as I've ever seen him do it, and he won Champion in his category- whew! It's hard watching your kid compete because you can't do a thing in the world to help them besides hold your breath and pray. You help them as much as you can on the front end, and then... they're on their own. Is this what it's like when they leave home?
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I'm watching my summer wind down with great sadness. "School" starts for us the first week in August. I thought by mid-July, I'd have fresh energy and be ready to begin another school year with enthusiasm. The Enthusiasm Bug hasn't hit me yet.

I've been working on lesson plans for co-op this week. We're studying the 20th Century this year, and in many ways this is new territory for me. I never "officially" learned much about 20th century history in school, beyond the obligatory lessons on civil rights, so I'm sure I'll be learning a lot this year (hopefully my students will too!) I have to admit, it seems a little depressing- lots and lots of wars and other conflicts. But I also love nostalgia, so it will be fun to look back at Ellis Island, the Roaring Twenties, the Big Band era, and perhaps explore our own family histories along the way.

Fifteen Years Ago...

Fifteen years ago... we did it. We took the plunge. We had absolutely no idea what we were getting into. John and I were married in 1991, a year after we met, in the church we met in. It was a pretty good start, but still, we just had no idea! But in spite of our immaturity and the trainload of baggage we each brought into the marriage, and thanks to the grace of God, here we are, fifteen years later. We look at each other and cannot believe it's been that long.

Our first home together was a little duplex near John's job and close to LSU, where I was still going to school. We had a wonderful view of an open field with a sewage plant off to the side. We loved our home, but we realized too late that a Labrador Retriever was not the best pet to have in a small duplex with a small backyard surrounded by chewable wood fencing.

A year after we were married, we discovered we were expecting a BABY. This was definitely not the plan, but we went with it. What else could we do? In order to accommodate this unexpected blessing, we had to move into cheaper digs. While our DINK friends moved into nice houses in upscale neighborhoods, we lived in a tiny duplex in a low-rent side of Baton Rouge with college furniture and old cars. We argued a lot, mainly over money, but the couples in our Life groups- Ronnie and Cheryl, Mike and Phyllis, Clayton and Debbie- took us under their wing and kept us from killing each other those first few years.

And there were lots of good times too. We spent late nights playing dominoes and cooking out with other couples who were in the same boat: Sean and Cherie, Hoyt and Holly and later, Jimmy and Connie (even though Jimmy and Connie were part of the afore-mentioned DINKs). We were young and poor, but we had good friends, a wonderful church family, and, by then, two beautiful children whom we adored.

In 1995, we moved farther north, to be nearer family. Our new town did not quite meet our expectations and it was a difficult time. Everything was different here- even the church- and we felt very much alone. Wayne and Kelly and Rob and Reigh Anne offered their friendship and made our new home bearable. In the meantime, God added two more children to the mix, and we realized that it could be a blessing to stay in our safe family cocoon for a while with few demands from the outside world. We tried desperately to move away from the area, but doors kept getting slammed in our face. God had plans for us.

In 2000, he led us to a new church, which has become family, and a year later, we welcomed baby #5 (who is now 5 years old!) Three years ago, we purchased our first home, a very ordinary-looking red brick house with just enough room for the seven of us and a cat. We love our home. We still drive old vehicles that are on the verge of breaking down at any moment, but somewhere along the way, we learned that old and debt-free is better than new and stressed-out.

And somewhere along the way, we reached a point of... equilibrium. We learned to like each other, warts and all. We stopped demanding so much from each other. We learned that sometimes, you just have to let it go because it isn't worth it. And when it is worth it, treat it with kid gloves... because it's worth it.

Oh, we still squabble from time to time, and I know enough now to recognize that the circle of marriage may just be resting in a time of peace for a while. I know enough to know that when our boat begins to rock again, with patience and prayer, peace will come again.

Fifteen years has given me five beautiful children, a man who has always been my best friend- even when we fight- and a husband I wouldn't trade for all the world.

I'd do it all again.

Another Candle on the Cake

Today is my birthday. I'll just admit it... I'm 37. I'm really not ok with this. Somehow 37 just sounds a whole lot older than 36. I was ok with 36, but 37... wow. But I've decided that I will not be one of those vain people who refuses to tell their age, however much I dislike the number. And I'm learning from the past. Years ago, when I was still, oh, 23 or so, I thought I was fat. Now, after five children, I look back at those photos and think how darn skinny I was! I figure it will be the same with this... one day I will look back and think how young I was at 37, so I might as well stay positive about this. Fortunately John doesn't care. He says he likes old women.
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We dropped the kids off in Indiana over the weekend and John and I have had a fabulous "vacation". John wanted to go somewhere, but I wanted to go home and enjoy the peace and quiet! So we did. On the way back from Indiana, we stopped at Cataract Falls for a picnic lunch and made it back in time to go to Downtown after Dinner.

Sunday we went to Olive Garden for a late lunch and saw "Superman Returns", which we both knew we would like since Roger Ebert hated it. We ran errands at Lowe's and Walmart and rented "Glory" to watch at home.

On Monday, we rented a pontoon boat and spent the day on the lake. It was a perfect day for it, though everybody and their brother was out on the lake. John fished, I read books, we ate our picnic lunch, swam and boated. We had a great time. After we turned in the boat, we stopped at a roadside stand for cheeseburgers and chocolate shakes and went to play putt-putt golf. John creamed me... but he also had quite the advantage. The engineers at his work have an ongoing putt-putt rivalry and sometimes they all go during their lunch hour. John is really good at putt-putt. Geeks.

On the 4th of July, John tried to mow, but it began raining... a real gully-washer! We ended up moving the boys' computer upstairs to the living room where we can keep a closer eye on them. We went to a 4th of July BBQ and fireworks at a friend's house.

And today... my birthday! I'm 37, did you know? I went to yoga this morning, ran errands downtown and then used one of my Christmas massage gift certificates. It was heaven! I roamed the mall in complete serenity. Tonight, John took me to Patti's for my birthday dinner, but since tomorrow is our anniversary, they sang "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" to the both of us. We browsed all the shops filled with glass and breakables, as carefree as you please. It was wonderful.

Tomorrow, they all return. And I am glad.