Four More Months

The good news...Natalie's hips are making some good progress toward correct alignment.

The bad news...they are not quite where they need to be yet, and she will be in her brace four more months.

Luckily, she is not too broken up about it.


In fact, I don't think she cares at all!

Faith Strengthened

I am training to be a cantor at our church, and tomorrow morning I am singing the Responsorial Psalm for the first time. Over several days, I memorized the verses and the response and, as of last night, was feeling ready, but still nervous. In an effort to calm my nerves, I grabbed my bible as I went to bed and began to pray.

During my practice, I had not noticed which number Psalm I was singing, or what the greater context of the verses was. So, as part of my prayer, I asked to God to show me the Psalm I would be singing so I could read it in the context of the scripture and truly know that this was something he wanted me to do. I opened the bible to a random page and took a peek.

The first page I opened was Proverbs. I knew Psalms were a little bit back, so I pinched what I thought was about the right amount of pages to get me to Psalms. There are 150 Psalms, so I knew that even once I got to the right Book it would take me a bit of paging around to find what I was looking for, especially since I didn't know the actual number. But I was willing to put in some time to find it (and I was too lazy to get out of bed to find my songbook and check the number), so I flipped my chunk of pages and stared at the center of the right hand page for a start.

At first I could not believe it when the first thing my eyes fell upon was the response to tomorrow's Psalm: "Lord, let us see your kindness and grant us your salvation". The words in my bible were slightly different due to its translation, but there was no doubt. The verses followed, one after the other, so familiar. The text was in the middle of a page, in the middle of Psalm 85. There was no physical reason for my eyes to have been drawn there, or for me to have choosen that page, for that matter. None at all.

A chill (the good kind) ran through me and I suddenly felt God's presence all around me. I was immediately peaceful and knew without a doubt that he did want me to cantor and that it was going to be fine. His grace is always sufficient for whatever task is at hand.

This morning I woke up with that same peace and it has remained all day. I am not nervous about tomorrow--believing God himself asked me to do this makes it easy. It is not often that God, a God of silence, speaks so clearly to us. I am so glad that he chose this time to speak to me. My faith is affirmed and I am ready to sing.

686

Remember the pictures I posted a few days ago of Joey's room? Well, I sent one of them to the 686 company so they could see what a fan they had in Joey. As a former brand manager, I know how fun it was for me to see consumers engaged with my product, so I hoped 686 would be enthused to see their logo on his wall.

Now, you never know how a company is going to react when they see their logo used outside of their corporate standards. They may ask you to remove it, obtain special permission, etc., so I knew I was taking a small chance in calling this to their attention. However, from what I gathered of the company culture (from their website), I figured it would be OK.

Well, it was better than OK! Check out their website at www.686.com to see Joey's room featured in the "news" section (link in the upper right corner). In addition to writing a neat little blurb about Joey, they sent him a box filled with snowboarding apparel. His favorite brand, of course!

This was a fun experience with a very cool company. I wish 686 all the best for many, many years to come. So, buy their stuff!

If Only Time Could Stand Still

Tony (who has a birthday coming up): I don't want to turn four. I want to stay three and a half.

Me: Why?

Tony (quite concerned): Because four year olds don't like to play with cars anymore and I still want to play with my cars.

Me: You don't have to stop playing with cars when you're four. Lots of older kids still like cars. It's OK.

Tony, visibly relieved, has nothing more to say. And all I can think is: Sweet Tony, you can stay three as long as you want. In fact, please do.

Maybe, Just Maybe

I am willing to consider that perhaps I have allowed the children too much unstructured play time this summer.

Abundant Harvest

My garden is doing very well this year! I learned from some of the mistakes I made last year and things have exponentially improved.

So far, we have feasted on peas, corn (ready much earlier than I thought it would be), strawberries, beautiful and perfect bell peppers, lettuce, cucumbers, squash, jalapenos, and herbs of all kinds (basil, dill, cilantro, sage and rosemary). Still coming are some gorgeously forming pumpkins, watermelons, spaghetti squash, butternut squash and pole beans. My artichoke plant is thriving as well, though we won't get any flowers in this, its first year.

In the fruit category, we have forming figs, apples and pomegranites. We had just a few blueberries on the bush but no peaches this year. Perhaps next year. It doesn't look like we will have any grapes this year, as both types seemed shocked by their transplant, but at least now they have some new growth on them.

Speaking of abundant harvests, today Jay and I celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary. There is no doubt that our union has been a fruitful one! Happy anniversary, Jay--I'd glady marry you a thousand times over again.