home again, home again, jiggedy jig

We are home! We had a great trip back from IL, and I will post pics and little blurbs about the highlights of the trip once I empty the camera card (laundry and unpacking come first!). It was overall such a great experience, and one we will hopefully repeat another year. The kids did such a great job on the road, and my parents gave me and them the nicest compliment by suggesting we could do this same thing again some other time, with D driving out to IL and then flying back to CA and the kids and I caravaning back with my folks. I told them I agreed, but next time really would like to caravan with them out to Virginia and Alabama to visit my sisters and their families! My parents make that trip a couple times a year and so if we timed it right, we could just follow along. Ah, the beauty of homeschooling!

In fact, I am already talking with D about this next year being all about road-trips around CA, since we will be studying our state's history this year and all our school-aged kids will be homeschooled, so we can just up and drive whenever! I mean, let's take advantage of the flexibility of homeschooling while we can, since we never know what the future holds and how long we will be doing it or living in this state.

My dad also gave me another compliment: he told me that he and mom had decided that I got the "mother of the year" award for being so good with tired and cranky kids while we were on the road. I don't know which moments he is thinking of, but it makes me remember the numerous times when we would arrive at our motel at 10 at night and the kids desperately needed baths before bed, and the kids were all on the verge of meltdown and I had to take care of everything single-handedly. But those moments were not so much about my parenting as they were about Providence, since time after time E would be sleeping in the carseat and had to be wakened and brought into a strange room and then be ignored while I was preparing the pajamas and arranging beds and bathing girls and getting myself read for bed too--and he never cried. He would get a little slap-happy tired and fragile, and so the girls would take turns keeping him company, but he would hold it together through all that needed to be done, and did not start screaming until after his own bath when I was putting on his pajamas, something he hates on a normal night. But that would only be for a few minutes, and then he was happy at the breast, settling down to bed with me. It would have been completely understandable if he had been screaming the entire time--understandable, but miserable. So I will thank God for His mercies and give Him the credit.

Still, mom and dad saying that was the nicest compliment, esp. because I was not feeling like I had done the best job. You know, being tired and cranky myself sometimes and not being very gracious or patient at certain moments! Or actually yelling my head off a few times, like when I looked back while we were driving on the interstate somewhere in Nevada and realized one of my children had nonchalantly unbuckled to get something she could not reach--and was happily lingering in unrestraint. Or when a bigger sister purposefully bonked a littler sister on the nose with the pointy end of a ball-point pen in the car (saw it with my own eyes). Or when one child was given a consequence for repeatedly ignoring my verbal commands (of course issued while driving) and then proceeded to complain over and over about the unfairness of the consequence despite my warnings--yeah, I admit I lost it for a minute there.

But all in all, I do think both the kids and I did a pretty good job of being flexible and well behaved. In fact, at times I wondered that we might not be doing as well if we were at home! Most of the trip I purposefully placed myself in "the zone"--you know, the calm, zen-like state of parenting in which you can handle anything and in which you have no personal needs; you exist at that moment simply to smooth the way for whatever you are doing with your children. I perfected this on airline trips years ago; I learned don't even bother taking a book for the flight or expecting to read a magazine in the airport--that will only lead to frustration. Just be content as the meeter of all needs for that time and place, and all will be smooth and peaceful. And when you have no expectations for what you want to be doing instead of what you must be doing, then you are completely content with what comes to pass.

I don't do this at home. I am way too uptight about orchestration--naps and cooking and school, etc. to make sure I get things done in the most ideal way and, hopefully, to allow me some downtime in the middle of the day. I have always thought that was wise and efficient--I am a much better mommy during the dinnertime "witching hour" if I get a break midday, and with so much to do it is good management to figure out how to multi-task and order events to allow for maximum productivity--and to allow the baby to get a nap in the middle of the living room when he needs it! But after stepping back from it for a month, I realize I liked the feeling of not having to orchestrate. Well, I was still orchestrating a little, but not much was needed because we were all so much more relaxed about when things happened and did not have much to accomplish in any day. And on the road I washed very few dishes and only had to pick up the car and hotel rooms every day, and never cooked a meal, all of which really frees one up! But it was the feeling of anxiety over always needing to be planning the next few minutes as you go through your day, always preparing for what should come next, etc.--that I did not miss at all, and hope I can avoid getting back into as we re-enter the normal world here at home.

So almost the entire trip I was just contentedly residing in "the zone" and it was great. I did not have to accomplish much, I did not have any time away from the kids (the two "breaks" I had on the trip back involved staying up too late sitting on the hotel room floor reading "The Long Winter" by the light of the bathroom while the kids slept) but I did not expect or need any. I drove for hours at a stretch with no one for company but my own children, and was overall fine with that. I am happy with my family, and just enjoyed being with them, being safe and healthy and on the road. (However, after a few days straight of days driving--Idaho, Utah, Nevada--I was desperate for conversation! My kids almost never stop talking in the car, but have not yet learned the art of conversation. It seems like my parents and I never got to converse much, since when we stopped driving we were either out and about seeing stuff, or feeding everyone, or disappearing into our respective hotel rooms for the night. I was pretty lonely there for a couple of days, but even that was good, since it gave me lots of time for reflection and prayer, and I know of a lot of people who need prayer right now.

So now we are home, and I am already thinking about how I can reinstate better habits than the ones we left with--like me cooking more elaborate and healthier meals (for example, fajitas with brown rice and homemade black beans and vegetables sauted in garlic and topped with the works, instead of just opening a can of black beans and serving over white rice with shredded cheese and salsa and blue corn chips for scooping--not terrible, and the kids love it, but not great), since I missed that kind of food while we were on the road and want to eat it! (Definately will blog about food more later!) And I was effectively weaned from chai and the computer while we were gone, so those are both good things to reintroduce into my life very modestly. We shall see.

So, to wrap this over-long posting up:

the trip was great
the kids did great
my parents were great
it was great to be back home and see D
it was great to break out of the rut of life for a while and experience newness of all shapes and sorts--definitely plan on working more of that into life in general
lots to still think about
lots to still unpack
lots I hope to blog about yet, but slowly and reasonably

thanks for reading!

contemplating the return

So now it is Sunday morning here at my parents' home. This morning I will start packing back up, we will go to church and then we will lunch and load up. We will hang around a little longer than initially discussed, because dad has been leading a 4:00 Vespers service for the residents of a local nursing home for umpteen years and I would really like to take the family to experience that. (Dad has been doing it since I was in high school, I think, maybe earlier--and I have never gone with him, which now seems a shame. Besides, all those old folks who have been attending for years might like to see some of dad's family. I am not sure mom has ever gone either.)

But then we will head on the second leg of our amazing summer homeschooling roadtrip extravaganza! first stop, the home of an Iowan relation for a couple of days, then on to the "Little Town on the Prairie," De Smet, SD, the town in which Laura Ingalls and family lived during some of her books (including my favorite, "The Long Winter"). Then on to Custer state park in SD, then Mount Rushmore (which, I learned, was named after the leader of an early three-man expedition--one of the other three was the husband of Carrie Ingalls, younger sister of Laura), then Yellowstone. I have never been to any of these places, and am really looking forward to it. The only bummer is that D cannot be with us, since he had to fly back to CA from Chicago the day after the wedding and work. But we are hopeful that on the way back home the timing should work out perfectly for us to meet D in Yosemite and camp there for the last weekend of the trip. That would be a lovely way to end our adventure.

miracles pt 2

We were still caravaning with D's dad and sister at this point--she being newly arrived from India and traveling from her parents' house in Chico to her home base in Colorado Springs, her dad coming along to help get her there safely--but were in Southern Colorado and were about to part ways. We all stopped at a really cute organic, VERY Santa Cruzian restaurant unexpectedly appearing on the outskirts of some small Colorado town, to have lunch and say goodbye to dad and sister. We parked outside and most of us went in to look at the menu and take turns using the restroom. E had a messy diaper, but for once I handed him off to D to change, so I could go order food for the family. G was sitting in the front seat picking up a mess of spilled colored pencils she had just made on the deep minivan dashboard. I ordered, used the restroom, and when I came out, saw D and asked, "Where is E?" He replied, out in the car. "With who?" "He is sitting on the front seat, but it's ok, G is sitting next to him." I started to tell D that it was not safe to leave him on a seat with only G to watch, since she would not pay good enough attention to keep him safe, when literally my scalp started to prickle and I rushed outside to the car. Sure enough, E was laying crosswise on the front passenger seat, having fallen over in trying to reach something between the seats that looked interesting, and in his wiggling, now his lower half was hanging over the side, three feet of nothing but air between him and the drive of big, rough loose aggregate. He could not have hung there 30 seconds more.

G was sitting immediately next to him on the front edge of the same seat, her back to him, her attention on the pencils she was gathering and lesiurely putting in order.

I was not mad at D or anything--he could not anticipate as well as I could the likely consequences. That's what being the mommy is all about! But I did not rescue E from danger--the Holy Spirit did.

miracles

Ok, so I feel like I need to wrap up my writing about the first half of our trip before we start the long journey back on Sunday. I am not going to write about everything we did and saw, since that would take so much time and anyway I should wait until I am home so I can make the official trip recap with pictures.

But I made a comment in my first posting away from home about how God had provided at least four miracles on the way out. So I thought I would briefly share those moments with you:

miracle #1
stopping for gas at a truck stop midway up to D's parents' home in Chico, we search and search and cannot locate B's second shoe. Her only shoe, mind you, we brought for this long trip (excluding her new sandals for the wedding). Her expensive shoe (durable, comfortable, water-proof, machine washable, Keen sandals handed down from G) that it would be sooooo painful to replace on short notice. Where the heck could it have gone?!?!! So after pumping gas and moving the car to a spot of shade farther away in the parkinglot, and after taking the girls for their potty stop (B wearing the wedding sandals we unearthed in frustration), we sat and ate lunch, I nursed E, we walked Macey our dog (who would be staying in Chico while we were on the roadtrip), we did all the necessary things. D is usually a little annoyed at how long we take on stops (since the necessary things do not lend themselves well to a good division of parental labor, D not having breasts and the girls being too old to go into the men's bathroom) but this time the long stop was a blessing. Well, and a curse, but I'll get to that in a minute. The blessing happened when an old Mexican man in a cart full of bags of recycling drove up to our car and, without speaking, held up the missing shoe. Don't ask me how it fell out of the car without us noticing, since B is the child sitting farthest from a door in the car, but we were just thrilled to have it back. Thank you Lord, for watching over us down to the smallest detail!

miracle #2
this one comes right on the back of finding the shoe and the warm glow and thankfulness we were feeling as we sat there idylically, picnicing in the shade. D has holding E as I was preparing the car for the resumed journey to Chico. When suddenly the peace was shattered by the snarls of dogs and the shrieks of people. Macey, who had been calmly lounging next to us, tied by a long leash to a tree, had seen a woman walking a little dog that must have looked particularly exciting and palatable, because she had lunged for it, her leash broke, and when we turned we saw her wrestling this little dog. I ran and got there first and luckily Macey was not really interested in going for the little dog because at the loud panic of the people around her she backed off and D grabbed her and put her in the van while I went into emergency calm mode and got the little dog's owner to bring the dog into the shade of another tree so we could calmly assess her status (the lady was shell shocked--she was almost not even capable of speaking coherently, and seemed emotionally as frail as her little toothpick-legged, practically hairless yippie dog was physically. pardon me if I seem a little distainful, but little helpless dogs are so unnatural. why couldn't it have been a Rottweiler who would have dispatched Macey with a yawn? Although we realized when we were back in the car that the little dog did give Macey a couple of good bloody bites on her face--good for it). The little dog's hairless thighs were abraded from the hot rough road where they had tussled, and she was understandably freaked out, but we could not find any signs of a bite anywhere. The husband owner came over and we exchanged information, saying we would of course be responsible for our dog and they should call us after they had seen the vet.

We were of course so bummed at this point. Here we were feeling so euphoric after the shoe incident, and then this horrible thing happens. I would like to take a moment to explain that Macey loves people (well, except the meter man, but he really scared her one time and she clearly feels threatened by him) and has always been very gentle with our children when they would climb on her as toddlers. Well, she might accidentally knock them down with her tail, but all in the spirit of love. But other dogs are another matter, and while she used to have lots of dog friends in CO, they were for the most part medium to big sized dogs and when she wrestled them, they happily wrestled back. But she has always had a fascination with little dogs, and treats them like chew toys. However, she seems to have gotten crankier in her old age, and she seems to pick fights with any size dog now, except for her boyfriend Jasper, D's parents' old yellow lab. But if you are an in-town friend, please do not be afraid of our dog because of this story! She is one tough old dog, that is for sure, but she only dislikes other dogs. She loves people.

So, to finish the story, we exchanged painful phone calls and voicemail messages with the dog's owner all through Nevada and Utah--they thought she was fine, but then she was not improved after a couple of days and bit her owners several times, and got them worried and afraid she had a puncture and might abscess, etc. etc. The husband owner was really nice and was just trying to keep us informed, but it was stressful and such a bummer way to start our trip! But we finally got closure when they received the vet bill and sent it on to us: $146.oo. Any of you who know what it costs to own a dog understand how shocked we were--it cost more than that 6 months ago just to take Macey for a checkup! And this time the vet did x-rays and a month's worth of pain pills on top of the exam--I seriously thought it would be more than $500. From talking with the owner, it seems he got the vet to give us a deal--he was respecting our being responsible dog owners and tried to make it easier on us. But how often does that happen? It could have more easily been the kind of owner who would sue for emotional damaged. So that is miracle #2--that we prayed, driving away from the truck stop, that God would provide and would take care of us as He had been so far, and we trusted all would be well. And it was. AMEN!

God is so good!

more miracles later.

We're clearly not in California anymore. . .

D and I have never before felt like Californians. I have always thought of us as displaced Coloradoans--although a turning point in my self-identity came a while back when I realized that we have given birth to three of our four children in CA. No matter where my spirit feels most at home, my children are growing up Californians! I remember being surprised to find that D and I seem to fit really well into the culture of the Monterey Bay area when we first moved here, although good friends who knew us before CA said they were not surprised. Even though we are politically and ideologically fairly conservative, which is not common in our area, we are. . . well. . . weird. Which is very common in our area. So things like the big family in the tiny house with the huge price tag really flip out people who live elsewhere--but locally we have been told by three different families that we inspired them to chose to be content living in smaller spaces even with growing families. Somehow it makes sense in our cultural climate.

But even if we fit into our area of CA, I never thought of myself as a Californian until this trip. Let's see, it happened in Missouri, when we made our first morning pit stop. Doug and I decided enough was enough--we had been without good coffee (gas stations and free continental breakfasts do NOT provide) since leaving CA, having been driving mostly on backroads. So when we stopped in a university town for gas, we thought we would see about getting some drinks. D asked the women working behind the counter at the convenience store/gas station if they knew where he could get espresso, and they looked at him blankly. Until he clarified, "You know, like a Starbucks," and they brightened and said "Oh, we have one of those!" and gave him directions. Then they commented to D about our California liscence plate, saying they had never been there.

That was when we started to feel like strangers in a strange land.

I was, I have to admit, a little giddy walking into Starbucks. After all, it had been almost two weeks since any chai! And as I chatted with the very professionally friendly men working the Starbucks counter, I thought it was funny to learn that both of them were originally from California. The chai and the espresso, by the way, were quite satisfactory.

Then at our late lunch stop, we chose a McDonalds with Playplace, having promised the girls that at some point they could experience one. So as we sat and watched the girls running and playing, that feeling of. . . displacement came back. The girls have never been to a MickyD's playplace, although the other families there gave me the impression that this was a routine stop for the locals. The oddest thing was seeing a huge display up on a platform over the doorway, that had red white and blue "In God we Trust" draped on a large wooden cross, with lots of little American flags planted at its feet. Uh, I have a feeling that kind of thing is not technically allowed by the McD corporate franchise, but here in the Midwest no one is complaining. You know they could never get away with that in CA, unless it was a Budda or Ganesha.

And then another sign that we are really Californians in our thinking is the recycling I see people throwing away everywhere. I am just so used to recycling almost everything (Ok, it is true that putting something into the green bin is not the same as it actually being recycled into something new, and there are good arguments that recycling uses so much energy that it is not the most environmentally green solution--reducing waste is!--so our county may not actually be helping make the world a better place as much as we would like to think, but it still seems right to make the effort) that watching my parents throwing away glossy paper and plastic bags is a shock, and seeing all the water bottles and aluminum cans in the trash at gas stations seems like sacrilege.

Then the final moment of self-realization came when I was talking the other day with one of my suitemates from college who has lived in Indiana almost all of her life. I eagerly suggested I could make dinner for her and my other suitemates when they come to visit here today. She very nicely and humorously suggested that my cooking would be way too foreign to her decidedly Midwestern taste buds. She is one of my faithful readers (thanks, Dawn!) and said the recipes I occassionally post here in my blog make her laugh because they are so out there to her, and she knows I think they are simple, basic stuff. The conversation still makes me chuckle, and it is one more example of how a certain way of living has become normal for us, and we forget that other people don't see it as normal at all! I was cooking that way before we moved to CA--I learned to cook when I got married from an International vegetarian cookbook given to us as a wedding present from D's sister--but our cooking style fits so well in our area that most of the people we know eat the same way! Doesn't everyone eat Kalamata olives and marinated artichoke hearts and feta and organic baby spinach salad? Even at the same time! (I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. . . )

Other signs we are not in California anymore:

We hit Missouri and started to see black people. When we lived in Seaside, we were in an almost all-black neighborhood, which was a very different experience for us--as it would be for most white Americans!--but overall a good one. But moving up the bay to the Santa Cruz area and suddenly there are lots of Mexicans but no black people! So on this trip, driving through Nevada and Utah I wonder if I had not seen a single brown-skinned person, because when a black man waited on me and Susan at the WalMart in Colorado Springs, I noticed him for the color of his skin. And when that happens, it makes you start to wonder what you weren't seeing previously! And then once in Missouri and now Illinois, there are dark brown faces everywhere, esp. here in Champaign. How strange to my eyes! How refreshing! I was so fortunate to grow up in a fairly diverse community (our high school prom queen and king were black students my senior year, my church was at least a quarter Asian, since the U of I has the third largest engineering school in the country) and now realize that may not be the growing up experience of my children.

In a similar vein, one of the most strange experiences on this trip happened when we stopped in a Mexican restaurant in Utah and the people working in the kitchen were white. In CA, even the Chinese restaurants have Mexicans in the kitchen, so eating Mexican food prepared by white people (good Mormons, from the size of their family) was a little unsettling. The food was still good, though.

I love our country! I love its diversity of people and places and foods (gotta love that Snickers Salad in Amishland). I am so glad my girls are getting to experience some of it!

*when i have queried my black friends at different times, they all said they use and are comfortable with the term "black" instead of the more pc "African American." Recently I have even read different opinions that really the term should be "American of African descent." But that is a mouthful, and so since my friends referred to themselves as black, I will too. in our home we use "brown-skinned" and "peach-skinned" to make those distinctions.

good day

--E woke up an hour earlier than usual, which did not work well with my staying up an hour later the night before--but then i put him downstairs with eldest daughter G and went back to bed (thinking she would wake me when he was fussy) and the young Romanian graduate student who lives with my parents helped out and so i ended up getting another hour of sleep! that NEVER happens!

--my parents took us all to visit Amish country--Arthur, IL. Very fun driving around and watching the men and women working in their fields and gardens, draft horses at work plowing and horse-drawn carriages and kids riding their bikes on the country roads--even saw women having a quilting bee on a back porch! Although I must say I had an idea in my head that the Amish--being known for their excellence in hand-made furniture and quilts--would eat a bounty of simple and hearty but fresh gardeny foods much like, of I don't know, the pioneers. You know, fresh-baked bread and fresh sliced tomatoes and fresh corn and spinach. As it turns out, the Amish in Central IL eat pretty much what the rest of middle America eats, if the selection at the Amish-run restaurant we went to for lunch is any indication. It was just like Country Buffet, or Hometown Buffet, or any such restaurants that serve their winter blend vegetables spoon soft and swimming in butter and whose average patron age is 55. Very hearty stuff, and it was fun to eat such traditionally homey food. They even had canned chocolate pudding, which I have a very strange weakness for. But the best "We're Not In California Anymore" moment was reading a label in the puddings section of the salad bar that identified a dark flecked, yellowy offering as "Snickers Salad." Ah, only in the Midwest would anyone call a pudding with candy bar crumbles mixed into it a "salad." (in the cookbook I have at home compiled by ladies at my parents' home church as a fundraiser years back, one "salad" is based on a combination of green jello, canned fruit, marshmallows and Seven Up. Not what we think of in CA when we hear "green salad"!)

--E got really silly right before bath time and belly laughed and shrieked at the antics of his sisters for at least 20 minutes non stop. Then he and I got into the bath together, and I realized we have NEVER bathed together before! My parents' bathtub is a huge antique ceramic one, and the water was something like 15 inches deep, and he was SO cute in it! He was very intent on trying to catch the water in his hands, not just casually splashing and exploring but watching carefully and then trying to grab the spot he had been watching, and bringing up his hands over and over to suck the water off his fingers, again not casually, but seriously, purposefully. He was really trying to figure out this whole water thing in a way I have never seen him do before, and it was so sweet. The water was so deep he had to sit on my lap and then it would still be up to his armpits, so I held him carefully to keep his face out of the water and he just twisted and lunged and was not even afraid the few times he suceeded in getting his face in it.

--Then when I checked my email tonight after getting the kids in bed, I saw that an improptu reunion of some of my college suitemates (our dorm was set up with clusters of three rooms to a small common living area, with two people to a room) is going to happen here at my parents' home on Fri! There were seven of us who were good friends and managed to live in various suites and apartments with one another during our 4 years of college. They all live in different parts of IL, IN, OH and MI, with little ol' me all the way out in CA. So even though they have had "Suite reunions" several times since we all graduated, I have never been able to attend. We have all just recently been in touch again, and now getting to see four of them together is so exciting! The news makes my night.

I could have told you the not so great parts of the day, like making a horrible muck of soup tonight for dinner when I tried to cook with electric burners instead of gas; or G being "eye-sick" (migraines? sinunitis? dr has not yet diagnosed to my satisfaction, but it happens every couple of months) for the fourth day in a row, which is a record; or E being fussy much of the day, etc. But I am sitting here in such contentment, that non of that is worth remembering.

The good times roll on.

Tomorrow, shopping.
Thursday, Land of Lincoln!

what goes around . .

Since we have been here, I have noticed a funny role reversal: in small but epitomizing ways, I have become the parent my parents once were to me!

Didn't you grow up with your parents always telling you to turn off the lights when you leave the room? Since we have been here, I have been turning off lights all over the house, whenever I find them on in rooms that have been long vacated. Of course, most of that has not been my parents this past weekend, when they were only a fraction of the people staying in their home. But I did turn off lights after either mom or dad several times.

And didn't you grow up with your parents lecturing you on finishing the food on your plates, not taking more than you could eat, etc.? My parents were really good about teaching us to remember kids starving in Ethiopia. But then today at lunch, my mom did not eat the (albeit huge) crust of her slice of pizza--and then my dad did not finish his either. My dad, who used to eat the last spoonful of vegetables from the dish at the dinnertable because it was too little to save and they did not want it to go to waste?

But the most humorous one was when I was rinsing some dishes for the dishwasher, and dad came in, saw his third-full glass of milk, and told me that he was not going to finish it, so I could just rinse it down the drain. I could not believe it. My older sister and I used to sneak our milk glasses out to the kitchen and pour the milk down the drain when we thought it was too much for us to finish. Which appalls me now, as it appalled mom and dad when we confessed much later in life. And now here was dad telling me to purposefully pour his milk away?

Mom is reading this, just so you know. My ribbing is in good spirit, because my parents are not wasteful people. And we all know that it is a good thing to listen to one's body and not overeat--that putting food in the trashcan is better than treating your body as the trashcan. And it is their money, their food, and they are adults who can decide for themselves what and when and how much to eat, and I am a firm believer in such rights, which I practice with my own money, food and appetite. So, I am not reflecting on these little moments in a spirit of judgement, but of humor: mom and dad clearly succeeded in their rearing of me in this area, instilling the values of conservatism that being unwealthy (for the US) and in hyper-green CA have helped solidify farther. I am now trying to instill those same values in my children--athough as obsessive as I am about waste, they will probably someday chuckle at me for taking recycling out of public trashcans (yes, I have, on occassion) or dumpster diving for firewood (yes, I have--a local woodworking shop advertizes free firewood on theirs) or eating the untouched garlic bread off a strangers plate at a downtown restaurant (yes, I have, but she was a healthy looking woman and it is a long story but let's just say I was very pregnant at the time).

And yet I still waste things and food and time and probably some of everything I have. It is wise and proper to utilize well the resources God has given us. Yet we all live in such luxury, such prosperity, that the choices we have everyday to waste or not waste are a direct reflection of our innumerable blessings--we are swimming in the overflow of God's provision. How humbling is that!

I could write more, but I have been at the computer too long today, and don't want to waste the opportunity I now have with a sleeping baby and the chance to spend some quality interpersonal school time with my eldest!

spaces, shelters

With all the things I could possibly start out blogging about, it is actually living and sleeping and eating spaces that are on my mind this morning. (Well, the trivial things on my mind--I'll blog about the more serious later when I have processed further)

I have had about an hour of quiet this morning! The first daytime kid-free quiet since we left on our trip! Here in my parent's house I banished the girls to the basement, and have not heard a peep (this is what doors and separate floors are good for). E is asleep upstairs, unless he is awake now and crying and i just can't hear him (what doors and separate floors are bad for--or wait, maybe that is good. . . ) It is seriously so strange to be in such a big house. My parents bought this house when I was at the end of second grade: a nice three story (unless you include the walk-up attic, which makes 4 stories!), three bedroom, two bath red brick house. Then my parents added on to the house after us kids were all grown and out on our own, anticipating a time when their children would all come back to visit with their own families, and they doubled its size--even added more basement! The house is gorgeous, and they did the addition in the same turn-of-the-century brick and moldings and window styles, so the addition is perfectly integrated into the old. The house is familiar and comfortable, and does not feel oversized, just nicely spacious, and when you have family gathering for an extended visit, all the rooms are used and appreciated. But it is, as you can imagine, very different for us to live in such a large house, and I have been noticing:

--it takes forever to do something simple like get the girls ready for dinner, since invariably their hairthings are upstairs and b's apron is in another room (since sometimes we eat in the dining room and sometimes the breakfast nook) and the kitchen counter is as far from either eating area as practically the whole length of my house, so to get all the cups and plates of food and things for each child to the table takes like 15 minutes. of course, if this was our house, we would have necessary things in convenient locations, and the girls would be helping out more, but when you are in someone else's house and using their nice breakable dishes, and there is already so much hubbub of extra people in the kitchen, you just tend to keep the children's "usefulness" to a minimum. ; )

--i am not used to having to hunt down my children, even for something as simple as telling them to get ready for dinner (which contributes to the issue in the last point). But even in our tiny house I can't stand people yelling back and forth to each other from different rooms (although by far I am the worst offender--seems like the girls always start an argument that requires a referee in the bedroom as soon as I am comfortable with a nursing baby, etc), so you can imagine that I would not allow it (or practice it) here in such a big house where you would really have to bellow to be heard elsewhere. I remember standing at the bottom of the stairs hollering up to mom when I was a kid, wanting to verify her location the lazy--I mean efficient way before climbing the stairs, and while mom disliked the practice, she and dad would end up calling up to us just as often. It really is so tempting. In our house, I know where any person is at almost all times. But here, if the kids are off somewhere and not being too loud in their play, I might not know where they are. And boy, does it get old trudging up and down the stairs with over a stone* of baby in your arms looking for children. But so far, no yelling!

--which leads to my other thought. It is so peaceful here! I realized how much I have missed the summer breeze wafting through an open window, something that is not possible in our house, with those large, antique picture windows that do not open. My parent's house is on a quiet street, with no through traffic, and so while you can hear traffic from a busy road just a block away, the sound of the cars is so muffled by the old trees lining all the streets that you don't really notice it when you are outside, and can't hear it at all inside. A very far cry from our house, where the road out front may not be very big, but it is busy and there is nothing to insulate us from the cars, esp. at night when we are sleeping next to one of those old, big windows and the sound sometimes literally rattles the window panes.

Also, too, it gets cold enough at night that you probably would not want windows open all the time where we live, in that little perfectly conceived summer icebox (such a relief to those visiting from the dry heat of inner CA who built the house). But here, the weather has been overcast and gray, but *just right* temperatures, the kind of breezes that don't feel cool but instead feel like spidersilk velvet, like smooth water, like they are teasing you to lift your arms and fly away with them across endless green fields. The air outside was so luscious yesterday when we got back from the wedding trip to Chicago, that I could not bear to be inside and took the girls on a walk around the neighborhood. The window in our room was open all night, and we fell asleep to the patter of a gentle rainstorm, and woke to the cheerful, gentle chirping of birds.

We have birds galore in our yard in CA, but somehow their sounds are more gentle here--I wish I knew more varieties to know who is making what sound here or there. I think most of the birds here are little chirpy things--at home we have mostly woodpeckers and owls and stellar's jays and hummingbirds--and they just naturally sound sweeter.

Now, just so you know, I love listening to the birds back home, and I love to be in my little house in the rain--nothing is a cozier sound. But there we are safe and shielded from it--here, we were safe and friendly with it, like listening to the conversation of strangers who are clearly good friends, people who you don't know but who are making you feel awash in well-being by their enjoyment of each other. The rain brought such pleasant smells to the room, and the occassional small gust was a delicious wash over the skin in an otherwise still and muggy room. It was like a welcome visit by a good neighbor. The rain on our roof back home makes me aware of and thankful for the blessing of a roof over our head; the rain out the window here makes me aware of and thankful for the blessing of rain.

I could make more observations, and maybe I will before this week-long visit here at my parents' is over. But at the moment, I am perfectly content with both the spaces I am in and the spaces I will enjoy returning to, so different as they are. Maybe that is a good definition of being at peace.

*that's imperical measure--but he does feel like a stone after you have carried him for a while!

On the Road!

This is just a quick one to say we are alive and doing great, and are currently visiting Susan and her family in Colorado Springs. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Things have been fabulous so far--kids traveling so awesomely (for the most part, of course), very little stress, loads of amazing things we have seen and done--and we are only one fourth of the way through our entire adventure! God has been SO present for us--I was just telling Susan and Luke last night about the four miracles God has done for us already. And those are just the ones we know about. Who knows in what other ways He has been protecting us.

I can't wait to blog about it a little more fully when we get to IL. But right now I would rather be hanging with one of my oldest and dearest friends than blogging. So, thank you for checking in, and talk to you later! : )