Herein you will find a link to a long-ish video that pretty much encapsulates any six minute period of our day. Enjoy. (Also, there's lots of bouncing in the video because we shot it on an I-pod with two toddlers roving about. This also explains the exceptional high quality and resolution of the film [Insert sarcasm]. Sorry if it causes air sickness.)
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152718993403309&l=4395698734449989305.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
The Financial Gush
As of late, I have a bad habit of getting my heart set on things. Many times during the last few weeks I have had to slap my forehead and quote Corrie TenBoom, "Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open." I was reminded of this when our associate pastor told us that the older generation (65 years plus) tends to handle change in the church the best. I must say this is not necessarily true. Those who handle change the best are those who have a very loose grasp on the things of this world. The worshippers, the faithful, the unshakably joyful and uncomplaining are those who can fall on their knees regardless of the color of the carpet, and who can lift their eyes up regardless of whether they see stained glass, drywall, or prison bars. My split knuckles are turning white as I grasp at fistfuls of shadows.
While there are more serious cases, the most prevalent heart-setting event of late involves Hawaii. And, oh-yes, I can get my grubby little mitts around Hawaii, and make it all mine.
Justin has been in school for almost three years. He started one month after Noah was born. Since then we have not gone on vacation; we have not even left this valley. The closest I got to leaving was the sojourning with the bedbugs. While that was all manner of funsies, it's not really the same as getting on a plane, laying on a beach, and not having little children begging you for answers all day. Allow me to clarify that I don't think I deserve a vacation, but when a rather blessed tax return arrived, I felt the ocean calling my name.
With Justin working for free at his clinicals and in class we have been bleeding about 300 dollars a month. We had planned for this when we decided this was how God was leading. We had a comfortable savings that the Lord of Grace allowed us to accumulate. The tax return was over and above, a surprise, a blessing, a wonder! And in my heart, a sign from on high. Aloha!
At the end of February I went to pay our mortgage, and there, smirking at me rather repugnantly, was a bill over two hundred and fifty dollars more than normal. Apparently, by some manner of Big Brother-ness, our insurance company deduced that our house is worth well more than what it really is. Due to granite counter tops and a bulldog, our premium jumped by almost two thousand dollars. The insurance lady was very understanding as to why I was on the verge of tears and offered to re-quote us a figure based on some questions. As she asked away, I felt the tug of my flesh, tempting me to engage in falsehood.
Insurance Lady: What kind of counter tops do you have?
Me: Brown
Insurance Lady: No, I mean what are they made out of?
Me: ... we don't have counter tops. I prepare food outside... on a rock... like a man.
Insurance Lady: Do you have a dog?
Me: How dare you suggest that any creature could own another creature!
Insurance Lady: What breed?
Me: Microscopic. Certainly not the kind that is pictured in every dog training book, next to the picture of the torn up couch and chewed-on dry wall.
Insurance Lady: What kind of flooring do you have:
Me: The kind that you can walk on.
Insurance Lady: And what kind is that?
Me: ...Not eggshells... Something much cheaper than eggshells... like dirt. That's right we sleep on the dirt... like a man ... (WHIMPER)
I of course said none of these untruthful things. I told her we have granite counter tops, and an Olde English Bulldog, and carpet and tile, and I really need to go to Hawaii, like, more than most, and if you could please just quote us a little less, I might not sob like a little child, who got her lolli taken away.
And then I prayed. As the words came out of my mouth I realized perhaps I am too marked by Firefly: "God, we got some local color happening here, a bit of mercy would not go amiss."
"Oh!" the Nice Insurance Lady exclaimed.
"What?" I asked, eager to receive the blessings I had requested.
"Well, that actually made your premium go up more. And we have to go with that figure."
... No good deed shall be left unpunished.
The Mean Insurance Lady (who I think sprouted horns as we were talking) said she could transfer me to a specialist, who might be able to work something out for me. Like a premium that also requires a kidney along with my arm and leg?
The specialist didn't get in touch with me for a few days, and we went through the same process and same questions again. And I displayed the same godliness... I wasn't happy about it, but I did it. Because my Savior died for me, and I believe that obedience is first, and maybe, sometimes, feelings are second. ... this does not make the whimpering any less.
That night Justin asked me to bring him his wallet. I chugged upstairs and retrieved it for him, where-upon he pulled out our debit card and paid some unknown entity $90. As he hung up the phone, in as submissive a voice and manner as I could muster, I asked to whom we just paid my Hawaii room deposit. Turns out that because Justin is packing in more credits, his loans do not cover his tuition. We now get to pay another $90 a month to his school.
So what was a slow bleed of our finances has hemorrhaged into a gushing wound. We are now bleeding over double what we were before. The wise part of me (small and stifled as it may be) is so grateful that we got a tax return so we can continue paying the mortgage, covering bills, and feeding our children. My God is the God who provides.
But my foolish little heart was set on oceans and sand and volcanoes and not being in this valley. So patiently I will continue to do what we have been called to do. I will loosen my fingers and allow Hawaii to breathe a little. And I will understand that one week abroad does not change my faith or my joy. My God has provided for our finances, and He provides more than enough for my heart as well.
While there are more serious cases, the most prevalent heart-setting event of late involves Hawaii. And, oh-yes, I can get my grubby little mitts around Hawaii, and make it all mine.
Justin has been in school for almost three years. He started one month after Noah was born. Since then we have not gone on vacation; we have not even left this valley. The closest I got to leaving was the sojourning with the bedbugs. While that was all manner of funsies, it's not really the same as getting on a plane, laying on a beach, and not having little children begging you for answers all day. Allow me to clarify that I don't think I deserve a vacation, but when a rather blessed tax return arrived, I felt the ocean calling my name.
With Justin working for free at his clinicals and in class we have been bleeding about 300 dollars a month. We had planned for this when we decided this was how God was leading. We had a comfortable savings that the Lord of Grace allowed us to accumulate. The tax return was over and above, a surprise, a blessing, a wonder! And in my heart, a sign from on high. Aloha!
At the end of February I went to pay our mortgage, and there, smirking at me rather repugnantly, was a bill over two hundred and fifty dollars more than normal. Apparently, by some manner of Big Brother-ness, our insurance company deduced that our house is worth well more than what it really is. Due to granite counter tops and a bulldog, our premium jumped by almost two thousand dollars. The insurance lady was very understanding as to why I was on the verge of tears and offered to re-quote us a figure based on some questions. As she asked away, I felt the tug of my flesh, tempting me to engage in falsehood.
Insurance Lady: What kind of counter tops do you have?
Me: Brown
Insurance Lady: No, I mean what are they made out of?
Me: ... we don't have counter tops. I prepare food outside... on a rock... like a man.
Insurance Lady: Do you have a dog?
Me: How dare you suggest that any creature could own another creature!
Insurance Lady: What breed?
Me: Microscopic. Certainly not the kind that is pictured in every dog training book, next to the picture of the torn up couch and chewed-on dry wall.
Insurance Lady: What kind of flooring do you have:
Me: The kind that you can walk on.
Insurance Lady: And what kind is that?
Me: ...Not eggshells... Something much cheaper than eggshells... like dirt. That's right we sleep on the dirt... like a man ... (WHIMPER)
I of course said none of these untruthful things. I told her we have granite counter tops, and an Olde English Bulldog, and carpet and tile, and I really need to go to Hawaii, like, more than most, and if you could please just quote us a little less, I might not sob like a little child, who got her lolli taken away.
And then I prayed. As the words came out of my mouth I realized perhaps I am too marked by Firefly: "God, we got some local color happening here, a bit of mercy would not go amiss."
"Oh!" the Nice Insurance Lady exclaimed.
"What?" I asked, eager to receive the blessings I had requested.
"Well, that actually made your premium go up more. And we have to go with that figure."
... No good deed shall be left unpunished.
The Mean Insurance Lady (who I think sprouted horns as we were talking) said she could transfer me to a specialist, who might be able to work something out for me. Like a premium that also requires a kidney along with my arm and leg?
The specialist didn't get in touch with me for a few days, and we went through the same process and same questions again. And I displayed the same godliness... I wasn't happy about it, but I did it. Because my Savior died for me, and I believe that obedience is first, and maybe, sometimes, feelings are second. ... this does not make the whimpering any less.
That night Justin asked me to bring him his wallet. I chugged upstairs and retrieved it for him, where-upon he pulled out our debit card and paid some unknown entity $90. As he hung up the phone, in as submissive a voice and manner as I could muster, I asked to whom we just paid my Hawaii room deposit. Turns out that because Justin is packing in more credits, his loans do not cover his tuition. We now get to pay another $90 a month to his school.
So what was a slow bleed of our finances has hemorrhaged into a gushing wound. We are now bleeding over double what we were before. The wise part of me (small and stifled as it may be) is so grateful that we got a tax return so we can continue paying the mortgage, covering bills, and feeding our children. My God is the God who provides.
But my foolish little heart was set on oceans and sand and volcanoes and not being in this valley. So patiently I will continue to do what we have been called to do. I will loosen my fingers and allow Hawaii to breathe a little. And I will understand that one week abroad does not change my faith or my joy. My God has provided for our finances, and He provides more than enough for my heart as well.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
My Fever Pitch
After saying that we come from very different backgrounds a coworker asked what it was that brought Justin and I together. She jokingly quarried if it was our mutual love of dance. While the Husband loves a good bit of experimental art and postmodern movement explorations as much as the next guy, no, no it was not a love of dance that drew us close. In fact, dance just about turned me into Justin's pre-ex-girlfriend.
The year was 2007. The soon-to-be husband had just returned from a year long stint in New Zealand, fall was setting in, and I was finishing my senior year in the dance department. I was immersed in aesthetic philosophy, movement-based existential ponderings, and rice (200 pounds of which was dumped on our heads as we dove across the stage... rice that is... no one dumped 200 pounds aesthetic philosophy on us... not quite sure how you would do that... unless Immanuel Kant decided to come contact improv with us). (Sorry, I'm fine arts nerding out.) I had never watched a baseball game on TV, I had never scarfed a cheese-stuffed brat, buttery popcorn, and Dipping Dots all in one sitting, I had never heard of the curse of the Bambino. I had written on a Contemporary Views assignment just days before, "NO to answers handed out with program notes to a generation never required to think." 'Cause I was a right, proper, elitist pain in the keister. (Do you ever wish you could go back in time and just smack yourself on the back of the head?)
Fall semester I was selected to perform in Ghostship, a work choreographed by my mentor, a brilliant and very lost professor. It was an incredible opportunity. It was exactly what I wanted to do, and several times I tried to convince said mentor to create a dance company and hire me to kick dance butt day in and day out.
At the time I was into Justin. Really into Justin. (In the same way that lobster is really into butter, Noah is really into bubbles, and baptists are really into coffee.) When the time to perform came I invited him to come to the show. In some small way I wanted him to understand what I do and to believe it to be incredible. Somehow, I thought 200 pounds of rice and a few knee-sades later, he would be smitten.
The night of the show came. I danced. It was awesome. He did not come.
I wasn't devastated. I just assumed this was some kind of sign. He just wasn't that into me, and I actually believed I could be okay with that. He chose not to come. We could still be friends. We were okay...
Until I saw him the next day. "So you weren't able to make it last night," I tried to roll out casually. I expected maybe an awkward moment, maybe a shrug, and then the mutual acceptance that life would continue much as it had, and, after every friend I grew up with was married off, I would run away to New Zealand, and live with the possums in the trees of Whangerei.
However, with barely a pause the Adonis replied, "Yeah, the Red Sox were playing."
I tried not to look like a semi-truck had just side-swiped my heart, backed up, and hit it dead on just to be sure it didn't try anything so foolish as love again. I tried to not narrow my eyes and turn very Gollum-like and wish death to Beckett, Ortiz, Papelbon and anyone else on the planet who wore socks of any shade of redness.
I was not entirely successful in masking the massacre of my heart. Justin suddenly seemed to realize he had said something not entirely endearing. "It's the World Series." He added for clarification. My face must have taken on a deadlier pallor.
The mean part of me, that part that I contain (but not overly well) spat out, "It's called a DVR." Justin muttered something else about this being the World Series, and his Red Sox, and a quarry on what my problem might be.
We started dating not too long after this incident. (After the Red Sox had defeated the Diamondbacks and in fact clenched the Series.) Awhile into our relationship I brought this incident up. I asked Justin if he liked me at the time. "Well yeah, of course," he replied. Apparently the confusion was written on my face. "It's the Red Sox," he re-iterated. As if all those months ago I hadn't heard him quite correctly. As if I should have been slapping my forehead with an 'Oh, it's the Red Sox, how silly of me, of course that's worth breaking the heart of your betrothed over.' Exasperated, the poor man declared, "We weren't even dating at the time!"
Somehow, that makes it worse.
But obviously not bad enough to break us up. Because here we sit, seven years later, he having attended a fair amount of dance concerts, and me knowing the Red Sox line up front to back as well as most of the bull pen. And in spite of our Fever Pitch beginning, we've managed to create something truly amazing:
A Red Sox fan, and
a dancer.
The night of the show came. I danced. It was awesome. He did not come.
I wasn't devastated. I just assumed this was some kind of sign. He just wasn't that into me, and I actually believed I could be okay with that. He chose not to come. We could still be friends. We were okay...
Until I saw him the next day. "So you weren't able to make it last night," I tried to roll out casually. I expected maybe an awkward moment, maybe a shrug, and then the mutual acceptance that life would continue much as it had, and, after every friend I grew up with was married off, I would run away to New Zealand, and live with the possums in the trees of Whangerei.
However, with barely a pause the Adonis replied, "Yeah, the Red Sox were playing."
I tried not to look like a semi-truck had just side-swiped my heart, backed up, and hit it dead on just to be sure it didn't try anything so foolish as love again. I tried to not narrow my eyes and turn very Gollum-like and wish death to Beckett, Ortiz, Papelbon and anyone else on the planet who wore socks of any shade of redness.
I was not entirely successful in masking the massacre of my heart. Justin suddenly seemed to realize he had said something not entirely endearing. "It's the World Series." He added for clarification. My face must have taken on a deadlier pallor.
The mean part of me, that part that I contain (but not overly well) spat out, "It's called a DVR." Justin muttered something else about this being the World Series, and his Red Sox, and a quarry on what my problem might be.
We started dating not too long after this incident. (After the Red Sox had defeated the Diamondbacks and in fact clenched the Series.) Awhile into our relationship I brought this incident up. I asked Justin if he liked me at the time. "Well yeah, of course," he replied. Apparently the confusion was written on my face. "It's the Red Sox," he re-iterated. As if all those months ago I hadn't heard him quite correctly. As if I should have been slapping my forehead with an 'Oh, it's the Red Sox, how silly of me, of course that's worth breaking the heart of your betrothed over.' Exasperated, the poor man declared, "We weren't even dating at the time!"
Somehow, that makes it worse.
But obviously not bad enough to break us up. Because here we sit, seven years later, he having attended a fair amount of dance concerts, and me knowing the Red Sox line up front to back as well as most of the bull pen. And in spite of our Fever Pitch beginning, we've managed to create something truly amazing:
a dancer.
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