My Nephew's Sister.

From the minute Kate came out she was a mystery wrapped in a riddle. She marches to her own beat, but that beat seems to be one only she can hear. Funny and smart and coordinated and clever and.....not interested in the spotlight one bit. I've watched her brother enter a social situation where not a single person in the room is the least bit interested in him yet somehow he can insert himself into whatever is taking place. He doesn't need or wait for that social queue that tells you that you are invited. He just likes people and can't imagine that they aren't going to like him back.

Not Kate. I've seen people approach her and fuss and gush all over her. She gets the deer in the head light look, and leans into her mom for comfort while staring back at the person as if she is deaf and didn't hear a word they said. I've seen times when impromptu jam sessions breakout where her brother is hopping around like the village idiot, happy as a clam. Kate is doing something really creative and controled (not just spaz dancing) and if she catches you watching her she freezes up. It isn't an attention thing. She just doesn't like the spot light.

On Saturday Colby hurt one of his fingers in his basketball game. Jami's been trying to decide the extent of his injuries. With her background in athletics and injuries she (and Jake) have tried to tell him that sometimes with a jam you just need to pull it and get it popped back in place. Mr. Histrionics wasn't convinced and has been content to live with the pain and an immobile finger. Until Kate fixed him. He wanted to play with something of hers and she bargained the toy away with the contingency that she could try popping his finger. He agreed. She pulled. It popped. The finger can now bend.

I have no idea what was going on in that little head of hers. While the finger drama is going on around her she just sits back, listens, assesses the situation and inserts herself at the right time. I suppose it could be selfish and ugly and just a way to inflict a little pain on her brother. It could be that she was just tired of the finger being an issue. But for now I'm going with the idea that she knew enough of what motivated Colby to know that he'd never pop that finger on his own but with the right leverage she might be able to help him. She has always been a gifted button pusher. She knows exactly what buttons to push to drive a person crazy. Jami and I have always thought that if she could harness her powers and use them for good and not evil the world would be a better place. Perhaps today she did just that. Or who knows. Maybe it was just the chance to make him cry. That, is the mystery of Kate. I love being her Aunt.

Hmmm....I wonder when they came up with that?

I'm still doing the juicing vegetable thing. When I open my refrigerator I see the vegetables in it and wonder if someone else has moved into my house that I do not know about. I must admit, I get a little rush when I go to the grocery store and actually pick things out of the vegetable area. One time a year or so ago I bought a couple peppers to put in a sauce to marinate some meat for chicken kabobs. Other than that I can't remember ever buying a vegetable in my life. (Other than carrots, corn and potatoes which are more of a starch than a vegetable.)

I've always wanted to be the person in the grocery store with vegetables in her cart. When I walk in the veggie section I feel like I need to tell the other shoppers, "I'm somewhat of a fraud. I'm going to juice these, add some apple and ginger and then DRINK these. I'm not as healthy as it appears." I don't, but feel like I should.

So I get all of my vegetables, which are organic. That doesn't really matter except for you need that piece of information for the rest of the story. I'm looking at my cart, and thinking happy thoughts. I'm not sure if anyone else does this, but I always wonder if other shoppers (and cashiers!) are looking at what I'm buying and thinking....now that is the biggest cart of junk food I've ever seen. I go to the check out and still feel like con artist because I don't even know the name of some of the items I'm pulling out of my cart.

The cashier gets to the beets and is looking all over for the sticker with the number to tell her how to ring it up. She looks up and says, chuckling under her breath, "I don't know if these are regular beets or organic. Hmmmm.....they are organic. Well, what do you know. When did they start making beets organic?" Her tone of voice implied, "Those crazy farmers. What will they come up with next?"

I didn't know what to say.

It reminded me of the time I was knitting what would be a sweater when all the pieces were done and put together and someone looked at it in semi-amazement and said, "A sweater? You can make those?" (Still thinking) "You mean like what you get in Wal-Mart in the clothes section?" Ummmmm......yeah. I guess she thought that sweaters grow on a sweater bush, and Wal-Mart harvests them when ripe and takes them to their stores to sell.

I suppose there are times when I casually listen to the radio and take for granted that the songs coming out of it didn't arrive fully formed. They were written and performed by a human who studied music. That being said, if you show me a saxophone my reaction wouldn't be, "What? You can play a song? Like what you hear on the radio?"

I'm still having fun conjuring up images of farmers sitting around scratching their heads thinking, "Now what haven't we made organic yet.....ah, yes. Beets."

Colby makes a basket. Or three.

I'm not sure when my nephew became old enough to be on a basketball team. In my head he is still a little boy. He plays in a league that is named Upwards. Upwards does an amazing job of taking a wide variety of little kiddos and plugging them into the most non-competitive sporting event I've seen. There were basketball teams and cheer leading squads. The cheer leaders just stayed at one end of the gym and cheered their little hearts out for no one in particular. They aren't assigned a team to cheer for, they just cheer.

Sadly, even at this age you can already see who should and who shouldn't be encouraged to pursue sports :-) There is plenty of time later for real life. Right now these kidlets get to cut their teeth in the world of sports in a very positive environment.

Props go out to the referees. They are the real heroes of the day. Quite a bit gets overlooked and they have the the tricky job of being part coach, part encourager, part cheer leader, part rule enforcer, part "point the kid in the right direction". They have to decide that perfect balance of when to enforce the rules and when to let a struggling player "bend" the rules a bit. I'm too rule oriented. I'd have all those little squirts crying because I'd have to call every infraction I see :-)

Colby's team ended up with 18 points, 6 of which were from Colby. On the first basket he had a tiny celebration, looked towards Jami and I to make sure we noticed and went right back to playing. When the second basket went in his arms went up. You could see the joy on his face, and he again looked over to make sure his people were cheering. After the third basket his arms went up again, but as they came down he struck a pose that looked something like this as he looked over to make sure we were celebrating with him (not exactly, but this is the closest picture I have):

On the way home from the game he got to hear what the term "show boating" means. And that sometimes when professionals do it they have to pay a lot of money to the league. Thankfully young Mr. Murray didn't resort to this level of celebrating:

Colby had one other quirk that we discovered while watching him. Colby loves people. He doesn't know a stranger. If you are near him, he'll talk to you. If you are playing on the playground, he'll join you. If you listen, he'll tell you all about whatever movie he watched or book he read. If you fall down on the basketball court, he'll stop to make sure you are OK and help you up--whether you are on his team or not. It was so sweet to watch. Mr. People Person in action without regard to the competition going on around him.

Colby had a huge advantage on the court. He was one of the tallest out there. At this age their heights are all over the place. He looked like this compared to a lot of his team mates:





His team didn't win, but as far as I was concerned it didn't matter. He played well. He was confident, coordinated and cared about his fellow teammates. I love being his aunt.

Off the hook....

Bernie Madoff may be sending up prayers of thanksgiving to whatever deity he prays to. I think this guy:

will be soaking up some of the spotlight the press reserves for "least liked guy in the universe". I think Mr. Madoff may have held the title prior to this maritime tragedy.

If I'm ever the captain of a huge cruise ship, in charge of the safety of over 4,000 lives, I hope I do not have the incredibly bad luck to get thrown overboard and OOPS! fall into a life boat. Because that just doesn't look good.


What a terrible, senseless loss of so many lives. My heart goes out to the confirmed dead, the divers searching the ship, the husband and wife now known to the world as "the couple from Minnesota who are still missing", and the grieving and anxious families waiting for news of their loved ones.

Sheeple.

Let me start by saying that there are probably many times on my life I've been a sheeple. I claim no superiority in this story other than in this case I was the sheeple shepherd. Sheep are known for their willingness to follow the sheep in front of them even if sheep number one is doing something stupid--like wandering off a cliff. People who do the same are known as sheeples.

On the day after Christmas we have a few stores we usually try to hit. There is a Family Christian Bookstore that always has their Christmas goodies 50% off (on the 26th) and they always send out a 25% off coupon that applies to clearance items. In the past I've picked up some nativity sets at a pretty good price, but there are only so many nativity sets you can accumulate. This store isn't my favorite. I like looking around but it isn't a store I *need* to go to.

Jami wasn't sure what time the store opened. She thought 10:00, and our plan was to arrive around then. We were driving past the store a little before 9:00 (en route to other shopping) and decided to see when they opened. Turns out they opened at 9:00 and we were there at around 8:47. There was one lone car sitting in the parking lot and the woman in it kindly rolled down her window to let us know it opened at 9:00. We decided to wait. It was cold'ish. Drizzly or snow-raining, if I remember correctly. A few more cars pulled up and everyone stayed put in their warm, dry cars. At about 8:55 I looked at Jami, sly grin in place, and said, "Want to see a bunch of ladies freak out? I'm going to go wait at the door."

There was nothing in the store I really wanted to be first in line for, and mostly out of wanting to do something with my boredom while I waited, I decided to jump out of the car. Sure enough. All the sheeples followed suit. I could hear car doors opening and shutting left and right. I wouldn't call it a stampede but there was hurrying. I was the only one who knew she was getting out of her car when she did, but somehow several people managed to beat me to the door. There was no roof over the door, which meant there was this herd of sheeple standing in the drizzle.

So at this point I'm feeling some vague feelings of remorse for causing the pseudo stampede and then the person in charge of opening the store comes to the door. Now it is 8:58 by my cell phone. She is clearly not that happy to see us despite the fact that we are standing there wanting to throw money in their cash register. She says in a very un-Christmasy voice, "I still have 5 minutes before the store opens, and I'm not ready for you yet, but since it is rainy and cold I'll let you in." I again briefly decide whether or not I should feel bad for leading the sheeple to the door and adding to her lack of joy.

I don't have time to decide. The sheeple push me in to the store, and hey! there is a ceramic baby Jesus in a manger marked way, way down that has my name on it. And look! Santa is bowing in front of the manger, because he knows the true meaning of Christmas. The only thing standing between me and this masterpiece is an elderly woman on a portable ventilator. No problem, I can take her. Just kidding. The story is entirely true up to the point of spotting the bowing Santa.


But that little gem really does exist. In many forms. Here is one of them for only $6.95. And notice Santa is respectful enough to remove his hat before kneeling.

Lace up those skates, Lucifer...

....hell just froze over!

I just consumed a vegetable. Three of them to be precise.

To explain why this would be tantamount to hell freezing over, I must back up a bit. I've had vegetable anxiety my entire life. I cannot eat them. It was never a control thing that I tried as a little kid who wanted her way. Physically I cannot get them in my mouth and down my throat. There are many foods I don't care for that I can still manage to get down. Not vegetables. There are several Marti versus vegetable stories that end the same way. Regurgitation.

My most memorable one was my first camp experience. I TRIED to tell them it wasn't a good idea to make me eat tuna salad with onions. They wouldn't listen. I did my best to do what I was told. Got to the end of the sandwich and....you guessed it. It all came back up--right on the table. Oddly though my memories are not those of shame and embarrassment (although I felt those). I just remember thinking....I tried to tell you this wasn't a good idea. The other factor that made it memorable was that the shirt I was in was the only shirt that I had with me that had sleeves on it. Despite the fact that it was the middle of summer in the Florida heat we couldn't wear tank tops. My mom didn't get that memo because she sent me to camp with a suitcase full of sleeveless shirts. In one terrible, brief moment the rules about tank tops and eating what was served no longer applied to me. (This came in handy because believe it or not liver and onions was on the menu a few meals later. Seriously. What camp serves liver and onions to 5th graders?)


I can remember being quite young, and being at a friend's house whose mother took it upon herself to make peas AND beans part of my supper. (See above paragraph for how this story ended) After that event I lied to another little friend and told her my mom said I couldn't go to her birthday party. I was afraid the Birthday meal would include something vegetable in nature. Our mom's straightened it out and I was assured that hot dogs were what was on the menu.

The majority of people I encounter have no idea what I mean when I say "Are there vegetables in that dish, because I do not do well with vegetables". I usually get one of two responses. Yeah, but they are so big you can pick them out. Or. Yeah, but they are so small you'll never know they are in there. Believe me. Big or small, I'll find them. I cannot tell you how many times I've been at a pizza place and the pizza ordered is completely vegetable free, except the blade used to cut the pizza was used on another pizza that had peppers or onions on it. The rogue onion or pepper will jump onto the blade and then jump onto my pizza and inevitably be on the piece I choose.

I've learned there is a very specific way to ask waiters/waitresses if a dish is vege free. I've found that "does this come with any vegetables?" can be heard as, "are there vegetables on the side". Or I will ask "Are there vegetable in the enchilada?" If they say "no", it can mean there aren't any inside it, but they are all over the top of it. For the most part I now ask, "Are there any vegetable anywhere on the plate?" If they hesitate I ask again and list things that could be a vegetable to help them think it through. Overkill? Perhaps, but I've been in situations where I'll ask if something has vegetables in it. I'm told no. It comes to me full of onions and I'll ask and the response is, "Oh, I didn't realize you meant onions when you asked about vegetables." Sigh.

So....I've spent my whole life avoiding them but knowing they are pretty good for you....providing you can get them in and keep them down. A few days ago I watched a video on juicing. I'm not sure why a light bulb went off in my head. I've heard of juicing before, but I thought....maybe I could get some (I know not all) of the benefit of some vegetables by juicing them and mixing them with some fruit. I got an inexpensive juicer and some vegetables. It was strange standing in the supermarket in the vegetable area and actually putting some of them in my cart.

Tonight I tried it out.



A beet, cucumber, apple, lemon, celery, and ginger.

When juiced it looked like this:



While drinking it all I could taste was the lemon and ginger. I put too much of those in. I couldn't taste the beet, cucumber or celery while drinking it. Later I swear I could taste the beet but I'm not sure if it was real or imagined. I know a juiced cucumber is not as good for you as a whole cucumber, but it has to be better for you than nothing. I'll play around with the combination and see what my threshold is for the smallest amount of apple is that I can get away with before my mouth realizes what it is drinking is a vegetable. And I know there are are probably vegetables with more nutrition than celery. At some point I'll see if I can sneak some spinach or other leafy greens in. For now I'm just enjoying the fact that my insides are experiencing little bits of beet, celery and cucumber for the first time ever!

How'd they get there?

I can't take any credit for this first pic. A friend of mine, Andy Kerr, noticed it,
tweeted about it, took the pic, etc. I drove by it and saw it, but can't really take credit for it. As soon as I saw it I thought it would be great to add to my pic coming later.



A house in Winona Lake was recently torn down and all that remained is the fireplace, upon which someone hung a single stocking.

As I was driving home a few weeks before Christmas there is some farm land (the farm with the fuzzy cows, for those of you who are local) that stretches out as far as the eye can see. Along the side of the road is something that isn't quite tall enough to be a patch of trees, and not short enough to be a patch of bushes. In the winter without the benefit of leaves it is just spindly, woody, stick like clumps of ugly. I noticed that someone had decorated the clumps with about 30 Christmas ornaments. I go past this part of the drive at 55MPH so the first time I saw it, not knowing to look for it, I just wondered if I saw what I thought I saw. The next day I paid a little more attention and sure enough. Out in the middle of no where someone had taken the time to hang Christmas ornaments on this little patch of scrub.

This is on a stretch of 15 where the cars go by pretty fast. There is very little shoulder. I occasionally do see people walking on it, but it is a couple miles from "town" and several miles until you hit anything else resembling a town. I cannot think of any reason (although I'm sure there could be a few) that anyone would non-nonchalantly walking down the road, look down in their bag and realize, "Oh yeah, I've got some ornaments. Maybe I should make this stretch of 15 look Christmasy". I suppose it could have been some sort of youth group event where teams had to go out and do crazy stunts and capture it on camera. It is not an area I'd risk life and limb to hang some ornaments.

I pulled over a couple days ago with the idea that I would get out and take a few pictures. As soon as I pulled over I realized it was a dumb idea. The shoulder wasn't wide enough for me to safely pull over and get out of the way of other cars. There was no way I was leaving my car once I felt the car shudder when the first car hurtled past it. There were a few areas I could have pulled up to, or turned around and parked on the other side of the road but I decided I would take one quick snap through the window and hope for a good one.

The ornaments turned out fine, but you really don't really get the perspective of just how there is nothing around here. Whoever did it made a point of it.
I suppose I'll have to be content to just wonder how they got there.

Go in love.

I had a really great time at Christmas. A good blend of old traditions and new experiences. One event combined both. For the past few years we've found a Christmas Eve service to attend and it has been at a church that Jami/Jake do not attend. They've involved a lot of the ambiance of Christmas Eve. Decorations, good music, the Christmas story. This year for the first time J/J's church had their own Christmas Eve service so we went to that one. You just never know when you are going to walk into one of those situations that hits you right between the eye.

To begin with, their church is new. No building yet, so they are renting a building. The building they are renting is a :





Their sanctuary looks something sort of like this:




This isn't new to me, nor is it the first time I've been in their church, but for some reason that night it was really tripping me out. I grew up a card carrying member of the GARBC, in Florida no less. (General Association of Regular Baptist Churches) The only thing more rules oriented then the GARBC, was the GARBC in the south. The rules never made a lick of sense to me. I couldn't follow them. They seemed random. I heard a joke once that I thought summed it up. Q) Why don't Baptists like premarital sex? A) It might lead to dancing or playing cards! (If you don't get it, you weren't raised Baptist!) There were no rules about how to treat each other, or how to support each other, but there were rules out the waz--zoo about church attendance, reading your Bible (as long as it was KJV, otherwise it didn't count), sex, alcohol, drugs, rock and roll, cards and movie theaters.

If you played UNO, it was OK. If you played with a regular deck of cards it wasn't. If you smoked a cigarette it wasn't OK, but if you brought a dessert full of fat, sugar and sodium (which is just as bad for you) to a pot luck it was OK to eat it. If you rented a movie and watched it on your VCR it was OK (sometimes it was even called Youth Group), but if you went to a theater--not OK. Really not OK.


I didn't go to my first movie theater until I was a sophomore in college. I wondered if I'd be able to enjoy it, or if whatever evil a theater contained would be waiting to grab me. No problem. Loved it. Wondered what the big deal about movie theaters was.

I realize that rules can be a good thing. I realize that there are some things that are too highly charged in current cultural events to participate in. I'm not even saying the rules were necessarily wrong. It was the inconsistency that I could never wrap my brain around. It was the eagle eye sharpness to monitor a few select "sins" and the willingness to ignore others that drove me crazy.

So, back to Christmas 2011. I'm sitting in a theater, trying to wrap my brain around why, 25 years ago being in one was one of the worst things I could do and now it is OK to hold church in a theater. I'm sandwiched between my 8 year old niece, and 10 year old nephew silently thanking God that they are growing up in a different church environment then I did. I'm listening to music that includes drums, which in my opinion is the only way to conduct music in church. I'm watching this group of white people sing in a way that doesn't sound like a funeral dirge. There is movement and clapping and hand raising as much--as white folk can do those things. (Have you ever been in an African American church when the Spirit moves them while singing? I have, and that is a spiritual experience!)

As the pastor closed the evening his final words to the congregation were, "Go in love." It summed it all up. A positive command rather than a negative command. Relationship over rules. A piece from my past healed that night. Why was it OK to have church in a theater? Because it was never wrong in the first place.

"Go in love" is one of my personal goals for 2012. That, and putting all my tax information in the zip lock baggy during the year :-)

Prest-o Change-O

My house is a work in progress. It is a modular and modulars in general come with a lower price tag than stick builts, but (many times) they also come without dry wall. Instead the seams on the walls are covered with flimsy slats that scream, "I'm a modular!!!!". I hate them. From the start I've tried to find creative ways to cover, camouflage, disguise or make them less noticeable. There is no easy, effortless way to do that. But that doesn't mean I give up.

My kitchen has remained unfinished for quite a while. (Jenny, if you are reading this you can attest to how long the kitchen has remained unfinished.) Having no regular access to a handyman, my projects tend to have to be something I can accomplish by myself, or wait until my dad comes and put him to work. My woodworking/handyman skills on a scale of 1 to 10 are somewhere around a .....negative 2.

Many moons ago I found the perfect tiles to start working on the back splash area in my kitchen. I got enough for the first row, borrowed a tile cutter from a friend, and put the first row on. That is where I stopped. The first row required about one or two cuts, and never around a light socket or anything complicated. I wasn't sure how to finish it, but when I create I rarely, if ever have the whole thing planned out. I go as far as my creativity allows and wait for inspiration to strike. If it means stopping the project, so be it.

My back splash remained unfinished long enough that it was time to figure out the next step. Through the course of online wandershopping (Yes, that is a word. I do it all the time) I found wall tiles that are peel and stick. As nice as real tiles? No, probably not. Do they look like peel and stick? Up close, yes, but from far away, no. In the end does it matter? No, because it is done, and as far as I'm concerned it is pretty and now I can move on to other areas to tackle.

Here is the only true before picture I could find, and it is pretty fuzzy:



Here is evidence of just how long this project has languished. The little guy in the picture is now 10. Colby is helping organize the tiles. He used to love to put things in order. If there was a stack of anything he'd arrange it and put it in order. Once, I had him in church and he wasn't all that interested in behaving. I hadn't packed too much to occupy him because I only had to keep him busy for a short while before children's church. The more bored he became, the louder he got. I had no toys or books on me. In desperation I took out my wallet and emptied the credit cards, pictures, store loyalty cards, ect. Worked like a charm. He spent the rest of the time quietly organizing them and putting them in and out of the slots.



Here is the before from this weekend:



During...you can see the remnants of some of the cut "tiles" on the counter.



After!






There is one tiny little section that you might be able to see in the first after pic that appears to be unfinished. That is because I ran out of tiles. I got them on Ebay from a seller in the UK, so I have to order one more pack and wait until they travel across the pond to their new home in Warsaw, Indiana.

Zipper follies.

The other day at work I had to go to the bathroom. I work in a building with around 14/15 people if EVERYONE was there at the same time. We are well served by two bathrooms, one for men and one for women. I am the only person whose desk is situated in such a way that I can clearly see if anyone heads into one of the bathrooms. If I need to use the bathroom and I see someone heading towards it, if I REALLY needed to, I could run from my desk, beat them to the door and mutter, "sorry" under my breath.

I don't. But I could if needed. I say all that to set up the rest of the story. I normally do not need to plan any extra time when heading to the bathroom. I've sat in the same spot for 14 years. I know the routine. Until the other day. As usual I had complete access to the bathroom. Plenty of time. Except...........there was a tag on my jeans that was really close to the zipper and I didn't realize it, but had completely zipped the tag into the zipper. Not a little frayed edge that can be easily tugged out. Zipped right into the middle of the zipper. I pulled and tugged and pulled some more. It didn't budge. I'm sure it was psychological, but all of the sudden I had to go right then. Suddenly, I had used up all of the buffer time. It the midst of my struggle I paused long enough to think, "Great. I am an able bodied adult who is going to have an accident at work because I am stuck in my clothes."

I had to leave the bathroom. Go to my desk. Grab a pair of scissors. Hope no one would ask why I had to leave the bathroom, and get scissors. Rush back to the bathroom. Hack away at the zipped up tag. In the end I got the tag unstuck. Crisis averted. Phew.

After it was over I mused about the absurdity of the situation. I've been traveling wondering if I'd make it because once you need a bathroom there is never an exit indicating a bathroom. I've been in lines wondering if I'd make it because the line was too long. I've been in a store where no matter how much wandering you do you can't find the bathroom. I've stopped at gas stations only to find there is no public restroom. I've gotten to the bathroom only to find it is being cleaned and can't be used. BUT! I've never been in a working bathroom, right next to the facilities and wondered if I wouldn't make it because my zipper wasn't working. When is the last time you truly felt stuck in your clothes? It is a panicky kind of feeling!

Hello 2012

This is classic me. Over the weekend I took a stab at my, "I've gotta get more organized this year" routine. It is where I pull out all my paper clutter and pretend that I'm going to get it under control. Throw away what I do not need. File and organize what I do need. Vow to *never* let it get that out of control again. Pretend mind you. I start out gung-ho for the first 5 or six pieces of paper clutter. Then I get overwhelmed. Worry that I might need that scrap I tore out of a magazine with step-by-step instructions on how to fold a fitted sheet. I then pack it all back up and congratulate myself on a good start, and vow to pick up where I left off...tomorrow.

When I got to the bottom of my bucket-o-paper I had to laugh. I vaguely remember getting to the end of my taxes last year and being so frustrated that all of my receipts and papers were scattered throughout a year's worth of paper collection. I put a very simple system into place that I *swore* would work. I took a gallon zip-lock bag and put my finished 2010 tax returns in. I found it:




I also took another bag and wrote 2011 with the promise to myself to put every receipt and document in it as I got them. When 2011 tax time came around all I'd have to do is grab out the ziplock back and, Voila!, instant organization. I found the 2011 bag.




Sigh. Completely empty. I didn't put a single receipt or important document in it. Well....perhaps 2012 is the year where I both make a bag of tax documents and fill it.

Happy 2012 ya'll!