christmas list '09

i have received the annual "christmas list" requests and have no clue what to reply. i can't think of a darn thing that i need. the few things i want include big ticket items like a flatter yard, a new room off the back of the house, a new roof, and a garage door. so i don't think i'll be putting those things on the list. and as far as the kids go...there is nothing they need, and they're having a hard time thinking of things they even WANT! well...except cana, who wants a cell phone. you know...because its not quite the same to call friends on a regular old house phone. how boring is that! judah has only mentioned legos, but how many legos does a boy need? they all look the same to me. plus he has his birthday december 2nd. eden has requested fake nails and lip gloss so that she may use them at her birthday party. (her birthday is in MAY) simone says she would like a pink beaver and some makeup, but i am pretty sure that she is just listening to her older sisters talk. she has no clue what making a christmas list is all about. and nadia says she wants some bigger cloth diapers, which is a very practical, legitimate request in my opinion. its just so hard to think of items to put on a list when there is nothing at all that we really need. so, if you have any good ideas of what i might want to ask for for christmas this year, feel free to let me know!

Sweet Pea

Sweet Pea Turner

May 5, 2009-November 8, 2009

Our Beloved Kitten

"Follow" (mama kitty) went into labor early in the day on monday, may 4, but there were still no kittens by the end o the day. it must have been a difficult labor. on tuesday morning, around 8:30 am, Sweet Pea was born. in the hours following, four more kittens were born but never took their first breath. eden sat and prayed that they would live, but sweet pea was the lone survivor of what could have possibly been a difficult pregnancy and labor for this first-time mama kitty. until about a month ago, the kids were sure sweet pea was a girl. but as it turns out, "she" was a "HE". nevertheless, eden carried sweet pea around endlessly...dressing her/him in clothes, taking her/him on stroller rides, and most definitely overfeeding her/him. his wish was her command! first thing in the morning, eden went out to find sweet pea to hold him and love him. ironically, she is the one who found that he had been hit on the road last night. she said something just told her to look outside, and although it was nearly dark, she saw his still body lying on the road. dustin said she screamed like she was being murdered, "SWEET PEA'S DEAD...SWEET PEA IS DEAD..." over and over. it seems quite possible that he did die suddenly as he was hit by a car. a house too close to the road, drivers who drive too fast, and a black cat at dusk...a deadly mix. the kids spent the next hours drawing memorial pictures and writing notes to sweet pea. eden sealed hers in a plastic box with packing tape around it so that it could be buried with him. she went to sleep hugging titus, claiming that he would have to be her "new best friend".

Last words to Sweet Pea

"you were the best kitty in the world and always will be. i will miss playing with you. you always made me laugh when you and titus wrestled. everyone loved you..." cana

"i'm sorry you died sweet pea. i will always remember you. and i will always love you and you will always make me happy." judah

"we love you sweet pea and i will always remember you and i will miss you and never forget you." eden

"sweet pea you should go to the animal doctor." simone

sabbath rest

i love fridays. not because the week is gone but because of what is ahead. we call friday "sabbath preparation". we get the house spic 'n' span, school finished, food simplified, and settle down for our day of rest. there is just something so peaceful and mysterious in the knowledge that there is one day set aside at the end of the week to just REST. i wonder what god was thinking as he completed his work towards the end of that 6th day. did he pre-plan his rest, or did it just occur to him in the moment that creation was finished and he still had a day left with nothing to do? i tend to think it was planned from the beginning of time. it just makes sense. in our american lives we rush here and there and everywhere, and i hear so many people say, "rest?? what is that??" all the more reason to take a day. and truly, if god himself took a day to rest from his work, how silly of our human minds to think we can survive without it.

"so, god...i look ahead to tomorrow. thank you for our week and thank you for this day of rest. you bring us peace. you are lord and your mercy endures forever. amen"

ma katy plays yahtzee

if i believed in reincarnation, i'd say that a good portion of ma katy has been reincarnated in simone kathryn-ruth. from about the time she had words, simone has been very intrigued with ma katy. she will ask, "when is ma katy coming back?" "is ma katy still sick?" ""what is ma katy doing today?" she told me once, "ma katy isn't dead". and i said, "where is she?", to which simone pounded on her chest and replied, "in my heart". i think that simone looks like ma katy. i imagine her growing up with dark wavy hair and a narrow mouth with a slight overbite. she reminds me of ma katy in the way she thinks and acts. she is quick to say what she thinks in any given situation. maybe its just because she's three, but after having three other three-year-olds, i am pretty certain it is a characteristic unique to simone. simone is confident, bold, and quirky. she often looks in the mirror and says, "i'm beautiful. i love myself". she states that when she grows up she will "drink beer". now i don't think i ever saw ma katy drinking beer, but i disctinctly remember her telling me that everyone SHOULD drink beer so that they wouldn't be so crabby! i always thought that was funny when she'd tell me that! the clincher happened a few weeks ago. we were walking home from church, and simone was talking about ma katy as she often does. i was asking her questions like
"do you love ma katy?"
"yes."
"is ma barbie going to live in ma katy's house?"
"yes."
what does ma katy like to do?"
"play yahtzee."

her answer to my last question stopped me in my tracks. there is no way in the world simone would have ANY clue that ma katy loved to play yahtzee. where did simone's answer come from? ma katy is the one who TAUGHT me to play yahtzee. i remember beating her and her making me play again so that she'd have another shot at winning. i remember her sending Poppop to the store for more scorecards in the middle of the evening so that we could keep playing. so yes simone, you're right...ma katy DOES like to play yahtzee. now the true test might be when we sit down to play the game with simone in a few years--will she already know how to play?

once a year rant

mark it down folks. this is a rant. i don't often behave this way in public, but you know...today is just one of those kinds of days. i am seriously wondering why it is that teachers are paid so little that a person can not work as a teacher in the public schools of our state and be able to provide for his/her family as a one-income wage earner. has it always been this way? if so, i just don't understand it. i mean, i teach three kids everyday...for about 3 hours, and i'm worn out. who says to teach is not work? obviously the person who has never done it! it seems like it ought to count for more than poverty level income for a man or a woman to go to work 40 hours a week within our state's schools and teach the next generation. oh...is it the summers off? gosh...you know...with all that money they make through a school year, i'm sure teachers just have it made and can sit on their butts and do nothing all summer! yeah right...the one that chooses this profession to earn a living is out working in the summer to try to make up the difference for the rest of the year! not just in the summer either! he/she must take a second or even third job after school and on weekends just to earn above poverty level. is the degree not legit? why go to school for four years and then pay thousands for a graduate degree so that you can rise above the poverty level income if you could just go down the road and get paid almost double to ____________??? i'm not even going to fill in the blank b/c this isn't to rip on the jobs of others or meant to de-value what they do. my point is that i believe that teachers in our public school systems are under-valued, thus under-paid. come to think of it, maybe its that the idea that a man should be able to go out and provide for his family so that his wife can stay home and nurture and educate the children has become archaic???? has our school system become a place for women to go and get jobs? women that are the second wage earners in their family? maybe so. heck...it'd be a GOOD second income! but for the love of pete, when i type in the numbers and find that our family can qualify for $500 in food stamps because we are that far below poverty level, it just seems like there's a problem!!! is it the 6 kids??? maybe. so, i re-did the screening and indicated that i had "only" three kids, and we still qualify for $300 a month is food assistance. granted, i'd never take it, but still...come on! maybe i should have stuck at the national average of 1.8 children, put them in daycare, and gone to work as a teacher. is that really what family's have to do to make it these days? its sad. so sad. it makes my heart ache. even as i am starting out the day as a full-fledged pessimist, i will choose to thank God that He alone is truth and justice and goodness. He is my strength and my refuge. i am safe to put my trust in Him. i have no doubts that we are right where we need to be for this season. but gosh...its just frustrating sometimes. my once a year rant is over--you won't hear it again.

dress up

this year was the first year in a long time that i did not dress up for halloween. i just couldn't get into it for some reason. at the last minute i put on something of a costume that i thought was hilarious, but i just couldn't get out of the house with it on. nevertheless, the kids had fun, and we have enough candy to last us until easter! they each decided what they wanted to dress up as. cana was our prom queen, judah a "professional" mountaineer basketball player, eden an animal doctor, simone a "barina", and nadia (she didn't really choose) was a penguin.

the funniest thing of the trick or treat evening was when eden saw a real dog and ran over to it. it was a tiny tiny little yappy thing. it was going crazy, and eden was just kissing it and petting it. she said to the owner, "i'm an animal doctor", and the lady replied, "well, then if you give him [the dog] a shot, maybe he'll calm down". so eden reached in her pocket and pulled out her syringe and proceeded to hold the dog down and give it a "shot"! by this time everyone around was watching and laughing, and eden was just taking her job as serious as could be!! oh eden...you make mama smile!!! :)

rescue

most of my life i have heard about being "saved". who's "saved" and who's not, pray to be "saved", stay "saved", saved, saved, saved. "saved" from WHAT? saved from hell, i suppose? you hear it so much that it becomes as mundane as the commericial on TV that repeats itself every 10 minutes. i admit there was a time when my heart became hard to the notion of being "saved". it just didn't seem to be that one could pray a prayer and receive his/her ticket to heaven, thus being "saved" from hell. i became a skeptic.

god met me in my skepticism. over time, my eyes have come open to see--or at least BEGIN to see--my need to be "saved". so, if someone would ask me if i am saved, i would reply, "yes...i have been rescued. many times. and probably will be again." for whatever reason, god in his mercy, chose to rescue...to SAVE me. even when i didn't see the danger and when i didn't believe.

god has literally picked me up--rescued me--many times in my life. he surrounded me with love in my high school years and rescued me from a life of rebellion. a few years later, through heartbreaking circumstances, he rescued me from what could have potentially been a crippling relationship. he took me to a safe place for many years where i could learn to love my husband and to be a wife and mother. and then from that place he rescued me from a church situation that could have killed my faith. these are major examples that i have come to see god's hand in my life. but i'm sure to there are the everyday things that i have no idea how god came to deliver me--to rescue me.

i'm still not sure about the whole notion of getting my ticket to heaven. if thats true, then great. but what matters more to me is that i have one who sees me here in this lifetime and watches out for me. in his grace and in his might, he deems me worthy of being rescued. i will offer my devotion to him and pray that i would not "neglect so great a salvation". his ways are higher than mine--his thoughts above mine. many aspects of god i will never understand. but i hope that even in my short-sightedness and ignorance, i will continue to be able to see evidence of god's rescue from the beginning of time to today and to put my trust in it for tomorrow.