13

I am not typically superstitious, but I would say the 13th had its way with us this weekend.  Two of the worst happenings I can not even mention in a public setting, but you can trust me when I say they took it out of me.  Third, we found out that its true...our computer is toast.  That means I lost about 10,000 pictures and all of mine and Dustin's school work.  Fourth, the furnace quit on the coldest day we had had this year.  Fifth, I wrecked the car--my first car accident ever.  I always thought it would be fun to race a car, but as I did a 180 in the highway at 45 mph, I decided that I prefer slow drives on a dirt road to anything fast and spinny.  Sixth, my childhood pet died.  Daisy was sixteen years old and my mom's faithful companion.  My mom has this way of making pets sort of people-like, so its fairly accurate to say that Daisy was a kind of "sister" to me.

We ended the weekend with a birthday celebration for my grandpa, which helped me put things into perspective.  Kids running like crazy, fits galore when candy was denied, playful shouts from the basement toy room,  and enough food to feed an army makes for a great gathering to honor Pa.  If "all's well that ends well" then all. is. well.  I have a  new computer, the house is warm again,  I was unharmed in what could have been a tragic car accident, and Daisy's life as a dog was long and meaningful.

Happy 83rd Birthday Pa!!  

God-willing

Have I mentioned before that I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up?  Maybe a better way to say that would be that I'm now grown up and trying to figure out HOW to do what I want to be!!  I am a college drop out.  I got married young.  I have been pregnant for most of the past thirteen years.  In the eyes and mind of many, I put the cart before the horse and now I'm paying the price.  I am reading a book that has an excellent excellent quote that I've been thinking about for several days, "It seems as many of us grow older, we come to find out which passions faded away because they were birthed out of our humanity, while what has remained may be a confirmation that it was birthed within our spirits". (from Writings From Outside the Camp by Fred London)  Its so true.  I can't imagine what I must have been thinking as an 18 year old graduating from high school.  Its no wonder I quit college!  If I wonder now about my life, my gifts, my callings at 34 years old, how much more clueless was I then?  Thankfully, as I have grown older I have discovered more about myself.  The problem now is how to make it happen while caring for a young family who need my devotion of time and attention.  I have recently enrolled in school to finish my basic degree that I started fifteen years ago, and God-willing I will finish this time in about a year.   Beyond that I want to study midwifery.  I dream of being stealthy and strong like the Hebrew midwives.  I imagine catching babies in mud huts in West Africa and on thatch floors in southeast Asia.  I follow a blog:  midwife4jesus.blogspot.com that I often have to stop reading for the weight of compassion and prayer I feel for this woman.  It makes me dizzy trying to figure out how this will happen.  Part of the problem is that I lack patience.   I am resolving (or at least attempting to resolve) to rest and to be all here-- where I am right now...to be a faithful and present mother to my children, and in time I believe these other dreams will work themselves out.  God-willing.

A Look Back at the Highlights

Five months later...I'm back!!  I tried to just let it go, but I can't seem to continue on into the new year until I've done a proper year end review of 2011.  I'll start by saying that my resolution for 2011 was that I would keep my room clean.  I really really really want a new bed and sheets.  And maybe a wall decoration of some sort.  BUT, i vowed to myself that I would NOT buy anything for my bedroom unless I could be a good steward of what I already have, hence my resolution.  I have to say, I would not give myself an A...maybe a low B, but not any higher.  However, I did do better than what I imagined I would.  My room is never really dirty...just messy.  I tend to six kids and all their stuff and clean the rest of the house, so I have always figured that if my room is at the bottom of the list that its ok.  I will continue on though with my resolution because I have liked sleeping in a neater space.  Also, it truly is the desire of my heart to care for what I have, so its good discipline.  And as for the bed and bedding...I'm currently taking donations.  Ha!

2011 Highlights...
--January snow days
--Reuben's 1st birthday
--Kids in sports--I love going to their games!! 
--Superb homeschool evaluations
--Planning trip to Peru for church kids (although it would be nice to actually GO on the trip with them!)
--Sibling Phish concert in Cincinatti
--DeLaney/Dobson visit (except for the poison ivy). 
--Taking my kids to Illinois for a week with cousins
--Spring and summer drives in the country
--Anniversary trip to Pittsburgh
--Kids enrolling and for the most part doing well in public school
--My garage sale--I love sitting in my garage chatting with people all day long
--Receiving word that Dustin's grievance was granted
--Birthday weekend celebration with friends in Oklahoma
--Planning and attending KayCee's wedding. (this is obviously the highlight of all highlights, but I am going in chronological order!!)
--Another year of no cavities for the Turner family
--Enrolling in college to (finally) finish school
--Mountaineer football games
--Holidays with my family and with Dustin's family

As far as 2012 goes, the only resolution that I can think of is that I will knit 100 dishrags.  That is not really anything spectacular, as I have done this before.  But, I've been out of the discipline of quieting myself to knit this year, so I will knit four rags a month and try to use up all my yarn.  I will not buy any more new yarn until I use what I have.  Oh...and you can almost guess what everyone will be getting for Christmas next year. 

Aged to Perfection

 Dustin has often commented that I have too many shoes and clothes, but really I don't.  Its just a collection of items that I have accumulated over the past decade +.  I seriously do wear things until they fall apart or get lost.  In an attempt to "prove"this to him, I took inventory of some of the items in my closet.  Some of the highlights...

My very favorite shoes...April 2001-November 2010:  Cause of death:  campfire

I don't have a picture of them new, but I bought them when I was pregnant with Judah, and I have worn them year-round in several countries and many states--over the river and through the woods.  Finally, this fall I was visiting a friend in Oklahoma, sitting around campfire, and smelled a really funny smell.  We thought someone was burning tires nearby.  Eventually when my feet started smoking, I realized that it was not tires, but rather my sandals that were melting.  I suppose I could have kept wearing them, but rather I used it as an excuse to let my mom buy me a shiny new pair for my birthday.   It was a good ten year run for the dear old Birkenstocks, and I expect these new ones to last even longer because I will remember not to put my feet too close to a fire. 

 

My very favorite tshirt...January 1996-current

This tshirt was given to me by my first youth pastor, and its what got me thinking about this blog this morning.  I still wear it all the time, and this morning I thought, "wow...this shirt is getting THIN!".  As the picture indicates, the shirt has faded considerably and its wearer grown larger over the past 15 years!

My favorite backpack...sometime 1994-current

I bought this backpack in 10th grade because I wanted a new backpack for our consolidation with Sistersville.  Like my shoes, its been around the world and carried everything from school supplies to poopy diapers. Sometimes I WISH it'd wear out so I could buy a new one, and at the same time I'm trying to convince Cana to buy one just like it so we won't have to buy her another backpack while she's under this roof!  Sadly, she doesn't like the thought of not getting to buy a new one for high school here in a few years.

 

So, yes...while my closet IS full, I am confident that neither do buy extra "stuff",  nor am I a hoarder.  I simply know what I like, what will last, and I keep things for a long, long time.    

Morning Fog

The windows in my house are fogged because of the heat and humidity outside compared to the cool inside temps.  That is a true sign of the times we are living in...late July in West Virginia!  Occasionally I like to pretend I am in a remote jungle somewhere.  I leave the windows open and fans off, lay in bed and sweat, and refuse to kill bugs.  I make rice for supper and wash my hair in the rain.  However, right now with THIS jungle weather, I am a wuss with the air conditioning on.

A couple months, a couple trips, and a couple (or rather, a few) birthdays have passed since my last blog about Eden's birthday!  Dustin traveled to Peru with the youth group from church, and while he was gone I entertained my "bff" for two weeks and then took the kids to visit with my brother and his family in Illinois.  Nadia celebrated her 3rd birthday in Illinois for the second year in a row.  We all (including Dustin) arrived back home on the 3rd of July, and Simone had her 5th birthday on the 7th.  Six days later we had a wonderful dinner of turkey vegetable soup in honor of the end of Dustin's 34th year.  A week later we took the kids for a short weekend vacation to Cincinnati to visit the Creation Museum and Cincinnati zoo.  And now we are back home (again) to relax for the next few weeks of summer before school begins.

My pastor has referred to a quote a couple times lately that says something to the effect of "true mental health is a commitment to reality..."  I've been thinking about the truth in that statement, and reality for me, among many things, is that I am blessed.

Eden's 8!

Eight years ago today, I came home from the hospital following Eden's birth. Which means that this past weekend we celebrated EIGHT years of Eden's life!  Blogging slacker that I am, I somehow manage to at least give the kids a blog on their birthdays!  The weekend began with a slumber party.  I can think of about a million things I'd rather do than host slumber parties, but its a small price to pay to see my kids have such fun.  Eden and her friends danced and danced, and when I thought I'd heard enough music and smelled enough perfume, we loaded up in the van and went to the park.  Everyone came home thoroughly dirty and exhausted. Showers, a movie, ice cream, and sleepbags on the floor rounded out the evening.

Saturday was Eden's day.  She took full advantage of it by starting most sentences with, "since today's my birthday can i..."?  After a much needed nap, we loaded up to take the party to Uncle Dougie's house.  Luke was in to help Doug work on the roof, so they watched the party from up there, but the rest of us had a glorious evening watching the kids play in Doug and Virginia's back yard.  I think I was more excited than she was for present opening because I was so excited to see her face when she opened her present.  With six kids, its impossible that any one kid gets an expensive electronic (or even non electronic) gadget. Plus, I'm just not into kids having their noses in a screen all day.   Cana bought her own IPOD touch.  They all share the Wii, and the time spent on both of those is pretty limited.  All Eden has wanted for birthdays and Christmas for the past two years is a Nintendo DS.   I have looked at them, and I knew there was no way I could ever spend that much on just one kid.  Again this year, it was her only request.  So, I began looking on ebay, and I finally found one that was reasonably priced and like new!  And it was PINK...Eden's favorite color!   It came in the mail a week before her birthday, and I was just giddy all week thinking of how excited she would be.  And excited she was...

And now to boast on Eden, my little Edie Beetle.   Eden is a spitfire of a girl who doesn't have much fear or inhibition at all.  Being the personality I am, I sometimes try to curb that temperment in her, but I also am beginning to see that she will get things, know people, and experience things in life that I probably never will because she's not afraid to ask questions.  She doesn't fear rejection or being told no.  She is bold and full of courage.  Eden is as compassionate as she is bold, and has a tender heart especially for animals and children (and men over 60, but thats another story).  She can spend hours creating games for her younger siblings, and is very creative.  What Eden lacks in size she makes up for in personality and love for people. I am thankful for her life and for God's gifts in her. 

Happy Birthday Eden!! 

Placenta Tree

The inspiration for my next tattoo has been the "placenta" tree that grows across the road from my house.  I have been fascinated with this tree for six years and have never seen another that so closely resembles the "tree of life" that is found on the inside of a placenta.  My original plan was to get the tattoo before I was pregnant with Nadia.  My sister in law drew some tattoo ideas for me, and I ended up pregnant sooner than I thought and had to postpone the tattoo.

Plan B was to make a print of my real placenta after Nadia was born and then get a tattoo of my placenta print.  I had photographed my friend Brandy's placenta when her son was born in 2006, so I knew what a perfect tree of life could be found on the inside.  I studied how to make the perfect print of my own placenta.

However, after Nadia was born, my placenta was less than ideal.  It was shredded and had to be fished out of me in pieces with extra large tweezer-looking things.  Thankfully it sustained Nadia's life, but there was no way it would make a good print for a tattoo!

My placenta after Reuben was a bit "old" to make a good print, and while I planned to keep it to plant it or dehydrate it, it somehow came up missing from my refrigerator.  (Could that be b/c I have a husband who LOVES to throw things away???)  So now I'm back to plan A of using the inspiration of my neighboring "placenta" tree and Rachel's creativity to come up with a tattoo design.  The tree of life on the inside of a placenta is one of the most marvelous mysteries of God.  I have tree of life shirts, earrings, pictures, necklaces, but I do believe it needs to be a permanent mark on my body.  To me it represents the miracle of birth and the truly miraculous design of God.