Decade

Dear 1999 Rachel,

So...you are a happily married mother of two. By the time this decade is over you will be a happily married mother of three and stepmother of four. I know this seems impossible but trust me.

A few years from now, you will give your life to Christ. In the big scheme of things, this is the biggest decision you will ever make. You and Ryan will start attending a church. This will be important later. You will decide to have one more baby. That was a really good decision too. A year after that, Ryan will leave you for the choir leader at his dad's church. I know this seems impossible but trust me.

Your life will completely fall apart for a while. You will have to beg for a job. You will have to leave your kids while you work. You will miss a lot of important things. You will not remember your baby's first steps. This will always make you sad. The church you joined, along with both sides of your family will sustain you in every way possible. Your faith will deepen, mature and flourish during this dark time. I know this seems impossible but trust me.

Several years after the divorce, you will reach a very lonely place. You will start looking for dates online. You will date some very strange people. Most of them only once, thank God. You will give up on internet romance. You will sit home alone for a while. You will give the eHarmony thing one more chance when they offer you three months free. You will meet Kevin. He will actually call you back after the first date. I know this seems impossible but trust me.

You and Kevin will date for a couple of years. He has kids. You have kids. Dating will be a pain because you live in different cities. In 2008, you will get married...again. You will move, quit your job and start doing a lot of laundry. You will get a dog. It will smell bad and destroy your house. You will love it anyway. You will get two step-teens. They will smell bad and destroy your house. You will love them anyway.

You will look back on this decade and be absolutely amazed at what God has done in your life. You will be happy. I know this seems impossible but trust me.

Love,
2009 Rachel

Book Review

This book was magic.

I have been in a reading slump. For some reason I thought participating in three bible studies this fall was a good idea. I learned a lot and I don't regret a minute of it but it certainly set severe limits on my fiction reading. When all my studies wrapped up in November, I was excited to get a few weeks off to recharge.

Much to my chagrin, I made one fruitless trip to the library after another. Each time I would return with an armload of books (Is anything in the world better than an armload of books, I ask you?) And each time I would find that none of those books could interest me in the least. I began to worry. Was it me? Had three months immersed in bible study ruined me for trashy chick lit or glossy New York Times bestsellers?

Out of desperation, I ran into the library one Friday afternoon with Savannah. We were in a hurry so I grabbed the first book with an interesting cover and headed out the door. I began reading with a somewhat bad attitude. The prose seemed overly written for the first few pages. Once I gave in to it though this book was like soaking in a bubble bath while drinking hot chocolate and getting a foot massage.

It's a very short book and I finished it the next day at Monkey Joe's. In case you don't know, Monkey Joe's is an indoor jumpy type place where you pay large amounts of money to read a book while your kids run around like crazy people.

The book is about a restaraunt owner who gives a weekly cooking class. She is overly obsessed with food. I mean big time. Her class is filled with a variety of characters. This could have been a trite plot. Different people brought together to cook...blah, blah, blah. But it wasn't. It was stunningly original.

Here is my favorite part. A long married couple are taking the cooking class. A series of flashbacks reveals that 15 years into their marriage, the wife has an affair. She sits her husband down to reveal the affair and to tell him that she is leaving him. She says that as she sits there looking at him, she realizes how much she is about to hurt him. She says that,at that moment, she knew that she would kill anyone who would hurt her husband that much. So she reveals the affair and begs for forgiveness and reconciliation. That scene caused me to literally sob while sitting at a formica table in the jumpy place. I received a lot of curious stares...mostly from my children. That scene crystallizes the agony of adultery for me. The person who you trust the most to protect you and love you does the most painful thing imaginable to you. That will mess up your emotional equalibrium for a really long time.

There are lots of other stories embedded in this little book. They are all worth reading. Take some tissues if you plan to read it in public though.

Christmas 2009

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It only took 6 years

She's finally taken my place.

For the first time in thirteen years, I won't be spending Christmas with my ex-husband's family. Look...I get it. You're not supposed to celebrate holidays with your ex-husband's family. That doesn't mean it's not a hard habit to break.

From the very beginning of our divorce, I knew that someday Lia would completely replace me. Ryan's family always supported me and the girls in any way that they could. I could not have asked for more. But I always knew that eventually he would reconnect with them and that they would forgive him. That's how it should be. I know that. I was also a major instigator of that recovery process. I have been hounding both sides for quite a few years to head in this direction. And now that they have, they don't need me anymore.

Honestly, plenty of people still need me. I'm not trying to be pathetic here. I have a large family to love and be loved by. But some of the logistics are hard to clear up in my mind. When Ryan and I married, his brothers all had very young children. I watched them grow up. Am I still their aunt? Would I be invited or welcome at their graduations or weddings? Are they my ex-nieces and nephews? Can any one of them sit across that festive table from her without thinking of how she got there? Am I the only one who still thinks about it?

I think my new year's resolution is gonna be to not think about it anymore. I'll let you know how it goes.

Christmas Parties and Programs

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Quoted

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell

More Lunch

I may have mentioned that I go to eat lunch with the girls at school from time to time. For Ava, it is a joyous experience. For Kaylee and Anna, it is a nice change from the regular school day. For Katie...it is a tolerable situation. I rate way under a lunch visit with her mom, dad, or brother and just above lunch with her regular classmates. That seems just about right to me :)

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Book Review

This was one of those books. You know...the kind of books that everyone reads, reviews and talks about. The kind that are habitually on request at the library. As usual with these kinds of books, I didn't get a chance to read it until years after the hoopla settled down. (I won't request a book at the library. I just wait til it shows up on the shelf. And, no, I have no idea why I do this.) More often than not, I am disappointed by very popular books. Not this one. This book was worth buying which is high praise indeed coming from me.

It's a simple story really. A female journalist begins a correspondence with a group of people living on a small island off the English coast just after WWII. The book is composed entirely of letters which can either be awesome or horrible depending on the author. In this case, it worked like a charm. I picked out all my favorite quotes but out of an abundance of restraint, I'm only gonna post a few of them.

"Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life."
Amen, sister

"Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books."
Yep...

"I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with."
That is one of the truest things I have ever read in my entire friggin life.

"So it says in my Encyclopedia, but I bought it secondhand for 4 shillings and I don't trust it."

"My neighbor Evangeline Smythe is going to have twins in June. She is none too happy about it, so I am going to ask her to give one of them to me."

"With the Germans you never knew which way they'd blow - they were a moody people."

" I think you learn more if you are laughing at the same time."

Quoted

"Marriages fail because of how right it feels to justify sinful responses to sin."

- John Piper

Memo from Mama

Never miss an opportunity to use your punch bowl. Punch bowls are festive. Everybody loves punch. You could bring punch to a funeral and people would be happy.

The Price for Beauty

You can see why Katie has decided that she likes the curling iron better. We'll save the hot rollers for when her head gets bigger.



Meanwhile, Ava got just the 'Charlie's Angels" look she was going for.

Consider Yourself Warned!

Quoted

"I'm Irish, which means i have 2 emotions: angry & asleep."
- Mark Driscoll

Jelly Bean Pt 1

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Quoted

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."

Mark Twain

Scenes from Kline Manor

Kaylee: "Mom, what kind of voice does Anna have again?"

Me: "She's an alto."

Kaylee: "The choir director said I am a soprano."

Katie: " I'm a Leo."

Memo from Mama

Today is the 20th anniversary of my first kiss. This is why you need to choose wisely regarding your 'firsts'. Some things you will remember with laughter. Some with tears. But you will remember. Be particular.

Quoted

"Republicans drove the country into a ditch and now they are complaining about the cost of the tow truck"

Jim Cornette

Happy Birthday Kevin!

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Quoted

"The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out."

George Carlin

Cheekwood Pt 2

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Cheekwood Pt 1

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Quoted

"Hell makes sense. Heaven is scandalous."

- Mark Driscoll

Savannah's Road Trip

When Kevin and I met, he told me about this tradition he had of taking his kids(individually) on some kind of trip once they were in the fifth grade. I loved the idea but as a working, single mom I never considered the possibility of being able to do it with my own children. Once Kevin and I got married and I quit my job, it was much easier to manage.

I honestly have not been alone with Savannah since she was 1 year and 5 days old. (That's when Kaylee was born.) She's a really great kid and as my oldest, she takes on a lot of work around here. She is so responsible that I end up asking her to do more just because I know she will do it without complaint. I'm trying to get better at delegating but I'm failing most of the time. Luckily, Savannah understands...or I hope she does.


We got a late start planning the trip so we didn't end up going until she was in sixth grade. We attended a Beth Moore Living Proof event in Memphis, TN. Savannah is probably the only eleven year old girl I would ever consider taking to a bible conference. She is so spiritually mature. It astounds me. It amuses me. It gives me hope for the other kids :)


The conference started on Friday night and continued through Saturday morning. I got lost in Memphis several times. We ate very late dinners at the IHOP and we saw Fame (a truly horrible movie) in a very scuzzy theater. And we had a fantastic time.

Quoted

"Without love, benevolence becomes egotism."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

2009

The summer that we got




Yeah...I know. Summer is long over. I'm behind on my blogging. Sue me.

Anyway...

I once worked with a girl who loved the Lost tv series. She talked about it all the ding dong day. At the time, I think it aired on Wednesday nights so I never got a chance to watch it beacuse it conflicted with church. Fast forward five years later and I added the available seasons to my Netflix queue. This is what I assumed would happen. Kevin and I and some of the kids would watch a few episodes. Eventually they would get sick of it and I would end up watching the rest on my computer by myself.

I was big time wrong. We watched the first episode which, of course, involoves the plane crash. My kids ran upstairs and refused to watch anymore. Kevin, Katie, Emily and I kept watching. Eventually all the kids ended up on the couch as we made it through several more episodes. Because school was out, we could watch two to three episodes per night. Somewhere in that first season, we became obsessed. Especially the little girls.

All their pretend play at the lake, in the backyard, etc, was entirely focused on Lost. Charlie, Sayid, Sawyer, Jack and Hurley became household names. We talked about them at dinner as if they were real people. Kevin would walk into the bathroom at night as I was brushing my teeth asking what I thought about a particular scenario and we would spend an hour debating a friggin television show.

The best/worst part was the weeks where we could not watch at all. Since Anna and Katie are only here every other week, we had to hold off watching any episodes while they were gone. When it was their Sunday night to come back to our house, all five of them and often Kevin would pester me with constant cries of "When are we gonna watch Lost?" We very nearly broke our 'no tv during dinner rule'.

I feel like we are a pretty close family and I know it's strange but somehow, this tv show made us closer. We laughed a lot. We cried a little (Charlie's death was very hard on Anna and me especially :) And we all waited for the logo to appear at the end of every episode so we could hear Ava say 'Lost" (She does this really creepy voice. You had to be there.)

And now we begin the long wait until the next season is released in December. At that time we will gorge ourselves on those episodes and await the final season which is supposed to air sometime in 2010.

I almost wish it would never end.

Quoted

"A society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women."

C.S. Lewis

Book Review - Summer Confession Series

I know it's not summer anymore but I felt the need to explain the shortage of book reviews for the past few months. I made an innocent mistake and ordered the Sookie Stackhouse novels. (You know - the ones that are the basis for the True Blood series on HBO?)



These books are like Tootsie Rolls. No nutritional value at all yet I could not stop until the bag was empty. The stories center on a white trash barmaid named Sookie Stackhouse and her vampire boyfriend. I know vampires are ubiquitous right now. It's not my fault. Also, why aren't more books written about white trash barmaids? They should be.

So, no, I still haven't got around to reading 100 Years of Solitude but I still have loads of time before the new year. And in my defense, these books have werewolves and shapeshifters in 'em. How was I supposed to NOT read them all?

Quoted

"You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into."

- Jonathan Swift

Lunch

Being unemployed means that I am lucky enough to get to eat lunch with the girls at school every now and again. It's a simple little thing that I bet most career housewives take for granted. I missed a lot of lunches...and programs...and everything else for a long time. I'm trying hard to make up for lost time.

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Quoted

"Sean Hannity...he's the guy who put the 'a' in moron"

- Jed Lewison

Wacky? Tacky? You decide.

Nobody



does



Wacky-Tacky



day



quite



like



Emily.

Quoted

"This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected."

Barack Obama

Don't Wake Daddy!!!

Kevin has always been a napper. I have watched him fall asleep in cars, at the zoo, on airplanes and just about any other scenario you can imagine. To be honest, I mostly accept that all men are just lazy. It doesn't really bother me. So from the beginning of my relationship with Kevin, I just assumed he was a little bit lazy and he really liked to nap. I like swiss cake rolls. We all have our own nonsense. It wasn't a big deal.

After we got married though I began to notice something odd. Kevin didn't just like naps, he seemed to be unable to function without one. We slept late one Sunday morning. By early that afternoon, he was literally falling asleep at his computer. That's not laziness, my friend.

My job at Vandy had exposed me to myriad cases of sleep apnea so Kevin scheduled a sleep study. It turns out he was having apnea episodes every 90 seconds or so. Imagine if someone poked you hard enough to wake you up every minute and a half throughout the night. Chances are you'd probably need a nap or two to make it through the day.

We investigated some surgical options but ended up going with the standard sleep apnea treatment... the CPAP. So far, it seems to be helping a great deal. He can still take a nap if he wants to. Apnea could have killed him. Laziness doesn't seem like that big a deal in comparison.

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Quoted

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

--M. L. King

Cell Phone Boredom

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Quoted

You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.

- Anne Lamott

Happy Birthday to me!

36 years

I celebrated this birthday surrounded by my wonderful family and my slobbery basset hound. Kevin bought me many fine presents. We had ice cream cake.

What more could you possibly desire?

(I mean, except for a new vaccuum cleaner, which is a given, right?)

Because I'm middle aged now and I can do what I want, prepare for dozens of basset pics.


see more dog and puppy pictures

see more dog and puppy pictures

see more dog and puppy pictures

see more dog and puppy pictures

see more dog and puppy pictures

Book Review

I haz been led astray.

One of my favorite book bloggers gave this book a great review. I trust her implicitly. She has never disappointed me...until now.

This book is teh suck.

Where to start? The book is about a family that employs a young woman to care for their adult son. It is set mainly in the late 60's and is told as a memoir of sorts by the main character. The adult son suffers from some kind of autism. (I'm guessing here. They never reveal his actual ailment.) The elderly mother keeps the son doped up most of the time. The nanny's name is Kerstin. Only it's pronounced "Shastin". No, I don't know why but it's one of the most annoying aspects of the book. The fact that her employer will not pronounce the nanny's name correctly is an important characteristic of the mother's personality. Unfortunately, the author thought it was so important that she mentioned it about every three pages. Seriously, Barbara...we get it. The mom's an insensitive biatch. Move on.

In like fashion, the author is CONSTANTLY reminding the reader of the time setting of the book. Within the first pages, you realize that the main character is living in present time and recalling her experiences during the 60's. This happens in lots of books. Most literate people have no trouble with this concept. But the author apparently thinks she is writing for a preschool audience because she continually reminds you of the disconnect. For example, Kerstin will call someone from a telephone and the author will point out that cell phones weren't available in 1960. Wow...thanks for letting us know. Kerstin is trying to research the condition of her charge and she must (gasp) go to a library. The author must point out that the internet was not widely used in the 1960's. Again...really?

I admit that the story was fairly interesting. Creepy old house, semi-crazy son locked in a weird library, crazy sisters, odd little love affairs and a murder sound like they are gonna converge into one awesome book. And they might have if the author hadn't ruined all the fun with her pedantic nonsense.

Quoted

"I really don't understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane."

- John Cole

Jamie?

Just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. How bout you call me, huh? My cell number is the same. I miss you and your nutty family. Hope everyone is well.

365

And they said we would never last...

I could write a long, mushy post about my marriage to Kevin. Seriously. Don't think I can't. I mean it.

I'd rather give you a glimpse into why our union is so precious.

A few weeks ago, as we were getting ready for bed, I said "I'm worried about Pakistan." Kevin agreed with me and we proceeded to have a 45 minute conversation about tribal versus industrial military conflicts in Pakistan.

I know.

We're friggin weird.

Happy first anniversary my love. I'll never get enough of you but I'm damn sure gonna try.

Quoted

"The true measure of a man's character lies not in how he treats his friends, but in how he treats his enemies."

Jelly Bean

I am not a pet person. There. I said it.

I don't dislike animals. I would never want to see one hurt or abused. I just never understood people who treated animals equal to people. I just didn't get the doggie halloween costumes and car seats and other assorted nonsense that seems to go hand in hand with pets that get treated like children.

Then a funny thing happened. We got a puppy.

Something strange has happened to me. I have fallen in love with a friggin dog. Yeah... I said it. I love this stupid dog.

I love that she runs up the steps and has no idea how to get down.


I love that she goes apes**t bananas at the vet.


I love that she gets excited when the girls wake up.


I love that she smells bad even after she has a bath.


I love that she steps all over her long ears when she walks.


I love that she snores more than me.


And, yeah, I'm getting her a Halloween costume.