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

Make a Smilebox slideshow

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 :)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

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!