Bridgie's Dream Come True

She got to run her mile with Eddie Saturday night! Yay Bridge.


Coming in the Home Stretch

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Hebrews 12:1-3

Holland, Michigan

Beach, Blue Water, Blue Sky


Channel, Lighthouse, Sailboats


Kids, Sailboats, Horizon


Girls, Clear Water, Paddle Ball

Sing it to the tune of Raindrops on Roses... Just kidding. It was a beautiful afternoon though filled with a lot of favorite things.

Homerun Kitty

This morning, we got up bright and early to watch Edward run in the Homerun 5K over at Whitecaps Stadium. He seemed to be quite a bit better, but one never knows. We were greeted at the park by a balloon animal-making clown, and I felt so sorry for him because he had to be a clown so early in the morning! He came walking up to us and asked Ed what kind of animal he likes. "Kitty," I offered. So the clown made Ed a kitty as I chatted with him. When my kids were younger, they would have all been scared of the clown, so I'm used to doing the talking. He made me a flower bracelet in exchange.


Yes Andrea, that's a shadow of me taking his picture. I put that here for you!


Edward ran the race, but disappointingly, the prednazone he is on for his poison ivy was giving him severe nausea. He just missed getting a medal for his age group, so he settled for the balloon kitty today.

Pass the Calamine Lotion

Whenever I see a fleshy, bloody type injury or rash or bodily discomfort of any sort, I have pains that start tingling around my knees and shoot up my thigh really fast but they don't really hurt. They are probably some sort of sympathy pain. Strange, I know. Yesterday, I suffered a new type of sympathy pain - which I would like to call Psychosomatic Poison Ivy. Though Edward is looking better today and scratching less, I feel itchy all over!


Leo, preventing bedsores and hence, shooting pains

A Costly Romp in the Clover

Yesterday, Edward's eyes were looking puffy and he had a bit of a rash on his legs. It looked somewhat like poison ivy so I gave him some Benadryl and he used Ivy Dry. He seemed a bit better last evening and he went out and ran 8 miles.

Then this morning, he called me at work and told me he could hardly open his eyes. Now he never complains about anything - he runs 10 miles in 10 below temperature, runs up 200 foot dunes and runs 10 K in 95% humidity and NEVER misses school. So I knew it must be bad. I asked him if he could breathe. I called my mother-in-law. I left work and went right home to see it and what I discovered was confluent red edematous papules with edema and scattered crusts. In laymen's terms, he looked like an oval-shaped bowl of reddish oatmeal with 2 black eyelash slits for eyes and hair coming out of the top! His neck, chest, stomach & legs were covered, too. So we went to the doctor, she looked him over sympathetically, prescribed a 2 week dosage of prednisone, and checked his eyesight which was still better than 20/20 though a bit foggy.

Who has time to remember "leaves of 3, leave them be" when one is looking for one's golf ball in the weeds?

Words

Yesterday, the girls & I went to a 6 hour worship retreat with our pastors and a few other people from our church. It was held at one of their neighbor's house who had an indoor pool, so the girls mostly swam and listened while we talked. We swam a little too, but I have sort of become one of those mothers who does not like to get her hair wet. Sad, I know. During this time, we also went through a very unique process of coming up with the worship theme for the next several months.

We wrote words on cards, talked about the words, grouped the words, narrowed down the words, thought about the words while we ate supper, decided on the best word, and then branched out on this one word. This is a good opportunity to hear what people are thinking and to get to know them better. The word we chose was "unplugged." After talking about it some more, we went to different stations to write down stories, images, bible verses or ideas that went along with this word. The main idea behind "unplugged" is that we can be so plugged in to the noise of our culture (ipods, cell phones, TV, IM) but we should first plug in to God's Word.

As I thought about it more today, I realized that "unplugged" would correspond to the discipline of silence or solitude, where, as Dallas Willard says, one takes body & soul out of the circuits of sin and finds a new habitual orientation in the Kingdom. I think it's a pretty good metaphor. Bridget told me the other day that she likes this church because it's easy to understand and I was amazed at all the different things the girls recalled from our time there.

John said he missed a bloggable moment yesterday when he didn't have a camera so I will have to describe it to you in words. He took Edward to a Tiger game with 2 of his friends and in the 9th inning when the Tigers were losing, the boys put their "Rally Caps" on and clapped. A rally cap is your regular hat put on inside out and backwards. The Tigers still lost.

Quest to Columbus

If you are new to this blog, trust me, it's not always so corny. Summer is long and we are all ready for school to begin.

Once upon a time, there were 2 Wolverine princesses, both nick-named Nellie, but in true reality, they were Princess Maria and Princess Bridget. They had heard all their life about the great rivalry between the kingdoms of the Buckeye and the Wolverine. They didn't know anything about football, but they decided to go to the land of the Buckeye to see what was so great. The history of their quest has been recorded heretofore in this travelogue.

Upon their arrival in the land of the Buckeye, they were invited to tea with the Queen GrandMum and one of her Pages. The Queen GrandMum sent them on a quest to Columbus for there they were to seek the Holy Grail. Here the princesses would discover what was so truly great about this land.



They were first reacquainted with some of their blood kin and had to spend time frolicking with the puppies.



And they frolicked until the puppies grew tired whereupon they stuck their feet in the moat and rested with the puppies on their laps.



But soon they grew anxious to move on with their quest, so they joined hands with the blood kin and jumped the moat into the Velvet Castle.



Here they were greeted by their long lost Aunt Mary, who was the Queen of Sunbury. She thought she had an idea where the grail might be so she took them into the great castle with the great water wheel.



First, she fed them since they were hungry from their journey thus far.



While they were eating, Princess Bridget picked up the bright object lying nearby. "Could it be?" she inquired.



Princess Maria took the object. "Yes, it is this, the Holy Grail. Thank you, Aunt Mary-Queen of Sunbury and Queen GrandMum!"



The End.

Pass It On

Bridget's school has officially merged with another Christian school, so this fall, she will have a lot of new kids in her middle school class. She is very excited about this opportunity to meet new kids. This week, she is taking a 2 hour per day Study Skills class over at school in preparation for 6th grade with all the kids in the combined class.



What happened next kind of shocked my heart and made it melt in to my chest cavity. I received a call this afternoon from a mother of a 6th grade boy in Bridget's class. Now this can make one wonder what one did wrong or what one is about to be asked to do. I don't know this mother that well, but I do know her a little bit from some school activities. Anyway, this very perceptive mother went on to tell me what Bridget did. She thought it was so sad how the groups of girls were not interacting and then, she witnessed Bridget going over to the new girls to introduce herself. She said there was a clump of girls & mothers from one school standing in one place and a separate clump of girls & mothers from the other former school standing in another place, and Bridget bravely left her friends and walked up alone to the other clump and said, "Hi, I'm Bridget." This very kind mother wanted to pass that along since so often all that is passed along is the negative about kids, and I think that is really the best part of this post - that she took the time to pass it on.
Stay tuned for the Nellie Buckeye Travelogue.

Grace

We saw this beautiful bird out on our deck this afternoon and John found out it was the Northern Flicker. He had never seen one before (which also means I probably haven't since without him, my bird repertoire was a cardinal, a robin, a blue jay, oh, and a duck) so we watched it for awhile and then found it in the bird book. It was all quite exciting, and this quote which I wanted to put in here today goes with that quite well. Keep your eyes open!

There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hidden, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinating because of that, all the more compelling and haunting.

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.

In the boredom and the pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

Frederick Buechner

Yay, The Nellies Are Home!

This morning in preparation for the dear Nellie's return, I decided to clean the bathrooms. Now I know this isn't rocket science but I always dread it as such and wish I had one of these. I can't stop thinking of all the deoxiribonucleaic acid specimens and bacterial growths in the faint evidence of human waste lying under the toilet seat and I can feel it crawling somewhere in my subconscious and want to throw up my hands in mock horror and cry out "Biohazard, coming through." But when I complete the task, swipe-swipe-swish-swish with something that has OXYPOWER prominently slashed across the front of the bottle, I think, now why didn't I do that a long time ago so I could enjoy this cleanliness without the Nellies' new hairdroppings & hair product residue & clumps of toothpaste. This ordeal is nothing compared to the Boy's bathroom, but I will spare you the details. John had the pleasure of unclogging one of the drains, or as he said, it has been "De-nellied."

So we left after lunch to meet Mom & Dad at a place somewhere between GR and Celeryville to pick up the girls, aka Nellies. Mom thought Cabela's( or Cabelloce as she insists on calling it) was a good place to meet since it is just north of the Michigan border crossing. I was a little bit perplexed since she once called it something like that red-neck place. She must have had one of those, it's-so-grotesqe-yet-I-cannot-look-away moments when she decided we should meet there, so I hear her enthusiastically calling to Dad, "We're going to meet at Cabelloce!" It turned out to be really good though because we found one of those inflatable vests that blow up when you hit the water in case you should have a head injury while boating.



This is what the Nellie transfer looked like!

So we met them and I remembered to bring the present for Mom's birthday which occurred last May. I got her the book No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin because it's almost from her time and because she saw it at our house and liked it. I felt I needed to counteract the gravity of the book by putting it in a Victoria's Secret Bag which showed up in our closet where the gift bags are kept. Now, the experiences I have had in Victoria's Secret I can probably count on one hand, but I will tell you about my last and please skip the rest of this paragraph if you suffer from an over-sensitivity to "Too Much Information." I got this card in the mail for a free pair of panties, so I stuck it in my purse and thought, whatever. So one day, I was walking through the mall by Victoria's, and I recalled the card in my purse, so I walked in. They let me choose my own free pair of panties! The sales girl was kind enough to show me the different styles which consisted of bikini, string bikini, thong, and something else which must have been thread but I don't remember because I had already decided in my head to go for the biggest bikini. (What is unfathomable to me is that their biggest bikini is smaller than the typical ones I have worn all my life.) Then the kind sales lady asked me if I would also like $10 off on pink flannel pj pants since the purpose of the free pair of panties thing is to get you to buy more, but my eyes glazed over with the "we-already-spend-approximately-101% of our disposable income on school tuition" look. So whatever. It was fun.

But back to the Nelly reunion.


Mom, Maria, Bridget in front of the fishing poles

We looked around Cabela's, mainly at the inflatable vests and oars. Mom also got a chocolate bar for her stash. We arrived home by 7 pm and the girls did a little try-on party of some new clothes grandma got for them! So it was a fun day. Oh yeah, and we almost got attacked by some bears.

World of Bob

I received an e-mail from Bobbi this morning and I'm happy to say she said she started a blog (without the benefit of a 16 year old son to help expedite things)! That's a great way to pose with the Boy-Girl-Girl combo, by the way, Bob. So her blog name is World of Bob which you should check out. It's also listed on the right hand side here.
She lives in the same town as the singer Bethany Dillon - Bellefontaine - I love the name of that town! She also mentioned to me that her brother-in-law, Leif, is the youngest son of Eugene Peterson. Plus, she is a first cousin to me! I guess she's pretty well connected then.
I was just thinking that if Eugene & Leif had blogs, I would be just 3 blog clicks away from a man that translated the Bible. Wow.
(picture from World of Bob)

Gumby

For some reason, today I was thinking about the Gumby I got for my 5th birthday. I remember opening this present while sitting in the old greenish-bluish big chair in the basement where I spent the first 5 years of my life. I loved that Gumby because it was so unique and flexible and it kind of reminds me of Betty Spaghetti except that it was a little flat green guy with a half of a trapezoid for a head. I don't know what happened to it but I vaguely recall that the wires eventually worked their way through the rubber.

The Gumby Sisters posing for a photo.

So today, the Nellies went down to Columbus to tour an ice cream factory with their dear Aunt Mariannna. I hope they had fun. Meanwhile, I had to get my own ice cream :(

Nelly-rific

So our dear Nellies are down in Celeryville to spend a week with their awesome Grandma. John, the girls & I met Mom at the Wendy's in Coldwater to do the Nellie-transfer on Monday and I must say it seemed almost effortless but come to think of it, I was not driving.

After the transfer was made, John stopped at Walgreens to get something snacky for the road. I told him to get something gooberish for me. He came out with Reeses' Pieces which is a far cry from goobers but oh well. I was not driving. He later asked, What is in goobers, again? This took me by such total surprise since "goobers" is almost a household name at our house. I eat them like potato chips. He also got a can of cashews for himself because he loves them and because he said they were only 2 bucks. He seemed like he had not eaten in a week as he ingested 1000 calories worth of cashews. I had to do the math.

So the girls are having fun this week with grandma and the cousins, and later this week, they get to go down to Aunt Mar's for a night. I was thinking about how we always used to go stay at Aunt Becky's for a few nights every summer and we always loved this. I remember that rasberry drink mix that tasted like something from Narnia, and looking for constellations, of which I can still only find "The Big Dipper" and Orion's Belt. And it was so exciting that we had these cute little cousins, one of which left for Africa. But she has a blog now, so I hear more from her than ever. And since she is just a few degrees north of the equator in Uganda, she can see the same constellations as we can.

And speaking of blogs and constellations, I know that tonight, my dear Nellies in Celeryville will be reading this, looking at the same constellations as we are, and keeping in touch. As Edward would say, that's Nelly-rific.


The Nellies

Simple Math for a Hot Day

I've been recovering from a 2 mile walk I took outside this afternoon where the heat index is about 105 degrees. My brain is feeling a bit fried or baked by this heat, and I only seem able to process the hot weather through it right now. Maybe we are feeling a bit like prisoners in air-conditioned houses & offices. So I will post this which a friend at work sent to me today because she knows I like math AND because she probably sent it to everybody:

From a strictly Mathematical Viewpoint:

What Equals 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been in situations where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 101%? What equals 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 1 9 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R- K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

and
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But,
A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

AND, look how far the love of God will take you
L- O- V- E-O-F-G-O-D
12+15+22+5+15+6+7+15+4 = 101%

Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:
While Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get
you there, it's the Love of God that will put you over the top.