Of May 21, 2011

There's a lot of hullaballoo about this Saturday. End of the world or wacko story? Call to prepare or just one more cult off its rocker? Personally, I'm just living life. I got to a point in my life where I decided - you have to pick something. Evidence is strong that people need something bigger than themselves. The more people you talk to, the more options of what that "something bigger" is. They are too contradicting to all be true. So you pick. One might call it playing the odds. In a sense, we are all gamblers. Most options give you some kind of second chance - reincarnation, purgatory then heaven, or simply nothingness. Not too bad. Some, though, make this life really matter. One shot, then eternity - heaven or hell. I like my odds. Don't get me wrong, I stick with Biblical Christianity for many other reasons. But I'm ok with living with the tension of a slight bit of uncertainty. Sooner or later we will all die and truth will no longer be debated.
     But I digress - what about Saturday? If you can't get in touch with me on Sunday and the rest of the world is in chaos (even more than usual) with thousands of disappearances across the globe - I would suggest you rethink your former spiritual positions. But if the Judgement Day RV's are still occupied come May 22, my faith hasn't changed. If the God of the Bible is right, than this life has an end. Whether by death or by Rapture, I won't be here forever. And if I care about you and your future, at some point I might ask you to consider your odds.
~Stick to it!

Homemade Chai

One of the great things about being home is the time to play! My Better Half eats cooking experiments on a regular basis! :) Some successes so far: Cajun Chicken (or Beef) Alfredo, Red Pepper Beef over Rice, and Autumn Pork (with apple butter and sweet potatoes.)
     But today I tried making Chai. After comparing several Googled recipes, I picked one - and of course, immediately changed it. I'm not the kind of person who will go out and buy ingredients just for one recipe. If I don't have it on hand - it ain't goin' in. (Which is one reason why it's good MBH isn't picky. Sometimes substitutions are...interesting!) Here's what I did: (And I like it!)
    
1 1/4 t ground cinnamon
1 t ground cardamon
3/4 t ground cloves
1/8 t ground ginger
4 whole black peppercorns
3 c water
*Bring to a boil, reduce to med-low and simmer 5 minutes.
*Remove from heat, cover, let steep 10 minutes.
*Return to boiling.

Add 2 chai (or regular black) tea bags.
*Remove from heat, steep 5 minutes.

Add 3 Tb brown sugar
Add 1 c 2% (or whole) milk
*Heat on med-low 2 minutes.

*Strain anyway you want to. Or can. (I poured the mixture into a measuring pitcher, then through a mesh tea ball into my cup. Not very efficient, but that's what I had.)
*Enjoy! (Or refrigerate and enjoy chilled later.)
~Stick to it!

Resolution update

Back in January I established four 2011 resolutions. Thought I'd take a look back on how I'm doing...
     SPIRITUAL - Have a daily quiet time. Well, the daily might be a bit of a stretch, but 4-5 times a week is working. A few (highly recommended) books I've been using:
"A Diary of Private Prayer" by John Baillie. Penned in 1949, with prayers for each morning (Praise/thanks) and evening (confession/supplication) and a couple extra for Sundays.
"The Power of a Praying Wife" by Stormie Omartian. Without bashing men or guilting women, let me just say that I think a wife has the determining role in the climate of a marriage. She chooses to build up her house or to tear it down and prayer is a great way to build it.
"Principles of Spiritual Growth" by Miles Stanford. Written as mentorship letters, each chapter addresses...a principle of spiritual growth! (You didn't see that coming, did you!)
"The 17:18 Series" published by Full Quiver LLC. The coolest Bible study book I've ever found. You word-for-word handcopy books of the Bible on the right-hand pages. Left side is primarily blank, for your notes, study, word definitions, reflections, whatever. Any pace you like, as deep or shallow as you choose.
     EMOTIONAL - I want to be more gracious. This one is a little uncomfortable right now. I'm convicted of some long-standing unforgiveness in my heart. As much as I desire to forgive, humanly, I am finding that I can't. How do you forgive someone who just keeps hurting you? Without going into details to explain, let me just say that this is a friendship I am called to continue. (No, not my husband, family, or even a close friend!) So I find that I rely on God to give me grace for each encounter, and trust in the power of the Holy Spirit to change my heart since I can't.
     MENTAL - Still reading "Sacred Marriage" by Gary Thomas. I decided to underline quotes. And, of course, I couldn't start underlining halfway through the book! So I started over. Still good. :)
     PHYSICAL - Tried Yoga Thursday night and even this morning. (9am - not ideal, so it may not last.) A little bit sore, but glad to be doing something again. I'm aiming (not obsessing) for 1600 calories over five meals per day. So far, so good - I still feel like I'm getting enough food. (That is the determining factor in any diet - not a fan of being hungry.) Did you know that you can eat about 30 cups of raw spinach and still only consume about 300 calories? Think you'd be full? (I have neither tried this, nor recommend it. 30 cups of anything green in one meal is overkill. Just my opinion!)
     ~Stick to it!
     

 

Stay at home wife, pt 2

     Last week at this time, I was driving home from work, relieved to be at the end of an era. (At least in the short span of my life. So it was, relatively speaking, a very short era...) Today at this time, I'm pondering my character flaws. I have discovered that my lack of time was NOT the reason why so many tasks remained undone in the past. No, truth be told, it's because...not sure exactly. But now I have plenty of time and that box labeled "Things to sort before we move AGAIN!" is still only half sorted. (The first half of sorting was a bit of a fluke. My Better Half (MBH) was home and I think I was trying to impress him with how beneficial it would be to have me at home full-time!) I keep moving it around, hoping that the contents will settle a bit more and not look so daunting. My favorite place for it was in the closet, but I knew that was not the RIGHT place for it. Pretty sure it's old tax papers that need to be sorted, filed, shredded, or otherwise dealt with...
      And then there's the grunge in the tub - someone should probably scrub that. And the floor. And vacuum. And remember all those deep cleaning tasks that should be done when you move in, or seasonally? Let's NOT remember. (I also have several projects I want to accomplish, but they're fairly large. Better not start them til I have everything under control and can just focus on projects for a couple weeks...) Maybe...I think this week should be my organizational week. You know, the time when I make lots of lists so I know what to eat and when, how to exercise and where, which errands to run and why - then NEXT week I can actually start doing stuff. Besides, I just retired! Shouldn't I have a week or two (or maybe a month...) to relax and revel in my new-found freedom? Who knew four channels of cable (four cause those are the free ones) could keep one so occupied!
     Lest you think that I have become a stereotypical bum wife - in my defense, I only watch TV at night. I have too much self-respect (and too high of an IQ) to watch soap operas all day. (And if you are an avid soap fan, you can just be offended because they are junk.) Or maybe a movie a day. (Netflix streams through the Wii - big screen and unlimited...) When MBH needed a runner for one of his jobs - I was available. He has had a full cooler of home-cooked food to take to work every time. I started counting calories and practicing the piano. (Don't tell my students - I hammered on them too much to admit that I didn't ever practice myself!)
     There's a free Yoga class tomorrow night - think I'll try it. It was last Thursday, too, but it started at six and at five I realized I didn't have a thing to wear. So I ran to the store, tried on every single Yoga top they had in all four different sizes and five different colors, bought the two that were the best, got home and still couldn't decide which one was more modest, so chickened out at 5:59. When MBH got home I made him evaluate them and planned to wear my final selection on the following Tuesday. But Tuesday afternoon we decided to go to a 4:15 movie. It was two hours long. Oh, shucks. Missed Yoga again...
     It's 9pm and I think I'll read a little and head to bed. Rereading "Sacred Marriage" by Gary Thomas. I need to remember that this marriage, this life, isn't about being happy. (Tho I am very!) It's about fulfilling the purposes for which I exist. One of which is to imitate the God who sticks to Who He is and what He does.
~Stick to it!

These days too...

The "rule" is that, if you go to church on Christmas and Easter, you go to heaven. Or something like that. Well, I made Christmas, but I skipped Easter. What happens then? Does only half of me go to heaven? Or do I enjoy the pearly gates for only half of eternity? I could say that I didn't go because I was making a religious statement. Something like "You can qualify for heaven without going to church on Easter." Or protesting the hypocrisy of only attending two days a year. But I'm not really that radical. Nor did I put that much foresight into it.
     We got to bed late the night before and I forced myself out of it way too late the next morning and I was running behind and then next thing you know I'm seething mad at My Better Half (MBH) over six things even though I've only spat out three of them at him and only two of them actually apply to this morning and the last thing I want to do is show up on the morning of new dresses and new starts looking beautiful and feeling ugly.
     Easter is about Jesus dying because of my sin and returning to life because of His perfection. The Resurrection means that I have hope: Someone else took the punishment for the laws I have broken, I don't have to live in defeat, and I don't have to wonder about life after death. But life is still messy. I'm not perfect and sometimes I get tired of pretending I am. Is there a place to go where I can sit in the back row and cry, not because I'm broken over my wrongdoing or because I'm afraid of hell, but just because I'm ticked off that MBH isn't as perfect as I want - and neither am I? That place didn't seem to be church this morning.
     So I stayed home and stewed for a bit. Then I reminded myself that we still loved each other and that God already knew I wasn't perfect. Jesus paid for these days, too. And no, I didn't go to church on Easter, but that was never a requirement for heaven anyway.
~Stick to it!~

Lawful or lawless...

For those who may not have heard the story, let me just say that when you move to a new state you can choose to be law-abiding or not. If you were a law-abiding citizen, you would have obtained new titles, registrations, licenses, etc within thirty days of residence. Which seems like a somewhat logical time frame, except for the number of roadblocks prohibiting easy compliance. As is so often the case, the right course of action is not the easiest. Thirty minutes of internet research, two phone calls, four hours, two days, and three trips to the ATM, we finally have our new title and registrations.
     In my attempt to be wise, I did even more research before attempting to update my driver's license. Emphasis on the amount of effort involved. I packed my old license, a current bill, my newly updated registration, my checkbook, and my Social Security card (just to be on the safe side) and drove to the DMV one more time.
     Upon arriving, I was relieved to find that, just as last time, the line for unfortunates needing registrations was three long rows, but the license line was much shorter. Except that there appeared to be multiples... Which desk was the start? The unmarked desk that could be general customer service? The unmanned desk with multiples forms of various colors? The desk marked "License: Address changes"? One of the several desks paired with those horrid blue photo screens? (I didn't want to start there. Not yet. I had almost not made this trip today because I looked awful and those pictures aren't flattering to start with. But tomorrow being Friday, I'm sure the experience would have been worse, tho I would have looked better.)
     I hovered by the unmarked desk before concluding that, as no one even looked at me, it must not be customer service. I stood in the address change line for a bit, but this couldn't be right - I didn't have any completed forms in hand like the rest. Finally I decided on the paperwork desk. Another quandary: Which form? There was a pile of white, a pile of yellow, and a pile of blue. Each had their own little sign which was intended to be helpful, but wasn't. Was I changing my address or applying for a new license? Did moving count as a renewal or an expiration? At last I concluded that the yellow was for a CDL, the blue was address changes, and the white...I still wasn't sure. I grabbed the blue.
     Completed form in hand, I made my way back to the address line. A smiling older lady approached me. "Do you know which line I should be in?" I could have hugged her. She was here to renew, and if a native didn't understand local DMV etiquette, then I didn't feel so bad. But I had to shrug - I was crossing my fingers as it was. The teenager behind me pulled loose one IPod cord long enough to point at the blue-screened line. "Renewals." Grandma headed over there and we inched forward in line.
     My turn. "Out-of sta..." A manicured finger pointed back at the paperwork desk. Clearly I needed the white form and the blue line. More info printed, this time in horizontal rows instead of vertical. Grandma joined me, a blue screen reject. We bonded over deciphering which form was in our best interest, and what information went where and why. It seemed obvious that, although we were both currently successful drivers, we lacked the IQ for the paperwork. Meanwhile, photographers snapped photos of a buckled building wall. Apparently, a legally licensed driver had run into it while attempting to park earlier that day. I had to chuckle at the irony.
     White form, blue line...another sign - something about standing by a yellow sign. But no such sign was in sight, so I waited by the white one instead. A hand gestured at me from the back wall "Me?" I gestured back. It increased the tempo. Bellying up to the desk, I realized why the hand had gestured. The clerk could barely talk above a whisper. It didn't seem like the best time to mention I don't always hear well, so I settled in to reading lips. He wanted my papers. I pushed the pile to him, white form on top. He typed and clicked and printed and pushed papers back at me. Was all the info correct? It wasn't. My name was misspelled. I pushed them back. More typing and clicking and then a sigh. The computer felt that I should not correct my name. A call to the supervisor. She was perhaps out to lunch in the middle of the afternoon? A call to a different supervisor. She agreed that it would be best if my name was spelled correctly on my drivers license and worked her magic to have it be so. More typing, clicking, and printing. Aha! Everything seemed to be in order.
     NOW to the address change line, which was also the money line. Fortunately (for them as well as me) everyone else had completed their business and gone home, leaving me first in line. I handed my pile to the manicured lady who extracted the one she needed and returned the rest. I wrote out the check, resigned to the fact that, although I had just paid to update my old license, there wasn't going to be any refund. In return, she handed me a single sheet of paper printed with my photo and the reassuring words "With Driving Privileges." I certainly hoped so.
     Behind me I heard a steady flow of Spanish. A translator was assisting a non-English-speaker to move through the chaos. At that moment I realize that - despite the fact that I am native to the country, raised speaking the language, college-educated, and score high on standarized tests - I wish I had a translator, too.
     ~Stick to it!
    

Stay-at-home...wife?

It's been a mad dash as My Better Half (MBH) decided to move up the ladder, we moved to the big city, I moved through the busy season of my work, and the money moved for taxes, and now I have three weeks left as an employed person and suddenly May is looking very...unmoving.
     "What are you going to DO?" Everyone wants to know, and truth be told, sometimes I want to know just the same. It's been almost a decade of moving, and the thought of stopping is a bit mind-boggling. Still, after all the analysis and logistics and discussion and evaluation - it makes sense to stop.
     Most people have been supportive, encouraging, and affirming as I make this career change. Some have been a bit quizzical, but tolerant of my choice. But a few remain convinced that I don't mean it, shouldn't mean it, and am a bit odd to even try to mean it. You know what I wish I could get in their face about? Why should a woman have to maintain TWO full-time jobs? I'm thankful that stay-at-home moms are beginning to get some support. But why should I have to produce progeny in order to validate a "household management" career?
     (Important footnote here - none of the following is meant to condemn women who work out of actual need or out of personal preferance. But I belong to the large category of those who live above the poverty line and who lack a burning obsession to pursue a career. ) 
     I might not know exactly how I will fill the hours of each day in the future, but I do know that currently, there aren't enough hours IN each day. Phone calls, appointments, errands - all the things that have to be done between business hours, but outside the job hours. (Does that seem a bit unrealistic to anyone else?) Then letters, food preparation, cleaning, paperwork - all the things that get done before business hours, or after job hours. If you want to eat (at least good food, not microwaved leftover casseroles), exercise, spend time with hubby, or do anything else fun, don't plan to sleep much! In my unscientific opinion, women possess an extraordinary tolerance for being overworked.
     (Side note to all who believe that all household tasks should be evenly divided, and careers should be given equal weight, and childcare should be precisely 50/50, etc - Good luck!)
     If my first calling is to serve God, and my second calling is to serve MBH as the second productive half of a team, and if he is serving God by pursuing his calling - then when I am free to manage the household affairs, enabling him to devote himself to God's work, then I am doing an important job. And I refuse to be so masochistic as to excel at that vital work while attempting to maintain an equal level of success in the workforce. Maybe you can do it. Maybe you want to do it. But I choose to stop. Women fought for the right to work. Maybe I want the right not to work.
~Stick to it!