Yes, honestly, sometimes I do need to write as much as I need sleep.

I find “comments” sections on blogs such great writing prompts. I got this whole post from a comment I wrote this morning.

This year is the second in a row I’ve gotten the girls mylar heart balloons for v-day. I talk about it being a special day to remember that we take care of the people we love and do nice things for them.

I’ve *got* to codify my v-day line by next year. What I’ve written here is a better/more-concise rendition then what they’ve gotten so far. It’s sort-of a reiteration of the two lines I’ve been using all week (*With effect* I must add!!!):

  • “Family means taking care of each other.” (Yes, God did implicitly say you’re your brother/sister’s keeper) and
  • “Don’t cause problems.” i.e., Those things in your control? *Avoid* them.

We have had the most peaceful, loving and nurturing last three days. I’m sure it’s special provision for my run-down state. I’m so thankful for provision.

I’ve still been supervising and refereeing, of course, but is seems to be on a distinctly smaller scale, and much less a big deal.

And Jay’s been out camping in the cold all night (forecast was -5 to -20 F) so I’ve been praying he wasn’t the one who’s sleeping bag got “wet” for this exercise (He has a hard enough time already, keeping warm when he’s not moving. Let the man have his sleeping bag in the snow cave.)

Is This What We Call Fun?

I’m in the process of washing a bunch of clothes tonight, including a cashmere sweater that reeks of chlorine.

Jay wore it all afternoon in the University swimming pool as part of his week-long, Learn to Return training.

I let the kids skip nap today so they could go watch Dad getting strapped down in a cage and thrown in the water. Pretty cool stuff.

He was receiving his helicopter underwater egress training while we were there. Brave man. I’m glad he’s doing it. Maybe someday I’ll be willing to be secured in a four-point harness and flipped upside-down in the water. That time is not now.

Mom was not real thrilled when she heard what those people had been doing to one of her kids.

The girls took it all in stride though. Very controlled environment: Mom wasn’t freaking, and Dad smiled after he came up, so it must just be more weird grown-up stuff. {shrug} Why can’t we get closer to the water? Why is everybody wearing a yellow helmet? Why isn’t that guy wearing one? (The instructor. Also the only person in a wetsuit.)

Later this week: Snowcaves and makeshift shelters. Note the “nice mukluk” in the snowcave pix. They do that sort of thing too. Jay brought home some great stories last year. This is his second time through the training. He said the being flipped upside-down thing wasn’t as stressful this time.

He came home with a cool black and red cap, too, with learn to return SURVIVOR embroidered across the front.

But I couldn’t try it on. He said he was given four guidelines for it:

  1. No one else can wear it.
  2. You can’t wear it backwards for fashion. (Welding, yes, to make a statement, no.)
  3. If you don’t like it, run it through the chip-shredder (with dumpster divers just throwing it away isn’t good enough).
  4. Don’t die in it.

Applicable Bible Verses

I mentioned in another post the first verses we taught our girls and how they responded.

We’ve begun a new round (and type) of memorization recently.

After a hiatus (where we did no verses at all), Natasha began responding very well to working on her Sunday School verse at bedtime. I like that verse very much, but I was beginning to think about how we explain verses to little kids.

Then I started wondering about the application bit of it. That led me to look for verses that have immediate applicability at the age they are now.

When Natasha made the connection between her song (“Lift up Your Countenance”) and what she saw (a fussy sister), that was her first instance of extracting application (or at least, relation) from words she’d memorized.

So in an effort to replicate that type of experience, I made a “set” of verses, distinguished by color, and printed out several pages and hung them around the house:

Hebrews 12:11

No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the fruit of peace and righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Psalm 139:14

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

 

Ephesians 4:29

No rotten talk should come from your mouth, but only what is good for the building up of someone in need, in order to give grace to those who hear.

I love the attitude of Psalm 139:14. I also like the concrete elements of Hebrews 12:11 and Ephesians 4:29.

Tonight Jay came in as we were practicing “the pink one,” and joined in. Immediately the tenor of the whole exercise changed. We did the verse as a family, several times, and then Natasha volunteered (for the first time) to say it on her own. There was much giggling, fun and encouragement as Natasha worked her way from beginning to end.

We gave her a word when she got stuck, and encouraged Melody to prompt from her few memorized phrases. It was the family-ist recitation time I can remember. Melody took a shot at it too.

And, if you’ve never heard a 2-year-old say things like “enjoyable,” “Later on, however,” and, “peace and righteousness,” you’ve really got to try and coax those out of her sometime. It was pretty great. The girls were so jazzed by their success they requested (and we practiced) the other two for a while also.

Flooring, Day Two

We have come to the end of our second day on the flooring project and the girls (I too, to a lesser extent) already have cabin fever.

I never realized how much more exercise (or at least movement) was available in a house this size, and suddenly being constrained to the least open areas has been a challenge. With all the great masses of stuff from the front rooms now redistributed through the house and garage, there is even less room than usual in what’s left to play in.

The girl’s room, for example, has about three square feet not covered with furniture and sundries.

Jay is getting plenty of exercise and mental stimulation, and doesn’t seem to quite understand the mental state of the rest of us, but fortunately he is very accommodating by nature and we’ve found reasons the last couple days to get out in the evenings.

It pulls Jay away from time he could spend on the project, but since they are also things he wants to do (we looked into getting a new range tonight) it’s still been enjoyable.

Or current range, on a side note, is very basic, with only one large coil, no window in the door, and (this is the biggie to me) no time-bake. The one we’d get (we haven’t quite decided to go for it) doesn’t have these faults and in addition to other virtues has no exposed coil in the oven. To me this was one of the coolest things.

Jay’s said having the appliances out of the kitchen is a nice excuse to look at new ones– but we’re only seriously thinking about the range right now.
The kids and I will try to go visiting tomorrow.

Vacation (at home) begins

I did a couple silly things this morning:

  • Meaning to press the ice lever for a cube in my hand (I usually put ice in Melody’s porridge so she doesn’t have to wait as long to eat it) I pressed the water lever instead

After cleaning that up (as I told Jay what happened)

  • I pressed the ice lever—forgetting the icemaker was still in the sink from thawing during our trip last week.

Jay laughed. “I did that during our first day home,” he said. “I wasn’t going to say anything.” I chased him with the ladle a few laps around the island.

“Put something else cold in it,” he said after I started ladling stuff into Melody’s bowl.

“Like what—Peas?” Jay went off to clean in another room (we’re working on our backlog of cleaning during Jay’s time-off), and I remembered the bag of frozen strawberries in the big freezer.

Jay returned as I was adding one to Melody’s cereal.

“Look at this and tell me I’m brilliant,” I said.
“Oh I’ve never doubted you were brilliant,” he said easily. “Only your higher math and organizational skills.” I had to laugh.

A little bit later he came back into the room and said, “Now me, I’ve got the higher math skills, but I’m just as ‘Organizationally challenged.’” Continue reading

Snow Machine

Jay and the girls watched the Ski-doo promotional video 6 or 10 times last night.

It has all the adrenaline images of (forgive me, I don’t know the “official” terms) swishing around and jumps and stuff. There are a couple great over-the-mountain shots, coming up behind the dismounted drivers (by their machines) and swinging over whatever vast view they’ve driven up to.

I wasn’t with them while they were watching, but Jay told me that the girls were just in awe, and Natasha finally asked, “Can your snow machine do that?” When Jay responded in the affirmative, Natasha was properly impressed.

Today she was talking about it and informed me, quite seriously, that Daddy could jump off a mountain.

Yellow roses. Special me.

Jay bought me yellow roses today. We were at the grocery store, and he was planning to buy them before I knew it and take them to the car. But I spoiled his surprise when I walked around the corner and saw him with his bundle.

I’ve been feeling not-myself for almost a week, and I think that had something to do with the timing. They’re on our desk now, and smell very nice. It is so uplifting to see a tangible reminder of Jay’s thoughtfulness. I am very thankful for him.