1. My most recent ex is ... contentment. Todays life is so stressful.

2. I should learn to ... have more patience, I like to plan ahead and that doesn't always work for everyone.

3. I love ... God, Robert, Roger, my extended family and my friends.

4. People would say that I am ... not a morning person and that I always try to please everyone.

5. I don't understand ... how men cannot talk to you when they are working on something.

6. When I wake up in the morning ... I am crabby until I get my first cup of tea. I also tend to grumble over how my family keeps up with their household chores.

7. I lost ... my? my? I think I lost my memory. :)

8. Life is ... a school. We get up each morning, go through the day and by bed time we surely have learned something new.

9. My past taught me ... that people will often hurt and cheat you, but that I must never do the same.

10. I get annoyed when ... I am late for something. I like to be on time.

11. Parties are ... great for getting to know people if they aren't too big.

12. I wish ...I found more time to do the things that are most important instead of the humdrum business of life.

13. Dogs and cats ... love cats, but they shed and claw things. Dogs are great, but they shed and need a babysitter if you travel.

14. My childhood pet(s) ... were cats. I had Pie Wacket: a siamese, Fluffy:an Angora, & Kitty Coal: a black cat.

15. Tomorrow is ... the Sabbath and dinner and Bunco that night.

16. I have a low tolerance for ... hypocrits.

17. If I had a million dollars ... I would pay my tithe, make sure my son had college money, pay off my debt, put away some for retirement, donate most and help my family.

18. I'm terrified of ... not being a good enough parent for my child to succeed in life. I think this is a normal fear of any parents though.

19. I've come to realize ... that no matter how much we care about someone, we cannot make them care back.

20. I am listening to ... the quietest house I've had in a long time. Our company is on the computer, Robert is on another, I am on another and Roger and the neighbor boy are watching a movie in another room. Ahhh, relative silence.

21. I talk ... on the phone only because it is necessary. I do not like the phone much.

22. My first kiss ... is not in my memory. Funny, I've tried to conjure it up...so I guess it wasn't that special.

23. Love is ... all you need. With love you are kind, you are compassionate, you are forgiving, and so much more.

24. Marriage is ... never being alone even when separated.

25. Somewhere, someone is thinking ... how much greener the grass is over the fence.

26. I'll always be ... insecure about doing/saying the right thing.

27. The last time I really cried was ... 2 weeks ago. One of those start and can't stop kind of cries.

28. My cell phone is ... horrible and I hate it!

29. Before I go to bed ... I usually watch a little television to relax and wind down.

30. My middle name is ... Irene.

31. Right now, I'm wondering ... if I will be able to stand the 112º to 115º heat of today.

32. Today I ... have to go out to show a rental house for my dad.

33. Tomorrow I will be ... sleeping in and than doing some Bible study before church.

34. I really want to ... be more useful.

35. My relationship with my grandparents ... is complete as they have all died.

Coffee with milk that's going sour in it just doesn't refresh the body the way one would wish.

I hung out with my college girlfriend, dbeitzell Danni, this afternoon and evening. I took my tatting with me and we sat in the living room to tat and quilt. I tatted; she quilted by hand. I took along the first tatted flowers I made. Christina decided that the white flower was Perfect for Barbie and C.J. wanted a pink one (don't judge - it's okay for a 3-year-old boy to like pink flowers!). THEN we decided that dinner needed to be thought about.

We went to Pizza King, which is a small town Indiana thing, I think. The Pizza Kings in Lafayette go a step toward Total Dining Awesomeness for small children by delivering drinks by train. Yes, train. There are model train tracks along both sides of the dining room that stop at the booths to deliver drinks. C.J., aged almost-3, LOVES them. Since it was close to 8 before we left, the guys in the kitchen ran the train out to our booth with just napkins in it, for C.J.'s entertainment.

I started on a larger project today: a purple bookmark. I ran into a complication this evening by running out of thread on the bobbin, meaning I had to put a knot in the thread, meaning the ring I'm working on won't close right. *dramatic sigh* I'll figure it out tomorrow. Right now, I'm hoping to be asleep before 3 a.m. Before 12:30 would be really awesome.

My Mammaw died last night.  I'm not exactly sure how to feel.  Yes, it's sad.  She was my last grandparent, and she was a really special lady.  It seems like I should say I'm going to miss her, but she wasn't a big part of my life.  Does that sound bad?  I loved her.  I know she loved me.  Growing up we saw her once or  twice a year.  There were a couple summers I got to spend a couple weeks at her house, and she did her best to spoil me rotten, because that's the kind of Mammaw she was.

Then they moved to Texas, and while I realize Texas isn't on the other side of the world or anything, we never went to visit, and they never came back.  Except there was that one time when my nephew Jesse was a baby, but that was before I had kids.  My Mammaw never met my kids.  I sent her some pictures when they were little, and I know she loved them even though she'd never met them, and she would have loved to spoil them rotten, too.  But she never got the chance.

. . .

I've been cataloging our books. Well, a small portion of them. I might have done 100 over the past two days. It's slow going. Anyway, as I was entering Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary (yes, almost all 100 were Agatha Christie books), I saw the dedication page. It reads:

"To all those who lead
monotonous lives
in the hope that they may experience
at second hand
the delights and dangers of
adventure"

I might have more to say about this later. But for now, I was just...charmed. And glad that there are a few of you who share your more adventurous lives with me. : )

Just wanted to let everyone know, that a new version of MemcacheD has been released. We will be rolling this out to the memcache nodes during the week of July 20th to 24th. This should have very little impact on the stability of the website; however users may see a slight increase in load times as the cache is re-populated with entries.

The software has been tested and verified to be working just fine with the application; so we perceive this to be a very minimal risk in regards to updating, and the stability of the website.

Thanks...

I was setting off on a grand adventure.









And it was fantastic.

My friend Kris from church responded to my FB reposting of this with the following words:

Pennies

I delight in finding pennies on the ground, and I always pick them up, unless they look uber-disgusting. Seeing the glint of coppery reflection winking at me from the ground reminds me of when I was a little girl. My sister and I would sit on the bank of the cliff (well, it seemed like a huge cliff then; it was probably only a small steep rise of land) next to the driveway. We would look for a sunny glitter frmo amongst the gravel and pretend to ourselves that, when we raced down to find it, it would be diamonds.

flying squirrels

I rather fancy flying squirrels, though in my head they're probably more impressive than in real life. I do think people ought to call them by a more appropriate term, like "gliding squirrels." Why get my hopes up when they can't actually "fly"? It's like my disappointment upon learning--long ago, mind--that parrots don't actually "talk." They just, you know, "parrot."

Harrison Ford

I have never seen most of the movies that made Harrison Ford famous. I can't decide whether this makes me delightfully eccentric or just sort of pathetic and sad. Either way, the only real thought that comes to mind when I think of Harrison F. is that my mother-in-law thinks he's one of the best-looking guys in the movies.

Niagara Falls

Chris took me to Niagara Falls for our fifth anniversary. We didn't have a "proper" honeymoon, since we had no money and a whole truckload of my stuff to bring back from Wyoming; so instead our honeymoon was spent driving across the U.S. and staying in cheap little motels on the way, which was pretty awesome. It gave us a lot more stories than, I think, a "traditional" honeymoon would. Be that as it may, going to Niagara Falls was our first long trip away from the kids. They didn't miss us at all, the ingrates. We had a fantastic time just us two, and reveled in being able to just get in the car whenever we wanted to, and eat at places that had dodgy children's menus (or were just dodgy in general).

shoe trees

I rather wish shoes grew on trees, since I have to pay so much for them; this is particularly true since the children have become men, at least according to shoe sizes. $40 for a pair of dress shoes makes me think that I really should take up cobbling instead of simply making cobbler. Even though shoes don't grow on trees, I always think I would keep my shoes much tidier if I had a shoe tree to keep them on. Sadly, this is probably not the case. I have the habit, with earrings and shoes, of taking them off wherever I am when it occurs to me that I'm not going back out, or I'm talking on the phone, or they're pinchy. This necessitates a spirited hunt whenever I want to wear a particular pair, as three sets of male eyes go scouting for the missing item. "The brown pair?" "Which brown pair?" "No, not those. The OTHER sandals. No, the OTHER other sandals." With shoes, at least, I'm less apt to only remove one...

And Kris, if you're so inclined (and anyone else may play along, if they like!): thesaurus, watercolors, onion rings, index cards, rhinestones.

1. My most recent ex is ... exhaustion? No. Excitement! Excellence! Exuberance!

2. I should learn to ... speak Spanish. Speak Russian. Paint. Play piano. Schedule my time better.

3. I love ... Chris. The kids. People. Books. Tradition. Hot coffee.

4. People would say that I am ... good with the wordage, or at least bountiful in it.

( See More Verbiage! )

Considering it's only been about a week, this isn't too bad, but still. . . I knit and crochet much better than I tat. For now.






This last one only took me a couple of hours while I was watching, er, listening to, t.v.

Okay, so I've tried to upload the 3rd picture twice and it just won't work. Maybe tomorrow.

New Notes Feature
Automatic Detect Location
Pingbacks for All
Birthday Wishes

( Read more... )

I have been asked several times, "What has made your marriage work?"

My usual reply is, "We're both idiots!"

The real answer is, I don't know what makes our marriage work. I can name a lot of things: God and our pursuit of Him. Mutual interests. Supportive friends. Growing in maturity. Complementary geekitude. But simply naming the ingredients--much like listing the ingredients for my pie crust--doesn't really tell the whole delicious story.

There's a mystery in love, and a double mystery in marriage. It looks different from couple to couple, with even couples who have the same ideals and values interpreting the marriage dance differently. And truthfully, I think that this is as it should be. I don't wear my hair the same way that all other brunettes do, so why should I wear my marriage in the same way that other women do?

So on the anniversary of my wedding to Chris, I want to write instead about what I love about our marriage, since I can't explain fully what makes it work or how we got to where we are (especially those years when the kids were little, which have wrapped themselves in a amnesiac fog). And I wanted to write about all kinds of things, but they all ended up coming to one basic premise: safety.

God is indeed my refuge. But in His mercy, He gave me a little piece of refuge here in the physical world where I spend my time. I am not, you see, an adventurous soul. Had the Westward Expansion depended on people like me, we should all be jammed between the Mississippi and Maine to this day. The world outside my front door baffles me, confuses me, turns me around, and sometimes simply frightens me.

But inside our door--that's something different. Chris doesn't, by and large, baffle me. He's simple to please most of the time. He doesn't ask for more than I can provide: a glass of lemonade. A little consideration. Willingness to listen to and share his plans and schemes and occasionally input a few of my own. He likes to have clean socks and shirts, and he appreciates having some kind of dinner available.

Chris never shouts at me or tries to buffalo me. He's no pushover, but he doesn't throw his weight around. No matter what I'm doing, I know that he will take no pleasure in my failing to succeed, even if it's something I attempted against his better judgement. He'll catch me, help me dust myself off, help pick up the pieces, and let me try again. And in return, I am free to offer the same support to him. Because he modeled it first, I can follow his example.

From the safety of our marriage, we can take on the dragons of life together. Sometimes they're big dragons. Sometimes they won't be killed, but keep popping back up. Sometimes something that seemed like a timid kitten turns out to be a lion...and sometimes not. Either way, having this relationship helps us both to be able to venture into the world and home again every day.

If I had one piece of advice for any married person, it would be this: do whatever you can to make your home and your marriage a refuge, a place of safety. Disagreements happen. Sometimes, living together with another person (let alone THREE other people!) can drive one to distraction. But the safety is in knowing that what has happened can be mended. If I am crabby today, I can apologize--and he will forgive. And if he growls at me tomorrow, he can apologize--and I'll suck it up and forgive. Life is so much better when I know that help is at hand, even if that help is only someone who will listen.

Fourteen years ago, I married Christopher Rowland, who had no idea that he would become the reubeneater.



Over time, our family grew.

( And over the years, there was a lot of nonsense: )





After all this time, I'm glad that our favorite way to be is not necessarily "silly," "sentimental," "busy," or "lazy," but rather "together."

Happy Anniversary to my cohort, my partner in crime, my love and my favorite sparring partner, Christopher. Here's to us! We're 28% of the way to our 50th anniversary!

Over the past two years, we have watched a friend of ours (whom we have known for 20 some years) life just fall apart. First he had marital problems, which ultimately ended in divorce. His wife just didn't love him anymore. It's really sad to watch that happen. Our friend went to counseling with his wife and pretty much bent over backwards to please her, but it just wasn't enough.

At that time they worked for the same company, which was too much for him, so he found a new job. A few months later this company laid him off and that was during the fall of the economy. So what happened? You guessed it, he couldn't find a job. He has been searching for many months and in that time Robert lined him up with a job where he works and they loved him, but they procrastinated hiring him for too long and before he could start the company put a hiring freeze on. He was quite distraught as you can imagine. He has applied all over the state he lives in and couldn't find a thing.

Time passed and his unemployment ran out and it wasn't long before he was selling things off. He ran an alpaca ranch and sold off all the animals, then the house was foreclosed on and ultimately there was a short sale. The last few months he has been living in a room with a roommate and come to find out the roommate was taking his rent and not paying the landlord. Can you imagine?

He called us last week and I think he was at the end of his rope. We told him to get his butt down here and stay with us as long as he wanted. In fact, he could move in if he wanted to. In the meantime he could look for work here. He finally decided to come down and will arrive tomorrow. He, being a proud man, will not stay for more than a couple of weeks with us. We are hopeful that in that time he will be able to find work and feel like he has a chance to restart his life.

I assured him that it was not his problem alone, but the nations problem too. That he was not alone and he had people who loved and cared about him. I think during these times in life we have to reach out a hand to others. There may come a time when we will all be depending on each other more than we ever thought possible.

I'm not accomplishing anything today.  I just feel extra tired - kind of like I'm getting a cold, and I can't get motivated to move.  I'm tempted to just curl up on the couch and read this book ruthette  says I should read.  I thought I had read it a long time ago, but now I don't think so.  There are just so many good books waiting to be read and not enough time to read them all...

I'm also tired because because I got home and got to bed later than usual last night - but it was worth it.  I won two passes for an advance screening of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, so Cory and I went to that.  We got to the theater about 3 hours before the movie, so I took the book to read in line, but didn't get to it.  We just ended up talking to the people in line with us.  Anyway, it was all worth the wait because we got great seats and the movie was AWESOME!  It was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish.  Speaking of books, I really, really want to re-read all the Harry Potter books - and a few other series, too - but right now mainly Harry Potter.  Before seeing this movie Cory re-read every one of the books, up to HBP, and watched all the movies.  I wish I had time for that!  Maybe by the time this comes out on DVD?

http://www.julieandjulia.com/

There's a new movie coming out: Julie & Julia. It's the story of a girl named Julie, who decides to cook every single recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year.

I may have to actually go to a theater to see this movie. Who's in?

The house is clean! It took me 8 hours to get an empty house clean. It was really a lot of work, the shower had glass walls and door and I don't think it had ever been cleaned, hard water and soap scum. Yuck!

I found out what was stinking up the garage, It was kind of humorous, I couldn't get the garage door open, so when a man who was fixing the broken door and his assistant came I asked if they could help me because the garage really stank and I wanted to air it some so I could locate the problem. Well, he and his assistant went out there and got the garage open, but the smell was so bad the assistant ran outside and started spitting. It was that bad.

After some searching I finally found the sources of the smell. I found a dirty bag of kitty litter and inside a freezer, with the door ajar, was a bag of fish. Oh you have never seen anyone scrabble so fast to get something out the door. As I said before, NASTY!

Anyway, it was a project I am glad to have behind me. It was funny, I had been considering doing this for a living. Cleaning empty houses I mean, but this is the 2nd time I have cleaned this house and both times it was pretty gross, so I am rethinking my idea. It's one thing to clean up dirt, another to clean up other people's garbage and bodily trash.

I have to confess that I have long disliked Barbra Streisand, which may be a little unfair as I know but little about her, beyond the quote that made me dislike her. That quote refers to success. Supposedly, she has said, "Success to me is having ten honeydew melons and eating only the top half of each one."

To me, that quote seems so selfish and wasteful. But thinking about it made me think, "What does success mean to me?"

Success, to me, is:

• Kids who (mostly) enjoy being with you and with whom you (mostly) enjoy being.


• Work that is (for the most part) pleasant, engaging, and at least occasionally meaningful.


• Wanting to make a pie and having the things right there to make it.


• A little walking-around money in my pocket.


• A few friends who, if called at 2 a.m. and told, "I need you," would come...and for whom I would do the same.


• Abundance enough to share--house, car, money, food, whatever.


• The ability to make a difference in others' lives.

Children. Making me. CRAZY.

That is all.

I didn't get to sleep till after 3 again, but I only slept till 7, when all the banging around Guy was doing in the kitchen was too much. I've had just enough sleep that I couldn't get back to sleep, but not really enough.

M. C. Beaton's Hamish MacBeth mysteries are made of awesome. They're short, easy to read, but highly engaging and entertaining and FUNNY! I laughed out loud while reading the first one. I think Beaton does an excellent job of expressing the Highland dialect, which makes them even better.

I'm off to the store for things like pop-tarts and chips and lunchmeat, but first, I must feed the dogs who've been bugging me to eat dinner since. . . oh, 1 p.m. (they don't normally eat till around 3:30).