I've been thinking lately...

(No comments from the peanut gallery, please.)

I miss blogging.  Miss it like crazy.  There's something about organizing my thoughts into an orderly
(ish) few paragraphs that makes me sleep better.  Also, I'm missing the documentation of all the hilarious and creative and thoughtful things my children do.  There is an entire nine months worth of life that has been crammed into my dusty memory banks and will most likely never again see the light of day, but if I'd only blogged them, I'd be able to re-read those memories and remember them all over again.

So what do I want to tell you all?

Well, I want to tell you that God is good.

I've been through quite a lot these past months with Him, situations I've never been in before, paths of growing that I've never traveled before, and it's become obvious how good God is in the midst of the uncertainty, in the midst of humanity, in the midst of the convolutions of life.  He's there.  He's full of peace and joy.  He's in charge.

What a lovely beginning!

Why do I blog?  That's a very good question. I'm glad Tiffany asked for day 17 of the March Challenge.  (Yes, I know it's the 24th.  Cut me some slack, okay?)  In 2006, two very big events changed our family forever.  Jeremy and I became the guardians of a 15 year old girl named Kimmie, and we became the parents of a newborn girl named Liberty.  Suddenly, relatives wanted to keep in touch with us.  Family and friends called every day to see how our two girls were doing and what new happenings had happened.  In addition to that, our days stopped consisting of The Usual:  get up, go to work, come home, figure out what enjoyable/worthy event to spend time on that weekend.  Instead, new, silly, dramatic, tragic, hilarious happenings were happening to us every day. 

Kimmie and Liberty in 2007

I'm a story-teller at heart.  I always have been, and so these new happenings gave me great joy.  I loved telling and retelling them at every phone call.  But after telling the same story fifty times, it started to lose it's zip.  I felt so bad for the person who happened to be my fifty-first caller that week, because they got some lame version of "Kimmie got an A on her test, and Liberty rolled over for the first time."  Rather than the first fifty callers who found out all about how hard Kimmie had studied and the laughs and tears we'd shared over her studies and the exuberant joy when she found out her grade, and about the gas that was released from Liberty's tummy in the middle of the quiet library when she rolled over and our stifled, slightly embarrassed giggles when we heard it.

Possibly the first fifty callers would have appreciated that shortened version?

My friend Rachel advised me to start a blog.  A blog?  I'd never heard of that before, so I resisted for most of the year.  But Rachel blogged and loved it, and she insisted that I would love it as well.  She wouldn't let it rest.  "You'd be so good at blogging!" she told me.  "I can't wait to read your stories," she told me.  "You would brighten my day," she told me.

But a blog?  That means that anybody could read my stories.  It feels kind of creepy.

"No!  Not creepy!  Wonderful!  You'll make so many new friends!" she told me.

Eventually, I caved to peer pressure and started this blog.  My first few posts were pretty lame.  I didn't know what to say, but after a while I found my "voice."

And Rachel was right.  Blogging did help me make wonderful new friends!  But that's a post for another day.

The Sunshine Award: The Sunshine Blog Award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspire others in the blog world.

Thank you for this award, Que!

Que and I have been reading and commenting on each other's blogs for a little while now, and I have to tell you, his posts are the ones that I laugh at every single time. (Well, there was that one time when he wrote about computers, and I didn't get anything he said. That time I didn't laugh, but all the other times I did.) Que's Daddy Mind works EXACTLY the way Jeremy's mind works, and so I just can't help but laugh when I read something on Que's blog that Jeremy has ranted about repeatedly to me through the years. Also, Que and his wife have three girls, the two youngest are the same ages as my two, so their antics crack me up. (It also helps to know that while I'm reading Bad Kitty fifty-eleven times every day, some other poor soul is likewise enjoying that book on a daily basis. And truly, it is a fun book. It's just that after the nine-hundred-twenty-seventh time reading it that week, it can start to lose it's charm.)

The rules for accepting the award are:

1. Put the logo on your blog or within your post
2. Pass the award to 5 bloggers
3. Link the nominees within your post
4. Let them know they received this award by commenting on their blog
5. Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award
6. Share 5 things about yourself


Step one: Logo in my post, check.
Step two: Pass the award to five bloggers

• My new-found blogging friend "PJ The Great" writes Confessions of a Sugar Addict where she mixes humor with some real-life issues like infertility and self-esteem. I love the fact that she keeps it real about what she's struggling with, but she also keeps it funny.


• Tiffany Anne from In Pursuit was the very first blog on which I ever lurked. (I'm famous for my lurking abilities.) It just so happened that I was bored one day, and I clicked the blogger link "Next Blog." After a few clicks, I landed on Tiffany's site, and the rest is history. I loved the glimpses she gave of her heart as she followed Jesus in daily life. I've followed her through almost three years now, and enjoyed reading as she met the love of her life, then dated, broke up, dated again, and now they are married! Somewhere along the line, the two of us began emailing each other, and now I count her as my friend. The lines between blogging buddies and real life friends begin to blur. Once when I was having a bad day, she sent me some free beautiful jewelry from her Etsy shop! You MUST go there. Her creations are gorgeous and very affordable! Right now, she and her husband are spending their honeymoon on a mission trip to Bangladesh, so her posts are especially exciting lately.


• My "real life" friend Cathy and I grew up together. We enjoyed sleepovers, giggling and passing notes in elementary school, but we spent less and less time together after she began attending a different high school. We still kept in touch and occasionally spent a weekend together at the mall or playing with my herd of brothers and sisters in our backyard, but when my youngest brother Peter became sick, most of my friendships died off. Not because we didn't care about each other any longer, but because no one really seemed to understand the strange emotions I was now dealing with. One day, Cathy showed up on my porch to tell me that she was pregnant and a little scared. We sat and talked for hours. After her son John was born, she came over again, and I got to hold him. A few months later, he passed away from SIDS. Once again, the two of us stood on that small concrete stoop together, dealing with deep emotions, deep struggles, deep issues. I can't tell you how she was feeling, but the twisted sick feeling in my stomach and the tears choking my throat and burning my eyes at the news were NOTHING compared to her grief. This time it was she who felt compelled to pull away from her friends, not because they didn't care, but because no one our age really understood. Through the years, we have kept in slight communication with each other, and recently through facebook (and my lost phone) we have reconnected. Twelve years have gone by since her bland announcement on my porch stoop of John's death; Cathy has a husband, two more children and a blog, Life After SIDS; she is majoring in psychology, and passionately pursuing her dream of helping others live in their grief. If you haven't yet guessed, I am glad to call her my friend, and thankful that through all of our ups and downs, twists and turns, we are still able to enjoy long phone conversations and heart connections.


• I met my friend Liisa in college; in fact, she and my husband Jeremy dated briefly. (I took steps to ensure that it was briefly! I'll have to tell you that story later.) Liisa married our mutual friend Dan, and after graduation, the two of them successfully carried out their "Six Year Plan." It was to have six children in six years, but during their seventh year two unexpected things occurred: a seventh pregnancy and Dan's home-going. He went home to heaven after a brief fight with a hole in his heart. Liisa's blog, Remembering Dan, chronicles their family's journey since Dan's death. Liisa tells you exactly how she feels, and at times the grief is raw, the anger strong, the questions unanswered, but the peace that passes understanding always shows up. The powerful truth that GOD gives us hope and joy that cannot be defeated by death and pain reassures again and again. I just tested the link above, and found that Liisa's blog is temporarily disabled. Come back and check this link again later until you are able to get through. It will be worth your time, I promise.


• My most recent blog addition has been Snoodlings by Whimzie. Whimzie's posts are generally just as light-hearted and funny as her name suggests, but Whimzie, too, has gone through and is currently walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Her father lost his fight with cancer a short time ago. (I'm not sure how long ago, since I am a new follower of hers, and I haven't read her archives.) Whimzie and her husband have three children aged about five to ten years old (again, I'm not sure on my figures). She grew up in a Bible-believing church and embraced it's teachings whole-heartedly, but watching her father's decline into the pain and suffering that eventually took his life shook her faith to its core. Since then, she has been questioning what she believes and why she believes it. I love the honest way she faces her questions head-on, diligently searching for TRUTH, not just platitudes. Her light-hearted posts are enjoyable and will have you laughing out loud; her truth-seeking posts will cut straight through and resonate in your soul.

Now I'm supposed to tell you five things about me, but that's crazy talk. We all know I wouldn't be able to choose just FIVE wonderful-slash-interesting things. There are simply too many, and I would be doing you a disservice by limiting my self-promoting list. So I'll skip that step! Have a great time reading my friends' blogs!

Everything you see on this blog (besides the words inside each post and the general template) was thought of, designed, or tweaked by my friend Debbie. (I call her Debbie Awful, because while we were in college, I once asked her what her middle name was. She replied, "Ugh! Don't ask! It's awful!" Obviously, I took her literally.)

All these years later, our friendship is flourishing, and as a result, the look of my blog is flourishing. Do you realize that she put the Miscellaneous From Missy title and honeybee picture into some kind of jpg file? SHE MADE THAT! I am so impressed.

And so very, very thankful!

You've noticed the new blog look, but have you noticed the progress I am slowly making in tweaking everything, thanks to my awesome friend Debbie? She's helped me with tons of details, and she's in the process of fixing my greeting face so it's not slipping into the archives. She also figured out how to link the descriptive list next to the Welcome blurb to various corresponding blog posts, but we have one problem.

We can't figure out which post would match up with the word "Out-Going." What do you think? Do you remember a post that would match that, or would you like to suggest another descriptive word and a post to match?

It would help me sleep at night. Or at least it would help me not stay up so late working on this rearranging of the blog.

Sun commented a few posts ago, and gave me this link, and after I checked it out, I knew I had to share it with you all. I also plan to send it to our church office so everyone coordinating meals can use it if they want. Thank you, Sun!

I enjoy using this website with Liberty. She may even be learning something from it. What I know for sure is, she loves to click it, she's getting good at certain tasks, and Mercy cheers ecstatically whenever Liberty earns a balloon. I've heard Mercy shouting out letters, numbers and colors as she watches Liberty click. (Make sure you have the sound turned up on your speakers to get the most benefit.)

Well, what do you know? I really did figure it out! But now that I've suddenly realized my headshot will greet me everytime I view my page, the thrill of victory has quickly worn off. Here are three possibilities for the greeting face. Please to be telling me which one I should use?

Number one:



Number two:



Number three:

Okay, I think I've gotten everything except the fake picture taken care of. Hooray for me!!!

Tiffany and Debbie, you offered, so here's my plea (and your chance at being a heroine!!!) (I feel like that word should be spelled differently, although, if you fix my photo problem, I will love you as though I were addicted to you.)

The instructions tell me that I need to change the image url "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg89p9fJw4dsxL6y_WyEY-ky8y7LweemZHaARCVGYhaB-4ep1eYCiSRdsxLjjCI_uBQ7Jhs2X9yJUdNEBwmYghAe9d1Z9tIOgs4PGoxfApf5M43ehPZmqLXSgyyOwPMfAoZQg1fp5H6ytY/s1600/main-img.jpg" with the Image URL I want to have.

Here is the image I want to have:



OH MY GOODNESS! I think I may have just stumbled upon the solution to my migraine! Let me publish this post, and then see if I have figured it out. If you do NOT see a change to that blonde girl, you will know that instead of stumbling on the solution, I really just stumbled, and you will need to send bandaids.

Obviously, I'm making some changes to my blog.

Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to get that fake picture off yet, but it's three in the morning, and I'm really, REALLY tired. HTML is not my love language!

I'll try again when I have time to work out all the little kinks. If anyone can tell me more about HTML and wants to help out a friend in need, contact me please!

I need some fiber to get this blog going again.

So I'll make some up. Um...

No, I'll let you guys make some up. Give me ideas! Give me questions! Give me something funny! Give me an H! Oh, sorry.

HELP!

Yahoo! Wonderfulness has been poured on me, and I don't have the time or the attention-span to blog it all.

1. Grandpa and Nonna came to visit over the weekend. That single sentence will have to contain it's own joy for now. I will probably post bits and pieces of the visit as they come to my mind over the next little while.

2. Jeremy gave me a few hours of alone time a couple weeks ago, and I spent it at a local coffee shop. I'll have to tell you the funniness later.

3. Our house has passed most of the hurdles prior to our closing date, and I get to go to Iowa next week! Jeremy said I could take his laptop, so I'll be able to blog along the way.

4. God has changed my hurting heart. I'll give you more details on that later, too.

Thank you for the feedback on my new blog templates. I'm trying out several more now. What do you think of this one?

UPDATE: I got rid of the pumpkin colored template...it was pretty, but it just wasn't me. I am REALLY liking this red and yellow flowered one. It is called "Petals In My Path." I even love the name!

ANOTHER UPDATE: The dots are starting to remind me of a small pox breakout. I like everything but the dots. Sigh.

I'm having fun trying on outfits for my blog. Can you tell? :-)

Guess what? I heard yesterday that the producers of the movie Facing the Giants made lots of money on that film, and they are planning another movie. This one might be about a firefighter. Oh! I am so excited! Jeremy and I have decided to move to Georgia, so that we can be part of the church that makes the movies!

(Not really, but that sure would be wonderful!)

I thought my blog today would be sappy and sentimental about dropping Kimmie off at the airport and knowing that I would not see her again for another week. But instead it is going to be about Kimmie's incredible airport adventures. Things happen to her in airports that I have never seen happen to anyone else.

Prior to joining our family a couple years ago, Kimmie had never flown before, and she was nervous to fly from her current home in North Carolina to us in Iowa. Although Jeremy and I assured her repeatedly that flying was fun and easy, she persisted in her fears and worried about all the possible dangers.

It turns out that Kimmie's fears are very well founded -- at least for her. When she flew for the first time, the plane that she was scheduled to ride in had collided with a bird during the previous flight. After landing in North Carolina, the airline boarded all of the new passengers including Kimmie and then proceeded to sit on the tarmac for two hours while they discussed the defect in the plane that the bird collision had caused. After two hours, they moved all of the passengers to another plane. This one had something wrong with its toilet, causing yet another delay. When Kimmie finally arrived in Chicago for a layover, crazy weather delayed her again. She waited in the airport for three more hours where she made friends with other unaccompanied minors and was given more cookies and snacks than she knew what to do with. We were very relieved when she landed safely in Iowa.

Yesterday, Kimmie attempted to fly uneventfully from Iowa back to North Carolina for a week long visit. That plan failed miserably.

You see, Kimmie had been scheduled to fly to North Carolina earlier this summer, in June. However, circumstances prevented her from taking that trip, and we switched her flight out for one in August. In June, when I switched the tickets, I spoke directly to an airline operator named Jerri, and she told me that we had to drive to the airport and exchange the paper tickets in person before June 7th, or the electronic tickets on hold for us would drop out of the system and be lost. Jeremy graciously took time out of his day (and gas out of his car) to drive to the airport (an hour away from us). He conversed with Linda, a employee at the airport who worked for that specific airline. She told him that the electronic tickets were already ours, not just on hold for us, and that we could throw our paper tickets away because they would not need them. Our tickets had already been exchanged. Jeremy was confused by this statement, because it was not what Jerri had told us.


Jeremy called me on his cell phone and had Linda speak directly to me. I questioned her words several times, and I told her what Jerri had instructed us to do. Linda adamantly repeated that we did not need the paper ticket at all; she told us that Jerri's instructions were incorrect. Jeremy returned home with the original paper tickets and the understanding that we could throw the tickets in the garbage because Kimmie would only need her ID when she arrived at the airport in August.


Yesterday, Jeremy took Kimmie to the airport. He dropped her off outside (in order to save the dollar that it would cost him if he parked the car and walked her inside). Kimmie walked up to the ticket counter and spoke with Linda. She gave Linda her ID and her itinerary code. Linda informed Kimmie that there were no tickets on hold for Kimmie and that the itinerary referenced was not paid for. Kimmie called me at work, slightly panicked from the ticket counter, and gratefully handed me over to Linda. Linda then informed me that we DID need to turn in those outdated paper tickets after all and that they would not let her on the plane until I turned in the paper tickets in exchange for the current electronic tickets. Her plane was scheduled to depart at 1:00 PM. Our house is an hour away from the airport. It was currently 11:47 PM. I realized immediately that it would be impossible for Jeremy to drive from the airport to our house to pick up the paper tickets and drive back to the airport in time to get her onto her scheduled flight. I begged Linda to delay the flight as long as possible, and I dropped everything at work. I fled for my car. Reaching our house in record time, I frantically flipped through paperwork, searching for a ticket that may have been thrown away already.

I found it in my bedroom and triumphantly waved it over my head as I raced out of the empty house. I set Jenny's cruise control at 72 (the speed limit was 65), and prayed that the cops would not be bored that day and looking for a person only going 72 down the deserted highway. Jeremy had driven halfway out to meet me in order to save time, but when we met at the gas station, he parked his truck and hopped into my car. Together we sped into the city. My phone rang when I was five minutes away from the airport. It was Kimmie and Linda again. They wanted to know how far away I was because Kimmie's plane was fully boarded, and they could not hold it much longer. The time was 12:48. "Just wait! Just a minute!" I cried into the phone. "I'm almost there!"

"Watch out!" Jeremy yelled. A large truck pulling a trailer full of lawn mowing equipment slowly pulled into my lane. I hit the brakes, and Jeremy and I braced ourselves against the invisible force pulling our bodies towards the front windshield. Slowly, I followed behind the truck, imagining myself climbing onto the roof of my moving car and leaping movie-style onto one of the mowers in the trailer ahead of us. In my mind, I ramped the mower off of the trailer and sped through the grass past all the traffic in front of us to get to the airport on time. Unfortunately, my body did not follow my imagination's instructions. By the time we arrived at the airport, it was 12:57, and there was no way that Kimmie would be able to make it through security and to the plane in time. I breathlessly handed Linda the paper tickets and gave Kimmie a commiserative hug.

Linda frowned at the computer. "Now why isn't this going through?" she muttered to herself. She double-checked the information on the paper ticket and then verified what she had typed into the airline's system. After several more unsuccessful attempts to exchange Kimmie's ticket, Linda informed me that she would need the original form of payment in order to force the exchange through. Did we use the Star Wars credit card? I asked myself, Or was it directly from our bank account? I had left my purse in the car along with my husband because we had assumed my sojourn into the airport would be less than five minutes, so he had stayed with the car in the "No Parking -- drop off only" lane which was "Strictly Enforced" according to the signs. I ran back outside, but neither my car Jenny nor my husband was in sight, and I realized that he must be circling the airport due to the strictly enforced no parking laws. I returned to the ticket counter and showed them my empty hands. "I don't have my original form of payment, and I don't remember the number."

Marci sighed. (This is getting very long, so I'm going to abbreviate.) Jeremy, Kimmie and I sat at the airport for two and a half hours waiting for them to get the exchange to go through. Once Kimmie had her tickets in hand, we rejoiced, and Jeremy and I decided to walk with her as far as security in an effort to prevent any more of her weird airport bad luck from following her. We hugged goodbye and said I love you several times. But no more misadventures occurred, and we watched her disappear up the escalator towards the gates.

Her bad luck struck again when she arrived in Milwaukee for her layover. Apparently, the Milwaukee airport had had a fire just before she arrived. When her plane de-boarded, the lights in the airport were out, and the computer systems were down. Fire fighters walked the concourses, directing passengers to appropriate gates. Kimmie followed instructions and arrived at her assigned gate. After waiting a little while, another airport employee came by and re-directed the waiting passengers to a different gate. Kimmie obediently followed the crowd to her new destination.

Thankfully, she arrived safely in North Carolina late last night. She called home to let me know that she was there, and she told me of her Milwaukee adventures.

Jeremy and I have now decided that if we ever need to use an airplane for a family vacation, we will book Kimmie's tickets on a different plane. That way she will keep all of the trouble to herself, and we will enjoy a stress-free vacation!