Book Love

There's not too much I love more than a good book (preferably read while drinking coffee curled up on my front porch with a blanket). I had hoped to get more books read over the summer than I did (not a shocker, as a general rule I'm always hoping to get more done than I actually accomplish!), but the things that I did read were great. Insightful, funny, thought-provoking, entertaining. All sorts of wonderful!

Also, in related news, I have been cognitively aware of book lights for years (decades even, maybe), but have never owned one. A few weeks back I was at Costco (one of my happy places) and saw a two-pack of book lights and caved and put them in my cart. Then I proceeded to stick it on my dresser when unloading all my purchases and leave it there in its packaging for at least another week or so. Then one day, I opened them and TA-DA . . . book lights are amazing. I can now read in my bed at night. Who would have known? (Lots of you, I'm sure!) Our house was built in the 20's and our bedroom has no overhead light. We have a small wall-mounted light near the door that barely gives off enough light to get into bed safely. So, needless to say, I have never been a read-in-bed kind of girl. Anyhow, my world has changed for the better with my purchase of a book light. If you don't own one (or two), go buy one. You can thank me later. Or not, even. Whatever!

So, what have I been reading this summer? Here's what is in my most recent "just finished" stack on my bookshelf.

Church of the Small Things by Melanie Shankle. I have read Melanie's 3 previous books and loved them, so I was excited to get my hands on this latest one. I applied for, and was accepted to be on the launch team for the book, so I got an Advanced Reader Copy and was able to read it before it comes out in the world. It releases on October 3rd, so you still have time to pre-order (pre-ordering comes with some extra fun gifts and perks and swag -- free stuff is always fun!) yourself a copy. As I expected it was hilarious, but profoundly true and touched on both light and heavy topics with the style that I have come to expect, and love, from Melanie. The idea that the little things in life are really the big things is the major theme in this book (and also in my life, so that might be part of why I loved it so much!). Find out more at churchthesmallthings.com. Do yourself a favor and pre-order. Then you'll have a surprise waiting for you in a couple weeks when it arrives in your mailbox.

Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall & Denver Moore. This one is our book club book for this month (and next month we are going to see the movie!) and I was glad because it is one I have been meaning to read for YEARS. I was grateful for the perspective that it brought me into the lives of those who have such different experiences from mine.

My Name is Child of God by Julia K. Dinsmore. This one is also about themes of poverty (which has been something that continually is in front of me lately, every time I turn around it seems to come up in one way or another) and biases in our society. I have heard Julia speak and was glad to have the opportunity to read her book and understand more of what she is fighting against on a societal level. I highly recommend it. And she is local to where I live. I always like that.

Of Mess and Moxie by Jen Hatmaker. Again, I have read many of Jen's books and love her writing and her wit and her humor and her perspective. This one was no exception. About the mess and the grit of life. About friendship and family and the regular stuff of life. The fun stuff and the heavy stuff. It's worth the read, if you ask me. This one was a gift (a for-no-reason gift! How fun is that?) from a good friend of mine. I adore having friends who know me well.

Do We Not Bleed? by Daniel Taylor. This one was a gift too. A birthday gift from my brother. He had loaned me the first in this series of mysteries and I loved it, so he gave me the second one for my birthday. (His birthday is just a few days after mine and I have him a book too -- so it was a book birthday for us, I guess). It (also) has a local author and a local setting. It is a mystery filled with interesting, quirky characters (I love a good quirky character!) and the events that lead this unlikely bunch to figure out "who done it". Dan Taylor was a writing professor at the college that I attended back in the day. I never took a class from him, but knew OF him and have read a few of his other books (mostly non-fiction). I love that he has plunged into the world of fiction and mystery.

The Magnolia Story by Chip & Joanna Gaines. I've had this book since it came out, but just now got around to reading it. We don't have cable, but I have seen some episodes of Fixer Upper and I loved it. Plus, we just finished up a major home addition and renovation project. I had read a bit about the two of them and knew I wanted to know morenof their story. I loved it. Their relationship. The crazy stories about Chip. Their testimony of the faithfulness of God in their lives. The birth of their show and success. All the stories of their entrepreneurial endeavors. The love of home and family . . . all good stuff!

So, there you have it. I thought they were all well-worth reading (I used to be unable to not finish a book once I started, but now I have no qualms putting away a book I am not enjoying, so it's very rare that I read something that I don't enjoy) and would suggest any, or all, of them. Order 'em. Don't. Check them out from the library. Or not. Borrow them from a friend, or from me. These are not affiliate links (cause not enough people will read this for Amazon to care even the teensiest little bit) and I get nothing at all if you buy them -- except if you read one and tell me, then we could have a rousing book discussion, which is also something that I love!

Happy reading, friends!

That's a wrap!

Well, another summer is in the books and another school year is up and running. This is a significant school year for our family as it marks some major milestones. Our baby is in full-day kindergarten. She is in heaven and LOVES every minute of it so far. Our other "baby" (who is not AT ALL a baby!), our very first baby, is a senior in high school. A SENIOR! On the one hand, I saw it coming -- he has lived more than 17 years. He has progressed, one year at a time, from kindergarten to first grade, to second grade and so on. From elementary school to middle school and then to high school. I'm not a complete idiot and I get how time works! But, on other hand it has caught me completely off guard. How can it be true? I don't think I have fully internalized the reality of it yet. All my people go to school all day, 5 days a week. 3 of them to high school and 3 of them to elementary school (praise the Lord for a year of respite from having a middle schooler!) I have a decent amount of time where I am not responsible for any short people and can pee and go to Costco without a sidekick! This day has been nearly 18 years in the making. I still am not sure what I think about it, though. I could become completely giddy and overwhelmed with excitement or burst into tears at any moment. It's a bit of a crap shoot. Consider yourself warned!

A few weeks back we were having some car trouble, so, if I wanted a vehicle to drive during the day (which, with 6 kids who needed to get shuttled to various activities, I did!), I had to drive Kirbs to (and from) work. So, I'd drop him off in the morning and drive the 3 or so miles back home to get on with my day. Well, one afternoon I drove on campus (in case you didn't know, he works at a local university) to pick him up after work and as I entered campus, I looked left. On the left, when you enter the campus, the first thing you see is the (beautiful!, new) athletic complex. On the football field that afternoon were lots of (big!) men in purple uniforms. At that moment it hit me (HARD!) that one year from that very moment, my "baby" would be out there with them. Donning a UNW uniform and practicing football. Living, not at our house with us, but on his own in a dorm! That wasn't an easy moment.

Summer is hard. This summer was hard! I don't know if summer is hard for me because it is hard for our family, or if summer is hard for our family because summer is hard for me. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Even with the hard of summer, it went by shockingly fast. I think there were a few backpacks that never even got unpacked before being packed back up again for the next school year. Before I knew it we were at the fair eating too many fried foods and trying to get to bed earlier, so that our return to the school year routine would be slightly less brutal. There were certainly some great things about this summer :: Rebekah had the time of her life working at camp all summer. There were walks in the woods and backyard bonfires and bike rides. We had a wonderful, just-what-we-needed time at family camp (although we missed Jacob who couldn't go with us due to football practice, but was well taken care of by his grandma)! We did some swimming and played at the park. We celebrated birthdays (my grandma's 90th, most notably!). We spent time with friends and grilled lots of stuff . . . but it was still a hard summer!

This summer wasn't only hard on our family. It was hard on our world. Locally. Nationally. Internationally. There is lots of crap going on in the world. And also lots and lots of good and beauty. That is how life is! (More on that in another blog post, possibly.)

We undertook some major house/property stuff this summer . . . . and into the fall. We removed 4 trees from our lot (a couple diseased, one old and decaying, and one that was just a nuisance and was in the way of some changes we want to make with our driveway). Tree removal is a spendy and loud endeavor! We got a new roof (unfortunately we had some shoddy workmanship when we replaced the roof a few years after moving in to the house, following some hail damage, and it was in BAD shape and also causing some leaking in our living room). Sara was disappointed that the house didn't really look any different once the new roof was on. I don't know what she expected, but clearly the new roof was not living up to her expectations. Also, when your very efficient roofing crew of 8 or so guys shows up at 7am and all get up on the roof to start ripping off old shingles, your kids will be a bit upset that their summer sleep schedule has been disturbed by quite a bit of noise that cannot be ignored! It seriously sounded like they were going to come right through the roof and join us inside the house! Roofing is a spendy and loud endeavor! We have a couple more projects coming yet this fall. Replacing/repairing the living room ceiling, which has nasty water damage, and replacing our old, rotting porch windows. Once the budget recovers from those blows, we will take on the driveway project (hopefully sometime in 2017). There's always something to do when you live in a 90-year old house!

Active Rest

Early in June our sports-loving, baseball playing kiddo told me, before bed one Friday night, as we were praying together and I was tucking him in, that his elbow really hurt. This kid has a pretty high pain threshold, so I probably should have taken it a bit more seriously right off the bat (no pun intended), but in true "seasoned mom" fashion, I told him to take it easy and see how it felt in a couple days. I promptly forgot about it and started thinking about all the other things taking up mental space in my brain these days. Well, a few days later he told me that it still hurt. And I could tell he meant it. So I made him an appointment at the pediatrician for the next day. She looked at it, asked him some questions and got him an x-ray. Since there are growth plate issues to consider with an elbow in a pre-pubescent kid, and since she is a pediatrician and not a radiologist or orthopedic doc, she said she'd have to consult with a radiologist and get back to me with the verdict. I got a call the next day that the radiologist wanted us to head to an orthopedic clinic to have him seen by a specialist there because it looked like the bone had pulled away from the growth plate. (Sounds super painful to me!) So we we made an appointment at the orthopedic clinic with a guy who specializes in elbows and works quite a bit with baseball players. In the hours between the explanation of the concerns of the radiologist and the appointment with the orthopedic doc, I googled a bit about elbow growth plate injuries. That was probably not the best idea! It just got me worried and certain we would have surgery, or at the very least be down for the count for the rest of summer. And this was approximately 2 hours into summer vacation (quite literally -- school got out at 11 for the year and the orthopedic appointment was at 1:30)

At this point we are now about a week out from the first complaint about elbow pain and, tough, determined kid that he is, he has played in 2 baseball games since the pain started. At the appointment with the elbow guy we got a diagnosis of Medial Epicondyle Apophysitis, which meant nothing at all to me, but sounded like something you should take seriously! The lay term for what was causing the pain is "Little Leaguer's Elbow". Sometimes it comes on all at once, with one long throw of the ball or swing of a bat . . . but this case seemed to be more of the repetitive use version, since there didn't seem to be one particular "event" that prompted the onset of the pain. Thankfully there was no splint, cast, or surgery required. Just "active rest". No throwing. No batting. Less strenuous activities like swimming and biking were fine, but I assumed that the baseball season was pretty much over at that point. Turns out that was a naive assumption on my part. I should have known better, after all the years I have known this particular child!

A few pre-injury baseball pictures :: 

Within 24 hours of the diagnosis, we were at a sporting goods store buying a glove for his right hand, so he could learn to play as a lefty. Without missing a beat (or a game) he continued playing. (No batting still, though.) Even though he was out of the batting order, he was fielding with surprising accuracy and power as a lefty. I guess it is advantageous to have a left-handed first baseman, so that is what he has played most in the games since his injury. He is one determined kid. As hard as that particular trait can be to parent, at times, I know it will serve him well in life. He made up his mind to do something and he did it. (Hopefully with no life-long damage to an important part of his body that he would appreciate having full use of for the rest of his days!)

We are coming to the last week before our re-check. We have an orthopedic appointment again at the end of this coming week. New x-ray and exam. I know it will not go smoothly if anything less than an "all clear" is given at this appointment. So we are hopeful that time and rest would have done the healing work that is needed to get back into life at 100% (if not a bit more!).

But the past few weeks, I have been giving extra thought to the idea of "active rest". I think there are some areas of my life that could use a bit of active rest. Not completely down for the count across the board, but intentionally avoiding some things in areas that are "injured" in my life and giving them the time and space to heal a bit. Maybe you have areas that could use some active rest too. Think on it a bit and see.

flashback friday

august 2013 :: someday it will be warm again :: and we will be able to go outside :: and we'll all feel the way Sara looks in this picture

multitude monday

Here's my continuing Multitude Monday post, which all started a while back, right here on Ann's wonderful, amazing blog that is a favorite of mine. If you've never checked it out, do yourself a favor and click on over. She's an amazing, gifted writer and an inspiration!

"One Thousand Gifts"::

2278. safe travels for Kirb
2279. fun week at day camp for Rebekah, Lydia and Joe
2280. book club :: fabulous book, yummy treats, favorite friends and a break from single-parenting
2281. soccer games
2282. TONS of rain and still a completely dry basement :: praise God it's all doing what it is supposed to do
2283. continued basement progress
2284. new windows
2285. paint on the walls
2286. 70 year of grandpa Roger {my father-in-law}
2287. Kirb and Beka going up to surprise him for his birthday
2288. friends
2289. a beautiful night and a long walk with Rebekah and Sara
2290. kids, waterballoons and a trampoline {a really fun combination!}
2291. making it, problem-free, through our week without our dad/husband
2292. Kirb getting to enjoy dinner with some good friends {who now live in Canada} while he was traveling for work
2293. another meeting with an old friend while Kirb was in his part of the world -- unplanned, Kirb walked into the building where he works and guess who was standing right inside the door, took a long look, smiled and opened his arms for a big hug? What a blessing that Keith had some free, un-scheduled time when Kirb happened to be in his "neighborhood".
2294. antibiotics for Sara's month-long, really nasty diaper rash :: finally a bit of relief!
2295. a good 7-year check up for Joe
2296. flowers
2297. beautiful summer days :: glorious, sunny days and cool evenings
2298. Father's Day and all the wonderful father's in my life :: my dad, my husband, my brother . . .
2299. being reminded of a fun piece of trivia that I knew, but had forgotten :: Charles Schultz {of Peanuts comics fame} was baptized in our church as a teenager, as the nearby church he attended didn't have a baptismal. How cool is that?
2300. resolution to Joe's t-ball team being cancelled for the summer due to low registration :: he's going to do archery at the Y and is super excited! {we will not be putting his name in for the Hunger Games, however, so never fear}
2301. a good old-fashioned thunderstorm to lay awake listening to and watching {fabulous thunder and lightning!}

Alrighty, that's it's for now. Tune in next Monday for the next installment.

school's out for summer

Well, we officially have an 8th grader, a 6th grader, a 5th grader and a 2nd grader . . . oh, and also a 4-year-old-preschooler and an extra-cute toddler! Where on earth did that school year go? It seems like it just began. For the most part, everyone had a good year. The report cards, although not perfect, were good and showed hard work from our crew. Think what they could do if they were only children {or even one in a family with 2 or 3 or even 4 kids} and their parents actually helped them with their homework and did other parental things like making them practice their spelling words . . .  I guess they'll never know how that would be.

last day of 7th grade

Rebekah, Savannah, Brita and another Savannah :: right before their last couple hours as 5th graders

what greeted Joey and his classmates as they walked into their classroom

Lydia and her FABULOUS teacher Mrs. Schroeder

Joey and Mrs. Norgon {who also taught 1st grade to Rebekah and Lydia}

Rebekah and Mr. Hausman {who has a daughter named Rebekah -- same spelling even :: those 2 were a wonderful student-teacher match}

some of our very favorite teachers chattin' it up after the buses all pulled away and most of the students had cleared :: we are blessed with a WAY-above-average staff at Falcon

It was a great school year, and now we're excited for the change of pace and activities that summer brings! So, that's a wrap on the 2011-2012 school year. We are so thankful for all it held for each of our kids and for us as a family!

it blows my mind . . .

Don't ask me why this thought came into my head. I don't know! But it did, and I can't shake it::6 years from now, in the late-summer of 2016, I will be preparing to send my first-born off to his last year of high school and my baby off to kindergarten. I'm already a mess thinking about it! What a year that will be::a senior, a sophomore, a freshman, a 6th grader, a 3rd grader and a kindergartener. Yikes! Watch out, I'm quite sure I'm going to be a big puddle over it all! A little financial tip::you may want to buy extra Kleenex stock. {on a related note, I also figured out -- being the geeky, numbers girl that I am -- that by the time baby #6 graduates from 6th grade, we would have had at least one kiddo at Falcon Heights Elementary school every single year for 17 straight years. And Jacob didn't even go to kindergarten there. If he had, we'd be at 18 consecutive years. Do you think that qualifies as some kind of record?}

thankful thursday

summer::

Today I am thankful for summer. I'm looking forward to more time with the kiddos and having the time we have all together be more relaxed. We always make a list of things we would love to do over summer break. We tell the kiddos to dream big and we right all of it down. We don't promise we'll do it all, but we usually do the vast majority. Maybe I'll post our summer list after we make it in case it inspires you to try something fun and new as well!

Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful that our summer activities are starting to wind down . . . a bit! Jacob had 5 weeks of band camp. 4 mornings a week. It started at 8. YIKES! Rebekah has swim practice 5 days a week {although we don't go all 5 days . . . 3 or 4 usually -- and it's not over yet}. Plus each of the 4 older kiddos have gone to a day camp or two. So far this summer we've had ZERO days where we could just stay at home in our jammies and have no place we had to be. {Much to Joey's chagrin, since he would rather stay home than go anywhere. He's quite the homebody. I'm pretty sure even a trip to Disney would be met with some tears, LOUD complaints and requests to just stay home!} This week marked the first day we could stay home for a tad in the morning without having to actually wake children up. They all slept until they woke up on their own . . . what a concept! It is summer, isn't it? Now I know better for next year. The kids are all welcome to sign up for some stuff, but I'll try to have them do a little more of the same stuff. You know, so that 4 different kids didn't have 4 different "things" to be at, all at overlapping times! I about went completely out of my mind a time or two trying to figure out how it would be humanly possible to get all the kids to and from all of their stuff relatively on time. I think that for the most part, people got where they needed to be. Amazing, I think!

Band camp {beginner band camp, nonetheless} ended with a final concert last Thursday night and I thought you'd want a little glimpse at how great it was {alrighty, I tried to load the video of the concert -- it wasn't even long, just one short song -- but it was loading for nearly 2 hours and still wasn't done. Something must be weird. I'll try again later, but for now you'll just have to enjoy a cute picture of my two favorite horn-blowers}:

Summer is here & I'm on the mend

Well, summer is here and it's in full swing. YIKES! Currently I spend my mornings running people to this and that like a mad woman trying {often without success} to get everyone to their stuff: band camp, VBS, playdates, day camp, swim team practice. If there were 2 of me, that would be ever so helpful! Maybe it will be more manageable this week, since on top of 7 people needing to be, seemingly, at 65 different places all at the exact same time I was also pretty sick. H1N1 maybe . . . I don't know, {I'm mostly kidding with that one. I don't think that's what I had . . . but you know since it's going around like wildfire around here . . .} but whatever I had it was nasty and lasted about 8 days before it started going way! I'm still not 100% yet, but I'm so much better than I was on any day last week! So I'm optomistic that this week things will be lookin' up! If not, things look like they'll slow down long about the first week of August. Think I can hang in there for 7 more weeks? I'm not sure, I'll have to get back to you on that one. Until then, Mondays and Wednesdays are completely insane and the other 3 days of the {work}week are manageable. Afternoons, thankfully, are blessedly unevently for the most part. Pretty much everyone is home from their stuff by lunch and we can relax and read or play or nap or just hang out at home for the afternoon. Then, you know, Dad gets home and the fun begins all over again!

It seems I often get sick about this time of year. I'm not usually one to get sick too often, but when I do it's usually pretty nasty. The Elliott's may {possibly} remember 5 years ago right about now I was kinda sick . . . did I mention that when we were at your place, guys? I can't remember! John? Do you remember me being a tad bit sick when we were there? Literally in May/June of 2004 I was sick for the better part of a month. It was terrible and I might possibly have mentioned that fact while we were staying with our dear friends the Elliotts in Idaho on our vacation! It may have gone something like this: "I can't believe I have been sick for 16 days now." "Well, you know, I've been sick!" "Do you know I've been sick?" "Honestly, isn't 18 days long enough, already?" I can't say that I remember exactly, but that, I think, is a pretty accurate approximation . . . John, Robin, Rachel, David: feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, the 2009 version of the early summer crud wasn't as bad as the 2004 version, but it still was no fun and I'm so glad to be on the back end of it! Hopefully now I'll be healthy as can be for another 5 years.

I didn't take any pictures this week . . . I was super busy and, did you know that I've been sick? Anyway, I completely forgot to take any on Father's Day too. Shoot! But, we did have a very fun Father's Day celebration at my parent's house yesterday with my brother and his family and my grandma and her sister, my parents {obviously} and all of us! Dads are great! So you can pretend that there is a super cute picture here of Kirbs and our 5 adorable kiddos . . . and maybe a sweet one of me with my dad, too. Oh, and for good measure you can also imagine one of Luke and sweet little Haddon . . . aren't they great pictures? . . . You don't see them?! Honestly people, get some imagination!!

Just for fun though, and visual efffect, here are a couple random pictures that I think are cute:

Thankful Thursday

I'm so excited (and thankful) for summer! By this time next week school will be out and the kiddos will be free for a few months. I'm excited for the change of pace and to have the kids home more and for all the fun and adventure (and books!) that await us this summer: day camp, swimming, Stoll reunion, swimming, THE STATE FAIR, band camp, more swimming, family camp at Trout, swim team, bike rides, swimming, reading and more swimming! Whoo hoo!