For the past week or so, I’ve subtlely noticed my anxiety creeping back in the evenings.  At first, I thought I was just overly-sensitive and imagining things.  But each successive night I’ve noticed it more and more, and tonight, I was most definitely anxious.  We had church tonight (Wednesday evening Thanksgiving service), and people could noticeably tell that something wasn’t right with me.  I certainly could tell that something was wrong, and I was unable to pretend that it was something else.  It’s definitely my anxiety coming back.

I am hoping that I just need another dose of the homeopathic remedy that I took last time that gave me such great results.  I’m really hoping that does the trick.

I’m feeling rather dejected about this.  But, JJ consoled me by saying that we took two steps forward, and now this is just one step back.  We found something that worked; it just needs to be refined and tweaked a little more until it’s just right.  And, hey, I’m thankful we found this solution at all!  That month or so that I spent anxiety-free was such a wonderful blessing.

I’ll look forward to that time when I feel better again, and until then, I’ll try to not focus so much on me and focus on others as well as all that I have to be thankful for.  Hopefully tomorrow (Thanksgiving) will give me the chance to do that.

We’re finally getting a much new roof on our house this week.  The parsonage in which we live has needed a new roof pretty much ever since we moved in eight years ago.  We started having leaks a few years ago, and, well, after the big storm we had in October, the church council finally agreed to a new roof.

Of course, this costs major bucks, and our church, like most churches these days, is not rolling in the dough.  However, thanks to a some generous donors, the roof is already over 3/4 paid for.  Yay!

The roofers were supposed to begin last Monday, but then they had to finish up another job, so they wouldn’t be able to start until Wednesday.  Then, there was a big storm forecasted for Friday, so they decided to put it off until this week.  Of course, with Thanksgiving on Thursday, this is only a 3-day week.  However, they’re doing 2/3 of the roof.  They’re doing the peaked garage roof as well as the flat upstairs roof.  Next week, they’ll do the flat living room roof.  The living room is a whole section of the house by itself, and the room measures 18×28.  (Before the church was built, they used to hold church services in the living room.  Apparently about 60 people could fit in there!)  So, that will be done next week.

On Monday, a group of about eight hispanic gentlemen arrived bright and early at 7:30, ringing our doorbell (and waking us all up!)  They tore off the old roofs on those two sections, and were out of here by noon.  Around 4:30pm, another truck arrived with the next day’s materials.  The girls and I sat outside and watched as three guys and a huge conveyor belt unloaded tarpaper, shingles, and big canisters of tar off their truck.

This morning, the first guy was here at 8am.  I think he was here to put on the new, fancy-schmancy uber-super gutters that hopefully should not have the problems the old ones did.  An inspector arrived soon after, looking cross and stern and making violent hand and arm gestures (not obscene, but very demanding, pointing here and there quite fiercely).  Everyone else arrived at 8:30, and the hot tar melter machine was turned on right away.  Pee-yew!  Very stinky.

Luckily, Curious J had an art class this morning, so we headed off to that and escaped the smell.  After class (where I knew a suprising number of moms and nannies, thanks to my 6+ years of teaching music classes), we went to the adjoining park, where I met another mom and child from my recent music class.  It was a simply beautiful day today, weather-wise, probably the warmest day we’ve had in weeks.  So, it was a good day to be outside at a park.  After playing a while, J and I ran a few errands before heading back home.  Everything still stank, so I made a quick PB&J lunch for the girls and I, and J and I ate down in the church fellowship hall with Lyd and the other school kids.

After lunch, and after spending recess time with the school kids, I took J to JJ’s office, where he had set up the Pack & Plan in anticipation of J needing a quiet place to nap.  (JJ was off doing an in-home BIC class (Bible Information class), and then he was camped out at Starbucks writing an article on Catholicity that he was asked to write for the next “Worship the Lord” newsletter that all WELS pastors get.  I’ll see if I can link to it when it comes out in January.)  I brought a quiet project of mine along to the office, and after a few increasingly-stern admonishments to J to ”lie down,” she finally zonked off.  I got some progress done on my project until school was out at 3:30.  Lyd came home and we got ready for her gymnastics class.  We woke up J and headed out to the car, and on our way out I noticed Juan, the foreman, heading towards his truck.  I rolled down my window, asked how things were going, and he said they were done for the day, but that they’d be back tomorrow.  I noticed the only white guy there, so I talked to him a bit, too.  He said he was the owner, and he assured me that he’d have the two roofs done by tomorrow, and that he’d be back next week to do the other roof.  Excellent!

So, tomorrow, I have to figure out one more day of what to do with J to occupy ourselves away from the house in the morning.  I think another trip to the park will be in order, as well as a big pre-Thanksgiving grocery shopping trip.  I picked up a 21.5 pound organic, hormone-free, antibiotic-free turkey this evening at Lunardi’s.  Only one person is coming over so far, but I always make a huge turkey at Thanksgiving.  It’s a lot of work to cut up and process the whole bird, but then it lasts a LONG time.  It’s worth it for me.

But, all this inconvenience is still going to be worth it in the end, when our roof doesn’t leak anymore!  Or grow moss on it!  I’m looking forward to this all being done.

Recently, Curious J pointed to each member of her family and named them.  “Momma. Daddy. Lee-ya.”  Then she pointed to herself, and with a big smile said, “Dyoo-dyoo-bee!”

Does God have our future mapped out for us?  Or do we have free will to make choices?  The answer is: Yes.  It doesn’t make logical sense, but the answer is still — yes.

With that in mind, does what we do or how we pray make a difference?  Recently, I’ve found some interesting blog posts that touch on these questions:

I was introduced to the blog My Charming Kids when a number of famous bloggers wrote posts asking for prayers for Stellan, a little boy with serious heart problems.  Stellan’s mom blogged about his medical journey, and just recently, she happily wrote that the doctors managed to do some procedure on Stellan’s heart that seems to have completely fixed it.  Stellan shouldn’t have problems with his heart again.

Stellan’s mother wrote a post, entitled “Miracle,” expressing her thankfulness over her son’s successful surgery, as well as her gratitude for all the people around the world who were praying for Stellan.  But, she also wonders why prayers were answered for her son and not for the children of others.  She writes:

While for Stellan, the doctors hit a home run, for others, who are just as prayed for, loved and special, their child faces more hospital stays, more interventions and more medicines. Children died this week. Children who were every bit as loved and important. Children whose names were also lifted to God, with parents and families and friends who went to Him with the same fervent spirit that you did, that we all did. But there are children who, even so, were not healed on earth.

That just doesn’t make sense to me, or to my husband … It is pretty clear from reading the Bible that we are not meant to understand God’s ways, we aren’t created to make those decisions about what type of healing arrives, what plan God has for any family … But He does give us something. He gives us faith. It is faith that can help us to accept what He allows to come our way, and faith that He will give us the strength and judgment and wisdom to keep going, especially if we do not get the miracle we wanted.

It is so easy now for me to sit here and say I would have trusted God no matter what, even if Stellan had died. But the truth is, finding the miracle in the situation when a child dies is something I do not understand … [God] chose to allow the doctors to fix Stellan’s heart.  And I’m just struggling with what my response is to that. While our son is recovering, other sons and daughters are not. We are reunited as a family of six, yet other families are separated because of death. I could not be more grateful for our healing miracle, but at the same time my husband and I are grieving anew with those who grieve. It is unfair and beyond our grasp of comprehension.

I’ve had a similar experience myself.  Curious J could easily have died during her delivery, but she didn’t.  However, another little baby girl, equally loved, arrived at her time to be born in the same physical situation as my baby, even down to the two girls sharing the same due date, yet my baby made it safely through the delivery while the other little girl did not.  Why did her baby die and not mine?  I have no answer, except to hug my daughter tightly and praise God for his great mercy and love.

———————

But, does prayer even make a difference?  The famous mommy-blogger who writes Her Bad Mother recently wrote about this topic in her post Just Like a Prayer.  I don’t think she is a believer in any particular religion herself, but she wrote about the topic of prayer in regards to a fellow famous mommy-blogger with three young children who last week had a sudden massive stroke, and is now fighting for her life.  (You can read her husband’s blog post updates on his wife’s condition here.)

Her Bad Mother writes:

I don’t believe in petitionary or intercessory prayer. I’ve written about my reasons for this at length, but it boils down to this: I don’t believe in, can’t believe in, a God who responds to such prayer. As I said some months ago, ‘why should God help us find a cure for cancer, and not for muscular dystrophy? Find one lost child, and not another? Help the Red Wings win while leaving children dying in sub-Saharan Africa? If God is a god who lets bad things happen, the only way that I can understand that is if the point of letting bad things happen is to compel us to cope with pain and heartbreak and evil ourselves, alone, to better understand those things. And that idea of a didactic God doesn’t square with a picture of God as a moody patriarch who dispenses favors to his children on the basis of who supplicates most fervently.’

But that is not what prayer is for, I don’t think. It’s not a letter to Santa, it’s not a note to the Tooth Fairy, it’s not a solitary or collective clapping of hands to show that we do believe in fairies, we do, and please don’t let Tinkerbell die. Not that there isn’t some force or value in letters to Santa and notes to Tootherella and fervent Tink-saving hand-clapping: these are powerful expressions of our faith and our desire and our will. And when they are wrought collectively, they give us shape as families, as communities, as circles of love and hope and friendship. But wishes – even the strongest ones, even the ones that issue from a thousand hearts at once – don’t come true from the asking. They just don’t. And as go wishes, so go petitionary and intercessory prayers.

Is Her Bad Mother right?  Do many people today believe in the collective power of prayer, meaning the the higher the number of people praying, the better the chance that God will hear and answer?  Is prayer about the numbers, or is there something else involved?  I agree with Her Bad Mother on this point: I don’t know if I could believe in the kind of God who chooses to act simply based on the amount of prayers headed his way on a certain issue.  Thankfully, I don’t believe in such a God.  My belief in God is very simple; I believe in a God who works everything out for good for his children (Romans 8:28), and “working things out for good” can and most definitely does include life in heaven.

In fact, I’ll tell you something that might make some of you angry at me, or at least confused: I didn’t pray for Grandma Violet to get better.  (Well, she wouldn’t have wanted me to anyway because she was eager to get home to heaven, but that’s not the point.)  And, I didn’t pray for my aunt to be healed.  Instead, for both of these wonderful women, I prayed that God would continue to work out the circumstances of their lives for their own eternal good and for the eternal good of those around them.  Is that a vague prayer?  Yes.  But I believe this kind of prayer treats God as God, and it trusts that he knows better than sinful humans do how to truly work things out for the good of his children.

I have to admit, though, sometimes I’ve wondered about prayer myself.  Does it really make any difference to pray?  If God is going to work everything out for good anyway, do I even need to pray about it?  God knows exactly what’s going to happen in the future anyway, right?  But yet, I know that Christians are instructed to pray: “In everything, present your requests to God.” (Philipians 4:6)  And the Bible also says, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16) So, as with other doctrines in Christianity that don’t make logical sense to human reason alone, I have to just trust what God says and stop asking so many questions.

Meanwhile, I keep on praying for my father to find a job.  Well, what I actually pray goes something like this, “Lord, if it’s your will, please help my father to find a good job that can support him and Mom.  But whether you decide to provide a job for Dad or not, thank you for your promises to always provide for your children.  Help all of us to trust that you’ve got a perfect plan, and even if we can’t understand it, we know that your way is best.” 

It’s not an easy prayer to pray.  It’s easier to simply tell God what he should do.  And, of course, I really do hope that my dad finds a job!  But at the same time, I’m trying to trust that God’s got everything under control.  Holding onto this kind of attitude saves one from feelings of guilt (like my first blog quote) or from hopelessness (like my second blog quote).  Christians have to let God be God, while holding to the knowledge that “whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” (Romans 14:8)  In the end, our focus in life should not be about sickness or health, employment or unemployment, or even happiness or sadness.  The focus of our life on earth should be on heaven, always remembering that this earthly life is short and a poor reflection of what heaven will be like.  We look heavenward; it’s not about our “best life now,” it’s about our best life then.

Today I was amused by reading the message in my chinese fortune cookie.  School hot lunch today was orange chicken, chow mein, and fried rice from Panda Express, and JJ and I were invited to share the food.  After the meal, I cracked open my fortune cookie and read a message that went something along the lines of: You will be successful in obtaining all your goals.  “Ha!” I thought.  “That is the complete opposite of me.”

I have a problem with goals.  I can set them, but I often don’t keep them.  I’ve recently realized that goal-setting is what sets People Who Get Things Done apart from People Who Want to Get Things Done But Don’t.  And deep down, I want to be a Person Who Gets Things Done, even though I can’t imagine what that kind of a life would look like on me.  Outside of necessities-of-life goals (ie. clean clothes, clean dishes, food, diaper changes, etc.), I’m not good at achieving goals.

I know that in the long run, it is much easier – and faster – to just start a project and get it done than it is to procrastinate on a project, dread it, and finally drag yourself to getting around to doing it.  In my head, I know this.  But when it comes time to put that head knowledge into practice, well, the results aren’t so good.

Since my aunt died two weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about her and remembering her more frequently.  One thing I remember about her (besides her ready smile, cheerful disposition, and her tendency to laugh until she cried ) is that she was always busy.  Her house was always relatively clean, she always was one to get busy and do the dishes right after a meal, she was able to make large meals in a relatively short amount of time.  She was a lot like her mother, my Grandma Violet.  No grass grew under her feet.  I admire both my aunt and my Grandma, and I would like to be like that.  I would like to tackle a project, no matter how boring or distasteful, no matter how unsure I am of how to go about it, and just get it done.  But, it’s really, really difficult for me to have that kind of drive on my own.

I have that kind of drive when other people are around.  If I have someone to talk to while I’m working, I can get almost anything done.  But, it’s really difficult for me to achieve my goals when I’m on my own.  If I have a deadline, I most definitely will get it done.  And if it’s a project I enjoy, that’s easy to accompish, too.  But if I’m on my own, that’s where I have problems.  Not only do I lack an inner drive, but I lack a system of accountability.  If I don’t clean the bathrooms today, nobody notices – or cares.  If I don’t do the yard work outside, it doesn’t make a difference.  If I don’t mop the floors or organize my receipts or tackle the piles in my bedroom or clean off my computer desk – no one is in a position to “whip me into shape.”  JJ doesn’t believe in parenting or policing me; he believes it’s bad for our marriage, and I agree.  I try not to parent or police him either (although I think it’s more difficult for me to avoid that it is for him.  Honestly, I’m a nag at heart.)  Of course, my daughters don’t care.  And, in the back of my mind is the thought that I’ve avoided that project for such a long time already – what difference will one more day make?

I used to think I could overcome this problem if I just tried harder.  I don’t believe that anymore.  I think the solution lies somewhere around trying better.  I know that making good little choices is part of the solution.  I know that it’s easier to be focused and productive when one is healthy, and I haven’t been truly healthy for a long, long time, although that seems to be in the process of changing.  And I know that focusing on the kind of example I want to be to my daughters is also part of the solution.

Setting and accomplishing goals on my own is probably something with which I will always struggle.  I guess it’s just another example of the affect sin has had on the world.  But, all I can do is keep on trying, be thankful for deadlines – and invite company over more often so that I have a reason to clean my house!

My husband was a surprise baby.  He was not planned, he was not supposed to come into existence, and he was born when his parents were … older.  However, I and many other people are very thankful that he was born.  (He also wasn’t supposed to live once he was born.  His mother prayed a “Hannah’s Prayer” over him, “Lord, if you spare this baby, I will give him to you.”  And, wouldn’t you know it, JJ has never wanted to be anything except a pastor.  Isn’t that interesting!  Anyway…)

Over the years, my husband and I have met many more people who were also surprise babies.  They’ve all been dearly loved by their families, and those families can’t imagine life without them.  For example, my parents told me about the pastor at our church when I was a little girl.  He and his wife had two children, then seven-ish years later, had a surprise baby.  Ten-ish years after that, they had another surprise baby!  I like that story.

Years ago, other acquaintances of my parents had four grown/teenaged children.  They went to a party one night, after which the wife complained of bad stomach cramps.  The husband took her to the hospital, where (you know what’s coming!) the doctor told her she was having a baby.  She was stunned; somehow, she had had no idea.  (I guess she was a larger woman, so she didn’t really gain any weight.  Plus she was in her 40s.  But still — how would you NOT know??)  Regardless, they didn’t know, and she gave birth to a baby for whom no preparation had been done.  Wow!  That must have been a huge surprise!

I also know of at least two families who adopted a number of children, only to later on in life have a baby of their own!  Those stories are so … magical, as well as being beautiful examples of God doing everything in his own good time.

I love the idea of surprise babies.  I love the idea of God sending a child to a family at an unexpected time.  I love the idea of God taking over control of this aspect of life and proving that his timing is always best.  I agonize over big decisions, and I’ve always felt relieved that both of my babies were somewhat surprise babies.  Both were definitely wanted, but neither was exactly expected.  (Well, Curious J was certainly hoped for.  We had been trying for a long time.  But then I had some medical issues, so we took a month off from trying.  Of course, wouldn’t you know… )  So, I like the idea of getting unexpectedly pregnant, because it’s as if God’s writing a piece of your future in big letters in the sky.  People always wonder what’s the best thing to do, and getting pregnant is as if God is saying, “I’ve decided that it would be best for you to have a baby right now, and I know exactly the right baby to send you.”

With all that in mind, it bothers me that so many people in the world today want to have a high level of control of their lives, especially in regards to childbearing and fertility.  It’s even called “birth control.”  And, it bothers me that so many people, in their desire to be in control of their lives, take such final steps to ensure that a baby will not come when a baby is not expected.  I know, I know, sometimes there are good, medical reasons to take such final steps, and I’m not arguing those situations.  But, I believe those are the exception, not the rule.

Neither am I advocating the “Every Sperm Is Sacred” viewpoint.  Women shouldn’t feel obligated to spend their lives barefoot and pregnant.  That’s not healthy for a mother, and neither does it make healthy babies.  A mother has a duty to take care of herself as best as she can to be able to care for the children God has given her.  And I also disagree with the “Quiverfull” religious movement, that says that by having more children, you obtain more blessing from God.  Children are blessings, to be sure, but blessings aren’t measured in amounts.

But, it seems that there is less and less of an understanding for the middle ground between those two extremes.  In the Lutheran church, the official stance is that it’s not always wrong to use birth control.  However, what’s not talked about as frequently is that it might be wrong in some circumstances, and I don’t feel that there is a good understanding of what those circumstances might be.

Perhaps, as one who is not a “Fertile Myrtle,” it’s easier for me to take the position of being opposed to the easy use of permanent birth control.  I don’t get pregnant at the drop of a hat, nor do I have a houseful of little people with drippy noses and dirty bottoms loudly clamoring for my immediate attention.  But, without divulging details, I’ve … had reason to ponder permanent birth control lately, and I find that (exceptional cases aside) — I’m not comfortable with it.  It seems like it’s telling God, “No, thanks, I don’t want any more of those blessings.”

I know, I know, kids cost money and time and sleep and energy and personal fulfillment and blah blah blah…  I know all of that.  But in the end, children are a blessing from God, and I can’t imagine saying a definite “No, thanks” to a blessing from God.

Maybe I’m biased.  Well, I know I’m biased.  And I’m not saying I want to be Michelle Duggar, pregnant with baby #19.  (Wow!)  But I absolutely believe that God sends the right babies at the right times, and who is anybody to say when that time is up?  It bothers me that so many people I know have (with selfish and un-Christ-centered motivation, in my opinion) said “No, thanks.”

I’m not saying I’m hoping to have a surprise baby in my later childbearing years.  But, at the same time, if God wants to send me a baby at that time – or any other time - I would absolutely accept it with open arms.

Because, I like surprise babies.  Especially the one to whom I’m married.

Okay, people, homeopathy is AMAZING.

Remeber that constitutional remedy I took back in September?  Remember how I got that near-panic attack a week later?  I think those two were related.  And remember LONG ago when Curious J had a strong reaction to her homeopathic constitutional remedy, to which the homeopath responded that with such a strong reaction, the remedy would probably do good things for her (and she was right)?

Well, I think it happened to me, too, and I think I’m on to something good.

For those of you unfamiliar with homeopathy and how it works, here’s an analogy.  Picture a house of toy building blocks that is not built very strongly.  In order to build a better house that IS built securely, one first has to tear down the old house, making things messier before they can be made better.  Homeopathy works in somewhat the same way.  Especially when working at a deep level (like a constitutional remedy does) it often makes things worse before making them better.  However, the “making it worse” is actually a good sign.  It means that it’s doing something; it’s tearing down the old to rebuild better and stronger.

I have felt SO GOOD this past month.  I have had zero anxiety, despite being in many situations where I normally would have felt anxious or which would have been recipes for anxiety.  I’ve not gotten sick, despite having lots of “sickies” around me (although, I think I’m finally getting something – more on that in a bit).  My body is doing other things that I remember it doing a number of years ago, things that I had barely noticed then, but that I notice now because it’s not how I was a few months ago.

So, something is working really, really well.  And I’m very psyched.

Unfortunately, my feeling so good has led me to be a bit, shall we say, careless with getting to bed on time.  It didn’t help that this weekend while JJ was gone I stayed up late watching girly movies.  I’m finally having to pay the piper; I started coming down with a sore throat yesterday, and I woke up with a wicked sore throat today.  (However, it was my last music class of the fall session, so I took a Tylenol, made a cup of Throat Coat tea, and powered through.  The show must go on!)  But, even the progression of this cold feels very different than my colds used to feel.  I feel as if I were to take enough Echinacea and other immunity-boosting supplements, I might actually kick this thing before it turns into a full-blown cold.  That would be a big change from how my body has been over the past few years.

I am glad I stuck with my original plan to give homeopathy a fair try until the end of the year.  I can’t tell you how pleased I am with these results.  There’s no other reason – other than the homeopathy – that I should be feeling this way.  Even JJ has noticed the change in me.

I am beyond pleased.  This is such a blessing!

So, how did the garden I planted do?  Both the June garden and the Labor Day garden?

Well, the June garden turned out to  be a … learning experience.  My father built this wonderful box for me, but well, it needs some refining before it will work as we had hoped.  The box didn’t have a bottom;  it sat on the cement, and I don’t think that worked well.  I think the roots essentially got cooked.  Plants would start growing easily and quickly, but at a certain point, things (mostly) stopped growing.  The climbing beans — which I probably shouldn’t have planted anyway — only had a small handful of stunted beans.  My lettuce and onions and radishes never grew beyond two or three inches tall.  My beets never really grew much either, although they did the best of anything in that box.  We had one lovely round beet, and lots of teeny tiny beets.  However, we ate them this week with our supper (along with some “standard” beets bought from the Farmer’s Market).  Having the standard beets and the home-grown beets served side by side allowed for JJ and I to compare taste, and the home-grown beets from my garden tasted markedly sweeter, despite their tiny size.

My zucchini grew great and was full of blossoms, but I never got a single zucchini.  I think the blossoms never got pollinated.  However, I found that this is a common problem, and I found this blog post that talked about how to hand-”mate” zucchini.  I may try that next year.  I had the same problem with the pumpkin I planted — grew well with blossoms, but no blossoms turned into plants.  I also had mildew on my zucchini and pumpkin plants; I’m not sure if that was because the plant wasn’t putting it’s energy into making vegetables or what, but it was also a problem.

My pear tomatoes plants (sort of like cherry tomatoes) that I planted did great.  With two plants, I got a nice crop of small delicious tomatoes off of them.  However, I only got a few small carrots (that got added to a batch of homemade chicken soup), and the peas never grew past three inches high either (although I don’t think they got staked properly).

My late planting at Labor Day has fared much better.  I bought two containers: a 2 foot rectangular one in which I planted bush beans, and a circular one in which I planted onions.  I also replanted the peas.   All of these containers have bottoms.  Wow!  What a difference!  These beans are doing fantastically.  I picked 27 full-grown beans off the plants just this afternoon, and the onions look like real onions.  They look great!

So, in my first year of container gardening, I’ve learned that containers, when they are sitting on concrete, must have a bottom, otherwise the roots cook and don’t grow.  I’ve learned not to overwater plants.  I’ve learned that blossom plants need to be pollinated in some way.  I’ve learned that plants in containers need to be fertilized more regularly.

Hopefully before I plant a garden again next year, Dad will be able to come out for a visit again, and we can figure out some way to put bottoms onto the boxes he built me.  I’m making an attempt to compost a little bit in the soil in the boxes over the winter; hopefully that will impart some “juice” back into the soil for next year.  One can hope!  If anyone (Ruth? Kirsten?) has any composting tips for me, I’d be delighted to hear them.

I’m looking forward to eating my home-grown beans in the next day or two, and there will be more beans in the future.  I’ve got onions to look forward to.  And, I almost forgot to mention!  I don’t know if they’ll actually amount to anything, but my tomato plant which is at the end of it’s rope — has a few new blossoms on it!!!  Go figure!  We’ll have to see what happens with them.  The weather has cooled down considerably lately, and a person can tell that we’re moving closer to winter, but who knows?

Today was my aunt’s funeral in Wisconsin.  I was not there; I was at my home in California.

This is the second family funeral I’ve missed in 2009.  The first one was my Grandma Violet’s funeral back in April.  A DVD recording was made of her funeral service, and I was given a copy not long after her funeral.  However, I’ve never been able to watch it.

I’ve not been able to watch it — not because I was too emotionally overwrought to watch it, but simply because there never seemed like a good time.  I mean, it’s been like, “Hmm, what should I watch tonight – Dancing With the Stars or Grandma’s funeral?”  There just hasn’t been what I’ve felt was an appropriate time.

However, I decided that today was an appopriate time.  Since I wasn’t able to be at my aunt’s funeral, I watched Grandma Violet’s funeral service today.  I didn’t do any other work (although I did pick up the toy room as I hummed along with the hymns; I think Grandma would have approved.)  Obviously, it wasn’t nearly the same as actually being there.  But, it gave me the chance to hear and be comforted by the familiar Bible readings and hymns that I would have heard if I were actually at my aunt’s funeral, and it gave me the chance to pray the familiar prayers that I would have prayed if I were there.  Furthermore, it gave me a chance to ponder and meditate on the amazing love that God has for his children here on earth, and the incredible home that God’s children have waiting for them in heaven.  All of that felt appropriate, and I’m glad I used my time in this way.

There are many things I love about where I live.  But, on days like this, I definitely wish CA was a lot closer to WI.

Good thing we’ll all be together forever in heaven.

Lately, Lyd and I have been on a BIG kick for the movie “The Sound of Music.”  The soundtrack has been playing frequently, and the movie has been played a lot too, although it’s been requested more often than it’s been played.  Lyd now knows at least the melodies of all the songs, and she knows at least some of the words for most of the songs, too.  I know that she knows the entire five minutes of the song “Do-Re-Mi,” as we’ve sung it together a capella in the car.

Lyd’s favorite scene, however, is the wedding scene.  “How long until the wedding scene?” she asks me when she watches the movie.  She likes to dress up in a while slip, put a (green tulle) veil on her head, carry a bouquet of artificial flowers (the same flowers I carried as a bridesmaid in my cousin’s wedding) and pretend to be a bride.  Interestingly, it doesn’t seem to be a problem for her that she’s lacking a groom!

She found it completely hilarious when we read the book “Giggle, Giggle, Quack” at bedtime the other night for the first time.  The animals in Farmer Brown’s farmyard are going wild while he’s on vacation: ordering pizza, taking bubble baths, and watching a movie.  Guess which movie the cows choose to watch?  “The Sound of Moosic!”  Lyd laughed for five minutes at that one!

This newly-discovered emphasis on “The Sound of Music” has caused me to pull my tattered and torn copy of “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers” (that is missing both a front and back cover) off of my shelf and read it over again.  It’s so worn out (it got read a lot before the book mysteriously moved with me to CA 8 years ago…) that I considered buying a new copy.  So, I looked around on Amazon and found that not only could I get a new copy, but that Maria von Trapp wrote some other books, too.  Plus, her step-daughter Agatha von Trapp (“Liesl” in the movie) also wrote a book about the life of the von Trapp family from her perspective, called “Memories Before and After The Sound of Music.”  I ordered a used copy of the Agatha von Trapp book online (because our library system doesn’t carry it), and have very much enjoyed Agatha’s alternative perspective on the von Trapp story.  I was able to order two books from my library system: “Maria: My Own Story” by Maria von Trapp, which is specifically about her life, and a book about the making of the movie “The Sound of Music,” written about 15 years ago.

So, there’s a lot about Maria von Trapp and “The Sound of Music” in our house these days.

I learned something interesting in all this reading.  Maria was a VERY strong-willed woman.  She was decidedly not happy about marrying the Captain.  In fact, it took her a month as well as a spiritual experience at church on Christmas to finally choose to open her heart to her new husband.  Maria was 22 when she got married, and the Captain was 47 — they were 25 years apart in age.

When the von Trapps emigrated to America, they gave concerts for many years to earn money, as all of their money had been lost in a bank collapse back in Austria during the war.  So, they toured for many years.  All of the seven original von Trapp children were adults when they emigrated to America, and they toured for 20 years.  None of the older girls ever got married; Maria insisted that the entire family perform together, and except for the oldest son, Rupert, who was a doctor, everyone else did.  Maria could not be argued with.  One of the younger girls actually had to run away to get married.

That super strong-will of Maria surprised me, especially when I read Agatha’s book and realized that the children resented her a little bit for that.  At the same time, Maria’s strong will and drive to succeed probably saved the family from complete financial ruin.  Her drive helped make them a success in America.  I found this interesting quote from Hedwig, one of the younger daughters: “You know, if it weren’t for Mother [their name for Maria], we’d have all been cooks and maids.”  Maria was a difficult woman, who got loud and threw things when she was angry.  She also had a very difficult childhood, devoid of affection.  She should have been a juvenille delinquent, but somehow decided to become a nun instead.  Of all the songs in The Sound of Music, the song “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” is probably the most true to life — Maria really did NOT fit in at the abbey, and she DID take to kissing the floor when she saw the Mistress of Postulants coming, “just to save time,” just like Julia Andrews says in the movie.

So, it’s been very interesting to be on this “kick” for The Sound of Music.  It’s been fun to see Lyd delight in these songs, and it’s neat to hear her singing them around the house.  I’m wondering if any local theater company in the next year or so will be putting on “The Sound of Music.”  If so, I may think about letting Lyd audition for a role as one of the younger girls – she would be perfect for it.

Also as part of my Sound of Music kick, I got two biographies on Julie Andrews out of the library.  Both are interesting, especially the one she wrote herself about her early life, entitled Home.  I had forgotten about her early stage success as Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady.”  It’s neat to read her memories of that time, as well as her next Broadway show “Camelot.”  I grew up listening to the soundtracks of both of those musicals when I was a child.

On my mantle above the fireplace stands a plate with a picture of Julie Andrews in the opening scene of “The Sound of Music.”  My aunt gave me that plate.  She loved that movie, too.  I think it’s kind of appropriate that Lyd is now learning to love that movie.  Aunt Pat would approve.