Shealyisnottheantichrist

Visit My New Place

2008-12-06T09:55:00.001-08:00

Click here to visit my new place of blog.

Working on a Fresh Start

2008-12-06T09:35:00.001-08:00

I have to say that I am working on shutting down this blog, and moving to another site, which already exists, but I am not ready to tell you about it yet.

The reason for the change is that I have really grown out of the season of my life which generated "Shealyisnottheantichrist." My novel will actually be about that season in my life, and so I think it fitting that I move on to something else. It helps me compartmentalize my life experience enough to begin to write about it.

No worries, faithful blog followers, I will let you know as soon as I am ready to make the switch.

BELIEVE IT!

2008-12-05T02:33:00.000-08:00

Remember my study room that I cleaned and organized and prayed through last week?

Last night, Ryan added a laptop to my desk, all set up and ready to write my novel.

Can you believe it?

Believe it.

I Love This

2008-12-02T06:49:00.000-08:00

Here is more JJ Heller. If you are tender-hearted, get Kleenex.

The Contest Winner Is...

2008-12-01T21:23:00.000-08:00

R. won the contest that ended on November 15th. I will give more details tomorrow. I need to get to bed.

You Will Like This Very Much

2008-12-01T20:34:00.001-08:00

I am all for free and encouraging and creative beauty in the body of Christ. That is why I am giving you this link to listen to a song for free. You can even download the album that goes with it for free. It is part of something from a site that helps emerging artists get music coverage on the internet, instead of say Letterman or the Antichrist's daytime show, Oprah.

Here we go:

I am attempting to give to a link to the site which will allow you to download the entire album for free, if share your blog name with them.

Click Here to visit the website

I Wanted To Be A Scholastic Monk Who Wasn't Fat and Made Great Spaghetti Sauce

2008-11-29T12:14:00.000-08:00

I may seem as is I am rambling today because I am sorting out thoughts. Sometimes thoughts are like socks in the dryer when you pass forty because random ones disappear, and you cannot find them anymore. You know they were there once because you are looking at the result of the thought, i.e. a post it note or some unknown item that you purchased and stowed away for a special occasion which never occurred. This is probably why I keep a gift box under my bed. Sometimes I re-gift things which I have received and did not want to various individuals, and sometimes it seems like I am re-gifting when it is only the first time I remember ever seeing it.

Today, Mr. Sinta is off four wheeling with the neighbor, and I spent my extended off day prayer time praying and cleaning the spare bedroom where I generally read and pray. Then, I started praying about rearranging my life, and simultaneously started rearranging the room. Probably that made it a prophetic act, if you talk to people in the know. My prayer cell needed a reduced spider population, clean floors and general rearrangement, but so does my life.

Life can sometimes be evaluated by the decisions that we make at key times which influence how we spend individual days which make up the seasons of a life. As I was on my knees killing arachnids and scraping up dots of white paint, I pondered my new bookcases again. I got a great, super and fantastic deal from Mandi on some big green bookcases that I keep in my basement. They are so loaded with possibilities that I was overwhelmed, and I have done pretty much nothing with them.

I think that I know now what I am going to do. I am going to use them to get an education. Education ranks really high on my list of important things, and at various times I have pursued it on a full time or part time basis; I am referring to university study. However, as much as I want a degree, there is no money for it at this time. Period. End of story. I am taking classes at church for a year, and I will eventually graduate with a year of non-transferable credit at a ministry school, if I can keep from getting kicked out. I love it. I am learning a great deal. It stretches me and makes me think.

However, it is not the kind of Western civilization studies combined with the best of English literature education which constitutes admitting one to life's great conversation that I want. I am admitting to you that I want exactly that. At the library cheap shelf the other day, I bought a book I have wanted for years and years. I have actually copied pages and pages out this very book because it was a reference work and could not be checked out. For some reason they were discarding it, and I got it for 50 cents. It is: The Lifetime Reading Plan by Clifton Fadiman. My explanation is that God provides a way when He gives a desire like that.

I will be rearranging my shelves and my life to work on this season of my life. I already have a lot of the books. The truth is that in order to accomplish this goal, I need to thin out the books that I have. Initially, I am going to throw the thinned books into a box for at least a year. Some of them, I will give away. It is going to be like a intellectual marathon, and I need to throw out the junk books.

The funny thing is that I was getting rid of a book on the minor prophets that I really felt contemptuous about, and I gave it to a really good friend and confidant who is an evangelical, since it is an evangelical book. I explained to her that I despised the book because it was so incredibly shallow. I think of it as shallow because I compare it to some Catholic commentaries on the minor prophets that I own. I do not agree with their assessments of the Scriptures, but I appreciate the incredible amount of time that they have spent evaluating the Hebrew, and the light that they are able to shed on what the words actually mean. They compare how words are used in different contexts in the same book, etc. They do not have a grip on literal interpretation, but I can glean enough from their research to come up with my own ideas of what God was actually saying by the prophets. I have read some of them, especially Amos, again and again. I do not believe that the evangelical book referred to any of the detail or beauty of the original language at any point, and drew really just a few thoughts from each book, condensing them almost in comic book style. I love my friend, and she was not at all offended that I was giving her a shallow second rate commentary on the minor prophets. She is not shallow or second rate in any way, but she is a lot more humble than I am, and she can learn from just about anybody. The most helpful thing in the book I gave her was a page with a one sentence summary of each book of the minor prophets. I kind of wish I had made a copy of that one page. It is really good that I was never a monk because we still would not have a complete copy of any manuscript. Too many decisions.

I am also working on losing 50 pounds so I can make another stab at a marathon next fall. Without disclosing my method, I will simply say that I plan to consume less, eat healthier, and stick with it until I meet my goal. I am giving up running, this sounds like sacrilege to some of you, until I can lose a significant proportion of that weight because I believe it is hard on my body to make it carry that much extra weight. Trust me that I want to run. I will be walking in the meantime, just three lousy miles a day.

I also want to write. I have a novel in my head and I am ready to start it. All the current ideas fit on a four by six card. When I get it actually going in a week or two, I will let you know more.

The other thing that I really want is a Biblically renewed mind. I want to really think and live and believe and act just like God intends. I think that somehow all of these goals are kind of tied together. It is time to start a new season, in which I am concentrating on hard, but doable things, things within reach. I trust that as I am a faithful monk, or monkette, or monkess, if you prefer, that by putting one foot in front of the other on a disciplined daily basis, that my life will get cleaned and rearranged, just like I prayed.

Heck, I Already Blew It

2008-11-26T11:19:00.000-08:00

I already blew it on my eating today, so I am not going to wallow in that. Breakfast is wicked!

Abby communicated to me her complete irritation with the grammar program that we have been using to kind of 'nail down' her senior year English education. It is from the good folks at Canon Press; don't buy it.

In an effort to find a sequential, builds on review kind of curriculum quickly, I went to the basement and dug up the old records of the Shurley Method. For some reason, I saved the Level 6 Teacher's Manual, so we will review with that for now. I grabbed Aimee's Level 6 student manual, and for your blog entertainment, I will reproduce some of her original sentences for you. You may note that they are all correct; Aimee is a very correct person. We call her the perfect child. The entertaining part is the subject matter. Horses weigh heavily in almost all of her thoughts!

I have a horse. Do you like horses? The wild horse almost ran over John! Bring that horse here. (Declarative, Interrogative, Exclamatory, and Imperative)

The angry horse reared quickly.
The beautiful horse ran quickly by the stands.
The beautiful horse was running at the jump because he loved jumping.
The gentle horse walked quietly.
We know nothing about riding.
Do not ride on the icy path in the woods.
Were the beautiful palomino horses ridden yesterday?
Today the town sheriff met the bandits.
Several angry dogs barked at the boy on the fence.
The little puppy ran around happily.
She is riding today at Bob's stable.
The horses whinnied loudly outside.
(You get the idea.)

Here is an original 3 point paragraph by Aimee.

My Favorite Breeds of Horses

I have three favorite breeds of horses. They are Arabians, Morgans and Pintos. My first favorite breed of horse is the Arabian. I like Arabians because they are very fast. My second favorite breed of horse is the Morgan. I like Morgans because they are strong. My third favorite kind of horse is the Pinto. I like Pintos because they have beautiful spots. I am fond of many kinds of horses, but I like Arabians, Morgans, and Pintos best.

Inserted, almost parenthetically, in her daily sentence log are a few fun facts about the family, like the following:

Hooray! Abby can do a front walkover.
Mom bought a new sofa.
I asked, "Who gave you that candy bar?"
"Woof," said Randy.
Abby walked Randy, and I walked Sassy. (The dog next door, now deceased.)
Abby rode Sundance, and I rode Simon. (Simon and Sundance have passed on as well.)
Abby was sick; however, she went outside. (The need to report is strong in a middle child.)

There were a few horse bloopers:

When the horse stopped, I fell off.
After the horses ran away, we rode cows.

Some complex sentences:
When the music played, the dog howled, and the cat turned green.
The next day:
When the music stopped, the dog turned green and the cat howled.

I could go on for quite a while, but I will finish with another 3 point paragraph.

My Favorite Animals
by Aimee

I have three favorite animals. They are horses, dogs and cats. My first favorite animal is a horse. I like horses because they are fun to ride. My second favorite animal is a dog. I like dogs because they are fun to play with. My third favorite animal is a cat. I like cats because they are graceful. Although I like many animals, horses, dogs and cats are my favorites.

I think she may have changed her mind about cats. This was their lone mention in the entire level 6 workbook.

Enjoy your children today. Now Aimee is old and married and writing another novel this month and presenting a paper next year at a conference in Boston. I doubt she mentions cats in either one, but I would not be surprised if she managed to squeeze in a horse or two.

Today

2008-11-25T21:41:00.000-08:00

Well, last night I woke up at about 3 am and could not sleep. I wasted time on the computer, and fell asleep about the time that I should have been getting up. The day continued in that same vein of not doing the right thing first, so although I got things done, I probably wasted a great deal of time. Late in the afternoon, I remembered to check to see if I had a class tonight, and I did. I had just enough time to take a quick shower, and make supper before running out of the door. I came home and ate leftovers and watched a PBS show on seal rescue. Interestingly enough, it mentioned Pier 39 in San Francisco, which we visited last month.

I am certain that I could have done without the seal melodrama, as it turned out to be. Always humans are the bad guys, especially humans who excrete waste. Is there any other kind of human?

If you do not have enough bad news, my bil, Joel, relayed the thoughts of a Russian thinker who believes China and Russia will eventually run the international banking system. When Gog and Magog take over, I am hoping to be leaving shortly...

I did get some Christmas shopping done today, cleaned the first floor of the office, picked up the mail, and bought my Lies Women Believe book. Also, the Rostrons are coming for Thanksgiving. Hooray!!! Of course, the house is filled with leaves that the dog has dragged in, and if I vacuum them up, he will drag in more just before I answer the door on Thursday. I love my messy dog.

On the good side, I am not all upset about everything. I have decided just to stop being so intense about things that I cannot fix. However, I have no one to blame but myself for my weight, so I am going to work on that---Tomorrow, of course!

In between beatings...

2008-11-24T15:40:00.000-08:00

In between times of telling myself that I am going to lose 40 pounds and do it RIGHT NOW, and other times of telling myself to get off my butt and get out there and run, and other times of telling myself to get out of bed right now because IT IT TIME TO PRAY...then I think to myself that I need to get re-motivated or start rethinking my approach to life. What I am doing is not working for me.

Today, a great thing happened. I got together with a faithful-prayer-partner-friend- mentor-person, and we are going to meet once a week for a few months to go over the Nancy De Moss book, Lies Women Believe.

There is something about accountability that really helps me to get motivated and get things off of the ground.

It is probably a great deal like telling your kids to make their beds vs. telling them that you will be in shortly to check on their made beds.

We had a great weekend in Reno watching the Broncos beat the Wolfpack. That was a stressful, exhilarating game with loads of really fun fans, even the one behind me who accidentally poured beer down my back and later bonked me on the head unintentionally. I kept telling her, "This is not a problem. We are packed in here like sardines." :)

I have to say that it was a thrill to feel the cold beer on a brisk day outdoors when we were in the nosebleed section of the stadium. All of us survived, and a long hot bath did wonders for body and soul that night.

A Rhetorical Question

2008-11-21T08:15:00.000-08:00

Is it possible to see yourself in the process of decomposing while you are still alive?

The last couple of days have made me want to just pull my own plug, and turn in my Believer Card to my Maker.

"Here I am. I am done. I believe in You. Please take me into Heaven because a. You are merciful b. You love me more than life itself c. It looks like the country is taking a turn for the worse very shortly, and I did not vote for it, pray for this to happen, donate to the wrong people or even watch Oprah, who evidently is the new Antichrist. d. Relationships with church people are driving me to the brink of (Insert something desperate, but non-violent in here, thank you.) e. All of the above

Running away never solves anything, even running to Heaven, although I hear the shadow is a great place to be. (Psalm 91) The truth is that as we stay and face up to our own insecurities and the blatant insensitivity and ungratefulness of the body of Christ is when we are being most Christ-like, and most God-like. In the sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us that his Father is kind to the ungrateful et al.

Being like Jesus, means that I am going to die to some/all, depending on the day, of my personal goals and ambitions because how I treat people is more important than how they treat me.

When people in the body of Christ engage in activities and speech than is offensive to us, and we take the time and care to approach them to deal with the offenses because we care about maintaining relationships, a value that is high on God's list as well, (Keep your offering until you make things right with your brother.) and we are scorned, disbelieved, rejected, lectured, and dissed, there is some dying in that. We get to die to our ideas of what great fellowship looks like because sometimes there is blood on the floor, and we find out it is ours. We get to die to our illusions that our spiritual leaders are really sensitive and compassionate, because we find out that they not only have feet of clay, but that the reason they have so many problems getting along with people is that they do not have the people skills of a Kmart cashier, despite their great spiritual gifting or calling.

Oh well. I am staying on earth. And I am dying to a few things this week, and probably decomposing a little more next week. Somewhere in all of this will turn up life. It's on the back of my Believer Card. He who loses his life will find it. Doesn't say where or when, but will. Maybe in Reno...maybe in Boise...but it will happen, just like the sun coming up.

Blew It

2008-11-19T09:05:00.000-08:00

I did something today that I have not done for a long time. I blew it. I was mad that no one did the dishes while I was gone last night, even though I made all the food and set the table for them. I was mad that they used my best cookie sheet to stick some BBQ'd chicken in the oven and have apparently ruined my cookie sheet. I have guarded my two best cookie sheets for years from pizza and assorted things that would ruin the finish, and now this. I was mad that Abby got up 2 hours later than I did and then said that she was ditzing on the computer instead of doing school because she had to wait for me. I was mad because some other people, not related to me, seem to have presumed to direct and control my plans. Those who know me, know how much I just love that. Other things, which I am not mentioning, have been pretty stressful as well. So, I blew it. I yelled. I stormed. I said I was taking today off of school. I pushed a stool with a brisk squeaky action with enough strength to make it crash a little, although it didn't do any damage. I told Abby she was doing all of her work by herself today. So there.

I went to the basement to do someone else's laundry, and talk it all out with the Lord. He is the only Person in the universe who is not threatened by angry women who have absolutely had it. The Red Cross had the misfortune to call and want my blood at that moment. The Nerve. I politely let them know that I would not be giving them any more blood. I am off the list.

When I started praying, and unloading everything with the Lord, it occurred to me that I am really weary in my soul. I thought about the marathon and how wearying that it turned out to be, how I felt completely overwhelmed when I was on the last fifth of the race. That's when my friend, Lynn B., came and parked her car and ran the last five miles with me. There was no glory in it for her at all. It wasn't even a good work out for her because I was going so darn slowly. When I thought about how weary that I was, and how much I appreciated her sacrifice for me, it made me cry. Suddenly it dawned on me that it was so touching because she was acting like God does. He does that for us. Doctrinally, I know that He is always with us, but sometimes when we are just weary in our souls and want to quit, we just need a good dose of His presence to make us good to go again. Patient endurance can come just from being encouraged at the right time by a Friend who wants to see you succeed by not quitting. A very gracious Friend.

Ryan's Tender Heart

2008-11-15T09:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Ryan started telling me about a elementary aged boy in northern Idaho who was being beaten by his parents and was removed from his home and put with a foster family. Eventually, the boy went before a judge, who wanted to place him with different extended family members, his grandparents. The boy said that they would beat him as well. The judge suggested an aunt and uncle. The boy protested that they would beat him as well.

At this point I explained to Ryan that when a family is so dysfunctional as to beat a child in the way that this boy had been beaten, that often the violence is rooted in the extended family. As I waited to hear the conclusion of the story, I felt kind of a sad anticipation, and wondered if the reason Ryan was bringing this up was that one of our friends was taking in this young boy.

Ryan added that the judge asked the boy where he wanted to be placed, if he could choose any place. The boy answered, "I want to live with the Idaho Vandals, because they never beat anybody."

Well, People Are Coming

2008-11-14T15:43:00.000-08:00

I am not sure why, but we are having a terrible time trying to make friends at church.

We usually make friends by spending time with people at church, a.k.a. Sunday school or small groups, but this church does not have those things. I tried to make friends by serving, but I only became acquainted with the secretary because the building was empty, no big surprise here, when you are cleaning it. I worked in the nursery for the Saturday night services this summer, and also came up empty. There was never more than one child at a time in there. Well, once I had two children, and talked to one of the moms who hung around a while, but they did not stay at the church. They were just visiting and trying to decide whether or not to leave their old church. Total strikeout.

Another way we have of making friends at churches is by having people over for dinner. Everyone whom we have gotten to know in this way has left the state. One left the country; she moved to Australia. She sends me fascinating emails replete with photos of all that they are doing and experiencing, and sweet personal notes and encouragements that she is praying for me. Alas, she is an email friend. We need some flesh and blood friends.

Our final way of making friends is by having parties. We are supposed to have one tonight, and I think that it may have bombed before it even started.

Hey!!! The phone rang. Aimee and Brent are coming...It may be a fun time after all.

I will let you know.

Non-Conformist

2008-11-12T20:21:00.000-08:00

Non-conformist is a label that I give myself when I realize that my opinion differs with everyone else's opinion, and my opinion, which I am usually passionately ready to die for, is likely to be very unpopular.

Having a label for myself like that insulates me a little from small minded people who disagree with me. Not all people who disagree with me are small minded, but I have run across quite a few. They want to make me unhappy, in addition to being unpopular, because I disagree with them. It is an emotional power play. Thinking people resist all such small minded attempts to force us to conform. I think that I learned this when I was a preschooler. I have practiced.

So, when other people call me a name for being different or disagreeing with them, I automatically insert the word 'non-conformist' in its place, so their label doesn't float around in my head and weaken my position.

I was caught off guard on Tuesday night, when a class mate called me unorthodox. To his shock and chagrin, I replied that, "Yes, I am." The implication being that he had to just deal with it because I had no intentions whatsoever of entering into the "What can I change to please you?" mind game.

Today, I looked up unorthodox and discovered that the first definition had to do with not conforming to established doctrine, and the second definition dealt with being unconventional.

It made me mad, but I got over it.

However, I thought that I should come up with some snappy comebacks, in case it ever happens again.

"Yes, I am unorthodox, but I don't recall ever hearing an original thought come out of your mouth."

"Unorthodox, sure I am. I bet that the last time you thought outside the box was when your mom got a new refrigerator."

"Unorthodox? Thanks. I didn't realize I had made it to the top of the heap."

What did I do that was so unorthodox? I asked a question. Actually, I asked permission to ask a question about a text we were reading outside of class. Of course, it was a question over a doctrinal point that I disagreed with, but he had no way of knowing that.

I am glad I am over it.

I am so over it. :)

Things I Lost At the Marathon

2008-11-10T16:09:00.000-08:00

I meant to put this in the other day, but, "Oh, well."

The City of Trees Marathon was on a pretty brisk day for Boise, so I wore a t shirt over a tank top with a pair of shorts and a belted waist fanny pack for runners with a water bottle. I wore sunglasses. Woo-hoo.

I bought the fanny pack on the day before the race because I was afraid that they would not have enough water stops. That freaked me out, so I did what no marathoner is supposed to do. You are never supposed to ever change anything the day before the race. You ONLY do what has already worked for you. So...I broke the rule, and I am glad that I did. There were no bad consequences. It is really a good rule for marathoners because even wearing a different t-shirt than you normally do can cause major grief for you.

For instance, I had to buy a product at the running store called Glide, because when I put on long mileage days, just the rubbing of my tank top on my arms made very painful red welts where the skin had worn off in just one practice run. When you are repeating the same motion, over and over, you have to be careful of little things like that.

At any rate, I was happy for the extra t-shirt. It was an ugly green one that Mr. Sinta had not worn for years, so he donated it to the cause. On about mile ten, every article of clothing that I had was already soaked through with sweat, so I discarded the t-shirt. I did not want to be a trashy runner, so I gave it to a person who was directing traffic and asked them to dispose of it as I was running past. Amazingly, she assured me that she would not put it in the trash, but would donate it to charity. This is Boise's North End. They are an amazing bunch. I recycle. And I donate things to charity, but I live on the Bench. Roughly translated, that means if you hand me a sweaty t-shirt at a marathon, I am going to put it in the nearest trash can. This is not a slam on the North End. It is an observation. They are different. They care about the environment more than you care for some of your relatives.

I have had a change of heart toward the North End since I ran down Harrison Blvd. This is one of the richest streets in town. You probably don't live there unless you inherited the house, or you own quite a bit of a Fortune 500 corporation, you are a physician or you are on the board at Micron. Nevertheless, when I ran by, an old overweight solo runner who was so far back that I could not even find the trash that the pack left behind, they came out in their front yards and cheered and clapped for me. It was a very humbling and uplifting experience. I even high fived a two year old. I love you, North End!

Okay, so what did I lose? When I took off the t-shirt, I forgot that my sunglasses were on top of my head, and evidently they dropped into the street. That accounts for two losses, the shirt and the sunglasses.

The third loss is kind of gross, and if you have a weak stomach, you may want to skip this and come back another day. You were warned.

When I took off my shoes at home, I could see that one of my toes looked deformed. It had a very huge blister underneath one of the toe nails. I will spare you the details, but later this month, that toenail fell off. Isn't that strange?

The positive side is that I got to wear one of my Hello Kitty band aids for a few days. I love Hello Kitty.

The Latest

2008-11-07T21:08:00.000-08:00

In order to stop feeling guilty about all of the days I have missed blogging, I will attempt to give brief concise descriptions of things so I can move forward on another day without guilt.

The Marathon: I ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran some more. Various people in the North End cheered for me as I ran all by sweaty tired self, way behind almost everyone else. My husband rode his bike and encouraged me on Crescent Rim. My friend, Lynn, drove around in her car and gave me wonderful Gatorade at various times, and also ran the last five miles with me, or I do not believe that I would have finished. I hurt so much that the only way I could keep running was to sing my goofy Barry Manilow love song, Can't Live Without You to the Lord again. It honestly actually helped me to run, but poor, poor Lynn had to listen to me! She said that she had never seen (or heard, I imagine) a singing marathoner before. Since I sang it when we were running together, I briefly considered that the soccer players in the park would think we were lesbians, and decided that I was going to just concentrate on running the race and let other considerations go. I was so emotional that I had to stop singing from time to time or I would have sobbed. As I crossed the finish line, and they placed a medal around my neck, I had one big sob and then held back the tears. Mr. Sinta thoughtfully brought me a COLD DIET COKE for which I bless God!!! He also brought me some warm sweats to slip over my shorts and tank top because suddenly I was very cold and all my muscles started to seize up and if I thought I was in pain during the race, it was only a foretaste of that pain which was to come after the race. :)
I crawled into the truck, and went home and stood in the shower for at least an hour. I am not kidding! Then I made a big mistake and sat on a low sofa with no arms for about 3 or 4 hours, and I could not get up. I had to crawl to a doorway and a desk and pull myself up. Feeling 88 instead of 48 lasted about 3 days. I won't tell you how hard it was to get on and off of the potty, but I will just say that it was REALLY hard. I am very, very glad that I was able to run the marathon, it is something that I will remember until I die. I might run another one next year if I can lose 40 pounds first. I have no intention of every carrying 40 extra pounds over a finish line again...I took a month off from running and finally made it out today for a short and slow 3 miler. I am very happy to be on the road again. For some reason without much trying, I have lost about 13 pounds already. We theorize that it was because I was eating like a pig when I was training, and the loss of some muscle weight. I have determined that I will not run another marathon without an iPod because it is just very difficult to maintain the mental discipline if you end up running by yourself. I honestly do not have any idea why I ran a marathon. I asked myself that while I was running it. Wouldn't it have been prudent, you say, to have asked myself that before the race? Yes, but it never occurred to me.

The Election: I thought Mr. BO would win, but I was wishing and praying that he would not because he is a death sentence for the unborn. He also will not be doing any favors for the middle class, small businessmen, people who own guns, people who go to churches that he does not agree with, people who think logically, people who don't like having terrorists blow up their country, people who buy food at grocery stores or anyone who is not a Oprah fan. I am glad that the Marriage Amendments passed, glad and amazed.

My Novel: I am planning on beginning to write a novel in the next few days. It will be a private novel until I figure out what I am doing. Then, I will release it to the masses, travel around to Borders nationwide doing book signings and hire only photographers with special lenses which make me look skinny. Oh yes, when Oprah calls, I will be too busy to do the show.

My Dog: He is very, very cute and sweet and seems to have chosen me for his best friend. He follows me everywhere. I think that everyone else in the house is too busy for him, so he has adopted me. He also has seeds in his fur, and needs a thorough combing. He has managed to stay on the right side of the law, since the last time, and I have stayed out of court. For this, I am extremely thankful.

The School of Ministry: I would never have anticipated enjoying this as much as I do, but it is true. I really enjoy it. We just finished our second month. We are tested monthly in three subjects. So far, I have 6 A pluses.

All for now. In the near future, I can sign in with short snippets and write without guilt. Thank you for waiting for me, faithful readers. I am sorry for taking so long!

The Calendar

2008-10-30T13:42:00.000-07:00

I was advised to take 26 days off from running after the marathon. Evidently, a day per mile is recommended for some reason. I was so beat up afterward, that it sounded good to me. Today is Day 25, and I am now looking forward to Saturday's run. I have noticed myself kind of flagging lately, both physically and emotionally, and I am anticipating the lift that comes from running outdoors on the Greenbelt.

I Had Another Dream

2008-10-29T16:49:00.001-07:00

Okay, so I am being extremely lazy, and not posting about the Marathon. Someday, I will do that...

I had a great dream last night. In the dream I had my own pet fish. I know it was MY pet fish because when I left the house to go somewhere, I reached my hand in the tank and took it out. I carried it with me everywhere and also talked to it quite a bit. When I got back home having completed a number of wonderful adventures which I am sadly unable to recall, I put my fish back in the tank. I remember really loving my fish, and believing that he was a faithful and supportive friend, although we lived in two entirely different worlds. Inexplicably, Mr. Sinta took my fish out of the tank when I was not looking, and I could not find him anymore.

I woke with the sensation of having had an absolutely terrific fish for a pet, and also the sadness of a friendship lost.

I am thinking it would make a great book for children who have an offbeat sense of humor, and aren't PETA members. Sensitive, unbalanced young conservatives could appreciate that kind of thing. The problem would be finding a way to market to the 7 or 8 sensitive, unbalanced young conservatives in the English speaking world.

I had a dream

2008-10-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

I had a dream last night that I once again owned a cat, and that Mr. Sinta worked at Sears, which he has never done. Mr. Sinta took us both, me and the cat, to a couples' retreat, where we did not know anyone, because he thought that I wanted to go. Someone admired my cat, and my cat bit the someone. This was not a good way to make friends. We left at the first intermission to get ice cream. For some reason, Abby was with us, probably it was the mental association with ice cream.

I am glad to be home from the San Jose game, where it turns out we were on ESPN several times, and the Broncos won. We spent a day tooling around the wharves in San Francisco, touring and shopping and eating at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was great!

We Wish We Were Sarah Palin

2008-10-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

While none of us wants her schedule, her exposure, her critics or her stresses, let's be honest. We all want to shop like her!

I saw an article yesterday by a photographer who kept documenting Sarah's shoes. She has an awesome pair of red ones like Abby, who is in the shoe business and got them on sale at Dillard's!

Today, it was revealed that the GOP spent scads of money on her at Neiman Marcus and at Macy's in Minneapolis just before the Convention, and also bought some cool stuff for Todd (known in Alaska as First Dude) at Atelier's.

Does this make me upset? No.

I guess I am wondering why no one covers the expense account of Michelle Obama?

Ryan showed me a Saturday Night Live excerpt that featured Sarah Palin. She was excellent, and it was really funny.

All for now.

Meditation

2008-10-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

I have been out on a long walk, thinking and listening to worship music and pondering things that trouble me which I can do nothing about other than pray and comment in my blog.

You may thank me, dear readers, that I am going to spare you my frustrations, and my ventable feelings.

I will render this opinion, unrelated to the rest of my meditations, Phil Wickham, the worship leader rocks.

God bless Abby who reprogrammed my iPod so I can listen to his album as much as I want! Every house needs a teenager nowadays!

Contest

2008-10-07T21:39:00.000-07:00

I would like to announce a contest that will be coming up in the month of November on my blog. Here's the gist of it.

Think of the twenty most famous and influential people who never lived. You will need to come up with the names of fictional characters who have shaped American/Western culture. These characters may not have been in books. They may be non existent in other media. On November 15th, send me your list. The person with the most correct answers will win.

Marathon

2008-10-07T16:27:00.000-07:00

The short story is that I finished within my goal time, and I am thankful and happy and sore. For the rest of the story, I will need another day. God is good to me.

The Witch Surprise

2008-10-01T12:31:00.000-07:00

Imagine my shock today as I went to the Post Office to pick up my mail to find two packages. One was graduation photos for Abby, and I assumed the other one was the checks that I had ordered. After arriving home, I dutifully opened the checks only to find that it was a gift copy of my favorite novel ever, The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

Thank you kind Book Sender, whoever you are!

Group Trip

2008-09-26T17:13:00.001-07:00

I rode my bike to the library and bought a used copy of The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

I also went to Winco and picked up supper, since I am the only one here. Mr. Sinta comes back tonight from CDA, Abby is at work, and Ryan is on an ROTC weekend. If you must know, I was curious as to what Barbado looks like from the book's description, so I googled it.

Very impressive.

I am thinking that a group trip to Barbados is in order to do book research.

Yes!

2008-09-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was able to go on a 3 mile run, which was the recommended mileage for the team. Only the vestiges of The Great Sickness remain.

I plan to run the whole thing on October 5th.

God is so good!

The next big goal will be losing the extra weight that I have been carrying around in my training. Oink, Oink!

That Attitude Thing

2008-09-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

It seems that at times, I can go for months without attitude problems. Then, suddenly I am besieged with a long overdue attitude rodeo and roundup in which all of the horses somehow got loose on the trail.

I have been battling a crappy attitude all week. I have stayed up at night, coughing and hacking and repenting and hacking some more. Spiritual onslaughts sometimes seem to be timed to hit with physical challenges. Isn't it easier to crank out some nasty comment if you have a sore neck,or your head hurts and you can't remember the last good night of sleep that you had, and by golly everyone ought to get out of my way. I know that I am not the only one who has been in this arena.

Since I am a woman, I want to get to the root of my attitude, and deal with that root so thoroughly that I can be assured that I am not repressing emotions, but training them so that I never have to face this particular problem again in this lifetime, or at least until next Thursday when I will be tempted to give in to it one more time. (Thank you God that I am not a man, and can be a real person and have thoughts and emotions and can consider football to be an optional part of life, and hunting to be totally unnecessary.)

Secret sins always come out to whack us on the head when we are just about to ascend into heaven, translated like Enoch, just whooshed from earth to heaven in a heartbeat during our morning quiet time. Bitterness, anger, jealousy, the desire for recognition, and the demand for something more or even just something different are all areas in which I have to scout out and recover my own soul daily.

Actually, for the last 18 months, I have been tempted in the area of discontent more than anywhere else. Letting the status quo be good enough when the status quo makes me want to run screaming from the room has been a huge issue. The All-Sufficient One. That is one of God's names for himself. It is not that he gives us a lot of stuff or sends us to the Bahamas in a jet because he loves us so. (If you disagree feel free to send me an H is for Heretic in my comments.) No, he, himself, is more than enough for us in any situation. We don't need to scream when we know that he hears even a whisper or has all of our heartbeats counted. So many horses can be rounded up all at once if I just take the time to really focus on him, understanding the he is present, he is listening and he is responding

Sick and Raining

2008-09-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

Well, after an entire of week of being sick, not running, not walking or even riding my bike, I topped it off by missing the Saturday ten mile run because I was too sick to run and because it was raining.

Since I have never trained for a marathon before, I have no idea what this does to my chances for actually completing it on October 5th. I have to believe that taking a rest will be good for me in the end.

That's what I'm hoping.

Sick, Sick, Sick

2008-09-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

Mr. Sinta gets home tonight. He left Monday morning for a project in another city. It seems like he has been gone a decade, not five days.

Almost as soon as he left, RT became sick with the feverish, headachy, congested, coughing flu. I ran to the store to get some of his favorite things: Mountain Dew and Funyons and other miscellaneous things that have no nutritional value at all, but might cheer up a sick person and keep them from losing too many electrolytes.

Then, I became sick, but I went to school anyway on Tuesday and Thursday. Abby also became sick, so the three of us have been miserable together, and have still all been attending most of our classes. Well, I don't know about RT. We have a don't ask/don't tell policy with things like that with him. At 21, he does not need to have a mother hounding him, and I do not need to sit around wondering if he will ever graduate or just live with us until we throw him out.

One night I took NyQuil and actually slept pretty well. My lungs were even more congested the next day, which is exactly what Grandpa Bob says always happened to him. It lets you sleep at night, but then you are more sick the next day. It is a nasty cycle, and at some point you have to decide if you want sleep more or if you want to recover more. Last night, I opted to recover, which meant that I was absolutely miserable all night, but I feel some better now at 1 p.m. I slept from about 6 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

Two things are worth mentioning in this terrible week of battling the crud.

One is that Aimee brought me a Cool Whip dish full of Brent's homemade chicken noodle soup. He even makes the noodles. It was excellent, and I felt very cared about, but still sick. It is nice to get little assurances like this from time to time that Aimee is well taken care of. Let's be honest. He spoils her royally. He dotes on her. I like seeing that.

The second funny thing is that last night as I was laying in bed, not sleeping, there was a knock on my door. RT came in quite distressed. If you have a weak stomach, at this point I would suggest that you do not continue reading my blog today because what I am about to say is really, really gross and disgusting.

Wow. You are true fans. Okay, here it is: he was distressed because he had just had diarrhea and it was bright neon green. Not being content to share this information with me, he absolutely insisted that I had to come and see it. He also assured me that it did not smell.

I care about each of my children passionately. I want the best for them. I want to protect them from tragedy, but I told him that I was not willing to come and see the contents of the toilet. He insisted again. He was sure that he was really, really sick with something really, really dangerous.

I assured him that I totally believed him that his diarrhea was bright neon green, and I did not need to see it for myself. His testimony was enough for me.

He insisted yet again. Again, I declined and explained that maybe this could result from the infection working its way through his body and also by his consumption of 2 two liter bottles of Mountain Dew and/or Lime Tostitos.

I remember that eventually I convinced him that a. I was not coming to see it, and b. he was not dying.

My own dilemma is that after the 22 mile run, I have not taken a step for 6 days, not even a walk, other than walking to the BSU game. Tomorrow I am supposed to run ten miles. Perspective is a funny thing. Ten miles seemed like a short run on Sunday, and now it looms large on the horizon, nearly overwhelming. I have to keep adjusting my sights, and just take it one run at a time.

I have been thinking lately about how preparing for a marathon kind of mirrors different seasons of our lives.

My sister in law, Sharon, has her hands full at the moment. Her husband is working out of state for the next few months, and will be in Dubai after the first of the year, and her mom is battling cancer. The doctor cannot tell them what the right answers are. They have to make decisions, and no one can tell them what the right decisions are. She is single moming it at the moment and has a lot on her plate. I would say that she is running a spiritual marathon. When you pray today, take some time to pray for Sharon and her mom to run wisely and well in the race that is before them. Thank you true fans!

Better

2008-09-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

Psalm 118:5-9
Out of my distress I called on the LORD;
the LORD answered me and set me free.
The LORD is on my side; I will not fear.
What can man do to me?
The LORD is on my side as my helper;
I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.
It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.
It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.

Instead of looking for a person or a leader whom I can trust in stressful times, I need to learn to call on the Lord because that is far better.

I can choose to put my trust in men, who may or may not disappoint me, or I can take refuge in the LORD. What kind of refuge can a man provide, compared to what the LORD provides? The LORD not only listens to me, but he answers me and takes action on my behalf to set me free. He promises to be on my side, not as merely an observer or a witness, but as my helper.

Tomorrow's results will bear out today's truths. The LORD is with me. I will look in triumph on those who have united to defeat me because of hatred, not because a man or a leader helped me out, but because the LORD helped me out. My enemies might be able to intimidate a man, but they can never intimidate the LORD. Some men might be good to help out in our distress. It would seem that men in positions of power or authority might be more helpful than just a common man, endowed with no power. The point of the verses remains that whatever help men or leaders may be able to lend us, to trust in the LORD is always a step above; it is better.

Take, for instance, the very concept of refuge. The LORD does not say that He will make a refuge for me somewhere, as a man would try to do. The LORD Himself becomes my Refuge, which is far better.

The rub is that we cannot have both. We cannot add trusting man to trusting God and have an equation that equals refuge, freedom, triumph, answers, provision and help. Men may allow it, but God does not. He does not share His glory with anyone. In this Psalm, it is presented as an either/or proposition. If trusting in men and the LORD were a possibility, it would certainly be listed here. There is another reason why we cannot have both; it is the heart of man. The heart was made to focus on one thing at a time. A heart that constantly flits from one source of help to another cannot enter into rest or refuge; a double minded man cannot receive anything from God because it is not in a position to do so.

To enter in to what is better, we begin by calling on the LORD. We continue by affirming our faith in Him, and maintaining our focus on Him. We are finished when He Himself becomes our Refuge.

The Emotional Ruler

2008-09-16T20:40:00.001-07:00

Today was an emotionally draining day for me. I wish I were a spiritual giant who had life in all of its complexities figured out, and never spent a moment feeling insecure, inadequate, purposeless or afraid.

Here's a thought: even John the Baptist, one of the greatest men who ever lived, had his doubts after six months or more in prison. When he worked through his doubts with a little help from his friends, he was beheaded for telling the truth.

Things could look up for you, but then again...maybe not.

Oh well.

Saturday's Mileage

2008-09-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday turned out to be my longest running day ever since I clocked in 22.2 miles in preparation for the Marathon. It was only supposed to be 22 miles, but I missed one of the mile markers on the last leg of the run. Oh well. Since we walked to and from the BSU game that night, I told Mr. Sinta that I think I actually did the full marathon distance over the course of the day.

The first 18 miles included a 9 mile run to Lucky Peak swimming area from Municipal Park, and the return trip. I did not think I would have a running partner, so I brought my iPod, complete with newly downloaded Phil Wickham worship music, which is free from his web site if you want it. Instead, I was able to run with my coach, Lynn, a Christian whom I have known for years. We are both home school moms, our daughters are friends, we have military sons, we used to go to the same church, and our birthdays are exactly two days apart. Now, I will be concise: it was the shortest 18 mile run of my life because we had so much to talk about, and the scenery was beautiful. She was not prepared to go the extra 4, so I ran out an additional 2 (or 2.1) by myself, and then ran back.

Yes, I got kind of goofy during the last four miles. I think that the blood leaves my brain to somehow assist my legs. At mile 21, I started singing the Barry Manilow song, "Can't Live Without You," to the Lord and I was starting to breath in great choking sobs while running because of how emotional I became. I really do love the Lord, and I think it is great to be emotional in our worship expressing that to Him, but when it was all over, I wondered if even the Lord thought it was a little over the top. I will say this in my defense, unlike David, I kept all my clothing on.

I think that part of my extreme thankfulness was because I was actually quite afraid to attempt a 22 mile run, and had begun to doubt that I could do it. The follow up would be that if I could not do a 22 mile run, that I could not do the full 26.2. in October. Finding out that I was able to do it, although I am admittedly very slow, was really a moving experience, no pun intended.

When it was time to bike home, I was a little disoriented and had to back track. Lynn offered to drive me home, but I assured her I would be fine, which I was, once I was headed in the correct direction.

Thankfully, we are now slowing down our mileage in anticipation of the big race, so I only need to go 10 miles next Saturday.

A Different Kind of Party

2008-09-12T20:11:00.000-07:00

My friend and mentor, Mrs. S. turned 81 this week. The significance of the birthday is not the number of years, but the fact that this was her last birthday. She has terminal cancer. In lieu of that, I wanted to give her a surprise party, so I invited her over for brunch, and began phone and email sleuthing in order to invite some of her oldest friends.

Although she did not expect a party, she was very happily surprised to see everyone when we came in the house. Actually some guests came later, and people had to come and go a little bit, but she was honored that people took time to remember her.

Abby helped me extend the table to its largest, and the counter in the kitchen served as our buffet, holding an amazing amount of food. I didn't really plan any activities other than talking, eating, singing happy birthday and eating cheesecake. Yes, we took pictures. Abby surprised us and played her guitar; it was something amazing that was spread out over five pages. (Villa Lobos?) The ladies really, really liked it.

Mrs. S. is clearing out her household and moving to a small apartment Oct. 1. She gave me some beautiful things to remember her by. One is a hand-painted ceramic plate that is mostly blue and yellow and hangs on the wall. She also sent 3 beautiful matching china tea cups and saucers. We have spent many hours together drinking tea and eating cookies and praying and talking. She has been my dear friend, prayer partner and second mother. She has mentored many intercessors. I told Abby that Mrs. S. is to intercessors as Yoda was to Jedi Knights. She will not be replaced. She also gave me her coffee maker, a very nice one. This is interesting because neither of us are coffee drinkers, but we both love to have dinner parties, and make coffee for guests! Last, but not least, Mrs. S. asked me to take any books that I wanted from her collection that she was discarding. Of course, I have all the Ministry School books waiting for me, and books I already had that I am trying to finish and now, a new and incredibly interesting stack.

It has not really registered with me yet that Mrs. S. is dying. Her oncologist estimates Jan. 1 as her last day. I do not have what it takes to handle this information. Mrs. S. is quite happy and content to be going to be with the Lord, but I cannot say that I am happy to let her go.

Another runner told me recently that so much of distance running is mental that she decides before she starts her run how many miles that she will go. Whenever she gets to that distance, be it 5 or 15, then she is out of energy because that is what she had mentally planned on.

Somehow, I need to be like my running friend and decide in advance that I am going to be able to run the distance with Mrs. S. so that I am ready to let her go, but each time I think of it, I dissolve into tears.

Good Recovery

2008-09-07T06:33:00.000-07:00

I have to say that the half marathon run was an okay run, but because of our schedule that day, I was,"rode hard and put away wet." I felt bad for days.

Yesterday, I put in 20 miles with Lana, my normal running partner. It was a tough run, and if she had not been there, I would have quit early and flagged down a car or something. No kidding. The muscles around one hip began to seize up and cause significant pain so that I doubted that I could run at all. We walked for a while, and then decided to try a little faster, easier gait, and when my muscles warmed up again, the problems went away. However, then the knee of my other leg started hurting quite a bit. We gritted it out and actually made the whole 20.

This is really a case of Solomon's, "Two are better than one."

I think the real problem was that I was not mentally geared up to go 20 miles since I had had such a miserable experience the week before, as far as recovery, and I had been questioning why I ever wanted to train for a marathon in the first place.

The truth is, I can't remember; I did it on a whim.

The other truth is, I'm not turning back now.

Lana can't run with me next week, and the marathon pack seems to have thinned to me and one other runner with whom I cannot possibly keep up. Next week will be me, my IPOD, and trusting God is merciful to 48 year old first time marathon runners because we will be doing our highest mileage ever, 22 miles. After that, everything decreases before the actual marathon.

I feel good!

The Half-Marathon Story

2008-09-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

By all rights, I should be washing my car, but I am devoted to you, dear readers. Know that in my life's priority system, you rate above dead bugs. You're welcome.

First of all, near disaster on my first long distance running event was averted when I remembered to pack my new running shoes. For some reason, I almost totally spaced and left them at home. My excuse is that I usually dress for a race at home, and don't have to bring anything to a race. I packed my water back pack because I fully intended to carry it in the race, and of course, my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bag of gum mi bears. I was really feeling stressed about the race. I do not know why because I had already decided to run it as a training exercise, and not try to go on an ego trip although I was enticed by the fact that there were only 8 or 9 women in my age group running the half. I could imagine myself placing and becoming Pocatello (Idaho) famous. That is a little different than world famous, but just as good in a small town.

The trip from Boise to Pocatello took longer than we planned because all traffic stopped for a fire that was trying to cross the road, and a car that did a serious roll across the median. Eventually we met the Race President at the Red Lion Hotel. He was passing out bags of potatoes and gave us four really cool burlap tote bags filled with raw potatoes and dehydrated hash browns. You gotta love potatoes in this state. The natives are friendly and generous.

I think that I got a total of four hours of sleep before we went down for breakfast. My body is on strike, and does what it wants sleep wise. I seem to have no control over this, other than drinking Diet Pepsi to stay awake in the day time. Yes, I have gone back to caffeine, the drug of choice of sleep deprived women.

I decided at the last minute not to carry my water pack, but to trust that volunteers would provide water, but for some idiotic reason I carried my gummi bears and peanut butter sandwich for the entire 13.1 miles. I don't like the Goo product line, so the gummis actually were very useful energy boost, but the sandwich ended up completely squished and unrecognizable by the time that I tossed it to Mr. Sinta near the end of the race.

Mr. Sinta dropped me off at the bus stop for the runners where I met up with some of the members of my team. The bus drove us for a gruesomely long time. I kept thinking to myself, that this absolutely has to be much, much longer than 13.1 miles. The buses stopped in the middle of nowhere next to a row of about ten potties. If you ever have to go to nowhere, you can take comfort in the fact that they will have plenty of potties. I ended up about tenth in line. When I was second in line, the bus officials told us that there were three minutes until the race started. If there had been a bladder race, I could have won. That is all I will say. My running partner and I made it to the start line with about 45 seconds to spare.

We ran the country course along farms and up and down rolling hills in relatively humane temperature, but with constant sunshine. The only shade in 13.1 miles was the .1 at the end. A special unplanned feature of this race was the pair of turkeys in the middle of the road at about mile 3. Before this, I did not know how LARGE turkeys could get. Only they know why they were in the middle of the road. One lane was reserved for the runners, and the other lane had plenty of cars in it, so we maneuvered carefully around the birds.

TR and I ran together for about 90% of the race. Both of us were missing our actual running partners who did not travel to Pocatello. Our coaches advised us to run only as fast as we could run and still talk. In order to keep a good pace, I make conversation while I am running. Since I ask a great deal of questions, I get to know the people that I run with fairly well, at least on an informational level. I did not know TR at all, so I asked her to tell me about her life. She was pretty brief, a trait I know that Mr. Sinta has wished for 28 years that I would develop. When she was done, TR asked about my life. I was able to share my experience with Jesus, how I was born again. I also had the opportunity to clearly share the gospel, that when Christ died on the cross, He did it for all of us, to pay the penalty for our sins, so that we could be forgiven and have eternal life in Heaven with Him when we die. She was politely interested and even asked a question before we moved on and talked about other things. It is funny to me that I did not orchestrate or even expect an chance to share something of so personal a nature, but I enjoyed talking with her, and hearing about her life as well.

Mr. Sinta drove my yellow car and parked beside the road about halfway through the course to cheer us on. While he was waiting for us he was embarrassed by how many women told him that they liked his car. He pointed out to all of them that it was his wife's car. In Idaho, men are not supposed to drive VW bugs. They drive big man trucks, like Mr. Sinta.

When we got to about mile 12, TR decided to walk, and I did not want to walk, even though I was running to train, so I got ahead and crossed the finish line first. I have no place to boast about this race, but I did run the race and finish the race.

A very kind-hearted photographic service took all of our individual portraits as we were running across the finish line, and it is on line for anyone to see. I could down load it for free. I won't because I do not look like marathon runners are supposed to look, and it is too disappointing. I guess that I thought that anyone who could run a half marathon would be really trim looking. It is just not true. As long as you are willing to carry an extra thirty pounds over the finish line, there is no one there to stop you! Sad, but true. Fat people can run.

Very Brief

2008-09-03T22:31:00.000-07:00

Abby and I were running around like crazy on Tuesday to get ready for the Home School Graduation meeting. She was madly searching for AA batteries for her camera because they went out just as we desperately needed to print a portrait for her file. I sent her to the drugstore. She was not very happy with me because she expected me to just "have" one. In this household, AA batteries are harder to keep than fresh flowers. I won't list any names, but I think RT eats them for lunch. They simply do not last.

I was running around the spider-webby basement digging through old boxes trying to find a baby picture of Abby for the yearbook committee. In all of my scrounging, I came up with two. Too late, I realize that most of Abby's baby photos contain her brother and sister because they were always together. Sometimes I think that I did not really give birth to her, but Ryan and Aimee somehow cloned her. I do remember bringing her home from the hospital. They were thrilled to have her! I should remind them.

I grabbed the photo that was in the best condition realizing only later that it was a portrait studio shot from Penney's, and they committee would require a signed release. We will have another go at it another day.

I have said all of that to say that the real find in all of my digging was the Beanie Baby Wedding Album. Yes, in 1999, two of our beanies were married in full dress with a beanie pastor, and actual wedding guests. Grandma and Grandpa were the only guests, but hey, they were really good sports about it! They always are. They are awesome. Anyway, I have photos of the whole thing. Aimee put it together with captions etc., and it is really cute. I laughed and laughed when I found it.

The really funny thing about it is that her own wedding was only 9 years later! How fast they grow up. She and Brent had a real pastor though, and not a beanie pastor. And once again, Grandma and Grandpa came and posed with the wedding party. Having them around makes everything always seem more official. It is nice to have them close enough to do stuff with us.

I should head for bed. I actually slept last night. It was wonderful.

My New Excuse

2008-09-02T21:40:00.000-07:00

I finished several partially read books in the last few days in anticipation of starting the School of Ministry. Tonight was our first class, and I received a huge stack of books for the year. I was supposed to run 9 miles today as part of training for the marathon today, and I didn't even get out of the house in my running shoes! I feel a little overwhelmed, but needless to say, I am begging off of blogging for the space of a few more days. I have so much material to blog about that it is difficult not to stop everything else and just blog! Yes, dear readers, you are my captive audience, and I miss telling you the funny and inane and off beat things that dot the landscape of my life.

Okay, so I will give up some sleep since I am having hot flashes anyway at the moment.

After the race, Mr. Sinta and I had to drive from Pocatello to Boise without delay because we were trying to make it back for the Idaho State Game. I had to potty and actually felt a little sick. I needed a bathroom fast so I talked Mr. Sinta into stopping at absolutely the first place, which was an Albertson's.

I love you, Mr. Albertson for having bathrooms and sharing them! However, when I went to the potty, it was taken. Actually both the men's and women's bathrooms were occupied, and a man was waiting. It turned out he was waiting for his girlfriend who was using the men's bathroom. I guessed she did that because the person in the women's bathroom was taking so long. I was right.

I knocked on the women's door. She affirmed her presence. I have cleaned men's bathrooms a lot. I did not want to use one. Eventually, I knocked again. She again affirmed her presence. She took so long that I thought Mr. Sinta would be worrying about me. When this individual finally made her exit, I thought to myself that she was most likely mentally ill. She was middle aged, rotund, red haired with an odd hair style and wore a strange hat which she pulled down to her eyes. In a very odd voice, she told me that it was not very pleasant in the bathroom.

In an act of Christian charity and love, I refrained from any comment.

Now, of course, I can laugh at my predicament, and there are probably dozens of really funny things that I could have said. However, I am tired, and nothing laughable is coming to mind.

Must get ready for bed.

My Apologies

2008-08-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

I have been very busy lately and can't seem to get it together to write. I am sorry, and I plan to have something eventually, probably next week.

Summing It Up

2008-08-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

Well, add together not getting to sleep last night until about 4 a.m. plus getting up and biking to running practice at 7 a.m. plus going 18 miles and factor in being middle aged, and I am tired tonight. The weather was great, and I refueled with gummi bears instead of runner's goo. All in all, it was a happy day, and I was very happy with my time for the mileage, but I am beat.

I went to a great restaurant to celebrate our anniversary this evening with wonderful Mr. Sinta. We cannot believe that the years have passed so quickly. Mr. Sinta wondered if I would do anything differently if I had it to do over. I said that I would, but I could not think of anything at the time. Now I have had time to reflect on it, and I think I would be a better wife, and a nicer, less demanding mom, and I would hope that I would eat healthier and not be so fat. All things that I can still try to improve on while I am among the living.

Okay, My Big News

2008-08-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

I was accepted at the School of Ministry at my church for the upcoming school year which means I will be attending classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and reading selected books on the same topics. Evidently there are monthly tests as well, and I will need to wear casual business attire and have good attendance, character and attitude.

Mr. Sinta will not be attending the classes with me because he is out of town frequently, and they do not accept auditors.

My friend, Jessie, who wrote my letter of recommendation, told me to keep an open mind and be teachable. This is amazing because she is not even charismatic, but I plan to listen to her.

I have no plans whatsoever of going into ministry. I look at this as kind of a bridge year from being a homemaker/home school mom to actually starting a new life when Abby goes off to college almost exactly a year from now.

I will not be doing BSF this year which is a little sad because they are studying the life of Moses, and I love Moses and the ladies at BSF. They were loving and caring and studied deeply and commented thoughtfully, called me every week and prayed for me everyday. I will love them forever.

That's my big news.

Also, I got new running shoes and went nine miles today without any big pains even though I had never even walked in these shoes before because I needed to get in some mileage and break in the shoes in a hurry because the half-marathon draweth nigh!

My shoes are basically the same model as before only I could only get them in red and black so now I have Spiderman running shoes. They don't have Spiderman on them or anything, but they are the right colors and look a little webby across the toes.

I also got a cool product called Glide which will keep my clothes from the very painful chafing and irritation that I have experienced of late. Unfortunately, I forgot to put it on today. Did you know that your skin can talk to you?

The Lakeland Revival and My Struggle for Control and Organization

2008-08-17T20:08:00.000-07:00

I would suggest visiting Mark Connor's blog (see my blog list), for information on a recent turn of events concerning Lake land. I found the article by Charisma magazine to be surprisingly self-inditing. Without passing judgment on anything in Florida, I would like to give a comment on life. When I have stumbled over offensive things in the body of Christ, it has always been because there was a weakness in my own life that needed to be brought to light.

I wish I could say that I have in any way solved my book problem, but instead I cleaned out another kitchen cabinet and unfortunately ate a partial bag of the oldest and driest and stalest mini marshmallows that I have ever encountered. Why didn't I just throw them out? I do not have a good reason.

Here is a little secret: I am hiding things in the window seat. I keep accumulating more stuff that I don't want, and I hide it all in there until I have time to 'gift' it to some worthy organization. The only problem is that it is almost completely full.

Will I ever reorganize my books, or will I just keep cleaning out my other miscellaneous storage spaces? Stay tuned here folks...

This evening I messed around in the linen closet and asked myself why I am saving so many things that I am never going to use. I did not have an answer for myself, and then I changed the bed clothes on Aimee's old bed because the loud Hawaiian print is kind of disturbing to look at, especially with the Van Gogh framed print in there. I changed it all around, and I still don't like it, and now I see I need big changes in the linen closet.

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!

I want a simple life. I want less stuff. Surprisingly I need wisdom to get there. I thought any one with at least half a brain could downsize. It is harder than it looks.

For those keeping track, I went 16 miles on Saturday with a very sore knee. I was running with my coach who was helping me try to change my form etc., so I could keep going. I found out that even people in great shape, like my coach, sometimes have to run in pain and tough it out. In a way that I can only explain as God's grace, I am fine today, not hobbling around or sore at all.

Also, my coach told me that I should not need my camel pack at the marathon because they have so many water stations. She said I will also run faster without it. She also said that she thinks I will do great at the half marathon because we are running much longer distances than that (13 miles) now. I am thinking that my coach is also a sign of God's grace, which I do not deserve and cannot fully explain, in my life.

I am sorry for anyone who feels misled by today's blog title. Feel free to leave suggestions for better titles today.

Tomorrow, I will share a piece of surprising personal news.

The Home Library Problem

2008-08-13T21:36:00.000-07:00

Everyone has a dream; some people have many dreams. Lately, I dream of organizing and downsizing my life.

Mr. Sinta and I often talk about when all the offspring leave home, and we are left with a house that is way too big. This house has always been way too big, except when we had our business in our basement. The problem is not really the size of the house. The problem is that in the 15 or so years that we have been here, our possessions have grown to fill the house. This represents exponential growth because we have an amazing amount of storage space.

When I spent quite a bit of time boxing up Aimee's stuff and delivering it to her new house, it dawned on me that we have way too much stuff that stayed here. I am not referring to her stuff that we are storing, but to everyone else's stuff.

Lately, when I open up my favorite book cabinet(we are blessed with lots of built in cabinets), I say to myself that I have way too many books, and if I were really wise I would be able to discriminate between them and eliminate so many books that all of my favorite books would fit into one cabinet. Soon after that my will to eliminate any books at all crumbles, and I close the cabinet and move on to some other activity.

Purging. That is what I want to do. I want to begin purging the books with little value, beauty or usefulness. The only problem is that I feel like I am parting with dear friends.

Joanna B. is a real life good friend whom I respect a great deal. We no longer attend the same church, but we make sure that we get together for lunch at least once every summer. During that lunch, we typically talk for hours and catch up on the last year. She is awesome.

Some books are Joanna B. books. I mean that I may not refer to them every month, but life would be poorer without them. They lend a perspective that I need to have from time to time, just like I need Joanna B's perspective on my life. She makes the low places not so low and the high places seem more honorable. Her opinion strengthens my hands for the work I have ahead of me.

That is the door-closing dilemma. Books are my friends.

Feel free to comment and send me your list of ten favorite books that are like friends that you could not bear to part with, and also one book that you should toss and why.

What I Learned From Watching The Olympics

2008-08-11T14:50:00.001-07:00

Yikes. Did anyone else see that women's gymnastic team last night in the pre-lims? Shockingly, they lost one of their top performers to an injury just moments before the round started, and had to go with an alternate gymnast. Because they already had one injured player, this meant that there was no buffer zone for big errors. (Usually they have the option of dropping a score.)

As I watched the alternate gymnast perform, forgive me because I have no idea of anyone's names, I said to myself that I should really do whatever I do as unto the Lord, and then when life's outrageous opportunities come along like that, I would be ready.

I am not a gymnast, so I am not exactly sure how it applies to my life which does not look chock full of opportunity at the moment, but I did clean my house today! Most likely, no one will notice, but me. Oh well. There is something really great about starting your week with a clean house. It is just that the networks were not here to cover it.

Ryan's twin friend, Richard, came over today and they were doing something on computers together in Ryan's room. Randy, our dog, walked in his room, looked at them, barfed on the floor, and walked out.

I am sorry for my dog not feeling well, but I think that is hysterical.

Did I mention that Ryan brought me a chocolate cigar? That is almost as good as a network contract and winning a medal. I have to share it with Abby, so I am eating my part first.

I am sure that I learned something else from the Olympics, but I do not know what. Okay, so now I remembered it.

I was watching the men's 150 mile bike race, and noticed that at the very end that the guy from France stood up on his bike and pedaled like mad with his bike kind of weaving from left to right. I learned that even world class Olympic bikers sometimes have to really kick it to win. The absolutely fascinating corollary is that I rode my bike (with a new basket on the back) to the grocery store today and brought home the goods.

Watch the late night recap with Bob Costas and me at 11. I will share my ice cream on network television.

Today

2008-08-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

I went 14 miles today, and although I enjoyed it, I am bushed. Usually my legs cooperate totally and just tool along never saying ANYTHING! They are great legs for distance, but today they spoke up at about the 12 mile mark just letting me know that they exist, not complaining or anything.

Mr. Sinta has started a side business and offered me a special energy drink with extra b vitamins (when I got home), and I learned some new information from the team trainer about how and when to eat even on regular training days. Evidently there is a 30 minute window after you run in which your body is especially open on a cellular level to refuel itself, and I am supposed to have an energy bar, or even a pbj sandwich during this time, and she said that it should help with the fatigue that I have been experiencing. I was up at 3 or 4 in the morning again today which was not good since I had to be up at 6 to get to a 7 a.m. run, but oh well! She said that it would be very difficult to discern if the sleep disturbances were from menopause or from exercising outside the zone (65-80% of maximum heart rate).

There was only one bad moment today, and that was when I was biking home over a footbridge that was a little full with bikers and pedestrians, and suddenly one of my legs decided to consider having a charlie horse. The muscles just kind of suddenly painlessly seized up for a second or two, while I was trying to quickly go up the slope of the bridge so I slowed down and changed gears, and my legs were happy campers once again. You gotta be nice to your legs. Your legs are really nice to you!

Also, I asked our trainer what they meant on the schedule by strength training because I have never really done a push up in my life, and I was am a little reluctant to begin at 48. She said that it meant strength training for our core (that is a trainer word for your abdomen) and for your legs doing lunges and squats etc. That was a huge relief. I started doing sit ups this week, and I will not tell you how many because when I proudly revealed to Abby my number of sit ups, she laughed! Then we did some together for fun, and she was not able to double my number, but did more than 1.5 times as many as I did. I comfort myself that she is a 17 year old former gymnast and we are not supposed to compare ourselves to one another, the Bible says.

There was an additional reward to doing sit ups in that it forced me to look under the bed where I keep my exercise mat. (Weenies don't do sit ups without a mat.) I found a graduation present for a friend's daughter that I jettisoned there on the day that Aimee and Brent got married because we were in a hurry to get out of the house and I used the gift bag to hold my make up and miscellaneous stuff. So now, I have an extra gift in the gift box!

Also, on the mind front, I was so happy this week to discover two items which I thought I had permanently lost. I found 3 cloth grocery bags in the closet which I had been missing for months. I am sure I put them there at wedding time to clean out the car when I loaned it to the honeymooning couple, and Abby 'fessed up that she had taken my new bike water bottle to work and left it there. These sound like small things, but they were significant things to me, and I feel better knowing that my mind is functioning well enough to handle shopping and drinking water.

Speaking of water, I used up everything in my water back pack by the end of 14 miles, so I will need to re-fill it on Marathon day around mile 13. I am needing a shower in a serious way, so I am off. Sorry for errors and typos.

Also, I asked the trainer how to train so that I could eventually do a push-up. She very kindly, and without any condescension whatsoever (This is amazing because she is in perfect shape.) explained to me how to get your arms in shape in stages so that I could eventually do a push-up. I intend to do it, since I am doing my (mystery number) sit-ups each day.

Book notes: I am truly enjoying Lucy Beckett's book. It is a huge tome, but I intend to finish it. I also finished an interesting book yesterday entitled, The 33 Laws of Stewardship which was not exactly a late night page turner for most people, but I enjoyed it a great deal. It is not written by prosperity preachers but by associates of John Maxwell, the Christian leadership guru. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in the subject or is involved in leadership of a local church or other Christian non-profit.

Great Book Meeting

2008-08-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

It was a great book meeting, and Amy B. brought great pie. I did not know she was going whole hog, so to speak, so I brought bread and cookies. A little abundance lifts the spirit.

The final analysis of Heart of Darkness is that is was a dark, depressing book.

We are off to higher and better things, Meditations. I just have to get a copy, but while I was at Mandi's house, I found an awesome volume, by Lucy Beckett. Here is a quote from the back cover: "She masterfully guides us through Sophocles, Plato, Augustine, Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and many others. With selections taken from poems, plays, essays, letters and diaries, she deftly demonstrates each author's worth as a bearer of truth." It looks interesting, anyway. However, I don't see anything Christian in Plato...

Other news, I applied for a job at the local university doing manual labor in the evenings about 30 hours a week. The hours sound as if they would work out well. I am waiting to hear about an interview.

Ryan comes home tonight!

White Chocolate

2008-08-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

I have to report back that I made the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, and it is gone. It would have been easier to make brownies to go with lasagna, but I was afraid that would be too much temptation for Mr. Sinta's blood sugar. He does not really like cheesecake, but everyone else did. I sent the extra slices home with guests so that I did not get too tempted myself. Actually, I saved one slice for myself, but Abby found it and ate it before the guests even left. She gave me a bite of it.

Honestly, I could not even taste the white chocolate part of the cheesecake; it just tasted like cheesecake to me. We may get adventurous and try it with real chocolate chips or better yet, dark chocolate chips when Aunt Laura comes later this month. Of course, that might be too much cheesecake for a month.

I used the new spring form pan that I got for Christmas, and it worked great. Nonstick! The right size! I loved it! Cooking is so much easier with the right pans and utensils.

Ryan comes home Friday. The house has been really quiet, not that he is a mega noise generator, but we miss his funny comments and unsolicited advice. We've grown accustomed to his face.

Two Disappointments

2008-08-05T13:11:00.000-07:00

On our way home from the dentist, Abby and I picked up some groceries for tonight's dinner. Specifically, I needed some white chocolate chips for a raspberry cheesecake. When we arrived home, Abby informed me that Rebecca S. said that white chocolate chips are just like chocolate chips without the chocolate. Instantly I checked the ingredient label. She seems to be correct. If only I had known, I would have bought the chocolate ones instead. That was the first disappointment, and admittedly, it is a ridiculously small disappointment. One of life's little blips. It will be forgotten by tomorrow.

Other disappointments are not so quickly forgotten.

This morning Abby and I were competing for shower time because I had come in from running, and she had just cut the grass, and we both needed to be presentable. Graciously, and because I am a very slow showerer, I let her go first, and made myself something to eat. The phone rang, and my long time friend, mentor and second mom was on the phone asking if I had found a job yet, and wondering how Mr. Sinta was doing. I asked her about the results of her MRI. She was so happy and chipper and unselfconscious as she told me that she has cancer again. This time it is the spleen, and she will be having treatments once a week.

"I'm 81," she said. "I don't want to live to be 90." She is selling her house, and dividing up her belongings among her daughters.

"Why are you so happy?" I queried.

"Because I will be going home, and that is a good thing," she returned.

No little blip on my life screen. This won't be forgotten by tomorrow.

So Sorry

2008-08-03T22:23:00.000-07:00

I have not been posting much because I was really tired, I am rethinking about my blogging, and I have discovered Scrabulous on line. There is a really cool version where you get your own board and four minutes to play all the letters you can while playing against others for total points who have their own boards. I highly recommend it, especially since it was removed from Face Book. Also, I read a book and went out for yogurt tonight with my girls, and Ryan called home and he is back from his ten day trip. We should see him Friday night!!!

The Book Problem

2008-07-08T11:04:00.001-07:00

I am guessing that some of you are like me, and you have a book problem. You have too many books, and yet there are more books that you want. I actually have a stack of books that I am discarding. Prudently, I will try to sell or trade them first.

A wonderful friend gave me a gift card to Barnes and Noble, and I was ordering two books today to use it. Did you know that if you order more than $25 worth of books that they will ship it to your house for free? Yes, it is amazing. They did not have my books in stock anyway, so they are sending them to me. This is a triple delight: the gift card, the new books, and a box delivered to my house. I love opening gifts and I love getting boxes in the mail, even if I know what it is because I ordered it! Also, there is a little money left on the card which I can use at the B & N coffee shop the next time that I am there. Yes!!!

Also, I am reading a list of Sherlock Holmes mysteries for the book club on Thursday. I am actually enjoying them. I found a collection of them at the library. I really like the idea of having a deadline for book reading because then I make it a priority of sorts, and actually get going on it. I should have gotten going on it sooner, but at least, I am going. Next time, I will work on getting going on it a little sooner.

Afterthought: I did not collect any money for the airplane fund, and this gift card was totally unrelated to that appeal for funds. It was given to me by a friend as a thank you for our hospitality when they came to town. My dear regular readers would already know these things, but one never knows who reads your blog. After my BIL's experience with the FAA reading his blog, I thought that I should make clear that the airplane fund was a total spoof for the FCC. And for the FAA for that matter, since it was supposedly, "an airplane fund." Also, I did not cross state lines or commit a felony, that is for the FBI. Additionally, I did not use any points: that is for Weight Watchers. If the Statesman is reading this, you can speak with my attorney, Mr. Peters. Of course, he will charge you on an hourly basis, as he should.

What was I doing 30 years ago today? I was wearing an ill-fitting dress at Meadowdale Methodist,as my sister's bridesmaid. They are still married.

The Power of Spiritual Alignment

2008-07-07T09:45:00.000-07:00

This sounds like a new age book, but it is not. I just wanted to clarify that for you, dear reader. The subtitle is: Living According to the Seven Firsts of Jesus.

First, seek the kingdom, aligning your priorities
First remove the log from your own eye, aligning your attitudes.
First, be reconciled to your brother, aligning your relationships.
First, bind the strong man, aligning your authority.
First, the greatest commandment, aligning your heart with God's.
First, cleanse the inside, aligning your inner world.
First day of the week, aligning with his body.

I like the ideas that I have encountered so far. Mr. Sinta looked over the introduction and said that some of his ideas are a stretch. So far, it has been helpful for me, but this is summer, and I read a novel this weekend, Sagebrush Ranch which is about a young woman sent from San Francisco to live on a ranch in eastern Oregon in the 1880's. Eastern Oregon is desolate now. I cannot imagine it then. Probably in the dictionary under "desolate" - there should be one additional numbered definition that simply says "just like an Eastern Oregon ranch."

I was so tired on Sunday that when we rode our bikes up the Capitol Blvd. hill, Mr. Sinta had to wait for me at the top, and he just had a heart attack. I took 2 or 3 naps and was generally wiped out. I think it was the run Saturday coupled with a 35 minute bike ride to and from where we were running that got me in the end. Today is a day off from training, and I am glad.

Training

2008-07-05T09:20:00.001-07:00

Today was a big day for me because I am training for the Pocatello Half right now. I think that a half is about 13 miles. Today I met with my coach and my team with the plan to go seven miles. My furthest distance previous to this was 10 K which I think is about 6 miles. Anyway, it went very well. I have been riding my bike to work and to church and other places this week. My coach said bike riding uses different muscles than running does, but those muscles are supportive to running. In other words, biking as a cross training activity will strengthen me for running. Hooray! God is good. I wore a gray tank top when running; I think it was a fashion f.p. (mistake) because you can see every sweat mark. Of course, I wore every sweat mark happily all the way home on my bike.

Feeling Stupid

2008-07-04T20:36:00.000-07:00

Tonight Mr. Sinta and I went on a walk in the neighborhood. Our neighbors,pyromaniacs, told us to walk over to the side of the street because a very large homemade firework in a very large pop bottle was able to go off. We obliged them and walked in their yard to go around. Just as we got to the corner, it went off and traveled about 100-150 feet in the air. It looked like it was coming down right for us and of course, I screamed and tried to pull Mr. Sinta away to protect him. I did not realize it, but I have become very protective of him since his heart attack. The incendiary device ended up landing in the top of a tree, and came absolutely nowhere near us. I felt very stupid. I guess I am a little afraid of fireworks, especially illegal ones, and I hate them.

The walk had a happy part because we ran into Mr. and Mrs. P., our old friends who have become pastors at Vineyard Boise. We were able to talk and catch up on each others' children's lives. They were pushing 2 of their 4 grandchildren in strollers. I told them that Aimee does not plan to have children for 5 years. They laughed and said, "It is nice to have plans."

Maybe sometime we will have someone to push around the neighborhood. There's a thought.

Airplane Fund

2008-07-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

I am in kind of a hurry, but I would just like to thank everyone for donations to the Airplane Fund. For those of you who have procrastinated, you still have time to send in a donation of any amount. I promise you will not be disappointed. Totally and completely, ALL DONATIONS will do directly to the Airplane Fund.

Thanks again!

Change Your Life

2008-07-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

Do you ever watch those movies in which the main character wakes up one day unhappy with his/her life and vows to make big, dramatic changes?

I think that those are generally illogical movies because the thing that frustrates the person is the actions of others and how they inter-relate or fail to relate in a healthy way. Basically, they vow, not to have deep interior authentic change, but to move to a new set of circumstances, unaware that they are taking their troubles with them.

I had one of those "Aha - time to wake up" moments last night in my small group meeting. I am not moving to Des Moines to start over. I feel I must tell you at this point that Des Moines is French for Void of All Life, just in case you are at a crisis moment and thinking of making a big, dramatic change. If you are thinking of moving to Iowa, someone needs to grab you by the shoulders and shake you until your brain becomes connected to your nervous system once more.

With my revelation came the knowledge that I need to lean more in the direction of faith and trusting God, and less in the direction of pessimism and unbelief. My negativity has made me quite the critic in ways that are not synergistic to say the least.

Also, would you like to send donations to my Airplane Fund? It seems like when Christians make big life changes that suddenly they start stumping for some non-profit cause and insisting that everyone should give them money. Since I am making a life change, and you do stand to benefit because you read my blog, you should consider sending an envelope filled with money to my home address. Mark it, "Airplane Fund."

Things I Am Grateful For

2008-06-30T23:02:00.001-07:00

Last week was a very hard week because of Mr.Sinta's heart attack.

This week has been very stressful for different reasons which I will not reiterate. I will relate the following stressful story which has a happy ending.

Tonight, when I was really stressed, I left the house for the grocery store. At one particularly busy corner, I was stopped for a red light when a biker pulled up beside me. He appeared to fall down in front of my car's wheels, and I thought my car lurched forward slightly in the interim. My engine died. This is mega stress. I honestly thought that I had accidentally run over a biker who was already on the pavement. As I was getting out of my car, he stood up. I had not done anything. His chain fell off, and he bent over to try to adjust it. As he did so, he lost his balance and fell off of his bike right in front of my car. He was embarrassed and not stressed at all. I told him that he scared the bejeevers out of me. He assured me that he was absolutely fine. I must have imagined my car lurching forward. I was now headed to the grocery store stressed and thankful that I did not kill another human being at the same time. This is the happy ending.

It is a little different than the wedding driving story. Cars are stressful.

So, in lieu of doing something else, I am going to give thanks to the Lord. You may hang out with me and give thanks or go watch Nerf Office Wars again. I am not insulted.

Dear God,

I am thankful that I am alive, and the power is on because I am no good at journaling.

I am thankful that each of my family members is alive. Today, Mr. Sinta found out that the window washer's daughter died tragically last year. Please comfort this man; he is still grieving.

I am thankful that I am healthy enough to train for a marathon.

I am thankful for a house to live in, and for food in the refrigerator.

I am thankful that the oven works even though it was too hot to use it tonight.

I am thankful for a bike to ride to work, and that I did not accidentally run over it while backing the car out of the garage because I forgot to put it away after work.

I am thankful that I was able to reconcile four bank statements today, and everything balanced.

I am thankful for the many Bibles that I own, and for my church home. Thank you that I am not being excommunicated, or in trouble with the pastor in any way. Thank you that he even came to the hospital and prayed for Mr. Sinta last week.

Thank you for Bob and Shirley and how much they came to see us last week. I felt really cared about, and I really needed to feel cared about.

Thank you for the small group of ladies that I meet with each week.

Thank you for my prayer partners who are so supportive right now.

Thank you for my hard working husband who takes us to church. I have friends who only dream of those things.

Thank you that my mom is alive and that she likes me. Teresa's mom is alive and hasn't spoken to her for 20 years, and now her grandma, who speaks to her, is dying. Please give her special grace as she goes back to hopefully see her one last time.

Thank you for lots of friends.

Thank you for the cars working.

Thank you for smart, hard working kids who hug me sometimes even when I don't deserve it at all, and rarely mention my 18,000 parenting mistakes that they could mention each time we are together. Thank you that they still speak to me at all, and that they have not gone on Oprah to do a home school expose.

Thank you for being my Shepherd and leading me even when I don't understand. Thank you that understanding is not a necessary part of obeying, or I couldn't.

Thank you that You are God. Always Faithful. And I like Your white horse. If it were up to me, I would make You wear a cape because You seem to rescue me so often.

Thank you for commanding us not to worry because then we can go to sleep knowing it is okay not to be worrying about things.

Thank you that Your mercies are new every morning or we would be burnt toast in our beds when we wake up tomorrow.

Good night.

He's Home

2008-06-27T21:54:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday morning, I found Mr. Sinta in a hospital conference room being lectured about the heart by a fat woman who was an expert. Next, we heard from a very in shape exercise expert about the activity level to have post heart attack. This was followed by instruction by a dietician. Next, his nurse gave us a run down on final other instructions and drug instructions before they sent me down to bring the car around for him. They didn't make him get in a wheelchair, which is good because I think there might have been a scene.

He said that his heart does not hurt at all. The only thing that hurts is where they stuck some apparatus in his leg to dig around to find a vein and take pictures of his heart in the cath lab. That REALLY hurts. Other people tell us that it didn't hurt them at all. I think that he had a real rookie who was terrible doing it. It makes him walk with a limp, but hopefully that will be healed soon.

The doctor said that his heart is in good shape, but he was very concerned about his diabetes which was out of control because Mr. Sinta had not been maintaining his diet etc., so he is back on meds for that. He has four prescriptions in all for this month.

We consider this a very scary wake up call to take care of his body.

It was scary for everyone to have him be unconscious in the parking lot and taken off by the paramedics to the hospital. I hope I never see it again. It was overwhelming.

We went to the grocery store to shop for new foods that he can enjoy and still be healthy yesterday.

We took a 1 1/2 mile walk this morning. Today we went to Sage Hen Reservoir for a few hours to relax and be with friends. We took the deluxe route through the towns of Ola and Sweet. We hiked a nature trail.

Tonight I went to another Boise Burn. Some people who prayed for me had very encouraging prophetic words for me. That meant a great deal to me. This week kind of seemed like Hell Week or something.

It is really good to be home with Mr. Sinta!

We are even planning on going camping with friends soon to Granjean, up by the Sawtooth National Forest. Mr. Sinta is shocked at me. For years, I refused to camp with anyone other than just our family. I guess that I am mellowing out a little. It actually sounds like fun to go with other people. For some reason, I never wanted to do it before.

The Adventure Continues

2008-06-25T17:17:00.000-07:00

I ran a couple of miles this morning. After I got ready, Abby and I went to the hospital. She commented on the smell when we entered CCU. I thought it smelled better than most fast food restaurants, but she is sensitive. The heart doc came in and gave us information. It turns out that we met him briefly before and he is a Christian. We have mutual friends. He is extremely competent, good at communicating and friendly. That is a rare and wonderful combination for someone so highly educated in medicine.

Abby got queasy and I took her to a bathroom. She came back looking green when Mr. Sinta described a procedure, and she fainted. The doc said for Mr. Sinta to get out of the bed and give it to Abby. He has a sense of humor.

My mil and fil's neighbor is coincidentally two doors down from Mr. Sinta. He is awaiting major bypass surgery. He does not know the Lord. Please keep him in your prayers.

We had some encouraging visitors today, and it really helped.

I just received some news that Mr. Sinta's blood enzymes went down by half. This is encouraging. I hope he can come home tomorrow.

Thank you for your prayers.

Mr. Sinta

2008-06-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

Today, Mr. Sinta called me from work and said to come because he was having terrible chest pains. I drove to the office and found him unconscious on the grass beside our office parking lot with Ryan on the phone to 911. The ambulance took him to St. Al's, and we followed in our cars. (Aimee drove me. Those of you who read the wedding day blog will know why.) I spent the time trying to make cell phone calls to people who would pray for Paul. I am sorry for those that I could not reach. I realized today that I have very few of our out of town relatives programmed into my phone. I keep really useful numbers there, like the pizza place, and local friends.

All of his tests were normal in the morning, but his chest hurt terribly. They made him stay for the results of some blood test. He sent us home while waiting in the afternoon. I went back to find out that he was being moved to a room because the blood showed that there was some heart damage.

After a test in which dye is injected into the heart, the doctor found that Mr. Sinta actually had the world's smallest heart attack, but a heart attack nonetheless. He is resting comfortably at this time. His blood sugar went up to 400 and that needs to come under control as well. He said that his chest did not hurt anymore.

I really appreciate all of your prayers for us, past, present and future. It looks like he will be in the hospital until about Thursday.

Okay, so now I will tell you the funny part. When he was moved to a room around 8 p.m., we had Aimee, Brent, Megan, Bob, Shirley and me. Everyone stayed while the doctor told us what he wanted to do. Afterwards, I was talking to Abby about it (We sent her to work because it looked like it was not a heart attack at 2 p.m.), Abby said that it reminded her of that scene from the movie, While You Were Sleeping. Yes, that was us, the group think family and friends.

Later the Pergersons came as well, to the waiting room, which was very nice.

Our pastor came and prayed for Paul while he was out of it in the emergency room, and anointed him with oil. It was good to be cared about.

Virgil - The Aeneid

2008-06-22T16:18:00.001-07:00

So, I am reading The Aeneid, and I was all the way up to page 15 when I read this about Venus, mother of Aeneas, who has transformed herself into a young woman. By the way, this is a sneaky thing to do, but what a neat way to check up on your wandering son...

She is running around, faster than Hebrus and has a handy bow hung around her shoulders. Her hair is a wretched mess in the disheveling wind. Listen to what happened to her dress: "Her flowing gown knotted and kirtled up."

I like that. Kirtled. Say it fast three times: kirtled, kirtled, kirtled.

That has happened to me before. I don't usually run around with a handy hunting bow around my neck, but my skirt has been kirtled because of the wind.

I just didn't know it.

This is just one more reason that you should be reading classic books.

How would you know if your skirt had been kirtled in a disheveling wind?

You wouldn't. You would probably say something really uneducated, like, "My dress is all messed up in this awful wind."

Now you can say, "My flowing gown is knotted and kirtled up in the disheveling wind."

You're welcome. Enough little tidbits like this and you may become literate, or at least more interesting than if you spent time everyday watching Oprah.

See Jane Run

2008-06-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

SJR is a store in Boise that caters to women runners. I recently joined their running group, and today was the first workout. I ran and talked with a young woman from Minnesota (a town near Redwing) who graduated from U Dub in Madison. She has a degree in Art History, and works as a producer for a local film video production company. Her name is Lana. She is a Very Nice Person. Minnesota people are like that. I hope we get to be friends.

After the initial training run, we met at a workout studio and looked over training plans for the duration. Originally, I planned on training for a half marathon in October, but my trainer/coach, Lynn B., said that she thought I could do a marathon by October. (There is also a possible 1/2 marathon Aug.30 in Pocatello that I could try, but she said it is not necessary to do that. It just gives you a better idea of what the actual marathon will be like later.)

I am going to be training for an October marathon, and if it proves too formidable, I can always switch to the 1/2 marathon in October.

It is fun to have Abby back home. Girls are so much more fun than Guys to have around the house. They like to do fun things, and you can have conversations with them. It was hard to have them both suddenly gone at the same time.

Aimee and I went out Thursday to see Nim's Island because I saw trailers that actually looked interesting for a shallow movie. For some reason, Brent was not interested. I don't think he cares for shallow movies... After seeing it at the dollar theater, Aimee gave a terse, accurate review: "I would have really liked it if I were a 6 year old girl." There you have it, Laura and Rachel, rent the Nim's Island Video and have a slumber party!

The funny thing is that I have loved being an urban dweller for the last 25 years, and even I was intrigued by living on that island. It just looked like fun despite the level of the acting, the costuming, and the writing. I want to try her zip line in the worst way. I have talked to people who have done great zip lines in Costa Rica through the top of the rain forest. There is nothing quite like it, according to them.

I have to say that I really enjoyed one scene in which Jodie Foster, an agoraphobic adventure writer, (this reminded me of Romancing the Stone) is being pulled/pried out of her San Francisco row house by an invisible hero just so she can make it to the cab. It is an excellent visual of what it takes to get people to leave their comfort zones and actually take a risk to help someone else. Pastors who use video clips in their sermons should find it extremely useful.

How to improve the movie: It really needed an actor of a similar caliber of Foster to play Jack. There was too much repetition and it moved too slowly, most likely for the kid audience. But hey, it is a darn good kid movie.

The Aeneid

2008-06-20T15:29:00.000-07:00

Last night when I was supposed to be reading The Aeneid, I was sleeping. Tonight, I can iron, weed the roses or read The Aeneid before Mr. Sinta returns home from his trip.

Tomorrow is Abby's summer recital. She missed 8 days of practice and one lesson because she was on a missions trip in L.A. with the Dream Center. Her favorite part was ministering on Skid Row. As a 17-year-old-home schooled female, I am sure it was unlike anything she has ever witnessed previously. Let's be honest. I'm sure it was unlike I have ever experienced. They gave away food at housing projects, witnessed to people, offered to pray for people, visited high schools and invited people to different events etc. She said that the people who were the most closed to ministry, like completely, were the prostitutes. Some of the high schoolers that she invited to a youth event told her that they could not go because it was a different gang area, and they would be killed over there. This is definitely a different way of life. She honestly could not tell who was high and who was just smoking, which was sometimes a problem. Thank you to everyone who prayed for her. I have watched my kids take off to do different things over the years, but this one left me anxious until people started praying. She plans on going to Portland Bible College, and returning to the Dream Center to volunteer as an intern for a year. She also got to do some really fun things like see part of a movie being filmed, visit Malibu beach, and shop at Hollywood Blvd. The last day she rode the coasters at Six Flags Over Magic Mountain with Pastor Alan because everyone else was too afraid to go. Abby loves roller coasters. Everyone has their gift. Mine is not the L.A. slums or or roller coasters.

Mrs. Sinta Gets A Life

2008-06-19T20:34:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to any faithful blog readers who actually made it through the entire wedding day blog entry! Jenn A., the dope-smoking worship leader, informed me that she was not smoking dope in the photo, but she put one of the little cake stands in her mouth and was attempting to eat the frosting out of it after the wedding. If everyone believes that, we can cancel the intervention meeting which was originally set for Friday. Thanks for cluing us in.

I am not going to write much tonight except to repeat what Mrs. V. told me after I told her that I joined a running club (Mrs. B. is going to be one of the coaches) at See Jane Run, and I am a new part of Veritas Coffeehouse Classic Book Reading Club that caters to women who take two weeks to read a classic book. Also, I explained that my complete curriculum for Abby's senior year consists of an American History book and and English language book, because Abby will be taking her other classes at BSU. To this Mrs. V. responded, "You have a life!"

Yes, I do have a life, but I have procrastinated in kind of a bad way about reading The Aeneid, which Ryan highly recommends by the way as being an actually interesting classic book, and now I need to go spend some time reading it.

I loved teaching my children at home, and having my children around the house. And I do remember hiding in the bathroom to get some alone time to read a book more than once when they were small. Only God knows the exact number. The pronounced red indentations on my rear were probably somewhat like those tree rings that you can count. I have to say though, that I had a life before I had more free time on my hands, and I loved it. Now I just have a different kind of life, and I am learning to love it.

The Wedding Day

2008-06-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, Fans. Your voices have been heard. Yes, I have taken an extended vacation from my own blog. Basically, I have wasted lots of computer time playing Word Twist and Scrabulous on Face Book. I learned how to make a photo album on Face Book, and I made so many albums that people were sick of seeing my albums. I have no more excuses. Abby is off on a missions trip. Mr. Sinta is on a business trip. Ryan is busy doing other things. The dog is fed. My small group Bible study lessons are caught up. It is time to tell the story...

Aimee left the house early on her wedding day with Brent. They drove to Jenna's who did Aimee's hair. Beautifully.

Megan came over to our house with the sound equipment for the wedding. Because of denominational rules, there are no instruments allowed at weddings in the church. Megan graciously offered to bring sound equipment, and since that is her job while she is in college, she actually knows how to set it up, and got a great deal for us: she did it for free! The fun part of having recorded music is that you can have exactly what you want. Exactly. No shrieking soloists or sweaty pianists or twanging guitarists who talk too much. (Mr. Sinta despises worship leaders who are talking heads. If we wanted them to talk, they would be pastors...shut up and sing.)

The phone rang and it was the Cake Lady telling me that she thought her son had already delivered our cake at the appointed time, but when she looked in his room, he was still sound asleep. By this time, he had missed the contact person at the church. Also, the frosting on the cake oxidized so it was bright yellow and not pale yellow. By the way, the only roses she could find to put on the cake at Costco were also of the bright yellow variety. She did not mention that she completely forgot about sending the wedding cupcakes that we ordered or that she shorted us on the hand pressed mints. WE ARE NOT LIKELY TO RECOMMEND THE CAKE LADY TO ANYONE ELSE.

I tried to call Aimee and warn her that the cake was late, but forthcoming, and I found her cell phone's service did not work in Midvale. (Maybe, I said to myself, it is better that she does not know all of this. She and Brent are supposed to be meeting the photographer early. We want a happy bride.)

Eventually, we were all ready enough to pack up and leave. I somehow ran out of time at the end and dumped out someone's graduation present bag and loaded it with my essential makeup and threw it in my car. Of course, I noticed at this point that I did not have enough gas to make it to Midvale, but I did not want to have to tell Mr. Sinta who is a stickler for leaving on time. (Mr. Sinta, Megan and Abby were traveling in the truck.) I was incredibly thankful when Abby called me on my cell just before we passed Megan's workplace to tell me that they needed a subber or woofer or connector or something, and I used the 180 seconds to squeal into the gas station, run my card through the pump and literally splash out enough gas to easily get me to Midvale and then a little more because Aimee and Brent were going to borrow my car and I did not want them stranded in Midvale for their honeymoon, gasless and unhappy. I ran back into my car, started it up and headed to Vista Ave. just in time to meet the truck and get on the Freeway. Yikes!!! That was close.

We drove happily down the road for some time, and eventually Mr. Sinta decided we should stop at a convenience store to pick up some sort of snacks during the two hour drive. I tried to order a sandwich at the in store food place, but some complete twit was taking his sweet time ordering for his family of five and he did not really know what they wanted so I settled for a bag of salted something and a cold pop that was accidentally too large, would not fit in the cup holder and had to be held between my legs. No danger of falling asleep on this trip.

At approximately 11 a.m. I called Ryan to remind him that yes, today is Aimee's wedding day, and he has one hour to take a shower and two hours to drive here to make it to the service. In just a few moments, he called me back to ask me where the maps to the wedding were.

This is a critical point in my story, because I want to tell you ahead of time, so you do not wet your pants, that I lived through what I am about to tell you.

While I was trying to tell Ryan where the leftover maps from the invitations were, and what they looked like, Mr. Sinta, just ahead of me in his truck passed a car. This made me feel intimidated because while I could tell Ryan where the maps were, I had no idea how to get to the church myself, other than by following Mr. Sinta. So, I did one of the stupidest things that I have ever done in my entire life. While talking on the cell phone, I attempted to pass the car that was now ahead of me on the narrow two lane country road. Too late, I realized that there was an oncoming car and now there was no time to go back to my spot in the line of traffic. I was in 5th gear in the VW Turbo bug, but when I tried to max the gas, for some reason, I did not accelerate. I am now in a great position to star in my own Signal 20 movie. We used to watch Signal 20 movies in high school driver's ed. The title of my movie would be Late Mother of the Bride Makes Her Last Phone Call.

The three occupants of the truck informed me later that they are now screaming at me at the top of their lungs. I am sure that this is an all out effort to save my life. It is too bad that I could not hear them, however, I could see death approaching at about 55 m.p.h.

I am very thankful for the person who was now driving behind me who slowed down considerably probably praying and hoping that I would move back into my spot on the correct side of the road. I am also very thankful for the oncoming car who slowed down and pulled to the shoulder because they lacked an Eminent Death Wish, and I had won the Chicken Game by default. I am reminded of my late Aunt Alice (She did not die in a car accident, but in a nursing home because she lived her life carefully and wisely.), who said that God watches over drunks and the feeble minded. This was the grace of God. I lived. Many times that day, I said these words: I am so glad to be alive. Probably not the usual thing for most mothers of the bride to say, but true in my case.

At this point, the problems with the cake, and any other problems, paled in significance.

However, pretty much there weren't any other problems. Eventually the cake came, and no one cared that it was SCREAMING BRIGHT YELLOW instead of pale yellow because it was chocolate marble with a white chocolate filling and it tasted really great. However, I am getting ahead of myself.

We arrived intact at the church, and got dressed in the empty parsonage next door. The photographer arrived a little late. (I was hoping that she had not witnessed my driving stunt.) She was pleasant and very pretty with an air of confident expectation. I wrote out her check and hoped that she was as talented as she seemed. Katy is someone I would recommend to others.

She took photos of the girls preparing, and then of the bridal party, and then the parents and grandparents etc. So many friends came that it was really fun to be the mom and be one of the last people seated. Yes, time to socialize and pass out bubbles (not rice). Aimee was incredibly relaxed and beautiful. She looked like Barbie. Her hair was perfect. Everything was perfect. Her bouquet was outstanding. Her dress was gorgeous, white with a navy tie at the waist. She wore a tiara and an elbow length veil that was very lovely.

Mr. Sinta told me later that as the two of them waited outside the church, he kissed her, put down her veil, and wondered how in the world he would make it through this. He was already starting to cry, and they were not even in the church. This is very tender because I have known Mr. Sinta for 27 years, and he almost never cries. Most of the times that I have seen him cry, it was because he was laughing so hard that he had to cry. He has cried at maybe two movies. He cried when our first baby died. He is not one given to tears. That tells you deeply this was affecting him.

The groomsmen led in the moms and went up front with Brent and the pastor. The bridesmaids came in, very carefully, I might add because they had stilettos and they had to navigate a 3 foot grate with tiny holes in the middle of the aisle! Success. No one stumbled. Our worship leader, Jenn A., led us, sans instruments, in a hymn. We willingly complied with the no instruments rule, but we never bothered to check if they minded female worship leaders. We know of one Boise church that was decimated by the thought of a female worship leader. It appeared that no one minded. Everyone loves Jenn. However the photographer seems to have caught her smoking dope at the reception. We have no proof other than the photo.

The pastor made a few announcements, and then Aimee's music started. She had music from... This is terrible. I can't remember. The movie with the ring and the short guys with hairy feet. Lord of the Rings! That's it. It was something very beautiful. She was very beautiful. Our great photographer really captured a lot of great moments, and I do not remember ever seeing her take a single picture. She was invisible.

Any way, when the pastor said, "Who gives this woman?" Mr. Sinta said, "Her mother and I." My emotions, other than still being very glad to be alive and not in a bloody mass at the Midvale morgue, was, "Yes!!! This is awesome. These two were meant for each other." Mr. Sinta's voice cracked, and I loaned him Kleenax. I think that when Brent heard Paul's voice that he teared up as well. It was very emotional. I did not cry. It was a happy, beautiful, wonderful, joyful thing to me, not something to cry about. I did not expect that. (The funny thing is, I cried at my own wedding. My shoulders shook. I was so happy to finally get married that I sobbed. I was all of 20 years old.)

It was a beautiful service, beautiful and simple. Aimee kept emphasizing that she wanted a simple wedding. It was a wise thing to want.

The building was very adequately sized for a wedding of about 150 people, which was good because we had about that many people, but there was no place for a reception line so the bridal party all lined up outside the church (it was a beautiful day) and shook hands with everyone. The very funny thing was that then we all went back in the church for the reception! No one minded. Like I said, it was a simple and beautiful wedding.

The crowd was seated watching Aimee and Brent get their photo taken with the cake, but then it was time to serve cake, and nothing was happening. I asked Mr. Sinta to either pray for the cake or announce it was being served. He did something that was absolutely wonderful instead.
He wrapped one arm around Brent and one arm around Aimee and he prayed a father's blessing over their marriage. It was extremely beautiful, simple and unexpected. It made one young woman cry who witnessed it. Amazingly, Katy caught it on film. Anyway, then we all ate cake and talked and Megan caught the bouquet and we blew bubbles and told them good bye and packed up their gifts and cleaned up the building and tried to leave.

At this point, you are probably already thinking that I have done my idiotic act for the day, and that I couldn't possibly do anything to top it. I am about to top it.

Paul, Abby and Megan are in the truck, Brian and Devon (They are incredibly fun relatives from Utah who came to the wedding and were going to spend the night with us) were in their car, and I was supposed to drive Aimee's car home. In my haste to not fall behind the wagon train, I jammed the key in the ignition and could not get it out. Eventually Mr. Sinta got most of the key out, but it was the trunk key. Now, we could not get the trunk open to get my stuff out of the car, and we could no longer get the correct key in the ignition because a part of a broken trunk key was jammed in there. I felt extremely ridiculous. Even I do not normally do two things like this in one day.

To make things worse, at this point, we got a call from Aimee and Brent, and they were headed back to the church before they left on their honeymoon because they forgot something. Megan and Abby and I looked at each other and promised not to tell them anything about what I had just done to Aimee's car so they would not worry about it. It worked. They never suspected.

Brian and Devon let me ride in their car back to Boise. I was really glad not to drive. Extremely glad. It was so much fun to be with them that I was not able to sit and think about the fact that my very wonderful oldest daughter, middle child, was now married, and would not be coming back to live at our house anymore. I am very glad that Brian had lots of stuff to tell me about his church and ministry because I never got that sad, let-down-she-is-gone feeling.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end of our wonderful day. I am so glad to be alive.

P.S. I have now progressed to being very happy that she is very happy! It only took three weeks to get the car fixed, and I am behind on my ironing because my iron was in the trunk, but eventually I will catch up. Aimee has yet to move most of her stuff in her room in the basement. It is still a huge mess; so, in one way, it seems she is still with us.

The Rehearsal Dinner

2008-05-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

The Rehearsal dinner was in a tiny cafe in Midvale, Idaho, located about 750 feet from the church. To the best of my knowledge, the cafe and the church are the only things other than a few houses and a grain elevator in Midvale, Idaho. Since Midvale is a two hour drive from Boise, we asked to have the dinner on Thursday evening. (This gave us Friday to take care of last minute details.)

On Thursday evening we arrived early in Midvale and Aimee needed to use the bathroom at the cafe. She and Megan went in, and greeted a man sitting in the cafe. Megan asked Aimee if she knew him. She replied that she did not know him, but she was probably going to be related to him, since her fiance is related to everyone in Midvale except the infamous Sen. Larry Craig. (We did not invite Sen. Craig to the wedding, because we were afraid that he might come. Some of our other guests might have made an issue of his presence, and made him feel less than welcome.) At any rate, it turned out that Aimee actually is related to this man, and he was also the pastor who performed the ceremony. Life really is stranger than fiction.

The cafe dinner; meatloaf, potatoes, a great salad bar, homemade veggie soup, the best rolls that I have ever eaten in my life, and cheesecake, was great. After dinner, we rolled our fat bodies over to the church. The moms spent their time trying to stay out of the way and not be controlling or demanding which was really funny because everything was so low key that it was almost too low key! Aimee decided to march in after her bridesmaids. I took a video of the practice with my camera, and in the middle of practice, Aimee ran off the platform to the back of the church. Someone yelled, "Runaway Bride," but she was back momentarily after helping with the sound or something. I can't remember too much more about the practice except that they practiced about 3 times how everything would work. I set up a table for the cake people to put the cake on, and everyone departed happily.

On Friday, we ambled around taking care of things, and Aimee turned out to be the only offspring home for dinner. So, for her Last Supper, she requested spaghetti, but without the Awful Whole Wheat pasta. We did it Her Way. She spent hours doing her laundry. If you have ever seen her room, you know that for months it has been difficult to even make a path into the room because of the books and clothing strewn about. She could not use her desk or her chair because they were filled with stuff. I quit using her bathroom, even in emergencies, because she quit cleaning it months ago. She would use her laptop while sitting on her bed or come upstairs and work on our sofa because her workspace was not usable. I hope the Brent is ready for this woman. I have to say that she also got all A's and one A plus, and she is vice president of two campus organizations and has two part time jobs etc. She is in more organizations, but she is only an officer in two. Anyway, that is why her room is a mess. It never makes it into the action part of her priority list. Abby and I keep smelling something terrible in her room since the wedding, but we cannot figure out what it is. It is like something died in there. We have given up the search and decided that we will really, really clean it when she leaves.

I have to get ready for work, so I will continue with the Wedding Story later!

I Lied

2008-05-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

I am not filling you in on the wedding yet, although it was perfectly wonderful. I don't have much time.

Here is my news: today I finished teaching home school math!!! I have been doing it for about 16 years, and this is a momentous occasion. Next year, Abby will be taking Trig/Pre Calc at BSU, and I am DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, and in the English Lit. Anthology, I found the following aphorism:

"We do not know what education could do for us, because we have never tried it."

It is all too true in the U.S.

Today's Wisdom

2008-05-25T22:07:00.001-07:00

"Pooh," said Rabbit kindly, "you haven't any brain."
"I know," said Pooh humbly.

Wedding Day

2008-05-25T05:53:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful wedding with a hundred awesome details, but the mother of the bride is taking a day off! I promise to fill you in later.

I fell for it.

2008-05-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

It was not Aimee's dream since she was six years old to go down the aisle first; she made that up. She told her bridesmaids that she would say that if anyone questioned her decision! Last night at the rehearsal, she changed her mind and decided to walk in last...I am so naive.

The rehearsal dinner was great. I did not expect that because it was at the only diner, a tiny little diner in a tiny little Idaho town. It was fantastic.

The rehearsal went went although not everyone could make it. Of course, in the end, it doesn't matter if the rehearsal goes well, but if the real thing goes well.

I could not sleep last night, and I was up until 5 a.m. Yes, I am bleary and teary today. Aimee and I took a morning walk, and I took the girls out to lunch and we met up with Mr. Sinta.

I have spent my day running around getting last minute things for the wedding. Some of it was fun things like bottles of bubbles to blow at the honeymoon farewell. My house is really disorderly at the moment. We keep getting more and more gifts in the mail and delivered. Abby had to go to work tonight. I think I am going to try to take a nap. I feel weepy and off-center. I am confident that tomorrow will be lots of fun.

We Are Making Ourselves Ready

2008-05-22T10:18:00.000-07:00

There is a Bible verse that says something like this: The bride hath made herself ready.

Until now, I don't think that I have fully appreciated that verse. There is the preparation for the wedding, of course, but also there is a different kind of getting ready. Ready to leave home, ready to make a lifetime commitment, ready to become vulnerable in a hundred different ways, ready to trust someone who is still untried but true, ready to forgive and be forgiven, ready to step to the place of knowing the only one you can really turn to for help is the Lord. A bride who has prepared herself is wearing a suit of armor under that lovely white dress. She is ready.

The truth be told: I doubt that I was really ready for marriage, but Mr. Sinta was ready enough for both of us. I was tired of being single, and he was the only person I could imagine spending my life with; still is. I had a terrible case of cold feet the week after we were engaged. The idea of marriage terrified me so much that if my (computer factory) boss at that time had not been a knowing-about-these-things Christian woman from my own church, we would not have been married. On our wedding day, I broke down and cried shortly after we entered the building from stress. Even now, I can safely tell you that it was the worst day of my Christian life. I was glad to get married by then, exceedingly glad, but sick of the all of the wedding manipulations and idiocy that was going on behind the scenes. While I was just hanging out with my bridesmaids, Mr. Sinta was on his knees praying with his groomsmen. This was probably the best indicator that we were going to be okay.

It is very different being the mother of the bride. Aimee is so ready, and so beautiful. It will be an awesome day; I just know it. It is the next day that I am not looking forward to when she is not living at my house anymore. For 19 years, we have had her hanging out eating all the gummi worms, and then, POOF! She will be eating someone else's candy. Probably someone else's cooking as well since she is not really a kitchen person. Aimee feels that kitchens are for socializing. The last few years I see her late at night and we talk in the kitchen. She likes to hang out in the kitchen at parties as well. Maybe an interesting transition is about to happen! She may actually cook something there.

As a good homeschool mom, I did actually teach her to cook at one point. Well, my version of teaching anyone to cook goes like this. I teach you to read. I teach you to do dishes. Then, one day I plant you in the kitchen with the cookbook, the tools and the supplies and I leave. I leave because I love you, and I cannot stand to teach people to cook. It is messy, and I stress out at the mess, and the mistakes.

I also taught my kids to clean the house, and to work hard. That does not mean that they are tidy housekeepers, but that they cannot claim ignorance in any of these areas. I do not expect college students to do much around the house. This will probably also be an area of transition.

Tonight is the rehearsal dinner. East is meeting West. We are making ourselves ready.

Narnia Opening - The Misadventure

2008-05-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

Last night I ventured out (with my kids) to a downtown midnight opening of the new Narnia movie, Prince Caspian. It turned out to be a series of bad decisions on my part.

Bad decision number one: I should have gone to Meridian to watch it. Why? Lots of my friends were going to be there. In Boise, I found only one friend to talk to before the movie. I forgot to have my parking garage ticket validated, and it cost me six bucks to park in addition to the full price for the movie. It would have more than paid for the gas to Meridian.

Bad decision number two: The parking garage that we wanted was closed for construction, and we got stuck on the second floor of a different garage. It was so full, even at 3 a.m., that we were sucking exhaust for 20 minutes before we could get out of it.

Bad decision number three: As we sat and talked pre-movie, I noticed some obnoxious high schoolers behind us. I made the ridiculous assumption that this would not matter once the movie started. One young man talked for the entire length of the movie. We should have moved before, or even during the movie.

Bad decision number four: After one of our number personally confronted this young man, without response, I gave him the Mother Look. So did the Other Mother.

Bad decision number five: I went to get the manager too late. By the time that I had totally had it, the manager could not be found. I came up with two non-English speaking janitors who could not locate the manager. They were not willing to slit his throat until after the end of the movie, which I deemed a pointless risk, so I reluctantly advised them to go back to cleaning the lobby, a more stable job than contract killing.

Bad decision number six: I decided to relax and enjoy the last twenty minutes of the movie. Near the end of the movie, there is a huge departure from the actual book by C.S. Lewis. This ordinarily would be of no consequence whatsoever to me because I have not read all of the books in the series. (Please do not send hate mail. I actually own the books; I just haven't read them all...yet. I own lots of Lewis' books. For some of you, this is sacrilege; I know. I have only read the first one.) Unbeknownst to me, two girls about 12 and 14, who sat to my immediate right, had decided weeks earlier to come in full costume (this movie has a cult following, remember), and to defend the integrity of the original manuscript. When the movie took an abrupt left turn from the book, they stood together with swords high in the air and screamed, "Stick to the book." I admire their mettle, but it was a little unnerving.

Bad decision number seven: Wednesday night, I only slept for four hours. Thursday night, I only slept for about four hours. I got to sleep about 4 a.m., and the phone got me up at 7:59 a.m. Thank you, Federal Express. After work today, I had such an incredible head ache that I could not sleep. I am thankful for Ibuprofen. Aimee just got home. She did the same not sleeping routine for two nights and also has the same head ache. When will I learn? Probably, I won't. Things like movie openings only happen ONCE. Carpe diem, everyone!

Aside from all of that, I liked this movie much more than the first one. I won't tell you about it because I do not want to ruin it for you.

You Will Laugh

2008-05-14T22:56:00.001-07:00

Just before we left on our trip, Aimee showed the following clip from SNL to Abby and me. Abby did Penelope impressions for me at various times which was hysterical!

Without further ado, for your entertainment, I give you Penelope.

Trip Rewards From the Oregon Coast

2008-05-13T18:49:00.000-07:00

In the mail today I received a trip points reward card for staying at a Ramada on part of our trip. If I stay at a Ramada three more times in the near future, I will get thousands of points which will actually benefit me if I stay at the Ramada even more times in the near future. I think that you need to reevaluate your life if you want to stay at a Ramada Inn that much.

Everyone survived the trip; those who left, and those college students who stayed home.

Abby and I visited Powell's bookstore in Portland on Thursday afternoon, sans Mr. Sinta, who was working at a job we have near there. He really did not want to go to Powell's. We did not mind going by ourselves although I must admit that even with a map quest set of directions and with Abby as my reader/navigator that it was a little hairy on their freeway system. It seems like in Portland that each road lasts about .3 miles before you need to make an immediate exit to the other side of the freeway. We loved Powell's. I found the book of a lifetime which I have already read and re-read by a Henri Nouwen, entitled The Only Necessary Thing. Actually, it is a compilation of just about everything that he wrote about living a prayerful life, and it was put together after his death by a close friend. It has transformed anything that I formerly thought about spirituality. I also bought The Tale of Two Cities, which I despise, and a really neato box of activities to help spur on reluctant writers. I haven't had time to open it yet. Aimee thinks it is a relatively worthless box because she has never needed help writing. She is working on a Gothic short story for a final project at the moment. She can pump out stuff like that without any sweat.

Eventually, we picked up Mr. Sinta and headed to Lincoln City where we stayed in a condo. In the bug, we just barely fit everything, including a cooler and all of our luggage. We visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium, which was wonderful, especially the jellyfish, and the hands on tide pool exhibit. For the first time we were able to go through the shark tube. Absolutely amazing. They had lots of sharks. The thought provoking thing is that they all are from the Oregon Coast. I did not want to think about that. Evidently there are definite boundaries in the ocean determined by depth and temperature which fish recognize. The sharks stay in the deepest places. They were awesome to see. The curators assured me that there is no particular shark named The Man Eating Shark. A man eating shark is just any shark that eats you. Comforting. I am wondering how much attention sharks pay to boundaries.

We ate at Mo's for the best chowder. Abby and I love it. Mr. Sinta does not. They also have a great berry cobbler. Mr. Sinta does not like that either, so he got a brownie hot fudge sundae with loads of whipped cream. I have to admit that the cobbler kind of paled in significance when the sundae came to the table.

The weather at the coast was one sunny afternoon, one rainy morning, and windy or very breezy the other days. We had a great time anyway because we love the ocean.

Abby and I watched two sci fi movies. We do not have cable at home, so whenever we go to the coast, we watch far too much television. One of the movies was a global warming movie from about 1952. The short guy who played Eegore in Frankenstein was supposed to be a military/political leader, and I thought it was hysterical. The global warming was caused by a giant ring of fire around the earth which eventually a nuclear sub (complete with glass windows) shot out of the sky with a nuclear weapon. Only seconds after they belted out the hardware, the sub surfaced and they all rejoiced that the earth was safe. Of course, they were unconcerned about fall out etc. We enjoyed the special effects of the giant squid and the shark among other things. Life was simpler then.

I found lots of rocks, and not many shells on the beach. Oh well. One shell that I found was really nice until I discovered that it still had an inhabitant. I put it back. We found a great tide pool with colorful anemones and starfish. We are still amazed at the life in the ocean.

On Wednesday, I dropped off Mr. Sinta and Abby at the airport and ventured over to shop at IKEA for the afternoon. That is probably my favorite store in the world. Lucky for me, it was so close to the airport and the hotel that even I could not get lost. Amazing. I am almost prone to guess that God had somehow predetermined that they would place all of that strategically close together for my benefit. Maybe that is just a little too much of a Shealy-centered universe!

Of course, I got to stay in Portland for the annual conference at City Bible Church from Wednesday to Saturday, after the trip. ( I was gone nine days in all.) The conference was fantastic. I always come home from that spiritually energized and physically exhausted, but it was worth it. I will simply say that I was greeted, upon arriving home, by Ryan who immediately let me know that we were almost completely out of milk etc. He and Aimee were famished from the lack of leftovers. They seldom make it to a meal, but they scrounge when we are asleep. That is a college student welcome for you!

Before I go, I had the best Mother's Day ever. The girls brought me breakfast in bed, fresh cut flowers from the florist (not the backyard), a gift card to a book store, and a set of really cool pens. Mr. Sinta took me to Guido's (NY Pizza) for lunch with Aimee. In the afternoon, I grocery shopped to satisfy the natives, and in the evening Mr. Sinta cooked steaks on the grill for us. Amazingly, and this is a near miracle, all five of us ate supper together and then we went to see Iron Man. Ryan bought my ticket.

Mr. Sinta and I think that was probably our last big fun thing to do as a family before the wedding. It is so hard to get everyone together. Anyway, it was a great day.

Yikes, all for now.

All The Other Birthdays Will Be Different

2008-04-29T18:47:00.000-07:00

After posting about my great birthday, I realized that I left out something important. All three kids, 17, 19 and 21, danced the can-can together spontaneously to entertain me. I think that they were also singing, but I don't remember what. With Aimee getting married, things will be different next year. Kind of a sad thought. Will she be too dignified to dance and sing with her siblings on my birthday? It is not a good thought to ponder, rather I will cherish the memory of my 48th b-day with their performance.

We are heading out soon to Portland to investigate a college for Abby, and then to the coast for some R and R. Sadly, we cannot take Aimee and Ryan who have school. Double sadness, we cannot take our dog. He is getting older, but he absolutely loves the beach and the ocean. Because Paul and Abby will be flying back, and I am staying a few extra days for a conference, it just does not work to take Randy.

Our lives are changing rapidly, and it is taking a little adjusting on my part. I loved all those busy crazy years of taking kids everywhere and doing everything. Okay, not baseball, but pretty much everything else. I have been realizing that I need to develop a life of my own, and soon.

Today Abby and I were reading more from our English Literature book, and I think that is the direction that I will go, pursuing a degree in Eng. Lit. I actually enjoyed some of the 20th century poets. For a time, I thought that I would pursue some type of ministry opportunity, but I have decided against it. I do not have the iron stomach that it would require to handle all of the ups and downs, disappointments and rejection that go with that. Best to be honest with myself that I am not cut out for that sort of thing.

The Latest

2008-04-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed the teaching at the women's conference, and I had a fun birthday when I got home. I was given a basket to go on my own private egg hunt in the backyard. The ten eggs were stuffed with chocolate mints and clues to find my presents in the house. (I love egg hunts and have always wished for one!) Great cake, and we watched, "Enchanted," a new Disney movie that I like. I also received some Celtic CD's - a worship one and also the High Kings, a popular Irish group. I also received a neato lavender set of bath products in a basket. I love the smell of lavender.

Mr. Sinta bought more knives for my kitchen. They looked a little different, and I was not sure what they were for until I just looked them up on-line. They are called Santuko knives. Not surprisingly, they are for cutting things up. I am shocked at how expensive that they are. Needless to say, I will be taking very good care of them!

Sunday I went to church and came home and ate cake and napped. I have accomplished nothing today. I didn't realize how tired that I was. Sometimes you just need to sleep.

We walked the dog...that's what I got done.

The Second Lap and Vote for Judd

2008-04-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

The Big Shower Event was really fun. Most of the very talented women who helped create the invitations came back to make fruit trays (they were beautiful works of art), hang crepe paper, slice meat and buns, and make punch, etc. so that we could make it happen. They were also very gracious about doing name tags and helping with our game which was really not a game at all. I hate shower games. We handed out forms and asked everyone to give Aimee advice on a number of topics. She read some of the advice aloud for our entertainment. I liked Carol V's advice on the wedding: Don't leave him at the altar. The crowd roared. There were a lot of us. Everyone was so busy talking to everyone else that it became difficult to get their attention when we were moving to something different, like eating, or passing out prizes. The prize winners were just drawn randomly from the advice paper pile. Ok, so the funny prizes weren't so funny, except to me; they were weird. Sara R. won a large gift bag of toilet paper. Carol V. won herbal teas. Faith won special hot cocoa mixes. Lisa won spot cleaner and ant killer. At least they were useful! Aimee received many beautiful and useful gifts, including lingerie, and everyone had fun. Mr. Sinta and Ryan went out to eat and to a movie, "The Bucket List," because they knew it would take a long time to open all the gifts, and they wanted to avoid a large group of women like that. Afterwards, we had cheesecake from Costco with lots of yummy berries. After most of the guests left, we had face off between a Canadian and a new U.S. citizen from Bosnia, and a handful of saner people to referee the repartee. Erma, our Bosnian friend, loves to tease the inimitable Miss J. from Saskatchewan. Thank you spell check. I would have to say that the Bosnian sent enough verbal slap shots to be declared the winner. When there were just four of us left, we ran to see the house that Brent bought for Aimee, and then to J.C.Penney's with our friends and family coupons. (New sunglasses and some pearl jewelry.) Then, Abby and I left most of the kitchen mess, and just sat down and watched, "You've Got Mail," because I was too bushed to do anything else. We did eventually put the house back together on Monday, and we both went to work in the afternoon.

I am really busy at work, and I almost never read the news at work, but I did find one fascinating political item which I will share with you:

Texas prison inmate cons way onto Idaho primary ballot

Keith Russell Judd is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas for making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999. He's scheduled for release in 2013.

Judd, 49, qualified for the ballot by submitting a notarized form and paying the required $1,000 fee, state Secretary of State Ben Ysursa said. As a result, Democratic voters will be able to choose between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Judd.

Prison officials told the state elections office that Judd sent out about 14 checks to states seeking to get on the presidential election ballot and about half had been returned. He qualified as a write-in candidate in Kentucky, California, Indiana and Florida, but Idaho apparently is the only state where his name will appear on the ballot.

There you have it, dear readers. This is our big opportunity to save time and stress in our court system. Instead of electing someone and then sending them to prison, we can save time by electing someone already in prison. This is a delightfully superior alternative to Obama and Clinton.

The Race To The Big Day Continues

2008-04-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

I rented a carpet cleaning machine yesterday and cleaned the carpets in anticipation of the BIG SHOWER EVENT. Aimee thinks that this is tremendously funny. "Mom, they are not coming to see your carpets!" She is quite right, but they might accidentally notice that they haven't been cleaned for about two and a half years. I think that this is like the nesting instinct. Many women, about 72 hours before they are going to give birth, run nilly willy through their homes cleaning ferociously. This is the reverse-birth-cleaning/nesting-bridal-shower-instinct. Abby and I even took the cans to recycling earlier this week. Is anyone going to check the aluminum can count? No, of course not. It is totally IRRATIONAL and UNREASONABLE, but I am doing it anyway.

Abby willingly cut the grass and pulled two grocery bags of weeds from the front yard for me. She also cleaned all the doggie doo from the backyard. (What if the guests wander out there in the '40 degrees and breezy' weather? Will they be seeking little piles of doggie doo?) I think she deserves a prize when this is over because I have been shorting her on attention on school mornings as well. Additionally, she took Aimee and Brent's engagement photo which was sent out in the invitations and will be in the paper this weekend. Probably a three foot chocolate trophy engraved with the words, "World's Best Little Sister," would be appropriate. She and Mr. Sinta also went shopping for me to find neat little canvasses and easels to put up neat quotations that fit the couple as decorations at the party. (Abby is painting those too. Maybe we should call her, "St. Abby.") They are kind of brainy and intellectual, so that suits them. We will also have crepe paper, the Target Club Wedd Candle and a few roses.

Did I mention that I think a whole lot of people are coming? I have given loads of parties. I have learned that most people completely ignore an RSVP, and to plan on 50 percent or so attending, no matter how many you invite. I am not sure what to think of this party because I have had the highest RSVP rate that I have ever had. Of course, none of the college students have called, but I did not expect them to. I did not really expect anyone to respond, it was just on the printed invitation so I filled in my phone number. I think that someone responded yesterday who was not invited, and I am delighted. We are kind of open about parties. We also called and invited by phone someone we inadvertently forgot. She was very sweet and not offended at all.

I hate shower games, so we are just playing one game and giving several prizes. I have picked out unique and special prizes at Walmart. I cannot reveal them to you now, but later I will, dear readers. HA! HA! HA! It was funny just to purchase the prizes. Part of the game involves having everyone write down lots of advice for Aimee on a variety of topics. Someone did that for me once at a baby shower, and I still have the pieces of paper in a baby book. Way cool. There will be about three women at the party who have each been married over 50 years. I am thinking that they will have very good advice. It will really take no skill to win the prizes, so even the college students will have the opportunity to take home something really fun, as long as they can write their names.

Here is the extra fun-fun part: everyone gets to take home a little bag of chocolate. That's what I 'm talking about.

P.S. The other part of the race is that I am incredibly busy at work, and there is a women's retreat at church that I am signed up just one week from today. Will she make it? Will she get a second wind? Will she sprint to the finish?

As the Minnesotans say, "Yah sure. You betcha!"

"Hallelujah!" they chorused.

2008-04-14T19:17:00.000-07:00

The invitations were mailed this morning. Pastor Tri, Boise's only pastor who truly cares about the environment, (Tri is Aimee and Brent's pastor) would be proud. The invitation, the map, the photo and a "where we registered" tag all weighed in at just .5 of an ounce. I guess the only way to use less paper would be to email them. Not going to happen.

We are committed to this now. Not that we were not committed before, but now it all seems very official. I mean, people are going to show up at a little country church in Midvale, Idaho, expecting a wedding, and by golly, "Let them eat cake!" Yes, we are meeting with the cake lady from Weiser tomorrow night. She does custom cakes and comes highly recommended.

If you are wondering, the reason that we are not getting a Midvale cake is that there is not too terribly much in Midvale except the church, some houses, and a very small cafe that would fit inside of a McDonald's twice over. Aimee feels that we should warn the cafe owner of the date. Even a small crowd will take Midvale by storm if they all stop for coffee.

We are hosting a shower for Aimee on Sunday. This will be a very busy week. I wanted to make home made berry cheesecake, but we may have to settle for some plain cheesecake from Costco. It should be a pretty large, fun group of people. Of course, it could be a fun group of large people. We will have lots of food. They can come small and leave large.

How It Went

2008-04-12T08:05:00.000-07:00

The week is gone. I am sorry for not posting, faithful readers. We had family birthdays on April 1st, 6th and 11th, and the funeral of a friend on the 11th as well. The other reason that I have not been posting is that I have been using those spare minutes to play Scrabulous on Face Book. Mostly, I am winning. It is not addicting, but it is distracting. I mean, who wants to read all those forwards which are continually sent to me if I can be cleaning someone's clock at Scrabble. PLUS, it does not mean having a Scrabble board set up on my dining room table. I think that I have five games going at this time.

With the birthdays out of the way, I can work on addressing wedding invitations. Also, the house needs a thorough cleaning, and the dog needs a bath. I joined Curves this week. It is a club for old women to keep them from decaying. Did I mention that my birthday is the 26th? I am still young in my head, but fat in my butt. "Life," as Carol Benjamin used to say, "is so daily." It means that we have to hit the battlefields everyday or we fall backwards.

I want to take Mr. Sinta on a date tonight to see National Treasure II. Unfortunately, it is not on until the 8:45 showing. We will see if I can get through my list today, and if he can stay awake that late.

It looks like we may have a cake provider for the wedding. We meet with her on Tuesday. I feel like I am running a life marathon for April and May. We are extremely relieved to have canceled the trip to Yosemite which would have come a week or so before the wedding. Sad to miss it this year, but too stressful to make it.

Everything Stops

2008-04-08T06:51:00.000-07:00

I have a dozens of things that I need to do today (like get out those wedding invitations, and put the announcement in the paper), but I just read my email, and suddenly I am recoiling. My friend, Phyllis, is now a widow. Just like that. Her young husband has been in the hospital in CCU, and we have all been praying for him. I just stopped in again on Sunday afternoon. Now, he's gone. Just like that. Yes, he was a great Christian, but he was only in his early 40's. His lungs were congested after he got sick from the flu with pneumonia so they put him on a breathing machine, and sedated him with paralytics. That was four weeks ago. We were believing for God to do something really big. He did. He took Michael home to be with Him. I am overwhelmed.

Your Children Eventually Grow Up

2008-04-01T20:05:00.000-07:00

I am slowly coming to realize that your children eventually grow up.

I confess that I went into Aimee's room when she was sleeping last week, and just looked at her because soon she will be married, and she will not be sleeping in our house anymore. We just brought her home yesterday, it seems, and now she is leaving.

Tonight was Abby's 17th birthday. Mr. Sinta had to be out of town this week; he has never missed anyone's birthday before this. We had a birthday lunch as a family on Sunday. Tonight I took Abby and two of her friends to a restaurant down town to celebrate. I will say it again because you probably missed it; my baby is now seventeen years old. This one is the world traveler, and I do not anticipate seeing much of her once she leaves in 15 months for Portland. She is also the only teenager I know who wanted a clothes hamper for her birthday. (White wicker with a cloth liner, thank you.)

Ryan is going to be 21 on Sunday. He will be gone a great deal of the summer at an army camp.

We are rapidly heading toward the empty nest stage. I read a blog, Femina, about what to do with this years. I do not agree, but she is worth reading. You can also view my non agreeing comment if you know my name. Since I have been home educating for all of these years living a pretty secluded life at home, I think that I want to go back to college and get a degree in something that I enjoy and could possibly use, like Organizational Leadership or English Literature or Art History.

It will be fun, but not nearly as fun as being a mom. Nothing else is as demanding or as rewarding. Enjoy them while you've got them, or when you get them, depending on where you are in life.

Abby's Big Night

2008-03-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

Abby danced the night away. We got to sit with some wonderful friends whom we have known for years, and talked the night away. I realized that we now know very few people in home education circles because our kids are growing up. It couldn't be that we are getting old.

Making Them

2008-03-28T03:53:00.000-07:00

Last night was the come-and-make-our-wedding-invitations-for-us dinner party.

Wow, what you can sucker people into when you promise them enchiladas and some ice cream.

Our highly skilled and conscientious crew produced beautiful work. I made nary a single one. My job was preparing enchiladas, and doing dishes. My card making skills are best summed up by one of my last trips to the nursing home with our home school group several years ago. I made loads of cards which the kids passed out to residents. Teresa R. planned these events, which were very fun, and truly some were eventful. (Poor Matt S...one resident with mental issues hit him. He has since recovered and will become a police man. Soon, he can throw them all in the slammer. That's another story, another time.) The residents thought that the cards that I made were made by the children. The oldest was about 8 at the time. I am not complaining; this is one of the most complimentary things ever uttered about my cards. This explains why I pulled enchilada duty.

Oops. One funny thing that I forgot about the enchilada crowd was their music. They played classical music, the Beach Boys, and the Arrogant Worms from Canada. The Worms sang about how wonderful the world would be if everybody had a gun. It was a pretty catchy tune, as well as a number about Snappy the Gator who lives at the bottom of the pond and eats children. For your pleasure, I am adding a link to their famous song: Me Like Hockey

My other job last night was to chronicle the event with photos which we will remember forever. In addition to the face shots, I did hand portraits, and Jenn A. did a group portrait of everyone's feet. I would post them for you, but you, dear readers, know my technical limitations.

Abby and I played tennis yesterday despite the cold. She is quickly improving (except for her backhand which needs work) and it will not be long before I will have to post losses, if I report our scores at all.

Tonight is the Jr/Sr dinner for home educators. Abby is finally old enough to attend. I hope that it is all that she has dreamed it would be. If not, she still gets to wear that beautiful green spaghetti strap job with the knockout silver shoes. We all need to play the princess while we can!

Tennis, Anyone?

2008-03-25T07:11:00.000-07:00

Abby and I played tennis in the rain yesterday morning. I won the first set of the year. I can tell you that and not feel conceited or contemptuous because I do not think that will always be the case so I have to enjoy it while I can.

Ryan and I enjoyed watching our team win in the last 26 seconds of the third (and final) period of the hockey game on Friday night. Ordinarily I despise professional hockey because fighting is so rampant that it can look more like World Wrestling than a serious sport requiring skill and years of training by top level athletes. This particular game got off to a terrible start when two players started to fight, and the referees made almost no effort to stop them. It looked totally staged and blatantly ridiculous in addition to the fact that fighting is ridiculous anyway. After that things calmed down although there were a lot of penalties. The rules have changed since Mr. Sinta and I had season tickets to the U of Minn Gopher hockey games. Now, when a play is out on a penalty and the opposing team scores, the team returns to full strength, but the player remains in the penalty box until he has served the entire penalty term. It is just as well because this keeps the thugs off the ice for longer periods of time.

On the wedding front, Aimee and I purchased materials to make her invitations. She is having a small dinner party at which we are going to assemble all of them. Aimee is the amazing social butterfly. Aside from stealing face book friends, she is darn near perfect. We forgive her for this. She collects friends like some people collect stamps.

For those who desire a good laugh today, check David Hollander's new political site.

It will open up your opportunity to make a resounding political statement to your neighbors, family, friends, and tailgaters. Yes, he is selling funny bumper stickers. We like David. Even though he attended the University of Idaho, he still qualifies as a good guy on our list.

Other News

2008-03-21T07:56:00.001-07:00

Today is Good Friday, but I didn't know that several weeks ago when I purchased hockey tickets so Ryan and I could go to the Mother/Son hockey night that our church advertised. It has not been a resounding social success in the numbers. There will only be six of us, and one of us doesn't have any sons, but she is coming because I told her we would have more fun if she came too. It seems sacreligious to go to a hockey game today, but I am not throwing out the money on tickets just because Easter comes early this year. In honor of our day, I made Ryan toast, juice and fried a package of bacon for him. Additionally, when I left his room, I carried out his dirty dishes. He was in shock. I don't know if I have ever made him breakfast before, at least not since he could feed himself. It has actually degenerated to him grabbing a box of cereal and eating it in his room. There is nothing like having college students in your house. They are almost a sub-species of the human race. That is not saying anything negative about them. I hear that eventually they shed their skin like snakes when they graduate, and a nearly mature thoughtful human being emerges.

Abby is breaking all the sales goals that they have set for her at JC Penney's. We are happy for her, but we are not taken by surprise. This child was trained by her older siblings to be persuasive since she could talk. They also taught her to walk at 12 months. This made her very useful to them. They were always sending her out to us with requests for whatever it was that they thought we would say, "No," to. She has many naturally endearing and useful qualities: a will of iron, a desire to come out on top, a winning smile and she is beautiful. At one point, she wanted to be a gymnast in the Olympics. Dad said, "No way." Another time, she decided to be an actress in Hollywood. She had just landed the understudy for the lead in a local play. Dad reiterated, "No way." Next year is her senior year, and then she is headed to Portland for Bible college. Funny thing, the name of the school is actually: Portland Bible College. Amazing how that works. I am reasonably sure that she has no plans to return here to live. The bird will have permanently flown the coop. No worries. She can always pay her way selling shoes or managing underlings. At times I think we should have gone the Catholic route and given her another middle name, "Bwana."

And now, in this premiere post, I announce a new family member, Brent T. You can call him Mr. T. I am getting a son in law in just a matter of weeks. He is going to take great care of Aimee. We know this because she owns her own hand gun and knows how to use it. No, not true. She has her own hand gun, but actually he adores her. She is like the Princess Bride. She is moving from her exalted and wonderfully spoiled position in one household to the next. He even knows how to cook, and he enjoys it. He is currently scouting out real estate and looking to buy her a home. He spoils her in countless ways which I will not begin to reiterate here because eventually you would be bored, and I have other things to do today, like go to a hockey game tonight. She will be one well taken care of woman.

The Details

2008-03-20T20:56:00.000-07:00

This afternoon we drove to Weiser and Aimee selected her wedding flowers ( pale yellow roses) at a small and interesting shop. I met Brent's mom who is delightfully honest and down to earth. We toured all over the church, measured things, brought home a hymnal to select songs and talked about cake and the reception. Over spring break, we are going to make the invitations. Aimee said that we waited to long to order them to be printed, but we are going to copy some beautiful ones that friends of hers made for their wedding. We are brainstorming about what to do for Aimee's entrance because this church does not allow instrumental music. I suggested that everyone could whistle the Wedding March. Alternatively, we could have someone announce, "Let's all look at Aimee!" Aimee did not have big musical plans for her wedding, but wanted the Hallelujah Chorus for the recessional. We are thinking that if we could get a car with big speakers in the parking lot positioned just right, that we could blast the building, not use any instruments, and still get the effect. Well, probably not. I hope you know that I am kidding about the musical plans. Something will work out. Brent's mom is going to see if they can bend the rules for us.

The Bride Is Making Herself Ready

2008-03-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

I accompanied Aimee and her entourage to the mall to order her wedding dress this evening, as well as shop for bridesmaid dresses. Unbelievably, we found dresses that work very well with her dress at the same shop.* She also chose her veil and a small, delightful tiara. We ventured to Penney's for undergarments and returned for the fitting all in one night. (Of course, there will no doubt be more fittings later, but for now, we are ready, except for shoes.) We were so happy that we went out to eat to celebrate a successful hunt. It seems sometimes when you look back on something that could have taken hours or been very stressful that obviously God's hand is in it, helping you out whether you realized it or not at the time. Isn't He good?

I tried to take photos of the event, but the employees informed me that the designers do not allow such a thing to happen because we might try to copy their designs. Oh well, our waiter took our portrait at the restaurant.

Tomorrow, we will work on flowers.

I have been impressed with how prepared she already is since she hired a photographer, reserved the church and the pastor etc.

Aimee is studying Marriage Without Regrets (Precepts) in her all-female Bible study, they are attending the Family Life Conference in two weeks due to the generous gift of a good friend, and they are going through pre-marriage counseling at their church. I told her that we had been married for years before we did that much work on our marriage.

*For those who are dying to know: strapless navy blue (kind of shiny, don't know the fabric) just below the knee with a belted subdued bow at the waist. The style is very flattering to her attendants. Her dress is white floor length strapless chiffon gown with a navy tie at the waist, and a white veil with neat hoo-hoo's on the edges. The veil is probably 3 or 4 feet in length and, of course, does not reach the floor. Loosely defined the word hoo-hoo's signifies and attractive and tasteful design detail which I am not able to adequately describe to you.

Something Fun to Do

2008-03-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages.)
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

"No other tree in the world, as far as I know, has looked down on so many centuries as the sequoia or opens so many impressive and suggestive views into history. Under the most favorable conditions these giants probably live 5000 years or more, though few of even the larger trees are half as old. The age of one that was felled in Calaveras grove, for the sake of having its stump for a dancing-floor, was about 1300 years, and its diameter measured across the stump twenty-four feet inside the bark."

This is from The Yosemite, by John Muir.

I tag anyone who is reading this and wants to play. If you don't have a blog of your own, you may post in the comments.

Lingerie and A Miracle in My Heart

2008-03-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

I put the L word right on top because Todd was kind enough to reference a site that could help me out. Thanks, Todd.

My other news will be a shocker for you: I reconciled with the people who excommunicated me three years ago. I have removed all identifying names to maintain the privacy of the people involved, but I will post my account. Please be aware that this is an account of what happened from my perspective, and it was a very emotional meeting, probably the most emotional meeting of my entire life. If it was written from the other side, I assure you, it would look very different. That being what it is, it is still worth posting.

I reconciled with the Smiths on Wednesday. Previously, they would not even acknowledge or speak to me. I had tried to contact them a number of times. My current pastor told me to give up trying, and I did. There wasn't anything else to do anyway. However, I had a spooky kind of dream early Wednesday morning, and when I woke up, it was like the Holy Spirit wanted me to go to their house (my former pastors) and try to talk to them. I knew absolutely for sure that they would never apologize to me, but there were some things that I wanted to apologize for because, over time, I could see that I was wrong on some issues. (Some of those issues had nothing to do with the charges against me.) I still don't think that it merited being excommunicated, but, oh well. I was more than a little hesitant to go, so I went after my Bible study group, and showed up at their door unannounced. I honestly did not think I would even get in. I thought that the Lord just would give me brownie points or something for making the attempt, and I would be miserable if I did not try one more time. Mrs. Smith answered the door, and let me in. I was completely shocked. I only intended to apologize to her because Mr. Smith refused to even give me one and a half minutes when I asked before. I apologized to her. Then she said that I really needed to apologize to him, not to her, and she went and got him. He didn't come for about 20 minutes, and in the meantime, Mrs. Smith answered a phone call and talked for a long time. I had asked her point blank to forgive me twice, at this time, and she had not responded. Eventually, when she came back from her phone call, she forgave me. Mr. Smith came in later, and he looked very old and very tired, not at all like I remembered him. He did not act like a pastor or a friend, he sounded like a prosecuting attorney, even though I had come to apologize. He seemed so contrary that I started by asking him to list all of the things I had done which offended him, and I said that I would apologize to him for each one. I think that disarmed him. Then, he kind of changed and said it would be better for me to just apologize for what I thought the offenses were, so I did. They forgave me. This whole thing was an incredibly emotional time for me. I sobbed like I have never sobbed in my entire life. I felt like I was crying all the way down to my socks. I think it maybe shocked them as well. I have been in many counseling sessions with Mr. Smith, dealing with my past, and he has seen me cry more than most people, but he had never seen anything like that, because it had never happened before that day. Then I thanked them for the positive things that came from my time at their former church. (They are no longer in the ministry.) They very kindly wanted to know what the kids were doing and we talked for a short time, and then I left. It does not bother me that they did not reciprocate by asking about how they had offended me because I forgave them a long time ago, or I could not have survived the ordeal. I totally did not expect it, and I was not disappointed. They have very wounded hearts, and they have their own issues to deal with. It was a very healing thing for me to be able to unload all of that grief, and to do what I could do to put the relationship in a better place. As I was driving home, I started crying all over again. I simply could not believe that it happened. To me, it was like watching someone without an arm, miraculously grow an arm right in front of you, or the Red Sea opening up for Moses. Anyway, that's my big news.

It has now been almost three days, and I still cannot believe it. Something inside me was healed on Wednesday. The words that I have used to describe what happened do not really describe what happened at all. They just recount the event. It feels like I am walking around with a miracle in my heart. I guess that is what reconciliation is, and that is why it is so important to the Lord.