Wit, Wisdom, & Whining

The Home Team

So, one of these days I will get all of my vacation pictures offloaded from the camera.  And, I will put them into some sort of order and share with you all the details of our three week trip to Italy....but right now, what has been on my mind and in my heart is the book I am still dwelling in...Bittersweet, by Shauna Niequist. 

A couple of weeks ago from Italy, I wrote about the essay I had just read, about her weekend with friends and the idea of showing up.  Since then, I have read the rest of the book, and now am rereading parts of it, because I have enjoyed it so much.  Her ideas are so real- and experiences so true that I just keep reading!

The idea of showing up for everyone can be quite overwhelming, right?  So, as I read on, I really liked her essay "The Home Team" in which she shares the idea that we all have a "home team".  Our home team (according to her) is "the people you call when you get a flat tire or when something terrible happens...the people who, near or far, know everything that's wrong with you and love you anyway.  The home team people are the ones who you can text within five minutes' notice, saying, I'm on my way, and I'm bringing tacos."

We need to know who is on our home team.  Shauna says, "First, you need to know who they are because they need you!  These are the people you visit in the hospital no matter what.  These are the people whose weddings you attend, no matter how far the destination is or what terrible thing they have chosen for you to wear.  These are the ones who tell you their secrets, who get themselves a glass of water without asking at your house.  These are the people who cry when you cry.  These are your people, your middle-of-the-night, no-matter-what people."

You also need to know who is NOT on your home team.  When others tempt you with opportunities that will use your time and talents, make sure that the best parts of you are going to the home team.  There is "a finite amount of time and energy" that we have to give to others in our lives.  Should we spend it giving to those who are on our team, or to an odd collection of strangers?  Can we really meet the relational needs of the universe?  Than why do we kill ourselves trying?  Who is really on your home team?

So, my home team...

My parents and brother.  The first members of my team.  They were there for me then, and they are there for me now.  Need someone to keep the kids for a night?  Forget the secret ingredient in the family deviled egg recipe?  Car making a strange new sound?  My mom and dad are often receiving these kinds of phone calls.  I think they like getting them as much as I like knowing that I can make those calls. 

My husband and kids would take the next line of my roster.  After 9 years of marriage (and 13 years together), Mike is the only one I want to snuggle up with at the end of a long day.  And, our three kids have grown us into a beautiful family of five.  I can't wait to see our family grow up and share our lives together.  Five very different personalities under one roof makes for some very fun situations- and I wouldn't have it any other way.

My far-friend, but best friend, Chris.  While we only see each other twice a year on average, we talk on the phone several times a week (for an average of 2-3 hours) about anything and everything.  We are on each others' A-lists.  I peed on a stick with her on the phone to find out that Kyle was on the way.  When Erin knocked her tooth out and chipped her jawbone, and I was hysterical, she calmed me down.  I know I could call her in the middle of the night, and I know that when I get to see her we will stay up all night, because neither of us really do sleep!

My near-friends, Lisa, Angela, and Becca.  Today, I needed 3/4 of a cup of oatmeal.  Tomorrow, she needs my husband to pick up her kid from school.  We do life together on a daily basis and in practical ways.  We drive the same car, serve on the PTO together, share a love for Mike's Hard Lemonade, and wear each others' clothes.  I can't imagine life without the other Lisa.  Same goes for Angela, who is my partner in kitchen crime, and besides myself, is the only one who knows the full story of Baxter the Squirrel.  She has seen my house a mess, encouraged me when I had a hard time with breastfeeding, and makes the most amazing soups you have ever eaten.  And Becca is a newer friend to me, but I couldn't imagine my line-up without her already.  Whether I want to talk about a long birth, have a craving for sushi, or have just found the perfect necklace to go with my new sweater, I can call her...and so can my son, apparently, as her daughter gave him her phone number the last time they were over.  : )

While it is okay to give to a lot of other people as well, and to have many more friends (and believe me, I do!) the home team line-up must be limited.  I am working on prioritizing mine.  There are so many things in life to give your time to-- things that are good things....great opportunities.  But, if you don't give your time to your home team, then who will?  Who is on your home team?

Thank you Shauna for all the great lessons I am learning from your book-- know what?  Since I have loved this book so much- I am going to give one away.  Leave a comment and I will pick a winner on Wednesday.  They will get a copy of the book mailed to them to start reading in just a few days.  : )

Sushi Date

Not long ago, we hit up our favorite sushi joint with some good friends to celebrate 9 year anniversaries....for both of us!  Yep, 2001 was a great year--

We started off with a complimentary appetizer-- tempura green beans in a spicy mayo, which was delicious.  Then, they brought out an amazing sushi/sashimi combination tray and this:

The King Kong roll....it is the most amazing sushi ever made I am sure. It could only be topped by the great friends we had for company-- and the fact that between us, we were celebrating 9 years of wedded bliss.  : )

   

Becca and Rick

 

Us!  It was a great night.

It's About Showing Up

So, I am a big Shauna Niequist fan.  I read her first book, Cold Tangerines in an hour.  So, when her new book, Bittersweet, came out- I was one of the first to grab it.  And, I was excited to meet her and have it autographed at the leadership summit at church...because she is our pastor's daughter.  : )

The last 11 days we have been in Italy.  It has been beautiful, chaotic, and fun at the same time.  We have had a lot of time with family we don't get to see very often, have seen some beautiful sites, and taken a million pictures- which I will talk about and share more about when we return home.  But, for now, I wanted to share about something I read today...

During quiet time I was fortunate enough to have this afternoon, I was able to read a few essays in Shauna's new book.  The one that captivated me and struck me to a core was called Alameda.

In this essay, Shauna talks about how one of her fondest memories was a weekend when she and three of her closest friends got together in a rented house for a long weekend with three of them towing small babies along.  Since they couldn't fit in a car, they walked all over the place enjoying lattes, ice cream, and late night talks.  She reminded me of how incredibly important that time with friends is in our lives-- and I want to share a few passages of it with you.

"I realized why this kind of time together matters so much; because there are things you can't know, and questions you can't ask, and memories you can't recover via email and voicemail.  It was about being there to really see what's exactly the same and what's totally different about each one of us"...

Sometimes we don't make time for our friends- time to really get together and BE together.  Being here with my family in Italy has reminded me of just how important this time is.  The minute we got off the plane we were surrounded wtih love and affection- and it was like we never were apart, even though there were people I hadn't seen in four years.  There were two new babies I hadn't met-- but the love is there without effort.  That is how good friends are too.

"Because we had the time, because we could let conversations wind and unwind, because we could start them at dawn and pick them up again in the afternoon and add a few more thoughts in the evening, we circled down to the places you never get when you just see one another at weddings, giving out funny sound bytes over bites of cake". 

The Italian lifestyle is another example of how to live life with your friends-- lunches take 3 hours.  No one rushes.  There is lots of food and wine, and no one is in a hurry to leave the table.  Dinners-- they take 4 hours...and are several courses.  The conversations flow and I could not think of a better way to end the day than to spend several horus in great conversation with people who mean a lot to me.  I love that Shauna commented on this.

"There were more questions than answers that weekend.  What do you do once you've written a dissertation?  How do you walk away from a decade of work, even if you don't necessarily love it?  How do work and babies and dreams and marriages and mortgages fit together in one life, and if something has to give, what gives?  I still don't know the answers to a lot of those questions, but I know that right in this moment, as I sit at my kitchen table and remember those days, I remember that the answers aren't necessarily as important as the questions adn the company, and that if we do find answers, we'll find them together.

Real friends do life together.  Just like families.  The big issues are shared issues and the weight is carried by all.  I need to know that my friends will be there for anything I need to talk to them about-- and for them to know I offer the same.  Nothing less.

Shauna goes on to say, "If you're lucky enough to have your Monica and your Sara and your Kirsten (her friends) all right in your own town, I hope you soak it up, and that you lie around in each other's backyards every Saturday afternoon or stay up late on one another's porches three nights a week.  But if you're like me, and if those faces are far away, get a weekend on the calendar and get there.  Share your life with the people you love, even if it means saving up for a ticket and going without a few things for a while to make it work.  There are enough long lonely days of the same old thing, and if you let enough years pass, and if you let the routine steamroll your life, you'll wake up one day, isolated and weary, and wonder what happened to those friends. So, walk across the street, or drive across the town, or fly across the country, but don't let really intimate loving friendships become the last item on a long to-do list.  Good friendships are like breakfast- you think you're too busy to eat breakfast, but then you find yourself exhausted and cranky half way through the day, and discover your attempt to save time totally backfired.  In the same way, you can try to go it alone because you don't have time or because your house is too messy to have people over or because making new friends is like the very worst parts of dating.  But halfway through a hard day or a hard week, you'll realize in a flash that you're breathtakingly lonely, that the Christmas cards aren't much company.  Get up, make a phone call, busy a cheap ticket, open your front door.  Because there really is nothing like good friends, like the sounds of their laughter and the tones of their voices and the things they teach us in the quietest, smallest moments."

Being here, after four years, has been a lot to catch up on.  I am going to make sure that with my friends and my family don't go that long without talking to me.  I tend to be a busy person, but I am going to make sure to make time for what matters- and that is people.

So, as I sit here in Italy, I have some thoughts in my head of how my life is going to be a little bit different when I get home...because of Shauna's book, because of the lessons learned from Italian culture, and because of the way the two impacted me at the same time.

Okay, We're a Lot Redneck...

Chickens.  I want chickens.

Yeah, the fluffy white birds that roam your yard and lay an egg once a day...I want them bad.  I was jealous to see the "FARM FRESH EGGS" sign my parents' neighbors had in their yard.  I had to go investigate when I was visiting a couple of weeks ago.

They had more eggs than they knew what to do with, so they were selling them!  I don't want that many chicken, just four or five, but I think that is pretty great.  Could you imagine grabbing a few fresh eggs from the chicken coop when you want to make an omelet?  Mmm....

So, I did come home with a fresh dozen (that were not included in the great egg recall) and I was temporarily satisfied, but I still want my own chickens.

So does Erin.

The chickens enjoyed the bread she fed them-- and then she got to touch them!

Erin was also quite fond of their big rabbit...

We will no be getting one of those though...unless we move somewhere with some more land!

We're a Little Bit Redneck...

So, a couple of weeks ago, we went down to my mom and dad's to participate in...drumroll please...a Lawn Tractor Poker Run.

Yep, it is an annual event-- they even print t-shirts for it.  It is kind of how it sounds...lots of people driving their lawn tractors from place to place in quest for the best poker hand.  This year, Mike and the kids went with my dad to it while Ryan and I hung out with my mom.  It was "too hot for the baby"...or, was that just my excuse to escape the insanity?

My dad actually has about 15 lawn tractors.  He has old and new- and he brings an entire trailer of them over for this event. If anyone wants to join us next year, we can accommodate you with a tractor.

Ready, set, the group is off! 

Erin has the best seat in the house with her chair inside the tractor wagon.

It's a good thing my dad isn't an elementary school student...and that the principal isn't around on Sundays.

This makes me look forward to next year for sure, when I will probably be back to participating again.  ; )

A Good Friend

Saw this frog and toad in our basement window a couple of weeks ago when it was raining and had to get some photos of it-- which would have been really good if the window was cleaner.  It reminded me a lot of what a good friend is-- not always the same as you, but always there to lend a hand, give advice, or just listen. 

In reading Proverbs the other day, I came across this that I wanted to share as well....

Oil and perfume rejoice the heart; so does the sweetness of a friend's counsel that comes from the heart.  Proverbs 27:9

I am thankful for all the amazing friends I have in my life who are always around when I need them, brighten my days, and love me even though I do have dirty windows.  : )

Back 2 School

So, the first day of school went off without a hitch...it was the second day that didn't go so well.  Kyle was in the nurses' office with a fever and I had to go get him.  He had to miss the second day too because of their "24 Hour Fever Policy".   The time alone in the morning with just Ryan was glorious...while it lasted.  ; )

The first day was on August 25.  Kyle started off with a full day and Erin had a kindergarten orientation meeting for an hour.

Here is our walk to school...we found a shady spot for a picture!

Kyle heads into school on his first day in the First Grade with his teacher, Mrs. Laukaitis.

On Friday, it was Erin's turn to really go to school for the first time, so she was really excited!  We took lots of pictures.

 

I know it wasn't raining, but the tradition that is now three generations old is to wear a yellow raincoat for the first day of kindergarten pictures.  My great grandmother, Edith Olson, gave my dad, Gary, a yellow raincoat when he started school as a gift to keep him dry while he was walking.  Then, the same great grandmother gave me this exact coat when I was 5 and starting school.  My mom has pictures of me wearing this same coat when I went to my first day of kindergarten.  So, I continued the tradition with Erin.

Erin wanted to give her teacher a flower, so she picked this before we walked to school and gave it to Mrs. Brogan. 

Erin waits in line to go in-- and goes with smiles!

And, Ryan comes home with me and waits by the door for his brother and sister to come back home again. 

My Favorite Day

My favorite day of the year...it isn't Christmas...which most would probably guess.  It isn't my birthday either, although it is a "birth day" of sorts...it is each August when our church does its annual outdoor baptisms.

This year, I had a lot to celebrate, as one of my closest friends, Lisa, was being baptized, along with two of "my girls" I have had in my junior high ministry small group for the past two years-- Erica and Lindsey.  It just could NOT have gotten any better than that.

One of the best days in my own life was the day that I fully accepted Christ and decided to hand Him my life.  Just shy of a year later, I declared that publicly as I was baptized at the South Barrington campus of our church, Willow Creek.  From that day, I started praying vigorously that Mike would come to feel the same way that I did and would come to faith. 

Two years later, and probably over 200 miles later, my prayers were answered when during training for the 2008 Chicago Marathon, the group of people we were running with and other influences led him to make that choice.  He was baptized at the DuPage outdoor baptism service at Blackwell Forest Preserve.  A beautiful day when he waded into the lake and made that commitment-- our family changed forever.  I think I was on the brink of dehydration from the tears I shed...good thing for all those wet hugs! 

Last year we rejoiced with a few more friends who made this big decision and thoroughly enjoyed the service and the picnic..and I couldn't keep a dry eye again.

This year was no different-- there is nothing more beautiful than when someone decides to surrender their life to Christ.  If you don't believe me-- than see for yourself!

Gearing up-- checking in.

Baptism participants put a list that was a representation of their sins into the fire pit as they made their way to the pools.

 

Erica and Lindsey get ready...

And come out of the water new people.

A few other student ministry baptisms that I thought were awesome:

A father helps in baptizing his son...and then they share a hug.

And, look at the faces on these two!!  : )

After the kids were done, it was Lisa's turn-- and what a special moment it was.  After going through some of the most difficult times in her life, Lisa turned to God and really developed a strong relationship with Him-- and it has carried her through.  I have loved being a witness on her journey.

Down she goes--

All the way under is the tradition in our church-- as it was in scripture.

And, rising up in her new life--

 

Barb and I were excited to be there with her!

And, like a proud mama, I was thrilled to celebrate this day with my two girls!!

Congrats to Erica, Lindsey, Lisa, and everyone from Willow who chose to take this big step-- heaven rejoiced yesterday for sure!

Happy Anniversary

Nearly thirteen years ago I shared my chair with a cute boy I liked.  

He thanked me by taking me out for ice cream.

Soon, we started dating.

A few months after that, I told him that I loved him.  He loved me too.

Three years later, we graduated from college.

I moved across the country with him.

He asked me to marry him.  I said yes.

On August 18, 2001 we got married in front of family and friends.

I am thankful there was a shortage of chairs.

Our first dance at our wedding was a little less than traditional-- the movie "The Wedding Singer" was popular...and we are Adam Sandler fans, so we danced to this, Grow Old With You from the movie:

I wanna make you smile whenever you're sad
Carry you around when your arthritis is bad
Oh all I wanna do is grow old with you

I'll get your medicine when your tummy aches
Build you a fire if the furnace breaks
Oh it could be so nice, growing old with you

I'll miss you
Kiss you
Give you my coat when you are cold

Need you
Feed you
Even let ya hold the remote control

So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink
Put you to bed when you've had too much to drink
I could be the man who grows old with you
I wanna grow old with you.

Nine years, three kids, two houses, a marathon (or two), and more adventures than you can imagine-- here we are.  Together.  And I couldn't imagine being anywhere else.

The "Stop Doing" List

So, we all have a "To Do" List, right?  You know the one that we use to fill up our days with dozens of our most pressing tasks?  Running to Target to buy toothpaste, dropping by the bank, returning a few phone calls or emails...you know- life stuff that just has to be taken care of.  A "To Do" List is kind of a stressful thing, isn't it?  Especially when the tasks on it are more numerous than the number of hours you have in the day!

While these lists are good, and do help you to be more productive, I am going to suggest that you take your list a different direction.  Instead of thinking of all the things you are going TO DO,  make a brief list of the things are you going to STOP DOING.

Stop doing, you ask?  What is that?  Well, are there things that steal the time from you during the day preventing you from getting things done?  Are you one with a procrastination habit?  Unhappy about the way your jeans fit the last time you put them on and want to try to kick eating sweets for a while to shape up?  (These are just a few ideas...not necessarily things that I would put on my list, per se....but, well....okay-- a couple of them might make my list....)

Stop Doing.....(the start of my list)

Stop spending as much time on the computer when my kids are awake and want my attention.  They are growing up fast and soon they won't want to play with me.

Stop putting things off until the last minute so that I feel like a fireman putting out small fires everywhere I look.  If I planned better, life would be much less stressful.

Stop picking up take-out because I fail to plan healthy dinners for my family.  It is fattening and doesn't taste as good as what I could make at home.

Stop spending money on things that are not necessary.  It throws off our budget and impacts our long-term financial goals-- which are much more important than an impulse buy.

Stop worrying.  Prayer is a much better way to spend time.

Stop doing so much.  Sometimes my weeks pass by without me being home more than one or two nights of it with my family.

Stop trying to do so much for others while giving my family the leftovers.  Plan my family time first and fill in other activities/work second.

Stop eating chocolate....or maybe just eat a little less chocolate?  (Yeah, that whole snug jeans thing...it is going on here sometimes).

Stop giving excuses.  'Nuff said.

Stop taking on more than I can handle.  Too many things going on just stresses me out to the point that I can't fully enjoy anything I am doing fully.

That should be a good start-- let's see how it goes.  I challenge you, if you are reading this to think about anything you should stop doing and share your list, or a few items from it.  Maybe we will become more productive, happier, and less stressed?  ; )