I Think Spring Has Sprung

It’s been tough this last week to stay indoors and do school work, house work, book work and laundry because that bless-sed yellow ball high up in the heavens has been shining down on us! A few days it was even in the sixties around here and no coats were necessary to be outdoors. Kaleb and I tilled our little garden patches, snipped dead branches from various bushes in the yard and raked up the last of long-dead leaves. Any excuse to be outside was a good one. I even mowed the lawn as nature is sure that spring is just around the corner. All my tulips and daffodils are popping up out of the ground and the buds on all our fruit trees are anxious to bloom. Woo hoo.


We were thankful this past week that our friends, the Roberts, from Montana, came and stayed a few more nights with us before heading back home. Kaleb just fits right in with their brood of four blonde haired beauties and we love them all like family (well, probably better than family). Kaleb liked that he got to skip a few days of school when they were here and I loved that Joni always made us breakfast. She makes the best scrambled eggs I’ve ever tasted. They are so yummy she even took someone’s suggestion and made a “how-to” video and posted it on You Tube so all the world can now have them each and every morning. In Montana, they raise their own chickens so going through a dozen eggs a day is nothing with all those mouths to feed but it’s so odd for me to have dozens of eggs in the frig at a time. Joni swears it’s the only way to keep the kiddies from complaining of hunger until lunch time – cheesy scrambled eggs and toast staves off the hunger pains, I can surely attest to that.

Kaleb is submitting his first draft of The Weekly Puppy website to his teacher tomorrow. I’m sure there will be a few things to fix, but for the most part, it’s done. He’ll go live with it very soon. I’m so glad to have it off the school schedule as that Web design class has taken about 20 hours a week to keep up with and it causes Kaleb to cry quite often when things don’t do what he wants them to do. I’m so ready for something else. His piano lessons are still going well though, so that’s good. And the amount of push-up’s he’s been doing has been slowly decreasing each day, so I think I’ve found the perfect form of discipline for him. Double woo hoo.

We started up a new home fellowship group this week with folks from our church. Our old group is only meeting once a month and we need more fellowship than that, so we started another group that meets twice a month. That should do us, for now.

Kory and I had our annual “business meeting” this past weekend at a local B&B. Once a year we go away and plan our year – what house projects we’re going to do (I mean, KORY is going to do), what vacations we’ll take and when, we set the budget, and plan out our time, month-by-month. It’s crazy that two non-working people need to be so organized, but it’s the only way we can get on the same page and not bicker about priorities. Now, everything is written down and we are in agreement. Hallelujah! Kory thinks the whole event is just a sneaky way for me to control his free time, but he tends to get distracted if he doesn’t have a road map in front of him. Over a month ago he went outside to start putting a roof on the summer kitchen. He got distracted by a large piece of wood he cut from a tree that fell in our driveway several years ago. He decided now was the time to make benches to set around our fire pit because the wood was “in his way.” Here’s the major difference between Kory and I. I would have just moved the wood to another location and gotten to the task of replacing the roof. He needs things written down or he forgets what he’s supposed to be doing. I was thankful he came right home from our meeting and started painting the bathroom – just like we agreed. Oh happy day. There’s a method to my madness.

A Long Weekend

We just got back from four days down in Oregon. We used the long weekend to go visit friends we haven’t seen in a while. We loved getting caught up with everyone and seeing how well they are all doing. It sure seems to me that the Portland area isn’t suffering from the economic downturn as much as the Seattle area. We saw construction going on, no one we know is out of work, all the restaurants we went to we had to wait to be seated and there were no vacant store fronts. Weird.

The main reason we went down is because a “friend” of mine is in prison down there. Actually, he’s been in prison since 1976 and I met him through an outreach our church did that Christmas. We’ve been writing ever since. The last 12 years he’s been in Oklahoma and was recently transferred back to Oregon so a visit was long over due. I looked at it as a homeschool field trip opportunity as I wanted Kaleb to experience up-close-and-personal what happens to people who don’t learn to obey or submit to authority. I think it made the point. He was literally bored to tears and wanted to leave after about 15 minutes. Too bad, so sad. We redeemed the trip for him on Sunday when Kory took him to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry – a place he dearly loves. I visited with other friends in Portland and overall, the weekend was fabulous. A little tax-free shopping didn’t hurt either.

This past week has had my thoughts consumed with the earthquake in Haiti. It happened only four days after I had that dream about the tsunami. We were planning a trip this month to the Bahamas but it never happened, which I can now see as the hand of God because we were going to visit a missionary there who works with Haitian refugees. She’s fairly overwhelmed at the moment. My heart has just been breaking over the devastation. We got an encouraging e-mail from her however. It’s good news in the midst of all the bad. She wrote to tell us about one of her pastor’s two daughters who were attending school in Port-au-Prince:

The younger daughter was taking a nap on the ground floor while the older sister was doing her homework on the flat roof of the two story building. Doing her lesson, she suddenly felt a tremor and saw the crack in the roof. Without thinking she literally jumped off the roof onto the ground below. SHE WAS NOT HURT….NO BROKEN BONES….NOT A SCRATCH……I WONDER WHY!!! When she ran around to the front of the building she saw her sister standing in the road, in front of the shambles of what was a house. She asked her sister how she got out of the house. She said she didn’t know but all she knew is that she was SLEEPING IN THE HOUSE AND THE NEXT THING SHE KNEW SHE WAS STANDING IN THE ROAD. I WONDER WHY!!!

What a miracle. Yes, thousands have died and I can’t even think about those trapped that are still alive and may die waiting to be rescued, but I do like to think about the angels that obviously showed up for these two girls, and who knows how many others whose lives were spared. I’ve come to a place of peace long ago, about death. The Bible says God knows the day we will die even before our days on earth begin. If it’s our day to go, we will go -  if not, he’ll send angels to protect us. Hallelujah.

Hmmmmm.....

We got all the Christmas decorations packed away and life in our household soon returned to normal. I spent time this week preparing for a speech I gave to the women’s group at His Place Church on this morning (Saturday). The talk went better than I expected, so I was happy to be used by God to touch so many lives. A friend of mine drove up from Renton to hear me and she said it was “worth the drive.” Woo hoo. Kaleb and Kory went skiing on Monday (see photo), and school started back up for one very reluctant boy. We’ve had discipline issues all week so I’ve instituted a “Give me five,” policy. If he gives me any grief, he has to give me five push-ups. For every one he can’t do, he’ll lose a week’s worth of electronics. His muscles are building up quickly. One day he had to do nearly 50, but he’s a quick learner and he knows now not to back talk, argue, complain, whine or make me ask him twice to do anything. This new year might be pretty sweet, or I might be building a monster, I’m not sure which.


Nothing out of the ordinary happened, until Friday, and now maybe nothing will be the same. Something is up. I don’t know what, but God was speaking to me loud and clear that day. I had a dream that was so vivid and powerful, I knew it was from God. I’ve yet to figure out its total meaning, but maybe I shouldn’t.

In the dream, we were at a Christian camp right next to the ocean. The waves were rolling in like they do off the Oregon Coast. There was a little sandy beach, then a huge sloping upward grassy field, which was the only thing between the ocean and the cabins that sat up on the hillside. Many kids were out in the surf playing and the adults were watching – many from a well built tree house near the shore.

The tree house was split in half – two rooms with two entry doors and the wall between them extended out into the deck in front of the doors. The parents were leaning over the deck, watching the kids and someone saw a big wave coming – nothing horrific, just larger than normal. We started yelling at the kids to get out of the water. The kids didn’t react quickly enough so I held out my hand and prayed “In the name of Jesus” that no one would be hurt. They all got picked up by the wave and washed in a little ways up on to the grass. In an instant I noticed that Kaleb and Carter (his friend), were back out into the water just as we saw a tsunami coming. I screamed at them to come up to the tree house, which they did, and all the other kids that had been washed ashore went scrambling up to the cabins.

We crammed as many as we could into each half of the tree house and had a discussion as to whether we should leave the door open or closed and everyone agreed to close it. I briefly stepped outside to be sure no one else was in danger and then I saw him – a little boy about 2 ½ crouched in the corner of the deck on the other side of the tree house. I quickly picked him up and brought him into safety just before the wave hit and crashed against the door. The water came rushing into the room and filled it up to our chests and I started crying, realizing if I hadn’t gone out to look, that little boy would have been swept away. He slept in my arms through the whole thing.

The water receded - everyone was fine. No one around us was injured. I went looking for the parents of the little boy and found them up in the cabins. They weren’t in a panic, they just said, “If we would have lost him, that would have been the death of us….” And I was just about to explain where and how I found him, when I woke from the dream. My eyes were wet from crying.

I laid in bed and wondered about the meaning of it all. It seemed to me that God was the one rescuing me, rather than me rescuing a little boy, so I went over all aspects of the dream again and again trying to make sense out of it. All I could think was – some kind of calamity is coming and I’ll be spared.

I told Kory when he woke up that I had a dream that I knew it was from God, but I didn’t tell him what it was. When Kory got up to make coffee, Kaleb came and cuddled with me for a minute so I told him about the dream to see what he thought it meant. He had no idea. We both got up and Kory was in the living room drinking coffee so we both joined him and he said, “Let’s see what Psalms 41 says today, and he picked up his Bible and read,

“Blessed is he who has regard for the weak;
the LORD delivers him in times of trouble.
The LORD will protect him and preserve his life;
he will bless him in the land
and not surrender him to the desire of his foes.

I said “Hey, that sounds just like my dream!” And Kory said, “Really? When I woke up I kept thinking about Psalms 41, like I was supposed to read it this morning for some reason…” Then I told him my dream. He too didn’t fully understand it but we all think it’s some kind of disaster that God will get us through.

Then all morning I was thinking I should write this down, but I was schooling Kaleb so I didn’t have time. As we sat for lunch I grabbed my daily devotions (I’m reading from “Come Away My Beloved” by Fraces Roberts) and today’s devotion started with, “Write those things which I say unto you. Write and hold back nothing of all that I will say to you. For I will speak to you in the darkness and will make your way a path of light. I will cry unto you out of the confusion around you and you will hear my voice and will know that which I do. For my way is hidden from the rebellious and from the disobedient, and from them that seek to walk in their own wisdom. But look unto me and I will be to you as a beacon in the night and you will not stumble over the hidden thing. You will walk in a way of victory though turmoil be on either hand, even as Israel marched through the Red Sea on a path which My hand hewed out for them. Yes, it shall be a path of deliverance and My spirit will go with you and you will carry the glad tidings of deliverance to a people that sit in darkness and captivity.”

Interesting.

God has certainly gotten my attention! I know NOT to have fear, as that doesn’t come from God, so I’m hoping that the dream represents me, as the baby, sleeping through the whole disaster. But I’ve never had anything happen like this before where a dream was confirmed with scripture and scripture confirmed with a devotional. Weird, and powerful.

We’ve been trying to make some travel plans for this month or next, to go somewhere warm for a little vacation, but things just haven’t worked out so we decided not to go, and now this happened. So just for the record, we were going to either head to the Bahamas or Cancun, and now if a tsunami hits either of those places, at least I’ll know God kept us from THAT trip for a reason, but otherwise, I’m clueless as to the meaning of it all. We shall see.

Happy New Year!

Oops – I wrote this last week and forgot to post it.

It’s been a whirlwind week with many “julbesøker” (Christmas visits). I have so LOVED that, as there is nothing worse than spending the holidays alone, if you ask me, but we’ve been blessed with someone at our house everyday since Christmas Eve! Kaleb had a few all day playdates with friends and my friend Paula from Colorado was here for 2 nights with her daughter – gotta love that. She was only out the door a few hours before my friend Dee and her husband came up for lunch and just stayed on for dinner and into the evening – we had a lot of catching up to do. The next day my step brother, Mike, came with his family up for a New Year’s Eve sleepover (see photo) so they were here two days and we couldn’t have enjoyed them more. And all the while, we’ve had a dog or two we’ve been dogsitting, so that’s kept the house hopping. The week just flew by and now I’m tired. I’m ready for a new year, new routines, new priorities.


My first priority is to purge! I’m finally taking the leap and cutting inventory, starting with my Christmas decorations. As I was putting them away today I kept out a couch full of stuff that will have to find a new home somewhere else. It’s so liberating. Then I need to purge a few pounds off my backside, too, but first things first.


For some reason it doesn’t feel like the new year until we hit Monday as weekends are not a good time to start up routines. Kaleb has already altered his routines by being so disobedient this week so he won’t be playing any of his new electronics for a while. He gets a little full of himself from time to time and I hate being the one that has to reel him in, but someone’s gotta do it. At least I have leverage by taking away his new “toys.” We’re in for an interesting ride.

Happy 2nd Day of Christmas!

The gig is up. Kaleb said to me this morning, “I really want to believe in Santa Claus but the evidence just isn’t there to support it.” I told him he needs to believe in what he wants to believe in and it might serve him well to continue to believe. He asked me “why” and I said because I believe he’s the best boy in the whole world, but sometimes the evidence just isn’t there to support it, but I still believe it anyway. He had to think about that for a minute. I didn’t fess up about being Santa, but he knows. I’m amazed it’s taken him this long, but he does lead a sheltered life.

This Christmas will not soon be forgotten. I wasn’t exactly up to speed. I plan things so far in advance that it bit me in the butt this year. Traditionally we have a big neighbor guy dressed as Santa come over to our house on Christmas Eve. We have two families here for dinner and there are five kids between us. Santa comes in, asks if there are any good boys and girls in the house (a Norwegian tradition), then proceeds to pass out gifts to everyone – including the adults. The kids get two or three gifts and the adults get one. I prepared Santa’s bag way ahead of time and for some very odd reason, this year, I forgot to put in any gifts for Kaleb! Here we were all gathered in the living room opening gifts and Kaleb is just standing there with a dumbfounded look on his face, wondering why the bag is empty and there isn’t a single gift in his hand. I grabbed one of his gifts from under the tree but he refused it, saying it was for the morning. He was crushed. I have no idea how it happened, but it did. It was the Christmas he got NOTHING from Santa.

Then Christmas morning there is usually a large gift for him in front of the tree from Santa and this year, there wasn’t. I filled his stocking, but left his new bike out on the porch so he didn’t see it until all other gifts were opened up. All he kept saying was, “Santa didn’t leave me ANYTHING?” Even after he saw the bike he was a little miffed because Kory and I also got more presents than he did. I usually buy my own presents because Kory never buys me anything and it’s been awkward on Christmas morning when the two of them are opening things and I have nothing, but this year Kory outdid himself and bought me a LOT of things and I bought him a LOT of things and Kaleb, not so much. Kaleb got a few expensive gifts but the volume wasn’t sufficient for him to feel he was on equal par with us, so he was sorely disappointed. As he was heading downstairs to install one of his new Wii games he muttered, “This is the worst Christmas EVER.” I felt horrible. Then I decided we needed to have a talk about STUFF and that the holiday is supposed to be about celebrating the birth of Christ, but as a kid, it really is just about the presents. Ugh. I guess that’s how the light turned on in his head that Santa isn’t as real as he thought he was.

Currently I’m trying to redeem myself by giving him the 12 Days of Christmas so each day from here on out he’s getting an “act of service” from me to show him that possibly the best gifts are those that express love and don’t come with a price tag. He’s looking forward to the next ten days as he insists each day he gets each thing AGAIN, just like in the song “two turtle doves AND a partridge in a pear tree….” The first day of Christmas he got a “real breakfast” (bacon, eggs, toast…). The second day of Christmas he got two hours on his Nintendo DS (instead of his usual one hour), and tomorrow he’ll get “three less chores” (meaning, I’ll do them for him) so he’s holding out for all the repeats in the days ahead. I hope it shifts his memory away from the whole Christmas Eve debacle.

Christmas Day we had our old Seattle neighborhood kids over for breakfast (we call them the “Powerline Kids” because we met them while walking our dog under the power lines by where they lived at the time.) The three of them have now multiplied into11, so it was quite the gathering. We haven’t seen them since we’ve been back home as they are scattered all over the state, so it was great to get together with them again. The youngest, Eric, is now married and has a baby boy. The kids have always called us their “God parents,” which is OK, but when Eric handed me his baby and said to him, “Go see Grandma Mickey,” I about fell over. I was totally NOT prepared to be called Grandma. I told him I could be called “Auntie Mickey,” but “Grandma Mickey” was out of the question. I’m still trying to get used to being Kaleb’s “Mama.”

Earlier this week we went to Stanwood to see the Lights of Christmas then home to watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and “The Nativity Story” movie - both excellent. Last Sunday we had Christmas with my step-mom and her family and today we had Christmas with Grammy J and her family. Both gatherings were wonderful, but never long enough. The days are too short! We feel blessed to have “families of choice” in our lives because we all get along great and there aren’t any weird dynamics going on that sometimes put a damper on the holidays. Of course this year I totally blew it with Kaleb, so he’s now perfecting his “forgiveness” skills so future holidays won’t be damaged.

It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas

This was a week all about Christmas traditions, celebrations and preparations. It was a good week. I got most of the Christmas cards out, but the house is still a mess. Oh well. We got a card from someone in Iowa, complete with photo of their new baby and their Christmas newsletter and we had absolutely NO idea who these people were. Both Kory and I were scratching our heads. I finally got on Facebook and typed their name to see if maybe they were friends of any of our friends or to look for any clue as to why they were sending us a card, and as it turns out, it was the daughter to a good friend of Kory’s but we didn’t recognize her married name, nor did we know she had moved to Iowa. Apparently it was to inform Kory that his friends had now become grandparents. We got a good laugh over that one, but it scared us there for a while thinking our memories are fading rather quickly.


Our week started off with a Christmas party with our home fellowship group, which is always a good time as we love the dynamics of our group and how well we all get along. Friday we did our traditional downtown Seattle Christmas day where we see the gingerbread houses at the Sheraton Hotel (I liked the “Christmas Story” one the best – see photo), get the Santa photo at Macy’s, have lunch at Westlake Center, ride the carousel, see the trains at the Center House, watch it “snow” inside Pacific Place and let Kaleb spend a little quality time at the downtown public library. We didn’t expect 54 degree weather and patches of blue sky, so other than that, it did feel like Christmas will soon be here. Saturday we took our traditional Santa Train ride at Wickersham up in Whatcom County. Our friends joined us, as usual, and the boys each got to sit on Santa’s lap as he grilled them as to whether they’ve been brushing their teeth and putting their toys away before he asked them what was on their list this year. He’s a great Santa. Today we attended a Christmas Open House party in Seattle before going on to Renton to celebrate Christmas with my step-mom and her family. Getting together with people is by far my favorite thing about this time of year.

I had to fight a lot of internal turmoil this week as it became more and more apparent to me how Christmas is slipping away from our society. When I went into Chase bank, there was barely any evidence of the holiday season at all. Small little nutcrackers were stationed at every teller window and a bow was hung up on the rope that starts the lineup of customers. When I got to the teller I said, “Wow, you really outdid yourselves on Christmas decorations this year,” to which she replied, “We weren’t allowed to put up anything with religious significance or to make any of the decorations very noticeable – company policy.” I thought then and there about how much I’ve hated that bank since they devoured Washington Mutual and my New Year’s resolution will now include changing banks – after 20 years with the same account number. I’ll be sure to let them know when I close out our accounts how offended I am they don’t acknowledge the birth of Christ. But it’s not just them. Twenty years ago “Candy Cane Lane” in Seattle was a huge deal, driving in the area of Ravenna the glow from the houses all lit up for the holiday could be seen blocks away. I’d sit in the car for an hour just to get close to the neighborhood as it was a sight to behold with house after house all decked out for Christmas, but this year we drove by and the lights weren’t even there. Just one small little cul-de-sac had a few lights on and I nearly cried. What’s become of Christmas? It’s more than sad.

Every year Kaleb asks for a dog for Christmas, and he gets one, but then has to give it back because we’re just dog sitting it. It’s no different this year. We got a four month old Golden Retriever on Friday night and I think this dog just might be the one to remove all future desires for a puppy. It’s as cute as can be but it’s not potty trained and it chews up everything. Kaleb is already quite annoyed by it and I’m so thankful. He’d much rather just sit and read a book than walk or play with the dog, so his priorities are pretty clear. This week when he was practicing the piano he finished up his lesson 15 minutes early so I told him to go down and just play songs for 15 more minutes because he needs to practice for 35 minutes a day. He went downstairs and belted out a few rounds of “Frosty the Snowman” before I went down– and there he was, sitting at the piano playing that song WHILE READING A BOOK! I couldn’t believe he had that music so burned into his memory that he could play it perfectly while having his mind understand what he was reading. That kid just freaks me out sometimes, and that was downright freaky.

Happy Birthday Week

The night before Kaleb’s birthday every year, we fill hundreds of balloons (thanks to our air compressor) and put them in his room after he’s gone to sleep. The idea is that he wakes up to a room full of balloons on his birthday, but inevitably he sleepwalks in the middle of the night and crawls into our bed. He loves the tradition so we still do it, but it would be nice if just once he stayed in his own bed for the night. Balloons usually float around the house until after Christmas every year but they make Kaleb happy and they give him something to play with, so we won’t be stopping that tradition anytime soon. He had a wonderful birthday, as usual, as we had the lunch with the neighbors and they watched him open his gifts. We got him a Wii this year so he was thrilled. Technology has replaced toys which I appreciate because they don’t take up as much room in the house but they sure cost more. Raising kids ain’t cheap.


This week was much about Kaleb. He had a day off school on Monday for his birthday then Tuesday he completed his science course and got a 93% for his final grade. Pretty impressive, I say. He started a new class on Earth and Space Science with Johns Hopkins yesterday so we’ll see how he does on that one. He’s always “inventing” things so studying science gives him a lot of good information. I love watching his brain at work. I’m also now loving to watch his fingers work as he tickles those ivories on the piano and plays beautiful music! He had his first piano recital last night and did very well. I don’t know why I’m so surprised by his talents and abilities, but I am. It’s just so shocking to me that he came out of my body and he’s actually GOOD at stuff.


We’ve had incredibly cold weather this week which really highlighted all the hot and cold spots in our house. Our furnace does not distribute the heat evenly so we have rooms that are too hot to stay in long and others that are like a walk-in freezer. Keeping doors closed helps, but that’s a discipline that’s tough for a little boy to remember. I’m glad it’s warming back up again as I hate being cold. Kory has appreciated the crisp days and has been outside doing yard work but I’m happy to sit inside and address Christmas cards. Some days I feel there is no time to just enjoy life - that it’s all just about getting stuff done. I hate that, but this time of year comes with quite a bit of stuff that really needs to be done.


I went to two fabulous cookie exchanges this week and they both (unfortunately) contributed to my waistline in a marvelous and tasty way. I was able to have some female chit-chat time, something I lack on a day-to-day basis around here, and I realized while being able to verbalize some things, that I just need to be done grieving Norway. It’s time to get out of my pit and accept that life is what it is here on the Ridge and start looking for things I enjoy about that – like the flocks of Trumpeter Swans that fly overhead each day or the sliver of orange that peeks out between the gray clouds at sunset or the way the ice formed a beautiful protective shell over the fountain in our pond this week. Each day there are blessings and small miracles and my eyes just need to see them and not the piles of laundry or trail of books Kaleb leaves throughout the house. I am blessed, and I know it, but in Norway, I felt so spoiled. But as my Daddy used to say, “This too, shall pass.” He meant it to comfort me over bad things, but it’s also true of good things – they don’t last forever either. Today would have been his 77th birthday.