Our family.  That’s Thanksgiving.  Its the favorite holiday for everybody;  a time together to eat lots of good, homecooked food without the hassle of gifts and the pressure of holiday cards, etc.  And eat we did;  cooked for days to prepare everybody’s expectations….pies, appetizers, side dishes, and of course…..the turkey, stuffed with traditional dressing!  And my kids very favorite…..the cranberry sauce with can marks still showing! hahaha! 

THIS is my favorite part, however….the days AFTER Thanksgiving, where the kids are still here with us, enjoying each others’ company and being lazy together, watching television, etc.  The house is clean, the kitchen stocked with every kind of yummy food imaginable, and everybody’s happy.  No work.  No pressure.  No deadlines.  No time schedule. 

Ahhhhhhhh…..I’m thankful. 

Fireplace Sanctuary

Confession:  We have too many animals.  They shed, they scratch the heck out of the wooden floors, they puke on the carpet, poop where they shouldn’t and they bark! 

I know!  People think we’re nuts because we endure all this, and often I agree with their assessment.  But…(you knew there was a ‘but’ in there, didn’t you?)….I could say the same about children.  MY children!  My kids have puked chili on my buff-colored berber carpet,  put drink rings on my fine furniture, shattered fine Italian pottery, interrupted my sleep far too many times, imbedded stretch marks onto my skin (and did other disgusting things to my body and internal systems), etc. etc.  I’ve endured that!  And still manage to love my children unconditionally.

And, I love my pets just the same.  We’ve lived through incredibly rough times for the past 5 years, faced financial ruin and other things, and those pets have been there through it all.   Pet therapy is a real thing…its hard to bring a bad mood home when you’re greeted at the door with a deliriously happy 90-pound Great Pyrenees, silly grins from a golden retriever, and (obnoxious) happy barks from a scruffy mutt.

You decide….Monthly payments to a therapist who will confirm what I already know?  Or these guys?

Well, that’s the plan anyway…365 days to read the Bible.  I’ve never necessarily wanted to do this, because it frankly sounded really boring….but have been otherwise convinced that perhaps this is how God speaks to us;  through His word.  A friend and I discussed it during a long car ride home from women’s retreat this weekend and I pulled the Bible out and opened to the verse of the day (this Bible happens to feature a 365-day reading plan).  Well, coincidentally, that day’s verse related exactly to what we’d just learned over the weekend at the retreat! 

Acts 8:26-40 was the passage.   The very first explanation, in my study Bible, said “Follow God’s leading, even if it seems like a demotion.  At first you may not understand his plans, but the results will prove that God’s way is right.”  One of the things I remember most from the speaker this weekend was her showing a fist and explaining  how God sometimes has to pry our little fingers off of something we hold on to….. so that He can hand us something better.  Her illustration was so good, as she pryed each finger off individually. 

Today’s verse?  Acts 9:32-42….explained thusly:  Rather than wishing you had other gifts, make good use of the gifts God has given you.

Amen.

Hubby and I have had more than our share of “downs” the past 5 years;  my job position was eliminated 4 times in 4 years, we had to foreclose on a sinking home that insurance wouldn’t cover, and now hubby’s job position has been elimiated….a “reduction in force”.  I can’t even begin to tell you what all that has done to our finances, retirement (what retirement), etc.

But along with that, we have been constantly reminded of the rich blessings we’ve also received.  I”ve had a very depressing week, but in the midst of it all, am grateful for a church women’s retreat weekend spent at Das Essenhaus with awesome food and friends. And today, I “had to attend” a meeting at Conner Prairie Interactive History Center, amidst 800+ acres of gorgeous autumn-colored trees.  It certainly put me in a better frame of mind!  (The chocolate cake I ate didn’t hurt, either :-0 )

Conner Prairie

What’s next for us?  Who knows?!  Hubby has a 3rd and 4th interview with a major company next week….but has also won 2 contracts for his business Neal Moore Communications…its getting complicated.   I can only hope that his next job will help us to once-and-for-all catch up on finances so we can begin to live without being in constant fear of losing everything.

Does anybody really care what I did this weekend?  Probably not, but I posted to Facebook anyway…Tweeted a photo from the Purdue game, too! 

But still, I wonder…who really cares?!  On the one hand, its nice that I get comments back from friends and acquaintances who have seen my updates;  folks I don’t usually have time to call or spend time with are now more in touch with me.  But on the other hand…well, did the fact that they now know I was at a Purdue game this weekend matter to anybody?  Did it move the needle to get me any closer to Heaven?  I struggle with the overall importance of it. 

It is so easy to spend HOURS playing around online, voyeuring through Facebook and Twitter, clicking through to videos and articles that others have recommended….but its taking me away from the things I used to spend time on;  cleaning house, watching a couple of chosen programs on television, phoning friends, exercising, chatting with family, etc. etc.  The day only has so many hours!

So….while I am an active participant in all things “social media”….I still wait for the “other shoe to drop”…the aftermath of a world gone online.  I hope that the benefits of staying in closer touch with so many more people is stronger than the downsides.

P.S.  Here’s my new self-portrait, taken at about 7 p.m. on my way home from work…shadows long, just a moment before I stopped to “talk” with a doe and her 3 baby fawns…

Self Portrait, Fall Creek Trail

Its been a sad week as the news sunk in;  my dear friend has passed away.  Linda was the maid-of-honor in my wedding, my French and choir buddy, the soprano to my alto in “Do You Know Exactly How to Eat an Oreo…”and the 3rd in the “Sandy, Kathi, Linda” 3-some.  At age 24  she contracted Hodgkins disease (discovered while in Taiwan as a missionary teacher), and then again later in life.  This year, for the THIRD time! cancer showed up, now in the form of leukemia.

Linda fought a good battle through rounds of debilitating chemo and a stem cell transplant, harvested in part from her 15-year old son.  She actually was on the uphill;  had made it past the 100+ days post-transplant and doctors were positive. Then..her lung collapsed and pneumonia took over and we lost her on September 1, not quite 6 months after her 50th birthday.  We were due to celebrate our 50th’s together this fall, once Linda felt more up to the celebration….

I had already considered participating in the Leukemia Society’s Team in Training program, to help raise needed dollars for leukemia research…but this week I felt a strong nudge to commit to it, with Sept. 3 being the required “committment date”. 

So…I am officially scheduled to run in the Disney Mini-Marathon in January, as part of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training.  The goal is to raise $3500. for research, with a deadline looming just a couple short months ahead.  I feel strongly that this is a good thing to do;  LLS raised over $71 million dollars just last year for research!

Please….go to the website (<click there) and follow your heart and donate something.  Every little donation is a big help and big donations are God-sent.  I need everyone’s help to make this work. 

Here is a pic of Linda and I from 1982…we haven’t aged a bit since then   I’m still searching for other pics…

K2 went off to Purdue yesterday for his sophomore year.  It really doesn’t get any easier saying good-bye than that first time they skipped off to kindergarten.  <sigh> It will be very quiet around the house this year, with just one child (well, aged 16!) left at home.

As I’m mid-life crisis-ing, I also think back nostalgically to my own college years and yearn for those care-free days.  Oh sure, I thought I had problems then, and commented about how stressful life was….but oh, how naive I was, not knowing the REAL pressures of life that we know now.  How I wish I could be back in those days of great social life, no financial worries, 40 girls to borrow clothes from, etc.!

Back to Purdue, though…pair an engineering major with a computer science/graphic design guy and you get two persnickety guys nesting and competing for the best “cool factor” in a dorm room.  Flat-screen TV, oversized double-monitors on their computers, surround sound, TIVO, oil paintings…does this sound like a typical dorm room to you?  Ha!  They even want to start a website for uploading cool dorm pictures…

Here’s a start….this is not the finished product, mind you…but merely the “in progress” shot with a lousy camera-phone.  (K2, forgive me)

97,819 people visited the Indiana State Fair on Saturday.  I was not counted as one of them, as I got in free with my badge….but I arrived at 8 a.m. to walk 3 miles with Gov.Daniels’ wife, Cheri in the Heartland Walk for Health, then manned the Indiana State Museum booth in the DNR building all day. 

Daughter met me at dinnertime for yet another walk around the perimeter of the fair, taking in the baby cows, piggies, and yes, the food!  That day I sampled or ate a pulled pork sandwich, an ear of roasted corn, a cookie, a funnel cake, and a lemon-shake-up. Yum!   Here are some pics:

Summer’s over, school’s back!  Well, for youngest son, that is;  middle kid has one more week before Purdue starts.  2 sophomores in the family this year;  one h.s. and one college.  H.S. started today, bright and early with 7 a.m. marching band practice, right up to 5:30 p.m. end of tennis practice, for a very full day.  I’d imagine he’ll drop like a tired puppy when he gets home tonight!

Here’s a  pic of he and his grandma on Tuesday in Chicago, for a quickie day-trip just before school started.  Yup, we drove 4 hours, paid $29 to park on North Michigan Avenue (well, Rush Street) for the day, and 4 hours back;  (and car overheated and we had to open the windows and blow heat full-blast)….and all he has to show for it is 3 new pairs of socks!  No, really, we had a wonderful day with my mom, including a fabulous lunch at Bistro 110.  The weather was perfect and we had a great bonding time together!  Sadly, no Garrett’s popcorn, as they closed the Michigan Ave. store

Hubby’s job has been eliminated…Wait!  Does this sound like a recurring theme in the family story?!  Why yes, it is!  So, we should be pros at knowing how to handle it, right?  How to pay mortgage, college, and bills with less-than-half-income?  Whew!  Nope!  We have no clue!  We already do these:

• shop at Aldi’s
• shop at Goodwill and other resellers (craigslist!)
• cut (and color) our own hair (usually)
• don’t hire others for manicures, housecleaning, etc. etc.
• sell occasional items on Craigslist
• pack lunches (well, often, but not every day)
• carpool and
• bike to work
• apply for second jobs
• try to sell my handmade jewelry in a consignment store

What else?  Who else has some good ideas?

Meanwhile, here is the great website for hubby’s new business…please refer him, forward the site on to others, etc.  He is way too talented to not be utilized!  www.nealmoore.com  I just know that something good is bound to come to us soon….:)

Neal Moore, Principal, Neal Moore Communications