Life in the Shoe

Plug for Sympathy

2009-07-10T15:59:00.001-07:00

Last week Amy and Jenny drove to Colorado to visit Emily. They have been having a great time. Amy plans to stay all month, but Jenny was scheduled to fly home tomorrow.

This morning Amy called me, sounding a bit frantic. "Mom, Jenny has these red spots all over her chest!"

Oh great. Is she feeling sick otherwise? No. No fever, no other symptoms.

I ran down a mental list of diagnoses--maybe she ate a bunch of fresh fruit of some kind and is allergic to it. Maybe she and the Knepp girls were playing in some weeds that she reacted to.

I didn't even consider chicken pox, since Jenny had the shot as a baby. I had made that decision after her older siblings all got the most walloping dose of chicken pox any of us had ever seen. Amy, with her fair skin and red hair, ran a 104 fever for days and looked like someone had poured boiling water over her.

So Jenny had had the shot and was safe. Uh huh.

Amy took a picture of Jenny's stomach with her phone and sent it to Keith the nephew's phone, since mine doesn't receive pictures, and it reminded me a little too much of how young people send obscene photos to each other nowadays, but let me assure you this was all for medical purposes.

I didn't like the look of those spots at all.

Amy took Jenny to two local moms, who couldn't figure out what she had either.

Then she emailed me pictures of Jenny, and with a sick feeling in my stomach I admitted that it looked exactly like Matt and Amy's pox, back in the day.

Amy made a doctor appointment. Paul called Southwest Airlines. No, she absolutely can't fly with chicken pox, and no, we won't just switch the ticket to a different day. Paul got a bit testy. "She's not that sick, and you make it awfully tempting to just not say anything and let her fly." They wouldn't back down--she can't fly with chicken pox, and too bad for you about the cost.

The doctor was almost positive it's chicken pox but said we wouldn't know for sure until they formed blisters. And if it is, Jenny will be contagious for another 3-7 days. And oh yeah, in the last few years they started realizing that the baby immunization isn't enough and these kids need a booster shot when they're 5 or 6. I guess we never got that memo.

Jenny started running a fever. Amy is stocking up on Tylenol and Aveeno. She'll be a great mom for Jenny over this time, but she won't be me.

I think I'll just go cry for a while.

Quote of the Day:
"This way I'll get to stay longer!!"
--Jenny

UPDATE: Paul called Southwest this evening and got someone who again said no, we can't do anything. But then he called in a supervisor, who said, Well, if it's the same type of ticket, maybe. And so they found one hidden slot and booked Jenny for a Tuesday flight, which gives her pocks 4 days to scab over. Yay for Southwest. Pray that she will be able to fly then.

If Only All Book Reviews Were Like This

2009-07-09T21:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got a Facebook message from Catherine Y. who had just got my new book. I loved her "review" and got her permission to post it.

Hi Dorcas - Just thought you'd like to know how things go at your loyal reader's house when a new Smucker book arrives:

12:30 UPS package from Amazon arrives, addressed to oldest son. Mom wonders if this could this be the book he promised for her birthday. Resists urge to call him at work.

1:30 Son arrives, confirms package. Mom rips it open in glee and rushes to the bathroom, where she can have five minutes of peace.

Reads first chapter. Laughs. Cries. Thinks maybe there is hope for my crew. After all, the first one does seem to be growing up.

Rejoins family. Tells 16 year-old daughter she laughed and cried. Daughter rolls eyes. Two older boys groan.

Tries to get back to work. Sneaks breaks whenever she can the rest of the day. Tells 15-year-old the "rub it where it hurts" story. She laughs and says maybe she'll read the book if all the stories are like that.

11:00 p.m. Tries to get business done on the computer so she can go to bed and... read.

Smiles and congratulations,
Catherine

Photos

2009-07-08T22:18:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of our summer, so far.

Quote of the Day:
"Is it like a life-changing exciting experience?"
--Keith the seed-sacking nephew, when I asked him if he'd like to have a ride on a combine. He also said,

"Actually, I wouldn't know what a combine was if it hit me on the street."

(I see we have some work to do.)

More Good News

2009-07-07T20:43:00.001-07:00

Emily and I are both birthing new books this week--she expects hers on Thursday. It is a rare and wonderful thing to experience this with my daughter. She's planning to spend the month of August at home and we have a couple of mother/daughter events planned, which I think will be way more fun than doing them by myself.

Here's the flyer for the fair. If you scroll down far enough you'll see us down with the S's.

HCI is doing a lot of publicity for Emily's book and the two others in the Louder than Words series.

Here's a book trailer on YouTube.

I am excited about my book, but I am over the moon about Emily's.

News: Happy and Sad

2009-07-07T12:28:00.000-07:00

Something happy happened yesterday:

My new books came!! The title is Downstairs the Queen is Knitting. Due to a communications glitch I only got my 12 free copies and not the big boxful I thought I ordered. So I can't send out all the pre-orders for a few weeks yet. If you want to order a copy, send me an email at DorcasSmucker@gmail.com.

Interestingly, I birthed my third book the same day as my third baby, only 19 years later. Happy birthday, Emily!!!

And then something sad happened:

My dear old cell phone wouldn't call any more. So today we ordered a new one. No one seems to understand why this makes me sad and I would rather use my old one all my life.

Oh well.

Paul, who is not given to exaggeration, said,

Quote of the Day:
"It's probably the oldest cell phone still in use in the whole country."

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. . .

2009-07-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

Amy just posted some photos on Facebook of the overnight canoe trip Paul and the kids took recently. I can't figure out how to link it here. Is it possible to link someone else's pictures? Ellen? Matt?

(Melinda helped me out: try this: Amy's Facebook Photo Album)

Today's Letter from Harrisburg tells the other side of the canoe trip story--what life was like for me staying home alone.

Emma

2009-07-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

Early this morning I got a call from my sister Margaret. She had just endured one of parenting's darkest hours: a child disappearing.

Chad and Margaret have three children--Austin is 10, Emma almost 7, and Nolan is almost 4.
They are on their way from their home in Pennsylvania to visit Mom and Dad in Minnesota plus a few other relatives along the way, and had spent the night in a motel in Dubuque, Iowa.

They tucked everyone into bed last night, and this morning when they got up, Emma wasn't there.

Of course they ransacked the room looking for her, and checked the truck and everywhere else they could think of. Nothing.

They then notified the motel people and called the police. The motel was close to the freeway, adding to the chill of fear and awful possibilities. Various people were out looking all over for her, and meanwhile Margaret had to answer all the policeman's questions, "How big is she? What was she wearing?" that you never think you'll have to answer about your own child.

Somewhere in all this the motel's surveillance tapes were pulled and reviewed. They showed Emma opening their door and wandering out, looking a bit sleepy and out-of-it. And then they showed her wandering along the motel until she found a door that was unlocked, and going inside. Where she evidently crawled into bed and fell asleep, and there the policeman found her, and woke her up, and brought her back to her mom, who immediately burst into tears of course.

Emma doesn't remember any of this, so a few mysteries remain. She's not a sleepwalker or night wanderer by any stretch, so what was she thinking??

We're just all so very very thankful she's safe and all is well.

Quote of the Day:
"She probably had the best night's sleep of her life."
--the policeman

RIP Lenny

2009-07-01T20:56:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow it's three years that my nephew Leonard passed away.

Tonight I find myself, again, reliving what must have been a very long dark night of his soul that ended in his death the next morning.

Other times, I remember his laugh and his looks and the last conversation we had and how amazing he was.

Tonight, I remember what he must have suffered.

Catching up

2009-06-27T22:25:00.000-07:00

I have been resting my hands, which drives me crazy, but it helps speed the healing process of whatever I have. Carpal tunnel syndrome, says my nurse friend Sharon, but it also acted like Ellen's former malady--de Quarvain's tendoscleroprontogingivitis (or something).

I still can't open jars but I can put on socks.

Today, on the advice of Jed E., I went to town and spent a bunch of shekels on a new keyboard that dips and waves and curves in all directions. It's supposed to help.

Ok, on being In or Out as a writer:

Rhonda wondered if I have suggestions for getting on the Inside. Unfortunately, not many. What has always worked for me is to walk through whatever door shows up in front of me. I realize others are led to be more aggressive than that.

Local author Linda Clare posted this advice on Facebook:

I'll be presenting a talk on "Writing to the Rule of Three" at the Portland chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers on Monday, June 29th. While my hometown of Eugene, OR doesn't yet have a chapter, there are certainly enough Christian writers in our area. At any rate, I'm excited to be talking to fiction writers in the Portland area. Why would I drive I-5 for two hours, hope I find the meeting, speak for an hour and drive home? The answer is simple: networking.
A student asked me a similar question recently. He was invited to hobnob with a bunch of editors in his genre and his wife wasn't sure the trip to Michigan was worth it just to rub elbows with strangers. Money wasn't an object.
My belief is that you should never turn down the chance to network, even if there is no immediate benefit. One never knows when a meeting with someone you want to sell your stuff to or learn from will pay off. I'd hate to be the one not remembered from a meeting because I wondered if it was worth my time to network.
Writing Tip for Today: Networking comes easaier for some writers than for others. If you are the shy writer, you may have to work on your ability to "work a room," get noticed or even have the nerve to speak to an editor or other writer. Try these three tips.

Be interested in learning about other writers. Ask them questions, not to tout your accomplishments, but as a fellow sojourner on this writing journey.Be genuinely interested in the person you are talking with. You aren't networking only to sell your books. You're staying tuned in to what is happening all around you. No one likes a blow-hard, but ask anyone a genuine question about their lives, and chances are, they'll open up and ask about your writing.
Try mentioning to everyone you meet (even the grocery clerk) that you're a writer. Get comfortable with saying, "I am a writer." It's not boastful, it's the truth.
Practice this and perhaps when you have the chance to speak to or rub elbows with that editor/agent/author you'll be able to network more naturally.

[I certainly don't mention to the clerk at WinCo that I'm a writer, but I think Ms. Clare is right that connections are key to writing/publishing opportunities.)

Mark and Romaine seemed to indicate that they are still on the Outside. I would like to charitably disagree (as a guy in my home church used to say but we aren't convinced he was actually that charitable) (but I am). Neither might be In with the local Barnes and Noble, but if either of them had an idea for a new book they would have an editor they could call who would take them seriously, a publisher who would most likely take on the project, stores and catalogs and websites that would carry the book, and an audience that would recognize their name(s) and buy it.

So I vote that they're more In than they realize.

Quote of the Day:
(from Romaine's comment and believe me it is true)
"I get to feeling writers are on the same level as cows, expected to produce annually to justify their existance."
she also said:
"Maybe I'm weird, but I do not enjoy being recognized and asked about my writing everywhere I go---even in the jungle of Belize where I thought I could get away from it."
Here's where I apologize, Romaine, because I'll bet you thought you could go to Northwestern Ontario among lakes and mosquitoes back in like 1988, and you were all exhausted from your trip and this pesky Smucker lady met up with you in the NYP guest house hallway and was all gaga over meeting a real author.

sorry

2009-06-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

This is jenny posting for mom because she has carpal tunnel syndrome.So she can't post again or answer your questions untill she gets better.Poor mom.

jenny

Which Side Are You?

2009-06-22T22:11:00.000-07:00

One door and only one
and yet its sides are two.
I'm on the inside
On which side are you?

This is an old Sunday school song whose theology is pretty vague for 8-year-olds, but I bring it up because I am realizing (again) how much of writing and publishing has to do with getting inside the magic door.

On the Outside, you're a Struggling Author with a growing collection of rejection slips. You attend writers' conferences with a hungry look on your face and take lots of notes. You make sure you chat with Real Authors at the book tables. They are polite but they don't Notice you. The same with the Editors and Agents and Publisher People, who are on a first-name basis with the lucky people who are In--"Oh, Fran, make sure you send me the first chapter of The Hidden Heart; I think I might have a place for it."

And then, without quite knowing how, you're Inside, where a vast spiderweb of connections links you to editors, publishers, other authors, newspaper people, radio hosts, and on and on. Someone recommends you to someone else, a door opens, which leads to another and yet another. You have a new idea, and you know who to call to make it happen. Someone else has an idea and calls you with a new opportunity.

So the other day I got the bright idea that it would be really fun to do a mother-daughter book event with Emily when she's home in August. I called the local Barnes and Noble and asked for Andrew, the amazing coordinator who arranged my three B&N appearances. I was referred to Andrea, the new coordinator, who was delighted with my idea. "Oh! More than a signing--we'll have you both talk!" I mentioned a possibility for media exposure. "Wonderful!"

That was when it struck me that I was finally In.

Ten years ago, struggling to break into any market beyond CLP's Companions, I could never have called up a Barnes and Noble person and been taken seriously. Never. Or known local newspaper or radio people to recommend.

It's nice to be Inside; it's frustrating to be Outside. I hope I can open the magic door for lots of other writers who need to be discovered.

Quote of the Day:
Emily: But what am I supposed to talk about??!! I never talk in front of people or go to your talks or anything!!
Me: Emily, just get up and talk.

When Church is Hard

2009-06-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

Here's something that most people don't realize: when you have a chronic illness, going to church is a big ordeal.

I was reminded of this last night when I talked with "Linda" whose knee surgery went awry recently and kept her out of the loop for about two months.

"Church," she said, "is hard."

Emily experienced the same thing, and so did I, with my pregnancies.

Healthy people find this hard to understand, especially healthy Mennonite people, for whom church is not only a worship experience but a social event and a time to both serve others and be recharged.

"Just come and sit in the back," they say. "Don't you want to see your friends? All you have to do is sit there; what's so hard about that?"

I am trying to think what, exactly, is "so hard about that."

Here are a few ways going to church is harder for a sick person than going for a drive to the park or a trip to the grocery store with your husband--

--you have to actually clean up and make yourself presentable and brush your teeth and comb your hair, all before 9:30

--and wear nice clothes, including pantyhose in some settings.

--you can't just sit in the car; you have to go inside

--and you can't lean your head back on a church pew.

--if you leave before the service is over, you feel conspicuous.

--sitting still makes all your symptoms--pain, nausea, weakness--manifest themselves at high volume.

--afterwards, everyone wants to talk to you, which is nice in its way, but overwhelming.

--especially if they ask a lot of questions.

--you feel like everyone else has a full, exciting life, and all these full, exciting lives are swirling past you, and you've been stuck in a stagnant little eddy for months.

--and when everyone talks about things you haven't been included in, like going out to eat last Friday, and Bible Club the week before, and a softball game, and somebody's wedding, you feel horrible and sad and alone.

--sitting in the park watching trees somehow ministers to your spirit a lot more than a sermon or Sunday school lesson that doesn't touch the profound questions you're wrestling with or the anguish of feeling like God forgot you.

No doubt there are other reasons I haven't thought of.

What can we/I do to make church a healing place for the chronically ill?

Quote of the Day:
"You contributed to the delinquency of adults."
--Konrad, when he and Shannon stayed up late reading blog posts

June Column

2009-06-19T16:49:00.000-07:00

June's LFH is sort of about Paul turning 50.

Quote of the Day:
"I forgot about centrifugal force! Sorry! Oh wait! Not centrifugal force! Newton's Law! I forgot about Newton's Law, sorry."
--Ben, after an ice cream scoop went flying across the kitchen

Raising Boys, Part 2

2009-06-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

A while back I clipped a Garfield cartoon and put it in Matt's box of mail on my desk. The dialogue goes like this:

Liz: Jon, when was the last time you cleaned your oven?
Jon: I didn't.
Liz: EVER?!
Jon: The manual said it was self-cleaning.
Garfield [smugly]: We're bachelors, baby.

So last night we had this conversation:
Matt: [picks up cartoon]
Me: Did you see that?
Matt: yeah.
Me: Hahahaha, wasn't it great?
Matt: Uh. . . what exactly does it mean if an oven is self-cleaning?

On Raising Boys

2009-06-17T21:22:00.000-07:00

Breathe, Mrs. Smucker.

So I looked out the bedroom window this evening and there was Jenny dancing around the yard talking to herself. Well and good. But then a movement off to the left caught my eye.

There was Steven crawling along a branch of the walnut tree, I'm guessing 15 feet off the ground. He was on the underside of the branch, with his feet and hands over the branch like an orangutan. When he got to the trunk he swung his feet off the branch and over to the trunk where they mercifully latched on and he shimmied up and into the nest of branches right there.

I watched all this happen without trying to make it stop because I knew if I yelled and startled him he was more likely to fall.

I also put together that he had climbed out his bedroom window and onto the carport roof and then monkeyed his way up the branch, and it was not the first time this had happened.

I also knew that if I told him he could no longer do this, he would find something more dangerous to do.

This is what it is like to raise boys.

Quote of the Day:
"'Jordan' wanted to carry something to the van so I gave him a carton of eggs. Then on the way out he wanted to walk along a berm and I was like, ok, that'll be good for his balance, and I didn't think. . . and sure enough he fell, right on top of the eggs. And he was like, 'Mom, this is wet!"
--my brave neighbor lady who took her three young children grocery shopping today and lived to tell and even laugh about it

The Economy and I

2009-06-15T22:48:00.000-07:00

For the most part, that vague but enormous entity called The Economy has always passed me by. When I was a child, we were always poor no matter what The Economy was like. When I left home to teach school, I made what seemed like lots of money, but it always kind of disappeared, mostly to my folks, to whom we gave our wages until we were 21 in the Amish tradition, a whole other story.

Now I read that there was a terrible recession on during those first years away from home, but all I know is that I had a full-time job and a place to live and a car to drive, and at 19 I bought my first-ever new coat from a store and felt wealthy, and sometimes I splurged on 2-liter bottles of Diet 7up.

The economic winds have come and gone since then, and most of the time they don't affect me much. I hunt down garage sales in good times and bad. We do without until we can pay cash no matter how many furniture ads scream in our faces that we can buy this now with no payments for six months. We have always had a cushion of family and church in case of disaster.

But there's one way in which we feel the economic winds blowing, and that's with hiring seedsackers. A few years ago, Paul was scratching and scrambling for workers, as green employment pastures were wide open and it didn't take much to persuade a young man not to sack seed. Paul ended up filling one position with a shady character named Jim who was on probation and ended up in jail one weekend when he hung out with a convicted felon. And we think he took Paul's grandpa's old gun with him when he left.

This year was very different. Paul could have filled every position several times over with strong and upstanding young men. We got phone calls asking us to please consider someone; dads and moms asked us if we had work for their sons. We already had our crew: Felipe, who's been with us for over a year; Ben; Steven; my nephew Keith; and Matt driving forklift now and then, but we tried to pass these other names along to other farmers and cleaners who might need to fill one more position.

Then something happened in the last few days that makes me wonder if The Economy pendulum is swinging back: Felipe was offered a better job at Pennington Seed. Fulltime, with much better benefits than we can give him. And he really wanted to switch, immediately.

In a normal year, Paul would panic, as much as Paul would panic of course, at his night guy wanting to leave just a few weeks before harvest. But The Economy still is what it is, and Felipe had a friend waiting in the wings. Humberto showed up early for his interview and was promptly hired and sacked 13 tons of oats in 8 hours, out of sheer gratitude, I am sure, because he is married with a family and has been out of work for several months.

I feel sorry for people who are devastated by The Economy but I'm afraid I can't empathize.

Quote of the Day:
"It looked tired."
Steven, explaining why he brought a bee inside and was gently trying to feed it honey

Home Via Monarch Pass

2009-06-13T21:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we left Emily's around noon and stopped at Monarch Pass, the highest pass in the country, or the highest pass with a road, or with a paved road, or something, at 11,215 feet, and there we took a cool ride to the top of the mountain. First Paul and I climbed into an oversized Easter egg and went sweeping up, and then the cable stopped and our children climbed into the next egg, and up we went.

They say you can see 150 miles from the top on a clear day, out to Pikes Peak. It was cloudy, so we probably saw half that far. It was amazing. We were almost 2000 feet higher than the top of Oregon's Mt. Hood.

Here in Oregon, the high peaks are all volcanic and loom up twice as high as the surrounding mountains, which makes them seem very impressive. But the fact is that in that range in Colorado the normal mountains are all really high, and we were surrounded by lots of mountains in the 12-14000 foot range.

Interestingly, Oregon's mountains have a lot more snow, at lower elevations, than these did.

Then we rode the egg back down and the gruff fellow operating the ride said, "So, you're Mennonites? And you're from Organ?"

Yes and yes.

Well, he gets a lot of Amish and Mennonites through there. In fact, his three biggest types of customers* are foreigners, with the strong Euro; motorcyclists; and Amish and Mennonites, from Indiana, a lot of them, and Pennsylvania and Iowa and such.

*I think he meant distinctive types of customers as opposed to normal Americans

Well, I found that interesting, because my mom told me that back in her day, Colorado and especially Colorado Springs, was "the" destination for Amish from Iowa going on vacation, and one time she and Vina took their parents to Colorado Springs on the train, after their brother died, hoping to jolt Grandpa out of his depression, and it worked, kind of, and he was able to function better after that.

"Do you get van and busloads of Amish that stop here?" Paul wondered. And the fellow said,

Quote of the Day:
"Oh yeah. But you know, if they're Amish, they have to get Mennonites or civilians to drive them."

(and then we drove home, straight through, hour after hour, 23 in all I think, through Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and then Organ, and came home right before noon today, and it is good to be home. Maybe next time we should get a nice civilian to drive us.)

Royal Gorge

2009-06-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we were touristy and went to the Royal Gorge which is only a few miles from Emily's. This was one tourist attraction that lived up to the hype. The gorge is a thousand feet deep and the bridge across seems like an impossible feat of engineering. The whole area is full of interesting things to do. You pay a hefty sum to get in and then you can do anything you want. There was a carousel that Jenny rode 16 times; a tram that you could ride across the gorge, suspended on a cable; a ride that went down to the bottom of the gorge at a 45-degree angle; a miniature train that went around a nice safe flat track outside the main gates; a petting zoo and wild-animal enclave; information movies and historical dramas; and then of course the requisite gift and food shops that of course weren't included in the price.

Something that wasn't included in the price was a swing that you get strapped into and then it swoops you way out over the gorge. This fascinated the guys but no one was willing to cough up the money.

Among the fascinating sights were all the Plain people: A large Amish family that included one teenage boy who was obviously theirs but also obviously in his wild years, with a t-shirt and buzz cut; a Holiness family; a BMA-Mennonite family; a Western-fellowship type young couple that Paul was sure were on their honeymoon and it bothered him that they didn't hold hands, which is an unusual thing for Paul to notice; a German Baptist family; a Beachy guy restocking the Choice Books rack; and us.

Quote of the Day:
"Prison ministry is nice as long as they stay in prison."
--a local woman, on the realities of working with people both in and out of prison

Life Is Just a Jar of Cherries

2009-06-10T20:25:00.000-07:00

You might recall me saying how the Register-Guard was doing a story on canning and asked to send a photographer out to "shoot"my jars. Kevin Clark was the guy that showed up, and he took half a dozen jars out on the porch, set them on the rail, and rearranged and shot for an hour. "A couple hundred images," he said. [I noticed he never said "pictures." It was all "photos" and "shots" and "images."] Here's the one that made the paper.

And here's the article it illustrated.

Quote of the Day:
"I could spend a couple of weeks at this."
--Kevin Clark, who found jars of fruit on a porch rail very fascinating

Colorado Ramblings

2009-06-09T06:50:00.000-07:00

As always, our June is full of all the things you can’t do during school and harvest.

Recently we spent two nights at the coast in our pop-up tent trailer. Then two days later, in a 23-hour marathon, the three youngest children and Paul and I drove to Colorado to see Emily.

Some thoughts:

Where but in eastern Oregon would you pass a sign by a farm: “Beetle-Cleaned Skulls"??

Paul once again put a mattress in the back of the van so he and I could take turns sleeping and driving. Smart man. Ben drove for two hours and it was nice for his tally of hours but it wasn’t fun for me, riding shotgun in the dark and the rain. I would rather have been driving myself.

I like Emily’s landlord, he of the seed corn hat and dusty jeans and Oklahoma-country straight shooting. He has made it his project to watch out for Emz and fix stuff that breaks, even if it’s beyond his duties as landlord.

When I came to see Emz in May we made a number of changes in her lifestyle—she moved to a different house and is now practically next door to the Knepps who have made her one of their lovely family, she started a new nutrition-supplement regimen, and she quit working at the thrift store in case all the musty dusty stuff was making her ill.

And she has improved. Don’t ask me which change takes credit for it; I refuse to go there.

I don’t think any of her days have been (my personal ranking here) a 5 (the pink of vibrant health) but some of them have been 4’s (good enough to do schoolwork and housework and maybe go to the post office) and some have been 3’s (headache but “I’d still go to the thrift store if I worked there”) with one or two 2’s (drag around, lie down a lot) but I don’t think she’s had any 1’s (flat-out sick, too weak to get out of bed) which she had for way too much of April and the first weeks of May.

Sometimes I wake up around 3 a.m. and think about how awful it is to have my sick daughter out of my reach. I second-guess every decision we ever made with her illness. I think of everyone who has told me what we should have done with Emily, and I argue with them in my head and try to vindicate myself yet wonder if we should have taken their advice.

Someone told me that the sharpest spiritual battles of this world take place at 3 a.m.

Recently I talked to a woman who has a lot in common with me. We both, in our day, would look at our family around the supper table and have this enormous sense of satisfaction at having them all here, at home, where we could cluck over them and tuck them under our wings. We both have daughters who are out of our reach, and we both cried a bit, discussing this.

However. Her daughter is away for very different reasons than Emily is away, very unfortunate personal/moral choices that break her mother’s heart. I decided, you know, there’s heartache and then there’s heartache, and if it were ours to choose, both of us would a hundred times choose mine over hers.

Emily’s electric-scooter tires both went flat half an hour before we arrived. I thought, ok, what are the chances that they BOTH die at once? Naturally I envisioned what every mom would: an evil young man sneaking in the driveway and stabbing an ice pick in both tires and skulking away with an evil cackling laugh, plotting his next (worse) move.

I went all frantic about locking doors and such. Paul didn’t exactly have an evil cackling laugh about this, but too close to one. Grrr.

How else could two tires go flat at once? Tell me that.

Monday morning I was talking to Amy on the phone. I went wandering around outside, barefooted, looking for better reception while we talked. Down the sidewalk, past the garage, into the vacant area behind. Suddenly it felt like I had stepped on the underside of a bunch of pincushions. Yowch! I cut off the conversation, sat down, and found the bottoms of both feet half covered with odd little vicious thorns, like little cockleburrs with one long shaft.

I pulled the nasty things out, one by one, and tiptoed back to the house.

Some hours later Paul diagnosed the scooter’s problem: a thorn in each tire.

Oh yeah, Emily remembered, last Saturday she got the urge to ride her scooter around in that big open area right behind the garage.

So, praise God, no evil young man with an ice pick, only those nasty hard-to-see thorns.

Emily posted about this too. Here.

Today, on the phone, I told my sister that I have a whole new perspective on all those young people that come to Oregon to work for the summer. Before, I sort of let them go their way and I went mine. Now, I think, I just have to reach out to them, and how many of their mothers are at home praying that somebody, please, please, will at least invite them over for Sunday dinner?

Our experiences in many things in life, as in this case, have been uncannily similar. Rebecca’s son just finished his first year of college, and she said this year she’s had a whole new perspective on the college kids that come to their church. She thinks, how many of them have mothers at home praying that someone, please, someone, will reach out to their child away from home?

Amy flies in today from Indiana where she attended Travis and Alisha Horst's wedding. Yay! Emily and I go to Denver to pick her up, leaving early so we can stop at Denver Fabrics.

Amy reports that her friend DeLora, Alisha's sister, told her that their grandparents drove the car to Indiana that used to belong to her great-grandparents, Loras and Ruth, and now Todd, the girls' dad, is going to drive it around. The girls aren't exactly thrilled about this, since the car is one of those battleships from the early 70's. This coughs up all kinds of sweet memories for me, because back when we lived by the freeway, we would sometimes follow Loras and Ruth home from church, them coming from Fairview and us from Brownsville. Both of them were tiny and old, and Ruth would sit in the middle of the front seat, even though they were old, which was very sweet, and sometimes she would have her head on Loras's shoulder, and there was something about this cavernous car and the two of them snuggled up in about 1/8 of the available space that sticks vividly in my memory. May Todd and Anita enjoy it likewise.

(MennoGame: Todd is Todd Neushwander from Living Water Church. Ruth was a half-sister to Paul's grandpa and a niece to his grandma. This makes Paul and Todd [and Amy and Alisha/DeLora of course] related, but I'll let you figure out how.)

Quote of the Day:
Jenny: You think that I think what you think is not right!
Steven: What makes you think that I think that you think that what I think is not right?
--conversation after about 6 hours of travel

Summer is Here: My Annual Rant

2009-06-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

How to shop for boys:
Go to Sears or Goodwill or wherever you go.
Buy jeans.
Buy button shirts for church.
Buy polos for school.
Buy t-shirts for everything else.
Go home.

How to shop for girls:
Go to Goodwill, Ross, JCPenney, etc. etc.
Hunt through vast dizzying acres of clothing.
Bypass everything that's too flimsy, ugly, skimpy, short, or emblazoned with crazy pictures and logos.
Realize you've just bypassed everything in the store.
Tear out hair.
Go home.

I do this every year. Summer comes and I think, ok, surely surely this time I can just go to a store and buy a few basic t-shirts for Jenny. And maybe even a khaki skirt if the Force is smiling on me.

I realize most of the world doesn't have my requirements regarding skirts, knees covered, etc. But still. I know there are plenty of other conservative dressers out there. Shouldn't it be possible to find ONE plain little solid-color t-shirt with more than itty-bitty cap sleeves and a decent neck besides?? Skinny little 10-year-olds don't need scoop necks that let tall people see clear to their belly buttons. And why does everything have to come with wild billboard-sized pictures front and back?

I just want a proper little pretty modest t-shirt she can wear on slightly dressy occasions with a variety of skirts and maybe a button shirt . Would it be so hard for JCPenney or Ross, with their endless racks of clothes, to have ONE of these?

Apparently so.

I need to make time to sew, soon.

(No doubt many of you can point me to sources online. Wouldn't it be cool though if, since you were in town anyway, there was a place where you could run in, buy, and run out?)

(And we note, again, that boys' clothing tends to be loose and well-sleeved and practical and modest. Yeah, you have to bypass the skulls on t-shirts, but you can still find clothes that are CLOTHES.)

End of rant. Watch for another one next year.

Quote of the Day:
"I'm not short; I'm fun size!"
--a t-shirt Amy likes

Way too much honesty, again

2009-05-31T22:24:00.000-07:00

I discovered something when we went to Kenya five years ago, and that is that your marriage can be all fine and dandy but then you go into a new situation and whoa! you find out all kinds of things about your relationship that you would just as soon not have known, and that you have to painstakingly sort through and salvage.

So the other night we went on a new venture--planning our new kitchen at Jerry's Home Improvement Center.

The lady helping us was nice. Paul was doing his best to be nice.

But I was almost in tears.

This is the deal--too many choices are paralyzing. I need time to think. And by thinking, I mean, looking things over without talking, kneading them in my mind, in silence. You know, THINKING.

To Paul, thinking means talking.

And the harder the decision, the more you talk.

And the harder time your wife has making up her mind, the more, louder, and faster you talk, to help her, you know.

And when she says, "Ummm," which is her way of saying, "I need to think in silence," you don't hear her because you're deaf in one ear.

And when you are sitting in front of the nice helpful lady, a wife cannot turn and say in a loud voice, WOULD YOU PLEASE! STOP TALKING???" because she was raised Amish and doesn't know how to just Say Things Out Loud. Especially in front of a helpful lady who is looking like she feels sorry for you, the husband, for having such a wife.

Yes, well.

Of course I tried to hint and LOOK at him pointedly, which is about as far as you go with an Amish upbringing, and it does not work with a Smucker, for sure and certain, which I should know by now.

Sigh.

Finally the ordeal was over.

Paul marched out to the car, smiling and happy with all we had accomplished, and hadn't it gone well?

We got in the car and I cut loose, letting him know in vivid detail what was ACTUALLY going on and would he MIND and ooooooh, it was HORRIBLE.

Would you believe he still took me out to Olive Garden after that?

Toward the end of the 4-cheese ravioli I squeaked a meek apology for chewing him out.

He smiled and said he hadn't felt chewed out.

I think he actually thought my rant was just finally learning how to think out loud like he does.

Now, the big question, if the planning was this hard, will our marriage survive the actual renovation???

You can vote on this if you like. Yay, nay, or only with weekly counselling.

WNF Facts vs. Truth

2009-05-30T15:01:00.000-07:00

Emily is trying to finish up her schoolwork, including a research paper for her health class. She decided to write one on West Nile Fever, but she is discovering the same thing I found while researching WNF when she was first diagnosed: The medical literature is very different from people's experiences.

There's not much out there about WNF, but what's there will say, essentially, "WNF is primarily a mild illness and most people recover in a few weeks with no long-term effects."

Then there are people's stories.

Brenda M. from Arkansas told me her mom was sick for about a year and still has occasional "spells" of illness and weakness.

Yesterday Mrs. Fischer, who teaches the 3rd graders I spoke to, told me her uncle in South Dakota was sick in bed for a year with WNF and has been several years slowly recovering and is now ok, sort of.

"Jay" emailed us about his experiences. He has continued to have devastating daily side effects for years, (8, as I recall)--headaches and "crackling" in his neck and other symptoms.

So what's with that few weeks and a mild illness??

Quote of the Day:
"May your seed be as the sand of the sea."
--Bible verse Jenny chose to put on a bookmark for a woman in church, complementing a lovely beach scene illustration. The woman said, laughing,
"I'm 50 years old; it's a bit late."

Safe, Generic News

2009-05-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

Looks like it'll be another nice day.

The geraniums are growing nicely.

Amy baked some cinnamon rolls and they are delicious.

Quote of the Day:
"I'm headed to the warehouse."
--Paul

Today

2009-05-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

Today I attended a lovely salad luncheon with about 20 homeschool moms from the Harrisburg/Junction City/Monroe area, including several e-friends such as Kathy and KaraBeagle. The whole group was just plain fun--very welcoming and funny and interesting and affirming. Part of the levity may have been due to the fact that they aren't used to getting together without their 50-some children.

These ladies also prayed for me, my writing, and my family. What a boost.

And once again I was reminded that there are people out there who actually read everything I write, and remember all the details. Once again this has completely freaked me out. Please don't tell me how stupid this is--somehow I get the idea that, yeah, I write but nobody really reads it, or maybe a few people like my in-laws and such. Oh so wrong. Gaaaah! So for the next day or so I will stick to generic information about my life such as, "We had a nice day today and my geraniums are growing nicely."

And then when I am lulled back into thinking Oh well, people probably don't really read this stuff, then I'll describe what it was like to go to the home improvement store last evening, me and Paul, and spend 3 hours planning our new kitchen. Or maybe not.

Different subject: Why was the non-Martha-Stewart Mrs. Smucker vigorously dusting the tops of her green bean and applesauce jars with a feather duster this evening?

Answer: because someone from the Register-Guard is coming out tomorrow to take pictures of them. Not of me. Of my canning jars. For a story on canning and freezing.

You know how media people have their standard people they go to for information? Like Don Kraybill (Graybill?) who is the expert on all things Amish? Well, somehow I have fallen into this strange role with the RG where I am the Expert on all things homey and old-fashioned. Yes, family members, you're allowed to snort in disbelief here.

I thought about sending the photographer to Bonnie's house but Amy said she doesn't can that much any more and freezes most of her stuff.

Quote of the Day:
"At least your life ain't boring."
--Steven, when the home phone and my cell phone kept ringing, one taking off as soon as I hung up the other