by jphilo | Nov 8, 2011 | Family
Today’s recycled post, from November of 2007, made me smile when I read it. It seemed especially pertinent since I spent part of Saturday cleaning our bedroom closet. I got rid of four sacks of clothes. But not the costumes. Never the costumes. Who knows when the kids will need them?
The Costume Box – Recycled
“Hi Mom, I thought of something for you to bring this weekend when you come: a dress from the costume box. It might work for one of the actresses in the play.”
She directed me to exactly the right box in the attic. I placed the yellow Tinkerbell wings she wore when she was two on the floor, dug past her Bye, Bye, Blackbird dance recital costume, and finally pulled out the dress we think she’s talking about. It’s one I wore in a play over twenty years ago. “Does it look 1930ish?” she asked.
I wasn’t sure so I went to the cedar chest and found two skirt sets, not costumes but clothes too dear to send to Good Will, that I thought might work. After we said good-bye, I added them to the growing pile of things-to-take-to-Anne-this-weekend.
For some reason, her request cheered me. My kids loved to dress up, even when most children abandon the world of make believe. The costume box was one of their favorite toys. It still is. After all, my college-aged daughter isn’t finished with it yet.
I hope she never is because I love sharing the costume box with her. Hey, I still dress up now and then. And it’s nice to have someone around who gets what that’s all about, who understands how important a childlike imagination is, especially for adults.
Funny how a phone call and a costume box can be a blessing, pardon the pun, in disguise.
by jphilo | Sep 1, 2011 | Family
Here it is more than a week after our daughter and new son’s move to Ohio, and I’ve yet to do more than address it in passing. Perhaps that means that I move much slower than my daughter who is the blur zipping around the kitchen in this picture.
The move was fairly uneventful, except for the part when the first apartment was so gross that Anne – along with Hiram’s step-brother – went to battle with the rental agency and got out of the lease. But we weren’t there yet and never saw the inside of the gross apartment, only the inside of the one they moved into. It’s nice, in a poor graduate student kind of way, clean, with lots of light, and much bigger than the basement apartment they lived in last year.
You should know that I did not cry once, not even when we left and I knew our daughter would be 10+ hours away from home. Oh, I wanted to cry. But I kept the vow I made in 1978 when Mom, my uncle and two cousins helped Hiram and I moved to the wilds of South Dakota, 12+ hours away from my childhood home.
My mother’s reaction to our tiny, wild town was more than over the top, even after taking the neighbor’s six half-wolf dogs chained to posts across the street into consideration. Mom and I shared a bedroom the night before the moving crew headed home. (Hiram was working at the boys’ ranch overnight.) Every time the neighbor’s wolf dogs barked, and they barked about every five minutes, she sobbed, “Oh, I can’t leave my little girl here,” or “Jolene, what have you done?” or just, “Oooohhhhh, no.”
Not pretty.
Not the encouragement I needed.
Not a good memory.
Hence my vow.
Which I kept.
And am still keeping.
I have yet to cry, even though
the first job Anne found turned out to be not so great,
her job search is frustrating,
she misses Iowa’s landscape horribly,
she and her hubby are finding the adjustment to a big university harder than expected,
and their neighborhood is noisy at night,
what with the police and fire stations down the street.
Not quite barking wolf dogs chained to posts, so I will not cry.
Instead, I’ll remember how much we learned our first year far from home. I’ll think of the lifelong friends we made. I’ll be thankful that Anne and her hubby are less than a half hour from Uncle Mike, Aunt Brenda, and Grandma Glenna. And I’ll call now and then, to encourage them.
“You’ll be fine,” I’ll say.
“God has a plan for your lives, and this is part of it,” I’ll say.
“You’re going to make it,” I’ll say.
And because those words are true, I will not cry.
by jphilo | Aug 19, 2011 | Family
After a day on the road (hence no blog post yesterday), we have arrived in paradise. This week’s paradise is the back yard of some of our strategically placed relatives. Their back yard ends where the lake starts. The lake is where their pontoon boat is docked. The pontoon boat is where Hiram did his devotions this morning. With a slightly less adventurous nature, I did my devotions on the sun porch. The sun porch ends where the back yard begins, the back yard that ends where the water begins. You get the picture.
Paradise.
We’re staying in paradise for a few days while we help the daughter and son-in-law move into their new Ohio digs. They’ve been staying in paradise all week, while the son-in-law attends graduate school orientation, the daughter job hunts, and the two of them do the bank thing, the driver’s license thing, and all the other stuff associated with moving. It’s been a pretty stressful week, but you know where they’ve been sleeping at night?
Paradise.
Now, I know some people consider bunking with relatives a dicey proposition. But for us, with a large extended family on both sides, its a godsend. We get to see paradise in a variety of shapes and sizes. Beside lakes in Ohio, Iowa, and Minnesota. In the mountains of Idaho and Alaska. Near the Black Hills of South Dakota. You name your paradise, we can find it. We love each visit with relatives in their far-flung paradises, but at the end of each trip, when we drive down our bumpy gravel road to the old farmhouse on the hill, surrounded by corn and hay fields, do you know where it feels like we’re going?
To paradise, of course.
by jphilo | Aug 16, 2011 | Family
This post from August 11, 2009 shows how life can change in two years. Our son and his fiance are now married. They are busy with their present jobs and contemplating new employment opportunities they hadn’t expected. Our daughter, who still lived with us two summers ago, moved to Ohio this week, where her husband will start grad school.
Two years later, we’re all too busy and too scattered for a family visit to the Iowa State Fair this year. But two things remains the same: the good relationships we have with our children and their spouses make these the best days, and the butter cow is as tacky as ever.
These Are the Best Days – Recycled
Our son called last night to say he and his fiance are coming this weekend. They want to go the State Fair Saturday. “We’d like you and Dad to come, too,” he said. After our call ended, I went upstairs and asked Anne if she wanted to come, too. “Yeah,” she said. “I’d love to.”
When I went to bed, something James Herriot said in one of the books in his All Things Wise and Wonderful series came to mind. He was talking about the days when his children were eight and ten, the age when they were old enough to be good company on his veterinary rounds and young enough to still believe he was smart. “I didn’t know it at the time,” he said in his book, “but those were the best years of all.”
For a long time I looked upon our years of parenting our kids through middle childhood in the same way, especially when Allen was away from us and struggling. But now that he is whole and in our lives again, along with the wonderful young woman he will marry, and now that Anne’s on the brink of independence and values every little scrap of wisdom we share with her, I think an even better time has come.
These days of sharing life with our adult children are the best by far. They’ve been rendered more precious by having been denied them for seven long years, so precious, in fact, that I don’t have to wait until the future to realize what a treasure they are. I recognize now, today, what a treasure it is to have my children with me.
No matter how hot it is Saturday, no matter how much my feet hurt, no matter how tacky the butter cow may be, I will be truly grateful all day long.
So, what’s changed in your life and what’s stayed the same in the last two years? What’s the tackiest thing you’ve seen at the Iowa State Fair? Leave a comment, so we can compare notes.
by jphilo | Jul 11, 2011 | Family
One year ago today our daughter married the love of her life, and we welcomed a new son into our family. Today’s recycled post, from July 12, 2010, looks back on the blessings of a day filled with family, friends, and frolic. And today’s hot, humid weather reminds me of one more blessing that should have made the list a year ago – an outdoor July wedding with temperatures in the low 80s. Even the weather on July 10, 2010 was blessed!
We Are So Blessed – Recycled
Wow! After weeks of planning and wedding tasks that bumped real life activities to the bottom of my to do list, the wedding of our daughter and new son is history. More details will be forthcoming, once I’m not so tired I nod off the minute I’m not moving, and more pictures will be posted once my sweet cousin assigned to taking candid shots has time to download and send them, but for today here are a few highlights:
Sunday morning’s rain tipped the scales in favor of moving the wedding ceremony to the pavilion in the park. Though the weather improved as the day progressed and the sun was shining for the ceremony, we were glad of the change in venue. The gnats and mosquitoes were bothersome, even in the pavilion. They would have been unbearable in our yard.The bride was lovely and her new husband handsome. But their outward appearance is nothing compared to the maturity of their love for one another.
- We are so grateful our daughter has such a devoted husband who appreciates who she is.
- The flower lady, also known as my sister, outdid herself with the flowers. Who knew Queen Anne’s lace and purple cone flowers, combined with greenhouse roses and gladiolas could be so lovely?
- The work done by the reception planner, also known as my friend Diana, was a gift I can never repay. She took a load off my shoulders by organizing food, materials, and workers…the day before heading to LaCrosse, Wisconsin for her last week of graduate school.
- My long time son and new daughter deserve hugs and kisses for decorating the reception pavilion while I rode herd on the bride and bridesmaids back at the ranch until the ceremony.
- We are blessed with loving family – from our new son’s parents and siblings pitching in to my sister doing the flowers, from one of my cousin’s daughters teaching ballroom dancing at the reception to the cousin who took the pictures, from my brother staying late to help Hiram load and return tables to everyone who participated in Anne and her husband’s joy.
- We are blessed with a loving church family, young and old – sisters and brothers in Christ who came early and stayed late, contributed food, served food, helped with sound equipment, acted silly in the photo booth, hugged our children, and joined in the dancing and merriment.
Such fun. Such memories. Such a support system for us and such strength to lift our sweet children into adulthood. So many blessings. So much grace.
Our cup runneth over.
We are so grateful.
We are so blessed.
Thank you, dear God of all blessing.
