Finding roses and stones

Last month our church had another ladies' conference at a lodge up in the beautiful Snowy Range mountains, right when the aspen were starting to turn gold. We had an invited speaker, Cathy McIntosh, author of the book Joy In the Journey we've been studying this fall.

She taught us about finding ROSEs that God gives us: Remember, Open, Serve, Establish

1) Remember God's character - David confronted Goliath with God's character: I Samuel 17:45 David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands”

2) Open your eyes to the unseen - 2 King 6: 16-18 When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked. “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

3) Serve Him - David served God by going out to fight the Philistine

4) Establish memorial stones - David remembered how God had delivered him from the lion and the bear, and helped him kill them to defend his flock of sheep.

Joshua 4:20-24:  Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.”

Then we were challenged to think of the times in our lives when God's hand was visible. When did you experience something that you know only God could have accomplished? And then think of a way you can establish a memorial stone for each instance. I came up with seven events where God showed Himself to me (there are others, too, but these are the ones that rocked my world).

1) November 1993, almost 20 years ago, when I challenged God and He showed me He was real. Job 38:1-7.

2) April 1999, when I asked God if it was his will for me to marry B. I was afraid because B. was divorced and had a four year old daughter. God answered me with Psalm 34:4 "I sought the Lord and He answered me, He delievered me from all my fears."

3) September 2006, when I found out I was having twins - twin girls, no less (a total of 4 girls, no boys!) I was discouraged and overwhelmed, but after praying, God showed me a quadruple rainbow (technically a supernumerary rainbow) and I knew it was His answer and His promise and I knew these twin girls would be a gift and a treasure from Him beyond what I could possibly imagine. Genesis 9:16 "Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."

4) Fall 2011 - Insight after a particularly bad season of depression. A new way to look at an old favorite verse, Isaish 40:31.

5) September 2012 - I have no willpower of my own. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. ~2 Corinthians 12:9

6) April 2013 - We see Him more clearly, closely, beautifully, in our hardest trials. Job 42:1-5.

7) August 2013  - How God shared my testimony. Job 38:1-7 (again)

So I've been thinking about how to make "memorial stones" for each of these, something I could keep in the house or yard that would be distinctive, that my kids (and even visitors) might ask, what do these mean? I'm not a making-crafts person at all; the last "craft" project I attempted was a felt Advent calender that turned out kind of hokey (though the kids and I still use it every December). 

I would love to find some smooth river stones that I could paint the dates and verses on, but this time of year isn't the best for going out looking for river stones. So in the meantime, I bought a frame that fits eight pictures, and I'm looking for some family pictures that fit each of these memorials from God and I'll photoshop the verses on them, then superglue some small polished rocks from a souvenir store to the frames. Hopefully will have a picture of the finished project forth coming.

The best 10 moments of my life

A couple weeks ago my stepdaughter and I drove over to Cheyenne to go shopping (much better shops over there than in Laramie). On our way back, I don't know what prompted this, but I mentioned how I took a road trip with my friend after college and it was one of what I called "the top ten things in my life."

One of the less memorable moments of our road trip, when Gracie the Jeep broke down

Stars was curious and asked, what are some other things on your top ten list?

I shared a few more things with her, and she shared a few of hers - her top one being when she got her own horse (Callie) and how wonderful it was to cross the road and see her anytime, and just jump up bareback and take off. I could totally relate because my first horse also made my top ten list.

When we got home, and for several days later, I kept thinking, what else is on this supposed top ten list of mine?  I started trying to list them in order, but I really couldn't. So I've just listed them randomly, with the next numbers on my 1000 gifts list. (Which is kind of fitting, because while these are the most memorable gifts God has given me, they are still just a few of many, many, many more - so many I will never remember them all).

478. Holding the twins together for the very first time. 

They were born 2 months early, and for almost a whole week I wasn't allowed to hold them, as they had to stay in isolettes (it was too early even for kangaroo care). So when I was finally allowed to hold them - together - oh my, I have no words for that moment! I have never felt such joy and contentment and wonder as in that moment. I was 36 years old.

My expression here just doesn't do it justice

479. Getting my own horse

This was a dream of mine since I was 8 years old. My parents could afford to get me riding lessons, but never my own horse (we lived in a large city). I was 22 when circumstances finally worked out that I could buy a horse and afford to keep him. Actually, the most incredible moment wasn't when I found Rebel, or when he was delivered to our barn, or even the first time I rode him. It was the day after he was "moved in" - that morning I woke up and my first thought was, "there's a horse in the barn! My own horse!" and I raced down to the barn in my jammies and peered inside and yes, there he was!

A picture of my mom riding Rebel on a S.C. beach - a dream of both of ours, to ride in the ocean!

480. Snorkeling in the Caribbean

This one made my list because it was so surprising. Based on my experience as a kid, I thought snorkeling was pretty lame. You can't see very well and you're always getting water down your pipes. There's not much to see anyway (I snorkeled murky lakes). So when B and I had our honeymoon and went snorkeling for the first time on a deserted (and pristine) reef off St Croix, I was blown away. It was like entering another world. The water was so clear, the coral was so close, and seething with a rainbow of life. I had thought you could only see this sort of thing scuba diving, not just sticking your head underwater! The rest of the day I was in a daze from all the beauty. I was 30 years old.

481. When B asked me to marry him

I forgot what we did that day, but I do remember the date, February 19 1999. We were in my apartment, late at night, and B was talking about how hurt he'd been by his ex, how he'd thought he'd never trust again. But his growing faith in the Lord had shown him it was possible to trust again. Then he looked me straight in the eyes and asked, "will you marry me?"

482. Writing the last words of my first novel 

This is an interesting one, because it happened twice. I'd been working on this novel since 12 or 13 years old but very "on again, off again, let's start over again" kind of thing. I finally finished in 2000, and it was a surreal feeling to have it all printed off and complete (so long it required two large binders). I shared it with my writing buddy N.L., and she told me it needed "a lot of work" (which I pretty much knew already, it was way too long). But still, it was  incredible to have finally finished it, after, um, 17 or 18 years (no, I'm not at all ashamed at how it takes me to write). I began the process of revising to pare it down, and ended up completely re-writing it over the next 9 years. Amazingly, when I finished it the second time, the feeling was just as powerful. I think I cried as I wrote the last words.

483. Walking down the aisle

I had a wonderful wedding, which I completely attribute to my mom and dad, since they did 80-90% of all the planning and details, so I could sit back and relax. (I highly recommend this method. Micro-planning your wedding may end up wearing you out so you barely have strength left to enjoy it). But as it turns out, the wedding and reception, wonderful as they were, didn't make my top ten list. What did make the list was walking down the aisle on my father's arm and seeing the expression on B's face when he saw me.

484. Seeing my first child for the first time. And the second child.

Oh, the anticipation! What will he/she look like? Is this really happening? And then it finally does happen, and you see your baby for the very first time. It's such a miracle. Again, B's expression on his face as he put Blaze (her screen-name) into my arms is another thing I'll never forget. I was 31 years old. Another truly amazing miracle is you get the same feeling with your second child - and the third, and the fourth. Even though you think you know what to expect, you still don't. The miracle is still just as unique as the first time.

485. Hiking in Canyonlands and afterward calling a friend I hadn't talked to in years

My whole post-college road trip was memorable, but this was the highlight of the whole trip. I had never been west of the Mississippi River before in my life, and the further west we went into the vast mountains and deserts, the more awed I became. One particular hike, in Canyonlands National Park, left me so awed that my spirit was humbled. The earth was so huge and grand, so wildly varied, I was blown away. We were so far into the Utah wilderness that there was no phone access, but a few days later when we got back into civilization, I called my friend M.C., whom I had not talked to in 2 or 3 years, due to a bad falling out. After being so humbled and awed, I just had to share my experience with her and start rebuilding our friendship, admitting where I had gone wrong and asking forgiveness. I was 22 years old.We are still close friends, 20 years later.

486.  Realizing God is real.

About a year and a half after that experience in Canyonlands where my spirit felt that mixture of awe and humility, and several more humbling experiences God used to draw me (without me yet understanding anything about him, or even really believing in him), I reached the point where I challenged him to prove Himself to me. Which He did, immediately, just a few hours later as I read the Bible for the first time in years.  He did not speak out loud but I have no doubt that He spoke to me through a very specific word-image in the Bible. I was stunned and at the same time serene, if that makes any sense. It felt like  searching for a needle in a haystack, doubting you'd ever find it. But then suddenly, there it is, so unexpected, and a thousand times more beautiful than what you had ever imagined.

This last of my top ten moments in life didn't come to me right away (not until today, in fact). I found it interesting that the things that were most important and memorable to me did not include my parents at all, or any friends (except for one, indirectly). It did not include anything from my childhood or school years or college years. (I really wished I had thought to put together a top ten list earlier in my life - I wonder what would have been on it back then? It's impossible to reconstruct now with the bias of age).

I kept coming back to my parents. I have the most wonderful parents in the world; I have no bad memories of them. Sure we had some fights and I had some spankings but really, I can't even say those were bad memories because they didn't scar me in anyway, rather they helped me grow. I could think of many wonderful moments with my parents, but nothing compared to the powerful moments with my husband or with my own kids, even my horse! (insert a huff of disgust toward myself). Which really saddened me. I felt like I had lost something. And it was also sad to realize my own kids will someday find their best memories may not include me! But that is exactly when it hit me:

487. When my parents held my first child for the first time.

I have a hard time describing this. For my mom, she barely looked at me when she came into my hospital room. When she picked up my baby, she made some soft noises of wonder, but other than that she was speechless (which is so rare for my mom).  It was the same way with my father, a while later. When he saw her (I have the hardest  time not writing her real name here!), he had to sit down first, and then asked me to hand him the baby. I handed her over all bundled up. He slowly unwrapped her blanket and just sat there staring at her for a long time, speechless, dabbing at tears. My father does not cry easily. 

I am not sure if we truly ever appreciate our parents, or love them so much as we do the moment we become parents ourselves and see them with our own children.

Who gets my best, my family or others?

A sentence from Psalm 101 has been both
challenging and convicting for me:
"I will walk in my house with blameless heart."
When God speaks to
me about being more loving,
this verse reminds me to make application in my
family first—and then to others.
It forces me to ask, Am I more spiritual,
More loving, or more fun somewhere else?

Who gets my best—my family or others?

from A Mother's Heart, by Jean Fleming

I have been failing miserably with my family. I try to keep it together at work, but when I get home I fall apart. Kids get snapped at for making noise. My husband doesn't get a "welcome home" or even a "hi, honey!" when he arrives.

I catch myself thinking peevishly, if I didn't have to work so much, I'd have more energy for my family. If the economy hadn't taken a nose-dive. If we hadn't made those poor financial decisions. If we'd stopped having kids at two instead four. So easy to make excuses, justifications, to say "if onlys."

I really think the Lord sent me a dream last night to wake me up to my wrong attitude. (Well, I'm pretty sure He used http://writingcanvas.wordpress.com to give me the quote, above, too).

I was dreaming I was back at the beach, and the girls were playing in the surf. The twins - three years old - just loved dashing in and out of the water. I was laying on the sand, soaking up the sun. I didn't notice that the waves were gradually getting bigger in size. Suddenly a huge breaker crashed over the twins and they disappeared in the frothing water. They aren't old enough to right themselves, even in waist-deep water, if they get knocked over and disoriented. I searched for them frantically, swimming out and diving under, but the water was too murky to see anything. I knew even if I found one of the twins in time, chances are the other one would drowned before I could find her.

Then I woke up.

I have to stop making excuses and put my family first, no matter what trials the world is throwing at me right now. Let me rephrase that. I need to put God first, so then I have the strength to put my family next in priority, ahead of my worries, my exhaustion, my short temper.

My family deserves my best, and God can help me give them my best. I can't do it on my own.

Please link back to http://writingcanvas.wordpress.com for other excellent insights into the quote from Jean Fleming's wonderful book (I really need to read this book again! It's one of those you can keep getting good stuff out of it, no matter how many times you read it)

The twins' third birthday

It's B's 39th birthday today (for the next two months we are the same age). The twins just turned three yesterday and they didn't "Get it" at all - not even when Linda gave them a couple presents to open. I kept asking them "How old are you?" and I got various responses, sometimes my question asked back at me, sometimes gibberish. I had to prompt them to say "Three!" But tonight we had cake with candles at Grandma and Grandpa H's, and they certainly "got" the candle part - they were so excited they started blowing out the candles before Mom had got all six of them lighted (they each got three candles, but one cake). And they sure had a good grasp that the giant toy horse that Mom dragged out for them belonged to them, too! These pictures don't do the size of this horse justice - it's truly the size of a real live Shetland pony. The twins and Dreamer  can't even climb up on it without help!


I am thankful for... my family. B kissed me goodbye this morning and said, "I love you so much. Do you know how much I love you?" I visited Blaze and Dreamer for lunch today at school and they both insisted on giving me multiple kisses and hugs. Tonight we had a yummy dinner with my parents. I was hoping to see my father smile, at least once, and the ultimate, to get him to laugh. him. I did hear something that almost resembled a laugh from him at Thanksgiving. We had Nicole and her parents, Stan and Carol, over to join us for Thanksgiving. As I was introducing them to my parents, my father and Stan discovered that they both liked to introduce their wives as "my first wife" (just to confound people... they are both still married to their first wives!) Anyway my father definitely smiled at that and sort of laughed. Well, tonight I not only got multiple smiles out of my Dad (especially when Mom brought out the giant pony and the kids went crazy over it), but I heard a real genuine laugh from him. Mom had got a few birthday noise-maker toys, you know the kind that you blow on them and they roll out and make a funny noise. Well, the twins didn't get out to make things work at first, so B. was demonstrating. As B. took a deep breath and popped the paper out with its noise right in Annie's face, she jumped so far back with such a look of alarm - immediately followed by a grin and a giggle - that got my Dad laughing, too! (In fact, I'd say he was almost back to his old self tonight. He even talked quite a bit, and didn't fall asleep on us once!)

A few other random mentions from the past week:

I am going... to have a wonderful weekend going to Christmas tree auctions with the kids and a Christmas concert with my mom. I am also going to be up very late at night getting ready for a big training session next week in Pinedale. And grading final projects. And working on the Advent Calendar for Karen. 'Tis the season for extreme busyness. Lord, help me to stay close to you even in the midst of everything that needs to get done.

I am reading... I had a small break between the end of November and getting my 50,000 words finished for NaNoWriMo, and the final craziness of the end of the semester, so I just finished reading a fun book called "Girl At Sea" by Maureen Johnson - a young adult book (Stars and I went to the library while she was here over Thanksgiving and I never got past the young adult section to get to the adult section). This book had a nice mix of humor, mystery, beautiful places in Italy, romance, and - a nice surprise - very high quality writing. I hope to write a book like this some day! It's only detraction - it wasn't Christian.

I am hoping and praying... that Stars' granny wins her struggle with cancer. I have several other important prayers too that are too private to share on a blog. But you know what they are Lord. Thank you for the amazing conversation I had with Stars  while she was here!

I am learning... that teaching is a lot harder than I thought. I have lots of teaching experience; but teaching University students it a lot different than teaching short "canned" classes to professionals. There is a lot more ground to cover; a lot more complicated subject material; a lot less direct interaction with the students (I had TA's teaching the labs) and the part that I found most confounding of all - test questions are REALLY hard to write! Getting the wording right is crucial.

On my mind... the reponse I want to write to a couple comments I got on my earlier post Why Tolerance Isn't Enough

Pondering these words... A quote that Nicole sent me, by a J.R. Miller:

"We dread pain! And yet the person who has not experienced pain has notyet touched the deepest and most precious meanings of life. There are things we can never learn except in the school of pain. There are heights of life we can never attain, except in the bitterness of sorrow. There are joys we can never have until we have walked in the dark ways of sorrow. Not to have sorrow, in some form, is to miss on of life's holiest opportunities. We get our best things out of afflication. I have refined you in the furnace of suffering. Isaiah 48:10

A really impressive pinata

We have the first few weeks of school behind us now and Dreamer is adjusting well to kindergarten. The twins think school is pretty fun too: Starlet likes to run around wearing Dreamer's backpack - and they both love it when we visit school on Fridays during lunch period and they get to sit with their sisters and the other big kids eating their PB&J's.

Here's a picture of the girls on the first day of school. They decided to wear matching outfits (not like there is a whole lot of variety with the uniforms)

Waiting for the bus. Dreamer's backback makes her look so small!

I'm really bummed I didn't bring my camera to Blaze and Dreamer's school "fiesta" on Friday night. I have to admit I get this bad attitude about school functions, that they are kind of lame and boring. But the girls were really excited about this one and since Dreamer just started kindergarten this was her first school party. So we all dressed up in bright colors and headed off to the school on Friday night. There were a bunch of activities for the kids, including a Mexican hat dance where the kids danced in a circle around a bunch of sombreros on the ground. They were each given red bandanas to twirl and wave around while they danced, it looked like so much fun I wanted to join in! When the music stopped the kids got to pick up whichever sombrero closest to them and see if there was a plastic duckie under the hat - whoever found a duckie got a sticker. Not your traditional Mexican hat dance, I believe, but the kids sure loved it.

But the best part of the fiesta was the pinata. This was a HUGE pinata and the toughest one I've ever seen before - it stood up to over 100 blows by some very determined kids. They started out letting the littlest kids have a shot so even the twins got to go up and take a swing. I thought for sure it would break before the second graders got their chance, but both Dreamer and Blaze got two hits at it and I think a few third graders even had a chance before it finally broke. Then it was also pretty impressive that when the candy finally showered down all the kids actually obeyed the rules and didn't push and shove and everyone got three pieces of candy (you can tell our school takes rules and discipline very seriously).

Here's one of those "life's little moments" that makes me still smile thinking about it. Last night we had Mom and Dad over for dinner at our house and after dinner we played cards. I've taught Dreamer how to play rummy but tonight we decided to play poker since that is Dad's favorite game, and I wanted to get him involved. The doctors seem to have finally adjusted his medicine for Parkinson's so he is steadier on his feet and able to get around more, but he is still clearly depressed - he hardly talks at all these days. His comment when I suggested that we play poker tonight was "well, I know you guys will make me anyway, whether I want to or not" - typical sour puss! But after the first few hands I could tell he was enjoying it (though he'd never admit it).

 We taught Blaze seven card stud and follow-the-Queen and no-peek and finally we ended with a hand of low-hold. I explained to Blaze how the lowest card in her hand was a wild card. So we got to the end of the hand and we were all showing our cards and Mom asked Blaze what her low-hold was. Blaze pointed to a three and said, "this is my youngest card." Of course we all laughed (she was too excited to care because she had actually WON the hand and she couldn't believe all the quarters she was raking in!) I actually saw my father SMILE.

Dreamer was "Star of the Week" this past week in kindergarten and got to make a poster about herself to take to school and show to all the other kids: pictures of her, her sisters, our pets (we sure have a lot of those!) and some of her favorite things. As we started working on her poster I realized I didn't have any recent pictures developed yet, so I promised Dreamer that I would get some pictures printed that night so her poster would be all ready to take into school in the morning. But after getting all the kids in bed I was too tired to make a run to Walmart to buy color ink for the printer, so I decided I would get up early in the morning and get the ink so I could print her pictures. Well, Dreamer woke up before I got back from Walmart and came downstairs expecting to see the pictures on her poster and when she saw that it was still pictureless, B. said she just BURST into tears and he had to hold and her and comfort her till I got back and we could finish the poster for our little "star."
I am so so SO happy Blaze finally made a breakthrough with her reading! All summer long she moaned and groaned about how much she hated reading, and of course that just made me so sad and frustrated because I love reading so much, it was so hard to see her struggle with it and hate it so much. But then my mom talked to my Aunt Connie who is a first grade teacher and she gave us some advice that made all the difference in the world. Blaze's reading program at school (Spalding) is very heavily phonics-based where kids learn how to sound out words based on phonograms. Even though Blaze knows all her phonograms she would just get overwhelmed, I think, having to constantly decode words.

Connie told Mom and I about a different approach. First I would read a paragraph out loud, pointing to each word, then I would read the same paragraph again outloud with Blaze saying the words along with me, and then she would read the same paragraph again herself. She loved reading this new way! She actually started looking forward to reading again, instead of groaning, and soon we would even start skipping the first part where I would read outloud by myself, and eventually when we'd be reading outloud together she'd tell me "stop Mom I can do it by myself." But best of all was last week when it was bed time and I told her she could stay up a little later as long as she was quiet, and she could read a book. AND SHE DID! She started reading an Amelia Bedelia book, and then the next morning she finished it, all by herself - of her own initiative. Oh thank you thank you thank you Lord! (and thank you Aunt Connie!) Now Dreamer is begging me to read a book with her the same way so she can "read by herself" too.

This is getting to be pretty long but I feel bad writing so much about Blaze and Dreamer and so little about the twins, so here's a little bit about Serious and Starlet. They sure do have different personalities.

Serious (older by just one minute) is the "boy" of the family. She likes to take things apart. She likes to grunt and she'll get really mad over the littlest things, like not being able to get her shoes on (B. calls her his mad little Chinaman). She doesn't care what she wears and she is the first to get dirty.

Starlet on the other hand is all girl. She will change her outfit at least three times a day. She loves to play dress up and preen and walk around like a model showing off her outfits. Starlet is also the devious one. She is a thinker and a planner and a manipulator. She knows how to work her expressions to get the most out of Grandma and Grandpa (whereas if Serious wants something she'll just grunt and grab until she gets it). One day at Grandma and Grandpa H's when Starlet discovered a basket of clean clothes in the basement, she decided to play dress-up. Mom and I found her prancing through the house with one of Grandma's silk panties draped over her!

Serious does this thing with her hands that I call her "happy hands". When she gets excited about something, it's like she's trying to clap her hands but she is too excited to actually get her hands close enough to clap, so she just shakes them. I haven't seen her do this in a while now, and I miss it, just like I still miss Starlet's warbling stage - she used to make the cutest little noise before she started talking. They are both getting out of the toddling stage, too, they can actually run now but I miss the adorable way they used to waddle when they tried to run. I keep thinking Serious's outgrown though is falling out of bed, but just when I think we are safe, I hear another loud thump and howl in the night!

dancing and dreams

I signed up for the 2009 Scripture memory challenge at Beth Moore's blog. My first verse to memorize: Galations 2:20. Okay I am writing it now by memory: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body (check) I live by faith in the Son of God, (check) who loved me and gave Himself for me.

We are back in Laramie after a lovely week in Kansas preparing for and then celebrating my niece's wedding. The highlight of the wedding, for me: my little Starlet "dancing" with the groom.


When the bride and groom were having their first dance together, the wins both trotted out onto the dance floor with them. While Serious started dancing solo, toddler-style, Starlet went straight to the groom and tugged on his pants until he picked her up!

My stepdaughter really wanted to read my rough draft of my 2nd novel while she was here visiting for Christmas. I warned her it was REALLY rough - I haven't even spell-checked it yet! - but she blazed through the 160 pages and said she really liked it. She really got into my two main female characters and asked if she could assign them fashions, and cars (Kell gets a Lincoln Navigator; Rowen gets a BMW). It was very satisfying for me that she really liked my book - even a half-finished rough draft - but it was also exciting for me that she was reading my first Christian novel. It is full of Scriptures and my characters' ups and downs with their Christian walk. I even had Rowen and Pete share their testimonies with each other in one scene.

I had also had an interesting conversation about dreams with my stepdaughter. We both seem to recall our nightmares better than good dreams, though I have had several wonderful dreams that I call my "heaven dreams" because I believe I was dreaming of heaven (or at least, completely beautiful, otherworldly places; rainbows are something I usually see in these heaven dreams). As I was reflecting on the good dreams vs. the nightmares, I realized that all my nightmares occur within houses, whereas all my good dreams occur in natural settings, usually with water (and rainbows). There are websites that offer suggestions for dream interpretations - for instance "Dreams relating to a house often refers to various aspects of the Self. When trying to analyze the house in your dream, consider also how the house is kept and the condition of it. The rooms in the house relates to facets of your personality" - which makes me wonder if when I dream about aspects of myself, it turns into a nightmare, but when I am dreaming about aspects of God (my heaven dreams) the dreams are heavenly beautiful...

My most favorite dream (after my rare heaven dreams) is a semi-awake dream, not a day-dream but what is a called a lucid dream (wikipedia). All of my story ideas have come from lucid dreams, and are often developed a later points through more lucid dreaming. On the long drive to Kansas, I had a lucid dream about a brand new story idea. I'm still searching for a name for it...right now in my notes I am calling it "Reading in Love" (a take on "Falling in Love") because it is a story of a love between two people that grows from reading a book... not altogether an original idea, I know, but it's my twist on the idea.

So, thanks to "Reading in Love" - my writing progress last week was 1262 words.

fist deep in cake

I was looking at how many entries appear for each of my categories. Apparently books are most important in my life because they have the most entries; then writing; somewhere way down the list appear family events, twins, and marriage. Well, to be honest, my family does rank more important than books and writing but perhaps I feel my family, in particular, is of less interest to the larger world than topics about books and writing.

However, it is highly suspect that the larger world is aware of my little blog, (which I'm perfectly happy with... no expectations! I can write drivel and no one will cruelly comment!) So I am pledging to myself to start writing a little more about my family.

So the twins are two years old now, and still pretty much clueless about birthdays: when presented with gifts, they grabbed the bows off the presents and stalked off to play (perhaps they had intuition that it was just clothes in the boxes anyway, not toys!) However, they weren't clueless about the cake. After dinner we decided to relax for a bit in front of the TV, with the intention of presenting the birthday cake with candles a little later in the evening.

Well after a while I notice that the twins aren't down in the living room with us. There is a suspicious lack of noise. I head to the kitchen and discover Serious and Starlet (their nicknames) up on the kitchen counter, fist deep in their chocolate cake, chocolate smeared everywhere, neither one of them looking one bit guilty. I took a deep breath and managed to restrain my initial horror! I ended up just giggling and letting them go at it for a few more minutes before cleaning up. It was their birthday, after all. (I managed to salvage two pieces of cake to put the candles in)

Apparently it is impossible for me write a blog focused entirely on my family. I can't resist sticking in a link about writing... some advice about using/not using emotional exposition in writing.
http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/2008/12/emotional-exposition.html

Writing progress: 541 words last week, so far this week 0

thing 1 and thing 2

Twin update! (very little about writing will be mentioned in this blog)
So their hair isn't quite as long (or blue) as Thing 1 and Thing 2, but in many other respects Anne & Grace are remarkably similar to Dr. Suess's house-wreckers. Their hair is getting long enough now that I have to watch my husband very carefully to make sure he doesn't do what he did to the first child: cut her bangs 3 mm from her scalp (and crooked, too). To try to prevent such a cruelty from occuring, I pull up all their hair away from their faces into a little "fountain", Bam-Bam style. A friend's comment at this punk-preschool style was, "they look like Thing 1 and Thing 2" from Cat in the Hat. So now that is their new nickname. Anne is definately Thing 1, the leader. And Grace is the faithful follower into all sorts of mischief, including playing in the dog's water bowl, dragging toilet paper all around the upstairs hall, pulling books off the shelves, chewing DVDs, tearing pages out of books, trying to press keys on my computer when I'm not looking... well, at least they are not into flying kites in the house yet.

And they really are much, much cuter than the Dr. Suess version. I love having twins! (a year ago I would have never dreamed I'd be saying this).

Okay, back to writing. Several more word wars and one very late night reminiscent of NANOWRIMO have resulted in several thousands words this week, plus lots of editing because I keep getting these cool ideas that I have to go back and fit into the stuff already written.
Writer's group critiqued chapters 15-19 last night and other than pointing out a few confusing sentences, they were all very pleased and keen to read more. I love my fellow writers. We got to talking about our favorite Far Side cartoons, our favorite writing spoofs ("avoid cliches like the plague" "If I were an evil warlord, I would never..."), April fool's pranks (got some good ideas for this year: drop bears, hoop snakes, and locking computers with annoying screen savers), and all sorts of other amusing things such as a sign at a massage parlor: "Acupuncture: $60. Not so accurate puncture: $2".

Christmas letter 2007

I didn’t get to send out a Christmas letter last year, for the reason that we had a couple early arrivals – Serious & Starlet (their nicknames) weren’t due till January 23, but their birthday ended up being December 3!

Being two months premature meant they needed to stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for two weeks, while I stayed in the nearby Ronald McDonald house, visiting them four to five times a day to deliver tiny bottles of milk – just about the only thing I could do for my babies the first week. I wasn’t even allowed to hold them the first week because they were being kept within isolettes (incubators, basically), and breathing with the help of respirators.

By the second week they were doing much better, breathing on their own and I could hold them for a few minutes at a time. Grace had a heart condition that is common with premature babies, but fortunately medication worked to improve it and over the next few weeks her heart had caught up to her early birthdate. There were many other babies in the NICU that were not faring so well. Babies as early as 23 weeks, as small as my hand, encased in tiny oxygen tents. At the Ronald McDonald house, we met the parents of a one month old baby that had just had a heart transplant. We met other parents with children with cancer and children on dialysis waiting and praying for organ donations. Everyday we realized how blessed we were with our healthy babies, that just needed a little extra time to catch up.

The second week my mother-in-law, Joy, came to stay with me at the Ronald McDonald house so B. could go back to work. In the meantime my parents had been taking care of our older girls, Blaze and Dreamer, for three weeks while I was on bedrest and in the hospital. The girls were finally able to come down and stay with us. The Ronald McDonald house was like a vacation for them! It had lots of play stuff including larger-than-life, fully-furred statues of two of their favorite Disney monsters, Sullivan and Mike.

Volunteers would come over two or three nights a week to make dinner for all the residents and set up special activities for the kids (making gingerbread houses, playing games, etc). Before leaving the Ronald McDonald house, we were showered with donated Christmas presents for all five of our girls (even my stepdaughter). We could hardly fit all the presents in our van!

By Dec 19, two weeks after their birthday, we got the much anticipated permission from our insurance company to transfer the twins to the hospital in Laramie – which meant we could finally go home for Christmas! (A side note: the cost of transferring two babies on the same ambulance 150 miles was almost $10,000, PER BABY! Even though the transfer was pre-approved, we still spent the next 9 months fighting with the insurance company to get the amount paid).

The twins spent another week and half in the Laramie hospital, learning how to eat (babies born before 34 weeks gestation do not yet have the ability to nurse or take a bottle). Even when we brought them home from the hospital, Grace still had to be hooked up to oxygen for another couple weeks to handle Laramie’s high elevation and thin air. Up until then we’d had nurses taking care of them round the clock, and now we had to take over. They had to be fed every three hours, and feeding both of them could take up to an hour! B. is my hero for taking the 3 am feeding every night for a month. Fortunately Serious and Starlet gained weight fast and were actually sleeping through the night by three months. The twins were basically quarantined at home because preemies are more susceptible to sickness, in fact Grace spent three days in the hospital again with pneumonia. I couldn’t have survived those first few months without tons of help from my parents, B.’s parents, neighbors and friends bringing us meals, my Aunt Margie coming for two weeks to help (and giving me time to catch up on some sleep), and the help of a part-time nanny so I could keep my sanity by getting out of the house every other day!

We’ve come a long way… Serious and Starlet are already a year old, crawling all over the place and starting to cruise. It’s kind of like having little gremlins in the house, you never know where a baby is going to pop up, usually in some kind of mischief. They have completely different personalities. The doctor’s comment about Serious when she was in the NICU was that “this one doesn’t know she was born early; she’s ready to go.” She has always been a little ahead of her sister – the first to sit up, the first to crawl; usually the first to cry, too. She is always exploring, and loudly vocalizing her opinions about the world. She is also likes to crawl over her sister (why go the long way around?), and will often pause to pummel her sister in the process. Don’t feel too sorry for sensitive, wide-eyed little Starlet, though. On many occasions I have seen her steal her sister’s pacifier. She is good at pulling her sister’s hair too.

Blaze is six now, loving kindergarten, and taking after me with a passion for “writing” books. Actually, she dictates the stories to me, or to Grandma H, we write them down for her, and then she illustrates them. She adores her baby sisters and pitched in helping with them right away, doing just about everything but changing their diapers (we let her try that once, but she hasn’t volunteered since).

Dreamer is three years old and loves to play dress-up and copy everything Blaze does. She does pretty well with her baby sisters except sometimes she tells them they are being too noisy. For a while she thought their car seats were her own personal play toys. I have found various dolls and toy horses strapped into the car seats, complete with blankets tucked in around them.

My stepdaughter, Stars, is about to turn 13 years old and is already better at walking in high heels than I am. She still plays a good mean game of monopoly with me when she comes to visit (except we play a version called horseopoly). Blaze and Dreamer can usually talk her into playing Candyland with them too – and even better yet, she’ll fix their hair fancy for them. Stars and I frequently trade books and whenever we finish a good book we call each other and tell all about it (except the ending, of course).

I am still working part time (going to my office is almost a vacation for me, so quiet and peaceful compared to all the noise at home). I still manage to find time to ride my horses once in a while and go hiking in the mountains. B. is still running large machinery, moving lots of dirt and occasionally the extra special treat of getting to tear down a building.

He is also doing a lot of plumbing on the side and is in the process of partnering up to start a new plumbing business. He still doesn’t care much for the plumbing business, but we decided we like the money it makes well enough to give it another go. As if that doesn’t keep him busy enough, he is working on his degree again, taking two classes a semester, and he started two new hobbies this year as well: rebuilding wrecked trucks for re-sale, and team roping.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of going to a rodeo, team roping is where two guys on horses chase down a steer, one of them ropes it around the horns and the other ropes one of it hind legs. When he first started out, B. wasn’t very good at roping steers so he would practice roping my horse, Rebel, or one of our barn cats, or any other moving or stationary target, including small children. The kids don’t mind though because whenever it snows, their dad will put a rope on their sled and pull them behind his horse (at speeds that make their mother a little nervous).

When B. got pretty good at roping this fall, he decided he needed his own steers to rope, so we are now owners of two calves. At first I threw a fit when he moved them in behind our barn. But they are so cute, I softened up (we only get to keep them for a few months, anyway, then they get moved to the ranch down the road from us).

Many blessings to you all for 2008.