The Party's Almost Over

 Wow. We played even more games, although most of them not for points. Steve basically dictated what we did. He's here so seldom that we pretty much let him choose the activities when he does come. Josh is happy to have family time that is more fun than just being here with me alone. I can't sustain the party atmosphere with just two people. Frankly I can't sustain the party atmosphere much longer than a couple of days. I was almost too tired from the cleaning to get the game board set up and organized, even though I'd planned it all way back in Decemeber. But I'm sure glad I did. Steve said he had a great time, and he had a chance to get some much-needed rest.

The prize board was pretty nearly cleared, although no one went for the gift cards, which surprised me a little bit. The numbers on the hooks are game points that have been exchanged for the prizes. However, that big stack of points on the upper left hook will be a donation to Peace Trees, as I explained last night.

We got the nicest family picture we've managed for years. Since Steve has this aversion to being posted on line, I cut out most of him, but you can see that it's a nice photo. The last family picture was in 2018. Of course the green background helps make a good picture.

Steve did let me take a picture of his Star Wars shirt.

Tomorrow morning, I take him back to the airport.

Omer said he might just sit at the dining room table for a while to enjoy looking at the cleaned area. I said all that open space was just screaming for me to start another project. So goes our lives.

See Game Day!

Got Him!

 The kiddo is here, and we ate at the clean table. Om says we better do that quick before I start another project. I forgot that Steve has decided he doesn't like pictures, but he'll have to let me take a few because I'm the mom.

None of us like the same foods (and there are a lot of things Josh can't eat), so I just baked a bunch of potatoes and put them out with toppings. I did make a mixed fruit bowl that went over well, too. So the meal was a success.

No writing, editing, or even opening of the book file happened. And, probably nothing is going to happen yet tonight. I am totally beat. Steve had to get up early to catch his plane, so he already went to bed. The biggest treat for him of this week will be not having to go to work. He says the best part is "no meetings." Omer went to bed because he had to leave his conference early to get Steve at the airport and then drive home. So I'm the "last one standing" at only 7:30 pm!

See Fun and Games

Thinking about Adoption

A former President of Youth for Christ, Dan Wolgemuth, writes an essay every Friday that is always thoughtful and interesting. His father was President when we were with YFC, and I went to college with most of his siblings. His mother and I were good friends.

Yesterday, Dan wrote about Joseph. Joseph of the Christmas story. He points out that we are told very little about Joseph. The lineage of Joseph back to King David is given. Even though Joseph was the adoptive father, that heritage was important enough to include in Scripture. In these days of easy DNA testing, perhaps we focus too much on the biological.

Dan makes some interesting statements. He points out that Joseph was the "non-biological father to the son of the most high. He was the bread winner to the bread of life." These statements echo the mystical thoughts in the song "Mary Did You Know?" For example, "This child that you've delivered will soon deliver you." (Also resonating in my thoughts is C.S. Lewis' stable scene in The Last Battle. It's a bunny trail here, but it's in Chapter 13 "How the Dwarves Refused to be Taken In" if you are curious.)

I have no idea about legal documentation in the Roman Empire, but Joseph functionally adopted Jesus. I'm sure the baby was counted in the census which they went to Bethlehem to fulfill. Adoption has a good reputation in the Bible. In fact, there are five times in the New Testament when we are told that we have the status of being adopted by God. In context, these adoptions are contrasted to being slaves and to being "stuck" in physical bodies (perhaps a reference to the fact that as children of God we are spiritual not physical beings). Also, the Jews are promised that they will be redeemed from the law and be adopted. The most general reference is Ephesians 1:5 where we are told that before the foundation of the world we were chosen to be adopted!

I think adoption is one of the ultimate ways in which we are given the opportunity to live in the image of God. God does things that are counter to our human nature. He forgives. He loves with genuine altruism (our love is usually tainted with a least partially selfish motives). He adopts. He elevates us to sons and daughters the second we agree to accept that arrangement. Of course, we can also reject that offer.

I'm not in any way attempting to elevate our family's journey to the same plane as God's adoption. But yet, chosing to become a functional parent, to love a child who does not carry my DNA is one of the ways I've learned so much more about how God loves me.

Before baby Steve joined us, we had this glimpse.



Two years later, we received one bad Polariod picture of Joshua (and his cat) to see what our middle son would look like.

We later received a few pictures of Josh taken in Vietnam.

Dan points out that Joseph was called to live in humility, to be courageous and offer selfless support. Not the role we often desire.

But Dan's phrase that will stick with me the longest is, "None of us will be like Mary. But we can all be like Joseph."

See My Little Squirt is 39 See Joshua Turns 40

Breaking the Rules

  We had a non-traditional Thanksgiving today, and that was just fine. The trailer table is still on sawhorses in the kitchen and it made a lovely table. We had dinners delivered by Radiant Church. We got an apple pie from the Reformed Church and a pumpkin pie from Meijer. Omer bought a large tub of "super-food salad" from Meijer for me. It was perfect. Joshua joined us for the meal.

After that we had a Skype call with Steve. Can you believe I didn't hit print screen? Bummer. But we had a nice chat with him. He hasn't been here for 2 years. And he doesn't like to talk, so this was a real treat.

We also ended up having a discussion of how often we "break the rules" for Thanksgiving. Thanks to the blog, I was able to look back on a lot of years. Just for the record, last year I did cook. We have done take-out a couple of times. It looks like the last year I cleaned the dining room and fixed a classic turkey was 2013. That's OK too. I did fix a turkey for Christmas dinner at the newspaper one of the years I worked there.

I do get to cross off a big item. The last time Steve was here, he requested that I make him some cloth shopping bags. Procrastinator that I am, they are just getting done. I wanted to ask him one question before finishing them, and I did that during our call. Now there are 2 of these, ready to send. I suppose I shouldn't cross it off until they are in the mail, but I can add "mail the bags" to the list of small items.

And I get to have pie for breakfast again tomorrow. We "broke the rules" this morning and cut the pies before the main meal so we could have pie for breakfast today too! After all... who made the rule that you can't eat the pie early? (Probably I did, back when it would have been completely gone before the real meal.)

In other news: I worked on that final difficult project in the trailer a little bit, but mostly I sewed. Steve's bags were a BIG ITEM, and I did one other small one. 14 BIG ITEMS to complete or drop (48 done). Tons of small ones to do (59 done). 5 days to go.

Now, it's back to the sewing machine for me.

See Thanksgiving Threesome

A Rediscovered Treasure

  While I was looking for something else yesterday, I found some fabric things that had been stored away that actually aren't ruined. One of the bags had some bedding I'd made for the youth bed Steve slept in for several years.

Let me tell you a funny story about that...

When he was under two years old, we would be awakened in the morning by this toddler trying to climb into bed with us. This was pretty strange, since he'd been put to sleep in a crib in a different room, and the side of the crib was still up. One morning, I got up really early to spy on this little escape artist. He was simply climbing up the corner of the crib (not an easy task with no cross bars between the uprights), balancing on the top rails and then dropping to the floor.

Yikes! OK, we had a frame for a small youth bed. It was only a foot off the floor, not four feet. Much safer!

I made one set of sheets for it from some kid-patterned fabric. Also made a flannel blanket from an old one we had. I decorated the patches with machine embroidery. We really didn't have any money.

But what I want to show you is something my Mom, Catherine Leary, had made for Steve. She embroidered the edging on a crib sheet and pillowcase set for him when we got him (at six months of age). Bunnies! The sheet is on the right, and I angled the pillowcase on the left.

Why was this not worn out, you ask? Well, there's another funny story. Except it was more frustrating than funny when it was happening. For a long time- quite a few months- when Steve was maybe 9 to 12 or 13 months old, he refused to keep anything on his body or in the crib with him. He'd be put to bed with a triple diaper, pajamas, crib bumpers, sheets, blankets, etc. In the morning, there would be a completely bare-naked baby in a puddle on the plastic mattress cover and EVERYTHING else would be on the floor. So, the sheets didn't get much wear.

The youth bed was the same width, just longer, so I added some fabric to the end of the crib sheet, and opened out the pillowcase and added a larger backing. Here you can see the handiwork closer.

This is rather remarkable, because Mom didn't often do handiwork. She did some needlepoint, but mostly she felt inferior because her mother, Granny, did SO MANY kinds, and of such high quality. I know I didn't appreciate how much love Mom probably put into this project for the only grandchild she got to enjoy in babyhood.

In other news: I edited in the morning, went to the Post Office, and worked on a pet project in the afternoon.

See Little Squirt See Sunbonnet Sue

Fun and Games

 
It's all fun and games until somebody has to go home, right? I managed to forget to take the traditional family picture, but we got one of the boys and me playing games. We did Mille Bornes- this year's favorite, but we did Sorry, Sniggle, and Old Maid, too. And Steve has developed an aversion to having his picture taken. I'm not sure what that's about, but I can't make people do what they won't do.



I set up a simple puzzle, because last year Steve actually wanted to do one. This year, I did it all, but Steve likes to time me to see how fast I can do one. We didn't time the whole thing, but I managed to do 100 pieces (of the 300) somewhere in the middle of completion in 50 minutes. Doesn't seem very fast, but usually I'm the fastest puzzle-doer.



Omer is taking Steve to the airport in the morning, and I'll be off to a book sales event. Over too soon, but it's been great.

In other news: I did get some editing and formatting done before Steve got up, and I went to the bank.

	See Packing It All In
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Packing It All In

 
We are packing two holidays into three days, and packing in the food too!



Since the dining room is totally unusable for dining, we set up a small table in the living room, and had a yummy meal. Winner! We found 5 menu items that everyone was willing to eat, and they are OK with leftovers tomorrow, too. We had a pork roast, mashed potatoes, peas, squash, applesauce, and cranberry relish. Nothing fancy. Pretty easy to fix.

Then we played some of the games we do well together. Omer agreed to one round of Sorry (definitely not his favorite), which he won, so he shouldn't gripe too much! Steve and I have been playing Mille Bornes quite a bit.



Then we did a group game with a hugely wrapped package with one tiny treat in the middle. Each person has a turn to unwrap as long as the music is playing. Oh, but the unwrapper has to wear bulky awkward gloves! This was a real hit, and Joshua won, getting the cash prize.



We did Christmas stockings, and ordered gifts for each other from the internet. Not my fondest template for Christmas, but I'll take what I can get. It's really nice to have Steve home.

	See Food and Fun 2018
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A Trip Back to April 1975

 
I picked up a free book that is volume one in one of those series that you bought one of at a time, forever. But I'm happy to have this one. The series is The Vietnam Experience, and this volume is called "Setting the Stage."

It begins with the end. The final days of Saigon.

Some of you may remember, some not, two of our boys are Vietnamese and they both came from Saigon during those last days.

This picture was in the book- orphans boarding a C-130 cargo plane. This is not the flight that either Steve or Joshua came on, this flight was later, one of the very last to leave Vietnam, but to me it's still poignant.



Steve's paperwork was actually in order. We'd been working at his adoption for months, and it just happened that he was ready to be moved in that month. We had been told he'd be leaving Vietnam on either April 4 or 5, 1975. You might remember there was a DC-10 full of orphans that crashed on April 4. One of the doors blew off. The pilot managed to crash land, but 78 people died. We did not know for hours if Steve had been on that flight. Then we finally got word that he was on the next flight, and we picked him up in Chicago on April 6. He was only 6 months old. We expected a tiny waif and got a healthy hunk- he'd been in foster care since he was 10 days old.

Although he's older, Joshua did not come to live with us until 1977, and he was one of those kids that was just stuffed in planes at the last minute with no proper paperwork. But he would have been very much the size of the child in the middle of that picture, maybe a little smaller. He was extremely thin and malnourished.

So that's my quality item for today. If I could pick only one foreign country to visit, I would like to see Vietnam now. Neither of the boys has any interest.

In other news: I wrote in the morning, but not on the book. The afternoon was intolerably humid. I figured up how many sheets of plywood, insulation, etc I need for the trailer, and then worked on one of my never-ending sorting projects for a couple of hours.

	See My Little Squirt See Joshua
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Arrived-Yes, Alive-?

 
We have Steve! That said, I think all of us look like we need to get to bed soon. We all got up earlier than we like.



Unbelievably, he hadn't been home since 2011, so we haven't seen him for seven years. I kept saying five, but it was longer. SO nice to have him here.

I read the time wrong for his arrival so was at the airport WAY too early. Then the airline changed his flight number (but he didn't know it, and the desk said that flight number did not exist) and arrival times anyway, but even though I went shopping I did get back to the airport just as he was actually coming in. It was sort of a comedy of errors, but we connected.

Managed to buy a couple of craft things I needed that I couldn't get locally, so that was good.

There were three pictures I would have liked to take to show you but I was going 70mph on the freeway as my mind captured them. I'll just have to tell you instead.

1. I looked to my right in the low early morning light and a red-tail hawk was just landing on a branch with his back to me. His wings and tail were spread and the tail was glowing a bright rusty red.

2. A golf course was coated with frost and a few black leafless trees stood naked against the frosty, glistening whiteness. Very spectral.

3. A grove of young oaks, still holding on to their brown leaves were backlit with the morning sun making the edges glow a golden taffy color.

You'll have to settle for the word pictures.

In other news: The trip to Grand Rapids is pretty much all. I'm trying to get a few promotional materials printed before I pass out.

	See 2011
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I'll Take a Slice of That Please!

 
Coming home from work this morning there was one slice of a feature that was so compelling I stopped at a place I could see it better. I had to lie down in the wet grass to get a picture with no wires across the face. And the focus isn't great.



I took more photos when I got home, with a tripod, but by then the moon was high enough that the orange color was about gone. It only takes five minutes to make all the difference!



By the way, if you want to remember which "direction" the moon phase is headed, try "right rising, left leaving." This means when the crescent is on the right side the moon is waxing (heading toward full). When the crescent is on the left, like this one, the moon is waning (heading toward new or dark).

And, it ended up that I did take a picture yesterday, after I did the blog post game. The sunset was peaceful in pastels. Nothing gaudy, but beautiful in its own way.



In other news, little Steve turned 43 today. I called him. He's celebrating by having the flu, poor guy! But we did have a nice talk.

	See My Sweetheart's the Man in the Moon for a waxing crescent moon See My Little Squirt is 39
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C is for Camping (joke of the week)

 
Regular readers know that I'm a bit nuts about camping, so how can it be the biggest joke of the week?

Yesterday somebody knocked on the door. It was the wife of Steve's former Scoutmaster. Keep in mind that Steve is now 37. She rolled her eyes and said, "I really have to apologize. I was cleaning ____'s desk, and found some undelivered badges. So here's Steve's Camping Badge, about 25 years late." We had a great laugh about it.


The real joke is how little anyone here likes to camp, except me.

Here's a lesson for you youngsters. Om and I discussed camping before marriage. He said he liked it. I knew I liked it. Oops... be sure to talk about definitions. He calls it camping when you drive around in one of those metal houses on wheels. So not...

Anyway, we did go family camping three times. They were not outstanding successes. However, with the practiced eye of a mother determined to come home with happy pictures for the photo album, I bring you Camping in 1979. (Steve is the little guy with marshmallow on his face, Josh is still burning his.)






The bottom line is, Josh did not like being dirty. Omer does not like being cold or outdoors that much. Steve tolerated it all much better, but given choices he didn't want to camp either, once the Scouting years were over.

Me... well, most of you know me... the farther out, the better. (on the Border Route, 2009) I will skip the marshmallow on my face, though.

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Joshua Turns 40!

 




This is another of those kinda personal posts. But it was totally clouded in this morning, so no sunrise and no precise Kitchenhenge. Therefore, you get to share in the other big event of the day. Joshua's 40th birthday. (Well, unless you want to call the fact that his refrigerator died the big event.) We took him to Ponderosa for lunch to celebrate (the birthday, not the dead refrigerator).



Josh is the middle son, although he was the last to join the family. Here we all are, on February 4, 1977, when we first met him. He came to us with basically what you see here: the clothes on his back, a cat in a carrier, a huge cookie that his foster family helped him make for us, one paper grocery sack of toys (not pictured), and one suitcase of clothes. Oddly enough, the suitcase in the picture is not his. Funny how I just noticed that anomaly. I guess this one must belong to the social worker that traveled with him on the airplane.

Here is my all time favorite picture of Josh. In true grown-up guy fashion, he hates it, but that's ok. I'm the mom, and I get to like it anyway. It was his school picture in the fall of 1977, just about 7 months after joining our family.

We were going to buy him shoes today, but given the appliance issue, gave him the option of a used refrigerator. That was his choice, so we spent an hour hunting the area for a used one. No luck at all, but we've put in his name with all the charities, and asked to be called if any of the stores get one in. So after all that, we took him home with no shoes and a bar fridge from our storage shed.

Oh, the little munchkin being held by dad is Steve. We pick him up at the airport tomorrow night, so you might get to meet him in the next few days, if he doesn't object. Sam is on the right. We don't really see him any more.

The Path to My Kitchen Door

In summer the grass
Is worn down to the earth;
That sandy, brown scar
Makes the lawn lose its worth.

In fall, broken sticks
Dropped by dogs can be found:
A hazard for mowing
Or walking around.

In winter my lovely
Ski path's full of dents.
Large "post holes" from boot steps
Cause me to lament.

In spring, that brown stripe
Just refuses to green;
No matter the season
It always is seen.

I foolishly wish
For suburban green lawn.
But if that were mine,
Oh! What would be gone?

"Hi Mom, I just came
For the phone," or "I locked
Myself out again; Where's
The spare key? I forgot."

"Hey, thanks for the help,
Mom, I love you, you know.
Shall I bring in the paper,
Or shovel some snow?"

Should I trade a hug
For green carpet galore?
No. I'll cherish that path
To my kitchen door.

by J.H. Young (sharkbytes)

See My Low-Budget Black Taco Ad See The Point of My Quality Day for more pictures of Josh