Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Emily, Emily

Life is difficult. There are too many issues, concerns, & just plain stuff for this little soul to handle. God spoke to my poor little soul tonight at church.

The speaker, who I only got to hear the last bit of because it was a Saw You at the Pole rally which started at 6 and I thought normal church started at 7,.... anyway.

The speaker used these two verses.
Luke 10:41-42 "But the Lord answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her."

He said that "portion" here referred to the idea of "enough".

This made me think of my favorite song, "His Eye is on the Sparrow"
"Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Why should my heart be lonely? And long for Heaven and Home? When Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is He. His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me."

In so many ways, I am like Martha. I like to plan everything, iron out every single wrinkle... OCD perhaps. Life, however, is not like that. I can't make everything work. I have no power to. I can't solve the world's problems. It is not in me.

I can, however, sit at the feet of the One who has all power and is the answer to the world's problems. This stubborn, worry-filled Martha chooses to be Mary. I WILL sit at His feet. Yes, my eyes may dart to the dust on the shelves, the meal to be prepared, the problem to be fixed, but I will train them back on the One who is my portion, who is enough.

Lord, help me stay here at Your feet.

Love,
"Mary"

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Mending the Soil

Ok. So I quarantined myself today... nothing serious.... just a low grade temp last night. I think it's probably sinus mess. However, I always get frustrated when sick people come out in public to share their germs so I have prescribed uber liquids for today and will stay away from people. Also, there is no telling what I've been exposed to... the joys of public librarianship ;o) (I love my job though)


Anyway....I turned on the tv while I was eating my lunch of Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup w/ club crackers. :) I caught the end of a sermon being preached on the parable of the sower. He was talking about a "cultivated heart".

This reminded me of something a patron said a few months ago (about gardening):"You've got to mend the soil."


It takes work. We've got to seek Him, His word, and His will.


But He is faithful..... "And those who know Your name will put their trust in You, For You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You." Psalm 9:10


Our seeking will not go unanswered.


The preacher also mentioned the fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5, something which has been on my heart lately.


It is my prayer that He will mend my soil/soul and cultivate the fruits of the Spirit in me. All praise to Him for His wonderful faithfulness!


Thursday, September 10, 2009

A Bumper Crop of White Paint

Mrs. Alva is one of the absolute sweetest people God has ever placed on this earth. Her driveway, however, is pure evil. (see diagram)

Ellen, Anne, & I went to see Mrs. Alva the other day. Ellen drove. The visit was great despite the fact that Anne whispered to me the entire hour. :P It got time to leave so we got our Mrs. Alva hugs and left. Ellen had to move the van halfway through the visit and ended up parking here. (see diagram)



Now along this treacherous driveway is a cute little white fence. (see diagram)

Here's how things went......


Anne: ::incessant talking::
Ellen: (working on backing the van up) This isn't working. I'm about to hit the fence.

Anne:: chatter

Emily: Turn the wheel like this ::mimics rotating the wheel in the air after contemplating carefully::
Ellen: Arghhh

Anne: chatter

Emily: Anne ::full name:: no more talking till we get to the main road.

Anne: Emily ::full name:: What's the main road?

Emily: Anne

Anne: WHAT'S THE MAIN ROAD???

Ellen: Argghhh


::Bump::
::Scrape::

Ellen: Unhhh
Emily: It's ok.... just pull back up.... straighten up...
Anne: What's the main road????
Emily & Ellen: ANNE!!


So, we make it to the Pig, Ellen gets out to go in, but takes a glance at the bumper beforehand. The face says it all.

We make it home and look at the front bumper.... oh ho..... we should have taken a picture.... a huge white paint scrape from the front left of the bumper down the side of it.

We go inside. Mom's there. Ellen starts this... "everything's ok..." which just freaks Mom out more. Mom tells Ellen that Ellen is responsible for telling Dad.

Ellen & I get old towels, wet them down, and start to work on cleaning the paint off the bumper. It works quite well actually. We then make a sign for the door which reads "No farm animal zone. Thanks, The Children"

See, whenever something like this happens we state that the parent is going to have a farm animal and the child will be responsible for its care.

Dad comes home, walks through the house, finally returns to the living room where we are all awaiting the reveal. (I even got up from my nap to see this!!)


Ellen: So, how was work?
The rest except for Dad: ::snicker::
Dad: It was ok.
Ellen: Can I get you anything?
Dad: catches on that something is up
Ellen: Mountain Dew?

Dad: I had one on the way home thanks.

snickering continues

Nathan: Perhaps I could dust your head? (from Cool Runnings)

snickering increases

Emily: So we went to Mrs. Alva's today

Mom loses it

Ellen: She was doing good.

Emily: Her fence is too.

Mom continues to lose it


The situation is explained.... Dad walks out and, even though the man has been told that the paint was only on the front left bumper, he walks to the back of the van first without even looking at the front bumper. Nathan and I watch from the safety of the house. Ellen doubles over laughing or bemoaning Dad's reaction... not sure. Dad finally comes back to the front of the van and inspects.

After they get back in the "maybe this will make you more careful" "I am careful" discussion ensues.
Good times, good times.

Mississippi Em and the Archwire of Doom

Yet again the presence of medication and pain and the absence of sleep provides interesting results....
"Ode" to an Archwire
Oh 16/22, why do you hate me so?
If you didn't like my little teeth
You should have just said "No."

But, no, you heavy gauge archwire
You let them jab you in
Mere resistence wasn't enough and
You let the pain begin.

But I will not be bested
By some silly little wire
Though, with sinus pressure mounting,
The situation seems quite dire.

No, I will not sit and moan.
Well, maybe a little pout
And compose a little poem
Cause one day, you'll be out!

<3 Emily

Fewer meds, more sleep

So, my mouth was hurting something ferocious last night thanks to the new arch wire they put in. I took some sinus meds to relieve the pressure and aleve to attack the pain.


Somewhere in the middle of the night I had this 5 second dream. I was just awake enough to think "WHAT????"


Setting: Pirate facedown in a pool of blood (the pirate physically looks like your generic pirate but is wearing clothes quite similar to Captain Barbosa) I am standing over him.


The pirate is dying slowly and quite painfully. He asks me to roll him over and stab him in the heart to stop his suffering. I roll him over and with this spear/stake thingy I just so happen to have on my person, I stab him.... in the right side of his chest.


He looks at me, in even more pain, but no closer to death and says "Seriously???"


Goal: Less pain, fewer meds, more sleep

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Anne and the never-ending strangeness

Anne is a strange kid. All these were said in less than 24 hours.

Anne: Hey Hey Hey Hey (in response to me trying to spread the butter out on her roll instead of leaving it in one big pat that she could just bite)

Anne: Oh. Here you are. I thought you were dead.
Me: No.
Anne: Are you going to die today?
Me: Not that I know of.
Anne: But you might?
Me: Probably not.
Anne: Ok.

(Mom had prayed for our food and prayed that Anne would continue to grow up to be more like God)
Anne: I don't think I'll ever be as old as He is.
(Mom clarified)

Anne: I was excited about butter.

Anne: Mom, you owe me a dog.
Mom: I don't owe you anything.
Anne: You owe me a dog.
Mom: You wouldn't be able to take care of it, to walk it.
Anne: I would walk it.
Mom: You can't even go outside by yourself.
Anne: I would walk him and you could go with me.
Me: If she was going to do that she would just walk the dog.
Ellen: I didn't get a dog until I was 12.
Anne: Mom, may I get a dog when I'm twelve?
Mom: We'll talk about it when you're twelve and if it can stay out of the way of my wheelchair.
Anne: It will.

Anne: Yay for home for saving our lives from not sleeping on the street........at night.

Anne: What's personality?
(we explain)
Anne: I think that's what I have.

Oh boy does she..... never dull but quite often maddeningly talkative. :D

Stupid people....

*written March 8, 2009*

Sunday School this morning referenced Isaiah 5. It talked about how God (my well-beloved) felt about His chosen Israel (the vineyard).

"Let me sing now for my well-beloved

A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard.

My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.

He dug it all around, removed its stones,

And planted it with the choicest vine.

And He built a tower in the middle of it

And also hewed out a wine vat in it;

Then He expected it to produce good grapes,

But it produced only worthless ones.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,

Judge between Me and My vineyard.

What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it?

Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?....

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel

And the men of Judah His delightful plant.

Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed;

For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress."

Isaiah 5:1-4, 7

STUPID ISRAEL!!!! YOU MAKE NO SENSE!!!! God had done so much for you. He delivered you from Egypt. He gave you provision even in the worst of places. He lead you to a land He had chosen for you. STUPID STUPID ISRAEL!! What more could He have done than He had already done? Why, when you had seen all this did you still produce nothing but worthlessness? Why, when you have seen His provision did you grumble? Oops.

STUPID STUPID EMILY!!!!! YOU MAKE NO SENSE!!!! God has done so much for you. He has delivered you from so many things. He has shown His lovingkindness to you in even the worst of times. He has blessed you with a life full of wonderful people and things. STUPID STUPID EMILY!! What more can He do than He has already done? Why, when you have seen all this do you still produce nothing but worthlessness? Why, when you have seen such blessings do you gripe and complain?

Forgive my wandering, complaining, wayward ways.

Cool quotes

Because Madeleine L'Engle is a deep thinker.....

Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.

We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts.

That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along.

So I go to church, not because of any legalistic or moralistic reasons, but because I am a hungry sheep who needs to be fed; and for the same reason that I wear a wedding ring: a public witness of a private commitment.

Are anybody's parents typical?

We're afraid to be human because if we're human we might get hurt. When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability.... To be alive is to be vulnerable.

It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand.


Because J.K. Rowling is an awesome writer.....

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.

Humans have a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for them.

If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.

It is our choices... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.

Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.

Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.

Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!


Because Jane Austen knows....

If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.

Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.


Because Tolkien is cool like this.....

"The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater."

"Never laugh at live dragons"

"... in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

"I will not say, Do not weep, for not all tears are an evil. "

"[Fairy tale] does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat...giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy; Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief."

"It's a dangerous business going out your front door."

Drei Ringe den Elbenkönigen hoch im Licht,
Sieben den Zwergenherrschern in ihren Hallen aus Stein,
Den Sterblichen, ewig dem Tode verfallen, neun,
Einer dem Dunklen Herrn auf dunklem Thron
Im Lande Mordor, wo die Schatten drohn.
Ein Ring, sie zu knechten, sie alle zu finden,
Ins Dunkel zu treiben und ewig zu binden
Im Lande Mordor, wo die Schatten drohn

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by frost.

25 things you were probably better off not knowing...


1. I am stubborn as ALL GET OUT! For the most part however, it is cleverly disguised. :)


2. I am a librarian, but I read VERY slowly (but thoroughly enjoy it)


3.I love World War II history (the people side of it - you know, the personal stories)


4. My big brother fell on my arm when I was little and fractured my arm. We were sliding.


5.I can cook....I just usually choose not to.


6. My hair doesn't curl.... it lumps....and poofs.


7. I was a My Little Pony dictator when I was younger....there were certain ones that I WOULD NOT share. I am ashamed....


8. I am actually kinda smart alecky..... it just usually goes on in my head instead of being verbalized.


9. I have almost no tolerance for benadryl....I once took two and was barely able to sit upright. :)


10. My favorite animal is strange. I love moose.


11. I've recently wondered why those in the deer family have the same form for singular and plural. (s) deer (pl) deer; (s) elk (pl) elk; (s) moose (pl) moose; (s) caribou (pl) caribou.... please prove me wrong on this...


12. Right as I was going under to have my wisdom teeth taken out, the nurse was trying to adjust the iv and had it wrong.... the doctor was like "no... do it like this"... I was too out of it to say anything....all I could think was "MOM! They don't know what they're doing!!"


13. I could spend hours browsing through the cool kitchen stuff at Bed, Bath, & Beyond. (strange considering that I don't usually choose to cook)


14. When I'm stressed I play the piano..... loudly.


15. I really like listening to The Everly Brothers, but I also like David Cook, Matchbox 20, and Michael Card (look him up).


16. I was a teacher's assistant in first grade for almost an entire year... it wore me down.


17. I have been called "Trash"


18. My favorite time of year is when the first fall breeze comes in....it makes me feel alive. :D


19. I love new school supplies.


20. In my lifetime I have had 3 pet rabbits, 3 cats, 1 dog, one of those spring colored baby chickens, and a parakeet.


21. I once helped my brothers in trying to dig a tunnel under our fort to the side of the hill.... We got in trouble...


22. We also tried to dig a cellar type thing in the front yard. Also got us in trouble...


23. I was the original princess in the Animal Army. But I was one of the cool princesses that could fight... and I ran the general store for the Animal Army.


24. The Animal Army was something my siblings and I made up to play outside. We fought with sticks and did training manuevers on the swingset.


25. Sometimes to help me fall asleep.....I pretend I am walking through a store and buying different things. I have to visualize the shelf, aisle, and the product. I also have to have some purpose for picking that product. Weird, but it works.


Disturbed? You should be.

Sunday mornings at homehome

.....are interesting.

Here are some things said while getting ready for church.
Be warned... you are about to enter frightening territory.
The things you are about to read are not for the faint of heart.

"That's why they're called tights!"

"Have I moved to New York? Have I left you here like this?"

"You're naked."Disclaimer: This was said to a male member of the household who, in fact, was completely dressed for church except for his shirt.

"Brushing hair is not a once-a-week event!"

"Want to see me wrestle?"

"Peanut Butter?!? For breakfast?"

"He's moving!!!!"

"Are these pants wrinkled?""No.""I guess I'm just wrinkled."

"I was lettin' in sunlight so y'all would know where to go."

"Are y'all leaving late?"

See, I warned you....

Anne, Apricots, & a New President

*written on January 20, 2009*
Today I was trying to convey the importance of the inauguration to my 4-year-old sister...
here's how it went...

Me: Obama is going to be president today

Anne: Who? Barack Obama?

Me: Yeah

Anne: Eeeee!!! I think he makes good choices.

Me: Let's hope so.

Anne: Well, for the economy at least.

Me: He's..we've had a bunch of presidents and he's the first one that is black - which is cool

Anne: Yeah. I think all the other ones were apricot.

Me: Yeah, they were white.

Anne: Like us?

Me: Yeah.

Anne: Ok. I'm going back to my coloring now.

Somehow, I think that some of the importance of the event was lost...

I'm walking, yes indeed....

*written August 2, 2008*
Ok...so I learned something today...involuntarily.
FACT: It takes me exactly 10 minutes to walk to work. (somehow that seems very Dwight Schrute-esque there)

This was not a discovery I was eager to make. Especially since part of it involves a highway. It started when I got ready for work early (thank goodness). I went out to my car and cranked it...it died immediately. I cranked it again...it died immediately again. I tried a third time and no cranking....just a pathetic *click* sound. It did this the other day. (The other day I cleaned the battery posts and it cranked right up.) Well, the battery posts were still clean, there was nothing I could do right then regarding the car, and I had to be at work in 25 minutes.

So in this wonderful "feels like 97" degree weather, I started walking. The journey began on the highway on which cars zoom past much faster than they should considering they have entered city limits. The second half of the expedition is on a road just off the highway which intersects with one of the city's main roads. It is on the corner of this "off-road" and main road that work sits. Well, 10 minutes and many sweat droplets later (my elbow was sweating it was so hot outside), I make it to work. Even though the air is not working, it feels SO much better inside! Now if that wasn't enough...I was working on a teen display yesterday based on the idea of having a "license to read". I had printed out part of the bulletin board stuff, but my printer was out of color ink. I had left what I had printed out on the desk in the office. So, when I walked in this morning, one of the first things I saw was "No Car? No Gas?"...I laughed.

Never a dull moment,
Emmy

A wonderful poem

Finding this poem is one of my favorite things from all those assignments from school
--------------------------------------------------
Famous
by Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and is not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
--------------------------------------