Ahhh!

Buying my friend some tulips and a vase: Wonderful

Spending time with that friend and just talking: Wonderful

Going home with no plans for the rest of the day: Wonderful

Cuddling with the Husband and watching old Lost episodes online: Wonderful

A day without anxiety attacks: Priceless.

~B

Sufjan Stevens: Put The Lights On The Tree

HT: Darrin

I was introduced to Sufjan, by our friend, Darrin, years ago. We happily received the cd's and listened to them once or twice and then they sat on the shelf. Neither of us understanding or knowing what a gift this music would be to us.

Two years ago, D again gave us some more Sufjan, and since we were heading to his wedding in Cincinnati, we had the discs jamming in our van..... long story short: we fell in love for the first time with this incredible artist and his incredible and unique music.

His Christmas albums are sublime, like nothing you have ever heard. And well, the albums that we had received from D a long time ago are now listened to often.

Give him (Sufjan) a try sometime.

~B

Friends, or the Lack Thereof

My closest friend moved away in the beginning of April and now I am feeling it.

Up until now, I coasted along just fine. Occasionally shedding a few tears at this aspect of going on in this life without her right next to me. But now, I need someone to come and fill that void for me.

I don't mix well with others in this town. We have one set of close friends here that we enjoy thoroughly, but they have a large pool of friends that they can choose from. I want a pool of friends.... I realized yesterday that I am coveting their friends, something that I need to stop doing because it's showing my blatant disrespect to what the Lord has provided for me.

In my town, there doesn't seem to be other people like me and my husband. There's no one that homeschools their children, there is no one that is uber-interested in music and art. I sometimes feel like somehow we got transplanted here from a artsy community to a cowboy hang-out. No offense against cowboys, I just don't see where Hubby and I fit in.....anywhere around here.

We have friends that live in Illinois, but.....they live in Illinois. Meeting with them once or twice a year is euphoria for me and my spouse. These are people that are incredibly a lot like us. They enjoy the things that we enjoy. The enjoy a good theological discussion and good music and food. Where are all the other people around here that are like us?

I don't want to be greedy and take all the friends away from anyone. I just want to fit in somewhere, you know? I want to get together with friends a few times a month and talk about things that we are all interested in. I want to hang out with these imaginary friends at the local sushi bar. I want to be able to talk to these said friends and get into hot discussions about home-educating our children, all the while, still respecting each-other's opinions.

Friends, friends, where are you?

~B

You are Free.

You are there now.
God led you through this very difficult canyon.
May you be blessed beyond your dreams!
May you hang onto our Father!
Peace be with you, my friend!
I will be here waiting to hear from you.
Anxiously awaiting.

My very soul can't wait to see you in person again!

~B

Waiting....

I have a dear, dear friend here in town, and we have gotten closer and closer as time has passed.

Tomorrow they are moving.

I am really sad about it.

I have finally found a friend that loves me for who I am and for what I stand for.

I have finally found a friend who is real.

If she doesn't agree with something I say, she lets me know.

And I can do the same to her, cool, huh?

If I am sad, I call her for a listening ear; she does the same to me.

I don't want to let her go......

I don't want her to go.

But I have to let her go.

I want to enjoy this life and I want to enjoy it with her.

I have friends, but hardly any that I can truly be myself with.

She showed me that life is too dull not to have a true friend!

I am a very reserved person in some cases and with this person, I just can be me.

I don't have to go to bed at night worrying what she thought of me.

A while ago I read a "forward", those irritating things that we get in our e-mails that tell us if we "don't forward it now, you'll be sent to purgatory." (you get the point), and in that forward it talked about different kinds of friends. A true friend, an acquaintance friend, an "I say hi to you at the coffee" shop sort of friend and then one of the last categories is the "God-needed-you-to- be-in-my-life-at-this-very-specific-time-
but-now-you-have-to-go-Friend".

Aren't those the kinds of friends that are always the ones that you wish you could keep forever?

I will miss you, my friend, you have absolutely NO idea how much I needed you in my life.

I thank God for you!

I will miss you just stopping over to talk.

I will miss the openess with which we shared our hearts with each-other.

You have taught me to laugh hysterically at life and you have allowed me to share in some of your pain.

I so appreciate you.

May our arms be able to hug one another again.

And soon.

Exodus 3:8 "So I have come to rescue them from the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own good and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey......."

~B

Life Lessons that are hard

A while back, my dear firstborn son was looking and praying for a good friend.

I often encouraged him to search out friends, but with him being home-educated, his friends are mostly in another town and the "selection" of kids here is pretty limited since there aren't a ton of kids in this part of town.

So, like I was saying he was searching for a buddy that he could hang out with and there was this kid that would walk by our house everyday after school. He never had other friends hanging around him and so I figured that this was someone that my kids should pursue, and he did.

They hit it off the moment they met. They became fast friends. They camped in the backyard. Stayed up late laughing and cracking boy jokes. Skateboarded, snowboarded. They listened to music and sang along. This one kid became a huge part of our family.

He went to family functions with us, he would ride along to concerts with us, go skateboarding with my husband and my son, go out to eat with us; just the whole gamut of being part of this family.

We all really loved him, we really adored him, we had hoped that he would be in our family for years to come.

But it didn't work out that way.....

Last winter, he dropped out of Tae Kwon Do classes that he had been taking with our son. He stopped coming over as often. He would be friendly with our son, and then the next day not pay any attention to him.

He helped our son with his paper-route and half way through met up with some other kids and left, then the next week he did it again.

He started to change. It was so fast, it confused us all.

Then one day as he was walking past our house to go to school, my son asked him if he wanted to come over after school. This boy explained that he did something and so he couldn't come over because he was grounded...indefinitely.......

So, weeks went by and my son would go and talk to him as he walked by and he would ask him: "When will you be done being grounded?" The boy wouldn't ever give an answer, just saying that his mom had never told him when the grounding would stop.

Then, after about 5 weeks of that, the mother called stating that she would like our son to come over for this kids birthday party. I thought it was strange that the friend wasn't the one inviting him and I asked the mom if everything was okay between us and her family. She said that she didn't think that anything was wrong at all, just that the kid had been grounded for a week (!) and that the boy had had a little trouble hanging around the "wrong" kids at school.

A week. This kid had been telling us for FIVE weeks that he was grounded and straight out of his mom's mouth she said a week. Only a week.

So, we gently tried to break it to our son, that this kid was changing and that it was time for him to re-evaluate his friendship with him.

It was so hard on him. When we would say that the kid was trying to "break-away" from him, he just couldn't believe it. We told him that he was starting to hang around "wrong" kids at school and that it was causing him to have trouble. We allowed him to make the decision on whether he wanted to try and carry on a relationship with him.

So, spring came and there was still a thread of friendship left. This kid would come over randomly, not very often, but occassionally and they would play like nothing ever happened.

But then the swimming pool opened and my son would be there, and he would invite the boy to come, and he wouldn't go with him, but he would show up, and then ignore my son.

Ugh, the agony of having a friend like this. My son was so confused. So baffled at why this would be happening. We told him that it was ultimately his decision if he wanted to continue allowing this kid to be in his life.

So, after my son being ignored numerous times, the boy called two days in a row asking if he could come over. My son would put the receiver against his chest and look at me with questioning eyes as if to say, "What do I do Mom? What do I do with this?" I would lovingly pat him on his back and tell him quietly, "You need to make that decision." The very last time the boy called my son said, "It's just not going to work out." The boy never called again.

Over the summer, my son would have pangs of hurt from missing this very large piece of his life. There were many tears, a lot of healthy anger and so very, very much confusion.

Having a boy be such a huge piece of a family usually means that they leave stuff behind. A snowboard, a skateboard, a watergun. Those things sat in my son's room until yesterday. They had been a vital part of the relationship between my son and this boy. The lifeblood of boys. Those remnants of the relationship had been in my son's room long enough.

My husband, the leader that he is, told our son to write a letter to this boy. "Tell him that people grow, tell him that people change. Tell him that you have no hard feelings against him." They walked together, my husband and my son, with the items in their arms. Walked bravely up to the boys' front door and asked to speak to the boy. The mom and the boy watched as my husband spoke. He told them that he would often see the boy going to football practice and they he would always want to remember to bring back the boys stuff, and tonight seemed like the best night. They said their "See ya's" and they left.

My husband amazed me by doing this.

I don't know if this will make it harder for these two former friends to see each other, or easier, but it was the right thing to do.

As I went into my son's room to "tuck him in" he sobbed, just saying how he wished that he could still be friends with him. I held him close and let him know that everything works out for God's ways. That the Lord brought him this blessing of a friend and that we may never know why the blessing had to go away, but that we need to be thankful that we had such a blessed time with this one young man.

Oh how hard it all can be.

~B

Wedding Trip

I apologize for not posting for so long.

I have been busy, I guess.

We have been home now almost a week since our trip to Cincinnati and it was nice.

That's my son, who looked so handsome and grown-up in his suit and red silk tie.

While we were on the train headed to the wedding and I was tired and groggy, I wondered if all the traveling and cost was worth it. And then when I got to the wedding and saw our good, good friend, D, and I saw the wedding party and then his bride......., oh, I was so filled with happiness and love that I knew that it was all worth it. Tears rushed to my eyes and my heart swelled beyond belief. Ahh!

It was the nicest wedding I have ever been to, but it wasn't because they had spent zillions of dollars on flowers or dresses or limos. It was because I knew the two people getting married and I knew what a honorable and worthy man that bride was getting and even though I had only met the bride twice, I could just inherently tell from those two meetings with her, that God had blessed this union. It's so incredible when two people follow God's ways and then the blessings just come.

I love these two people that got married, so immensely. We only got to see them for that day really and now I miss them both terribly, they are both such incredible and loving people.

My life is so VERY, VERY blessed by them.


~B