10 Things I Like About Mom

Mother's Day doesn't seem like a holiday for me. It's all about MY mother (as if, after 25 years of motherhood, I don't quite have the "mother" identity yet). She is the most special woman in my life, the one I adore the most, the one I'd choose to spend time with over all others.

I don't say it often enough: I just love her to pieces, and here are a mere ten reasons why (I don't have space here for the other 3 million):

1. Her kind and caring heart. I don't know anyone else who cares so very deeply about people. Her prayer list must be endless, because she doesn't just promise to pray when you ask her, she really does. She takes on the cares and worries of others in a way that makes you feel truly loved. She has the gift of crying with those who mourn and rejoicing with those who are glad.

2. Her deep spirituality. I've known about God since shortly after my birth, because Mom made sure we kids were in Sunday School and church several times a week. But more than that, she has always modeled a relationship with Jesus and a trust and faith in God that I made sure I had for myself. Her example has helped me to worry less and believe more.

3. Her wit. Mom is fun to be around. She sees the irony in situations that would pass most people by, and her sense of humor ranges from an appreciation of the absurd to an enjoyment of silly stories. When she emails me something funny, I know it'll be worth checking out.

4. Her intelligence. Scott and I joke that Mom provides tech support for the entire community of Lyle, but we aren't far off the truth. She continues to learn and master technology, contraptions, and inventions. Some of my earliest and favorite memories are playing word games with her, and I give her a lot of credit for my love of learning.

5. Her love for growing things. There is hardly a houseplant or garden flower, shrub, or bulb she can't coax into full beauty. Her green thumb is evident in her shelves of blooming African violets and front and back yards full of dozens of varieties of flowers. She transformed a barren hillside into an oasis. I always try to take a tour of the gardens when I visit, to see what's new and what's in bloom.

6. Her patience. When one 3-year-old boy tells another, "She doesn't yell at you when you spill things," you know you're in the presence of someone special. Things like spilled milk or a broken vase simply don't upset her because, as she says, "What will it matter in five years?" People young and old feel comfortable in her home because she doesn't stress over perfection. People come first, not things.

7. Her optimism. Mom's philosophy has long been that it's better to be an optimist because worrying doesn't change anything anyway (she has a better way of saying it). My often-fearful heart is comforted by knowing that Mom has set a grand example of trusting the Lord to take care of things. And it's not just lip service; she truly lives her belief.

8. Her generosity and selflessness. If you needed it, Mom would literally give you the shirt off her back. She is always on the lookout for things other people might want, things she can share, and things she can give away. More than that, she responds in a practical way when she hears about a need. If it's possible for her to meet it or to help in any way, she will do it.

9. Her perseverance. Mom is like a pit bull when it comes to getting things done. She is the best I've seen at following up on everything from technical issues to people issues. Problems others would drop as too complex are a challenge she embraces, and it's rare for her to not be successful. I love hearing her stories about working through difficulties!

10. Her ability to enjoy and understand children. Mom must have been one of the best kindergarten teachers ever, because her former students, now in their 30s, 40s and beyond, are still coming up to her to visit and reminisce. She's definitely one of the best-ever grandmothers, beloved by my children and her other grandchildren, along with great nieces, great nephews, and basically any child that comes into her presence. She is a loving grandma who sings, plays, reads books, cuddles, laughs, and can relate to the children in her life.

Thanks, Mom, for giving me the gift of YOU and for teaching me how to be a godly woman, kind and generous, spiritual, optimistic (still working on that one), a lover of flowers and children, giving, and determined. You are the best mother God could have given me, and I'm so very grateful.

Love,
Jenny

50 Ways to Freeze Your Lover

Did you ever talk someone into doing something and then feel really stupid when it backfired on you?

Yesterday I decided Scott and I needed to walk half a mile to our mailbox and back. We've done this a few times lately, and it's felt good to get out in the fresh air. Plus I've turned into Jabbette the Hut over the winter months, so I NEED to walk.

I pulled my husband off the oh-so-comfortable couch, purring and persuading and cajoling. "Pleeeeeease? Take a walk with me, it'll be fun."

Being a gentleman who can't refuse his lady anything she really wants, but complaining under his breath that it was too darn cold, he arose and reached into the closet for a coat. This action was significant, because Scott doesn't wear coats, even during winter. "Too warm," he says. But he took a look outside, told me I was nuts, and put on his heaviest jacket.

I, being uncharacteristically optimistic, told him it was a beautiful April afternoon and no, the rain wouldn't catch us, and those clouds didn't look at all threatening, and did he want a hat? He declined.

We walked the quarter mile toward our mailbox, feeling the wind at our backs, and Scott (who is an optimist's optimist) declared that it was freezing, I was crazy, and wasn't that rain hitting his head?

I, in my stocking cap and heavy winter coat, declared that I was quite comfortable, haha, and why didn't he wear a hat?

When we reached the mailbox and turned around, it was as if we had been magically, cruelly transported to the Arctic. This wasn't a warm, spring rain stinging our faces; it was driving snow! And the wind that had gently pressed against our backs was now biting our cheeks and reddening our ears. Mother Nature had pulled the ultimate April Fool's joke and pinned us down in a springtime blizzard.

Through chattering teeth, my kind and loving husband stated that there was no longer any doubt: I was, indeed, crazy, and he would be happy to hold this walk against me for quite a long time. I asked him if he'd like to jog to warm up, and he reminded me that the titanium in his knee joint had already frozen and, if jarred, would explode into shards like in that Terminator movie. Once we got home and slammed the door on the snowstorm, it took an hour before we were truly warm again.

Today when I asked him if he wanted to take a walk, I half expected him to turn me over his knee and spank me. But he simply said, "Sure, Honey, just give me a few minutes." And now I can't find him anywhere. Was that a car I heard driving down the road?

So there was this guy singing, see...

I used to have to go to student recitals when I took music appreciation in college. If they didn't make us go, nobody would show up, because recitals were B-O-R-I-N-G. I was also taking art classes, so I'd relieve my boredom by sketching whoever was singing or playing or strumming or tooting.

So get this – 30+ years later, I'm going through college memorabilia (junk I saved) and I come across a program from some guy's recital. I saved it because of the brilliant artwork (!), not because I remember Jeff H. But I'm thinking, hey, maybe he's still out there singing somewhere. He sang pretty good in Italian or whatever.

Being a Google junkie, I Google Jeff H and I find this music minister – a PhD no less – at a church back East. He doesn't list EWU in his bio, but what alum of EWU does? I look at his online photo and I look at my sketch (I was a brilliant sketcher) and I'm thinking, yup, could be!

So I email him a cautious note, because I don't want him thinking I'm a stalker. I explain that I ran across this printed program, and he looks kind of familiar, and is it maybe him?

A few hours later I get this email:

It’s me. Can it be thirty years ago? Let’s see, I’m 51. I guess it is.
Please help my worn out memory: how do I know you?
jh

Now I realize I have to 'fess up, tell him the story, and send him the sketch and a short note saying I knew some of his accompanists from church. Later I get this email back:

Jenny,
You’ve blessed me! Ah, the wonders of the internet.
I remember that church - I attended for a number of months.
Thank you for the sketch.
Blessings to you and yours.
jeffrey

Ah the wonders of the Internet indeed - reconnecting with somebody I didn't remember who didn't remember me!

Dignity and Desperation

When you sell stuff on craigslist, you meet a lot of nice people. This isn't anonymous eBay, where you mail things to New York. This is real life, in your face, actual people coming to your house.

The other day a sweet college girl picked up a small desk, thrilled to find something she could afford. A young couple driving a brand-new pickup bought our unused twin bed for their little girl, proclaiming it "perfect!" Another young couple in a very old truck took away a free pile of plastic gardening pots for their garden to feed hungry families. A kid gratefully hauled off our scraps of Trex lumber to build shelves in his workshop.

Then there was the family who pulled up in a van to buy a pair of doors for $20. The doors had languished quite a while unsold, so I was happy to have a buyer. A man came to the door, well-dressed in a shabby kind of way. He probably looked older than he really was because his shoulders were stooped, as if he were carrying a great weight.

A young man got out of the van to help get the doors. I heard a baby crying, and a girl in the back seat, who looked no older than 18, asked for warm water to fill the baby's bottle. While we were loading the doors, the older man said something about the baby's health problems - a cleft lip, hospitalization. He paid me, and the older woman in the front seat rolled down her window and called out, "Thank you SO much for selling us these!"

I was struck by this little family's quiet air of dignity and desperation. I took the man's money but regretted it as soon as they left. As I explained to Scotty, they seemed to really need it, but I didn't think fast enough to give it back. Scotty had the same thought I did: email them and offer to return their money.

The mom, who had emailed me about the doors, thanked me for offering their $20 back but said not to feel obligated. I insisted - I explained that God had laid it on my heart, it wasn't my idea. She gave in, and that's when I heard the rest of the story.

The family of four was actually a family of at least 10 - the older man and woman were husband and wife, and they had one child of their own and seven that were adopted. The seven had been removed from their birth home because of abuse and starvation, and now this couple were struggling to feed and care for them all. Medical problems and a lack of insurance had stretched them to the limit.

Sandy had indeed reached the point of desperation, but, she said, "I just think you ought to know how you have blessed me in my feeling that my prayers were not being heard, and realising now that they must be."

I've gathered some stuff for them - extras from our pantry, a box of food from the Union Gospel Mission, our old baby crib, high chair, and playpen. It will help, temporarily. I worry about what they'll do when this food is gone. But God calls us to help where and when He needs us to. For now, this is the help we can offer, and we'll continue to pray for Sandy and her family. Would you pray too?

Got Wench?

This is an actual ad - not a joke - that appeared in my church's March 2009 newsletter:

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Need a Freezer?
Large chest freezer, free to a good home for just coming to pick it up. If interested, call F*******s Community Church at ***-**** or Dave C. at ***-****. Will most likely require a wench to get it out of the church basement.
-----------

Now I don't know about you, but I have a lot of stuff that needs to be moved out of my basement, and the funny thing is, I never thought of using a wench. If you have one I could hire, please call me at ***-****.

I Can't Think of a Clever Way to Say I Hate Snow

We got dumped on here in Spokane, Wash., with almost two feet of new snow in a little more than a day. I want out. Right now, I want out. I want to live somewhere greener and warmer. Not too warm, like Phoenix or LA, just warmer than zero degrees with a wind chill of minus 20. You know, like Portland or Seattle – okay, they got snow and cold today too, but it's still about 20 degrees warmer there than here.

Warmer would definitely be better for our critters. You can see from this pic that our dog, Maverick, didn't know what he was getting into when he rushed past me out the door this morning. We could trace his journey out to the field for his pit stop by the trail he plowed. Poor old guy, he's past 12 and arthritic, so it's a wonder he even made it home.

As for Snickers, that barn cat has decided being inside isn't so bad. When the temps went lower than 15 and we brought him in the house, he haunted the doorway, waiting for a chance to dash outside, back to what was familiar to him: his heating pad in the garage. Three days later he's sleeping on our bed and following us around the house like a puppy. When the door opens, he yawns and turns away. Smart cat.

Maverick and Snickers are lucky. They don't have the drudgery of back-breaking shoveling or the worry that the power will go out and we'll be stranded with no water, no heat, no lights, and busted pipes. They don't have to get the sprinkler system blown out or scrape car windows or agonize over Christmas presents that will be mailed too late because we couldn't get to the post office.

They don't have to stand in a three-foot drift and extend a golf-ball-getter to its full length to scrape snow off a satellite dish that's 12 feet off the ground. Neither do they have the joy of bribing the neighbor who owns a tractor to plow our driveway (as always, the promise of an apple pie worked its magic – we love our neighbors). The critters just sleep and eat and do that other thing you have to clean up after.

I used to like that song from The Sound of Music, the one that goes, "Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes, silver-white winters that melt into springs..." Now I realize these are a few of my un-favorite things. These are things I won't miss about living in Spokane when, someday, I do not.

Snow drifts and cold temps and power that flickers
Shov'ling and scooping up after my Snickers
Scraping the icicles off of my nose
I am so sick of this climate I chose...

Or, to quote a character on tonight's episode of The Office, "One day we're going to move to Disney's Celebration Village in Florida and leave all of this behind." Want to come along?

Toys for Tats

I bought a lot of toys when my two boys were little. To their great disappointment, many of those toys went into the toy closet, unopened, and have stayed there for years. These were not-to-be-played with toys. These were, in fact, investment toys, meant to be sold later when they had increased in both rarity and value.

I've put a few on eBay over the years. Like all investments, some turned out to be a bust, like the Willow action figures that wouldn't even bring a dollar each. Others were absolute steals that paid off very well – a Star Wars Micro Playset bought for $5.99 brought $59.99. I don't do math well enough to know exactly what kind of payoff that was, but I liked it.

This fall I heard eBay was running a half-off-listing-fees sale, and I jumped on it. After I listed fifty-some toys, I sat back to watch the bidding action. I figured the Disney "Dinosaurs" talking Baby would be a sure thing because they'd been selling for big bucks. But no, the auction ended without one bid, and I still have my Baby. But every New Kids on the Block doll went fast. Those Jonathans and Jordans I bought in honor of my boys' names are still popular with ex-teenyboppers, I guess.

The last sale I made was a 1990s Batcopter. The buyer said he lived in Spokane, and could he come pick it up? Knowing how lost people get when they try to find our home in the country, I said I'd drop it off at his workplace in Spokane Valley. Turns out he works at a tattoo parlor, and so yesterday I made my very first visit to such an establishment. The young receptionist was very much like Abby on NCIS: black hair, cheerful, tattooed. She said my buyer wasn't in, but she'd give him the toy.

Later the buyer emailed me and asked if I had anything else to sell, because he and his brother collect 1980s and 1990s toys. Oh Joy! I can give him a list and maybe, just maybe, he'll take those Willow action figures off my hands. And maybe I can finally get that little butterfly on my...

Although if he's thinking of trading tattoos for toys, I guess he'll have to think again, and my butterfly will have to wait. It just wouldn't be appropriate. As my Scotty said, "No Toys for Tats, Dearest." ;)