Just another example of "I didn't even realize she was watching that!" :
Today I sat down at the piano for a couple of minutes, just to noodle around and unwind for a minute. Emilie very quietly came over nearby and was fiddling with something just out of view. Before I knew it, she had set up Kagen's music stand, opened some sheet music she found, grabbed a pencil, and was "directing the choir" behind me. I was now her accompanist.
I kept on playing the piano, just to see what she'd do.
Sure enough, after a minute or so, she started talking loudly over the music to the "choir," "Now get louder here!", "OK, let's stop right here and try that again at 24," "Take out your pencils and write this down, please!", and other common colloquialisms of my direct-atorial style with our church choir on Wednesday nights.
At one point I started to chuckle at her, and she just shot me a scathing look. "We need to finish this, Mom. Now can you start us at this spot?" (and she pointed out where I was to begin).
Ahem. Yes, ma'am.
Note to self: Be nicer to my accompanist.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Well, it's a new post, anyway...
I was told it is time to post something new, and I agree.
I don't have a lot to share that's print-worthy. I can tell you Galen is handling the transition to the "new" office well (typical). Ask him how it's going, and he shrugs noncommittally. "It is what it is," he says. He has a new idea for a career path that's got him kind of revved up, and I'm more glad to see that spark in him again, than anything else.
I have been keeping an eye on the job market for the past eight months, looking for an opening in some part-time position. The scare with Galen's job earlier this month has only increased the thoughts that perhaps it's time for Blakely to go back to full-time work sooner than originally planned. We'd hoped to wait until the youngest child went to kindergarten, that's always been our ideal scenario. Even a month ago I was thinking to myself we just might be able to make that goal happen.
[snicker] Ah, well...
Once upon a time I learned the hard way that my plans for my life are decidedly different than God's plans, to the point where He brought me to my knees and turned my whole world upside-down to make His point. And I'm certainly finding that out all over again now, only in a bit more subdued way, praise be. So, I'm handing it back over to Him, and re-learning what it tastes like to swallow my pride. Again.
But that's a separate post... :-)
I don't have a lot to share that's print-worthy. I can tell you Galen is handling the transition to the "new" office well (typical). Ask him how it's going, and he shrugs noncommittally. "It is what it is," he says. He has a new idea for a career path that's got him kind of revved up, and I'm more glad to see that spark in him again, than anything else.
I have been keeping an eye on the job market for the past eight months, looking for an opening in some part-time position. The scare with Galen's job earlier this month has only increased the thoughts that perhaps it's time for Blakely to go back to full-time work sooner than originally planned. We'd hoped to wait until the youngest child went to kindergarten, that's always been our ideal scenario. Even a month ago I was thinking to myself we just might be able to make that goal happen.
[snicker] Ah, well...
Once upon a time I learned the hard way that my plans for my life are decidedly different than God's plans, to the point where He brought me to my knees and turned my whole world upside-down to make His point. And I'm certainly finding that out all over again now, only in a bit more subdued way, praise be. So, I'm handing it back over to Him, and re-learning what it tastes like to swallow my pride. Again.
But that's a separate post... :-)
Friday, February 6, 2009
Yank, Thud and Shake
The economy hit our family this week.
I got a call from Galen yesterday afternoon.
"They cut five of us, hon."
"Us?" I think. "You mean to say, 'They cut five of THEM', right?"
"Me, and four others. We've been let go."
[Yank.]
Galen continues later that day, "I have two options. Severance package, or a 'redeployment' position in the Sales office." Further details are ellucidated.
Sales? But you were promoted from Sales three years ago. Really? Sales? As in, back on the road, twelve hour days, meeting quotas... that Sales?
"I'm thirty four years old, and I'm back where I started. Where am I going? What am I doing? It's like two steps forward, and three steps back, you know?"
[Thud.]
"It's more than what most people have. It's a scary time to be out of work. If the economy were better, I'd take the severance package and go somewhere else."
If the economy were better, you wouldn't have been let go.
"We have debt, four kids, and a need for continued benefits. It's a steady paycheck. That's more than what most people have right now, hon. Somebody fought to give me this opportunity to stay with this institution. They could have just as easily fired me outright, with no options at all."
True... We still have reasons to praise. It's something. It's something to hang on to while we try to find the ground underneath us again.
I look at Galen's crestfallen face.
I just want you to be happy. I don't want you to be hurting like this. I want you to LOVE going to work. And you LOVE your job where you are. Where you were.
"God has taken care of us through much worse," I say. "We can all make this work. We'll all do what we need to do, and we'll be fine. The same Hand that is sovereign over this is the same Hand that is going to carry us through it."
Maybe we were getting too comfortable in our lives, and God decided it was time to shake things up a bit.
[Shake.]
Shake off your pride, the Lord says. Shake off your self-imposed sense of security. I am the only security you'll ever need. Shake off your ideas of your plans, your successes, your future. I know the plans I have for you. Nothing you have has ever been yours. It's Mine. You have no right to temper tantrums over what I've ordained for you. My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways are not your ways. I have brought you out of bondage. My grace is sufficient for you. Turn to Me, and let Me shake the fruit out of the tree of your lives, and let's see what's really being produced.
Here I am, Lord. Here we are.
I got a call from Galen yesterday afternoon.
"They cut five of us, hon."
"Us?" I think. "You mean to say, 'They cut five of THEM', right?"
"Me, and four others. We've been let go."
[Yank.]
Galen continues later that day, "I have two options. Severance package, or a 'redeployment' position in the Sales office." Further details are ellucidated.
Sales? But you were promoted from Sales three years ago. Really? Sales? As in, back on the road, twelve hour days, meeting quotas... that Sales?
"I'm thirty four years old, and I'm back where I started. Where am I going? What am I doing? It's like two steps forward, and three steps back, you know?"
[Thud.]
"It's more than what most people have. It's a scary time to be out of work. If the economy were better, I'd take the severance package and go somewhere else."
If the economy were better, you wouldn't have been let go.
"We have debt, four kids, and a need for continued benefits. It's a steady paycheck. That's more than what most people have right now, hon. Somebody fought to give me this opportunity to stay with this institution. They could have just as easily fired me outright, with no options at all."
True... We still have reasons to praise. It's something. It's something to hang on to while we try to find the ground underneath us again.
I look at Galen's crestfallen face.
I just want you to be happy. I don't want you to be hurting like this. I want you to LOVE going to work. And you LOVE your job where you are. Where you were.
"God has taken care of us through much worse," I say. "We can all make this work. We'll all do what we need to do, and we'll be fine. The same Hand that is sovereign over this is the same Hand that is going to carry us through it."
Maybe we were getting too comfortable in our lives, and God decided it was time to shake things up a bit.
[Shake.]
Shake off your pride, the Lord says. Shake off your self-imposed sense of security. I am the only security you'll ever need. Shake off your ideas of your plans, your successes, your future. I know the plans I have for you. Nothing you have has ever been yours. It's Mine. You have no right to temper tantrums over what I've ordained for you. My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways are not your ways. I have brought you out of bondage. My grace is sufficient for you. Turn to Me, and let Me shake the fruit out of the tree of your lives, and let's see what's really being produced.
Here I am, Lord. Here we are.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Whither the Weekend?
Ah, the weekend.
A flighty temptress is she.
I just enjoyed a particularly agreeable one with a group of my college girlfriends. Once a year, we shed the many-colored coats of our husbands, children, and normal lives to get together and don the gold-sequined garb of giggly college girls once again. We all enjoy making scrapbooks for our families, so we work on those, providing excellent fodder for catching up on each other's worlds. We watch chick-flicks (which, I admit, is not my personal favorite genre of movies, but it's not all bad, either. However, if I'm subjected to "The Cutting Edge" with Moira Kelley and DB Sweeney one more time...). And, most prominently featured in our weekends together - we LAUGH. A lot. I have some really insane friends, holy cow. Praise the Lord I'm so straight-laced and level-headed, lemme tell ya...
I've noticed this in year's past, but while we're together, it's as if my whole world of family, work, stress, joys... LIFE... is condensed down and folded up, as though to put in a locket to wear near my heart. Still there, and still precious... but yet smaller somehow. I open this locket up to show the girls what's inside, but then it's all tucked back in, and existence as I know it balloons out to what's going on with these wonderful women. We relax, we share, we eat, we sleep, we're quiet, we work, we solve the world's problems, we pray over the smaller ones happening in our own worlds we can't so easily solve, we are serious, we are silly.
And when our weekend is over, the reverse happens. The time with my friends is condensed down and folded up, put in it's own locket... still there, still precious... and my blessed and crazy regular world takes it's place once more.
In a different vein, you know the REALLY funny thing about our weekends together?
We work on scrapbooks, right? Meaning, pictures. And preserving memories. Of good times. With people we love. Right. So, one would think a group of college-educated, well-rounded, intelligent women would all think to... oh, I don't know... BRING A CAMERA AND TAKE PICTURES OF OUR WEEKENDS TOGETHER!
Thank God for Adrienne, though. She remembers. The rest of us? We're all slapping our foreheads, saying to each other, "Oh yeah!..."
Good Heavens. But I warned you, didn't I?... We're an insane bunch.
God bless'em all.
A flighty temptress is she.
I just enjoyed a particularly agreeable one with a group of my college girlfriends. Once a year, we shed the many-colored coats of our husbands, children, and normal lives to get together and don the gold-sequined garb of giggly college girls once again. We all enjoy making scrapbooks for our families, so we work on those, providing excellent fodder for catching up on each other's worlds. We watch chick-flicks (which, I admit, is not my personal favorite genre of movies, but it's not all bad, either. However, if I'm subjected to "The Cutting Edge" with Moira Kelley and DB Sweeney one more time...). And, most prominently featured in our weekends together - we LAUGH. A lot. I have some really insane friends, holy cow. Praise the Lord I'm so straight-laced and level-headed, lemme tell ya...
I've noticed this in year's past, but while we're together, it's as if my whole world of family, work, stress, joys... LIFE... is condensed down and folded up, as though to put in a locket to wear near my heart. Still there, and still precious... but yet smaller somehow. I open this locket up to show the girls what's inside, but then it's all tucked back in, and existence as I know it balloons out to what's going on with these wonderful women. We relax, we share, we eat, we sleep, we're quiet, we work, we solve the world's problems, we pray over the smaller ones happening in our own worlds we can't so easily solve, we are serious, we are silly.
And when our weekend is over, the reverse happens. The time with my friends is condensed down and folded up, put in it's own locket... still there, still precious... and my blessed and crazy regular world takes it's place once more.
In a different vein, you know the REALLY funny thing about our weekends together?
We work on scrapbooks, right? Meaning, pictures. And preserving memories. Of good times. With people we love. Right. So, one would think a group of college-educated, well-rounded, intelligent women would all think to... oh, I don't know... BRING A CAMERA AND TAKE PICTURES OF OUR WEEKENDS TOGETHER!
Thank God for Adrienne, though. She remembers. The rest of us? We're all slapping our foreheads, saying to each other, "Oh yeah!..."
Good Heavens. But I warned you, didn't I?... We're an insane bunch.
God bless'em all.
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