It just might be worth putting your hands in someone’s mouth, then…

Posted on December 19, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Last night at dinner we were discussing Jason’s wisdom tooth extraction (he’s doing great, by the way. Thanks to those who prayed!) Though technically the medical person involved was an oral surgeon, we tend to use “dentist” as a broad generic term for anyone who has a career involving teeth.

Jesse: Do you keep the teeth or does the dentist?

Jason: I think he just throws them away.

Jeremy: No, he keeps them all and puts them under his pillow and makes money that way.

Me: So that’s why people become dentists! I always wondered.

😀

An event-full week

Posted on December 17, 2007 by Barbara Harper

My entry for BooMama‘s Christmas tours of homes is a few posts below — or you can click here. I have enjoyed the ones I have seen so far and have even found a couple of cute decorating ideas.

Last week we had something going on just about every night. Monday evening was our church ladies’ group Christmas party where we also revealed our Secret Sisters for the year — lots of fun! We have several places in the area that you can drive through all done up in holiday lights, so we chose one and went there Tuesday night. Jason’s girlfriend was here for a few days before going home for Christmas break, so it was especially fun to take her. The place we went was one of those drive-through zoo type places and at the end they had an area where you could get out and get refreshments or visit a petting area. Jesse got to feed a bottle to a baby goat.

Wed. night was regular prayer meeting; Thursday night was Jesse’s piano recital.

They have kids from early elementary age all through way through twelfth grade, so there is a variety of pieces and abilities. It’s an enjoyable time.

Friday night was the last night before Jason’s girlfriend left, so we all went out to eat at Red Lobster with gift cards just received from my stepfather. Then, they had been watching our DVDs of the Lord of the Rings films through the week, but we didn’t have the last one, The Return of the King. I had Jason get the extended version of it that day and we watched it that night (though I confess I dozed off a time or two — it’s very long!! We had seen the regular version before, so I knew what happened).

Saturday evening was our adult Sunday School class’s Christmas party. We didn’t make it to this last year — we tend to be homebodies anyway and had been out a lot with other activities and were just too tired. Plus the year before it was at this event that I received news that my mom had passed away, and I was a little too emotional to go and have those memories stirred up. I wasn’t feeling really excited about going this time for the same reasons, but I am glad we did — it was a lot of fun.

Last night was the Christmas cantata at church. It’s always enjoyable. This year we didn’t have any participants from our family: at various times in the past we’ve had one or two of us in choir, and a couple of times one of us (not me!!!) has had speaking parts. But this year we just observed and enjoyed. It was a cantata I had never heard before: with all new songs it is a little hard to take it all in, but there were some lovely pieces in it. It’s events like that that help us stop for a moment and reflect on what Christ did for us by coming to earth to live and then die for us. Not that we don’t do that at home or at other times, of course, but these events help keep us focused.

As I mentioned in the last post, Jason had two wisdom teeth out this morning. Everything went well and he’s asleep upstairs, getting up every now and then to change the gauze. On one side where the root was close to a nerve in the jaw, the doctor said he didn’t encounter it during the surgery, so it should be fine — he might have some tingling there. I’m off to get his antibiotics and pain medication in a little bit.

Tomorrow night is Jesse’s Christmas program at school, Thursday night he has a teen caroling party, and Friday night is Jeremy and Jason’s college and career class Christmas party. Friday is also our 28th wedding anniversary. ♥

After that we’re back to our regular life schedules except for Christmas and New Year’s and vacation days. :p But the special events will be over. Though sometimes all the activities do leave me exhausted (one year in the past we had kids in two recitals and two school Christmas programs in the same week!), this year I have been really enjoying them.

I spent a lot of last week getting most of the last of the missionary Christmas packages out. I still have a couple of stragglers — people who signed up to bring things but haven’t gotten them in. Thankfully these packages are going to folks in the States.

My goals for today:

1) Mail out one more package.

2) Look on my family’s Christmas lists to see if there is anything else I need to order and take care of that.

3) Edit our family Christmas letter and print it off. I finished it last night but wanted to let it sit overnight before reading over it one last time and tweaking anything necessary.

4) Print Christmas pictures.

Here’s the one I think I’ll be using for Christmas cards:

Jason’s in a bit of a shadow there, but in the ones where I used my flash, there’s a glare on Jeremy’s glasses.
This…is real life: 😀

5) Work on getting Christmas cards ready. I say every year I am going to get that done earlier — I actually had most of the letter done Dec. 2 and the boxes of Christmas cards have been sitting here. But there have been other things going on…

6) When my family came up in October they brought a ton of pictures for us all to go through. We took some of the one-of-a-kind ones to scan and put on a CD. Jeremy has been scanning and editing them (and I am amazed at how much clearer he’s made many of them!) I’m going to work with him some time today to choose which ones to put on the CD (many are my baby pictures and I figure the rest of the family won’t be as interested in those. 🙂 ) and rename them so they know who the people are in some of the older pictures. Then hopefully we’ll get that CD made and I can get them ready to send out.

Then maybe I can get some Christmas shopping done….

Show and Tell Friday

Posted on December 14, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Kelli at There’s No Place Like Home hosts “Show and Tell Friday” asking “Do you have a something special to share with us? It could be a trinket from grade school, a piece of jewelry, an antique find. Your show and tell can be old or new. Use your imagination and dig through those old boxes in your closet if you have to! Feel free to share pictures and if there’s a story behind your special something, that’s even better! If you would like to join in, all you have to do is post your “Show and Tell” on your blog, copy the post link, come over here and add it to Mr. Linky. Guidelines are here.“

You know how we get used to the things we have around us and don’t “see” them any more (which is probably why we like to rearrange them sometimes), and then one day something catches our eye and brings a smile. That happened this morning with this little figurine. Jesse bought it for me at the gift store at the camp he went to last summer.

When he first went to camp in about the 4th grade, he used some of the spending money we sent with him to buy something for each of us. I’m not sure why he thought of it: traditionally none of us brings back presents when we travel. But he’s continued to do that every year. This morning I “saw” this again and it reminded me of the love of a then 13, now 14 year old boy for his mom. I’m glad he’s not afraid to show it.

Peeking out of the rut

Posted on November 29, 2007 by Barbara Harper

One of our town’s annual events is a “Dickens of a Christmas.” Main Street is blocked off, various groups stage reenactments of holiday scenes or plays in store windows, there is a parade of people dressed in Dickensian garb, choirs sing and instrumentalists play at various locations, vendors sell hot chocolate and various foods, and there is a carol sing and lighting of the Christmas tree. My oldest son did a nice write-up about this year’s event.

In past years attendance had gone way down and few groups seemed to be participating, but this year there seemed to be a resurgence of interest. In fact, it was almost too crowded to enjoy at some points. We discussed going next year right when the parade starts at 6 and then eating there. They used to only sell munchies and warm drinks, but now area restaurants sell full dinners at a food court. It’s hard to get there by 6 and eat dinner at home beforehand when many of the family members don’t get home til 5:30 or 6. Most people seem to come for the tree lighting at 8, so if we got there early and ate, then maybe the windows wouldn’t be so crowded for an hour or so til people started trickling in for the tree lighting.

Overall we really enjoyed it.

The sad thing is, though, that I hadn’t originally planned on going. I’m getting to be — dare I say it — somewhat leaning toward old and set in my ways. Usually after dinner I like to crash with my feet up and go through recipe magazines or watch TV or read or whatever. I don’t usually like to get out and go anywhere in the evenings, especially when it’s cold and dark. And crowded places make me feel a little claustrophobic. And I have this thing about being able to have access to bathrooms.

We hadn’t talked about going, but I overheard my husband say something to one of the kids about it, and Jason was bringing his girlfriend over for it. I found out afterward that Jeremy considers it one of the highlights of the year. So I was glad we went. I was also glad no one had asked me point-blank if I wanted to go beforehand so I didn’t cast any negativity over it. We talked about the need to get out of our rut sometimes. I’m a confirmed rut-dweller, but it is nice occasionally to get out and about. 🙂

Show and Tell Friday: Grandpa’s cabins

Posted on November 9, 2007 by Barbara Harper

My husband’s father was partially disabled the last several years of his life after a fall from a ladder resulting in a torn hamstring. Later heart health issues further drained his energy. He had always been an active man and it was very hard for him to sit back and take it easy for very long.

At one point, just for something creative to do, he began making small log cabins. If I remember correctly, he gave several away. My husband gave him the idea of selling some on ebay. He didn’t have a computer, so he shipped some to us and my husband took the pictures and set it all up, explaining that he was a WWII vet in his retirement years. To his dad’s surprise and delight, they sold. He was excited and made several more and shipped them to us. They sold very well for a time, and then interest dropped off. But it was amazing to see the joy and energy that came about just as a result of having something useful and profitable to do.

We had enough leftover cabins to keep a couple on display and to keep one in the attic for each of the boys to take with them, if they want to, to remember Grandpa by. He passed away several years ago, and now these cabins are a remembrance of him.

We keep our two at the top of the bookcases that came with this house.

I took one down to get some close-up pictures.

I always especially liked the chimney. I am not sure what kind of rocks these are.

I’ve wished that the roof came off or the back could be removed and I could place some small furniture and rugs and such in there, but it is all very firmly attached. I’ve thought about placing a rocking chair on the little front porch, a welcome mat. etc. Where we have them now those kinds of things wouldn’t be seen. But maybe some day I’ll do that. But they are nice just as they are in all their rustic simplicity.

Show and Tell Friday: Heritage

Posted on November 2, 2007 by Barbara Harper

This last weekend my step-father and two sisters came up to visit from Texas, and we got together with my two sisters who live in a town about 30-40 minutes from here. All of my immediate family was together except my brother in TX who couldn’t come. It was the first time we had all been together since my mom’s funeral almost two years ago, and though there were a few sad moments of missing Mom, overall we had a great visit.

They brought a big tub full of old pictures and assorted papers, some from my mom and some from an old trunk of my aunt’s that she brought to them when she was downsizing to a smaller home. We spent Saturday evening going through all of that, laughing til we cried over some of the pictures, how we looked, what we wore, or the situation in the pictures.

There were several “historical” treasures there as well. My grandfather’s 7th grade diploma, my grandmother’s college diploma, his death certificate, her obituary notice were all there. There were also the books from each of their funerals:

Old recipes tucked into my mother’s baby book:

The baby book itself only had my mother’s name, weight, and a list of gifts received for the baby. I smiled over the fact that my grandmother kept up with baby books less than I did, especially with the third child.

There were pictures of my great-grandparents:

And my mom and two of her siblings when they were kids (my mom is on the right):

And me, around 4th or 5th grade:

My mom’s high school graduation picture:

One of the things I most treasured was my grandmother’s college graduation book. Her name was Harriet, and I hadn’t known before that she went by Hattie:

Inside was a place for autographs, school colors, and a homecoming ribbon:

Her school song:

And notes from the Commencement sermon:

My grandmother passed away when I was four years old. To have some her her things written in her own hand is very gratifying to me. I enjoyed getting to know her a little bit through these items.

My oldest son is scanning many of the one-of-a-kind older pictures, enhancing them (removing reddish or yellowish tones, making them clearer, etc.), to make CDs for each of us.

The background in these pictures, by the way, is my Aunt Dot’s crocheted bedspread that I mentioned a few weeks ago.

Sometimes love means….

Posted on October 19, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Most of my driving involves just a few miles from my home. We can get to our church and school in three minutes if the three traffic lights on the way are green, and most of the stores we go to aren’t much farther. So when a light comes on and a ding sounds from my car’s dashboard telling me I have less than 1/8 of a tank of gas, I can still drive for three or four days without filling up the car if it is a normal week. Stopping for gas is not one of my favorite things to do, so I tend to put it off and then fill the car to the brim so I don’t have to do it again soon. When I hear that “ding,” I click on the button that tells me the DTE (distance til empty) and keep an eye on it over the next few days.

My car had “dinged” a couple of days ago, but the DTE showed I still had several miles before I needed a fill-up. Yesterday we had to take my car to the shop because the brakes were making awful noises, and my husband and oldest son went to pick the car up late in the afternoon. This morning when I got into the car to take Jesse to school, I glanced at my DTE and saw that it said something like 258 miles: Jim must have filled the car up after he picked it up from the shop yesterday. I told Jesse (and hope he remembers when he gets married) that sometimes flowers or a nice night out show love, but sometimes little things like filling up someone’s car with gas shows love, too. Those little signs of being cared for do a heart good.

I got to thinking about other “little” ways that my loved ones show me their love and care, and I thought I’d list a few. I invite you to do the same either here in the comments or on your own blog (and if you do the latter, let me know — I’d love to read your list). I might be adding to this as more things come to mind.

Sometimes love means…

— putting gas in my car.

— killing bugs or taking care of other unwanted “critters.”

— changing light bulbs. I have a balance problem, and though I can climb up on a chair, it’s hard for me to let go of the chair to use my hands for anything.

— watching “chick flicks” with me.

— listening when I talk about a problem without necessarily trying to “fix” it.

— patience when I am running behind.

— taking care of the “mess” when the kids are sick. That actually started when our firstborn was a baby and had gotten sick all over himself and his bedding. As my husband and I both took care of him, the smell and “ick” factor were almost overwhelming to me, and though I don’t think I said anything out loud, somehow Jim knew. He said, “Honey, why don’t you go on out and let me clean this up before I have two messes to deal with.” That started a routine, wherever the kids were sick, that he would take care of and clean up the child, and I would take the bedding and messed-up clothes straight to the washer. (I can deal with it if I need to, especially when Jim’s not home, but it involves taking several steps away to breathe fresh air for a minute and then coming back.) Even now, when one of the kids has the “throw-up pan,” Jim will usually empty it out and rinse it on his own initiative.

— working hard to provide for us.

Thank you, honey, for these things and for all that you do. I appreciate it so much, and I don’t tell you often enough.

With my kids, sometimes love means…

— doing what I ask you to cheerfully and without complaining or groaning.

— doing something that needs to be done without being asked.

— appreciation of the food I make, even if it is just tuna sandwiches.

— for my oldest son, patiently and often answering my computer questions.

There are so many ways you guys make me feel loved, but these are a few that come to mind. Thank you!

I have a couple of dear friends who make me feel loved by sending unexpected, thoughtful little notes sometimes and by their genuine attentiveness and interest in my life.

So how about you? What are some ways those in your life make you feel loved?

(Graphic courtesy of the stock.xchnge)

Show and Tell Friday: Embattled model space ship

Posted on October 19, 2007 by Barbara Harper

This week’s Show and tell is a little off the beaten path for me, but when I see it it often makes me smile, so I figured that qualified. 🙂

My two older sons liked to put together models when they were in their pre-teen to early teen years. They didn’t care for WWII planes, like my dad did, or classic cars: they liked space ships, mostly Star Trek models. Once Jason saw some pictures online about a model whose maker wanted to make it look like it had been in a battle. Jason thought that was really cool and wanted to do the same thing. Here are the results of two ships:

I think it primarily involved using a match or a lighter to lightly burn it in spots. I have to admit, when he first asked me if he could do this, I was loathe to “mess up” a perfectly good model. But the battle scenes were what both boys most liked about Star Trek at that point. Plus he had a fascination with fire for a while there, and this was a more creative means of handling flame.

So he got to do something creative and fun, and I got to “loosen up” a little. 🙂 And those memories of his boyhood make me smile.

Works-For-Me Wednesday: Sometimes it’s best to leave children alone

Posted on October 10, 2007 by Barbara Harper

I want to be cautious with the thoughts I wanted to share today, because they could so easily be misunderstood.

The Bible teaches it is the parents’ responsibility to train their children. Deuteronomy 6 speaks of teaching the word and ways of the Lord; many verses in Proverbs give instructions about discipline; Ephesians 6:4 tells parents to bring children up “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” and there are other passages as well. Usually, especially in this day and time, if parents make errors in discipline it’s along the lines of not disciplining or training enough, at least in my own experience of 23 years as a parent and what I have seen in others, especially in the trends over the last 30 years. (I do want to write a post about that some day. I know I’ve said that before — I even started to one day but realizedI needed to wait until I had time to deal with it as carefully and thoughtfully as possible.)

But sometimes conscientious parents (and teachers) err on the other side of the scale, that of disciplining too much, of nagging a child constantly, of seeing every little thing as A Really Big Deal and a Major Character Issue. The same verse in Ephesians that tells us to bring children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord tells us not to provoke them to wrath. That doesn’t mean that our training will never make a child angry — most anyone will deal with some anger when not getting his or her way. But sometimes our parenting style in itself can result in an angry child rather than a godly, obedient one, or lead to discouragement, rigidity, an over-nervousness, or even outright rebellion in children.

This concept of over-disciplining first dawned on me when I read an excellent book several years ago titled Hints On Child Training by Henry Clay Trumbull, who wrote it 1890 when he was 66 years old. Mr. Trumbull is known as a pioneer of the Sunday School movement and is an ancestor (great-grandfather, I believe) of Elisabeth Elliot. Here are just a few excerpts from the chapter “Letting Alone as a Means of Child Training.”

Not doing is always as important, in its time and place, as doing; and this truth is as applicable in the realm of child training as elsewhere. Child training is a necessity, but there is danger of overdoing in the line of child training. The neglect of child training is a great evil. Overdoing in the training of a child may be a greater evil. Both evils ought to be avoided…

Peculiarly is it the case that young parents who are exceptionally conscientious, and exceptionally desirous of being wise and faithful in the discharge of their parental duties, are liable to err in the direction of overdoing in the training of their children. It is not that they are lacking in love and tenderness toward their little ones, or that they are naturally inclined to severity as disciplinarian; but it is that their mistaken view of the methods and limitations of wise child training impels them to an injudicious course of watchful strictness with their children, even while that course runs counter to their affections and desires as parents….

There are many parents who seem to suppose that their chief work in the training of a child is to be incessantly commanding and prohibiting; telling the child to do this or to do that, and not to do this, that, or the other. But this nagging a child is not training a child; on the contrary, it is destructive of all training on the part of him who is addicted to it. It is not the driver who is training a horse, but one who is neither trained nor can train, who is all the time “yanking” at the reins, or “thrapping” them up or down. Neither parent or driver, in such a case, can do as much in the direction of training by doing incessantly, as by letting alone judiciously. “Don’t always be don’t-ing” is a bit of counsel to parents that can hardly be emphasized to strongly. Don’t always be directing, is a companion precept to this…

Of course, there must be explicit commanding and explicit prohibiting in the process of child training; but there must also be a large measure of wise letting alone. When to prohibit and when to command, in this process, are questions that demand wisdom, thought, and character; and more wisdom, more thought, and more character, are needful in deciding the question when to let the child alone. The training of a child must go on incessantly; but a large share of the time it will best go on by the operation of influences, inspirations, and inducements, in the direction of a right standard held persistently before the child, without anything being said on the subject to the child at every step in his course of progress.

Thank God we can ask Him for wisdom: we surely need it!

This post is already too long, but a couple more thoughts I wanted to share are these: one of those times when it’s possible to overdo discipline is when we mistake a child’s immaturity and childishness for a discipline problem. Also, though we know our children are sinners and need correcting and training, a watching-like-a-hawk expectancy, just waiting for them to take a wrong step, can be very discouraging to them. Once when I was in college, one of the rules was that girls could not walk alone on certain areas of campus after dark, for safety reasons. I was coming from the bookstore or snack shop one night, looking for someone to walk to another area of campus with, when I spied my dormitory supervisor heading the way I needed to go. As I came down the steps to ask her if I could walk with her, she said, “You’d better not be about to walk away from here alone.” I can’t tell you how deflating and discouraging that was, to be trying to do the right thing and to feel smacked down, as it were, by someone’s expectation (with no good reason) that I was going to do the wrong thing. Yet we can take that same attitude with our children sometimes. We need wisdom and grace and the attitude of coming alongside them to encourage them to do right rather than standing over them with a stick just waiting for them to step out of line so we can correct them. I think if we meditate on how our heavenly Father handles us, that will go a long way in balancing discipline and grace in our parenting (or teaching or employing).

By the way, the book I mentioned is an excellent resource. Looking through it today made me want to read it all over again. A few other chapters are “Denying a Child Wisely,” “Training a Child to Self-Control,” “Training a Child Not to Tease,” “Training a Child’s Faith,” “Scolding Is Never in Order,” “Dealing Tenderly With a Child’s Fears.” Two of my other favorite books on parenting are James Dobson’s Dare to Discipline and Elisabeth Elliot’s The Shaping of a Christian Family.

For more Works For Me Wednesday tips, see Rocks In My Dryer.

She regrets having children

Posted on October 6, 2007 by Barbara Harper

A link from Amy’s Humble Musings yesterday took me to an article about a French woman, Corinne Maier, who wrote a book about why she regretted having children. One of her reasons is that children disappoint you.

Well. Duh.

Everyone will disappoint you if you hang around them long enough. And probably each of us has been a disappointment to someone else at some points along the way. We all have feet of clay, we all have faults, we’re all basically self-centered. In Bible terms, we’re all sinners. Children don’t come out of the womb with self-control and wisdom about how to act. Besides needing redemption, they need to be taught and trained. Left to themselves and their own instincts, they will cause shame.

This — the book, at least, and possibly the sentiment — seems to have been triggered by an outing in which the adults took the kids to a restaurant that the kids wanted to go to but the adults weren’t crazy about. Then the adults saw a museum they wanted to stop in, and the kids they didn’t want to be there and acted out.

Yes, that’s a normal selfish childish reaction. It’s also a teachable moment. It is through such times that children can be taught that the world does not revolve around them and that they can reign themselves in for a little while. If this kind of teaching is going all on through life, it won’t lead to a spectacular showdown as it would if you tried to teach them this all of a sudden after giving in to them all their lives.

Oddly, amongst the 40 reasons she lists for not having children is “To persist in saying ‘me first’ is a badge of courage.” She feels that a woman putting herself first (and therefore not having to deal with the “drudgery,” another of the 40 reasons) is courageous. But that same selfish “me first” attitude in her children is disappointing. There seems to be a bit of disconnection there. It’s ok, even noble for adult women to be selfish, but it is disappointing in children? The very quality she craves for herself she loathes in others.

“For the record, she has given copies of her book to both her children. Neither has picked it up, or paid it any attention.” That’s probably a good thing. I can’t imagine what it would do to their psyches. Ironically, the mother and her partner are psychiatrists.

Though she seemingly grudgingly admits, “you can have a meaningful existence having children,” her books strongly discourages other women from having them. “It is, she says, a means of shattering a national delusion, one that is damaging the lives of women, preventing them from progressing in their careers, keeping them from being creative and intelligent.”

Well, I happen to know many mothers who are both creative and intelligent, who take the time and care to raise and nurture and train little ones into responsible caring adults. Though it is often difficult and always challenging, it is a high and rewarding calling. Some would even say it is a joy.