ShenanINGRAMS

209 Days is how long I went without a Dr. Pepper. I had one yesterday and it was wonderful. The girls had their first soda in almost as long (they started the fast a couple of weeks after I did), and they were equally excited. Don't get concerned, Dad, this is not going to be a habit. It was just a treat for one day. :) Joey has cooked 2 fabulous breakfastsys (that's how Josh used to say it) and we're having steak for dinner! Josh started running a 102.7 fever yesterday, just out of the clear blue, but it's down to 100.7 this morning. He woke me up at 630 making himself some chocolate milk. I guess when you have a fever you feel a certain sense of entitlement. He beat me in checkers last night. One dumb move and a triple jump on his part, and I was done, but I beat Caylea in chess. That was fun. I still stink at chess, but she stinks worse. I have no idea if any of us will ever take the $100 that my Dad took from my Mom to give to anyone who could beat him,...

Chloe walked into the bathroom yesterday and said, "It smells like Daddy in here." See? Smell is one of those fabulous senses that God gives us to associate good (and bad) memories. I did stand there smelling him for a long time. I fell asleep on his chest and I don't care if any of you think that is sappy. It was wonderful. He has lost a significant amount of weight, so his chest was just the right height. :) He also doesn't snore any more. I woke up several times throughout the night to put my hand on his chest and make sure he was still breathing. Likewise, he kept reaching over to pat me throughout the night. He's in there cooking breakfast while singing and the kids love it. We're taking him grocery shopping today. He has missed out on lots of little things, like fried eggs (not the egg beaters that they serve at chow halls across the world), real bacon, and driving. Yesterday he kept telling me to slow down but I wasn't even going to spee...

1,000 Dr. Peppers couldn't make me this jittery. I am finding things to clean just to keep myself from going nuts. 4 more hours. At some point I'm going to take a shower, but I am trying to hold myself off so I'm not sitting here at the house, ready to go, 2 hours early. The house is sparkling. The kids put on clothes that look decent, including Josh, and I already made my bed. I cooked a "BIG breakfast." I cleaned the kitchen really well. I used a toothpick on the cracks. I used oven cleaner on the stove top. Seriously, I am finding things to do. I dusted. I swept. I vacuumed. I mopped. All of that I did yesterday after running 3 miles and I still feel like I have more energy than I know what to do with. It took forever to fall asleep last night but I had a great moment of clarity while reading C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity." It was a laugh out loud moment which, from a scholar like him, was unexpected. I giggled for a good while....

I am so excited I can hardly contain myself. I'm teaching piano while daydreaming, cleaning things while getting utterly distracted by the thought of having him home again. I can't even begin to describe the flutterbys in my stomach. I'm having trouble sleeping, eating, and talking. By this time tomorrow, and I can't believe I'm typing this, I will have him home again!!!! I told the kids that they can hug him first. They each get 30 seconds and then I will shove them out of my way if they don't willingly move. They all grinned and said, "Okay, Mom." I think I must've had my serious face on when I said it. Before any of you ask, NO, I did NOT stock up on Dr. Pepper. That is not very high on my list of priorities, to be honest. I told Joe that I just want to stand there and smell him. I don't care if you laugh or think I'm gross. I miss his smell, among other things. He wants to eat at his favorite restaurant here in Germany to...

"Shutzen" doesn't not mean "to shoot" in German. Remember back to the little boy with the water gun who was repeatedly shooting me in the face. I said to him, "Du musst stop shutzen mir in mein Geschist." I got the word, not from a dictionary or from some other learned source, but it came flashing into my brain in the heat of the moment. There is a strawberry field down the road from my house. In front of the giant strawberry (a house, shaped like a strawberry), there is a small white sign that says "Shutzenhaus" with a picture of bows and arrows and a man shooting what appears to be a gun. So, my brain assumed that "shutzen" meant some form of "to shoot," and so that's what I used on the boy. Who wouldn't have assumed that? My German teacher tells me that "Shutzenhaus" does, in fact, mean shooting range. However, she also informed me that "shutzen," by itself, means 'to protect....

I am sitting here listening to an elderly man tune my piano by ear. When he first arrived, I showed him my low C. This key is constantly making a 'twangy' sound after it is played, and then sometimes it stops playing abruptly. I didn't know how to fix it. Now I do. He is kind enough to show me all sorts of tricks, and I feel confident that if I had the tools, I could tune a piano by ear. I love learning new things, especially things that are useful to me. I pay him 85 Euro per tuning, per year. I could tune 2 pianos a week and make what I make teaching piano for 12 hours a week. Anyway, back to that C, it sounds terrible. When my piano students are playing, it is an obvious error because they tend to pluck the keys. When I play, I am able to cover it pretty gracefully, but it is a strain on the finely-tuned ears that God has given me. I always hear it, even when other people don't. He fixed it first. He saw my face and knew that I wouldn't leave him u...

Luke 11:39 says, "You Pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy--full of greed and wickedness!" Chloe spent the first half of the summer carefully tending her tomato garden. After about a month, I had to remind her every day to go weed it. After that second month, I decided to let her 'earn' her own trouble by not reminding her to cultivate her garden. After all, she had paid for the plants and soil with her allowance. Her tomato plants were growing beautifully by then and they were enormous! The tomatoes on the outside looked great, but it seemed like they were taking a very long time to turn red. It hasn't helped a bit that this "summer" was so cold. It only got above 80 for a couple of weeks and then not consistently or any amount of days in a row. So, one day I got out there to mow, weed-eat, and tackle Chloe's garden. I started pruning the tomato plants in the hopes of salvaging a ...

So, there I was, entertaining my niece with my phenomenal dancing skills, when I hit a snag. Well, a pillow actually. Apparently my children left a rather large pillow on the floor and in the midst of my moon walking, I forgot to check my rear view mirrors, hit the pillow, and fell flat on my back. Were it not for the pillow, it would've hurt. As it is, it was hilarious. She laughed until her tummy hurt, as did I and the other people who witnessed the event via Skype. What is a moonwalk? Well, I don't rightly know. I mean, I slide my feet on the floor while trying to appear like I'm floating backwards, but I really perform that particular dance move quite badly. Michael Jackson did it best. My rendition is definitely in the top 10 laughable moments this year. No one got video, sorry. Moral of the story? Always look behind you when you moonwalk, OR, encourage children to clean up after themselves. :)

Mom: Why are you in trouble? Child: I don't know. I stopped when you told me to. Mom: When SHOULD you have stopped? Child: Ummmm... Here's the problem as I see it. In Deuteronomy, and throughout Scripture, we are told to "Do what is right in the eyes of the Lord." Does that mean that we are allowed to do what is wrong as long as no one is there to see it? Or that we can do what is wrong as long as we stop when we are told? Nope. Whether we like the messenger or not, we must receive admonition as it comes. For my children, they do not receive well from each other. When one speaks in an unkind way and the other says to stop, the first thinks the other is just being sensitive and continues. However, put the shoe on the other foot and let the older one be the offended one. Wow, different ending! That is why I gave all 3 of my children permission to respectfully say to me, "Mom, you're speaking ugly." In the South, that means that I'm yelli...

We went to the Miesau pool today. I had my 3 kids, plus my niece, Jana, plus we invited another family that has a 2 year old little girl that I'll refer to as Z. Z is quite the swimmer and fearless. It was my turn to watch her and I was having a blast until I got blasted...in the face with a water gun. I saw the boy who did it, gave him a look, and thought that would be the end of it. He shot me again, in my face. Had he been shooting me anywhere else, I would've ignored him. Instead, we moved away and tried to ignore him, at which point he (and I was watching) aimed at my face and got it again. I'm not one to overreact, so I just said loudly across the water, "Schtop," which obviously means "stop." He shot me in my face again. I would've just left the area, except that I had a 2 year old who was swimming underwater in the only place that she could at this particular pool, and she was using me to maintain her balance when she did come up. ...

This is what happens when Grand Parents visit. Yes, I separated those two words on purpose. My parents are quite grand. I like them a lot. I am convalescing, which is incredibly difficult for me, and they are finishing my projects and Joe's, including the tree house. Notice it has a new location, much safer, much better, especially since the neighbor whacked off the trees surrounding it. The kids have worked hard all day, so we're going to eat at a castle for dinner tonight. You just can't beat that! :) We woke up this morning and the girls hauled wood to the wood shed while Josh, Dad, and I went to the lumber store to get what we needed to finish the tree house, which Dad had cut down yesterday. He also trimmed up the mutilated trees, so they look much better. Nana supervised the girls and weeded my entire front driveway. It looks so lovely! We had banana splits for lunch. The Grand Parents and the kids tackled the stump. They pushed, pulled, and jumped until ...

Well, I had great plans to take my parents hither and yon, but it turns out that hither and yon were too much for me. We'll have to stick to yon, some other day. I did take them to France today, though. Dad got permission to drive and he drove 120 miles per hour on the autobahn. He liked it a lot and said he could get used to it. :) I took them to Cora, where we attempted to purchase cheese and wine and some other goodies. The main point was that I got my parents' feet in France. Next week I'll put their feet in Austria and they'll have been in 3 countries. I would love to take them to more, but the surgery wiped me out. I'm feeling fine, but I definitely have to take it easy. My Mom is doing a great job taking care of me and keeping the house running. The kids are such great helpers, and my Dad has taught the girls to play chess. Caylea stale-mated him today, and he wasn't distracted! Caylea was so proud of herself. Chloe is pretty good at it too...

I lost my appendix yesterday. My Mom was there to watch me faint. She said I went out like a movie star. I only saw blackness from afar. Caylea is cooking. Chloe is cleaning. Josh is looking, My Dad is being a meany. Not really, but he likes to pick On Caylea as she cooks. And little did I know She's inherited my dirty looks. I'm doing well My kids are great My parents are super and I need to go to sleep. I hope you liked my poem. It took hours to write. :)

We have had a very eventful day. It started by my waking at 522am, which has been the norm for the last 2 weeks, and it has not all been the mouse's fault. I think God wants me to pray, so I do. Then we Skyped with Joe, which was distracting enough for me to still be in my p.j.s at 715am, when I had to leave the house at 745am for the kids' appointments. I took all 3 kids in for the annual sports physicals and it turns out that Chloe needed 4 shots. She knew she needed one, not four. Chloe is my professional shot taker, took allergy shots for 3 years, never cried, never whined, even as a baby. So today she was sitting there and I could tell she was letting her brain freak out, so I reminded her that it hurts like a pinch, but she'll be fine, and when they asked if she wanted two at a time, I said, 'Yes, get them over with." They gave her the first two and one was the tetanus, which is horrific and she said, "Oww, owww, oww," and as she was lamenting ...

Caylea is 14 years old today. Where did that time go? Ohhhhh, I remember... playing house, letting her tuck me in like a caterpillar in a cocoon, listening to her sing "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" while sitting on the potty at 2 years old, hearing her answer the preacher's question..."When did you ask Jesus into your heart?" Her reply at 6 years old, "Jesus has always been in my heart. I talk to Him all of the time. I want to get baptized so everyone will know that He is in my heart." She said this as if she were teaching this 65 year old pastor something. Watching her face as she came out of the water...priceless, hearing her 'invent' a piano song at 7 years old and wondering, 'How do I teach THAT?' watching her do flips and tumbles and twists and turns during her 4 year gymnastic stint, crying with her when we all realized that her ankle could no longer tolerate her dream sport after a significant injury, helping her determin...

Yesterday, April 17th, was Joe's 39th birthday. I just can't begin this post without saying that he is a great man. He is a kind person, one you would want to have around as a friend because he'll give you the shirt off of his back without you ever having to ask. He may be picky about food and the preparation of it, but you'll never regret eating at his table. He is genuinely interested in people and he is my favorite friend! We did all of our gardening on his birthday AFTER taking my daughters to an indoor yard sale so that they could sell their homemade jewelry. I didn't expect them to do well, honestly, but Chloe made $50 (more than covering the cost of her materials and she still has tons of materials left, so her profit margin will be quite high) and Caylea made $40 but spent a lot of it. That's the problem with an indoor yard sale. You're there, you see something you like, you spend the $5 you just made. I got some good laughs out my soon-to-b...