Potential Just Won't Cut It

So I tried to produce a nice family picture to give to the grandparents for Christmas and I'm not sure why I didn't envision that it would be a disaster, but I just didn't see it coming. I warned the kids that it was coming as soon as they got home from school, managed to shower in the morning so I was actually as cute as I get these days (wrinkles and fat rolls aside) and we all trekked over to the lake/pond/thingy in the neighborhood with a neighbor in tow to snap the shot. It turns out the sun was too bright/hot and made Curtis cranky, the TWO YEAR-OLD didn't want to sit with us, he wanted to go explore the lake (again, I could have seen it coming if I'd thought about how much he loves to explore) and the baby just wanted to get down. Most of the shots feature us looking stressed, hot, and too bright or in someone's shadow. Eli was crying and writhing to get away and Curtis eventually folded in half and wouldn't look up at the camera. Thank goodness for Photoshop -- I had to swap three different faces to get everybody smiling and I had to lighten up the shadows. For the sake of history, it's a pretty good snapshot of what life is like for us these days and you could even classify a few of the shots we took as art since they featured lots of angst and frustration; but as a perfect, albeit unrealistic, picture of a nice-looking family, it came up short. All that work and I still have to try again. And did I mention we even brought a squeaky dinosaur to make the littles laugh? How can you go wrong with a squeaky dinosaur? Oh well, I guess we'll try again when I can muster the vast amount of energy and determination it will take, but who knows when that will be? For now, this is as good as it gets: it's got potential, but it just doesn't cut it.

Should I be offended?

I went to this silly website to find out my elf name and this is what it came up with:

Your Elf Name Is...

Happy Sugar Butt

What's Your Elf Name?

I'm still trying to figure out if I should be offended.

By the way, this is who I'm married to...

Your Elf Name Is...

Fuzzy Blinking Bum

What's Your Elf Name?

Holiday Cheer!

I found this on my friend Denise's blog who found it on her friend Kristen's blog and it is SOOOOO funny (though not THAT funny -- I don't want to build it up too much and have you disappointed) that I had to post it on my blog too (if I can figure out how!) Now that's a good run-on, long-winded sentence for you! So this is my Christmas present to my blog-o-sphere of friends and family -- something to bring a smile to your face and cheer to your season! My other gift to you is that this is a short post! (But admittedly with too many exclamation points -- which must be a sign of something bad.) Sorry some of my posts are lengthy, I must save it all up during the day and it spills out of my sub-conscience when I get on the computer at night. See, it's happening again...

Oh for goodness sakes... Merry Christmas already!

Don't Settle for the Beige Couch

Well, we had another little miracle and a small death in the family this week -- I'll start with the miracle. Okay, I'll start with the story that leads up to the miracle...

It all starts with Ren who, in the 8 1/2 years since he graduated with a PhD in business, has never had a nice car to drive to work in. We've always upgraded the family car as we've "upgraded" the family and he's driven old cars that leak oil on the driveway, some more reliably than others. So he's spent many years picking out "his" car. That car has changed over the years and is currently the Subaru Imprezza WRX, which he has pictures of on the desktop of his computer. Two weeks ago he found a special online where he could lease a Subaru Imprezza for $200 a month. He kept talking about it and asking me if we had an extra $200 a month for a car. I told him with some careful planning we could scrape it up, so we headed out to the Subaru dealership at 8:30 p.m. on the last night the special was running to test drive some cars. If you asked me I would have told you we test drove the same car four times, but apparently we tested the basic Imprezza, the WRX, one with sport shift, one with a stick shift, one stinky one (that one I remember!)and who knows what else. But Ren fell in love with the WRX's power and look all over again. Guess what? The lease deal was for the basic (well duh! He knew that, he just wanted to try the WRX to see what the difference was and to find out how much more it would cost). It was $450 just to lease the car, which I reminded him we didn't have. Even though it was after 9:00 p.m. and the dealership was technically closed, the finance lady was working like mad to create a deal that would work for this obviously golden buyer in front of her. One of the deals was to finance the whole thing over 92 months! (still $300 a month) After another 40 minutes, it just wasn't working, so Ren reluctantly agreed to look at the basic Imprezza as an option, while I started thinking about my new red couches (see the post "A Little Bit of Grace") and the basic beige couches we almost bought. I learned then that God will provide for us and will do it in a way that brings us great happiness if we are PATIENT. So after several minutes of Ren agonizing over the decision he asked me what I thought and I said, "Do you want to settle for the beige couch?" He thought for 2 seconds and said, "Nope, let's go home." The lady looked at us with a strange look of frustrated confusion and we walked out.

While we talked on the way home Ren told me it was the beige couch comment that finally did it. I reminded him that if I could pray for couches, we could certainly pray for the right car to come into our lives or to know if we should just try to keep his current car running. (a 1990 Honda Accord his Dad drove for years with almost 250,000 miles on it.) And coincidentally, that week the Honda started having trouble shifting into gear. By Friday, there were times when we couldn't get it to shift at all and hung out at intersections coaxing and shoving the stick shift to try to get moving. But then comes the miracle.

I go to aerobics classes at the church every day and on Fridays we do yoga. That week, I'd been kind of down and hadn't felt like exercising all week, but on Friday I woke up and had a burning desire to go to yoga. I got there and the church was still locked, so while the yoga instructor, Angie and I stood there waiting for the lady with the key, she asks me out of the blue if I know anyone who needs a car. What?! She points to her car in the parking lot and tells me that they're selling their 2004 Honda Accord, fully loaded with bells, whistles doo dads and BUN WARMERS (my favorite thing) in order to finance a trip to Australia where her son is getting married and then they'll buy a cheaper car with the rest. She tells me the price -- $13,500 -- and I realize that with a down payment of a couple thousand dollars, that would be $200 a month! I'm not sure what Ren will think about this, since he would be giving up "his" car, but I tell her we ARE looking for a car and ask her to follow me home so Ren can see it. Ren is fairly impressed with the car, but wants to shop around a bit that weekend to see what else is available in that price range. He doesn't find anything really comparable and to cement things, his car stops shifting completely on Tuesday prompting him to call Angie to tell her we definitely want the car. He checked the blue book listing and it was a little lower than what they were asking, so he mentions it to her, thinking maybe we could get the car for $13,000. She calls back and says, "You were right about the price, so we'll sell it for $12,700." Whoa! Great! Now we needed money for the down payment which for us starting over with a new job, house, etc. we don't really have access to yet. But strangely enough, we do get paid every two weeks and twice a year we'll get three paychecks in a month. That doesn't technically happen until February, but December is the first month where it is so close that we can take the second paycheck and use part of it for the car and part for Christmas and we'll have another one the first of January to cover bills. We got this paycheck last Friday, so we just happen to have a few thousand dollars sitting around waiting to buy a car.

Angie had the car in with her mechanic to check everything over and Ren called the mechanic directly to see how it was going. In the course of the phone call, Ren mentioned his car's shifting issue to the guy and he told Ren how to refill the transmission fluid for the clutch (I'm sure that was technically wrong -- but whatever!) so it would shift fine again. He did and it did! So Thursday, we went to meet Angie at the Credit Union to complete the purchase and we dropped off Ren's old car on the side of a busy street with a "For Sale" sign on it (we were hoping to get $500 out of it.) An hour after he returned with his "new" car, the phone rings and it's someone interested in buying the old Honda. Ren goes to meet the guy and ends up spending the better part of the afternoon with him test driving, driving to the bank to get the money, driving him home to drop off his old car, etc. It turns out this guy is a bit down and out right now and is a member of our church but hasn't been going for a long time. His kids are all active in church and his boys have been on missions for our church and he says, "They're all trying to activate me." So Ren jokes with him that he's left a Book of Mormon in the glove compartment if he feels like reading it. You never know what purpose God has in that transaction. Oh and Ren asked for $1200 and got $800. Ren was a little sad to say goodbye to the old Honda, it was kind of like a death in the family, but hopefully it will help this guy out so that is a comfort in our time of bereavement.

The next day was yoga again. I drove the new car, reveling in my toasty buns (it was COLD -- in the 40's!) When I got to the church Angie says, "You won't believe it but I found a new car yesterday and I bought it!" and I say, "You won't believe it but Ren sold his old car an hour after he bought this one from you!" Wow! Talk about things falling into place. We realized too that for the first time, Ren's car is newer and nicer than mine and worth more money. And even though it's not his Subaru, it's absolutely not a beige couch. It has a V-6 engine, leather seats, sun/moon roof, 6-CD changer and nice stereo, dual zone temperature control and did I mention, BUN WARMERS?! (my bum is notoriously cold all the time -- except in the summer in Arizona, of course) He likes the car (and I LOVE it) and we're so grateful to have it!

So I finish this post with my new philosophy (actually, it's been around before but without the catchy slogan!) God loves us and wants to bless us if we ask him and then put it into his hands. It's hard to be patient and even to take what he provides sometimes, because maybe we had a different idea of how our prayer should be answered. But His answers always bring us greater happiness and peace. We should never settle for the beige couches when God might have the red couches waiting for just the right sale.

It Takes a Village...to Put Up the Christmas Lights

This week I succombed to neighborhood peer pressure and put up outdoor Christmas lights. But it wasn't easy and it wasn't without some serious thought. I truly love Christmas lights and what better place to have them up than here in Arizona, where we can take an evening stroll and admire them without the pesky annoyances of frostbite and 27 layers of clothing? But I was hesitant. Our first forray into the world of outdoor Christmas lights, 5 years ago, ended with a warning from the City of Murrieta, CA promising us a $200 fine if we didn't remove the lights within 7 days. I couldn't believe it! We'd made it more than half-way to next Christmas (it was July) and I felt we should be able to keep them up to take advantage of our head start. It was also the year that I discovered my husband was afraid of being up on ladders, so it would be up to me to get the lights up from then on. The next year, I just put them on the front door and the garage -- places I could easily reach them and remove them. That worked well because it required less lights and I unfortunately purchased these cool big-bulb blue and green lights that would spontaneously explode if you did...um...nothing. So, I had to consolidate my strands of lights and they wouldn't have made it across the roofline again. So here I was again this year with the light dilemma looming. I really wanted lights. I really didn't want to put them up. And I really didn't own enough lights or a ladder. But that didn't stop me! I found a neighbor (neighbor #1, Wende) who I knew who knew another neighbor (neighbor #2, Bo) who had a ladder I could borrow. I bought new candycane colored icicle lights from Wal-mart, making a good guess as to how many I needed. I waited until the big kids got home to rescue me from the "Littles" and grabbed my staple gun so I could get to it. I started over the garage and things went just fine until I discovered the last foot of my second strand of lights didn't actually light up -- but I'd already stapled them to the eaves. Oh well. Then things got dicey as my roof line pitched up and my ladder became more and more wobbly in the grass below. It was during this process that I gathered my first CONCERNED nieghbor, neighbor #3, Marcee. She was walking her dog and expressed her surprise to see me up on a ladder with no one helping me, so she stood at the ladder and steadied it. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that the roofline was going up higher than I could reach with the ladder, but I DID NOT WANT TO STOP (thinking I'd never get started again -- how often do I actually have windows without the "Littles" clinging to me like barnacles?) So I decided to climb on the lower part of the roof, hike up to the spot I left off and then lay on my stomach, just a teensy bit over the edge to staple the lights from above. I actually felt more stable on the roof than on the ladder, but Marcee just about lost it at this point. She kept hollering helpful suggestions like, "Should we call the men from church to help you?" and "I can call my Dad to come put them up!" As it got dark, I finished the last of a strand right at the beginning of the highest roof point. I decided to call it a night and actually make dinner, but the next day I was up there again, showing off for my DH, Ren, who didn't seem amused. It did get a bit precarious at the highest part because the roof line was straight but sloped downard from above (kind of like a barn), so I had to lay down and point my body downward and my head over the edge to try to get a good angle with my trusty staple gun. At this point I collected CONCERNED neighbor #2, (but we'll call him neighbor #4 so as not to be confusing, heh heh), John who yelled from across the street, "Do you want a ladder that's actually high enough?" "Yes!" I replied with the blood rushing to my head. He owned this James-Bond-gadget-y ladder which started out tiny and bent and twisted until it was towering over my head (with me trying to balance it before it fell over and smashed my hubby's car.) But it got me up to the top! I finished that part only to discover I didn't quite have enough lights -- I was 3 feet short. One trip to Wal-mart later, I pulled out the short, rickety ladder from /Bo, neighbor #2 and finished up the lights while my family started dinner without me. They look great, I think, (the unlit part is kind of hidden, so we won't talk about that part) and I'm so glad they're up early. Because, now I have a month to figure out...how am I going to get them down?!!! Time to get to know more of my neighbors.

Many Thanks for Pie

This was our first Thanksgiving in our new house in Arizona and to make it even better, my parents came to spend it with us. We learned a couple of very important things this year while preparing our feast.
1) If you previously had a double oven but no longer have that luxury...you will not be able to cook a turkey, rolls, stuffing, pies and yams all at the same time. BUT, if you let the boy scouts cook your turkey in a giant turkey cooking pit, you can ALMOST pull everything else off in your one oven.
2) If you let the boy scouts cook your turkey in their giant turkey roasting pit, you won't have ANY brownings from which to make your gravy. Also, your turkey will be very tasty, BUT it will have disintegrated in the cooking bag and fall off the bones, so don't plan on having it as the centerpiece or on being able to carve it. (We should have taken a picture of it in it's falling apart state -- there are many more bones to a turkey than I ever knew!)
3)Too many pie cooks...just makes more pie! After I made pumpkin pies, Hannah was upset she didn't get to make crust, so she made crust and another pecan pie and then shared her crust with Cody and Ren who were making a caramel apple pie. (By the way, Hannah's crust was declared the best in a blind taste test -- mmmmm..., so flaky! She must tell me her secret!)
4)Despite #1 and #2 if you serve enough sparkling cider and pie, everyone will still declare it the BEST feast ever and you will still keel over from overdose of tryptophan!
5)Eating pie outside on the back patio in the warm Arizona sun is unlike any other way to eat pumpkin pie the 3rd week of November. Rather nice, I think.

So I gratefully declare, "Many thanks for many pies!" and call it a year.

A Little Bit of Grace

Sometimes the little moments when I feel God's grace are more powerful than any giant miracle I might experience in my life. We had just such a moment last week when we found some couches for our family room. Our new house has a GIANT finished basement, so when we moved in, we put all our family room comfy furniture and the TV down there for family movie time, etc. But that left us with a small family room off the kitchen upstairs with only midget furniture to fill it. "Midget furniture?" you ask. Well, a friend of ours gave us a not-so-lovely brown velvet sectional -- each piece is separate and each piece measures about one foot from seat to floor and has no legs (we used to have it for the kids in out toy room). We also have an old 12" screen television/vcr combo in there which is impossible to see (but hey, it provided us movies in the car from New York to California eight years ago, so we are grateful for this little TV.) The combination of tiny TV and tiny (UGLY) couches has been frustrating when we've had family or guests over (the grandparents can't sit on them because they're so short, they can't get up again!) and I've been praying for a way to buy new couches even though money is pretty tight since the move. So, a week before Thanksgiving (and my parents coming) someone told us about a furniture store that had an outlet and lots of good deals and we went to see what they had. We didn't find anything in the outlet, but the store had some awesome red couches that we loved, but couldn't really afford. The saleslady that day said they had a deal with another couch set that you buy the couch and get the loveseat for free. The couches were beige, basic and boring but would at least provide seating. Still, I couldn't bring myself to purchase them that day and we went home to think about it. By Monday I was worried about having seating my parents could actually sit in, so I called the store only to find out the couches weren't in stock anymore and they wouldn't be delivered until after Dec. 5th. Then I looked on Craig's list and found a set that would work (used for $600) but when I emailed they never emailed back. Well, my parents came and we sat in the kitchen chairs alot...until Thanksgiving day and my Dad was looking through the ads. He came to show me something he'd found in the ad, a great-looking red couch for $350 at the same store we'd looked in. We headed over Friday morning and discovered it was OUR red couch and the loveseat was also on sale for $319! They were perfect and the saleslady even gave us another $100 off after tax and scotch-guarding. Now they're in our house and we LOVE them! You know, couches aren't essential to my eternal soul, but I feel grateful that God knew I needed something happy and comfy in my life and for my guests and He wanted to show His love for me by putting them on sale at the perfect price to fit our tiny budget! Then my own Dad added to it by buying us a new TV for the room that could actually be seen from the couches (Wow! what a concept!) The little things just make the difference sometimes and red couches are SO fun!

Here's a few pictures: