She's there!

Well, we did it! Chelsea is settled in at OCU. Her dorm room is tiny, her roommate seems very nice and her RA is a sweetheart! I'll get pictures up as soon as possible (still need to download them from my camera) but we got her room all fixed-up with lime green fake fur and pink satin so it's a drama queen's haven (as it should be).




We drove her up to OKC on Monday morning after spending a wonderful Sunday night with Chris and Jeanie. Jeanie and I spent time talking about decorating my new house but that will be in a later post. This one is about getting my first little chick off to college and I realize I must be the weirdest mom in the world but I still haven't been teary or sad about it. Just excited for her and sure she's going to have a wonderful time. (Jeanie says it has to do with how well-grounded Chelsea is. She felt the same way with Rachel, just confident that she'd be fine. It's our BOYS who will give us worries!)

It rained the ENTIRE time we were in OKC, in fact it rained from the time we left Dallas until we drove back through it yesterday, but that just meant that the temperatures were nice and cool. I think Oklahoma City will be a good place for Chelsea to get used to being on her own, especially doing more driving. It's laid out on a grid, making it easy to get around and the people seem so friendly and down to earth (even for drama people) which is a very good thing.

She and her daddy got her bank account established, student ID, bills and car registration done so all she had left to do was to get a phone in OKC. Something she can handle on her own without any problems. I'll write more when I get some pictures up.

Cheap Trick/Heart/Journey ,,,and PAUL!

We had so much fun at the Journey, Heart and Cheap Trick concert in the Woodlands but like Vicki Courtney (my alltime favorite blogger!) I was a bit amazed at the side shows.

I had mixed up the date on the concert and Rick and Stephen were still in Philmont so Chelsea invited two of her best friends to go with us, Megan and Melissa. After a very rushed dinner we headed to the Woodlands and managed to sit in traffic for 30 minutes before finally parking in the garage (which I was very happy about!)




So...there I am at the concert with three beautiful teenage girls and one little DS boy! They had a terrific time and I think WE were probably the side show for the people around us at least during the concert. Paul was rocking!







He stood up and danced during Heart and got on my shoulders to see Journey (let's face it he was quite a bit shorter than everyone around us).



While up on my shoulders he was playing air guitar and if you think it's easy to have a 60 pound kid playing air guitar perched on your shoulders you would be WRONG! By the end of Journey's set (and by the way Arnel Pineda is wonderful but no one will ever truly be able to replace Steve Perry in my book) Paul was sacked out on our blanket, deeply unconscious.



The girls were pretty into the music too. I think Megan sang along with every song Journey did and Melissa was dancing. Chelsea and Paul were getting into it too!
Dancing and taking bows? I know, I know, it's just one of Paul's idiosyncrasies)




We decided to just wait for the place to clear out before we made our way back to the car and that's when I started to realize that the hill was littered with people who were simply too wasted to get up and move. Most of them MY age!!!! Here's Paul also wasted but in a completely different way!




I have to say I was embarrassed for my contemporaries, especially when we got to the lift of the garage. We'd finally got Paul up and made our way down to the car and waiting for the lift were two women, one of whom could barely stand. She was leaning against the lift door, too inebriated to support herself. Her friend (who to give her credit appeared to be a designated driver) helped her in to the lift and then four more middle aged women got on, loudly laughing and cursing. The women got flustered when they realized there was a child on the lift and started apologizing in that profuse drunken way. My daughter and her friends thought it was funny but I have to admit I was just embarrassed for them. All I could think was that a hangover is a lot harder at 48 than it is at 18 and they were really going to be hurting in the morning!



By the way, despite Megan's expression my girls had NOTHING alcoholic to drink!

China Patterns, Cars and Houses: The Common Denominator

I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes marriage work, specifically my own. Part of the reason this is on my mind is that I had a little discussion about it yesterday with, of all people, a used car salesman. Kevin was a young man who while we were looking at cars told me he is engaged, and is very excited about it. I told him that getting married was the smartest thing I'd ever done and I find it kind of cool that that is still true after 20+ years. We talked through 5 test drives about the give and take of being married and the impact having parents with good marriages makes on one's own marriage. He was one of the best car salesmen I've met and I'm definitely going back to buy a car from him. He also got to see in practice a bit of the give and take I was talking about.

Right now Rick and Stephen are backpacking at the National Boy Scout camp in Philmont. This 12 day hiking trip was planned before we knew we'd be moving back to the states and I have to say it couldn't be more inconvenient. I can't do anything without Rick! That may sound like a whiny exaggeration but it's actually the truth...I mean I drove 5 cars yesterday, one that I would have purchased immediately if Rick had been with me but since he wasn't it will have to wait. (the frustrating part is that it's a used car and it probably won't be there when he gets back!) The same thing is happening with house-hunting. I found one I ABSOLUTELY love but it's a foreclosure and chances are again very good that it will be gone by the time Rick gets home.

BTW, I realize that God is teaching me a lesson about waiting and not getting my heart (and mind) focused on a thing! If that house and that car are God's will then they'll be there when I can purchase them...and if they're not God's will I'm much better off without them! I really do want to be in God's will but I will confess that sometimes it would be better if I wanted it more!

Anyway, I got a bit off topic but back to the subject of marriage. I could tell that Kevin really wanted me to buy the car (and like I've said I would also have liked for me to buy the car) but after our earlier conversation I pointed out to him that making a major purchase is something married people do together. That's one of the things that make marriage work. And while I've been frustrated shopping without Rick and often feel like I'm wasting my time, deep down I know that I'm not. I'll narrow the house field down to 5 or 6 that I really like and then we'll look at them together and decide what's right for us. We've actually been using this system since before we were married. When we were engaged we needed to choose a china pattern and while I loved looking at china patterns Rick had other things he preferred to spend his time on. So...I chose three patterns that I liked and Rick looked at the three and said "that one". This may seem like an overly simple system but we've found that it works in our marriage. The truth is that I often can't make a final decision, more than one thing appeals to me, and Rick is able to judge more objectively and look at function over form (something I think a lot of women struggle with).Our system works to our strengths and I believe it is also Biblical. It keeps Rick in the position of leadership which is important in marriage.

Just some thoughts for today...now I'm off to look at more houses!

Catching up!

Well, I just realized it's been more than a month since I wrote anything. An international move will do that to you. At this moment we are in an apartment that is maybe 950 square feet (quite a change from the more than 4000 we were enjoying in Singapore). Our air shipment arrived today and I'm looking forward to being able to cook in my own wok again!

Something I studied in nursing school was stress as a predictor of illness. Most of you have seen this thing somewhere, it lists stressful situations and prescribes them a point value up to 100 points. Loss of a spouse is 100 points, divorce is 75 points so forth and so on, even Christmas gets a point value. A score of more than 300 puts one at high risk for stress-related illness. Well, I was calculating some of my stressors, international move, child leaving home, major purchase of car or appliances (3 cars, washer & dryer, lawn mower et al), mortgage application, new school...the list just goes on and on. Then add in that Rick has all the same ones I do plus a new job and the fact that while I get to be married to him he has to be married to me (far more stressful!) and you can see we're feeling a bit overwhelmed!

Anyway...I didn't write all this for sympathy (but if you want to give me some I'd be happy to take it) I wrote it to talk about something related but different, ways to deal with anger. I have a natural tendency to express stress and anxiety as anger. (Rick tends to withdraw into himself which is why he's easier to live with than I am) And anger has been the big thing the Holy Spirit has been convicting me of ever since I did Breaking Free. In fact one of the things Beth Moore suggested in that study that has been a big help to me is to get some 3x5 cards and look up all the Bible verses related to your area of bondage. Then, when you're feeling the need for wise words you can look up your verses. Well, I have about 35 3x5 cards on a little ring that I try to always have nearby. Some of my favorites are Proverbs 29:11 "A fool always loses his temper, but a wise man holds it back." and Isaiah 58:9b-10 "If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness and give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday." and James 1:19-20 "This you know, my beloved brethren, But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God."

Anyway, just wanted to share something that's been helping me to control anger and ask you to pray for me to keep it up. I'll try to post more frequently now that we're in Houston and I'm online again! God Bless

Class of 2008

Hard to believe that she's officially a high school graduate! I know that every mom out there says it feels like yesterday that she graduated from kindergarten but I have to say that they're all telling the truth. It really does. Whenever I see parents out with their little girl around 3 or 4 I always stop and say...enjoy it! It's going to go so fast you can't even imagine! Anyway...here's some photos of Chelsea and a few of her friends.

This photo is of the Senior SAS Singers doing Carrie Underwood's "Don't Forget to Remember Me". Chelsea did the solo on the line "make sure you tell daddy that I'm still his little girl" so needless to say at least one daddy had tears in his eyes!



We have a family tradition called "here's Paul at____________" Well, Paul didn't go to graduation but we got a picture of him in Chelsea's mortarboard when she opened her presents.



Chelsea and her best friend Hannah. They couldn't be more alike and more dissimilar at the same time if they tried. Chelsea's a conservative Christian, Hannah describes herself as a "very liberal athiest". They still have a strong friendship and I don't think the distance between Oklahoma City University and Vassar will keep them too far apart!


Mimi and Nonno came all the way from Texas to see Chelsea graduate and we're so glad they did! It was wonderful to have them at the big event.


Here she is with Jake, her very sweet, laid back and talented boyfriend. Can this kid ever play the guitar!!!!

Family

Happy, happy days! Rick's folks are here from Houston and we're so happy to see them. If you know me at all you've heard me say a million times that you couldn't get better in-laws than I have if you custom ordered them. They are fun, loving, generous, pleasant to be around and in their own Italian way pretty darn ethnic. (so fun for a generic white bread girl like me) Last night we were sitting in the living room talking and I got the biggest sense of deja vu!

When Rick and I first started dating I would spend quite a bit of time at his parent's home. If you've never been in an Italian family's home here's what goes on. The radio is going in the kitchen, the TV is on in the den and 8 people are sitting around talking, having at least 3 (and sometimes more) conversations. NEVER with the person sitting next to you! Always with someone across the room. If you could diagram the noise it would look like one of those matching exercises your kids brought home from pre-school with all the lines criss-crossing one another. I would occasionally retreat to the formal living room by myself and when Rick would realize I was gone he'd follow me and ask "Are you okay?". I'd always tell him "I'm fine, I just needed a break from the noise". Last night I didn't need a break from the noise, it was the sweetest sound I've heard in months!

One of the biggest drawbacks to expat life is the lack of extended family. I realize that we've always been unusually close to our families, living within 50 miles of both sets of parents most of our married lives, but I honestly enjoy and love my family and Rick's. We're not perfect and there are the occasional disagreements but overall I've found life without them to be the hardest part of overseas life. I'm looking forward to being home again. I'm looking forward to quick unplanned dinners with parents and having grandparents who are able to come and see choir concerts and plays. I'm happy that cousins will be around and we won't miss any more graduations, weddings or weekends at the beachhouse. I like knowing that they're nearby if I have an emergency and I like knowing that I'm nearby if they have one.

Singapore has been terrific but deep down (and not so deep), I'm an American and I'm happy to be going home!

Sympathy

It's a pretty rare thing for me to cry over a news story but the news about Steven Curtis Chapman's family tragedy had me in tears. I can't even imagine the double tragedy of losing a loved child at the hands of another loved child. While I feel terrific sympathy for Maria my heart just breaks for Steven's son.

I keep thinking about Joseph and his brothers and I kept remembering the verse as saying "what you meant for evil, God meant for good" but when I really started studying the verses in Genesis 45 I noticed something. The verses actually say "Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God" (NAS, Genesis 45:5-8a). Maybe I'm being silly but I found comfort in those verses and I hope the Curtis son does too! Joseph never accuses his brothers of 'meaning evil' but reiterates to them that God uses terrible situations to work his will.

I don't know if the Chapman's son was being a careful and responsible driver and he may have 'should haves' for himself but I am absolutely confident that this was an accident and it's a heavy burden for any teenager to bear. The press hasn't revealed whether the teenager behind the wheel was Will Franklin or Caleb but I hope that you all will join me in praying for the Chapman family and most specifically their son.