What's in a Name?

Mike and I spent the night thinking of a name for our house. My dear sister Ange came up with one for her house, and I was overcome with envy at her inspiration. I simply had to name our place, too. In the past I had occasionally thought that it would be nice to have a set name for our house (so romantic and Anne of Green Gableish), but I pursued the idea rather halfheartedly. But Ange proved to be the impetus, so while Mike and I sat outside tonight on our adirondack chairs, enjoying the cool breeze and drinking refreshing beverages, we contemplated an appropriate name for our home. Now, naming a house seems like a piece of cake, right? It's harder than you think!!! After looking around outside for awhile, Mike commented, "You know, we are the only house on our street with a flag!" Hmmmm. Pause. Me- "You want to name our house the 'Flapping Flag?' That sounds really great!" Other ideas? Cuddles Place, Whispering Pine Place, Amorous Abode (Mike's idea), and a whole host of other ones that I can't recall! Any suggestions???

Hospital Stays

Well, this blog has been silent for quite some time. Right now, with all the extra time that I have I've been writing blog posts in my head before I fall asleep at night! Mike and I have been in the hospital for the last eight days with Juliet and I've been thinking about the whole hospital experience. At first I felt keenly disappointed that we would miss out on our planned Disney trip scheduled for this week. Disney was Juliet's pick for her Make a Wish. She was so excited about the whole trip and to spend the week in the hospital instead of making memories with her seemed a rather big let down. I was looking forward to seeing Juliet's eyes light up when she saw the rides, the "resort" we were going to stay at (Give Kids the World), the swimming pool, etc. But God has reasons for everything, and knowing that makes it easier to accept a change of plans! For some reason, God saw fit to have us miss our trip and spend it in the hospital instead (we do plan on re-scheduling for some time next year, so don't feel too sorry for us!). Although Juliet has not always been feeling that great, we are still having TONS of family time together. Yesterday I discovered an adorable library in the hospital. It's this tiny, tucked away room, decorated cheerily, and stuffed with books. Well, once I found that, I happily spent half an hour on my hands and knees looking for books to read to Juliet. Yesterday I read 13 books to her and it was such a welcome break from doing "crafts" with Jules. I confess I'm not really a craft momma. You know, the moms that post these amazing pictures of the crafts they do with their children. The cute little turkey made of painted popsicle sticks, cotton balls and who knows what else.... The truth is, when I do a craft with Jules, it's out of a sense of obligation. That's it. Sheer obligation! It's the old -I really should do this because Jules is asking me to - sort of obligation. But that's me. So when I find something I enjoy doing with Jules it's a bonus. This particularly applies to when you are in the hospital and you have limited resources! Discovering the library cheered me considerably yesterday; I think I'll find excuses to look for more books tomorrow. But back to the hospital experience. What are some of the essentials? I have to have good books to read! A couple of days ago I completed a biography on L.M. Montgomery titled Gift of Wings. It was so interesting! I love a good biography! What made me curious about this biography was that although Maud had a very difficult life, particularly near the end of her life, she wrote cheerful, happy books. It made me wonder how a woman could write such inspiring stories while dealing with depression in herself and her husband, a generally unhappy marriage, and an extremely difficult son (her oldest son, Stuart). I had to conclude that though she wrote some of my favorite books (The Blue Castle comes to mind) essentially her own worldview let her down. The Gospel was old fashioned and science was the answer to man's questions (so she thought). Other reading? I started Edith Schaeffer's book Hidden Art. The basic premise of the book is that Christians have "some talent which is unfulfilled in some hidden area of his being - a talent which could be expressed and developed." The chapters deal with the hidden talents of music, drawing, gardening, interior decorating, food, clothing, etc. From what I've read so far her goal is to inspire Christians to embrace and develop the hidden talents they have - even if it is in seemingly small ways. For example, if you love to sketch and draw but have limited time, you could make home-made cards for family. As I continue to read I plan on trying to discover what "hidden talents" I could further develop and to also challenge myself to FIND time to do so. So books are essential for hospital stays! Anyway, it's getting late and my thin, hard mattress draped in white sheets is calling me by name... Oh, and a night filled with IV beepings, having to wake up and give Jules her dose of tylenol, and other events that naturally pop up in the middle of the night... So this girl needs some sleep...(a terribly elusive thing in hospitals).

Valentine's Day

Well, here I sit in my robe, typing on the computer. I was reading my sister Bub's blog this morning and seeing that she posted about Valentine's Day, I'm going to, too! I always love reading what people do on Valentine's Day. Some people are adamantly against the whole thing and think of it as one big marketing scheme. You know, Hallmark in its glory and the chocolate makers raking in the dough... The cynics see their dollars disappearing on flowers that will be significantly cheaper the next day... Me? Well, you probably know this already, but I like Valentine's Day! Why not celebrate love? Who cares? Loosen the ole wallet and spend a little... (My mom would be shaking her head at this statement right now). Anyway, so one change this year was that Mike bought Juliet some things for Valentine's Day as well - a box of chocolate (with a teddy bear)and a bouquet of three roses. She was thrilled!!! At the clinic they make a big deal of pretty much every holiday (I'm waiting for a reformation day party - so far no luck) so Jules knew all about Valentine's Day and wanted so badly to do something special! So needless to say, when Mike came home with some gifts for her, she was thrilled. And Mike has been secretly substituting some of his chocolates (yes, I bought him a box) with hers (he accidentally bought her a box of mixed chocolates - you know the ones with disgusting fillings) :)

Humble Pie

Every once in awhile it's time to eat humble pie, right? Well, here is a story for you. I think it was two weeks ago that I took Juliet to the clinic. They were having a special day where crafts and other camp activities would be put on by some organization. I wasn't too sure what to expect, but I figured Juliet would have a good time and so we went. When we arrived, we saw a young man (we'll call him "George") who was in charge of the whole event. He got us started on creating some crafts from the great Oriental Trading Company (that's sarcasm there, folks). I'm not too impressed with those types of crafts but what little four year old cares? Anyway, so Juliet happily glued foam pieces onto her penguin and was quite content. After some time George decided it was time to start singing some camp songs. So he got the kids to sit around a fake fire and was busy trying to teach the kids to repeat the lines of some song after him. Well, four excited kids were not picking up on the whole repeat-after-me concept so he asked the parents to help him out and show the kids what he meant. So he started out by saying, "I brushed my teeth this morning..." and we parents dutifully repeated "I brushed my teeth this morning..." This went on for some time till he said, "I picked my nose this morning..." and we parents dutifully repeated, "I picked my nose this morning..." As I was saying this along with the other parents (and laughing), I saw Juliet stand up with this big grin on her face. "Oh no," I thought, "what IS she going to say?" I desperately tried to shake my head at her and signal her to not speak but it was too late. Juliet smiled at everyone and declared loudly, "My mom picks her nose ALL THE TIME!" Suffice it to say, I was mortified. And everyone laughed. And for the record, I don't pick my nose! Well, hardly ever. p.s. I thought I should share this on my personal blog where hopefully not too many people read this as opposed to our other blog on Jules... :)

Random Musings

I was reading through my blog today and laughing at some of the memories I had written down and I thought to myself that I really have to make sure I don't stop blogging every once and awhile. I would never remember some of the funny things Juliet said, or what I thought at one time, trips Mike and I made, etc. Now that I have some more time, I just might blog more frequently. It has been a bit of an adjustment for me to stay at home full time. This school year I was really enjoying the classes that I was teaching and I loved the challenge of having some high school english literature classes thrown into the mix. But now that I am home all the time due to Juliet's leukemia, I enjoy it (obviously not due to the circumstances). Things are not so crazy since Juliet and I along with my mother-in-law are going to the clinic every ten days as opposed to once a week and Juliet is feeling so GOOD that she is very happy to play by herself a good deal of the time. I want to make sure Juliet does not fall behind in school so I decided to start "homeschooling" with her. I started out with great vim and vigor and I LOVED it! A friend of mine was secretly worried that I was going to turn into one of those homeschooling enthusiasts and start scorning conventional schooling, but no worry, my zeal has considerably diminished and I realize that I would never make a good teacher when it comes to homeschooling. I have always struggled with patience, and teaching Juliet her letters and numbers has been a lesson in patience for me! I've learned that I do best teaching Jules while I'm otherwise occupied - such as folding laundry or something else. At any rate, I'll keep plugging along with it. Other ambitions in my life? I read an article the other day on morning people. You know, those people that get up at five in the morning, go for a walk, and get all kinds of things done around the house. Supposedly these "morning people" are better workers, and I don't know what all. Well, after reading said article, I convinced myself that that is what I would become. Just like that! Tadaa!!! Morning Nic! I told Mike about my plans the night before and Mike laughed. "Well, it's already eleven at night so I don't know how well you are going to do!" But I insisted that I WOULD try it and that with persistence, I could change my habits - supposedly after twenty something days, it would become my new habit and the old habit of going late to bed would be kissed goodbye. I pictured myself having an indulgent early morning cup of coffee, quietly doing devotions in the living room, getting a load or two of laundry done and out of the way.... I enjoyed the visions! Then morning came and I got up at 7:45 and that was the end of my "morning person" ambitions. I was disappointed to know that my "staying power" was really non-existent. Oh well, what do you know... Mike apparently knows me better than I know myself.... But then I started to think that if I did become a morning person, I would hardly ever see Mike! I'd be in bed by 9:00 so I might see Mike for 2 hours before going to bed. So with that thought, I've decided that it's no great loss for me to never be a morning person....

I Prayed for "Halloweeners" to Come!

I think the title of this post aught to cause my readership to skyrocket, don't you think? To be honest, I prefer to have a small readership because I like to think that only family and close friends read my posts. After all, I'm full of opinions that haven't always been thought through. So better to have a small readership than large, wouldn't you agree? Anyway, with my five posts a year, I think I'm in no danger of having a large audience. Phew! Well, after my longwinded introduction, now to my post. Halloween occurred on a monday night this year, due to Hurricane Sandy. I confess, I completely forgot about it! Jules and I were sitting in the house reading stories I think, when there was a knock at the door. Suddenly I realized I had no candy. All of the lights were blazing in the house and I knew the old "shut the curtains, turn out the lights" idea wasn't going to work so I froze and eventually the knocking stopped. Not wanting to get caught again, I dug around and found some candy meant for my Sunday School class and put it in a wooden salad bowl and placed it near the door. When Jules realized I actually meant to hand out candy, she was VERY upset! I guess I have been indoctrinating her successfully on why we don't celebrate halloween! Well, after about five minutes of explanation on why it would be ok for us to hand out candy, Juliet conceded that perhaps it would be okay to pass out candy to the kids dressed in cute costumes (as opposed to vampires and the like). After this change of heart, Juliet, in an excited tizzy, ran off to the bathtub, found her pumpkin pail that I use to rinse her hair with, and dumped the candy into said pail. Then she sat down in the front hall and waited. And waited. It broke my heart to see my little girl waiting so expectantly to hand out candy that I actually prayed for someone to come knocking on our front door. After an hour, Juliet was rewarded, my prayer answered, and we were happy! Today we were at the clinic and of course the nurse asked Juliet what she was for halloween and I stated that we didn't do anything for halloween. Another young boy was in the room and told the nurse what he was for halloween (a vampire). I could see the wheels turning in Juliet's mind and she was starting to launch into her lecture on why we shouldn't dress up in "weird" costumes,and how halloween was "bad", etc, when I promptly changed the subject. So that was our halloween....

Trying to Catch Up!

Well, it's been awhile. Last year I had about 28 posts while this year I've only 4 so far. That's a significant downgrade, I'd say. I've just been very busy with school. Every year I teach something new so I have a whole new curriculum to learn! I so enjoy the challenge, but a stress-free, putz-around-the-house kind of summer seems to be unattainable for the present. At any rate, Ma always said it's best to be busy than the other way around and generally I have to agree with her (I have a smart mom). And truthfully, I am not TOO busy where I can't enjoy time with my family. Mike and I have been going down the shore every weekend, so I have time to relax then. Just this past weekend Mike and I were down with Jules and the youth group from church. We had a great time. At night Jules played on the playground on the beach and made fast friends with a bunch of kids with big imaginations - right up her alley. The next day, Mike convinced me to go banana boating on the ocean with some of the youth group. Banana boating is when you have a motor boat pull a large inflatable tube that holds up to 12 people. Well, not expecting it to be such a big deal, I went. I was tossed - along with others - off the boat a number of times and simply trying to get back on the boat took a herculean effort! Let's just say that a day later, sore doesn't begin to describe some of my muscles! But it was fun, and I bet in a year I could be convinced to do it again. Mike and I also went on a trip by ourselves to the ocean and spent a night without Jules (thank you, Lora!). It was even better than the last time we spent away from home - sans Jules. This time we went to a winery. Did you know that there are over 50 wineries in New Jersey??? (I suddenly am very knowledgeble about NJ's wineries). It was neat experiencing a wine-tasting. I think we tried 5 to ten different types of wine. I nodded thoughtfully when the owner of the winery talked about the "dryness" of a particular wine or the supposed "fruitiness" of a bottle. Interesting stuff. Then Mike and I bought a bottle - whether fruity or dry I couldn't say - sat out on the wide porch that overlooked the vines, and had a glass or two with some cheese. It was so peaceful and beautiful. We were in a county in NJ that I've never been in and it felt like a different world. At night we went to "Moonstruck", a restaurant in Asbury Park and sat on the top balcony overlooking the river that leads to the ocean. Lovely! And tomorrow it's VBS - vacation bible school. I'm looking forward to it! It's always a little challenging to be organized, but hopefully it will run smoothly like it always seems to do. We had a good reminder in church this morning on why churches should be involved in various outreaches, and it was good for me personally to hear that because it is so easy to get caught up in the minutia (like craft preparation, etc.) and to miss the bigger picture - telling children about God and His Word and asking Him to bless it! Well, that's all for now. Wishing all my readers a blessed week!