Alyssa After School

I just picked up Alyssa from play practice.  She was in the kitchen looking for something to eat.  Isn't she cute?  It's hard to figure out how to dress in this weather.  It's 46 degrees when she leaves for school and 80 degrees at noon.  She has to walk outdoors in between all her classes.  Today she chose fashion over comfort.

Prayer Box

My first project in my new studio was painting/stamping this wooden box to hold the prayer requests at our Friday morning women's Bible study.  I got the box at Michael's for $3.99.  I watered down some white acrylic paint (Neopaque) and rubbed it onto the box with a wadded up piece of paper towel.  I applied it generously and then rubbed off the excess, in the direction of the wood grain, to give it a whitewashed look.  The floral stamps used are from Rubber Stamp Tapestry.  I applied them with pigment ink, for permanency.  I used a stipple brush to apply the wisteria color (the same ink used to stamp the swirl background) to the lid and the green color around the base.  I used a variety of brands of ink: mostly Ranger Adirondak Pigment Ink and  Color Box Fluid Chalk Ink.  This was a fun, quick, easy project.  Maybe a gift idea for Christmas?  I know I'm going to be trying to make more of my gifts this year to save money.

My New Studio in California

Here's my studio!  It's a great place to play!  Everything is at my fingertips, although I need to finish labeling the drawers so I can actually find things without actually having to open each drawer.  It's small enough that I have to clean up my messes as I make them (totally not my style), but it's a good discipline. What a joy to be able to walk down the hall, first thing in the morning to dabble in a project in process, or do work into the wee hours of the night knowing my loved ones are snoozing just down the hall.  Usually I can count on Rusty to be sprawled out on my table top right in the middle of what I'm working on - keeping me company.  You are welcome to come "play" here any time you want!  I miss all my art buddies from Iowa.

Rusty on the Red Couch (or Lessons About God)

This morning I was sitting here in the guest room typing a reply to an email.   I looked over my shoulder and saw our cat, Rusty, curled up asleep on the red couch next to me. I hadn’t seen him silently enter the room, but there he was – my shadow. He seems to have an “antenna” tuned in to me. He often looks like he is sound asleep, but if I stand up to leave the room, he jumps down from his current “perch” and pads along behind me.

He jumps on the counter to supervise me while I wash dishes, climbing into the sink for a drink out of the faucet. He sprawls right in the middle of the mess in my studio while I am creating something. Last week while I was making a book for Emily’s birthday, he reduced me to giggles. There he was all curled up in the middle of a huge assortment of yarn – all colors, textures, and thicknesses. What kind of self-respecting cat is content to sleep in the presence of so much yarn? He just wanted to be with me.

If I go out in the backyard to eat my breakfast, he curls up in the shade at my feet. If I am getting ready for the day, he stands on the counter quizzically watching me put on makeup. If I am reading in bed, he is curled up on the comforter wadded up down by my feet. He is always THERE!

God tapped me on the shoulder this morning when I turned and saw Rusty on the red couch. He said, “You don’t always hear me, or see me, but I’m always here. I’m HERE. You are never alone.”

Rusty will meow loudly when he is in distress, but the sound he makes most often is a rolled chirping with a question mark at the end. When I have left a room, a few minutes later I can hear Rusty padding down the hallway “chirping” out the question, “Where did you go?” God is like that. He seeks us out. If we have wandered away, He comes looking for us.

There are still other ways He reveals himself through my feisty orange and white cat. Often, while in the middle of working on a project, Rusty decides it’s time for me to play with him. This usually involves throwing one of his jingly balls so he can play fetch (he chases the ball, picks it up in his teeth while meowing at the same time, and brings it to me where he drops it at my feet so I can throw it again). Sometimes it means getting out his purple leash and twirling it so he can leap up to grab it or chase after it. When he is in one of those moods, he really doesn’t care if I am in the middle of some “important” task. He wants me to pay attention to him, and he will not leave me alone until I stop what I am doing and play with him. If I persist in ignoring him, he jumps onto a nearby surface and looks for something, anything, to push off onto the floor. I’ve grabbed glasses full of water, precious figurines, cell phones, and cameras just in the nick of time on more than one occasion. Although God is patient, there are times when He wants me to pay attention to Him. He finds ways to distract me from what I am doing what seems so important to me at the time, because He wants me to just spend time with Him.

Sometimes Rusty makes me laugh out loud. He jumps straight up in the air about three feet and then tears through the house. He bats his little ball around all over the back patio until he finally knocks it into the pool. Then he leans precariously over the edge of the pool so all you can see are his back haunches and tail, to fish the ball out with his extended claws. He launches himself at the top of his favorite rust-colored rocking chair, setting it swinging and then leaps from the top of it, nearly knocking it over. He climbs to the top of the fridge and bats as me as I walk by. God startles me back into the present like this sometimes, too. He wakes me up with a song about his glory playing in my head. He startles me with a spectacular sunset. He prods me into doing something I never thought I’d have the courage to do. He encourages me with an unexpected email from a friend. He presses his fingerprints into my days so I can see them later when the angle of the sun is just right, or when I stop long enough to notice.

When I returned from swimming today at noon, I opened the front door and Rusty was sitting there on the dining room carpet looking at me. From the way he stood, yawned and stretched, it was apparent that he had planted himself there when we went out the front door and was waiting for our return. He serves as a reminder that God, too, waits patiently for me to return to him, when I have been off on one of my tangents.

I headed into the bathroom to take a shower. I put the sage colored bathmat on the floor and pulled the shower curtain closed. Every time I take a shower – every single time – I pull back the shower curtain to grab my towel and find Rusty sitting there looking at me. I never feel embarrassed to be naked in front of him – it just warms my heart that he has come looking for me. Unlike Adam and Eve in the garden when God came looking for them after they had sinned, I do not have to feel ashamed about being naked in front of God, either. He knows me inside and out and He loves me anyway. I don’t have to cower in front of him, or try to hide my glaring flaws, because Jesus has clothed me with his righteousness. Now, that is freedom!

On occasion, Rusty will disappear for a while, out exploring the neighborhood and charming the neighbors (who are all fattening him up!). His absence awakens my curiosity and I go looking for him to see what he is up to. God also draws me out of myself and bids me to come out into the world to see what he is up to.

One thing cats do better than any other creature, is sleep. There is no better picture of utter contentment and rest than a cat curled up in a cozy patch of sunlight. God calls me, too, to rest, to stop my frantic pace and just “be.” He gently reminds me that sometimes the most spiritual thing I can do is take a nap.

Today I am thankful for my furry friend on the red couch. He not only delights my heart but also points my heart toward the One who delights in me. What a gift!

First Day of School - Tuesday, August 26, 2008

I felt like I was taking Alyssa to kindergarten all over again, rather than dropping her off for the first day of her Junior year in high school. I wanted to go with her to protect her and to ease her way, to be there if things didn't go smoothly. But, of course, that was impossible - she would have been horrified at even the thought! Instead, I dropped her off at a street corner close to the school, since traffic was backed up bumper to bumper way past the intersection I was trying to turn into, and watched her walk down the sidewalk, while my heart squeezed and my eyes brimmed with tears. Up to now, she had attended the 240 student high school in our tiny town in Iowa. This year she is attending a school with 2,400 students and she doesn't know a soul. As I crept slowly in front of the school in the congested traffic, I saw that the school grounds were teeming with hordes of students (700 more than the entire town of Reinbeck!). I glimpsed Alyssa, chin up and shoulders back, alone, as she entered the sea of students and was lost to my view. I was awed by her courage in the face of her fear. "Okay, Lord," I prayed, "You have promised that those who know you will trust in your name because you have never forsaken those who seek you. Watch over my baby today. I'm so grateful that You can walk with her where I cannot go."

She survived . . . even though they assigned her to the wrong chorus class and she had to spend 45 minutes in the office having her schedule rearranged . . . even though one class location printed on her schedule was incorrect and no one seemed to know where the class was meeting . . . even though she sat alone at lunch and only ate two bites of her sandwich and said she felt like she was on the verge of tears all day long due to stress. In spite of that, she took the initiative to go the the career counselor after school to inquire about lifeguarding jobs, and to find out the requirement for volunteer hours and the email address of the basketball coach to offer to be a team manager. It was a hard day, and she came home exhausted, but I think she's going to be okay. Now I can breathe . . . even as I continue to pray.

We made it!

After two months of sorting, packing, and saying good-bye, we finally hit the road on Sunday, June 29, at 4:40 p.m. Alyssa and I were traveling in our little Kia Spectra with our two very unhappy cats, Moses and Rusty. We had an unbelievable amount of stuff to cram into the car with us and it looked like an impossible job. Delayne Hopkins and Sue Togersen took on the challenge,however, and we managed to get almost all of it in, using every available inch of space. There was just enough room for the two cat carriers to be wedged in by each of the two rear passenger doors.

The "week of movers" was, indeed a challenge. The packers came on Monday and Tuesday. By Monday evening they had packed everything it might have been nice to have access to (like towels, sheets, pillows, dishes) and left all the non-essential stuff to be packed the next day. Alyssa had the foresight to set aside a pillow. I was not so lucky, but a wadded up bathrobe served the purpose.

On Tuesday I asked them if they thought they'd get it all done that day and they assured me that they would. Well, by the end of the day, there was a LOT left to pack - all of the garage and many breakable items from the living room and dining room. The head of the crew said the estimator was way off on the number of dish packs needed (he had called for 13, they brought 20 and ran out) as well as the boxes for artwork (he had called for one carton. They used four and ran out). We also received a call from the lady at North American coordinating our move. She said they had not found a driver yet for our load, so they would not be loading on Wednesday, as scheduled.

No packers came on Wednesday (they had been assigned to another job). A call to the moving company determined that they'd be coming to pack after lunch on Thursday (still no driver assigned to the load). The packers finally arrived about 5 p.m. on Thursday and finished packing by 8 p.m. In conversations with the moving company, we discovered that our ONLY option was to have the local company come and load all our stuff on Friday. Then they would take it to a warehouse, unload it, and store it until a driver is found. I was not happy about everything being moved twice - more opportunity for things to get damaged or lost - but it was the only option they offered us.

So, two guys and a huge North American semi arrived at 9:30 Friday morning. As the day went on they kept calling in reinforcements, until they finally had a team of 6 guys working. They got the last of it loaded about 7:30 p.m. right before a huge rainstorm passed through town.

This was a sad day for our family. Randy, who had taken our dog, Annie, with him to California on June 15, got a call from the pet sitter that she was not able to stand that morning. He took her to a vet, where it was determined that her kidneys were shutting down and she was dehydrated. She could not stand up at all and one of her legs was rigid. She was no longer wagging her tail. He made the difficult decision to have her put to sleep. She was 16 and had been part of our family for most of Alyssa's life. She was the inspiration for many newsletter articles Randy and I have written over the years. She will be sorely missed.

It is now July 4th, and still no driver has been assigned to our load. Once they find a driver, it will take them five days to get here. I have since been hearing horror stories about people waiting three weeks for their stuff to be delivered. So, we are preparing ourselves for camping out in our new home for a long time. We have plenty of cleaning supplies, toiletries, and candles (the things the packers wouldn't pack), but not much else. Alyssa flies to Minnesota to go to camp in northern Wisconsin next weekend. If our load doesn't arrive, we'll be borrowing a sleeping back and buying some inexpensive "camp" clothes for her to take, since all those things are still in Iowa sitting in a warehouse in Iowa City.

Compared to the week of packers and movers, the travel days were blessed in every way. The cats were excellent travelers. We never heard a peep out of Moses, and Rusty only "talked" occasionally to make his presence known. The weather was spectacular - clear and sunny the entire way. We easily found motels who would accept pets, and there was very little traffic on the interstate, aside from semi's. The cats tolerated two 12+ hours of driving, so we got all the way to Reno, Nevada on Tuesday night. That left an easy three hour drive on Wednesday.

It's nice to be all together in one place. We aren't really "living" in our house yet, as it is empty, but we spend time there everyday so the cats don't feel abandoned. We miss our friends and our home in Reinbeck terribly, but are ready to dig in and get settled in this new place to which God has called us.

More Liquid Sunshine!

We have always had a deal with our kids during their teen years. We won't sit up impatiently drumming our fingertips on the table waiting for them to get home at night as long as they wake us up when they do come in. Sometimes Alyssa forgets (she's the last one left at home), so I invariably wake with a start at a truly ungodly hour wondering if she's still out. Then I have to haul myself out of bed in the dark and walk into her room to see if there's a breathing lump under the red down comforter. (Their usually is.)

Last night she had been down the street at Kassie's, no doubt either watching movies or sitting around the bonfire, which seems to be the typical modus operandi for this crew of teenagers. She poked her head into our room at 2 a.m. to let us know she was safely home. Perfect timing. It meant I was then awake for the crash of thunder loud enough to wake the dead that rocked the house, followed by a deluge worthy of Noah's ark. Enough rain, already! Roads are closed due to flooding all over the state. Farmers have been kept out of their fields past the critical dates for planting, and fields that WERE planted have seedlings that will likely rot. Another tornado touched down south of Marshalltown destroying more homes. Turbulent weather abounds, compounding the heartache inaugurated during a few violent minutes on May 25th just twenty miles north of us in New Hartford, Parkersburg, Dunkerton, and Hazelton.

When I rolled down my driveway at 5:30 a.m. (it was still pretty dark, due to the brooding rain clouds), I saw glowing lights in the hosta border. Fireflies! My heart lifted at the cheery sight. Everyone was a little late to the Target Fit exercise class today. Sheila said she hadn't slept all night because she was afraid of the storm (a little post traumatic stress). Steve hadn't slept because he kept feeling like he had something to do, but he didn't since school let out for the summer yesterday (he's a junior high teacher). I hadn't slept because my five page "to do before we move" list kept scrolling through my mind as I listened to the rain lashing the window by my pillow. Everything looms much larger than life in the middle of the night when there's not a whole lot you can do about any of it anyway.

So, I went to work out, then went to coffee at the church, and now I am going to continue my assault on the basement. I tried to call and make an appointment to have the carpets cleaned, but there have been so many flooded basements this spring that they are booked up until July 11th! I guess I'll be renting a machine and working on it myself. One more thing to add to the list. But I keep reminding myself how blessed I am. I still have a carpet to clean. I still have stuff to sort. Now I better get to it!