O Lord, You know Hubby and I try to keep up with our youngest grandsons. But OMG, after a rainy morning of hallway soccer, they didn’t need naps, but Grandma and Grandpa did!
This post first appeared on February 10, 2021.
I shoveled out my office last November.
A delayed optometric appointment had prevented me from seeing its squalor. After all, having bumped a fellow “pedestrian,” I realized I’d apologized to a mailbox.
I also stumbled through my chaotic office to reach the printer.
What finally inspired a cleaning turnabout? I share the printer with my husband.
Rummaging through rubble, I saw carpet. It’s blue — who would have known? I even (drumroll) cleared my desk.
Hubby thought he’d entered the wrong house. Then he swore I was the wrong woman. After checking birthmarks and dental records, though, he acknowledged I was his wife, not a lookalike alien. Even if I’d cleaned my office.
“Clean,” though, is a relative term. Some neatniks scrub their garage floors. Their streets.
I speak a different language. “Clean” means piles have been boxed and lined up along walls. It also implies bookshelves no longer threaten to collapse, as (sniff!) I gave books to Goodwill. Three of them.
I follow a never-fail formula for dealing with UFOs — Unidentified Funky Objects. If it doesn’t erupt, tick or grow tentacles, I toss it into a closet or drawer.
Mission accomplished last November.
Then came Christmas.
Bushels of Christmas junk migrated to my office. With the advent of energetic grandsons, our antique clock fled there for protection. So did the crystal clock my husband gave me. Custom-thrown pottery also took refuge.
Piles of trash, attracted as if magnetized, have made themselves at home.
Now, trying to force the office door open, I confront the unthinkable: I should clean again.
Twice within four months?
Let’s just buy another printer. And put it in Hubby’s office.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s your definition of “clean”?
Does your family celebrate Easter in traditional ways?
My siblings and I hid Easter eggs so well, truants were located weeks later by their potent odor. We awoke to yummy treats … in our polished shoes. Years before, Mom had possessed only pennies to spend on Easter. Having poured out frustrations in prayer — Mom talked to Jesus about everything — she recalled reading about Dutch children receiving Christmas candy in their shoes and nested jelly beans in ours.
My father, a pastor, celebrated Easter wholeheartedly, his bass voice leading “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” “He Arose” and … “Joy to the World.”
I thought everyone sang that hymn at Easter. As a teen, though, I realized other churchgoers sang it only at Christmas. I kept our odd custom a deep, dark secret, hoping no Easter visitors knew me.
Fast-forward 20 years. My children and I dyed eggs, their clothes and mine. One helpful toddler knew egg-zackly what to do with eggs.
Crack them.
Our family could afford Easter baskets. Repeating the story of their grandma’s faith, though, I filled my kids’ shoes with grass, chocolate bunnies and jelly beans.
My grandchildren still receive Easter treats in their shoes and hear of their great-grandmother’s prayer. They will dye Easter eggs — and their clothes. Our congregation will sing “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” and “He Arose.”
Joy to the World”? Probably not.
I’ll save that hymn for a visit to our parents’ graves. I didn’t want them to die. They weren’t crazy about the idea, either. But because Jesus came alive again, they will too. Someday, we’ll all be together with Him.
Joy to the world! To all who believe in Jesus’ Resurrection.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How do you celebrate Easter?
Dear Lord, while other grandparents inherit grand-dogs and grand-cats, it’s taken some time for me to adjust to grand-rats. But You have taught me to share our grandsons’ pleasure in petting and even holding the little creatures.
After all, OMG, they could have chosen snakes and tarantulas.
Images l-r by Anktrish Kamar & Steve Buissinne from Pixabay.
This post first appeared on December 28, 2022.
Years ago, my husband and I prepared for a barbarian invasion.
We hid valuables. We said prayers. We kept watch, knowing they’d sweep away our well-ordered lives.
They came.
We charged outside … and retrieved the world’s most beloved barbarians, our two-year-old granddaughter and 10-month-old grandson, from car seats.
“Gwandma! Gwandpa!”
Baby immediately yanked our books from shelves. When we interrupted, he reacted with a type A personality’s outrage.
His sister flipped light switches. “On! Off!” The little blonde goddess obviously controlled the universe.
Time to civilize barbarians — a little. We played with blocks, love-worn stuffed animals and an ancient Fisher-Price parking garage our children enjoyed.
The grandchildren zoomed cars down the ramp, cheering wipeouts. The scene reminded me of Christmas parking lots. And (shiver!) future 16th birthdays.
I offered a Nativity set with soft finger puppets. Baby happily crawled around with Wise Men in his mouth. Retrieving bowls from my cabinets, his sister made imaginary applesauce for the Nativity crew.
Peace on earth reigned.
Too soon, they had to leave. Hubby and I helped their parents search for bag, bottles, coats.
We wanted to send the Nativity set home with them, an early Christmas present. Hopefully, gnawing the Wise Men would keep Baby quiet during the trip. Mary and Joseph bore evidence Little Girl had found real applesauce for their dinner party. We corralled animals, angels and shepherds.
Where was Baby Jesus?
Hubby sifted through the toy box again. I scanned refrigerator shelves, hoping Little Girl hadn’t decided Jesus needed air-conditioning.
“Is Jesus in the parking garage?” I yelled to Hubby.
Not a question I’d ever expected to ask during my lifetime.
Shaking my head as I raised the toilet lid, I hoped He wouldn’t be floating in a not-so-sanitary Sea of Galilee. No, but new anxiety seized me. Had someone flushed Him?
“I’ll find Jesus and mail Him,” I promised.
But I’d wanted our grandchildren to get to know Him during Christmas.
I dove under furniture again and discovered Baby Jesus behind the stereo.
“How did He end up there?” Our daughter dusted Him off.
I shrugged. “Who knows? Jesus sometimes turns up in the oddest places.”
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Where did Jesus show up during your Christmas season?
Do your holidays cooperate? Occasionally, Christmas thumbs its Rudolph-red nose at me. Sometimes, though, it’s simply different.
In 1958, my family celebrated Christmas in our Mexican mission compound with a bare-limbed, thorny bush.
We dogmatic preschoolers protested, “That’s not a Christmas tree!”
With spun-glass angel hair, that odd, but lovely tree and borrowed Nativity introduced a different celebration. Hot-air balloons and fireworks lit the nights. Instead of dime-store trinkets, I received a wooden doll bed made by our handyman. My nine-months-pregnant mother, while sewing baby blankets, made doll versions from scraps. We ate weird sweets. We watched village children scramble for candy showered from a clay piñata my blindfolded dad smacked.
Strange for a five-year-old far from her Indiana home — but what wasn’t to like about candy and presents?
Although, if we’d spent Christmas in Austria, the celebration might have seemed less merry. Masked ghouls, representing Krampus, St. Nicholas’s evil counterpart, stalk city streets, shaking sticks at bad children. Scary for a kid who, despite missionary roots, pushed her little sister around.
Nearly meatless in Mexico, my family and I would have embraced the Japanese tradition of eating Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas Day.
However, I wouldn’t have savored South Africans’ holiday delicacy: deep-fried Emperor Moth caterpillars.
Bereft of television in Mexico, I would’ve welcomed Sweden’s Christmas Eve tradition: watching vintage clips of Donald Duck. According to one American visiting future Swedish in-laws, nothing can disturb this sacred ritual.
We all have holiday expectations. My missionary family was no exception. We didn’t want a different Christmas!
I didn’t want a different Christmas during 2020, either. I wanted normal, when our children and grandchildren filled the house.
Yet that odd Mexican holiday’s sights and sounds linger, 65 years later.
My parents treasured them too, despite hard times. Mom delivered my 12-pound brother at home.
Dad, who broke the clay piñata with his forehead, suspected villagers controlling it had intentionally smacked the gringo. Despite major headaches and self-taught Spanish, Dad pioneered a church.
The beautiful, thorny Christmas tree embodied that beautiful, thorny year.
Appropriate for followers of a Savior who experienced thorny years.
In 2020, Christmas was different.
We Zoomed gatherings. Met family in a park for masked Christmas walks. Pantomimed hugs.
Different. Thorny.
But Christmas 2020 was good.
One I will never forget.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What unique Christmas sticks in your mind?
Have you already decorated your Christmas tree(s)?
Not me. Pumpkins, fall leaves and acorns still adorn my fireplace mantels and front door.
This decorating delay doesn’t indicate inefficiency on my part — perish the thought! It does reflect autumn’s short season. Thanksgiving items are placed on clearance before kids trick-or-treat.
Given that many hate winter, why do we forget fall so fast? Why not linger in Thanksgiving Land?
It was wild and wonderful, wasn’t it?
Even if I had to shovel out spare rooms and wash sheets.
Even if wrestling the defiant turkey into the oven resembled a Friday Night SmackDown sans tights and sparkles.
Even if appliances didn’t feel blessed. Our disposal rebelled Thanksgiving morning. Worse, our oven adopted a relativistic philosophy, insisting if its controls read “350,” the actual 500-degree temperature was irrelevant.
Even if, having stocked up on dark meat because we ran out last year, I was asked if our turkey was a mutant. Ditto for yeast rolls that resembled trolls.
Even if drains and conversations occasionally clogged.
And I can’t pretend I have six months to Christmas shop. …
Still, with four generations feasting and sharing gratitude to God, our Thanksgiving was a blessed celebration.
Admittedly, the grandchildren’s sugar energy levels could have endangered not only our house, but the entire city block. Thankfully, we all defused at a large community room I’d rented.
No one sent the Monopoly game airborne when he landed on Boardwalk with hotels.
Everyone ate mutant turkey and rolls.
Not only was there enough pie for all 17 diners, plenty remained for Grandma and Grandpa’s post-host-survival celebration.
Despite that, I still can zip my jeans! — and ignore nasty online pop-ups advertising tent-sized attire for New Year’s Eve.
Bottom line: Our family arrived safely, rejoiced, loved, and gave thanks together, then returned home, grateful to again sleep in their own beds.
Can such a rich celebration be considered a mere practice run?
We can correct whatever went wrong at Thanksgiving to improve Christmas gatherings. Hosts can repair the carbonizing oven and replace air mattresses that flattened overnight. Hubby watched a YouTube video that helped him fix the disposal. I might even practice making rolls that look like … rolls.
Soon autumn decorations in our home will give way to poinsettias, evergreens and jingle bells. A Christmas tree will grace our living room window.
But thanksgiving won’t be packed away until next November.
I pray it saturates my Christmas season … and New Year’s … and Easter 2024 … and …
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What are your reasons for thanksgiving, even after Thanksgiving?
First, for all of you who require normalcy, I’ve recorded one everyday reason for thanksgiving: good weather. Here in Indiana, we expect winter, like an obnoxious relative, to blow in during November. Instead, sunshine, moderate temperatures, and glorious fall colors have prevailed. We Hoosiers are suspicious, but grateful.
Now begins the weird list. I am thankful for:
Finally, I’m thankful for hours in the Atlanta airport, surrounded by 4.72 million other travelers. As I stood in a restroom line, a janitor took charge. When her superhuman ears detected a stall lock’s jiggle, she directed the next woman to it.
Insignificant? No. When 2.36 million women wait in line, two seconds apiece add up. This janitor’s heroics comprised the difference between making our flights and dying of old age in the airport.
Even better: she touched our shoulders and said warmly, “Blessings on you today, honey.”
A little weird.
But sometimes weird blessings are the best.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What weird gratitude comes to your mind?
This post first appeared on October 21, 2020.
I started piano lessons at five. Stopped at the ripe old age of nine.
Statistics indicate I’m not alone; 6,761,141,370 of the world’s 6,761,141,379 people have taken — and quit — piano lessons.
I blame my parents. Neither had musical training, yet Dad’s big hands overran the keyboard. Mom, though partially deaf, could listen to a song, then play a full-fledged accompaniment in any key.
At five, I also picked out tunes. Why bother with notes? Neither did I (shudder) count beats. Mixing music, God’s gift, with arithmetic (eww), appeared one more weird complication adults demanded.
Mom tried to explain. If only she could’ve taken lessons!
I’d have remained unconvinced — except for strong capitalistic instincts. Mrs. Snyder charged 50 cents a lesson, but she always refunded a nickel to me. With yellowed books and sheet music piled everywhere, her musty house smelled mysterious and musical. Thousands of former students’ photos adorned her walls, as Mrs. Snyder had been teaching 200 years.
I liked Mrs. Snyder, I liked nickels and I liked Mom’s shining eyes when I practiced.
Sadly, Mrs. Snyder passed away. My new teacher handed me practice sheets instead of nickels. I played songs like “Requiem for a Student Who Didn’t Practice.” Mrs. Mozart made me (choke!) play duets with my brother. We bowed and curtsied at stiff, scary recitals. The longsuffering teacher informed Mom we weren’t destined to play at Carnegie Hall.
She finally let us quit.
Not until college did I realize my loss. There, I met people whose fingers blurred over the keyboard. One blind friend played as if part instrument, part human. Her music rippled up and down my backbone, joy unleashed.
Why are mothers always right? Especially when they preach, “What goes around comes around.” My children blossomed with initial interest, but only one persisted into high school. As they plunked through first practices, I wondered if Mom had enjoyed mine as much as she’d claimed.
Still, my kids learned to read music, and piano background fueled interest in other song forms.
Our piano — the first purchase my husband made after medical school graduation — often sits silent now, though I try to play daily. My fingers itch to exchange my laptop’s tippity-taps for music. Soon, I’ll touch piano keys and listen to less-than-perfect love.
Even if nobody gives me a nickel.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How did you feel about piano lessons?
O Lord, You know I wouldn’t spend a typical day attending a hockey game in which spectators cheer fights, jangle cowbells and throw pucks.
I wouldn’t help socialize a grandrat.
Or witness the morphing of a human into a freaky trick-or-treat alien.
But with two grandsons — OMG, what fun, doing them all!