Or take the train.
However you travel, go to buildabelly for new recipes.
(Sorry for the lack of savory meals. Even though I've made a few keepers in the last month, including another doozie of a dish for my Pakistani husband, I keep forgetting to take pictures.
Someday to come.)
The nearly full moon all tangled up last night.
Here's a picture of my mom and Augustine that I stole from my brother's blog. It captures a true part of her.
Mopsy's young-- she jumps over ditches, splits wood, and feeds horses, though her knees mutter complaint and her arthritic shoulders sputter. Her heart is true to my Grandpa Manwaring's, and she's a workin' fool, just like he was. Growing up, I grumbled enough for an army as she and Dad nudged us children to work alongside, and because of this, a shadow of work ethic actually overpowers my procrastination from time to time.
Born to a farmer and the oldest girl of seven children, Mom did a man's work alongside Grandpa, throwing bales and tossing feed. Fresh air's in her blood, and she lives outdoors in the warmer months. She dislikes cold and faithfully feeds the wood stove's belly through nearly every winter night, but a pocketful of chores outdoors has her breathe more sharp air than she'd like.
Her parents and sister died when I was 14 years old.
She hates unhappy endings in Story more than anyone else I know.
From certain angles, her eyes glint and sparkle. After laser surgery a few years ago, the previously hidden birds and buds poked out of the fog, and they still delight her every spring.
Her laughter is unabashed and musical, running up the scale and down again. She sang on the radio in her youth and missed out on life as an opera singer by instead choosing to live as mother of seven. Those same children lowered their heads during the Star Spangled Banner before sports games, hoping their teammates didn't know who was nailing the high notes in the crowd of fans.
Mom never treats herself to luxuries that most of us don't even name as such. When the years were lean, she used every cent as wisely as possible. Now that the purse holds more than moths, all those years of necessary penny-pinching have grown into a way of life. We children dream of someday buying her a shockingly impractical, nonrefundable gift that she can't refuse.
She wears her undyed hair long in a low braid in winter and a high ponytail in summer. Millie asks, "Mama, may I please have my hair in a ponytail all the way to the ceiling like Grandma Johnson's?" On Sundays, Mom lets it fall in waves down her back, and on special occasions, she applies light touches of makeup just like those that impressed me when I was younger.
Mom's 5'2", and one son stands at 6'4". All seven of us are taller than she is; she says she grew us big to carry her from room to room when she's old.
Mom loves strangers, she loves her family, and, most of all, she loves the Lord with all her strength. I've learned so much and hope to learn much more from her godly example. She turned 60 years old on the 18th of January, and we threw her a surprise party a few weeks ago. She hates to be the center of attention (don't you dare wonder how on earth I sprang from her), so it was especially fun that we surprised her so completely. This, to state the obvious, is the latecomer post.
My aunt Alice approached me with the brilliant idea to make a quilt for her, to give back in part some of the love Mom has sewn into the dozens upon dozens of quilts she's given away while never keeping one for her own bed. Aunt Alice not only had this brainchild, but she then selflessly offered to assemble the entire quilt for the contributers. All of Mom's children sewed, embroidered, and/or designed at least one square, and all of her sisters made one, as did one of my cousins and two of Becky's children. It was pretty cool to see her face when she opened it.
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I'd planned to have the party at my place, and I baked and scrubbed in preparation, but when nearly 60 relatives R.S.V.P.'d the day before the party, I started calculating how much excess furniture I could move out into the snow without irrevocable damage. (John and I once crammed over 30 people into our tiny apartment in Buffalo, but that's not to say stuffiness and smushing provide the best party ambience.) My sister Becky is the greatest. With less than 24 hours notice, she offered to have the party moved two doors down to her apartment, even though she's got enough on her plate for several mothers to chew on. It really was much nicer in her more spacious home, and I'm grateful that she bailed her thoughtless, little sister out. I didn't snap even one shot of the party, so Becky bailed me out again by letting me pilfer the following photos. (Thanks, Beck!)
Luke and Joel share laughs with Uncle David and Aunt Lorraine.
The kids loved the quilt as much as Mom did, if not more.
Susannah on Papa's lap
Watching Mom open gifts.
Debbie holding Amanda and Audra.
I'm posting this last one because my Dad rarely looks this animated. Yeehaw!
I sewed these two.
And here's my peekaboo baby well after midnight, awake with mama and the sewing machine.
Even the boys pitched in. Brother Pete embroidered my favorite block of the quilt (he's a surgeon-podiatrist, so it fits), Brother Luke designed a block (he's an industrial designer, so it fits), Brother Andy's wife Wendy made a cool, cool block (which fits, since Andy's working and going to school for his Master's full-time), and Brother Joel....? Joel picked out a pattern and sewed his own block! Just look at him; he's a natural.
Whipping away on Beck's machine...
(** Joel-- if you get the $$$ to me by sundown, I'll delete the last two pictures from this post. Remember, I want unmarked bills.)
Do you see this cool nurse on our couch? Michelle's a wonderful person for many reasons, but a prominent aspect of her wonderfulness yesterday was the fact that she roused my tired, lazy bones off the couch with a phone call (at 8:30, I confess). Not only did she come visit after her night shift, but she purposefully dawdled on her way here so that I could stuff things in closets before she arrived, plus she brought fine tea and sugar cookies. Now that's the sort of surprise visitor I would like to be roused by every morning.
She left in the afternoon, and we hauled our sorry selves down to the laundromat much refreshed from her company. She's a gem. (Plus, she fed my lust with travel tales. Tikal is not just a board game on our shelf, folks!)
The endless fascination children have with stuffing things into bags and boxes doesn't make as much sense as I'm sure it did when I was younger. Any time I turn my back, Millie and Annie stuff their backpacks, library bags, plastic and paper grocery bags as plump as they can with all manner of things, just so that they can haul them around the house to empty them.
One of Millie's funniest takes on this theme was the banana stuffed inside a tape cassette holder, but this one's not so shabby, either. An empty cereal bag, stuffed with books and carefully placed in the closet. Mysterious.
Saturday, John and I took the girls to the Discovery Center (thank you, McGamma!). I brought the camera and took three pictures before the battery died. Next time, I'll try to have some foresight so that I can snap a few more. John played with Susannah for nearly three hours while the Millie and Annie and I zipped about from room to room, setting off sirens, serving up piles of plastic food, driving a fire truck, crawling through tunnels, and getting our teeth pulled.
It was heaps of fun!
Picture One:
Picture 2:
Picture 3:
Dead Camera.
This is especially for Mags.
Recall our brief phone conversation and observe.
ABNORMAL CRAFT DAY: The girls used hot glue guns, with supervision, to make lots of animals. Annika: Ouch! Hot! Hot! Hot! Mildred: silently proficient. They churned out a million.
NORMAL CRAFT DAY:
Here's The Great and Glorious Pile of Mess that I lay before them to enjoy as they see fit.
On January 25th of 2005, I knew for certain that I was pregnant. A few weeks later, the saints at our church worshipped without us as the emergency room doctor offered congratulations, and after she left the room, I tentatively stroked my belly and whispered a hesitant "I love you, baby mine." I'd arrived via ambulance, after collapsing in the bathroom of the bloodwork office early Sunday morning, whisked away without giving the blood that was intended to confirm the state of my pregnancy. When the pain returned that night, I called the on-call doctor as I'd been instructed, and when I asked about the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy, he glibly assured me that the ultrasound showed the baby in the right place.
I tried to suppress the rise of excitement, the knowledge of life within, those surges that pierce through everyday tasks to fill one's heart. I'd been bleeding since the day I knew I was pregnant, but even so, those little thrills kept rising up, and I'd shove them down again. At the first appointment weeks later, my new doctor reviewed my charts and learned that the emergency room ultrasound had actually shown a bare womb, common in early pregnancy; she ordered another ultrasound and discovered that the baby was growing, unaware of any error, inside a fallopian tube. I told her I didn't want the "abnormal pregnancy removed" and for the next ten minutes muttered a constant refrain: yes, I know what ectopic pregnancies are, yes, I know the baby has no chance of survival, yes, I know the tube will eventually rupture, filling my spaces with blood that will kill the baby and without surgery, me, too; yes, I know, I know, I know.
I walked outside to close my eyes in the cold car, eventually breaking the silence to call John and to ask my mother, a nurse, for advice. In God's providence, results showed that the baby was not alive, though the remains continued to grow, so that same day, John, the girls, and I drove to pick up the antimetabolite drug. We immediately delivered it to the doctor, in whose room I then stood, pale and shivering, awkward, as she emptied the needle into my backside. Minutes later, I listened with half an ear as she explained the dry and matter-of-fact, and surrounded by the static of silence, I gave the appropriate "of course" when she paused.
Two weeks later, nearly two months after the first red appeared and with that red still constant-- a sign not of life's sustainment nor life beginning but of a life already ended-- I understood the tiniest glimmer of the woman's desperation who grasped the edge of Jesus's garment. Her mysterious ailment caused her to live cut off and alone for twelve long years with no change in sight and with no hope until He came.
The methotrexate was unsuccessful in coaxing my body to shed our child's shell. On March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, I again curled on an emergency room bed, waiting for news of surgery. A nurse wearing green scrubs and a green headband, all green glitter with impossibly unsteady antennae, wheeled me to the operating room where I handed over my wedding ring, breathed deeply, and fell asleep while they took the baby's remains.
Thankfully, the baby's placement didn't require my tube to be removed, and one of the last statements the surgeon made after examining me the next morning was a jaunty, "I was able to do it with just a few, small scars. You're still a bikini babe!" I truly was thankful that he was a skilled and competent surgeon.
I wanted to cry or punch him but did neither.
What is the moral choice? I ask this wanting no answer, as we spent enough time during those months and the following explaining, defending, and occasionally agreeing with others about this difficult issue. In our bones, we have no doubt that even if God allowed my death, it would have been wrong to end our baby's life-- a baby with a certain, brief reach of days-- even through a "secondary effect" death caused by removing the compromised tube. If we were in this situation again, nothing would change.
I've always been reticent to allow others too much knowledge of the more vulnerable aspects of living when it comes to my own life. Though I babble like nobody's business and have always been overmuch of a loudmouth, I've also always been an extremely private person in certain areas, close-mouthed about both the highest and lowest points. This may sound self-important, but I don't mean it to be, because lots of us are like that.
I didn't share all this on my blog then and didn't plan to. In fact, I didn't write about it at all, so why the sudden openness? Two years have passed, and today I sat thinking of lives whose earthly span is contained entirely within the world of their mother's body-- lives that end here so quickly after they've begun-- of those mothers and children and love and loss. Nearly all mothers have experienced or will experience the loss of a child, and I thought of mothers who lose babies before they even know a baby is within them to lose, after two weeks, after two months, mothers who lose children big enough to cradle and cry over, and mothers who lose children grown too big to hold in any place but their heart. Our family's moment of grief was so small and even tender compared to those latter, but because life is shot through with the results of Sin and Grace, we can expect greater griefs (and joys) to come and probably more heavenborn children, too.
I talk here about Mildred, Annika, and Susannah constantly, marking their steps, no matter how insignificant, with wordstones. I thought that this child of God, whom I will greet as a no-longer-stranger in Heaven, deserved a bit of the same, and today seemed as appropriate a day as any in which to give it.
I love you, baby mine.
