Loaves and Fishes

I've spent most of today packing and cleaning and fretting and fussing because we're getting ready to take a trip.  We'd planned all week to go to church with my parents this evening but as two o'clock turned into three o'clock and then four o'clock I started plotting ways to stay home and not go to Mass because I just had too much to do.  But, with Joel's encouragement we loaded ourselves into the minivan and met my parents at St. Henry's where during tonight's Gospel reading I heard once again the story of the loaves and the fishes.  You know the story, Jesus spends the afternoon teaching a multitude of people on a hillside and as afternoon turns into evening the disciples begin to worry that maybe Jesus should send all those people into the surrounding villages so that they can get something to eat.  Instead, Jesus has the crowd of people sit down and asks his disciples to bring him whatever food they can find. They bring Jesus five loaves of bread and two fishes - not even enough to feed themselves much less 5000 men and their wives and children.  Somehow, Jesus takes what they have brought him and feeds all of those people and no one goes away hungry and when everyone has eaten, the leftovers fill twelve wicker baskets. 

Orange Beach 2010

     Again, I have heard this story all my life and I have always thought about it in terms of the multiplication of the food - that was the miracle.  Jesus fed a whole bunch of people with a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread which in and of itself is pretty amazing. But tonight, as the priest was reading this Gospel story I began to think about it from a more personal perspective.  What if I substituted "loaves and fishes" with "patience and understanding" or "energy and effort" or "love and attention."  Without stretching things too much, by the time we'd driven the short distance from St. Henry's to Pizza Perfect I'd had what I guess could be considered an epiphany. Namely, at the end of this day and week and summer where I've believed that I'm not enough - don't have enough - for my children, my husband, my parents, and everything else, I need to trust that my own set of metaphorical loaves and fishes is going to be sufficient.   I've also been reminded of something that I've lost sight of lately - sometimes the most important thing I can do is show up and listen and have faith in a power greater than myself.   

Still Stripping

Earlier this year I started stripping the wallpaper in my kitchen.  It's a big job because I have acres of wallpaper to remove, but fortunately it's not difficult because the paper was put up correctly which means it's just peeling right off the wall - mostly.  Yesterday and today I tackled the wall pictured below. 

The above photo was taken the day before Thanksgiving in 2006.  I had just put the hutch together and was photographing it to show my mother-in-law because she gifted us with the hutch. I still love this hutch.  Also, look at my teeny tiny Sarah sitting at the table. Love her too!  The photo below was taken about 9am this morning.  As I was painting the yellow primer over the black walls - walls that were painted black before the decorator hung the black fruit wallpaper in what I'm sure is some fancy decorator way of hanging wallpaper - I kept thinking it looked like a crime scene. 

And now, I have this (the photo down below).  The hutch is on the other side of the kitchen now and it may eventually find it's way back onto this wall or it may not. Furniture is kind of mobile in my house.  I'm actually considering moving it into the living room but that get's me a little off topic and OH MY GOSH LOOK AT THIS WALL!

This is just the primer coat.  Still undecided which direction to take the kitchen. I'm in the market for a reliable reasonable handyman to hang some crown molding and change out my light fixtures.  But for today, I am happy that this wall is done.  I'm also happy that I've finally found a use for some of the yards and yards of material that Luz purchased the summer before she died.  I believe she had plans to use this in either the Orange Beach condo or in the addition she had built onto the Tullahoma house.  I think this rosy print dresses up my little IKEA chairs quite nicely.



Putting some of Luz's material to good use.

This makes me happy.

Sarah's Songs

A few weeks ago I wrote about Sarah's songwriting.  Her first song is called "Rainbows." 

http://adayinthelife-julie.blogspot.com/2011/06/like-scrapbooking-only-less-satisfying.html

Since then she's written a few more.  These are my favorites. 

I like her way with words.

Also, she spells like her momma.

(Not sure how I made it through 12 years of

Catholic schools without learning to spell well.)

SUNRISE

 Owen My Brother

Deferred Maintenance

It's been a long week.  A really long week.  A really really really really long week.  It turns out that when you continue to live with a high level of stress day in and day out and don't really do anything to either address the source of the stress or work on doing things to reduce your stress level you might (just might) find yourself in the middle of an extended anxiety attack.  That's where I found myself on Tuesday morning. Based on Joel's insistance, I called my doctor to make an appointment - but not before going to work first and checking in to make sure the project I'm working on was going to be alright.  Seriously, I don't prioritize well.  Based on the symptoms I described on the phone the doctor's office asked me to come in immediately.  The second time they took my blood pressure it was 160/90.  I don't know what the first reading was but the nurse said that at 160/90 she was glad to see it dropping.  I had an EKG and some other tests and I've been given a couple of prescriptions . . . one for blood pressure and another for the crazy.  Joel has been absolutely wonderful throughout all of this and told me (in what I know he means as a compliment) that he can't believe I've held it together as long as I have.  I don't think any of this is going to get better overnight but I'm hoping that a weekend away with friends - friends who are like sisters and have known me since I was eighteen - is the first step I need to start doing things differently.  Below is the post I wrote last summer before heading off to see my girls and what was true then is even more true today - friends really are the chocolate chips in the great cookie of life. 

Same time - Last Year

Vanessa, Julie, Kelli and Lahoma

Centre College

Longer ago than I would like to believe

     It's a "Girls' Weekend" weekend - and just in time too.  Earlier this week I didn't think I was going to be able to make the trip to Lexington, but my sweet husband sensed that I was about to wade into the deep end of the crazy pool and kindly suggested that I pack my bag and get in the car tomorrow morning and drive north so that he could enjoy a day or two of peace and quiet I could get away from life for awhile and have a relaxing afternoon and evening with my girls.  Friends are definitely the chocolate chips in the great cookie of life. 

Like Scrapbooking (only less satisfying)

     I used to scrapbook.  Both of my children have beautiful baby books that I spent hours (and weekends) putting together.  When Luz passed away (October 2008) I stopped scrapbooking.  The first year was overwhelming and scrapbooking all those birthdays and holidays without her . . . well, there was no joy in that. 

     We're in the process of cleaning out our house this summer.  We're pulling things out of closets and drawers that haven't seen the light of day in a long time.  I guess this process could best be described as purging.  After two years of not being able to let go of anything that belonged to my mother-in-law or my grandmother (who died in August 2008) I'm ready to let some stuff go - including (maybe) my traditional approach to scrapbooking.  Because here's the thing about scrapbooking - it's labor intensive and messy and it encourages hoarding.  I don't need anything that encourages hoarding right now. 
So, I'm going to blog about some of those things that I don't want to forget and maybe someday in the future I'll print them out and add them to the childrens scrapbooks because their scrapbooks are important to me.  The kids like them too.  Every now and then one of them will pull out one of their scrapbooks and ask me to sit on the couch and go through it. That alone makes all the hours of work worthwhile.  Now, on to the thing I don't want to forget.

      Sarah is starting a band.  She hasn't settled on a name for her band but she has written their first song - "Rainbows."  She sang it to me and asked me what I thought.  It was pretty good, although the tune sounds a lot like that "Airplanes" song. She also said, and I am quoting her here, "It's going to be the first cut off my new album."  She's writing  her second song, "Sunset", sometime this weekend.   

You Dance a Dance Class

A few years ago (April 2009) I walked the Country Music HALF Marathon (CMHM) here in Nashville.  I found it a difficult thing to do, but not because of the distance or the effort required to complete it.  No, the CMHM was difficult for me because I walked  it surrounded by 35,000 other people (I hate crowds) while wearing a racing bib (I loathe nametags and anything nametag related) and I because there were always 34,999 people ahead of me in line for the porta potty. Also, the walkers are coralled at the back of the pack which means that I started walking over an hour after the Marathon officially began.  Once I finally started walking, it took me well over three hours to cross the finish line. It was a long day.   That very same day at that very same race, Joel ran his very first half marathon.  He started running over an hour before I started walking and he finished his half marathon in under two hours (1:58).  His day was much shorter than mine.  After my CMHM experience I decided to hang up my competative walking shoes for good.   

In the time since that race, Joel has become a competative runner. He runs so much and so often that the kids and I no longer feel obligated to attend his half-marathons.  Run a FULL marathon and we'll make the effort to cheer from the sidelines and greet him at the finish line, but run a HALF?  Call us when you're done.  My walking shoes, competative or otherwise, have not seen much use. Every now and then I go the the Y or walk around the neighborhood,  but my routine has been far from regular. You would think that living with a runner would increase my own get-fit motivation, but it hasn't.  Joel looks and feels great.  I do not. 

A few weeks ago I had my annual health screening at work and the test results were less than ideal.  Nothing serious, just some things I need to address sooner rather than later.  I spent an afternoon being miffed about the whole thing but then decided that I just need to get over myself and be grateful for fixable health issues.  I've put my walking shoes back on and I'm training to walk a half marathon here in Nashville in September. I decided to register for another half-marathon because quite frankly, I need a goal to walk towards. I would like to finish this race much closer to the three hour mark but I'm making no predictions. I wish I could say it feels good to be out walking again, but it doesn't - not yet anyway.  I'm hoping that will change but even if it doesn't I know that I've got to keep walking.  I can't let Joel have all the fun.

I tried to embed a clip from "Friends" (the best sitcom EVER) to help make my point but I can't get it to upload here.  The link to youtube works though, if you want to watch it. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipsgYiyTpNc

Still Standing

Grandmother Hurst's House

Still Standing in Union County

 

John, Reid, Grandmother Hurst,
Wendy, David and me
Christmas Season, 1978

     The above photo is a fairly recent image of my Great-Grandmother Hurst's house in Union County, Tennessee.  This was my grandfather's childhood home. I found this photo by using the "street view" icon on Google maps.  I also took a virtual drive up and down the road leading to the house and it seems that not much has changed since I actually took a drive to see it over twenty years ago.  We used to visit Grandmother Hurst several times a year and what stands out in my memory about those visits were the stern warnings that my cousins and I received to stay away from the cistern that was in the side yard (for obvious reasons, none of our parents wanted us falling down a deep dark well) and the fact that there was no indoor plumbing. There was an outhouse on the hill up behind the house, but that never really appealed to me.

     As for the history of this house, I'm not really sure (date built, date purchased).  What I do know is that my great-grandfather, Attie Hugh Hurst, had two wives (not at the same time) and twelve children and they all lived here.  He and his first wife, Nancy Butcher, had three daughters (Stella, Retha and Leta) and when Nancy died he married my great-grandmother, Mary Williams, and they had nine more children (Fred, Nora, Jessie, Troy, Glenn, Harlan, L.J., Lou and H.C.).  It's amazing to me that this house is still standing there. I'd like to take a drive out to see it again, just wondering who I need to contact to make sure that would be okay. 

Attie Hugh Hurst's Children
Not sure about the back row, but the front row is
Jessie, Troy, Glenn, Harlan, LJ, Louella and HC.
Aunt Lou didn't like being called "Louella".