Grad Party Snapshots

 Centerpieces: vintage jars, driftwood, burlap and old tablecloths.

 The day started with brilliant sunshine.

 Then came wind, rain, and dropping temps. 

 The girls set the tables while I ran to Costco for the cakes.

By the end of the party, the tent was falling down from the high wind.

But by then, almost everybody had gone inside to get warm.

 Polka-dots? No, root beer.

 Root beer on ice in a vintage metal crate.

 I live with neutrals, and my friends all cheer when they see color at my house.

This table was the only one in the garage, and it quickly filled up

with Murphys at one end, and Herbolds at the other.

I love seeing our relatives having a good time.

 Love this verse.

 Old window frame with pictures of Julia.

My girl!

Anniversary

Twenty-five years with this guy.
Every year on our anniversary, I'm a bit of a crank.
This year we have a thousand tasks to finish before Julia's open house,
and he left for the day.
What?!
He's not working today.
There is a chance he's making me a gift.
So I'm trying to be gracious.

I would have thought, 25 years ago, that by now our marriage would be a sheltering tree.
On Mackinac Island, in Michigan, the lilac trees are the oldest in North America.
Their trunks are gray and strong.
Beautifully trimmed,
they curve over sidewalks,
shading passersby with heart-shaped leaves.
They bloom at the proper time.

This morning, as I hacked away at our messy lilac tree,
I thought that our real-life marriage needs constant tending,
constant trimming,
in order to create that tree of shelter.
Sometimes, marriage feels like a big scary weed.
The little foxes are the shoots and bolts
that threaten to take over.

I imagine if we ever move away from here,
that in 50 years,
this lilac will have become a giant shrubbery.
Somewhere deep inside the heart of it,
old scars will remain
of the branches that I cut away.

One year, I cut down so much of the lilac
that the entire family was mad at me.
It looked like a skeleton of a tree.
You'd never know it now.
Lilacs are tough.

We've had some bad years,
years that left cuts and scars.
We have seen that waiting, and forgiving, and praying,
and laughing, and staying in the mess together,
brings, eventually, all kinds of healing.
This life doesn't look the way we expected it to.
We are rich in children, but not in much else.

Considering how cute we were,
we hardly have any good pictures of our wedding day.
It was the worst $800 we ever spent.

Here is what I would tell these two, ahem, children:
Be kind.
Forgive quickly.
Do what is needed to be healthy and whole.
Enjoy your kids, but don't ignore each other.
Be a sheltering tree, first for each other, next for your offspring, and then for everyone else.

After decades of listening to Dr. Dobson, I only remember one thing he said.
It was for children, but it applies to marriage as well.
I paraphrase:
Look out the window.
The world is a big, hard, scary place.
Plenty of people out there will hurt you.
Here, in this house, we will not have hurt.
This will be a place of safety.
Here you will find love.

Every marriage ends in grief,
one way or another.
But today I claim joy,
I grind the enemy under my heel,
and I choose to love with a whole heart.

Sleepless

Julia's class graduated from their small charter school yesterday.
Fewer than fifty students, and nine of them have been together since kindergarten.

For the first time since 1997, when Caleb was chosen in the lottery to attend this school, my husband and I don't have any children at PACT.
It's such a strange feeling.
The waiting list is around a thousand students, so there is no guarantee that Anna Kate will get back in.
If she's not there, then Malachi won't be on the sibling preference list, and he probably won't get in for kindergarten.
That's why choosing to home school Anna Kate was so momentous.
This has been a very good school for our children.

And she's off! (for a business degree from Northwestern University of St. Paul)

I'm thankful that the Lord knows our future.
I have too many kids, in too many phases of life, to worry about details.
We drove home through the rain last night, with a tired baby in tow.
Malachi went in our bed, as usual.
Through the night, Julia texted me, just as I asked her to.

The night was a blur of texts and a baby fussing next to me.
I feel like the only member of a tiny club, consisting of nursing mothers
with high-school (and college!) graduates.

10:36 p.m. "Bowling now."

1:09 a.m. "Leaving bowling...we're heading to a party at someone's house now....then the Lundstroms."

2:53 a.m. "Leaving for the Lundstroms now...."

3:05 a.m. "At Grace's."

So at last I could sleep....at least until 6:00 a.m. or so, and then it was up for coffee and solitude before Malachi woke up.

What a lovely, memorable night.

And congratulations, Julia Jordan-Rose.

You're going to have a beautiful life.

"Thou wilt show me the path of life;
in Thy Presence is fullness of joy."
(Psalm 16:11)
 

Interlude

 Interlude: an intervening episode, feature, or period of time.

Whew. Busy is what we are. Yesterday was Caleb's graduation from Northwestern College in St. Paul (my alma mater). I was a bit of a wreck. I started crying on the way there and didn't dry out until late in the day, after many events had unfolded.

Caleb and his baby brother, who does not seem a bit impressed.

 

 Maybe that's because this is how I remember our son. Just a little curly-headed two-year-old, who even then knew how to play hard and work hard.

I've been following a blogger (in my sidebar, Summer Harms), who just mentioned as a parenting goal To not check out. I think that's how she put it. An excellent goal. Because if you check out you will find that after about three weeks have passed, the kids are completely grown. That's how it feels sometimes. Like a blur.

 Our back yard, as green as God can make it.

So after yesterday, which included the graduation, a reception where we met classmates and professors, and lunch with Caleb's grandparents, we rushed home and my husband and I hied ourselves to a wedding.

A lovely wedding, with one of the best wedding sermon's I've ever heard, but oh my was I ever tired by the end of the day. (It is impossible in our own strength to be as perfect as Scripture commands. But God gives us the Holy Spirit, who equips us to love each other in a way that is supernatural).

Malachi Jude admiring the rain

And here's our interlude.
We have one week before our daughter graduates high school.
Today was rainy, a steady, nourishing rain.
The kind that makes pulling weeds almost a pleasure.
All the crab apple trees awakened, pink and white.
The bleeding hearts arched like delicate balloons on a string.
We rested.

Here's the poem that came to mind as the rain fell and fell and fell today.

Rain

by Robert Louis Stevenson

The rain is raining all around,

It falls on field and trees,

It rains on the umbrellas here,

And on the ships at sea.

(If you have a young child, try to find A Child's Garden of Verses).