Saturday, September 12, 2009

If you're so led...

...please pray for a couple of members of our church family, Jon and Steve, and their families.

UnderStandUp! International Ministries is sponsoring a benefit concert tonight at Copeland Hall in Bowdon featuring Everthird and Echoing Angels. Proceeds will help efforts to dig wells in Kenya. Tickets are only $12 and the music will be incredible, so come on out!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

My brown-eyed boy

He had a crush on me, the sweet brown-eyed boy in high school. He asked my mom how he could get me to like him. I was immature, awkward, plain, but he saw something in me. I hurt him every chance I could by dating his blue-eyed, blond Apollo of a cousin. Apollo liked to date me in between real girlfriends and toss me aside when something better came along. Kyle was always there. It was too easy. He never asked for more than my friendship, but he never even got very much of that.

Another pair of brown eyes was my downfall a few years later, but behind those eyes was cruelty, control and pure meanness. I fell immediately and hard for this one, and he made me pay dearly for the friendship I had wasted with my original brown-eyed boy. Never very confident in my looks, my personality or my worth, I now had every flaw highlighted, sharpened to a fine point and driven excruciatingly back into my heart and soul. For three years I destroyed myself to be better, nicer, smarter, thinner, blonder, prettier and sexier while he dangled an engagement ring in front of my nose like a carrot in front of a mule.

My Geddy, my hero, rescued me from that dismal pit of a relationship. He was my friend, like Kyle, and he restored me simply by being there. We had been friends for years when parallel jobs put us in constant touch. I woke up one morning and realized I could not imagine my life without him, and I wasn't going to waste a second chance to be with someone who cherished me in a way that was balm to my soul. We were married 10 months later, and Kyle was there, as always, to serenade us with "In My Life."My precious, faithful friend whom I took for granted all those years, who was content to gather the few crumbs I tossed him, sang at my wedding. And I didn't bother to keep in touch afterward.

I am hopeful that someday, somewhere, I will be able to tell Kyle that I'm sorry I didn't appreciate him more. I don't regret we were never a couple but he taught me more about real love and friendship than I have known outside of my 16-plus-year marriage. I couldn't fully understand what it meant to me then and I am ashamed I squandered a chance to reciprocate, to be to him the kind of friend he was to me. I wish I could tell him that I am blissfully happy with my forever love, and that I feel worthy of receiving his love partly because I caught a glimpse of it in his sweet brown eyes so long ago.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Facebooking frenzy

I've been cheating on Blogger with Facebook. It's a great way to keep up with old friends and my scattered relatives, and I am really enjoying it. I do miss blogging, though, so here I am.

Mostly, we've been working on getting our feet back under us. I had a hysterectomy July 29 and my recovery has been very slow. Exactly a week after my surgery, before I had been cleared to drive, Geddy had a kidney stone and my brother Bubby had to drive him to the ER at midnight. By the weekend, he and I both had 'flu and I had thrush. About the time we were feeling better, a stomach virus snaked through the family.

The Hat Trick started the school year without me but they have done well. Our first six-week term ends Friday. Larry (now known as Squirt) is winding down with Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra and working on Georgia history and vocabulary. Curly Sue (Squish) just started Saxon 5/4 and is working in spelling, vocabulary and grammar workbooks. Moe (Squonk) is flying through Horizons math, vocabulary, spelling and grammar books. We are working in Mystery of History and Bob Jones Science 5 all together, and I'm pretty pleased with the progress we've made so far.

Next term, we add in Latin Road to English Grammar for Emory, Spanish and French for everybody, and literature. We might travel as a family to Nicaragua next spring and we want to know a little Spanish, and Squish wants to write our Haitian sponsored child Nervelie a letter in her native French.

Squish turns 10 a week from Friday and we are planning a sleepover with some of her friends. She wants it to be a spa party, so there may be some painting of fingers and toes and possibly a foot spa involved. I found cute bags and goodies at the Dollar Tree to pass out as favors and now we're working on getting word to her friends. I think a midnight Silly String war and the sing-along version of "Mamma Mia" might also be in the plan.

I am going to ENJOY my week off!