I want to find them and hug them.

I want to write them a letter to tell them how their simple gesture reached so many people.

And mainly, I’d just like to say thanks.

Thanks for bringing a smile to my heart today, and for being so entertaining that my young daughters and I all clapped when they were done.

Thanks for staying married for 62 years, and loving one another enough to have fun and act silly together.  Such a simple thing that is such a rare find these days.

Life is full of simple pleasures, and something tells me that these two know and appreciate that.

Be back (with pictures!) tomorrow!

I ordered one immediately.

Or maybe my parents ordered it for me since I was still sponging off of them at that point.

Either way, we went home and found a stamp-ordering place and ordered a lovely, self-inking rubber stamp.  I still have it to this day (of course I do, since high school was just a few short years ago. Ahem.) It bears only one word.

Tommy said that we should all have a ‘temporary’ stamp, and we should be marking everything we see with it.  Being right in the middle of my angst-y youth, that really had an impact on me.  And I’ve carried that with me into the, um, older years of my youth.  Or adulthood. Whatever.

I think it’s a good reminder that applies to everything in life.  Sort of a ‘this too shall pass’ but more succinct and less annoying.

When Carrie Underwood released her Temporary Home song, I was thrilled.  So glad to know that I’m not the only one with this philosophy.

That’s it – that’s all I’ve got.  Short, sweet, and simple today.

Have a good one.

I enjoy social media.  Twitter, Facebook, Youtube – I’m there.  But it seems most many people are unaware of how bad they make themselves look whilst using it.  Because it’s where I spend the the majority of my social media fun time, I’m focusing on Facebook.

Facebook faux pas, to be specific.

I believe that a big part of the problem here is that social media attracts many young and immature people, who have no concept of how far-reaching and long-lasting this will be.  I’m afraid they will learn the hard way.  But just in case anyone is paying attention, here is what I would add to the numerous lists of Facebook don’ts.

-Don’t complain.  Good grief, don’t complain.  This is actually a good policy for every thing and every time in your life – trust me, you’ll be happier for it.  But Facebook specific-ly – it’s free, people.  Free. When you complain about the changes and the errors and the lack of privacy, you reveal yourself to be a petty, spoiled, entitled brat.  It’s free.  Take it or leave it, but stop complaining.

-Don’t whine, either. I tell my primary-aged daughters that no one wants to be friends with a whiner, and I tell them this for one reason.  Because it’s true. Even as adults.  No one wants to be friends with a whiner.  Knock it off. I can’t believe how many adults post nothing but whines about their life. Boo-hoo. Suck it up and deal, people.  We were never promised a rose garden.

-If you are going to comment on someone else’s stupidity, for goodness’ sake, please proofread yourself.  Just this week I’ve seen people complain about the ‘mooron’ in front of them or the ‘dumbness employees’ known to man.  Really? Really?

-Beating a dead horse here, I know, but it’s/its/there/their/they’re/your/you’re – All. Different. As in, not the same.  Distinctly different usage.  Please research.  I promise this information will serve you well in life.  And don’t try to cop out and use ‘ur’.  Doesn’t fly, and possibly makes you look even worse.

-Watch what you ‘like’.  For one thing, if you ‘like’ every little thing that makes you chuckle, you annoy all of your friends by cluttering up their feed with your fluff.  You also make yourself look a bit, well, brain-light. [That's nice-speak for shallow and/or stupid] Also, ‘liking’ something funny now could come back to bite you in the rear later.  I guarantee you that one day the media vetting of politicians will include their youthful indiscretions on Facebook.

-Games. Oh, the games. Do us all a favor, and don’t allow your games to post to your wall.  We will all appreciate not having to hide the annoying applications one by one, and you will look less… like you have entirely too much time on your hands because you are playing two dozen internet games daily.

-Ditto the gift applications.  I don’t need a virtual teddy bear or a cartoon mojito or a pretend pillow fight.  But thanks so much for the thought.

-Another annoying new game trend I’ve noticed – sidestepping my block.  I’ve hidden your dumb games because I didn’t want to see them, and you know that.  So you seem to have started using your status updates to prattle on about your games.  I’m reading along, feeling rather alarmed about the apparent bloodshed, when I realize that this is all about Mafia Wars.  Oh. My. Please stop. Please, just stop.

-You’ve heard it said before, but watch what pictures you post.  Those, too, can (and will) come back to kick you later. Keep it G.  And kids, watch an episode of ‘To Catch a Predator’ one day, and pay attention. [Also worth noting-this may be the only time you will catch me recommending that anyone ever watch MSNBC, for any reason]

-Don’t let Facebook become your reality.  It’s a big, beautiful world out there.  Don’t spend your life in front of a screen, computer or otherwise.  Social media is not the same as real-life social encounter.  Go outside.  Live.  And don’t Twitter about it the whole time, either.  Step away from the Blackberry or the [gag] iphone and just live.  Pretend you’re living in the 80′s ancient times when such technology didn’t even exist.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  What have you learned from Facebook?

Pop over to From Inmates to Playdates to link up yourself, or read what others have learned.

I’ve been reading a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Re-reading, actually.  It’s a great book.

See that?  There in the bottom right?  If you ask me, it’s the most important, most revealing part of the title.

Overwhelmed by a Relentless God.

Heavy stuff.  Intimidating.

Overwhelming.

Relentless.

And as uncomfortable as that might make you – and it should make you squirm a little – it’s also comforting, isn’t it?  The idea of God loving you relentlessly, never giving up, never leaving.  Loving you so wholly that it’s overwhelming.

It is a great book.  But it’s not an easy read.  It’s very challenging.  Not because it’s theological and you need to be a biblical scholar to understand it – not at all.  It’s easy to read.  It’s just painful.  If you can read it and not feel uncomfortable, then I daresay you’re missing the point.  Chan writes, “God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn’t come through.”

And yet, it’s easy to read a book like this, agree with it, feel inspired by it, vow to live your life in a better way, and then…not.  We let the fire fade.  We grow comfortable again.  I did it myself, after reading Same Kind of Different As Me.  [Another great read, BTW]

Annie Dillard once wrote that “How we live our days is how we live our lives.”  Chan takes that one step farther, writing “We each need to discover for ourselves how to live this day in faithful surrender to God as we ‘continue to work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling’” (Phil. 2:12). [This also happens to be my favorite scripture] Chan says we have to learn to listen to and obey God day to day “…in a society where it’s easy and expected to do what is most comfortable.”

I’ve been comfortable.

And I want to change that.

Coincidentally, we got a new issue of Thriving Family magazine last week, and the Chan family is profiled.  Specifically, the article is about their decision to sell their comfortable home and downsize, moving into a small home and even inviting the needy to live with them.  They are practicing what he calls ‘radical obedience’.  Giving up what would make them comfortable by worldly standards, and giving to the world until it hurts.

I want to practice radical obedience.

I want to be radical.

I want to have a heart that is so filled with passion, so consumed by love, so overwhelmed by a  relentless God, that there is no shadow of my former selfish, comfortable self.

I want to love my neighbor so fully that there is no room left for me.

Erma Bombeck once said that “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me’.”

Me too, Erma.  Me too.

I have a long way to go here.  My daughter is better at this than I am.  But today, I am [re]committing myself  to trying.

One day at a time.

How we live our days is how we live our lives.

Indeed.

This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all.

Doctors have been visited, closets have been cleaned.

A birthday was celebrated, and a yard sale was held.

Garden tended.

Family visited.

Bible School. Girls Scouts. The zoo.

A funeral.

We’ve enjoyed the county fair, and lounged in our new pool.

Pesto has been made, and popsicles have been eaten.  Many, many popsicles, since it’s been unbearably humid. 107 degrees yesterday, according to my friend Ginger’s thermometer. Ick.

And now, hopefully, what precious little remains of the summer will be unadulterated fun.

Very little indeed, since we have year-round school and an abbreviated summer.  Back-to-school time is already upon us, and we’ve already stocked up on pencils and crayons, backpacks and uniforms. We’ve met the new teachers and bought the lunchboxes, and nothing’s left to do but the going.  Always the hardest part. (For me, anyway)

I’m a fair-weather blogger.  Or a ‘the kids aren’t home’ blogger. Whatever.

Priorities.

The little people have needed me.

Be back soon.

PS) Check out the sculpted abs on Catie!

And that’s the best definition I could find via Google – the rest all involve ‘many lifetimes’ and the like.  Hogwash.

———————————————————————————————————————————————

My entire life I’ve been told I’m an old soul.  I now have Annie, and my eldest is most certainly an old soul.  Is it nature?  Nurture?  I’m not sure, but either way, it is.

I know it, and I’ve never tried to deny it.  I’m an old woman in a youngish woman’s body.

I was reminded of this fact last week when I heard someone state that ‘old’ people often think children should sit down and be quiet in church.  I bit my tongue at the time (quite a feat, as those who know me can attest) but later reflected on how once again, I am old.

And I’m okay with that, truly.  I have always enjoyed the company of those much older than myself.  I’ve always related better to the elderly than to my own peers.  I would far rather spend an afternoon with someone who has really lived life, than a young person who has done little living but much posturing.

I aspire to be the old woman described in the Bible in Titus 2:3-5:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

I’m not there yet.  Submission is not easy, but I’m working on it.

So yes, I’m an old person.  And I like other old people.  Of all ages.

Annie is only 7, yet I marvel daily at her deep and profound understanding of God and the real world.  Real meaning that which is truly important.

Because she is a child, she thinks like a child.  She only recently realized that Mickey Mouse at Disney World is somewhat less than, um, real.  But because she is an old soul, she also once said that she’s not sure Christian women should be wearing makeup, because it sends a conflicting message about what is really important.

I love that kid.

And I pray that we will have many, many more years in which to grow old, together.

PS) I readily admit, I do believe that children should sit down and be quiet in church.  Certainly I don’t mind to hear the occasional peep, but more than that is disruptive to your fellow worshipers and disrespectful to the God we are there to honor.  They must learn to sit still and be quiet.  It’s a good lesson.

Or so says my inner old lady.

Lilly proudly declares, “I get married with Luke.”  Luke being a boy from our church.  He’s a very appropriate 2 years older, one of the cutest little boys I’ve ever seen, and just the right amount of ornery.  He makes me laugh just to look at him, and he comes from a good family.  And it just so happens that the girls are all good friends with his twin sister, so the families could just merge seamlessly.  Good choice Lilly.  Please remember this in high school.

Catie picked Carter, the son of some friends of ours.  Or possibly Isaac, their other son.  Either way, I’m good with it.  Another great family, great kids, super cute.  She & Isaac might be too similar to make it work, but thankfully they have a few years to iron out the details.  Thumbs up.

And then there’s Annie.  She is 7 and going into 2nd grade, and she wants to marry her best friend.  So far, a very solid plan.

What makes Annie’s choice so special is who her best friend is – a little boy from her class who is severely autistic.  They sit beside each other, and from day one Annie has adored him.

She never noticed that their skin is a different color.  She never cared that he is largely non-verbal.  Instead, she began checking books out of the library on sign language.  It wasn’t for 5 months that I realized she was doing this so she could learn to communicate with him.

She never cared that he throws fits of frustration.  She didn’t mind recently when he hit her on one such occasion.  In fact, she dismissed it immediately when I asked her about it, afraid he would get into trouble.  “It’s okay mom, he didn’t mean it!”

She carries tissues in her backpack so that she can use one of those if the need arises, because he doesn’t like everyone to use the tissue box.  He wants it to be his personal tissue box, and Annie is happy to comply.

She’s even gone so far as to re-arrange her bathroom schedule, because he doesn’t like it when she goes to the bathroom right after lunch.  She never questioned why this bothered him, she just accepted it.  And she loves him enough to change even that, just to ensure his happiness.

The first week of school, she told Catie about her new best friend.  “He has autism” I heard her say, and my ears perked up. 

“What’s that?” Catie asked.

“It’s just part of him, like you have blue eyes, and Lilly has big feet.  It’s part of what makes him him.  He’s really cool Catie, I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

And that was all she ever said about it – she’s never mentioned his autism since.  But him?  He gets discussed every day.

Their desks are together.  They line up together.  She holds his hand in the hallway, and she likes to sit with him at lunch so she can open his milk.  Sometimes they make swaps with their food, which works out particularly well for him since Annie eats like a bird.

She loves him with a heart that is pure, and she loves him from a place that is deeper than most adults I know. 

She has a completely normal, ordinary, everyday friendship with him, and I love this about her.  That she overlooks all that is different and notices only what is alike.

Recently I accompanied her class on a field trip, and I was pleased to see how kind she was to him.  She didn’t run off and leave him because things were new and exciting and he couldn’t keep up.  She still held his hand.  She still opened his drink.  She still looked after her buddy.

In fact she ditched me on the bus so she could ride with him instead, and she helped him do Mad Libs on the way.  That he didn’t understand ‘adjective’ or ‘adverb’ was no deterrent at all – she just found a way to make it work.  When he got out of his seat, she showed him the sign for ‘sit’.  When he was restless, she gave him my phone to watch cartoons.  And mostly, she gave him hugs.  Lots and lots of hugs.

I was so proud of her, and I told her that evening that I was happy to see how nicely she treated him, and what a good friend she was being.  At this she screwed up her little face, gave me a strange look and said, “I’m not his friend to be nice to him.  I just love him.”

And she does.  She just loves him.

I wonder how many times in his life he will experience that kind of blind, unconditional love.  I wonder how many times I will. 

I wonder how many times I offer that same selfless love to others.  Especially to those who aren’t family, to those who are different, to those who lash out at me in frustration. 

How often do I love purely, without expectation? 

How often do I overlook everything that makes someone different or difficult, and just. love. them.?

My daughter has the most amazing spirit I believe I have ever encountered, and praise God for it, because certainly it comes in spite of all the ways I fail her.  I very often feel she is the one setting the example for me. 

Today, I will strive to love like Annie.  It’s a lofty goal, but I have a great Teacher – in more ways than one.

Most of you know by now how much I love Knock-Off Wood.  So today is yet another project brought to you courtesy of Ana (and of course the man who supports my lumber habit).

Our front porch has sat empty for the three-and-a-half years we’ve lived here, and I was more than ready for that to change.  The problem is that I could never find anything I really wanted to put out there.  A bistro set would work, but they’re not very comfortable and no one really uses them.  Rockers could work, but they’re awfully large, not to mention expensive.

Ana’s Simple Outdoor Lounge Chair looked promising, so I told myself I’d try making just one.  If I didn’t like it I’d just put it in a yard sale.  But ooooh, did I ever like it.  A lot.  So I made a matching side table as well - a smaller, modified version of the one my girls made a few weeks ago.

I made a few small changes to Ana’s original plan.  First, I used a 1×4 for the back pieces (instead of a 1×2).  I did this both for consistency of appearance and for seat strength.  Second, my husband has a bad back, so I needed our chairs to be taller.  As written, the chairs are a few inches lower than standard height (though still higher than an Adirondack).   She tells you to cut the leg pieces at 22.5″, but I made mine a little taller at 25.5″.  Therefore, I also had to change the attachment point (her step 4) to be 15.25″ (moving it up 3″) so that the seat was at the proper heighth. 

Also, on step 9 when it is time to attach the back, I tested it for comfort.  Holy reclining seat Batman.  I’m sure my perspective is skewed because I do like to sit straight, but wow.  The Lounge Chair title of this one doesn’t do it justice in my eyes – it is really, really loungy!  I opted to put a second piece of 1×4 across the back, on the inside of the armrests, so that the seat is less reclined.  Much better. 

Things I might do differently the next time: 

• If I were in these chairs very often, I think I’d want a  2×4 to make it even less reclined.
• Test and measure other chairs that I am comfortable in. These chairs are very comfy for me (5’7″), but I am long-waisted, so my chief complaint here is that the arm rests are too low.  My elbow hits about 4″ above the arm rest, rendering them essentially useless for me.

• Consider making different heighths for different people.  My mom is short (5’2″) and my modified chairs are too tall for her – her feet dangle.  However, even the original plan wouldn’t be quite right, because the seats are also too deep for her. 
• Stain or prime and paint all boards before building.  I know this.  I always know this.  But I’m always too anxious to get to work and I never take the time to do it.  Then when the time comes to paint, the job is a whole lot harder.  Don’t be like me – take the time to paint first.  Trust me, on a piece with lots of slats like this, it’s worth it.

Instead of paint, I opted to use a solid stain.  It’s one-step easy and lasts for years, especially on a covered porch.  And it comes in every color of the rainbow. Score!  I had originally considered white but I’m not sure why – I quickly moved on to debate between black or a dark wood stain, and ended up going for black.

Here is my before:

And after:

Ok, so the whole house didn’t exactly change.  But it does look better!  And once I find some appropriate cushions, they will be truly smashing.  Wanna help on that front?

I’m looking for bright colors, but all I seem to find are old-lady florals.  I really dig these throw pillows (or these), but they don’t sell matching seat cushions.  I love orange.  I don’t want a back (I don’t think. Do I?)  I need a 20×20″ seat.  I don’t want a solid color.  I don’t dig stripes or plaid.  Any suggestions for me?  I’d love some links!