When Sweet and Sour Don't Mix

In addition to being a food person in general, I've always been a breakfast person. Often my last thoughts before drifting off at night are dedicated to planning my breakfast menu. Saturdays are the best. Nearly every week, I enjoy a special treat of Costa Rican coffee with lots of nut milk and a modest serving of maple syrup. On a good week there might even be some type of healthy pancakes.

The Friday before last, I went to bed with my mouth watering for gluten-free toast, fried eggs, and thick-cut bacon, plus my usual 8 ounces of coffee. When my eyes opened the next morning, a smile formed on my lips before I could even form a conscious thought. Special breakfast day!

It wasn't until I got to the kitchen that I remembered this vexation:

At Least You Know You're Alive

Last week I told you a bit about my family's recent road trip to Indiana. Now I'm going to tell you about the day that most of us will remember when we look back on this vacation.

Our last Tuesday was designated as Chicago Day. Rather than to brave the traffic and fight for parking spaces, we decided to take the South Shore commuter train that runs between South Bend, Indiana, and Downtown Chicago. I've actually ridden that route many times, and I usually enjoy the sense of adventure. This was my sister Amy's first time to ride the train since her stroke, but our sister Melody had done her research and assured us that the train was handicap accessible.

We decided to depart from Michigan City, an hour's drive away, because it had more return options than the closer South Bend station. On the trip out, we had the benefit of a one-hour time difference; we could leave at 7:00 and have plenty of time to catch the 9:00 train.

I got Amy and myself up that morning at 6:15, which seemed like plenty of time. But I had not factored in the shared bathroom, nor the multiple trips to the basement to holler at Allyson and her friend Kambry. Aunt Sue came to rescue by cooking our oatmeal and even washing Kambry's hair in the kitchen sink just moments before we left.

Following Melody and her husband Joe, we pulled out of the driveway around 7:20, not too bad in my book. While Kambry brushed her wet hair, Allyson routed us to the Carroll Avenue station. If all went according to plan, we would arrive with 40 minutes to spare.

Not So Bad After All

Okay, so I ought to be grading papers, or at least doing the dishes. But I just have to tell you about my day yesterday....

It all started when my eyes fluttered open in the early light of morning, instead of the darkness before dawn. With a gasp, I rolled out of bed and squinted at the clock. 7:23. Not too bad. If you're going to oversleep, 23 minutes is the way to go.

I rushed to Allyson's room, where she was lying sound asleep under the glow of the overhead light. Her alarm had gone off, but she'd been seduced back to sleep. "Get up, Allyson!" I shouted. "I overslept. It's 7:23."

She popped out of bed almost as quickly as I had. "I'm going to be late for school," she said.

"Not necessarily. Just pull on your clothes and brush your teeth. We gotta go!"

The Cooking Fail That Wasn't

I had a great, productive day today. I woke up in good spirits and made excellent progress on my current e-Learning project. I was so engrossed in my work that I worked an extra hour without thinking about it.

And then, without warning, I abruptly crashed into a very foul mood. I was hungry and tired and very blue for no good reason. I wanted very much to go to bed, but it was only six and I was hungry.

I drug myself away from my desk and out to the garage to check the deep freeze for something edible. I've been way too busy lately with driving for Lyft (more on that later, but no promises) and studying up on the latest teaching technologies, so I haven't made time to go to the grocery store very often. Thus, I find myself eating whatever I can scrounge up, such as peanut butter and jelly (if I've had time to grind my sprouted wheat and make bread, as well as soak, dehydrate, roast, and grind the peanuts).

So you can imagine my triumph when I spotted a package of salmon I'd bought on sale and then forgotten all about. I literally raised a fist and said, "Yes!"

Let Go of Your Agenda

Remember The Great Pumpkin Fire of 2010? Well, last week, I had another pumpkin pie adventure that was a lot less dangerous but much more frustrating....

It was my second time to buy sugar pie pumpkins, but the first two I'd used to make pumpkin milkshakes, pumpkin mini donuts, pumpkin oatmeal, and pumpkin pancakes. The second two sat on my counter for about three weeks because Ethan had declared that I couldn't make any more pumpkin things until I made some pumpkin pie. Ain't nobody got time for 'dat.

Last Thursday, I'd planned to take Allyson clothes shopping, but we were way late with dinner, and I didn't want to keep her up. To ease her disappointment, I suggested that we'd make the pie instead--because surely that wouldn't take up the whole evening. (What was I thinking?)

While we ate dinner, I roasted the two miniature pumpkins whole. After the dishes, I ground the pastry flour and whirled up the ingredients from my no-fail whole-wheat crust recipe in the food processor. I formed the dough into a disk and let Allyson cut it in half with the bench knife. I put half in the fridge and tucked the other half in the freezer for next week's pot pie.

Next I washed up the food processor bowl and pureed the now cool pumpkin flesh. I guess it was around this time that Allyson alerted me to a disaster with the kitty. "Mama! CiCi found a noodle and she's eating it."

I wiped some sweat from my brow with the back of my wrist, keeping my pumpkin-slick hands away from my forehead. Darn it! Why hadn't I picked up that bow-tie noodle that Allyson had dropped under the table during dinner? I sighed heavily. "Well, take it away from her."

"I'm afraid to. She's growling at me," Allyson called from the living room.

I smiled. A kitten growling? My daughter was obviously exaggerating.

"It's gone. She ate it."

"Well, one noodle won't hurt her."

"It's as big as her whole stomach," Allyson pointed out.

"Well, nothing we can do about it now."

While the crust chilled in preparation for rolling out, I prayed and read the Bible with Allyson and Ethan, smiling at my own efficiency and time management skills. But my smile fizzled when I looked at the clock afterward. It was now approaching 9 o'clock, and we still had to roll out the crust, prebake it, mix the filling, and bake the pie for over an hour.

"I'm afraid you won't get to eat any tonight," I told Allyson. "Maybe I can just finish it tomorrow."

"No!" Ethan called from his room. "You said we could have pie tonight."

I heaved another sigh. No way I was making my 10:30 bedtime this time. Maybe I could skip the pre-baking; whether or not this step is actually necessary seems to be the subject of vehement debates online.

I sent my sister Melody, the pie master, a text. "Do you prebake your pumpkin pie crust?"

No answer. I thought back to the last successful crust I'd made. I was pretty sure I'd prebaked that one. Better stick to the plan.

"Okay, time to roll out the dough," I said.

Allyson followed me back to the kitchen. "Can I help?"

"Sure, baby," I said. "Just let me get it rolled out. You know pie crust is tricky."

"I can do it," she said, taking the wooden rolling pin from me.

Reminding myself that this pie wasn't going to be in the state fair like my Melody's famous pumpkin pie, I stood back and watched Allyson struggle with the cold, stiff dough. "Don't make it too thin," I said. "Make sure you get it even."

Wonder of wonders, the crust turned out great! It was soft and pliable, but firm enough to hold its shape. And unlike the other times, there was plenty of overhang around the pie pan. We worked together to trim the excess dough and roll it under, and then we crimped it all around between our index fingers and our thumbs. Oh, it was a masterpiece. I didn't take a picture, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Following some instructions I'd found online, I made an egg-white wash and let Allyson paint it on with a pastry brush. "Gently," I warned, clasping my hands anxiously. "Not too thick!"

After we'd poked holes all around the crust, I carefully lined it with some foil and poured a handful of barley grains on top to weight it down. No risk of a parchment fire this time! As I slid the crust into the oven, I smiled smugly. "We're getting pretty good at this," I said, squeezing Allyson's shoulder.

While the crust baked, we mixed up the filling ingredients, dirtying the food processor bowl for the third time.

Now I got an answer from Melody: no, she doesn't pre-bake her crusts. Oh well.

Sixteen minutes later, I pulled the delightfully fragrant crust from the oven and gently peeled back the foil... and half the crust along with it! With the foil off, I saw that the beautifully crimped edges had slid right down the sides of the pan.

 "Oh no!!" I wailed. "I don't understand. I followed the instructions exactly. The pie is ruined!"

At this point, we had eaten a lot of the botched crust.

"What will we do?" Allyson asked.

"I'll make the other half of the dough," I said. "And this time I won't prebake it." Stupid Internet instructions, I thought. But something was starting to come together in my mind. I pulled out my cookbook and compared the whole-wheat pastry crust recipe I'd used to another crust recipe I'd looked at to remind myself how to make dough in the food processor.

Uh oh.

The food processor recipe, which used 75 percent more flour, called for 3/4 a pound of butter--three sticks. But the recipe I'd made only needed 3/4 a cup of butter--one and a half sticks. I'd gotten the two recipes confused! No wonder our crust had been so supple. And no wonder it had slid to the bottom of the pan in a greasy heap. (And no wonder it tasted so yummy.)

"Argh!" I cried. "I can't use the other half of the dough. It has too much butter, too."

"What will we do?" Allyson repeated.

"We won't do anything. You're going to bed. I'll to have to start all over. I'll make the dough tonight and roll it out tomorrow. Go to your room and get your jammies on. I'm going to grind some more flour and then I'll be right in."

Alone in the kitchen, I took a few deep breaths. I'd wasted a whole evening and had nothing to show for it. And now I'd have to stay up a lot longer. If only we'd gone to Penney's instead! Could I possibly be any more frustrated?

Just then, Allyson's shrill cry interrupted my pity party.

"Mama! CiCi found another noodle. You come take it from her."

I trudged into the living room, ready to show Allyson how to show a 1.5-pound kitty who's boss.

"She's under the chair," Allyson said, pointing. "And she's growling again."

I knelt and peered under the chair. "You come out of there, CiCi," I commanded.

"rrrrrr-rrrr" she answered.

I gave her rump a little shove. "Get out of there."

"rrr-RRR."

"Give me that!" I said, reaching for the noodle protruding from her mouth.

CHOMP!

"Owwww!" I howled. "She bit me!"

I squeezed my ring finger to see if it would bleed. A large, crimson drop blossomed on the side of my fingertip, and another tiny bead appeared on the top of the same fingertip.

CiCi licked her chops. There was now no sign of the noodle.

"You bad, naughty kitty!" I said. But I had to admit that she had warned me. Unlike Allyson, I hadn't had the sense to heed her threats.

Here's the sweet little culprit.

I scrounged up the second-to-last Band-Aid, doctored my throbbing finger with Neosporin, and tucked in my sous-chef and her vicious kitten, who sleeps in a carrier next to her bed.

And then I trudged back to my wreck of a kitchen and whipped up another crust. As I worked, I went over the evening's trials in my head. But then something unexpected happened. I had to smile as I thought of the satisfaction Allyson and I had shared in making that beautiful, ill-fated crust. This was no wasted evening!

"It's not about the pie," I thought.

A Walk In the Park
Three days later, God reminded me of my pie adventure while we were walking in the park before church. That morning I'd been excited over a whole hour for my quiet time, but then I couldn't decide how to spend it. When I asked God what I should do, I just kept thinking of the trees in the park, and how long it had been since I'd gone on a Sabbath walk.

"But it's cold out," I said. "Can't we talk in here?"

My head turned to the gorgeous crepe myrtle just outside my kitchen window, and I felt a tugging in my heart. "Okay, I'll go for a walk," I said, "as long as it isn't raining."

I opened the front door and squinted out at the front yard. No rain that I could see.

Layered up with all the gear from my Three-Day Walk, when I'd walked 60 miles in temperatures just over freezing, I headed out the door--only to discover that it was indeed raining. It was just a heavy mist, but my feet were already feeling damp in my Five-Finger shoes. I hurried back inside.

"God, why did you tell me to go walking if it was raining?" I asked, feeling a stab of disappointment.

Just then, I thought of all the rainy walks I'd taken with my mother-in-law up in Vancouver, where it rains practically every day in the winter. Sandi always says that you can't let a little rain stop you from getting your exercise.

So changed into some boots and dug out the pink pancho that I'd never worn on the Three-Day Walk. Oh, I was a sight in my sweat pants, casual boots, long coat, knit hap with flaps, and pink pancho. But it didn't matter because nobody else was crazy enough to be out in the rain. And I think God thought I was beautiful.

We had a great walk. Some of the trees were still green, so vivid against the gray sky, while others were bright with fall colors. I had to pause on the foot bridge to watch the rain drops making interlocking circles in the creek. "Oh, oh," I said. "Thank you."

As we walked, I told God about my frustration lately with being so busy. "I feel overwhelmed sometimes," I said. "And there are so many things that don't get done, important things. Like when I showed up at Dad's birthday party last week without a card or a present. But what could I have done differently last weekend? What could I drop that I haven't already dropped? Should I stop getting together with friends?"

Tears trickled down my cheeks. "I need your help with this. You know I'm no good at organization. Show me how to make my time go farther, like you do with my money when I put you first."

I walked on in silence for a few minutes. In my favorite part of the park, where the branches make a canopy over the path, I heard God's answer. "You need to let go of your agenda."

Yes.

"I need to relax," I said. "I need to rest in you and accept that I can't do it all. I can't be perfect."

I thought of my "wasted" evening, with its hidden treasure of fun with my daughter. I thought of Mary and Martha--how Jesus said that in spending time at His feet, Mary chose the more important thing despite Martha's legitimate need for help in the kitchen.

"Show me what's really important," I prayed. "Help me let go of all my expectations and let you have my whole day, each day."

Such a weight was lifted from my shoulders. I realized then that I never have to be disappointed about what I can't accomplish, whether that's an unmade pie or an unmopped floor. As long as I surrender my whole day to God, I can be sure that the important things will get done. And the rest of it doesn't matter. It's not about the pie.

As we headed back home, a large, green tree next to the stream caught my attention. My latest scripture memory passage bubbled up in my heart:

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, 

whose confidence is in him.

For he will be like a tree planted by the water,

that extends its roots by a stream.

It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.

It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

(Jeremiah 17:7-8)

I grinned over the way God had confirmed this passage for me just that week, even though I hadn't asked because this was just Bible study homework. After I'd copied the verses onto blank business cards, I closed my eyes and pressed a hand to my chest. "Help me trust you like that, Lord. I want to be like that tree, with green leaves that display your splendor."

I flipped on the radio then, just in time to hear "like a tree planted by the water... roots going deep... leaves always green." (It was a song I'd heard only a few times, and I can't remember now who sings it.)

I was so surprised I almost jumped. And then I laughed with delight. I'd never received a confirmation so quickly before!

Now, a few days later, I saw why God had given me this passage. I'd always thought of droughts as trials; I know from experience that troubles can make our roots go down deep, deep to the living water. But now I saw that my drought is this constant busyness. It's a dryness that comes from being too busy and needing more time with God. When I get overwhelmed, that's the time to send my roots down deeper, to drink the living water and thrive.

"You tied it all together for me, didn't you?" I said with wonder. "I can trust you with this season. You're taking care of everything, and I don't have to be anxious. I'm going to bear even more fruit now, as long as I keep letting you make the agenda."

If we had more time, I'd tell you about the rest of that amazing Sabbath, which went almost nothing like I'd envisioned but was so much better than anything I could have planned. I will say this... when I went to church last night, one of the first things I heard was, "Tonight we're letting go of the agenda."

I felt a thrill at that sacred echo. I'm so excited to see what God's agenda holds for me.

P.S. I finally made the pie on Saturday. The crust wasn't nearly so pretty as the first one, but it held its shape. The pie was delicious!

P.S.S. I'm saving up lots of cat stories, but for now I'll just share a few pictures...

I think it's love.

My sister Amy syringe feeding CiCi

So Long, Hope and Laughter

If you were paying close attention, you may recall that I promised to tell you about our hermit crabs, way back in February. Time to make good on my promise....


Last September, when we got Arwen, Allyson started lobbying for her own pet. When our beloved hamster Fluffy passed into glory in November, she became even more insistent. What she really wanted was a cat of her own, but I told her we'd have to get used to taking care of one before I'd be ready for two. So she tossed around several ideas: bird? guinea pig? snake? (just kidding; that was Ethan's suggestion, promptly nixed).


I was as noncommittal as possible as she pitched each option. "Yeah, maybe.... Sure, honey, one of these days."


When Christmas rolled around, she came home from Canada with a pocket full of money from Uncle Jack. She'd scarcely kissed me hello before she announced breathlessly, "I know what I want with my Christmas money! A hermit crab! Can we go today?"


"Maybe tomorrow," I hedged.


A cursory Google search told me what I needed to know: Hermit crabs are cheap, easy to take care of, and don't live that long. Yes, yes, and yes.


Allyson did an online search of her own. She'd decided to name the crab Laughter, but she thought that sounded weird, so she looked up the Spanish translation: Larisa.


"That's a weird name," Ethan said.


"Not as weird as Arwen," Allyson retorted.


"Why would you name a crab Laughter?"


"She can name her crab anything she wants," I said. "You got to name Arwen, remember? And I think Laughter is a great name."


We hit Petsmart the next day. We purchased the $20 starter kit, an $8 crab, a couple of extra shells, small bottles of salt water and fresh water, and a little bottle of food pellets. Back at home, Allyson immediately dumped the half inch of gravel into the tiny plastic cage and leaned the metal climbing rack against one side.


She gingerly transferred Larisa from her Styrofoam cup into her new home, while I took pictures, which I've inexplicably lost. [Argh!!!]


"This house looks too small for her," Allyson said, and I agreed. "How often are we supposed to feed her?" Allyson asked.


"I forgot," I answered. "Let's look it up online."


For the next two hours, we read all about the care of hermit crabs. Guess what? They aren't nearly so easy to take care of as I'd thought. And guess what else? When properly cared for--which they usually aren't--they can live up to 30 years! (I'd be in my 70s!) The reason they usually die within a month or so is that they are slowly asphyxiated outside their natural tropical environment. They can die even more quickly if the temperature falls below 70.


It turns out that the little kit all the pet stores sell is wildly inappropriate for hermit crabs. They need a much larger space, and they need high humidity because they breathe through modified gills. Their habitat (or crabitat, as crab lovers affectionately call it) needs to be between 70 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, they need a deep substrate that they can burrow into. And that sponge that comes with the starter kit is a breeding ground for germs.


That's why, one day later, we marched back up to Petsmart and returned that $20 starter kit. We replaced it with a 10-gallon fish tank and coconut husk substrate, a mister bottle, and a realistic log for Larisa to climb on. Let's just say all of that added up to a wee bit more than Allyson's Christmas money.


But it was worth it to see my little girl's joy as she hydrated the coconut husk brick in a mop bucket and then arranged all the accessories just so. After that, she affixed several beach themed pictures to the outside of the crabitat, "to make her feel at home." [Sure wish I could show you the pictures I took that day.]


It reminded me of what she did for her ill-fated goldfish back when she was 5.


Larisa seemed very happy in her new crabitat that evening. After that, we could only guess... for two reasons: 1) Hermit crabs are nocturnal, so she only came out to eat when we were sleeping. 2) Like all hermit crabs, Larisa loves to burrow. Every now and then we could spot her pretty shell along the side of the glass. And once we got very excited when we realized she'd exchanged her original shell for one of the shells Allyson had brought home from White Rock Beach after summer vacation last year.


Beyond that, there was very little excitement. Okay, no excitement. Allyson got it in her head that what Larisa needed was a playmate. According to all that we'd read online, hermit crabs are social creatures despite their name. Maybe if we bought another crab, Larisa would come out and play.


So I forked over another $8 for Esperanza (Spanish for Hope). Hope was a bit bigger than Laughter, with a very impressive purple pincer that we were both afraid of.


Within an hour or so, we had two buried crabs that we never saw. Allyson promptly lost interest, and I was left to care for our seemingly imaginary crabs. (It reminded me of the time Bill told Ethan there was a hamster in the empty hamster cage, shortly before we bought Fluffy.)


And it was really a pain in the neck, because:

• They didn't much care for those convenient food pellets. Instead, they preferred itty bitty chopped up bits of fresh fruits and vegetables, tiny dabs of peanut butter, bits of beans, laboriously cut-up sunflower seeds, etc. And those bits of fresh food got moldy quickly in their warm, moist crabitat.
• Maintaining the right humidity level was a crapshoot. When it got too high, mildew was a constant problem. A bit of mildew was actually a good sign, but it had to be removed daily because it could make the crabs sick. When I removed their moldy food shell at night, I often felt I was really just feeding the mildew. If the humidity dropped, the mildew went away, but it would be only a matter of time before the crabs strangled. If the temperature got too low, they would sort of hibernate and might be in danger of dying, but if we used the heat lamp, the moisture dried up. One solution would have been to raise the temperature a few degrees for the whole house, but I wasn't willing to pay higher gas bills.
• Their water bowls tended to get slimy, and I wasn't supposed to use soap to wash them (nor tap water, for that matter). So I rinsed and rinsed them under the tap and then tried to dry them with paper towels, which left bits of paper that were probably toxic for them.

The one advantage to taking care of them was that they were hardy little creatures who could go for many days without food and fresh water. I tried to feed them every other night, but that was hard to remember. Sometimes it was three days, or four. And the time I forgot to ask Bill to feed them when we went camping, it might have been a total of five days. Sometimes their water bowl was stone dry. But they clung to life stubbornly.


As the months passed and I continued to chop produce for these pets that we didn't see for literally weeks at a time, I became resentful. I didn't mind scooping Arwen's poop and feeding her twice a day because sometimes she'd let me pet her. But what was the point of putting food in a cage that might as well have been empty?


I complained to God about it now and then, and I suppose part of me hoped they would join Fluffy in heaven.


A couple of months back, I asked Allyson if we could give the crabs away to some true crab lovers. At first she refused, but then she realized she might be able to get a different pet. "Sure," she said.


I asked several neighbors for advice on getting rid of crabs, to which they replied that I shouldn't say that out loud. "Seriously," I said. "I'd like to put them on Craigslist, but I'm afraid to have a stranger come to our house to pick them up. And if I take their tank out some place to meet someone, what if they don't want them? That would be a big hassle."


I'd hoped one of the neighbors would take them off my hands, but for some reason after all my complaining, nobody was interested. One neighbor suggested cooking them in a soup, and I shuddered.


I continued to complain/pray about getting rid of them, but I think God knew I needed an attitude adjustment. Each time I trudged to Allyson's room at 11 PM to feed them (because I never thought of it until I was crawling into bed, and my conscience wouldn't actually let me starve them), I'd ask God to help me be a better caretaker to these innocent creatures who were entirely dependent on me.

I'd like to say I learned to love Larisa and Esperanza, but that would be a stretch. Instead, I learned to accept my duty and to serve them without (too much) complaint.


It wasn't long after that when Conrad, the big brother of Allyson's constant companion Ellie, got a hankering for hermit crabs. Allyson enthusiastically offered him the crabs and all of our supplies. He said he'd have to check with his mom. I crossed my fingers and prayed.


Within 24 hours, the crabs were gone... to a much better home where they will be loved and played with and appreciated. I have to admire Conrad and Ellie's mom, who already has two dogs, birds, and two big turtles. I guess the more, the merrier.


It was so fun to see Conrad and Ellie's joy as they set up Allyson's crab tank.

They put tin foil and a towel over the mesh lid, just like we did. 

When I ran into Conrad the next day at Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, he excitedly described their night-time antics and told me how fun it is to hold them. He's not at all afraid of the purple pincers.


And neither is Ellie:

Ellie and Lisa, a.k.a. Larisa

There, now you've seen Larisa. Now that she's no longer part of our family.

Soon you may be hearing about Allyson's next pet. She's already scheming.

Shut Up and Reboot

As a former tech support associate, one of my all-time favorite Dilbert cartoons is this one:

For the record, while I sometimes rolled my eyes at some of my more vexing callers, I wouldn't have dreamed of telling them to shut up and reboot. So you can imagine my surprise last week when I phoned my Internet provider for tech support and was basically told to shut up and reboot.

I'd finished my endless list of chores one evening and gotten Allyson in bed early, so I figured it was the perfect time to install those parental controls I'd been thinking about. I wanted to restrict access to inappropriate sites and also to limit Ethan's browsing time. I found the instructions I needed on the provider's website, downloaded the necessary program, and installed the program all within ten minutes. Wow, that was easy!

And then a login screen came up, asking for my account ID and password. What's an account ID, I wondered? It had to be my email and email password, I reasoned. I entered those three times, but kept seeing a message that the login had failed. I went onto the provider's website and verified that I could log in there. I tried to search their knowledge base to see what an account ID might be, but any time I left the main page, an error message informed me that parental controls had been activated, and I did not have access to this site. Next, I tried to Google the problem, but the same error message came up. I could feel my blood pressure rising.

I dug out my latest bill and located the tech support number. A friendly computerized voice greeted me. He didn't introduce himself, but to me he seemed like a Bob. Bob gave me a long list of menu items, none of which seemed to fit my problem. After following several rabbit trails, I kept repeating "operator" until Bob said, "It sounds like you want to speak to an operator. Is that correct?"

"Yes!" I shouted.

"One moment while I transfer your call."

I heard a click, some silence, and then a dial tone. Argh!!

I dialed again, explained my problem again, and ended up in the tech support queue at last. Bob cheerfully informed me that due to unusually high call volume, the estimated wait time was 45 minutes. "Perhaps you can hang up and try our online knowledge base," he suggested.

"That's a great idea, Bob... IF I COULD GET ON THE INTERNET!"

While I waited, Bob offered one totally irrelevant suggestion after another. And then he asked me a question to see if I was listening. "Often, rebooting your computer will resolve the problem. Have you tried rebooting?"

I groaned. "No, because-"

"It sounds like you have not rebooted your PC. Please reboot your PC and call back if that does not resolve the problem."

"No! I don't need to reboot. It automatically rebooted when I installed the-"

"Thank you for calling."

Click.

Oh, was I mad! I'd just been told to shut up and reboot by a COMPUTER! And then it hung up on me!

I dialed back in with trembling fingers and snapped at the ever cheerful Bob when he answered. "Have you rebooted your PC?" he asked.

"Operator!" I shrieked. "I want to speak to a freakin' operator."

Just as I was yelling at a computer over the phone, Ethan walked in and eyed me quizzically. "Who are you talking to?"

I held a finger to my lips, straining to hear Bob. "It sounds like you want to speak to an operator. Is that correct?"

"Yes!" I hollered.

"One moment while I transfer your call. The estimated wait time is... five... minutes."

I grinned. Apparently Bob had some sort of programming that analyzed the caller's mood. He must have detected the rage in my voice and bumped me to the head of the line. Awesome!

Turns out, he was just lying to appease me. The wait was more like 30 minutes. While I waited, I sheepishly explained to Ethan that I had just installed parental controls on the computer and had locked myself out of the Internet. He snickered.

"I'm not sensing a lot of compassion from you," I said.

"Nope."

After listening to ten more of Bob's inane suggestions, I finally got to talk to a live body, a girl named Cherise. Talking to her felt a lot like talking to Bob; she was clearly following a branched script. I breathed deeply and willed my pulse to slow down.

At last I was able to make Cherise understand the problem, though I was pretty sure she didn't believe me about using the correct password. (I have to admit, had I been in her shoes, I probably wouldn't have believed it either.)

She tried several things with no success, including resetting my password--which, incidentally, Bob had already done for me while I was waiting. Then she ran across a solution that sounded promising: she walked me through finding the parental controls program on my hard drive and uninstalling. But the dreaded login screen reappeared, and it still would not accept my user ID and password.

We rebooted for good measure, and then she reset my password again, and then we were able to uninstall the program. Here's where it got stupid. I agreed to let her walk me through reinstalling it. Initially, I was able to log in with my email and password. I thanked Cherise profusely and started configuring the controls.

I set up a sub account for Ethan with a browsing curfew of 11 P.M. on weeknights and 2 A.M. on weekends.

"What?? Why do I have a curfew on the weekend? " 

"Well, you don't need to stay up all night playing games online," I said.

"I don't stay up past 2," he protested.

"Good, then you won't have a problem with the curfew," I said. "Now what user ID do you want?"

"Slave," he said flatly.

I swiveled in my chair so he could see my raised eyebrow. "Slave? That's the user ID you want?"

"Yes, 'cause that's what I am."

I pressed my lips together to hold in the laughter. "What password do you want?"

"Slave1."

"Slave1? Really?"

"Yep."

"That's not a very strong password," I said, choking on my laughter.

"It's fine." Ethan was not amused.

"You do realize how embarrassing it's going to be if I have to call tech support, and they see my child is set up as Slave?"

Ethan chuckled in spite of himself. "Good."

I completed the setups and logged out. When I brought the browser window back up to test it out, I saw that "Slave" was now the default. I entered the password, Slave1.

"Login failed."

I tried it again. Slave, Slave1.

"Login failed."

With a sinking feeling, I tried my own ID and password.

"Login failed."

No!!!!

Ethan laughed out loud.

By this time it was 11:30, and there was no way I was up for another skirmish with Bob. So I did some more deep breathing and went to bed.

The next day, I rebooted and tried again. Wow, Bob was right about rebooting! Now the password was accepted. I immediately uninstalled the parental controls.

I don't know who's more relieved: me, or my Slave.

Losing My Marbles

Ever feel like you're just losing it? That's how I feel most days. I just can't remember things. 

Tonight I swung by the high school at 6:12 to pick up Ethan and hurried on to drop Allyson at the church for choir practice. There was just enough time, I thought, congratulating myself on getting the cabbage rolls in the oven, feeding Allyson her own dinner (leftover pink pancakes and an egg and an avocado, her choice), and even getting the kitchen clean--all in under two hours.

By the time I'd checked her in and hastily helped her into her uniform T-shirt, it was 6:30 straight up. Whew!

Eph 6:11 - Put on the full armor of God...

"The kids are already lined up on stage," the lady at check-in informed us. "She's just in time."

But she wasn't just in time; the music was already starting, and she had to find an adult volunteer to help her find her place on the stage.

I frowned in annoyance on my way back to the car. If we were supposed to be here earlier than 6:30, why hadn't they told us?

When I told Bill the whole story over dinner, he said they usually want the kids checked in a few minutes before the rehearsal start time. "Maybe you'd better set the microwave timer to remind you when it's time to pick her up," he suggested.

I set the timer for 45 minutes. When it went off, Bill surprised me by going after Allyson himself. To celebrate, I decided to whip up some blueberry mini-donuts. They would be hot off the donut maker when Allyson got back.

My Latest Toy, Not Counting the Tortilla Press I Just Bought Off e-Bay

I'd scarcely ground the pastry flour when the phone rang. I wedged the phone against my shoulder as I chopped each little blueberry in half.

"Are you coming for Allyson soon?" a woman asked. "She's okay, but she's starting to get anxious."

I glanced at the clock: 8:24. "Wh- Doesn't the practice end at eight-thirty?"

"No, eight."

"Oh noo," I groaned. It was all coming together now. "So did the practice start at six?"

"Yes, it was from six to eight."

"I thought it was six-thirty to eight-thirty. I'm so sorry!"

She assured me it was okay, and I assured her Bill would be there any moment. Poor little girl! She hates to be late, and she hates to be the last one picked up. I cringed at the knowledge that Bill would have to deal with my mistake. How embarrassing!

"Well, that was embarrassing," Bill said 15 minutes later.

"Mmm! Blueberry donuts?" Allyson said, snatching one off the cooling rack. She didn't look too traumatized, I noted.

Aren't They Cute?

"Well, last rehearsal we got there 30 minutes early," I said. "If you average the two, we're doing fine." (For the record, the mixup on the prior week wasn't my fault. Allyson had misunderstood an announcement about the older kids getting there a half hour early.)

"I don't know why I can't seem to get it right," I said. "I looked at the sheet just yesterday, and I could have sworn it said six-thirty."

Bill dug it out of the pile on the counter top. "Nope, six to eight."

It's not like this is a rare occurrence. For example, I'm constantly leaving things out of recipes; I've ruined numerous batches of bread by leaving out the salt or even the yeast. And then there was the cheese grater incident just last night. I was frantically searching the kitchen, accusing Bill of moving it.

"Check the dishwasher," he said.

"We were out of cheese for days. There's no reason for it to be in the dishwasher," I said. But I checked anyway. No sign of it.

"I really, really need the cheese grater," I said, hoping Bill would peel himself off the couch and help me find it.

Allyson came instead. "What are you looking for?" she asked. "Something for the cheese?"

"The cheese grater," I said, dodging around her to check the cabinets over the stove.

"Isn't that the grater in your hand?" she asked.

Sure enough, there was the grater, in the same hand with the block of cheese, the handle looped around my pinkie.

"Oh my gosh, you're right! How could I have missed that?"

I waited for the ribbing, but all was silent on the couch. Bill was out. I blushed anyway.

Does this happen to anyone else? Am I normal?

My Life is a Book

Here's a story I've been looking forward to telling you since the day I started this blog. It's the next chapter in my love story with Bill. (Did you even remember that we had a love story?)

In the last chapter, I told you what I endured in order to get a clean bill of health so that we could start trying to conceive. It was such a relief to have the waiting behind me at last, and so exciting to wonder if this could be the month. During this time, I was memorizing Psalm 139, and I was in awe of the timing. As I slowly worked through the chapter, verse by verse, it seemed that the verse I was currently memorizing almost always was the perfect one for what I was experiencing at that moment.

Here is an email that I sent to my Thursday group back in 2004 that captures my initial anticipation...

4/9/04

I was having my morning break today, meditating as usual on the SAME passage I've been studying for months, when I saw something new.

As you know, now that I have passed the colonoscopy, we are free to start trying for a baby, and we are, though Bill doesn't technically know yet. (He's ready, so that's not an issue.) I quietly stopped taking my pill this month, and the knowledge that we could be making a baby is a precious little secret in my heart.

Well, I was meditating on my verses and I stopped on Ps 139:13: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." I wish you could have seen the little smile on my face. I think it must have looked like Mona Lisa's smile, a private smile over a secret only she knew. It seemed so incredibly...INCREDIBLE and WONDERFUL that at this VERY moment, God could be knitting together a baby in my womb.

So I talked to God about that. I asked him for his perfect timing and his will, even if his will is no baby at all. At this moment, at least, I am feeling perfectly at peace with the waiting and the uncertainty because I know that God ordained all my days, and he knows what's best for me. I wish I could keep this moment forever.

Anyway, I thought I would share. Please be in prayer with me that I will continue to seek God's will in this and not become impatient like I usually do about everything else in my life.

Oh, how well I knew myself! Fast forward a year...

Here I Am on My 35th Birthday - April 2005

5/18/05

Hello everyone. I'm missing you a lot this week. I've been feeling sad, a deep sense of grief, really, as I've been trying to let go of the dream of having a baby. I just don't want to hope any more. It hurts too much when I start my period each month. This past month I didn't hope at all, and it still hurt when I started my period yesterday.

With each passing month (15 of them now), I feel more certain that Bill and I will never share that joy together. I have tried so hard to honestly give up that desire because I know that God's plan is best for me. Maybe we will have a baby, and if we do it will be at the perfect time, according to his plan. Sometimes I think I am at peace with just asking God for his will continually, and trying not to decide for myself what I want.

The problem with that is the not knowing. I keep thinking, "If I could just KNOW what God's plan is, it would be so much better." If I KNEW there would be no baby, I would grieve, and I would go on and be thankful for what I do have. And if I knew that in x months or years we would have a baby, I would spend the time preparing to be the best mother I could be, and just enjoying the anticipation. But I don't know what's going to happen, so I keep preparing for the worst. I keep telling myself how it wouldn't be so bad not to have a baby, how wonderful our life is already. I can almost believe that until I see a commercial or a TV program or a woman on the street who is pregnant or has a new baby, and then I just feel this deep sense of loss, thinking "I can't have that. That's for other people, not for me." Then I feel guilty for not being thankful and joyful about God's plan for my life.

All that to say... Today I was studying Psalm 139 for perhaps the 200th time (maybe more!), and I got something I hadn't seen before: Ps 139:15-16 "My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

What I saw today when I quoted that scripture was your book. When God ordained the days for my life, before I was even born, he wrote them in His book. It's a book about me and my days, but it's HIS BOOK. I'm not supposed to know what is in the book, only to know the Author of the book. Since he planned all my days, I know that it's going to be a wonderful, incredible, awesome book. But I can't skip to the end without reading the whole thing. I have to savor it page by page, enjoying the process of getting to the end of the book.

I want to approach my life the way I approach a really good book. I love to savor a good book. I'm always dying to know what will happen next, but I never "cheat." I enjoy seeing the plot unfold slowly. If it's an author I love, I know from the start that I'm going to enjoy myself.

Obviously God is the best author you could find. I want to feel that same way about my life. I guess if there is not a baby in his plan, then I don't need to grieve that loss. Because whatever He has planned is what is best for me. He KNOWS! So I need to have joy in knowing that he cares for me and has planned the best life there can possibly be for me. He is going to teach me incredible truths along the way, and he is going to let me experience joy and sadness and longing and everything else that makes this life so rich and amazing.

Girls, I GET IT!! At this moment, I really get it. Please pray that God will continue to teach me this lesson and that it can be mine to keep. Pray that he will remind me of this moment over and over, whenever I need to hear it. Thank you.

I can't wait to hug everyone.

Love,

Sarah Louise

Bill and I (Far Left) at His Brother Trevor's Wedding, Same Month as the Preceding Email Message

As so often happens in my life, once I finally learned the lesson, God soon gave me the desire of my heart. But that’s another story.

Adventures in Baking

You're not going to believe this... I've had my Nutrimill Grain Mill for THREE weeks now without posting anything about it.

After all those months of saving, it's even more fabulous than I expected. You just drop the whole grains in the top, turn the dial, and lovely soft flour drifts into the bowl. It's about as loud as a vacuum cleaner, but you only have to listen to it for a couple of minutes at a time.

I've ground hard red winter wheat berries for bread...

and popcorn for fresh cornmeal (which makes the most incredible cornbread imaginable)...

I've ground brown rice and even garbanzo beans...

Yes, that garbanzo bean is on my floor. I was weighing out the dried beans on my kitchen scale and somehow bumped the bowl. Garbanzo beans went flying all over the kitchen and even into the dining room.

Allyson came in and helped me pick up all those beans, which I hoped to salvage since I'd just mopped the floor that day. I rinsed them in very hot water and set them in a sieve on the counter top, covered with a clean plate to keep away the flies that are already invading our kitchen--no more, I hope, since Bill just hung one of those old-fashioned screen doors that slams itself every time you open it. I had scarcely finished grinding the rest of my rather expensive beans when Bill "tidied" up by setting the sieve in the sink and proceeded to pour soapy water over the beans. Sigh... You know how I hate wasting food!

Rising to New Heights
There was lots more food to be wasted that evening. I combined my freshly ground rice flour, garbanzo flour, xanthan gum, and corn starch and whipped up some of Gentle's gluten-free bread. Here it was before it went in the oven:

It was rising way too quickly, and my oven takes a good 15-20 minutes to heat up. By the time I put it in, it was already over the top of the pan and still rising... and rising. Here's how it looked when I took it out:

I kept taking it out, testing the temperature, and putting it back in. After an hour and a half, it still hadn't reached 190 degrees, and the probe kept coming out gummy. I finally gave up. I let it cool and then tried to slice it. Here's what it looked like after it fell:

Full of Hot Air
Turns out, it was completely hollow inside! All the batter had fallen into a gooey mess on the bottom inch of the pan:

I guess I'll wait a couple more weeks and then give it one more try. I think the main problem was that my pan was too small. Bill later bought me an actual 9 X 5 loaf pan for my birthday, and my old pan could fit right inside it. There had been so much dough that I put some of it into a mini loaf pan, and that loaf came out almost as delicious as Gentle's. I gave two tiny slices to Allyson and polished off the rest of the loaf myself.

A Little Toaster Mishap
When there was just one slice left, I had an uncontrollable craving for gluten-free toast. I gingerly dropped the tiny slice into the toaster slot. When it popped up, naturally it fell through the grate and got stuck in the crumb tray. I unplugged the toaster and turned it upside down, shaking it violently. No luck. So I inserted a knife down the side and gradually worked piece by crumbly piece back through the metal cage and into my mouth. (Yes, I ate that toast! And it was yummy.)

But it left a residue on the heating element, and when I turned the toaster back on to see if I'd wrecked the coils, it made two tiny fires! I waved the smoke away and prayed the smoke alarm wouldn't go off and wake Allyson. It took a few days, but finally the toaster stopped smoking, and it's no crappier than it was to begin with. 

After wasting a whole evening on my gluten-free experiment, I was feeling pretty downcast. Luckily, the new pan came through for me; my next loaf, made from freshly ground wheat, turned out gorgeous. It looked like it had come from a bakery, and tasted even better. I also made some dinner rolls which we served at Easter, and those were pretty darn tasty.

And I made these hamburger buns on Thursday:

This was my fourth attempt at hamburger buns--at last, sweet success! Previously my buns had looked more like hockey pucks, though they tasted pretty decent.

All in all, I've been extremely pleased with my grain mill. We're savoring the taste of the fresh flour, and reaping the health benefits of all that wholesome wheat germ and bran. And since I can now buy my grain in bulk (25 to 50 pound bags!), the mill should pay for itself in no time. I aspire to bake all my family's bread as soon as I find the perfect, easy recipe or get a better bread machine. Currently I'm kneading the dough in my Kitchen-Aid mixer and shaping it by hand.

I wish you could all come and eat bread with me!

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme...

...No, make that parsley, rosemary, sage, and thyme. Here's one of the many things I've been meaning and meaning to tell you about...

If you know me very well, you surely know that I am one of the most disorganized, cluttered people around. Honestly, it really doesn't bother me that much. Because I know it bugs Bill, though, I do occasionally consolidate all my little piles and throw away some of my junk, but I inevitably backslide after a day or two. Still, there are tiny pockets of organization in our house. Like the shoe organizer that has now kept my bathroom vanity clean for nearly two years.

And then there's my spice rack. Once upon a time, it was a jumbled mess that caused me untold stress. I'd be putting the finishing touches on dinner, only to realize at the most crucial moment that the thyme (or the ginger or the ground mustard) was nowhere to be found. Stirring the sauce with one hand, I'd frantically toss all the spice jars onto the counter with the other. Sometimes I'd be so rattled that I had to go back through all the jars again, putting them back in one at a time, until I found what I was looking for--or realized that I we were out.

On one of our anniversaries, Bill bought me a decorative spice rack with labeled glass jars. It was both pretty and practical. But there was one problem: it only held my dried herbs. All the other spices and seasonings were still a wreck. Each time I slid one of the glass herb jars into its slot, I thought, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if all my spice jars were uniformly sized, and perfectly visible?"

It seemed like an impossible dream--until my friend Jenny featured one of her craft projects on her blog. She washed a big batch of baby food jars and painted the lids with a metallic silver paint, and then she stuck on hand-lettered labels. The result was simple, elegant, and very functional:

"Hey, I could do this!" I thought. But where would I get all those baby food jars? Allyson had long since graduated to table food. That's where my friend Kristina came in. About a month after Jenny's entry, Kristina posted a blog entry about her own spice jar project. Turns out she had given her old jars to Jenny, but she found a bunch more that someone was donating on freecycle.org. Even better, she gave all her leftover jars to me.

Since we already had some silver paint and polyurethane spray, this meant the whole thing would cost me nothing! Within a week, I had my new spice rack. Is this gorgeous, or what? 

Note the perfect alphabetical order--of course!

My handwriting isn't nearly so graceful as Jenny's, but I still love my jars. I like seeing my own handwriting because it reminds me of one of my few successes at bringing order out of chaos.

I can't tell you how much more relaxed I am when I'm cooking. What if I need cream of tartar? Easy! Right between the cloves and cumin. It's been eight months, but I still feel a little thrill each time I put a jar back into its designated space. Now, I almost never run out of anything, nor do I buy duplicates; I always know what I have and what I need.

My next project was supposed to be the bigger items on the next shelf:

I collected glass peanut butter jars for a few months, but they're still sitting in the garage--unless Bill threw them in the recycle bin. I just never had the energy to follow through for some reason. Maybe it'll be my spring project.

Have I inspired you to reorganize your own spice rack? If so, check out the links above to Kristina's and Jenny's blogs for some specific instructions. I'll add these tips:

• The labels should come off pretty easily if you soak them in soapy water for a few hours, and then scrape them with a Pampered Chef scraper or a razor blade. 
• Buy some little circle stickers before you fill the jars. As you transfer the spices from the old jars, write the expiration dates on the stickers and put them on the bottom of the new jars. (I was shocked at how many expired spices I had!) 
• My jars are sitting on an expandable riser that I got at either Target or Walmart. The rows are the perfect height to keep the labels visible. 

If you decide to try this, I'd love to see your pictures. Happy organizing!

What Am I Waiting For?

On our recent visit to Vancouver, Bill's mom kept asking everyone if we were making resolutions for the new year. No one took her up on that. She said her resolution is to learn to relax, to go with the flow. She followed through with that by serving us store-bought lasagna one night (three kinds!) so that she could go to Capilano Suspension Bridge with us that day instead of slaving in the kitchen. The lasagna was quite tasty, and we all had a wonderful time at the bridge.

But I didn't give resolutions another thought--until a few days after we got back home, when I was suffering from a bout of insomnia. As I lay awake for hours, I pondered the three types of people: 1) People who aren't afraid of anything and will try everything, 2) people who are afraid of everything and won't try anything, and 3) people who make themselves try things but then are tortured by fear.

Can you guess which group I belong to? Yes, you're right. Group 3. I'd love to belong to group 1, but if that can't be arranged, I'd rather belong to group 2. Because group 3 is such a frustrating place to be. I'm afraid of so many things, but I'm even more afraid of missing out on things. I'm afraid of big things and little things, important things and trivial things. Things like phoning a friend I don't know well yet, or breading and frying eggplant by myself (Bill usually does the frying on those rare occasions when we fry things in our house).

One of the things I'm most afraid of is skiing, and it seems to get worse every year even though my skills are marginally better each time we go. This time, it had been two years since our last ski trip, and I had a jumpy feeling in the pit of my stomach all the way to Mt. Baker, in Washington. I was dreading the cold, and the achy muscles, and the humiliation of tumbling end over end and landing on my behind, with snow creeping up my sleeves and down the back of my pants.

Although I said nothing about my fears, Bill remarked that maybe I'm getting to the age when I should just stay behind, that there's no point doing something if you're not going to have fun. This rather hurt my feelings--I'm only 40!--but I think it hurt more because he was echoing my own thoughts. "No!" I protested. "I want to be there when Allyson learns to ski. I want to see how good Ethan's getting on the snowboard."

As it turned out, I really didn't see all that much. Bill spent all morning on the bunny hill with Allyson, who barreled fearlessly down the slope but just couldn't get her "pizza" stance down. "Sorry! Sorry!" she'd say, just before she plowed into another hapless bystander. Bill said if she couldn't stop, she couldn't go up the mountain.

Rather than stand in the cold and watch Bill trudging up the hill over and over with her, I decided to ride the lift up with the rest of the family. "Is it a green slope?" I asked anxiously.

"I don't know," my nephew Kurtis (age 11) replied. "They don't really have colors. But it's pretty easy."

Kurtis (Age 11) Making a Glass Ornament at Capilano

"Yeah, come with us, Auntie Sarah," said his sister Katie. "Will you ride on the lift with me?"

Katie at Capilano (Age 7)

"I might knock you down," I warned, so she rode with her dad.

The scenery on the way up was breathtaking, awe inspiring. Or it should have been, but I was too busy worrying about how all four of us (Kurtis, my sister-in-law Lisa, Ethan, and me) were going to get off that chair at the same time. I probably said a prayer about it, and I guess God was listening because we all managed to get off pretty easily.

Lisa's husband Cory pointed the way to the "easy" slope, but I wasn't sure I understood his directions.

"Just follow Katie," Lisa said. But Katie zipped down the slope and out of sight before I had completed my first wide turn. All of them were gone, including Ethan, who thought he might not remember how to snowboard.

All except Lisa, who was following behind me, I guess to make sure I didn't get lost.

With superhuman patience, she talked me down that mountain. "Now go over toward that tree. Okay, turn! Turn again. You can do it! Perfect turn!" she hollered.

"Thank... oof!" I cried. My center of gravity had shifted too far back, and down I went onto my behind. "I'm okay!" I said, using the pole to push myself back on my feet.

Over the next 20 minutes or so, Lisa continued to coach me down slopes that seemed steeper and steeper. She said I was doing great, but not once did I relax. Instead, I spent all my energy trying to stay alive.

At last I crested a hill and saw the rest of them waiting at the ski lift. I made it! I exulted. I'm alive! Now I could go and check on Allyson. But where was the bunny hill?

"Get in line," Kurtis said right after I slid to a somewhat smooth stop next to him and Ethan.

"I don't think I want to go up again yet," I said.

"Oh, but we have to. That's how we get back down to the lodge where we were."

Ah, so this was a different lift. "Is it a green?" I asked hopefully. "Because I think that last slope was probably a blue."

"They don't really have colors," Kurtis repeated. "But this next one's pretty easy."

This time I rode with just Kurtis and Ethan, and we went way, way up to the top of the mountain. My hands were burning with the cold despite two layers of gloves, and the drips from my nose felt frozen. The view from up here was indescribable, and I tried to admire it, but my thudding heart drowned out my silent praises to the Maker of all this beauty.

Do not be anxious about anything, but pray about everything, I reminded myself. I prayed all during Kurtis and Ethan's chatter. I prayed while we dismounted from the lift--again with no problems. And I prayed when I saw an even steeper slope waiting for me.

Once more, Lisa stayed with me and helped me pick out my path, and she waited with me when I had a big wipeout, the kind that makes your skis pop off, and then you have to stand on a ridiculously steep hill and try to clip your snow-covered boots back into them.

But I made it down alive, and you can imagine my relief when I spotted Bill and Allyson at the bottom of the last slope--just before a snowboarder knocked me down right in front of them. (Only my pride was hurt.) 

And that was the end of my big, fun day of skiing. Under other circumstances I would have forced myself to go up one more time, and I might have had a little fun on the parts I knew were safe, or maybe I would have found the real green slopes and tried those. But Bill had been with Allyson for hours, and I wanted him to have a chance to use his $50 lift ticket, especially since I knew he would actually enjoy himself, which he did.

Meanwhile, I had fun getting warm in the lodge and drinking cocoa with Allyson. Maybe Bill was right, I thought. Maybe I am getting too old for this.

The Resolution
But I thought about it some more on that night of insomnia, and it made me mad. Why do I have to be afraid all the time? Why can't I let go of control and trust that everything will be okay? Why can't I have a little fun now and then like everyone else?

What bothers me the most is the way I'm afraid about my novel. I should be having so much fun writing that first draft, but instead I spend most of my time worrying--that it won't be good enough, that no one will want to read it, or that they'll read it and they won't like it. It's enough to make me want to quit, and I probably would have if it weren't for the encouragement of friends and family.

I don't know how it's going to happen, but I've decided that 2011 is going to be my year for letting go of fear. I think the key will be my new memory passage, the one about being rooted and established in God's love.
According to 1 John 4:18, perfect love casts out fear. So I'm betting that once I begin to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, I'll be able to start enjoying that abundant life He wants to give me.

What about you, which group do you belong to? Are you fearless, fearful, or in between? How do you deal with your fear? Can you have fun doing something you're afraid of?

He Shields My Way

At church on Sunday we sang one of my favorite songs, At the Cross by Hillsong. As always, I sobbed when we got to, "You tore the veil, you made a way, when you said that it is done." But this time another part touched me even more: "You go before me. You shield my way."

Immediately I flashed back to last Thursday, when I had a meltdown on the way to a hair appointment. If you've been reading my blog long, you're probably not surprised at the idea of me having a meltdown, but this one was different: I was all by myself!

As always, I had waited to the very last minute to leave, yet I wasn't worried since it was midday and the traffic should be light. But I knew I was in trouble before I even reached the freeway. Not only was the traffic creeping across the overpass, but even the access road was backed up. I sent up a silent prayer. "Please help me get through here, God." (Because I have a very, very important hair appointment.) I drummed my hands on the steering wheel. "Come on, come on, come on!" I muttered.

And then I remembered one of my memory passages: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." I said another prayer and asked God to help me have peace as there was nothing I could do about this snarled traffic. Taking deep breaths, I forced my shoulders down and away from my ears, willing the tension to drain away.

Eight agonizing minutes later, I saw the cause of the delay. A firetruck and an ambulance were blocking the right lane, and paramedics were working on a man on a gurney, down on the golf course to the right of the freeway. "Forgive me for my impatience, God," I prayed. "Please help that man!"

Back at 70 miles per hour, I figured I could still almost make it to my 2:00 appointment. At this rate, I'd probably be five minutes late. What I didn't include in my calculations was taking the wrong exit. It had been about three months since my last appointment, and I wasn't sure of the exit. One exit looked familiar, but I thought, "Not this one. I think it was one exit past this."

I took the next exit, and it felt familiar. I took a right on Harwood Road and started looking for the salon on the left. It wasn't there. Well, maybe it was a bit farther than I remembered. I drove on through about four more intersections, all red lights. When I reached the street where Bill had lived before we got married, I knew I'd gone too far. So I turned around and went through the same four red lights I'd just sat through. I drove two more intersections past that--all red--and decided I'd gone too far again.

By now it was 2:10, and I thought of calling the stylist, but then I remembered that I'd given my appointment card to the girl I met at Women of Faith. That was the reason that I'd forgotten to show up for my last appointment just two weeks before. Now Angela would think I was standing her up two times in a row! "I'll call Bill," I thought. "I'll have him look up the number on the Internet. Except I can't remember what the salon is called.... He'll find it." I reached for my phone. That's when I realized I had left it charging on the kitchen counter. Argh!!!

I made a screechy U-turn and sat through the same six red lights again. As I sat at one of the lights, I remembered a story Sheila Walsh had told at Women of Faith. She said she had missed a connecting flight once due to storm delays, and she had to wait through some long lines to get a ticket on another flight. She was terribly frustrated, wondering why she had to go through all this aggravation. While she was waiting in line, she noticed a man with his arm around his wife, and she wondered if the woman was sick. The man saw her and whispered something to his wife, who turned around and burst into tears when she recognized Sheila. It turned out that the couple was going through a very hard time, and they had needed to get away, but they were stuck in the same delays that Sheila was going through. The wife was distraught, and the man had been praying that God would show her some sign of his love for her. And then she saw Sheila, whom she absolutely loved because she'd heard her at numerous Women of Faith events. Could God have grounded all those planes just to encourage one woman? Sheila thought so. She encouraged us to slow down the next time we found ourselves in a frustrating delay, and to ask God if there is a reason He wants us in this place at this time.

"Okay, God," I said, still clutching the wheel with white knuckles. "What's the purpose in this delay? Why can't I find the salon? Is there something I'm supposed to do, someone who needs my help in some way?"

There was no answer. As I stomped the brake at the next red light, I went on, "Is there a REASON why I have to hit every light red? EVERY LIGHT?? Why can't I catch one green light, God? Am I not supposed to get my hair cut? Is that the reason?"

Due to my broken radio, the silence was heavy. At the next red light, I started to yell and pound the steering wheel. "Why, God? Why does every light have to be red? WHERE is the salon?"

When I came to Bill's old street again, I turned around and went through the red lights one more time. By now I was sobbing. It was 2:20. I decided to go farther this time as there was no way I could have passed the salon four times and not recognized it, even though I couldn't remember what it was called. One more intersection down, I found it.

Now 25 minutes late, I didn't even bother to clean up the tear stains, just rushed inside. "I'm here for Angela," I gasped to the bemused receptionist. Angela rounded the corner with a welcoming smile.

"I'm so sorry!" I began, spilling out the whole story between sobs. We figured out that I had taken the wrong exit, and I should have made a left onto Harwood instead of a right.

"It's okay!" she said, easing me into a chair for a lovely shampoo and scalp massage. "Just relax. A hair appointment isn't supposed to be stressful!"

On the way home, I couldn't even enjoy my gorgeous hair. "I'm so sorry!" I began. "I don't know what got into me, God. But I know the mouth speaks out of the overflow of the heart, so I obviously need you to work on my heart."

I was reminded of Allyson's sleepy tantrum just that morning, when she wailed about one thing after another. Looking over her head, I had exchanged a knowing smile with Bill before I folded her in a hug and planted a kiss on her cheek. I felt that God was smiling in gentle amusement at me now, and kissing my cheek. I sighed in contentment and just rested in the assurance of his love.

I never did figure out why I had to endure such frustrating delays. No one burst into tears of joy at the sight of me, nor did I narrowly miss a catastrophe (to my knowledge, anyway). Maybe it was just a test that I failed miserably, but still I learned a valuable lesson.

During Sunday's worship service,  I had a shiver of recognition when I realized God was surely shielding my way last Thursday, and every other day. Though I can never know it, I feel sure he has spared me from so many calamities.

Have you ever had an experience when things worked out for the best in an unexpected way? A time when you saw God shielding your way, or a time when He used a difficult situation for someone's good? I'd love to hear your story.