Is It Wrong to Save Pictures of Another Man?

I was cleaning over the weekend and decided to focus most of my energy on the dust bunnies that have taken up residence in my bedroom. Because I had no intention of getting out of the house, I kept my pajamas on, hair pulled up, and left the contacts on the bathroom shelf. This may seem insignificant, but trust me... that last part is what sets up this story. I folded clothes and put up clothes, sorted papers into what's important and what's not important (until I need it later, of course), and made a pile of birthday cards, Christmas cards, and Mother's Day cards.

Yes, it's been a while since I cleaned.

I pulled boxes down from the top shelf to put away keepsakes and was looking at old pictures and graduation tassels and all those things that make up a life. These are the things that I have always pictured my grandchildren sorting through some day as they attempt to "figure the old woman out". There was a particular stash of photos (tied with a ribbon, of course) of the husband as he was when we first met. Young. Military. Hair. I smiled to myself as I thought of those memories and flipped through the pictures one by one and that's when I saw it. Well, that's when I saw him, to be more specific.

Another man.

I took off my glasses to get a better look. You see, a year or so ago I was advised by the eye doctor to get bifocals. I can't see anything far away. Zip. Zilch. Nothing but a blur. That's old news. I've been like that since the fourth grade. What is new, however, is this brutally, cruel inability to see anything close up. I will squint and stretch my arm out to no avail. If I have my contacts in, reading glasses- like the kind you find on the rack at Walmart, are required to make sense of what I'm looking at; if I have my regular glasses on with no contacts, I just take them off so I can see.

It is beyond irritating.

I am fairly certain that when this particular picture was so carefully and painstakingly tucked away into my special box of special memories, I had my contacts in. If you are keeping up with this rambling, then you understand that if I didn't have on reading glasses, my vision would have been fuzzy at best. Because I was now cleaning and reminiscing with my regular glasses on, I instantly knew that something was not right in my special world. I took my glasses off and peered closely at the picture of the fellow who was smiling at me.

Lord have mercy, that was not the husband.

The young man had dark hair and was dressed in an Army uniform, much like my own man would have been in our youth. It looked like him. Kinda. I laughed all the way across the house as I thrust the picture into the face of the husband and asked, "Who is this man and why am I keeping a picture of him?" His eyes flashed recognition in a matter of seconds as he rattled off his name and asked where in the world I had found it. I told him my story and we both came to the conclusion that at some point, it had to have fallen out of an album or something and from there... well, obviously I mistook the fellow for the husband and lovingly placed him in my ribbon-tied stash.

A long story, I know, and probably one of those that just isn't funny if you're not the one in it. Nevertheless, I tend to find meaning in everything and my take from this story was two-fold:

A). Maybe bifocals aren't the devil, and
B). This is how family tales get started.

If, in fact, my future grandchildren were trying to figure me out long after I'm gone, can you imagine the stories that would have unfolded due to the discovery of grandma's mystery man? I suppose it would have spiced up a rather ordinary life.



*Dedicated to my own grandma, no mystery man in her life,
 but two good men who loved her. Gone from this world nine years today.

My Brain Is Tired

I have a hard time with what should be the simplest of decisions. Some things I am quick to act on and strangely enough, those are usually the life-altering kind of decisions. Other things I tend to camp out on for a long time. Those are the types of things that really don't matter in the long run.

Case in point: a new cell phone.

My current phone has featured a cracked screen for well over a year now. It's a lovely kind of crack, the kind that starts in one corner and spider-webs out across the screen. I've lived with it because (1) the phone is paid for and (2) I really don't care. It hasn't bothered me too terribly much. I can see what I need to see and if I'm watching a video or looking at a picture, I can flip the phone to where the crack is least intrusive.

Sounds dumb even as I write it.

A few weeks ago, however, I discovered a word search game that has successfully changed my mind on how I cope with a cracked screen. What once was not so much a bother is now very much a bother. Q's look like D's and E's might be C's. When I mentioned to the family that this could be very well be the last straw and it was time for a new phone, they looked at me like I was crazy. Really? This is what does it?

Yes. Forget the fact that the phone shuts off randomly for no reason and has crashed at least once and freezes up at the most inopportune times. I really didn't care.

But now, oddly enough, I do care.

So I have spent the last two weeks researching and reviewing and rechecking the budget to see what I can afford. I won't get locked into another contract and I won't be paying monthly payments and/or interest. Needless to say, regardless of what carrier or what brand, the options become severely limited. You would think my selection would have been pretty quick.

Not a chance.

I have made up my mind and changed my mind. I sought the advice of a son and the wisdom of a daughter. When the husband was asked, his simple reply was always You know what the checkbook looks like, which translates to Don't bother me with whatever you are going to do anyway.

Truth.

So, in the end, after adding to the virtual cart and removing from the virtual cart at least three days in a row, it was the daily walk to the mailbox that won me over. I told myself that I was wasting time, that there were word games to play, and that I would not rest easy tomorrow if I did not go for what I could afford today. Five minutes later, the transaction was complete.

What I decided on is not the moral or point of the story here. It's the fact that I struggled over the decision for so long. What was black and white became very fuzzy as I tried to unscramble all the reasonings and motivations in my mind and then put them back together... and in the end, the result was just as I knew it would be in the very beginning. I complicated what should have been very simple.

We humans are very good at that.

I don't make resolutions for the new year, but if I were to try to improve on something this year, it would be that I don't use up so much precious time on the smallest of details. It may or may not work, but shaving off a few days here and there could very well add a few days to my life.

Decisions exhaust me.

Heath & Angel

For a short time, a very short time, I was known as the second half to Heath and Angel. We dated for two weeks when I knew I was in love with him (kept that part to myself) and when he gave me a card a few weeks later that said he loved me, I asked him to marry me. No sense burning daylight, as my grandma would say. We married a few months after that and by the time the anniversary of that impromptu marriage proposal had rolled around, our firstborn had joined us. From that point on, we were simply Mom and Dad.

A little over a week ago, our second child (of three) left the proverbial nest to live on his own. We talked about how we had went from just the two of us to a family of three, then four, then five; and how it now seems we are living life in reverse... from five to four to three. Our youngest plans to stay with us through college, but we are both aware of how quickly those college years will fly.

Soon it will be back down to two.

I know we don't have as many kids as some or lack in what others would consider a remarkable story, but then again, I consider our story quite remarkable. When I was twenty-two, I fell head-over-heels in love with a fella who made me laugh. A few days ago, he still had me laughing on my forty-sixth birthday. We'll always be Mom and Dad in our little corner of the world, but it kinda feels like we're getting back to Heath and Angel and that, as corny as it may sound, makes me grin from ear to ear. Might as well enjoy it before we get to the "grand" part of the names.

I love these seasons of life.

Don't Rush Me

It's Christmas morning.

So far today, I have squeezed into new pajamas one size too small (Christmas gift, you know); dropped a cookie sheet on my big toe (upsetting the elf in the living room, I'm sure); and popped a cherry pie in the oven (thanks ever be to Marie Callender and her frozen pie wonders). Before my coffee really kicks in, I will have went a round with a ham and a sheet of aluminum foil and wondered (for the umpteenth time) why on earth I told the kids I would have Christmas dinner ready at noon.

Gotta work on that thinking before speaking thing.

We opened presents last night with everyone together, minus one girlfriend, and I successfully prolonged the much-anticipated event by insisting that gifts were opened one at a time (a strategy the husband questioned me on). My feeling was this, we have all had a good year around here. There have been lean years in the past... okay, mostly all lean years, and although there is no doubt every Christmas has went down in the books as a good Christmas, I wanted this particular good Christmas to last.

So one-at-a-time we went.

By doing so, I got to see the smile on the face of the oldest when he peeled back the paper from a sign reaffirming his much beloved Second Amendment. The last two Christmases (is that even a word?) he lived three hours northeast of us. This Christmas he lives three minutes northwest of us. I am so thankful that boy is back home working a job he loves.

The middle patiently unwrapped individual gift cards from his sister that will take a dent out of his constant desire to eat from the always convenient local drive-thrus. He announced last week that he was moving out of our house and in with his brother. I will miss hearing the lock turn on the front door and knowing he is behind it at the end of a work day, but I am so thankful we raised two boys who get along.

The eyes of the youngest practically teared up when she unwrapped tissue paper from a cat-themed organizer. When someone initially asked her what the gift was, she simply said she didn't know, but it had a cat paw on it. She is learning the hardships of holding down a job while tackling college courses and although the stress can be overwhelming, she hasn't cracked yet. I am so thankful for her perseverance.

The husband was proud of his new "Dad" sign to hang on his shed. I obviously loved my one-size-too-small pajamas. My mom shared stories of my dad's battle with a backyard mole... a story that was inspired by a gift from one of the grandkids. A girlfriend smiled at her beautiful new necklace and a boyfriend modeled his new cowboy hat for us.

And that's just a sampling.

As my dad said in his final days, "We've had good times and bad times. I wouldn't trade any of it for a dime." I have come to understand that the bad times make the good times all the more sweet, and that if it takes a solid hour of the mother insisting that each person has their moment in the living-room spotlight, then so be it. That's why I offered cocoa in the beginning.

I don't want to miss a thing.

Christmas 1999

The Great Move 2007-2016 (but more importantly, my grandma)

Labor Day Weekend is a weekend that doesn't go unnoticed around our house and not for the hamburgers or summer-goodbyes or those ever-present, always-happening mattress sales. We mark Labor Day for an entirely different reason and it's usually brought up in conversation the week prior to that good excuse for a three-day weekend.

Labor Day Weekend, for us, is the weekend of The Great Move.

I won't go into a lot of detail about that event for this particular post. If you know me, you know the struggle. If you've been around the blog long enough, you know the story. There really is no good reason for rehashing decisions, increased mortgages, and moving trucks.

Although I will say that while driving along the interstate yesterday, a moving truck was spotted and I couldn't help but think back to that big, yellow Pinzke truck and the devastated woman who was following behind that big, ugly yellow thing in the family car.

But anyway.

What I have been thinking about was that long good-bye to my grandma. Standing on her front porch, knowing she was old, knowing how much distance would be between us, not knowing the future... that is the moment that has been on my mind this weekend. I was the last of our family to step away from her and I can still remember how difficult that seemingly small act was that particular Tuesday morning. I had her china wrapped in layers of bubble wrap- she didn't want to wait on that one, and I had all those precious memories of her and me stored, like layers, in my mind. It was if I was taking that long good-bye hug, wrapping it in its own protective layer, and silently closing a well-used file drawer.

I did get to see her again just three months later for two wonderful weeks at the end of December. Again, if you know me, you know that story and if you don't, search the labels on the left of this post for grandma and find the 2011 post titled "Five Minutes Late". It's a heartbreaker, but it's all true and it's all life. While I remember those last weeks and the special moments the Lord gave us before He called her home, it is the memory of that moving-away goodbye hug that whispers to me from time and time and takes me back to a little front porch in a little hometown.

It's been nine years (nine years!) since that goodbye. From where I sit at my kitchen table, there is a sewing machine to my left with stacks of fabric squares destined to become a quilt. That's the mark of my grandma on my youngest child. To my right is her china, long unwrapped from the layers of bubble wrap and quietly waiting for the next holiday when the kids know, without me having to say a word, that those dishes do not go in the dishwasher. In the dryer right now are washcloths- threadbare, but hanging on, that she made. I look up and see my current last name painstakingly crocheted into a rectangle that looks like lace. There's two more of those in an envelope already made by her long ago with the strict instructions to give them to my sons on their respective wedding days.

And in my heart, just like in the hearts of my kids and parents and aunts and uncles and many cousins, lives the presence of the very Savior that she was so sure to teach us all about and model in her everyday life... right up until her exit from this world and entrance into the next.

So while this weekend could cause me to think on any variety of things and the way things were and the way things are, I am reminded of the little, old woman who was shorter than me and whose house always smelled like onions and mothballs and that, my friend, leaves no room for regret.



Until we meet again on another front porch, Grandma.
I look forward to sitting with you at a different kind of table.

Things That Make A Life

The youngest sent me a text earlier this evening that simply stated,

I've cracked open the cedar chest.

I read her words out loud to the husband as he was driving us home. Don't get sucked in, was his reply. When I walked in the door and saw photo albums strewn about, I tried my best to walk away. I changed my clothes, thought about how inviting the bed looked, pondered the laundry still in the dryer, and finally gave up all those thoughts of nonsense and found an empty spot on the floor.

Who was I kidding anyway?

I looked through one photo album after another and periodically removed my glasses so I could have a closer look. I must have been looking rather intently at one particular picture because that know-it-all of a husband quietly remarked, You know you were there for all that, right? Duh. Yeah. Of course... but where did that time go?

My life in a cedar chest.

Baby pictures of me. Baby pictures of our babies. My old Girl Scout sash. My favorite book as a young girl. My first pair of glasses from the fourth grade. Baby dolls and baby clothes. Notes my mom wrote me. Cards my dad gave me. My high school graduation cap and gown. Yearbooks. A glass piggy bank my grandpa gave me. A musical piano my brother gave me. The bride and groom topper from our wedding cake. Basic training certificates. Handmade gifts. The list goes on and on.

That baby of ours, the one that will turn the rather grown-up age of eighteen tomorrow, handed me a small manuscript in a clear kind of report cover you can buy at any Walmart and said, Mom, you may never be famous, but you sure can write good (or something to that effect). I took what she had and immediately recognized it as something I wrote many years ago about the struggles of being a fairly new wife and a young mother to three kids under the age of five. She said she sorta skimmed through it and was asking my permission to read it in its entirety. I said yes while at the same time hoping there was nothing in there that would scare her silly. After all, reality is always so much more frightening than any work of fiction.

I know we don't take anything with us when we leave this world, but what we leave this world can do more than just collect dust. After all, somewhere along the way there will be someone who will knock off that dust and discover a life.

And when they see mine, I hope they see a life well lived.

Farewell to Summer Break

As summer vacation winds down and I am forced to think upon things more academic and related to my bi-monthly paycheck, I have been thinking about things accomplished and things left undone these last two months. To be honest, I have spent too much time in my pajamas re-watching favorite episodes of The Office and my favorite YouTube channel, React. When I do dress in real-people clothes and venture out into the ridiculously hot summer hell (there just is no other word for it), I hang out with friends over ridiculously long lunches where none of the problems of the world are solved, but we have a lot of fun trading stories about our grown kids.

It's just what moms do.

I look around my house from the seat I have occupied for most of this summer and am thoroughly satisfied. Cats are napping. Fans are humming. Ice from the machine in the freezer pops from time to time. I hear the sound of the motorcycle of the oldest as he makes his way in from work knowing that the other two men in the family will shortly follow. They come in hot (not a one has a/c) and typically with a work story or two to tell. I look forward to this end of the workday routine.

I've not been to the beach or lake and only momentarily dipped my feet into a pool. No great loss there for me. My skin does not handle the sun and my temperament does not handle the heat so we're all good as far as I'm concerned. I've not ridden one roller coaster or visited one museum. I haven't hiked a mountain or bicycled a path or even chased the setting sun riding shotgun next to the husband. I'm telling you, it's just too darn hot and I am just not that motivated.

So this is where I ask myself, what have I done?

Well, lunch, but we already established that.

Mom. I got to spend two wonderful weeks with my mother. We shopped and watched When Calls the Heart and visited the Grand Ole Opry with the youngest.

Papers. I've written quite a few papers. In fact, just yesterday I finished a marvelous piece (sarcasm?) on the State of Illinois Budget for the Fiscal Year 2011. Seriously. I like to party hard around here.

Reading. I've read quite a few books that range from the last (mostly unknown) battles of the Civil War to a fictional work about a horrifying plane crash that left three people stranded on an island for a year and a half. Good stuff.

Netflix. Whether you love it or hate it, I utilize my monthly fee by watching documentary after documentary and again, the aforementioned The Office and When Calls the Heart. If a show makes me smile, I am guaranteed to watch it over and over.

Napping. Well, yeah. Self explanatory.

I could go on, but I am starting to bore myself. Some might look at this and remark at how lazy I really am, but hey, I've never professed to be overly ambitious. I did attend a week-long seminar for my profession and wrote two extremely brutal (as in boring) book reports on the Supreme Court (also necessary for the profession) and have even been planning a lesson or two so I wouldn't say I've been entirely useless.

Just sorta-kinda.

That's my kind of summer vacation.