Sacred Mundane: The Blog

Well today I am enjoying my first day at home as a free woman!  After finishing seminary, speaking at the women’s luncheon, then finishing the last of the theology papers to grade, I dropped off the papers at Multnomah and drove home a free woman! Done!!!  Today is the first day at home in four years, besides during vacations and so forth, when I’ve had no studying to do, no papers to write and/or grade, and no books to read.  This morning Dutch and I watched the excavator work next door, sat outside and watched dump trucks come and go, walked to the park and played in the barkdust, walked to to a nearby farm and watched the cows, and even watched a 20-minute chunk of Cars.  The washing machine is humming with laundry, and I never ever thought I’d say this, but I’m actually excited about ironing the dozen+ shirts that await me.  It’s SOOO nice to actually be able to do mindless domestic duties.  At that park earlier I stood, holding Heidi, with my face up to the sky, letting the sunshine wash over me, listening to Dutch’s peels of laughter as he ran around the park, savoring the sweet moment.  Savoring the ability to give undivided attention to the moment.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved seminary. In fact, secret’s out: I might go back. Yes, I know, insane.  I might go back next year and pursue another degree very slowly (like the 6-10 year plan).  I love it. I love studying, teaching, all that. But oh glorious day today that I get to be a mommy without one eye on the clock knowing I need to attack a massive paper. Oh glorious day that I can iron clothes during the kids’ naps.  Today I sat, all by myself after I put the kids down, and ate lunch without doing another darn thing. No multi-tasking!  I didn’t check my email, I wasn’t scarfing down the remnants of Dutch’s leftover cheese sandwich, I wasn’t bouncing Heidi. I was just sitting, staring out into the glorious sunshine, scooping up beans and cheese with my Jaunita’s chips.  Mmm. Sweet mindless bliss. 🙂

Nothing profound here, although I’m hoping to post something later about an intersting passage I read this morning…   But had to share my joy in this day, this first day having completed everything. At least everything for now.  We’ll see what tomorrow holds.

Do you ever struggle with something for a long time, or want something so bad for a long time, and then all of a sudden you notice that you’re like strangely ok and you don’t remember getting ok you just all of a sudden notice you are?  I noticed that tonight. I thought, “Wait, I’m ok, really ok–weird.”  I noticed that I just felt so content, so ok with not having a home.  We came home from our day of prayer event and arrived just as Nathan got home from his baseball game. Dutch threw his arms around Nathan’s legs as we asked him how it went (they won!).  As I went in the bathroom to brush my teeth I teased Elisabeth about getting her up in the morning (I’m taking them to school tomorrow).  I ran the dishwasher, filled up my water bottle, and collapsed into my amazingly comfortable bed.  What’s not to love and savor about this evening?  Sure Heidi sleeps in the closet, who cares? Sure my stuff is packed up and strewn in four different locations. It’s just stuff. And it’s not actually even that neat of stuff to tell you the truth.  I don’t know. I guess it’s funny sometimes how things that are SO hard sometimes can be totally ok at other times. I mean, we do still need to move by the end of the month (or soon after) because that was our agreement, but it’s more like a matter-of-fact thing, a thing of necessity, not a thing that’s connected to my heart. That make sense? It’s external.  (More on this in this post)

I really don’t know what God’s going to do. We’re going tomorrow to look at a house that’s just dropped its price significantly, but we just want wisdom.  It’s just a funny feeling because I’ve been dying for so long to have a dream house, and all of a sudden I notice I don’t dream of houses anymore.  I told Jeff last week, “I don’t have a dream house. I have a dream God.  I want to be in the middle of His adventure more than anything else.”  I’m not trying to sound all super spiritual–I’m sure in the next 24 hours I’ll be flat on my face crying over some ridiculousness or another.  But I guess it’s just weird when God gently does surgery on your heart and you don’t really notice until all of a sudden something feels different.

Anyway, we’ll see what our crazy awesome God is up to.  Right now I’m focusing and praying our Willamette Women’s Luncheon on Saturday where I have the super huge awesome privilege of speaking. Will you join me and pray that women will be blessed, touched, ministered to? For God’s glory and their good!  Thanks, goodnight.

Jeff just said, “Wow hon you haven’t blogged in awhile.”  I know. I know I know I know.  Right now my eyes are burning they’re so tired, the washing machine is humming, Heidi is asleep in the closet, and I’m feeling totally overwhelmed with preparing to speak at the women’s luncheon on Saturday. I know what I want to say but have no idea how to say it.  So I just sit here and pray. And wait.  And fold laundry.  And try not to look at the stack of Jeff’s shirts to iron, that is now overflowing the edge of the laundry basket.

Today I had my last mentor meeting, handed in my final tally of internship hours–all 140 of them–and picked up my cap, gown, and hood. This hooding thing is strange.  But that’s really irrelevant so we won’t go there.  Yes, it has been four long years finishing my master’s in seminary.  Yes, I’m excited to be done and to walk next Friday.  But our life is so full right now I can hardly focus my blurry eyes let alone celebrate.

Here’s a fun snapshot of how life is–in the past five days I have scrubbed butt paste off two dozen surfaces, toys, books, clothes, quilts, bedding, and body parts.  We had a marathon trip to McMinnville to get the last of our stuff, fix up some things, sign closing documents, and carted a trailer full of stuff off to park for five days. Jeff taught at multnomah, we havea stack of papers to grade, then we drove to Bend for a quick vacation before coming back Saturday, heading straight to church, staying up late to celebrate a birthday, heading to church services all morning Sunday, then a real marathon of delivering stuff to people’s houses to store for us, then going down to Corvallis to do a walk through with our renter who moved out and stage that house for sale.  No details are needed but let’s just say that trip was one of the most emotionally exhausting things I’ve done in a long time.  Jeff was mowing the lawn in the pouring down rain while I nursed Heidi on the floor and resorted to etertaining Dutch with Bob the Builder playing continuously on the laptop.  We ate peanut butter sandwiches Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Yeah.  Today Heidi and I braved the torrential downpour and went to the registrar’s office, the library, the computer lab, the seminary building, and then had dinner with my mentor.   It was then, as I was sitting talking to my mentor about serious seminary matters when I shook my head and thought to myself, “Hm, that’s funny I only feel one earring dangling.”  As she spoke I slowly lifted my hands up casually to my ears, trying to be sublte.  Sure enough.  One and only one big dangly earring.  Awesome. Par for the course. Sure enough, I got home and there was the other one sitting on my nightstand. 🙂 So now I’m home and blurry eyed and asking God for grace to teach the women’s luncheon this Saturday.  SO excited for it–but so tired.

But in the middle of all this we had the sweetest time of refreshing.  An elder at church gave us a two night stay at Sunriver in their cabin.  I was totally dragging my heels about going–with so much going on, it kind of just felt like another thing on my to-do list. Plus packing for our family of four includes a LOT of diapers and clothes and toys and sippy cups.  In the midst of the busyness what suffered was apparently my attention to packing FOOD–we had two totino’s pizzas which I bought at walmart in Bend, two cans of soup, a loaf of bread with peanut butter and some oatmeal.  Mmm.  Nothing says luxurious vacation like sharing a can of soup with your toddler for dinner :-).

But it was SOOO great. I sound like I”m joking but I”m not. It was the most refreshing, sweet time we’ve experienced in so long. Just to sit in the car, with the kids occupied, and being able to actually talk, catch up, sing our hearts out to Chris Tomlin and Rend the Heavens, watch the fluffy white clouds against the brilliant blue Central Oregon sky.  We lounged in our sweats, spent hours at the fantastic kiddi wading pool at the Sunriver aquatic center, and laughed our heads off as Dutch splashed and “swam” and slid down the water slide and ran around like a crazy boy.  We hooked up with old friends, staying up late talking about how good our God is and what He’s doing in our lives.  We walked for miles, thanking God again and again for our double stroller.  We sipped tea. We napped.  We prayed.  We searched for houses online and dreamed and prayed some more.  It was SO good.

So no real lesson here, I Just wanted to touch base.  I’m drooling with anticipation of the wide open calendar I see in the very near future, after Saturday. For now I need to focus, study, pray, and be faithful, trusting God will meet His women on Saturday.  But in the midst of a really crazy time, I’m so thankful for times of refreshing.  And thankful for generous people who have Sunriver cabins. 🙂 However, just for the record, we’re not partial–we’ll take free vacations anywhere! Any offers?

I googled two things today: First, “Ok to use ground beef left out all night?”  Some of you are cringing.  In my whirlwind of putting away groceries I left the ground beef out in the garage on top of the fridge. Darn.  Don’t worry, thew it away.  Apparently others had asked the same question, so I found just the answer I needed.

The second item that I googled was: “How to clean butt paste off walls.”  Yielded no useful results whatsoever. Apparently I am the first woman to ask this question.

Right after I wrote my last post, I close my laptop feeling comtemplative and peaceful.  I sit down on the couch to read my Bible when I hear Dutch playing with his little toy garage while he should be napping.  For a second I thought I’d just ignore it and let him be, then thought better of it. “I better be consistent,” I tell myself and crack open his door for quick chiding.  As open the door I notice it smells like Boudreaux’s butt paste. Hm.  I look closer and narrow my eyes trying to register what I see.  My son is white.  I mean, he’s always been caucasian, but my son is WHITE.  Covered in WHITE.  His face, his hair, his clothes.  COVERED. I look closer and my mouth drops open.  The WALLS are white, his quilt is white, his dresser is white. Closer look–books, toys, pillow, carpet–EVERYTHING is covered in oily, thick, creamy white butt paste.  My heart sinks as I look down and see the enormous was-full tub of diaper cream…empty.

Mind you, we live with Dombrows…in their brand new house…with brand new walls…which are now covered in diaper cream!

I was so horrified I didn’t even know how to respond. I turned around, closed the door, and stood like a buffoon.  Finally I dialed my mom and told her what happened. “What do I do?!”  There was nothing else to do but go back in, discipline him, then have him go downstairs and tell Joy what he did.  I carried him downstairs, not wanting him to touch anything, and told Joy.

To make a long story short, we experienced grace today.  Joy laughed.  Laughed, and assured me it was ok. Not only that, she came in and helped me clean. I washed DUtch’s hair five times and still couldn’t get the paste out.  Tomorrow I’m going to try dish soap (cuts grease, right?).  We wiped down the walls, dresser, gathered up all the linens and toys…and now that task awaits me as we speak.

Two little nuggets from the situation. One was the beauty of grace. Later, after spending our afternoon scrubbing the smelly oily mess, Joy got down on the floor and played trucks with Dutch. Later this evening Nathan (their son and Dutch’s hero), made a powerpoint slideshow talking about all the fun things about Dutch, even including a picture of him.  He gathered us all up, both families, to sit in the office and watch the special presentation about his little miniature friend. That is grace.  When he least deserved it, Joy and Nathan both chose to bless my little son…despite his naughty curiosity.

And a little merciful kiss from God.  Though everything was covered, including all of Dutch’s books, the only book without a speck of paste on it was the book we’d checked out from the library.  God somehow kept the libarary book without a spot.  Though truly a mess, thank you Jesus that at least I don’t have to buy that stupid book! Little mercies along the crazy journey of mommyhood. 🙂

If you’re curious, you can see pics here. I better sign off now…I have some cleaning to do…