goodbye 2009

goodbye 2009

my favorite thing about this year was making memories and learning how to use a camera so i can remember those times later on!!






saying goodbye to the worst, iciest, snowiest winter my area has seen in many years...



enjoyed spring!!





celebrated independence with friends







enjoyed the company of friends



got WAY more into gardening than i thought i would!



loved seeing my husband enjoy ministry and his job



partied





loved youth ministry and summer events with the youth



HAD WONDERFUL FOOD --- i love living in the pacific NW








had some family time....








enjoyed vacations











celebrated engagements





enjoyed my grandparents





mourned the loss of a family pet



celebrated accomplishments of friend's



hugged my husband as much as i could






this new year, 2010, holds some big changes ahead for us. i am excited, terrified, hopeful, courageous, and my heart is full of love and thankfulness.

josh i can't wait to walk into our new life together this year - i love you

waterslides

we had our first youth outing as an official youth group yesterday.

waterslide park.


ok. so this one time me and tessa went on all these terrifying roller coasters at six flag ( no flags no fun!! ) and there was this superman ride or something and it was ridiculous and i was scarred for life. and i was like, man, nothing could ever be that scary... that terrifying...

but i realized some things as yesterday i slid to what i thought at the end of the waterslide would be my black watery grave:

waterslides are a lot like roller coaster in the fact that they combine speed and sharp turns and that feeling of being out of control as well as enclosing you in a small space, and sometimes it was completely pitch black and other times it would flip you over.

add to my fears of feeling out of control, speed, heights (like on rollercoasters) and then include:

fear of water and drowning
fear of germs
....
there is no seatbelt.

awesome.

:)

the kids LOVED it. we are totally going to do another event!! just something less....waterslide-ish....

youtube covers

Cheap entertainments on a break at work sometimes includes surfing youtube. My favorite thing to do is pick a favorite song and see who has tried to cover it and put it up on youtube.

The results in search are usually hilarious. Sometimes there will be a overly intoxicated girl singing a karaoke version, but usually it is an 8th grade boy with his guitar in his bedroom.

I've been listening to this song all week driving around because it feels so summery, and I felt the need to revive my old Weezer music from 10 years ago, and here I found a guy with a pretty good voice. And it has all the classic youtube musts: you and your 90 lbs roommate, sitting on a twin sized bed in a cramped dorm room, next to a plastic garbage can, and the lighting too dark and half your guitar not in the frame.

choich

Today was good at church - some of the kids are "graduating" to middle school so I gave them some fun devotional/prizes in front of church today and the church prayed for them. It was exciting to see the church take time to pray for the kids. Unfortunately, I haven't seen that before... not since I've been attending. So I hope it's a good start.

Meanwhile, I'm still alone teaching the class every Sunday morning and one other teacher teaches the smaller kids (kid) - still no one interested in helping with Sunday school/kids program or being involved. I wonder if they wonder why they don't more than 4 regular children attending Sunday mornings??

I am excited about this Thursday - we are starting a youth group - it's going to be small at first, we are basically doing a cold start, no existing "youth", no "youth pastor" or youth leaders, just me and my friend Jen and Josh of course. Step of faith, that's for sure.

the vanderhydes

My friends Cass and Mark are pretty cool people. I've known both of them since my junior high days as an awkward homeschooler. I feel really lucky to have known them so long and Cass' family, too. People always ask me, hey, how can you know people so well who live on the other side of the country. Well I was thinking about this the other day, how people born in my decade are much different and have quite a different life even from people born a few years earlier. So much more technology to use nowadays and information is exchanged all the time, as often as you want.

I remember being seriously disappointed being stuck in a new job (nursing "shortage", pshaw) and a new town and being broke and unable to go to their wedding. And yet when the wedding day came, I was sent minute by minute a series of pictures from Sar's cell phone - "virtual" wedding attendance. I was still balling like a baby at the end of the ceremony, just like when I'm at a wedding in "real" life.














Now they are having their first baby, Cass has been in labor like friggin ALL night and day, and I paced around work, glancing at the labor and delivery ward, wishing I was not on the west coast at the moment, wondering if Mark was wandering around the hospital grounds with his iTouch looking for wifi. Wondering if Cass is in pain (duh, probably a lot), or was that nurse starting the IV alright, were they giving her too much fluid, who was monitoring the monitor anyway!

The thing is, I totally could've called or texted Mark or Cass, and asked how things were coming along, but it seems I don't even need to because there is like 1,000 (okay I'm exaggerating) facebook/twitter updates concerning the matter. It's kind of exciting, watching a little story unfold through a newsfeed...

certainly doesn't replace being there, but still interesting, and nice. :)

books

I was running my hand across an old, dusty, leathery-pleathery hardcover of an old friendly book the other day. The smell of the stacks brought back a flood of memories in less than a second.

These memories make me wonder if the valley, Little Valley, my family lives in, if it misses children coming to visit. For at least 20 years, every summer, it could count on 3-4 children running around in the pastures, hiking through the forest and trudging up and down the creek that runs through the middle. Pulling out strands of it's long grass and trying to make whistling noises, shredding seeds off the long rye, moving sticks from one end to the other, counting "baby salmons" in the shallow areas of the crick.

I remember me, Yvette and Lynnae spent hours running from one side of the culvert bridge to the other watching our "Pooh Sticks" come to the other side. Half the game was the fun of finding newer, better sticks to send off under the bridge.

We made at least twenty treasure maps one summer, inspired by a book series we read where the heroine goes off to find treasure. Another summer we solved mystery after mystery like Nancy Drew. Other times we would hike around the woods looking for "clues" and making animal friends (like white kittens) and imaginary handsome boyfriends, hoping a real one would come along like the companions Mandie had in The Carolinas. For a month we all wanted a long braid to flip over our shoulder like the girl in the Northwoods series (I think that was the name).

One time we tried to convert the back40 tractor and parts shed into a boxcar, so we could live in it like the Boxcar Children. Damming off a creek was much harder in real life, the book made it sound easier. I had a little plastic cup that was "my own", God knows what else we stole from the Farm kitchen that is probably still missing. I remember at least three ceramic jars we swiped to hold all our "food and supplies" (like the blueberries we picked and some juice boxes) we needed to survive on our own. We were orphans, you know, living in a Boxcar.

Poor, poor orphans. Left at The Farm with Gramma for three whole months. We wouldn't even pretend to be sorry to leave smelly, polluted, congested, crowded South Seattle for a ferry ride to The Farm. The time passed quickly, and in a flash, the leaves were falling, the canning was done and we were back playing hopscotch in the street while our friend's older siblings smoked and talked about the other gang impeding on their turf. We would take solace in the next book series, maybe one about gymnast girls who had cool adventures, or a Sci-Fi series about the post-nuclear war future. In any even, we would go from car to inside, never spending more than a minute outdoors, and fight for space in the small two bedroom. The rain and fog seemed unending. The sunshine, sweet smelling pastures, corn on the cob, animals, big porch and 4-bedroom farmhouse seemed so far away. The dreary rain, unending buildings and pavement seemed much more real.

Is it a lonely valley? Was it lonely in the decade-long gap between my father running there in every summer of his youth until I came for my summers? Will it still be there when my children need the perfect canvas to paint what is in their imaginations?

sunday school materials

I get so bored with the sunday school materials the Lifepay or whoever-they-are denominational people supply us. If I was in fifth grade, and I was learning that stuff, for like the 800th time, I'd be pretty bored. Besides the fact that the teaching plans are very specific, you have to read the story in these watered-down "kid-friendly" words, on a page with a colored-pencil type sketch of the particular Bible character we are learning about (they make them look really old and evil). But teaching it? Even worse. And they leave no time for games. But a lot of time for multiple choice question worksheets. Oh, and don't forget the CD they added this year that has kid's talking in southern accents and singing hymns.

It's just the Sunday School program EVERY Seattle kid can totally relate to /sarcasm. I'll give them credit though, a southern accent is a novelty up here, and they grew up with grunge-y indie rock at their house so they did like playing the CD. ("Look Heidi I'm a cowboy!!" *runs around the room in circles to some southern-y gospel hymn*) I can't really laugh at them because, I'll admit it - when I was in fifth grade I thought anything east of California and west of Washington DC was all made up entirely of cowboys. And no water.

Anyway, I amuse myself every quarter reading the Suggested Sunday School Material - and then I do my own lesson series. Every week. From The Bible. Without a worksheet. Or a kid-friendly story version. And they don't have to memorize the verse from King James Version - it can be from another version that maybe makes like, more sense.

I found a big roll of paper that we laid out into a giant life-sized board game (games and tokens the same kind of thing as The Game of LIFE) and used it as a review game. It was super fun, and the kids remember everything - I think maybe one question was answered incorrectly. I'm pretty happy with how sunday school is going, but the kids are what keep it going. Their parents aren't interested in church or what the kids learn there, but the kids like coming back - to learn. It's pretty cool to know kids like that.

coffee baby

I'm kind of a flickr junkie. I love looking at all the interesting pictures from around the world. I like pictures of babies, and it's fun that some of my friend's are on flickr so I can watch their kids grow up and at least see a little part of their lives, to make living far away from them the teeniest bit easier.

Sometimes though, I just run across things that just look a little off. I'm all about editing and doing cool stuff with your photos, and I love the pictures of the cutsie babies, but moms - don't put your babies in hot coffee just for a good flickr photo.

WAHHH

So I survived a one and three year old being at my house for a few days- and there was just as much screaming involved as I imagined there would be (not me screaming, the children screaming). Why do my friend's kids have to scream, do all kids do that, I don't remember doing that when I was a kid. I mean babies can't really help it but seriously, DO SOMETHING. CAN'T YOU HEAR THAT INCESSANT NOISE.

But I really really love those girls. Screaming and all. But my lack of small children experience shows. Seriously, what is with all the screaming.

little kids

I looove my memories from when I was a little kid, because everything was SO MUCH FUN.

I kept a lot of my little kid toys. the small ones, because they all fit and one basket and they are simple and cute.

My friend Melissa's kids are here visiting this weekend (1 year and 3 year old) and so I got out my few remaining stuff animals and little toys for the 3 year old (Audrey). Audrey is totally like out there and hyper like I was, and I was really happy she liked my toys. She had the elephant eat from the tiny basket, and used the gun to apply "makeup" which I didn't understand really but I give her creativity points.

I like having little kid friends like Audrey so I can play with toys again. :)

Featherticks and Air Mattresses

I love air mattresses. I always have. When I spend the night at a friend's house or somewhere, and they're like, oh, sorry, all I have is an air matress, I'm like, it's ok!! I like air mattresses!!

My parents, if you didn't know, are typical Seattle people. Both raised in the crazy hippie downtown Seattle 1960s, my dad was raised whitebread Boeing innercity, my mom raised uhm, how do I say without using the typical offensive slang we used at home, ethnic? innercity. Either way, it's about the same. Same economic status, same immigrant types yelling at you from the doorways, well - ok, different druggie preferences, but still most of your neighbors on drugs.

Anyway, when we lived in Seattle we were surrounded by family, even though they were still in different neighborhoods. These neighborhoods were much the same since my parents grew up in them, and probably are still the same now even though I'm grown up from them. I would get to stay at different houses of relatives since I was a good house guest, but annoying to live with 24/7 (homeschooled!!), apparently. Mostly it was my cousin's house or they were at mine since we were all homeschooled, us three girls crammed into a tiny room wherever we were sent. I remember fighting over who got a certain mattress for the floor - if an air mattress could survive long enough without getting a hole so that we could each have a turn - that was rare.

For the summer we were always sent to the Farm (what we considered Kid Paradise HQ) where Grandma was much more practical. She had WWII cots with squeaky rusting springs and very very thin mattresses on top, and "Feather Ticks", which I'm sure came over from Eastern Europe on the boat with my Grandma Martha. Oh, Feather Ticks, nothing at all like the sleek, modern air mattress. I would lay one feather-stuffed cotton sack on top of another, but it always felt like I was sleeping on the floor. Additionally, 70 years of goose feathers, dust and mold made my small lungs very ill, although no one made the connection at the time. For goodness sake, my dad had slept on them, maybe even my grandma, as a child. My younger cousins must've thought I was generous in later summers, letting them have three feather ticks while I slept on one or none - but it was just that I knew there was no point, no matter what, I was still really sleeping on the bare floor. I have never had a cushion of chubbiness, so these bony prominences need to stay away from the floor.

But there was always hope of an air mattress at the end of the summer. My mom would cook for the youth retreats for our church in Seattle, and would take me for a week or two to the ocean, or one of the lakes in hot, sunny eastern Washington or Oregon. Not only did I get to see most of gorgeous spots and sights of the Northwest during those summers, but all from the comfort of my air mattress. If only I would've known sooner that my mom bought those at the dollar store (for only a dollar!) in the pool toys section, I would've saved my own money and bought 12. I could lay my sleeping bag on top of that air mattress and drift comfortably into dreamland wherever our tent was laid, even if it was on top of pointy rocks.

The past few weekends, actually every weekend since Christmas, we've had houseguests. Last week we blew up the air mattress for extra sleeping space. After the guests had left I was starting to deflate it. I suddenly felt sad. All that air, comfy, cozy air, only slept on one time, what a waste. I pushed my hand down on it - it was still a tensile structure. As it started to deflate it wheezed nooooo. I stopped deflating, stood up, turned around and just fell back into it with complete trust the air mattress would cushion my fall. All those happy summer memories flooded back to me in an instant. The bright stars above Moses Lake, the warm air at the Crossing at Keller's Ferry, three girls giggling about pancakes late at night in a stuffy room, and the small space in between the 2nd floor stairs and the wall at the Farm that is just room enough to sleep in.

I declared to Josh later in the evening that the air mattress was staying in the living room fully inflated and that even though it was a Thursday night and I have to get up early to work the next day, I was going camping, and he is welcome to join me (it is a queen size air mattress anyway). We stayed up late sitting on the air mattress, eating snacks, watching funny TV shows (The Office AND camping?! Yes please!), and I felt the general giddiness of sleeping out in a different space, with different blankets and different surroundings, and the naughtiness of being up past bedtime on a worknight for the sole purpose of having Summertime-like fun.

I woke up in the morning refreshed, and half-expecting the smell of evergreen trees and the sound of a propane stove heating water for coffee in a tin can. I bounced around the kitchen getting ready for work, and Josh must have noticed the huge grin on my face. He asked, "You had fun camping, didn't you?" Yes I did.

"You want to go camping again tonight?". I felt a smile run across my face. I wrapped my arms around his neck as my way of a thank you for him sharing silly things like air mattresses with me (which I'm sure hold little to no interest or sentiment for him). I whispered to a response to him, YES, Yes I do want to go camping again tonight.

sunday

Saturday was pretty eventful for me. I tripped over something in the garage, which led to a full-fledged cleaning spree of the garage, which was definitely premature weather-wise. Garage cleaning and rearranging should be reserved for spring-like weather, not 18 degrees and icy sidewalks. But in any event, the cleaning bug got to me and I shuffled things into the shed and rearranged and threw out and what not. It felt good, damn good, something tough guys do, cleaning out garages, moving ladders, hanging up weedwackers, throwing things into dumpsters... HOO AAH. Okay, anyhoo...

I also did laundry. Not something tough guys do.

Later in the evening was a surprise birthday party for our friend, which was held at a local sports bar & grill that has a giant projector screen for playing Wii. That was FUN. And a birthday party with pizza, Wii, easy access to margaritas and cake - well, you can't go wrong there.

This morning at Sunday School we invented a new game that involved shooting at each other with Nerf guns. When that resulted in chaos and hurt pride we put up hula hoops and shot through those for points. I tried Sunday school without ending in some sort of game but it just wasn't as much fun. It gives them (and me) something to look forward to after sitting through Bible lessons and things, and I'm also not a crafter. I mean crafts now and again are OK, but I don't like them, not when I could be perfecting the art of Nerf gun wars. I've also perfected that certain breaking point to stop a game just before the 4th grade boys start crying over how they just can't seem to get as many points as those mean 5th grade girls.

camera

I'm gettin serious about learning how to use my new camera.

I've always been the point and shoot type, but I'm gonna get all manual now.

Me and a friend are gonna do the 365 project on Flickr, where you self-portrait everyday for a year, should be fun.

Today at church was good, we have new people on the worship team again which is nice 'cause it's been pretty thin lately up there. Also, the next couple of weeks/months I'll be back to teaching Sunday School again. I missed that! My 9 year old girls are now 10 year old girls... man... gonna be an interesting year...

And looking forward to the future: in November I'm going to a transplant conference to learn all about taking care of transplant recipient patients. Wooo I see a new specialty for me on the horizon...!!

monkeymunch

i was watching reruns of jon and kate plus 8 while i was sick the other day and i was like zoning out to it and then all of the sudden i saw her making something called "monkey munch" and i was like whoa, we totally used to make that all the time, except we called it chocolate chex or something, but anyway it's super good and at work today that's all i could think about was monkey munch, monkey muuuunnnccchhhh....... MONKEY MUNCH!! ....

so i made some.


and it was awesome.


i mean, still is awesome. cuz there is no way i can eat the whole bag in one sitting. that would be gross.


Ingredients
9 cups Chex cereal (I USE RICE CHEX MMMM)
1 cup
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions
Put chex in a large bowl

Put the chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter into a microwavable bowl.

Stir the ingredients together.

Microwave uncovered for a minute. Stir until melted. Microwave more if your microwave is wussy.

Pour over the cereal and mix in!

Put it in a big Ziploc freezer bag

Add powdered sugar, close the bag and shake until covered well

EAT IT ALL UP


**the internets says there is vanilla in it too but i dunno about that...

cute

Uhm I think you can just stop the competition here and just give her the million dollars:

pastors wife

I don't really write a lot about being a pastor's wife. Sometimes I feel like I don't do many pastor's wife type things. I don't usually go to our church's local association pastor's wives activities - okay, I never go - because they are at 10 AM on Thursday morning or something lame like that. So I rarely even see another "Pastor's wife". I don't go or lead the ladies Bible study, not only because they hold it at a time where I can't get there on time after work, but they are all generations older than me. I don't organize the potlucks. I'm a working woman, and that is looked down upon by many people in our church, but hey, they don't want to pay Josh a decent paycheck, so, gotta work. Oh, and as I have been told many times, I don't dress up enough. I don't own enough dresses and high heels. I don't wear makeup. I don't do my hairup enough. I don't have gaggles of kids running behind me that are my own. Oh yes, my favorite comment of the morning was, "So, I don't want to ask you, in case you CAN'T cook, 'cause I know you probably don't know how to cook - but we put you and Josh down for a casserole for next week's potluck." I'm like thinking to myself, "yes, I can cook, casseroles stand for everything that is wrong with potlucks and stand for what I'm culinarily against in life, and can I just punch you for offending my mad cooking skillz?!" But I just said, "Oh, I'm sure I can come up with something."

Then there are times where I feel I do a lot. Sunday school, playing piano at church, hosting Bible studies at our home, feeding people and talking with them Sundays and Wednesdays, sometimes Saturdays, sometimes Tuesdays. Going out to other peoples home to get to know them better, lots of talking and meetings and most that Josh goes to I don't even bother because it seems there are so many. And of course all the other church activities that are options to "do" stuff at. Somebody is always ready to volunteer me.

I was feeling rather introspective after Sunday school today - I love teaching the kids, even though it's stressful having all the grades in one class - but the more I get to know the kids, I realize what sad, broken homes some of them come from. These kids are so precious, so beautiful, yet are treated so poorly at home. I know it's hard to be a single parent, or to be a grandmother raising a child on your own... but it is sad to me when children learn "God loves you!" at church and then go home and see many bad people come through their lives and the person who is supposed to protect them - isn't there. And yet these kids still have a tiny seed of faith for God, and room for God in their lives, and want to have a personal relationship with Jesus - and they are joyful.

I was pondering these things as I sat in the back row at service today. Usually I try to sit in the middle, sitting next to another young person so I'm not sitting alone (obviously Josh isn't able to sit with me and listen to himself preach) - but today I sat in the very back. I wanted to see people.

I thought back to almost two years ago, when I sat in the back of the church to watch people in service because I was curious about them. It was a new church to me, and though Josh talked about many of the people, I had not yet put faces and names together. Then I saw people who were 'doers', talking about what they could do for this ministry, or that, or what to do this evening at Bible study, or next Wednesday at prayer group. They seemed to be in a frenzy of activities at all times.

Today I saw people who were still doers, but were tired. I saw the hurts they had talked about with us - the recent deaths in the family - the late nights at the hospital we had spent with them - the very late night phone calls to our house from them - the new marriages - the sadness when their children's lives fell apart - the financial troubles - the homelessness - the rotten marriages, abuse and divorce - the tiredness. The pains. Even a church so small as ours, it can seem overwhelming.

Josh's sermon today (he is going through the book of Joshua, ironic, yes?) was about sin. This dude named Achan stole some plunder from Jericho, when God said not to, and then he hid it, and then he didn't fess up about it, and then he faced the consequences. His whole family faced them. All of Israel faced them - many lives were lost. Once it was justified, God had mercy on them again.

I have seen so much sin this year and the pain it has caused our members. The previous pastor let them down. People let people down. People let us down. People let themselves down. I've seen how sick it makes them. It is also interesting to me how just one person's sin can mess up the whole church so bad and get them in a tizzy.

So I pondered all these things in the back row. At the end of service, when I saw everyone singing the closing song - I saw hope on their faces. We were reminded today - we are stricken with sin, it is all around us, but if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and cleanse us from it. The gift of God is eternal life. His mercy is real. His grace is given to us today - a new day.

So, maybe I'm not a pastor's wife by the baptist standards. I don't 'do' stuff for church events, I don't fold napkins at the potlucks. I did feel today that God was saying, "See, I have used you and Josh." And I felt like there was so much more to be done. I am glad we open up our home to our members, as well as our phone line, our schedules. We listen to them, and pray for them. For us, for them, I am filled with hope.

Now if they would stop doing and just be with God and be people of prayer and then action. But that's a pastor's wife post for another day.

sunday schoool

Those sunday school kids of mine are always cracking me up. Like the time they thought I was telling them a story about Simon from American Idol. Yah. Not Simon from the Bible - he's not famous like Simon from American Idol.

We played duck, duck goose today but I'm the only one who says duck. Every kid who was "it" was all like, "Duck, duck, cynthia, audrey, april, bobby, susie, can-can, bob-bob, lemonade, picture frame, juice box, audrey, april, chloe".

Weird thing is, we don't have anyone buy those names in our class or our church for that matter, we didn't have lemonade, juice boxes or picture frames in our classroom. These kids are definitely random.