My Neighborhood

This is a map of my neighborhood. The GACCA area where work is being done to take a neighborhood prized in its time and return it to some of its former glory. I love that about my neighborhood. It is rough, I have no problems admitting that. The work is just beginning and will take more time than I realize, I know that. But it is good work. It is noble work. It is work that hints at the Divine. After all, wasn't restoration of mankind part of Christ's work?

It has become written on my heart, this area of the world. These people have somehow become a part of me. This is my adventure, and as Chris sees work accomplished and more to be done and becomes involved, this becomes our adventure. God placed us here in August when we hunted for a house. And this month when we hunted for a house, He led us right back here.

But. . .the house isn't going as planned. Electrical and french drains were all we expected to see from the home inspection. Then a roof was added and we started to look for quotes. Electrical, french drains, and a roof were all we expected to read when we got the final report. Then a furnace and a water heater were added. A furnace nearing death, the years lived already more than expected, and a water heater rusted and leaking carbon monoxide. And mold, the bonus room in the basement, more work and less bonus. A growing list of needed estimates and a growing sum of money needed at the purchase. A reply asking for money to be credited the sale would be necessary.

The purchase price of a home is part of the public record. In our county, it is listed on the assessor's website. For cabinets-stock, removal of doors, carpet, cleaning, and painting a selling price three times the purchase price.

Little hope for the credit. Little hope for the house. What of the call to adventure?

I went to shower broken hearted. As the water flowed, I reviewed my day.

• Our neighbor attends church at a church in the community. The church used to have an after school program. I am unclear about what happened to it, but they are discussing trying again. Would I be interested in helping with that since I have in the past run an after school program? If they want to try again.

• A meeting of the Image and Identity subcommittee of the GACCA of which I happen to be a member and the sole newsletter representative. A small committee of two other community members and the Elm Street Manager. A wonderful discussion planning a fall festival--car show, kids carnival, craft show. I am planning the kids/family activities.

• Our landlord called. He is a member of the GACCA board and I had asked to interview him about the background for the newsletter. Tomorrow night he will come for desert with Chris, Abigail, and I and will give me everything he knows and everything he has found in researching for the interview.

• I think about some of the older people in the neighborhood who are frustrated and bitter and angry about the things that have happened since they were working and bringing money into the area. They have ceased to feel like this is their neighborhood. They have lost this space they worked so hard for not to young families--caring for their homes and properties, supervising their children, caring about their neighbors--but to slumlords and tenants without care or concern for anyone. They have cause to have negative feelings. But a community doesn't belong to those. A community belongs to those of us who care about a space, who share with and love one another. This neighborhood does not, or should not, belong to those passing through willing to pillage and rape, but to those who make a commitment to people and place.

Indeed this is my neighborhood.

As I dried off, I heard my speech to empower my neighbors (a speech eloquent in my mind but never to be given). I heard the Lord speak to my heart, perhaps my words were meant more for me.

Where there is little hope, there must be great faith.

Tomorrow we will submit our reply to the seller and I will pray and write for my neighborhood.

Picture This!

What Did This Come From?

Only after defrosting did I realize that just one of these chicken breasts could feed our family of three--two adult portions and one toddler. Are we not concerned about what our food is eating? Or what is being done to it to create these? Are we not bombarded with news of an obesity epidemic?

Deteriorating Slate

The roof, oh the roof.

It is a slate roof in need of serious repair or replacement. Once I knew what to look for in the deterioration of slate, I could easily see that this was not a fix we could manage on our own. The price must be adjusted!

And I see my furniture so easily arranged in this new house staying here on a piece of property small by anyone's standards rented out to two families for another year.

Woe, woe is me.

I should add that everything else went as expected and there were no other problems.

Quick Catch-Up

Wow, have I ever become unreliable. So to get me back on track I will try to catch up on some things and then tomorrow perhaps say something useful or witty or of some benefit to the world.

In Housing News
We placed an offer on the house about a block away. I have coveted the house since it went on the market, but we tried to get out of the neighborhood. It happens to be the best fit. There was a counter-offer which we accepted. So we are in route to home ownership once again. Tomorrow is our home inspection, but since this is a flipper I don't foresee any issues. In fact since Chris is my husband, I don't see any issues.

In Dental Work News
Abigail has completely recovered from her trip to the dentist. She did sleep more the following days but not enough to actually blame the anesthesia.

In Adoption News
We are waiting, still. I don't have the paperwork gathered though it is all present, and when I talked with our social worker who called to check in, she said that if we wait till we move before we have our home study approved we will save the additional fee for a change of address. So we wait.

I think that about does it for noteworthy information from our house.

Nepotism

My brother-in-law started a blog. I am so excited because now I can read what he is doing and what he is seeing wherever he is. He travels often and too often I find myself wanting to know the details of his trips, but never quite finding the time to get said details. So again I am excited. I should add that he is a wonderful author and that his post are a pleasure to read. He is at Andy in the Andes (he is currently working in Bolivia.)

Eating Out

We put an offer in on a house tonight. It is the one in our neighborhood. We weren't planning to go to Belle Vernon tonight to write the offer, but when Chris called our agent thought it best. Someone else was looking at the house and we could get a better deal without a bidding war. So instead of a leisurely evening of hot dogs and sand box playing, we went to sign a real estate offer.

Chris had plans to see a movie with a friend from church. It works well since I enjoy movies but am satisfied with said movie in DVD form. He is currently watching the new Indiana Jones movie.

Abigail and I went to Wendy's for dinner. I noticed the Loch Lynn Church of Christ van in the parking lot and a few other cars. When we went in, the ordering area was packed full with a youth group. The majority of tables were filled with youth and youth workers. I missed seeing the bus!

We stayed and more youth came. We became part of the swarming chaos of a church youth group returning from a day at an amusement park. As if waiting in line had not yet gotten old, they were laughing and talking and pestering the youth workers they surrounded. The young man behind me kept getting so excited in his conversations with those in front that he forgot to keep his place. He always remembered and returned. By the time he was able to order, he realized that he didn't know what he wanted. All that time in line spent in frivolous banter and he forgot to look at the menu. I could only laugh.

Abigail and I found a table in the area of Wendy's that I can only call the sun porch. There were fewer teens there and so we were able to concentrate on each other and our food. Nearing the time to leave, I realized that in a fast food restaurant packed with teenagers I heard not one curse word, not one inappropriate remark, not one cell phone. I did hear teenagers laughing and talking together over a meal. And that was a good sound.

Cavities Filled

After a torturous time, for her father and I, Abigail has eight fillings in her very young mouth. Aside from a furious child when getting the initial shot, without warning Abigail reacts badly to anything unexpected, she had a very typical time. I prayed for peace for all of us. (I wonder if my time was typical of mothers whose children are for the first time being anesthetized. I have a feeling it was.)

I all done. Let's go Uh-oh Donalds. (McDonalds) was among the first words spoken when she awoke. She also determined that shopping for Aunt Beez's sandals was in order following her lunch of chicken nuggets. Throwing caution to the wind, Grandma Kathy, Aunt Beez, Abigail and I went to the mall where she hopped, skipped, ran, and galloped down the corridors. The only hint that something was amiss was the stopping which usually looked like lurching to the floor. A stage only recently outgrown.

She then announced that she needed no nap, but I, her exhausted mother, needed a nap and deemed it appropriate that we heed some of the advice given by her doctors.

She is now awake and telling Chris that he needs to move his stuff out of the basement because it is in her way. I also heard her requesting that he fix her tricycle after doing the laundry.

All is well here. I am so very grateful to our great big God who hears moms pleading for peace as they watch their children grow.

Six Cavities

Abigail has six cavities in her molars. Tomorrow she has to go to the dentist to have them filled. She has to be anesthetized for the procedure.

Tiny little girl with powerful medication coursing through her little veins forcing her to sleep while someone drills on her teeth and fills them with some chemical formulation designed to protect them from further decay.

Her family isn't dealing very well with the prospect. My mom and sister are coming up to drive us to and fro. Chris is going to be at work. . . worrying. I will read God Gave Us You, Jesus Is With You, and Just In Case You Ever Wonder before we leave just like I did before going to the Ladies' Retreat this past weekend. Trying to remember that she is loved by God and protected by Him far more than I can imagine.

Sleepy Singing

Heard on a radio program:

You'll never know the last time you will read Good Night Moon till you've read it for the last time.

I should revise it:

I'll never know the last time I will sing Jesus Loves Me while rocking my girl before sleep till the last time I've done it.

Abigail has ceased to be interested in singing before sleep. Sitting and talking with her animals and dolls is the preferred pre-sleep activity. And I am left crying into little girl panties, and regretting all those times I resented the minutes she put off sleeping so I couldn't get on with my activity.

Oh Lord, remind me that my time with her is brief when I become impatient. Teach me to treasure the minutes she chooses me, before I must long to be seen by her.

Busy-ness

I feel like a salmon. Swimming upstream to a peaceful place while torrents try to carry me in another direction. Leaping and jumping through and over obstacles while the world tries to bash me against the rocks.

The CPR/First Aid test was finished yesterday. We went to Pittsburgh for it. Now we wait for the cards and fill out a Transracial Adoption Questionnaire. Then the paperworking home study portion of the adoption should be done.

In time for us to look for a new house. Things at work have settled, at least for Chris, and he feels comfortable settling into a spot of our own. Couple that with news that our landlords are planning to add another tenant to the property and we are preparing to flee. So tonight we will be looking for houses.

Then there is the playing outside. The exercise, the quiet time, the cleaning, cooking and laundry. It is all conspiring to drown me. And really it is all my fault. I know that in order to feel more human and less fish, I need a rhythm. I need to know what to expect in some form from each day. I need to know when the refreshment is coming and when the toil is done. I haven't taken the time to look at my week and figure out the rhythm. I just know that this week is an up-tempo number and next looks the same. What is the term for slow and steady and relaxing?

I should say as I have complained to the blog-reading world that I am a great huge wimp. And half way through writing this I had to think of Mindi and all those other families who are missing a member deployed to a war far away. To you all I apologize for complaining.

Picture This

Making Her Own Fun
On Vacation
5/23/08

Choosing Rejection

I am married. Therefore my life is all about rejection.

When Chris and I started dating, I rejected the advances of other men. At times. I rejected the invitations of friends or families in order to spend time with him. Sometimes I rejected my own selfish nature doing what he would prefer over what I would prefer. I did all these things because I liked him, and he liked me. We were getting to know one another and we had fun together. But I had an out, if any of those things changed I was free to accept advances, accept invitations, and indulge my own selfishness. To be free, though, I would have to reject Chris.

Time passed and things did change. We got engaged. All the things previously rejected were of necessity renounced, no longer would I consider another man, invitations became considered under the plans of two instead of one, and my selfishness would die as I began the art of becoming one with the man I was to marry. I rejected my dreams for travel and big adventure, no longer was I to be a missionary in India. I did all of this because I loved him and he loved me. We were making a promise to one another to make a life together not just have fun together. There was still an out, but a slim one, to be considered very carefully. To take that out, I would have to reject Chris and I would have to reject my very word--the promise I had given to marry.
Nine months later, we were married. Then the rejection really began. In those vows, in that commitment I rejected more than I thought I had. Gone were the days of comparing Chris to other men, over were the times of criticizing him to others, my selfishness was to die right there at that altar.

My desire for my own comfort--rejected.
My control--rejected.
My independence--rejected.
My self-determination--rejected.
My childhood home--rejected.
My parent's authority--rejected.
My family of origin--rejected.
My very name--rejected.
Everything but the Lord--rejected.

All in the passing of twenty minutes. All in the repetition of a few words. All in two "I do"s. So much of myself and so many I love rejected. I did all this rejecting because I loved him and he loved me and we were building a life, a family, a home, an adventure together. We were promising to love when we didn't feel like loving, to tell the truth when it would hurt, to look to another's best interest, to fight and make up, to make love, to sorrow together and to celebrate together. We were taking the long road of unknowables. Yes, there remains an out. A small door to be opened only after deep sin and much consideration and counsel. We agree to never speak of that door. To take that door, is to reject Chris. It is to reject the oneness we have become. It is to reject the child we have and the family we are. It is to reject his family who have so graciously taken me in as one of their own. It is to reject everything I have or know. It is to reject my word of promise, my covenant with Chris and with God and before all those in attendance at our wedding.

Yet all along this road, these twelve years of growing and walking with Chris I did not think so much about rejection as about the acceptance I was giving. With each choice to commit even further with Chris, in our dating, in our engagement, in our wedding and in the dailiness of marriage, I am accepting or I am rejecting. In each decision something must be rejected, but what I gain is of far greater worth. I think less of what I am giving up and more of the intimacy gained, the relationship strengthened, and the ability to fully bask in the committed love of another. But, in light of what I have rejected, I must ask would I make the same decisions? Confidently, I assert, Yes.

Mixed Media Monday

The Dukes of Hazzard--Chris and Abigail watched an episode of the Dukes when I was away one evening. It has become a family event, semi-nightly as summer with its long warm evenings has arrived, an episode of the Dukes and a snack followed by "Bible time" and bed. We have the first four seasons. Pretty soon we will need the remainders.

Down the Road by Alice Schertle, illustrated by E.B. Lewis--A little girl gets to go to the store for a basket of eggs alone for the first time. She ends up in an apple tree with 12 broken eggs. The story is fun and the pictures are beautiful.

Home--My aunt recycles this magazine to me after she is finished. I love looking at the pictures, but the prices make my mouth hang open.

Dreamer--I wanted to see a horse movie and Bethany Dillon sings the closing song, less about a horse and more about a Savior, so it went on our queue. It was a sweet movie and we weren't disappointed, though able to fold laundry through the first part.

Perspective

For our citizenship
is in heaven,
from which we eagerly wait for a Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ,
who will transform the body
of our humble state
into conformity with the
body of His glory,
by the exertion
of the power He has
even to subject
all things
to Himself.
Philippians 3:20-21