Garage Saleing

I really love garage sales-- always have. I love the deals, of course, but also enjoy the stories a family's discarded possesions tell. I love exploring the neighborhoods and back roads. I love that it is a chore in one sense, but a pretty fun one!

I had a great morning of saleing this past Saturday.

Details:
In our parts, sales happen not just in garages, but in parking lots, yards, and along the roadside. Few take the time to price their wares, or even sit them out on tables. Often there are just piles or boxes of junk, through which the bargain-hunter sorts. The first few ventures I made at Southern garage saleing were totally unsuccessful. If things weren't priced, I would just wander a bit, say thanks, then leave quietly. How Minnesotan of me.

Major breakthrough in strategy this Saturday, though!

Here's how you sail the sales, Tennessee style:
1. Excavate the piles.
2. Load up your arms with the desired goods.
3. Approach the seller, "How much for this?" Point to ONE of the objects.
4. Seller responds, "Oh, 75 cents. Well, how about $2 for all of it?"
5. Deal! Pay up and head out.

A list of what I got for a total of $7 on Saturday:

• 6 pairs of Baby Gap socks, various sizes and colors
• Baby Gap sweater and hat set, off-white cable knit
• Answering machine
• 2 hardcover kids books
• Vick's brand humidifier
• 2 really nice Carter's onesies
• baby carrier (the soft cloth kind that fits on the parent's front or back)
• baby bottle drying rack
• "I love Daddy" bib

Pretty good, huh? 3 cheers for assimilation!

Atlanta? Gag me!

Today Ben is traveling to Atlanta with the missions class. Here is our conversation from last night regarding this trip . I was washing my face while Ben was already curled up in bed, so I was sort of calling across the rooms to him.

Me: I'm excited for your trip. I mean, I'm not excited that you will be gone, but the trip is going to be--(gag. GAG. blech sound.)

Ben: (laughing uncontrollably, now running into the bathroom in his underwear, laughing more) I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I'm not laughing at you. (laughing, laughing, laughing, now rolling on the floor and clawing at my knees, laughing)

The morning/noon/night sickness attacks quite unexpectedly. Ha ha.

I didn't actually get sick, just gaggy. So it was funny.


So, about Ben in ATL. Here's their COOL plan, beginning Wednesday afternoon:

• Visit Hindu temple (several of the students will be in India this summer)
  
• Visit Operation Mobilization headquarters, eat supper with staff
  
• Talk strategy with OM staff
  
• Stay at horse ranch!
  
• Spend weekly global-prayer time with OM staff
  
• Eat somewhere fabulous, I hope; debrief
  
• Something else I can't remember
  
• Be home by Thurs. evening!

Hurrah for Edy's!

Surprisingly, ice cream seems to fit my pregnancy diet. Ok, not a super-food, but at least it has some of the good stuff.

In a 1/2 cup serving of Edy's Loaded Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream:

6 g fat
140 calories
3 g protien
2 g fiber
4% RDA Calcium (Why isn't there more? They should fortify this...)

Mmmm... The Baby and Mama really like ice cream.

I Love Luci

Lately I have finished Water my Soul: Cultivating the Interior Life, a spiritual devotional based upon the imagery of cultivation, by poet Luci Shaw. Shaw's writing style is quite close to the "Christian Living" writings of Madelience L'Engle. The two, in fact, were great friends and often conducted writing seminars together.
An excerpt from th chapter, "Growing in the Light":

"I join in our universal human longing to be with God, to have all my unsatisfied longings fulfilled:
Unless I am mistaken

'All of us wait for this--
To jettison the grasping hands
To lope through new-created lands
Where hope and have may kiss.'

Perhaps the growing seed wonders if it will ever pierce through the skin of soil and sod and burst into the light. This is, for me, a parable of the life of faith. It is across the gulf between the wanting and the having that faith carries us. Our belief in a God who is good, who understands our yearnings, who teaches us much by making us wait, and who will untimately reward our upward struggle, allows us to persevere, to persist. As the author of The Cloud of Unknowing challenges us: 'Smite upon the thick cloud of unknowing wth the sharp dart of longing love; come what may, never give up.'"

Delighted sigh.

Bigger and bigger news

Hi all. Ben here. Ariel really is showing now! Just ask Elden, Ronelle and Ashlee because they saw the rounding belly over Easter. Ariel's usable wardrobe is diminishing; she's experiencing various kinds of discomfort; she's moving around a little differently--and it's all wonderful! I love that Ariel's body and life is changing--I get to be a partner with Ariel and a witness to the mysterious things happening in and to her! Oh, man...Oh, man.

Most other personal news pales in compare to Ariel and my parenthood, but I'll go ahead with one piece anyway. In April I'm taking a group of interested students on a trip to Washington D.C., where we'll be gathering with folks from around the world whose jobs it is to advocate (throug the legal system) for women and children trafficked in the sex trade, widows who have had their property seized and families in bonded servitude. The meeting is called the Global Prayer Gathering, and it's hosted by the International Justice Mission, an evangelical organization dedicated to rescuing and caring for slaves and prosecuting slave masters and traffickers under the laws of the host country. This meeting is an opportunity for my students to see the incredible dedication of these men and women and to come along side them in prayer for the work God is doing around the world. We leave April 11th!

Bella Band Wanna-be Update

It worked! I took a black spandexy tank top (it is otherwise too short and constricting under the arms, so only gets worn very occasionally) and cut off the top half so that I have about a 10-inch stretchy band. This I pull on over my pants and... Voila! Transition-wear! It works, so far. I'll let you know if my pants shimmy down later today.

Spring Break Visits and a Button-Popping Solution (Is there a solution to button-popping, or is the solution button-popping?)

So, we have had lots and lots of family fun these past few weeks. Jim, Becky and Anna were here last week and my parents and Ashlee came down this weekend. Both visits were wonderful-- we feel pretty blessed that our families come to visit us "just because!"

Also, my belly is getting round. So far, no non-family members have noticed, but family can tell! I am down to one and a half pairs of pants. The half pair can zip and button, but the metal hooks can't close. They are still wearable, thanks to the button (this is perfect, because having two pairs allows me to alternate washing and wearing). Enfamil suggests that I wear my other pants unzipped and an elastic band around my hips to hide that fact. This seems to be a rather strange suggestion to me. Maybe they sell the bands, and that's why they think this is a good idea.

I will check this theory.

Okay, they don't sell the bands after all, but other companies do. And maybe it isn't such a bad idea.

Here is a Bella-Band photo. Of course the models look cute in their bands. But doesn't it also look like they are wearing maternity pants as well? Those jeans look pretty zipped-up to me. And they are going for the layered tee shirt look. How would the stretchy band-thing look under work dress shirts? Hmmm. Maybe I will try to experiment by altering an old tank top or something.

Trail of Tears, Continued

A few months back Ben and I were told that our home sits pretty much a stone's throw from the old road bed that was the Trail of Tears. This has caused us to do a bit of research into the history of the Cherokee people in our area, and more specifically, into the portion of their history that ended in their removal at bayonet-point from our area.

The short version of the story is that from 1833-1836 (after an embarrassing series of failings in our system of checks and balances), 18,000 Cherokee were forcibly removed from their homes in Northern Georgia, parts of Tennessee and North Carolina to a reservation in Oklahoma. During this thousand-mile trip on foot, 4,000 Cherokee died of starvation, exhaustion and disease. It is a pointed example of the injustices in the United States' relations to the Native American Nations during the early part of our country's history.

You can read the long version of the story (please do, it really is interesting!) at:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html

A Belated Memorium, and the Promise of an Introduction

Did you know that author Madeliene L'Engle died this past fall? Apparently this wasn't a happening that made the radio, but for those of us who have been shaped by her writings, this is indeed news-worthy!


Hmm... for those of you with a pull toward the creative, read Walking on Water if you've not yet. Madeliene takes on faith, art, the work of the Spirit in and through us...


I mean it! For those of you who don't already love her works, be inspired to discover the gift that her writing is!


Here is a better source of inspiration-- a beautiful NY times obit. I mean that seriously. It communicates something of the honor due:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/08/books/07cnd-lengle.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=books

My first reading recommendation is Walking on Water, then A Wrinkle in Time and its companions, then A Circle of Quiet. Actually, those are the only books of hers that I have read, so to be honest I guess that isn't a very encompassing recommendation. What I've read, I've liked, and perhaps if you choose something of hers, you will enjoy it, too...


Read! Read the NY Times piece, then one of Madeliene's books. At a future meeting, I will acquaint you with a dear friend of hers and mine, Ms. Luci Shaw...

Baby Garden

Look at the cute counter! Thanks due to Naomi and the link from her blog...