For Granted

Since she was born, one of my favorite characteristics of Addie has been her eyes. They started out dark blue but by the time she was three months old had changed to a mesmerizing caramel, outlined in blue. They express all of her emotions to the point that you know what she's thinking before she says it. They sparkle, they engage. I just love to look at them, and many other people have commented on them as well.


The week before July 4, I snapped a picture as Carter was reading to her, and immediately knew from looking at the digital display that something wasn't right. If you've never heard about white pupils in pictures, pay attention. They can mean nothing, but they can also mean retinoblastoma (eye cancer sometimes resulting in eye removal, but not always) or a tracking problem with the eyes that can cause blindness. Well, when I looked at the picture, this is what I saw:


As you can see, the left eye looks fine, but the right eye reflected solid white. I knew of this danger because a friend at church had this same thing show up in a picture of her daughter and her daughter had the tracking problem. It was fixed by wearing eye patches over the good eye to strengthen the weak eye. My husband had never heard of it and thought maybe it was a freak incident. But I googled it and showed him research, to which he responded to call the doctor. We were referred to a pediatric ophthalmologist and we saw him today.

For three weeks, I sweated and prayed, too scared to really tell anyone.
Lord, not her eyes. But then if not her eyes, what part of her body would I choose? None of it. No area of her body. She is my darling.

We have friends who have lost children, friends whose children have survived cancer at a high cost of deep suffering. Just to watch my kids be sick with a minor cold or stomach virus is about more than I can stand. I would gladly take all of their suffering on myself if they could just live pain free. But this life is not so. I know all too well that because sin entered the world, we all have bodies that will fail some day. Some of us will be old, some young. Some of us will suffer terrible things in our lives. All will experience loss.

Addie is fine. But what I saw WAS, in fact, a reality. She has a rare thing called bilateral coloboma. And the doctor himself said that her eye color pattern is a rarity and a beautiful one. :) In a certain place in the eye, coloboma can completely destroy the eye and cause blindness, but in her case (and this is in both eyes), it will not hinder her and does not have to be treated. It goes hand in hand with a lot of mental handicaps, but can also occur in an otherwise developmentally "normal" child. Basically, it is an area that when the eye rounds out in utero, it is supposed to fuse together without a seam. In coloboma, a seam is left, an area that lacks tissue development, and this literally causes a white spot in the midst of healthy, red tissue (the doc, who was amazing, by the way, showed me pics of this in one of his textbooks, and answered ALL my questions). I'm thinking of this seam as proof that Addie was "knit together" (rf Psalm 139) in my womb. But as I said, in her case, she can live her whole life and not worry about it. We will go back every two years for an eye exam to be sure she is fine. The doctor told me after the fact though that when he initially saw a glimmer of white, his heart sank. He was almost as thankful as I was to say that there was no cancer in her eye.

A huge reality caught up with me, though. I've lived it before, but had to face it again. We will all leave this earth some day. There are things in our bodies, like benign coloboma, that we cannot see. There is much, much more. But the biggest thing invisible to the eye is the sin condition marring our spirits. Praise God for redemption.

And praise God for today, for a day to live and all of my family to live. We never know how many days there are. Tonight, we made sandwiches and ate them in the student union at Belhaven because Daniel had to teach a class. As three hundred ballerinas filed in to eat from dance camp, Addie got so excited. She approached a small group of girls and asked, "Are you ballerinas?" And she told me, "I like the way they step down those stairs!" They were immediately captivated and took her to sit at their table. She had the time of her life while her brother sat at the grand piano and entertained others. My cup runneth over. May I never take one day for granted.

Addie with her new ballerina friends.

Being Still

"The sound of 'gentle stillness' after all the thunder and wind have passed will be the ultimate Word from God." -Jim Elliot

I am seldom to never still. There is always a flurry of reading or studying or hyperactive house cleaning going on with me. Every now and again, I sleep in. And on the days that I sleep in, I get frustrated because when I get up, the husband and children have managed to get the house to a state that I cannot bear. It's really not that bad. He is incredibly industrious and helpful. He cans pickles and tomatoes. He picks up and asks the kids to pick up. When he sees me dragging, he takes over and vacuums or whatever I had planned -- and this is on top of his full-time job, plus teaching night classes at a local college. I have been told that I have it VERY good.

I am the problem. I am too picky, and do not like it when my standards are not met. And I know myself to be the issue. Recently, I have seen these qualities in someone else I know. You know how they say we dislike in others what we dislike in ourselves? Well, it's true. As I watched someone dear to me spin around the kitchen, barring all help because it was her domain and I just couldn't meet her standards because she assumed my help would only hinder her, I realized that I am like this with my own precious family. I'm not sure what to do with this realization. I am territorial to a fault over my tiny kitchen space. Woe be unto the person who stands in my way! Thank the Lord for the time after supper when we clear the dishes off the table then sit together and read God's word and sing songs and pray. Were it not for that, I wonder if I would ever sit down?

Daniel and the kids preparing for family worship.

I have also realized in myself a difference between cooking to live and going way overboard. I too often go way overboard because I enjoy the process. I am toying with a goal of cooking to live and allowing myself to go overboard ONCE a month just for enjoyment, because when I do it too often, I am exhausted and begin to wonder where my family time has gone.

I have heard it said that a huge idol of Americans is busyness. I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb when I agree with this. I don't think I worship my busyness because it makes me miserable but if I don't worship it then why do I keep it up? I am aiming to stop. This is going to be incredibly difficult to give over to God. There are things I still must do to maintain my household so I don't want to swing too far the other way, but I feel like summer has gone by and I have missed out on some sweet times with my family because I have either been stuck in the kitchen (by choice) or I have been grumpy because my mind is spinning over what I should be doing instead of snuggling on the couch or playing a game, OR I have overplanned, something for which I am famous.

I look at the beautiful garden and realize that I can buy many of these things at the store. I think gardening is awesome and for so many people, it is a family effort and a blessing. It has been somewhat that for us, but with the surplus of tomatoes, I have felt a burden to create spaghetti sauce. Because not all tomatoes ripen at the same time, I am constantly making small batches. If they all came in in a massive harvest and I could do it all at once, it would be different. But that is not the case. I am worn out. I have already shared with Daniel that next summer, I will plant fewer tomatoes and we will enjoy the bounty fresh off the plant but I do not plan on putting it up. With today's technology, it is not necessary. Technology has harmed us in many ways but it has also freed us in many ways. Canning and freezing is a good thing and a beautiful thing for many, but for me, it is a burden when it drags on all summer long. I will plan to still put up my butterbeans and peas next summer, but one day can be set aside for that and it is worth it. Daniel loves to make pickles and can them, so I will leave the cucumbers to him! :)

I want to maintain as much of the process with growing things fresh from the earth as I can, but recently, I do not like the bogged down feeling. Our tomato plants are beginning to produce less and I am so thankful!!!! The kids help as much as they can, but they are small and processes with boiling water and knives are just not what they need to be involved in. :)

There are other things in my life that must go. I have been toying with auditing an RTS class on the theology of CS Lewis taught by my Sunday school teacher but I just don't know if I'm going to do it. This fall, I will begin actively teaching Addie in addition to Carter and I am still relatively new to this homeschooling process. I don't know how the workload would balance out but I suspect that auditing the class may do more harm than good. The class itself is an incredibly good thing, but again, I am fighting a battle to not let busyness be my idol. I want to take the class but am in the process of answering whether or not I NEED to take the class. Daniel is all for it and one night out a week with books and discussion sounds incredible to me. But what will the reality be?

In all of life, there are many good things. But I cannot do all of the good things and spend the time with my family that I need to spend. I am thankful that most days I manage to get up early and spend time with the Lord. That is something that has taken time. He has asked me to "Be still and know that (He is) God" (Psalm 46:10), and I think he means it. I only have to read about Mary and Martha and Martha's complaints that she was doing all the grunt work and hear Jesus's response, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:41-42) and I see that so many of the things that I fret over are not that big of a deal in God's economy.

So, I will be cooking more to live, gardening a little bit less, cleaning a bit less frantically but hopefully in a more organized manner (I must say here that it would be wrong to stop many of these things -- especially keeping my home because God asks us to be good stewards and I think a messy home says something loud and clear), and spending more time at the feet of Jesus and with the people in my family. In my manner of thinking, those are the things that matter most. Now, to actually live it out. That will be the interesting and challenging part...

One of our very simple suppers from the week that I hit the wall. It was actually really good too --toasted sandwiches, fresh fruit, pickles. Everyone went to bed full. No one was disappointed that I didn't break my neck to cook an elaborate meal.

Road Trip

Mom and I packed up and drove to Grenada Friday. We visited my great aunt and uncle (Mom's aunt on her dad's side). My uncle turned 80 on Thursday. A few years ago, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. I didn't know what I would find. When I was little, they were always the fun ones, the ones I wanted to be with. In the sense that we all have to accept that our parents are imperfect human beings, sinful and fallible, I have had to accept this with my aunt, especially (she is the more talkative one so I know her better), realizing that it is not she who has changed, but I as I have grown older and ceased to see anyone through rose-colored glasses.

We were there for one night and left early Saturday, but while there, my uncle talked to me some. He has always been quiet, with a bit of a stutter. When you are a child, you don't think to ask people about themselves, but Mom and my aunt went out to WalMart. My aunt warned me that he might not talk to me; she was doubtful that he even knew who I was. I sat next to him on the couch and read him a chapter of a really funny book that I like, trying to see if he would take it in. I finished and asked if he wanted to keep going or take a break. He said, "Let's take a break." Then, he asked me how my husband was doing at the bank, showing me that he knew a little bit of who I was. I seized the opportunity to ask him about himself. I had read an article about how while Alzheimer's patients may not remember what is going on from day to day, they can often remember their past.

Well, I got treated to more knowledge of my uncle than I have ever known. I got to hear about his days as a disability insurance salesman and how he would go visit his clients in the hospital to give them a hard time about "spending his money" when they were sick. He told me about how he had a lot of black clients and how he got along well with them -- remember, this is an 80-year-old man who lived through Civil Rights and integration, and it wasn't the norm to be friendly with "the blacks", as they used to call the group of people that my generation looks at and so many see no difference. I am thankful for how far we have come. I can see where my uncle would have had good relationships with so many black people. He is a sweet man.

He told me about swimming in the creek when he was little and the sound the snakes would make when they dropped into the water. He told me about how his grandparents raised him (I didn't know this!) on their farm outside of Hattiesburg, growing potatoes, corn and watermelons. He talked about how his grandfather would put a big X on a watermelon and he could share those with his friends but they were seed watermelons and they had to save ALL the seeds for the next years' planting. He talked about plowing barefoot behind the big red mule who only went fast when she was headed back to the barn. He shared about his first job driving an 18-wheeler for his dad with his friend who went by the name "Sports Model", another of my uncle's good relationships with a black friend. He told me about getting drafted to Korea, and how he serviced telephone poles on the base in Seoul.

I was so fascinated by my uncle but also by thoughts of what we call "a simpler time". While things were simpler because of lack of technology, there were still broken families, broken homes, broken people. The human condition has not changed, though there is more opportunity for evil to rear it's head now because we accept it's presence so much more readily. My uncle has never talked much and apparently has become even more silent. I am so thankful that I got over not knowing what to expect and went, and I am thankful for the window of time that I was there to hear the stories of this quiet man! Who knows what tomorrow will bring? I feel so blessed.

A True Southern Lady

We'll start where I left off on the last "catching up" blog, with a picture of lady pea "pot likker".In truly Southern food, it doesn't get any simpler or better than pot likker. I'm pretty sure pot likker came from days of poverty when you didn't waste anything. But I grew up watching Daddy eat it every time Mom would make vegetables and cornbread, and I learned to love it (also, from Dad I got my love of coffee and mass quantities of ice cream -- ha). It's basically whatever veggies you have, with some crumbled cornbread and the juice from the peas or beans poured in to make a soup. If you have your own tomatoes, your own veggies, it's only better. AND if you have just come in from gardening or playing in the sprinkler, that enhances it all the more. It's amazing to taste the nuances of flavors melding together in one bowl.

**After Jennifer's comment yesterday, I googled "pot likker". There are actually definitions. I originally spelled "pot likker" as "pot licker", which, it turns out, is a derogatory term for someone of very low station -- so poor, that they have to lick the bottom of the pot for nourishment. "Pot likker" is the appropriate spelling for the leftover juice from cooking greens, used for a soup base. This practice was started in times where a good ham bone wasn't always available and as time went on, people made up their own versions of pot likker, but there was always some sort of boiling juice involved. Boy, for something so good, it sounds disgusting! You may read about it here, although they spell it "pot liquor", which according to a letter written to the NY Times, only a Yankee would spell it that way (boy, people get passionate about these things!).

Can you tell I love food? Well, I do.

And so does Addie! My kids eat all sorts of things that would be considered strange for kids. Here is Addie with a plate of guacamole:

And guacamole really isn't that abnormal, but she LOVES spicy pickles and anything else spicy. Carter loves raw sushi. They're just funny kids.

Last month, I made chicken n' dumplin's with the pie crust, and peas, cornbread, tomatoes, etc., on the side. I haven't had pot likker in years so I decided to make a bowl of it on the side (pictured above). Addie took one look at it and piled everything on her plate together, including the chicken n' dumplin's. As she ate, she proclaimed, "MMMM! Good pan likker!" :) She tasted a few bites of my concoction and loved it.So, I told her next time we would do it properly.

Monday night was her chance to do it properly. We had butter beans (put up from the farmer's market earlier this summer), cornbread, chopped onions, home grown tomatoes, etc. We grilled some deer sausage for protein. I fixed her a bowl, and she insisted on throwing in the sausage as well. She cracks me up. Here is the product.

The bits of brown in the picture above are barbecue sauce where she would dip her sausage in it, then in the pot licker. And she ate almost the whole bowl.

She is truly my Southern gal...

Laughing at Myself...

SO... In 2008, Slumdog Millionaire was released. The song at the end and the dance that goes with it, Jai Ho, have become the rage. Here is a video of the dance breakout in the Ole Miss student union:





We went to the pool last week and the kids saw the swim team dancing it together and wanted to learn it. SO... I investigated to make sure there was no hidden meaning or agenda behind it, and after determining it to be "safe" I embarked on learning the dance so I could teach it. I think I have it down but I know I look ridiculous doing it. My husband caught a clip of me on his phone last night when I was practicing. And Carter is hilarious trying the moves and Addie basically gallops in a circle around us. If we can coordinate ourselves I MIGHT get Daniel to video us doing it all together. But a thirty-year-old woman struggled to learn this simple dance much more than she would have ten or twelve years ago. Still, it's been a lot of fun...

And the funniest part by far has been Hank making up his own words since the lyrics are in Indian. There's this part where he starts singing, "Itchy, itchy, scratchy, scratchy, now I got one down my backy..." I about collapse in hysterics and can't keep dancing. It's just very Hank.

Catching Up

We have stayed so busy lately that blogging has been the farthest thing from my mind. I keep up my list of thanks though because that is just good for me. I WAS going to do one long blog catching up but my new goal is to do a few short blogs for a few days just to remember what we did and what the kids were like this summer. Rie's blog about Delia made me choke up and remember that I started this blog as a place to keep memories and thoughts, and a record of our life during this season. I will never relive a day of my life, but there are many good ones that God has graciously given that I would like to remember, especially where my children are concerned. So, here is the first short (relatively) catch-up blog.

Carter enjoying the corn that he himself grew. He said it was the "best corn ever" and he was right. We all LOVED it! Almost a month later, he maintains that his corn is still the best ever. We'll see if we can do even better next summer. Below is Addie enjoying an ear from the harvest...

Addie at the blueberry farm where we picked our own. We don't have a big enough yard or big enough energy to cultivate blueberries on top of the other things we grow. SO, we fairly inexpensively picked our own with some friends and had a great time doing it, AND then we went swimming because it was insanely hot. Below is Carter in the field. His quote for the day was "I'm going to pick 100 more and then I quit!" And he did.

Some of the harvest.

The inside of a fresh-baked muffin the next morning. This recipe is WONDERFUL -- you make a simple blueberry jelly and once you have put fresh berries in the batter and spooned it into the muffin tins, you add a teaspoon of jelly to the top and swirl it in for maximum berry flavor. They were FABULOUS. Caerter doesn't even like blueberries but he loved these...

A very big moment for Carter. He has been giving regularly to the church for some time now. Our church financial secretary noticed the homemade envelopes he was using and sent him some of his very own. She is so sweet and this was such an encouragement to him.

The best treat all summer. During the snowfall in February (or was it March?) I scooped up a big bowl of clean snow and put it in the deep freeze. We made it into snowcones. The kids were SO happy in the heat to have some real snow...

Carter has developed a deep love for Legos. This is big for us because he has been very slow in fine motor development. He read on his own at the age of three and began playing piano by ear at the age of four. But he has never really been interested in "normal" little boy things. This summer, he has embraced Legos and wants nothing but more Legos. It is so sweet and we are happy for him.

Addie's new venture. She has been taking piano lessons since the beginning of June. I may have mentioned this already but I wanted to put a pic up. She loves it, works VERY hard at it, can play a few little songs on the black keys but most importantly, she just loves her teacher and the experience. We hope that music will always be a joy to both of our children.

A close-up of Carter's sweet face as taken by Addie.

Addie laying in the bed and waiting for some snuggle time and a movie with me. ("Mama, will you make some fettucini alfredo, please?" When I came back in with her pasta, she was sound asleep, so I curled around her and relished her sweet, warm body and four-year-old trust.)

This is a teaser for what will hopefully be a post soon, a bowl of lady pea pot licker. I was raised eating it, and Addie loves it. There is a story behind it that I want to remember, so I will try to blog it soon.