Football with the Girls

Tomorrow is Walter's exam! My days as a single mother are almost over again... until about August, but the exciting thing for now is that I will see my husband again soon.

Walter has had extremely limited time for fun things lately, so when he won 4 tickets to go watch our local arena football team, he was a bit disappointed that the tickets had to be used on a night he needed to be studying. But that meant that Asher and I could go with a friend, and we picked AUNT BECKY!

This was Asher's first football game! It's kind of interesting that he experienced it with his mommy and his aunt who didn't really know (or care) much about the actual sport. This is the conversation Becky and I had a few hours before the game:

Becky: So is this soccer that we're going to tonight or is it real football?
Me: It's real football, but different since it's indoors.
Becky: Is the team a part of a league or some kind of club?
Me: Hmm...They seem to be pretty good, maybe they're some kind of minor league.
Becky: Where is the game going to be?
Me (I knew this one!): The Coliseum.
Becky: What kind of food are we going to get?
Me: Definitely nachos and maybe we could share a hot dog.

Walter is a bit distressed over Asher's first football game experience. We did get there early enough to get a free t-shirt, but left as soon as half time was over.

It was something to do.

Running Tears

Running often brings me to tears. I doubt that I'm alone in this sentiment, but this week I was brought to tears during a run in a way that has never happened before.

Its easy to understand why there were tears when I was in track in junior high. I struggled so hard to make running my sport, but eventually I realized that my short little legs just were not going to be helpful when running competitively.

I started running again during a summer internship in my college years and in my care-free pre-Walter and Asher days, I trained for and ran a lot of races just to prove to myself that I could do it. Tears came to my eyes often in those days, weeks, and months of training. There were many early mornings when I just wanted to stop.

The most victorious running tears came when I crossed the finish line of my first marathon and then again after the second. I couldn't believe I had actually run so far!

But this week, I experienced running tears in a whole new way. Its kind of nice to say "I went running this morning," but honestly I haven't been able to say that since last fall. I am currently counting down the days and hours until Walter's exam when I will be rescued from single motherhood, and I reached my boiling point one morning and told Walter I needed to cry.

Although he normally tries to leave the house between 6 and 6:30 he agreed to stay home until I got back from a run. So I tied up the laces on my shoes and set out. As I passed the lilac bush in our driveway, I took my first sniff of the freshly budded flowers and tears began to flow. When I reached the sidewalk, I started running and tears came that needed so badly to be released.

It was the most freeing feeling to run and cry! Sometimes I stopped to walk because I needed to breathe, but it was so good, refreshing, and exactly what I needed! Even though I am completely dismayed that my legs are sore after such a pathetically short run/walk, I can hardly wait to go run (and maybe cry?) again.

Spring in an Old House

It seems like everyone loves spring these days. Of course we do! How could we not be excited about sunshine, warmth, and the beautiful tulips blooming? Honestly though, spring has always been my favorite season, so I was in for a real treat when I experienced the first spring in this old house. Not knowing what all was planted around our yard, I was overwhelmingly happy when the tulips began to bloom in clusters up and down our driveway that first year we lived in this 80 year old plus house.

Every spring I like to imagine about how many years those bulbs have produced beautiful blooms and what the lives were like of the people who lived here each time they opened. Maybe some of those years the tulips appeared at just the right time when the families before us needed something good in their lives and some years, those flowers may have been an added bonus to celebrations they already were experiencing.

In the almost 5 years that I've been watching the green shoots poke out under cloudy gray skies and then a few weeks later burst into reds, yellows, pinks, and purples, these flowers have accented my life as well. Three years ago when Asher was born in March, the tulips were an outside display of the joy we had inside (and were also a bright spot when my tired eyes were bleary from being awake through the night).

This year, the tulips represent hope. I've been reminded that God is faithful and that all things are renewed - even lives that have gone through wintery periods.

Things I never thought I'd say #5

Five is a good whole number, so this will be the last in my little series (sniff, sniff).

When I was young and immature, I hated salad and any kind of vegetables. Believe me, I know its a chore to get a child to eat vegetables but I think I might have been more extreme in my hatred of raw carrots, lettuce, celery, or really anything raw. My high school best friend and I prided ourselves on disliking salads. When we went to Prom and Homecoming, we left our salads untouched and somehow this was the cool thing to do while our other girlfriends nibbled away like rabbits at their salads.

My taste buds didn't really start to mature until I was in college and began to force myself to eat salads and raw vegetables. It is a true story that when I was preparing to spend a summer in Ukraine, I began a self-imposed training to eat at least one raw cucumber at lunch and dinner in anticipation of a summer of eating cucumbers under watching eyes. This training worked and I made it through the summer gnawing on those horrid veggies without gagging. I wasn't really able to maintain a conversation during those meals, but since my Ukrainian words were limited to "please," hello," "thank you," and "no more book pages as toilet paper," I did just fine.

After that summer, I became more and more adventurous and I now eat salad and select raw vegetables frequently (just had a salad for lunch!). So, the thing that I never thought I would say is

"Let's have an adventure this summer and try to eat more vegetables!"

My excitement began this past weekend when Asher and I attended a Sustainable Living Expo at Illinois Wesleyan. I learned a lot of interesting things but am most excited about joining a CSA. I'm probably showing my Mid-West "green" uneducation by saying I just learned that CSA stands for Community Sponsored Agriculture. Basically its like having a garden without the hard work. Members of a CSA pre-pay into the group in exchange for a weekly distribution of fresh, locally grown produce.

I'm planning to join a half share of the Mitchell Farms Produce CSA (www.mitchellproduce.com). It sounds like a healthy adventure to receive fruits and veggies every week and a challenge to try to use them all up before getting another round a week later.

If anyone local is interested in joining too, let me know! We could each save $20 if we sign up together!!

Although I still avoid cucumbers at all costs, I now have a husband who has agreed to eat all of the cucumbers we receive (and I'll eat his share of tomatoes).

Things I never thought I'd say #4

I thought I was done with this series, but I've been thinking about another statement recently as I've been writing about it for another project. This one is not something I actually originated, but I found myself repeating it often because it was kind of out there and mysterious.

My parents moved to Africa a little over 7 years ago to become missionaries. While I am extremelly proud of what they are doing and totally supportive of their work, its really not easy to have parents who live so far away and who I don't get to talk with very much. I just tried a new phone communication option with them yesterday, and almost ended in tears of frustration because the connection was so horrible.

While I was in college, I dreamed of living overseas doing some type of missions work. This wasn't a foreign concept that I picked up while away at school, although the passion was fanned there, but my parents had instilled this excitement of God's work around the world in our family from the time I first went to Brazil when I was 6 and my sister was 3.

My dad worked at State Farm for over 25 years - a very stable life and kind of the nerdy comfort zone that I find my little family in now. I imagined mom and dad would be doing missions trips for the rest of their lives, and would probably do longer stints once they retired, but never thought they would move away before retirement while I was still unmarried, my sister was still in college, and my brother was just entering junior high. But that's what happened.

Their first step in doing full-time missions work was joining Wycliffe Bible Translators. After completing a training course here in the U.S., they headed to Tanzania to do a field training where they lived in huts and eventually sent back pictures of my brother with spears and machetes attached to his body as if he was daily fighting off lions and large snakes.

Since the field training was meant to be very remote and physically challenging, we did not hear from them often at first. Until one day about a month after they left, I went to my mailbox and finally found a postcard from Tanzania! It was from my mom and one of her first sentences was,

"My monkey scratches are healing nicely."

What?? This was the first report I had from them on their well-being in the wilds of Africa. Was this supposed to be comforting? It was one of those things I never imagined I would be hearing from my mother.

Since they don't get mentioned often in this blog, I'm attaching a picture of my parents. Here they are in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Looks beautiful, doesn't it? Anyone else want to sign up for the adventurous life that may include monkey scratches that need healing?

Things I never thought I'd say #3

An Ifft family tradition which I've implemented into our little family is to hide the Easter baskets after they've been stocked with Peeps, chocolate bunnies, and jelly beans. As we got older the hiding places became more difficult. I'm not really sure where the tradition started...maybe its like hiding Easter eggs, which we never did while growing up.

So on Easter morning I explained to Asher that he needed to look for his Elmo basket because it had candy and other treats in it. He seemed all excited until he spotted the cleaning supply bottle and a little rag which he had reluctantly left at the bottom of the stairs the night before.

He gravitated to the little bottle and immediately began to "squirt squirt" while wiping with the rag. Because Asher was otherwise occupied, I convinced Walter to look for his basket (although he did not have the same temptation to clean first). So here is a picture of the scene where Walter had found his basket in the closet and Asher continued to clean.
I finally had to say another thing I never thought I would need to say;
"Asher, look for your Easter basket then you can finish cleaning."

Things I never thought I'd say #2

Moving on, now to one of the things I've said to Asher recently that makes me wonder if I am doing something wrong in our home that made my son choose vacuums over toys.

Not too long ago, I was at Target with Asher looking for some things that he might like for his birthday (isn’t it great when you can shop for presents while your child is with you!?). I was letting him hold and play with various toys and he was having a great time until his eagle eyes looked way down and across the aisle and saw the vacuum cleaners! In a very loud voice, he shouted, "AUUMS, AUUMS" (translated to be VACUUMS, VACUUMS and meaning we needed to go look at them immediately because they are so cool).

I then heard myself say “We will go look at the vacuums, but first we need to finish looking at the toys.”

As the words came out of my mouth, I found myself hoping that there wasn’t anyone I knew lurking in the next aisle!