Random glimpses of Autumn 2012 and some quotes to inspire laughter or reflection

The trees in our front and back yard normally change to such glorious colors during the fall.  It is by far my favorite season to live where we do.  Unfortunately, the winds from Hurricane Sandy knocked off most of the leaves before they hit their peak which is hardly anything to complain about considering how much the Northeast got hammered by this storm.  Here are pics of the back yard before and after Sandy.

Before Sandy

After Sandy

Now that the golf course club house has begun hosting weddings and receptions, we have enjoyed listening to wedding marches, hymns, and reception dance music over the sound system 1/2 mile away.  One evening I stepped outside on my front porch to see a photographer taking photos of some newlyweds as they were seated in a golf cart along hole #17.

It reminded me of our own wedding reception which was also held at a golf course.  The views were lovely, but the golf course served to be quite a distraction for the single guys at the reception who decided to play a few holes during the reception, so when it came time for me to toss my garter, there weren't enough single guys there to catch it.

Wedding reception pics on the golf course

Our daughter continues to optimize her imaginative energy by writing and acting out plays.  She has grown quite bossy as the director of her plays.  I recently noticed this announcement written on her dry erase board.

"Dad,
Do not forget that we have a REHARSAL today with the scripts! And we have one every day of the following [week]: Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat."

Maybe she misspelled "rehearsal" for dramatic emphasis - or perhaps to sound more southern.

She takes her play rehearsals seriously.  Here are some photos of the kids rehearsing one scene in a play with a rags to riches motif.

Our 8-year-old loves the outdoors as much as she enjoys theater.  She recently told her father, "I want to learn how to hunt, so I can kill my own food."  So, at my parents' 50th anniversary party, we had some interesting conversations with my uncle about his new crossbow.  She sure could save us a lot of money at Trader Joe's if she could turn some of those deer who like to eat our blueberries and flowers into some tasty venizon.

I opened a sample pack of gummy probiotics today and gave one to my son to try and instructed him to give the other one to his sister. When he handed it to her, she asked lots of questions and then said, "I would rather not take any drugs, especially drugs you give me that I don't understand."  Wow, and we haven't even had the "don't do drugs" talk yet.

Not only is our 8-year-old our resident playwright, director, hunter, and UNDOC campaigner, but she has also become our family counselor, encourager, and psychologist.   She wrote this note recently using metaphor to her dad.  If it wasn't so funny, I could have taken offense to being called "the sometimes peaceful mare". Only sometimes?  She tells it like it is, that girl.

After my husband found an employee dead in the restroom at his workplace last month and tried to resuscitate him until EMT arrived (it was too late), my husband was in a bit of a funk for a while as you might imagine.  The cause of the death was especially disturbing for my husband and his employees, so the emotional impacts were heavy. Our 8-year-old sage tried to comfort her daddy with this letter, which was heavily inspired by her awesome school teacher.

After two years of piano lessons, the kids seemed ready for us to pull out my old electric keyboard. They have been composing wild orchestrations ever since. Our son got so excited with his playing that the keyboard rattled right off the stand and fell into the floor.

Teaching PE continues to be a weekly highlight for me. It's so gratifying to watch these students learn new skills and gain confidence to make attempts where fear had previously paralyzed them.  My prayer is that they will experience Philippians 4:13 in a real and powerful way.

¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:13, NIV)

Having students truly enjoy my class and care enough to bring me "flower bouquets" is icing on the cake!

A student brought me "flowers".

You Tube has become too much of a distraction for our family.  One evening, my husband decided to introduce the kids to the Bee Gees.  When I heard "Jive Talkin" and "Stayin' Alive" coming through You Tube on his computer, I just had to teach the kids my best disco moves. We've had disco tunes in our heads for much of the past month.

Reviewing spelling words with homophones takes a long time in our house because I usually end up singing a line from an "80's" tune to provide the correct context for the word, and the kids just have to go look up the song on YouTube. We've been dancing to Starship songs a lot this past month, too.  50's music for my parents' anniversary party followed by disco and 80's music....what a month of music it has been!

The kids have been wanting a pet. I like dogs, but my husband prefers cats. For one afternoon in October, at least, God sent us a dog when a perky golden retriever appeared at our door. I made the mistake of giving this dog (whose name ended up being Skylar) several packs of tuna and water, and I even made him a warm bed out of cardboard boxes and old blankets.  After issuing a notice to our neighborhood yahoo group (see below), the owner came and got him. Our daughter was already attached, so it was hard to let him go.

FOUND: Lively golden retriever with a powerful tail who likes to eat tuna by the pound, run through shrubs, jump into my car, and dash into the house. This dog can run faster than a speeding bullet and enjoys licking and jumping on kids. The dog has a collar but no tags or leash. Please help us find the owner....preferably before my husband returns home from work.

I found myself hollering something to the kids last week that I never expected to hear myself say until I was old enough to be living in a nursing home.  I asked, "Who left their teeth on the stairs?" (I guess "carpet" would have been better than "stairs" since at that age, I will likely not be able to climb stairs.)

  

My daughter readily acknowledges that her mother is not artistically inclined.  

Me: So, kids, what design do you want for your pumpkin carvings this year?
8-year-old: But Dad said he wasn't doing carvings this year.
Me: Maybe I'll carve them for you.
8-year-old: We better choose something really EASY then.

Even though our son is growing older, having just turned six this past week, he still says things that have me laughing just like I did with his childish zingers at ages three and four. Here are a few recent quotes/questions from our boy. 

• "I wish we had a rainbow family.  Each person's hair would be a different color in the rainbow." (Joey, age 5)

(Thanks to some keratin processing glitches by an upscale salon, I have the red/orange covered. The  kids think their dad would look nice in blue/indigo.)

• My 5-year-old overheard a conversation I was having one day with a headhunter (he called me out of the blue) who seemed very frustrated with me when I told him that I would not and could not work full time. The recruiter asked me, "What is keeping you so busy then?" My son replied, "Her kids!"  How right he is!

• As I was slowing down to stop at a yellow light about to turn red, my 5-year-old asked, "Why do you always slow down instead of revving it a little to make the light?" That settles it. The kids will be paying for their own car insurance when they reach 16.

• My boy often says things that sound just like my mother.  He even includes her tone and accent.  When I told the kids that their dad had already boarded a plane headed toward NYC for an unexpected business meeting and would therefore not be home that evening, the 5-year old replied with my mother's precise combination of worry and exaggeration, "Oh my! He isn't going to start traveling all over the world, now, is he?"

• The kids usually talk in great detail about the anatomy of a chicken whenever I serve whole rotisserie chicken.  I'm all for teachable moments and I especially love teaching my children about science, but if I have to listen to the kids describe certain chicken parts one more time during mealtimes, then we're all going vegan. 

• As I was trying to explain to my 5-year-old the difference between extroverts and introverts, he said, "Mom, there is NEVER a time when I want to be alone!" He is a true extrovert and the most amazing cuddle bug ever, but I have to wonder if he'll lock the bathroom door for a few moments of solitude when he has kids of his own.

• While I was driving the kids to school one day, my 5-year-old asked me, "Which goes faster, time or this car? One friend suggested that I should have answered, "It depends upon how much fun you are having since time flies when you are having fun."  Another friend would have said, "It depends upon who is driving?", while another added, "or how many insurance points you have."  Perhaps the most technical answer suggested by my engineering friends was as follows:  

"Time is governed by the rotation of the earth. The earth is rotating at 1,040 miles per hour at the equator, since the rotational rate is really measured in radians you would have to figure out the diameter of the earth near where you drive to figure out the exact difference between the max speed of your car and the speed of time (or earth) in this case.  Another way to look at it would be if you are driving in the direction of the earths rotation (east) the no matter how slow you are going, if you are moving you are going faster than the earth and therefore faster than time. But if you were only going 1mile /hr. even though you would be going faster than the earth you would basically be going nowhere fast!"

• While driving the kids home from school on my son's birthday, I asked my son, "Did you have fun celebrating your birthday at school today?  He replied, "It was okay, but Suzie Q* kept singing Happy Birthday to me all day until it drove me bonkers."  Chuckling as I reflected on stories I have heard about this daddy's affect on girls over the years, I told him, "She was just being nice...you need to learn to get used to girls giving you attention, my boy!"
  *Not her real name

• While driving home from piano lessons that same day, we passed a former Quiznos restaurant that was empty with lights out. So I pointed it out to the kids and said, "Look! The Quiznos we like to go to must have gone out of business!"  Our informed 6-year-old replied, "That must be Obama's fault. He's bad for small businesses."  I guess those Romney ads on TV are really effective on little people.

• When my son ran out of his Tom's of  Maine all natural mouthwash, he looked at my Listerine bottle and asked, "Mom, can I use some of that?"  Noticing the "not for children under age 12" note on the label, I replied, "No, it's dangerous for kids."  He looked at the label and said, "The label says it kills, so maybe you shouldn't use it either."

• When my husband shared about a funny news story later that evening, I replied,"That's a hoot!"  Then my six-year-old asked, "What's a hoot?" That was yet another question from the birthday boy that day that I wasn't sure how to answer.

• My son is only in the early grammar phase of learning.  Yet, sometimes he asks me questions requiring more of a dialectic stage answer.  Recently, completely out of the blue, he asked me, "Who is lazier, the rich or the poor?" Using the Socratic method proved to be a comical and ineffective way to explain the various ways someone can become rich or poor irrespective of work input.  Most of his answers were, "I don't know why." Duh - he was only five years old at the time.  So, for a general answer to his question for cases outside those exceptions, we read Proverbs 6:6-11 together, and I found verse 7 especially interesting considering the current political debates regarding taxing the rich. The ant doesn't need the government to make him work, and absent a taxing authority, the hard-worker will get rich.

  "6Go to the ant, you sluggard;
  consider its ways and be wise!
  7 It has no commander,
  no overseer or ruler,
  8 yet it stores its provisions in summer
  and gathers its food at harvest. "- Proverbs 6:6-11 

When I haven't been laughing at the kids' quotes, I have been pondering some adult quotes that I have heard before but seemed to take on new meaning this past month, especially with one of the most important national presidential elections ever taking place on Tuesday.

"If you believe there is evil, then you have to believe in good. If you believe in good and evil, then you must believe in moral law. If there is a moral law, then there must be a moral law giver. If you say there is no moral law giver, then you are also saying there is no good or evil." - Paraphrase of comments by Ravi Zacharias.

"The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next." - Abraham Lincoln

"There are six things which the Lord hates,
Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that devises wicked plans,
Feet that run rapidly to evil,
A false witness who utters lies,
And one who spreads strife among brothers." -P roverbs 6:16-19

 "Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults;
whoever rebukes the wicked incurs abuse.
Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you;
rebuke the wise and they will love you."  - Proverbs 8:7-8

"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice;
But when a wicked man rules, the people groan.
The king establishes the land by justice,
But he who receives bribes overthrows it."  - Proverbs 29: 2,4

"Government should work to corral sin & press down anarchy so we don't kill each other, and it should protect the dignity and order of God's creation beginning with human life (the only created thing made in God's own image). Let's not, however, rely upon the dollar store water guns of government to extinguish the raging fires of hell. Human laws cannot change a heart forever. Only God and His precious Gospel can do that!" - Rough paraphrase of comments by Brian Frost

"Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God."  - Psalm 20:7