Terrapin Station

Anniversary

Today is Ken's and my 8th wedding anniversary. 

We are celebrating by going to get LifeLine screenings.  :)  They are set up at a church near us.  We are both going to find out our propensity for abdominal aortic aneurysms, peripheral artery disease, and stroke (carotid artery screening).  Seems a little macabre but, as I told him, a nice gift to each other to prevent (if possible) the sort of sudden and horrific collapse that these conditions could cause.  Preventing mess and stress, that's my motto! 

Seriously, we were horrified a few weeks ago to find out that one of our friends from church choir had what was likely a brain tumor.  Exploratory surgery showed that it was actually a "brain bleed," a very minor stroke.  He is expected to recover fully, thanks be to God!  So our anniversary gift is doing our part to prevent such nasty surprises. 

Later we will go to dinner at Celebration, our favorite Dallas restaurant,

and possibly afterward I will go to watch/help him power wash the new Sonic in town.  (Our first date was, I watched him stripe a Chevron station.)  Romantic, I know. 

As a never-before-married person, It didn't occur to me that marriage might get harder as we went along.  I thought it would be hard at first and then easier over time.  Certainly I got used to living with other people after living solo for many years (I used to think, "who are these people and when will they leave me ALONE!?")  As we've faced life changes (the kid becoming a teenager and then turning 18, just for an example), we have both changed too.  And so we have to keep working at it. 

Happy Anniversary, Mr. Sweetie.  I love you with all my heart.

Prayer of Self-Dedication

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated unto you; and then use us, we pray you, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Friday Five: Habits

Here are some groovy sisters in THEIR habits. 

The cross below is the habit of the Order to which I belong: 

Here's what's cool about this photo:  I went to Google Images for a picture of the Daughters of the King cross, and this one was listed by RG Cathy of CathyKnits!  Woot!  Famous crosses I have known. 

reverendmother says:  As many of you know, I have been experimenting with some severely curtailed Internet usage. I realized that I had gotten into some bad habits, which got me thinking about habits in general. I understand that a habits/random facts meme has already been going around. In the hopes that it hasn't hit too many of us yet, be as lighthearted or as serious as you'd like with the following:

I have been following rm's experiment with much interest.  A recent comment suggested that e-mail addiction can be traced to "addiction to affirmation" and that sounds true to me, for me.  I need to think about this much.   

1. Have you ever successfully quit a bad habit, or gotten a good habit established? Tell us about how you did it.  I quit smoking when I was 22.  I had gotten up to 2.5 packs a day just in college...can you imagine!  I am such an obsessive person.  I quit cold turkey, no program, no gum, etc.  I can remember crying on the way home from work and beating on the steering wheel, because I wanted a cigarette so badly.  I also felt sure that I had only one "quit" in me and I wouldn't be able to stand to do it again. 

Ironically I am allergic to tobacco (allergist says) and so I had a headache most of the time I was a smoker.  Now I consider it the vilest of habits and am so grateful I was able to quit when I did.  At the same time, at odd times, I miss it.

Emblematic, I think, of much in my life that I know is hurting/not benefiting me, but I carry on with nevertheless. 

2. "If only there were a 12-step program for life in general!"  I am actually a 12-stepper, back from eating disorder days in college.  The 12-step programs are the perfect model for a life path (IMHO) especially because they adhere strictly to their primary purpose and refrain from commenting on any outside issues.  Think about how that could benefit the church YOU belong to or lead...only the Gospel of Christ, nothing more! 

3. Share one of your healthy "obsessions" with us.  I am recently obsessed with Jazzercise.  I am doing the regular classes, mostly at 5:45 a.m. on weekdays, and also their Personal Touch program, which is a weight training/body sculpting program, and which kicks my BUTT on a regular basis.   

I love that early class.  I roll out of bed, get dressed, out the door within 30 minutes.  Makeup!?  Are you crazy!?  (Okay, one lady who comes is THAT crazy, but that's her problem...)  Unlike with an after-work class, I don't have time to think about why I don't have time to do the workout...by the time I am awake enough to get started with THAT stinking thinking, workout is half done and I'm glad I went.

Um, and I give myself a sticker on my calendar for every class I go to.  For some reason I find stickers motivating.  I'm probably just actually 3 years old in my head.... 

4. Share the habit of a spouse, friend or loved one that drives you C-R-A-Z-Y.  My wonderful just-turned-18 year old son takes dishes (with food in them) to his room and leaves them there.  Then when I insist that we are out of dishes and he must do recognizance and bring them down, he leaves them in the sink in an UNACCEPTABLE condition.  You don't want to know what I mean by that.  Heinous. 

My friend Mary Ann's son of the same age leaves dishes in the shower, since he eats there.  (???)  I tell her, at least they are clean!  She says not. 

5. "I'd love to get into the habit of managing my e-mail better...especially deleting the garbage right away and filing the important and useful stuff.  Presently I have over 1000 messages in my inbox, and that is way down since we are soon to migrate to Outlook from Groupwise and are told we will have less storage space.  Every day I work on clearing out. 

Bonus: What is one small action you might take immediately to make #5 a reality?
Humm.  What if I check e-mail less often, when I actually have time to do the actions I mention rather than thinking, 'Yeah, right, later on that'...and speeding off to the next thing. 

Think I will try that today.  Friday is typically a low e-mail day and I could probably get by with only checking it twice a day...but I'm not sure I could bear it.  Talk about cold turkey!  How about three times in the am (9, 10, 11 or thereabouts) and three times after lunch (hours accordingly?) 

Having written it down, I find this proposition somewhat stressful.  That means it's got important potential.  Will let you know how it goes. 

Bonus 2: Try it, and let us know how it goes in a future post!  Come back to see.

18th Birthday With Up to Date Pictures

Last night we went out to Brandon's favorite restaurant, Royal East Asia, for dinner.  They have gone from a pan-Asian menu to sushi and Korean.  I don't have much experience with Korean food, but I had "bibim bap" in a hot stone bowl.  Yummy! 

Here is a cell-phone picture of Mr. 18-Year-Old Brandon Person:

and here he is with his daddy:

18

Today is Brandon's 18th birthday! 

This is a picture from when he was NOT 18, more like 14.  We were on the way home from Galveston beach. 

Here he is at the "REAL" beach, St. Teresa in North Florida, at age 16.  He is on the left...see his gig?  He is looking for flounders. 

I don't have any recent photos of him....He doesn't hold still much.  We are going out to dinner tonight - place of his choice.

Watch over thy child Brandon, O Lord, as his days increase; bless and
guide him wherever he may be. Strengthen him when he
stands; comfort him when discouraged or sorrowful; raise
him up if he fall; and in his heart may thy peace which
passeth understanding abide all the days of his life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Transitions

My university finished finals on May 12.  We had University graduations all weekend, and we will host high school graduations from the surrounding areas in our Coliseum through early June. 

Tomorrow will be the last day of school for kids in our district.  Brandon will be going to summer school, so he's not quite done. 

This is a hard time of year for me.  I thrive on lots of little daily things to get done; long-term projects are harder for me to gear up for.  And summer is the time when we do most of the long-term planning and projects...as well as planning the next summer's programs.  But as an instant-gratification child...I like to see some things get DONE.  Filling out forms is a weird specialty of mine.  You do it, then it's done!  Woot! 

I'm working now on setting up my summer schedule so that I have small goals in the big projects...website editing, handbooks, policy items. 

Also working on getting back to prayer time and exercise every single morning.  Life goes better with prayer. 

 

Tagged! My Habits Revealed

Rachel at The Big Dunk has tagged me for this meme!  Yay!  Oh, she did it way last week; sorry, Rachel, it's been a little nuts here...

The rules are: People who are tagged start by thinking about 7 random facts/habits about themselves. Each player then must write about those seven things on their blog, as well as include these rules. Players then need to choose 7 people to tag and list their names. Don’t forget to leave each person a comment telling them they’ve been tagged.

1. I am a perpetual-student-wannabe.  I was in school for 28 straight years, starting with Nursery school and emerging with a Master's degree (and why wasn't I a medical doctor by that time, I'd like to know!?)  My professional life (all work following BA degree and to this day) has been on college campuses, and I therefore tend to think in terms of the university calendar.  As an administrator, rather than a professor, I do indeed work all year around. 

The beginning of the semester fills me with..."Ohhh...I want to take a class!  New syllabus, new books (new second mortgage for those!), new notebooks..." 

I must say that by the end of the semester, the haggard faces I encounter make me glad I didn't go there.  But I may, one day.  In fact, I'm sure I will one day.

2.  I love to grocery-shop.  Not altogether surprising, given my food and feeding issues.  My husband, however, thinks this is incredibly strange.  And I do NOT love to clothes shop, or shoes shop, or jewelry shop, or any of that stuff. 

3.  I also love to do laundry.  Not so much to put it away, but there is something that greatly appeals to me about cleaning our clothes and folding them nicely.  Oh, and ironing?  That's a meditative activity I have yet to embrace.  Pah. 

4.  I am the 5th of 6 children in a blended family; the oldest of 2 born to my two parents.  When my little sister was in nursery school, my oldest brother was in law school.  I became an aunt for the first time at age 8.  Not all that uncommon now; more so then, and where I lived.  I have never met my middle brother and sister's dad; but Beverly, my oldest brother and sister's mom, was a very special and important person in my life. 

5.  I have been baptized twice.  Once, which I now think of as the real one, was when I was a few months old.  In the Episcopal Church, where I am at least a 3rd generation "Cradle" member.  (My dad's family came from England 3 generations back, so no telling how many Anglican generations come before me...)

And once in the Baptist church when I was in jr. high.  My mom, who was dutifully attending regular services at the local Episcopal church but also going all over town in search of more in-depth worship and teaching, had us going to charismatic churches, Chinese charismatic churches, Assemblies of God churches, and a Women's Bible study at the Mega Baptist church.  She decided she wanted to choose an immersion baptism, so they did it for both of us during a revival.  No "will you come back?" or "what do you believe?"  They seemed happy to dunk anyone.  Is there a tally somewhere?  I'm not being snarky, I really don't know. 

6.  I am not afraid of God.  I know, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom and all that stuff.  I actually translate that as "respect" and I sure do have that for God.  But God is my friend.  I have a favorite image of God running to meet me when I get to Heaven, and then sitting down on the floor to play jacks with me.  My Earthly Dad never did that (he is more like a stern Old Testament guy), but my Earthly mom sure has. 

This is interesting, because I am not sure where I got this.  Unlike a lot of my Methodist and other denomination colleagues, it is VERY VERY uncommon in our churches (at least in this diocese!) to talk about the female God or the mother God or the female Holy Spirit.  Don't you know that our new Presiding Bishop, ++Katharine Jefforts Schori, caused an enormous kerfuffle when she referred to "Mother Jesus" in her investiture sermon? 

I feel so sad when people tell me that they don't feel worthy to join a particular group I belong to at church because they think they cannot be good enough for God.  I take my vows for this group very seriously, but I don't think God wants us to feel rotten about ourselves all the time.  That would just be a MEAN God. 

7.  I do not like to be tickled.  Or sneaked up on and jabbed in the ribs.  Do not try it.  You will be sorry!  I took self-defense in college and I learned some moves to ward off such persons; these are now involuntary, and I will hurt you.  Ask my DH. 

I think this comes from older brother and sister who used to tickle me into hysteria. 

OK, enough of that...

Here are the next 7 to be tagged:
Michele, Lorna, Songbird, Quotidian Grace, Mindy, Elastigirl.  If y'all have already been tagged, let me know so I can tag someone else! 

Cheers!

China Adoption Story

I think it's pretty common knowledge in the US that many folks go to other countries to adopt babies, largely because of the difficulties with the US system.  (I had some wonderful friends who adopted a little American boy, we baptized him at church, then the birth mother took him back.  She could do that.  It was devastating.)

Have any of you seen the excellent National Geographic documentary by Lisa Ling called "China's Lost Girls," about the phenomenon of widespread abandonment of Chinese infants (particularly girls) and adoption by people from other countries? 

Highly recommended...

Anyway, my friends Cynde and Allen, who as you know from this blog if you are even a little bit alive, are in China getting Josie, their new daughter, and Cynde relates an interesting experience:

"Saturday night we were approached by a university student. We assumed she wanted to practice her English. She asked why we were in China and we told her we were adopting J. She got a bit verklempt. She asked if she could take "moving pictures" of us. We found out she and a couple of other students were sent out by their teacher with a camera and told to find a story. They interviewed us about adopting from China. They had NEVER HEARD of people coming to China to adopt babies. As we walked with them toward our hotel, they kept seeing more and more families and saying "there's another one!""
 

I find it utterly fascinating that the Chinese girls had never heard of this phenomenon.  It is HUGE.  In fact, in the Lisa Ling documentary they have a part where a family returning to adopt their second Chinese child posts a sign in a train station.  It has photos and information in Chinese about their first adopted daughter, and is intended to notify the person who abandoned her there, should they possibly see it, that she is well, happy, and greatly loved.  In the segment, local people come up to ask what is being done, and express much humiliation that adoption by foreigners is necessary. 

Hmm.

Send the people out to "get a story" and who knows what they will come back with! 

I already knew it, but...

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Friday Five: The RGBP Meetup!

Songbird sez:  "Did you know that the major purpose for forming a non-profit, RevGalBlogPals, Inc., was to be able to attract grant support for a large scale RevGalBlogPal meetup? My dream from the beginning has been attracting financial support that would allow as many of our bloggers to be together as possible.

RGBP, Inc. now has a planning committee, and we are in the early stages of planning the RevGalBlogPal Big Event. What, When, Where and Who are all on the table at the moment. In that spirit, I bring you the Big Event Friday Five."

1. What would the meeting be like? (Continuing Ed? Retreat? Outside Speakers? Interest Groups? Workshops? Hot Stone Massages? Pedicures? Glorified Slumber Party?)  As a non-rev, I don't need the CE credits, but if that's useful to others it would be great to include that element.  I am always up for a massage and a pedicure! 

2. When in 2008 might you be able to attend? January? Shortly after Easter? Summer? Fall? Some other time?  I am quite flexible compared to most of you so I'll defer on this. 

3. Where would your dream meeting location be? (Urban Hotel? Rural Retreat Center? New England Camp? Southwestern Fantasy Hotel? Far away from civilization? Nearby Outlets or Really Great Thrift Stores?)  I'm liking the New Orleans suggestion...relatively easy to fly into and an important place to support with tourism dollars.  Maybe if we went there we could do a service project together...

otherwise, outside a city is my general preference

4. Who would make a great keynote speaker? (That's if #1 leads us in that direction.)  The Indigo Girls AND Dr. Saliers!  Anne Lamott, if we go outside.  A panel of RevGals to tell the "original how we got here" story & then everyone gets to tell how they found us.    

5. Did I leave out something you want to suggest?
I agree with most that, at least for this first iteration, fellowship and bonding are the most important. 
After that...how do we continue the learning, conversation, etc. 

I think a session by some folks who know how to do fancy bloggery would be great. 

Communion together. 

Daily morning and evening prayer.  Liturgy from all our traditions. 

Dream big for the Big Event!!!