Ready...Set....GO?

I have been giving serious consideration to re-entering the work world since just before my last child graduated from high school. In fact, he would sometimes catch me looking at job postings online and remind me that I wasn't finished raising him yet. "Will I ever really be finished?" I wondered. Will I ever not be a mother, concerned about whatever concerns my children, no matter their age? I'll let you know when I find out.

I had several reasons for thinking about going back to work. I only worked a few years before becoming a mother and have not accumulated sufficient Social Security credits to expect any benefits when that time comes. Of course, we may all be wondering if we should be counting on that, no matter how long we have been in the workforce. The recent economic downturn made quick work of our retirement account. I would like to help build that nest egg back up and maybe even pay off the house (OK, I do dream big!) Probably the most important reason for considering a job outside my home is that I just have too much time on my hands now that the children are all grown and I think I still have a number of good years left. I find I am a bit lonely, sometimes, and might enjoy having co-workers among my circle of friends. Once, when I was filling in for my Nanny daughter, I made a list (I love doing that!) of all the things I hoped our empty nest years would be, goals we would like to pursue and characteristics and qualities I would like to find in a job that would contribute to fulfilling those goals, rather than interfering with them. That list is a little tattered and smudged after eighteen months in my purse but I pulled it out before I began my job search in earnest.

Together, Mr. Brown and I decided that a part time position would be better than full-time, at least until he is able to transition into a more regular Monday through Friday schedule. He currently works twelve hour days every other Wednesday and every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. He is always off Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and every other Wednesday. He has been doing this for twenty one years and it has worked beautifully for our family. I am used to it but now that I am the only one home most days, those days feel even longer. It has gotten harder for him, too, as work has increased and available employees have decreased. We hope that in a few years he can find a second career that is not quite as high pressure and demanding and fits a more regular Monday through Friday lifestyle. I do not want for us to become two ships passing in the night and find myself working while he is home and vise versa. This first consideration has limited my job possibilities quite a bit. It seems there just aren't many jobs that fit my unusual schedule requirements. I also decided, with hubby's enthusiastic support, that I do not want to cook, wait tables, chase babies, wrangle teenagers, clean houses or do anything with clothing. I think I have done plenty of that. Nor do I want to work in a fitness center, tanning salon, spa or cosmetic surgeon's office, thank you very much. I would like to be proud of where I work not spend my days wishing I looked younger. My skills, at least the ones asked about on applications and filling space on my resume, lie largely in the clerical and administrative zone. I want to work in a nice place and have a reason to get dressed up each day. I am not too concerned about what I earn but it needs to be enough to make it worth buying those cute clothes, a car, gas and insurance for that car and hopefully have a little something left over each month. So far, so good...or so it seems.

As it turns out, jobs are not just laying around for the taking. Schedules don't line up, the drive is too far or I just do not possess the necessary skills. Furthermore, the entire application process has changed completely from when I found my last job. Back then, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I went to the UT employment office, filled out an application, with a pen, not a computer, took a typing test, reported for an interview and was hired the next day. Done! Now, I search high and low for a job that even remotely matches my skills, I fill out pages and pages of an online application, attach (with no small degree of difficulty) my carefully crafted resume and cover letter, hit submit and watch all my work disappear through a wire into the ground (My oldest son told me that's what he thinks happens to online job applications and he should know.) Never will I know if it actually reached its intended destination or receive any word as to the status of that job. I learned my new found job hunting skills from my very able and experienced children, one of whom pretty much runs the Human Resources department of a large hospital system in a very large city. I had my resume built by a professional, my cover letters are customized to each job for which I am applying, my references are impeccable, if a little old. This has to be one of the more demoralizing experiences of my life. I suddenly have a much greater appreciation for all the job seekers out there. I take great comfort in the fact that all of my needs are met and I do not need this job to feed my family or keep a roof over our heads. Thank You, Jesus! I knew it was hard to find work, I just had no idea how very sad and overwhelming the application process could be.

I finally had my first walk into a brick and mortar building, look someone in the eye, fill it out with a pen application experience this week! I had been counseled to jump on these opportunities quickly as they are few and far between. It took quite a while to fill out the paperwork, which was not the same as what I had seen online, by the way. I was able to speak to two different employees at that time and then had to go back later in the day to sign one more form. As it turned out, I met the person who would be my supervisor on the last visit. We had a previous, and positive connection, as I do business with this company regularly. I was so charged! Finally, some forward progress...then it happened.

I began to second guess my every choice. Did I wear the right clothes? I know I looked cute, but too "cute?" Were boots OK? Was my hair current enough or not enough? How about my make-up? Do I need a makeover? Was I too enthusiastic? Did I seem desperate? Talk too much? Too little? I was shaking like a leaf filling out the application. Was my handwriting wiggly? Did I misspell anything? Maybe I can't do this job...maybe they want someone younger, thinner, smarter...what if, what if, what if? I might as well have been standing in that lobby naked for all the confidence I had. I so hope no one could tell! For thirty years the little people I have been working with have pretty much thought I was awesome, no matter what. At least that was true until their ages ended in anything-teen. My supervisor thought I was pretty grand as well, and still does. I heard everyday what a great job I was doing. I didn't have to prove myself to anyone, especially on one sheet of paper or one line of an application. Whew...remind me again why I thought I could do this?!

I hope to get a call back for an interview soon. I hope I can conduct myself in that interview in such a way that someone will give me the chance to show them what I can do, that I can learn, that I am trustworthy and hard working. I hope I don't faint or throw up or cry....I'll let you know.

There are some things money can't buy...

Tissues............................................................$ 1.00
Pumpkin Spice Latte........................................$ 3.75
New dresses...................................................$79.00
Sunday drive (gas)...........................................$ 5.00
Holdin' hands and Kickin' rocks...........................free

Comforting a blubbering, hearbroken, hormone-crazed, almost empty nest wife and mother............Priceless.

There are some things money can't buy.........a husband like mine is one of them.

Holdin' Hands and Kickin' Rocks...

...we've been doing this for many years. It's that walking, strolling thing that couples do. It isn't about fitness, not physical fitness anyway. It's about being close and staying in touch. It's not about the destination but about enjoying the journey. It started as our relationship began, walking around the neighborhood where I lived. We branched out to the only mall we had at the time, Highland Mall. We had little money for dates so window shopping and dreaming could easily fill entire Saturdays. We walked through Bastrop State Park, Zilker Park and the Town Lake hike and bike trails. Even our honeymoon included lots of holdin' hands and kickin' rocks because our little car broke down on the way to exotic Corpus Christi and spent the entire trip in the shop. Not only could we venture out only as far as we could walk, we then had no money to spend so walking just made sense. We spent hours on the sea wall, taking in the sights, sounds and scents of the ocean. We have been back several times since and reliving that particular walk is always on my list of must do activities. Once we were married we walked through the neighborhoods surrounding our apartment community and all over the UT campus on workdays. We continued our strolls after we moved into our little house. We enjoyed watching all the other little houses grow from the ground as if by magic. We were even known to walk away long evenings waiting for the arrival of a baby. We walked through one entire night of labor, wearing tracks in the carpet on the Women's floor at South Austin Medical Center. We thought that little one would never arrive! She did. We also comforted colicky babies, taking turns walking and bouncing that little bundle, up and down the sidewalk in front of our home. As life got busier, our walks took place with  less and less frequency. We would sometimes tell the other "I miss holdin' hands and kickin' rocks." Other times, we took a walk out of sheer necessity! Life had a way of crowding out those little pleasures. When we walked we always held hands, that way neither was left behind. We usually talked, too. Sometimes about nothing, other times about huge things, hopes, dreams, disappointments and worries. Often we walked quietly at first, decompressing from the events of the day. Other times we prattled on about everything that had happened that day. We discovered it was very hard to stay angry while holding hands and walking side by side. I think if we should ever find ourselves providing marriage counseling again, we will require a daily dose of "holdin' hands and kickin' rocks." Some of the couples I know who quit on their marriages might not have if they had taken the time to hold hands and walk every day.

We've found these times again in this season of life and not just because we aren't amusing ourselves with technology but because we missed it and want these connect points to be an integral part of our second half. We have really come to enjoy our after dinner strolls and miss them if weather or some other obstacle gets in the way. There are new homes going up...like in the beginning. We love watching the moon and stars, hearing critters talking to one another and smelling the first vestiges of fall. We hold hands, always. We talk. Sometimes we talk about the kids and sometimes that leads us to pray about the kids. Sometimes we dream aloud, like before, of things we want to do in our future and of who we want to be. We reminisce, too. "Remember when we walked after the cancer diagnosis and needed to be reminded that life is more than sterile walls, needles and drugs?" or "Remember how we walked together until we had a plan for this or that problem?" This journey has been very worthwhile. I hope we are able to continue this holdin' hands and kickin' rocks until Jesus takes us home.

Leftovers

This is not a post about food, but about a completely different kind of leftovers. We have had the joy of raising six wonderful children and releasing five of them into the wild or the world, or well, into marriage, at least. They did not, however take all of their belongings with them. We have gobs of things that belong to our adult children. Things like awards, yearbooks, trophies and medals. We have a violin that needs a new bow, an entire box of sparkly, shiny dance costumes and a pile of VHS movies that, in all likelihood, no one will ever be able to view. We can't throw them away, you see, because they are "classics." We have done quite a bit of weeding out as we downsized to a smaller home last year. We were able to sell the motorcycle and welding rig one son just had to have...until he joined the Navy. That boy's extensive gun collection and the huge gun cabinet it occupies went to stay at a brother's house. They can sort that one out between the two of them. I mailed Navy Son's impressive John Wayne movie collection to him recently. I hope his sweet wife is not mad at me! I think I managed to get  the prom dresses to the right girls but I purposely held onto my most treasured home school curriculum and resources for the one or two of my children who may pursue that in the future. I wrote earlier about the pain of distributing things like diplomas, birth certificates and social security cards to their rightful owners. It's funny to me that most of these items carry such value to their respective owners that they cannot be disposed of, yet no one wants to claim them and take them to their place. I still come across little things on a fairly regular basis that should probably be taking up space in someone elses's home and life, most notably the two furry mutts who still live here!

We have never really been dog people but we felt, sometime long ago, that caring for pets would be good for our kids, you know, the feeding, walking, bathing, cleaning up after them routine. Imagine our surprise when those puppies did not pack up and move when the kids did! One long, quiet, maybe even a tiny bit boring evening recently I discovered my dear husband having quite the animated conversation with our smallest, yappiest dog.

"Is that so?!" He asked.

"Yap, Yap, Yap....."

"What's that, Lassie? Timmy's stuck in the well?"

"Yap, Yap, Yap, Yappity, Yap...."

"Again?!"

"Yappppppppp!"

This went on for some time and while it doesn't take much to excite a chihuahua, I guess being without a TV had really begun to take it's toll on Bill! I declared that we had become officially old, sitting alone in our house carrying on conversations with the dogs. I was informed that we were not, in fact, old because we were entertaining "leftover" dogs, dogs left behind by their owners, not to be confused with new dogs. We would be old, hubby declared, should we go out after being child and dog free and procure a new dog to occupy our time. That...will...never...happen. Since we dodged that one I'm glad to report that we are not officially old just yet.

I really don't mind the leftovers, not all of them anyway. I like reading the sweet letters and homemade cards my kids have written to me over the years. Baby books and photographs are always fun to look through. I have a very small denim jacket in one of my dresser drawers, a gift from a grandpa, long gone to a sweet toddler son, now grown.  I have no plans to ever give that away. I have a few locks of hair, a baby shoe or two and a tiny string of pearls I am saving for the day that daughter's little girl, whoever she may be, can wear them. Memories take up very little space and to my delight, those leftovers do not shed...or bark.

TV or Not TV, That is the Question!



Our dear old television gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago. Alas, it had served us well. Our first reaction was to run right out and see what it would cost to replace it. It was, after all, nearly the big week when all of our shows come back on after the long summer break. We happen to have this lovely Crate and Barrel entertainment center, the focal point of our living room, that just begs for a nice big TV. And besides, what else are we supposed to do with all of our time?

TV for us has been an unusual cultural experience. We started our marriage thirty three years ago with a tiny little set. So small, in fact, that we had to sit one in front of the other to watch it. That worked fine since we only had one chair in the living room of our first apartment. One of us would sit in the chair and the other on the floor directly in front. We would switch places at commercial breaks. It worked just beautifully, thank you very much. We had televisions at several points during our early years and even the first few years with kids only when we had someone living in our home who brought one with them. We did this with fairly regular frequency. We had each of our younger brothers for a season, a pastor and his wife without work, one of our children's nursery workers who needed some TLC and even a dad who had just kind of lost his way. When they came, no matter how dire their situation, their belongings almost always included a TV which they were more than delighted to share with our family. It was not until we had four children that we actually went out and purchased a television. At that time we were homeschooling and chose a small set with a built in VCR. Remember VCRs? We used it mostly to watch videos. We were very careful about what television shows our kids watched. Well, I will admit that we let them watch the original A-Team but not much else until much later on. I hated Sesame Street but would allow Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood but that's a whole 'nother post. We would often put the kids to bed and then have an at home date. We would watch a movie, fold clothes together or just enjoy popcorn without benefit of kids. It worked well. A bit later we graduated to a bigger TV when Dad decided the kids were old enough for Nintendo 64. That TV lasted many years, through the whole Clinton scandal, Saved by the Bell and even Boy Meets World. The kids love to remind me of how we often had to discuss what we had seen on a particular show. One remarkable memory involved one of the last episodes of Boy Meets World when Cory and Topanga contemplate having..."the sex," as it was known to our children. They decided against it because they just didn't think it was the "right time." I made very sure that every one of my kids learned that the only right time was after they were married! At least one of the kids remembers that event well enough to tease me about it now. I guess I may have been a bit rabid at the time. I wish I could say I was sorry, but I just can't. We tried really hard to make sure whatever we watched would not harm our kids, or violate scripture but we tried not to be preachy. It wasn't always just about bad words or too much skin. We were alert to shows that made parents or any adult look stupid and untrustworthy or fostered attitudes we wanted to avoid. TV continued to play a secondary role in our home for a long time. We rarely had a set in the living room, preferring to make it fairly uncomfortable to watch for very long. We had limits on content and how much time anyone spent watching. Unfortunately, at some point, the one-eyed monster found its way into our living room. Dish Network followed pretty quickly afterward. We were caring for a child with cancer, which meant lots of down time,  but once that set and all that programming came in it was very hard to get it out. We sent that big, clunky TV with one of the boys when he moved out on his own. It was replaced  by a sleek, new flat screen model, a gift from a son and daughter. It made a couple of moves with us and served us well, providing hours of entertainment both through broadcast television, DVDs and Wii tournaments. As life slowed down with the departure of our children we found that we were watching TV more and more. I had even begun to watch daytime television during those long fourteen hour days alone, something that had never been part of life for me. What had I become!? Oprah?! Seriously?! I know lots of "older" folks watch lots of TV. They may even do so from the comfort of their matching recliners. I did not envision that for us, certainly not this early into our Empty Nest Journey. I didn't like where this was going. I could feel the gentle nudging to reconsider this major purchase. It didn't hurt (or maybe that's exactly what it did) that we have family members and friends who are unemployed or underemployed and that we have a child who has the opportunity to go to a very faraway place and help lead worship for 45,000 people. How could we justify spending hundreds of dollars on a new TV when we could do so much more with it. And furthermore, all those new shows we were waiting to see? Every last one seemed to have slithered into the yucky place while we weren't paying attention. I loved House and Bones, Castle and CSI. The Mentalist and NCIS and even our silly SciFi shows. But now, a good crime story is just not enough, its all about who is sleeping with whom! How is this in any way adult? Again, not preaching. But for us, it just doesn't fit with the life we are and have been trying to make for all these years. It doesn't really fit with the whole "I will set no worthless thing before my eyes." concept. I don't want to spend my life staring at the TV and I don't want to become dull of spirit. I want to love what God loves and hate what He hates. I don't want to find myself rooting for the cute couple to finally "hook up" even though they aren't married, or at least aren't married to each other! I want to be grieved by that. Silly reality shows, talent competitions and what is up with the vampires?! I just can't really find anything worth our time.

OK that all sounds really nice, huh? Well, it turned out to be way harder than we thought. I don't know what withdrawal from drugs or alcohol feels like and I would never want to trivialize such a thing but this was no picnic. The last couple of weeks have been tough. We just couldn't really find anything to do, especially me, on all those dreadfully long days. And seriously, I have this beautiful entertainment center. What am I going to do with that? Bill had offered to take the broken TV out the day it died but I said, "No! That would leave a big, ugly hole in our living room." Finally, once we decided we would not be returning to TV Land anytime soon, I gave in and let it go. Last night we disconnected all those cables and wires and hauled the sad set to the garage. We got rid of the DVD player and packed up the Wii. We also came up with what I think is a reasonable solution for the spot left vacant.



Before we got to this place in our marriage, we talked a lot about how we wanted to spend these next fifty years (OK, maybe fifty is a bit optimistic, but humor me.) We wrote things down. We made lists of some of the things we used to like doing but that got crowded out because of time or funding constraints. Maybe we just forgot to do some things. We included things we have never done but always wanted to try. I went back and looked at that list and it did not include watching a lot of TV. Oh, we may get one again some time in the future and we know we can hit up one of our nearby kids if we just really want to see a game. We don't think TV is necessarily sinful, it just isn't for us right now. So, TV or not TV? The answer for us right now is no.

Faith for More than Money

I shared some of the wonderful ways God cared for us financially through our early walk of faith. I would not want to leave the incorrect impression that our faith was stretched only in the area of provision. While he fed us in unusual ways, and saw to it that every bill was paid, that was not the only way He showed up for us.

The men of our church went on a retreat in the midst of this adventure and I had the opportunity to spend the weekend with a friend who had a couple of young kids. What a treat! I really did not like staying alone at the time. Learning to do that without being a scaredy cat came much later! We went to the park, the pool, Whataburger (a real Texas institution!) and I learned volumes about parenting from a Christian perspective. After the men returned and I was safely home with my hubby, that sweet mama called to say her kids had come down with the German Measles! I may have mentioned I did not, at the time, have an immunity to that particular disease. It is not a good thing for pregnant moms to be exposed to German Measles during pregnancy and we were taking steps to remove that risk when we found out about our new baby's presence. Let's just say the outcome for the baby can be less than wonderful. Funny, I don't recall being particularly anxious about her news. Maybe it was just that I didn't know enough yet to be afraid. Maybe I have just forgotten. We did, however, call our doctor the next morning and he asked us to come in later in the week. After some testing, he met with us in his office and explained the possible problems we might expect and that we had a couple of options. Only one was acceptable to us and that was to complete this pregnancy just as we had always planned. He was a kind man who knew enough about us to know that no other choice would even be given any serious consideration. I remember the drive home being pretty quiet. Of course, that sweet, Measle spotted family felt horrible. They could not have known and I could not just hide out in my home for the entire pregnancy. We just moved forward and prayed all the time for the health and safety of our baby. We were blessed to be in a church led by a pastor who was quite familiar with special needs children. Two of his four children fit into that category and the nursery even had a special ministry to special children and their families. I took great comfort in the fact that if God had selected us to raise a special needs child, we could not be in a better place to do that. We were at peace, most of the time, but there were moments when we had to fight off the worry. Would we be able to parent a child who might be blind or deaf or retarded? I had not, until that time, even considered that to be a special calling. These thoughts occupied quite a bit of my time.

In October, just a few weeks before the bay's due date, Mr. Brown was to be ordained as a deacon. This event was marked by a meaningful ceremony in which all the deacons being ordained knelt and all of the ministers and deacons of the church laid hands on them and prayed blessing over the men, their families and their ministry to the church. When Bill's turn came, the head of the deacons, a man who had been an example and blessing to us, leaned over and whispered in his ear "I have seen your son and he is whole." Bill waited until we got all the way home before he told me that. You have to know this was a fairly traditional Baptist church, not charismatic in any way. This kind of thing just didn't happen. We didn't really know what to think but the day to day trust in God for every dollar, every meal and now the health of our unborn baby, sure made us open to hearing God in unusual ways. Hmm, maybe that has something to do with why we experience such challenges. I'm just sayin'. We didn't tell too many people about this event and in just a few weeks we would all know if that sweet man had really heard God or not. The excitement built and built. Due date came and went. Finally, sixteen days after his October due date, well into November, that perfect little boy entered the world. We had not known his gender before the deacon ceremony. We had not known he would be without birth defects. We had felt the tender love of God as this man went out on a limb and shared that with us. Our faith was built even further. We have recalled this event to one another many times during the long years we have spent raising that son. When his life was threatened, we remembered how much trouble God went to to protect him and to even tell us about it in advance. Surely he had a plan for his life.

All your sons will be taught of the LORD;

And great shall be their well-being.

Isaiah 54:13

I Have Been Young...continued

I don't recall how we informed friends and family of our decision for me to just quit my job and stay home. I do remember that by the time I actually finished my last two weeks I had been asked to stay on in other jobs at higher salaries. The offers were only a little bit tempting. We were pretty stoked about our walk of faith. It had not really cost us much yet as I would still receive one more paycheck. Those last two weeks flew by and on the first day of staying home I took Bill to work so I could grocery shop and run some errands. One of those errands was to the doctor's office. We had been thinking about starting a family but not for a while. I had never had German Measles and needed an immunization for that. I guess we really should not have been surprised that on top of the adventure of living on a reduced salary, we would now be adding another member to our family! Yes, on the first day at home, I found out were were expecting. I picked up two candles at the grocery store along with the ingredients to make a special dinner. We were celebrating! Celebrating the first day of a new way of living and of a new life as well. We still find ways to celebrate lots of things, great and small. I put those tapers, one pink, one blue, on the table and didn't say anything until we were sitting down together. Then I broke the news to Bill. He was thrilled. We both were. We were, however, also just a little bit more nervous about what the future would hold. Our adventure just got a little more exciting. We had health insurance, to be sure, but it was the 80/20 kind so we would be adding a monthly payment to our already insolvent budget. We would also be adding the usual expenses associated with having a baby. We had no idea how we would buy maternity clothes, baby furniture, clothes, car seat, etc. but we knew God had not been taken by surprise by any of this. The ensuing months were filled with expressions of God's tender care.

As had been our practice throughout our nearly three year marriage, when the paycheck arrived we wrote out our tithe check. Then an offering to a young missionary couple. We had committed to this before hearing God call us to this faith walk. We had not heard Him tell us to stop making that monthly payment. We then paid all the non-negotiable bills like mortgage, car payment, utilities, etc. Whatever was left was for gas for the car and food...for the entire month ahead. Yes, we got paid once each month. The first month without my paycheck was quite a shock. Even after eliminating all unnecessary items, our budget still didn't work on paper. There was nearly no money left after paying the bills. Enough money for one tank of gas, no money for food. We just looked at each other and then prayed...hard. We didn't tell anyone the specifics of our situation. Our small group knew of our faith walk. Our mothers knew. Most importantly, God knew. We reminded ourselves that we were trusting God. "Sink or swim, we were going on with God." The next day was Sunday. After church, our friends all went out to lunch. We went to our car to head home and make do with whatever we could scrounge. In the front seat was an envelope. It contained $30, a veritable fortune at the time. We went to the grocery store and very carefully purchased as much as we could on that amount of money. We took our treasure home and enjoyed a modest lunch together. This was only the beginning. The coming months held numerous blessings such as this one. We never learned where that money came from. We would sometimes find envelopes in the mailbox. They would contain different denominations of currency. We began to make a game of it. Bill would call from work after he thought the mail had arrived and ask if any presidents had come to visit. If they had, then he would try to guess the dollar amount by the president that appeared on the bill. We enjoyed visits from Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and  Andrew Jackson. We didn't get money every week. Only when we really needed it. Sometimes it was food, bags of it. Sometimes it didn't come in the mail but showed up like the first gift, in our car. Sometimes it was neither but something else special like the dresser a sweet older couple from church purchased from a garage sale. They refinished it and delivered it to us for our baby's room. A grandmother sent money for a crib. An aunt sent a box containing all the baby things she had saved from her daughter, now grown. I remade the curtains into whatever I needed to outfit the new baby's room. We had wonderful, generous baby showers. Our baby lacked nothing. When we found ourselves up against a financial obstacle, which happened with some frequency, we prayed. Once, we needed money again and were reminded that we each possessed gold class rings. This was the beginning of the 80s and gold was, well, gold! These rings were worth considerably more than when they were originally purchased. We had not purchased them for ourselves, however, and felt that we should ask those who had purchased them  if we could sell them. My grandmother and Bill's mother were more than willing for us to turn them into the cash we needed to get through the next few steps of the journey. We were delighted to be able to use those funds to make the obstetrician payment, buy groceries and gas for an entire month. The next month brought new challenges and new expressions of God's faithfulness. We received duplicate insurance reimbursement checks. Checks the insurance company did not want to try to take back. Not at the time, anyway. We were instructed to keep them and if they wanted the money back, they would let us know later. Not once did a bill go unpaid. Not once did we go hungry or not have money for gas so Bill could get to work. We did not lose our home after all. The baby's room was ready. The doctor had been paid. When the balance of my teacher retirement account came after the six month waiting period had passed, we used it to pay off our car loan. Finally! A bit of breathing room in the budget. We still had no discretionary money. It was still going to be very hard to make it on the amount Bill brought home each month and he was faithfully looking for a better job. The baby's due date came and went. At last our precious boy arrived! While Bill was on leave caring for me he received a call to interview for a job he had been hoping would open up for some time. Less than a month after our son was born, he began that job and is still enjoying it today! Who does that!? Our God, that's who! We have had numerous difficult financial places through the years as we have remained committed to having me at home full time. The high tech industry, in which Mr. Brown works, has been  fraught with downturns, lay offs and pay cuts. We have learned to live frugally and take joy in small things. We have never stopped crying out to God when the money didn't stretch as far as the month. We have never stopped paying our tithe first, our bills next and letting God feed us. We have never been without. Of course salaries increased over time. So did the number of people in our family and the expenses required to care for them. I just might share more faith stories in future posts. This story was only the beginning, a taste of what was to come. We're still swimming, not sinking. We have been young, now we are old(er)...but never forsaken.

I Have Been Young...

...very young, as I revealed in my first post, when I married my man. We were both pretty young, in fact. I was also very young in my walk with Christ and had much to learn. The first months of our marriage were lovely, filled with fun times with friends, enjoying our cute little apartment and the security of a new job for Mr. Brown at the University of Texas. I was completely in love with my life as a stay at home wife. Cooking, cleaning our tiny home, laundry and whatever else I could find to busy myself with filled all of an hour or two of each day. I had no car so being at home alone was, well, lonely. After about nine months of that we decided a job might not be such a bad idea after all. Because of the one car situation, it made sense for me start my job search at UT in the wild hope that I could find work there and we could ride to and from work together. Wonder of wonders, I got the very first job I applied for. It just happened to be located in an office on the second floor of the same building where my hubby worked! We loved going to work together, taking our lunches together and exploring the entire UT campus on those hour long lunchtimes. We drove home together each evening and enjoyed the same terrific holiday schedules. We didn't particularly mind the extra money, either. Funny how that works. We were in an awesome church that afforded us great teaching, community and opportunities for growth and service. We made friendships there that we still maintain to this day, even though we have moved about as far from one another as we could and still be in basically the same city. Before too long, we took the plunge and bought an adorable little house in a new suburb. Life was good.

One of the benefits of such a wonderful church was that we often enjoyed the teaching of visiting speakers in addition to that of our own wise pastor. On just such an occasion, I had the chance to attend the Sunday evening service but the hubs had to work a special event on campus. We had both been entertaining the idea that God had something special in store for us. I had begun to feel the need to be better at making a home. Being gone forty hours a week, teaching high school students in Sunday School, singing in the choir and being in a small group left little time to keep up with what had never stopped being a high priority to me, making a home. Grocery shopping, laundry and generally keeping up with all that is part of home ownership was getting harder to do. I kind of felt like I had abandoned my call. Dinners were often rushed affairs and some evenings we just couldn't even get the dishes done before dashing out the door to a meeting or church service. We began to pray about how we might rectify the situation we had made but by now, my salary covered much of our mortgage and utilities. We just couldn't do without my paycheck and a sinking, trapped feeling hovered overhead. Imagine my surprise when the message that fateful evening was about faith and obedience. The minister, I still remember his name, spoke about our need to answer with instant obedience when God calls something to our attention. Waiting until all the details lined up perfectly was not faith. He even went so far as to declare that someone in the room knew exactly what he was talking about. I know, it could have applied to anyone of us. I have been around a while and even though I may not have recognized it then, I know hype now. That was not what this was. I was pretty sure if I failed to act on what I knew God was saying to me, my heart would beat right out of my chest! I was so concerned that I could not adequately relate to Bill when he got home, what had been spoken that evening, that I requested a copy of the sermon to take home with me. Friends dropped me off and I waited not very patiently for my husband to return. I seem to remember pacing was involved. I prayed my heart out that he would hear me and that we would be unified in our decision. When he finally arrived, I asked him to sit down, that I had something he really needed to hear, and right now. He insisted instead that he needed to tell me something first. We argued back and forth for a minute or so and I reluctantly gave in and let him go first, if only to get it over with and move on to what I thought was the important part of the evening. He said, slowly and with what sounded like a bit of concern that I might freak out..."I know what you have to say...God is calling us to have you stay at home...now." I was completely dumbfounded! He was exactly right and we were in complete agreement! While it had taken a great deal of faith to endure the three years we had to wait to be married, we had never before been impressed to take such a leap of faith. We both knew that we could not make our budget without my salary. Bill felt for sure we would lose our new house. For reasons unknown to me, I was completely convinced we would not. We agreed that I would tender my resignation the next day and work only two more weeks. The adventure had just stepped up a notch. We had no idea what would await us but we had determined that "Sink or swim, we were going on with God."  To us that meant walking right up to the edge of the light, where the darkness starts, and taking another step. We wrote that resignation letter together, carefully wording  it to accurately reflect the reason and leave on the best of terms. We slept peacefully that night, content that there was no better place to be than squarely in the will of God. The outcome was His.

I have been young and now I am old,

Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken

Or his descendants begging bread.

Psalm 37:25

To be continued...

Fly Away, Little Birds...

See those little birds, up there to your right? They represent my little birds, the ones who have all flown away, or nearly so. One still technically calls this home but he is so rarely here that it has become little more than a pit stop. He drops in for food and clean clothes on a fairly regular basis, both of which still magically appear in his life. The others flew the coop, in what felt for all the world like the great migration. Oh, they began leaving several years ago. College, the Navy, foreign service, jobs, you get the picture. This was still home base, though. The place they came on school breaks, leave, holidays and really whenever they needed encouragement (or maybe it was just clean laundry and a good meal!) I still managed most things for them, whether it was keeping up with important papers, navigating college registration, dealing with tuition, medical bills, keeping gas in their cars and cell phones in their hands. I was the one they called about laundry disasters, whether or not they could eat something they had not, perhaps, stored properly and sometimes girl (or maybe even, boy) issues. OK, some of them still ask about those things, but not nearly as often. I made their doctor and dentist appointments, and generally served as their multi-purpose solution to most things in life. That's all changed. I really began to get it when within a twenty-one month period, five of our six "birdies" decided to marry. I'll recount the blessings of all those weddings in another post. I felt the emptiness, slowly at first when there was not as much laundry to be done, fewer places at the table and even less mess. I felt it as a new school year came and I was not preparing for it like I had for so many years prior. I really began to feel it as I released documents, long held securely, to now adult children or better yet, their new wives. Documents like birth certificates! Weren't those mine, given as some kind of award for birthing these six babies? No, they were theirs and they needed them now. Social Security cards, High School and College diplomas, transcripts...all the things I had kept so safely all these years were now in their hands. What if they lose them? Well, that will be their problem to deal with, won't it? I had to learn to suggest solutions to dilemmas when asked rather than offering them as I would before they were adults, and married at that. It took a few rewinds, if you will, before I began to get the hang of it. One of the best books I read on this season of life explained that in order to make this transition smoothly, mothers need to become smaller in the lives of their children. That was hard for me to take but I had to agree. For thirty years my main purpose has been mothering these kids, in a big way. By necessity as well as by choice, the rhythm of my life was determined largely by their needs. My schedule, my focus, my attention, my affection, my energy, our money...all were devoted to bringing these kids to right where they are now. No, it isn't over. That has been made clear. Kids aren't grown, we've learned, because they reach eighteen, high school graduation or even marriage. We had an adult child or two move back home because of  unemployment or a job that didn't just magically appear after college graduation. They will always be our children and most of them still seem  to want our involvement in their lives. Our relationship to them must change, however, and in my experience, change can be hard. There are way too many empty hours in my day now, lots more quiet than I am used to and I still buy entirely too much toilet paper! Old habits die hard. I, with the able assistance of my dear husband, am seeking God about what's next for this nearly empty nest. I need good work to do. I'm looking into that. Holidays have become harder to deal with as so many kids are going so many different directions. I am determined never to be that mother-in-law by guilting my kids into always being with us. We are learning to just go ahead with plans and not worry so much that someone might need us, or just want to eat at our place. I am beginning to understand that it is perfectly fine if we have a life, too, even if it is in a quieter, neater, and smaller nest.

The End from the Beginning

Some of my children have urged me to start blogging. I have resisted for several years and instead just enjoyed their stories and those of a few close friends. Events that have transpired recently have kind of shoved me off the fence of indecision and I'm going to at least take a stab at it now. There are times I just need to say something and, as life would have it,  my house is often completely empty. I guess one of the wonderful things about blogging is that if you don't like it or find it interesting, you just don't bother to read it and no one is any the wiser. Feel free!

Writing a blog about the second half of life kind of screams for a little insight into the first half. I think that this second half, which has come to fascinate me so much, has been shaped, if you will, by the choices and paths I have taken in the first. The biggest ones are what make me who I am...my relationship with God and subsequently the mate I chose to spend this life with. Both were very life altering decisions and neither was undertaken lightly. I came to saving faith in Christ as a teenager but did not have much opportunity for growth or discipleship. I was raised by a single mother and am the oldest of two children. Church was never a big part of my growing up. I studied the Bible quietly on my own and honestly got little benefit from that endeavor. At least that's what I thought at the time. Meeting the man who would be my husband was also critical to the formation of this story. That man, who was just a young Airman, stationed at what was Bergstrom AFB, was busy doing what he still does so well, caring for the needs of others. He had taken on the role of mentoring fatherless teen boys who lived near the base, one of whom just happened to be my brother. They met in the home of one of the other military families and it fell to me to retrieve my brother for dinner one evening. The phone was busy (remember that, before call waiting!?) so I just walked the few blocks instead. The door opened to reveal a veritable herd of boys strewn about the living room floor playing games, mothers serving up snacks and across the room stood Airman Brown. Our eyes met (are you hearing the sappy movie soundtrack yet?) and the rest, as they say, is history. Our courtship began, much to my little brother's dismay. Courtship? Did I say that? I don't think anyone used that term in the 70's, not the 1970's anyway! Well, even if we never used that word, that's what we had. A long-term...really long-term, dating relationship with the end goal being marriage. Did I mention I was fifteen!? I didn't think so. That factor meant that three years had to pass before the wedding bells could ring. That three years seemed like forever. But that time allowed for a great deal of discipleship, talking and sharing about just what kind of family we hoped to create. We had the privilege of learning all we could about Godly marriage. We took classes, read books and surrounded ourselves with other Christian couples so that we might be as prepared for a marriage that honored God as possible. While waiting three years to get married was not a lot of fun, we have never been sorry about any of the time and effort we put into preparing for our future. It has paid huge dividends, which we still benefit from today. So a month after turning eighteen and graduating from high school, we began this wonderful journey together. Our wedding, while all we hoped it would be, was a pretty sad little, low budget affair, the harbinger of things to come. Since we were each the oldest of our single parent families, leaving home at the end of high school was pretty much a given. While both good students, college was just not in the budget. The Air Force provided us with a good start but living on little would continue to be a challenge in life. In fact, nothing would be easy. We had several strikes against us already, given our parents' histories, birth order and relative poverty. We were nothing but hopeful, however, as we looked to our future. We'd started out by trusting God and that would come to be the gold standard throughout. The adventure continued, and I'll write about that now and again. Hopefully this brief back story will make it easier to relate to some of the things I write about in the future. I've learned a lot about God, my spouse, our children and myself. I've watched friends navigate these turbulent, empty nest/middle age waters. Some have done very well. Others, not so much. I am encouraged and committed to honoring God in this second half of life even more than when we undertook to begin our life together all those years ago. I'm not finished being a mother. The role just changes a bit as children fly from the nest. I'll write about some of those challenges, too. I am very much looking forward to developing anew that sweet courtship that started this story so long ago. Feel free to read along now and then.