Marriage By Suess

"One Day, making tracks


In the Prarie of Prax,


Came a North-Going Zax


And a South Going-Zax.


And it happened that both of them came to a place where they bumped..."

My husband LOVES music. In our early days I used to tell him that I married him for his CD collection. His taste in music is so varried that a girl couldn't possibly appreciate everything from his musical library the way he does. On occassion this has caused us to come to a place where we bump. Today was one of those days.



You see, my Steven is such an even-keeled kinda guy emotionaly (Yes, it does amuse me that this is so, and that his name is Steven) that he uses his music as a way to feel. When he listens to music it is never in the background. It truly becomes what you are doing until the song ends thirty minutes from now. He loves to close his eyes and allow the song's story in. He can do this at any moment, no matter what else is going on in his environment.



I, on the other hand, may not act on my emotions or display them all the time for everyone to see, but they are there. I am pensive. You might even say that I am noisy inside. I do not need anything external to create turbulence - it's already there! I have no problem accessing it, and if anything, I have to work very hard to quiet it. On top of this, my surroundings can be so clamorous moment by moment that I CRAVE those rare times of silence.



So what do you do when things are chaotic, your routine is lost because one member of your family or another has been sick every day for weeks AND you have allowed way too much business into your life? What do you do when you feel stuck and behind, and are trying your hardest to become unstuck (with a smile), and your husband picks just that time to saturate the air with music that reminds you of a feverish sleep; a strange dream that goes around and around and that you just can't wake up from? Why, by all means, if you are me, you stand there with him "Foot to foot. Face to face" and you say something like this:

"Look here, now!" the North Going Zax said. "I say! You are blocking my path. You are right in my way. I'm a North-Going Zax and I always go north. Get out of my way, now, and let me go forth!"

And what do you do if you are the husband of said North-Going Zax and are sick on the couch, just trying to escape the fact that after a couple of days now, you still aren't feeling well? You could snap:

"Who's in whose way?"

You could say:

"I always go south, making south-going tracks. So you're in MY way! And I ask you to move and let me go south in my south-going GROOVE."

You could say this but this would simply cause your "North-Going Zax wife to puff her chest up with pride." She would just say something about HER needs-her desire for 'happy music' (if any music at all), and then things would get really ugly with both of you declaring your unwillingness to budge, "Not an inch to the west! Not an inch to the east!"


You could respond this way, but you are a smart Zax husband and you know that this would only threaten to cause "the whole household to stand still."

So instead you really make your wife mad. You build a bridge over her! You just smile at her and put on this:



This too was a repost. I am getting ready to import my old blog over to this site and came across this entry. In light of how much darn time the hubby has had to spend with me during his past ten months of unemployement, I thought it was fitting. Not to mention the fact that it makes me chuckle when I think about it, which we all can admit is way better than the alternative.

We Are (THAT) Family...

Oh Boy! Prizes and blog fodder, two-in-one. I have made it a point to post this week and while searching for inspiration, I came across We Are That Family's Blogoversary. Imediately, I had a vision:

Followed by a memory: I'm pretty sure that when I found those PJ's in the toilet and inquired exactly how this scenario had come about, the then four-year-old-in-question replied by informing me that she 'thought that's where they went!?!"

A special moment had just occured.

A connection made...

Oh Yes, we are THAT family too.

So, in honor of this new fellowship, and to further illustrate the point, I offer you something from the archives.

Please don't hold it against me...




Saturday the girls spent the morning outside bug hunting while my husband tried to get our backyard ready for fertalizing (we had to find it first). An hour before class began, I remembered that the girls had ballet. We thought my youngest daughter might be coming down with something so we opted to have her stay with her daddy, just in case, while I went with Asher to her class. For some reason the attendance was really low and at one point the teacher asked if a couple of the moms wouldn't mind being 'bodies' to provide a reference point for the dance that was being done. It never occured to me that she would even be considering me when making this request. Did the fact that I'm eight months pregnant and look much more like a belly with legs, than a bellerina somehow escape her notice? As I looked around though, I realized that there were only two moms present and that her request had been in the plural. Ha! She did mean me! Was I permitted to say 'no'? It's not something I typically have a hard time doing, but somehow I found myself dutifully standing at my post holding flowers like the rest of the children.

When my daughter smiled over at me from her posistion I relaxed a bit and thought, "Oh, this could be fun,' but then she started correcting my positioning and directing me to hold my flowers 'like so'! I hadn't know how serious she was about her ballet until then. She suddenly seemed very concerned, and it occured to me that I might be wittnessing the first documented moment of my daughter worrying about how bad I was going to embarass her. Could I really have come to that place in life already? I wanted to say, "Hey kid, you have to remember, this was not my idea. I know tutus and pregnant ladies don't mix!", then instruct her to go talk to her teacher, but instead I thought it might be best to just do what I was told.


Some momements later, the need to convince every one of what a poor idea combining uncoordinated pregnant ladies and ballet was,faded. I figured why use words when I can just demonstrate. I am not only pregnant, but I am also short and my pants never do fit me very well length wise. So, even though I was bare foot and should have had traction on the wood floors, I didn't. When the teacher had us skipping around, ring-around-the-rosie style I seized the opportunity to wow them with a few moves of my own. My pants got caught underfoot and I lost my balance. Everything went into slow motion as I saw the horrified looks on the faces of the ladies who had their arms outstretched to steady me. They looked scared and all I could do was laugh. "Oh no, the pregnant lady is going DOWN!"


I never did fall. I have weeble blood in me, I guess. I am almost certain that I won't be invited to dance for sometime, though. It looks like my clever little plan worked wonderfully.

Sometimes.

Sometimes you just have to put the little monster to bed...

Unwrapping Life

Melissa over at A Familiar Path just happened to notice the time lapses in my posts around here. After close to two weeks had gone by in my last entry she gingerly mentioned that the post was now 'ancient', which in Blog-Time is probably pretty accurate. So this week, I am vowing to do better...unless of course I have to fight my minions away from the laptop to get my fingers on it...if that's the case, I can't promise that I won't just see it as a sign and go take a nap instead. Right now though, I think I have caught a glimmer of motivation, and I will seize it. Thanks Melissa.

...Oh yeah, and I'm going to copy you too.

I present to you my first ever Tuesdays Unwrapped...without the fancy logo, because I could not figure it out, and one can only start off so motivated. Slow and steady, you know.


God has been trying to teach me to focus on the beautiful, small details of life that are so easily swallowed up by The Tyranny of the Urgent...

I read somewhere in the scripture this week (I really need to find that, don't I?) where God's people were in a terribly difficult spot and He essentialy told them to keep doing all the things that make life rich anyway. He was not going to remove them from their less than perfect conditions; He was telling them to LIVE.

Right there.

Where they were.

As weird as it sounds, this surprised me. I have a hard time allowing myself  to experience joy in serious times. I feel guilty about it and often don't know what to make of the juxtaposition of the two.

I'm learning that it is all about keeping you eyes fixed on what is eternal. If I take my eyes off of Jesus to stare at the waves, like Peter, or the destruction and rubble like people of Judah rebuilding the walls to their city in Nehemaih, I will be consumed.

Instead, I am practicing Philipeans 4:8

"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things."

Considering the fact that I am surrounded, It really shouldn't be as hard as I make it out to be.

Lord, continue to help me unwrap this life.

Finite

A good family friend of ours favors a particular T-shirt that has just recently caused me to think. He wears it in my presence just often enough that I'm beginning to wonder if maybe he hasn't been trying to tell me something all along. Sort of the 100% pre-shrunk cotton version of Ye-Faithful-Old-Sandwich-Board-Prophet; his message(if you will) posed in a question that I now know would be wise to ask myself more often...

"Why does every good idea I have get me into trouble?"

You see, I have had my share of 'Good ideas' this past year. And can you guess where they have all gotten me?

Yep, Trouble.

With all the things that have been happening I have been treading water just to keep from drowning. I have tried to meet every need and manage every problem we have been facing. I have stayed up late and gotten up early, I have been irritated that the only jobs in the paper are one's suited for me, not my husband; the one who is out of work. I have driven to apply for those jobs in an attempt to answer the financial questions, 'where will the money for (fill in the blank) come from?', and I have cried all the way there, knowing it was wrong. I have cried out to God for mercy...'I can't DO anymore...I am TIRED!'...and then I have tried to do more anyway.

But, then I paused long enough to hear those four little letters, and they got through.

S.T.O.P.

"STOP.

Retrace your steps-you were on to something there, what did you just say?

Oh, that's right... you can't do it anymore".

I have been trying to fight this fight on my own strength. I have been saying yes to things God has never called me to do because I don't trust Him to be and do what His word promises He will. I been living in a state of exhaustion instead of entering into His rest.

Despite the fact that it has been screaming at me, I have been forgetting the one fatal flaw in all my 'good ideas':


I am finite.


I have definite and definable limits.
I am limited in nature and existence.


What this means is that I can try all I want, but MY plans will never work.


As horribly depressing as that thought should be, I find it so liberating.

It is liberating because it points me back towards God, who is infinite.

Or in other words:

1 : extending indefinitely : endless
2 : immeasurably or inconceivably great or extensive : inexhaustible
3 : subject to no limitation or external determination.


Did you get the inexhaustible part? Don't say I didn't point it out to you.

He is SO not me.

We have access to a God who is incapable of being used up; He is incapable of being wearied or worn out.

It's the best idea yet...

Think it would fit on a T-shirt?