Every once in a while I like to take my two foster women on a little weekend trip. Most of you know we live in a beautiful place with a close view of Lake Superior, so sometimes being in this home feels like a retreat to me, especially when I have a day at home and can putter in my bedroom.

But there’s something to be said for getting away, having a change of scenery, going to a place for intentional rest and also exploration, and both my gals are always game.

Years ago we used to do much bigger trips — we took them to Walt Disney World, on an Alaskan cruise, and to Branson, Missouri. But flying was a huge stressor for one gal in particular, and it also became apparent that neither one appreciates grandeur and beauty as some do. They like to shop for souvenirs, dine out, and rest. So in the past years we have stayed closer to home, and they are so content with that.

A couple of months ago Betsy, Carrie and I drove 100 miles north to the sleepy Lake Superior town of Grand Marais. Michael and I visited many times over our 33 years together, and I decided to rent a cabin that sits right on the edge of Lake Superior.

This is the small bedroom I slept in. I love the little elevated stove that gave heat and cheer.

This is the view from my bedroom in the morning. Just a few strides and you’re on the edge of a cliff that overlooks our beautiful lake. Lake Superior is roughly the size of Austria and there’s enough water in it to cover all of North and South America with lots left over. I might be biased, but it is the best tasting water I’ve ever had.

I took this picture on Saturday morning as the sun was coming up.

The little cottage doesn’t have any closets, but handy hooks were all we needed.

Sunday morning I stepped outside in my bare feet to catch the sun coming up. Magenta, cantaloupe, periwinkle, blue heron, peach, grays, golds, the deep greens of the trees and the sapphire water…it’s the anti-depressant palette. Gazing at this as often as possible is a mood lifter.

I love that there is no television reception at this cabin, and I wondered how my gals would do with that. They like having their own TVs in their rooms at home, and spend a lot of time relaxing there when they get home from work. I try to take them on regular outings, to movies and restaurants, on little trips, so they can experience something a little different. There’s a small TV that plays DVDs, though, so they were able to bring their favorites, and after our days of exploring Grand Marais, we came back to our cottage and got into our jammies, then popped popcorn and watched one movie each night by the fire in the living room.

We enjoyed sleeping in past 6:00 a.m., shopping at the iconic Ben Franklin and the Lake Superior Trading Post downtown, and trying out new restaurants. We enjoyed the chickadees and their flight patterns and varied calls. We took naps, chatted together, and felt ourselves exhale.

Carrie has a saying we can count on each time we return home after a little getaway. “You know what I always say, Julie. It’s nice to get away, but it sure is nice to come home too.”

We have another weekend getaway planned in August, but this time it will be to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The gals are looking forward to seeing our favorite comedian, Tim Hawkins. He makes us laugh like no one else.

May you have a good week, and I hope spring is bringing you lovely colors and comforting sounds wherever you are.

We’ve had the snowiest winter here in NoMin. And considering the mountains of snow we had everywhere until recently, I think we could call Northern Minnesota “NoMin’s Land.” I live in NoMin’s land.

I had to have my roof shoveled off this year, needed salt-filled tube socks placed above the gutters to melt ice dams I’ve never had before, and Michael’s grave stone was almost completely buried in snow. It’s about lower hip high, and you can see the top of it peeking out behind the wreath Sara made, below. You can click to enlarge these pictures if you like.

Some of the drifts in my front yard were shoulder high, and I had to lift Mildred the Schnauzer up to set her on the frozen snow so she could do her business.

Then we had several warm days and the snow melted completely, leaving streets and grass showing for the first time in months. We rejoiced! We talked about how wonderful it was with bank tellers and grocery store cashiers and neighbors.

Then, two days ago a mean storm named Wesley (appropriate) came barreling through, and for two whole days Wesley snowed and blew until everything in NoMin’s Land is white and cold and grey again. There is no use complaining about the weather, since I have power and heat and food and peace in my life. But I don’t think I’ll be alone in kicking up my heels when spring really shows itself, whenever that will be.

It has been a while since I posted, because I’ve been working on four sessions for a women’s retreat. The retreat was last weekend and as far as I can tell, it went fairly well. The best part for me were the 100 women of the church who welcomed me and were so gracious. I have never spoken at a weekend retreat before, and it was overwhelming to prepare talks and PowerPoint presentations when I’m so out of practice. I felt like I was helpless, really, and prayed that God would just bring His strength and mercy and breathe life to my feeble words. If that happened for one person there, it was worth it without a doubt.

The church, Bethel Lutheran in Hudson, Wisconsin, blessed me with a beautiful hotel room right on Lake Superior. Hudson is three hours south of me, and the church held the retreat in Duluth for a nice getaway for their women. Even though the weekend was rainy and cold, this was the sunrise from my room.

Here are a couple of other pictures, taken by a delightful woman from Bethel named Mary.

The whole group:

Saturday morning session – Jesus is Our Bread:

My friend Lorna led the worship for the whole weekend and I’m still singing and playing some of the hymns she did:

The Saturday evening session was Jesus is Our Light, and a nice buffet meal was served as well:

I have another blessed day at home today, spent catching up on little things that have gone by the wayside these past weeks. I think I am a true housewife at heart, even though I’m not currently a wife. I love wiping off my kitchen counters, running the dishwasher, putting oils in my diffusers, folding laundry, writing out bills, making order. I don’t do any of those things very efficiently anymore because I’m getting slower and I take my time. And I take breaks. But my home is an oasis, a gift from the Lord that I don’t take for granted.

I also have a book to read. I ran into a woman I know from my church – she was returning books at the library and said ever since she retired she reads a book a day. My father was the same, and that sounds like heaven to me. I asked her for a good recommendation and she walked right over and pulled a book off the shelf for me. Not a book I would ever choose, or even a genre I’ve enjoyed, but I took her word for it and hope to begin it today.

What are you doing this weekend? Tell me one or three things…

Oh, how I love this quote by C.S. Lewis — what a mind he had.

We must simply accept it that we are spirits, free and rational beings, at present inhabiting an irrational universe, and must draw the conclusion that we are not derived from it. We are strangers here. We come from somewhere else. Nature is not the only thing that exists. There is ‘another world’, and that is where we come from. 

And that explains why we do not feel at home here. A fish feels at home in the water. If we ‘belonged here’ we should feel at home here. All that we say about ‘Nature red in tooth and claw’, about death and time and mutability, all our half-amused, half-bashful attitude to our own bodies, is quite inexplicable on the theory that we are simply natural creatures. If this world is the only world, how did we come to find its laws either so dreadful or so comic? If there is no straight line elsewhere, how did we discover that Nature’s line is crooked?

*         *         *         *         *         *

I don’t like being in bed. I mean, I like being in bed when it’s time to be in bed, around 9:00 at night until around 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning. But being in bed when you have injured your back is not a very good situation. I forget that I am in my sixties and can’t or shouldn’t do foolish things anymore, like lift my king-size bed so some risers can be placed underneath the posts. I felt the twangy pull across the sacro-iliac area when I lifted, and a groan of “ooohhh noooo” went through my brain, and then I lowered the bed. I was okay for a couple of days, just a little sore but functioning. Today I am not as okay, and I am a large amount of sore and pretty much lacking in the functioning department.

So on this gray Saturday, I am trying to get comfortable and hoping that my back will heal and that nothing catastrophic has occurred. I still have my nightgown on, some soft music is playing on the David Nevue Pandora channel, my little electric fireplace is “blazing” cheerily, and I have a good book at hand.

Today is my middle daughter Carolyn’s birthday, and we celebrated last night with her family, my oldest daughter Sharon’s family, Jeremy’s parents and his grandmother. I decided last week to have the meal catered, and how fortuitous that was, with my back and all. It was the first time I’ve ever hired a caterer and it was such a treat to watch the Duluth Grill van arrive, uniformed people hop out and carry hot and delicious food into the house, set it up with little fires underneath, and have everything be ready to serve. We had lasagna, chicken marsala, wild rice pilaf, smashed potatoes with parmesan, fresh marinated green beans, spring greens salad with homemade dressings, focaccia bread, and roasted Brussels sprouts. Sharon made a deep, dark chocolate cake and I don’t think a person here went home hungry. In fact, there was enough left over that three families will be having yummy leftovers tonight.

I was supposed to attend a snowmobile club banquet with Lloyd today, but I had to bow out since attending the event would require me to get dressed and be upright for a couple of hours.

I checked today and it has been 1,433 days since Michael moved to heaven. How can over a thousand days pass without my seeing him? How do we survive without the ones we love? I couldn’t tell you a fancy answer to that, except that the Lord gets us through, an hour at a time, then a day, a week, a month at a time.

I remember in the late 1980s when carpentry work in our area was scarce and Michael got a good paying temporary job in West Virginia. He and a friend drove to Marlington, lived in a tiny trailer and worked 18 hour shifts for 49 days, and I couldn’t believe we’d been apart for so long.

After Michael died I used to visit his grave quite a lot. It was a lot more often than I had ever pictured myself doing. I found great comfort reading the words on his grave stone, watching the ducks and geese in the ponds, praying and thanking God for all He had done for us. Now I might visit two or three times a month. I was there a couple of days ago and the snow was deep and the sun was setting. The wreath my youngest daughter Sara made stands there, telling whoever sees it what a loved, missed man Michael is.

As I recline awkwardly in my bed today, I see a basket of unfolded, clean white laundry on the ottoman of my plaid bedroom chair. Mildred the aging Schnauzer is laying at my feet on her side, looking so scruffy and unkempt and breathing deeply. She wants to be fed and I’ll do that as soon as I publish this post. Strewn across my bed are pieces of today’s mail with piles of catalogs I never peruse, two devotional books, my purse, some foster care paperwork, a wrist brace, and some prayer beads. It’s almost dusk, but I can still see the snow-covered Wisconsin shoreline as I look way across this southern tip of Lake Superior. I can see that there’s no wind today, and that the chickadees are enjoying my feeder on the front deck.

I was asked to speak at a women’s retreat this April, and I hope to spend a lot of time working on that tomorrow, even if I’m still hobbled. I was surprised to be asked since I am not familiar with the church, which is three hours south of me. I will speak four times in one weekend, all on the theme of Psalm 112:7: They do not fear bad news; they confidently trust the Lord to care for them. I prayed about it when I was asked, and only agreed after much trepidation and what I felt was a clear confirmation from God. I’ve done this a couple of times, but have never been comfortable doing it, and always have second thoughts after saying yes. My friend Lorna told me, “Julie, you’ll do what you can and show up, and God will do the rest.” I keep hanging on to that.

Well, I see that it’s time to feed the little gray beast, and then I’ll warm up our catered leftovers for my two foster women. I’m so glad they don’t mind a cook in a red plaid nightgown.

Do any of you watch Netflix? I would love a good recommendation of your two or three favorite shows or series. I just finished watching “Loch Ness,” and it was gripping. A little too raw for me, but I watched it anyway. Have any of you watched the documentary “Minimalism?” I would recommend it. And of course I’ve seen the first episode of Marie Kondo’s new tidying up show and loved it.

May you have a gripping, tidy, not-too-raw weekend.

Fondly,

(One of my favorites from the archives….)

My husband Michael’s name is really Dennis. His parents named him Dennis Michael but never intended to call him Dennis. So he signs his name D. Michael B______.  Some friends still call him D. Michael instead of just Michael, and that always makes me smile.

Anyway, my husband and I are a very romantic couple, and by that I mean that we take moonlight strolls on The Lakewalk near the shores of Lake Superior, listen to Etta James as we gaze longingly into each other’s eyes each night before we climb into our big bed, hold surprise scavenger hunts for each other with trinkets and love notes hidden all over the house, enjoy large red boxes of waxy chocolates and have a hefty bubble bath bill each month.

Actually, only one of the last six statements is true. The rest are all bold falsehoods. We haven’t taken any moonlight walks by the Lake because when the moon rises I’m usually yawning or already in bed, and Michael is watching the Minnesota Twins or the Vikings. We don’t hold scavenger hunts for creative ways to show our love, because we’re already tired of searching high and low for small, hidden things and are lately trying to give that up — we frequently have harried, romantic hunts for keys, cell phones, and checks that need to be deposited. And eating chocolate (hopefully coupled with peanut butter) is something we both firmly believe should be a daily chore practiced with moderation and discipline, so we eschew big red boxes of random shiny candies. Reese’s will do just fine.

Michael and I usually go out to dinner once a week, but the last time we went out for Valentine’s Day was several years ago. We did the unthinkable, which was drive to one of our favorite restaurants expecting to be seated within one hour. Once we saw the crowd and were told how long the wait was, we left and drove to one of our second favorite restaurants, and were surprised to find no place to park and standing room only inside. Then we drove to our favorite little sandwich joint and were greeted by the same. We decided that from then on we would go out to dinner for Valentine’s Day on either February 13th or 15th. No more of this February 14th business.

Well. Life has a way of changing things. Michael and I would probably never be chosen for the reality show America’s Most Romantic Couple. Sara teased us recently and said a reality show should be done about us, and I told her it would be successful only because it would help insomniacs get back to sleep. But we have some things that are so precious to me I don’t exactly know how to put words to it all.

He wanted to marry me before we ever met, after writing many letters and talking dozens of hours on the phone. He wanted to stay married to me after reality set in, which is even more amazing than wanting to get married before meeting. He helps keep me sane when I feel like craziness is maniacally tapping on the windows of my mind to be let in. He has taught me what faithfulness means and what a priceless, solid foundation it is for a marriage. He has built my confidence day after day, year after year. He has never disrespected me by an outright or a sideways glance at another woman in my presence. He sits with me on the couch when we have a few minutes, takes my feet in his lap and scratches the ridges left in my ankles by my SmartWool socks. He comes up behind me in the mornings when my mood is low and my hair is on end from the night’s sleep, puts his arms around me and tells me lies about how pretty he thinks I am (did I mention he has vision problems?) and how blessed he is to have found me.

He struggles with a terrible illness, but rarely with selfishness. He gets up every morning and makes me feel like I have a life partner who will always cherish me and work side by side with me, and believe the best about me. He often says in the middle of the day when there is finally quiet, “Let’s go read together,” and we take tea and shortbread on a tray to the sitting area of our bedroom, and soak in the truth and help from the Bible that we need for each day. He recently told me that when he saw me pull into the driveway after I’d been out running errands, that his heart did a little flip and he felt “twitterpated.” He dug his heels in years ago when my immaturity allowed me to talk of leaving each time things got rough, and he said, “I will never leave, I will always love you.”

He has worked his body into the ground for our family, sometimes in winter temperatures so far below freezing that he came home with tiny icicles on his mustache. He cries when I read touching stories out loud. He frequently directs me to take out the checkbook when someone is in need. He has never nagged, harped or driven home an important lesson to me. He has never withheld forgiveness for a time, just so I would learn my lesson.

He wrote “Happy Birthday Honey! I love you!” in giant spray-painted letters on a 4′ x 8′ piece of plywood tied to the side of his truck, and drove it through town and to our house, honking the horn so I’d come out and see it. You can see the photo of that sign if you click here. Over the years he has gently Q-tipped my face for hours, which must be quite the boring and confining prospect for a manly man who would rather be hunting or fishing outdoors. He has leaned over and kissed me while waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store. In front of people,  even when we were in our fifties. He has assured me in the darkest of times, “God is faithful. He will do a miracle. He will answer our prayers.” He smiles like no one I’ve ever known. He has knelt with me and laid his arm over my shoulders in prayer as we have wept and snotted into our couch, crying out for our children and the people God puts on our hearts. Quite literally, he has helped me live.

He has reminded me to praise God, many times when my spirit was flagging and I didn’t want to. He has shown me what it looks like to humbly trust God and to rejoice in Him no matter what. He lives the same way today as he did when we had seventy-six cents to our name. In thirty-one years he has never touched another, and I am so thankful for the freedom and peace this has brought to our marriage. He has made me feel like I’m a gift from God to him, which at times is laughable because I can be a high-maintenance wife.

Stated simply and profoundly, Michael has loved me.

So we may not be sipping champagne by candlelight and sitting in bubbles in our whirlpool tub on any future Valentine’s Days, but I’ll take our form of romance any time. My husband Michael has done for me what no other man could do, and for that I will thank him and the Lord until I no longer have breath.

As I write all these things today, I’m reminded of some verses from 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Why Jesus chose to bless me with a husband like this, I don’t know. It’s certainly not because I deserve him. I think it might be because my heavenly Father wants me to have a clearer picture of His grace.

Michael has been that, and more to me…

I wrote this blog post right after we moved into our current house in 2012.

Right before Michael and I dropped off to sleep last night, I remarked to him, “We’ve slept in our new house 43 nights now.”

“Wow,” he said, then he turned over, and his soft, back-of-the-throat snoring began.

You know you’re getting really, truly old, when a little shiver of happiness goes through you each and every Friday night because you know you’ll get to sleep until 7:00 a.m. the next morning. This is what happens to me now, and I’m going to just go with it and enjoy it, rather than bemoan the fact that my life is rather small.

What makes a “big” life anyway? Travel? A super-powered job? Fame? A large, active family? Being crazy-busy and over-committed? I’m not sure. I do feel like our lives are slowly being pared down into something small, and there are times when that brings some melancholy thoughts. Most of the time I just take those thoughts right to the Lord. I think it’s fine and normal to have them, especially if you’re me, and I tell Him about them (as if He doesn’t already know) and begin to thank Him for all the ways I see Him in this whittled down life, and then a peaceful blanket of joy and wonder often settles over me.

But I digress. I am going to talk to you today about what a Bathroom Fraud I am.

First, I’ll start out by showing you a picture of the kind of bathroom I would probably design for myself if we were having a house built or remodeled.

I have always loved a deep claw foot tub to soak in.

I’ve never owned a claw foot tub, however. I like how old-fashioned they look. In the bathroom I design I would choose a pedestal sink, white cabinetry, and a pale, classic color on the walls. I would have white towels and fresh flowers, perhaps some wainscoting halfway up the walls.

I like the way some decorators manage to make things look old-fashioned with a modern twist. I like the bathroom pictured to the right.

If I were designing my own bathroom, the kind of decor I would never choose would be the ultra-modern, upscale hotel-type, super-chic bathroom with all the latest bathroom bells and whistles.

That is just not me. I like nice things, but I don’t have to have them. Mostly I just want things to be clean and orderly. We lived in a house for 25 years that was by no means fancy, but after Michael was done with it, it was a blessed refuge I cherished, and it had wavy floors and walls out of plumb and lots of old house issues. But I loved it.

Whenever we’ve watched HGTV and seen the bathroom makeovers that are said to have a “spa” feel, I can appreciate the craftsmanship and the design, but I’ve never been attracted to that modern look. Old and traditional has always whispered my name.

Well.

If you’ve read my blog these last months you know that we moved recently. You know that we tried to sell our previous home and it didn’t sell for months. You know that it finally sold when it was off the market. You know that the buyers weren’t keen on giving us time to find a new house, didn’t seem to appreciate that with Foster care, you don’t just set sail toward the horizon and hope that an island will eventually appear. You might remember that we asked our buyers to give us two weeks to find a suitable house, and they reluctantly gave us five days. You might even recall that when their offer on our previous house was about to die on Saturday morning, we had looked at houses all week and found nothing. We even looked at the one we eventually bought and ruled it out, because it was a little more expensive than we wanted, and every room had a very modern vibe to it, which I could admire, but didn’t want to live in. You’ll remember that we looked at that modern house again on Friday night, trying to see it through a new set of lenses, since we were down to the wire. And that we put in a low offer, it was accepted, and we had entered into a purchase agreement just in time.

As we packed up our old house and prepared to move on May 31st, I often thought about the things in this new house that I love, and eagerly anticipated each one. The lack of stairs, especially for Michael. The view of Lake Superior. The finished basement. The huge master bedroom that I knew would be a refuge for us.

But each time I thought about our new home’s master bathroom, I had to stifle a laugh. Because it is so modern and spa-like and “over the top,” I wondered how I would ever feel comfortable in it. I am a simple woman who comes from hardy Midwestern stock (Missouri and Kansas), even though I grew up in Southern California. Refined and elegant I am not.

When we moved in and I first used this room which is attached to our master bedroom, I felt like a poser. A fraud.

Yes, I am a Bathroom Fraud.

No claw foot tub here. The tub is an infinity tub (have you heard of infinity swimming pools?), so you can fill it all the way up to the edge if you want a deep, soaking bath with only your eyes sticking out like an alligator in a swamp. If the water sloshes over the edge a little, no prob. Click on the photos to enlarge them if you like, and you can see the little trough around the tub which catches any overflow and prevents it from spilling on the very modern black slate floor.

No pedestal sink here. These are stainless steel vessel sinks, set on a thick glass counter that is softly lit at night so when we stumble to the bathroom in the “wee” morning hours, we can find our way.

The ultra modern, strange looking toilet is in a separate small room; you can just see the door at the right beyond the tub. The toilet has two buttons. One is to save water and gives a half flush. The other is a full flush. I should probably have never mentioned the differences to my grands, because now when they come over, the little ones come running and say, “Grandma, which button do I press if I go pee?” and so on. They just can’t remember which is which.  🙂

I like old-fashioned looking faucets. Our new faucets stick right out of the huge mirrored wall behind the vessel sinks. Can you see them?

At the far end of the room is a black towel, hanging over a towel warmer. I told Michael in a dismissive snort, “I will never use that towel warmer.” He promptly replied, “I will.”

Just above the black towel on the towel warmer is an opaque sheet of glass. Just beyond that is the biggest shower I have ever been in. I feel like I’m back at Traweek Junior High School on the first day of P.E. (in SoCal we called it Physical Education, here in the Midwest they call it Gym Class).

There are tiny turquoise, aqua, light grey and white tiles everywhere in the bathroom, including the walls and the ceiling of the shower.

Guess what Michael’s favorite feature of the bathroom is?

The shower head as big as a pizza pan, that makes you feel like you’re standing under a tropical waterfall when you’re taking a shower.

Guess what my favorite part of the bathroom is?

The multi-colored lights that you can turn on when you’re taking a nice, soaking bath!

Uh, no. I’m kidding. These lights change slowly from pink to purple to green to blue to yellow. So if you take a bubble bath, then just below the frothy surface you can see a mild psychedelic light show going on.

If you take a bath without bubbles and turn on the multi-colored lights, then you can enjoy the singular experience of seeing your cellulite in bright and cheery colors as you’ve never imagined it before. Neon, multi-colored cellulite. Who says my life is small?

Now, guess how this super deep tub with a zillion air jets is filled? If you look back at the pictures you can see there is no noticeable spigot (although there is a hand-held sprayer at the right of the tub for washing your hair.)

Imagine our slack jaws when we first turned the handle on the wall and this happened:

A stream of water the diameter of a garden hose flows from the ceiling. Without splashing all over the place. What I will say about this is that the grandkids love it. “Can we take a tubby?” is one of the first things they say when they come to visit now.

Do you see the electrical outlet and the cable hookup above the towels in the photo above? The previous owner had a flat screen television mounted there. I don’t think I’ll be following suit. That would make me even more of a Bathroom Fraud than I already am.

I have an aqua colored shirt that I wear when I go into our new aqua colored bathroom. Who could have known how fortuitously foresighted my catalog purchase was years ago?

At one end of the bathroom is the shower. On the opposite end is our closet.

Neither Michael or I are what you would call fashion conscious. I used to be someone who liked clothes a lot, but now I try not to pay attention to them too much. It’s my way of being an ostrich about my surplus poundage. If I don’t try on and buy a lot of clothes, don’t have to look at myself in a mirror that much, then I don’t need to address the issue, right? Isn’t that how it’s done? I do have some clothes, but just getting on the subject makes me start to break out in hives just a bit, so I’ll just move on to the next photos.

When we toured this house the first time and saw this closet, I laughed. “Well, I guess our eight shirts would fit in here!” I said with a touch of sarcasm. Then we bought the house and even though we’re not clothes people, I could see that we had more than eight shirts. This is Michael’s side of the closet below, but those are my shoes. We use the upper shelves (which go all the way to the ceiling) for extra blankets and doodads.

And this is part of my side of the closet, and I used the upper shelf for things I used to store in bookcases.

Michael is always telling me he needs a new jacket, a new spring windbreaker, a new hoodie, a new down-filled winter coat. Now I have photographic documentation in the photo below that proves he is set quite nicely for coats and jackets for the next century or so.

We no longer have a guest bedroom, so I used some of the shelves to store the guest linens until we figure out if we’re ever going to transform our huge attic into a guest suite.

This closet is the size of a small room. We have an inflatable queen-sized mattress we use for guests, and when the grandchildren come over, they think it’s the biggest treat ever to sleep on that mattress in Grandpa and Grandma’s closet!

Even though just being in our master bathroom still seems to me like we’re visiting someplace, I’m starting to be less startled by it. The tub I thought was a little too over the top, has now become the nicest tub I’ve ever bathed in, and it feels like a gift.

Thank you for stopping by today and taking this little tour with me.

You know how when you have something you want to share, you say things like, “Hey Christy, come on over and sit with me on our deck and have some fresh lemonade.” or “Carey, would you like to come over to sit by the fire and have some tea and scones”?

Now I’ve taken to saying to friends and family, “Why don’t you come over sometime soon and take a bath?”

(Another from the archives….I wrote this poem in 2000)

In Southern California in a home near the beach
Lived a broken young woman, her dreams out of reach
Her fair little daughters, ages two years and four
Would ask her, “Will Daddy be home anymore?”

He wouldn’t, she knew, and their lives were all changed
And she chafed and she wept for those things rearranged
By her God, who had seemingly, mercilessly scattered
The scraps of their life as a family, now tattered.

Off to work this mom went and the Lord did provide
And the pain, it diminished, and the three of them tried
To live every day with a smile and a song
And God helped them and met them as they walked along

Then one day a letter she found in her mail
From a man in Duluth, Minnesota, and his tale
Was the same as hers was — an unwanted divorce
At 30 he’d met Jesus, who put him on course

They wrote and they spoke on the telephone each day
They sent photos, they shared, and they’d quietly pray
In less than a month he had asked her to marry
But they hadn’t met, and the woman was wary

She loved him and felt that his love was a gift
But her 23-year old feet had not touched a snowdrift
From warm, sunny California to frigid Minnesota?
In terms of life’s stresses, had she exceeded her quota?

They met only once before tying the knot
Each one felt so certain of the treasure they’d bought
The woman quit her job, left her kin and her friends
And knew for the first time, that yes, a heart mends

So the Lord gave a sign and they made the big leap
With her family all present they promised to keep
The vows that they said — they were so joyful hearted!
Three months after that letter, for Duluth they departed

Fairy tales say “they lived happily ever after”
And their home for awhile was filled with bright laughter
The blizzards, they came, and the cold, it amazed her
By spring her blood thickened; the weather hadn’t phased her

In less than a year a new daughter was born
But the cloth of their marital bliss was now torn
For the man and the woman, despite their great love
Had some lessons to learn from the Teacher above

He wanted to mold them, to hone them, to polish
If they were to be Christlike, He’d have to demolish
Their stubbornness, selfishness, anger and greed
God’s plan for the couple was that His Word they’d heed

With tenderness, Jesus, their Savior, gave care
He led them through valleys and deserts so bare
He took them to mountaintops, gave them refreshing
He held both their hands when their wheat needed threshing

There were years of home schooling, and daughters’ emotions
Their ups and their downs and their tears that made oceans
There were days when the woman was sure that her life
Would never be free from confusion and strife

But the Lord was so generous, constant and kind
He always brought healing and true peace of mind
The couple had humor and friendship and they
Learned slowly that adversity helped them obey

Soon many years passed and their daughters had grown
Those beautiful girls were striking out on their own
The man and the woman, they looked on, astounded
And saw much answered prayer from those Gates they had pounded

From that first special letter to their love story today
There is one scarlet thread that has woven its way
Through the deaths and the triumphs they have known through the years
In the heartbreak and doubt, in the troubles and fears

This thread has been present when money was lacking
When the woman, offended, in her mind began packing
It ran through the days when no good thing was missing
The thread wound its way through the hugs and the kissing

The years that have passed almost number nineteen
And the woman has aged and isn’t nearly as lean
And the man who had brown hair is now fully gray
But they have not, they do not, they never will stray

From each other’s embraces, from the shield of the Lord
From His mercy and grace, from the blood He has poured
From the chastening He brings, from the pruning He gives
From the song in their hearts that cries out “Jesus lives!”

When she reached her forties the woman surveyed
That the scraps of their lives had been carefully laid
While faded and tattered and worthless to some
They’d been magnificently stitched by the One who had come

To show them the Way and the Life and the Truth
That He’s right in their midst there in arctic Duluth
The man and the woman know their story of love
Is the handiwork of their dear, faithful Father above.

This couple still lives, and they yet are quite flawed
But as long as their hearts beat they’ll be molded by God
His plyings, severe, and yet merciful, truly
Tell the story of Michael and his sweetheart Julie

From the archives:

I’ll bet you’ve never read that for a blog post title before.

Are you thankful you can pee? Because I am, and I’ll tell you why.

Years ago I had to have sudden and unexpected bladder surgery. (Here’s your chance to click over to another blog right now since you have an idea about where this is going.) One week I was on a cruise with my husband in the Western Caribbean, and the next week I was being scheduled for surgery, and feeling stunned.

When the surgeon told me that part of my recovery called for a supra-pubic catheter and explained what that meant, my courage almost failed me. For those of you who are rusty with your Latin, supra means above, and pubic means, well, you don’t have to speak Latin to know what that means. I wasn’t going to have a normal catheter, no. I was going to have a tube surgically inserted through my abdominal wall above the pubic bone, straight into the bladder. Just the thought of it again makes me sort of shudder.

Anyway, when someone punches a hole in your lower abdomen and pokes a stoppered rubber tube the diameter of your little finger through it, puncturing your bladder and securing the tube to the inside of your heretofore faithfully functioning bladder by inflating a tiny balloon there, it’s an event. Take my word for it.

After I dried my tears and went home from the hospital, I had to learn how to pee through the tube. I couldn’t pee the normal way. In a day or two I got the “hang” of it (here’s your second chance to click over to another blog if this is getting to be too much for you) and finally felt I could bear it while my bladder healed. I had never before been able to walk into a bathroom and pee in a sink, but now I could. And did. Do you think I’m going to tell you whose sink I peed in? No, I’m not. You’ll never get it out of me, because then I might have one less friend than I do now. I did clean the sink however, if you were wondering.

After about a week of being able to pee (do the British say “wee”?) like the other sex, I was scheduled to have my supra-pubic catheter removed. I was more than ready, because the puncture wound was painful and I wanted to get back to normal again. The deflation of the balloon inside my bladder took less than a minute, and when the whole contraption was no longer one with my body, I let a few tears of relief run down my cheeks. And I thanked God I had made it through.

But the hard times weren’t quite over. The surgeon warned me that my bladder had most likely become lazy while healing, and that it would take a while for it to relearn how to do its thing the old way. Oh brother, that’s all I need is a lazy bladder, I thought. But I had no idea how true this would be, and how painful.

The first time I had to pee, I did what most females do, and sat down on the toilet. But my bladder had forgotten its function and I couldn’t go. Oh, how it hurt. And I returned to our room and cried a little, and asked Michael to pray for me while I sat on the edge of our bed and got up the courage to try again. You know you’re blessed when your husband closes his eyes, rests his strong hands on your shoulders, and asks out loud for God to help his wife pee, with as much sincerity, faith and fervency as he prays for someone who is dying or who needs to turn their life over to Jesus.

It took several attempts, and it was the most unbearable kind of pain at times. Like nothing I ever want to experience again, and I’ve given birth to three good-sized babies without pain medication. When I finally emptied my bladder for the first time after having that dreaded SP catheter removed, I cried in relief and praised the Lord. Out loud. While I was peeing. “Thank you Jesus! Thank you for helping me! Praise you Lord….” and so on. And Michael could hear me peeing and praising and he stood outside the door and did the same. (The praising part, not the peeing part. I would have had a fit if he had stood outside the bathroom door peeing on the floor and praising God, and then the holy moment would have been ruined.)

Right then, sitting on the toilet, I made a promise to God. I promised Him I would never, ever take the simple act of emptying my bladder for granted again. And while I don’t remember to praise the Lord every time I pee, I do thank Him wholeheartedly now and again while I’m sitting there. I will never forget how something I rarely thought of and took completely for granted went haywire, and taught me about how blessed I am in so many ways.

My eyes can blink today. Can yours?  We can thank Him for that, no matter what else is going on in our lives. My voice works — I am able to tell someone I love them. Can you? What a gift! My fingers can move — I can type this blog post to tell you I think you should give thanks to God the next time you pee.

I would never try to boss you around (although I’ve been accused of being bossy more than once in my life), but today I just want to be bold, and tell you that if you haven’t thanked God for the privilege of peeing without help, peeing without pain, I think you should do that right now. 🙂

Peeing and praising. It’s a good place to start.

This isn’t the first time I’ve reposted this, but for some reason this memory comes back to me frequently.

Growing up in Southern California always provided me with many opportunities to swim. Many of our neighbors had built-in swimming pools in their back yards, and of course we had hundreds of miles of Pacific coastline to choose from as well. Surrounded by so much water, my parents made sure I had swimming lessons at an early age. By the time I received my certificate of completion when I was five, I was hooked. Pretty much all I cared about for the next ten years was swimming. And books. Books and water competed for my affections, but water usually won out and it animated my young life. Until we moved to a house with a pool during my sixteenth year, I spent a lot of my childhood fervently hoping my friends with pools would take pity and invite me over to swim.

I also loved the beach. Sometimes my parents would take a drive to Huntington Beach and I could hardly wait to get my feet in the water. It didn’t matter if it was a 90 degree summer day or a 50 degree winter evening. As long as I can remember, I have been irresistibly drawn to water. I learned to body surf and enjoyed catching and riding the waves in to shore, but for some reason what I always wanted to do most was swim as far out into the ocean as I could.

My father would sit on the sand and watch me swim. I used to tell him, “Daddy, wave your hand up high when you think I’m out a mile!” I would swim way out past the breakers, and then stop to tread water and turn to see if Dad had his arm up. He never did, that first turn.

I would swim farther out, sometimes brushing my feet and legs against the rubbery, floating kelp beds as I kicked, and I always got the creeps thinking that those thick, slippery vines and leaves were trying to grab on to me and pull me down. Then I would turn and look toward the beach again and see that the form of my father had gotten a bit smaller, but he usually didn’t have his arm up the second time either.

So I’d put my face back in the cold water and swim so far out that the people on the beach looked like colorful dots. I could distinguish my father from others only because he was a large man and usually wore a white short-sleeved sport shirt and was sitting close to the water.

Many times I would stop to float so I could rest and catch my breath; swimming was hard work. Before I started out again, I would deeply breathe in and out, in and out, then fill my lungs with as much air as they could hold, and dive down, down, down as far as I could, trying to touch the bottom. I tried not to open my eyes as I always did in chlorine pools, because the salt water burned so intensely. When I swam out so far that I couldn’t touch the ocean bottom when I dove, I always knew I was pretty far out. I would tread water again and look back to the shore to find my father’s white shirt, and could just barely see his upraised arm waving back and forth at me. Then I would start swimming back to him.

Never once did the thought of an ominous dorsal fin gliding silently across the surface of the water enter our minds. This was before the movie Jaws came out and before the days when shark attacks became so commonly reported. You might ask, “What on earth was her father thinking, letting his little girl swim out so far into the ocean?”

And here’s my answer: I don’t know.

There is no way I would have allowed one of my children to do what I did. Had they tried, I would have been the first mom running into the water with her clothes on, yelling, “Get back here! Don’t go so far out!” In those days fear didn’t seem to reign as it does now. Maybe there were just as many shark attacks and kidnappings imperiling our children, but we didn’t hear about them as much as we do today. Perhaps he wasn’t cautious enough, but my father was not afraid that I was going so far out of his reach that he couldn’t save me. And I certainly wasn’t afraid. I have never had an iota of fear when it comes to water.

I realize now that my father didn’t really let me swim an entire mile out to sea before he gave me the come-back signal. But at ten years old I didn’t know that. I don’t know why I wanted to swim out into the deep water. I just did.

Something has always drawn me to the deep things in life. I like movies and books that have hidden messages beneath the scenes or the words on the surface. I like deep conversation. I like in-depth Bible study. I like to try to figure out the meaning of things. I like deeper, darker colors. I like mystery.

But for all that, I sometimes feel like I’m stuck in the shallows. Because to go deep with the Lord requires surrender. To fully experience the depths of His unfathomable riches, I know I have to give up control. I kinda sorta want to do that, at least that’s what my head tells me. Why would I hold anything back from my Heavenly Father who has proven Himself faithful to me again and again? I don’t have an answer to that. But I find myself still dallying around sometimes, sitting at the water’s edge and putting my feet in, splashing the water on my face, but not throwing caution to the wind and diving into the deep, where it’s way over my head. And I’m not sure why. I hate to admit it, but I think fear has something to do with it.

I’ve memorized these verses (with a friend) and as I meditate on them, I’m asking God to reveal more to me.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Ephesians 3:17-19

I wonder how we can possibly have the power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Jesus is for us?  Yet these verses say that with God’s enabling, it is possible.

Maybe I need to go back to my old childhood ways. I remember how exhilarating it was to run into the pounding Pacific surf and swim out past the huge waves to deep water. I think God is calling me deeper with Him, and I might be afraid to go.

There’s a passage from one of my favorite C.S. Lewis books, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, that I draw comfort and courage from. The Pevensie children are in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, and they’re hearing about Aslan the Lion, King of Narnia, for the first time.

“Is he a man?” asked Lucy.

“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the Great Lion.”

“Ooh!” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

“I’m longing to see him,” said Peter, “even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point.”

I think I can long to see something or Someone, yet still feel a bit frightened at the prospect. I’d like to swim out to the deep water of the ocean again. And each time I stand on the shore of Lake Superior and look wistfully to its horizon, I think the same thing – not “oh how beautiful, look how huge” like others might think at the same view, but I want to jump in and swim out far. It’s too cold and dangerous for that, but the longing is still there.

I sense the beckoning of the Lord to go deeper with Him too. I don’t know why, but I hang back on the shore. Maybe because all my old ways and selfishness won’t be safe if I do jump in over my head. Maybe I want the safe rather than the exhilarating these days. I honestly don’t know.

But I can still hear that call, and with His help I will jump in and swim out past the breakers.  Out to the deep.  Hopefully soon, because I live in a very dry and thirsty land.

I wrote this about Michael years ago, but it still brings me such happiness to think of him. He went to be with the Lord on February 9, 2015, and I will miss him forever…or at least until I see him again.

Our next wedding anniversary will be our thirtieth, and we’re looking forward to celebrating with a trip to the UK later this year. Today I want to share a few things I love about my husband in honor of our most recent anniversary.

I love:

1.  his one-of-a-kind smile

2.  the way he compliments my cooking (last night as he was eating my homemade spaghetti sauce he said, “Wonderful! Awesome! You could sell this on a corner somewhere!”)

3.  his patience

4.  his ability to say he’s sorry

5.  the way he’s not afraid to cry

6.  when he once forgot I was taking a friend to the airport for an early morning flight and searched the whole house for me, including under all the beds

7.  the way he has such a soft spot in his heart for dogs, and croons to our schnauzers as they gaze at him adoringly

8.  his faithfulness to me for 29 years

9.  his muscular V-shaped back

10.  his quirkiness

11.  the way he endures his Parkinson’s with grace and humility

12.  his desire to give to others

13.  the way he willingly scratches the ridges in my ankles left by my SmartWool socks

14.  the way he will dance a jerky little jig if anyone asks him to

15.  how much loved he is by his friends

16.  his big, kind eyes

17.  his flexibility in scheduling

18.  the way he rubs my right hand when we’re traveling to the Cities and I’m driving with my left

19.  his expertise and hard work that made our house of 24 years a cherished haven

20.  his love for adventure and travel

21.  the way he kneels with me to pray for our children, and puts his arm around my shoulders

22.  his rock-solid faith in Jesus

23.  how he tells me he thinks my rear end is getting smaller when it’s not

24.  how he makes me feel young and pretty even when I see old and frumpy in the mirror

25.  how he would never, ever leave

26.  his call to me to come and read the Bible with him in the morning

27.  how he thinks our daughters are the finest young women to ever walk the earth

28.  the way he kisses my cheek when we’re standing in line at the grocery store

29.  his unwavering certainty that God is at work and will bring good from any difficult circumstances our loved ones are experiencing, and the way he keeps reminding me of it…

He is God’s gift to me.