three little pigs

dear emily,

when our five kiddos were growing up, we had lots of fun taking them
exciting places.   staying within our four walls led to restlessness, which
led to broken windows.   it was a nice change of scenery to just get out.

managing five young children outside those four walls, created its own
conundrum.    how to keep them safe and other people safe from them!
sometimes, hans would take the boys, and i would take the girls.

one time he said, "you take the two big kids, and i will take the three
little kids."

the middle kid, max, was perplexed.   "dad, did you just call us the
three little pigs?"

so now we do.

love,
lea

"the demons begged Jesus, 'if You drive us out, send us into the herd
of pigs."   matthew 8:31

do you ever feel like a prune?

dear emily,

my friends and i were bemoaning the recent pruning in our lives.   will we
be pruned until we turn into prunes, wrinkly old ladies in our caskets?

i can live with that.

someone said, "you're pruned if you do and pruned if you don't," which
is better than the alternative (death.)   the vine that isn't pruned, stops
yielding sweet fruit, which is a form of death.

so i want my epitat to say:  "she was old and wrinkly but still a little fruity."

love,
lea

"if a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit."  john 15:5

going to the chapel . . .

dear emily,

my eldest son is getting married a week from saturday, and we are over-
joyed.   over as in "over the moon."  i chose his bride to be, and who gets
to do that anymore?   me.

she is like sunshine.   not the hot, blaring kind.   the warm and dappled
sunny kind.   he is like the rock of gibralter.   steady, dependable, and
kind.

they will be a powerful force "in the shadow of the Lord."  (psalm 91)

love,
lea

confusing signs

dear emily,

hailey was six or seven and practicing her reading skills on the billboards
as we drove by.  it was a tad bit annoying to her four older siblings.

"mom!   she's driving us crazy!  make her stop!"

but then we drove past a 'gentlemen's club', and it was hailey's turn to be
outraged.

"uh!!!  thanks a lot, don't let us girls in!"  :)

love,
lea

"meaningless!  meaningless!"  says the teacher.  "utterly meaningless!
everything is meaningless."   ecclesiastes 1:2

i was watching an episode of . . . (not telling.)  the young people were in
trouble with their landlord for hiding the fourth roomie, and  it reminded
me of an episode from my own life.

my husband and i had been married for a few years when our firstborn was
. . . born.   a few months after that, the husband enrolled in harvard's
program for management development, the PMD.  not to be confused with
the MD.

it was an intense 12 week abbreviated business program that did not allow
spouses.   period.   we didn't think he could afford to attend the usual two
year business  school, and we were confident we could do anything for 12
weasley weeks.

so, off he went to boston.    and here baby isaac and i stayed . . . until we
were all too miserable to be apart from each other.

(enter fairy godmother)

mr. PMD saw a magical notice for the subleasing of a carriage house on a
gorgeous estate in concord (not too far from harvard.)   he rented it, settled
us in it, and it was lovely.   mr. PMD was able to sneak off campus every
friday night until sunday morning.   we had lots of fun.

(enter rumpelstiltskin)

one day a terrible/horrible man appeared at my door and asked, "WHO are
you?"

apparently our fairy godmother was subletting the carriage house without
the owner's permission.   lucky for poor me, i was able to persuade old mr.
rumpelstiltskin into letting us stay for one more month.   just long enough
for my smart mr. PMD to graduate.

at the graduation, a couple of his classmates patted me on the back, because
everyone knew mr. PMD was sneaking off campus every weekend.  they
never imagined it was to see his wife and baby.

what in the world were they thinking?

the end.

i mean, the beginning.

imelda, the excessive vs. mary, the extravagant

dear emily,

you probably are too young to have heard of dear imelda, and you are
certainly not in danger of her compulsion.    she collected shoes the way
my kids used to collect tadpoles.  her shoe excess was a vivid indictment
against her self indulgent life style.   she owned 2,700 pairs!

my kids just wanted to watch tadpoles turn into frogs.

when i first heard of her exorbitance, i made a promise to myself that i
would never accumulate 'stuff'.   this may seem like a small vow, but
there have been a few temptations.  can one really have too much
chocolate?

i devised the simplest formula to never hoard anything besides tadpoles:
if an item comes into my house, a similar item goes out.   easy, peasy.

here is an example:   i am perusing the shoe department at bergdorf's,
drooling over the louboutins*.   if i decide that i NEED a pair, then all
i have to do is give away a pair from my closet.   i usually imagine the
rattiest running shoes.

not all excesses are evil.   can we pour too much love or kindess on
each other?  will we ever be able to express our devotion and gratitude
to the Lord?  one of my heroes is mary, who "took about a pint of pure
nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped His
feet with her hair.   and the house was filled with the fragrance of the
perfume."  john 12:3

love,
lea

*as a colorful illustration only.   my conscience would never let me buy
these.

dear emily,

twelve years ago, our oldest (eldest?) son began playing on his high school
varsity basketball team.   we didn't realize how that team would shape his
life.   we didn't realize how that team would shape OUR life.

he practiced before school at 6:30 and after school until 6:30.    because he
was technically on the freshman, junior varsity, and varsity teams, there were
games upon games . . . upon games.

all those hours in the gym provided him with the personal lesson that hard
work pays.  that team became the winningest team in the school's history.
those boys and their coach became our son's best friends for life.   all but
one will be at his wedding this summer.

a side benefit was the dear friends i made sitting on the bleachers.   after
graduation, we began playing basketball bridge to ensure more long hours
sitting together.   sometimes we don't even talk about our sons.  :)

last week, one of the girls said that she was going to throw out all her old,
ugly cards.

life is too short to play with ugly cards.

love,
lea

"therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm . . . give yourselves fully to the work
of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."
1 corinthians 15:58