4 years!

Rory and I are celebrating four adventurous, nomadic, creative years of marriage today! I think the thing that has surprised me the most about these first years of our marriage is how fun it would be each other's cheerleaders in terms of work and career. Not that I thought this would be not fun. But these first years have been filled with so much dreaming and visioning and believing in each other. I remember this from dating, but it's so great when it's your very own husband saying, "then let's do it. I'm with you."

Actually, I think those seven words sum up our marriage the best so far. We said them when we decided to rent out Minneapolis house out so we could live in Montana while I wrote my thesis and he programmed Weather Defender. We said them when we moved back to Minnesota to try out my dream of camp directing, and said them again when we hopped in the jeep for a 6600 mile road trip last fall, and again when we moved to Nebraska. Those words fit lots of lesser decisions too...like going to a late night movie last Sunday, trying to squeeze out the last moments of weekend before Monday morning.

The picture below is one of my favorites from the big day. After the reception, my head filled with a horrible cold and we had to stop at a gas station for sudafed. I just remember giggling and laughing with Rory as we wandered the aisles in our wedding attire saying things like, "I kind of want some mike and ike's." We still say those eight words a lot too.

Rory's Grandpa...

I just got the best email from my mother in law. She wrote that she was asked to write a funny story about Papa (her dad, our grandpa) to be shared at Family Night at the Care Home where he lives. She wrote out the following and it is all true.

Dad used to like to "ride the rails" or "jump trains" when he was young. He was around 18 yrs. old and very poor at the time. It was just after the depression. If his father could send him $1.00 of spending money for a semester of school that was all he would get. He was attending Bible College, but there was no money for traveling back and forth from home. He solved that problem by traveling on trains for free. He was in college in Springfield, Mo., and home was Cleveland, Ohio.

One time when it was Christmas, the highlight of the year for a Swedish family. He jumped a train, climbed on top and lashed himself onto the boxcar with his belt so he wouldn't fall off when he fell asleep overnight. He arrived safely home, but another man on top of that same boxcar froze to death during the night.

Another time he jumped into a darkened boxcar where he couldn't see into the back corner of that car. After the train started a man came at him from the dark. He was prepared to fight. He had a sock with a bar of soap in the toe of it which he swung at the other man and protected himself.

A third time he jumped into an open doored boxcar at a station. The workers came through the lot and closed all of the train's doors. He found himself locked in a refrigerated car. He says someone working the lot must have seen him go into that car and before the train pulled out he opened the door just a bit otherwise Dad would have frozen to death!!

We KNOW that the Lord had His hand on this man and kept him safe (from himself) many times. I wish you could hear him tell these stories!!

CS Lewis

Volunteers are never Jerks.

I really like what I do and I am reminded of this fact in funny different ways. Yesterday I spent the day leading our Jay Novicki program where three times a month adults with special needs come to camp to enjoy a day of outdoor ministry. I had a faithful volunteer today who came just to help. She took the day off of work just so I had someone who could do the dishes and prepare the craft, and make all of the transitions from one activity to the next look smooth and organized.

This woman just blew my mind because she was so good at volunteering. She knew what needed to be done before I could even communicate what needed to be done next. At one point I was thinking through some extra time we had to fill before lunch and I looked over at her and it just kind of dawned on me that volunteers are never jerks. It just can't be. If a woman is taking one of her vacation days to come and help me run a program for 15 adults with special needs, there is just no way that woman can be a jerk! Of course volunteers get little credit, and I worked as a volunteer coordinator at a senior home for a few years and know that volunteerism on the whole is on a steep decline...But it shouldn't be, because volunteering sets a person apart from the jerks.

So to this sweet woman today, who I didn't even know before she arrived, I want to say thank you. And thank you to volunteers. Now I feel like I need to go and find a place to give my time. I hope you're inspired too.

Thrifty and Genius.

One of my classmates in my digital scrapbook class tipped me off to this brilliant site:

www.retailmenot.com

Basically, you search for whatever store or item you are looking for, and it will come up with a list of sales and promo codes that might apply to what you are looking for. For example, she had looked up Shutterfly and found a promo code for free shipping for orders over $30.

Now, usually I'm not a coupon shopper, because I tend to end up purchasing things that are good deals but never would have been on my list to begin with. But this changes everything! Here, I type in what I'm looking for or the online purchase I am about to make and it looks for the deal.

Cha. Ching.