a pause, perhaps

i can't write this. i won't write this. i don't want to write this.

the fabulous story that began with a tornado...and progressed through college...and lasted through a plane crash...and a couple of relocations...that we thought had brought us to the beginning of a family...

...has hit quite a bump.

the story is not over. nope. not at all.

but it has a chapter that jon and i most certainly didn't see coming.

dennis left us. the child that we were called to adopt and bring to america -- the child that we helped to attain american citizenship -- decided he didn't want to be part of this story any longer.

i'll skip over the details...the ones that most assuredly would have been featured on some reality show or made-for-tv movie. but here are the facts: dennis left us on a sunday. when he should have been serving others. and took a car but left a note that said that he appreciated the experiences we gave him, but that he longed for more challenges and the next chapter in his story. that he never could see us as family. that we had more love to give than he could receive. and he left.

as most parents would, we panicked. and i am proud that we panicked. that real, raw parenting kicked in and we called the cops. and we talked through the options. should we report the car stolen to find him? maybe. should we stake out the spots where we thought he might be? no. should we breathe deeply and pray? absolutely.

and as the day grew long, we realized that we would not get him back...at least for now. jon hopped in his car and came up to nashville so that we could think as a team.

and it has been almost a week and my heart hurts as badly and possibly worse than it did to begin with.

dennis has decided that he doesn't want to be part of this daily story. and that's OK. it has to be OK. there's nothing for me to do but wait on the Lord and his impeccable timing and pray that in the meantime i might glorify Him.

i would ask that you pray for dennis -- that he comes back to our family. we pray that he understands how much we love him and want the best for him.

i would ask that you pray for us -- that we never lose sight of the call to be joyful in every circumstance and to be anxious about nothing.

i would ask that you pray for all the troubled children of the world -- that they find the answers that they need.

feeling a little food-y.

so two months of being alone can take a toll on a woman. the first 7 weeks, i ate things that are almost too horrible to mention. think: a slice of bread, two string cheese sticks and a handful of baby spinach. it's just tough to cook when you are missing your chief eaters.

but a couple of weeks ago, i got my favorite thing in the mail (except checks made out to me), my real simple magazine. love. it had four weeks of menus as one of its cover stories, which tickled me pink. i am a weekly menu-maker and piecing menus from a hundred magazines, cookbooks, web pages and blogs can take a couple of hours.

so i decided to taste-test a couple of recipes to see if my beloved men (and momma) would eat them.

there's one of my first recipes: lemon tilapia with roasted potatoes (or something like that). delish. i think my fish-fearing husband would even love it.

then i made a pasta with eggplant, fresh mozz, and tomatoes. the beginning looked like this:

...and it tasted so good that i forgot to take an after photo.

but tonight takes the cake. i got the new food network magazine last week. and tonight i made ravioli with butter - sage - walnut sauce.

it started like this:

and ended like this:

luxurious was the word that came to mind. healthy i would not consider it except that it was vegetarian. but it was so luscious. i looked up at one point from devouring it and wanted someone to share my thoughts with. only it was just me and max. and i don't feed him from the table.

i really wanted to share this meal with jon and dennis. i know they would have exclaimed over it and had seconds and then they would have gotten up and done the dishes. that would be bliss.

but i'm going to make the most of my time alone. and if i cook every recipe in every medium i own, then so be it. i'd just better be ready to buy some new clothes.

what's up with the merrymans?

i ran into a rolling hills buddy on saturday afternoon. it occurred to me that the only way we've documented what's going on right now is through facebook status updates.

it also occurred to me that what we're going through now is every bit as serious as dennis's adoption and that i need to enlist the help of my friends to pray us through it!

shortly after my dad passed, jon and i began to work toward moving back to arkadelphia. we prayerfully began considering our career paths, putting our house on the market and how to tell dennis. (i'll tell you about dennis in a post very soon).

we love nashville. nashville was an excellent place to begin our marriage and start our family. we love the culture here and the people here. i LOVE my job. no...really. jon LOVES his job. reconciling this with the pull toward "home" was one of the most difficult decisions i think i will make.

the first step was to petition sweet sleep to allow jon to work remotely from arkansas. miraculously (and i do NOT use the word lightly), sweet sleep agreed that it was profitable for both jon and sweet sleep for him to move south. the opportunities for expanding their ministry increase exponentially with having a staff member in a different area. we took this as God's indication that we were moving in the right direction.

next step: tell my job that i need to move. again, one of the hardest things i've ever had to do. i truly find purpose in my job and i might not be stellar at it, but i maintain pretty well. i've been stretched and grown this summer in the aftermath of the flood and the re-building of the hotel. however...my thought was...i'll stick around until we find a replacement and the house sells and then off i'll be...4 weeks, tops.

which leads us to where we are now. step #3: sell the house. in the worst market in 26 years. we've lowered the price, gotten featured on the today show...in this case, the only thing we're short on is time and that's the one thing that will make the difference.

so, on August 16, dennis and jon made the trek to arkansas so that dennis could start school. this is where faith comes in. we know we're supposed to be closer to my family (and jon's, too). we know that we are being called like CRAZY to a simpler life. we know that everything in our heads and in our heart are pointing to this move.

but right now we're in limbo. i'm still working for opryland (praise the LORD). our house is still on the market (85 days and counting). i'm learning to live alone, having really never lived alone in my life. i'm learning to wake up each morning and to place my faith and hope in the only One who can make this all end well.

please join us in praying that our beautiful home sells soon. i'm ready to live with my husband and son again. but...we will glorify HIM no matter the circumstances...who is able to bless us more richly than we can even ask.

New Sweet Sleep Video! Pass it on!

remembering my dad

i realize i have not achieved frequency on this blog. life just happens. and i get kind of scared of writing what's happening to us because writing makes things quite real to me.

on june 8, just a little while after i posted the last entry, my daddy passed. he left the pain of cancer, but more than that, he left a legacy.

jim watts lived his life well. when i was very young -- about four, i think -- we had to do a project in pre-school. it was a book about our family. we had to describe our life. each item or person in our life got a page. on my daddy's page i said, "my dad makes money," and i think i drew a picture of a coin. i truly believed that that's what he did for a living. in reality at that point he made ball bearings. but in the twenty-plus years that have passed since i wrote that entry, i've learned that my daddy never worked to make money. he worked to provide for his family, yes. but my dad used his occupation (whatever it was at the time) to touch people's hearts.

my dad prayed with people. he prayed for people. he did good for people. he sacrificed so that total strangers might know the love of Christ. and that is truly, truly humbling.

my dad's visitation and memorial service taught me so much about who he was. there wasn't a single person that didn't tell jessica and me how proud he was of us. how he talked about us daily. how much he loved my mama. how great of a cook he was. how much of a giver he was.

music and cooking were "our" things. we shared a love of great tunes and recipes. it's been tough for me to cook since he died because who am i going to call to brag on myself? in some weird way, i cooked to make him proud. and, Lord help me when elton comes on the radio. he taught me to love all kinds of music and that good music makes the good times even better.

i pray that i grow more like my dad now that i'm aware of what makes a life well-lived.

it's been a journey learning to be a family of all girls. we are thankful for the men in our lives. scott and jon have been amazing rocks for all of us and we are so proud of dennis. and we have been lovin' like crazy on our newest family member, baby dean.

here's to new beginnings and cherishing the memories of those who've gone before us. i love you, dad.

it's never too late

i will not apologize. life for the merrymans has been a little less storybook and a lot more soap opera in 2010.

i realized that i miss the release i feel when blogging. also: for those of us that grew up wanting to be writers...it's the closest we might come. if i don't blog, i'm giving away that one shot i have for now. so...

rollercoaster. that's the only way to describe it.

i need you to pray for my daddy. about 4 months ago, my dad looked as healthy as a horse. seriously. he lamented about the fact that people didn't "know" he had cancer and when they saw him on the street, they would say, "jim, you look so good! i thought you had cancer!" and he would say, "yeah, but i don't feel good at all!"

well...his "wish" came true. because of all the chemo and treatment, he looks sick. i'm pretty sure he'd agree with me. he's jaundiced and bloated and sick.

i believe my dad will be healed. but i've learned that it is harder for people to feel better when you look crummy. for this reason alone i pile on concealer :) please pray that my daddy's cancer will LEAVE his body. please pray that his jaundice will LEAVE. please pray that his bloating will LEAVE. and then...take care of your own body.

in other news: my place of business was flooded by the horrific May 2 flooding in Nashville. i have learned to use all that crazy teaching in crisis communications from OBU. who EVER would have thought that i would be fixing the hotline at 3 in the morning?? that's the kind of stuff you hope will never happen! i still have a job (thank the Lord!), and we are wading (pardon the pun) through the aftermath. i now office out of a double-wide trailer and my days are spent waiting and hoping for the day when the hotel will open.

jon is doing really well. he is on foreign soil...some of his favorite foreign soil of all time. he is in moldova caring for orphans. oh, that we could all be so fortunate.

dennis is doing even better. he (again) logged straight a's. he netted an internship with NPR that he promptly turned down (another post for another day). he is working away at blue coast burrito and is quite the skilled fish taco maker. his mother (that would be me) hopes that he becomes a chef.

who knows what the future holds? well...God. that's who. because we're pretty sure we have NO idea. and we're excited about whatever that entails.

catching up

i'm embarrassed that it's been awhile since the last post. we've been quite busy at the merryman house. january - march is jon's "busy" time in his new job (hence the lack of posts on the food blog) and my job picked up significantly after the new year. which is good, but leaves little time for reading and writing.

it's taken me over two months and i'm not finished with my current read, john irving's last night in twisted river. he's my favorite author, but for some reason this one's a bit cantankerous. if you think you've never heard of him, you probably have...he's the brains behind "simon burch" and "cider house rules." i've never taken two months to read anything ever. pretty sure that's not a record i'd like to continue to beat.

i'm behind on all my magazines, too...i've committed a cardinal emily sin and started ripping out recipes before i've had a chance to read the whole thing. there's just not enough time.

parenthood...oh, parenthood. i feel like all i've been doing lately is complaining. pretty sure the honeymoon's over -- while we thought we had the world's most mature teenager, turns out he just hit the moody phase pretty recently. nothing...absolutely NOTHING is his fault and he pretty much hates being in the same room with us.

scene 1:
me: "did you notice the black paint on the carpet and not clean it up?"
him: "yes. i just didn't tell you about it because it's not paint."
me: "even though it's right beside your paint table?"
him: "this isn't paint."
me: "mmmhhm. so, why didn't you tell me about it?"
him: "i didn't think you'd care."
me: "what happened the last time you got paint on the carpet?"
him: "you freaked out."
me: "right, so shouldn't you tell me about paint on the carpet?"
him: "i guess. if you want."

scene 2:
me (calling his celly at 5:30 p.m.): "hey, dennis...i hope you're at home because there wasn't anything on the calendar and if you're not at home that means max hasn't been out in 10 hours. call me when you get this."
him (calling 10 min later): "um, emily, i told you the other night that i had play practice probably every night."
me: "but did you put it on the calendar like we asked?"
him: "no, but i told you i would probably have it."
me: "but you DIDN'T PUT IT ON THE CALENDAR?"
him: "no."

poor max. he almost didn't make it out the door when i got home.

on the cancer front: mom is almost, almost done. she goes for one last scan next month and if she gets the all clear, they will take her port out. my dad is on round 2 of 3 on the latest treatment. his doctor says he's ahead of schedule and is reponding well to the treatment.

i think the world knows by now, but my little sister has a bun in the oven. it's been so fun checking in with her on all her cravings. she has (thankfully) not been sick so far, and her only complaint is that her clothes don't fit. i keep reminding her that at least she has an excuse. some of us can't wear our clothes and don't have a growing being in our belly.

i feel better having purged. have a great, snowy weekend.

happy new year...for real.

what an amazing day. i'm pretty sure that my husband would disagree, but today was my perfect day.

10 a.m. wake up.

10:01 feed max

10:05 get a wild hair and tell hubs that we're eating paninis for breakfast

10:30 read martha stewart living AND watch the Today show...all while drinking coffee

11:00 prep sandwiches; tell hubs to grill bacon (so smell doesn't permeate the house)

Noon Eat yummy nutella-bacon-peanut butter paninis

12:14 a.m. start the TAKE DOWN OF CHRISTMAS

12:31 stub toe

12:35 stub another toe

12:39 stub another toe

4:00 put last shiny silver ornament in its holder

5:05 get in the shower (after vacuuming, mopping and putting last shiny silver ornament in holder

6:00 start dinner

6:05 put for sure last shiny silver ornament in holder

10:33 blog about it all

10:35 find one more *&%^$ last shiny silver ornament.

it really was an amazing holiday season. i feel like i'm getting the hang of working...endless parties...buying gifts...keeping a clean house. what if all this time....that THIRTY ONE was what i was aiming for?? i think i'm well on my way.

fo' real...happy new year. may 2009 be WAY better than 2010.