why i'm not ready to be rachel ray:

i love to cook. it's one of the few things that i've aspired to that i've accomplished. i'm pretty good at "cooking by feel," meaning i can read a recipe and execute well, but i like to throw things together and have them come out tasting much better than any recipe. if ever i have a show on the food network, my mom and i have it all worked out...it will feature "cooking from your pantry" and i'll impart my knowledge to a world of eager viewers. seriously...my family's favorite meals are the ones where i clean out the fridge and concoct a really great meal.

so, how do i know i'm not ready? please look at the photo. that's an example of cooking from your pantry gone awry. my dad had told me about this cheese that you get at walmart that melts into a fantastic mexican dip. i picked up what i thought was the right cheese, but after sticking it with milk in the microwave for about four minutes, it refused to melt. it just got rubbery. so i decided to open a can of beans and a can of corn and throw the cheese in with it. only the rubbery white stuff crumbled instead of melting. my husband said, "wow. it looks like cottage cheese." thanks. in addition to being crumbly, i didn't drain either the beans or the corn or the milk from the dip attempt. so it turned into purple soup.

it didn't taste bad, but man, was it ugly. thankfully, my husband and son know better than to comment. they just ate it. however, i'm almost positive dennis didn't ask for seconds.

also...today would have been my mimi's 95th birthday. i can't ever remember anyone's birthday, but i always remember hers. she's a hero of mine...she loved the Lord, loved her family, and had a good dose of spunk. may it be said of me. 

returning to "normal..."

we're beginning to remember what normal looks like. it looks a little like Dennis studying and Max looking on. how cute are they? you'll notice "the shack" on the table next to them. i read it pretty quickly, and am considering a re-read. because it can't possibly be theologically true.  more on that in a later blog, i'm sure.

but we're re-learning that normal means that every phone call is NOT necessarily bad news. and that healing happens. 

what's not normal? well, i get to talk to my dad now...really talk to him. before this nasty illness came into our lives, my dad wasn't really a PHONE person. to be honest, he wasn't really a talking person. not deep, anyway. we're learning to talk deeply. i'm not going to get all morbid and say that we all wonder if it will be the last conversation. it's not that at all. we just appreciate life a little more. and we're beginning to learn to be a one-dog family. although i'm pretty sure we were never meant for that. but max is pretty thrilled to get walked every night. and my cardiovascular system is thankful for that :)

thank you for your prayers and conversations over the past few weeks. it's meant the world to us that you would journey alongside us as we return to normal.

learning to live day by day

about six months ago, a friend of ours asked if our blog was "true." if everything in our life was just as it sounded...perfect. and at the time, we thought, "gee, that's really funny." i mean, at the time, yes, we were in the midst of learning to be a family with a new 15-year-old child. but life was good...we laughed through trips to the grocery store and through learning to discipline. we had kooky things happen to us, but we muddled through.

this summer...we've learned to be a family that weathers storms. i should say, we're learning.

some of you know that last week, my dad got some pretty bad news. seems he's got cancer. a good round of it. liver and colon. and it came up so suddenly that we had to rally troops in about an hour. he's currently recovering at the hospital, from the removal of a softball-sized tumor. we have a long road ahead of us, but we are truly hopeful. i don't know that i've understood hope before yesterday. my dad is ready to fight, and we are ready to fight with him, and to God be all the glory regardless of the outcome.

i have to tell you that the last month of my life has been trying...i have cried more and prayed more and screamed more than ever before. i don't understand why, but i'm learning that it is not ours to understand. we just have to trust. things work together for good, even when we can't see it. sounds so cliche...but it's not.

last weekend, i got to spend unexpected time with my mom, dad, sister and brother-in-law, mostly because my sweet little maggie passed away. i needed comforting, and that seemed like the best plan. it was a fantastic weekend. we played together, ate together and fought together.

and then three days later, we get the not-so-great news that my dad's not going to be feeling that stellar for a little bit. had we waited to get together until labor day (the original plan), we might have missed out on the sweetness of all the week before. never, never think that things don't happen for a reason.

i am so thankful for the people and things that have been placed in my life...for a husband who's lived through all this before and can answer my questions. for doctors who have miraculously appeared. for surgery appointments that have just "become available." for tumors that are big, but are not so big that a body can't be fixed up. for glimmers of hope that turn into gigantic rays of healing. my life is one big miracle now, but not in the lottery sense of miracle. in the sense that i am blessed beyond measure to witness those miracles.

i know that soon, i will be able to live my life a little less "on the edge." the matters that present themself to me will not warrant immediate, drop down on your knees prayer and crying. but i pray that i will not fail to see miracles.