The Weekend in Review

You know how I've recently pledged to be the most intrusive neighbor on the block? Well. On Friday night around 9:00pm, I heard a lot of shouting across the street. There weren't any police cars parked outside, but I knew there had been dire trouble recently that resulted in a restraining order against the head of household. So when I saw him running down the block followed by a couple of their older kids, I knew the situation was breaking down over there. It was freezing outside, so I got in my car thinking maybe I could pick up some of the runners. I came upon their 10-year old first. He was panicked and calling out a name that sounded suspiciously similar to the name of their 4-year old...who, incidently, frequently leaves the house on his own - mostly to come over to our house, but his mom rarely knows when he has left. I immediately thought perhaps the 4-year old had escaped, but upon further inquiry I found that it was actually the 10-year old's dog that flown the coop.

It's an important dog. He was given to the 10-year old to help him through the implosion of his family. What we can learn from this is that there are some wounds that not even a pet can heal.

At that point, the 10-year old had no interest in getting into my warm car, so I drove on to see who else I could find. Around the corner, I came upon their 15-year old daughter. She was wearing a tee-shirt, capris, and no shoes in the near freezing weather and had been outside for 20 minutes. My warm car was vastly more appealing to her. She got in and told me they were having some problems at home. Really? I didn't know.

The two of us drove around the neighborhood for a while and then headed back to where the 10-year old, now sobbing, had been joined in the hunt by one of his older brother's basketball buddies. Now I had three kids in my warm car. The four of us drove around for 15-20 more minutes before we finally came across the older brother who had chased the dog over to the the local elementary school, through several other subdivisions, and finally back into our neighborhood where he had sort of cornered him. Between the four kids, they managed to catch and load him into their Dad's car (he had been trying to follow his oldest son as he chased on foot).

This is the story as I understand it. Two weeks ago, the Dad pushed the Mom over the stair railing in their garage where she fell onto the cement floor below. Whether this was intentional or not is still being debated. She blacked out, and he ran knowing she would call the cops. In the fall, she miscarried (as it turns out, the story CAN get worse), and from there decided she probably needed a restraining order if she was going to survive. She was supposed to stay in their home, but their furnace broke down quickly thereafter, so she took their three youngest children and went to live with her mom until it could be replaced. In the meantime, their two older children were growing weary of living at their grandmother's house with their dad, and he decided (despite the lack of heat) that if she wasn't going to be in the house, the three of them were moving back home. So they secured a couple of space heaters and did just that. The furnace guys were supposed to tell the displaced mom when the furnace was fixed, but when that call failed to come through and things started to go south with her temporary accommodations, she decided to come home and check on the progress. She called the officer assigned to her case to let her know that she was changing locations and returning home...only to discover the squatters camped out in their own house. The kids were livid because she hadn't called first to tell them that she was coming home so they could get out of the house (yet she didn't even know they were there), he was mad because he thought she had called the cops to report him before giving him a chance to get out of the house (also not so), and in the hub-bub the back door was left open and the dog took off. Naturally, what followed was an all out family war about who was responsible for letting the dog get away. It kind of defies logic, doesn't it?

Getting back to the 4 kids, the dog, and the Dad. I had been talking to him outside while we watched the kids and knew that he expected the older kids and possibly the 10-year old to go back with him to his mom's house for the night. However, as soon as the kids got the dog in his car, they all came racing back to my car. Curious, yes? They were adamant about not wanting to go back home where their mom was (she had been drinking), and they clearly didn't want to go back with their dad to their grandmother's house. So, literally, I kid you not, they decided their best option for the night was to sleep over at the Freshours.

We ended up taking the unrelated 16-year old friend back to his house for the night, as well as the 10-year old. His mom needed him and I understood that. If I was in a crisis, the first thing I would do is to gather my little lambs close to my heart. But the older two spent the night and went home late the next morning. Today is the formal separation and custody hearing. Both of the older kids say they want to stay with their dad, but when push comes to shove, they would rather spend the night at our house than go home with him. How desperate for peace do you have to be to opt to sleep at a home you have never set foot in rather than to go home with either of your parents? The situation just makes my heart so very heavy.

Jeff and I are comfortable with the fact that we may never know who is or isn't right over at their house. Ultimately, for us it just doesn't matter. It only matters that their family recognizes our home as a place of refuge and that we attempt to ooze grace all over all of them regardless of who is or isn't at fault. The approach seems to be working. He called late Saturday night to thank us for taking in his kids and then called back moments after that to ask where we go to church and if he and his older son could follow us up there on Sunday. I had a hard time containing my incredulity and giddiness on the phone simply because I felt such a moment of triumph in which God still managed to shine through all of Jeff's and my sloppy, misguided attempt to genuinely love our neighbors. They didn't end up going, but we feel like the door is open for us to follow up on it. We're calling it a weekend win.

Then, on Sunday evening, we had a celebration dinner with our African Children's Project board. A celebration that might have gone a little better had not the lasagna run over in the oven causing our fire alarm to go off repeatedly for 30 minutes straight. Fortunately, we were among friends...friends with children that when combined with ours were almost noisier than the alarm.

Why the celebration you ask?

On December 30, 2008, the IRS approved our 501(c)(3) application - meaning our little NPO has been recognized as a public charity with full tax-exempt status!

Which means, Lord willing, someday soon this exact spot...

will be forever changed by the presence of this children's home...

and this 4-year old named Anna (along with a bunch of other kids) will finally be able to start living the life God intended her to live.

The thought kind of rocks my world.

When Snow Eclipses Politics

We live on the east side of the cul-de-sac...which is great when it's icy because our driveway melts first. It's not so great, however, when it snows. Try not to laugh at our definition of snow, Michigan readers.

Griffin laying on the neighbor's driveway trying to make a snow angel. Thanks neighbors for letting us use your driveway. We're sorry we gloat a little when our driveway melts before yours does after ice storms.

See Griffin's icy art there to the left? He's very proud of his work.

Fortunately, yet another neighbor had enough snow on their hill to use our sliders.

Hey neighbors, where were you all this morning when we were so shamelessly trespassing on your properties?

Even the Dad got into it. It just so happens that his butt is about the same size as the boys'. Big surprise.

Not exactly a fashion statement on the princess. Her mom wasn't expecting any extreme weather this season and failed to adequately prepare for it.

Carter getting ready to nail a someone with his snowball.

He got him.

Griffin with his everpresent snowplow. If we were smart, we'd invest in Tonka. There's little chance their stock is falling.

FRONT PAGE NEWS!

Today, Griffin made the front page of the Charlotte Observer. More importantly, he was the first person in our family to discover this.

Maybe with his brother at the helm, Carter won't be in the Principal's office as much this year.

(And yes, that is our Christmas tree still up behind him. But without ornaments and lights, so hey! Progress!)

A Little Less of Me: Find Your Motivation

In an effort to compete with every women's magazine published in January, I hereby bring you A Little Less of Me Tip #2: Find Your Motivation.

Late last year, far later than she should have started pondering her involvement, someone in my high school graduating class of 1989 decided she would attempt to plan a 20-year class reunion. The impending event is scheduled to take place in July of this year which gives me a whopping 6 months to turn my saggy, lumpy, average mom body back into this world class athlete of yesteryear.


Y'all let me know if you want to see my letter sometime. I'm pretty sure my excellence in high school sports is why I was institutionalized accepted into college.

Worse, the idiot party planner decided it would be just brilliant if she scheduled the event to take place in the dead of summer...at, of all possible locations in the 48 contiguous United States, the beach. Presuming the terror of having to face all of one's old classmates in a bathing suit for an entire weekend is not enough to make you put down the nutella already, it's wise to employ some sort of backup motivation.

I have this. Suffice it to say, avoiding the natural state at Chez Freshour is no longer an option.

A Little Less of Me: Retraining Pavlov's Dog

I'm a terrible dieter. The first and foremost reason being that I really, really love food. And I'm not that particular. I love all of it. Except yams. And cornbread casserole. I have to be pretty desperate to eat those two things. Or under a lot of pressure to keep up appearances. That's very important here in the south. You don't get your heart blessed if you don't shovel in the cornbread casserole.

Anyway.

Last summer my sister got married and I managed to lose a staggering 10-15 lbs. before I poured myself into the spearmint green bridesmaid dress that, incidentally, I picked out. Surprisingly, it wasn't really that difficult. I simply stopped getting pregnant and breastfeeding (See you later male readers...I flatter myself to think you made it this far.) and slowly realized I wasn't ravenous anymore. That whole bit about breastfeeding causing the pounds to just melt away? If it was true, I'd be a size 2. Instead, I'm more like a 2 with a 1 in front of it. Not really. But I am closer to that second number than I am the first.

Needless to say, because of my unparalleled weight loss success last year, I decided I was uniquely qualified to bring the blog world all of my weight loss tips this year. Because I'm a giver, that's why.

Without further ado, here is A Little Less of Me Tip #1:

Find something highly caloric that you really, really like, and swap it out for something that you LOVE.

Jeff and I both adore ice cream. What you see above are the unopened containers currently stored in our gargantuan freezer in our garage. We have two additional opened containers of product in our smaller inside freezer bringing our total ice cream inventory to 8 (or 4 if you are only counting the Cookies 'n Cream). For several years a while we were eating hefty bowls of it at least 3-4 nights a week after we put the kids to bed. This because we felt like we needed a BIG reward for just making it through the day. Mine was frequently smothered in hot fudge with a massive scoop of dry roasted peanuts on top. I needed more than a reward, I needed Publishers Clearing House knocking on my front door. But I would settle for smooth, creamy, crunchy, sweet, salty, cold, warm, sticky, delectable yum.

Indulge often enough and you eventually develop a Pavlovian response when the clock strikes eight each night. I never bothered to calculate the caloric load - possibly because I was concerned that my calculator wouldn't go that high. Or that then I might actually have to ADMIT how much I was inhaling and I can't honestly think of a bigger buzz kill. But I did know deep, way down deep, that I probably needed to find something that I could savor at night that would effectively suffocate my highly conditioned craving for the ambrosial ice cream triptych...assuming I didn't want to spend the rest of my life wearing maternity garb disguised as real clothes.

I tried drinking coffee, I tried drinking tea.

And then I tried drinking this. Bingo. All it takes is a sip (of the red, always the red) and I can watch Jeff wolf down the Cookies 'n Cream without even a hint of a hankerin'. And that, my friends, is proof that you really can eat the foods you love and still lose weight. Not only that, I'm sleeping better! Though that could possibly be attributed to the fact that the kids are all sleeping through the night now.

Unfortunately, the forsaken ice cream inventory does not live alone. As far as bacon and butter are concerned, the dog is still drooling.

It's Like Riding a Bike

When Carter turned 4, we bought him a bike from the renowned bicycle expert, Toys-r-us. There was a whopping total of three different bikes on the rack that we thought would fit him and, naturally, we bought him the flashiest one. At the time it seemed of paramount importance that our firstborn not only conquer this preschooler rite of passage well ahead of his peers, but that he looked fly doing it. There was simply no way a Dora the Explorer, or a Thomas and Friends bike was going to fit that bill. Coincidentally, a few months earlier we had traded in my beloved Honda Pilot for our current minivan. I would be remiss if I didn't admit that there is a distinct possibility someone in our family was trying to offset that very uncool decision by buying a hot orange bicycle for their 4-year old.

The sweet bike we brought home that day was a tricked out Mongoose BMX, and with the training wheels attached it weighed about 400 lbs. We thought that was a good thing since it would give him more stability. What we failed to take into the equation was that Carter only weighed a total of 32 lbs., which meant there was not enough of him to provide the necessary torque to efficiently pedal the bike. Idiots that we are, we figured he would eventually grow into it and encouraged him to keep trying to ride it anyway.

Three months after we gave him the bike, Carter participated in the annual YMCA Preschool Bike-a-thon in the 4-year old division. Here he is going about 1 mph on a completely flat surface. See the kid behind him? His much smarter parents had sprung for the 12" Thomas and Friends bike. A year later he was whizzing around this same track WITHOUT TRAINING WHEELS.

Meanwhile, Carter (now 5) was still just barely puttering along. He is tolerating my camera only because he is at a complete standstill and is dependent upon me to get him moving again. This was back in April of 2008 - a date that is important only because on Friday (a mere 8 months later), I decided the problem perhaps was not with Carter's lack of biking ability at all, but maybe because his parents had bought him a sucky starter bike.

So yesterday afternoon, Carter and I drove down to Trek where I proceeded to have him professionally fitted for a bicycle his size. Then, after listening to an exceptional savvy sales pitch, I plunked down an exorbitant amount of money for yet another brand new starter bike for my precious firstborn. Let's just say I felt the purchase price was appropriate penance for the suffering we put him through with the first bad bike. Then we went home, told his dad all about it and watched him have a heart attack. All in all, it was an eventful day and it was only 4:00pm.

Fortunately, while I was making dinner, Carter was busy proving to his father that the problem really was with the old BMX bike all along. As you can see here, we're proponents of the ridiculously effective no-training-wheels method. Also working in our favor for the first time EVER is the fact that we live on a very steep hill.

In about an hour and a half, he had mastered balance, could glide on his own for quite a distance, and was confident in using the hand brake. Not only that, he was happy. It's an emotion we've never associated with biking before.

We knew when he could successfully round the corner of the cul-de-sac (this morning) that it was time to put on the pedals. His coach helped him with that this afternoon. About 10-15 minutes later, the guy was racing the kid on the chopper.

I am pleased to report that Carter has officially beaten the battle of the bike.

Christmas Revealed

Remember my college friend, Veronica? She saved Christmas for me last year. She is elevating it again this year. Go here, here (not entirely epiphany related but meaningful nonetheless), here, here, and here. You won't be disappointed.

A Holiday Pictorial (How's that for a catchy, creative title?)

Remember our Norweigan Christmas tree from last year? This year, due to my aversion to both the dead and the fake (and, apparently, the pretty and festive), I bought it an Austrian friend.

Perhaps someday when he is 60 feet tall and 25 feet wide, he'll forget he started out his little tree life in such a demeaning way; choked with strands of hot lights, burdened by a bunch of really cheap ornaments, and being smothered by a spare sheet. But I doubt it.

Next, I'd like to give a shout out to all of the Dads out there who spent their entire day doing this. Every picture I have of Jeff from yesterday is a variation on this theme.

Probably because it takes a very long time to dewire toys like this.

These two have been here all week entertaining their grandchildren. Portrait of my Dad below by Griffin. I think he captured his true essence.

Believe you me, it's been a gift that keeps on giving when these are the children who need to be entertained. They can't stand to be with or without one another.

(As an aside, Jeff took the boys to get their hair cut this week. He claims he gave the exact same set of instuructions to the two people doing the trimming, "Use a #2 guard and blend in the top." Behold, the big reveal. One of them has a buzz cut in the dead of winter.)

These three came over yesterday to share in the festivities as well.

On the right is Mammaw, of Mammaw fame.

And Larry who I could not entice to come over and hang up my Christmas lights this year. He did, however, bring over his circular saw so we could chop the bottom off the door to the loo (the bathroom renovation continues). You have to love an in-law that brings power tool rather than veggie plate to a Christmas party. Now there is a guy who knows what is truly important.

Lastly, Christmas cookies...made a day late. We hope your holidays were as fun and family-filled as ours!

This is What a Lapsed Vocalist Does With Their Free Time

Behold, the culmination of my last 13 Sunday mornings. Perhaps now I'll have time to go out and get a Christmas tree.

Brady Matthew Bustrum

Behold, Brady Matthew Bustrum has arrived and made his way successfully home. Because he is an adopted child, his homecoming feels almost as miraculous as his birth.

Kevin and Brady. Brady will probably end up calling his Dad, "Pops". Or not.

Brady and his mom. Don't you just love how a baby's face gets all squished up when they sleep on you? I started lactating when I saw this picture and I'm totally not kidding. Don't anyone tell my husband.

Sweet Mother of Pearl, I just may have to bring the uterus out of retirement. I don't think I can take it.

I Have Never Seen Her Smile

Jeff, Carter, and I hadn’t lived in our house for very long before we discovered that we were living across the street from a registered sex offender. At first I found it very disconcerting. Carter was under a year old when we moved in and I was acutely concerned for his safety. I spent hours online searching court documents trying to figure out what the exact offense was in order to determine how protective I should be of my precious firstborn. In the meantime, we watched him, his wife, and their three elementary age children through our front window as they played in the cul-de-sac. Truth be told, I was troubled that he even had children.

It wasn’t long before they had a baby, and soon he and Carter began to play together in the cul-de-sac. Jeff made contact with them first. I note that only because if frequency of opportunity is considered, it should have been me. But I was content to sit behind my closed door and silently pass judgment.

A tentative relationship based on a shared cul-de-sac and a lot of Little Tikes vehicles eventually began, and very quickly thereafter we came to know why he is in the registry. She was 14 when they met and began seeing one another. He was 21 and already the father of a 3-year old son, and 1-year old daughter. At 14 she became their de facto mother, and by 17 she was pregnant with their 1st child. They were married shortly after she graduated from high school.

As far as the safety of my own young family was concerned, I felt better about the situation having been granted these details. Their relationship had not only lasted a decade, but he had a thriving small business, and they seemed fairly stable (with the exception of occasional police visits which we assumed had to do with his prior record). As both of our families grew, we spent more and more time together in the cul-de-sac watching them play. Their 2nd son is sandwiched between Carter and Griffin. Peyton is next in line and they had a 3rd child late last fall. I wouldn’t say a friendship has grown, but certainly the familiarity has. This year, Carter started riding the bus to and from kindergarten. Their 10 year old son (who has always been so tolerant of the three little boys who want to follow him everywhere) rides with him and looks out for him on the bus. When Carter gets home from school each afternoon, their 4-year old is at our front door in minutes wanting to play. Thankfully, the play-set has been a huge hit. Our lingering discomfort with the three of them playing around their house was a primary motivator for that investment. We wanted to draw the all the neighborhood kids to our house – to an environment we knew we could keep safe.

Over the last two years, things have steadily started to break down at the house across the street. Last year the police were called 3 times on assault charges. This year, they’ve been called 5 times. Sometimes the other neighbors fill us in on the details, sometimes she fills us in. Invariably, she is always the victim.

In October, she was attacked by four teenagers while her mother-in-law stood by. Their weapon of choice was a wrench. Her 16-year old son tried to help her, but he was sorely outnumbered. She eventually escaped and ran to a neighbor’s house and begged them to call the police. This was the one incident I know of in which her husband was not her abuser. Her de facto daughter and friends were.

On Friday night around 7:00pm, I left with Griffin to do a few errands. There were two police cars parked at their house. When we returned an hour later, there were six cars and two of those had almost run us over in their haste to get on the scene. The neighbors in the surrounding streets were all outside watching the action. Apparently, there had been a domestic dispute at their house involving a hand gun. The police had chased down, caught, and subdued the individual with the firearm, but he had managed to ditch the piece before they caught him. They were all outside in the dark with flashlights looking for the missing gun.

It’s a curious thing. I am able to feel an astonishing range of emotion on any moment of any day for Africa’s orphans thousands of miles away. Emotion that motivates me to dream up extraordinary measures to try to remedy circumstances so dismal they almost cannot be described with words. But for 5-years, I have shut my eyes and heart to the dire needs right in my own neighborhood. I have hid my light under a bushel of mammoth proportions. What causes me to be so selectively compassionate, so exclusive with my love, I do not know. But on Friday night it was hard to decide if the crime that had been committed across the street was more despicable or if that award should go to me for my callousness.

I carefully maneuvered my van around the law enforcement obstacle course, into the cul-de-sac and up into our garage. I knew that there was no excuse for the fact that I had not harnessed the power of God earlier in my relationship with them, and decided there was no time like the present to inject my peaceful, hope-filled self into a situation overflowing with evil.

I passed Griffin off to Jeff and told him that I was going across the street to get the kids out of the house. If nothing else, our home could and should be a place of refuge. I walked to the nearest inhabited police car only to find our neighbor handcuffed in the back seat. Since they were his kids I was about to start making decisions for, I thought it only right that I inform him of what I was about to do. Handcuffed or not, the guy has always been cordial to us and he was, per usual, very polite. I went to their house, retrieved the two youngest and told their obviously battered mom I expected her to come over as well after the cops left. Jeff and I then spent the next several hours trying to care for an exhausted infant and entertain an anxious preschooler until their traumatized mother arrived to spend the night. It felt right.

Our neighbor may not be a sexual offender in the manner that immediately comes to mind (i.e. rape or incest), but the resulting effect on his wife has been the same as if he had. Physically, she is 27-years old. Psychologically, she has the decimated ego and decision making skills of the 14-year old she left behind. She lives in fear and will do anything to avoid facing the anger of even her own young children, some of which are already beginning to exhibit a tendency toward violence. She has a drinking problem (let’s call it a “coping mechanism” to be fair), a nicotine habit, has never worked or been self-sustaining, and owns nothing in her name. It is readily apparent that the very idea of having to find a way to support herself and her young children is far more intimidating than dropping the charges against her husband and allowing the escalating cycle of abuse to continue.

My pitiful psychology degree expired in my head years ago, and I have no personal or practical experience with domestic violence. I have even less experience with firearms and if I could register as a pacifist I’d do it tomorrow. I’ve decided, however, that relatability in this instance is perhaps not the point. Compassion is the point. Love is the point. Being willing to wholly engage in order to help someone transform their life and the lives of their children is the point. The question that plagues me now is whether or not I am too late.

When We're Not Talking About Obama...

We're debating paint colors. Soft white, beigy white, medium brown, blue? Should I try to accent the dark mirrors/vanities, or should I try to accent the tile/travertine? It's a quandry.

The Bull is at the Ready

This is what a media briefing looks like in Kisumu. Mmmm...I can smell the nyama choma from here.

Two Transformers and a Doll

Happy Almost Halloween from...

Optimus Prime,

Bumblebee,

and Raggedy Ann. Hey, her brothers tried to convince her to be Arcee, but she wasn't having it.

Wrestling with Manna

Last night Carter and I read Exodus 16 before he went to bed. I know what you're thinking, "Seriously? You read 36 verses to a 5-year old?" I did not. I read a whopping total of 11 sentences from his children's Bible that so impacted me that I had to sit down tonight and try to mentally sort through it. Which just goes to show, you should never underestimate the power of the Word of God in any form. Even a highly condensed form.

Here is the passage we read in all of its abbreviated glory:

The whole community told Moses they weren't happy. "In Egypt we ate all the food we wanted. But you have brought us out to this desert to die of hunger."

The LORD said, "I have heard the people talking about how unhappy they are. Tell them, 'When the sun goes down, you will eat meat. In the morning you will be filled with bread.' "

That evening quail came and covered the camp. In the morning thin flakes appeared on the desert floor. Moses said, "It's the bread the LORD has given you to eat." The people called the bread manna. They ate manna for 40 years until they reached the border of Canaan.

Jeff and I have some friends that are missionaries in Sudan. This was their blog post last Monday. This was their blog post on Friday. I had an impossible time reading through either of them without feeling compelled to try to find a way to help. Should I send baby formula, baby clothes or money? Bethany responded to me by saying (among other things) that they wanted to make sure they started something they could sustain.

Right. About that issue of sustainability. I'm in complete agreement, but last night I was also angry to the point of distraction. I serve a God who supplied fresh bread six days of the week for 40 whole years to the Israelites. He clearly gets the concept of sustainability. My question is why help the whining Israelites and not the dying Sudanese? Baby Amana and baby Rahab are no doubt just the tip of the iceberg in Yabus. What stops God from seeing their desperation and coating the entire country in manna?

My combined sense of helplessness and uselessness continued into this morning. Thankfully, as we drove to Lowes to pick up some supplies for a class I'm teaching tomorrow, the haze began to clear. 2000 years ago, God did not have another entire continent full of people fully able to acknowledge the problem and choose some element of self-sacrifice in order to meet the need. It was He, and He alone that had to come up with a sustainable feeding program.

It seems also that the hands that are outstretched to embrace and provide for the orphaned and destitute matter. The Israelites had full comprehension of God and had a relatively interactive experience with Him. Compassion wasn't a requirement to convince them that He cared. But we live in 2008 and 1 John 4:7-12 seems crystal clear that there is no other way.

For the last decade, Jeff and I have felt very much at peace with the decision not to return to Africa. It has been a difficult decision at times because to some degree you feel like you sold out. You choose to embrace comfort, materialism, and accessibility, over ministry and/or helping people who simply cannot help themselves. That said, we have never felt out of the center of God's will. We have been abundantly blessed to be in a place financially where we have been able to enable others who did make the decision to return. Giving has always been a high priority for us, but writing a check is no longer feeling like contribution enough. I know money is useful, but because I'm not personally motivated by it, it almost feels like I've missed the true point of sacrificial giving. And if I should get the point, could my circle of influence be larger? Could my impact on the world be greater?

I was going to try to end this on an upbeat note, but I just don't have it in me. I will say this one last thing: I think it's no accident that I received the 2008 SIM Gift Catalog in the mail today. I couldn't help but notice for the price of my new Italian ceramic and travertine tiled shower a deux, that I could have fed 40 orphan children in Malawi for 8 years.

I wonder if those 40 kids would have considered that a sustainable feeding program?

Building an Indoor Pool

This is our bathroom as of this morning. What's a month or two, or possibly thirteen, without use of your master bathroom? Sometimes I actually forget we have master bathroom...until I went in yesterday and spotted the pool that we ditched the garden tub for. If this doesn't eventually turn into a slammin' shower, I'm holding all 15 of you who voted for it accountable.

Optimists that we are, we expect the pace of the remodel to pick up from here. Famous last words, I know.

Red-Necked For a Night

Back in August, my parents gave Jeff tickets to the Dollar General 300 for his birthday. I don't know about the rest of you, but anytime someone wants to give us an experience rather than more stuff for our birthdays, we are all about it. For one thing, we don't get out much. For another thing, we already own way too much stuff. It's a problem we should probably be seeking some sort of therapy for.

Anyway.

On Friday night, Jeff and I loaded up the boys sans ear plugs and headed out to Lowes Motor Speedway. That was a mistake. We definitely should have brought ear plugs because 43 cars going 200+ miles an hour around a track is much, much louder than watching a race on TV would lead you to believe. Fortunately, the family sitting next to us was sympathetic to our plight and passed down a pair for Griffin.

Thank you Kasey Kahne fans for saving the night. We're sorry Kyle Busch had to win. But he dominated the field, really, he did. Even we race virgins could see that.

The field? Is that what you call a fleet of race cars? Or are too many hours spent watching the Golf Channel starting to take effect?

Carter was significantly less bothered by the noise because he was transfixed by the gourmet fare served at the track. The race started at 8:00pm, so we had eaten a light dinner prior to heading out. That didn't stop him from consuming a hot dog, a Sprite, nachos, a Coke, popcorn, and a slurpy. He basically ate his way through the evening. I'm not even sure he knew there was a race going on or that we were there for any other purpose than to sample the various and sundry delicacies of the track. All this to say, Carter's compliments to the chef. Manna itself could not have made a better impression.

I am regretful that I did not capture Carter's gastronomical excursion on film, but I was focusing on the actual race.

This is the first lap with everyone following the pace car - which is not entirely unlike what we did in our minivan last year, but without the screaming fans. You'll note the blue Citi car in the bottom left hand corner. Feel free to BOO each time he passes. We don't like Citibank. They made our lives miserable last week.

And this is the same group of cars flying off of the turn we were sitting on. Sorry it's not as sharp as the above picture. Somewhere between 70 mph and 200 mph, my trusty Nikon exhibits some limitations. As luck would have it, my children cannot yet run 70 mph so this does not often prove to be a problem.
This is where the cars pit during a rain break, or to get tires, or to get gas, or to get other bits and pieces I know nothing about.

On a sunny day, it's also a great place to feed your month-old infant. What can I say? I'm a big proponent of feeding on demand and if that means I have to shamelessly expose myself at a gas pump at the local speed track, so be it. There's really no explanation for the camoflauge pants. Perhaps I was planning on going hunting immediately after. Or maybe, just maybe, they were the only thing in my closet that fit. Let's assume the latter to be true since I do remember those pants to be supremely comfortable.

While I was shocking the overwhelmingly male population at the track that day two short years ago, 3-year old Carter and 2-year old Griffin were checking out the Cars exhibit.

(Who has kids this close together? Something about it just doesn't seem right, though I'm sure it will make perfect sense when they are all in college at the same time.)

The whole evening really was spectacularly fantastic. Jeff, the good parent, started making moves to leave around 10:30pm, but I insisted we stay until 11:00pm because I was so into it. There is just something about seeing the rush of cars flying at you around the turn, the acrid smell of the exhaust, the screeching of tires, and the promise of wrecks that kept me mesmerized. I'm actually contemplating a trip to the Wal-marts (grrr) to get some real ear muffs for future races. Yes, a little bit of red has finally invaded my Yankee self. I'm not proud, I'd just like to get on NASCAR's mailing list.

This last picture is for the Gisberts. In case you guys ever get tired of the "magnificent ocean" at Bolsa Chica, you might want to consider inside the track of Lowes Motor Speedway for a family vacation. I can promise plenty of RV hookups, Carolina BBQ, deafening noise for hours upon end, and no sleep whatsoever. Also, I can guarantee that the track as well, as your neighbors, will be well lit. Come on, it will be fun. We might even be convinced to rent a trailer and park next to you.