Chez Jennifer

I am hitting myself because I didn’t borrow a photo that I saw in an old photo album my mom had.  It was a group shot of 7 or 8 of the 9 siblings in my family.  I was about 10 in the photo, and my kids all thought Evangeline looks just like I did in that photo.  It was taken outside my grandmother’s house in Talmadge, Ohio (suburb of Akron–you didn’t even know Akron had suburbs, did ya?)  When I was young, we never really took vacations, but almost every summer we traveled 2 hours west to the greater Akron area to visit my dad’s parents.  We visited them because the Burkett family reunion was often held near there, and we would all sleep in the dorm-style attic and the basement of their small home.  When I was 10, my sister was 28, and I am pretty sure she met us there having traveled from Elgin, IL, the Chicago suburb where she lived.

I remember thinking it was so cool that she was grown up.  I always wondered what it would be like to live on my own in someplace more exciting that DuBois, PA.  So it really didn’t matter to me what Kak was doing; I just knew it had to be better than being me.  I really looked up to her, and I wanted to grow up to go off and live on my own just like her.

As it turned out, about 14 years later I ended up graduated from college and not really knowing what I was going to do with myself.  Kak and her husband Randy lived in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, at the time, and they invited me to come stay with them to look for work there.  I said yes, and I was off on my own grown-up adventure.  They were new to that part of Florida, and they didn’t yet have a church home.  So my first Sunday there, Randy said, “We would like to go visit Dr. Kennedy’s church.  We watch him on tv, and we like his preaching.”  I agreed to go along, and I appreciated the service.  I also attended the young adult Sunday school class where I heard the best Bible teaching I had ever been exposed to in Sunday school.  When we were eating lunch after church, I told Kak and Randy this was the church for me.  Ultimately, I joined the church and ended up working for the television ministry, and 2 years later I met my husband there.  So I will always remember Kathy — Kak as having a hand in my meeting Mark.

I spoke to my mom tonight.  It seems that Kak’s time is drawing even closer to the end.  She is medicated  so much that she is sleeping nearly round the clock.  Randy has decided to have her buried in Pennsylvania in our family’s cemetery.  It seems we are just waiting to say goodbye to Kak.

Carrot Tops

Earlier this spring I made an attempt to plant a garden.  A very small garden.  I had Calvin go out to the back yard and dig up grass from a small section of the yard that used to be a garden.  Then I bought some  topsoil and some seed packets.  I know most people plant plants, but time and money were not on my side, so I decided to just see what would happen when I put down some top soil on my little patch of yard and I planted a couple herbs–basil and cilantro.  I planted lettuce, cucumbers, and carrots.  With all the rain we’ve had, I thought perhaps it would all wash away.  But now, it looks like some of the things will actually become vegetables.  The herbs, of course, are already usable.  I think I will have a bit more basil and cilantro than I could ever use, but I will try to dry some and give some away.

Lettuce

The grass around the garden is very long because we have had no lawn mower to use as our new one of last summer decided to stop working.  It was in the shop, but the shop called and said they couldn’t fix it.  I found another repair place today that says they can take it apart, clean it, and possibly make it work.  So the garden area doesn’t look wonderful, but despite my poor planning and willy-nilly way of throwing the garden together, I might just have something to eat from it as the summer goes on.   If all goes well, I might try my hand at a real garden next year.

Cilantro and Basil

Cucumbers

My sister Kathy seems to be ready to be with the Lord.  My mom spoke to her on the phone and told her she would like to come visit her, but Kathy said, “That’s ok.  You don’t need to do that.  We all know where we’re going.  We’ll be together there.”

I received an e-mail from my brother-in-law Randy tonight saying that the dosage of Kathy’s pain meds has been increased, causing her to sleep more and talk less.  I get the feeling her time is short, though it hasn’t been said.

So thinking about the possibility of Kathy’s life ending has made me think of memories of her from my childhood.  I never knew Kathy as a child.  She was 18 years old when I was born–the second eldest of the 9 siblings in our family.  She never lived at home with me, but she often came to visit when I was young.  One memory that sticks in my mind is from when I was about 8 years old.  Several of my other brothers and sisters were sitting around the kitchen table with me, and we were playing Scrabble.  Kathy was washing the dishes while we played.  Someone put a word on the board, and I said, “What the h— kind of word is that?”  Before I had time to think, some force was pulling my head back by the hair, and green liquid Palmolive dish detergent was pouring into my mouth.  I gagged and looked around the kitchen.  Kathy was the source of the mouth washing.  Let’s just say I was never much for vulgar speech after that incident!

Another thing to know about Kathy is that I never really called her Kathy.  She was always Katherine or “Kak.”  Kak came from my oldest brother being unable to pronounce her name properly when they were both little.  His “Kathy” came out “Kakky.”  So she forever became Kak or Kakki around home.  Only after she was married did I refer to Kak as Kathy because that is what her husband calls her.  But I still have to think to call her this.

I’ve been home from visiting my mom in PA for nearly a week, and I wanted to post something before I forget some of what went through my mind as a part of this visit. I didn’t take any photos on this visit, and that is my only regret.  I took my camera, but I forgot about it until it was too late on every occasion.  I will do better the next time.  However, I am including a few photos Mom passed on to me from her collection.

Mom with my sister, Kathy and her husband Randy in 1991 at my apartment in Florida.

Me, Mom, and Kathy in 1991 at my apartment in Florida.  Can’t miss the big hair, eh?

Mark and I decided that I needed to make this trip because my mom is getting older and we don’t want our kids to grow up without really knowing their maternal grandma. It had been over 18 months since our last trip, and I don’t want time to continue passing without spending more time with Mom before the Lord takes her home.  The timing for the trip ended up happening at the same time my eldest sister was in surgery as a part of treatment for bone cancer.  My two other sisters were able to make the trip to Florida, where Kathy lives, to be with her and her husband Randy during the surgery.  It ended up being good for my mom to have us there at a time she might have otherwise spent worrying about my sister.

Kathy’s surgery was successful as far as it went.  The doctors replaced two bones in her legs with steel rods. When they were operating, they discovered that a large cancerous mass on her hip was bigger than they had anticipated from x-rays.  She will be receiving radiation treatment for the cancer and physical therapy to help her possibly walk again.  I heard from my brother-in-law today.  An MRI revealed the cancer has spread to her liver.   She was released from the hospital today, and a local hospice will be helping to care for her.  Your continued prayers are appreciated.

Back to the trip–this was the first time I made the 12+hour drive to PA with only the kids.  It really went well. I think they are finally old enough to make this doable in the future.  I hope to make this trip more often now that I know it is doable.  My mom was so happy to have us visit.  She had a broken wrist, so I was able to do a few little things around the house, but mostly, we just visited, looked at old photos, and enjoyed each other.

She and my brothers doted on my girls, and the boys were thrilled to explore Uncle Dave’s extensive DS game collection. Evangeline celebrated her 10th birthday there with Grandma, Uncle Dave, Uncle Bob, Aunty Patty, Uncle Larry, and several cousins.  She also ended up getting birthday money from her uncles, and she sure loved that!

We visited the local mall–one story and small–according to my suburban children.  It was too cold to swim, but we were able to spend a couple hours at a local state park that we all decided would be a great place for a family vacation in the future.  Now we hope to come up with a way to make that happen while Grandma is still living less than 15 miles from there.  Grandma bought everyone ice cream cones at the beach concession at Parker Dam, and I enjoyed a cone with teaberry flavored ice cream, which is something I have only ever had in Pennsylvania.

I took mom on an errand to pick up some planting flowers from a local family-run greenhouse one afternoon.  The man who owns the place was so respectful of Mom. He asked about her family, and he listened with great interest to her answers about all her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren as they walked around his greenhouse choosing what she would buy.  When it came time to pay, she pulled out $30, and he only let her pay $10.  He said, “I’ve had a good year, and I’ve learned that giving a little comes back 10,000 times.”  So we left with $30 worth of flowers for $10 and a feeling of God’s blessing.  The greenhouse man also kept telling Mom how glad he was she would plant and enjoy the flowers.  It turns out this same man had once come to visit mom last year when she was sick and the furnace was broken.  He spent several hours there working on the furnace, and wouldn’t let her pay him.  So it made me glad to see that God had placed such a generous person in Mom’s path who understands what it means to love your neighbor or to care for the widows among you.

My brother David, whose single and has a neurological disorder, lives with my mom.  He is on a disability pension from the army, so he doesn’t work and is home with Mom all the time.  He has also had some health problem lately,and I had the opportunity to take him to the a medical appointment while we were there.  David can’t drive, and Mom often cannot drive, so my sister-in-law Patty often takes them to their appointments.  Being there to help this one time made me very thankful for Patty taking on the repsonsibility of getting Mom and David where they need to be.  David, by the way, will have hernia repair and his gall bladder removed on June 29.  Again, prayers for a safe and successful surgery are appreciated.

While I was at Mom’s, I realized how thankful I am for all that she has taught me.  She gave of herself over and over again for her 9 children, and by the time I, number 9 came along, life was relatively easy.  I reaped the benefits of all the experience she had from raising my 8 siblings.  My dad was always an interesting character, and she loved him and stood by him until his death at the young age of 66. They had been married 43 years when he died.

Mom and Dad on their wedding day, October 7, 1943

Dad, sometime in fall 1943 after returning from WWII serving with the Merchant Marines

I am so grateful I was able to make this trip.  My stream of consciousness blog post shows just a glimmer of how blessed I felt to make this visit and to be reminded of how God has blessed me through my family.

“March went out like a lion, a whippin’ up the water in the bay.  Then April cried, and stepped aside, and along came pretty little May.  May was full of promises, but she couldn’t keep ‘em quick enough for some.  Then a bunch of doubting Thomases, kept predicting that the summer’d never come.  But it’s comin’ by gum.  I can feel it come.  Look around.  Look around.  Look around!  June is bustin’ out all over, all over the meadow and the hill.  Buds are bustin’ outta bushes and the rompin’ river pushes every little wheel that wheels behind a mill.  Because it’s June.  Because it’s June.  Because it’s June, June, June.  Just because it’s June, June, June!”  — From the musical, Carousel

This is a song I have sung to my kids since they were little.  Evangeline, whose birthday is in June, has claimed it as her song.  I am thinking of it this morning because of the phrase, “Pretty Little May.”  I was looking at my last post, and I saw it was from 3 weeks ago and I realized May is nearly over.  It is truly almost June and almost summer.

May was full of promises  . . . The first promise was the one of walking/running.  I was not as faithful as I wanted to be.  I did pretty well for the first 3 weeks, but a combination of sickness, getting a new part-time at-home job, lots of rain, and all the end of school activities got in my way.  But this week I am back on track.  I am not giving up.  That is one of the great things about the little book I mentioned when I started the walking plan.  It reminds you that not meeting your goals, is no reason to give up.

My new part-time work is for an advertising professional whom I worked for last year briefly.  He is an older man who has been an ad exec for his entire life.  I am helping him with some phone and internet research.  So far, he is pleased with what I am delivering, and I am hopeful it will continue for a while.

School activities were many in May.  The highlights were Victory Day, a K field trip, and K Graduation for Charis.

Victory Day — School Carnival

 K Field Trip to Grant’s Farm

  Charis at K Graduation

School vacation is here, and there will be plenty of kids around for photo ops, so I expect to be posting more pictures in the coming weeks.  Hopefully, I’ll be a little more attentive to my blog.  If not, check back at the end of summer for another summary post.

Last night, I made spaghetti for dinner.  I decided I wanted to “take it up a notch,” so I added some things to my normal boring spaghetti.  The result was pretty yummy.  Mark liked it so much he requested that I make it in large batches to keep on hand as “Horne Gruel.”  This made me think about how cheap it was to make, and now I am sharing it with you.

Ingredients

½ pound thin spaghetti

2 yellow squash (chopped in large chunks)

1 small yellow onion

2 – 4 T olive oil

1 pound ground turkey

1 26 oz. jar spaghetti sauce

Ground parmesan cheese

Cook pasta according to package directions.  Put aside.

Sautee onions in olive oil.  As they start to become a little transparent, add chopped squash.  Sautee until squash begins to soften.  Add ground turkey.  I push the veggies to the outer sides of the pan and brown the turkey in the center of the pan until it is fully cooked.  When the meat is cooked, mix the meat and veggies together.  Do not drain.  (There ‘s not much excess oil from the turkey, and by now, the olive oil has been absorbed by the squash.)  Add the jar of spaghetti sauce, and simmer for a few minutes.

Add cooked spaghetti to the sauce.  Mix to cover.  Sprinkle liberally with parmesan cheese.  Mix in.

With buying all my ingredients at Aldi, the total cost for 8 servings was: $4.50 — less than 60 cents per serving!

My friend Lori is what I dubbed a “snooty cook.”  She is a terrific cook, and has great recipes that everyone should try.  However,  I am not that at all.  I am a “plain cook” who likes good flavors.  So I appreciate all the work that goes into snooty cooking, but I want the same sorts of flavor without all the work.  I think this recipe does just that.

One last thing, if you haven’t shopped at Aldi for groceries, you should.  I first shopped there when we first came to St Louis in 1995 for Mark to go to seminary.  Limited funds were a big issue to the family of a student, and I would often say we wouldn’t have made it through seminary without Aldi.

I think the prices now are a bit higher, but they are still lower than the big grocery chains.  All their store brand foods are of great quality.  Plus, they have double back guarantee if you buy something that doesn’t meet your standard.  I am not a spokesperson for Aldi, but I am a fan.  I found this blog entry that lists  some of their standard prices.  The prices may have gone up since the time of this entry, but these are certainly in the right ballpark.

My friend Jennifer wrote a great post about her efforts to become more physically fit and her attempt to tend to her spiritual health as well.  Finding balance in this life is hard–whether you’re a mom or a mogul.  The distractions of the world are always beckoning, and spiritual pursuits can fall by the wayside.

In recent posts here, I have talked about my own attempts to become more physically healthy.  So far, I am forging ahead with my walking efforts, and eventually, I hope to be running part of the time.  However, I have really allowed my spiritual exercises to wane over the past couple of years.  I pray quite a bit because there is just so much to pray for in this life.  But reading Scripture and listening to good teaching hasn’t been as much a part of my life as I would like.

So in an attempt to feed my mind with some spiritual food today, when I was going out for my walk, I dug up my husband’s old sermon tapes from his years as a pastor.  Yes.  I said tapes–cassettes–you know that horribly ancient and inferior technology.  We don’t have a lot of Mark’s sermons on mp3s or even cds, but that’s ok.  We don’t have a great mp3 player or cd walkman either.  But I do have my old cassette walkman from the Dollar General.  I popped the tape into the walkman, and, well, I walked.  I was so encouraged by Mark’s sermon on Luke 8:19-24, that I am planning to go through all the sermon tapes we have.  I was struck by how I have not taken advantage of this great resource for biblical teaching that I have in my own house.  And, while I love my husband’s preaching and teaching, we also have many other recorded sermons and lectures with lots of biblical content.  So it may take me a while to get through all that we have!  (Sidenote:  some of Mark’s sermons and articles and articles by other good teachers/pastors can be found here.)

God used my friend Jennifer’s post to convict me of my need to find ways to make spiritual pursuits a more consistent part of my life.  Then, when I listened to Mark’s sermon, I was convicted of how I don’t appreciate how blessed I am (and we as a Christians in the US are) to have so many good Christian resources at our fingertips.  I should be so much more a woman of theWord than I am when there are so many ways for me to receive teaching available to me.  So I am praying that I will be more bathed in Scripture and that my life will reflect back Christ to the world more than it has.

Honestly, I have spent my entire life surrounded by Christians and good teaching, and I have always struggled with making the time to read the Bible and pray regularly.  So this is nothing new.  But it seems that just as I have to keep picking myself up off the ground regarding my physical nurturing, I need to  keep doing the same with spiritual pursuits.  Thankfully, God is gracious to forgive us our sins.  He always welcomes us to Himself with open arms.  Repent, be forgiven, and live for Christ.  This is the pattern of the Christian life–isn’t it?

The Walking/Running Thing

I intended to walk on Tuesday, but my knees disagreed.  So I took a day off, and Wednesday I took a short mile walk with our dog Simon.  I am eagerly yearning for the days a week or two from now when this gives me energy and doesn’t make me sore and tired and weak feeling.

The Job Thing

Some may not have heard that I quit the church job I was doing away from the house about a month ago.   I have been so much less stressed, and I quit at just the time Mark was taking on a new writing project, so we haven’t felt the loss of income–yet.  For a number of reasons, we brought Calvin home to be homeschooled in January.  I was trying to do that and work the at-home job I do for our church plus go to this other church’s office job.  I was really not doing anything well.  Now, I am getting things caught up, and I feel like there’s a possibility I’ll be doing something well soon.

Mark has been home more working on his writing projects, and that has been nice.  He is working on leads for other writing projects, and he continues to work at a couple part-time jobs.  Our hope and prayer is that I will continue with my one part-time at-home job, and he will be able to bring in the rest of the income we need to manage our family.  As always, we covet the prayers of anyone who is willing to offer them for us.

The Kids’ Stuff

The kids are all doing pretty well.  We only have one playing a sport right now.  Calvin is playing with the local Catholic parish’s baseball team.  Their pre-season tournament games have been rained/snowed out, so they haven’t played yet.  If we have a dry couple of days, they are slated to play the first of the pre-season tournament make-up game this Friday evening.  No matter how Calvin really does at baseball, it is good for him to be out there with the other boys.

Evangeline just finished a year with the Kirkwood Children’s Chorale. Participating has really improved her singing voice, and they performed two major concerts, one smaller concert, and at a couple of off-site venues.  She had her “re-audition” to see if she will move up to the next choir on Tuesday evening.  We are waiting to hear how it went.

All of the 3 older children participated in a drama workshop last weekend.  At least one of them, and possibly all three are planning to audition for a summer production of a local Christian theater group, and this workshop was to help them prepare for the audition experience.

Nevin played indoor soccer through early March.  He is still my biggest reader, and he will spend as much time as we let him reserving new books to check out from the library.  He hopes to play baseball on the Y’s spring instructional team starting in May.

Charis is about to finish K.  It is hard to believe, but she will be 6 on May 8!  She is reading, and playing, and happy.  Here’s a picture that her K teacher took near the daffodils outside their school last month.

The children’s school is considering its options for next year.  It may have to close if its leaders can’t find a new meeting place.  Updates from the leadership sound hopeful, but no details have been given.  With the school’s uncertainty about next year and the question of affordability,   I continue researching all the homeschooling possibilities available to me because it seems likely that is the direction we will head with school next year.

Overall

I am satisfied with life and God’s grace that is evident in it.  I have many blessings, and I see God’s hand in everything and every circumstance around me.   Yet, I feel a little restless and I am not really able to verbalize exactly what I am feeling and thinking about.  I am praying for peace and a more content spirit and the courage and faith to keep moving forward.

Yesterday, a friend from church said, “I heard you’re training for a marthon, now.”  I think this friend knew this wasn’t really the case, but I still answered him, “Hah.  No.  I am just trying to do what the marathon runners recommend to out of shape people who want to train for a marathon.”  Then I told him of my modest goal that I mentioned in my last post.

So, here’s what I did since Friday.  On Saturday, I was unable to go on a walk–unable in the sense that I was barely able to move to accomplish all the wife, mother, bookkeeper  tasks I had on my to-do list.  You see, on Friday, I went on my 30-walk, as recommended.  I clocked it with my car at 1.8 miles. Then about 3 hours later, I went on a more leisurely 1-mile walk with Evangeline and our dog, Simon.  For one who has done very little exercise in a long time, this is apparently how to make every part of the body ache the next day.  Sunday was Easter, and we were away from home all day.  I could have walked with friends who went out for an afternoon stroll, but I didn’t have the right kind of shoes with me, so I declined.

I was determined to get back on track today with the new regimen.  So I set the timer on my phone and headed out for 15 minutes and then turned around to return.  I  made it a little further than on Friday, so I feel confident it was 2 miles.  My 5′11′ son accompanied me on this walk, and I was struggling to make it up a slight incline on the way back.  I think I walked at a faster pace to keep up with his longer stride, so coming up that little hill about did me in.  However, since Calvin was with me, pride kept me from calling Mark to come get me in the car.

Will my blog become a journal on how my walking-someday-to-become-running is going?  Maybe part of the time.  Will it be about my training for a marathon?  Nah.

My friend from our Seattle days, Lindy, is a runner.  She does marathons, etc.  A few years back, my then seminary-wife friend, young  Jessie, ran a half-marathon here in St Louis.  Now I see that my friend from Atlanta, Jennifer, is running in 5ks and 10ks.  I am always impressed when I learn about their achievements, and I always encourage them.   I have lots of other friends who run for exercise, too.  But at my size and with all the failed exercise attempts of my life, it seems running is not for me.

Well, I have been thinking about it alot, and I finally asked Lindy what she would recommend for someone like me who is way overweight who would like to start running.  She recommended this book:

 I ordered the book used from an amazon seller, and last night when I was killing time at Borders, I read the first chapter.  It was inspiring. The author, John Bingham, was 43, a smoker, overweight, etc., when he started to run.  He advocates walking and interspersing short runs until you run out of breath throughout your walk to get started.  He writes a column in Runner’s World magazine, and I looked at that last night, too.  The starting program in it advocates just walking 30 minutes 3 days a week, and on the opposite days going out to walk and interspersing it with running.

I’ve read a lot of inspirational diet and exercise books before.  I have participated in a lot of diets and exercise programs before.  I have even lost lots of weight before.  But here I am years later with nothing to show for it.  It might be that I will start this and not keep with it.  It might be that I will start it, and I’ll be able to run, but I’ll lose no real weight.  However, if I don’t give it a go, I’ll never know.

So, here’s my goal–to be able to go on a hike with my 4 kids at a local state park by my birthday toward the end of July without being winded.   I don’t think it is too lofty, and it gives me a motivator.  We’ll see.