Time to Spill

Okay, so we've had something simmering away on the back burner for the past year and I don't think I've mentioned a word about it here.

The time has come.

I'm not going to include all the details which is a favor to you because it'd probably make for some very dull reading, but here's the gist:

We LOVE the Pacific Northwest. We've been there several times and each time we leave loving it more.

This time last year, two days into our family vacation, Jeff turned to me and said, "Life is too short to not live here."

It was as if he was reading my mind.

Immediately, we began looking into various job opportunities for Jeff. Within two months, we were back up there so he could take a written and physical test. If he did well then he would be eligible to apply for various law enforcement positions in our beloved region.

We also took time to peruse several communities where we could afford homes to see if they would be a good fit for our family.

Well, Jeff did very well on his test, the results of which were sent out to multiple agencies. We were told that the agencies might contact him over the next year and a half to invite him to send them an application. Or, they might not. So we waited...

Several sent-in-apps later we started fielding calls for invitations to oral board interviews. He turned the first few down for various reasons.

Many months passed with virtually nothing happening in regards to us uprooting our well established lives and staking a claim elsewhere. Jeff and I were both at peace with that. In fact, when asked how serious we were about doing so, my reply was, "We don't want to go unless we get a green light and all the cars behind us are honking."

Last March, we took our vacation up there again and the verdant stretches of landscape rekindled our desires. Still, we knew we wanted to have no part in an actual move unless we were very confident that it would be the best thing for our family and the parts we're playing in God's kingdom. (In case you're wondering what that last bit means, it's this: We know that God has put us on this earth for a limited time and we want to make the most of that span, not concerned primarily with whatever whims we have to please ourselves but to actually serve God's purposes which are often mysterious, indeed.)

Well, in late June, Jeff received a letter inviting him to take part in an oral board interview in an area we love and where we could afford more than a garden shed in which to live. We had been scrimping and saving money for just this situation, so the only thing left was for Jeff to get the time off of work.

This wasn't likely because time off is hard to come by at his work. In fact, workers are supposed to request summer time off in February and he already had a week approved off for August.

We prayed for God to open doors He wanted open and close doors He wanted closed and were soon delighted to hear that Jeff's time off was granted. :)

Thus, the shopping trip which resulted in the ridiculously cheap suit . (You didn't think we did that just for kicks, did you?)

Then something really fun happened. I came home from running errands one day to find a message on our voice mail from another agency in a great area inviting Jeff to an oral board during the time we would already be up there!!!

A blessed twofer!

So, five flight legs, three days and two oral boards later, we arrived home, tired but very pleased with our little venture. Although Jeff wishes he had said a few things differently in the interviews, he felt satisfied that he had represented himself well and accurately. A couple of interviewers told him afterward that he had done well. That was encouraging because it's not as if they had to go out of their way to say so. They could have just said, "Have a nice day" or nothing at all.

We drove home from the airport with a sense of peace, believing that the way we've pursued this dream is pleasing to our God and knowing that He is a Father Who will continue to lead and care for us wherever we are.

*titter titter*

Sorry, I'm just thinking of what happened next...

When we arrived home, it was 11:30pm and we were exhausted, but Jeff wanted to check our email. In doing so, he discovered that he was being invited to an oral board with a third agency during the week that he already had off in August!!! So much for sleeping that night!

*hardy guffaw*

Obviously we have no idea how this will all end, but we do know that we're in the hands of the One who does. :) There's great peace in that.

Huh?

Tonight, as he sat at the kitchen table, spooning chocolate pudding from a Snack-Pack cup into his mouth, Tobias said, "I wonder how the world would be different today if Trotsky had triumphed over Stalin."




???


I love how weird my kids are.

The Idiot's Guide to Men's Wear

We tried something new recently.

It's called:

Buying a suit.

We won't be making a hobby of it. In fact, we hope to never have to do it again.

After lunch at Chipotle, Jeff, Delaney and I drove over to Kohl's (I had a 30% off coupon) and wandered into foreign territory. Naively, I really wasn't nervous at the start.

Hmmm...

What's with the numbers? They're obviously a measurement of something, but what? Although, who thinks to bring a tape measure? But even if I had, I wouldn't know what part to hold it up to. Is this number from shoulder to shoulder? Is this one around the neck? And what about this one? Is it from inner thigh to armpit? Thumbnail to eyebrow?

There was no poster on the wall with multiple photos and captions entitled, "Info on Measuring for the as of Yet Unsuited". (That would have been very helpful.)

Unfortunately, this guy wasn't there either:


So the only thing to do was to just start trying things on.

First, a shirt. However, the shirt Jeff picked up was heavily packaged. It included cardboard, several pieces of plastic, pins, a twist tie or two and a bit of tissue paper (I assume to dry away one's tears of frustration). It was tediously similar to unpackaging the super duper GI Joe campsite set for your kid on Christmas morning.

We hoped fervently the whole time that the thing would actually fit him once it was freed from its restraints because there was no way we would be able to wrestle it back into its former confines.

Of course there was no trash can nearby, so Jeff just piled all the debris on top of a display of shirts.

(We don't normally leave piles of trash in our wake, honestly.)

I'm overjoyed to report that the shirt did fit (and so are the workers at Kohl's since that's fewer bits of garbage for them to carry off to the dumpster out back).

At this point, we overheard some poor soul who had just wandered in tell his wife, forlornly, "I don't even know where to start."

A kindred spirit! Jeff almost walked past a couple of racks to give the guy a high-five.

Delaney quickly found a great tie. All three of us liked it right away so we didn't even bother looking in that section anymore. The jacket and trouser sections were looming forebodingly nearby.


We gingerly ventured into the dark underworld and began to lift hangers heavily laden with garments from racks, peering at them with innocent eyes, silently begging them to give up their secrets.

Almost immediately, I could tell that this place had old man suits for people who would normally wear bowling shirts and khakis and young man suits for those who don skinny jeans and body piercings. So where were the suits for guys who are pushing 40 and wear band t-shirts and cargo shorts?

Thus, our search began.

About an hour and a half later, we were standing in the checkout line with the most suitable selection we could find draped over our arms.

This slightly creepy looking guy is not Jeff in his new suit:

Nor is this one:


Sorry, they just made me laugh.

Another thing that made me laugh giddily was staring at the receipt as we were exiting the store. You see, everything was on sale for 30%-50% off, so that combined with the amazing aforementioned coupon resulted in...ONE RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP SUIT!


(Not Jeff's suit.)

Ahhh, here he is...


(A pitiable plea to those of you who are well-versed in the world of men's wear: Please do not inform us of any fashion faux-pas we may have committed in pairing this jacket with these trousers or that tie with the shirt, etc. Just pat us on our ignorant backs and nod, saying, "Good job, suit pickers." People with discriminating taste could probably pick the above ensemble to scorned pieces in seconds, but it's what we ended up with after a couple of very uncomfortable hours of searching, and honestly...


...fashion blunders and all, I think my man looks HOT!)

Saving Lives, One Cookie at a Time

I have an unusual ministry.

It involves needles, cookies and packets of blood.

The perks include...

...a tasty snack:

...an armband in the color (the brighter the better to scream out to the world, "I did a noble deed today!") of your choice:


...and awesome entertainment on a flat screen TV:


Being O- and CMV-, my blood is in high demand for babies. The blood bank calls me regularly to tell me, "Aimee, there are three little newborns at the hospital who need your blood type. Please make time today to go donate."

Keeping babies alive? Hmmmm...that's a pretty big perk.

I'm happy to say that my son is now old enough to donate. What's even better is that he was recently willing to do so.

Look at these veins. (Or don't because this is a pretty nasty picture.) They're enough to make any phlebotomist swoon.


His arm doesn't always look like this, just when he cuts off the circulation at the elbow.

I warned him about the awkward questions. You know, when they ask you if you've ever injected bovine hormones, had a dura matter brain graft and all the really weird queries involving sexual encounters, drugs and money.

However, I said nothing to him about the needle. I've never looked at it before its insertion, but he did the first chance he got. He described it as being the size of a slide on a children's playground.

The better to bleed you with, my dear.



My view while "ministering":


Did you know that every time you donate blood, you give three people at least one more day with their families?

For some it's a day toward healing.

For others it may be their very last day.

If your blood is given out to babies then it goes even further since babies only need about a teaspoon each.

When all was said and done, I asked Tobias how his experience was overall. He said it was physically unpleasant, but he knew the sacrifice was worth it.

A Rhetorical Question

Don't you love it when you're just about to climb into bed so you slip off your flops and you notice that your carpet is wet, but nothing was recently spilled and your neighbor's sprinkler is not spraying into your house, so you start to look around and you realize that there must be a leak inside your wall behind your bathroom sink and the water is wicking throughout the length of your bathroom and bedroom, perhaps even underneath the tile floor that you just had put in a few months ago because this may mean that you have to replace your carpet or even the wall itself or various other parts of your house when all you wanted to do was go to bed since you only got about four hours of sleep on the previous night?

Me neither.