Leave it to Jim and Cherie

Leave it to Cherie to still bake me a raspberry-filled chocolate cake with raspberries and chocolate sprinkles on it today, even though my birthday was weeks ago, and even though her life was chaos at that time.

Her daughter Debbie had to deliver a baby that was still-born. She was due the following week, and Cherie had intended to head down there at that time and help with the new baby. But she heard the news, and when I got home that Friday she was kneeling by the couch praying for Debbie and Aaron, and then she told me, and so we just sat and cried for a little bit. Cherie got the airline to push back her time there so she could be with Debbie right away.

It was such a sad trip up to the airport that Saturday morning, and I could just tell that Cherie needed to be with family and to mourn with them.

In the days following, Debbie posted pictures to Facebook of Paisley dressed in a flower headband and cute dress, and that's what they laid her to rest in. And people from town asked me how Jim and Cherie were and how the family was doing. On Monday there were a number of sympathy cards in the mail, and there were people who asked when they'd be home.

How do you stand idly by when you know that some people have it so tough?

That's question number one. And here's question number two:

How do you still have time to think of other people when you have it tough?

Jim and Cherie both exhibit that quality--thinking of others at ALL times. It's one I'd like to pick up, too. Cherie didn't need to bake me a cake today, but she'd asked what kind I wanted merely a day before that dreaded phone call. I'd said what I'd said: "Chocolate with raspberry filling. Chocolate frosting, and raspberries on top" and "That is so kind of you."

That Monday I decided just to do it by myself. It wasn't difficult to make, but that's because I used a box mixture of Devil's Food Cake Mix and raspberry jam in between the two layers and frosting from a container. It looked okay, but it wasn't the real thing.

Cherie makes the real thing.


I made the knockoff version:

(Also, on a side note, Jim knew I had practice one evening and wouldn't be around for supper so he made me part of supper--just the corn on the cob--to eat quickly before I left. He buttered it and put salt on it. My goodness. I'm SO spoiled.)

It's good to have Jim and Cherie back, but I know there is NOTHING like being with your family when this stuff happens. I'm still praying for them, because long after everyone has moved on, the people who are immediately affected by it don't get to have their hearts mended right away.

"If Only"

"If only, If only," the woodpecker sighs, 

"the bark on the trees was as soft as the skies"

while the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,

crying to the mo-oo-on

"If only, If only."

~Louis Sachar

I used to be an "if only" kind of girl.

If only Mom and Dad had been wealthy, they could have paid for my wardrobe and medical things.

If only Grandpa was still alive, maybe our family would never fight.

If only I had someone to remind me to do devotions every day, I'd never have doubts.

If only people would just leave me alone. Then I'd be truly content.

If only college could last forever and if only it was never stressful, I'd be happy never to make a real life decision.

If only I lived closer to the mountains, I'd exercise a lot more.

If only my best friends lived closer, I'd be exactly who I'd like to be.


Sometimes I am still an "if only" girl. I worry about things from the moment I wake up. Am I doing it right? What are they thinking? What needs to get done? I should have done that a week ago! I just don't want to go out for a bit. Should I go for a walk? No. No time. Is it okay that I read? I feel like I should be doing work stuff.

I don't fully believe myself when I say "if only". A person can always believe there's something better at a different vantage point or that someone else has it better. Likewise we can over-punish ourselves for who we are, knowing that we're sinful, but not letting God's grace in entirely.

But I can't totally rule out my "if only" statements. Sometimes they keep me moving and set a standard for how I'd like to be. Worry and stress sometimes push me to get stuff done, and efficiently. Some stress is good, right? But it can't be the first thing that consumes your brain in the morning.

This morning I'm going to iron my clothes, then eat breakfast and read a little, do devotions, and get ready for church. If only I could be....I mean, I'm glad to be here this morning, right where I am.

What I want to finish but probably won't [Part 1]

This is what some of those developed roads look like now in Churchill, Montana. It is a haven for children to explore. In this tiny town there are llamas, ostriches, horse pastures, so many cows, apple trees, a few cranky neighbors, many many really nice elderly people, a retirement home, neighborhood kids, a store , a back path to walk to the other side of Churchill, and a little stretch of trees that has the perfect fort spot. 


1. Tina, Erica, and I began to build a swimming pool in Churchill when all the new houses were going up. We got shovels and determined that it had to be a comfortable size and that we had to be able to swim and still not bump each other.

      a. We had shovels and our land plotted out. It was a carefully picked spot, right by the pavement where the street dead-ended, but would eventually become part of the street when new houses were built. We chose this spot for one very simple reason. Easy access.

      b. We dug about one foot down, about 4 feet wide and 8 feet long. That took a couple hours. And it was hot. And we were sweating. Luckily we all had seen our fathers use shovels before, so we knew the basics--point shovel downward, step one foot on flat shovel spot (No, I don't think a snow shovel will work for this...I mean you can try it but...), stand your weight on the shovel entirely, and then jump because you're a little girl still and don't weigh that much and this is rocky soil.

      c. We dug a deep end, about 2 feet deep, and then decided it was time to fill 'er up.

               Problem #1: Our carefully selected spot was hundreds of yards from any of our houses.
               Temporary Solution #1: Connect all of our hoses together and run it down the street from Tina's house. Yes, there would be a lot of potential kinks in the hose to worry about (I hate those) but it could work.
              Problem #2:  The hoses didn't work. They kept kinking up and it was going to take forever for the water to actually get from Tina's house to the chosen spot, and we didn't find that much hose anyway. It seemed that all of our neighbors had put all their hoses away in garages, but boy if those hoses had been laying around outside...
              Temporary Solution #2: Fill buckets now at the spot where the hose leaves off. This worked for about three rounds.
              Problem #3: Unfortunately it only filled about one inch of the pool and when we returned from refilling our buckets the water sunk into the earth and created a muddy surface. Montana is impossibly dry.
             Temporary Solution #3: Find tarp to place in the bottom of our pool. All we found were bits of tarp that our families had used for camping. They all had holes in them.

     d. Our pool didn't work out. In retrospect, we would have needed a persistent maintenance crew to keep refilling the pool as it drained through the tarp holes and to clean for when the wildlife bathed in it and a security system to keep the boys out of our turf. We would have needed to convince the town to build the road around our pool and if we were really persuasive to put in a fence so no cars crashed into it. We could have chosen a better spot. Maybe one a little more off to the side.

So we abandoned our project. We filled it in a little but the area looked dangerous and maybe a little hazardous now, and what we did next I'm not sure; we probably just ate a Popsicle and stuck our feet in the crick that ran by my house, a natural little pool we could have played in all day. 

Smart Writers

Eventually I'll stop recommending all these other blogs. Because nobody likes advertisements. I don't at least. BUT you should probably read Megan's blog. She is creative and funny and insightful, and I taught her everything she knows about writing as she was in my Composition course her senior year. (Kidding. She came to the course with many of her own skills). So naturally she's really brilliant.

Read this one. It's entitled "High School Love Letters"
http://mjwets216.blogspot.com/2012/06/high-school-love-letters.html?showComment=1343884587028#c2064486781435965090