Santa Sighting

Did you know that Santa Clause drives a charcoal Tundra and has two Chihuahuas? He also shops at the NC Farmer's Market.

I kid you not. Roo and Daniel and I were loading up the truck to go home and Roo nudged me, "Hey, look. There's Santa." When I turn around there he was, Santa. He had a full white beard, a red shirt and red suspenders, and he and the Mrs. were loading up their truck right in front of us. Roo grabs my phone to stealthily get a picture, and I (to her protests) mime the camera click to him to ask for a picture. I figure at this point he sees us anyhow and it would at least be polite to ask. Surely you don't dress in all red and wear a beard and not expect people to think you are Santa.

Santa comes over to the truck and asks Daniel if he's been a good boy and tells him there are only 54 days left until Christmas. He then goes and gets him a sticker that reads, "I met Santa Clause."

The best part is that we drove behind him for awhile. His three bumper stickers read:

Keep Christ in Christmas

Merry Christmas

and my favorite one...

I watch you while you're sleeping.

The Maple

Tuesday morning as I drove down New Bern to take Daniel to school, the most glorious Maple I'd ever seen caught my eye. It was set ablaze in vivid reds and oranges as it towered in the morning light. All week I watched that tree thinking I should get out and pick some leaves. Later we went to Fred Fletcher Park, and Daniel and I collected leaves to press but all I could think about was that giant Maple. Today I stopped by the tree on the way to Daniel's school and after dropping off Daniel at Mom's Morning Out, I drove around town for nearly thirty minutes with the sole intent of admiring the fall colors. Thievishly, I pulled the car aside to snatch fallen leaves from the road side or the edges of a front yards. Soon, I found myself back on Seawell and New Bern to look at that Maple. It stood in contrast to a sleepy beige house whose lawn it decorated. Some of the fiery reds had cooled and many leaves had fallen, but still I hopped out to grab one off the road. Picking up Daniel, I stopped yet a third time armed with my camera.

The Maple

Leaves on the playground

Yellow Tree on Mordecai

The Questions I'm Supposed to Hide

Is my love for Jesus sincere?

Why do things that should wreck my heart not?

Is my faith nothing but an empty shell?

As I look around at my brothers and sisters in the church, I'm inspired by their passion for Jesus, their conviction of his calling on their lives, and their tears as they relate these to others. I vaguely recollect my soul's own deep stirrings from years back and I'm devastated to realize I am what I never wanted to be - casual in my faith. I don't question God's existence or the power of the resurrection, but sometimes I do lie awake at night fearing the inadequacy of my response to Jesus' provision and subsequent call on my life might indicate that I don't really know or love him at all. For months now, I've been mulling over what it means to really love Jesus and how to produce that love again.

While I could read opinions on this topic for years, Jesus is pretty straight forward about what it looks like to love him.

John 14:15 If you love me, you will obey what I command.
John 14:23-24 Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
John 15:13-14 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.
Matthew 25:35-40 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' ... 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
Mark 8:34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Okay, okay, we get it, Jesus. We are to obey you.

There is a huge connection between love and obedience of his commands. The greatest command according to Jesus is 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' ; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' (Luke 10:27) Likewise, he says in John 13:34-35, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Yet I'm still stuck on what is that initial love or seed or spark in the heart that spawns such acts of obedience and continued love. Is it gratitude? Is it relief from having weighty shackles loosen their hold? Is it hope? Oftentimes I feel so emotionally calloused. I don't tear up with passion when I hear a particularly moving sermon (I don't laugh at the funny parts either). I don't get the warm fuzzies when I think of Jesus. I don't picture us dancing stream side in Heaven wearing birkenstocks and clover necklaces. I've almost lost hold of the gravity of what his death on the Cross did for me. If anything, I feel a little distant. I don't delight in him, and this really bothers me.

But I still want to obey. Can there be just raw obedience and that be love? Can I force myself to love him? Will obedience bring the passionate love I am missing? Can you turn a frog into a turtle by strapping shells on him? No.

Whatever is lacking in action comes from a lack of heart transformation, and it's the heart's transformation that will also stir the emotions. I've questioned whether it was pride, arrogance, or self-absorption. I've asked whether it was fear of being called to something uncomfortable or sacrificial. What makes a once supple and passionate heart grow stiff like leather in the sun? Sometimes I wonder if God is taking a break on me, or if maybe I'm somehow preventing his work on me. Perhaps he's waiting for me to take some risks before he grows the love in my heart? I get frustrated by the highs and lows of faith that seem to have stalled in a dry valley.

I thought we were in this together? HELLO? (hello.. hello?) Is there something I need to confess? If so, let's do this. Here. Now.

The words of Paul bring me comfort in this season:

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.... And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. (Phillippians 1:1-11)

So here I am sitting on this cactus, totally stuck but not hopeless. Begrudgingly I'll relent that it's while we are stuck and sitting still that God pulls out the pliers and gets to work on us.

Bulldozer Daniel

Rain Check.

If I had anything planned with you this week, consider it cancelled. This mama is run down! Last night Joe and I slept in shifts as we cared for Matthew through his first fever. Joe swung him in his car seat for about an hour until he fell asleep around 1 am allowing me to sleep for a couple hours until it was my turn to handle the screaming around 4 am to back to sleep in the middle of the bed. I was coming off a previous night of insomnia where I didn't fall sleep until the wee hours of the morning. Joe was coming off four weekends of an introvert's greatest fear - endless socializing. For his part, Matthew is now napping and still has a low grade fever, but is more comfortable. Today and tomorrow, I'll be washing all linens, boiling the pacis, and disinfecting all chew toys and play mats... and hopefully napping.

Friday Faces: Self-Portrait

Thanks to everyone who sent me pictures for Friday Faces! This is the second posting of self-portraits. You are invited to leave comments.

The next challenge.
How often to you pull in an out of your neighborhood without talking to anyone? Do you know the people you live next to? Some of us are close to our neighbors - the kids are friends, we chat while gardening, or even do meals together, but some of us maybe have never had more than a brief conversation in passing. Over the next two weeks, capture the face of a neighbor. The rules: 1) You have to get permission to take the shot! 2) Have a conversation and get to know something new about them. Email these to me by Wednesday, November 3 at paige@pocketsmiles.com

Andrea: Here I am surrounded by boxes. My face is that of a woman who walks around in a daze and tries to keep a smile going because it's too exhausting to be stressed! I also desaturated the color because I feel very desaturated these days.

Amy: After 14 weeks of having a baby I find myself frequently only seeing the wrinkles, post-preggo belly flab and wide hips. So I took an opportunity to put on some make up and take a picture that makes me feel like the woman that my husband constantly tells me that I am.

Paige (me): I've always hidden from the camera, never having been photogenic and always conscious of my flaws. I'd either make a goofy face or later regret this or that angle and the extra love under the chin. However, as I hit my late twenties started looking back on pictures of myself, I started realizing how silly I was being, and that perhaps I was beautiful just as I was created. I took a serious self-portrait with natural light and little makeup (the bathtub was my location) and I perked up the shot by playing with the vibrance, contrast, and saturation.

Dee Dee: Took this with my phone camera. Not especially flattering and dubbed "Ignoring the alarm"

Need to Slow Down!

The autumn leaves are beginning to turn and trickle down to the ground here in the City of Oaks, and I wait for the Maple trees to burst forth color over night. This is the time of year I will take an extra loop around the neighborhood before pulling into the driveway just to catch another glimpse of the reds and oranges. I love the slowness of fall - hovering over a crockpot of chili, planting bulbs and raking leaves, sitting on the back deck to stargaze - but for all it's slowness, Fall flies by entirely too quickly.

This October has been the busiest one in my personal history. It's been chock full of travel, weddings and adventures. Already we have been gone from home 30% of the month visiting family, and for home bodies, this is absolutely exhausting and has taken its toll on our bodies. This was intended to be my down week where I'd just have the baby and spend more time on pottery, writing, and my class. However, Daniel got an ear infection and has had a fever off and on for three days. The poor baby got his polio, rotavirus, and dtap immunizations yesterday and was fussing all night. Joe has been battling a sinus infection and now I have a cold. I don't mean to complain - this is what parenthood is all about, and these early years of basically only having time to be mom are precious and few.

We have one more push of activity this weekend as both of our families will be in town for Matthew's dedication at church. I think the last time we had both sides together in full was our wedding six years ago. This time there are two new brides and two new grandsons. I'm really excited about getting family pictures on Sunday by a photog friend. I doubt she realizes it, but our families are full of skilled amateur photographers - amateur only in that it is not what they do for a living. It's incredible how photos through the years reveal the changes in our lives. They act as mile-markers and only we know the life experiences that culminated in each shot. I have a family picture from Mother's Day 2009, where you see three of us in the picture, but I know there were actually four, one whom we would never meet. No doubt we all have these pictures, the ones where we know the secrets behind the smiles and sometimes the tears that would follow.

Amidst all the hustle and bustle, I find myself longing for simplicity - not only in my physical world, but spiritually and emotionally as well. I want to pause to watch the leaves fall, my boys grow, our marriage deepen. I want to reflect on heart issues. I want to clean out the clutter in my house and in my schedule. We need to slow down! Fortunately, the next big thing isn't until late November, and that trip will hopefully be slow and relaxing.

For those times when slowing down isn't an option, how do you cope? Do you find a couple minutes here and there to yourself? Do you take a day? Do you drop the house work?

He Said, She said

Me: So the ear I thought was red has an infection. Mommy instincts, right?

Joe: Mommy instincts.

Daniel: Mommy stinks.

Friday Faces

Earlier this week I sent out a call for self-portraits not knowing where exactly I would take this little project. Several ladies sent me their mugs and it was so fun seeing their faces and reading the explanations attached, that I want to keep this going. Today and next Friday I will post self-portraits and then next Friday I will unveil the next assignment. Doing a biweekly assignment should take care of both the eager beavers and the stragglers.

What I love about a self-portrait is that (unless you have one of those flip screen cameras) you look at the lens and make a face attempting a certain expression, portraying a specific emotion, or you are trying to capture mid moment an emotion you are feeling - not knowing what you look like. It's the capture of a moment of vulnerability. And because can try whatever you want knowing that the delete button is yours, you have the freedom to cut loose or show the serious side you always cover with goofiness for the camera.



Kathy - I know this photo is blurry. But I took it this summer when the kids and I joined ash on a business trip. It's the kind if moment I want to remember and be remembered by them, just stopping during the busyness of life and being with each other.



Natalie - Here is a pic of me and J



Amy - Here's one I took a few weeks ago at my BIL's house in Asheville. :) I was just goofing off with my camera while playing with a flower my neice gave me. :)



Everyone always says to me "you're soooo photogenic." My response in my head... wow, do I really look that crappy all the time. I do well hiding behind my camera taking pictures of other people. I enjoy it and it keeps me out of the photos. However, when I read your post, I smiled. That so describes my thoughts: "I am just not that girl. I'm a little too goofy and self-conscious to ever pull off one of those photo shoots."  So, this shot was taken on my back deck at 2:30pm on Thursday... having barely survived 3 days of hardcore potty training, getting both my girls (2 and 3 months) down napping at the same time, managing to not get the shot of my shoulder covered in baby throw up, and drinking a cup of chai tea I just brewed in the kitchen while burning my thumb on the teapot. Nope, I'm not smiling... today I'm just here. It's a season of life, early motherhood, of that I am sure. Maybe one day I'll want to dress up all pretty and do a photo shoot (probably not), but today I am perfectly content to sit and watch the leaves fall and enjoy the quiet on my back deck knowing that in less than 30 minutes the quiet will be gone.

Thanks, friends. These are great! Feel free to leave comments below.

Fall Respite

Matthew has been in the throws of a growth spurt; he's been nursing heavily at night again, fighting all his naps, and struggling with reflux. Three nights of poor sleep is usually my threshold before I start getting batty, and Tuesday night was the fourth meaning yesterday I was on edge. I figured we could either rot on the couch in our grumpitude, or we could get out and enjoy the amazing weather and let the cool fall air refresh our lungs. We finally used the red wagon in the way it was intended and had a great morning walking around the culdesac and playing at a nearby park.





I can't say the rest of the day was smooth sailing (Matthew kept me from accomplishing anything other than snuggles and feeding), and by the time Joe came home for dinner I was a nervous wreck. However, we finally caught a break! Last night after both Joe and I took turns trying to put Matthew to bed, he slept until 1 am when I thought I heard him waking and fed him. He then slept until nearly 7. This was a first for him, and there's no doubt that his newfound ability to roll onto his tummy and being on the tail end of the spurt provided him with the better sleep. I am so thankful for this fall respite!

Challenge: Self-Portrait!

I keep seeing lovely pictures posted by photographer friends of engagements and weddings and I secretly envy the subjects of their art, all amazingly gorgeous, well lit, and looking like they have a modeling career on the side. I am just not that girl. I'm a little too goofy and self-conscious to ever pull off one of those photo shoots. Joe and I went to JC Penny for our engagement picture and that picture will only ever be displayed in our parents' houses ... and maybe in their local papers, unfortunately. However, yesterday I had a little fun with my camera and attempted a non-goober shot of myself. It came out not too shabby!

So here's the challenge, take your own self-portrait. There's only three rules: 1) gotta show your face, 2) no nudity, and 3) have fun! I'll post the ones I get on here. It's not a competition - just an excuse to have fun with the camera and maybe be a little vain for a few minutes. If you want to include a little information on the composition and an explanation of what you were going for and how you felt about the process and results, include it and I'll post it with the photo. Send your submissions to me at paige@pocketsmiles.com by next Tuesday (10/19/10).

Orange it is.

When it comes to the dinner table, Joe and I are engaged in a constant battle to get Daniel to eat - not just eat healthy foods but eat, period. We've tried bribes, threats, rewards, cheering, dancing, naming the bites by his favorite Thomas the Train characters, making it look irresistible by chewing our own food loudly with moans and sighs of enjoyment, taking it away to make him want it, etc. When he does take a bite, there is no telling how long that bite will stay in his mouth before he swallows it. The other day it took him an entire hour to eat 75% of a grilled cheese sandwich. 

Because of this ongoing struggle and my strong dislike of wasting food, I had settled into only preparing things I knew he would eat most of the time. However, every couple months I find a new burst of energy to get him to eat more and healthier. This usually coincides with seeing him run around naked as a jay bird and skinny as a bean pole and then hearing about how some other kid his age will eat a cheeseburger and fries without any prompting from the parents.

At lunch after church, Daniel ate his apple sauce but was refusing to eat the French Vanilla Cream Top yogurt. This stuff is so gooood. I've been eating it over granola. I tried the usual tactics and then like lightning had struck my brain, I had a Eureka! mommy moment. I ran to the cupboard for the food coloring. See, Daniel loves the color orange right now, so when I suggested we turn his yogurt orange, he was all for it. It was a great experiment in colors and he ate the whole bowl.

Now I know this was not the healthiest option - artificial colors, but this morning he asked for orange yogurt! Instead of the food coloring, I steamed some carrots and blended them and a touch of pure maple syrup until smooth into his yogurt, which he opted for drinking with a straw. He even cried for more when it was all gone. I was pretty proud of this moment. My child who won't eat carrots or yogurt was eating carrot yogurt simply because he likes the color orange. Last week I also managed to get him to eat blueberry pancakes with flaxseed. This food thing takes serious work, but if I can just stick with it, I know it will pay off in the long run.

Garden Dreaming

Maybe it is because our summer garden was so disappointing or maybe it is because I'm finding myself greatly outnumbered by boys and cars and tools and wrestling matches. Whatever the reason, I've found myself irresistibly drawn towards the brightly colored boxes of flower bulbs at my local garden and home improvement stores. Already, I've bought red and pale yellow tulips, daffodils, an assortment of crocuses, dwarf irises, and a grape hyacinth blue mix. I dug up all my old daffodil bulbs to replace them with crocuses and also dug up the asiatic red lilies to move to a centralized location. They have the most intricate bulbs, which I hopefully didn't beat up too badly with the shovel. I'm looking forward to seeing the yard explode in color next spring!

After three years of concerns from our neighbors, we are planning on taking down about 14 pine trees in the back yard alone. Just because a tree is tall doesn't mean it is going to fall over, but I understand the fears since they are so close to all our houses. We had a tree fall on our sunroom at the last house (right before a rain storm) and going through all the paperwork with the insurance company and contractor was exhausting. This has put a halt on any landscaping, and we have totally ripped all the garden boxes out of the ground, salvaging the lumber that the fire ants had not managed to completely destroy.

While I am impatient to be able to plan out my spring and summer boxes, I'm also incredibly excited about the possibilities the lie ahead with a newly open back yard. First, my friend Kimberly has the cutest fence around her garden constructed of salvaged wood of all different lengths. I'd like to construct something similar to keep the deer out. Our neighbor spotted a four-point buck leaving our yard earlier this summer, so there's no more guess as to what beast was eating my bean vines. Second, we'd like to come up with a network of pathways that tie together the various components and focal points of the yard: deck, side gardens, fenced garden, bench, kids' play area etc. Third, we're hoping to plant a natural fence line with evergreens. Does this sound like a lot? It sure is! This is more of a five year plan than something we hope to accomplish this fall... unless you care to donate generously to our "Make Our Yard Beautiful" fund.


Meanwhile, I've completely dug up all my herbs beside the deck and rearranged them, interspersing them with the new bulbs and a large burgundy mum Joe bought for me at the farmer's market. Most of the strawberries have been relocated to containers to await their new home once the trees are down. My fingernails are permanently dirty and cuticles cracked, but I'm loving all this activity!

"Oh My Word!" Wednesday

Learning to Love

Last night Matthew finally had a good night of sleep. He woke at 10pm, and again at 1:40 or so to be fed, and then slept until Daniel woke us all up at 7:45. Matthew has doubled his birth weight, is wearing Daniel's old 1yr t-shirts, and is growing up entirely too fast. Both boys are so much fun now and making me laugh daily.

Seeing them with my family in Chattanooga this past weekend was so special. Mom and Dad love them well and the boys absolutely eat up the attention of their aunts and uncles. This morning Daniel told me he missed them. I do too. It has been over eleven years since we all lived under one roof together and so much has changed! My bother is now married, has a job and is a home owner. My sister isn't thirteen and awkward with knobby knees but is a beautiful woman with a huge heart for orphans and the people of Nicaragua. I have two kids!

Reflecting on how fast time seems to fly, I question the emphasis we place on "finding ourselves" or our calling or purpose. It seems that we spend each new phase of life learning how to live it only to find ourselves in the next phase just as clueless as before. On an even more personal level, I question my need to map out how I will spend the coming years of my life. I'd love to dive deeper into pottery and ceramics. I'd potentially like to homeschool my kids. I'd like to create beautiful gardens, write a book, finish that stupid quilt I started five years ago. I want to travel with my husband. And there's even more that I know I could never possibly have time for.

As the weekend with my family closed, the unexpected generosity of my parents got me thinking about how what really matters is that I love people, especially family. Whether or not I tackle my list of goals, whether or not I master each of these phases that flies by, whether or not I make a lot of money, dress well, sound smart, become famous, just doesn't matter. What matters is that I work hard and play hard and all while loving deeply. I want to be able to care for the people that cared for me and to be able to provide for my kids and grandkids the way my parents and grandparents have provided for me.

I don't mean to knock ambition and making goals and achieving them, but I find myself spending too much time stressing out over the future and what I will be and do and how I will spend my time. It's all about me... and after almost thirty years, I'm here to say that a life of "me" doesn't satisfy. Yes, I knew that awhile ago, but it is hard to let that heart-knowledge change the thought-life. I wonder if I just spent a little more time loving Jesus and a little less time loving myself if all that stress and planning would be replaced by intentional living and deeper connection with friends and family.

Do you know what I pray for? I pray that I would allow God to use me how ever He chooses. I pray that He would bring the people into my life that He wills, that He would make me open to the friendships He would have me pursue, that He would have me write about what He wants people to read. I pray that He would be pursuing the hearts of my boys. I pray that my boys would one day love Jesus more than they love me and that their passion for him would far surpass my own. I pray that He would grow my love for Him and that I would quit being afraid to know what that really looks and feels like.

I'm just a little bit over me and my issues and my hobbies and work and weight and all that seems to consume my mind. I'm ready to move on.

Time with the Fam

On Thursday we drove to my hometown for some family time and we just rolled into the driveway an hour ago. I enjoyed the time with people I love, and as usual, the drive and the great water pressure in my parents house gave me some moments of reflection. However, as I'd prefer not getting accused of a WUI (writing under the influence) I'll wait to share my contemplations on the meaning of life for another time. Meanwhile I leave you with this video of my crazy siblings.

Up The Creek