New Post, New Me, New York

Hello my delectable fan base......of three.

I would sometimes come on here and my heart would go out to Oh, Meadville, and Cleveland, and South Bend and Tallinn and even Wilmington and every other sweet individual who would get a free moment on the computer, come and see me and........"AH still nothing from Deena."

And then I would think of all of the fantastic places to see and things to read, where individuals actually change their template and have their name signed in cursive and even know how to add links and coupons and such, and..... I would think, "It is better for them to have somewhere else to go!" :)

I have never been a "gottablogjustcuzIhavenothingtodo" kind of person. Now I know we live in a day and age when all of a sudden every single SAH Mom thinks she is the next thing to Dickens and is awaiting some magazine to call and either want to star them and their cutesy creations they just "thought up" or of course buy the rights to their photos which they just can.not.live.without. I am not one to feel like I better get with it or life is passing me by. I only get on here when I really want to connect with someone and most importantly brag on the Lord.

Tonight I am reeling from the past two weeks of abundant blessings from the Lord and excited that I can now get back on a blog after a long awaited updating process for the ole' compute.

God is so good. If you doubt that, close this site, get on your knees and thank God for 30 things. By that time you will realize you are blessed beyond reason.

Most of you have traveled with me from Ohio to New York, from two bedrooms to each child having their own bed, from business to a breath of fresh air, from people that I knew and knew me almost inside and out, to new faces needing a faithful friend and a zillion hugs. I still chuckle to think that I am a Pastor's wife. It makes me laugh out loud. Yep, right out loud. It reminds me that God has a sense of humor and of why He gave an overabundance of humor to me.

Have done some growing up these last few months here. And whenever you have growing you have the pains of getting out of the normal and into the new normal. One of my children whom will remain nameless unless I am bribed said to me the other day, "Mom, I think I have growing pains in my mouth, my jaw hurts." If I wasn't so quickly reminded of my own troubles with my own mouth, I would have laughed even harder than I allowed myself to.

One thing I have learned just recently is that God will bless me even when I do not feel like I deserve it. We find ourselves doing it. We act as if God's blessing is determined by our good behavior. Though we know that we know that we know we cannot reach Heaven's gates, gain access to glory by any of our own merit, we still live day by day as if God is waiting for that last good deed spotlessly preformed by us to allow Him to give us good gifts.

Can I get a "Amen?"....



An "Oh me?"


Recently as some of you may know, a man in our church saw fit to bless us in the way of furniture, and lots of it. New, beautiful bedroom furniture , and a couch and chairs for our living room that would even warrant Mary E's approval and liking. Goodness it might even make her covet them. I digress.....

In all of this whirlwind of blessing I really was sent reeling spiritually. I knew I wasn't warranting the bed we were given with the new mattress and box springs and all, but I was thankful....SO thankful. Overwhelmingly thankful.

Then the couch came and chairs and I thought that this man just had to have the wrong couple he wanted to bless...... then the chest of drawers and the mirror..... I almost didn't want to think of my own sinful heart for fear that God would remember and renig on all my beautiful Amish make oak wonderfulness.

Then it was the nightstands. I clapped my hands together as they were carried up stairs, half bewildered into almost craziness and half feeling like the windows of heaven really had opened up and poured us out a blessing.

And then in the stillness when the movers had gone, the kids were somewhere playing and Joel was straightening up God came and met with me.

He reminded me of Darlene Rose. A beautiful missionary bride who lost her husband in a prison camp just a few years after they were married, herself in a terrible camp, half starved, sick and in a cell praying for just one banana.

She reasoned with God as to persactly how He could manage to get her one. Hmmm, through that gate, by the hand of that person, and then she just plum gave up. She told Him, "God, it's okay. I know you cannot get me one and it is alright." and went on her daily grind.

But God was working, smiling at her brilliant plan. He already had a plan of His own choosing. It was from a very unique source and it was not one banana.


It was one hundred.


She should have been excited at the answer to prayer but she wasn't. Not at first anyway. See the goodness of God leads us all to repentance Romans says. She was sorry she doubted and in her pity for herself God came to her and said, "My child, don't you know that I desire to bless you exceeding abundantly above all that you ask or think?"

And she ate and enjoyed her Father's goodness.



Many, many many days I coveted, wished, hoped and it was deferred. So and so had a house, beds, rugs. And then I finally gave it up. "Lord, it's okay. I know that where we are you cannot get these things to us." Oh perhaps not out loud, but in my heart of hearts....you know, that heart that is so deceitful and wicked that we cannot even know it ourselves?

There I doubted him.

And when the movers left and God moved in my heart, His words, His WORD was just the same to me as it was to her in that cell that day.

"My child, don't you know that I desire to bless you exceeding abundantly above all that you could ask or think?"


And as my husband called the Salvation Army to carry our old couch and chairs away, the ones that we stuffed with our old Winter coats so you could sit on them.... I remembered how God is my Father and he wants to bless me and give me good gifts just as I want to bless my own children. I desire it, I love to, long to give them something that will bless them, encourage them, make them happier than they even imagined possible.

That is what God wants to do for you.

For me.

That is what God DID for me, and keeps on doing for me, and it truly is "the Lord's doing" and "marvelous in our eyes."

The View from Here

"For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him."

Isaiah 64:4

"I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living."
Psalm 27:13

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help."

Psalm 121:1

"Mine eyes are ever towards the LORD;"

Psalm 25:15a

The view is fine from here.

A Look at my Country Home

Country living is my ideal, though.... Great valley + weak Internet even with a satellite (yes you read that right...satellite!) = few pictures that will download. :-)

Now that you have a look at our new home, feel free to stop in for tea or coffee anytime.


Seriously.

"against such there is no.....In-law?"

I bid a good evening to the four of you who frequent here.


A very late good evening.


All is well here. We have made the transition from Haywood to Humphrey with few bumps and bruises, thankfully. Other than Anna falling off the U-Haul truck and down the stairs face first we are fine.


I know I need to get you all some pictures and such, but lately my time just escapes me. I am back to middle of the night blogging for now.

Today was such a sweet day. Joel's Mom and Dad came for a brief visit. They came in about 2 and will leave for a conference around 6 this morning. We kept it a surprise to the kids but really I think I was more excited to see them than they were if that is at all possible. Ok maybe it was a tie.

Anywhoo, I hugged them and hugged them and then got to making food for them. While out on a vanilla run Mom and I got lost, she discovered Ellicottville, loved it, found a coffee shop, bought me some coffee and made me feel loved in between.

We ate, laughed, talked, ate and finally let them get some sleep before their really early morning. Joel took the couch, I the chair and ottoman and before we retired Joel and I read and prayed together. While reading my eyes just welled up with tears and I just began to add up all of the miles between us and miss them before they had even left. My main thought, far fetched as it may seem was, "What if they get old and cannot make the trip anymore?" Thankfully Joel did NOT laugh at me, but hugged me and said, "Then we will make them move in with us."

As we were leaving and even before then in the little house on Haywood I would think of them getting old and just wanted to take care of them. I have this overwhelming desire to take care of them.

Tonight I had such fun making them a meal, feeding them dessert, trying to figure out how to make coffee, and making cinnamon rolls to bake just before they leave tomorrow. I just want them to know that I appreciate them opening their home to me for eleven years. For watching our kids so Joel and I could take a breather, for bringing over soup and crackers when one of us was sick, for loving our kids, for making me feel like I was a good wife and mother.

Now don't get me wrong, there were times we just frustrated the fire out of eachother. But they never let me know it, and I got over whatever silly bee I had in my bonnet. Sometimes I felt we might have been too close. But now....now we are sooo far away.

The Lord indeed has such patience with me. How He must shake His head at my change in feeling so sporatic and sincerely.

This is it...... I love these people. These are my people and I cried for an hour when I drove away from them. I have married up, gotten the better end of the deal, snuck my way into this wonderful family of mine and I am stayin' here too. I want to thank them for an amazing son who is a sincerely kind Pastor. I want them to know that I would do anything for them, that I hang on their compliments, pray for them wholeheartedly, look for their handwriting, treasure the time I have with them, and never want to stop hugging them.

Tonight as they sleep above me in a room we tried to fix just for them, I miss them already, wish them the best of everything God can offer and sit beneath them loving on them in their sleep.

And crying and wiping my nose on my robe.


So maybe you didn't need to know that part.

I love my In-laws, and wanted you all to know it.

Goodnight sleep tight.

Galations 5:22-23 "But the fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."

A Tale of Two Cities

When I was little I would always hear someone on the radio or t.v. say, "We're gonna take a trip down Memory Lane," and I would smile thinking to myself, "Well we'll leave the light on for you." If you haven't figured that out yet we LIVED on Memory Lane. I always thought for those taking that "trip" it would be a short one as we lived at a dead end street. I have a lot of memories myself of that yellow house, the last one on the left with the wooden 663 numbers that I made in shop class adorning the top of the garage. Ok so they were really two 9's upside down, but I thought that gave our house "character."

Today I am the one taking that same trip.

I am going to take you on a trip. Our map will be Psalm 77, and I will act as your tour guide making you stop along the way to explain how God has been working in our family's life.

Much has happened since I saw you all last. Not to mention that I had a hard time getting onto my OWN blog today since I could not remember the blog address OR the password!!!!

My Bible was given to me by my Father in Law in 2005 upon arriving home from Mongolia. Both Joel and I's Bibles were stolen, yes stolen, and we had been months without one. My only consolation is that if someone knew English (a stretch) and decided to READ my Bible (another stretch) they could get saved and it would be worth losing my favorite book. Someday we'll see. When my Father in Law gave me my new Bible as a gift I asked him to write in it and then waited for the one other person I wanted to write in it. One of my favoritest people in all of this whole world, the good Dr. M. Today as I flip through my Bible and all the many notes I have penned, the notes of encouragement from these two men mean the world to me.

Over Psalm 77 I have written "Waiting on God for a house 12/2/06"

I have read this passage more times than I can recall. I have read it angrily, frustrated, sad, lonely, hope full and the like. Today I share it with you as a huge mile marker in my life.God has, in the last 4 years, cultivated the fallow ground of my heart many many times thorough these verses. Of all the people I am thankful for in the Bible, David is hight on my list. I like to peel him back like an onion, and he begins this chapter for us:



"I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice; and he gave hear unto me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted." (Psalm 77:1-2)

Have you ever "refused" to be comforted? Had something that just burdened you, frustrated you, depressed you and you REFUSED to be comforted????? Our house sweet and tiny as it is in all it's glory on Haywood became such a source of frustration for me and sometimes I refused to be comforted by the fact that God WAS working, planning, preparing a new place for us as we burst at the seams on a daily basis. On one of those "Where are you God?" moments in my life I remember a sweet lady from our church who obviously felt our plight giving me a stained glass wall hanging that read, "Our home is just a little place, but God knows where we live." I would only add to this statement somedays with...."and that we are out of peanut butter." Little does she know how many times I hung what little faith I had left on this wall hanging. On one of those occasions, God led me again to Psalm 77 right before a date with my husband. This time verses 3 and 4 hit me where it hurt.

"I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah Thou beholdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak."

Next to these verses I have my occasional exclamation point indicating that this really made an impression on me or made me change the way I think, along with a cross reference. Matthew 8:20.

Ah Matthew 8:20. I have to sigh remembering this verse.

As I mentioned Joel and I were heading out for a date night. Usually a source of great anticipation and joy, but not that day. I was feeling forgotten by God. I was feeling like I "deserved" a house. A NICE BIG house. Didn't he see that we NEEDED one? While standing in line at a restaurant the Holy Spirit rebuked me for my selfishness and pride and then it came. Matthew 8:20.

"And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."

Immediately I looked around the restaurant as if everyone knew what was transpiring in my heart, and hung my head in shame. Before I could even explain to Joel why I was being reduced to a literal puddle of tears, the accusation came, "Who am I to demand a house when the Lord of all didn't even have a place to lay his head?" My heart condemned me and I was just as Psalm 77:4 describes. I was "so troubled that I (could not) speak." If I remember correctly we had to go and sit somewhere and I had to just weep and try to tell Joel what God was doing in my heart as we waited for our table to open up and them I cried most of the way through dinner at the sinfulness of my heart.

so Matthew 8:20 has a special place in my heart and is written in the margin of this chapter we are walking through.

We now skip down to verses 7,8 and 9. Not because the other verses aren't chock full of wisdom and worth reading, but because you all have much more to do today than sit on here and read my life's story!

These verses bring us to a rainy day physically and spiritually in my life. A month or so before this time I had gone through a house with a real estate agent by myself which is not normally our practice. Joel must have been busy, I cannot recall now, but here I was going through a house that meant a lot to our family. It was a house that had been in several of our church families possession at one time or another and frankly I had picked it out as my "Promised Land." I tell you if you can just WILL something to happen, I would be typing this right now in that house! I am ashamed and embarrassed to tell you that I even stooped so low as to drive by that house with my arm out the window praying over that house. (ok now forget that you just read that and think of me as a normal person again....) I just thought I KNEW what was best for our family and could not understand why God was dragging his feet on giving it to us. I had come so far that I thought, I really thought that God would somehow just give it to us free as can be. It was on that day that I went thought the house with the agent I told you about. When she drew me in for the "catch" and through out the inflated price for a house that had been vacant for some time I took a deep breath and told her flat out that this house was NOT in any way shape or form in our meager budget, but if God wanted us to have this house HE would give it to us. I then waited for her to somehow hear from heaven as Saul did and upon her knees beg me to sign the papers for our free house.


Well that did not happen as you know, and when I rode home in the rain, the bucket of tears fell as the rain upon my windshield. These tears however were not tears of repentance, but burned with anger in my heart.


In a fit I through myself in the blue chair and as I read this chapter once again, verses 7, 8 and nine could have been written by my own hand.

"Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah"

Have you ever felt forgotten? I have. Next to these verses I have penned Philippians 4:19- "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." By FAITH I gave this over to God and said, "YOU know what we NEED. I am going to rest in the fact that you know better, a LOT better than me." and I thanked him for all that he HAD provided for our growing family.

The following verses began to echo in my heart, "And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most high. I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old. I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings." (Psalm 77:10-12)

Today I look back on this chapter of my life and can now recount what God has done and rejoice in verse 14 which before I claimed by faith only:

"Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people."
I did alright in this area for a while, even grew to downright love my tiny piece of home sweet home and the old worn blue chair to boot! And then right when I was getting right cozy and preparing to stay squeezed in there on Haywood until the Lord's returnin', now what do you think happened?? I'll give you a hint. What happened is what usually happens when we finally let go and let GOD BE GOD to us.

THE HOUSE SOLD.

I will pause a moment so that you have time to recover from the fall you took out of your chair......


Seriously. IT.SOLD.

Not on the market, No sign in the yard. Someone heard we might want to move and was interested enough to get things movin' and one thing after another and we were signing papers with a temporary place to go.

Deep down I always wondered if God did not want to move us to keep us from putting permanent roots down here in Youngstown.

I was right.

When the house sold, we both overwhelmingly knew something was coming. I pressed the last of the Johhy Jump-ups in the pages of my Bible and could not wait to see what God would do. It was during this time that the Lord brought to mind a verse in the very next chapter, Psalm 78: 19- "Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?"

It may seem like a weird verse to you, but when you have just sold the only house you have known in your 11 years of married life, the apartment you were supposed to move into fell through at the LAST MINUTE and you are taking up residency in the prophet's chamber of your sweet friend's basement.......

Well, you begin to think a little.

God did all this.......BUT CAN HE.........?

And then I read how the children of Israel saw all of God's miraculous doings and STILL questioned. They doubted his goodness to them.

Hmmmmm.

It seemed like days that God brought this verse to my mind....... over and over and over until finally out loud once I said, "I BELIEVE YOU!"

And yet in my heart I hesitated.

"Can GOD?" he replied.

I finally said in desperation, "Lord, help my unbelief."

And He did, and we then found out that there was a church in NY that was looking for a Pastor. They came looking for us, we did no searching or prying. We had learned to wait on God and let HIM be HIM. And He sure was.

To make my longer story even shorter, Friday we say "Goodbye" to all we have known as a family and hitch our wagons to a start headed for a new city that puts the "R" in Rural. Or as we have begun to call it, "A little bit of heaven on earth." :-)

God has led us to a small country church where we can live simply as a family and love on these people until the Lord comes.

Just writing that gladdens my heart and mind.

Are we sad, yes, are we tickled pink that every detail, down to someone giving us lights to put in the windows of our new large four bedroom house, we have the desire of our hearts in more ways than we can express?????



Uh,


YEAH!!!!!

Today I look back on this chapter of my life and can now recount what God has done and rejoice in verse 14 which before I claimed by faith only:

"Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people."


I can think of no other way to close this account of God's undeserved favor to us by this verse:

Psalm 118:23 "This is the LORD‘S doing; it is marvellous in our eyes."


Amen.

(To all those of you whom have so fervently prayed God would bless us with a bigger house, He has answered your prayers above and beyond what we could ever ask or think! Thank you.)

Today

Hello world! Sometimes I wonder if I am just cruel to have a blog and not get on as often as I should to keep those few dear folks who read my banter, happy. Life is what it is here on Haywood and I have to just roll with things as they come. Our computer cord gave up the ghost and gave hubby a jolt, (that was something!) and we were away for Teen camp for a week. We are presently gearing up for ANOTHER week of camp, this time with the juniors. Isaac and Abbs are campers this time and Joel and I have waited and waited for the opportunity to be their counselors so we are pumped.

This summer has brought the celebration of Anna's 3rd birthday, Isaac's 10th and Alayna's first. Sometime I will post on what a round of emotions that brought about for me, Alayna's that is. There were things from her traumatic appearance that still needed healing from the Lord, things I still physically am rebounding from, and things I will never have answers for until I see the Lord face to face.

Today I breeze through all of the things that I have wanted to blog about and never had time to and sum them all up in this fashion.

God is good and life is sweet.

It truly is all about enjoying the trip as much or more than the destination itself. How many times have you had your sights set on something, feeling like once you have obtained that item you will feel some sort of contentment, only to discover that it didn't give your spirit something at all. It was just ANOTHER thing, or idea, or place, or moment, or in my case, food item. And for that matter many food items like freshly made cannoli's are adding something to me somewhere if you get my drift..... I digress.....

For a long time I just thought that I would have arrived if I just had....



wait for it...



wait for it...


I KNOW you will feel the same...







a



juicer.


Yep, there you go. A highway to happiness right there folks. SERIOUS as a heart attack I thought I would just feel better having one. I would juice my way to happiness and lose 10 pounds just by lifting it from under the cupboard and plugging the silly thing in. And of course you just never seem to have some secret financial stash that is labled, "For those things that will just insure happiness and bring complete fulfillment." So years went by and we never got one.


UNTIL...... someone gave us one. That's right, gave it to us, in all it's 200+ dollars worth of glory. I smiled, I wept, I stared at it like it was some relative that had just been released from years of work at a forced labor camp.

I brought it home, I used it, I got tired of it, and now it collects dust.

Feel free to insert the similar story of your own choosing to play in your mind at this very moment.... I'll go use the restroom, grab a snack and meet you back here in a few.....

A few weeks ago I found myself in a negative rut, waiting for the proverbial train to arrive in my life. Our pastor preached a message on the "Days of our Lives." I KNOW, can you believe it? I had no idea he even watched soap operas!!!!

(Sorry, I have this crazy humorous bent on life.....I just cannot help it.)

Ok so the sermon was really titled, "Day by Day." It really hit home for me and my proverbial caboose. I like to think in terms of "years." THIS YEAR we are planning on..... NEXT YEAR we will.... even LAST YEAR we..... but God emphasizes the DAYS of our lives instead of the YEARS of our lives. Start in Genesis and just count all the times you see the phrase, "all the days of..." I believe God places an emphasis on the days of people's lives in order to get us to do something with our days instead of letting our years pass us by.

Psalms tells us in the last verse of Psalm 24, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever."

Ps 27:4 also stresses days, "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple."

My life verses are found in Lamentations 3:21-23, "This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD‘S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."

The sweet phrase "every morning" has been a life long encouragement to me, and possibly some of you who share my zeal for a brand new day at about noon when the laundry is about to swallow you up and two children have written on the wall.

I am thankful that He did not say His mercies are new every week or month, but every day. Stop and just rejoice over that one friends.

The bottom line is that how we live our days is how we live our LIVES.

I want to be a godly wife and mother. I want to be a blessing to others around me. I want to teach my children how to love God, accept His love to them and let that love change their lives.

I can sit and plan and concentrate my focus on the future and miss the day I have been given toDAY. Don't get me wrong, I am all for plannin'. I have a plan for every ounce of ground beef in my freezer and for the last few ounces of ketchsup in the container in the fridge that people keep trying to throw away! Why is that by the way? Don't they know I have a plan for it???

Just don't get so caught up in the mindset that I fall privy to so often. Don't plan your life and watch your days slip away. Have goals, but allow real life to change them, sleal them, and downright drag them through the mud if need be. Allow God to have all of you each and every day. All of your heart and soul and your mind.

Slow down, enjoy the little things like a grosbeak at your bird feeder. Hug your kids more, encourage them more often, make homemade pizza because it is more fun and worthwhile even if it isn't easier. Pray out loud with your kids anytime, anywhere. Try this is the supermarket line....you might just be ushered to the front and not have to wait so long..... (Ok a little humor.......)

Tell yourself whether the train comes, never comes or comes late, I will be happy. No amount of juicing, eating, playing or shopping will add an ounce to my contentment or fulfillment in this short life I have been given. I will be grateful, thankful and any other "Ful" that God ordains for me to be.

The best years of my life are these DAYS. They are days filled with garden weeds, leftovers, missing socks, no radio reception, crumbs in the couch, chipped eyeglasses and not enough kool-aid to make enough for everyone.

These are the best days.

These are the days I am going to look back on and smile over. Days that will keep me company when the devil attacks us. Days that will make me cry with thankfulness to God.

So if you do not see me here, I am just out livin'.

I hope you are livin' too.

And if you see my train come in for me, tell it I am busy and will catch the next one, will you?

Can I pick your brain beginning with your forehead dear?

I am having one of those forehead-to-forehead moments with my husband as he tells me that he is almost done outside, (Oh perchance did I mention that I am on the inside of the house and HE is on the outside?? Thanks to new windows a few years back we can actually OPEN the windows... I digress..) and I am somehow hoping beyond all hope that as we stand (well he stands and I sit) here with 5 of the six tugging on me and hanging out the window, that one: No one sees us and begins to recite "The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe," and two: that some how via osmosis all of the patience that Joel has just sitting in his big toe doing him no good at all finds me, envelopes me and makes me just hear the cries of our brood and just smile.


Wow that should so go down in the Guiness book of World records for the longest run on sentence.

And yes I MEAN forehead-to-forehead. I love it. It secretly means between the two of us that the world is still going to rotate whether we find something for Sunday dinner or not, that kids, loving them, teaching them, correcting them may not FEEL worthwhile at THIS moment, but by golly it IS. It means that we are still in love, best friends can tell each other secrets and have that wonderful "safe spot" to leave everything knowing the other will sift the wheat from the chaff and take what is worth keeping and throw the rest to the wind, chalking it up to a very.long.day.

Forehead-to-forehead we are not ashamed for our kids to see our "reconnecting" moment.

This is my beloved and this is my friend.

And this is all the "life processing" that goes on in a single 3 minute forehead-to-forehead moment between a sweet man who has been a 32 - 32 for I think way too long, and a frazzled Mom.

Carry on friends, carry on.