Ch-ch-ch-changes

Seven years ago, I married James and graduated from UA. 2003 was such a good year! After that, I tutored kids, subbed at TA, worked in the church preschool and church office, subbed at Bama Exterminating, taught at TCS, and tutored more kids - now mostly kids from Korea. I love tutoring them, so decided to try taking a grad course or two in teaching English as a Second Language. Last December, I started the application process to UA's grad school: GRE, writing samples, locating professors for recommendations, acceptance letter - yay! Yet, spring, summer, fall... classes just didn't pan out. What's the deal, God?

So last Thursday morning, I met with Dr. Liu to find out more about the program. They could offer me a half teaching-assistantship, which is a big deal. But I still had to consider the other half of the tuition, and the how to handle a schedule of classes and tutoring. (Of the three families whose kids I tutor, two plan to move back to Korea at the end of the year, but one would still be here for tutoring three days a week.)

Something happened Thursday afternoon, though. Actually, two things happened.

The Kims told me their family had just decided to return to Korea in January. Whoa! I'll miss these girls, and it means that all three families at this one appartment complex, who came to me at different times (April '09, July '09, January '10), will fly away at practically the same time.

And Dr. Liu sent me an email titled "Good news," telling me the graduate office can offer me a full TAship! Both these pieces of news came between 2 and 3 o'clock on Thursday, Nov. 20. So it's back to school in January ... thank you, God, for clear indications of what I should do. He's with us through it all!

Garden Center, part 1

We have a wonderful backyard, which we fenced in three years ago. Johnny and James did a lot of work building this fence, which was our prerequisite to getting a dog. We got the dog, named him after the Jimmy Stewart movie "Harvey", and let him run around in the backyard. He loved it: the running, the playing, and the digging up of any helpless green thing I tried to plant. One day we dug a big hole in the lawn's hard clay. There we planted an innocent fig tree, lovingly rooted and driven down from Maryland by James's Mom & her husband Gary.

A few days later, Harvey dug it up, chewed it up, and ran up and down the hill in our backyard triumphantly.

So, we made a well-defined backyard in order to get a dog; but that dog precluded any chance of planting a pretty backyard. When I saw the Garden Center at Sam's Club... ohhh, I wanted it. A raised, U-shaped flower bed with trellises and even a gate to keep critters like Harvey out. Cedar planking. A coiled-hose sprayer. A drip irrigation system with a timer. Only problem was, the thing was crazy pricey: around $800. James and I talked, but decided to wait and think about it more. After all, the fence and Harvey himself had been paid for, and we didn't want to dip into savings too often.

Several weeks went by, and I was back at Sam's to get groceries. As usual, I went past the Garden Center display and longingly looked it over. Wait!!! Only two sets of giant boxes left! An unreasonable fear took hold of me, that the chance to have this thing was about to pass me by. In an adrenaline-charged moment I came to regret, I did it. I bought the Garden Center, helped some guys wedge the boxes into and on top of the car, and drove home.

Somewhere between 15th Street and Watermelon Road, the adrenaline melted into a puddle of "What have I done?" Once home, I did another wrong thing. Using gravity and nervous energy, I propped the boxes as inconspicuously as possible against the wall of the garage. My unwitting accomplice, the car, blocked them from view pretty well. But not that well...

The Garden Center is a good thing, but the way I bought it was bad, because I want a good relationship with my husband. A healthy marriage.

By the time James got home and saw it, I was a mess of conflicting emotions. Contrite, ashamed, apologetic, yet hoping he'd be okay with it. He wasn't. And who could blame him? "We talked about it," is a pretty lame excuse for going ahead and doing something this big that we hadn't decided on together. "Can we take it back?" he asked. "Yes," I replied, "and you have the right to say we take it back. But if you decided we could keep it I'd love to keep it..." Hope springs eternal.

The boxes were too heavy to lift again by ourselves, and it was late, so they stayed. And stayed. As the days wore on, I still felt guilty about what I'd done, and half-resigned to the fact that the boxes should be returned. A funny thing, that receipt. It occured to me that on top of everything else, I could "lose" the receipt (just a slip of paper), be unable to return it, and get my way. Selfish, evil thought.

I'm really, really glad I did the right thing and kept that slip of paper ...because next time I went to Sam's, lo and behold, the price had dropped to $599. And with the receipt, dated 29 days earlier, I was able to get the difference in cash from customer service. (I did mention to them that my husband was pretty determined to return the thing for a full refund of the original price.)

So, we kept it, assembled it several months later, and with a truckload of dirt (thanks, Dad!), some rocks, and pretty plants, we had a garden!

Car Color & Timing

God's timing is just right. I usually can't tell until afterward, but this week it was obvious.

My brother Johnny has generously lent us his car the past couple of years he's been in China. When he & Eliz visit next month, they'll drive the Honda back to California; so naturally, we've been car-shopping. (Well, James figured up how much we'd save by becoming a one-car family, but alas, our distance from town and schedules outweigh the benefits.) Tuesday afternoon, after a week of intensive hunting and test-driving, we finally settled on an '07 Corolla.

We had saved up, a la Dave Ramsey, for two years. We wanted to buy from a private owner, but surprisingly, we found the best deal at a dealership. The reason this little gas-saver was going for way under Bluebook value: its color. Maybe we should call her Isaac, cause we laughed the first time we saw it. And on Wednesday, when Brian handed us the keys to our car, it hit home. Just check out the color on the keyring.

Ugly Blue. But it's looking more & more lovely to me. I drove Bluey straight to the airport to pick up my friend Seonkyoung, who'd just flown in from Texas. And here's the awesome timing: this once-in-a-blue-moon week that we have company who needs a car, we have three cars! Thank you, Father, for friends and for timing everything just right.

The Morning for Pahpah

Pahpah went to heaven yesterday, and he can see again. You may be thinking, "What a sad way to start a blog," and you have a point. But from a certain perspective (the best one) it's really wonderful. As C. S. Lewis wrote in The Last Battle, "The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."

He was the last of our grandparents. He loved my grandmother Mema, loved their three children - Mary, Johnny, and Gordon - and loved Jesus. He acted justly as a good lawyer and judge, loved mercy as he took care of his dear wife in her last years, and walked humbly with his God even when he couldn't see or stand. Whenever asked how he was doing these past few years, he'd praise the Lord that he didn't have any pain.

Cats frequented his lap, and he passed down a love of cats to all his family. I got his blue eyes too. And maybe his enjoyment of old movies ... though they were new when he saw them.

Mother Teresa died five days after Princess Diana in 1997; C. S. Lewis died on the same day as JFK in 1963. And in 2010, the very same day my grandfather died, my old neighbor Mrs. Madison did too. It's hard to sort out all the grief and memories, but Mrs. M took our Christmas card pictures back when it required a whole roll of film. She shared catfood with us one warm Christmas day when we ran out, the stores were closed, and I walked barefoot across the street to ask her. She taught me how to cross-stitch, which she couldn't do anymore after her stroke. The last thing I heard her say clearly, when visiting a week ago, was "You come back any time." Now she can communicate with perfect clarity.

Pahpah and Mrs. Madison both died at home, which I wish everyone could do. They both lived good long lives and influenced so many people. They both died, but I can't think of them as dead, because they're more alive now than ever. Quoting The Last Battle again:

For them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures ... had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.