Thursday, February 25, 2021
A Collection of Little Moments
Davis and I had our wedding anniversary on Monday. Our 29th to be exact. I was 24 and he was 31 when we married and we didn’t know it, but we were so young. Some of us younger than others, you understand. I was thinner and his hair was thicker and neither of us had a wrinkle anywhere. Here we were in the back of the limo with birdseed still caught in our hair- heading off into life together.
Both of our kids were here for part of last weekend. Blair and John Samuel had a party to attend and Carson came in to visit them on his way (or out of his way) to a wedding. I’m just glad they all want to see each other when they can. We had a good time visiting and the men watched a lot of baseball games. We took the dogs to walk at the lake. The weather here went from an icy 11 to a cloudless 73 in one week, so the sun and blue skies were calling us outside. We went to eat at one of our favorite places for one meal and I cooked a big meal, the next day. We ate almost a whole coconut cake in 24 hours, which is why Davis and I decided we’d wait until this coming weekend to celebrate our anniversary as neither of us could even think about another rich meal by the time they all left.
After we’d all gotten home from eating out, someone mentioned something funny that Blair used to say when she was little, which led to me searching for it in our home movie DVD collection. I knew I had the saying in question on tape so we started looking for it through hours of home movies. There were some tears shed, I confess. It’s one thing to look at photographs, but when you hear the sounds of things your heart loved that are no more- oh, my goodness. Hearing my Daddy call me “Punkin.” Listening to Grandmother’s belly laugh. Seeing my mother-in-law play with our kids. Watching Blair curled up in Davis’ lap. Hearing Carson’s little baby voice talk gibberish behind a pacifier. And seeing Davis and me so young and so busy building our life together.
I was reminded that’s where most of married life happens. In years of every day moments. Rocking babies. Weekend getaways. Cleaning the kitchen. Trips to the beach. Science fair projects. Date nights. Kids in the bathtub. Christmas at Grandma’s house. Working late. Family weddings. Love isn’t usually like a Hallmark movie with candles and roses and snow starting to fall at the most perfectly timed instant. For us, it’s been the quilting of the little moments that may have seemed insignificant or routine as they were happening, but when we look back, they were all pieces of the beautiful life we’ve stitched together with God’s grace. The love, the loss, the mundane, the thrilling, the joyous, the heartbreaking, the beginnings, the ends, and everything in between. Every piece is part of our story.
On a lighter note- since we decided to postpone the observance of our big day like a bank holiday, we were just business as usual on our actual anniversary except for cooking a nice steak. That night, I walked through the family room to get a couple of Tums for my unusually persistent case of acid reflux and there Davis was on the couch wearing no pants. Before your imagination makes the situation more exciting that it was, on his way to the shower, he remembered that he needed to soak his plantar fasciitis foot in ice water first. I thought- well, here we are getting older. I’ve got a burning deep down in my chest and he’s stripped down to his underwear on the couch and none of it has one thing to do with us celebrating our anniversary. No, it’s just the years adding up on us, but so grateful for all the precious days we’ve had along the way.
Thank you, most gracious God.
Y’all have a great weekend!
JONI
Thursday, February 18, 2021
Lights Out
So, there’s been a little winter weather to hit the Deep South. We, southerners, like to think of ourselves as a hardy people. A resourceful group who can manage just about anything. We can deal with ornery water moccasins and swarms of mosquitos that could be mistaken for hummingbirds. We are quite proficient in coping with hurricanes with 150 mph winds. We can hunt, garden, skin deer, and put up vegetables. We are built to survive 90% humidity with a heat index of 105. (well, most of us are) We know a little something about what to do when tornadoes are coming. We can cook up some good eatin’ and catch a mess of catfish and help your mama with a flat tire on the side of the road, but when God was putting us together, He just didn’t see the point of equipping us with the ability to deal with ice. Maybe because He knew we wouldn’t get much use out of it. Whatever it is, it’s just not our thing and that’s ok. Nobody can be good at everything.
We’d been seeing this foreboding forecast several days out, but we, southerners, don’t tend to get too worked up about these winter weather forecasts because they usually end up being a big nothing. Southern school children have spent far too many “snow days” at home playing in the brown grass. No, we wait until a day or two before the anticipated event to make preparations. At that point, if they’re still insistent that it’s going to be snowy or icy, then we reckon we should listen. This is the point when everyone in town panics and goes to the grocery store at the very same time to buy bread, milk, water, peanut butter, ham, cheese, hot dogs, batteries, and Little Debbie’s. I, myself, made a pot of soup, some pimento cheese, and sloppy joe meat because I prefer to eat a tad higher on the hog in weather emergencies and, really, we’re just fancy people like that. We planned to use the grill and propane cooker to heat things up if needed.
Well, my little Mama had a big limb knock a live power line down onto the top of her house after the first signs of icing. Thank the good Lord for her precious neighbors. My brother went and rescued her and brought her here, where we wanted her in the first place. I’d begged her to come stay here in anticipation of the bad weather, but she wouldn’t comply- insisting she’d be just fine. I know they have books on how to deal with disobedient children, but I wonder if there are any that speak on disobedient parents because I’m going to need one or two of those.
And about the time the three of us were eating our nice dinner here, our power went out and stayed out about 20 hours including the 11 degree night, which might as well have been -30. Once it gets below 32, southerners lose their ability to discern degrees of cold. All I know is that when it’s 11 degrees and the heat is out, the bed is the only place to find any warmth or solace. Although- it was a toss up whether Davis and I missed the heat or our sleep machine more. We don’t do well with sleeping in silence. At one point, Ruby looked over at us like she was annoyed- wondering which one had forgotten to pay the power bill.
We got power back in time for a hot lunch, the next day, and avoided the second wave of power outages when round two of bad weather came through last night, so we’re awfully grateful for that. There are still a lot of people without power after our bizarre thunder snow/freezing rain/sleet/rain with thunder weather event. Our pine trees don’t hold up well in the ice and they just can’t resist falling on a power line any chance they get. There are so many power trucks from all over the country working to help get us back to normal. I don’t know what they’re paying them down there at the power company, but people who climb up a pole in a windy 11 degrees to tinker with electricity should be well-compensated. Right now, there is no one more welcomed or appreciated around here than them.
We need to pray for the Texans, who really seem to be having a terrible time. I’m sure there are other places, too. We may not know how to drive in snow or ice in the South and we may find ourselves ill-prepared for the havoc it brings. Sure, we wait until the last minute to gather our supplies. Yeah, we slip and slide and look like we don’t know what we’re doing, but there’s one thing we do better than anything- we’re awfully good at helping our fellow man. So many people helping each other by doing whatever they can do during all of this. Cutting up trees, pulling cars out of ditches, inviting cold neighbors to sleep by a fireplace, taking food to stranded truckers on the interstate, checking on the elderly. We may not do cold very well and we’re sure not pretty trying, but we can love our neighbors with the best of them and we’re just beautiful when we’re doing that.
Photo of our neighborhood lake taken by my sweet neighbor, Jennifer
Everybody stay safe and warm!
Spring is coming!
JONI
Thursday, February 11, 2021
Post #462
I was cleaning out the camera roll on my phone this week. You know how, before you realize it, those pictures and emails can get out of hand. Well, in the midst of my technological housekeeping, I came across some quite unfortunate and unintentional selfies that were deleted at once- lest the children try to work them into my funeral home slideshow, one day, in some miscalculated attempt at humor. I can’t begin to express to you how ghastly they really were. Enough so that, perhaps, I should start putting a little back for some work down the road.
You see, before Christmas, I’d bought a handy little contraption in anticipation of all those holiday group pictures we’d be taking. You know, for the times when you don’t have any extra people hanging around who can serve as photographer or you try to prop your phone up against a book and set the timer. Well, those always end up looking like a lineup at the police station, which is never ideal for pictures commemorating Jesus’ birthday. Anyway, I decided I’d experiment with another option, so I ordered a small bendable cell phone tripod that could stand or wrap around just about anything and came with a remote control that would snap the picture. All of our photography woes were sure to be solved.
At Christmas, every time we’d get together with a different group of family, I’d get it out and brag about how handy it was and how little I paid for it. By the 3rd or 4th time that I brought it out, my kids started finishing my sentence, “....and I only paid $20 for it- we know, Mom.” I couldn’t help that I was super proud of my contraption.
I could only find one flaw in its design and that was when you were putting the phone into the tripod holder, it would, often times, trigger the emergency call feature, causing you to have to scramble to shut it off before you unnecessarily disturbed the people over at 911. So, because of this unfortunate drawback, I inadvertently took a lot of selfies from my lap over the holidays as I frantically tried to disengage the emergency alert system. I’m talking rapid fire selfies.
If you are 50 or over, I would strongly suggest you place your camera in your lap, switch the camera to selfie mode, and take some pictures of yourself. It will free your spirit from any sinful grip placed on it by the tentacles of pride and vanity. My neck and chin reminded me of when the headliner started coming unglued in my first car. There’s a lot of slack and billowing under there where slack and billowing once did not exist.
This week, Motherhood and Muffin Tops celebrates 7 years of - well, whatever it is we do here. The “About Me” section of the blog is almost completely outdated now. When I started this, I had a daughter who’d just left for college and a son in junior high and braces. My age still started with a 4, the brain fog of menopause (or whatever this is) hadn’t set in, and I’m pretty sure my neck skin was taut and didn’t billow.
A lot has happened in 7 years. Life is full of happy and sad moments and all those in-between changes to which we have to adjust. I could never thank you enough for spending some of your week listening to me carry on about stuff. I’ve worked through all kinds of things on here- grief, life stages, changes- and, sometimes, just laughed and snorted like a middle schooler about ridiculous things.
Whatever life brings for us to talk about in year 8, I hope we can feel like we’re never alone here. I imagine the things you experience are a lot like the things I experience. My fears probably resemble yours and your hopes are likely similar to mine. I’ve always loved the quote by C.S. Lewis about friendship. I bet it applies to blogships, too.“Friendship...is born at the moment when one man says to another “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” Most days, the sun shines down on us and life feels so good, but, sometimes, the rain just pelts us in the face. It helps to know that other people understand what that feels like- the warmth of the sun and the sting of the rain. God promises to walk with us through it all. Let’s keep on walking, talking, and laughing all together.
You’re the best and I appreciate you more than you know.
JONI
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