Q&A a Day

One of my favorite Christmas gifts this year is the journal pictured below that has already been a lot of fun. Q&A a Day asks a new question each day of the year and provides space for only the briefest answer. Each year for five years you answer the same question, and at the end of five years, you have a record of your thoughts and activities for the last five years.

The New Year's Eve question asked what my favorite memory of the past year was. Since I have at least three very special people in my life, I couldn't pick just one. So I picked one memory for each of the people who are most dear to me.

My favorite memory with my husband was a week we spent back in August in Traverse City. Just the two of us in the dwindling days of summer. We stayed at a small cottage that we had rented the previous year, and as soon as we walked in the door, I immediately felt happy and relaxed. It's one of those kinds of places. It's small and a little rustic. A screened-in porch looks out over a small inland lake. The yard is filled with tall pines, and everything smells fresh and summery. The kids were welcome to come with us, but Katie was finishing up her photojournalism internship, and Jonathan thought he had nailed down a job and shouldn't be away. And while I love my kids and would have enjoyed having them, I must say that it was a lovely week for just the two of us. We'd have a leisurely time in the mornings, eating breakfast and then sitting out on the porch reading books while the sun grew warmer. We'd stop now and then to watch the bird activity in the trees in the yard or out on the lake. The weather was perfect all week, and we filled the afternoons with hiking, canoeing, taking a sailboat cruise in Charlevoix, and eating at restaurants we wouldn't have eaten at if there had been four of us. Not all couples are at a place in their lives where they can get away for an entire week by themselves, but if you are, I encourage you to go create what will be one of your favorite memories for 2013. 

Katie gave me my favorite memory this fall. I had purchased some beautiful mums for the front porch--the prettiest color of crimson I had ever seen. I placed the planter them in a little plant stand, but it wasn't quite as big as the stand, so there was "wiggle room." I don't remember what had happened that day, but I do remember that it had been one of those crazy days filled with minor frustrations. It had also been a windy day. I pulled into our driveway after work, and there was my planter of beautiful mums upside down. Ugh. Katie followed me into the house a few minutes later and asked, "What happened to your flowers?" I told her, "It's the perfect ending to the way this day has been." Henry and I had to go out for awhile, but when we returned, there was a whole new display of mums with one large planter and three small ones around it that had been left by my lovely mum fairy, Katie. What a sweet gesture of love--and what a great memory to have just weeks before my girl got married and became a real grown-up.

Jonathan gave me my favorite memory last spring during baseball season (I can't believe I'm saying that; I'm a sports anti-fan). I admire people who aren't afraid to put themselves out there and try something new, which is exactly what Jonathan did. All through school, he had never played any sports. But at his small, Christian high school, the teams were desperate for players, so there were no cuts, and everyone was welcome to join the team. His junior year, he joined the basketball team and then the baseball team. In both sports, he spent a lot of time on the bench, but he was a winner because he got himself into great physical condition and learned a lot about working hard, pushing himself to try new things, and being part of a team. This past year--his senior year--he played basketball and baseball again, but in baseball, he played most of the season. His junior year the baseball team had been made up of  players from two small schools, so there were lots of players. This past year, the baseball team was made up of just players from West Michigan Lutheran, and most of them were fairly young and inexperienced--and they had just enough to make a team. Jonathan struggled for most of the season, learning and improving, like the other players, and losing more games than winning, but finally, in his last game, something clicked. They were playing against the team they had played with the previous year, and they really wanted to win. Jonathan was playing right field, as usual, and he had been steadily improving at it all season. At bat, he finally connected with the ball and hit a pop fly that was caught, but none of the fans cared because we were so thrilled that he finally hit the ball. The team made an amazing comeback and beat their rivals, and Jonathan contributed by catching a couple of pop flies to right field. Afterward, during a team picture that Katie took, the other guys on the team pulled water bottles out and poured them on Jonathan--the only senior on the team. It was a great game for him to end his high school career with, and we all had fun watching the guys honor Jonathan by soaking him.

So 2012 was an eventful year for our family: Jonathan graduated from high school and started college, and Katie and Ryan got married in November. Many changes, many memories. It will be interesting to review my journal eventually and trace the providences, thoughts, and events of five years.    

Happy Father's Day, Dad

Four generations: Dad, Katie, Annette, Grandpa Walborn

If you ever wondered where my lack of height came from . . . .

Even though he didn't give me at least 66 inches, he gave me many more important things: an example of hard work, excellence, the importance of living Christianly, music genes, and a love for pizza and homemade ice cream.

This is the man who would drive home about 13 miles after working hard all day, pick me up, and drive back about 40 miles (13 of which were the same miles he had just driven) to take me to piano lessons at Bowling Green State University's Creative Arts program for high school students. This is one of my favorite gifts. I still use it today. In fact, I should practice because I'm playing piano in church tomorrow. And he taught me that we never offer up music in worship that hasn't been thorougly practiced.

Happy Father's Day, Dad! You are a blessing!

Katie and the Governor

Katie is just starting her second week of a photojournalism internship with the Holland (Michigan) Sentinel. Last week was Holland's famous Tulip Festival, and Katie was quite busy photographing the festivities.

For those of you who are not Michiganders, the gray-haired man on the left is Michigan's new governor, Rick Snyder. He was visiting the Hudsonville Creamery, which is near Holland, to sample two new flavors created especially for him. And Katie was there to photograph the event.

Also there was her internship supervisor, who instructed her to go stand near the governor and do something crazy. So she did. And the best part? Hudsonville Ice Cream gave each of the photographers two half gallons of ice cream to take home. I think Katie's summer is getting off to a good start.

And if you want to see some of her pictures from the Tulip Festival, including a respectable photo of Governor Snyder that Katie took when she wasn't being silly, take a look here.

Got It Covered

Katie finishes working at her college's library, drives my car back over to the seminary building where I work to pick me up, and I  hop in the driver's seat. The next leg of the trip is west on 96 to 196, south through downtown on 131, and off at 36th Street, where we pick up our next passenger, Jonathan, who has just finished two hours of basketball practice. We have miles to go before we sleep--or at least I thought we did.

I drive around the corner to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things that we need for dinner, and both kids stay in the car. I hurry through the store, gather fresh vegetables, and stand in the less-than-ten items line for a few minutes. I dash back out to the car, where both exhausted children (19 and 17, mind you) are leaning against the windows in the front and back seats with their eyes shut. Neither of them even looks up as I get in the car and back out of the parking spot.They've had a hard day.

As I drive through the parking lot I comment, "A kidnapper could be driving the two of you away, and you wouldn't even know it. You'd be ten miles from here, and there'd be nothing you could do."

Summoning all of the strength left in his weary 17-year-old body, Jonathan speaks up from the back seat: "I'd beat him up. Katie has her license--she could drive away. We'd be fine."

And I feel much better now knowing there's a strategy in place.

Shameless Plugs

Here are, admittedly, a couple of shameless plugs for two very creative, entrepreneurial ladies. The first is Miss Katie Selden, my very own red-headed daughter, who has just created a new website for her photography business. Katie has had a passion for photography for several years now, and even though she's all grown up and in college now, majoring in a sensible degree like Humanities with an English emphasis, she ultimately wants to be a photographer. (You'll have to ask her to explain, and you can probably do that if you go to her website or contact her on Facebook.) She's accepting appointments for prom photographs now, and she's even come up with her own idea, a take-off on the weirdly popular trash-the-wedding-dress concept: trash the prom dress. Be the first of your friends to have a trash-the-prom-dress portrait, but don't tell your mom!

My other plug is for an author that I've enjoyed working with on two book projects, Christy Bower. Christy's second book, Best Friends with God, which I edited, will be releasing soon, and Christy is planning a pre-release book party this Friday, April 9, at her blog and on Facebook. You can interact with her, and she even has a contest going to win a signed copy of her new book. Get the details on when/how to enter her contest and join the party at her blog. Christy is a great person and an excellent author--both my experiences working with her have been a lot of fun. So pay her a visit, and win a free book!

Two Scraped Fingers

In an old Christmas song from the 1940s, a child sings, “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.” I’m suggesting a new version of that song this year for our family: “What I got for Christmas is two scraped fingers.” In fact, the two scraped fingers that we got this week as an early Christmas gift on Monday will probably be my favorite gift of all. Let me explain . . .


Monday morning, Katie was driving to her job at the Cornerstone University library and stopped for a yellow light at East Beltline and Lake (for those of you who are local). Unfortunately, the construction-company truck with a trailer that was behind her didn’t stop for the yellow light, and hit the back of her car (which is actually my car), spun her, and hit the driver’s side door, denting it so badly that she couldn’t open it to get out of the car. The back of the car was smashed in, the back window was shattered, the driver’s side was dented, and both the driver’s side windows were shattered. Katie walked away from the whole thing with two scraped fingers that didn’t even require bandages. And in the meantime, until Henry could get there, there were several people who showed great kindness to her, especially a woman who stayed at the scene, let Katie sit in her car, and called her boss for her to let him know what happened and why Katie wasn’t there.

In our family, December has historically been an eventful month. We have many birthdays, including my dad’s, my sister’s, my niece’s, and Henry’s—and those are just a few; there are more on both my and Henry’s side . It has also been a month of some devastating events: the car accident that ultimately took my sister’s life; my first husband’s leukemia diagnosis; the diagnosis about a year later that he had relapsed after his bone marrow transplant and the prognosis that he would die in about ten weeks.

But now I will also remember December as the month when my red-headed girl got into a terrible accident and walked away with two scraped fingers. And I will thank God that He gave us this gift of the protection of Katie’s life. I don’t think there’s much else I could want for Christmas this year.

*The photo is Katie and Jonathan, probably about 1994, my treasures of Christmas past.

A New Era

This is Katie, college freshman at Cornerstone University as of today. This isn't quite the photo I had hoped for, but it was a busy day, and in the end, the photo that I had envisioned, of Katie sitting at her desk in her freshly organized dorm room, just didn't happen.

Maybe this one is better though. As we backed out of the driveway, the car loaded with boxes and suitcases (you can see them in the background), Katie pulled my camera out, took a picture of herself, and said, "This is how I look now. In four years, when I'm done with college, we'll take a picture and see how I've changed."

It will be interesting in four years to see how she's changed, but I'm pretty sure a camera won't be able to capture it all. If Katie's college experience is anything like mine was, she will experience tremendous spiritual, intellectual, emotional growth and change--the kind of things a camera won't capture.

It was a busy day. We began and ended it in lines. This morning we waited briefly for a student ID and the laptop incentive that Cornerstone offers to its new students. Laptop and student ID in hand, we drove over to Katie's dorm, and we barely got the trunks open when Cornerstone staffers picked up all the boxes and carried them to her room. A most impressive display of help!

After lunch, we left Katie and her roommate, Shanda from Indiana (that rhymes!), to assemble their room but returned for the late afternoon welcome ceremony, with praise and worship music (more on that in a future post), an address from Cornerstone president Joe Stowell, and prayers for parents and students.

We ended the day with a dinner in the gym (after an hour-long wait in line) and a quick good-bye back at Katie's dorm. Stowell commented that today, the students all feel like they're at summer camp, and I think I'm having a hard time not thinking that as well. About October, he said, reality will hit the students, and that's when they'll start feeling homesick. I'm thinking that may be when it hits me too. Right now, I can walk upstairs, open her bedroom door--and the mess everywhere won't let me believe that she's too far away.

As Jonathan and I pulled out of the parking lot, I said, "Well, it's the end of an era. You'll get to see what it's like to be an only child." He's not sure what he thinks about that, but I think he'll come to like it. He said to me, "Another four years, and you'll have one kid out of the house." He obviously thinks she's just at summer camp, too.

Eighteen

Once upon a time--July 26, 1991, in fact--a red-headed princess was born. It was the only time in her life she was ever early, but that's because this was a princess with lots to do, so she really needed to get things moving. Her mom and dad named her Kathleen Kristi Lynn, but because that was such a big name for a such a little girl, they called her Katie. And with the red hair and eventual freckles and all, it seemed to fit.

For the first few months, the princess cried--a lot! But after about four months, when she got big enough to sit up in a walker and push herself around the house, she stopped crying so much. This was a princess who needed to do stuff--all the time--and once she was able to do stuff, she was much happier.

Like most princesses, this one grew. She liked to talk (a lot), sing, and laugh. Everywhere she went, people asked her, "Where did you get that pretty red hair?" One day when the Meijer cashier asked this very question, the princess answered, "From God." And she was right.

The princess experienced some difficult blows. When she was four, her daddy died--and she was a daddy's girl if there ever was one. For different reasons, she had to change schools way too many times. That was hard. But she was a strong princess, and she continued to be very smart, and she always liked to talk, sing, and laugh.

As the princess grew, she became quite a companion for her lonely mom and went with her to plays, restaurants, and concerts. She developed her own unique sense of hair and clothing style. As she became less and less of a child, she grew to love children more and more. And they love her, too. She learned to see the things in the world around her with a different eye from most people, and she started taking pictures of the things she saw.

The most important thing that the princess could have done and will ever do, she did. She publically professed her faith in Jesus and vowed to serve Him with her life.

So with that most important event accomplished, the princess graduated from high school. And she begins a new chapter in her life this fall when she goes to college. It seems it doesn't really take very long to get to eighteen.

Happy birthday, Katie!

The Open House, or Why I Have Only Two Kids, Spaced Apart

So I have now faced down one of the greatest challenges any parent could face, and I do believe I have won: the graduation open house. The planning for such an event was second only to the planning for last year's wedding, but since we paid everyone to take care of last year's wedding, the open house was a lot more work.

I've actually been stressing about it for months now, but the actual work began about a month and a half ago, when Katie and I decided what kind of announcements to send out. She had opted not to get the traditional announcements that the graduation announcement companies charge lots of money for, and instead we discovered that we could have an announcement printed at one of my new favorite establishments, Costco, complete with a lovely photo of Katie (see above), for not lots of money. So step 1 was accomplished. It was relatively easy.

Katie had decided that she wanted to have a dessert open house, so we toyed with the idea of a chocolate fountain, but found that we were surrounded by naysayers (you know who you are), so we opted for less messy, less oil-demanding desserts. The whole problem for me with the open house thing is that you might invite 125 people, and maybe 67 will show up. But maybe 125 will show up. Or maybe if all your child's Facebook friends checked her status announcing her open house, 237 will show up. You'll either have far too much food, or far too little. You cannot win. At any rate, I'm not one of those people who just "goes with the flow" very well. If I had my way, I'd know how many people were coming; what time they planned to arrive; which desserts from the dessert menu they would be eating and how many of each; and whether they wanted punch, coffee, or water. So this was a real exercise in flexibility for me, a growth experience.

The dessert buffet included the following:

chocolate cake with strawberry filling (from Costco, of course)
white cake with white filling (again, Costco)
sugar cookies with blue icing (to stay with the blue and white school colors--baked by me)
banana bars (made by my mom)
heavenly dream bars (an extreme Rice Krispie treat, made by Katie and probably the most talked-about of the dessert items)
mini cheesecakes with blueberry topping (blue/white theme, baked by Katie and me)
almond bars (my personal favorite, baked by Henry's mom)
fruit and fruit dip (no one touched the dip, but it was excellent)
and probably the most popular thing--a citrus punch that made 90 cups; I thought we'd probably be drinking it until Jonathan's graduation, but it was drunk to the dregs by the end of the evening
and the obligatory coffee and water

If guests left without a sugar buzz, weighing what they weighed when they came in, it was their own fault.

We decorated with blue and white daisies and photos of Katie everywhere. She made a tri-fold board with a variety of pictures from infancy to present. There were balloons and confetti, which was a lot of fun to clean up come Saturday morning.

Of course, the event was not without its moments. The evening began at 6:00, so Katie and I left our house a little before 5:00 to make punch and put on the finishing touches (the open house was at our church's fellowship hall since I couldn't deal with the unpredictability of weather). We made our way down Kalamazoo Avenue, which, as usual, is under construction. The traffic was terrible. As we approached the intersection of Kalamazoo and 60th Street, I suddenly realized that we had no key to get in, and Henry would not be coming for another half hour or so. To turn around and go back home would be pointless; by the time we were actually able to turn around and re-enter the traffic headed the opposite direction, Henry probably would be on his way. So we pulled out the church bulletin that I keep in my purse (so many times that has been useful), and looked for the elders and deacons that lived nearby whose phone numbers we had with us. It's only right that our friend Harry, who we have known since before Katie was born, provided us with a key and saved our behinds, not for the first time in our friendship history, I might add.

It was a lovely evening, and our guests included family from Ohio, Indiana, and other parts of Michigan, friends from our former and present churches, co-workers of mine who have overheard me arguing with Katie on the phone for the last four years and thus share an important piece of her life, Katie's friends, and just friends we have known for a long time.

I'm thinking that we should have made it a two-day affair, because in spite of the fact that I left a lot of stuff behind for the youth group to eat on Sunday and several guests accepted my pleas to fill a plate and take it with them and I made a small dessert plate for a shut-in from church, we have far more dessert than any family of slightly overweight people should have. If you're in the neighborhood, and you have a hankering for some cake, stop on in.

And I now have three years to start planning for Jonathan's open house, and I suspect that he won't be nearly the help that Katie was . . .

Scenes from Graduation '09

Announcing the graduation of Kathleen Kristi Lynn Selden from South Christian High School, Grand Rapids, Michigan, on May 21, 2009. The graduate plans to attend Cornerstone University, Grand Rapids, in the fall, where she will major in humanities (where all the jobs are, of course!).





The four-year choir student joined her fellow graduating choir students in a lovely rendition of "The Lord Bless You and Keep You" during the graduation ceremony.





It was a lovely May evening, and after the ceremony the graduates celebrated outside with family and friends. Here, our favorite graduate receives the congratulations of her brother Jonathan. It was a wonderful, happy evening!

Facebooking 101

Last Friday was family visit day at Cornerstone University, where Katie will begin her college career next fall. Upon arrival, we were ushered into a room where we could sign up for optional activities during an hour in both the morning and afternoon. The three of us decided it would be interesting to sit in on a class, and we signed up for a required course: Intro to Fine Arts.

After attending what felt like an eternal chapel service (all praise and worship music) that seemed to be a tangible example of what Michael Horton is writing about in Christless Christianity (another blog post perhaps), Henry and I set off to find Intro to Fine Arts.

Let's just say college just isn't what it used to be, back when I was attending courses like Intro to Fine Arts. One of the perks for Cornerstone students is that they receive a notebook computer upon arrival to campus, so everyone has one. As we took our seats, we noticed all the students around us, waiting for the professor to come in, and that part is pretty much the same. But while in my day we would have been pulling out our spiral-bound notebooks and digging for pens while having a conversation with a friend, these students were . . . Facebooking.

Yes--WiFi has made its way into the hallowed halls of Cornerstone. To be fair, not all of the students were Facebooking. Some appeared to be randomly surfing the Net, hitting sites that had nothing to do with higher learning. As the professor took his place at the front of the classroom, I expected that students would now pull up the screen where they typed their notes for Intro to Fine Arts. The student sitting in front of me, though, spent the hour checking course options at Hope College, Calvin, and Cornerstone and recording his findings on his Google calendar. It appeared, briefly, that he was going to work on a paper for another class, but thought better of it and sent a couple of emails instead. The two girls sitting a few chairs down from us seemed to just be surfing, with occasional visits to their Facebook pages.

The professor was discussing some of the differences between Renaissance art in Italy and in Northern Europe. The discussion was interesting, and Henry and I were impressed with his lecture. At one point, the professor asked the students what important event occurred in late October 1517. No response from the class. He threw out a couple of other clues: it had to do with a monk . . . Wittenburg . . . I was crying inside, using every ounce of strength I had not to scream out, "Come on!" Finally, one student said, "Oh!" and started making a gesture as if he were hammering something. The poor professor finally managed to get the response he was looking for: the Reformation.

In a lunchtime conversation we had with a philosophy professor, I brought up the issue of WiFi in the classroom. He told us that this fall, he would be banning computers from his classroom. A co-worker at DHP who teaches freshman composition at Cornerstone tells me he plans to do the same thing. There are still some voices of reason, apparently.

Dear Cornerstone Administrators (because I can't imagine that professors would ever go for this):

What are you thinking, putting WiFi in the classrooms? Do you not know that it is an irresistible force, akin to the gravitational pull? Do you not know that it has a force greater than Renaissance art, Old Testament history, chlorophyll, the respiratory system, Isosceles triangles--pretty much anything that might be discussed in a university lecture hall?

Perhaps this is your secret plan to collect more tuition as students fail classes while checking their messages, writing on someone's wall, or taking a quiz to find out which Disney princess they are most like. If so, it will probably work, and fewer and fewer people in this world will know that Renaissance art in Italy was more idealistic while the art of Northern Europe was more realistic. On the other hand, they will know if they have Belle's independent spirit or Cinderella's work ethic. And that will get you a long way toward an accounting degree.

I do know, though, that the professors are on to you, and they are getting tired of lecturing to the wall and having no response to their questions. Most of them realize that notes can be taken with paper and pen, that technology is not always the answer. There is a life--indeed, a world--beyond Facebook.

Thank you for your efforts to encourage higher learning.

Sincerely,
Annette Gysen

And that was our day at Cornerstone.

A Blonde and a Redhead Went Shopping ...

It's been a long time since Katie and I have enjoyed an "incident" together, one of those moments when our antics become a LaVerne and Shirley wannabe episode. Part of that, unfortunately, is because we don't have many opportunities these days to do things together. Katie is growing into her own life, complete with play practices, Madrigals rehearsals, and the various social activities that high school seniors involve themselves in. And I now have Henry, an actual live-in date who is nearly always available for my own social needs.

And yet spring break found Katie and me doing one of our favorite mother/daughter activities: shopping together on State Street in Chicago. Guys and girls split up--with guys spending the day at the Museum of Science and Industry, exercising their brains, and girls shopping downtown, exercising their fashion skills. The car safely parked at the museum, Katie and I hopped CTA bus #10 in front of the museum and comfortably rode to the shopping area.

We had some early success and hit some of our favorites: H&M and Forever 21 for Katie and Nordstrom Rack, where I found the most amazing collection of size 5 shoes ever--something that is a rare find here in the home of larger feet, Grand Rapids. I dug through the Nordstrom rejects on one side of the rack while Katie checked out the other side until I uttered what Katie calls the "cute shoe gasp." There were the cutest pair of navy shoes that I could have ever hoped to own, the perfect accessory for the outfit I bought last spring.

And so the shopping went on. Katie made more purchases than I did and had more bags. Eventually, I had two--my shoes and a cute top I found at another shop. I stuffed the shoes into the shirt bag so that I was carrying only one. The afternoon wore on, and I became concerned about finding out where and what time we should catch the #10 bus back to the museum so that we could meet the guys at the designated time.

As we left the last shop, I remember placing my bag on the counter while I buttoned up my coat. We walked out, and I told Katie that at this point we needed to form our bus strategy. We approached a bus stop with a large map tracing the different routes. I really couldn't figure out what I needed to know from the map, but we were right in front of the State Street Macy's, and I remembered that Macy's had a tourist department and wondered if they might have some bus information.

Sure enough--the Macy's directory told us that the seventh floor had a tourist information department. And even better, there was an express elevator that would take us right to the seventh floor. We got on and pressed 7. Somewhere between that first floor and seven, I realized that I no longer had my bag. All I could think was that maybe I had left it in the last store when I had buttoned up my coat. Katie didn't think so. She thought it was more likely I set it down when I was looking at the map at the bus stop, in which case, I knew that the adorable blue shoes would now be dead to me.

As soon as we got to the seventh floor, the doors opened, and another guy got on and looked at us as though we were strange for not getting off. Apparently he had never thought he left a shopping bag with cute blue shoes somewhere. We immediately rode down, ran through the first floor, and started rushing off down the sidewalk toward the bus stop and the last store. I really had lost all hope at this point.

We were nearly at the store when Katie said, "Mom, look!" Breathless I turned to find . . . Katie holding my bag along with hers. To this day neither of us remember when I handed her my bag. But the blue shoes did look adorable with the outfit, which I fear may have met its demise, yet another tragic fashion story as of Easter Monday. Another time . . .

The good news: We did catch bus #10, made it back to the museum with time to spare, where we collected our men and then had pizza at Giordano's. All's well that ends well.

Top Ten of 2008

It's that time of year: the top ten lists. Top ten books. Top ten movies. Top ten sports moments. Top ten rehab attempts by sleazy celebrity tarts. Top ten Obama gaffes. So what is left for someone who wants to create her own top ten list? While I've probably read more than ten books this year (it's my job), everybody does top ten books. I don't think I've seen ten new movies, and . . . sports moments . . . Was this an Olympics year? I'm definitely tired of tarts and politics. So that leaves me with only one natural choice: top ten personal surreal moments of 2008.

In a year filled with a middle-aged bride and groom, a bachelor (now married) merging with two teenagers, and a new house, there were more surreal moments than any one person deserves to dream about. So because I don't want you, dear readers, to be overwhelmed, I will give you five to start, and five more on Monday (hopefully). Here they are, as surreal moments should appear, in no particular order:

1. So many of my top ten surreal moments were, not surprisingly, wedding related. And so something that normally brings great joy--a shopping-type activity--ended up being not so pleasant. I had finally managed to convince my dear fiance to come with me to the mall to begin a gift registry. For some reason, I believed that Kohl's would be a good choice. It seems I always find things I want at Kohl's; in fact, I rarely walk out of that store without buying something. So we went to the counter and handed over my driver's license in exchange for a scanner. After a brief explanation about how to use the scanner, we headed over to housewares to decide just what we needed to make our new home complete. This was not such an easy task since we both had pretty much everything we needed to manage a household. We would look at an item like steak knives, discuss whether one of us had a sufficient set, and, if not, check them all out to decide which one was best, and then scan. (H is at the opposite end of the spectrum from impulse shopping, which is probably why he doesn't often go to malls. It's just too much work, and he needs something more to make a decision than just that something is a great color.)This was a rather lengthy process, and probably after an hour and a half of this, we headed back to the counter with a scanner filled with our hopes and dreams for kitchen utensils and small electronic devices. I handed the scanner off to a college-age young man, who carried it over to the kiosk and appeared to be doing what you have to do to transfer information from a scanner to a kiosk. However, the expression on his face lacked confidence as he looked at us and said, "You're not going to be happy about this." "Did you lose her license?" my ever-practical H asked. But it was far worse than that. A lost license would only require waiting several hours at the DMV on a Saturday morning and a replacement fee. He had somehow lost the gift registry list that had taken us so long to compile. He offered us nothing more than my license back and a mumbled sorry. The next day I called the store manager, hoping that there would be some sort of compensation for the incompetence of counter guy. After talking with a young lady from Kohl's IT who promised that this would not happen again if we came back and gave another piece of our life to the process, the manager offered us a whopping 15 percent off coupon. As a Most Valued Customer, I get better deals than that in the mail every week. Surreal. We registered at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, where we should have just gone in the first place.

2. We opened a gift registry because several generous friends and family members hosted showers for us. The first was from the women of the Gysen family: Henry's sister, nieces, mom, an aunt, several cousins, and my mom. It was my first time meeting most of them, and it was such a nice morning. My sister-in-law, Diane, had done a fantastic job. I noticed that as I began opening one gift in particular, one of the cousins made sure her camera was aimed and ready to fire. I opened the box to discover a very teeny crocheted lingerie set--perhaps only a little too large for a Barbie. It was hilarious, but a little surreal, to see my future mother-in-law carefully looking over my gift. Better yet was when H's cousin asked, "Want me to make you one, Aunt Sylvia?"

3. Katie passing her driver's test and getting her license. Enough said.

4. Jonathan's eighth-grade class trip in early June was to Cedar Point, and H and I (not married yet) decided to go along. I asked him if he liked amusement parks, and he said not particularly--something we shared in common. I'm not much of a ride person; a surreal Tilt-a-Whirl moment in high school where I lost my lunch on my friend sitting next to me kind of made me not so excited about rides. But--for Jonathan--we sucked it up and went. And what did I learn about my soon-to-be-husband that day? He is a roller coaster fiend. He'll ride any roller coaster any number of times and like it. And for those of you out there who are scratching your heads saying, "She's married to Henry Gysen, right?" all I can say is . . . it's surreal. And I do have Raptor video footage of H and J to prove all of this.

5. And now an explanation of the pictures, another surreal moment from this summer. In August, we decided a little family vacation to Mackinac Island was in order. When you think of Mackinac, you think of romance, lilacs, boats, quaint bed and breakfasts, horses and carriages, the majestic fort overlooking the lake, beautiful trails through the woods and onto the beach. Yet for our family, Mackinac has come to mean something even more: bats. As we started to enter the shop with the hand buzzers, trick dice, and funny sunglasses, we noticed this little black creature, who was not quite sure what to do. Maybe he'd had too much caffeine or couldn't find a spot beside one of his bat friends (also pictured, doing what bats should do in the daylight), or had too much to drink, but the lady working in the shop decided to rescue him and was carrying him around (ewwww!). And then the phone rang. That is a bat in her left hand. I do think in all my years I've never seen a person holding a bat in one hand and a phone in the other. This was worthy of a Poe short story. And interesting that her shirt says, "magic?" Photos by the talented Katie Selden.

Come back next week for part two of the top ten surreal moments of 2008.

Senior Pictures . . . Then and Now

If I were back in my Freshman Composition teaching days, these two pictures could be a study in contrasts: a senior picture from 2008 and a senior picture from . . . not 2008. (I'm cringing as I type this and for the first time realize that my daughter is graduating from high school almost thirty years after I did. No wonder these pictures look so dang different! I'm feeling incredibly ancient at the moment.)

Anyway, the experiences themselves were incredibly different, in the following ways. Homeschooling friends, feel free to use this as a writing exercise; here's the outline:

1. Location, location, location: Back in the Mesozoic era in Wauseon, Ohio, there really weren't a lot of options for photographers. Most of us drove about three miles west, to the booming town of Pettisville, and were photographed at the studio of Dick and Dee. There were a few props, maybe a mirror, a desk as you see here. It was all very contained. On the other hand, Katie's senior pics (or should I say photo shoot) were all over downtown Grand Rapids, but mostly in places where drug addicts and alcoholics hang out, except early Saturday mornings when we were there. Truly--at one site, we had to kick gin bottles out of the way, and at one spot, Leda, our fearless photographer, warned Katie to stay out of the poison ivy (which I would have thought we wouldn't need to worry about downtown, but the grassy areas around some of those falling-down buildings--the best backdrop for a photo shoot--are not well tended. My photographer did not risk his life in any way to capture me; indeed, he did not break a sweat. Leda, however, stood in the turn lane at the corner of Fulton and Division to get this picture of Katie. And at one point, both Leda and Katie were lying on their stomachs in a parking lot, facing each other. Frostbite and pneumonia were definitely realities for both of them at that point.

2. Wardrobe: I wore a nice church dress, as you can see. To be honest, this was my second attempt at getting decent senior pics. In the first, I had a couple of wardrobe changes (two other nice dresses), but the end result was not good, and so I went back for round 2. Katie started out wearing jeans and a sweater, then changed to a jumper and top--complete with tights and heels--in the middle of the sidewalk on a brisk November Saturday morning. At some point she changed again--back to the jeans and a black sweater, with two different scarves as accessories.

3. Final product: I had some proofs to choose from, with the end result being this nice, old-fashioned photo of a demure young lady headed for Christian college in the fall. Katie's photographer, Leda, first posted several of her favorite pictures of Katie on her blog only a few hours after the photo shoot here (scroll down to the November 1 post for Katie). This past weekend, Leda finished all of her editing and left us with no fewer than 119 poses to choose from. Please note the caption under this particular photo of Katie on the blog: S.M.O.K.I.N. In another HUGE contrast, I have never been described as "smokin."

And there you have it: senior pics of mother and daughter from a very long time ago and 2008. If that doesn't produce at least a 500-word comparison/contrast essay, I'm not sure what will.

New Scenes from the Next Act

Scene 1: A mom, dad, and son are taking a walk through the neighborhood on a beautiful evening in late summer. The three clearly enjoy each others' company--talk, teasing, and laughter ring out in the crisp evening air. The question of speed arises; both the dad and the son want to increase the pace, while the mom lags behind at her leisure. The combination of teasing, laughter, and testosterone results in a foot race, with the dad and the son speeding down the street toward the corner at the end of the block, laughing all the way as they urge each other on. The two reach the corner and put their arms around each other in an embrace--father and son in a fellowship of maleness that the mom can only watch appreciatively from the wings, where she's actually happy to be.

Scene 2: Mom and Dad are working together in the home office, he at his desk and she at hers. It's dark now, well into the evening, and the mom realizes that the daughter, who just got her driver's license, should be home soon from Madrigals practice. Almost as soon as Mom has this realization--as she checks her watch--she hears Daughter come in from the garage; she runs up the stairs and bursts into the office. "You should see this piece of music! It's amazing! Have you ever sung this in choir?" Even though the mom has some past choir experience herself, she knows this question is not addressed to her; it is addressed to Dad, across the room. Mom looks over her shoulder as Daughter and Dad together look at the music. Dad recognizes the composer and pulls out a CD with a performance of that very piece. Mom joins the two--Dad and Daughter--yet remains in the wings as they listen together to the amazing piece of music.

Scene 3: Mom comes in from work. It's been a long day. Dad greets her at the door with a hug and kiss and then tells her the son's principal has called. It's only the second week of school, and already there has been an issue. Dad describes the conversation he had with the principal and then the subsequent conversation he has had with the son. He believes the son has heard and understood and will work on doing better. While the mom is concerned for her son--that he get off to a good start, that he behave in an appropriate way, that he make new friends in his new school--she is reassured that Dad has managed the problem well, that things will improve. And she realizes that all of this happened while she was offstage, unaware of the developing plot line, uninvolved in this particular scene at all.

Scene 4: For several days now, the mom has stood in the background--preparing dinner, doing dishes, taking care of the laundry--while Daughter and Dad have made plans for her driver's license test. Since Dad is available, he will take her to the appointment. Some time passes, and it is the day before the test; Mom hears Dad and Daughter making final arrangements: what time he will meet her at school, at which door he should pick her up, whether the non-functioning wiper on the rear window will disqualify her from her test. The next day arrives, and Mom realizes that at this moment, a short while before lunch, Daughter is taking her test with Dad seated in the backseat. Mom returns from lunch and opens an email from Dad, telling her that Daughter has, in fact, passed. Later Daughter tells her that when she learned that she passed, Dad gave her a hug, told her that she'd done a good job--"you know--the dad thing," she explains.

And while for most audiences, this doesn't sound like very exciting drama, this stuff of everyday life, these are the scenes that thrill a mom's heart. This mom, who has always been right at center stage, playing both Mom and Dad, now at times actually gets to observe, from the wings, the development of characters as they interact with one another, playing off one another's strengths, seeking to improve points of weakness. She happily relinquishes her role as Dad to one who isn't just playing one but one who is one, as though he had been all along, one who carries off his role seamlessly, with great skill. It's hard to remember a time when Dad wasn't part of the cast, even though he's only been introduced recently in this next act. And Mom enjoys having the scenes that have been played out in her absence reenacted, retold, relived. It's nice to know the plot can continue to unfold, even without her direct involvement. It is hard to always be "on," at center stage, in the heat of the spotlight. And while she would never give up her integral part in this sometimes drama, sometimes tragedy, often comedy, it is with great relief and with thankfulness to the Master Director of this story that Mom welcomes this new cast member, with all her heart, to this new act.

At Seventeen

This picture accomplishes two purposes: clearly, it is a picture of the lovely Katie outside the church just after the wedding ceremony. But it also serves to celebrate Katie at 17--a little late. (Her birthday was July 26.)

I'm not sure how many 17-year-olds have the opportunity to serve as their mother's bridesmaids, but Katie did very well and looked beautiful in her bridesmaid dress. Katie tells everyone that turning 17 means that she can now legally go to R-rated movies. Sometimes, however, the law doesn't quite line up with family rules, and then the law of parents prevails. Happy birthday, anyway, Katie!

And to celebrate this special girl, I will give you, as closely as I can remember, a bit of dialogue from the room with the bride and attendants just before that walk down the aisle.

Julie (matron of honor) to Annette: You better go to the bathroom before you go out there. It's going to be a long time.

Annette: I'll just have to deal with it. I can't go to the bathroom in this dress.

Julie: It's going to be a long time.

Annette: Who's going to hold my dress for me? Katie?

Katie: I think Julie should do it. She's the matron of honor.

Annette: I think you should do it. You're flesh and blood.

Moments later in the ladies' room

Annette: Just think of all those times I changed your diapers. This is payback. Don't look!

Katie: Don't worry . . .

photo by the talented Judy G.

Changes

Because of our big move this coming weekend and--there's something the following weekend--oh, right, getting married, and then a week of honeymooning after that, this will be my last post as a single mom, the way I described myself in my profile when I started this little blog. Back on that cold winter morning in January 2007, I had no idea that I would ever need to change the profile on my blog because (1) I didn't know how long blogging would last for me; and (2) I had pretty much decided marriage was something that, if it happened at all, would probably happen when I was much older, when Katie and Jonathan had grown up and moved on with lives of their own.

I have to say that this is a change I definitely welcome, because I've never wanted to be a single mom, I've always desired to be married, and having Katie and Jonathan was the result of my being married in the first place. And even though single parenting has been the most difficult task I can imagine, I've learned many things along the way on this twelve-year unwelcome journey that I hope will make me a better wife and married mom. These are some of the most significant lessons God has taught me.

1. God does provide--but not always in the way we would expect Him to. When I was between jobs and had no health insurance for my family and worried what would happen if one of us were sick or injured, God provided by keeping us all healthy and injury free. When I worried about a godly male influence for my growing children, God put it in my parents' hearts to move from Ohio to Michigan so that my dad was here to fill in the gaps. And then He gave me the idea of asking our church's deaconry if there was a young man who would like to minister to Jonathan as a "big brother," and God gave us Tom, who took Jonathan under his wing. When I resisted working full time because I didn't want to take time away from Katie and Jonathan but finances made it necessary, God gave me a full-time job at Discovery House Publishers, the most family friendly employer I can imagine. And my boss, Carol (who is more like a friend), who has great experience as a working mom and grandma, couldn't be more understanding when family issues arise. God does provide, we just need to ask for eyes to see His provision.

2. Waiting for God to deliver what we need is always the best strategy. I mentioned that I never wanted to be single, and raising two children is a lonely and trying job. Out of loneliness I entered the dating arena (always a wrong motivation), lowered my standards considerably, and was hugely disappointed on a couple of occasions as I tried to take matters into my own hands and find a husband. I'm not going to argue that actively seeking a spouse is a bad thing, but a desire for marriage has to be rightly motivated, and if it isn't, it probably won't go well (as it didn't for me). When I finally sat back, relaxed, and learned to be content with God's plan for my life, He brought me Henry--but only when He had made me ready for him. God always gives us what is best for us.

3. God does give us what is best for us, even when it hurts. It's the stuff of cliche: We tell our children, "This hurts me more than it hurts you" when we punish them or give them medicine or take them for a vaccination. And when we become adults, we look back and are grateful that our parents steeled themselves and punished us, made us take medicine, and took us for our vaccinations. During a long stretch of unemployment, several jobs became available that I just knew would be perfect for me. When I didn't get those jobs, I was angry and disappointed. One of those jobs was at a bookstore that ended up going out of business a few months after I interviewed for the job. Do you think God knew that bookstore was going to go out of business? I can't imagine a job that I could love more than the one I have now. I'm encouraged to learn and grow, my abilities are appreciated, I work with wonderful Christian people, I get to write often, and I've acquired the greatest group of author friends who are so enjoyable to interact with. And even though during my job search I often behaved as a selfish child, God still gave this amazing job to me. Thankfully He reserved His best for me and didn't just give me what I wanted.

4. I learned to approach life more calmly with a better sense of perspective. When I was 28, my 20-year-old sister was killed in a car accident. When I was 33, I stood by my 35-year-old husband's bedside as he drew his last breath. Looking death in the eye like that makes you see things a little bit differently. Gaining perspective still didn't happen for me overnight because I had to learn the lessons of numbers 1-3 before I really got a handle on this one, but I think I'm on my way.

5. I learned that I actually could do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I could take care of a family. I could buy a house. I could find a faithful church when the one we were members of collapsed. I could work full-time and find creative ways of meeting my kids' needs--and I could be good at my job. I could teach my children the truths of the Word with the help of instruction from a faithful pastor, godly school teachers, and godly grandparents. I could take us on a vacation to Williamsburg, Virginia. And now I can be a good wife to Henry--because God will provide what I need to be a good wife.

So as you, dear readers, think of us in the coming weeks, pray for us--for a safe and efficient move into a new home, a happy wedding with lots of great and meaningful moments, peace for Henry as he assumes the role of husband and father and actually lives with other people for the first time in many years, obedience and understanding for Katie and Jonathan as they now answer to a father for the first time in their memory, and encouragement as the three of us leave behind a church and pastor that we have loved and join Henry at his congregation. Pray that I'll never forget the lessons I've learned in my single years, and that those lessons will make me an effective wife, mom, and editor. Pray--because another lesson that I've learned is that God hears our prayers and answers when we pray according to His will.

And in a couple of weeks, when I come back to my little blog, it will be as a married mom.