Amarillo by Morning

We were on a date
In another state
Little knowing
We were going
T'wards a new fate...

How did we land in a little cattle town on the outskirts of Amarillo?

Good question! I can only say, no matter what plans we humans lay, God always has a better plan.

I don't know why I bother with a plan book, anyway. Rob retired from the military two years sooner than we'd planned, which meant we left Japan two years earlier than planned. I should have known the resulting plan to retire in California was on shaky ground (HA! No earthquake pun intended), but I didn't have a clue.

Initially, "the plan" was running like clockwork. (We've moved six times in the past nine years alone, so our moves run like a well oiled machine.) We wrapped things up in Japan, got Aaron settled in North Carolina, Heather joined the Air Force, I applied and was accepted to Brandman University in Irvine, and Rob retired from the Marines. He jetted to California, lined up a beach house for us to move into and he was stepping into a highly lucrative (seven, count 'em seven figures) job. With both kids gone from home, we were preparing (aka planning) to live out our military retirement very comfortably.

While Rob was making things happen in California, I was spending time with my folks in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Since it was just October and I wasn't due in school until January, I had a lot of time to kill. We joked that I was now the one deployed.

Rob was visiting me in NM around Thanksgiving & got a phone call asking him to check out a High School Marine ROTC program in Hereford, Texas. It was only a few hours drive from Las Cruces, so we went more for some "alone time" than for anything else.

Hereford is about 40ish miles southwest of Amarillo. Population 14K. One main street through town - blink and you miss it. It's mainly cattle ranching and farming - one produces mountains of fertilizer for the other to use. Needless to say, it's a very aromatic town even in the dead of winter. Cruising through the area only reaffirmed the fact that we were definitely Southern California people. Rob jokingly asked, "Would you ever live here?" and I replied "Nope!" with a hearty laugh for the poor suckers that lived here. Ha, ha ha.

We drove to the school to meet the Marine running the ROTC program. After talking with him for a bit it was blindingly clear he is a character-wise carbon copy of Rob. He is all about helping the kids succeed. We also met some of the kids in the program, and they blew us away! They were respectful - more so than in any of the high schools I've worked in or around.

Hereford is a very poor town, with the feel of a border town more than anything else. Right away our hearts were pulled toward helping these teenagers.

But we have to be crazy, right? To even consider it!

For both of us to feel so automatically that we needed to be in this town was just insane. Me, it's a no-brainer. I'm emotional and make emotional decisions. But Rob - he never makes emotional decisions - he weighs pros and cons and checks Internet stats for months before buying a simple household appliance! For him to consider accepting this job like this was phenomenal.

So we went to our hotel room and prayed fervently. Rob begged God to please show him, very plainly, if this was the right thing to do.

The next morning we set out to talk to the real estate agent, to see what the housing situation was. When we walked into the agents office, his Bible was open on his desk, and he was doing a Bible study. (Felt like God saying "Hi" :) to us)

The houses he showed us were decked out in Christian-store finery - Bible verses greeted us at almost every door, Scripture was stenciled on some walls in the homes, crosses decorated the living rooms - I'm not talking Christmas decorations, either. Just plain ol' every day homes covered and adorned with gadgets of God. Paintings, open Bibles by chairs, you name it. We felt like we were in the Evangelical Twilight Zone!

Then we headed back to the school to meet the Principal and staff. The principals office had a big plaque on it that said, "When life gets too hard to stand, KNEEL" and he had a book on his desk titled "Answers to the Bibles hard questions." The staff prays together before meetings - and this is a public school! I know that God is everywhere in this world, and that the "trappings" of a Christian don't a Christian make, but truly, every step we took that day was surrounded by the evidence of a community that believes in God.

Rob and I both agreed no amount of money or beach front property in California could equal what we were finding in this scraggly little town. When they offered him the job, he accepted it! We found a house the same day - it wasn't even on the market, but the real estate agent had a friend who was contemplating moving in the summer, and when asked they said shoot yeah, they'd leave sooner if it meant selling their home.

So this is the timeline of how it happened: we drove up on a Wednesday afternoon, met everyone on Thursday and looked at homes. We were driving home by noon on Friday having signed a contract on the house and at the school!

Total insanity. We're crazy.

But we firmly believe God uses crazy people to achieve crazy-big things! :) :)

The Death of Sponge Bob

Bob, oh Bob
please don't sob.
You were a great body pillow!
You kept me company on lonely nights during my husband's deployment.
When he was home you made us laugh: I was sleeping with "two men" Bob and Rob.
You came to me one day, bright yellow and full of fluff.
But the years have not been easy for you -
indeed they have been rough.
As much as I loved you, you really needed a bath.
So I tossed you in the wash with some soap and bleach.
and it knocked the stuffin' right out of ya.
I'm sorry Bob. But you're no good to me flat.

Moi? Tacky?

I had a shocking realization today. I'm Tacky. With a capitol "T".

I came to this conclusion in the usual round-about-this-has-absolutely-nothing-to-do-with-anything-way that I come to most of my conclusions.

I was in the shower, contemplating my right hand pointer finger, the one whose nail was violently ripped out at the bed last October. (The one my sister Mel jokingly calls "Stumpy". Har Har. Anyway, back to the shower...)

Heaving a mournful sigh I thought, "Poor me. Nine long beautifully painted and perfectly sculpted fingernails keeping company with Stumpy." sigh. (Mel helpfully suggested I paint the wrinkled skin on the end of the finger, but I prefer to leave Stumpy au naturel.)

This is when the realization sank in.

You see, when I see a woman wearing acrylics that are chipped, cracked, or - le gasp - minus a nail - I automatically think, "How Tacky!" (This isn't a judgment, mind you, merely an observation; my brain's uncontrollable initial reaction.) Because every self respecting wearer of acrylics knows the second one "throws a shoe" one has it replaced at the nearest corner nail salon. Immediately. Or worst case scenario, stick a band aid on it and keep the offending phalange out of sight.

But.. but... even if I popped into the nearest nail salon, there's nothing they can do about Stumpy. Not until enough of my natural nail grows back to provide a base for the overlying acrylic. So here I am minus a nail - not just until I can get to the next "Happy Nail" salon, but for weeks... months. I'll have to take stock in the Band Aid company and learn to do everything with my left hand. Quelle horreur.

How Tacky.

Gingy revisited

To get you in the Christmas spirit, here's a post I did on my old blog that never made it to this blog:

Heather and I have always talked about making a "real" gingerbread house. We've done the graham cracker version in the past, but for one reason or another never got around to doing the real thing. Until this year. You know what? It was so easy I don't know why we didn't do it before! It was so easy, in fact, that I'll give it to you in eight easy-to-manage steps. Don't forget to set the atmosphere with some great Christmasy music!

Step One was the most difficult, weeding through a mountain of info on the web to pick the ultimate gingerbread recipe, and decide on a design for the house. Plan on doing this a day ahead if you're like me and get sidetracked surfing the net. Who knew there were so many pictures of gingerbread houses online?! Or that Queen Victoria gave gingerbread people to her courtiers? Or that entire towns bake miniaturized versions of themselves for display? Or that Gerard Butler... uh, lemme fill you in on my Surfing Secret: Web surfing is NOT web surfing unless it includes at least one stop at an image of Gerard Butler! :P Ok, so after I indulged in my daily drool, I found the best recipe and template for a gingerbread house here.



Looks yummy, eh?

Step Two was rolling it out into uniformly flat sheets so we could cut out the house-pieces. It was easy using a cookie sheet as a guide! Just remember to lay down some parchment paper that's been sprayed with pam first, otherwise your dough will stick to the pan and you'll never get it out! (We learned this from experience) Note the designer rolling pin, used only in the finest baking establishments.



Step Three: cut out shapes for walls, ends and the roof. Nibble some dough from the scraps while you're at it. :)



Step Four: Bake!


Step Five: When your dough is done baking, it has to cool. So clean up and go do something festive! We opted to see the Okinawa POPs play Nunsense!



Step Six would have been frosting, but we got sidetracked messing around with the camera after we came home from the play!



...and then my partner fell asleep upside-down in the chair. I think it was actually a sugar coma brought on by sampling the decorations!




So here's Step Six for real, whuppin' up the frosting/cement and setting out (what's left of) the decorations:





Don't forget the most important part of all: make each other laugh!



Step Seven - release your inner Picasso! It works best to decorate the house un-assembled, that way the icing doesn't run and the heavier decorations like jaw breakers won't slide off. Let it all dry FLAT!



Step Eight: Assemble! This definitely took team work. Like any good house construction, there was quite a lot of propping and jimmying going on to line the walls up!


The only thing left is to ENJOY! Oh, and Have a Merry Crhistmas, too. :D

Who birthed whom?

My mom is dying, but she hasn't lost her sense of humor. I'm here in New Mexico, helping make her transition to Heaven as pleasant as possible - and of course that includes our daily dose of laughs. Today it was over our role reversal. She was tucked into her chair with a pile of blankets and two snuggly pups, but she needed to be taking a shower. (We're expecting out-of-state company today, and I know she wouldn't want to greet them in her jammies and bed head.) Exactly like a child, she kept making excuses for not getting up. She started off with "I'm hungry" and went from there. Two hours, one omelet, a cup of coffee and a shuttle launch later she still hadn't showered! So I gave her "The Look" which sent her scurrying into the bathroom.

Meanwhile, Dad's only task has been to clean his bedroom. (He can't manage the vacuum anymore, so I told him I'd do that part.) Since he's spent the majority of the day in the living room watching the shuttle launch and telling me stories about his brother's WWII days, I'm suspicious that his room isn't clean. We have the following conversation, (which
I swear I had with my son not too long ago!) :

Me: Dad, are you done in your room?
Dad: yep!
Me: Did you make your bed?
Dad: No...
Me: Did you dust your dresser?
Dad: No...
Me: Did you wash the mirror?
Dad: No...
Me: *heaving a sigh and rolling my eyes*So, basically you picked up the floor
and want me to do the rest?
Dad: *sheepish grin*

The biggest relief about parenting my parents? At least I don't have to worry about Mom getting pregnant, or Dad landing in jail for fighting!

Too funny not to share!

If you receive an e-mail

from the Department of Health

telling you not to eat canned pork because of swine flu

Ignore it...

It's just Spam!

Remembering Jeremy

Is it possible to sum up twenty-six years of living in a few sentences? Perhaps for some, but definitely not my nephew Jeremy, who’s life was full to the brim with living. He loved pushing the envelope on life! Whether it was riding sideways down the street on his motorcycle, sliding around track corners in his racecar, dancing till dawn with a pack of friends, or simply finding skin-space for “one more tattoo” Jeremy was a force to be reckoned with.

If there were a manly term for social butterfly, it would apply to Jeremy. In pictures, he's always surrounded by friends, flashing an impish smile. He loved to party, and even after he gave up drinking he continued to play hard and have fun.

Jeremy also loved horses and all-things-cowboy. When he was younger, he belonged to the H-C 4-H Club, Las Cruces Horseman’s Association, Southwest Quarter Horse Association, American Quarter Horse Youth Association and Las Cruces High School FFA. For years he was a permanent fixture at local and state horse shows, winning a slew of awards astride his quarter horse Slips “Fanny” Fandango. Eventually Jeremy outgrew horse shows, but he never outgrew horses.

He never outgrew being a cowboy, either. My family agrees he looks like the Marlbourough Man in the picture above. He worked on a ranch, and was a member of the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Posse. He also participated in events for Cowboys for Cancer Research.

Though his body battled cancer for twelve years, Jeremy’s attitude about his disease was different. He hated having cancer. To him, a tumor was an annoyance to be dealt with and forgotten. What doctor could forget the command (and pardon my language here but it's pure Jeremy), “Cut the somebitch out and let me go home!”

He had a quicksilver temper, and a colorful vocabulary. But he loved to laugh and make others laugh. Jeremy’s irreverent sense of humor kept the hospital staff, his friends and his family laughing almost 'til the end. It's with a smile through my tears that I can say the world lost a fast living, fun loving son-of-a-gun this week. I'm going to miss him terribly.

Jeremy Scott Harrison

born April 11, 1983

died August 31, 2009

He was 26.

Roy Rogers Prayer

Lord, I reckon I'm not much just by myself;
I fail to do a lot of things I ought to do.
But Lord, when trails are steep and passes high,
Help me ride it straight the whole way through.

And when in the falling dusk I get that final call,
I do not care how many flowers they send,
Above all else, the happiest trail would be
For YOU to say to me, "Let's ride, My Friend"
AMEN