sore thumb

Many mornings in this country start off with the fresh morning breezes of sewage smell.  This morning is no exception.  No one, at least no one I know, is quite sure of the reason.  There's a rumor that fountain water is recycled sewage water.  There are a lot of fountains in our complex but since my girls and I have played in that water, I'd rather be ignorant and think the smell comes from somewhere else. We have a turkey in our freezer.  Many, many people have not eaten turkey.  In fact, I would dare to say that more people in the world have not eaten turkey than have eaten turkey.  Am I blowing your mind?  Well, most folks here haven't eaten turkey, but they are raised here by some, and have you ever seen a picture of an African eating a turkey leg?  No.  My point exactly.  But, we eat them and so when a friend said the village he was visiting had turkeys running loose, eating whatever they'd like off the land and streets (org...

When your baby is actually a baby, naps are really important.  A baby needs lots of sleep.  It's a bonus for the parents because when the baby rests, we get to rest, too. When your babies aren't so much babies anymore, rest time is really not for the kid at all.  It's totally for the parents.  That's where I'm at today. This morning started with high emotions and hasn't gotten much better.  We're at the tail end of a week holiday and Monday morning is like the light at the end of the tunnel.  There are those moments of sweetness, moments of "ahhh, our children are radiantly glorious" but their shininess quickly fades when the tattling and arguing over who Ken and Barbie belong to, begins.  I know, I know they grow up too fast, cherish these moments, blah, blah, blah.  I usually feel those things once they're peacefully asleep. So, on to other, more uplifting thoughts.  I've been thinking so much about the exploitation of women and child...

So I met my language tutor earlier today for the first time.  I know that I was never this excited/giddy for any of my Chinese classes.  In fact, I was totally overwhelmed this morning with praise just thinking about how this has been a long time coming.  Thankfully, I got all my joyful crying done before my teacher got here.  Nothing spectacular happened during our hour and half together.  We discussed how I want to study and looked through some really good material I had been given.  We started the alphabet...I just stared at her mouth and did my darnedest to copy her.  It was awesome.  I totally suck but it was awesome none the less.  And really, when I think about how nothing spectacular happened here at my dining room table, I can't help but imagine there was a loud shout of rejoicing in the heavens.  Wouldn't you think that when our Father's will is being done here on earth, it is great cause for rejoicing in the realms unseen...

This is, bar none, the best place we've lived in CH.  We've been back for just over 2 months now and it hasn't been rosy everyday but most days have been pretty darn good. ---Amazing to live with moutains in our backyard and every side of the city ---The weather is a sweet treat. - blue skies, thunderstorms and stars ---I love that Lily dances and learns the cutest songs at her CH preschool.  There's this one song in particular.  Ms. Xue plays the piano as each child takes a turn standing in front of all the other kids.  The kids sing a welcome song to that child and at the end the child in front, in a very loud voice and with a little bow, says, "Thank you everyone!"  It is just about the cutest thing on earth to see all these little CH 3 and 4 year olds singing, bowing and thanking their classmates.  Of course, by far, the cutest is the one little blonde 4 year old bowing and thanking in CH. ---Our apartment complex.  It is amazing.  It's a...

So, my hope is to start posting on a regular basis again.  Both the girls are in school - Lily just for half day - and I really want to start writing again.  It's not that I'm incredibly busy, it's just that I don't think about blogging.  I think I'm a little intimidated now too.  I started my first blogs back in 2006 but now there are about half a billion other moms my age that are blogging.  I find that intimidating for some reason. But for now it's time to stop being the blogging mom and be the making breakfast, lunch and everything in between mom.

Well, I'm writing on my blog again.  I've figured out something about myself while living here at Beulah Beach.  When I'm feeling really good about my life, I don't blog very much and I don't run as much.  So, expect a lot more blogging in China and a very fit, trim and ripped Julie!  That sounds awful but it is what it is.  I'd also like to blame my lack of blogging on FB.  I'm not sure how it's related but I'd like to blame it anyway. We travel.  We travel all the time.  When we're in China, we travel.  We travel to Thailand, we travel to other cities in China, we fly to Australia and to America.  When we're here we travel.  We travel to NC, GA, FL, PA, WV, TX...to thousands upon thousands of towns in OH.  On our last trip, which was to WV, Maddie felt like our 5 hr road trip was so short and fun.  That makes me proud. The very best thing about road trips in the good ol' US of A is gas station coffee and mini chocola...

It has been so long since I've experienced a true fall. The leaves and the smells have been magnificent. Truly. I'm always taking deep, deep breaths to get in all that fall leaf smell. The peak color has passed and so the trees are becoming browner and more bare. We've had rain and super strong wind for 2 days now. I love it. I've gone back and forth on if it will be hard to leave the Beach and head to China next summer. With great days like these, I know it will be hard to miss this next year. But I don't know. Maybe our new town will have fall. On Sunday we skipped church and went to the Oak Ridge Festival. It's a festival in Attica OH that showcases everything from cannons and tanks to steam-powered wood splitters. Most of the vendors are scattered through the woods which is unique and a lot of fun to wander through. We all 4 really liked it. Phil and I got homemade wool mittens and Maddie used her allowance money to buy a pink heart bracelet. Lil...

I wish that every morning I woke up this early (I've been awake since 5:06am). I can leisurely make coffee, paint my toenails (random but I did), read some from James (a very convicting book for me over the last few days, especially about my evil tongue), look at a drawing that Katie Stemple did (her parents work at BFA, a boarding school in Germany) and see that she's really creative and detail-oriented (she's a 1st grader and Maddie's BFF). And now I'm blogging. You'd think that since I live at BB and every single day I'm just about knocked over by the beauty and sweetness of God, I'd be blogging like crazy. But I have a greater urge to sit on the porch and stare at the tree in the front yard with the rope swing and the rope ladder. Or I'd rather take my coffee, put on a hoodie and sit by the lake and look out over the seemingly endless miles of water. I really can't get enough of sky, water, trees, grass, leaves, plants, flowers, mud, ...

We've been back in America for just over 2 weeks now. For some reason, I decided that caffeine doesn't really count in sweet tea and I drank too much, too late yesterday afternoon. So now at 3:29am, I'm up and totally awake. Running here is such a joy. I love running through the neighborhoods of Dover. There is this one super steep hill that is so hard but once I turn to run back down, there's this great view over the houses and every time I rejoice in what I can see. I get this really satisfied, happy feeling as I'm running past light pink dogwoods and this one bright, bright purple azalea. I look at the sky and no matter if it's cloudy or sunny, it's so beautiful to me. I'm really glad we are here. Madeleine and Lilian are in and out of the house all day. It's amazing how much a yard does for a kid's spirit. Yesterday evening, they were in the front lawn spinning and laughing as it drizzled. It was so sweet. Life right now is relaxing...

Well my house looks like it did at some point when we moved here about 2 years ago. Boxes lying around, no pictures up, hammers, cleaning rags and tape sitting in random spots around the living room. It's a mess. Another move, more good-byes and mixed emotions. I'm going to miss... ..real CH food whenever I want it for dirt cheap, ..a tailor that made all my curtains and waves to me every time I walk past her shop, ..the little boy who's parents own the light bulb shop and yells, "hello!" every time we pass by, ..all the little kids that very politely say, "Ayi" (Aunt) when they pass me, ..our first friend in Chengdu who owns a local shop and buys birds as a hobby - bird guy, as we call him, ..the best dumpling makers, the steamed bread makers, the shopkeepers that deliver our milk for free and know our address by heart, ..the courtyard of our complex where Maddie can play by herself or with her friends while we keep an eye on her from our 4th floor, ....

I've been thinking about my blog and wanting to write something for awhile now. Maybe its because its the end of the year and I'm thinking back some on all that this year has held. It's impossible not to think of my MS diagnosis. How the year had barely begun and we were running around Chengdu and then Hong Kong looking for answers. The testing in Hong Kong was such a low point. It was the lowest point by far. I remember after the spinal tap I was lying perfectly still and thinking over and over, "This can't be me. This can't be me." And yet it was. The reality of that was just horrible. Then it was to America. It was strange to be so excited about going to America when the reasoning was so tragic. Yet, we were all very excited and it was really a highlight of the year. I loved the food and the air. I loved seeing Madeleine love the front and backyard. We took strolls in the evenings and Sheryl cooked all our meals. I had time to reflect and ...

So it seems that Madeleine has stopped sucking her thumb. Last night was the 1st night we forgot to put the bitter on her thumb but it looked like she had fallen asleep without her thumb in her mouth. She had been reminding us to paint on the bitter if we forgot. Lily no longer uses a pacifier. That was SO much easier than the thumb sucking. The big draw back has been that Lily doesn't like afternoon naps anymore. It started as soon as she didn't have her pacifier. So everyday we have this battle to get her to nap. Sometimes we win and sometimes she does. At night she has no problem sleeping. Yesterday the 4 of us went shopping at Decathlon and IKEA. We needed some winter clothes for the girls because we're going to Kangding next week for 4 days. It's in the mountains. Phil will drive. It takes about 7 hrs to drive there but may take us longer with potty breaks and other stops along the way. Kangding has a strong Tibetan influence. It looks beautiful. We...

So we've been in this process of trying to get Madeleine to stop sucking her thumb for a long, long time now. We actually started trying right after her 3rd bday. She'll be 5 in November. I can't remember when but a while back we got her to stop sucking her thumb during the day. She loved sucking it while reading books or watching something. That was hard to stop but we did it. Then about 2 weeks ago I decided I would try to get her to stop at night. It fell on the same week as Phil being in Hong Kong and Lily giving up her pacifier. She got really excited about stopping because I bought a Barbie kitchen that she could have if she didn't suck her thumb for 3 nights in a row. It was very, very hard but that kitchen was a huge draw for her and so she stopped. Yesterday afternoon she confessed to me that she's been sucking her thumb all along. She had been lying to me/us every day about it. I had my suspicions because for the last few nights when I'd check ...

So it's here. It's September 1, 2010. Madeleine Diane Steiner, the girl that made me a mom, is going to kindergarten. She's 4 years and 10 months old. Why does my heart ache and my eyes well up with tears? Madeleine is showing signs of growing up and somehow that feels sad. Who knows all the reasons why but I safely assume I'm not the first mom to have these feelings. And I assume I'll feel them many times again. I have all these hopes and fears for her today. I hope she makes friends. I fear that she'll be lonely. I hope she loves to learn. I fear that she'll be overwhelmed with the Chinese language. I hope she gets the best education we can offer her. I fear that I'll too soon be writing about her first day of middle school, high school, college. Yet, in these hopes and fears I have this knowledge that this is all right. This is good. This is how it should be. She is meant to grow up, meant to move in to a stage of life where challenge...

This morning I got up around 5:30am. I'm leading a study tonight at a friend's house and so I've had time to this morning to think over what I want to share with my sisters. Our weather cooled off yesterday and this morning it's still cool and the crickets sound so lovely. Something about this morning has reminded me of working at My Favorite Muffin in Clarkesville. I had to get up around 5:30am back then so I could be at the shop at 6am. We opened at 6:30. I was never the only one on the road but it always felt peaceful and fresh driving to the bakery. The baker was always at the shop before me. He would get there around 5am to start the days baking. I really loved that job. It was so simple and predictable but it was just a great job. The sun is just coming up here and it looks like a nice day is coming. This is our last full day with the Littletons here. They'll leave tomorrow night for their flights back to Thailand. I'll miss them.

I am really enjoying my life. Somehow, even though CD is so hot and muggy, I still like the summer best of all the seasons here. We have lots of sun and those wonderful thunder and rainstorms that pop up on lots of afternoons. We also have this wonderful swimming complex within easy walking distance of our home. The girls and I have been going there on almost every Tuesday morning. The kid's section is great with slides and things that squirt. Last summer my friend Kara was visiting around this time and I was thinking about that recently. I felt so out of place in this city and in my life then. I didn't know what to do with the girls, how to spend each day and how to take care of myself. Over this past year those things have all gotten easier. I still have times when I don't know what to do with the girls but it doesn't stress me out like it did before. I'll miss CD when we leave next year. Today I'm hoping to get a project started. I've been wan...

It's Monday. I like Mondays. I get to attend the Monday morning weekly meeting at the office. It's mainly in Chinese so I can focus on it and understand and it for a while and then I tune it out and think about what we'll eat for supper this week or where Phil and I should eat lunch. I attend because I'm a coworker that never works at the office so I like to show my face and support for what's going on. The first time we came to Chengdu was the summer of 2008. I liked it so much. When this year's summer started I couldn't figure out why I had liked it so much. For the last couple weeks I've been reminded why. It rains often and we have thunderstorms. We also get clear days with hot, hot sun. I like all of that. We had a thunderstorm 2 nights ago that was unbelievable. It lasted almost all night. Last week and this week I'm getting to help out a new mom who's daughter is just 2 weeks old. She's a single mom with no family around ...

I started back with a Chinese tutor yesterday morning. 3 hours, 9-12pm. It was great. I've been such a slacker in finding the time and energy to study and for whatever reason I've gotten motivated recently. I knew I needed to just do it and it needed to be done all in one shot. 3 hours is a long time to stare at your teacher, or Chinese characters or talk only in Chinese. I'll meet with her every Wednesday morning. We meet at a bakery, Leanna's Bakery. So, it's a nice place to meet and I get a good lunch out of it. As I'm writing, a funeral tent is being taken down. I can't see it from where I sit but I can hear all the metal poles hitting the cement. They started the process before 6am. The tent went up in our apartment courtyard at the beginning of this week. It was a long rectangular shaped structure made out of poles and tarp. I never peeked inside but I guess the body was in there and there were folks hanging out with it 24 hours a day. Th...

So it's been nice weather here in Cd. We still aren't seeing the sun much but we keep having these clear, gray sky days. I love being able to see the sky even if it's gray clouds. And almost everyday or night we're getting rain. And it's cool, in the 60s and 70s. It's great. Last week and this week I started looking at kindergarten's for Madeleine. There are 3 within close walking distance of our home. 2 are already full for the fall (maxed at 50 students per classroom) and one is already at max or close to it but they are willing to register Maddie. The other 2 wouldn't even let us in the gate to look around the school. One won't even let us talk to a teacher, it's just the guard we get all our information from. It's very frustrating. HePing (peace) Kindergarten is the one we've looked at and it's an older school. The headmaster was happy to have us visit, happy to accommodate our wishes (half day is what we want rather t...

Here we are back in Chengdu. There is no sky. There's no definition to it. No clouds, no sun, nothing. It's just a low grey. So, I just hold out hope that this too shall pass. Madeleine and I are both stuck at a 4am wake up call. Phil and Lily seem totally adjusted to the time zone change. Madeleine was so wide awake this morning. She just talked and talked to me at around 5:15am. If she wasn't so cute and cheerful (and I was also wide awake) I would have been annoyed with her non-stop monologue about taxi drivers, cavities, all-night movie watching, jet-lag and delicious bread. I wish I could just blow all this smog away and look forward to a blue skied, spring, Saturday. Instead, I'm trying not to get too negative and dwell completely in my Lord. Sighhhh, this is hard.