Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Katy is represented by
Rachelle Gardner at
WordServe Literary
Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net
Recent Posts
- Soul Train
- Live Out Your Dream And Discard The Box
- Tears In A Bottle
- From The Young Mom I Once Was, To You
- I Can’t Help Falling
- What A Difference Ten Years Makes
- The Next Best Thing To Robert Redford
- The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
- Where Have All The Years Gone
- Fun With Kiki Cullen
- Stuck On Mom
- Ten Years Later, Our Girls From Northern Ireland Remembered
- The Thrift of Grief
- Job Security
- The Party’s Over
Syndicate
E me at katy @ ngenius.com
(No Title)
If you've never had a structural engineer or a foundation specialist inspect your newly-damp basement floor, and then tell you that you need a sump pump, count yourself among the innocents. A "sump pump" sounds like a lot of fun, doesn't it? Certainly, "pump" is a cheerful, enthusiastic word, whether when used as a verb or a noun. One pictures a little girl with long braids and plaid ribbons swinging up to the sky and back, pump, pump-unable to imagine in her most horrifying dreams that there is such a thing as sump. That said, if you're considering losing whatever remains of your sump pump virginity, take my advice: Don't. You can never go back.(No Title)
"Wait a minute," my husband says, "now you're putting words in my mouth..." "Oh, yeah?" I shoot back. "Well, you should be happy! I could have made your words a lot worse."(No Title)
We hear them singing loudly, raucously, purposefully, outside our door this morning. We wander out onto the porch, coffee cups in hand, trying to identify the source of the clamor, since from inside the house it sounded like an eighteen-wheeler whirring down our meandering road. "Isn't it amazing how full the trees still are at this time of year?" I ask, for in my mind, by the first of September, things should be starting to change. The beauty of the 100-year-old lush green oaks distracts me from our original mission. Suddenly, as if trees could hear, the leaves begin to fly away, first by twos, then by tens, and finally hundreds at a time, singing with all their hearts. The autumn has yet to begin, and already the fall is upon us.(No Title)
I'm starting to think that the Final Exam in "Successful Marriage" isn't really about finances, or in-laws or hormone replacement therapy, like they tell us. Shrinking retirement accounts and itty-bitty-bladder syndrome, we can get through. Male-patterned baldness won't kill us, even if it's mine. I'm starting to think "the test is in the nest." Being members of the "sandwich generation" used to frighten me. You know, the period in a middle-aged couple's life when their kids and their parents are all needy at the same time. But guess what happened while our independent moms neglected to need us? The kids moved out! The "big stuff" really has made us strong over the course of these past 25 years, but it's the "little stuff"-the little people-who've made us fun. We've got a few years left with our youngest son, and we won't be hurrying him from the nest before it's time. But we won't try to stop him when he's fit to fly, either. In the meantime, we've become returning students of each other, Doug and I. We're facing pop quizzes daily, examining the Teacher's text for insight into the coming chapters, and worrying just a little about the unavoidable essay questions. The semester may be just beginning, but we're determined to pass the Empty Nest Test-with "flying" colors.(No Title)
THINGS I'VE SAID THAT I HOPE OTHER PEOPLE WILL WISH THEY'D SAID: First in a Series "Under pressure, I don't do too well. Without pressure, I don't do too much."(No Title)
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" I ask of the eighteen-year-old girl standing in front of me. She and I go way back… way back. "I have no idea," she answers, as I squint to get a better look at her. Wait a minute… she's no young girl… what's happened to her? Could three entire decades have passed since I've seen her up close? I turn to escape her aging reflection, open the bathroom door, and run down the hall, dragging my backpack-on-wheels behind me. Breathless, I collapse in a front-row seat in "Introduction to Psychology." The professor stands there smiling, waiting for the other freshmen to take their seats, silent. I look around at all the eighteen-year-old faces, so like the one I expected to see in the mirror, their eyes shining with expectation. Do my eyes still shine? Before psych class even starts, I'm hearing voices. What in the world are you doing here? And what is the meaning of life?(No Title)
E.R. and The West Wing are always promising that if I just watch tonight's episode, it will "change my life forever." So I watch, and I wait, and I watch some more. Nothing. Sure, I'm entertained, satisfied for an hour, and maybe my belief system is even bolstered by the scriptwriters' obvious ideologies. But changed forever? Hardly. The things that change your life forever, I'm finding out, almost always arrive quietly, unannounced, without fanfare. They seldom turn out to be what you first take them for, and always end up being more than you could have ever dreamed. Chloe and Sheryl will go back home to the towns of Fintona and Sixmilecross, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland in just three days time. We've been so wrapped up in their lives, and they in ours, for these past six weeks, that I haven't once had the time or notion to watch E.R. or The West Wing. And our lives have been changed forever.(No Title)
So I've lost all this weight, right? Well, after months of deliberating, I finally screwed up all my courage and tried on a thong. I would have tried on a couple, but it hurt my big toe really bad.(No Title)
We knew we were taking a risk-- a big one. We knew that the chances of getting two really wonderful girls from Northern Ireland to stay with us this summer were kind of like partaking in the church's potluck-- we might get full fast, but full of what? And we'd probably regret it later. Still, we pushed forward to become a host family for two teenagers who were willing participants in the Children's Friendship Project for Northern Ireland, an organization which pairs a Catholic kid with a Protestant one and sends them to the U.S. for six weeks. The goal is that each pair of teens will become friends, and remain friends upon returning to Northern Ireland. And maybe even change their world. Isn't that what we're all hoping to do, really? So we took a chance, and it didn't pan out. It's unlikely we'll ever be a host family again, since the stakes are even higher now than they were when we started. Because, you see, no two kids could ever again touch our lives like Sheryl and Chloe have. Sometimes, you just have to stop while you're ahead.(No Title)
It's a horrifying thing to fear for one's transmission. To hear banging, clattering, thumping and scraping, and to be reasonably certain of its ominous origin. To dimly recognize noises from one's murky automotive past, and to be filled afresh with the dread and anguish of facing the thing head on. And yet face it we must. For, you see, we live in this car. It does not merely transport us from here to there. Such straightforward utility would be shallow, indeed. No, our car serves not only as transportation, but also as dinner table, office desk and daybed. Not to mention summer camp, classroom, emergency room and confessional. Within its walls, we parents have suffered through the lyrics to frightening songs on the FM, while our kids were trying to figure out how to ask us about the facts of life. Within its walls, they might have even heard us say a few choice words they didn't know we knew. Sigh. Admitting this car to the repair shop is a bittersweet affair. Who knows when we might see it again? Who knows what terrible procedure it may have to endure, and whether it will ever really be the same from this day forward? Now, more than ever, we realize how bound up our very existence is with this, our car. "Mrs. Raymond," the mechanic says somberly when he calls many tense hours later, "I think we've finally discovered the problem. It's not your transmission clattering after all…" "But, then…what?" I ask. "It's your dishes." Oh.(No Title)
Lately, I've taken to believing that if I just stand in a hot shower long enough, blogging inspiration will come to me. Kind of like the spring rains watering the earth, you know? Is it me, or is everyone's water bill going up?(No Title)
Have you noticed that life loses its luster sometimes? It plods along, moping, for weeks on end, not noticing the beauty, the growth, the joy just a few steps outside the door-or maybe even the happiness lying dormant within the walls themselves. It used to stretch elegantly for the new, the curious, and the unreachable. But now it languishes, yawns and settles-bored-into a summer funk. How about a couple of teenaged girls from Northern Ireland to polish up a life? To really enliven things, how about making it one Protestant and one Catholic, with two completely different backgrounds, ideologies, politics and cultures? Sheryl and Chloe danced into our hearts a week ago, and with a flourish. They did not hesitate to shine their lights into our small, crowded, busy darkness, beguiling us with their amazement at everything they eyes fell upon. Did they realize how immediately we brightened, how instantly we began reflecting their glow? Sheryl loaned me her nail polish for the 4th of July, replete with iridescent twinkly flecks that outshone the fireworks. "Ooooh, I love the sparkles!" I enthused, and the girls really thought we were still talking nail polish. God only knows how to put the shine back on a life.(No Title)
SOMETHING ELSE I WISH I'D SAID... Second in a Series "All of my dreams are waiting for me to come true."(No Title)
All I can think about is seeing the look in his eyes when he realizes the gift is for him. Doug and I plot for days how we will spring the surprise on Scott, our soon-to-be college graduate. We are not usually extravagant gift-givers, but unbeknownst to Scott, he's going to get a new Saturn. We contrive a perfect scenario with the car sales guy, who meets us in a restaurant parking lot across from the dealership, pretending to be a client of Doug and Scott's. Just another guy needing a website designed. The guy pulls up to the curb, hops out, shakes hands all around, and starts to hand off his folder of info for Scott's consideration. As Scott opens it, the salesman says, "Do you think you could design something like this?" Scott looks at the paper, confused, disoriented, not yet blinking. "Oh….cute…" he says, dumbly. The paper contains a cranberry colored picture of a Saturn, exactly like the one the guy drove up in, and the URL "ScottRaymondsNewCar.com." Scott's eyes still hold no glimmer of recognition of what he's about to receive. But I can't take my eyes off his. Any second now…any second! "Maybe," the salesman continues, "you need to step over here to get a better idea of what I'm talking about…" And he leads Scott, like a sheep, to the cranberry car. I stare, mesmerized, energized, as Scott's eyes register the truth. One blink, the confusion disappears. Two blinks, could it be? Three blinks, disbelief of the reality before him. Four blinks, utter joy! The heavenly Father spends eternity waiting, watching for a glimmer of recognition in His child's eyes. "Any second now," He must be thinking, "she'll receive the gift of My Son! Any second now…" And all He can think about is seeing the look in my eyes when I realize the Gift is for me.(No Title)
They will be watching for us, won't they? They won't need to wear purple hats or cheesy name tags for us to find them in the crowd. They won't need to call us on our cell phone to let us know they've arrived from Northern Ireland in a strange, new land, to stay the summer with strange, new people. They won't even need to wave their arms or shout aloud to attract our attention. We'll be right there, waiting, a little bit anxious, but thrilled to finally meet them. We'll be the conspicuous ones, holding the handmade signs reading, "Welcome, Sheryl and Chloe!" We won't be embarrassed to be so excited. The crowds both waiting and arriving won't faze us. We'll only have eyes for our girls. I wonder about Jesus in the crowd, sometimes. I know He's there forever waiting, waiting for me. Is He a little bit anxious, too? What's that He's holding up in his hands? It's the Book of Life, and He's pointing to my name, calling me with His eyes. And He must be thinking, "She will be watching for Me, won't she?"
