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Archive for September, 2008

Crunched.

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

While I was in Missouri, Stormie-the-baby was in a serious, car-totaling accident. Yes-her beloved Toyota Camry (which was getting about 38 miles per gallon in the city!!) got majorly crunched when she t-boned some crazy driver who decided to shoot out of a parking lot on a whim.

Because there was very little reaction time, she really didn’t experience a lot of the stress pain you get when you anticipate a crash. Her air-bag deployed and protected her well. She is, however, left with a badly sprained left ankle and the bottom of her foot is still swelling from the bruising, as it basically took the full impact of the wreck as she pressed in on the clutch at the moment of impact. She is on crutches and in a wheelchair and takes f o r e v e r to get anywhere! It is pretty painful and purple.

We are blessed because they have accepted full liability so she should get paid for the work days she missed and the medical bills are being covered. She is driving a gorgeous blue Mustang rental presently, but will need a replacement here in the next few days. Help us pray she gets a good and safe car with extra good mileage (she drives across the planet to work daily)!

I truly believe she is recuperating extremely well under her mother’s loving care.

Thank-You for keeping our baby safe in a crazy world, Lord! …Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: Get Stormie’s laundry done.

pictured: the crunched car, Stormie’s pretty little seatbelt burn (glad she was wearing one!), and her bruised-up arm.

Tags: car wreck, injuries, stormie, toyota
Posted in Health, Mi familia, Photos of the Fam, Stuff I actually think | 7 Comments »

Rice Krispie Sushi

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

Tara made Rice Krispie-treat-gummi-candy-fruit-roll-up Sushi for DP’s birthday in June as an alternative to cake. It was a hit!

See more at her blog: http://tarapowers.wordpress.com

Tags: birthday, dave powers, rice krispies, sushi, tara powers
Posted in Garden/Food/Seasons, Stuff I actually think | 1 Comment »

Rocker-Bo’s Birthday!

Monday, September 29th, 2008

Twenty-four years ago today, my one and only male-child-by-birth arrived. Twenty-four years ago today, the baby whose birth caused me to both laugh and cry and kept me up all night long looking at him and loving him and breathing him in was born. (See last year’s post here)

Today is Rocky’s birthday.

Happy Birthday, Rocky, intense and strong-willed man. Happy Birthday, beautiful son I love, and most delightfully perplexing child of all. Happy day to Jovan’s husband (I was raising you for her) and to Averi’s daddy (who knew you were so anointed for this role?). You are strength and conviction, committed and true. You are right and decided, responsible and thorough. I love you so, admire your wholeheartedness and believe in you and the things God is calling you to like there is no tomorrow.

Before you came, I had such opinions about having a son. I only wanted a son if he would be just like this or just like that, but I could never have imagined or dreamed you up. Sure I’d have said, “Make sure he gets his father’s dimples,” and I am glad you have them. But I’d never have asked that you be as stubborn or as opinionated as me, yet you are. But you? You were the perfect combination of orneriness and goodness, of determination and playfulness. If ever my limits were stretched by your naughtiness or ceasless ability to argue (also inherited from me, I fear), they’d be expanded again as you cuddled next to me with your little mullet, blankie in hand and curl into my little brown baby boy again.

How could I help but bless you? How could I not bless the day you were born? I do bless it!

So, today, as we honor you and the blessed day of your birth, I am praying these things for you. These are presents you cannot buy, but they are truly what I wish for you and what I will shake heaven’s gates to see you get.

I pray that you will be the man God intended when He created you for your wife and all your children to come. You have been given such a place of honor as Jovan’s husband and Averi’s daddy. You hold so much of the preciousness of their lives in your hands – you have the place of impact on their hearts like no other. In these times, when Satan works to rip every marriage of covenant and to turn the hearts of children and their father’s away from one another, you’ll need to be the man. You will need to stand strong and battle to guard the love and unity. Be strong and courageous, Rock, and be the man you were created to be.
I pray that your voice will be heard. Sunday, as you led worship in The River, I was so impressed at how you communicate a song’s truth. That is different than just singing it. I know you know that. It is what has set you apart and given you a place of leading people into God’s presence through worship. But I know, oh how I know, there is more. There is so much more. There is an amazing power to communicate the deep truths of God, almost ready to be birthed. You stand at the precipice, you defer to others more seasoned. And that is OK for now, but know – the time to speak, the time to speak out with boldness – is coming. Don’t let your youthfulness cause you consternation in this. Live it. Then speak it when He says to. And for the ears of the people to hear, for the hearts to receive…
I pray that you will ever remain boyish, adventuresome, and playful. Among your greatest of charms is that you are still excited by a paintball outing, that you ask for “toys” for birthdays and at Christmas, and that game-nights at your house are the most popular gatherings in town (X-box and poker and whatever else). I love that you work responsibly in ministry, are a loving husband and amazing daddy, yet still the little brother in the family, looking for ways to infuse fun into all our gatherings. This is most evidenced by the fact that all dogs and nieces and nephews start running in happy circles when you arrive. They know you are the one who truly “gets” them.
I pray you will receive the love and belief the people who know you best have in you. I know you sometimes doubt yourself and are most critical of your shortcomings. I defy Satan to cripple your life in that way. I pray that God will bind the enemy on your behalf and you will always hear His voice saying, “Rocky-here is the way, walk in it…”
I don’t pray that you will always be a “vocational” worship leader or a pastor, though you were born into a heritage of that calling and have been blessed to walk this path so young. But I do pray you will always be a worshipper. I pray that the song of the Lord will continue to grow in your heart until it cannot be contained and you are forced to pen the songs of heaven. I pray that you will always minister to the Lord (with your song, your voice, your heart, your all), no matter where you are or what else you may ever do. Worship Him, always, my sweet boy. You were made to praise Him.

I love you, my Rock-man. I am so full of anticipation about the life God is leading you in and watching closely as you become more like Jesus. You are the Psalms 112 man-because that is what you always wanted, and that is God’s intent for you. You are beautifully and wonderfully made – I know this very well.

Happy Birthday, o son I so adore…Love, Mom

NOTE TO SELF: Worship time with Rocky.

pictured: Rocky and the fam a couple of weeks ago

Tags: birthdays, rocky rhoades
Posted in Birthdays/Anniversaries, Mi familia, My most unforgettable people, Photos of the Fam, Stuff I actually think | 8 Comments »

Transition

Monday, September 29th, 2008

I doubt it could be any more beautiful a day if I’d put in my very own order. A warm, bright sun with the gentlest of breezes sweeping periodically through adorns my world. The grass is brilliantly green, something you have to work for during the summer months, but comes easily these early fall days. The tomato plants are loaded (I have a pan in the oven roasting as we speak – remember last year??) and the annuals are enjoying a resurgance of color before their final farewell over the next few weeks.

The sedum (from one near-dead clearance plant about 4 years ago) have gone from their hot-weather chartreuse to the light pink of a couple of weeks ago to a blazing cranberry, dotting the yard here and there in at least 12 places, growing ever larger and more glorious, the current social centers of the honey bees’ universe.

In between.

The disarray of the pool midway down, being dried and packed up for the year is rather unsightly and the shadows and sunlight dance differently now across the fences and gardens. As the year has gone on, I have learned to let some weeds co-exist with desired produce and have let the grass enroach where I had earlier ordered it not to.

The shorter days are bringing into focus the beauty of each one, the fleeting nature of the minutes and hours that create the lives we are leading.

At 1:10 am yesterday morning, having just dozed off not long before, I was awakened abruptly and fully by an acute sense of my mortality. At exactly 1:10 am, I realized I am closer to my death than to my birth. I am past the middle, maybe way past. Who knows?

I hope my colors are becoming more brilliant and more defined, less rigid and controlled. I hope the shortened days bring more focus and appreciation for the beauty of each one.

Today she waxes melancholoy – as always, when autumn arrives…Jeanie

It has happened before… (melancholoy re: fall, I mean)…

pictured: google image, but not far from where I live

Tags: age, autumn, fall, garden, melancholy, middle-age
Posted in Garden/Food/Seasons, Stuff I actually think | No Comments »

What do you get when…

Monday, September 29th, 2008

OK, a riddle:

What do you get when you puree a couple dozen huge, juicy, red seeded tomatoes with several cloves of garlic, a big handful of cilantro, a giant super-sweet onion, the juice of 3 limes, some jalepenos (as much as you can take and still be functional) and Kosher salt (accept every blessing you can get!)?

The answer:

Fresh, home-made garden salsa - the kind that makes your tongue tingle and dimples pop! Soooooo good. I swear, I woke up thinking about it this morning! YES! It is that good!

Tags: food, garden, salsa, tomatoes
Posted in Garden/Food/Seasons, Stuff I actually think | 1 Comment »

Sweet Niece Elise – A Belated Happy Birthday!

Monday, September 29th, 2008

I have 8 nephews and 2 nieces among my siblings. For the most part, we’ve never lived in the same city, so they are just these far-off adorables you get to see growing up through Christmas card photos and the every-other-year family gatherings. They are a pretty likeable bunch!

Until March, we have never lived closer than 13-20 hours from my sweet niece, Elise, the firstborn to my brother Joe and his wife, Robin. But then she moved here following 2 years of leading missions trips with YWAM and what extra joy she has brought!

She turned 22 on the 22nd and it is fitting for she is at least 22 times happier and excited about life than most anyone else on the planet. She has made us laugh at least 2200 times since she got here and she has been a happy encourager to all of us no less than 222 times.

We have a video of Elise when she was 9 years old, very happily describing the pretty outfit she has just purchased for church, just bubbling in anticipation of the moment she’ll be able to don it and model it for us all. The very weekend she moved to Denver this year, on a Saturday afternoon, she bounded into the kitchen sharing excitedly, Look at this cute outfit I got for church today!! and drew us all into the excitement of how cute she would be. She never fails to pull us in by her exhuberance for living, where even small feats are opportunities to celebrate.

Happy Birthday, sweet Elise Rachelle Moslander! You are color and light and a world traveller with a big heart. You have become the beautiful young woman I always knew you would be, but have surprised me by being such an amazing woman of faith and trust in God! You are a faith woman, for sure!

May all your blessings come times 2 this year!…Aunt Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: Take good care of my sweet niece, Elise!

Tags: birthday, elise moslander, family
Posted in Birthdays/Anniversaries, Memories/Melancholy, Mi familia, My most unforgettable people, Photos of the Fam, Stuff I actually think | 5 Comments »

It’s Good

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

Hey, it’s good to be back home again

Sometimes this old house feels like a long-lost friend

Hey, it’s good to be back home again…

-John Denver

The best way to travel Kansas? From 34,000 feet! Home again. It’s good to be back.

Love and Kisses to my parents-missed you today for leisurely coffee…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: There is no place like this…

Tags: Home, parents, springfield
Posted in Home, Stuff I actually think | No Comments »

Spiderfield, MO

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

Yes – a grasshopper flew into my hair and got stuck.

Yes – “millers” followed me in to the house nightly.

Yes – a mosquito or two tried to suck my blood.

And yes – at least twice, two gi-normous Circus-Peanut-Candy-sized bees bumbled sideways into me, somehow unable to resist the gravitational pull I apparently possess.

But, omygosh!!!! The spiders! EEKS! It is raining spiders in Springfield, literally! Each time one of the parentals and myself have headed out to the patio swing, or out the front door or really anywhere – some mammoth, hairy, scary spider drops from a doorframe or a tree or the roof overhang or the sky. aaaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeekkkksssssss……!!!!!!!!!!!!

One spider, a fat, black, nickel-sized spider just sat on my wrist as if he were my pet. The one in the picture was at least a 2-incher. They’re everywhere – in the sky, in my hair. Mama-mia – H E L P !

Tags: bugs, parents, spiders, springfield
Posted in Stuff I actually think | 3 Comments »

The Parents

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

I am visiting the parents where they retired 4 months ago in Springfield, MO.

Springfield is…interesting. I have never seen so many junk stores, resale shops and on-going home rummage sales in my life. This could be an antiquer’s haven – or perhaps just the biggest pile of junk in the heartland!

They also have more eating establishments per capita than anywhere I have ever been and Dave’s goal is to eat at every single one.

We have seen 8032 churches (A of G “holy land”), 637 women wearing shorts who shold NOT have been and 214 mullets – yes, the Joe Dirt “do.”

We’ve hung some pictures on the wall, helped dad rebuild a shed, adjusted some doors and enjoyed the final days of summer as they have slipped into fall. The sunsets have been quiet and colorful, the days pleasant. Mom is constantly trying to feed us and dad wants to give us unforgettable memories of fun times. We just enjoy being near them.