wandering sails

the case of the infected appendix & other stories.

the infected appendix.
plans were thwarted last night when my friend kathy called to let me know she was following the ambulance carrying her husband, joel. we called off our movie night and after work, i went to let the dogs out, had dinner with my mom and went back to their house to hang with the dogs and wait to hear from her. joel's appendix was ill. i know how that it is. my appendix died, too. it went out with a bang, to be specific. no fun. absolutely no fun. so i was hurting for him last night. but, just as i kept telling myself two years ago, he will never have to do this again. kathy opted to stay at her sister's instead of driving all the way home, so it was just the dogs & i for the night. i don't know what their problem was, but i was awake at least once every hour. bosco sometimes thinks he hears something he ought to be growling at. so he did that. a lot. somewhere around three, hershey started whining and when i went to see what was going on, she made it clear she wanted out. amazingly, i am not so tired. how that is possible, i don't know.

other stories.
i have some issues with drivers who think they always have a green light to turn right. when i am driving perpendicular to where they are coming from, and i have a green light, that means that you cannot possibly have a green light as well. and just because they give you a special turning lane does not mean that i have to hit my breaks so that you can merge in front of me. you had a red light. you are supposed to yield to me. not i to you. why is this concept so hard to get?

i saw gas for $2.19 at two different gas stations on my way to work this morning. i thought that was nice.

posted by julie @ 10:07 AM 1 comments

jesus loves the crooked liners.

the summer of 2000, i had a cabin of girls that could not for the life of them stand in a straight line. they were tenderfooters (1st & 2nd graders) and at that time, shamineau held their tenderfoot camps over at solid rock bible camp because it was a smaller camp. solid rock had this routine before every meal that had the cabins stand in a straight line to get called in for dinner. if your line wasn't straight, you wouldn't get called (unless, of course you were the last cabin). it took two meals for us to decide on our cabin name. the crooked liners. because we couldn't, just couldn't stand in a straight line. we would purposely stand in the crookedest line we could. and we sang our song.

jesus loves the crooked liners. all the liners of the world. red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. jesus loves the crooked liners of the world.

and we recited our cabin verse (romans 12:2a).

do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

we learned to love our crookedness. sometimes, we need to.

some words of incredible genius from the crooked liners:

*white isn't a color. it's a primary color, i think. (liz)
*my grandma is 90. um, why she's 90 is because one time, she fell out of bed & now her back hurts a lot. (maggie)
*um, a boy called me weird today. well, did you laugh at him? no. well, actually it was halee. (maggie & myself)
*does anyone know where south america is? BRAZIL!

i loved that i could just play with these girls. to imagine and laugh. by far, my favorite age for campers. all we did was play, eat and talk about jesus. what more does one even need?

posted by julie @ 4:24 PM 1 comments

saturday night (11:22)

what happened? what happened on saturday night julie? what was it? ooohhh, you want to know what happened at 11:22 on saturday night? okay. i'll tell you.

creepy, nasty, vile rodent that had taken up residence in julie's previously germ-free kitchen DIED.

woo hoo! i am mouse free!!!! (well, as of sunday afternoon... i had to wait for someone to come and remove the mouse so that i could go into my kitchen again.)

it feels good.

posted by julie @ 9:34 AM 2 comments

with or with you.

i was a hostage on friday night. i don't actually know why, or who was holding me, other than that it was a man. i was locked in a room in a basement that loosely resembled the basement of the church i grew up in. the door had a small window, but it was all sound-proofed. there was a woman who walked around outside the door. i feel like she knew i was there, but i can't be sure. i remember arguing with this incredibly mean man and as a result, he threw the pictures i had been looking at across the room. i picked them up and put them back on the table and realized how scared i was. the fire he said he would start out in the main room, seemed to roar up. i had pictures out there... an important shoot. when i saw my mom out the tiny window, i beat on the window and called her name, ignoring his threats. she was talking to the woman and i pleaded with her to see me. when she finally did, she opened the door and put a gun in the man's face. imagine, my mother with a handgun. i whipped out an uncapped, white plastic, black-inked bic pen (because of course these are key defense tools) and we faced this man together. i told my mother to go, just go (i felt a bit too confident in my writing utensil). i just wanted her to be safe. she told me to go, she'd come after me. i said no, not without you. she said no, not without you. we both turned at ran out. there was a brief thought i had that told me to go get the pictures... they were irreplaceable. i ran out with my mom instead.

three things i realized from this dream... one, my mother is wiser than i am. two, i don't want this life without her by my side. and three, the people are more important than the pictures.

posted by julie @ 10:02 AM 1 comments

man or mouse?

when i went to bed on sunday night, i had no idea what the hours of darkness would bring. i was pretty tired, so i went early and slept hard. at some point in the night my eyes opened really wide. my brain, though still half asleep, was racing. i heard this pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. oh, my word, what is that??? oh, it's that mouse. (i discovered that i have a mouse for the first time, but haven't been able to find the mousetraps and keep forgetting to buy them...) it's caught in the bubble wrap. (i have this bubble wrap in my kitchen, origin unknown, that i had just moved to a different spot so it was out of the way...) wait, why would it be caught? it's not sticky? oh, it's someone. someone's popping the bubble wrap to wake me up before they attack me. then, a FLASH! oh, my word, the mouse is eating the electrical wires. it's going to start my house on fire and I DON'T HAVE A FIRE EXTINGUISHER. what am i going to do? i reached for the super bar that happened to be under my bed (for reasons i won't expound upon) and slowly crept toward the door. i reached my arm around the wall and flicked the light on in the next room. it's coming from the vent... i cautiously walked over to the vent on the far wall and peered into it, half expecting flames to come shooting up at my face. oh, my word, it's coming from the window. someone's at my window. i step over to the window, my heart pounding. i throw back the curtain, ready to attack.

it's raining? it's the rain? oh, good heavens.

i drag my feet back to bed, i shut the light off and crawl into the warmth of my bed. it wasn't supposed to rain. sure doesn't sound like rain.

i need a roommate. or a husband. someone else to get up out of bed and check these things out.

posted by julie @ 4:20 PM 3 comments

is there such a thing as a plain muffin?

because i think i'm eating one.

posted by julie @ 11:58 AM 2 comments

in the middle of alone.

i feel very alone these days in blogworld. i understand needing the break, and i'm glad that people are taking them, but it's lonely here without everybody i know.

posted by julie @ 10:07 AM 5 comments

southside in october.

i said i would write about camp this fall, so here it is. since amy and lissa have both left, we brought a small group to camp this time. nine girls. i really liked it. we got to spend more time with each girl, and know them that much better. fall camp is a fitness camp. so we do a lot of stuff. we run the annual race to the pine 2K (which really just sounds impressive... it's a mile and a half and you can walk it if you want.) i usually run with the girls who are going to walk part way. then i get to walk, too. i ran with tishia this year, which was way less exhausting than running with shelia and latamara last year (who didn't really run, but would sometimes just stop and declare she was done. i carried her, i jogged in place, i threw words of encouragement left & right. i carried her right up to the finish line so she could run over by herself. she loved it, though she didn't want me to know that...). this year, the two of them actually ran most of the way. i was so proud of them! do you see the medal? the running medal? never thought i'd have one, much less two! and tishia & i actually ran most of the way... she rocked this race! we did circle aerobics on friday night this year, which was much better than after the race. we watched a good girly movie after the girls got pedicures on saturday night. and we played. and relaxed. we laid under the stars and wondered at the floorboards of heaven. and some of the girls got to see a shooting star for the first time! it was so cool to be with them when they saw it. all in all, it was a fantastic weekend! i am anxious to see what this year will look like with so few of us volunteers and staff left. i cannot imagine letting this go.

posted by julie @ 1:24 PM 1 comments

tiny tomatoes.

check out these super tiny tomatoes that annie-claude brought today... people kept mistaking them for jellybeans! crazy small.

i feel like i don't really look like that, but i must. jesse said it does a little bit.

posted by julie @ 3:27 PM 0 comments

cindy's weather report.

The fall rains have come with much gusto, giving us lots of umbrella days. The sunrises have turned into amazing spectacles of blues and oranges and pinks. The morning dew has turned cold, with a smattering of mornings bringing light frost. The swamp grass has started to turn, the tips becoming brown long before the rest of the green gives in.

Fall flowers have come in abundance, my garden coming alive again with asters, mums and dahlias. I'm preparing the new beds for fall bulbs tonight and will divide the peonies sometime this week as well. Soon, the dahlias will need to be dug up and winterized, but for now, i am simply enjoying their beauty. The primroses & sweet williams are starting to show some wear & tear and will soon be gone.There is a mass of small white flowers in one of the back gardens that have started blooming, but as those are not beds i have reclaimed yet, i haven't figured out what they are.

The leaves are turning. The sumacs turned a deep crimson early on, and the maples are following suit with some great oranges and reds. The yellows are coming as well, but mostly we still have green. The tops have turned, but the rains have brought strong winds this year, so we lost a lot of color that we had.

It smells like fall. It feels like fall. I step outside and am inspired to cook with squash and make pumpkin bread and thick soups. I want to curl up in a sweater and a blanket, read a book and hold a warm mug of tea. I want to go to the orchard and pick apples, carve a pumpkin with my cousin, rake my leaves and listen to the wind. Ask me in the spring just to make sure, but I am certain that this, this is my favorite time of year.

posted by julie @ 2:52 PM 2 comments

7.5 oz, 8"

my sister-in-law went into labor on saturday. she delivered live and they were able to have a small amount of time with him. the easy part is over, right? now they have to move on, which could prove to be harder than the waiting.

posted by julie @ 1:22 PM 0 comments

fruitful deliveries.

when i moved to maple lake, i had to have a po box. no other option was available to me and they made me pay a yearly fee to have one. well, i thought that was ridiculous, so i let them know what i think. i was granted permission to have my very own, real mailbox. outside my house. once i got my act together, the box went up quickly and i have been receiving mail on my street for three days now. day one brought a newspaper and a payment for some pictures. day two brought an unexpected large tip from the wedding i shot in september. today is day three of real mailbox living and i can't wait to get home to check it! who knew it would be so lucrative???

posted by julie @ 4:08 PM 1 comments

standing still.

i spent an hour on 35W last night between lyndale and diamond lake road. it's never taken me so long to go a mile and a half. my car literally did not move for 15 minutes at one point. it was late. it was raining. i was tired. i had my brother's wedding pictures to deliver. in good traffic, i was still an hour away from his house. and i wasn't in good traffic. i pulled out my camera and documented it for awhile. i thought a lot. i have no idea why i am not able to go anywhere. coming up on diamond lake rd, we were met with lights telling us to merge four lanes into two. i did. and then, all of the sudden, we were free & clear. they took the lights away and we were off. i found out later that 35 was severely flooded at diamond lake and the police were having to push cars through because they were floating and couldn't go anywhere. my car would have floated. i don't know where the water went, but when i passed under, the road was merely wet. 'be still and know that i am God.' i haven't stood still in so long. these last two months have been so hectic, so filled up. i keep myself going by reminding my weary body that it'll just be a couple more weeks. as an introvert, i need to stand still. i cannot replenish myself without it. i have a tendency to push myself beyond my limits. i wear down. my spirit starts to die. my eyes get tired. my heart has no energy to care. i just want to sleep. i feel so inadequate to be with nicky today. i took a vacation day to be with her. they're still waiting. nothing is happening. they cannot afford for bobby to not be working, so he went today with strict instructions that i call him immediately if she's in pain. looking in his eyes last night it was clear he didn't want to go. their lives are standing still right now and he doesn't feel right about moving when she cannot. so, today i stand still with nicky, because there is nothing else i can do.

posted by julie @ 9:22 AM 3 comments

waiting.

i realized that i gave information in my last post that wouldn't make sense without another, so i'm pulling a two-in-one day.

this past weekend was busy. very busy. people need to stop planning things at the same time. friday after work, i drove up to timber bay to do the fall fitness camp with my girls. the last thing i needed after two months of constant running was a fitness camp, but i was looking forward (as always) to hanging with them. i'll actually share more about camp later when i have pictures. saturday night, we watched a movie and afterwards, i left. this got me home at about 2 o'clock sunday morning. i slept a bit, got ready to go to church and talked to my mom. she told me that my brother, bobby, and his new wife, nicky, were at the hospital. saturday, nicky lost about 90% of her amniotic fluid. she's at 14 weeks. the baby is still alive, but waning. as my brother put it, they're just in this very weird, hard place of waiting for their baby to die. there isn't anything they can do. it's too early for the baby to survive, so they don't want to induce. but the baby is still alive. the baby is still kicking and moving. she can feel it. there is still a heartbeat. he or she is living in less than ten percent of amniotic fluid. today, they sent them home. nothing's happening. they're just waiting. how do you move on? something needs to happen to do that. i haven't known what to pray for. there are so many factors in this situation. but i ask you now to pray with me for something to happen. for all three of them to find the peace they are needing.

just wanted to put this out there. there's no such thing as too much prayer.

posted by julie @ 3:42 PM 3 comments

you, too, harvey.

yesterday after work, i swung by the grocery store to pick up flowers for my sister-in-law. i stood behind one woman in aisle two with my three bunches, willing the cashier to be quick so i could go. she seemed to be having issues with ringing up the produce, which made my brow furrow in questioning just a little. i started to look at the magazines and not intrigued by any in my immediate vision, i walked out of the aisle to check out the end ones. just as i did, a nameless guy buying salt (ngbs) joined the line. he offered to save my spot so i could look, but i decided it wasn't that important. i stood there a while longer. idle chit chat with ngbs took place. the cashier continued to have problems with the produce (i'm not sure, but i think there is a new way to ring it up using a scanner). she called someone else over. they checked some wires. they scrutinized things. they tried the produce again. they reset things. at length, i said to ngbs, 'this really was not the best line to choose.' he agreed, so we both made our way to the next available aisle. i paid no attention to which one it was. i was in a hurry. i had a hospital to get to. the magazines were different in this line, so i perused those for a bit. then i looked up. it was harvey. harvey was my new cashier. my heart started to race. my palms started to sweat. i got nervous. oh, no. what if he asks me why i'm buying flowers? what if he thinks i should pay with cash instead. what if he insults my cherries??? it didn't matter that i wasn't buying cherries. i was scared. i was scared of this old man and the words that come out of his mouth. i put my flowers down and gave him my checkcard. he was nice. he was cordial. not rude at all. perhaps harvey is not so bad. as i left, he said, 'have a good night, julie.'

posted by julie @ 3:02 PM 0 comments