Newsflash: I changed 16 (oops - now make that 17) diapers in about 13 hours today. (That's a lot, by the way!)


But on the brighter side: Caiden is some better. He had some energy and some appetite today. I'm sure he'll be well just about the time David gets home to help. hee hee.

I realize that this most certainly is NOT brilliant blog material. But it is sooo where I am.... As I've said before, I don't think I'm even capable of a brilliant thought today. So dullsville is what you get.

Check out the video at the bottom of the page....

I spoke tonght in church about a habit it is easy to be guilty of - splitting our lives into the "sacred" and the "secular." Then tonight I found an entry in a beautiful website (soon to expire) about a seamless life - "A One Piece Life."

Beautiful.
Thought provoking.
Probing.
Inspiring.



Read it for yourself.


Special thanks to Dixie's Blog for leading me to the Sacred Everyday website.

Oh Girls. I don't want to sound negative. But I'm having a poopy diaper day. I know you've all been there.

I'm home alone for the week with sick kids. David's gone to GBS and IHC on a recruitment trip for the seminary. Caiden has been very sick all week - since we got back from the wedding. He's very weak, and is losing fluids constantly. My aunt is a pediatrics ask-a-nurse, and so I have plenty of information for taking care of him at home. But it requires very frequent, small fluid doses. I've also started him on Lactobacillus to restore balance to his system and the BRAT diet. But he doesn't want to be put down. He's usually a very jolly, belly laughing baby but he can barely muster a smile when I do one of about 30 diaper changes a day. He's usually right on the heels of the girls - tearing things up with vigor. But the only play he can muster now is lightly tapping some pens together.

I'm leading the services this week for David while he's gone. Which usually isn't a big deal to me...unless you've got a baby that is sick at both ends, a 2-year old with the croup and a 4-year old in an asthma episode! HELP!!!

The cup-half-empty side of me is envisioning myself at dragging my 3 kids alone to the ER for Kayla's asthma, Karssa's pheumonia, Caiden's dehydration, and my own ear infection. (Way to think positive, sis!)

My home - which brings me joy and comfort in its peaceful state - is now half-packed. Stacks of packed and unpacked boxes are making my stress level stay unusually high. I feel the pressure of getting some packing done every day, as well as keeping up with the "sick" laundry, normal household tasks and teaching 3 days a week.

Teaching my lessons with 3 munchkins in the house when David is gone is challenging enough even when they're not sick! If these kids don't get well, I don't see how in the world I'm going to give my students their money's worth this week.

Everyone got together today at Mom and Dad's and De and Mark opened their wedding gifts. Without me.

It was pretty hard handing David his lunch and watching him drive away the spiffy red PT Cruiser the seminary rented for him. But I made my decision and I'll live with it, right!? Yes.

I've already sat on the kitchen floor and cried and prayed over Caiden. Now I'd better get something planned for this evening's service. (Oh yeah and do the dishes....)

Thank you for listening. It's great to have girlfriends who just listen. I'm resisting the temptation to only blog the "I'm-so-happy-and-my-life-is-perfect" stuff.

(As I published this, I just realzed the irony of my post title. It's actually a phrase I got from my favorite violin teacher....but it's rather fitting in more than one way today. hee hee.)

A lot of you were at the wedding, but some of you probably don't even know my sister. So here's the scoop.

About Deanna: She is my older sister. She is a happy, brilliant and energetic person. Her name means "bubbling over." (Those of you who know her are probably smiling.) She has a BA in Elementary Ed from GBS and a MA in Violin Performance from Miami University, Oxford. She is my Dad's right hand man in the GBS music division. She is an amazing teacher, sister and friend.

About Mark: He is British. His immediate family lives in Northern Ireland. His grandmother lives in Oxford, England. He is incredibly intense, just like Deanna. (We think their kids will be born with their hair standing on end, reading Tolstoy.) He is also very intelligent, and is finishing his master's degree in Church History from Cincinnati Christian University. He graduates in a few weeks. He was a professional auctioneer back in Europe before he moved to the states to get a couple more degrees and a wife. He is also a preacher and has traveled several years in Public Relations for GBS.

The Wedding: The music was incredible. All of the prelude and ceremony music was classical or sacred. Some of Deanna's previous violin students provided some wonderful solo and string quartet music with Rachelle. Our aunt Nancy sang beautifully. Martha Miller - our teacher, mentor and dear friend - completely outdid herself on the music. Phillip Bishop played the organ like a master. The Craters sang beautifully. It was exquisite. Larry Smith (our cousin), Dr. Alan Brown, and Mark's father officiated the wedding. A group of friends and family flew in from Europe to celebrate the day. We shared many happy memories with them, exchanging customs and trying to figure out what in the world they were saying under those accents. The dresses were black, the roses red. Very fitting for De and Mark's love for art and culture. But Deanna's color is blue. Everyone who knows her knows that. So there were navy accents at the wedding and reception. They left the wedding surrounded by happy bubbles and had a picture of the couple and the guests around the "fish pond" - now a fountain - in the center of GBS.

The Reception: It was classic, with white table cloths, silver tiered candleabras on each table and red roses arranged in blue glass vases. (From De's collection of blue glass.) The cake was amazing. Marianne Brown (Dr. Phil Brown's wife) made the cake. It was chocolate and white layered with raspberry filling. There were 4 square tiers, surrounded by blue ribbon and exquisite edible pearls. On the top was Deanna's pride and joy - a Hummel cake topper from Grandma and Grandpa Parsons (antique dealers). There was lots of fun music at the reception, including my Uncle John (a veterinarian and blues pianist) and my dad singing some of his classic Irish tunes. "Archie" - a hilarious Irishman with a very thick accent - was the emcee for the wedding. He told great stories. Our dad also gave a tear-jerker speach among others. Our mom catered the wedding - with cheesecakes and a chocolate fountain gracing the cake table, an all-white h'ourdourves table, another with marinated cheese and white punch. The dinner included a fresh-fruit table, roast and ham and all the trimmings. It beautiful and delicious. Linda Alexander led a team of helpers who carried it all out. Mom also catered the rehearsal dinner, held at their new home in Colerain.

The Car: It is a Parsons-family tradition. We have to trash the new couple's car. At my parents' wedding, they put a board in the accellerator & giant bullfrogs in the car. At my Aunt Lisa's, they kidnapped them and drove them around Kansas City in the back of a pickup truck. At mine, they completely wrapped our car in plastic wrap and purchased white rats (correction, mice...MOM!) for the inside. At Garen's, they had a filled swimming pool in the back of his truck with dozens of goldfish swimming away. Mark and De tried to trick their way out of it, but we got them anyway. Raw eggs mixed with flour and peanut butter adorned the top of the car, mixed with plenty of blue Easter Grass. The door handles were smeared with who knows what, and the car was platered with cheezy Irish sayings. Mark handled it well. He paced around and around the car in the freezing weather for awhile, trying to figure out what to do. But even when they did get into the car, there was a bigger prob lem. The car was completely jacked up on platforms!! My brother finally got his hydraulic jack out and rescued them right around the time my Aunt Lisa came for a visit dressed like the Easter Bunny. After all that is over, we jump into our cars and chase after the couple for miles, honking our horns and surrounding their hideous car. Don't try to understand why this is fun. It's just us. Our cousin Gabe was in heaven watching, or he would have been in the thick of it.

Honeymoon, Etc.: They went out west on their honeymoon last week. It was probably the first time either one of them sat down for more than 5 minutes in months. Next week they hit the ground running with IHC, grad school classes, and their regular hectic schedule. After Mark graduates and school finishes at GBS, they will be moving back to Northern Ireland. They will be pastoring, traveling, and they both are interested in pursuing doctoral work (as time and money allows).

Visit Mark and Deanna's Website GO>>

It was WOW. Of course, I'm the very faithful and biased sister. But it really was a very beautiful day. Nelda Sturgill, our long-time friend, adopted sister, resident midwife and family photographer has provided links of the entire event for the picture junkies. For those of you with a less voracious photograph appetite, I'll try to add a few of the best pics to the blog later.

Mander Pre-Wedding Shoot

Mander Wedding

Mander post-Wedding Shoot

Mander Wedding Reception

Mander Wedding Clean-up


De called me yesterday from their honeymoon about something and they sounded V-E-R-Y happy buzzing along through Nevada in their white Mustang convertable. {smiles}

This song has been with me since early last week. I've hesitated to post it because I'm paranoid about copyright laws. I think since it's St. Francis it's public domain. Please let me know if I'm wrong.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury..pardon.
Where there is doubt...faith
Where there is despair...hope
Where there is darkness...light
Where there is sadness...joy!

O, Divine Master grant that I may not so much seek.
To be consoled, as to console
To be understood, as to understand
To be loved, as to Love

For it is in giving that we recieve
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
It is in dying that we are born
to Eternal Life!

If you've never heard this sung, you need to go online and find it. This song gives me courage to react to life the way I should, not the way I feel.

I have decided to switch my "just thinking" blog from the website back to our old blogging format. This is an experiment. I am often not decisive decision-maker. So, I'll keep you posted if I decide to switch my blog back to the website.

Until then...welcome! Let's chat.

Bittersweet.

This weekend I got to play violin with my two sisters in the GBS Christmas orchestra one last time before my big sis moves to Europe. There's nothing like it. The long, hot dress rehearsal. My dad and sister and friends running around like decapitated chickens, solving myriad problems that I know nothing about. My mentor and dear friend Mrs. Miller sitting right beside me, making comments in a way that only she can. The exciting rush during the street scene. The tears as the drama - still new and fresh to me since I'm visiting - tells the old story. The choking smell of the artifical smoke for the angels scene. And the adrenalin rush of performance. It feels so good to have my back aching and my fingers black from the fingerboard. So this is what it feels like to play, I remember. And the overwhelming emotion as my dad is enthusiastically honored at the end of the programs. They think he's a hero. My sisters and I cry and hold hands. We don't think he is - we know he is.

The baby woke me up earlier than I wanted this morning. I stumbled to the living room to feed him so he wouldn’t wake up the other kids. Dad was the only one up – I could hear his tractor outside as he hauled wood to the house in the dark (for his pet "Big Red" - a monster of a furnace). And then as the light came slowly – I realized that it was snowing! Dad hates snow, but he’s a good sport about it.

The kids are so excited. Karissa didn’t even really know what it was….”It’s COLD!” She said.

What a cozy feeling – standing in mamma’s kitchen getting dinner in the crock pot - looking out at the white everything. Then I stepped outside to feel it. Biting, dry cold. And that beautiful crunching under my slippers….It brought tears. Only a snow-loving Yankee transplanted into the Deep South could completely understand why this is all so incredibly exciting.