Last year when we moved to a home that required cable to get any reception on TV, I made the request that we not get it. Last summer I spent a lot of time preparing our former home for sale and then packing it up, Paul spent a lot of time in other countries and the kids spent a lot of time in front of the television where they were safe, if indolent. By September I had three junkies. Paul, after some cajoling, agreed. We have been without TV for a year. Although I really haven’t missed it, I have realized I need a contingency plan for national or international disasters just as Paul has one for NCAA Basketball.

I knew Hurricane Katrina was coming. We prayed about it in church the Sunday before it hit, but I couldn’t really wrap my brain around category 5.

Afterwards I knew there was devastation. I knew people were being evacuated and holing up in the Super Dome. I pictured a really big flood.

Wednesday I ran errands and listened to NPR. This helped me grasp how catastrophic it was, but not fully. I almost called my friend in Evanston to ask her to TiVo the news for me.

We were at her house Thursday night. Her office had been wild because she works for a utility company and they were desperately trying to get their systems working again. After the kids were in bed I told her I really needed to watch the news.

Hours passed and I finally understood.

Unbelievable. Mind bogglingly unbelievable.

It makes my heart and brain hurt.

I can only imagine the exhaustion, frustration and hopelessness so many people are feeling.

I am praying more fervently and listening for what God is asking me to do.

I wish I had known what was going on sooner. I don’t want to hook up the TV but I am going to make it a priority to stay current through other media and go to a friend’s if necessary when there is a situation I need to see to believe.

Awoke before 4. Not worried, happy actually, house cleanish, laundry caught upish, what is the dealy-o?

There is a beauty in blogging; it can be a place to articulate one’s thoughts and also provide a public service. “Can be” is the key.

Some of you may don today’s title as your own sobriquet. But there are some who have not been blogging daily and cannot call themselves the Insomniac’s friend. Those who can (Karen, by the skin of your teeth, you
Lucky Girl) wear it proudly for you are good and kindly people. Those who cannot (I won’t name names beacause I am a kind lady and YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) just hang your heads in shame today and then knock out a post. Quality is not to be considered.

Thank you.

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I am leaving shortly for Chicago “all family of us” as Birdie once said. We contemplated leaving Beanie with a Grandma but Millenium Park is on the itinerary and we thought it would be wrong to visit a giant bean sculpture and not have our Bean in tow. We are staying with a friend who lives in the 21st century. I might be able to post a picture of it.

Today we are going to the Museum of Science and Industry. There is a, reportedly, amazing exhibit on the Human Body. This morning I was wondering if Birdie will be able to look at it. I think I am going to encourage her to try. C. Riley will be mesmerized.

The Aquarium is also on the agenda and that is enough for this visit. Well, there is always IKEA. We need school desks or tables. I refuse to hold Hobo School one more day. It is nice to recline on the floor for reading but sitting in the box car and trying to write is a pain.

As in Ned Flanders, when Homer realized he was Satan, I think that was what it was, anyhoo he said in his lovely nasally voice that Homer needed to be “re-Neducated”. That went right into the Paul/Alison vernacular and has been used since.

I am now officially a homeschooler.

Monday sitting on the couch upstairs, opening the Bible to start our day, The Bean wacking us all in the knees with the giant atlas she was using for a Bible, Birdie sighed, “I miss my friends.”

“I miss sending you away to school,” I wanted to say. I felt like crying and perceived an unfamiliar heaviness. My arm was already around her and C. Riley, so I just hugged them close and we prayed for our school and our day. Later we listened to a song and then I asked Birdie to pray for the Mayan people who we are studying. C. Riley said, “Oh wait I will get my drum to play while Lydia prays” I was about to say no then the an angel with a flaming sword or something stopped me and I realized this is why I am doing this; when my kids get a whacky scheme that helps them stay on task and experience something more fully I can say yes. So I did. He ran and got his bongo and quietly played while Birdie sweetly prayed.

Yesterday as I walked it out, the fear of failure, the heaviness of carrying my kids’ education, the prospect of not a lot of free time there was an underlying peace and I perceived in myself a new gentleness. I felt under grace. Under it, I was able to hear things I hadn’t before, see things I previously couldn’t. I am waiting in some mystery. I have some questions about the way I live, the way I frame the world. I think this is the blessing of obedience and trust – being pulled closer.

I am going to live out loud as I walk through this.

My brother is a photographer and he did two pieces each one has nine separate images on it. I think it’s 9. Would that be three triptychs? Anyway one is titled, “I’m scared” It is pictures of the moon taken in Death Valley. It is an ominous, dark piece. The other is called “I’m listening” and is a series of images of California – the sky, signs to Santa Barbara, very bright and sunny. I get energy looking at it. (Sadly, I don’t own it.)

I have been thinking about these a lot. I want my life to be listening, to be walking through the valley, leaving the desert and declaring the praises of Him who called me out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Please know I don’t equate homeschooling with light, but for me, today, homeschooling is calling out all my trust.

And fear is always the darkness.

I got up around 5 yesterday morning. You know you haven’t been sleeping well when you awake at 5 and are so grateful it is not 4. So I got online and banged out a brilliant blog. Really, it was good. It might have brought peace in our time, saved every marriage, made everyone ever so slightly better looking. I’m telling you it was amazing. For the point I wanted to make I needed to tell a little back story and so I did. I was just getting to the good part, to the place where life as we all know it was going to drastically improve when the power went out and I lost the whole stinking thing.

I had to walk away. There was no retrieving it and I am sorry, for all of us. Know it was there and perhaps some day I will be able to write it again.

Why I have been sleeping terribly I realized is that I am on the verge of a big life shift. Beginning tomorrow I am homeschooling my kids. To nutshell it, God floated the possibility by me last winter and I said “No. Thank you. Really, NO thank you.”

But the thought lingered and so I opened myself to it by prayer and started listening hard. Paul did too. And here we are: God took me through refusal to consideration to resignation to peace to excitement and then I dove into anxiety. I figured this out a week into terrible sleep and the realization that I nolonger have fingernails. Last night I prayed, laid down fear, committed to trust and polished my distressed nails.

Today at church He encouraged me through songs, the sermon, prayer and more songs. He is so good. I am going to trust and obey Him.

As always, if God brings me to mind please pray and if you catch me wearing a denim jumper promise you’ll throw me in a van and race to AnnTaylor.

Of my big list of things to do from yesterday I accomplished vacuuming the pool and making dinner.

I asked C. Riley to help me vacuum. After considering the request for a moment he said, “Indeed. Yes, I will help you.”

Funny.

Of course I got everything set up and handed him the vacuum which he held for approximately 15 seconds before returning it to me, “It’s too difficult.”

So much for having a pool boy.

Last year when we first took possession of the house and were trying to maintain the pool (deathly afraid of blowing up the pump or breaking the heater) we tried to remember what the elderly woman from whom we bought the house taught us. Because I had grown up with a pool, most decisions were deferred to me with the comment, “Well, you’re the poolgirl.” After about the 283rd time this had been said I yelled, “Would you stop that! I haven’t been a pool girl for 15 years!”

He stopped and then we both learned how to take care of the pool. I can’t even tell you how many shouts were exchanged because of the pump and then frustration and how many times forgiveness was requested. I’ll try -it was certainly more than four…I think 72.