The Bench

Basketball season is in full swing and both my boys are bench warmers.  Here's the good, the bad and the ugly.  The good is Jay has been playing basketball for 8 years.  He likes his coach and he truly loves the game of basketball.  He stuck with it when nearly everyone else didn't.  In fact there are only three juniors left still playing (including Jay).  Jay's group of boys have taken some hits through the years with basketball and many decided it wasn't worth it.  Jay made the choice that it was worth it but it's come at a cost and this is the bad.  The bad is he rarely plays and the ugly is he only plays if his team is going to lose and that's after he has watched boys younger than him play the entire game.  Now I get you play the boys with the most skill but this is not being written by a level minded man, it's being written by a heartfelt mother and any mother who has witnessed her child sit on the bench game after game knows exactly what I'm talking about.
The good with Nick is he is driven and like Jay, loves the game.  What his coach doesn't see is many nights after practice, in the freezing cold, Nick puts his hat on, grabs his ball and heads outside to shoot hoops.  On weekends he will shoot for hours.  Last week he played for so long on the hard concrete that he injured his ankle.  Like Jay, Nick only plays for a few minutes and only if his team is losing.  One could argue that year after year of enduring this builds character in the boys and while there may be some truth in that, at the end of each game I want to take the character building exercise and shove it up someone's you know what.  Just sayin!

Thanksgiving weekend

 We had a lot to be thankful for this year.  Mom's recovery has been amazing.  It is true her right arm is slow and her speech continues to frustrate her, but she continues to get better each month that goes by.  It has been a joy to see her get back to doing things she did pre-stroke.  We had a late dinner on Thanksgiving with Kim and her family and John and Linda.  We played games, laughed and ate.  We ate a lot!  Imagine that?

                                     Lauren entertained us with her flute.

                   Mike fried a turkey again this year and it did not disappoint.

The weather was nice on Thanksgiving so  Jay, Nick and Luke enjoyed playing together.

                                        Too much Thanksgiving for these dogs!.

 On Saturday we headed to Springfield for Jocelyn's first birthday party.

Mike fixed Michelle's piano.  He was a good sport because he was not thrilled to be doing the work in the middle of a birthday party.  I included this picture because two girls wanted to come up and chat with Mike while he was working.  Several people were interested in what he was doing.  Ha.  As always he did great work.
Another activity that consumed much of our time this weekend was Jay's basketball tournament.  It started on Wednesday night and went through Saturday night.  His team won one game and we got to see Jay play in two of the three games.  Between Jay and Nick, their basketball season has a total of 60 games.  Can you say busy?  I'll have some serious bleacher butt come March!  Ugh.

Always good

It's the week of Thanksgiving!  Thanksgiving weekend is my favorite holiday/weekend.  We have a lot to be thankful for.  My mom is doing really good.  I feel like the three of us turned a corner this month.  Things have felt more normal.  Mom has done several things this month that she did pre-stroke.  She's lunched with friends, went shopping with Kim and I, and went to a Beatles concert - yep, a Beatles concert.  She even stayed out until 10:30!  Ha.  She is truly an inspiration and each month that goes by I am beyond thankful to our loving God who gave mom, Kim and I a second chance.  For several months Kim and I were afraid to exhale, our fears giving in to the ways of the world and what might happen next.  Even after everything that has happened the last 3 years I still find it hard to fully trust God, even though I know full well God is good, and his timing is perfect.  I'm reading Lysa Terkeurst new book, "It Isn't Supposed To Be This Way," and boy am I learning!  I'm a work in progress.  No one knows or understands my weaknesses better than God.  Lysa describes walking a tightrope in her book.  I've walked a lot of tightropes and never once has God let me fall - not once.  During each situation He is faithful.  Yes, I get frustrated because my humanly self gets discouraged with time frames.  My focus is on how long my suffering is taking and when will it ever end.  When I finally make it to the end of that tightrope I am better, I am stronger and there is good, always good.

This man

This man is the hardest worker I have ever, hands down, ever met.  I've known this to be true for 24 years I've been with Mike.  He will be 46 next month and he doesn't slow down.  I know there are times he wishes and longs for things to just be easier, less physically demanding.  He literally works from sun up to sun set and I never hear him complain - ever.  I occasionally hear frustration in his voice, but he never complains.  Last week we finally got a concrete apron for our driveway for the boys to play basketball on. Mike ordered his boys a very nice basketball hoop, compliments of their nana.  Mike never seems to get "easy jobs."  The hoop arrived two days ago and Mike's didn't have anything scheduled for Cornerstone so he has spent all day and evening getting this hoop ready which has required him to rent an auger, pick the auger up, use the auger to dig a 4 foot hole, which only got the job done halfway.  When Mike drove all the back to Bloomington to return the rented auger he came home to start manually digging a hole through all the clay, yes clay!  When he got the hole big enough he had to physically get into the hole and dig out the gravel by hand at the bottom (see picture above).  It's November in Central Illinois, it's cold and wet.  Yesterday afternoon Mike took a 30 minute break and I rubbed him down with icy hot, but after that he was back at it, until dusk and rained stopped him.  Today he picked up and unloaded 30 bags of 80 lbs concrete bags.  Normally the boys help him but he got it done today while they were in school.  This man never ceases to amaze me.  He is relentless in his love for his family.  Life hasn't been an easy road for him, but I have no doubt that one day when he stands before God, Mike will hear the words, "Well done good and faithful servant, you used all the talents and abilities I gave you, well done."