Overwhelming tiredness

Oh man, I am tired. Tired in the way that I keep falling asleep sitting up and anytime I sit down, my whole inside just seems to settle downwards. Tired in the sense that when I do fall asleep, I sleep way too hard to be a good mother right now.
I've ditched some of my friends this weekend because of it. This weekend was to hold a visit from Jimmy and Joby, my seminary homeboys -- two of my dearest friends who basically hauled me through seminary despite my kicking, screaming, and crying. I don't know what I would have done without them. Trina is my best friend from my childhood. We became best friends in fifth grade and have matured (at least a little) together and have granted each other a good deal of grace in the process, for which I am continually grateful. Somewhere along the line, Trina came to visit me when I was in seminary and the boy who lived next door to me came in the room, eventually stuck his finger in her ear in a bizarre form of flirting, and three years later, they married. They added little Ethan to their family two months after Annalivia joined ours. The rest is history.
Anyway, the amigos were all to visit this weekend, but I've cancelled on them. Ditched them, I think, would be accurate. Daniel has been reacting poorly to formula and sleeping badly. The poor little guy's belly gets hard and he grunts and groans and then cries for a long while. I keep thinking that if he'd just nurse, this would all work itself out. But perhaps not. Trying to entice a baby to nurse is not exactly the kind of entertainment I want to share with others, even these dearest of friends. That's my excuse, but the truth is I'm just so darn tired. So I've ditched them. I'm sad though. I hadn't realized how much I was looking forward to seeing them.
Instead, we are going to be spending the next couple of days recharging (I hope). Dennis has been working so hard this week, staying up every night to finish papers and getting far too little sleep. Annalivia has been entertaining herself while I take naps on the couch whenever Daniel sleeps. I think we all need to spend some time lounging around together, playing, and sleeping whenever possible.
And maybe we'll be over the big tiredness by Saturday when Dennis' family is going to be visiting and Sunday when we are going to go down to celebrate Annalivia's birthday and take Daniel to meet my family. That's my hope at least.

Bubba to my Forrest

My best good friend, Jimmy, is here to visit us for the night. It is a totally unexpected visit and quite a lovely surprise. Tomorrow we'll be doing our versions of shrimping -- driving about and running errands. It's so great to have a friend that you don't have to impress who can just come visit without worry.
And that's all I have to say about that.

Some needed prayers

In the wee hours of the morning, I'd like to request some prayers for some dear ones who have been on my heart....

• My good friend from college, Amy, and her husband, Jim, are expecting their second child. Their first son was born in July very prematurely and did not survive. Tomorrow Amy will have a cerclage -- a surgical procedure where her cervix will be closed. I'm praying for peace for Amy and Jim and protection for Amy and the little one. They are understandably very nervous.
  
• Crystal, an internet friend (though it seems like she's much more than that), and her family have received word that her daughter, Emily, who has been combatting thyroid cancer, will have to undergo further radiation and treatment. Little Emily and her family have handled this situation with such grace -- it's a true inspiration. I am praying for healing for Emily and assurance and even more love for this family who has touched so many of us.
  
• Several years ago, Cathy, the niece of a church member, began attending church after she found herself pregnant and was thus deserted by her boyfriend of almost 10 years. She moved in with her aunt, who is just one of the most wonderful people I've ever met and came to church almost every week and we all watched her get ready for the baby. She gave birth to her son, Reese, the week before Dennis and I got married in July 2003 and then moved back home to be near her parents in Iowa. Today we found out that Cathy, who is just 37, had to have triple bypass surgery. She went to the hospital with chest pains and they tried to do a stint and her artery collapsed. The surgery went ok, but she apparently has veins and arteries that are abnormally thin. Several women in her extended family have died very young and her own mother suffered a stroke at 48, but no one knew that this was the problem. Tonight Cathy is in ICU and her parents are caring for her son. I don't think this family has a church family to support them and they are 3 hours away from us. I'm praying that they are finding tangible support from friends and family and know God's peace and assurance of how much God loves Cathy and little Reese. And I'm praying for miraculous healing.
  

Again, if any of you are able, please consider lifting these folks up in prayer. Thank you!

My unexpected friend

Today is my little sistah Lil's birthday. She's 25 today. She's also 39 weeks pregnant.
I am so thankful for Lillia. She is a friend I am still kind of surprised that I have.
Lillia is 6 1/2 years younger than I am. When she was born, I don't think my sister, Marissa, and I knew what to make of her. Consequently, we made life pretty difficult for little Lil.
Somehow, despite our best efforts, Lillia grew up into this person who is gracious and kind, easy-going yet passionate, disciplined and devoted. She's hilarious and intelligent and has always been one of the most generous and creative people I've ever met. She's a great mother and a blessed wife. Essentially, she is who I want to be.
What is especially cool is that Lillia is a great friend to me. She is the sister I call a couple times a week and she lets me talk to her about everything. She's great at maintaining levity and also being a sympathetic commiserator when necessary.
She's just one cool chicka.
And today, she is 25 and more than ready to give birth to her second child, her second daughter. I'm excited about that niece, but, frankly, today I'm more excited that God gave me this little sister to love and adore and treasure. Now that I've gained some wisdom with age, I see that her family were the ones who got the gift on her birthday. She really is amazing. And I'm glad she's here.

Superbowl Shuffle

Yeah, it's a stupid title. But I'm just saying -- my guess is that if there's not a re-record, we'll hear a lot of the original in the next two weeks.
Anyway -- THE BEARS HAVE WON!! How much fun is that?

He takes the plunge

Well, not, THE plunge.
But dear James has committed to Blogspot and that is something to celebrate 'round here.
Check it out.

Sunday forecast

Sunday is our Annual Meeting at church
But, more importantly, the Bears are in the playoffs.
There is a reported winter storm headed our way that is making both pastors of elderly congregants and their espoused Bears-fans a little nervous. The crucial question of when church should be cancelled, it it were to be necessary, will be answered later.
The question of whether the Bears will play? Here ya go.

Really funny television

Tonight I had one of those great experiences that seem to occur incredibly rarely -- I saw something absolutely hysterical on a television show. Dennis and I were watching Arrested Development on dvd. We are now on season 2 and there was a moment in the episode titled, "Meat the Veals" when Dennis and I both started laughing so hard that we cried. We had to stop the dvd so we could laugh and then replay it 10 times before we moved on. I'm smiling just thinking about it.
Obviously, I'm not going to describe it because it would lose most everything in translation, but isn't it nice to experience absolute hilarity in a place you don't usually experience it? I am usually mildly amused, at best, by tv shows. I would say there are some that are highly amusing. But raucously hilarious is rare. Very, very rare.
Edited to add: I should mention -- Arrested Development would probably be in very poor taste to some. I think it's brilliant. But, then, I'm very weird.

And here's to 2007!

Well, happy New Year, all! And White Rabbit, too.

What's weirdest to me about 2007 is that we're only 12 months from 2008. I don't know why that is so shocking to me, but it is. This year will mark 10 years since I graduated from college and next year will be 15 years since high school.

My goodness, I'm old.

On that note, it's 9 p.m. and time for me to go to bed. Happy New Year!

Happy Christmas!!

I am sitting down for a few moments before we will begin packing for our trip this afternoon. We are all full of cinnamon rolls, breakfast casserole and oranges and grapefruit. Annalivia is running around in a diaper only having discarded her pj's. We are listening to the Boston Camerata's A Baroque Christmas, having already made it through the Glenn Miller Nutcracker album. We might have to switch soon, though. This one is putting me back to sleep.
We had a good Christmas eve yesterday. The church services went really well. The morning service was packed. My family was here and my sister, Marissa, played the drum for us on two choir pieces. It was just the right touch and made the last one very festive. It was great.
The evening service had about half the amount of folks that usually come, so I made them all sit on one side of the church to facilitate the passing of the light from the Christ candle. It was very effective. If I closed my left eye, it looked like the church was full!
I sang Breath of Heaven with Sir Littler kicking my diaphragm the whole time. Precious. It was perhaps one of my most breathless performances ever, which gave me an entirely new understanding of the song and lent a very authentic edge to it, I think. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. The college kids did a great job leading the service. I used the Cloth for the Cradle book that I've mentioned several times here and it was great -- incredibly beautiful words, but not so beautiful that meaning was obscured. It was a great balance. I felt ready for Christ when we left. Which was a gift in and of itself.
Because Annalivia took a very long nap yesterday and only got up from it at 5:30 p.m. when we finally had to wake her up, we thought we'd try to go to the DOC church across the river for an 11 p.m. service. We got to 10:15 with us wearing our snazzy outfits and then I petered out. Annalivia could have kept going just fine, I think. It was her parents that just couldn't do it, so we got into bed late.
We planned to sleep in quite a bit, but I was awakened at 7 by Yappy, my name for the evil weiner dog next door whose lovely owner lets him stand on the driveway by our bedroom window and bark for a half-hour in the morning. Yappy's Christmas present was not getting something thrown at him. So we all got up and opened our presents. Annalivia got a train from Mommy and Daddy. Dennis got the complete Arrested Development dvd's from me, and I got a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous robe from Dennis/ Annalivia. Did I mention that it is gorgeous?
So, now we need to get dressed and packed and head south. We're getting together at Mom and Dad's for presents, then Lil's for dinner. I'm looking forward to the second annual McClure hymn sing featuring selections from The Messiah and various Christmas carols. If I do say so myself, we sound pretty good. We'll probably be getting it on tape this year. We'll see if it's really as good as it is in our heads.
Well, hope that all of you are having a WONDERFUL Christmas day with your loved ones. Many, many blessings to all!

Of cards, carols and computer conundrums

It is a week before Christmas.

No, actually, it is 6 days before Christmas.

Does realizing this lead anyone else to yell, "Aaaaaaaack!"

For all my fancy words about being prepared this December so that we could just sit back and coast through it, I have, once again, found myself in the week before Christmas feeling like a boa constrictor is squeezing the Advent out of me.

Yesterday, I finally finished our Christmas cards. Sort of. And we got them in the mail, which as I have mentioned before is generally half the battle for me. Friends in other states may notice that my card arrives during one of the twelve days of Christmas and probably not before the first one. Consider it part of the festivities, ok?

The bulletins for church are not done. They were done. In fact, about three weeks ago, I spent about four hours off and on at the computer hammering out a bulletin for Lessons and Carols and a Christmas eve candlelight service. Now, they are gone. I have wasted many a minute searching the hard drive, scanning every travel drive we own three or four times, checking Dennis' computer which I have not even been on, and checking our main computer which is downstairs and to which would have required an immaculate computer conception to transfer the files. They are gone. I don't know how it is that they did not get saved, but they didn't. So now I'm redoing bulletins.

I'm excited about the Christmas eve services. The college students who are home are going to be doing the major message-bringing in the Christmas eve candlelight service. It will be dramatic and moving, which is very different for us here. I think it will be a beautiful service. And it's at 7, so if we have any energy left at all, which we never do, Dennis and I might try to head over to the Disciples church across the river for an 11 p.m. service to actually worship together.

The church choir which I direct has been preparing for its big performance on Christmas eve morning Lessons and Carols service. We had an hour and forty five minute rehearsal last night and by the end of it, we had things figured out. I'm really proud of them. The soloist for two pieces is coming back from college tomorrow night and being a diva in his own right, has decided that we need a rehearsal to sing with him. I won't be there (see next paragraph) so he's going to run the rehearsal. The rest of the choir members seem eager to do this, so.... whatever. I don't think an extra practice will hurt. I pray it won't hurt. The soloist is a third-year music education major. Having been a music major I would say -- he could potentially mess some things up. But I don't think it will be permanent damage. At least, I hope not. I guess we'll find out on Sunday morning's rehearsal. In addition to it being a pretty cool service anyway, my family (who is not coordinating a wedding the night before, FYI) is coming up for it and will headed over here for brunch afterwards. Which will also be lovely.

We're going to get lots of family time because on Thursday, we are headed to Eureka. My uncle and his family who live in Arkansas will be there which means that Dad's two siblings and families will converge on my grandparents' house. We haven't been together as a family for a long while. We are staying with Lillia (35 weeks pregnant) and husband Jake, who moved into one of the grand old homes in Eureka this last month and have a guest room and a three-year old daughter who Annalivia loves to torment. That will be fun, too. Perhaps Lil and I can sit around and let Dennis and Jake tend us. We'll see. Anyway, on Thursday night, we're all -- the sistahs and Dennis and I (and Jake, the bro-in-law) -- will be going to see The Nativity Story while mom watches my niece and Annalivia. I'm really pumped about that.

Tomorrow, Dennis and I head up to Rockford to have what we hope will be our final appointment with our orthopedic surgeon. Then we are meeting with a personal injury lawyer so that we can be a little better informed going into any negotiations with an insurance company. We also hope that we can get some shopping for each other done with a mutual agreement to not peak at anything the other would carry out of any retail establishment. We'll see how that goes.

And today, I am going to go have the weekly ultrasound (31 weeks today!) which will become bi-weekly after Christmas, but I am getting to weasel out of my doctor's appointment providing that my blood pressure and pee are ok! I don't know if anyone other than mothers who have been there done that can understand the joy of getting out of a three-five hour series of appointments and tests, but this is a great Christmas gift for me. My doctor is just the greatest in the world. She has a sister in law who's a Lutheran minister and is sympathetic to the particularities of me in ways that continue to amaze me. What a gal.

So. Six days. Lots to do. Plenty of room for grace in there. And that's a good thing. I think I'll need it.

If I don't appear here for a while, y'all know why.

Figuring out how to say, "goodbye"

I got a surprising letter today at church from my friend, Bill. It was a three-page typed and single-spaced letter thanking me for hunting him down because he is dying and he wanted the chance to say goodbye.
Bill was my supervising pastor in seminary and I worked as his associate for three years. He is a great guy -- funny and clever and intelligent and kind. His sermons were always incredibly thoughtful and full of integrity -- I don't think he ever "cheated" and stole an idea or a passage from some other fine preacher. His office was always slightly messy, which I appreciated, and more than anything else, he taught me that while ministry is incredibly important, it is not most important thing that I or anyone else can do. More important to him than his relationship with one church or another is his relationship with God. And his family. And he has always figured out how to make the first things, the first things, which, I am finding, is sometimes a rare quality in ministers.
Turns out that Bill has been struck with aggressive leukemia. He is basically confined to the house or has to wear a mask when interacting with people. His sister is being tested to be a blood marrow donor, though the chance of her being a match is a 1 in 4 chance. His doctors are advocating an aggressive therapy involving chemotherapy and radiation, but there is also a 1 in 4 chance he will die from it, so he's decided not to do it and instead bank on the marrow transplant.
In the meantime, he is praying and meditating and preparing himself for death. He is telling people he loves that he loves them and is writing music, which he has always loved to do, and he is getting his memorial service together.
This letter to me contained his latest hymn and a request to come to Kentucky and sing for the funeral, if I could manage it, whenever that funeral is. While we are both hoping it won't be for many years, we both know it could be much sooner.
Last night and this morning, I've been writing a letter back to him. He didn't send me his email address, so this letter has to violate what seems to be official McClure policy on letter-sending -- write the letter, put a stamp on it and carry it around in one's car for a month or so. I am trying to bring him up to date on our lives and thank him for his influence in my life.
But, I confess, I am having a hard time figuring out how to do that without the melodrama I wish that I could pour into this letter. Melodrama is not appropriate. Bill is able to maintain levity and perspective and hope, even amidst the most dismal of circumstances. His eyes are focused on the Big Picture, as always. I must honor him by doing the same.
But I also want him to know that his request is more than "no-big-deal." It is an honor that he would ask me to remember his life in song and one that means a great deal to me. And preparing to say goodbye, is not easy for me and not welcome and not fair. And also not about me.
So. I'm tying up my love in a poorly-worded letter and trusting that the Spirit will add what I cannot seem create myself.

Talking for me

So often I am so very inarticulate, especially the more pregnant I become. Or I'm lazy and don't take the time to spin out the many ponderings of my heart.
Imagine my joy today when I found that wonderful, amazing, and incredibly articulate Sarah is voicing what I haven't, but have wanted to for some time, though she does it far more beautifully and faithfully that I could. Check it out here.
And thank you again, Sarah, for using that heart of yours so generously!