Dear 30 Year Old Amy,

Do you remember west Texas weekend afternoons in summer, way back in the day, 30 year old Amy?  Oh, sure you do.  The last of the neighborhood yard sales would have succumbed to the heat and closed up shop.  If it was a “going out of business” sale, there was a safe bet where the loot would land: in the dumpsters.

So, what did you do?  Huh, 30 year old Amy?  What did you do?  You waited patiently until all the old people had retired to their screened porches with their iced teas and you hoisted yourself up, over, and then deep inside the belly of your neighbor’s dumpsters, scrounging for treasure.

What’s the matter, 30 year old Amy?  Didn’t want your little friends to know about your absolutely unhygienic childhood past time?

I’m writing you now to let you know that I saw you yesterday.  You try to pretend I’m not here, but I think you know that deep in your core beats the heart of 12 year old Amy.

I know that when you realized that your husband’s most important papers had been inadvertently thrown in the trash, you felt a sick sense of the hunt come over you at the notion of climbing into the dumpster.  You brought your kind friend the maintenance man along and together you both plowed through three dumpsters.

You didn’t find the papers, but you what did you find?  Two boxes of perfectly good VHS cassette tape movies!  Some with the plastic still on them!  And these aren’t low budget kid cartoons, no sir.  These are real deal, super-awesome, grown-up movies that you actually want to see!

I saw how you and that maintenance man smiled and joked about how you “didn’t have too much shame” to go ahead and reclaim these items from their end of the road sentence.

You acted as though you had never done such a thing before.  As though you never even knew me. As though you don’t still own, among your current jewelry rotation, a silver chain you and I found together back when you still acknowledged me.

For shame, 30 year old Amy.  For shame.  Enjoy your movies, traitor.

Hugs and Kisses

12 year old Amy

For about three years after I had kids I was very skinny.  There is no way to explain it, except that I just didn’t gain weight.  I didn’t do it deliberately, I simply found myself always hovering around a size 0 or 2.

It was during these “lean” years that Eric and I had more spending money than people with our former budgeting skills should be allowed to have.  We were planning a really nice date night/celebration of our stoopid new found riches and I went to the Guess store to buy my skinny self a fancy new expensive outfit.

I wore it for that date and then it hung in the closet, only revisited a couple of times.  And then again this past Saturday night when my good friend Cat offered to keep the kids for us so Eric and I could go on a date.

Being that we are a good deal more frugal these days, I haven’t purchased new clothes with the same frequency I once did.  Most of my clothing is second hand and there are few items I would classify as “nice”.

It made good sense to wear my super nice (and kind of sexy) outfit out on a date with my man.  Even if three years and my size 6-8 body had changed the way it fit significantly.

Everything was going just fine.  Eric and I were having a lovely evening.  We got the best parking spots.  Best seats in the movie theater.  No waiting anywhere.  It was marvelous.

The only monkey wrench in our evening came when I pulled out my rifle and shot and maimed a perfectly innocent fourteen year old boy, right in front of his mother.

I didn’t even know the gun was loaded until I saw the kid’s eyes after he was hit.

I debated my outfit before we left our home.  I walked in front of the mirror more than once and asked myself, “Is it too much?”  This outfit which once hung on my skeletal figure now kind of seriously clung to every curve.  I knew it was sexy, but I justified it by the world’s standard.  I told myself that I had seen girls in much skimpier clothing at the mall, or even church on some days (sheesh, ladies).  The fact that my outfit wasn’t as “tarty” as some others made me decide that it was okay to wear out.

You would think I would be too mature for such childish reasoning being that I am a grown woman of thirty years of age.  And you’d be wrong.  It gets so much more immature than this.  This is just the level of immaturity I choose to blog about to the whole dubbya dubbya dubbya.

So there I am, walking around the movie theater in the middle of Batman, desperate for a bathroom when I catch the eye of a fourteen year old looking boy who was talking to his mother.  I smiled at him.  He smiled at my chest.  His cheeks burned red and he looked away with shame.

I may as well have shot a gun at him.

I determined before I left my home that I would present to the world something to incite lustful thoughts and I did it all the while with a long list of justifications.  I deliberately put that kid in the position to decide if he was going to honor God or honor flesh.  Young men and old men alike are put in that position at a maddening pace in this world.

It is a shame when they must suffer the blows from the friendly fire of sisters in Christ who don’t know (or even worse, care) that their guns are loaded.

I have repented my sin* of putting a deliberate stumbling block in the path of God’s people.  Repented and thrown away my slinky number.  Do any of you have anything in your closet that you have to ask yourself about?  My new personal rule is very similar to my refrigerator rule: When in doubt, throw it out.

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* I was very deliberate about using the words “repent” and “sin”.  I did not simply “make a mistake” and give my effort an “oops”.  I sinned and I feel it necessary to call it what it is.  The best part about owning the truth of what sin is, is also owning the truth of what repentence is.

If your Mama’s name is Kim Heinecke.

Thank you so much to everyone who participated. Nathan was a Mama’s boy among Mama’s boys and I am certain that he would have been most pleased with your entries.

Please visit Shiloh’s blog to read her thoughts on Nathan and to add your own memories.  Thank you, Shiloh, for setting that up.  Shiloh was in the youth group at church with Nathan and I know it was a really tight group of kids.

Also, a special thank you to Mackenzie for the enthusiasm with which she took to the drawing.

See you back here next year for another exciting round.

Mom and I made loose plans to get together on Saturday so we could do each others hair and so she could choose the big winner of the 2008 Nathan Dodd Your Mama Joke Contest.

When I called her on Saturday, she did not sound like she was ready to get together.  She sounded like she had gargled with gravel.

“Hello?”  Just the sound of her greeting made me immediately parched and thirsty for water.

“Mom?  You don’t sound like you care too much about your hair right now.”

“No.  I don’t.”

Since my dear Mama has the plague, I have had to come up with a clever way to choose the winner of the fantastic t-shirt made by our good buddies over at Stitch Masters.

I loved so many of the entries that I have decided it is only fair that I simply do a drawing.  But then to be really fair, some people put more into their entries than others.  Don’t they deserve more of a shot?

Yes.  Yes, they do.

• My dear friend Cat will get her name in the hat three extra times.  One for having a birthday on the same day.  And two for keeping my kids on Saturday night so Eric and I could go out.  Oh!  And one more for being first.  So, that’s four for Cat.
• Kim Heinecke gets her name in three extra times.  Once for putting the button on her blog and twice because her joke was really that funny.
• Susan’s parents get their names put in two extra times for each of them for clearly making their own jokes up, participation, making fun of Texas, and still holding on even in their advancing ages.
• Kevin gets his name put in six times because he is my brother and I never said I wasn’t into nepitism.  Also?  His offering was really funny.
• Shiloh gets her name in the hat twice for spreading the word about the contest.  Thank you Shiloh!
• Little Dougie Arnold:  Mama did take a short break from her recent routine of cough, sneeze, blow nose, repeat, to tell me that you get extra points ONLY if you follow through with your threat to come here to let us show you a fantastic time.  Pending that understanding, Little Dougie Arnold gets four entries for his “threat” and two entries for making my Mama laugh.
• Uncle Lee and Aunt Avis get two entries each for being funny and four entries each for moving to Kwaj while the rest of us suckers stay here and buy gas.
• Susan gets her name in the hat four times for making the awesome button!
• Sarah gets two extra entries for trying harder than anyone else to come up with a joke that could be her own and for putting the button on her blog.
• Jeremy Pottberg gets an extra entry for the link.  Eric liked it.
• To the uninformed observer, it would appear as though Ginger entered four times.  In truth, it is more likely that four members of her nearly nine million member household entered.  Ginger gets her name in the drawing ten times for being more Mama than the majority.
• And everybody else gets two entries just ’cause.

The official drawing, with pictures to keep it all above the table, will take place at 2:00 p.m. on Monday, July 28th.

Good luck to everyone and thank you all for playing.

I know I’ve mentioned that I have started a vegetable garden in containers on my front porch.   This is strange for two reasons: 1) I am not a gardener  2) I hate vegetables.

Isn’t it funny how we find ourselves doing things that violate every fiber of who we think we are because it seems necessary to stretch for some reason?  My mother going para-sailing is a great example.  Here is a woman who once nearly needed a fire truck to come and get her off the roof when she went up there to help my Dad, and suddenly she’s strapping herself to a parachute attached to the back of a boat and is sailing around Town Lake like a kite.

I plan on eating these vegetables.  Only because I’m growing them.

Tell me, what have you done to step out of your box lately?  Anything interesting?

Look everybody! Susan went all out and made a button for the contest! (And it should work now)

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Feel free to copy the code and paste it to your blog, but only after you leave me a joke.  The ones I’ve gotten so far have really been a hoot.  I especially like Kim’s.  Have you met my Mama?  She is so short.

<a href=”http://ericswife.com/index.php/2008/07/your-mama-a-contest/”><img src=”http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3094/2675187775_601e094761_o.gif”/></a>

If the code doesn’t work, you can just copy and paste the picture.  I know that will work for Blogger blogs at least.  If you would like me to put it on your blog for you, I will.  But your password has to be less complicated than Sarah’s.  Sheesh, Sarah.

Some of you may recall last Summer’s “Your Mama” joke contest held in honor of what would have been my youngest brother’s 26th birthday.  Our winner was Ruth Ann with, “Your Mama’s so stupid, she sits on the television and watches the sofa.”  Ba dum dum shhhh

Just to recap why I would hold a contest defaming Mamas to honor the birthday of my much loved and deceased younger brother:

Nathan was a really funny guy.  So funny.  He actually made a Drill Sergeant laugh while he was in boot camp.  Once.  He was so funny, that he would sometimes have to impose a punishment on himself because those in authority were willing to let it slide on account of the humor with which he spiced his confessions.

My three brothers and I share the same Mama.  She is neither fat, nor stupid.  She is, in fact, strikingly beautiful and incredibly wise.  I think this is why Nathan and I got such a kick out of our impromptu Your Mama joke competitions.  The point was to be really funny AND have a joke to immediately follow your opponent’s joke.

This has given me a soft spot for a good Your Mama joke.

I decided that this year’s contest would be just a little bit cooler if we offered a prize for the winner.  This seemed like a great idea.  But figuring out a prize was daunting.  What would Nathan want you to have for offering the best joke?

So, Ethel and I put our noggins together and came up with this:  A T-Shirt.  But it’s not just any t-shirt.  Oh no.  It’s only the coolest t-shirt ever because there will only be one made.  And it won’t be made until YOU win it.

Front: I’m special.

Back: Official winner – Nathan Dodd Your Mama Joke Contest – 2008

This will be a shirt you will be proud to wear.  When you have it on you will be telling your friends, family, and people in line with you at Six Flags, “I’m special.  I’m somebody.”  You know you want it.

Here’s how to get it:

Leave a comment on this post containing 1 (ONE) “Your Mama” joke.

Keep it PG.  My Mama will be judging and we gotta keep it clean.

You do not have to have a blog, just an e-mail address, to enter.

One entry per person.

Multiple entries per household allowed.  And encouraged.  The only thing better than winning the shirt, would be beating your kid in a contest for it.

You have until midnight July 27th to enter.  The winner will be announced on Nathan’s birthday, Monday July 28th.

It’s been a long year.  We moved here just as I began homeschooling the kids.  All by itself, homeschooling was daunting.

Just as the school year started, my neighbor’s boyfriend, and father of her child, left drunk on his motorcycle and was arrested.  She needed me to watch her two year old while she went to get his Daddy.

She was a sweet girl.  A lost girl.  She was a construction foreman with a dream to one day own her own hair salon.  She braided Mackenzie’s hair for the kindergarten blessing service at church.

Two weeks later I would find myself shaking fiercely and swearing in a manner out of my character at that sweet girl’s boyfriend when he stumbled to his bike and tells me he’s headed to a bar.  I felt like I was face to face with the same kind of idiot that killed my brother.  No villain, just idiot.  Lost idiot.

They moved away and a new family moved in.  They had two teenagers and a second grader.  This was a family that saw much turmoil.  At many times I have been injected directly and without warning into their greatest crisis, only to be just as immediately caste out.

All of this has been interspersed with other neighbors’ having their own heartaches where a hand was needed.

I have seen a lot more than I feel it my right to share.  I have felt much like a tourist to some of the greatest tragedies in some of these homes.  They are gutted and I offer a meal or a rest, but then I walk away, changed but unscathed by their fire.

I feel like I am on assignment through most periods of my life.  Every day is before me as a task.  I am to care for my family and any who come to my home.

This makes living in apartments rather challenging an assignment as there are many who live right outside your door.

The kids and I began the school year by learning Psalms 23.  It became my anthem for the year.  Over the last few months Psalms 23:2 became my prayer.  “…He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters…”.

I was praying for some quiet waters.  Namely, I wanted isolation for my children and quiet for my soul.  We had spent so many months quite literally leaping from flaming crisis to crisis, most not even our own!  It was time for rest.  I craved quiet waters and a chance to grow fat on the Word.

This of course meant we must move.  I explained this to God and felt certain we were in agreement when I asked him for my dream.

I was enjoying my second third cup of mid-morning near afternoon coffee when my good friend Cat calls me the next day.  She wants to know if I want anything from Costco.  Every girl needs a friend who calls from Costco.

I can’t think of anything I need, but we wind up chatting about our moving plans.  It was during this chat that Cat says something that no girlfriend should ever say to another girlfriend living in a crappy apartment surrounded by asphalt.

“Maybe moving right now isn’t God’s best for you.”

“Cat, I’m going to tell you something that I haven’t told to anyone.  I had a dream last night about that very thing.  It’s made me sick.  I’m thinking we are supposed to stay here.”

I dreamed that I stepped out on my porch and immediately noticed a chill in the air.  I looked down at my neighbor’s porches and saw that Louise, recently empty nested fifty something and Sandy, also recently empty nested fifty something where having a chat.  They were bundled in blankets and cackling while they visited over coffee.

In my dream I felt happy that these ladies found each other.  And then I wondered what I was still doing living here because I wasn’t supposed to be here when Louise became an empty nester.  Her baby is leaving for boot camp in the fall.  After we move.

I woke up actually toying with the idea of staying here awhile.  And when Cat said that maybe moving wasn’t God’s best for me, I knew immediately she was right.

I know I woiuldn’t feel as calm about this whole thing if it wasn’t for the fact that my prayers for quiet waters have been answered, even in the very place I told God it was impossible.

That’s another post.  No sense writing a book.

Eric and I decided that after three plus years of living in close quarters with other families, this last year being the thickest, it was time for some quiet.  So we started to look for a new place in the country.  Our order was steep: It had to be perfect AND in our budget.

The first place we looked at was on over two acres of hill country.  The views were breath taking, the land stunning.  The, er, house, and I use that word with a lot of generosity, resembled something like the lean-to shanties I recall reading about in Little House on the Prairie.

My Dad is a home builder, so we had him out to take a look.  He saw the desperation in our eyes and tried his hardest to be positive about the possibilities.  “Welp, the uh, the land is nice.  And that front porch?  Nice porch.  Real nice porch.  And, if you buy it, it’s actually five acres, you say?”

Later that night our phone rang.  Clearly, Dad couldn’t sleep right knowing we might actually move his grandkids into this “house”.

“In six months time, you will fall through the floor.  There is water damage throughout and I have a sneaking suspicion that the Board of Health would demolish it as a health hazard if it was within city limits.”

And so the search continued.

The next place we looked at was a farmhouse on over two hundred acres.  It had been built in 1928 and was painted a beautiful lemon yellow color.  The bedrooms were HUGE and there was even room for a school room.  The yard was, well, there was a yard.  Right beside the house was a giant red barn that saw its last horse around 1960-something.  My money says that last horse ran out as the first beam dropped.

Besides the barn, there were four other falling down shacks that I suppose were used by the farm hands who left on that horse.  These shacks were loaded with all kinds of antique goodies, beer cans, broken farm equipment, and oddly, a Barbie’s charred head.  Mom swore up and down that she saw a noose under one of the trees.

This became our entire search.  Right house, wrong land.  Wrong house, right land.  We kept getting close to what we wanted, but never just right.  Something in me kept saying, “Don’t settle”.

One night I came home from one of our all day searches and got out my trusty spiral notebook.  I wrote out what the perfect place would look like and then I asked God if He wouldn’t mind giving me a dream that would settle for me whether He had that place available or if we should just move into yet another apartment and choose renting amenities over owning isolation.

That night I had a dream.

We are not moving anytime real soon and I couldn’t feel more at ease if I tried.  But I don’t feel like getting into that right now.

A sudden gift of quiet waters has meant that my days are spent now with my children only.  It has been a fabulous few weeks of getting reacquainted and slowing down considerably.  I could give you the scoop on how God swung that, but I’ll have to get to it later.

I finally got realistic about eight foot tall sunflowers in twelve inch pots.  Now we are trying vegetable container gardening.  My cucumbers and midget melons are sprouting.  Very exciting.

I got a new neice AND a new nephew!

I got an awesome new sofa.

Met God in a new place in good old Hebrews.

Finally got to embrace a sister and share a long over due meal.

My dog just keeps getting cuter.

Kids keep getting funnier.

Smarter.

More poignant.

God keeps getting bigger.

I keep getting smaller.

And somehow I find it almost impossible to form words on the screen to properly tell you how wonderfully I am doing.  You ever been so stinkin’ excited you could hardly stand it and the only explanation for your excitement was the fact that God has a plan and you’re in it?  That’s how I’m doing.

So tell me now, how are you doing?  What do you think about things?  It’s been awful quiet around here.