I found these two little cuties at one of my favorite local antique malls back in May.  They used to hang in my living room when I was growing up, and when I saw them at the antique mall, sitting in little 11x14 frames (on sale! sale! sale!) I decided to bring them home with me.

So, this morning I looked up the artist, J. Ingwersen, and now have names for my new little friends "Gary" and "Gretchen."

Is painful.
It makes me see things about myself that I don't like, like my sin-nature, my pride, my desire to hide rather than be vulnerable, my embarrassment at my weaknesses.
Turns me into a person more willing and able to participate in the spreading of God's Kingdom.
Makes me more effective in living out my calling. And even in identifying exactly what my calling is.
During intense periods of refinement, I can't tell if the tears are from the pain, or from gratefulness.  Maybe both?
Reminds me that I am a child of the King, and that He hasn't turned His back on me.
If He didn't love me, He would be indifferent to me and would leave me alone, content in my false sense that I am "basically good," a victim of my circumstances, walking around chanting my "if only" mantra. 

Thank you, Lord, for enabling me to worship You even while being refined and tested.  Keep my eyes fixed on You, the Author and Perfecter of my faith.  Even though I want to say, like Job, "What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, that you examine him every morning and test him every moment? Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant (7:17-19)," You ignore my impertinence.  Keep bringing praise to my lips, even if it means I have to endure the smoky stench of the refining fire.

Thy Kingdom Come. Ouch ouch ouch. Amen.

• No more using a vice grip to pull out the wood cutting board that slides out from underneath the counter.

• We no longer have to share with the neighbors the drama (oh the drama!) of my 3-year-old daughter's potty visits.

• Increased willingness to eat warm foods and/or things prepared on the stove or in the oven, expanding my repertoire beyond PB&J, cereal, pineapple from the can, ice cream, and popsicles.

• I've stopped hiding in the basement, planning my escape to the nearest Motel 6... they've got the light on for me, you know.

• We're losing that sensation of being duct-taped to our dining-room chairs.

• Taking a shower doesn't feel like a trip to the amazon rain forest.

• The toilet has stopped "sweating," so the younger kids have stopped coming to tell me that someone peed all over the back of the toilet.

• No more listening to the late-night doggie serenades.

• I won't be tempted to repeat last night's dinner alfresco on the front porch ... do we really need to let it *all* hang out by sharing with the neighborhood the acrimony of eating meals as a family with four kids ten-and-under?
  

• Last night we didn't have the wailing and gnashing of teeth that comes with putting the kids--and ourselves--to bed in a hot house.

It was 89 degrees in the house last night when the A/C guy showed up.  (The first thing he said:  "Wow, it's hot in here.")  By morning it was 74.  We have other A/C and electrical issues to deal with, but for now, what a difference 15 degrees and reasonable humidity make! 

Moderate temperatures make for moderate temperaments.  Amen?

Today has been a fitting cap to our first week of "summer vacation."

This morning, while I was taking a shower, one of the kids knocked on the bathroom door, "Mom!  There's a fire in the kitchen!"  My girls tend to be a bit dramatic, but I decided not to test this theory, quickly hopped out of the shower with my bath towel, and came around the corner to find half the house filled with stinky smoke.  Fortunately, an actual fire did not accompany the smoke, and the problem was easily fixed by unplugging the microwave.

Turns out, my seven-year-old decided to warm up a bagel and accidentally punched in "six minutes" on the microwave timer.  She says she wasn't sure how to fix her error, so I'm guessing she decided to hope the mistake would just go away on its own.  A few minutes later, our neighbor came over to investigate the smoke and stink pouring from the kitchen... see? wasn't it a blessing that our A/C is broken so we had all the windows open? and here I've been complaining about our 85-degree-plus house... as my friend Dora likes to quote, from Jane Austen, "What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance."

I've been waiting to clean out the microwave because I don't know how to use Clay's fancy Nikon (I mean, a manual focus lens? are you kidding me?) and want to preserve the moment by camera, but the lingering stink is giving me a *headache* ... well, it's not just the hot weather that contributes to my continual state of inelegance.

This afternoon, I realized I hadn't submitted my daughter's pre-school application (because they called and said, "Did you ever bring your application in?"), so I ran out real quick with two of the kids to take care of this oversight and pick up some milk and OJ from Walgreen's.  On the way out of the school, the tornado warning sirens starting going off, so I headed for home.  This set off my two sirens in the back seat... "I don't *want* to go home!"  "Why can't we go to Walgreen's?"  "I want milk!"  "Well, *I* want orange juice!!"

*sigh*

*deep breath*

"Well, because when there's a tornado warning and you're in your car, you go home, not to Walgreen's.  And when there's a tornado warning, and two of your siblings are home by themselves, you go home to be with them, not to Walgreen's,"  I said calmly.  That's about the most lucid moment I've had all week.  No yelling at the kids, just a nice, sage piece of motherly advice.  Not bad, eh?

E-man's vacation hasn't even started yet.  That comes on Tuesday... what will next week hold?

... fa la la la la, la la la la.

• Coffee tastes much better when you brew Starbucks, even if it's just the kind that's sold at the grocery store already ground.  Much better than Folger's.  Maybe I'm turning into a coffee snob.
• 25 weeks??  I'm having a *baby* in 3 months!!  Whoa...
• We're not going to last long around here with the A/C off.  We're definitely heat wimps.
• But I also know that we can't afford $400/month to run our current A/C set-up... set the thermostat for 78, have it run all the time anyway, still never get the house below 81, and have our fuse box trip go off several times a day because the system gets overwhelmed.  Which of course is better than having our house burn down.  What a great time to think about all of this, eh?  June?
• I definitely find attending other people's weddings much more enjoyable than reflecting on my own.  We attended our friend Anna's wedding yesterday... ah such bliss... to get up in the morning, eat breakfast, do a couple errands around the house, get dressed up, and go.  She's 21, the same age as I was on our wedding day.  She seems much more mature than I was at that age.  Heck, in many ways she's probably much more mature than I am *right now.*
  
• Midrin has been a very useful tool in my migraine-abatement tool box.
• Terro is a pretty effective tool to have in my ant-abatement tool box.
  
• The girls have been out of school for a grand total of less than 48 hours, yet I've fielded requests to go to the pool several times a day since Memorial Day.  I'm worn out already, and they haven't even had a chance yet to be "bored."  That comes tomorrow, I'm sure.