In a Year's Time

Today is the last day of 2011. That's a crazy thought.

Where were you twelve months ago? Isn't that an interesting thought to ponder? And I don't mean physically only, of course. Emotionally, spiritually, in your relationships, in your thoughts...where were you?

It's amazing how quickly we forget. Things that I thought at the time I'd never forget are now like a dream in the morning-as it hovers in the back of your mind, you can almost recall it, but not quite.

The past year has been full, it seems, with lots of change. I suppose that's always true, and perhaps every year it seems more true than before-again, how quickly we forget. I wonder how many times I have remarked, "That seems like a really long time ago," about something that happened this year. Things as close as September seem long ago. Hey, things as close as the beginning of this month...

Which makes written records fun and interesting.  I looked over my poorly-kept journal, and I'm glad for what's recorded; for even those times I cannot fully remember. Personal writing is something worth doing, whether by journal or letters or recording prayers or even scribbles on a calendar. It increases your thankfulness as you see ways that the Lord has worked or answered prayers that you forgot you even asked.

Last year I wrote a list of goals, mostly self improvement, and most of them will be repeated if I do one this year. One goal was to have Romans, James, the Sermon on the Mount, and some Isaiah verses memorized. This isn't nearly as lofty as it sounds, as some of these (namely Matthew 5-7 and James) should have been memorized years ago. But in the Lord's providence, I started doing a women's Bible study on James, and so I had a specific goal, to be able to say James up to where we were studying, and subsequently, I think I can say it all now-though I'm a little stumbly on the last chapter or so. The others I sadly failed at.

Since the beginning of this year, over and over again I've been challenged in diverse ways, in different settings, about the importance of prayer. While there's been an improvement over twelve months ago, most of these proddings have gone without a permanent effect. So, my goal for this year is to spend more time in prayer, sacrificing other things, as we do for other relationships. Most of our friendships would suffer if we spent the same amount of time talking with them as we do with God.

And I know by experience that the amount of time by the clock you've spent in prayer isn't necessarily the time you've really spent. It's the equivalent of those relationships with someone you say hello to-perhaps you say hello three, four times a day, but still you get no deeper than a greeting. I catch myself thinking, I haven't prayed today...I should, and then shooting off some generic prayer, during which I think, I should be paying attention but what am I going to do after this?

Instead, our goal is the relationship of one whom, having missed them for a while, we set up a date to meet and have a good talk-and of course, once reached, to progress even further, for unlike a human, God is always available to all, and doesn't have to cut down on His time with you because He's meeting with Suzy down the street. Pretty awesome, isn't it?

But though the goal is to "pray without ceasing", it's hard to reach; yet, without a specific goal, I have found, our sinful flesh gets in the way, and it won't be done. So, I encourage you to set a specific goal for yourself and do something eternally significant in the next year.

Because time goes quickly past, and before you know, you will be at the end of 2012, looking into 2013, wondering where this year went; and the movies, or web surfing, or book, or whatever it is that takes your time, that you gave up will not matter, but time spent with God has eternal reward.

Where will you be in a year's time?

Methuselah's Mateys

Close to three years ago, the girls at Friday Night Bible Study gave out fish to the guys on Valentine's Day. Eric named his Methuselah in hopes that he would live long. Apparently it worked, for Methuselah is still alive and thriving, months-years, perhaps?-after all of the others died. When we first got him, he lived in a little fishbowl, and he could fit in a baby food jar, so he was about an inch long.

He steadily grew larger, and seemed to be intending on living, even surviving Kristen filling his bowl with orange peels and two near-death experiences, unlike our typical fair fish; one year we got three, and named them, Died (he was dead before we left the fair), Freebie Dead (they were all free, of course), and Dead (the last two weren't dead yet, but we correctly predicted they would subsequently be).

Hence, the name Methuselah.

Methuselah, January 2010

He gave us two scares. Once, when we'd all been gone for the weekend, he was belly-up the next morning. His water was dirty. I quickly changed it, and he took big gulps of water. Slowly, after an agonizing few moments, he turned around.

The second time, we were watching The Cross and the Switchblade pretty late at night. Mom noticed the fish. He was belly-up again. I got him new water quickly, and he gulped it in as before, but this time he didn't flip over for a long time. When he did, we were happy, thinking he had recovered. But, slowly, as he beat his fins, he flipped over again. This happened for a long time; I'd help him reorient himself; he'd once more turn upside down. He tried to keep himself upright, but he couldn't. In an effort to do so, he'd try to swim down, but once again, the effort was too much and he'd go belly-up once more. I think it was an hour or more before he finally stayed upright.

We'd talked about getting a companion for Methuselah, and of course we'd name him Mahalalel, the third oldest person recorded. I wanted to get one for Christmas. But, not at the risk of Methuselah. I did not want to be responsible for anything happening to our fish. So, I called a pet shop to see if introducing another fish to a big, almost-three-year-old fish would be okay. They assured me it was fine.

We went to a pet store, and the girl said it wasn't a good idea. If we got little ones, he'd eat them. We should get a big one, she said, and after they fought it out, they'd probably be fine, though they might have some scars.

Yikes. I did not want to see Methuselah in a fight. I have seen a cock fight, which was bloody and interesting (that was when we had Griffin in addition to Roman-we thought Griffin was going to die, but he was fine, and after that he gave Roman his space), but I had no desire to scar Methuselah.

We left the shop and thought about it. "Well," I said, "she seemed to think that the only problem with getting a little fish was that he might eat it." I'd much rather lose a new fish than risk losing the one we have-my family would not be happy. It was only 13 cents for a little goldfish, so we decided to go ahead and got three.

I hid them on top of the bookshelf in the downstairs bathroom and waited for Christmas.

We decided to try one fish out. Methuselah didn't seem pleased, but he ignored the fish, so we added the other two.

Suddenly, Methuselah looked enormous next to these adorably tiny fish. They aren't even as long as he is tall.

We knew we were going to name one Mahalalel and Melchizedek, but we had to search for another. We found one: Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.

Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz is the orange fish with black edging. (His name is pronounced MA-hair-shall-ALL-hash-baz. It's fun to say fast.) Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz is the son of Isaiah, and his name means speed the spoil, hasten the booty (Isaiah 2 or 3, I think).

The white one is Melchizedek.

Mahalalel is the orange one.

I think they've already grown since I got them a week ago. Amy and I measured them yesterday, and to the best of my memory, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz is just over one inch, Melchizedek is just under, and Mahalalel is 3/4ths of an inch, and Methuselah over 6".

Taking pictures in a fish tank is fun if you have enough light.

Despite the appearance of this picture, Methuselah was not trying to eat Mahalalel. They were scared of him at first, but now they live "in perfect peace and harmony" (Fiddler on the Roof quote, for those who don't remember-or skipped the songs). We always knew Methuselah was a nice fish.

Dad's 2011 Christmas Present

For several years now, we've given Dad the same present, yet each is unique: portraits of the kids. He found nine 8" by 10" frames at a garage sale, saying we could put a picture of each of us in them. It didn't happen, so we did it for him for Christmas that year...and the next and the next. They still haven't gotten hung up, but having an "offical portrait" of each kid has been nice.

(Warning: lots of photos in this post, even for me.)

Deanna is the most precise about her portrait, which makes it hard for the photographer and helpful at the same time. I like how hers turned out. She hates it. "Yucky, ugly, disgusting," she says of her photos.

If you've ever tried to take a picture by proxy, you know that it's hard. I generally dislike pictures of myself, but I actually like this one. Melody took it, I believe.

Perhaps you'd never guess, but this is the most difficult subject; he's always gone, or needs to shower after work, and says, "You have five minutes," and literally sets his alarm. Plus, he's not like Amy; he's like me and can't smile on demand. However, he has a good smile if he cooperates, and I like his picture.

This is my best subject, generally. Perhaps because she enjoys taking photos too, she is cooperative and it helps that she's very photogenic-and you can't tell when her smiles are fake. Instead, we have to be careful we don't get one of her smiling too large!

Amy is hard and easy for the same reason: she looks exactly the same the whole shoot. She's always been photogenic. She puts on a smile at the beginning and holds it as long as she stays. Only if you look closely can you tell when it starts getting put on.

Well, this one's running for hardest...though unlike his older brother he likes having his picture taken, he smiles goofy. I can hardly get a decent smile out of him. They're fine for fun photos, but not portraits.

This little guy is fun to take, and this year, both of his photos are my favorites. He's so adorable and his eyes-and whenever you get to see his Curious George smile, that's fun.

This one would be happy to have me take her picture between every other person-and it might work better that way, because when it comes to actually, "Do this, smile," she gets quickly tired of posing. Still, she's so cute that just about every picture is a good one. Her picture is cute, but I'm not completely satisfied with it.

I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do the Christmas photos this year. I could not find a time that Eric was home (and would allow me to take his picture) and it was hard to find a time with Deanna too. Dad worked overtime some this month, which helped. I actually ended up taking some upstairs in our room while Dad was here.

The Christmas ones I didn't feel like setting up a backdrop, so I kept hoping it would snow so I could take them outside by the poison berry bush, which was partly why I didn't know if I'd be able to get them done. But we finally got our Christmas tree, and I took them in front of it. I would have put some of them on when I did the post about decorating, but of course I didn't want Dad to see them.

Kristen, session one selections:

Paulie:

See what I mean about Paul?

Kristen, session two:

Melody tried to teach Kristen how to bat her eyes like Deanna did when she was little. She didn't quite get the idea.

I like this one, but unfortunately the hair in her face made it inappropriate for her Christmas picture.

I'm not sure what this face is for, but it's pretty funny:

Tim:

See why I have trouble with him?

The first ones didn't turn out well, though it was as much because I couldn't get the color right as his goofy faces, so we tried again.

She has to be in the mood, but it's fun when she is; this is Sassy Mrs. Claus.

I don't know why I was supposed to take a picture of her back. I was using the zoom lens when I took most of the Christmas photos, so I couldn't zoom out any more.

Deanna and her horse

Another session was needed, and this time we thought of someone.

Probably thinking of Ramin Karimloo, one of her current singer obsessions, in this one.

Not sure about this one. Probably Michael Buble, her other singer obsession.

She was trying to be serious, but when I told her to think of Mercy, she laughed.

And when I told her to think of a certain person they saw several years ago at Savers...let's just say that I'm not describing him here.

Not sure about this one.

"Do I look like the heavenly host?"

Not really, Deanna.

Amy:

She hardly changes!

This cute picture was her idea:

I do not like being in front of the camera; besides not enjoying looking at pictures of myself, I can't see the pictures-and as I wrote that I realized it's contradictory, yet still true. If I need to have my picture taken, I want to see it. It's frustrating to not be able to adjust it myself, and hard to explain to someone else.

I can't smile for pictures; either it's obviously fake, or I'm laughing and you can't see my eyes.

I dislike this picture, but I am consciously trying not to be too picky about pictures of myself. I think that, at least for me, it's a pride issue or something. Often, I dislike my voice on recordings and pictures of me but no one else thinks anything of them, and I see others who say they look awful in that picture when they look fine, and have decided that I just need to accept the way I am. God made you the way you are and you cannot change it, so you ought to accept it.

Obviously, I only mean things you can't and shouldn't try to change, like the way you look, not sin and such-but sometimes it annoys me when people need to clarify things like that that are obvious. We understand what you're saying, I think. Please, continue.

Melody:

Eric's started turning out pretty well.

I like this one!

Then, as my allotted five minutes were ending, I remembered that his Christmas picture was supposed to be horizontal to fit into our twelve picture frame.

Thankfully, they turned out pretty well,

though Little Missy didn't help:

Melody did another shoot of me, since I didn't like any of the first one well enough.

Strange as it is, I actually almost like this picture. Maybe it's because the quality is good.

 The final choices: