Happy July 4th!

And, just what is your perfect idea of a happy Fourth of July? I am sitting in the tea room, just finishing off a cup of tea and the last crumbs of some of Brianna’s famous frosted sugar cookies (decorated with red/white/blue designs). Stephen is reading besides me with Molly sleeping on the couch above him and Abishai sleeping at his feet. Alan is reading a book on how the Scots changed the modern world (a timely Father’s Day gift from his beloved daughter, who understands her father’s need for good, sound roots), and Joel is writing on a story. I am about to tackle the couple hundred emails that I haven’t been able to concentrate on for the last week or so. It is truly wonderful to feel like a thinking, functioning person again after a week of experiencing life as an I.V. molasses drip victim.

No trip to the beach or fireworks? What’s the deal? “Well, I suppose we could go if that would make you happy…” What? How can children of Kathryn Armstrong not be dying for fun and adventure? Maybe because they are sons of Alan Armstrong. I say, having a bum hip puts life in quite a different perspective. I can’t think of anything more peaceful and pleasant than curling up in the tea room with my husband, kids, and pets, enjoying the cheerful songs of birds and the scolding patter of squirrels alerting the world that there are a few fishermen out in a boat not too far off shore.

Ah, the joy of peace and quiet! What a treasure it is!

But, before I go, I have one wonderful bit of news to share. In order to expedite the immigration process (which can take up to 6 months if we’re lucky), Jonathan and Linda got married by the civil authorities in Germany last Saturday. This will in no way detract from the festivities and excitement of their church wedding on August 8, but it may give them 6 weeks less time of separation after their wedding. Here is a picture of the happy couple. I am so glad that most of Gerlinde’s family and Michael’s family could witness the legal contract and join in celebrating this important first step towards marriage in the lives of our beloved kids!

So How’s It Feel?

Just one week ago tomorrow I had a total right hip replacement. I had planned to let you know what it felt like just in case you might need to take care of a loved one who needed such work done or someday had to go through such an operation yourself. Suffice it to say that today is the first day I’ve not been so dopey that I can actually write a few words without having to rewrite them. So, my first lesson is that I have been incredibly drowsy and unable to concentrate. Having never had a drink, I don’t know if it would be correct to compare it to feeling drunk, but let’s just say that you definitely wouldn’t want me to be driving you home from a party yet, even if I could make my food scootch over to the right pedal in time. My days have consisted of sleeping about 20+ hours with intermittent interruptions for the all-time challenge: making it to the bathroom. Having in a cath for the first day or two relieved that trial from early recovery, but it also left me with a very irritated confused state perhaps known as a UTI, but for sure lovingly dubbed “peeatosis” by my dear physician husband. That settled down after a couple of days and took the fear out of drinking anything, although I still had no appetite for food in any case. My strict adherence to a diet high in fiber with no breads or desserts and lots of prune juice and milk of magnesia netted my a couple of days of diarrhea, which I am sure is preferable to constipation—the bane of patients on pain meds and unable to take their normal evening constitutionals. At any rate, my stomach is now totally confused but my digestive system seems to have recovered and now understands that if you put something in it’s not meant to be an insult.

My big accomplishments each day are doing some petty little exercises that before the surgery appeared to be a joke. Amazingly, one week later I still cannot lift my right leg off the bed unaided, nor can I slid it along the bed sheet sideways 15°. Apparently during the surgery someone takes the bother to hold the muscle out of the way so that it’s not injured, but the net effect is that the muscle is so badly stretched that it takes a good while to tighten up enough to do anything useful. I am practicing faithfully.

Oh, my other goal for each day is to give myself an injection into my belly fat. “Lovenox” they say it’s called. “Love it not” would be a better term, but I guess it’s dreadfully expensive and practically guarantees that I won’t develop blood clots (as long and I do everything else right) during my bed rest. The hospital stay was three days, and I’m not sure how long the bed rest will continue, but for sure until I can type at least one sentence without having to make 18 corrections. You can see this has been a long labor of love to share all these glowing details of surgery. Why? I guess so you are patient with any patients you may care for, and so you’re a patient patient if ever your turn comes. If you think in terms of losing about 3 weeks of conscious life, then I don’t think you’ll be too disappointed.

By the way, thank you for the beautiful flowers and wonderful food. I have also appreciated people allowing me to convalesce in quiet since I would do nothing but embarrass myself by my lack of clarity on ANY issue! But, there you have it. My first week of recovery. May you be able to avoid such a treat!

Hip Surgery

I say! I thought once all the festivities around the graduations and Dan’s wedding and the open houses were over, it was going to be a quiet summer for a few weeks before leaving for Jon’s wedding. Well, circumstances would have it that we were going to lose $1600 in medical money if we didn’t spend it by July 1, and I was the only person with a condition that actually could be treated by then.

So, instead of thinking about hip surgery in the fall after returning from Jon’s wedding, I decided to go for it …tomorrow! Everything sort of fell into place for me, so I’ve been scurrying around getting lab work and testing, X-rays, an EKG, and generally everything one needs to get permission to have her hip replaced. The hardware going into my hip has been tested for 30 million steps and the theory is that it just might keep me going for another 30 years (if all goes well and I treat it right), and that sounds long enough for me. Dr. Golladay is a youngish (5 years older than Aaron) bright star who has done hundreds of hip replacements. He was trained at Harvard (Mass. General) and works out of the busiest joint-replacement hospital in Michigan, so I have high hopes. HOWEVER, I would appreciate all the prayer support I can get. Complications are rare but include things like getting the wrong size implant so I end up with a permanent limp, muscle or nerve damage, infection, and other gory options.

Once I’m up and running again (or, at least able to sit up and type), I’ll let you know how it goes!

Blessings!

A Used Car Saleman?

Alan just called to say that instead of 6:15…make that 8:00 for our date tonight, so I’ve got a few unexpected minutes to share meandering thoughts. Joel just helped me advertise three of our cars on Craig’s List, so that’s on my mind. Do you get attached to your cars? We do. We give them pet names and treat them almost like they are part of the family, so it’s a bit traumatic to think of giving them up. So many memories…etc!

However, we’ve  decided that we’ve made our last trip to Florida with a van packed with 12+ kids. With only two kids left at home, and none of the married ones actually living in town, it’s a given that any future camping extravanzas are going to have most members fly in or driving from their own home towns. Soooo, it’s rather impractical to be too sentimental to trade in our 15-passenger van. It would be great for a church van or for a super large family, but it’s just not so hot for a one-person shopping trip to Meijer’s Thrifty Acres because it doesn’t get very good mileage. (What vehicle would and still be able to haul 15 people plus gear?)

Want to see our cars?Here’s the van, in all it’s glory. It’s nickname is the Ghost Ship, but don’t ask me why. It is a 2002 and has 85,000 miles. New tires and a real road burner. There have been more good times in our vans than I can count…hauling our youth group on mission trips as well as many, many 24-hour runs to points south! We have so much fun that Aaron once flew home from Boston to ride down to Florida with us rather than simply fly down to Florida and meet us there!

We also think it’s impractical to keep Alan’s little 1985 Toyota MR 2, since the trunk is a bit on the small side for hauling the week’s groceries, and it’s not really big enough for the four of us to go anywhere. Alan fell in love with this little beauty 18 years ago when we were looking for a car for Aaron to drive to Northern Michigan University when he turned 16. It was TOO CUTE and became Alan’s pet. He drove it faithfully on his 16-mile commute to work down the busiest highway in town for years, but after one of his closest friends got in an accident, and then one of his partners was killed in an accident on this same highway, Alan decided to get a bigger, safer car for his rather lethal daily road rally. It has 186,000 miles but still runs like a top. (It is time for a new timing chain.) We don’t think it would be very safe for distance driving in case of an accident (too little) such as Jon and Gerlinde might need to do when Jon runs over to Chicago to teach at Trinity or whatever.

Last but not least is our beloved “Adolphus,” alias our 1983 Mercedes Benz. It also has almost 186,000 but the engine is so quiet it’s hard to tell if it’s on! I use it every day, and I could happily keep it. However, the air conditioner is out, and it’s no longer a car we’d like to send on long missions either.

So, there you have it. We have three fully functional cars, but none that really fit our needs anymore. We need about two cars: one for hauling groceries and commuting the family around town, and one for reliably and safely driving distances. We’d keep any of them, but we’d really love to sell all three and get two that are more practical.  If you just happen to know anybody who’s looking for a car like any of these, they’re on Craig’s List now. Or, you can give whoever our number!

Ben Stein on What’s Important in Life

Don’t you just hate email forwards? Well, actually, I don’t. I’m one of those crazy people who like silly little rabbits waving roses and wishing me a happy day. I also get most of my news and inspirational thoughts on line these days. NOT to replace my own time each morning and evening of meditating of the Bible and praying with my beloved husband, which is bread and water to my spirit, but beyond that—I do enjoy forwards. Here’s one that really touched me (and the rest is all quote):

For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column called ‘Monday Night At Morton’s.’ (Morton’s is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life. Reading his final column is worth a few minutes of your time.

Ben Stein’s Last Column:
============================================
How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today’s World?

As I begin to write this, I ’slug’ it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is ‘eonlineFINAL,’ and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world’s change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton’s, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton’s is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today’s world, if by a ’star’ we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.

They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit , Iraq . He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of   Baghdad . He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordinance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad .

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton’s is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament: the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.

Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the   World Trade Center  as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin or Martin Mull or Fred Willard or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister’s help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq  or the firefighters in New York . I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.
By Ben Stein

For Those of You Who Couldn’t Make it to the Open House

Our last big “tado” for the spring was having a graduation open house for Daniel and Joel. For all you who live in faraway places, here are a few pictures. This is Joel’s picture table:

And here is Daniel’s table. He didn’t have time to help me organize picture boards, but he had a DVD of the slide show that he and Brianna showed at their wedding:

And, here’s the cake. Our family favorite celebration cake (for large groups) is the Dutch Chocolate Torte from Arnie’s Bakery:

I was a little disappointed by the turnout, but given that there were 8 known open houses for the kids on this particular Saturday afternoon ( 19 kids from our chapel graduated from something this spring!), I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

We really did enjoy the great group of friends who did show up to wish the kids well!

And, Joel’s very favorite friends, affectionately known as the “Splendid Seven,” stayed until the wee hours playing volleyball, swimming, and watching a marvelous old spy film (based on a true story) called Five Fingers.

From left to right: Joel, Stephen, Steve Cooper, Christian Mundweiler, John Cooper, Jessie Scherer, Olivia Mundweiler, and Katie Cooper.

I realize that makes 8, not 7, but Jessie is a cousin of the Coopers and also comes over to our home every week for a Bible study with me, so she stayed this particular night too. When Alan and I were in high school, we ran around with a group of seven kids affectionately known at the “General Principles,” because we did everything “on general principles.” Joel’s group is really made up of friends from three home schooling families from our chapel, and I am so happy that these really awesome young people like to hang out together! Each one is a treasure. So, Joel wasn’t disappointed that a zillion people didn’t come, and we all had a wonderful time. Aren’t friends the greatest?

Just How Safe is Safe?

While attempting to catch up with my email this morning, I found this clever forward. (Of course, I never know if such are real or just meant humorously.)

“There was an interesting letter in the Australian Shooter magazine that went like this: ‘If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the past 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers. The firearm death rate in Washington , DC is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period. That means you are about 25 % more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. capital, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the  U.S., than you are in Iraq.’  Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington.”

Thanks for Being There!

Okay, so I’ve totally fallen off the face of the earth…almost! Can’t even remember where I left off with life…maybe with Daniel and Joel’s graduations, Stephen’s recital, and our annual camping trip to Disney.

Our entire family—all seventeen of us including fiancees and grand children—had a wonderful week together! All too soon we had to say goodbye to our German families. Here they are just before leaving (although we were VERY blessed to be able to keep Grace and Eowyn for a couple of weeks; poor Michael had to return to his dental practice in Germany, coming back just in time for Dan and Brianna’s wedding):

Two weeks after we returned home, Daniel and Brianna got married. Here are the cool dudes who were the groomsmen:

From left to right: Aaron, Joel, Stephen Armstrong, Daniel, Stephen Cooper, and Michael. Of course, they were just having fun! This is what the wedding party really looked like:

It was a wonderful wedding in every way. The bride’s maids included Kathy (first on left) and Brianna’s sisters and sister-in-law. Eowyn (sitting on the floor in the middle) was one of a troupe of darling flower girls, and Reuben had his second turn as ring bearer! The bride was beatiful, the groom radiant, and the happy couple escaped to a cottage on Lake Michigan for a week of honeymooning before moving to their new apartment in Ann Arbor, where Dan will be doing a one-year residency in hospital-based dentistry at the U. Michigan and Brianna (who is an R.N.) hopes to find a job doing home health care.

After all the company left and the house was somewhat back in order, Alan and I took Stephen and Joel to Mackinac Island to celebrate Alan’s birthday. We had a super time bicycling around the island and meandering through the streets. Steve and Joe had never been into the Grand Hotel, so we took them through just to enjoy the ambiance. It was a lovely retreat weekend and a good way to bond before the onslaught of summer activites. This week I’ve been catching up on business and getting ready for Joel and Daniel’s graduation open houses coming up on Saturday from 2-5. Be sure to stop by if you’re in town! Dan and Joel are just two of nineteen graduates from our chapel family, and there are 6 simultaneous open houses going on Saturday. Either this is very bad timing, or everybody will just float from house to house and never have to cook all day! Hopefully, by next week, things will be down to the peace and quiet of the home crew and a sprawling summer ahead!

“Real Mothers”

We sort of missed Mother’s Day, and sort of celebrated it yesterday by going to Hoffmaster Park for a hike along the beach and a picnic. Here is something about moms that I just love, because it reminds me so much of the early days of trying to survive motherhood!

Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, and leave the rest to God.

MOTHERS

Real mothers don’t eat quiche; they don’t have time to make it.
Real Mothers know that their kitchen utensils are probably in the sandbox.
Real Mothers often have sticky floors, filthy ovens, and happy kids.
Real Mothers know that dried play dough doesn’t come out of carpets..
Real Mothers don’t want to know what the vacuum just sucked up.
Real Mothers sometimes ask ‘Why me?’ and get their answer when a little voice says, ‘Because I love you best.’
Real Mothers know that a child’s growth is not measured by height or years or grade…by the progression of Mommy to Mom to Mother…

A Room with a View

Want to see what I get to enjoy out my bedroom window these days? When I throw open the window in the morning, our room is filled with the heavy scent of lilacs! This is our view from the west window.

Here’s the view to the north out our balcony window.

And, the view to the east!

And if I step onto the deck outside, I can see our tea room…and Davy, enjoying the morning breeze.

Alan often says he thinks he’s living in the suburbs of heaven. 2009 has been one of the busiest but happiest years of our lives so far, so I can’t help but agree with him. I am so thankful to be living in our little “Tanglewood Cottage” paradise enjoying the beauty of God’s nature all around us. What a privilege and gift! Still, life at it’s kindest and fullest is fringed with pain and sorrow…even when not our own, in the lives of some who are very near and dear to us. As I thank the Lord for all He’s allowing me to enjoy today, I am also comforted to know that someday all who accept His gift of life in Christ will be taken up to heaven and enjoy an eternity of wonderful “rooms with views” as part of the family of God in our Father’s house!

“Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions (abiding places); if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

“Thomas saith unto him, ‘Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?’

“Jesus saith unto him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’”