as i read the love chapter of desiring God with baby joseph bourne asleep on my chest, i found myself thinking about, of all things, my motor scooter boots.
jeremy and i were in chicago for a long weekend away, remaining true to our one week of vacation with family and one week of vacation by ourselves rule. we trudged through rain turning into snow and landed in the j.crew on michigan avenue.
i have many times eyed the wellies featured in each j.crew catalogue that arrives at/invades my home, and i have many times known with certainty that to spend $60 on a pair of rainboots is not something i will/am able to do.
it must have been one of their rare sale days. plaid wellies for $29.99. solid-colored wellies for $29.99.
blue with pink motor scooters all over them? $15.99.
i asked the sales attendant to help me check the size on the boots just out of reach on a high shelf. she frowned and went to get a ladder.
a nearby father with his daughter, who was also in the market for boots, reached up and handed them to me while frowns-a-lot fetched the ladder, noting that they were in fact the size 8 i was looking for. and, i discovered, with the additional discount taken at the register, $12.
beautiful.
i wore my motor scooter boots the rest of the time we were in chicago, noting with great satisfaction that i could walk through every puddle without fear as their waterproof motor scooter glory reached all the way up to my knees. my motor scooter boots quickly became one of my favorite possessions, if not my favorite, and appropriately, the story i told about our trip to chicago was of finding motor scooter boots at j.crew for $12.
i should note here that jeremy had a similar experience with a dunkin' donuts to-go mug that cost only $1.99, including the coffee that filled it, and looks so remarkably similar to a disposable paper to-go cup, that he has more than once had to rescue it from the karis trash bag as it was being taken out to the dumpster.
so we like these items. a lot.
my thoughts this morning stopped on the boots as i recalled this past Christmas and my family's gift exchange. a few years ago, my family began drawing names. last year, i drew my sister, rachel. as i pondered what to give my sweet, sixteen-year-old sister, i thought of my motor scooter boots. i wanted so badly to show rachel how much i love her in Christmas gift form, and as i gazed with loving eyes upon my motor scooter boots, i knew what to give her.
i didn't want to just give rachel something that i thought she would like. i wanted to give her the fullness of joy i found in my motor scooter boots - the joy of spotting them on the top shelf, the joy of having them be the perfect size, the joy of having them be $12 marked down from $15.99 marked down from $60, the joy of wearing them through the streets of chicago in vacation-mode happiness, the joy of the tiny pink motor scooters all over them - all of this i wanted to give to rachel. with a high school musical-inspired puppet show video to go along with it.
my exact reasoning was something to the extent of: "i want to give rachel the thing that makes me the happiest. i find so much joy in these boots that the best way for me to show her how much i love her is to give them to her and hope that she too will share in this joy and therefore know my love."
so i found some wellies for rachel. green boots with blue polka dots. not exactly motor scooters and not exactly $12, but still the idea was there, the joy was there, and i was giving them to her.
she loved them. i loved watching her open them. the video was kind of weird.
as i pondered pursuing joy in love, it led me to pursuing joy in giving boots, and how really, these two concepts (with the exception of boots not exactly being the same thing as love) are quite similar. at the risk of coming to a rushed conclusion as to how similar they actually are, i will leave my thoughts at this for today.
more to come.
love.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
my, how the time flies
part of me [a lot of me] wishes that i would stop hearing:
"it goes by so fast.." sighhhh
i mean, i know it goes by fast, so fast, you know? but what if, just if, we actually have an idea that it's supposed to go by slower than it does and our remarking at how quickly time goes by is actually our rebellion against changing times and how quickly they seem to occur? what if it doesn't actually go by so fast? and what is it? okay, i'll give you that. it is time. i mean, obviously.
maybe this is just a new mother panicking because i found myself taking in all of the tiny bundle that joseph is as he slept, knowing that it is going to go by so fast, and at the same time knowing that i don't really want it to stay the same as it is forever but what if sometimes i do just a little?
when jeremy and i started dating, i was pretty concerned by the amount that i liked him [dare i say loved?] and how, given a lifetime of say, 85 years, i wasn't sure i was going to have enough time with him. i'm still not. and now we've added this perfect little boy to our lives - am i going to have enough time with him? to what extent will the speed at which this time goes by affect if it's enough? it seems that if i could just stop thinking about how "fast it goes," perhaps i'd be more likely to allow joseph to have some joseph-time to himself without his mom always around.
but he's just so stinking cute and i really do love how he curls up on his left side and clasps his hands together under his chin while he sleeps.
sigh.
not that big of a sigh as in sighhhh, where did the time go? but more just sigh.
in other news, i purchased two stems of baby's breath in my first non-social outing with joseph to hyvee. and now i have glass jars with baby's breath in my home and they look so pretty.
also, melissa and dustin are driving to florida and were going to borrow our accord for the amazing gas mileage we boasted about after driving to gulf shores and back. they left this morning only to find themselves about 20 minutes east on i-70 in a vehicle with amazing gas mileage but an only sometimes reliable stereo system. i guess in our enthusiasm over stopping just twice to fill 'er up, we neglected to mention that you've got to be driving for a minimum of an hour to get the cd player to warm up and even then, the chances of a cd playing are slim. and stereo warm up time starts over no matter how quickly you were in and out of the gas station. so they drove back and switched cars. i love that.
"it goes by so fast.." sighhhh
i mean, i know it goes by fast, so fast, you know? but what if, just if, we actually have an idea that it's supposed to go by slower than it does and our remarking at how quickly time goes by is actually our rebellion against changing times and how quickly they seem to occur? what if it doesn't actually go by so fast? and what is it? okay, i'll give you that. it is time. i mean, obviously.
maybe this is just a new mother panicking because i found myself taking in all of the tiny bundle that joseph is as he slept, knowing that it is going to go by so fast, and at the same time knowing that i don't really want it to stay the same as it is forever but what if sometimes i do just a little?
when jeremy and i started dating, i was pretty concerned by the amount that i liked him [dare i say loved?] and how, given a lifetime of say, 85 years, i wasn't sure i was going to have enough time with him. i'm still not. and now we've added this perfect little boy to our lives - am i going to have enough time with him? to what extent will the speed at which this time goes by affect if it's enough? it seems that if i could just stop thinking about how "fast it goes," perhaps i'd be more likely to allow joseph to have some joseph-time to himself without his mom always around.
but he's just so stinking cute and i really do love how he curls up on his left side and clasps his hands together under his chin while he sleeps.
sigh.
not that big of a sigh as in sighhhh, where did the time go? but more just sigh.
in other news, i purchased two stems of baby's breath in my first non-social outing with joseph to hyvee. and now i have glass jars with baby's breath in my home and they look so pretty.
also, melissa and dustin are driving to florida and were going to borrow our accord for the amazing gas mileage we boasted about after driving to gulf shores and back. they left this morning only to find themselves about 20 minutes east on i-70 in a vehicle with amazing gas mileage but an only sometimes reliable stereo system. i guess in our enthusiasm over stopping just twice to fill 'er up, we neglected to mention that you've got to be driving for a minimum of an hour to get the cd player to warm up and even then, the chances of a cd playing are slim. and stereo warm up time starts over no matter how quickly you were in and out of the gas station. so they drove back and switched cars. i love that.
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