Our daughter, Kelly’s birthday lands on Easter today. She checked it out the last time that happened when she was eleven and this will never happen again in her lifetime. So this is a special birthday. She came to visit us for a week, but had to leave after a small, early celebration. She is in a very good place right now. She has very good friends in Seattle. She struggled early in her PhD program, but just finished her best term ever. The picture with this post shows her sitting at her computer working through some of her research. More important than all that and above all, she considers God and her place in this world relative to his will. We are so thankful God lent her to us even it is just for a little while.
Kelly was a beautiful baby. One of the first things we noticed about her when she was born, after the full head of black hair and the blue eyes, was that she had a little butterfly birthmark on her left forearm. You can see it close to her elbow in the picture. It beats the monster Rorschach test birthmark I have on my back all hollow (even though I am quite fond of my birthmark).
It is fitting that today I used up the last Betty Blonde comic Kelly drew as part of her homeschool education. I think there are a few that I lost, because there are some missing dates and we never missed a date (five times per week) in the five years she drew them. Still, 501 is a good number of comics. She drew them from when she was 14 until she was 16 for an absolutely stellar run. The quality of the comics improved greatly over that time. She really hopes she can get back to that one day–maybe not to draw Betty Blonde, but something new.
Happy Birthday Kelly. We love you.
Betty Blonde #501 – 07/19/2010
Click here or on the image to see full size strip.
Aunt Julia and Uncle Rich drove up to Seattle to see the opera last night. I got Kelly a ticket as a gift for surviving a period of insane school intensity. I think she is finally over the hump and has figured out both what is required, but also that it is also possible to for her to do what is required and have a life. That is actually, I think, a very big and important breakthrough.
Lorena spent the whole day cleaning and cooking. She had the time of her life. It is counterintuitive to me how those first two sentences hang together. Part of it had to do with the fact that she bought him a new mop. Looking back at that last sentence, I concede that, still, none of this makes a whole lot of sense to me. Lorena picked up Christian after school, just like the old days at NCSU and they went down to Target to buy “stuff.” Both of them had a ball. I am losing hope that I will figure out all the joy associated with these events. On the other hand, I hung around in the apartment all day, did nothing and felt really good about it for the first tie in years.
We are taking a brief hiatus in Tempe to visit Christian in our road trip to Texas. Lorena needs to get her workouts in. She explained it is not so much that she is fanatical about doing it, she just hates the pain of starting all over again when she has missed a week or two. She is actually up to two 35 minute sessions per week on the elliptical and three 60 minute sessions per week on the Concept II rowing machine with some weight lifting thrown in the mix, too. It pains me just thinking about it.
Lorena loves to grow flowers. She did a vegetable garden last year in the Wilsonville community garden areas. She loves her vegetables but she is crazy about flowers. She bought a wrought iron flower box holder for our balcony and was very gratified her tulips bloomed before we left. She has already donated the flowers to Gladys, but hung on to the flower box holder. We hope to get some ficus trees for inside the house as soon as we get to Texas.
This morning we packed all of the things we had accumulated from a year of fourth floor studio apartment living in Wilsonville, Oregon into a 5×8 U-Haul. It is amazing how much stuff one accumulates, even in such a cramped space. Dinner is planned tonight with our dear friend Gladys followed by church tomorrow morning and evening with Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah. After that, we are off to Texas.
