Adolescence, Sweet Adolescence

Adored Wife is convinced there's something wrong with Graphics Magician.

He's wanting to hang out with friends we don't entirely approve of all the time and do not much of anything with them, he's moody, uncommunicative, sleeps a lot, a little lazy, doesn't enjoy time with family, and he's not enthusiastic about a lot of the things he used to really enjoy.

I personally think that he's got a very serious condition, and the whole family is going to be suffering from it for the next four to six years.

That's right--he's an adolescent.

Now, I have to be careful about making light of AW's concerns, because there have been numerous occasions when she's been right about something that's escaped my attention.  I'll keep an eye on him.

But honestly, he reminds me a lot of me when I was that age.  And I had my own issues (as which fourteen year old doesn't?) but nothing to be alarmed about.  I got through it, although I'm sure I was a trial to my parents' patience on more than one occasion.

We may be entering a very "normal" challenging stage.  And I'm not sure we're equipped to deal with normal.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Addendum: Okay, once again AW was right and I was wrong.  GM and his friends have been getting into a little mischief beyond what we're prepared to tolerate, and we're having to nip a few tendencies in the bud.  Whee.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Praying For Guidance

I'm active on Facebook, and every once in awhile someone will make a very cryptic status update, like "things are difficult right now," or "that's it, I'm done," or, on the cheerier side, "well, that was fun," or "I can't believe I got away with that."

I don't know if it's intended as a bid for attention, but it can come off that way--almost soliciting FB friends to respond and ask "what's wrong?"

There's even a term for it: "Vaguebooking."  The typical sarcastic response is "do you think you could vague that up for me a little?"

Well, this is going to be a vague blog post.  I'm not seeking attention, and I don't want anyone to try to pry my secrets out of me.  My mood is upbeat and positive, and I'm seeing ample evidence that God is in control over even the challenges of our lives.  It's all good.

But there are some changing circumstances in our lives, affecting all our family members, and we're trying to figure out the God-pleasing way forward, and I can't really blog about this stuff..  Some of it's confidential, some of it's awkward, some of it I don't have the approval of family members to share, some of it's just not for public consumption yet.

But I know some of the people reading this are prayer warriors.

And we appreciate your prayers for God's guidance.  We know that He's going to guide us, we know that He has a plan, and we know that what He has in mind is far better than anything we could come up with on our own.

So, thanks for praying for us.  As and when I can talk about some of this, I most assuredly will.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

My Father's Sense of Humor

Happy birthday to Graphics Magician, who turns fourteen today.

Happy almost-birthday to my father, who turns ninety this coming Friday the 21st.  Wow.  I don't know a whole lot of ninety-year-olds.

I'd like to tell you a birthday-related story about my father's sense of humor.

This was several years back.  I think GM was in the neighborhood of five, which means my father would have been pushing hard on eighty.

Grand-daddy: So your birthday is July 17th?

GM:  Uh-huh.

Grand-daddy: MINE is July 21st.

GM: (This is cool.)  Ooooohhhhhh.

Grand-daddy:  So your birthday is four days before mine.

GM: Yeah.

Grand-daddy:  So you're older than I am.

GM: ........nuh uh!

Grand-daddy:  Okay, look.  July 17th, your birthday, right?

GM: ........yeah?

Grand-daddy: (counts on fingers) 18, 19, 20, 21, MY birthday.

GM: ..........yeah?

Grand-daddy:  So you're four days older than I am.

GM: .................................nuh uh!


It had the little guy tied in knots.  He knew that couldn't possibly be right, but he couldn't work out how it was wrong.

Graphics Magician is a little tougher to trick these days, and I hope he has a very happy birthday.

God bless, friends.

Family Downsizing

I know I post about the "abnormalities" of my family, but I always do that with two things in mind:

1. EVERY family is "abnormal" in some ways.
2. Along with that, a lot of the challenges we face are shared by lots of other people.

So, here's one.  We've had a child leave home.  She got married, and she's moved out.  There is absolutely nothing unique about that.  It's really going to change our family dynamics, but thousands upon thousands of families before us have faced the same issues and challenges.

I don't know what it's going to look like.  It's new to us.

So, some of the blogging will change, as we get used to the "new normal."  Lots of questions.  What am I going to call "Basement Artist" now that she's no longer in my basement?  Should we take the extra leaf out of the dining room table now that we're down to four people?  Who's going to do the recycling and the composting and the firewood?  How's the cat going to respond when he realizes she's not coming back?  Should we cut down on the amount of coffee we buy, or will Social Hurricane step up and start drinking more of it?  What are we going to do with all of the teenage and college years stuff she didn't take with her?

Who am I going to watch "Phineas and Ferb" with?  Nobody else in the family is as big a fan as BA and I are.

We'll figure it out.  In the meantime I will go ahead and select a new name for her.  Her husband is Harbor Master (reflecting his job), and Basement Artist will henceforth be known as......as......um........

I'll clearly have to give it some thought.......

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Basement Artist Heads Out

The household of me, she is going through changes.

(I'm trying to learn a little French, and the grammar is very different.)

Basement Artist and Harbor Master, newlyweds, are at this writing in the process of packing up and moving out, from North Carolina to Canada.  They both have some serious adjusting to do, particularly BA.  HM is also an introvert, and the two of them are accustomed to having their own space.  Two introverts getting married, and spending LOTS of time together in close quarters?  They're going to have to build in a little "alone time."

They'll get unpacked and moved into their apartment in Montreal, and then, oh, I don't know, figure out what the rest of their lives are going to look like.  HM will go back to his work, and BA will have to sort out what she's going to do with her time.  Volunteer, get a job, go back to school?  They're still exploring and discussing options.

I'm going to seriously see if I can't get her to write a few guest posts.

Also, given that she's no longer going to be living in my basement, I suppose I'll have to come up with a new "nom de blog" for her.  I may solicit her input on it.

I'm going to miss her.  I'm going to miss them both.  Everything changes.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Kicking Myself

There's a meme on Facebook which says "It's possible to see something you don't agree with on Facebook and scroll right by it."

I should have listened.  I know better.  Every single time I engage in a controversial topic on social media I've come to regret it.

Every.  Single.  Time.

And this time was no different.  I disagreed, respectfully, with the poster.  I could see her point and bore her no personal animus, but I believed her to be mistaken.  And I put what I considered to be a reasoned and measured response.

And NOW, I'm getting all these notifications about people who agree with me and people who agree with her, and not everyone is keeping it as civil as she and I did, and it's temporarily taken over my Facebook.

It'll settle down.  But in the meantime I'm too aggravated with myself to get anything else coherent or creative done.

Posting on Facebook does not change anybody's mind if they already have their minds made up.  It's not worth it.  I know this.

I should have just kept scrolling right on by.  I knew better.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

This post has absolutely nothing to do with "The Neighbors Think We're Normal."  But I had to vent somewhere, and this is taking up all the space in my brain anyway.  Thanks for reading.

Ah, well.  It'll settle down in a few hours.  Tomorrow somebody else will post something controversial that won't change anything.  Maybe I'll have the sense to leave it alone.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

The Happy Post

Adored Wife, I'm delighted, ecstatic, overjoyed to report, is feeling much more herself. Energy level is back up, brain is working again, she's being creative and sleeping better and wanting to get stuff done.

You can't imagine how happy I am about this. She had a ROUGH few weeks there.

So, today, I'm going to count some blessings in celebration. No doom and gloom today, friends. You want a downer post, look elsewhere.

1. I have a roof over my head.

2. I have plenty to eat.

3. I have a beautiful family and there is love in my home.

4. My oldest daughter, who was born three months early, stayed in the hospital the first 102 days of her life, and had four surgeries before she was one and a half has turned into a beautiful, intelligent, talented, morally strong young woman who recently got married.

5. My youngest daughter and second child has started on what promises to be a solid career path in health care and has shown signs of growing spiritual maturity and increasingly adult judgment after a difficult few years.

6. My teen-aged son, who still has a few things to learn, has demonstrated himself capable of apologizing and learning from mistakes, and has on occasion shown grace and humor under pressure.

7. My wife is my best friend.

8. We are surrounded by family and friends who obviously love and care about us.

9. My sins are forgiven in Jesus' name and God has promised to never leave me.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.